Pray at the Pump

Here's one for the ages, folks holding prayer services at St. Louis gas stations thanking God for lower gas prices and praying that they'll go lower. Those who pray at the pump also sing "We Shall Overcome," putting in this new verse, "We'll have lower gas prices."

Is this what the spiritual life is all about? LOL. Praying for lower gas prices, even at the pump itself?

Hey, since prayer is being treated as such a frivolous thing, I have a request. Anyone watch All My Children? Please pray that things will work out for Greenlee and Aiden. There's some contention now with Greenlee hearing that Ryan still loves her, and it really could go either way.

This Is Your Brain on Hope

Cute one from MoveOn.org. Effective, too, I think.

Is This Old Dweeb Even Trying?

Hey, I know what it is to have trouble with short term memory. The other day I fed my cats, got distracted and did it wrong. We have their dry food in a plastic container. But I somehow put the plastic container itself where their food goes and the food wasn't there for them to eat. I quickly caught the error before the cats starved, thank goodness.

But even I wouldn't forget having used the word "timetable" just the day before if I happened to be a candidate for President of the United States and that was a particularly big issue, as it is this year. I want to be gracious and not call McCain a liar (at this minute anyway). So what is the problem? Just confused? Or something worse? An old man with no memory?

Albums I Think Are Exciting

Qkumba Zoo - Wake Up & Dream -- This is one I got at a garage sale a week ago on Saturday. It was a quarter. It also was marked "Not For Sale" so it was a promo copy. How the folks at the garage sale got it, I don't know. It wasn't a group I'd ever heard of, but for a quarter I'm usually in the mood to take a chance. I haven't heard the entire thing, but parts of it I've heard several times. I love it. It has a world vibe going on, some foreign tribal words in it of some derivation. And some beautiful vocals and exotic tunes. The first several songs are the ones I'm familiar with to some extent. They are very catchy and dreamy, including one called "The Child (Inside)." Very nice song. All of them are quite cool, but this is a very neat one. The group on the cover has a weird, eclectic look, strange hairstyles and all quite exotic.

Roxette - Joyride -- I've been listening to this one almost constantly. I got the CD "Look Sharp" at Goodwill sometime in the last couple months. I listened to it so much that it's hard to believe, because it's great right straight through. So I ordered this one, Joyride, and it's also great right straight through. Some of the songs have a very exciting guitar presence. There's something about some of Roxette's intros -- on Look Sharp and Joyride both -- that remind me of the intro to "Last Train to Clarksville." There's a lot of very nice guitar stuff going on. Then there's the vocals, so sweet. The title song is an exciting one, which is lovable from the first listen. "Hotblooded," I'm thinking it's a cover song, but it's not. She's "hotblooded, baby," and that's good. The other songs -- there's some slow ones, but OK. "Soul Deep" is another title that is recycled, but it's a completely different song. This is a fast one, with a soul vibe. Exciting song. "The Big L" is an exciting song too, love and lust. The last song, "Perfect Day" is a slow one, a thoughtful song to wind up the album. As on Look Sharp, in a way, although, "Listen to My Heart" isn't quite as mellow. To me, and I haven't charted it out, I hear echoes of the Beatles in the album Joyride. Nothing too blatant, but some of the phrasing, such as in "Joyride," the word "joyrider" reminds me of Day Tripper. There's also lyrics including "no reply" and "hiding away," and just some sounds that hint at the Beatles without coming right out and saying it. Anyway, this and Look Sharp are both fantastic albums.

My Cell Phone Drowned

I'm very careful with keeping water, coffee, liquids out of electronics. I remember when keyboards were new and expensive, the place I worked they were strict about not getting your coffee near the keyboard.

When it comes to my phone, I'm very careful as well. But since you're expected to carry it around all the time -- through many bumps and travails -- all kinds of things can happen to it. It's there, then it isn't because you've forgotten it somewhere.

One day in the winter I had gone somewhere and returned to the place we were staying. And a couple hours later I went to check my phone and it wasn't there. So I retraced my steps, which led to the car, and guess what -- the phone was lying in the middle of the street! It was a cul-de-sac and has little traffic, and there was a car right across from my car, so any car that happened through there would've had to straddle my phone. It was winter, as I said, and cold, so for a while that day my phone was very sluggish. But it recovered.

Then the other day I went to get a pizza. I called the pizza place a few minutes before I got there to order. And I thought I put the phone on the seat, but maybe I put it on my lap. Just before I got there it took off with a huge downpour, raining. So when I got to the pizza place, I jumped out of the car and went running in. I'm standing in there and felt down for my phone and it wasn't there, so I thought it was on the car seat. When I got the pizza, 10 minutes or so later, I went running back to the car in the torrential rain, and there was my phone, lying in a puddle, getting soaked to the bone.

I picked it up of course, but it never worked from that point on. I dried it out, took it apart, etc., but nothing could bring it back from the dead. So I had to go get a new one.

They're so hard to keep track of entirely. It's a regular job to keep a cell phone from getting lost or destroyed.

Bush: "A Total Failure"

Nancy Pelosi, bless her heart, in an interview with CNN, had some interesting things to say about President Bush:

"You know, God bless him, bless his heart, the president of the United States, a total failure, losing all credibility with the American people on the economy, on the war, on energy, you name the subject."

She also said the Congress was busy "trying to sweep up after (Bush's) mess over and over and over again ... The president knows it. He needs something to talk about. Because he has no ideas."

Every once in a while someone says something that boils down the argument to just a few words, and puts the truth out there in as plain a way as it deserves. This is one of those times.

Full of G-nats

I went for a dog walk in the park tonight, and the park was full of g-nats. I'm adding a G there because that was our conversation. You hear of people dropping their g's, but gnat has an added g even though it's silent.

I walked into at least one cloud of g-nats, which makes your hands do this Kali swatting. It's crazy. They're like a swarm, buzzing in many directions yet maintaining a sort of pulsating ball. When you walk into it, you might expect them to buzz up an extra three feet, but no.

So you're walking into their tightly knit ball, then they're running headlong into your head. It seems like this would disrupt whatever harmony exists in their buzzing and loose adherence to the swarm. Whether they're able to go back to their orbits and courses, only God and scientists know.

The other bit of interesting buggery was all the lightning bugs, blinking out some kind of mating code. "I'm here, my butt's yellow, I'm ready, my dear." Could it be nothing but a mating call? Or are they indicating their presence for some other purpose? None that's discernible to the casual onlooker.

Then apart from the lightning bugs -- obvious as they are -- and the clouds of g-nats -- obvious also, once you're in their epicenter -- there are the random zaps to the head or the ear of some extraneous bug dwelling apart from the pack, or flying in a more subtle pack, perhaps like geese, in a V. Whap, one hits my head and you swat at nothing.

McCain Tackled on Football Story

It's nice to see this guy get busted on something...

Here's McCain, traveling around, telling the same story about his POW days, and substituting whatever the local football team happens to be for the benefit he can get by buttering up the local folks.

Here's one story on all this phoniness. McCain's telling a moving story about his time as a POW: "When I was first interrogated and really had to give some information because of the pressures, physical pressures on me, I named the starting lineup, defensive line of the Pittsburgh Steelers as my squadron mates." (My emphasis.) OK, that's definite, the Pittsburgh Steelers. That would be in Pennsylvania, as I understand it, not Wisconsin. A team that is called the Steelers, if my ability to see is working, and not the Packers of Green Bay. One starts with an S and the other with a P. There would appear to be no confusing the various distinctions here.

But wait, what is this? McCain is recycling a story already published in a book? Maybe a book like J. Peterman's, with some great stories he bought from Kramer? And in his book, he's recounting the story of his interrogators in Vietnam: "Pressed for more useful information, I gave the names of the Green Bay Packers offensive line, and said they were members of my squadron." (My emphasis.) Is this sinking in? The Green Bay Packers offensive line, not the Pittsburgh Steelers defensive line. Two teams, two different lines, one with an O and one best represented with a D and a Fence.

Ha ha ha.

ABC News now has an update, as McCain has slithered out of whatever hole he lives in to correct the record: "And the McCain campaign just told ABC News that the senator made a mistake -- it was, indeed, the Packers." The senator made a mistake. Writing over there, Jake Tapper says, "McCain's valor as a P.O.W. is beyond admirable, but this business of substituting the Steelers for the Packers is odd, though as I said, the McCain campaign says this was an honest mistake."

Honest mistake, that's funny. Too bad the media didn't bend over backwards for Kerry like this!

It's obvious that he figured he could go to various towns and just substitute whatever team in the story. If this would have gone unchecked, there's no doubt he would've soon been here locally, praising every team, even our local junior varsity team, saying back in Vietnam when interrogated he claimed their members as his "squadron." "Yes, as I recall, there was little Jimmy Smith at tackle, Bobby Hagen the kicker, and Craig Swartz quarterback. And Mr. Anderson from the locker was their coach. That was a big year. I believe they scored that year, an accidental safety."

McCain Wants to Kill Iranians -- He's Joking

I'm interested in humor, as in those times when you're "joking" and you say what you really mean to say. In this case -- with John McCain -- someone mentions cigarettes and Iranians and his first thought is "Maybe this is a way of killing them." It sounds like what he actually would like to do.

Uncommon Sense

Blog on politics, pointing out the various absurdities that is the John McCain campaign. Such as kicking out the woman with the "McCain=Bush" sign when presumably Bush is someone McCain likes and wants to be more like.

Uncommon Sense.

Animist for Spare Change

Just a blog to note. "Animist for Spare Change."

It looks like a good effort to me. "The unlikeliest poet from Ulan Bator also attempting inconsistencies - prose, thoughts, absurd, and whatever." By Ramakrishnan Parthasarathy.

Lay Off The Nigerians!

In the article about John McCain still hating the "gooks" of Vietnam, even 40 years later, there's this question by someone: "If Sen. McCain had been captured by Nigerians, could he call those people 'niggers' and think he wasn't going to offend everyone who is black?" That question is asked by Guy Aoki, president of the Media Action Network for Asian Americans, an anti-defamation group.

To which I say, hey, Mr. Aoki, lay off the Nigerians. The Nigerians have been very very good to me. In fact just the other day a wealthy chieftain died, leaving his fortune to someone who happened to have my email address. Even now we're in communications -- the Nigerian beneficiary, myself, and my bank -- to forward a sizable handling fee overseas so that I can receive some of the inheritance, a pretty hefty payoff, I might add. It's in the high seven figures, meaning millions.

Does McCain Have Issues?

McCain is still calling the North Vietnamese "gooks"?

"I hate the gooks," McCain said. "I will hate them as long as I live."

The article I linked to says "gook" was first used in 1899 by American soldiers fighting Filipino insurgents. In the Korean War, it was aimed at Koreans and Chinese. Then against the Vietnamese during the Vietnam War. Now it's seen as a slur toward any Asian or Pacific Islander.

McCain was tortured in Vietnam.

Now, 40 years later, he still hates "gooks." Which might bring up the question of what people around the world think of America when we torture others. But, hey, forgive me for bringing up the obvious.

Random Acts of Interruption

Do you like guys who just come up to you and start talking? I don't mind it, really, and am actually fascinated by it.

Myself, I'm definitely not one of those guys. I'm like a social ninja -- you don't know I'm there and you don't know I've gone. I'm in -- with a beeline for the punchbowl -- I'm out. I prefer to keep my eyes averted and not to say too much.

But I'd like to have a "collection," some kind of "scrapbook" of these guys who occasionally come up to me and start talking. If I could do it, you know, it could be like my mother, who used to pin live butterflies to her curtains. They're up there flapping till they die, which could take months. (Wow, that was a terrible thing she did!)

I've had two close encounters lately that stick out in my mind. I only want to mention the most recent one, since he appeared sane enough. I'm at Subway, and the guy behind me is wondering what the $5 subs are. He's not really asking me, but I point him to the list, being a nice guy.

That's all the opportunity he needs. Now he's asking me if I know how Subway got their start, and he's explaining it. It seems there was a guy on his lunch break in New York one time, who brought various sandwich ingredients to his job. Then someone wanted to buy a sandwich from him. The next day he did the same thing. And before long that was all he did, made and sold sandwiches. According to my guy, that's why the Subway stores all have New York wallpaper!

I'm nodding, saying "Huh!," and making other appreciative noises as I make my way for the door, leaving him alone with the young lady working there.

How to Write a Great Poem...Maybe

Here's point by point how to do it.

It's kind of like Mad Libs, only you have to fill in everything.

20 steps that starts with 1) Begin the poem with a metaphor, and ends with 20) Close the poem with a vivid image that makes no statement, but that "echoes" an image from earlier in the poem. Check out the link for the points in the middle!

Crazy Grandpa McCain Sees Conspiracy

Put away the blunderbuss, ma, Grandpa's on the warpath!

Of course we're referring to everyone's crazy Grandpa this year, John McCain. You know, he served in the military. Of course you know. There's no family mealtime that can go by without Grandpa McCain boring us kids with all his escapades. He fought the Vietnamese single-handed. He personally killed Hitler. He was there at Versailles. And he not only shot the first shot in the Civil War but the last one!

Ma looks over at us kids and gives us a dirty look. That means we sit up extra straight and look at Grandpa McCain while he's talking. But even he has his limits, and eventually he can tell we're not that into it. We want to go out to play, and he says, "Oh, go on, get out of here, you little rascals!" He fought the war for the likes of us, and this is the thanks he gets. We don't want to hear about carpet bombing villages while we're trying to eat. I can look down at my mashed potatoes and gravy and see a little lake, even an ocean, and I can see Grandpa going down, his plane demolished, him climbing up the hill, standing there at the top -- it's mashed potatoes, go on, eat them!

But now he's out on the campaign trail. And he's seeing the enemy everywhere. Nothing gets by his eagle eye. Whether it's Barack Obama, Jim Webb, Wesley Clark -- whether they served or not, they're all a bunch of scoundrels -- scalawags, like us kids. That darned eagle eye of his, you can't get away. He'll call you on it! It's all he wants to talk about.

I remember some other family warriors. My uncles -- you couldn't get them to talk about the war. Hardly. They'd rather just let it go. They didn't have much to say. That's probably the way it should be. But this is everything there is to Grandpa's life.