While you all were fruitlessly checking in here to see if your blogs had yet been released from the merciless grip of Drengin Lords, I was over at my other blog writing about the Olympics. (And Sir Peter's new TV series, but that's another article.) Here are some excerpts, the titles are linked to the full articles: Way To Politicize The Olympics! The Olympics are supposed to be above politics and petty differences. (The International Olympic Committee exemplifies this princip...
(tap, tap) Is this thing on? Sorry, folks. The lights seem to have blown out for a while there. I'm kinda blinded by them coming back on. Is anyone still out there? Hello? (tap, tap)
I finally figured out those commercials that feature "Ted Ferguson: Bud Light Daredevil," a 20-something young man decked out in skating pads, oversized goggles, and a helmet, who attempts to do such impossible feats as listen to his girlfriend talk, stay after work for five minutes ("On a Friday!"), and try to actually watch a couple minutes of a movie his girlfriend selected, only to be saved after a few minutes by a crew rushing in to pour Bud Light into his strained system. Obviously t...
So much for my plan for "extensive blogging," eh? Hello, my name is Gene and I'm a lousy blogger. No, no, it's true I tell you! (Okay no one was actually protesting the point, but I made you look!) I'm a lousy blogger because I blog too infrequently. From my perspective, the best blogs tend to be those fairly frequently updated. My average of 2 blogs per week doesn't fit my bill, especially when I know how many more ideas I have that never make it to the web. It's not just unwritte...
From my perspective, artistic expression is little different from verbal expression. To me, a word is a symbol of an idea. Artistic forms other than writing use different materials than words, but they still come down to symbolizing and representing ideas. That's why the piece "Piss Christ," for instance, didn't bother me. That's the artist's idea and he's welcome to it. I don't agree, and I'm welcome to my disagreement. Frankly, I find the stuff on South Park far more objectionable than...
ponytail tied tight birkenstocks donned firm and sure where's the protest, man? die, conservative! die, greedy, racist, dumb, pigs! you're intolerant! morals are victory it's not about win or lose rightness is the thing how sad - i must cry wretched beggar's bloody feet next week: "March For Shoes!" quick discuss heroes che? good! lyndon? good! reagan?! big red F-ing shame liberalism's dead throw a dart, invade a land neo-con delight why don't they get it? we're s...
It's hard to get a bead on this story. Every report seems to be different. I'll give you the gist of what I derived with a caveat as to its complete accuracy. Cindy Sheehan was arrested just before the State of the Union speech last night. Sitting in the gallery at the invitation of California Representative Lynn Woolsey, Sheehan revealed she was wearing a sloganeering t-shirt that had the number of American soldiers killed in Iraq listed on it (I guess she doesn't worry about Afghan troops)...
"If you fall of a horse, get right back on it!" -- folk wisdom Has it really been 30 days since my last article? It hasn't done me any good. I haven't written any of the other pieces I intended or needed to. After I haven't done something for a while, I have a hard time getting started again. Okay, I have a hard time starting anything, period. When I start something I don't like to stop. I'm best at things I can do straight through. Not only did I fall and couldn't get up, I app...
I spent the week in the hospital. When I tried to get up from bed last Monday, the world suddenly spun and went black and I toppled to the floor. Timber! My left hand and the left side of my face went numb. Even while laying there, the world still seemed to spin wildly. After a few minutes I tried standing up again. Same result. I'd fallen and I couldn't get up. I thought I should go to the emergency room and get checked out. Ever since Harry Reid had his little incident, I've been s...
8:02 P.M. Four loud pops, like someone slamming a mailbox opened-and-closed repeatedly, shattered the quiet. My cat started up, then looked back and forth repeatedly, trying to locate the disturbance. I went to the patio window and looked out. Three teens were passing by on the street, two walking, one on a bicycle. The one on the bicycle raised his right hand above his head and started firing a pistol into the air. Bang, bang, bang! Three more shots to add to the four he'd just fired. He...
I hate the word, but I have to say it -- Hypocrites! Liberals' litmus tests and holiday surprises are no tastier than the Conservative versions they condemn. Liberals cried far and loud at how the evil Christian Conservative Right "railroaded" Harriet Miers because "she wouldn't promise to overturn Roe v. Wade." You'd think the "far right of the Republican party" was murdering babies in a back alley. (Wait, bad example. In that case Libs would applaud the Right for finally seeing the li...
The Euro's hate the death penalty and they hate us for loving it. So when Austrian-born California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger refused to grant clemency to convicted murderer Stanley "Tookie" Williams, many in the old country threw a fit. Austria's Green Party suggested Arnold be stripped of his Austrian citizenship. Officials in his hometown of Graz have threatened to remove Arnold's name from their stadium and rechristen it after Tookie. The idea is scheduled for a January 19th vote, al...
You think American reality TV can be mean? The Brits just had a series that whittled ten contestants down to three who were told they were becoming Britain's first space tourists. The winning would-be astronauts were whisked to "Russia" for training before blasting off into space. In reality, they never left England. Ipswich stood in for the cosmonaut training camp. Their "space ship" actually sat in a Suffolk warehouse. One of the red-faced almost-nauts said, "We're not astronauts. We're...
Most Americans may not have noticed, insular and self-obsessed as we are, but there have been serious racial conflicts going on in Australia. It started when a group of Lebanese-Australians attacked some lifeguards on a beach. Then a bunch of Aussie equivalents to drunken good ol' boys went out to settle the score. You've heard of soccer hooligans? Think beach ball hooligans and you're on the right track. It's been the proverbial snowball rolling down hill ever since. This morning as I re...
A little something I heard on the news last night... Perhaps you know that when a plane ran off the end of a runway in Chicago last week it plowed into a passing car, killing a six year old boy. Just moments before, he, his parents, and two younger brothers had been driving to visit his grandparents, singing Christmas carols as they went. The Woods family buried their oldest child, Joshua, yesterday. In his hand he held a cross and a quarter. The quarter had been pressed into Joshua's ...