I spent much of the day (re)organizing my news feeds into the NetNewsWire client for the Mac. I had just (yesterday) finished coalescing them into Shrook–I should have done more evaluation before I bothered.

Anyway, I created a Tag Subscription on comics and stumbled across Russell’s Teapot. I read several strips and immediately subscribed to the news feed. I spent a few more minutes browsing around and found this page about the lunatic catholic mother screaming at her atheist and in my opinion, restrained, son.

It speaks for itself and I don’t really want to rant about how horrible of a mother she is or how unsurprised I am to see something like that. I did see a link to the video below and really liked it and think it is well done.

I wish I could show it to all the ignorant people I know.

Go read this article instead of wasting your time here.

Suffice to say, I will not use any system that tells me what to read based on the same thinking that makes (made?) Britney Spears a top-selling musician (preceding term used loosely).In my experience, more people doing it means that it is probably stupid and quite lame.

(If you counted the words, you have too much time on your hands–yes, I know it is more than 50) 

I’ve long suspected it. Many of us have. There has been plenty of evidence that he sees what he wants to see.

Finally, there is proof of his seemingly effortless ability to perceive reality in a way contrary to what the reset of us seem to see. I struggle to understand how anyone could interpret the painting as he did. Particularly with so specific and explicit a caption by the artist.

The caption reads: “Had His Start Been Fifteen Minutes Longer He Would Not Have Been Caught.” but Mr. Bush sees it quite differently…

Tonight I watched the first episode of the PBS documentary, The War. I know I am one of the last few people around who haven’t seen this so I won’t attempt or pretend to write a review. If you haven’t seen it, get off your ass and do so.

If you’re not lucky enough to have someone wonderful in your life to give you great and thoughtful birthday presents, you will have to go buy one, but it will be well worth it (I suspect it is no longer being re-broadcast on TV).

As I said, I watched the first episode (of seven?) this evening. I watch many World War Two documentaries and will go so far to say that I have seen more than there are which I have not.

Many things struck me in this first viewing, not the least of which the unabashed honesty displayed by certain veterans in their experiences and actions. Certainly, the whole experience has been very moving for me and I will continue to comment in more detail as I progress through the series.

And I eat it often. I will live longer than you.

Eat your oatmeal.

You can pretty much assume that what they tell you is wrong. Always and often. This is one of the rare cases where it is actually better than what they said and works out in your favor.

i just looked back at the last (first) few blog entries and saw that i don’t always capitalize. well, i can honestly say that is not a choice either way but rather an example of my actual behavior. mostly, i suppose, i don’t capitalize. in the way that i am not now. other times, i do. that’s it.

i will say it is not a statement of style in some pretentious imitation of ee cummings. if anything, it is the result of many years of fine-tuning laziness and altogether too much time spent typing on keyboards.

last night, not too long after writing the preceding entry i stopped at a coffee house in a very small town while on my way home from the boonies. the place was full of teenyboppers and would seem to be the place to hang out with your friends in this town. as i waited for my coffee (just black; simple and quick thank you) i looked around and saw some people reading, some people talking, etc. typical coffee house stuff. i turned my attention back to a group of four or five people that were standing around two public computers and giggling. i had noticed them when i came in. i actually felt good watching them because they were having fun and they were together and i like that sort of thing. i like fun and friends.

on my way out, i had to walk by them and, facing the door this time i happened to see what they were doing on the interwebs.they, the five of them, had two computers browsing mySpace pages. i suddenly wanted to throw my steaming coffee in their moron faces. i mean, using a social web site to keep in touch with friends is one thing. when you’re at home or work or school and, well, not with your friends. but imagine how pathetic you would have to be to actually be somewhere–even a coffee house–with several of your friends and you can’t think of anything better to do than wander around mySpace.

i wish there was an agency i could have called to come sterilize all of them.

Last week I was fortunate enough to realize what I wanted to do while I was still in the position to do it. You know what I am talking about, but it usually occurs to you (and me) when thinking about it later. Usually I am in the car and regretting not taking action or not having said something and I tell myself that next time I will think of it while still in the moment. Last week, as I said, I thought of it while still in that moment and decided to take thirty seconds to see it through. Now, I can’t be too proud of myself. Partly because, as I mentioned, it was no real effort to execute, and partly because I had already thought about doing it a few times.

Last week is just the time that I did it. I deleted my mySpace account. And you know what? It felt really good. I never really used it and when I did it was to talk to people I have real relationships with anyway. You know, email, phone calls and interaction over coffee. And for those few that didn’t fall into that first category, it was with people I haven’t talked to in years or friends of friends and the only exchanges are to tell me they got a new cat or to wish me Happy Holidays or other useless pleasantries. These messages would prompt an email calling me back to mySpace thinking it was something worthwhile only to be disappointed. So, I finally decided to pull out.

I am now no longer part of the problem. Well, that problem anyways. You won’t see me there and I won’t see you there. And now I can complain about stupidity and uselessness without hypocrisy.

It is now your space and your problem.

let’s get it out of the way. while i am doing it i may as well set a few things straight for the record. first, i am not happy about this and i do not approve. i hate blogs. i hate blog people. i even hate people who spend a great deal of time reading blogs. second, the only reason i am doing this is because too many things irritate, annoy, anger, please and delight me to not have some method of expressing it.

and before you gleefully point out that this is precisely why people blog, do me a favor and slam your hand in a car door. then go read blogs for a few hours while you soak your hand in ice water. i won’t promise my next entry will be more pleasant, but we know where we stand now, right?