My two cents

Welcome to the latest feature in the tradition of (all the other features where I just throw a bunch of random crap together in one post), My Two Cents!  Today, I have several things to sound off about, including:

-The HORRIBLE refereeing in the NFL this year.  NOT ONLY did not one, but two officiating crews get their wee-wees spanked by the league last week;  not only can I honestly say that I heard announcers say to the effect of, "I can't believe that call" in at least half of the games Sunday (and mind you, that's just the sections of games you get on NFL RedZone), but one of those very refereeing crews that got disciplined last week (not to mention names, Jeff Triplette) reviewed a call in which everyone plainly saw that a player got tripped near the goal line, fell flat prior to crossing the goal line, and bounced across the line.  The ref on the field called a touchdown, and even the announcers (Greg Gumbel and Dan Dierdorf) said he had been tripped by an opponent and was down before crossing the goal.  And when Triplette (oops, there I went and named him) announced his review decision, It went like this:

Ref: ...the runner was not down by contact before crossing the goal line, TOUCHDOWN."
Dierdorf:  ARE YOU KIDDING ME???
Gumbel: What did he think made him trip?

Later, the ref explained to pool reporters that they had basically ignored everything but if he had been touched AFTER he hit the ground.  Mind you, the runner never got up and crossed the line- he hit the ground and bounced across.

If that's not enough, at least two all-pro players (Minnesota's Adrian Peterson and Seattle's Richard Sherman) chanced hefty fines by speaking out (Sherman on the team's website, AP on Twitter) about poor officiating costing their teams their games.

In the meantime, the league's best ref, Ed Hoculi, was stuck in this mess in Philly:

A field that had just been swept prior to kickoff had two inches of snow on it before the first score went up, and Hoculi sadly said, "We can't see the goal lines."

Oh, speaking of Football, unless Dez Bryant and Dallas' kicker and Defense score 20 points to Matt Forte and Jason Witten's 0, those of you supporting "Team Laurie" will get your wish with an all-Laurie Super Bowl in our fantasy league.  I'm down, but I ain't out yet!


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Next, Nelson Mandela.  Since he died, we've been barraged by those praising him (including our far from original President, who stole the line about Lincoln, "Now he belongs to the ages,), and those reminding us of his terrorist beginnings and communist leanings.  And my first instinct is to go along with the latter, but consider-  when he was fighting against Apartheid, the only way to get any attention in Africa was to be on one side or the other of the Cold War, and the US of A was using South Africa's Apartheid government as their proxy against Russia and their Cuban proxys in Angola.  Thus, he had few other places to turn.  Also, consider that his communist leanings were like those in the rest of Africa- once the money dried up, so did the communists.  South Africa is a western-style democracy now- and no more Apartheid.

And a word about Apartheid.  It came into power as the British colonial governments turned over the reins to the white citizens who were afraid of losing their rule to the blacks.  Not necessarily noble, but look at any of the black governments from Mali to Zimbabwe, and what is happening in any of them (for example, the CAR where French forces are trying to re-establish order as we speak), and ask yourself if you REALLY blame them.

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Next up, the anniversaries of Pearl Harbor on Saturday and John Lennon's murder on Sunday.  I've gotten to a point that I avoid these anniversaries, because so many bloggers do a fine job without me.  But for what it's worth, here's my tuppence.  As for Pearl- it shouldn't have had to come to that.  But nobility calls for us to wait to be struck before we can fight for what's right.  In the mean time, the women of Nanking are raped.  Or the citizens of Phnom Pehn are slaughtered.  Or a US Ambassador dies in Benghazi.  Then we can fight.  If then.  Because the United States is ALWAYS in the wrong.  At least if you listen to the same people that allowed all that, we are.  Never mind, they are of the same party that supported slavery, the existence of which is often used as proof that the US of A is always wrong.  Funny, I've often heard it said that all white folks should apologize for slavery, but I NEVER hear that Democratic Party apologize for championing the cause of slavery for half a century.

As to Lennon,  I mentioned this in a comment on Bouncin' Barb's tribute (see here) - Nobody deserves to die like that, just for coming out into the public.  Even a "godless communist" like John.

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At this point, I'd like to discuss the Multi-ply machine at work.  This is kinda like my machine, purchased in order to cut the carpet orders that will one day flow into our plant.  Right now, we're using it to cut enclosures.  What's an enclosure?

The enclosure we built custom for pontoons.  As you can see, there are sections of fabric (cut on MY machine), and sections of "glass" (aka thick clear plastic) and screen mesh, which we cut on the multi because it REALLY ruins my blades.  But my point here is not the enclosure, but the multi, the most user-unfriendly machine not powered by some tiny, smart mouthed dinosaur deep inside.  First, unlike my machine which has a plastic conveyor belt with holes for the vacuum to grip the material, the multi sucks through a half belt made up of what might best be described as 3X3 squares of the prickly side of Velcro all grown up.  So you need to go up the side by the controls first, pulling up your material, which immediately sticks to the squares.  Then you climb through the rack that holds the material roll to straighten it on the edge of the belt.  THEN, you have to work your way around an enormous vacuum-exhaust tube in order to straighten the other side.  All the time, you are trying to avoid hitting any of the two dozen emergency stop buttons that prickle the machine like a porcupine with mange.  If you somehow get it straight enough, far enough up the belt, and covered sufficiently with the plastic necessary to hold in the vacuum, you next will have to watch out for where the "Velcro" part of the belt transitions to the more traditional "I don't need no steenkin' vacuum" belt that takes stuff to the other end.  Because you then have a "cow-catcher" that (in theory) carries the material over the gap.  Problem being, as the squares get used, they get gaps between them... and the vacuum sucks up the material into the depths of the gaps and thence under the cow catcher.  If you catch it immediately, you have a 50% chance of getting your part out without damage.  If you wait a little too late, you have a 75% chance of having the maintenance guy come over and remove the plate the cow-catcher is attached to FROM BOTH SIDES to pull the now destroyed part out.  And woe to you if you decide to hit one of the many e-stops to halt the thing rather than the ONE pause button (which is on the constantly moving control panel), because at that point, the machine forgets what you're cutting, and the process to get it back is every bit as clunky as everything else about the damn thing.


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Finally, here's how my hockey teams are doing.

Rouen, France, 12-0-1, in first by 12 points.
SonderjyskE, Denmark, 15-4-0, 1st by 1 point.
Reckord VSV, 18-9-3, 2nd 4 points out.
Stavenger, Norway, 14-6-3, 2nd 10 points out.
Sanok, Poland, 15-8-4, 3rd 14 points out.
Sheffield, UK, 12-7-2, 3rd 7 points out.
Val Pusteria, Italy, 11-6-2, 4th 6 points out.
JYP Jyvaskyla, Finland, 14-10-7, 5th 17 points out.
Grizzly Adams Wolfsburg, Germany, 14-8-4, 5th 4 points out.
Ocelari Trinec, Czech Rep., 13-12-4, 6th 14 points out.
Lokomotiv Yaroslavl, KHL (Russia), 13-12-9, 14th (of 28) 23 points out.
Farjestad, Sweden, 10-11-8, 8th 25 points out.
Geneve Servette, Switz., 10-12-9, 8th 19 points out
Tohoku Free Blades, Asia, 9-10-3,th 22 points out.
Fort Wayne Komets, ECHL, 6-8-6, 13th (of 22) 15 points out.
Martin, Slovakia, 9-14-8, 8th 27 out.
Lida, Belarus, 9-19-3, 7th 58 points out.
NY Islanders, NHL, 5-17-8, 28th of 30 46 points back.

Time Machine week 96 (but actually 96 and 97)

It's December 6th, 1971.  Today and tomorrow, roughly 120 soldiers of India's 23rd Battalion A company held off an invading Pakistani force of two to three thousand of the 51st Infantry Brigade PLUS the tanks of the 22nd Armored Regiment at a place called Longewalla, through a full-moon night until the day broke and the Indian Air force came in and chewed them to bits, killing 200 Pakistanis to 2 Indians, and destroying 34 tanks.  On the other side of the subcontinent, Bangladesh was officially recognized as a nation by both India and Bhutan... but not here.

You see, in the US of A, President Nixon and Henry Kissinger were playing a deeper game against the USSR and Red China, playing their "new buddies" who supported Pakistan against the nasty Russians who supported India.  Unfortunately, that involved the government being on the side of Pakistani genocide.  Now, we were nine going on ten then, and we kept up with such things.  Oblivious to Nixon trying to bait China into getting involved, we knew a lousy situation when we saw it and we all supported India and Bangladesh- just as we would two years later when we supported and loudly cheered Israel's war despite Nixon all but threatening to cut off aid if they didn't knock it off.  I know he had realpolitik reasons for his choices, but we only saw the truth of the thing.


Welcome back, believe it or not, to Time Machine as we rumble towards our upcoming one hundredth episode of volume II!  Now, for you newbies, that doesn't make for 100 Time Machine posts- there was a volume one that ran 89 posts;  specials on the first Thanksgiving and Christmas (2010) and the second Memorial Day (2011); The Hal David Memorial (my #2 all-time most viewed post); the inaugural Beauty Contest episode; and the One-Hit Wonder special, for a total of 191- plus the related Great Sixties/Seventies/Eighties Countdowns, which we could stretch a point and add, which would put us at 240 posts this week!  But this week is something we've never done before- combine two weeks into one to make up for this year's Thanksgiving No-Show!  That's right, we'll have TWO top tens, two sets of debuts, a big pile of belated and un-belated birthdays- and one, count 'em ONE six degrees that will take us from the second drummer for Yes to... the FIRST drummer for Yes!  Hang on with both hands!

To shorten things up a bit, we will eschew the international #1s (they all are still listening to Mamy Blue anyway) and just look at the local areas.  In Detroit, WKNR and CLKW both had Family Affair at the top last week, and replaced it this week with Brand New Key.  Minneapolis' 2 stations had a thing for Bread;  KDWB had Baby I'm-A Want You at the top this week, but Sunshine (Go Away Today) last week, while WDGY had them last week, with Family Affair this week.  Family Affair captured both weeks in LA, Pittsburgh, and this week at Chicago's WLS; and Shaft took the other week at WLS and both weeks at WCFL.  See, that wasn't too confusing!

Say, wasn't this just a political post?

Debuts on the hot 100 this week include:  Out of 16 last week, some that you'll recognize from the list on the Scrappy World News post- at 94, Charlie Pride's Kiss An Angel Good Morning; two versions of I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing- And stop me if you've heard this one (just kidding there).  The song was created as a Coke jingle, and the New Seekers were asked to record it, but they were too busy at the time.  So producer Al Ham threw together a group of singers (dubbed the Hillside Singers for the group of kids on a hillside that lip-synched the commercial) that included his wife and daughter, two guys named Shaw, and two couples named Marino, and they recorded it.  But it became so popular, people wanted to buy it as a record- which is where the New Seekers became "un-busy", and this week the Hillside Singers come in at #95 and the New Seekers at #82 with it.

Also in week one, Al Green comes in at 77 with Let's Stay Together;  The Guess Who at #73 with Sour Suite; and Don McLean at #70 with American Pie.

This week, there were 10 debuts, including the Grateful Dead with Truckin' at 93, Carly Simon with Anticipation (also a classic TV ad) at 81, and Badfinger's Day After Day at #78.  Our birthday tunes I threw into one big bunch, so they can all celebrate together.  Turning thirty, we have:  Genesis'  That's All, Culture Club's Karma Chameleon, Eddie Money's The Big Crash, Nightranger's Rock In America... and Jump In The Saddle with The Curly Shuffle...

Oh, wise guy!!!

Turning 35, we have:  the Eagles' Please Come Home For Christmas, The Blues Brothers with their cover of Sam and Dave's Soul Man, and yet another "Chris has to stop and tell a story."  Nigel Olsen, a member of Elton John's band, hit with a song called Dancin' Shoes.  This song was written by Carl Storie of the Indianapolis-based Faith Band, who would chart with their own version the next week.  The Faith Band, who actually did have achievements beside coming up with the best lp title of all time (1977's Excuse Me, I Just Cut An Album), fought their way in 8 weeks up to #63, while Olsen would peak at 17 some time later.

Turning 40 this week, BTO's Blue Collar, Barbra Streisand's The Way We Were, Love Unlimited Orchestra's Love's Theme, Ringo Starr's You're 16, and ELO's Showdown.  Turning 45, Canned Heat's Going Up The Country, Jimi Hendrix's Crosstown Traffic, The Supremes and the Temptations with I'm Gonna Make You Love Me, Brooklyn Bridge's The Worst That Could Happen, and Sly and the Family with Everyday People.  Turning 50 are Bobby Vinton's There I've Said It Again and the Trashmen with Surfin' Bird.  Turning 55, Ritchie Valens with Donna, and the Chipmunk Song; and finally turning 60, Patti Page's Secret Love.  Take a deep breath, and Blow Out The Candles...


That brings us to our 45 at 45, and this week we have a song called Shake by Shadows Of Knight, famous for the garage hit Gloria.  Gloria was originally done by Van Morrison's group Them, whose version was banned on many stations for a line "she comes to my room, then she made me feel alright" , which SOK changed to  "she called out my name, that made me feel alright" .  The change was good enough to net them a top ten hit, but later singles didn't pan out.  Lead guitar Jerry McGeorge left to join psychedelic rockers HP Lovecraft;  Bassist Joe Kelley formed his own blues group; Hawk Wolinski, who took over on bass when Kelley switched to lead, and drummer Tom Schiffour formed Bangor Flying Circus, and Schiffour was at first replaced by a fan.  (Schiffour was replaced later in BFC by one Michael Tegza, who had been in the now-failed HP Lovecraft.)  By 1968, the only remaining member from Gloria was singer Jim Sohns, who kept the all new band together- but their new contract was with Buddha records, which means they got forced into bubblegum by the time they recorded Shake.  I just listened to Shake;  if you are an aficionado of bubblegum, it's okay- if you are a fan of Gloria, you'll cringe.


Big movers for the two weeks:
Last week's big mover is in their top 40, the big dropper was the Bee Gees' Don't Want To Live Inside Myself, falling 15 to #54.  This week's big mover was American Pie, climbing 19 to #51, while the dropper was Superstar, falling 14 to #50.

Did I say top 40?  Last week, 3 songs debut-  that big mover was Donny Osmond's Hey Girl, jumping from 72 to 39; moving up 7 to #37, The Who's Behind Blue Eyes; and from 41 to 34, Bill Withers with Grandma's Hands. Seven songs debut this week:  up 10 to 40, the Honey Cone with One Monkey Don't Stop No Show; up 4 to 39, John Denver with Friends With You;  Rod Stewart and the Faces version of (I Know) I'm Losing You is up ten to #38; Jonathon Edwards' Sunshine, the toast of Minneapolis, climbs ten to #37; the Stylistics are up 8 to 36 with You Are Everything; Donnie Elbert comes in at 34, up 8, with a cover of Where Did Our Love Go; and James Brown tops the pack, climbing 8 to 33 with I'm A Greedy Man.

Last week had one entry into the top ten, with one falling out-  and the one falling out this week was the one that came in last week!  The one dropping last week was Marvin Gaye's Inner City Blues, falling from 10 to 17. This week's other dropper was Peace Train, falling from #9.

And at this point, I'm going to try to eliminate some confusion by going ahead with the six degrees; and it starts out with the ONE song that dropped both weeks- the one I falsely claimed (actually , wrongly guessed) was at #1 the skipped week:  John Lennon's Imagine.  Needless to say, I have little good to say about this song, so rather than drag it through the mud, (and because virtually every trail I went down dead ended, with one exception- the one where the drummer was Alan White, who would soon replace departing Bill Bruford as Yes's drummer), I flipped the record to the b-side.  This was a song called It's So Hard.  This song included one of the last appearances by sax legend King Curtis, who was murdered 40 days after the session.  King Curtis, you might recall from a past six degrees, was the sax on the great Coasters hits like Yakety Yak.  One of the later Coasters was Ronnie Bright, most famous as the bass man in Johnny Cymbal's Mr. Bass Man  One of Bright's later performances was on Peter Gabriel's 1986 hit In Your Eyes.  Gabriel was, of course, the original front man for Genesis.  When he left after the Lamb Lies Down On Broadway tour, Genesis had to find a new lead singer- and soon found that Phil Collins was the man for the job.  But he was also the drummer, and would need to step out from behind the kit to be the new singer.  In the studio it wasn't a problem, but on stage, they needed a drummer.  And they found a winning volunteer- founding Yes drummer Bill Bruford!


Okay, let's stick together and get through the weirdest way to do a top ten you'll ever see!

Santana came in last week at #10, up one, with Everybody's Everything- and promptly fell to 18 this week.

As I said, Peace Train had dropped from 4 to 9 last week, and thence off the chart.

Replacing it at #9, up three spots, was David Cassidy and Cherish.

The Grass Roots held at 8 last week with Two Divided By Love, and drop to 10 this week.

The other newbie this week was Aretha Franklin's Rock Steady, climbing to that 8 spot.

Got To Be There makes a pair of 2-notch jumps for Michael Jackson- to #7 last week, and to #5 this week.

The Chi-Lites slip a notch to #6 last week, and stay there this week, with Have You Seen Her.

Bread climbs from 7 to 5 last week, and thence to 3 this week, with Baby I'm-A Want You.

Gypsies, Tramps, And Thieves slid a notch to 4 last week, and stayed put this week, for Cher.

The aforementioned Mr. Lennon and Imagine dropped from 2 to 3 last week, and to 7 this week. 

The Theme From Shaft slipped out of the top spot last week, and holds at #2 this week.

And at #1 both weeks, after a 5 spot jump:

Sly and the Family Stone and Family Affair!!!!

If you have any good suggestions for that upcoming week 100, be sure to let me know.  God knows, it can't be any worse than this was!

The Return of Lotsa Little Bits

First off, let's start with this...

Mark Koopmans  is doing what he calls the 50 States Of Pray.  Basically, he is looking for (at least) one person from (at least) each of the fifty states (so far by my count he has 30 states and 7 foreign nations represented).  The name of the game is, on Christmas Eve, each person posts "a prayer, a thought, a memory, a hope (or) even a regret about the past and/or a wish for the future", in about 100 words.  I'll be there; and I encourage any of you so inclined to hit the link and join the list found therein.


Next, I just finished my most creative use of turkey leftovers ever!

Pre-cooking...

The basic concept is "turkey salmon patties"- I chopped turkey small, added what I would to a can of salmon (one egg, salt, crumbled bread in lieu of the Ritz Crackers I didn't have, and garlic Italian croutons), fried 'em up with a cheese slice, and put 'em on white toast.  Result:  Damn good, although my innards were a touch disappointed that it wasn't salmon, but much better than the usual turkey sandwich.  I do think, however, that turkeygeddon 2013 is run its course and the remaining leg will have to go to Mr. Humpty Back when he next raids the dumpster.



Next, the first round of the 2013 NHFFL fantasy football playoffs is in the books.  The Angels routed the Fiery Beagles 42-28, and the Elks rolled over Buzz 40-27.  The Angels play the Greenwoods next; the teams split this season's games, with the Angels taking the week three meeting 41-29 and the Greenwoods winning 4 weeks later, 46-41.  The Elks will go up against the State Ducks;  they have played two close matches this year, with the Ducks winning 41-39 in week 3, and the Elks handing them their second and final loss, 33-31 in week nine.  The Elks have beaten the Ducks twice in the playoffs:  30-17 in the first round in 2005, and 51-30 in another first round game in 2007.

Why State Ducks, you ask?  Well, I found a shirt in a garage sale years ago.  It was red with a gold embroidered logo for "State Dock Marina" with anchor and all.  I loved that shirt, but my son -raised in the finest tradition of smartassery I learned from my sister Jenny- looked at it one day and said, "State DUCK?"  When we decided to re-expand the league in 2005, I brought the State Ducks into the league.

One last word here on NHFFL for those who may not comprehend:  Me, Laurie and KC each run four teams, but each of us has a main team.  The Elks are Laurie's; the Clock BBQs are KCs; and mine are the KCAs, named for my favorite son and baseball team.  Oh, and Laurie runs Scrappy's team, the Fiery Beagles (originally the fiery dragons, but when Laurie joined the league in 2002, they became the Beagles in honor of her dog, the late and missed Fred.


Then, there's the matter of work.  After killing the better part of an hour and a half as the big boss from corporate trained us on the proper way to train an new employee (and gave me my next new word- when you hold comments in until you finally let out a bunch of them at once, they call it "gunnysacking") this morning, we then had an hour-long sit down on re-upping our health insurance.  Good news, our plans are ACA-approved so screw you, Obama.  Bad news, they go up an average of 9%, so screw you, Obama.

Finally, a serious note.  After all the battling I've been going through with the blogger I mentioned Sunday morning and her slow slide into atheism, I heard a pertinent message on the program Grace To You last night.  The pastor, John McArthur, listing characteristics of the Bible, said that it was "deterministic."  He explained that "The Word of God is the determining line between salvation and not... if you believe what God says in His word, you are guided by the Holy Spirit and ergo you are saved; while if you look at portions of the Bible as "outdated", "contradictory", or against what you believe, then odds are that you have not established that one-on-one relationship with Christ.

  This doesn't mean that you have to just close your eyes and take it all blindly; but if your seeking, reading and learning lead you away from God rather than nearer to Him, you have a problem.  Sadly, I mused, that fit this blogger to a "T".  Much of the discussion before I left came down to a post about the "ridiculousness" of the story of Adam and Eve.  Why did God put the tree in Eden was a question that, instead of leading her to the concept that there had to be a choice between good and evil, to obey God or not, led her to listen to people telling her that "Adam and Eve couldn't possibly make the right choice because a) they had no experiential knowledge of what good and evil were and thus couldn't POSSIBLY grasp the concept of obedience, and b) how did they know that God was "good" and Satan was "bad"?  This is not the reasoning of someone honestly seeking God; this is the reasoning of someone justifying disbelief.


Alright, I gotta wrap this up because I tested this post earlier and deleted it, and now a certain Canadian thinks I'm an Indian giver.  Have a good evening, everyone!

Out in the cold...

"Now, class, the MOST important thing to remember when bobbing in ice-cold temps is..."

At the "beach"...

Attempt at "freeing" a bubble

Country roads, take me home...

Stick with a coat of stain and two of gloss!

It finally dawned on me that they took out one lane of old California Road south of the IPFW bridge so idiots wouldn't be tempted to use it for motorized traffic anymore.

Walking along the bare shore of the river you find many odd things.  Beer cans, old flip flops... broke open coconuts...?

Sunday Message- a God of Legos.

It had to happen.

I'm sure those of you that follow the SMs know I have been dealing with a woman who's been blogging basically about her descent from faith to... something else.  And I can understand how she got lost.  She was someone who took "If you diligently seek Me" to heart literally.  She went from a catholic world of the Church Fathers deciding what God meant to a Calvinism that assigned people to heaven and hell almost randomly, to a universalism that said everyone goes to heaven regardless to... where ever she is now.  And this week, I un-followed her- not because of anything she said in her posts, but her growing-apparent attitude in the comments.  She was no longer truly responsive to those who, through their experience were trying to help her "re-find" God's will; instead, she was more eagerly lapping up the poisonous views of atheists congratulating her for her "wisdom" in questioning God.  In particular, three people were her main source of "wisdom" - one who theorized that since man was no more than an animal, the concepts of good and evil were artificial and really didn't apply; another claimed to have been an evangelical minister who had rejected all he had preached for "the wild and wonderful world out there."

When I look back over her story, I see her idea of seeking God as seeking a God made of Legos.  Each verse, each bit of knowledge, having to be this perfect square that fit in neatly with each other perfect square, eventually building a God she could comprehend with a rigid confidence.  But where she took the failure of that construct to mean that maybe there isn't a God, she totally rejected Paul's explanation of "Now we see as through a mirror darkly,", that God HAD to want to be revealed perfectly or else why should anyone believe?

God is more like the sand on the seashore.  At times, the tide rolls out and we have an epiphany of revelation, and a section of His relations with us make sense.  Other times, the storm pushes the sea forwards and we cannot make Him out amidst the driving rains and the whitecapped swells.

But just like the sand, God is still there.  Shifted to our perceptions, perhaps, but still sand, still shore, still unchanged.

Today, Dr. Jeremiah's talk on Thanksgiving included a pertinent observation:  "Sometimes we have to go back and see how things WERE, before we can be thankful for how things ARE."  This is where we get to me, on the other side of the coin.

I mentioned last week one day that I had been re-reading over and over a certain passage.  That passage was Romans chapter six.  In it Paul asks, "What shall we say then?  Shall we continue in sin so that grace may abound?  Certainly not!"  (v1), and again, "What then, shall we sin because we are not under law, but under grace?  Certainly not!" (v15).  The old conundrum of what is the relationship of grace and sin- and how are we perceiving it in our actions.

Before I was saved, I was little more than the "evolved animal" that the blogger's one commenter claimed to be.  I had a sin in my life, and was ruled by it.  It left me no (zero) choice in my actions, I was going to commit it.  I had no purchase for escape.  Then I was saved, and I LITERALLY (a concept that atheists will never understand) felt those chains come off.

But have I remained thankful for that freedom through the years?  You tell me.  It has become a freedom to sin, knowing that forgiveness is eventually mine through Jesus Christ.  I can do it, regret it, repent it, seek absolution, feel better, and do it again.  And totally ignore what it felt like under chains.  And I can excuse it, not by pointing out contradictions in the Bible, or by focusing on one verse while ignoring the surrounding narrative that it's pulled from, as this blogger did several times to justify her doubts.  No, I justify by things like, "I have a thorn in the flesh, to keep me humble", or "Now there is no condemnation..."

And conveniently brush aside "Shall we continue?  Certainly not!"

My crime is not one of building a God from Legos; it is looking at the wall and saying, "Oh, that's just the mirror being dark."

Thanksgiving 2013

"The things I have to put up with!"

OMG, NOW we get invited to another dinner?

"Well, if the damn thing is going to take this long, I'm taking a nap!"

There's our lovely cook, hard at work.

The bird du jour, courtesy the wonderful people at Dowco.

The appetites.

They went for two...?

Ah, THERE'S a score to be thankful for!

The thermometer popped!!!!!!

Believe it or not, 5 minutes INTO the first round...

Munch, munch...
munch..
Munch munch, ummmm....

Scrappy World News

This is Scrappy Booogle, and I'm just chillin' (literally in these temps) and hoping everyone has a nice Thanksgiving.  My Daddy has the nicest work- he got let off at 1 PM Wednesday and got paid for the whole day, and has been home ever since!  I'm not sure what "paid for the whole day" means, but hopefully he'll never have to go to work again.

He has some news stories I'm supposed to tell you about, but first let me tell you about our walk yesterday.  When we got in the woods, I knew something was up; Daddy, though, got distracted by two girls running by who wished us a Happy Thanksgiving.  I could smell something was over by that big hollow tree that I climbed in the other day, and then we saw a FOX running away!  I tried to keep up with it, but Daddy's so slow, and... well, sometimes I just run faster than I can sniff.  I knew where he went, but not where he WENT, y'know?

Not much happened after that.  We got down to the woods bridge and Daddy saw a heron take off.  I missed it, because... well... I went down the hill on the other side of the road to take a #2.  Daddy teased me about "wanting to watch it roll downhill", but you know how it is, trying to find a proper place to go.  He doesn't get that.  He's just happy if he can sit down.

Later, we went to the pond at the Alumni Center (whatever that is), and it was ALL ICE!

But the funny thing was, as I was sniffing around, I found something just underground at the water's edge...and I started digging.

It was a hole*!  It went out to the water and back to under the bank of the pond.  Something was just inside it, but I couldn't get to it.  Daddy thought it might be a mole hole, and even sent Stick in after it.

(* at least, it was a hole after Scrappy got done digging.  I'm not sure, it took me too long to get the rushes away to see what he was about.)

Okay, so now for Daddy's stuff.

ITEM:  First, a little Time Machine stuff.  KC (my boy) challenged Daddy last night with, "What is your favorite song released on Thanksgiving?" Now Daddy figured the best he could do was come up with his favorite songs that were released on Thanksgiving week since he was born to 1979 (He says music wasn't any good after that.)  And then he got a top ten and played it for us!  It went like this:

10.  From 1971, the Guess Who with Sour Suite.

9.  From 1963, Bobby Vinton with There I've Said It Again.

8. From 1966, the Monkees with I'm A Believer.

7. From 1973, the Love Unlimited Orchestra with Love's Theme.

6. From 1975, Helen Reddy with Somewhere In The Night.

5. From 1969, Elvis with Don't Cry Daddy (he did anyway...).

4.  From 1974, The Eagles with Best Of My Love.

3.  From 1967, Donovan with Wear Your Love Like Heaven.

2. From 1970, George Harrison with My Sweet Lord.

1. And from 1971, Don McLean with American Pie.

ITEM:  In Argentina, they found the world's oldest public toilet- 240 million years old, they say.

It was a toilet for dinosaurs!  And it was a big one;


A density of 94 poos per square metre was recorded by the researchers. And the excrement was spread across patches 900 square metres in size.

That's bigger than my back porch!  And they say it was one kind of dinosaur who pooped it all:

Daddy says he's called a.. what?  Oh, a Dinodontosaurus, and was about the size of a Rhino (which doesn't help me any because I haven't seen a rhino...).


ITEM:  Daddy says there's some people in Russia who got mad at their boss...

Investigators have detained two people in Nizhny Novgorod suspected of burying their boss in cement over a labor dispute.
The body of a construction foreman was discovered encased in cement in the basement of an unfinished building, RIA Novosti reported citing the regional Investigative Committee.
The 33-year-old man was beaten with metal rods and then encased in cement by nine construction workers who reportedly complained that he refused to pay them, according to the statement from the regional Investigative Committee.
Authorities are searching for the other suspects.

Daddy says if you think that's bad, he found a "mafia boss" in Italy got fed alive to a bunch of pigs!

Relax!  It tastes just like... well...

ITEM:  More Russian stuff:  A blog post was explaining how if you're a foreigner in Russia, you need to learn Russian anecdotes to tell people who want to hear a story.  You see in Russia, they don't want you to tell YOUR anecdotes, they want you to tell THEIR anecdotes.  (Otherwise, Daddy says they wouldn't know where to laugh."  So this guy printed his three favorites:

1) The first anecdote is really old but, like fine wine, only becomes better with age. If you are an inexperienced Russian anecdote teller, it is a safe place to start:

A man returns home in a drunken stupor. His wife begins to smack him over the head and scream at him asking, "Are you going to keep on drinking?" The man just sits there moaning which, of course, just upsets his wife even more, so she smacks him even harder and demands, "I asked you, are you going to keep on drinking?" The man is practically sobbing as he squeaks out his answer, "Fine. You talked me into it. Pour me another one."

2) If the first anecdote produced the desired effect, try this one:

Several wealthy Muscovite businessmen go to the far Russian north to go bear hunting . A local tribal guide begins to lead them from his village across the tundra. They walk for one day, then two days. On the third day, they finally see a bear. To their surprise, their guide just picks up a rock and throws it, hitting the giant bear in the head. The bear becomes angry and begins chasing the hunting group. The group begins running away back towards the village. They run for an hour, then two hours, then four. It is getting close to evening, and the businessmen are getting tired of running, so one of them turns around and shoots the bear. The guide looks at them says, "What did you do that for? Now you get to drag him back home."

3) Is your Russian anecdote confidence growing? Let's see if you can pull this one off. Show that you have the skills. This is my absolute top favorite Russian anecdote. I must give credit to my good friend Roman for teaching it to me, together with the important gestures that imitate both a camel and a desert mouse: If no one laughs, it is neither the anecdote's fault, nor the audience's. You are the only one to blame.

A camel gets lost in the desert. It walks in the baking heat with no water for a week. (At this point it is customary to go into detail about how camels have humps on their backs which is a backup water supply so that they can last for long periods of time in arid climates). So, of course, after a week with neither water nor vegetation, the camel was quite fatigued as the sweltering temperatures offered no respite. However, it continued its journey. The camel's tongue had swollen in the camel's mouth by the third week and the camel had indeed seen its share of mirages. But alas, those hallucinations provided neither sustenance nor the life-giving liquid the camel so urgently needed. Finally, the camel collapsed in the heat, ready to die. It then heard a curious sound and managed to open an eye to see a desert mouse scurrying to and fro under the scorching rays of the unforgiving sun. Eventually, the mouse noticed the camel laying in the blistering sand and cautiously approached the camel.

"Comrade Camel," inquired the desert mouse, "what has happened?"

The camel then began to relate the sad tale of how he had become lost in the desert for weeks with no water and was now about to die from the heat.

"No, no, Comrade Camel," replied the desert mouse. "You have it all wrong. See, you just need to do it like I do. I run around in the sun and it creates a wind, just like an air conditioner. You should really try it!".

The camel, realizing that he had nothing to lose, summoned his last iota of strength, jumped to his feet, ran 30 yards, fell over and died. The desert mouse of course was in shock by what had happened. He walked over and checked the camel's pulse.

"Poor guy," said the desert mouse (savor the pause here), "He froze to death."

 

 

Daddy told me not to mind the boos and hisses, whatever that means.

 

 

ITEM:  The Germans are like us- every year they have a "new words of the year" thing.  Daddy said the funny part isn't the words that won, but one of the ones in the also receiving votes category:

 

Other words to make the top five this year are: fame (great, super, famous), gediegen (super, cool, easygoing), in your face, and the "Lion King"-inspired Hakuna matata, which simply means "no worries."

 

 

Daddy says, they realize that movie came out NINETEEN YEARS AGO, and no one says it in America since the turn of the century, right?  But the Europeans are so far ahead of us...

 

BTW, the winner this year was "babo", which is apparently Turkish slang for boss.  Daddy sings, "I put my Ba-Bo in the Cement-o, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da..."

 

ITEM:  Daddy thought this story about an Austrian art scandal was "a good example of Obama economics":

 

"One of the biggest cultural scandals seen in Austria has come to an end after a case against the former Director of the Museum of Applied Arts in Vienna was settled.

 

Accused of financial mismanagement of the museum's funds, a court has asked Peter Noever to pay 104,000 Euros to the museum. HOWEVER, Noever, who resigned from the position after 25 years at the helm, will receive 231,000 Euros in return to cover OUTSTANDING SALARY AND BACK PAY."

Daddy says, "so in the settlement for his crime, Noever comes out 127,000 Euros (almost $173,000 American) to the good.  Is he covered by the Teamsters or what?"

ITEM:  Daddy says he's not sure who's dumber in this one, Bob Dylan or the guys suing him:

The Council of the Croatian Community and Institutions in France (CRICCF) filed a lawsuit with a court in Paris, over Dylan's statements made last fall.
While promoting his album "Tempest", Dylan was interviewed by the Rolling Stone magazine and compared the contemporary United States with the Civil War era, to say that the country was "still obsessed with skin color."

"People at each others’ throats just because they are of a different color. It’s the height of insanity and it will hold any nation back – or any neighborhood back. Or anything back. Blacks know that some whites didn’t want to give up slavery – that is they had their way, they would still be under the yoke, and they can’t pretend they don’t know that," he said, and added:

"If you’ve got a slave master or Klan in your blood, blacks can sense that. That stuff lingers to this day. Just like Jews can sense Nazi blood and the Serbs can sense Croatian blood." The court in Paris accepted the lawsuit, and a representative of the Croatian association said that they were not demanding "material damages, only Dylan's apology."

It is unclear if the musician plans to show up for the trial.


Daddy says, "I know I wouldn't."

ITEM:  Daddy says, finally we have to share this video (that many of you may have already seen) that he found on Facebook the other day: