i promise this has nothing to do with almanacs

looks like blogger doesn't like monthly archives, so never mind on that part. enjoy slogging through weekly posts.

almanac (ok so i couldn't resist)
j

i just can't let this go

what if we all bought almanacs and started carrying them around with us? not only would we all be in better shape (those suckers are heavy!) we would be better informed about things that matter. sure it would cause problems for the DHS (that's department of homeland security, not department of human services -- so many acronyms, so little time), but they could think up something else to alert law enforcement to watch out for. (like maybe palm pilots -- i don't trust any of those guys)

go buy your almanac here

ok. i promise i'm done now.
j

our clueless 32nd president

"Let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself”— Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

clearly this guy had no idea about almanacs
j

things i learned today

from an almanac. muwahahahahaha! (evil music in the background)

the zip code for pink, ok is 74873
the population of montana is 909, 453 (up almost 7,000 from 2000 -- nice job!)
The White House, the official residence of the president, is at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC 20500 (see, that's the kind of information we're woried about falling into the wrong hands - now i get it)
the state song of maine is "the state of maine song" -- i'm not kidding
today is sandy koufax's birthday -- that's cool
ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh i share a birthday with Macaulay Culkin NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

well, now i can't go on. the culkin thing hurts too much. now i understand the danger of almanacs.
i can hear my mom now saying, "stop it, you're going to get yourself on the FBI watch list". that would be great -- those guys would be soooooo bored.

waving to the black sedan out front
j

just so you know

i have decided not to make any new year's resolutions until february. that way, everyone else will have already given up and the things i need to follow through with my resolutions will be less crowded and on sale.

don't blow my plan. make your promises now.
j

life in the united states of fear

ok. i am not much of a political guy. i know what i think about issues and the war yadayadayada, but i am not one to burden other people with my stupidity about those kinds of things. all that being said, i can't let this one go. late last night, for about 20 minutes there was a news story posted on yahoo about the department of homeland security (be afraid!) and their latest warning to law enforcement about things to look for in terms of suspicious behavior. the article is here for a day or so
the clear warning sign of an imminent terrorist attack on your community? you ready for this? carrying an ALMANAC and i quote

WASHINGTON - The FBI (news - web sites) is warning police nationwide to be alert for people carrying almanacs, cautioning that the popular reference books covering everything from abbreviations to weather trends could be used for terrorist planning.

are you kidding? this one ranks up there with the kfor (the fear network and also the local nkc affiliate) story about research that proved that hot chocolate could give you throat and mouth cancer. but i digress.
so now we are to watch out for people lugging around almanacs who are "acting in a suspicious manner". um excuse me, but isn't carrying around an almanac questionable behavior to start with? i don't know about terrorist plotting, but it does at the very least seem really sad.
i don't argue that maybe someone who wanted to do something bad might find an almanac useful. think about it. if you want to pull someting off exactly at sunset, you have to know what time the sun is setting, right? or say you wanted to deprive the great satan of corn, you would need to know which state to hit first to hae the greatest effect on corn production. gosh, how sad would you be if you were needing vital information like this and got confused and picked up a farmer's almanac instead? i can see it now

friendly neighborhood terrorist after making his purchase - "at last i can find out the exact dimensions of the (insert potential target here)!!"
he opens the almanac to read:
How many hard-boiled eggs can a man eat on an empty stomach?
One, because after he has eaten it, his stomach will not be empty.

fnt - "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO" we have been defeated once again by North America's oldest continuously published periodical!

or maybe he could pick up a sports almanac instead. maybe reading about babe ruth or wilt chamberlain would make him realize that we aren't so bad after all.

i know there are serious threats out there and i know that there are people who's lives are dedicated to dealing with these threats and making sure that my local walmart isn't blown up by almanac wielding funadmentalist psychopaths (almost sounds like the deacon body of many churches i know -- ok sorry about that one), but come on. at what point do we become so afraid of every little thing that we jump at shadows and start turning each other in to the police because our neighbor came home late one night carrying a leaf blower (banned from all airline flights) and an atlas (terrorists need maps too)? how 'bout let's ease up on telling barney fife to stake out the library and let him go back to setting speed traps as people drive through his town? how 'bout let's stop telling every american to develop a kit in case their suburban gated community is the target of a biological / chemical attack? how 'bout no more profiling and targeting people who look like they might be middle eastern because "they might be one of those"?
geez no wonder americans are so lonely - we're afraid of each other. thanks for that Tom (Ridge).

putting the soap box away and waiting for the FBI to stop by
j

some new year's housekeeping

couple of changes for the new year.

the archive has changed from weekly to monthly. that means that there will be more posts on the screen if you check the blog, but it makes going back and reading old stuff easier.
i have made the font a little smaller to occupy less space on the screen and to make it look less like i'm writing with a husky pencil on a big chief tablet (flashbacks anyone?)

i will be adding some more links soon.

let me know if you have any suggestions
j

it has come to my attention

that there are actually a number of people who read this thing. that's a little scary. you folks should get out more.
anyway, if you are reading along, feel free to say hi or whatever else you want to say. i hope you enjoy your journeys in my head and if you don't, well you have no one to blame but yourself. you're the one that climbed in there.

i'm still not going to spell check
j

steven wright fans out there?

i just ran across a list of quotes from the comedian steven wright. (how i ran across the list is not important right now). i just thought i would share some of my favorites. if you don't know who this is, trust me, you would laugh much harder if you can see him saying them. oh wait, i guess you can see him do some of them, he has clips on his web site. by the way, the quotes here came from this site

anyway....on with the quotes.

For my birthday I got a humidifier and a de-humidifier...I put them in the same room and let them fight it out...

So then I filled the humidifier with wax and left it on. Now everything in my house is shiny.

I recently moved into a new apartment, and there was this switch on the wall that didn't do anything...so anytime I had nothing to do, I'd just flick that switch up and down...up and down...up and down....Then one day I got a letter from a woman in Germany...it just said, "Cut it out."

I put instant coffee in my microwave oven and almost went back in time.

Everywhere is walking distance if you have the time."

Why is the alphabet in that order? Is it because of that song?"

I installed a skylight in my apartment.... The people who live above me are furious!

Power outage at a department store yesterday, Twenty people were trapped on the escalators.

What's another word for thesaurus?

I can remember the first time I had to go to sleep. Mom said, "Steven, time to go to sleep" I said "But I don't know how." She said, "It's real easy. Just go down to the end of tired and hang a left." So I went down to the end of tired, and just out of curiosity I hung a right. My mother was there, and she said "I thought I told you to go to sleep."

Today I...........No, that wasn't me.

I wrote a song, but I can't read music. Every time I hear a new song on the radio I think 'Hey, maybe I wrote that.'

Four years ago..............no, it was yesterday.

I've writing a book. I've got the page numbers done.

My friend has a baby. I'm writing down all the noises he makes so later I can ask him what he meant.

You know how it is when you're walking up the stairs, and you get to the top, and you think there's one more step? I'm like that all the time.

enough
j

just sad

2 things

1. this is the 5th post in the last hour (lots of things running through my head apparently)

and

2. in a post discussing my inability to type words correctly, i misspelled spell.

i can appreciate that
j

i just noticed

my spelling really stinks sometimes. i don't think it is because i don't know how to speel, i think it's just because my typing stinks and i don't worry about it. for all of you english types out there (the language, not the country) sorry about that, but you should probably get over it. i'll try to be better. or maybe i'll just claim that random misspellings are "my thing". you know, like ee cummings using random capital letters.

it probably won't help though
j

ok, one last thing.

some kid toys are infinitely cooler than what we had. some are infinitely not. i will stay away form the not, but know that rescue heroes absolutely fit into the cooler category. not to mention they are marketing geniuses -- putting a free video in with the action figures. hello 30 minute informercial for your product!

we spent some quality floor time with jake, billy, wendy, jack, ben , ariel, matt, rip, smokey, and the gang today.

go play with your kids' toys (let them play too)
j

oh yeah

the title of that was thoughts, so i guess i should have more than one (or did i?). anyway. i think that any corporation / business that is open on christmas day (or late on christmas eve -- you hear me bass pro?) should be run on that day by the most important people in the company. i want to see the president of blockbuster standing behind a counter if his people have to. it's pretty weak to make those folks give up their families to make you money. sure they get double time or whatever, but is 15 bucks an hour worth it? i bet most of them would rather be home.

shame on you blockbuster, conoco, phillips 66, movie theaters, walmart. geez, even car dealerships were closed today. props to 7-11 and every fast food place i saw and the one mall i drove by today. o and the chili's that was closed so the parking lot was empty so i could make dad chase me around.

i'm sure they give rip one about my opinion
j

random christmas thoughts

well the orgy of consumerism is almost over. don't get me wrong, i love the stuff i got (mostly clothes this year, which i cool since most days i wear those), but it just seems like so much, doesn't it? what's great about christmas though are the things that you remember that have nothing to do with what you got. things like....

laughing with my family about the dog peeing on the shirt i was supposed to get a couple of years ago and about movies we all like and about what a dork my dad is (in a good way)

making my dad chase me around the chili's parking lot in our cars

spending the day today playing with my kids' old and new toys (they got to play too)

fried egg sandwiches, dinonuggets and left-over pizza for lunch on christmas day because we'd rather play than cook

playing "sweet home alabama" with my brother in law and a couple of cousins in law once removed at the humphreys family christmas extravaganza (and watching kent and others dance to it -- wow) o, for the record, i don't think the candidate danced, and if he did -- he didn't enjoy it. (random punctuation is fun)

what's also cool is that tomorrow is december 26th and yet the party goes on!

wearing my new sweater (well, one of them)
j

balance and order are restored to the world (well kind of)

while i was sharpening sticks to attack nbc corporate headquarters over the last couple of days, this reminder of all that is good and just in the world comes into my vision.

Ball from Cubs' playoff loss auctioned for $106,600

the story is about the ball that steve bartman knocked away (or did he?) from moises alou in the playoffs. now normally i would hate this because it is just another example of a.) someone getting paid crazy money for doing absolutely nothing or b.) someone paying crazy money for basically nothing. but this time i am not offended (well, ok i am by the amount of money spent, but hang with me here). the guy who bought the ball is the owner of harry carey's restaurant in chicago and he bought the ball so that he can destroy it on february 26 during a world wide toast to harry. i am thankful to know that this hated piece of cubs history will be gone from existence soon. $106,000 though? wow.

now if we can just find that goat....
J

o for the love of all that is good

nbc is defaming the single greatest christmas movie of all time. on saturday night they will be airing the world premier of "christmas vacation 2: cousin eddie's island adventure"

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

all i can say is why o why would someone think this is a good idea? come up with a new reality show, show reruns of anything, run a test pattern for two hours, but not this. what good can come of it? NONE! have we seen "A Christmas Story 2"? "It's a Wonderful Life 2"? "White Christmas 2?" (shoot, now i'm giving some nbc programming idiot more ideas) of course we haven't. why? because it is a bad idea. because it is blasphemous to one of the single most perfect peices of holiday film-making ever. because it centers on randy quaid with no chevy chase in sight. o the humanity!

i am declaring an official boycott of nbc (or as i now call it - the network that killed christmas - nkc). not that it will affect me much, since i watch almost nothing on nkc anyway, but a boycott it is! join me in taking a stand against blatant moneygrubbing at the expense of art. stop watching friends! turn off er! live your own fear factor! just say no!

i'm of to watch my copy of THE christmas vacation. (i won't be watching when nkc airs it on friday night). join me.
j

and away it goes!

my first book proposal is complete and ready to stick in the mail. i feel like i have neglected being here in order to get it done (probably beause that is exactly what i have done). after much sleep and a fun meeting with the fire marshal tomorrow i will be back to blogging.

i can't decide if i think this is more hilarious or pathetic

a woman was injured at walmart trying to shop at a post-thanksgiving sale. now i don't think is it funny that she got hurt, that's the sad (but not pathetic) part.
you can read the article here
several things strike me as hilarious / pathetic on the part of walmart
1. the siren sounding to start the sale (on your mark, get set, consume!)
2. the walmart employee helps the sister to her unconscious shopping partner, but doesn't stop the mob (not that i blame him for getting clear of turkey-stuffed walmartians with $29 electronics in their eyes)
3. the paramedics found this woman unconscious on top of her trophy (from my cold dead hands!)
4. but the best statement in the whole thing is the response from walmart and I quote
"Ms. Ellzey said Wal-Mart officials called later Friday to ask about her sister, and the store apologized and offered to put a DVD player on hold for her." -- could the wealthiest empire in america not at least give the poor, mauled, black-and-blue woman a $29 DVD player?

ah it truly is the most wonderful time of the year.
j

random thoughts from hobby lobby today

1. what the h@!$ am i doing in hobby lobby?
2. hell hath no fury like a woman holiday craft shopping
3. is it vital to survival that there be that many kinds of fake plants?
4. did i miss the "no men allowed" sign as i came in the door?
5. aisles with this much breakable stuff on them should be wider
6. really? $300 for that?

enough. i need to go watch monster trucks or something
j

yikes, i almost forgot

did i really just type yikes?

two other voids of wasted life today

join me - it is scary how sweet this is. the whole idea is wild, and then when you get into what the whole thing means...hmmmmm
burry man - i have no idea why it is called burry man, but it is a loaded site for writers and people into that kind of thing.

back to miles
j

stuff i am wasting my time on

i have spent a ton of time today just surfing around (does anyone use that term anymore?) and reading tons of different stuff. in the midst of my journeys something hit me that i am not too terribly excited about. i realized that sometimes i am not a very thoughtful person. i don't mean that i forget birthdays and that kind of junk (although that is true too). i mean i find myself in these modes where i don't think much. i read and respond and move on, but i don't find myself thinking. i hate that.
i'm in one of those modes right now. i wish i could be thoughtful and insightful and creative for the things i want to be writing and for church and for music and poetry and life, but i'm just not. i'm just sitting here, watching the cursor blink and make fun of me 'cause i'm not making it move very much. that bugs me. i think i am a person that thinks, but right now i'm not thinking. (does that mean according to descartes i am not? oh wait, was that a thought?)
so not thinking has got me thinking (i think), what do i do that causes me to start thinking when i am not thinking? i don't know. i'm going to put on some miles davis and close my eyes and see if any thoughts jump into my unoccupied head. maybe i should post a vacancy sign over my left ear (i don't know why the left one) so thoughts feel like they won't be intruding on something else. hmmmmmmmm.

oh yeah...stuff i wasted time on today
lost and found -- i love this band. if you go, download the free christmas song.
moby's journal - i know, i'm not into his music either (well most of it anyway), but i was lookinng at something else and it linked to his journal and i thought (or did i) "what the heck" and i read his stuff for about 45 minutes. i think i could hang out with moby. i think he might even let me do it.
sites unseen - this is a massive links page with connections to over 2000 sites about the church, authors, musicians, emerging church stuff, historical church stuff, you name it. i could spend a lot of time here. oh wait, i did.
jesus radicals - don't worry mom, i'm not going to blow up anything anytime soon. i was reading a bunch of stuff by this guy named jaques ellul. very cool. (and rhymey)

enough. on to miles davis
j

where did a week and a half go?

oh yeah, thanksgiving and jury duty...that will do it.