Thanksgiving time

Thanksgiving is the one holiday that I have really never understood. Most of the holidays that we celebrate here in the U.S. are based on mythology that goes back to long before Christianity. Chrsitmas is celebrated because some ancient cult had a festival at the winter solstice, it was sort of absorbed into Christianity as the day of the birth of Christ, as well as some jolly fellow in a red suit. I don’t know why Christmas was scheduled a few days after the solstice,my best guess is that they (by they I am meaning the church in ancient times) wanted to give contemporary cults time to celebrate their tradition, while training their children in both… Bam!, Christmas is born (whether Christ was born anywhere near that time is a hot topic for Religious Scholars, doesn’t matter a bit to me though). Mythology is where the average U.S. citizen would Continue reading Thanksgiving time

I hate plumbing

I hate plumbing. I hate it with such a passion that whenever I have to actually duel with the plumbing beast only one comes out alive, and then just barely. The concept of plumbing is so simple that it seems like it should be a pretty easy task to take care of minor household issues that arise, yet, in practice, it never is. The only times that I really wish I lived in a new, mass produced house are when I have plumbing issues in my old, one-of-a-kind pad. New homes are made of little boards, Styrofoam and drywall. My house is made of adobe, bricks and mortar. Thankfully the issue at hand didn’t require having to drill through all 18 inches of the wall again, that was damn near impossible with ordinary tools, but it still was not an easy job. I had to change a faucet in the Continue reading I hate plumbing

Bionic woman: first edition

The Mother-in-law underwent the first (well first and second technically) of what is turning out to be a hell of a lot of surgeries on her bones this morning. It is sort of looking like the basic goal is to replace every bit of bone with metal of one type or another, well not quite, seems that way sometimes though. The surgery that was done today added a steel rod that runs the length of the inside of one of her femurs, as well as completely replacing the hip on the opposite side. To think that they were able to do all that at the same time, get it done in only a few hours, and have her back to a normal hospital room in less than eight hours just blows my mind. Medical technology sure has advanced in the last couple of decades. The surgery went well enough that Continue reading Bionic woman: first edition

Medical update

It has been almost a week since my Mother-in-law was admitted to St. Jospephs. There are at least some facts to draw on at this point. The cancer that is traveling throughout her body seems to have originated in one of her breasts (and how ironic is it that my wife has been doing the breast cancer walk every year to fund research on breast cancer?). Her neck is still in pretty bad shape, and she has a broken hip on top of all of that. They started to radiate the cancer in her neck a couple of days ago, evidently that is all going well. I am happy to know that. They are actually going to do a hip replacement surgery on her Monday morning, then take her to another radiation treatment that afternoon. I am happy to see that they are doing everything so quickly, yet I wonder Continue reading Medical update

Existential musings

For the life of me I am not able to understand why it so important to religious people (only in the U.S.) to try to disprove the theory of evolution, or explain it away as only being a “theory” when the natural change of species has been going on for millennia, and is clearly shown through fossil records. The religious belief that God created every living being seems to infringe on Darwin’s theory, yet even the Pope (sorry for the lack of a link, lost the page. If you google it, send it to me so I can add it back) has acknowledged that evolution would fill a lot of the holes in the biblical record. Sure Noah could not have had 1.8million species on that boat, but he could have had several thousand species, which were created by God, on that boat. Those species have evolved into all the Continue reading Existential musings

A cry for help

I have been a bit lacking in my blogging over the last few days. The truth is that there is one post that I really want/need to write, in fact I have written it several times only to delete it. Talking about myself and my own minor medical problems isn’t much of an issue for me, but when I try to talk about other people (medical problems or not) I am always left wondering how much I should say, how I should say it, how sensitive or technical I should write it, etc. I am just gonna try to throw this down off the cuff, as such it will likely be deleted before it makes it from my mind to your eyes, but I just have to try. There will be no links. If it actually makes it all the way to posting I will likely go back and add Continue reading A cry for help

More on Texas Hold ‘Em

I have been playing way more poker than I care to admit, albeit online and completely free of any sort of money. I am pretty sure that I am getting a hell of a lot better at the game. I still don’t think that I am really any good, yet, I am pretty confident in my ability to win against any of the other players, who are NOOBs every bit as much as me. I have still not ventured back into any of the real money games, not even the nickel and dime ones I was playing before (which I did not actually lose any money in), but I am fairly confident that if and when I do venture back into them I will do a hell of a lot better than I did previously. People seem to place way too much stock in the eyes of their opponents when Continue reading More on Texas Hold ‘Em

When toaster ovens attack!

The toaster oven is one of the most useful devices that currently resides in my home. Some of the less useful items include the dogs (what the hell do they ever do?), the exercise bike (simply digging that out of the back room would be more of a workout than actually riding it), my fabulous “you talk, it types” headset (which was apparently only programmed for languages I am not fluent in; If I said, after all of the “teaching it my voice”, the word “open”, I would invariably get a string of characters just like this: OVIPING. What language is that?). Frankly there is so much disused crap in the house that I really shouldn’t be talking about (note my untouched guitars and equipment with a retail value of over a thousand dollars, might as well be paperweights for all the use they get). The toaster oven, on the Continue reading When toaster ovens attack!

Pimping Guild Wars

I have played a lot of video games in my time, probably more than I would care to admit. I have even paid monthly subscription charges to play one (Everquest). I have found, over time, that the majority of the game producers just don’t give a shit about the end user once they pony up the cash for the game. Diablo II still offers the online multiplayer for free, but Blizzard doesn’t really seem to give a shit about the community in general. Why should they? The game is like five years old. Guild Wars, on the other hand, is actively doing all they can to keep the game both fresh and fun for all of the players, regardless of the fact that you don’t have to pay a fee to play it. See, they took a normal monster from the game, rebuilt it out of candy corn and put Continue reading Pimping Guild Wars

The dream is dead

In all of my self-deprecating musings, I am not entirely sure if I have ever covered anything I ever did that I was good at. I will remedy that right now. I decided that I wanted to be a guitarist shortly after my dad died in 1990. There were three albums released within a twelve month period that made me want -need- to become a guitarist. The three albums were Megadeth’s Countdown to Extinction, Metallica’s Black Album, and Ozzy’s No More Tears. Those three albums have some amazing guitar work on them, yet it is also achievable by a relative NOOB. To a point, there are some solos on those albums that I could never touch even in my prime. I did have a bit of a flair for the guitar, a fact I found shortly after dropping 40 bucks on the crappiest piece of shit you could ever lay Continue reading The dream is dead