On Many Subjects

FEUDALISM: You have two cows. Your lord takes some of the milk. PURE SOCIALISM: You have two cows. The government takes them and puts them in a barn with everyone else's cows. You have to take care of all of the cows. The government gives you as much milk as you need. BUREAUCRATIC SOCIALISM: You have two cows. The government takes them and put them in a barn with everyone else's cows. They are cared for by ex-chicken farmers. You have to take care of the chickens the government took from the chicken farmers. The government gives you as much milk and eggs as the regulations say you need. FASCISM: You have two cows. The government takes both, hires you to take care of them and sells you the milk. PURE COMMUNISM: You have two cows. Your neighbors help you take care of them, and you all share the milk. RUSSIAN COMMUNISM: You have two cows. You have to take care of them, but the government takes all the milk. CAMBODIAN COMMUNISM: You have two cows. The government takes ...

My oldest son has experienced the birth of his daughter, the Divine Miss M. My neighbor, Lionel, has a pregnant wife, who is having a boy, so the whole-girls-never-wearing-pink-issue is no longer an issue. There is someone looking out for that little unborn guy! For some reason, these two men seem to think I am the child birth guru and can answer any of their questions regarding pregnancy and child birth. This is a compilation of questions and answers that have occurred over the past two years. #2: We are thinking about a sibling for Miss M. Should my wife have a baby after 30? Me: No, 30 children is enough. Li: Jean is two months pregnant now. When will my baby move? Me: With any luck, right after he finishes college. Li: What is the most reliable method to determine a baby's sex? Me: Childbirth. Li: My wife is five months pregnant and so moody that sometimes she's borderline irrational. Me: So what's your question? #2: Our childbirth instructor says it's not pain my w...

I have actually discussed refrigerator magnets before. Read about it here . The latest tally on my fridgie magnets that hold up scraps of paper with my version of the Daily News has risen considerably. Currently, I have grocery lists--"Buy Milk" and the scrap of paper towel that has scribbled on it, "Buy paper towels" and the note pad that sticks to the fridge that says (at the moment) Coffee filters, Garbage Bags and Shampoo. I have pizza coupons and a Christmas card from my Mom and Dad--Great picture this year! I love it! I have a business card from a travel agent, directions to the library, a picture of St. Petersburg, FL, a Calvin and Hobbes comic, a photo of Jon, and a 20% off coupon to Bed, Bath and Beyond. Pretty standard refrigerator fare. I have a new addition to my list of fridgies and that is those little flat magnets with words on them that can be combined into sentences to express thoughts for the day. The overall theme of the word magnets I have is ...

OK. I am not into commercials that much, so when I watch TV, I watch what was on yesterday so I can fast forward through all the crap they try to sell me, thereby avoiding most commericals on TV. (Shall we all take a moment and give thanks to the patron saint of DVRs?) For whatever reason, last evening, I found myself watching a commercial for Lunesta. This is a sleep aid that is supposed to work miracles and cure even the hardiest of insomniacs. But, at the end of the commercial, you have that guy who has the really deep voice and gives you a list of disclaimers. You know, that guy who can talk at auctioneer speed and get in 45 paragraphs of scary stuff in ten seconds or less. Anyway, something caught my ear and I rewound my DVR just to make sure I heard it correctly. "This product may cause drowsiness." Ya think? I would hope my sleep aid caused drowisness, other wise I am wasting my money and a trip to the doctor, which is not a cheap activity in the US, I am sorry to rep...

I read a lot of news stories during the course of the week, often trying to find interesting or upbeat things to blog about at work... Have I mentioned that I get PAID to blog?  How cool is that?... Every now and then, I encounter a news story that makes me laugh out loud. Have you heard the one where China says the West should bear the burden of cleaning up the atomosphere because the US has been doing it longer.  Although China has 20 of the 30 most polluted cities in the world as a result of using out-dated curde oil and coal methods of energy, they don't think they should take responsibility in any way for global warming.  After all, they are a developing nation and have only been polluting a few decades. This is at the latest conference to attempt to get the world to cooperate in cleaning up the atomosphere... The Kyoto Accords didn't work because the US refused to sign any measure that didn't require China, India and a couple of other countries to help. So, it worked...

It's that time of year again! I admit. I LOVE Christmas. I LOVE Christmas decorations. I took a hiatus from Christmas for several years and, amazingly enough, I still had money in January. So that is a plus. But, even though I didn't go through the trappings of the holiday, I watched It's a Wonderful Life and White Christmas on TV. Over and over. Last year, I broke with that No-Christmas tradition and put up a tree. I loved Christmas as a child, except then, I thought Santa Claus MUST be the patron saint of janitors because he wasn't allowed to visit our house unless it was totally cleaned from cellar to dome. (We lived in an American Ranch style home, in Florida, so there was no cellar or dome.) Be that as it may, every nook and cranny, every speck of dust, every tiny mark that announced the home was less than perfectly clean had to be removed or NO SANTA! What a pain for a kid to endure. "Gee, Mom, couldn't Santa come here just ONCE without us h...

I have mentioned my pretty cat Evelyn more than once in this blog. If fact, I should put her on the like of friends and family in the sticky post at the top of the page. I felt sorry for Evelyn, being home alone all day, so I got her a friend Tiki. Tiki is a pretty girl Seal Point Siamese Cat. Now, since I brought Tiki home, she has hung out in my bedroom without the slightest inclination to leave. Eveyln has staked out the living room as her territory. Tiki, like most Siamese cats, is very chatty and talks to me all the time. When Evelyn decides to join in the conversation, the Tiki begins to hiss and spit and go totally Ghetto on us. I mean she gets a terrible attitude and won't let Evelyn join in the fun. But, Evelyn is patient. Yesterday, Evelyn returned to the bedroom and my bed,a place where she normally sleeps, which means I have Tiki on one side of me on the bed and Evelyn on the other. It could be a cozy arrangement except Tiki turns into Ghetto Cat at the drop of a hat an...

I just read an article about turkey carving that was pretty cute. (Find it here ) For years, the question of who will carve the turkey has arisen every year about this time. It is tradition in these parts for the man of the house to do it. It wasn't that way in my house, when I was married. You see, the man of the house had no clue how to carve a turkey and because he (apparently) wasn't born with that knowledge, had no desire to learn. Even when I offered to buy him an electric knife to play with, he refused all offers to carve the turkey on Thanksgiving that he ALWAYS insisted I make... for better or for worse. So, I made the turkey, it was beautiful and golden and perfect and presented it to the guest we had over for the Thanksgiving meal that year, although because this was thirty something years ago, I don't remember the precise circumstances. There were so many similair moments aft4er that. Again, I digress... So, with knife and fork poised, I was ready to have a...

Paulson poker chips, which are made in Las Vegas, were found to contain high levels of lead. There's nothing to worry about. The reason casinos are so big and lavish is that gamblers cannot hang on to their chips long enough for any statistically measurable health risk.

My neighbor, Lionel, is still at it... Li: We will find out tomorrow if Jean is having a boy or a girl. Me: What do you want? Li: I am still hoping for a girl. Me: Have you changed your mind on the whole girls should never wear pink, thing? Li: No. If it is a girl, there will be no pink in the house. Me: Then, she will have to wear boys clothes. My granddaughter has almost nothing but pink stuff. Even her little jeans have pink flowers embroidered on them, or pink stitching down the side or something. Li: But, no one looks good in pink. Me: Every one looks good in pink. Pink is the color of human skin, regardless if it is dark or light. Pink makes you look younger because it brings out the nice pink tones in your skin. Little old ladies put pink lightblubs in their houses to make them look better. Pink is not an evil color. Li: But, what if the baby is born with a red face? Me: It will be red only if it is totally embarassed by it's parents. Li: You mean, like making a little girl ...

Overheard while in line at the bank: She: That's so retarded. He: I hate it when you use that word like that. She: What word? Retarded? He: Yes. I'm not, you know. She: Not what? Retarded. Yeah, you are acting totally retarded. He: Don't you know how high my IQ is? She: No. He: It is 136. My IQ is 136. She: Well, mine is 1050. He: I said IQ, not SAT score. She: Whatever. Just don't act retarded again, OK? He: Whatever.

According to Mara Rose Williams of the Kansas City Star, A class clown may be disruptive in school, but in the workplace a little humor is good for creativity, according to a University of Missouri-Columbia researcher. Chris Robert, assistant professor of management in MU’s Robert J. Trulaske Sr. College of Business, said that humor — particularly joking about things associated with the job — has a positive impact in the workplace. “The ability to appreciate humor, the ability to laugh and make other people laugh actually has physiological effects on the body that cause people to become more bonded,” said Robert. That is really good news! In a seemingly unrelated event, my New Car stranded me again, this time in the rain because the windshield wipers quit working... in the middle of the worse rainstorm this year. I call the lady at AAA to rescue me and we had a lengthy discussion as to the location of my car. "I got off of the highway (Interstate 64W) at the sign that said Milit...

4:30am--Alarm goes off 4:30am--Toss the alarm across the room to shut it off 4:39am--Somewhere on the otherside of the room, the snooze alarm rings and I have to get out of bed to find it. Since I am up, I may as well stay up 4:44am--Make coffee 4:45am--Check my Outlook, Opera, Yahoo Messenger, GMail, Hotmail and Yahoo news headlines to find out what happened when I was sleeping 5:00am--guzzle a cup of coffe while I make my breakfast 5:10am--eat breakfast and work on my novel 5:45am--Shower, brush teeth, fix hair 6:00am--Clothes on, make-up on, cat fed and watered 6:15am--Out of the house. I start my car (hoping it will actually run) and drive drive drive, over the river, through the woods, down the road, up the road, through the tunnel, past the airport, see the Atlantic Ocean, watch the sunrise, avoid several accidents and finally get to work. 7:30am--Unlock the door, make the coffee, sit at my desk and begin working 12:00noon--Eat lunch at my desk as I continue working 3:30pm--Leave...

I actually spend little time watching TV and then I don't actually WATCH TV as much as listen to it. To see the TV I have to twist my neck to an almost Linda Blair angle over my right shoulder to see what the hub-bub is about on the screen. You see, most of my waking hours are spent at the computer, doing something or other of interest or something or other designed to be monetarily enhancing. So, Heroes starts a new season and they have introduced new characters who speak in their native tongue--namely Spanish. I am mono-linguistic, so I can't listen to the Spanish people and understand them, I have to stop what I am doing, rummage around for my glasses, twist my neck around to see the see the TV screen and then read the subtitles. It was bad enough with Hiro and his friend last season peaking Japanese, but now, I have to do this with another set of characters. And to make things worse, the dialogue is bad, so I am doubly irritated by this. Boy: I speak Spanish, my sister. Gir...

Have you ever had a secret? Something that you know that no one else does? Or something you thought no one else knew and maybe you mention it when you were too drunk to remember? Here are a few of my favorites. A friend of mine told me she likes to dance to the music when she's alone in an elevator. (Very Cool!) One of my daughter's friends told me she has her nipples pierced and everyone but her mother knows. (I am too chicken to ger mine pierced. I admire her spirit.) I used to know a guy who would go to the grocery store,open packages of cookies, take a few out and eat them while he was shopping. The opened box would stay on the shelf. (Oh, you're the one who does that!) A friend has a collection of over 80,000 pornography pictures on their computer. (Very Very Cool) I used to work with a woman who gives everyone the finger when someone walks by her office... behind her computer screen. She thinks no one has seen this. But, I have. ( I think I will start doing that myse...

Because of a suggestion by a dear reader and close observation of Evelyn's behavior, the alignment of the planets, the Theory of Relativity and the hole in the ozone layer, I have finally solved the Pill Dilemma. Evelyn is a slave to her stomach, as are most animals. We THINK they love us, but what they really love is food. Simply put. I am thoroughly convinced that she thinks that I am HUNTING every time I leave the apartment because when I get back, she automatically wants to be fed. She does her cute kitty routine (refer to Puss-in-Boots in the movie Shrek 2 to completely understand this.) She looks at me with her great big blue eyes. She gives me her sweet little meow as if she is saying, "Mommy, I know you are the best hunter in the world, so please share a meager bit of your good fortune with me because how can you resist such a cute face and you know I never ask for much from you and how can you resist such an utterly cute face with such big adorable eyes?" Yeah, r...

Everyone likes to feel as if they are the master of their domain and I did, until it was time to attempt another round of medication for THE CAT. Evelyn and I are matching wits and the big question is, which one of us will prevail. For round two, I ignored her. I pretended my precious baby didn't exist for several hours, hoping to disarm her with inattention. But, she was too wise for that maneuver. As soon as I picked her up, the game was afoot once again. Number One Daughter and I wrestled the villain to the kitchen floor and the my daughter SAT on her. That's right, she sat on the cat, effectively pinning her to the floor. (Now, I realize this sounds cruel, but Number One Daughter actually knelt on the floor with the cat between her knees and angled her feet so that the cat couldn't back out of the impromptu prison) Number One opened the cat's mouth and I stuck the pill as far down her throat as I could. Number One held her mouth closed for at least a minute. We didn...

Anybody who has a cat can sympathesize with my dilemma. Evelyn is by my definition, the smartest cat there is. She certainly proved that the day the vet announced that I had to give her a pill twice a week. The score so far: CAT 5, Humans 0. I have tried many techniques to get the pill into this clever girl. I tried the vet's method. "Just pull her head back by the scruff of the neck and when she opens her mouth, pop the pill in." Ok, maybe in your world, pal. I warn everybody who tries this. There will be consequences. Namely, the little wretch bit the pogees outta my finger and spit the pill into the next room. By the time I staunched the blood and found the pill, I couldn't find the cat because she was hiding behind the bottle(s)of Canadian Mist on the side board. It was just dumb luck that I spotted her when I went to take a large gulp of courage before tackling the problem again. Plan B. I bring in reinforcements (Number One Daughter) to hold the cat down, while ...

This is a whole lot like a statistics joke. You know the one. 60% of cars are stolen by left-handed people and 100% of all polar bears are left-handed, so if your car is stolen, there is an 47% chance it was stolen by a polar bear. Whyizzit? All of Beethoven's really good symphonies are the odd numbered ones and the really good Star Trek movies are even numbered?

Living in a metropolitan area as I do--I know it is metropolitan because I get stuck in rush hour traffic every day on my way to and from work. I am talking total gridlock because some buffoon's car breaks down and everyone in the State of Virginia has to drive by really slowly because most people here have never seen a broken down car before, thereby trapping the rest of us in suspended animation while we attempt to get to work on time. Hey, I actually did it once last week. There seems to be no difference in my leaving my house at 7:30 am or 8:15 am, I still am just as late to work. This somehow defies the laws of physics, I just haven't figured out how, yet. It has to do with the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel that always has someone broken down in it just as if they try to start their car in the morning, and upon finiing it running really ragged, coughing and sputtering, they decide to take it for a spin through the tunnel just one last time before it dies instead of taking it...

I heard a news report on the radio as I drove into work this morning about how iPod users are being mugged more and more often. Not only do the muggers take money from the person, they take the iPod as well. Evidently, the iPod is a new status symbol of wealth and/or prosperity and the average mugger takes that as a sign that the user would have more money than the average person. I realize it is incredibly easy to mug an iPod user as they obliviously stroll along the street. All one has to do is to stick their foot out and DOWN the iPod user goes. (Please understand, I am not trying to give any would-be muggers any ideas, here.) Once the iPod user is on the sidewalk, then the assailant can proceed with the theft. As a theft deterrent on a car, there is a sticker that says some on the order of "Protected by an Anti-Theft Device." That would be enough to discourage me, should I decide to start boosting cars for a living. So, why not have a warning label on the iPod to protect ...

I had to get a car because my #2 son wasn't going to let me borrow his car forever. That kind of behavior wears thin very quickly. At any rate, a friend of my son's had a car he was willing to sell, so I bought it. And it promptly quit working. Now, I admit that the car is older (a 1994) but after less than a week, I was stranded at the dry-cleaners. I called #2 to rescue me and he arrived, looking so official in his Air Force uniform and proceeded to get my car running so I could take it to the autoparts store. Then, we bought the alternator and he told me he would change it out for me. OK. Now, to fix this car, he had to acquire a number of tools he didn't own, so off the store where you buy that kind of thing for tool shopping. He loved it. He bought sockets, wrenches, a crow bar and a bendy-tool that makes your socket bend in odd directions to reach those hard to reach bolts. Two days, he shopped until he bought enough tools to make an Indy 500 Pit Crew happy. Then, he ...

My pretty kitty, Evelyn, is suddenly possessed to the point, I wouldn't be surprised if her head spun around backward and she launched pea-green gross stuff at me from her mouth. #2 refers to her as Evil-Lynne and he may be correct. I have long known she is one half Evil and one half Nutro Natural Choice Complete Care Adult Weight Management cat food (which, I might point out, hasn't controled her weight in the least because it is still out of hand.) She is Evil because she frequently buries her claws in my thigh when she thinks she is being totally neglected... a thing that happens often enough that I have permanent puncture wounds. She is Evil when she decides that tonight she will sleep in the bed with me, perches on the pillow next to my head and proceeds to groom/lick/wash and purr, all at four-freaking-am. I love cat purrs and Evelyn's purr is very loud. I think she must also be half lion. So that makes half Evil, half Cat Food and half lion. Well, if you take into co...

Most of you know that I have been a college student since I began posting here at Opera. I recently began a Master's program and just a few weeks ago, I changed the direction I was going, entirely. I am going to be a teacher, instructor, mentor, college professor. In my mind, most of those words are interchangeable. Mark Twain said, “Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education”. The challenge for me is that I haven’t been an instructor before other than a short stint as a software trainer with my employer. The question in my mind is, can I be a good effective teacher, instructor, college professor or what ever role I eventually obtain as a result of this master’s program? When I was a child, I dreamed of being a teacher because those ladies and men who stood in front of the classroom and gave us their knowledge seemed larger than life. As I grew to adulthood, I heard from many people, “Those who can’t do, t...