Best Pizza in New Jersey: Vinny's in Kendall Park

I've said it before, but it can't be said enough, best Pizza in New Jersey, maybe the world, Vinny's. Granted, I haven't tried a slice from every pizza place in the Garden State, but I have eaten enough pizza of all sorts from all kinds of places to know that Vinny's is tops. Kendall Park is a small town, I suppose, it's been years since I've played Sim City, I don't remember the qualifications for town, city or megalopolis anymore. I grew up in Kendall Park. Vinny's was known as Dominick's back then. Apparently that was the name of the restaurant when Vinny took it over; he stuck with it. Some years after my family moved away, we returned for a visit and found the name was changed to Kendall Park Pizza and Subs. Vinny has since moved his operation across the street and has branded it with his own name. My parents were just down that way yesterday so they brought some pizza and subs back. They also brought back a bright, colorful, glossy take-out menu. I scanned it into the computer for history's sake. I will now share the cover with you (it has the phone number and adress). If you ever find yourself in Kendall Park, NJ looking for somewhere to eat, check out Vinny's, you won't regret it. Unless you are allergic to pizza or something. Which would be the saddest thing I can possibly think of.

My Soundtrack for 2010

The following list of ten songs is comprised of the most listened to songs (with accompanying music videos) for the year 2010, according to me. I am not making a list of the top songs of the year, according to music charts, YouTube views or any opinion other than mine. These songs are the top ten for me for this year. They aren’t even all from this year, so within the music industry or television entertainment industry many of the songs wouldn’t be eligible for such a title as “top of 2010.” I do not discriminate and subjugate songs, however, so I look beyond the year of copyright and release in order to find music I like. Although, many of these songs I did not have to look for; rather, I was found by them, via Muffin Man sending Facebook messages about them.

This is a top ten list, of sorts, but it has no other condition for acceptance to the list than that I am choosing it right now as I recollect the last twelve months in my music listening habits. As far as being a soundtrack to my year, it really isn’t. A soundtrack, if I were to define it (which I am in the process of doing) , would be a collection of music that correlates to the feelings and experiences of a person or group at any given moment. Somewhat like a score and somewhat like a musical narrative. I don’t know that any of the songs on this list will fit that definition, but I’ll still call it a soundtrack.

These songs are not tied to any one specific moment in the year. I don’t think any of them are tied to feelings I had about a situation or a person. I might suggest that the real soundtrack to my life, if one were to be had, would be the collection of the songs that I have personally written. Unfortunately, I haven’t written any songs this year. The ones I’ve been playing and working on were written last fall, possibly the last time I had any real inspiration for writing songs. I may have written a song or two, early in 2010, but I don’t recall at the moment. Regardless of whether I’ve written songs this year or not, none of them are recorded, and none of them have professionally produced music videos to go with them.

So here are ten songs that I listened to a lot, with or without music videos. But because this is a blog and you want to be visually entertained as well, I'm going to create a YouTube playlist to share with you. I could try to embed each video, but I don't know if this page will allow for that many embed codes. I could also include links for every song, but that would take a long time for both of us. I think the best option is a playlist, if I can figure out how to get one in here. We’ll see.
I did it! here is the embed code:

If you prefer, here is url link to the playlist, gives you more viewing freedom than watching the 17 videos here - http://www.youtube.com/user/ajaxmusic#grid/user/B702AE923A915AFC

And here is a list of the songs, in no particular order (you will also notice there are more than ten, I got carried away)…

Brick by Boring Brick – Paramore
I Can’t Give You What I Haven’t Got – The Living End
Winter Winds – Mumford and Sons
I and Love and You – The Avett Brothers
Uprising – Muse
Justified – The Graduate
Great Expectations – The Gaslight Anthem
At Your Funeral – Saves the Day
Degausser (live/acoustic) – Brand New
Carry On – Bayside
Ignorance - Paramore
Playing God – Paramore
Bella Donna – The Avett Brothers
The Cave – Mumford and Sons
The Ghost of St Valentine – Bayside
Pull Me In (live, can't find a studio version) – The Graduate
Luca – Brand New

Luca is a good one to listen to with the lights off and you just sit quietly and enjoy it. Really focusing in on Jesse's voice. It is the most important instrument in the mix.

New Year's Resolutions Are a Thing of the Past

Check it: why bother making resolutions you know you won't follow through with? How about just reviewing the things you did accomplish in the previous year. I will explain further. When you decide to do something, i.e. set a goal/resolution, you feel badly if you don't succeed. How do you feel when you do accomplish something? Goodly. That's right. Rather than start your year off with a list of things that you can't possibly accomplish, only to be continuously deflated every time you think about all the things you aren't accomplishing...I'm using an ellipsis to interrupt my improperly structured sentence...make a list of all of the things you did well in the last year and celebrate your accomplishments. Instead of periodically reviewing your goals throughout the year, review your past accomplishments. You will be happy and have more motivation because you are seeing your successes rather than your failures. Your new confidence will make you do more, essentially meeting all of the goals you would have set had you set any goals.
This is all just theory, of course. I just came up with it in the course of typing. It sounds pretty sound though. I expect that if you were to really follow through with this theoretical process you would have a noticeable difference in the coming year. If anyone is interested in conducting a psychological study on motivation, comment me and maybe we can hash out a plan. I don't want to do the study, but it would be an easy one for someone to do. It just takes time. Maybe it wouldn't be so easy, I don't know. Figure it out. Track some people who don't set resolutions or review accomplishments, some who do set resolutions, and some who do the past accomplishment thing. I don't know how to gauge the results though. Some type of scales or something about self-worth feelings.
When it comes right down to it, I don't set resolutions because I'm not big on making lists and reviewing them, so really, I'm not going to make a list of things I've done and look back on it. Even though I won't be doing it, I think it would be a more beneficial act to monitor accomplishments rather than to set unobtainable goals. That being said, if your resolutions are obtainable, good luck to you in your life.
I'm trying to sync my contact list from my old cell phone with the new cell phone I just activated. It doesn't seem to be working. I guess I won't be calling anyone ever again. Peace out.

3:35:37 AM 12/24/2010

So this is Christmas, and I have a sinus infection, or something. It is early on Christmas Eve and I am awake when I should be asleep. The inside of my face hurts, when it should be not hurting. The pain extends to my left ear, even. Prior to being awake I had been sleeping. While sleeping I had been dreaming that I was at college again. Only this time I had driven with some people who I don’t know, but must have known in the dream. I still had my backpack full of books and stuff from the previous semester, yet I did have my new class schedule taped to the front of my binder. I had to go to class and I had to go soon, but I didn’t have the correct books and I didn’t know which class I had. For some reason I couldn’t look at the schedule very well. I kept looking, but not seeing. I couldn’t figure out what to do with my old books, as I didn’t want to carry them around with me. I finally decided to leave them in the car with these guys, who I assume I rode with. They wouldn’t unlock the door though. Eventually they did and I left my books with them. I made off for class, but wasn’t sure what direction to head in. Then I saw one of my professors from before and I stopped to talk to him. That was it.
Strange dreams aside, the inside of my face hurts.

Here's Looking at it Another Way

Christmas cards are a waste of time and money. Time and money that could be better spent on sugar cookies and watching It's a Wonderful Life. I don't send Christmas cards, usually. I have in the past. Honestly, I have nothing against them, but for some reason when I take a satirical approach to things, people laugh, and I like to incite laughter. So if you are a fan of sending cards, I applaud your dedication to the all-but-forgotten tradition involving handwriting and postage stamps. If you are a fan of those stationary-based form letters, you are so far from the mark of Christmas cards and greetings that you aren't even part of this discussion. I actually do think those letters are bogus. It would be like me printing my blog and mailing it to everyone I've met for the last 10 years. The reason for a blog is to say the things that many of those letter writers say, without forcing it into some one's mailbox. If it is in a blog you can read it or not; a blog will never give you a paper cut.
Back to the cards. My friend Christal wrote a little about cards on her blog. She speaks of the generic predictability of cards and her effort to overcome that this year. It made me think about cards and how I react to them. When I get a Christmas card I read the message and appreciate the feeling and effort behind it. And then I stand it up on a shelf. After a while, it has either blown over and fallen behind something, never to be seen again, or I take it down and throw in in a drawer. That's the best case scenario for a card. I think more often than not the card finds its way into the garbage. Not even the recycling, just the garbage. I wonder if the recyclable materials have their own form of religion in which they view recycling as heaven (eventual reincarnation) garbage as hell (slow, suffering, decomposition into oblivion).
Anyhow, cards are nice, but an e-card would be more efficient in my book. I could look at it, read it, put it on my "desktop." I could save it for a lot longer without losing it. That is, if I wanted to. Think of all of the "Forever" stamps you'd save, as well as preventing hand cramps. Just type it up and send it off. But then again, it is the thought that counts. Maybe there is more thought behind a physical card than an e-card. Maybe not.
I'm done with this thought, I'd rather think more about the recyclable item religion. It's impossible though, how would the recyclables communicate with each other. For the stuff that goes to a landfill there would be no way for them to learn about recycling. For the stuff that gets recycled, they might be able to tell of the glory of recycling, but they still wouldn't know about the landfill. The only way it could possibly work for them is if they understand human language, but that is simply preposterous.
Merry Christmas from Ajax!

Three Tantalizing Things to Tell Today

Thing the first, tomorrow is Muffin Man's birthday. In honor of this occasion I have written an acrostix poem:
My
Unequaled best
Friend
Forever
In
Non-Brokeback ways.
Marbles
Are
Neat

Next, well, I don't remember what is next. You see, I get these ideas about things I want to share and then by the time I get to typing them I forget. And then in the process of typing that out, I remember. The second thing is this, yesterday or this morning there was a lunar eclipse. To honor the moon phenomenon, here is a funny thing about the moon and people:


Lastly, my brother and his wife are here for Christmas, they showed me this video last night, it is hilarious:


That is all.

A Sandwich Fit For A Travel Channel Food Show

Check this thing out. Sandwich roll, pork with homemade BBQ sauce, sweet potato fries, and homemade coleslaw. Allow me to wax-Richman for a moment (Lou just told Chief Wiggum that the reference isn't any good if you have to explain it, so I"ll refrain from offering an explanation so that I can continue to think the reference is not lost on you).

Ajax as Adam Richman: This sandwich is what they serve to children in heaven when they get straight A's [hugs the person who prepared it, while that person smiles awkwardly and is obviously trying to determine where to look (at the camera or at the ground) as well as where to put their arms (around Richman or hanging loosely at their sides)]. First, you get the cool, crisp, crunch of the coleslaw. It's not too sweet, not too heavy on the vinegar, just right to compensate for the heat of the pork and BBQ sauce. The sweet potato fries add the right amount of sweet, as well as some crunch and salt. The starch helps this sandwich to fill you up.

That's enough of that. As I have commented before, I think those food show people are nuts. I like to watch them, but they are nuts with the way the words they use to describe the food experience they are having. When you think about it, though, it isn't an easy job to eat a sandwich on behalf of half a million viewers and describe it in a way that we can all feel like we are eating it too. Even that doesn't change the fact that they are eating food for a living, so I will not curtail my fun-making at their expense.

The Chief Wiggum joke that Lou called him out on was calling Marge "Ma Peddle" when arresting her for selling prescription drugs. I got the joke and I laughed, and then Lou asks "Ma Peddle?" and Wiggum says "Yeah, it's a reference to the popular 1940's movie character Ma Kettle" [Paraphrased]. And that's when Lou says it doesn't count if you have to explain it. Don't worry Wiggum, I understood, and I thought it was a great play on names for the arrest. If you are unfamiliar with Ma Kettle, do yourself a favor and look up a movie called The Egg and I (1947). It features the debut of Ma and Pa Kettle and their rambunctious brood. Is is a great movie, Claudette Colbert and Fred MacMurray star as a city couple making the transition to living in the mountain-country. They don't make movies like they used to, and I for one am saddened by that.

A sandwich to The Simpsons to The Egg and I...yeah, that's about right.

I Am Really Very Tired Right Now

Inexplicably tired. At least to me. No, that doesn't make it make more sense. Whatever, I've got something else to mention.
This one is for all of the cooks and confectioners out there. I'm wondering what the difference is between fudge and chocolate that has been sitting out in a car on a hot day. Is there any difference? I eat chocolate and then I eat fudge and I think, 'fudge is the same as chocolate, just softer, like it has been in a hot car.' Granted there is a slight taste difference, but there is a taste difference between different brands of chocolate as well. Nestle is no good, but Hershey is. Then there are the obvious taste discrepancies between dark and milk chocolate. So it seems to me that fudge could just be a meltier version of chocolate and the taste difference is nothing more than brand specific recipe.
Okay, so I do know that fudge is made differently than a Hershey's chocolate bar, but the idea just hit me a few days ago when I was eating fudge and I had a Homer Simpson moment: "You know, Marge, mud is nothing more than wet dirt." Only replace Marge's name with my name and mud with fudge and wet dirt with melty-soft chocolate.
Speaking of melty chocolate, have I ever told you about the time I put chocolate chips into oatmeal? I like oatmeal cookies with chocolate chips in them, so I figured I'd like oatmeal with chocolate chips in it. Up until the moment I saw the chips melting into the steaming hot bowl of goo I honestly thought that they would retain their shape. I imagined a bowl of oatmeal with raisins and chocolate chips dispersed throughout. It never occurred to me that the steaming hot oatmeal would instantly melt the morsels of chocolate. Let me tell you, the melting was pretty much instantaneous. What resulted was an ugly color of brownish gray swirls in the bowl. And as they were semi-sweet chips, the resulting mess was not a sweet treat. Thankfully there is granulated sugar to fix any and all oatmeal related problems.
The whole event was a failure, but I am now smarter than I was. When experiences expand your thought and capability can they really be considered failures? I suppose so. In this case it is still a failure, the chocolate melted.

I've Never Met Attention I didn't Like

The title of this post is a lie. I am not a fan of all forms of attention. This lie was for the purpose of catching your attention. Perhaps it worked. I will now explain why I lied to you in a title.
A few days ago while driving home I passed a person sitting in a lawn chair on the sidewalk. They were holding a sign for a furniture sign. It was freezing cold outside. I wondered if this type of advertising was really worthwhile. When I saw the person sitting in the chair with only their nose and eyes exposed from beneath layers of winter clothing, the only thing I thought was that whoever put that sign holder out in that weather must be a creep. Never once did I think, "hmm, furniture sale, maybe I'll look into it." No, I never thought that; rather, I felt sad for the person whose job it was to sit in a chair on the sidewalk in the frigid air. Not Frigidaire, but that probably would have been warmer.
Have you heard the saying something along the lines of "all press is good press." That's the spin that some celebrities put on reality when they behave poorly. Governments do that too. As long as people are paying attention to you then it's all good. In some regards that is true. People like familiarity, so once they become familiar with your name there is a greater chance they will recall you in the future. Maybe someday when I do need a sofa I will think of the furniture store that puts people out on the street with a sign in the freezing cold. I might not recall that I once found their advertising efforts to be akin to torture, I'll simply remember their business name. At that point I will buy their sofa. That's what they want to believe anyway. But not this time. I won't shop there, probably.
I might be the only one that thinks sign holding on the street is inefficient and cruel advertising. I don't care. I still think it. I suppose it isn't so bad if the weather is nice, but I wouldn't want to do it. I hope the people doing those jobs are getting paid well. Does it really pay off as advertising though? That's what I'm wondering. Is it a case of "all press is good press" or does it backfire by making people like me think the store owner is a jerk? What do you think? Comment below if you feel the desire to let the music catch you on fire. Also if you know what song that is referring to.

Today...It Snowed

Vermont is a beautiful state. One of the most beautiful, in my opinion; although I haven't seen them all. Maybe in a book or something. Possibly a clip in a movie or on a commercial. I suppose I have seen some form of visual representation of every state over the course of my life. I'd actually be surprised if there is a state that I haven't seen any pictures or video of. Vermont is a beautiful state.

I see all of the crazy natural disasters that plague other states - earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, fires, droughts, urban sprawl - and I think about how grateful I am to be in Vermont where we don't have all of those things. It rains so much that there is no way we could have drought or fires. We are too far inland for the hurricanes to do much damage. While there is a fault line that runs through the state, for some reason it doesn't do things here like they have in California. We don't have a lot of people so there isn't any urban sprawl. I suppose the Green Mountains block the tornadoes. I don't know why else they wouldn't come here. If I were a tornado I'd come to Vermont. Have I mentioned it is a beautiful place?

I'm not a meteorologist or a geologist, so I don't know why stuff happens, in regards to weather and land. I do know that a lot of those scary disasters don't occur here. We don't have poisonous snakes or spiders running rampant. There aren't any small dinosaurs in the rivers trying to eat mini-dogs or nautically-minded people. What we do have is snow and cold and ice.

Today was the first day I've driven in snow since December of 2008. It has been a long time. I suppose it will just take a few days and then I'll be back in the swing of it. Then I can be zipping along the highway at regular condition speeds in dangerous conditions, just like everyone else.

Random Responses and The Like

One of my homeboys - you could call him a friend - runs a blog called Random Rants and the Like (Harris Lunt is my friends name). I just read his latest post, One Voice is Not Enough, and I can't make the title into a hyperlink. I'm trying to put the link to the article in there and for some reason the pop-up menu for the hyperlink function button isn't appearing. So much for a professional looking post - here is the link: http://randomrantsandthelike.blogspot.com/2010/12/one-voice-is-not-enough.html

My recommendation at this point is that you read the article and then get back here and read my commentary. That's about as egocentric-sounding a sentence as I've ever heard. Still, go read his stuff and then come back for my observations. I was going to just leave a comment on his post to answer his rhetorical questions, but figured I'd end up typing more than a comment box can hold, so this is the better route to take. Now I can post this and just copy and paste the URL into his comment box.

The swagger of his story is that one voice alone is not sufficient to make a change, so we all need to unite our voices in a chorus for good. I agree with the end result of that argument, but I think that one voice alone is sufficient. Jesus Christ was one voice, supported by Spiritual confirmation, but one voice. There have been other "one voices" throughout history. Jesus changed the world with his voice alone, but he is God, so it is different in some regards. The great "one voices" that have been mere mortals have also changed the world. But perhaps this is just another matter of semantics and definitions. Does "changing the world" mean the final action before a universal paradigm shift? Or could it be the reveille of the united chorus? If one voice unites the people for a good cause, haven't they changed the world? Hasn't that one voice been enough? It was enough to put the wheel in motion.

That was the swagger of the story, here is the thesis of his tract: art defines culture and our art is defining us as monsters. Harris cites the Saw movie saga as one example of how we might be defined by other cultures or future generations. If you think about it, it is kind of disturbing to think that perhaps all that will one day remain of our civilization is the movie Saw. It is a horrendously disturbing premise for entertainment, from what I understand. I have not seen any of the movies from that franchise. Harris' post is a call to arms for all of us to unite against filthy and degrading works that are being passed off as "art" and "entertainment." I don't know if quotation marks are appropriate in that spot. My intent is to make it clear that I don't see degrading works as works of art. If that requires quote marks, great, if not, my apologies to you, kind reader.

As long as money is being pumped into the pockets of movie producers, we'll continue to see disemboweled people on the big screen. Unfortunately, money will continue to be spent on these kinds of things because people are using extreme forms of everything in order to feel and to fill a void they have, but are unsure what to do with. That's my thought. Harris brought up some good points: a collective voice is more powerful than one voice and a culture is defined by what it produces. We can look at those ideas and see where we fit. Are we uniting with like-minded people and uniting for a good cause? Are we creating things that we want to be defined by? I'll let you answer those questions for yourself; right now I am getting back to the topic of people being drawn to extremes.

This is where I would have stopped if I put this in the comment box on Harris' blog post; as you can see, it is good that I didn't try to type it all there. But even this next bit is relevant. Why do movies like Saw and other horror/thriller types exist? Because they elicit physiological reactions in people. Even though the deranged person mutilating a body isn't real or in the same room as you, your body reacts in some ways as though they were. When you get scared your body increased production or release of certain hormones and chemicals. You feel. For some, feeling isn't a natural occurrence.

Being locked into a rigid routine from day to day, not experiencing basic human emotions other than vicariously through television or books, can make a bland existence. Some people when dealing with depression say they did something "just to feel anything." We want to feel. Sometimes it doesn't matter if the feelings are good or bad, we just want them. I think this plays into why humans do everything they do. But when you have someone with a void, and they find a quick fix (such as extreme movies), they stick with that quick fix. It becomes a drug, which is dangerous because the acting chemical portion of the drug is created in their own body. Imagine how much harder it would be to kick the cocaine addiction if the cocaine were being produced by the body? This is why it is as difficult as it is, because cocaine mimics chemical processes that are natural to the body. But I'm no doctor, so this is speculation based on some recalled knowledge from psychology classes. I think it is accurate. My blog isn't accredited so it doesn't have to be accurate, I'm just trying to provide a topic of contemplation, if you so choose to be contemplative.

Anyway, this is falling apart faster than a meeting between a producer and agent when the producer finds out the agent represents Pauly Shore. When people have a void in their life they seek to fill it. They dig and dig and dig until they get something. There are plenty of counterfeits out there, so sometimes you find something and it works, but it isn't lasting or completely fulfilling. Personally, I believe that making faith in God your top priority above all else helps to fill the void and put all other practices of fulfillment in order. When you seek God first, you can't help but seek good things after. And when we unite our voices with the voice of God, we don't have to worry about our voice not being enough. This doesn't mean that life will always be smooth or go how you'd like it to, but it does mean that you will make progress and accomplish the purpose for your life.

Now you know what I think about a few more things.

A Few Things I Heard on the Television

Television provides entertainment and education, but not all of the time. Once in a while, such as every single day, TV also provides idiocy. More and more each day it seems. Here are a few examples:

I was watching the news on Thursday morning, it so happened that it was also Thanksgiving. The parade hadn't begun yet, so I had the news on while waiting. The commentators were talking about the politicians they didn't like, or thought were failures. This is how they presented it, "In the Spirit of Thanksgiving, here are the top political turkeys of 2010." So, the Spirit of Thanksgiving is name calling? I could understand if it was gluttony, selfishness or consumerism, but name calling? I just don't see it.

I love toothpaste/toothbrush advertising. Just kidding, but I do like some of them. I think they overstate things just a bit. If you've been reading my blog from the beginning you might be familiar with a post I did regarding mouth cleaning back in March of this year (Sticking it to Tooth Decay, Cool Mint Style). This week brought another instance of entertaining advertising.

Isoactive Whitening Aquafresh is the product, a line from the commercial says "50% of cavities form between teeth." Immediately upon hearing this I thought about where the other 50% of cavities might appear. I came up with not in between teeth. Cavities can form between teeth or not between teeth. There are two options for where cavities can form on teeth. If they don't form in one place, they'll form in the other. A 50% chance that if they are not between teeth, they will be between teeth. Good enough.

Michael Jackson (I've typed about him before as well) had some great songs. He is as good as, better than or worse than many other musical artists. Now there is a Wii video game featuring his dancing and music. The tag line of the game is "His moves unite us, his game will electrify the world." Michael Jackson: The Experience is out in stores now. So enjoy the unity that his dancing has brought about and go get that game that will electrify the entire world. I'm thinking that anything I could say at this point would be redundant. You know, because the actual facts about this game are laughable without any humorous commentary.

Finally, last Saturday night I was fighting the urge to sleep and trying desperately to find something worth watching on the Television. It was a losing effort. Luckily I happened across a Christian talk show of some kind. The host was talking with the creator of a cartoon series that recounts the popular stories of the Bible. Just like any talk show with a person promoting their movie or series, this one showed clips from the show and the guy talked about it. He drove the point home that the stories were staying true to the text of the Bible. He said that they did the best they could to limit dialogue to actual words in the Bible. Adding only where necessary to keep the story flowing for the purpose of the cartoon.

They showed clips and he talked about the importance of staying true to the Bible. I don't know why I had stopped to watch this, and I didn't know why I continued to watch it, but then he said something that I am very happy to have heard. The man said something along the lines of "Our emphasis is on accuracy. We've kept it true to the Bible, and of course there's a robot and two kids in all of the stories." In the beginning there was Adam, Eve, a rotund robot, a young boy with an electric guitar and a girl with pig-tails. Yeah, that's exactly how I remember reading it. Accurate to a fault, Superbook, accurate to a fault.

There you have it. A few things I heard on the television recently that make me lose faith in human kind. We can do better than this. I know we can. Well, maybe not all of us.

A Few Facebook Statuses and My Responses

My brother coined our type of humor as conversational comedy. We don't make jokes or write sketches, we just respond to things we hear and incite laughter. You dig? We are both able to come up with funny things from scratch, but many of our jokes are responses to something someone else said. And not all of it is insulting to the person who said it. Some is. But that's irrelevant. You're right, that is an elephant. If you don't watch the Marx Brothers let me invite you to begin doing so now. Well, here are a few Facebook statuses from the news feed today, with my responses.

This first status comes from my BFF, Muffin Man:

"I believe in pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps. I believe it is possible — I saw this guy do it once in Cirque du Soleil. It was magical"

Here is what I had to say about it (this status isn't from today, it was yesterday, I commented on it before work and then again after work):

"I believe that in so doing you will fall on your bottom and possibly sprain something. I cite the following as evidence: I once thought it would be a good idea to jump-kick two kickball's at the same time. I have two feet so I ought to be able to kick two things at once, right? I dropped the kickball's, jumped and attempted to kick them - I don't remember if I did or not as this was about the time I realized I was parallel to the ground in a cartoon style pause-in-mid-air-and-defy-gravity moment before I fell on my bottom and jammed both of my wrists in my bodies futile attempt to save itself. Both wrists hurt for about a month. All I'm saying is that unless you really are magical, as the Cirque du Soleil folks are, be careful about pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps.

"As I have had the day to think this over, I suppose that if you are able to exercise restraint and only pull one bootstrap up at a time you will be able to succeed. But watch where you put that boot after you pull it up. If you aren't careful you'll put it right back into whatever you are pulling it out of."

Here is status number two. I don't know the author, I only saw it on my news feed because Muffin Man liked it. The author's name follows the status:

"Has anyone else noticed that the Biggest Loser has a better track record of creating marriages than the Bachelor?" - D. M. Peters

And what I think about that:

It just goes to show you that money can't buy you love, and that looks are the most important thing in a relationship.

This is the time when I realize that what seemed like fodder for an interesting/humorous blog post really isn't. I will post one more status that I like, but I don't have anything to say about:

"You know it's probably time to turn on the heat when you can see your breath in the living room." - C. Sweet (one of my BFF's from days gone by, middle school to be exact)

All I have to say to that is that I agree.

This has been another failed/mediocre attempt at humor, brought to you by Ajax the Whimsical Revolutionary.

Happy Thanksgiving, Charlie Brown (and everyone else)!

Check Your Science at the Door

The creator of the phrase "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me!" needs to check their science.

Honestly, can't names do real damage? I think so. It is unethical, but you could try it out for yourself. Just find someone you interact with regularly and start calling them jerk all the time. It won't take long before you see the effect. I strongly recommend you take my word for it. Don't try this at home, it is dangerous. This is why I suggest the following alternative to the school-yard saying.

"Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names may upset the chemical balances in my brain, thereby altering my emotions, cognition, and behavior." - Ajax

I'd go on about Becker's Labeling Theory, but I just don't have the writing spirit right now. Just know that deviance results from a label. A name. If you are called something you become that something. Meaning that names are powerful and can hurt you. It also suggests that names can uplift a person. And if we are going in that direction then we also have to allow that sticks and stones can not only break bones, but build houses. Sticks could also be used to splint the very bones they have broken. This is getting out of control.

I will recap: Sticks and stones may break your bones, but sticks might help them heal later, and furthermore, sticks and/or stones might be used to build a shelter in order to protect further damage from being done to your bones. Names will never hurt you, if they are kind and supportive names, which inspire a person to become something new and better. Names will hurt you if they are given in a mean-spirit. People react to how they are treated, unconsciously even, so they don't even have to decide to be hurt by names for those names to hurt them.

Well, it's not perfect, but I could revise it some time and then all of the kids could start reciting it on the playground. Actually, I think it is well-meaning, if ill-informed, parents who keep the "sticks and stones" saying alive. Those parents ought to read this post and change the world. I'll go eat something now. Cheers!

Tony Danza: He's Still Got It!

I just woke up. Prior to waking up I had been dreaming. In this dream I was watching Tony Danza do a stand-up comedy routine, so-called because he was standing up while he delivered the routine. Here's what he said:

Do you want to know why the world ends? I'll tell you. Human one-upmanship escalation. No, really, it's no joke. You know how you have a group of people talking and one person has done this or that and there is a constant attempt to top whatever the last person said? One-upmanship. Well, one day there will be someone in this group and they are going to come up with the ultimate topper, they'll say, "Yeah, well my day was so bad, I woke up and everyone else was dead!"

That was the joke that Tony Danza said in my dream. It seemed pretty brilliant, not so much funny, but brilliant, while I was asleep. Then I was awake and remembered it, and realized this is why Who's the Boss? was cancelled. Zing! It was a dream, I don't know.

Science: The Great "Distractor"

I have nothing against science so far as it is the empirical gathering of evidence in attempts to better understand the world around us. I do take issue with science becoming a "distractor" from living life. I suppose it is just my personal bias that makes me think this way. I just feel like there is a tendency for some people to focus so much on what science says that they miss the purpose for life. They spend their lives worrying about asteroids they see on telescopes millions of miles from the earth, or melting ice. These things may be real dangers, but is there really anything we can do about them?

In regards to global climate change, I personally don't believe the people are big enough to destroy the planet. It might be possible, but I don't believe it. I think that God created this planet for a specific purpose, which is to give his children (all people) experience, and that purpose won't be defeated by people. Part of our experience is to learn and make decisions and act as agents according to our own will. It is this freedom to act that makes me leery of saying it is impossible for us to destroy the earth. I don't think it will ever happen, but if we have complete freedom to act then we must have some ability to do it. I do think there is a degree of arrogance in thinking that we are going to destroy the planet because of our actions.

However, we are responsible for the earth. If we act recklessly and waste things ungratefully then we will destroy ourselves, but not in the way of climate control. We are stewards of the planet. Animals included. Other people included. We need to look at why we are alive and how we fit in with the environment, animals and other people. We do have the power to destroy, but we also have the power to build and encourage.

Don't be distracted by the stuff. I know I need to make some changes. There is a lot of focus on 2012 and whether or not ancient prophecies about the end of the world are accurate. I don't know. It might be. I'm not going to focus on it, but I think that perhaps 2012 can have an amazing impact on the lives of everyone on the planet. If we choose for it to be. Rather than focus on the doomsday theories, we can all look at our lives and make the necessary adjustments. 2012 could be life changing for the global population. Hopefully it will be for the better. It starts with each of us individually.

Does Fiction Have to Be Fake?

I decided to write a bit of "fiction" for Helium.com.end of sentence. Think about that a bit, I think you'll figure out what I'm going for. I've been writing articles and stuff for Helium.com for almost two months now. I enjoy the whole operation they have going on over there. I'm writing, which I love, and earning money, which I hate, but see as a vital necessity of life these days. I'm not earning a sustainable income, but it is just nice to get something. So far I have mostly uploaded my songs to the creative writing channel.
Writing for Helium.com is different from writing for this blog. They want professionalism and fact for their articles. I want exploring thought and humor for my blog. As you are well aware if you are a regular reader of my posts, or if you read the first sentence of this one, that I do not follow form or rule when it comes to blog writing. I type in the manner of speaking, or more in the manner of thinking, to be accurate. Blogging allows me to think in type. Article writing on Helium.com requires me to work a bit and do more than just relate what I'm thinking about. Which I think is good for me. It helps me really think about a topic. I also sometimes do some research, so it expands my understanding of various topics. Each forum is different, but those differences help to make me a better overall writer. I hope.
Anyway, I came across the title Flash Fiction: The First Kiss while rating articles and decided to submit an entry to it myself. Much of art is just reflecting real life, so I thought I'd just share an actual experience and call it fiction. Sometimes I think that my real life isn't as interesting as the stories I see and read in movies and books are. After writing this short story, and remembering the experience, I no longer think that way.

Packaged Deals

Sometimes you just have to take the bad along with the good. This is evident in variety bags of candy. Recently I purchased a hefty amount of discount candy, following Halloween. It is great to have a good sized box of candy on hand. As I eat away at the candy, I notice that there seems to be less and less of the Snickers and Life Saver Gummies, and more and more of the Milk Duds and Jolly Ranchers. I don’t know if the Duds and Ranchers were represented more proportionately than the other candies were, but I know they are now. The Duds are good, but too chewy. The Ranchers are tasty, but too hard. As I look at the candy box now I wonder if these two types were thrown into the variety bags to get them to sell. I didn’t purchase either of them intentionally; they were just part of a collection of something else that I wanted.
Do candy companies make candy that no one wants? Is it possible that these less desirable types were thrown into bags with more desirable types just to get them out of the warehouse? Could there be a more egocentric approach to candy distribution? The answer to all three questions is no. The point is that this is what I thought of when I was looking at the box of candy with all of the little yellow boxes and thin colorful wrappers. For no other reason than that I simply don’t like them as much, I thought the Milk Duds and Jolly Ranchers were disliked by everyone. Does this have any relevance? Of course not, candy is candy. Discrimination regarding candy is perfectly alright.
If I used my candy frame of mind as my people frame of mind then you can see where problems might arise. And if you can see it, then share it with me, because as I think back over this example I’m trying to figure out what I mean. I don’t mean that if I see a large population of people I think that they are disliked and the manufacturer is simply trying to move his product. I don’t mean that at all, but that’s what I seemed to be implying by my statement of comparison. Originally I was only going to comment on how I thought that less favored candy was paired with more favored candy to get rid of it. But then my interest in society crept in and I started making connections. It just so happens that in this case the connection failed. Now, on with the show.
Packaged deals can either be a win/win for the customer or a win/win for the manufacturer. In either case, when it is win/win for one it is probably a win/lose for the other. For instance, Conan O’Brien is doing a contest of some sort. I saw a commercial for it (see www.teamcoco.com for more information). In this contest he is giving away 20 pine tree shaped car air fresheners. But that’s not all! He is also coupling a new car with the scented dangly tree. It’s a package deal. Win/win for the winner, as they get two good products. Win/lose for the sponsor as they give out a cheap thing and an expensive thing. In sales, only slightly different than giveaways, a package deal usually tries to couple a great thing to a not-so-great thing in order to make the not-so-great thing sell, or couple two not-so-great things together to make them seem less not-so-great.
If movies featuring The Rock aren’t selling, perhaps you couple them with movies featuring John Cena. Zing! I don’t actually have much experience to make such an accusation, but I know they are both TV wrestlers, so probably good targets. I actually like John Cena, from what I’ve seen of his non-wrestling work. I haven’t seen his wrestling work outside of the incessant commercials. Cena was on an episode of Psych and he was entertaining. Also, I’ve seen The Rock in some movie or another, and he’s an actor, as good as can be for also being a TV wrestler. I’m having trouble recalling his name. I could just look it up, but I choose not to. Again, I’m getting way off track, the point of this (poor) example is that when you have one mediocre movie, it might not sell well, but if you couple it with another mediocre movie and call it a deal then you’ll have a better chance of moving both. Win/win for the seller and win/lose for the consumer. You might think it would be lose/lose for the consumer, but they are getting two movies, usually for the price of one, so that’s really not so bad, even if the movies feature TV wrestlers in the lead roles.
Now that I’ve alienated the TV wrestling fans, here are some other packaged deals I thought of that couple bad stuff with good stuff: winter and cold, great power and great responsibility, and eating donuts and failing health. I’d like to suggest a new combination. How about coupling eating donuts with great power? It only makes sense since great responsibility and failing health are already couple together. Think about it. Fin.

Recipe for Humor: Literal and Out of Context

I don't think this title makes any sense. I guess you can just eat it then. I'll just give you a general idea, I'd say gist, but I never know how to spell gist. Actually I spelled it gyst and then searched for it and found that that is not at all what I mean. I also searched jist, which is urban slang for just, apparently. Finally I tried gist, which is the main point, and I have subsequently replaced my initial typing of gyst with the intended gist. Feel free to eat that as well, if you would like.

Once in a while people say things that if you give proper attention to you will see that they didn't give proper attention to what they said. I give you that sentence for proof. What? Man, people just don't think before they speak. But that's alright. It gives me something to take out of context, or make overly literal, and then laugh at.

Tonight I heard someone say that someone took a nasty fall. Now, given the context, I know that the fall was nasty, but I wonder, aren't all falls nasty? Can you ever fall and not be injured or embarrassed? Perhaps, it depends on your emotional and physical constitution, but I know I've ever fallen and then remarked on how pleasant it was. Saying it was a nasty fall isn't necessary. I'm not so sure anymore if this is an example of taking something out of context. Let's just say it is and then leave it at that.

This post seems to be falling apart as I type. I had an idea, but now as it fleshes out, maybe it wasn't exactly how I thought it was. Whatever that means. I'll just give you an example of how I think literal scrutiny can alter the message of words. The local news was reporting on a traffic accident. The anchor said "they" (whoever that is) don't think that speed or alcohol were factors in the accident. Okay, I'll allow that they can rule out alcohol so quickly, but really, you don't think speed was a factor? What happens in a traffic accident? Something hits something else. Some form of speed needs to be a factor. If neither of the objects which collide were moving, then they'd never collide. Speed, no matter how slow it can be measured, is a factor whenever two things collide. It is physics, or something.

Speaking of physics. I was splitting wood with some friends a week or so ago and we got a huge, knotted-up log stuck on the wedge. In case you are not familiar with the process of splitting wood with a hydraulic splitter, I recommend watching a documentary about it. This one gnarly log was totally jammed, fused even, onto the wedge. We pushed on it, kicked it and even threw other pieces of wood at it. We put another piece of wood on the slide and tried pushing it into the jammed log in an effort to force it through. No dice. No success either. You see that? I used a phrase that, taken literally, wouldn't have made any sense. Of course there weren't any dice. Maybe this post is going to turn out okay after all.

Back to the stuck piece of wood and physics. I had the brilliant idea that leverage would help put more force on the wood. I grabbed a longer and thinner branch; thinner than what we were splitting, it was probably still 4 inches thick. I used the branch as a ram and slammed it into the stuck piece of wood. One hit knocked it off. Before I had swung it, I told my comrades that physics was the answer. So when my plan was successful I threw down the branch, raised my arms triumphantly and jubilantly shouted "Physics!" I think it was the first, and it may likely be the last, time I have ever jubilantly shouted that word. I remember thinking about working that physics story into a post, but I don't think I ever did. Now that I have, I hope it was worth it. If I already have and you are aware of that, thank you for reading my blog so faithfully. Cheers.

Cruise Ship From Hell

I opened my Yahoo! Mail and was presented with this top headline:

Passengers await help on crippled cruise ship (AP)
AP - The nearly 4,500 passengers and crew of the Carnival Splendor
have no air conditioning or hot water. Running low on food, they have to eat
canned crab meat and Spam dropped in by helicopters. And for at least another 24
hours, they have no way out.

No way out? "Trapped" on a cruise ship in the Pacific ocean off the coast of Mexico. No air conditioning, as the article states, but the temperature is 62 degrees, Fahrenheit I assume, so do you really need air conditioning? The report didn't clarify between Fahrenheit and Celsius, so I'm assuming Fahrenheit, but if it is Celsius then I'll retract my criticism. 62 Celsius is 140 something Fahrenheit. That would be hot.

It is too bad that they don't have hot water, all they have is cold, running water. That's rough. Thankfully, the United States Navy has diverted an aircraft carrier to assist the cruise ship. They are bringing food to them. They are getting spam, canned crab, Pop-Tarts, and croissants. It's like camping in the living room of middle class America. Brutal.

Tug boats are currently huffing and puffing along, working to get the ship back to port. The passengers will then be bussed to California and then helped home from there. Unfortunately it is taking for-ev-er! to get that ship back to land. But they'll be safe, thanks to the escort of the U.S. Navy, the Mexican Navy and the U.S. Coast Guard. Safe from that cool ocean air and bright warm sun. Safe from errant shuttle board game pieces (I don't anything about the game).

I suppose the rescue process could be expedited if a general announcement were made to the people of Mexico. If Mexico is anything like the U.S., there are probably scores of people who would rush out to that big boat. Cold running water and plenty of safe food to eat? There are plenty of people in the world working all day to barely get that quality of life, and here these cruise people are suffering with it. It isn't fair to blame the passengers, I don't know their views on this subject. It could just be the cruise line publicists who are catastrophizing the event for the news reports, or perhaps it is the news reporters trying to make a story out of nothing. Whatever it is, I think it is ridiculous.

Just another example of the backwards priorities of the world at large. Prior to turning on the computer and finding this story I watched the Frank Capra film "You Can't Take it With You" (1938). The general message of the movie is to live life and trust in God. The blurb about the movie remarks on the eccentric family of Alice (Jean Arthur) and their interaction with her love interest Tony (Jimmy Stewart). Their eccentricities of doing what they enjoy, being with family, and not worrying about status clash with the straight-laced, upper class, status-focused parents of Tony. Alice's grandfather Mr. Vanderhof (Lionel Barrymore) says the phrase "you can't take it with you" when talking about the importance of living rather than acquiring a fortune. A movie with a message, how about that?

The contrast between the movie and the cruise ship story is fantastic. I love it. I only wish that in this case the movie had been real life and the real life had been the movie. Regardless of the fact that if real life were the way it was in the movie then I probably wouldn't be watching a movie about this cruise ship disaster.

Cruel and Unusual Punishment, Alive and Well

The 8th amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. Sometimes the Supreme Court interprets the Constitution to figure out how it applies to life in this country. The Supreme Court has never set forth a ruling regarding solitary confinement of prisoners relative to the 8th amendment. What could we possibly do to people that is more cruel than keeping them locked in an 8' by 10' room for 23 out of every 24 hours? Perhaps it is time for the high court to do something controversial that I might actually agree with. That sentence sounds very self-serving. And so it is. I think solitary confinement is the cruelest punishment, worse than death, and it ought to be eliminated from the corrections system. It represents the selfishness behind criminal justice.
Why do we have a criminal justice system? To protect the innocent, maintain order in society and rehabilitate offenders. At least that's what it's usually billed as. Unfortunately, I think the emphasis usually falls solely on the efforts of protecting society and punishing offenders. I believe in the law of consequence, so I'm not anti-punishment, but I do like the idea of not making it cruel or unusual. Of course, I don't really know what unusual means, and I could do without that part of it. I think there are some unusual punishments that are not necessarily cruel and might be rather effective. I digress. I think punishment is acceptable, if it is done appropriately with the correct intention. But I don't think that punishment should be the only focus of society. Why not help people improve their lives along the way?
Sure, it is easier said than done. You can't force someone to change their behavior. Not without seriously damaging their brains. People have to want to change. Someone with tendency towards crime has to want to stop being criminal before they can really stop the deviance. This is what makes involuntary incarceration necessary. Some people are penitent and wish to change, but are still incarcerated, involuntarily. There doesn't seem to be any way around incarceration. I think there are some crimes that shouldn't bring with them a sentence of prison, but that's for another discussion.
Solitary confinement is for the purpose of punishing convicts after they are already in prison. Solitary is the prison for the prison society. My primary concern with the prison system in general is that it tries to teach people to live in civilized society while placing them in a perverted version of society with all new folkways and mores. How do you teach someone to play basketball on a baseball diamond? I think it is difficult, at best, to rehabilitate or properly socialize a person in prison at all. Then when you take them out of all social contact and put them in a small room alone for 23 hours a day, forget about it. Everybody needs somebody. We are social by nature, when the ability to socialize is taken away, the individual suffers.
I like to spend time alone, but the thought of being in a small room all day without any contact with other people makes me feel claustrophobic. I can't imagine being locked up in solitary confinement. Of course, I can't imagine being locked up in prison. On the surface it seems like I'd rather leave the general population to have some respite in solitary confinement, but that is a very superficial thought. The situation would have to be really bad for me to want to leave a community and enter into solitary confinement, even if that community is the prison population.
People act how they are treated, more than we recognize or want to accept possibly. If we treat people like they are good for nothing but to be cast off, and that is exactly the message of solitary confinement, then those people might begin to act that way. Supporters of capital punishment (which I am not) and those who support the tough on crime movements probably have some questions for me. One question might be regarding how I think we ought to treat criminals. I don't think we should pat them on the back and say "you killed that guy really well, good job!" Not at all. I just think we ought to offer some options for a person to truly reform their behavior if they are willing to. You might ask "what's the point?" That is the question to answer. We all have to answer it for ourselves individually as well as collectively. What's the purpose of life? To lock up people who offend us so that they can never offend us again? Is it just so we can make our lives more comfortable? Yes, we all make our choices and reap the consequences, but what of forgiveness, mercy and compassion? Do we just write people off? Who do we write off, and when?
I watched a National Geographic documentary about solitary confinement, which is what got me thinking about this. The way our prisons are now aren't working. It isn't the fault of the correctional officers, administrators and support staff, or really any individuals in particular. Society as a whole is the problem. We are beyond a quick fix for the correctional institutions. The underlying problem lies in the socialization of everyone in this country. It is a big problem, and it needs solving. The answers are available, but we are all too proud and selfish to put them into practice. True story. We are all in this together. How do you feel about that? Let's do something about it.

Newest Social Networking Site: AmnesiaCapsule

People have been asking questions about the prudence of sharing your entire life over the Internet through social networking sites. For a while it seemed like it wasn't a good idea to be so careless with personal information and ridiculous pictures of yourself. Many have tried to take back control by deleting personal content or deactivating social networking accounts. You might be contemplating this option right now. Before you do, consider this message.
This is the story of Rudiger, a young man who was very much against social networking sites. He didn't want the world to know where he went to school, where he worked or when his birthday was. He didn't like the idea that random strangers across the globe could see pictures of him opening presents on his birthday, or see video of him playing Dance Dance Revolution. It wasn't important, he felt, to let everyone know what TV shows, products, and ideas (such as Not Being on Fire) that he liked or was a fan of. Rudiger was a private man and felt that these types of things were best shared in person with only close friends.
Rudiger never signed up with MySpace, and then the Facebook explosion happened and he sat through that without raising an eyebrow. Twitter came and went without so much as an acknowledging nod from Rudiger. Then, one Thursday afternoon, Rudiger was walking through the park and an errant baseball hit him in the head. When he awoke some hours later he had no recollection of who he was or what he liked to do. He didn't know who his friends were or if he even had any.
The doctors called for specialists and neurologists to help this man remember, but medical science couldn't help this time. As the doctors lamented over their failure to recover the young man's memory, a bright, 17-year-old volunteer from the local high school suggested finding the man's Facebook page. The doctors were astounded and demanded a laptop computer be brought to the man. Certainly they could find his social networking pages and then all of the important information would be readily available. Alas, poor Rudiger, in his stubborn desire to remain a private individual, hadn't any social networking affiliations. His affinity for meeting people with his exact name was lost. He no longer could remember which of his friends he associated with which Disney Princess. He wouldn't know when to adjust his clock for daylight savings because he didn't have an event reminder notification. It was lost. All of it was lost.
Don't let what happened to Rudiger happen to you. Sign up with as many social networking sites as you can. Fill in every box of information, accept every invitation. Play every game and add every application. These sites collectively serve as your amnesia capsule. In the event that you lose your memory, all you need to do is view these pages and you will remember exactly who you are. You will know that you like to take pictures of yourself in the mirror making kissy faces. Through the history of status updates you will know exactly what you were doing at certain points in time. You will know where you work, and quite possibly whether or not you like it. Most importantly, you will be connected with people you met once at a friend's house or someone you haven't spoken to in 15 years and they will be able to tell you all about yourself.
If you don't put all of this information into social networking sites, how will you ever recover from amnesia? Do it for yourself, but more importantly, do it for Rudiger.
[The preceding events were entirely make-believe and not founded in any sense of reality. Also, the views expressed therein do not accurately reflect the views of the author, this blog or any sensible human being. The words are intended to inspire thought and invoke laughter. You might call it satire, but you don't have to.]

My Favorite Sound

My favorite sound is palm muting on distorted electric guitar. You might not be familiar with this terminology, action or resulting sound. I will explain. On a guitar, there are strings. There are other parts of the guitar, such as the body, neck, head and bridge. The strings attach at the bridge, which is attached to the body, and then they run up the neck to the head. Tuning pegs on the head hold the other end of the strings and allow you to change the tension, thereby tuning the string's resonance to a specific frequency. I think I used those words appropriately, if I didn't, don't tell me, I can't handle criticism. Well, now that you have a perfect understanding of the parts and structure of a guitar, I will now teach you how to use the technique of palm muting.
We will pick up from the point where you are playing the guitar. If you can't get to that part on your own, well, I can't help you. So there you are, playing the guitar. The sound is up and the distortion is cranky. Whatever that is supposed to mean. Play a C chord. No, that's an F, move the finger structure up one string so that your ring finger is on the A3 fret, your middle finger is on the D2 fret and your pinky is on the R2 fret...HA HA! Just kidding! There isn't any R2 fret, but imagine if there were and you played it before you played the D2 fret. Do you dig it? Your pinky is actually on the B1 fret to round out the C chord, leave the G and e strings open. I use the lower class e to signify that it isn't the upper case E string.
With the proper chording of C, now place the pinky side edge of your palm on the strings, parallel to the bridge. You can either use a pick or the nail of your index finger to strum the keys. It is your preference. I typically use a pick. Using that pick, while keeping the edge of my palm on the strings lightly, strum the strings with only down strokes. This is palm muting. The sound is something like a crunch, steady and rhythmic. It enhances songs. Either as a slow building introduction to a song, or a transitional bridge, or an accompaniment during a verse. Oh, I can't explain it, and I don't think there are any pictures of palm muting, so I can't post one of those and give you 1,000 words worth of thinking. However, to quote fine arts illustrator Markus Hannonen, "A picture used to be worth a thousand words. New technology has knocked that down to a hundred and forty spaces." Which means that if I had a picture, it might not be any more explanatory than what I've typed so far. Thankfully I don't have Twitter. Enough said.
I will now link to a couple of music videos from YouTube featuring palm muting. Had I the time, software and desire I would splice together just the appropriate parts of these videos to give you a palm muting montage. Without that, I will simply type a few words to tell you where to listen for the palm muting. Enjoy.
Calling All Cars by Senses Fail Palm muting ensues from the very start. Also, this video highlights how ridiculous lip syncing looks in some music videos. I do enjoy the song, good band. Here are two other Senses Fail songs.
You're so Last Summer by Taking Back Sunday Again, palm muting leads into the song. And this song has some crafty palm muting as well.
All the Small Things by Blink 182 This song features palm muting during the verses as well as a build-up before the final chorus. Another good one from Blink 182, palm muting in the beginning.
Cool Kids by Screeching Weasel Palm muting through most of it, plus a homemade cartoon to accompany the song. Here's a palm muting gem.

A Few Things

Check this: Thoreau said something about being true to your friend, your work, yadda yadda and other stuff, but he missed the part about being true to your school. While I don't particularly care for being true to your school, I do like The Beach Boys, and they said to be true to your school. So when I read the quote from Thoreau I thought about being true to your school as well as that other stuff that the guy said. Enough about this.
I'm watching 30 Rock, streaming it through the Wii. Pretty rad. Well, I love 30 Rock. It is fantastic. They come up with some of the best one-liners ever. EVER! So many good ones that I can't seem to remember any right now, but believe me, they are there. Just watch an episode and you'll laugh. I will warn you that some of the content gets a little risque sometimes; I'd put it on par with Seinfeld, as far as content. Liz Lemon is great. I like when she says "What the what?!" or just plain "what?" I'll answer the question of "what?" The answer is: great show. When I watch I laugh out, loudly even, and sometimes I clap.
I was thinking today about a strange thing I saw recently. About a month and a half ago recently. I was driving with some friends and saw a squirrel lying on the roof of a car parked on the side of the road. It was pretty obvious that the squirrel was dead. I saw it as I passed and was able to discern all of this. At first I thought someone put a dead squirrel on a car. That would have been mean. The idea came to me as I drove away. I looked in the rear view mirror and noticed the power pole right next to the car. I deduced that the squirrel electrocuted itself on the power lines and then fell on top of the car. I apologize for not making this story more entertaining. I probably could have. Oh well. I liked how I figured out the COD of the deceased, the unconfirmed, strictly assumed, COD (COD is the acronym for cause of death, in case you didn't know).

What Are You Doing Here?

Whatever happened to service with a smile? I'll tell you, it has been replaced by service with a snarl. Not in every case, but enough to notice, you will see customer service representatives showering you with contempt or retailers patting you on the back with one hand and picking your pocket with the other. The snarl can be because they hate you or because they are pretending to smile. I don't think the intent is to serve customers anymore. The purpose of business these days is to get rich and gain the advantage over everyone in sight.
But what is the world worth? Suppose you gain it all? Power, money and fame. So what? I'm not even talking about keeping up with the Jones', we all know that that mentality is based in simple-minded selfish pride. Does that sound harsh? I hope it does, because competition over who has the most expensive or just plain "the most" stuff is childish. What my neighbor has, that I wish I had, is of no consequence to me. It serves no functionality to covet. When has coveting ever been good? No, this isn't about keeping up with the Jones', this is about a desire that comes from within the individual that just wants more stuff. I don't even know what to call it. Of course it reduces to pride, but it seems that there has to be some name for it. Selfishness doesn't seem severe enough, but I suppose it does fit the bill.
What does fame, power and possession do for a person? These give a sense of fulfillment, but it is fleeting, much like the way drugs give a fleeting high. Like a drug induced high, the sense of fulfillment that comes from fame, power and possession builds thresholds. Subsequent exposure requires more substance to present a similar high. This is why power corrupts. It provides feeling of accomplishment and fulfillment, but eventually you get used to it. Then you need more. Attention (fame) works the same way. Do you think it happens this way with possessions as well?
There seems to be a drive inside every person which directs their choices. The desired end result focuses the drive. There seems to be no limit to the variety of desired end results. For many the end result desired is found through religion. Others find it in basic service and humanity. Others look to a career. There are countless goals. This is where fame, power and possession come into play. Some people place supreme importance on the gather of these things and status markers. It is in regards to all of this that I ask the question, "What are you doing here?" What is your purpose? If you don't know what you are doing here, then how do you decide what to do? Without a goal we are hapless creatures existed on instinct alone. We are no better than any animal on the planet. I believe we have divine nature, that we are children of God. We are on a higher plane of existence than animals because of this relationship we share with God. I wouldn't say we are better, as they too are creations of God, but there is a different relationship, which holds greater responsibility and greater privilege, held by humans.
I can only say subjectively that every person has a greater end goal than fame, power and possession. It is an objective truth to me, but I have only subjective experience to support it. I offer that it can become an objective truth to anyone willing to ask the right questions in the right spirit to the right source. I think it is important that we ask these questions and find answers. If I don't know have an end goal then what am I living and working for? There has to be some purpose. I suggest that it is a collective purpose, possibly unrecognized by some, but still worked for, that keeps anarchy at bay. It isn't political government that maintains the peace, it is a collectively shared purpose that does so. Yet so many of us, some always and others occasionally, just drift through life without purpose or reason, never knowing which way to go. I'll be so bold as to say that every problem in this world is a result of this drifting. If we each had a purpose and valiantly stuck to the attainment of that purpose, and it was a good purpose, then all problems would diminish. Not disappear, but diminish. There would still be sickness and accident, death and debate, but it would all be bearable.
This is the way to fix everything. Each person honestly ponders what they are doing here. They give it time, years if necessary. They develop a purpose that is good and then they do all they can to achieve it. At the expense of fame, power and possession. There is something that is greater than all that man has ever thought up or put together with his hands. To find that and then dedicate every resource to it is the ultimate path of life. Every person will take an individual path, but that doesn't mean that every path is unique. We will all be rewarded with what we want the most. We show what we want the most by our actions coupled with the intent behind them. It is easy to fool others, it is even easy to fool ourselves. We might profess that we want to do one thing, but then behave contrary to it, and then reason that we have to do the one as a means to the end of the other. I don't think it is that convoluted. It is simple. Determine what we want, and then do those things that lead to it. Don't go left to go right, go right to go right. This message is as much to me as it might be to anyone else. What am I doing here, and for what purpose am I doing it?

Well, There's Your Problem

From capitalism to communism, liberalism to conservatism, there are plenty of -isms to blame for all of life's woes. Here's one you are probably familiar with, but don't know it yet: mine-ism. It isn't a political ideology, but people are loyal to it. It isn't a theological ideology, but people reverence it. Mineism takes the worst bits of all of the other -isms and rolls them up into one nasty bit of personality deficiency.
Capitalism lends the desire to succeed and accomplish and gain more. Capitalism provides the freedom for people (who put forth the required effort) to succeed. When it gets out of hand, capitalism can become a hot-bed for greed. Greed is the downside and greed is what capitalism shares with mineism. What can I get? That is the mineist's question. Actually it's more like "What can I get?" and "Give it to me now." I think give it to me now is the motto of the mineist.
Communism lends the need to pull other people down. In communism, it isn't enough for you to work hard, you need to make sure that everyone around you is working just as hard. There are no rewards for those who are willing to put in extra effort, only punishment because their work isn't rewarded. Mineism has the attitude that no one else is as good as you so they don't deserve what they have, and instead you deserve it because you are you. After all, who could be better than you? Self is supreme. So take that piece of communism that says no one deserves more than you and add it to that "Give it to me now" mentality.
Liberalism lends entitlement. You have a right to housing, food, education, nutrition, automobile safety, a job, etc, etc, etc. You are entitled to everything, says liberalism. You needn't work for it or put forth any effort. This is the bad side of it. It is good to support other people and for all of us to take care of one another, but it is not right when it comes as a mandate from the state. Social programs and entitlement programs are essentially state mandated care for others. It takes the ownness off of the individual and puts it on the collective. When you take responsibility away from the individual you hurt their ability to be self-reliant; you destroy their ability to be independent. Mineism thrives on entitlement.
Conservatism is harder to pinpoint the bad side because it is where my bias lies. To me conservatism is what society now calls "traditional values." To me it is faith in God and the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness (also the originally planned word "possessions"). Of course there are no perfect -ism generalizations, so I'm not saying that all non-conservatives are god-less and don't support the basic inalienable rights factored into the founding of the United States of America. I am saying that this is the way I view conservatism and as it is the politically related label that I would apply to myself, if I were to apply any, so I am less likely to look for and notice the bad aspects of it. But they are there. I guess it isn't harder to find, I'm just less likely to see it right away. Enough of that, here's the mineism-conservatism connection: close mindedness.
Conservatism gets a reputation of close mindedness partly because some people labeled this way are very dedicated to their beliefs which they have put a lot of work and thought into developing, and the other part is because some people are just close minded. Again, I don't think being close minded is a monopoly held by conservatism, but I do think that it is the biggest downside of the -ism. Mineism is completely close minded. Mineists don't care what you think or what might be better. To a mineist, if they think it or they want to do it, it is the best way. Take your empirical research, science and testimony based on personal experience and throw it out to sea. The mineist knows whats best (for everyone).
Mineism is the worst -ism of all. We are all mineists to some degree. "Mine" is a dangerous word, with and without the word "land" attached to the front of it. With it, well, you get the idea, but without it it can be just as explosive and fatal. Other than our ability to be agents for ourselves in making moment-by-moment choices, what can we really say is our own? What really is mine other than agency? Even the power of agency has been given to me by God, so while I exercise it, it wouldn't be mine without His gifting it to me, so is it fully mine? I guess it is, but the resultant consequences aren't fully mine, if I accept Jesus Christ and allow his atonement to cover me (for an explanation of what I mean here, leave a question in the comment section).
To me, the sum of all of this is that we have to do as John F. Kennedy suggested and ask what we can do for our country. But not just our country, also our family, our friends and everyone else we see. It is good to work hard and acquire items that make life livable and comfortable. It is good to seek to improve the lives of all people around us. It is good to be understanding of people and their individual situations. It is not good to seek gain for pride, or to push people down to make ourselves feel higher, or to ignore the needs of others in pursuit of our own interests, or to take away someone's independence and give them everything for nothing.
I don't fully know what mineism is. I had the idea tonight and I've tried to brainstorm a definition in the typing of this post. There is something plaguing society today, and at the very rootiest rooty root (I can't type seriously for very long without having to throw in some bit of nonsense) of it is pride. Pride is the easy culprit, to which humility is the easy antidote. Though not easy in doing, only easy in defining. It seems too broad to be able to generate a solution for it, but since pride is the root, and pride is an individual issue, maybe it is the best target to aim for.
What do you think?

The Last of the Red Leaf-hicans

Fall is having a midlife crisis. About a month into it and just under two months until it is officially over. In the picture, as you can see, at least, I assume if you can read this you can see the picture, I hope that's not overly presumptuous, if it is, so be it. That sentence got hijacked by my tangent. I'll just resume it as though none of this happened. The red leaves picture here are the last ones in the area. I saw them hanging solo and decided to get a picture. Then I noticed the tree across the creek that is full of bright yellow leaves. I think it turned out to be a pretty solid picture. I like the greyish-blue appearance of the water in the midground with the red in the fore and the yellow in the back. Primary colors, right? Dig it.
Now for something entirely different. A few days ago I was chatting with Bugsy. We got on the topic of movie content ratings and decency standards on television. I guess that's what we were talking about. We talked about how smoking used to be cool in movies and on TV, and now they are thinking about making smoking a reason for a restricted (R) rating for movies. If you have too much smoking in your movie it will be rated R. Then Bugsy suggested that they'll have to start blurring cigarettes when they play those movies on TV. I think that is a funny concept, but with these nut jobs out there it seems plausible. Think about it. Every year the content on TV seems to be getting "edgier" and more risque than the year before. People are wearing less and less clothing and using more and more abrasive language. So I see this change coming to movies on TV. The blurred spots will leave naked bodies and occur over a lit cigarette. Then rather than bleeping swears they'll start bleeping the word cigarette. I guess it depends on what you see as the more dangerous image, people smoking or people naked. I have a solution.
My solution is this: specialized television channels. When you order cable or satellite you pick out specific channels you want. No more of these package deals with 6 versions of the home shopping network and 4 different CSPANs. In this way, you can control what types of shows are being brought into your home without impeding the entertainment desires other people. I think the best case scenario would be when the worst stuff on TV just wasn't being made, but realistically, I don't see that happening. Rather than censorship, just change the way the product is obtained. ESPN is strictly sports and CNN is strictly news; CSPAN is strictly boring and MTV is strictly idiotic. They can then make channels that are strictly high decency standards and ones that are low decency standards. You might be thinking, "well, don't they already have that?" Have you watched the channels that are supposed to be targeted towards children and families? The ABC Family channels plays a lot of stuff I wouldn't watch with my family.
Maybe this solution is terrible. The home shopping channels probably think it is. Who would ever request those channels specifically? Three people. That's probably it. I suppose that is why they get grouped into the package deals. Well, tough luck. Why should people have to pay for 70 channels when they only watch 6 of them? So 5 dozen or so channels go off the air? No one else has jobs these days, so they can just join the crowd. I don't mean that, I'm just typing things. Correction, I was just typing things.

Where is the Line Between Flattering Imitation and Legal Plagiarism?

Some movies are remade after a few decades to bring a story to a new generation. Some of these movies are successful. Others ought never have been made. One of these remakes was the 1997 made-for-TV version of the 1957 classic 12 Angry Men. I have not seen the remake, so I guess I can't slam it too much (not that lack of knowledge has ever stopped me from expressing opinion before), but I am a fan of the original film version. The original movie was nearly perfect, so I don't see any reason for it to have been remade. It seems to me that it is just an attempt at profiting from old success. 12 Angry Men tells a timeless story of integrity and humanity. How can you improve on perfection? Well, I can't think of any other movie remakes that weren't necessary except for Miracle on 34th Street, Annie and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (you know what I'm talking about, I don't remember the exact names of the Gene Wilder and Johnny Depp versions). Each of these movies were sufficient in their original states. This is a pretty subjective topic though. And a case could be made that the newer Chocolate Factory with Depp as Wonka is more accurate based on the book, which I haven't read, but I'm going to stick with my preference for the Wilder version. Anyhow, flattering imitation or legal plagiarism?
This process also shows up in television when a popular series is turned into a movie. This line of thinking has nothing to do with my original intent behind this posting, I'm just using it as a segue to mention something. I thought McHale's Navy was a remake of a movie, but it is a movie version of an old TV show. So I had to change the subject slightly so I could say that anything with Tom Arnold is unnecessary. That being said, we return to the intended topic.
I am a romantic. Whatever that means (according to the second definition of the word romantic at dictionary.reference.com it is to be fanciful and impractical). I like the movie You've Got Mail. I think it is a nice story. I don't know how relatable it is to me; I'm not a rich bookstore owner like Tom Hanks' character, nor am I an out of work former little bookstore owner woman like Meg Ryan's character. Regardless of being able to directly relate to the characters, I like the story. I only learned recently that it is a remake of the movie The Shop Around the Corner. If you are familiar with Got Mail you will know that Ryan's store is called The Shop Around the Corner. Now that name makes sense. I finally watched the original movie last night. I like it.
Jimmy Stewart played Tom Hanks (use your imagination, you'll follow what I'm saying) and Margaret Sullavan played Meg Ryan in the 1940 film. The story had some subtle differences. Strike that. The two stories had some subtle similarities, but most of the details were entirely different. Could you watch one and then the other and not realize they were the same story? Of course not, but you can watch one and then the other and not feel like you just watched the same movie twice. Both are good, but The Shop Around the Corner is probably a little better.
I would say that in the battle of Hanks/Ryan vs. Stewart/Sullavan, the verdict is flattering imitation. Whereas with 12 Angry Men, the verdict is legal plagiarism. Since this is my blog, I am not going to give evidence for either declaration. I've grown tired of typing at the moment.

Farming...The Wizard of Oz...Halloween

I was just wondering, is it still a scarecrow if it scares me? Does it become a scareman at that point?

Forbes' 2010 Most Powerful Women List

First of all, this is a stupid list. Most pop-culture lists are stupid. That's not fair. The lists aren't stupid, they are just unnecessary. As is most stuff, like this blog, but don't stop reading now, you might find something entertaining.
A few months ago I wrote about the Forbes.com list about best colleges or something, read it here. I'm not familiar with Forbes and their lists, other than that I read the college one (only so I could later ridicule it) and I happened upon an article about the new most powerful women in the world! list. The article is from the Daily Caller, and they explain the insanity quite well. I recommend clicking on that hyperlink and reading about it yourself. All I want to say is that a list of this nature with Lady Gaga in the top ten is unreal. She wore a dress made out of steaks to an award show. She is powerful? Powerful in what way? Like Pavlov? I don't get it. The list should have been made up of 50 mothers who put their children and families first. Mothers who shape the lives of their children and give their kids the best shot at being well adjusted and successful in life are the powerful ones. Not pop-singers with personality disorders.
I had something else on my mind to share, but I've forgotten what it was. This will have to suffice for tonight. NO. I remember, I wanted to call out Forbes for making shoddy lists. Hey Forbes! You make lousy lists these days. You should get better at it, whoever you are. I don't even know what Forbes is or who they represent. Now that will have to suffice.

But Who Will Critique the Critics?

If you read only one of my blog posts during all of today, make this the one, it is critical. Everyday there are food critics who make a living on television shows. Some go to restaurants, some make the food in their own television-studio kitchens. I like these shows. They are entertaining, for sure, but the hosts are committing crimes against language. My favorite TV food folks are Adam Richman, Alton Brown, Guy Fieri and Giada De Laurentiis. I like their shows, but they are all guilty of these criminal colloquialisms.
I imagine it isn't easy to conduct a television program based on food reports. We aren't able to smell or taste the food for ourselves, as the audience, so the host assumes the responsibility of describing those sensations for us. Here lies the problem; there are only so many words to describe taste and smell. Delicious and scrumptious are nice, but they can't be used for every type of dish, nor can they really relate the particular flavor signatures. These TV personalities, in the interest of having something else to say, make up absurd adjectives, but it isn't even that they are absurd (I just wanted to use alliteration again), it's more that they are repetitious. Well, some are plain absurd, I give you "The meltiness of the cheese." The repetitious ones include "The nuttiness of the nuts," "The hotness of the jalapenos," and "The meatiness of the steak."
I'm sure you know what I'm talking about, if you've ever watched any of those shows. I don't mean to harsh on these people, I like to watch the shows, but sometimes I just find the words they use laughable. I laugh at it. And sometimes it annoys me.
Perhaps there isn't any better way to describe potatoes than by saying "the starchiness," or salted meats than by saying "the saltiness," or lettuce than by saying"the crispness." Maybe it is just the crankiness of me.

New Gap Logo Uproar: Are People Really This Stupid?

Apparently Gap decided to change their logo and not tell anyone. Okay. Now all the people talking on the Internet are feeling left out, or something. The buzz is that Gap made the change and didn't give sufficient warning to the public, also, the change was too dramatic and quick. I'm really not sure about the need for public warning, this wasn't a fire drill, they changed the way they write their name on their clothing labels. Why is that anyone's business but their own? I just don't get it. What I do get is that the change was extremely drastic and fast. There wasn't any working up to the change. I don't know if I'm allowed to post the logo here, copyright stuff or whatever, but I'm not trying to "dis" on the Gap, so I'm just going to run with it, here are the logos:

I am borrowing this image from here, it shows the new one on the left and the old one on the right, but you probably already knew that. When looking at them side by side, all I can say is wow. What a difference. Seriously (not). I can't believe how brash the Gap is with this change, didn't they think about the children...the children who loved the old logo and depended on it as a rock of stability in this uncertain time we live in?! O, Gap! Your new logo looks like a high school graphic design class assignment! (I've never bought from you before, but) I'll never buy from you again! You spurned my loyalty (is what I might say if I was as insane as all of the people who are offended by this change, and if I had ever been loyalty to them before, there's that to consider, too)! I can never trust you again. If I buy a pair of pants from you, how can I be sure that tomorrow they will not be all different, like, have another different presentation of your name on the label. Your clothing, which is the real product, hasn't changed a bit, but the appearance of the name on the label, which will remain hidden inside the waist line, has changed, albeit only slightly. And you never consulted me. Didn't you know I'm entitled?
Well, my friends, what you have just read is an example of satire. The human folly I have derided with my wit (I just defined the word satire, based on the definition given by the American Heritage® Dictionary) is that of the people all over the web who have complained about the Gap logo. I don't see how it falls to anyone to complain about a business changing their logo. I'd understand if their product was changed, but I don't see how it is. If you do, let me know. I guess none of it really matters because after a few days of criticism, Gap folded under the pressure and reverted to the original logo. Which leads me to the real meat of this posting: CONSPIRACY THEORY!
Gap is smarter than everyone who complained about this change. Why didn't they tell you about it? Why didn't they do sufficient focus group marketing research? Because this was the marketing campaign! They used you, chump! Gap was broke (just like the old Black Power Ranger actor, Zach Taylor, who I just saw on a banking commercial) so they decided to stir up some business-by-controversy (a trick they learned from the government, zing!) and made some stupid looking logo during a lunch break, plastered it on the web and the whole thing was done in five minutes, for no cost. They left the rest to you. Do you realize how much free advertising Gap just got? To sum it up: Gap was broke, they made a small change to their website, people with nothing better to be concerned with and who like to complain lit up the web forums and comment boxes with criticism, Gap "gave in" to popular consent and now Gap has a boost in store visits because they fixed their mistake and followed the voice of the people.
Okay, I don't know if my conspiracy theory plays out. But if this was planned, it was a genius bit of marketing. My final thought is directed to the haters of the short-lived new Gap logo, that thought is this: YOU GOT PUNKED!