Category Archives: today’s thought

January 16, 2009

I READ THE NEWS TODAY, OH BOY

The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema

A psychotherapist analyzes Hitchcock and David Lynch.

Dead Cats in a Bag

More proof that Salvadore Dali was a photorealist, NOT a surrealist.

Bushies Burrow into Bureaucracy

Bush incompetence gets Civil Service protections

TODAY’S THOUGHT

Stop trying to control.
Let go of fixed plans and concepts,
And the world will govern itself.

Stephen Mitchell translation of Tao te Ching
No. 57

GRANDCHILD CUTENESS ALERT

GK sews on a Daisy patch wearing rose colored glasses
image-1380

GK sews on a Daisy patch wearing rose colored glasses


My daughter has a whole series of pictures of my grand-daughter, GK, in her post today over on Mom-A-Tron
The two of them take on a project that involves sewing patches on Daisy uniform shirts and putting an orange (?) stitch into the hat she’s wearing. Why she’s wearing rose colored glasses is a mystery, but I find them quite becoming. Fetching, even. If I’ve done this correctly, you can click on the picture of GK and some kind of internet computer magic stuff will happen. Or not. Continue reading

January 10, 2009

MOM-A-TRON BEETS HER FATHER

Mom-A-Tron

Mom-A-Tron


Just when I think I’m getting the hang of this 21st Century technology, somebody comes along and really gives me some perspective about how much there is. Today, Mom-A-Tron has a power point presentation she made herself — about beets of all things — and put to music and presents on her blog as a video. Damn. Pretty impressive, I must say. I personally loathe beets in all forms and fashions, but she seems to have acquired a fondness for them that escapes me.

EVERYBODY TALKS ABOUT THE WEATHER, BUT NOBODY DOES ANYTHING ABOUT IT

BECAUSE I SAID SO!

BECAUSE I SAID SO!


What a fine example of Oklahoma weather! It was top-down, sunny and in the mid-70s this afternoon and not long after dark, the wind was out of the North and it was freezing. I guess I should be grateful for any January day in which I can have the top down, and I am, believe me I am. Nevertheless this back and forth under a full moon is messing with my mammal midbrain and warm bloodedness.
Had a plenty good time at Paseo this afternoon with a good fraction of the usual suspects and we had India food from the buffet at 50th and May and I have the predictable aftereffects of curry to prove it.
We missed MCARP when we had the name of the artist playing on the Musak right on the tip of our tongue, but couldn’t quite place him/her and we just KNEW he’d have the cut on his iPod/iPhone playlists. Oh, well.
By the way, the line: “Everybody talks about the weather … .” That’s by Oklahoma’s own Will Rogers, who had a lot to say about our weather. I suppose it’s always been like this.

SINATRA SPEAKS

A cool cat with blue eyes.  Call him Sinatra

A cool cat with blue eyes. Call him Sinatra


Muffy, you are such a naughty girl. Such language! I know what you mean because this full moon is making me a little quirky, too. Today, I got my head stuck in one of the heating vents and if I had been like that when he got home! That wasn’t the only thing. I was up in my tree, minding my own business, when this bluejay I’ve been chasing for two years lands on the same limb I’m on about 2 feet away! I couldn’t believe it! He said: “Boo!” and flashed away and by the time I was springing at him, my back feet fell off the branch and I was hanging on for dear life. Muffy! That was SO embarrassing. So, I acted like I meant to do that and just continued to climb back down the tree. Memsahib and her Thugee would never let me forget it if they had been there. So, tomorrow, I’ve decided to practice murderous pounces from perches on the living room furniture. I’ve already put all three of my mouses there. I hear wet food! Bye!

I READ THE NEWS TODAY, OH BOY!

Belgians Know How to Take Sick Days

Confess to Barkeep, then Priest, Finally at AA

Women Really CAN smell desperation!

TODAY’S THOUGHT

Those who know don’t talk
Those who talk don’t know

Stephen Mitchell translation of Tao te Ching
No. 56

January 8, 2009

A BIRD IN THE HAND IS WORTH TWO … TO FIVE IN THE PEN

My desk, chair and computer at my office

My desk, chair and computer at my office


I don’t talk much in the blog about my business for a variety of reasons, but that’s today’s topic kinda sorta. While you are making fun of how clean I keep my desk (yes, I’m one of those OCD types) and are wondering about how I ended up with a baby blue wingback chair, you are missing the point of this whole post.
the tape on the window

the tape on the window


If you can get past the desk and chair and look way over in the corner of the office, you’ll see that there’s some tape on the window. A close up of the tape is on the right. WTF?, you may well ask. Why does John have tape all crossing and messy on the window of his nice, clean, professional office. Well, gentle readers, that is a very good question and the post today is the quite reasonable answer: I have tape on my window because intentional killing of a protected songbird is 2 to five years in a penitentiary. WTF?, you may again ask. The answer requires a look outside my window:
bird feeder

bird feeder


Here on the left you see that some kind person has placed a bird feeder in the coniferous (cedar, I think) tree that shades my window from the south. How nice. It’s winter and the birds … oh, it’s just too horrible to think what might happen to birds in winter if people didn’t put out bird feeders. How did those poor creatures survive for 165 million years without meddling do-gooders like the bird feeder person? The birds are so lovely, who could imagine that they might leave several tons of guano underneath the bird feeder right outside my office window? What a lovely sight!
BECAUSE I SAID SO!

BECAUSE I SAID SO!


The problem with all that is that it is a cardinal pair that have taken up residence in the tree. Why is that a problem? Because the windows are mirrors and the big, red, male cardinal sees another big, red, male cardinal in the mirror and attacks it to drive it away from his home and spouse. But the bird in the mirror just won’t go away. So, male cardinal attacks. And attacks. And attacks. And attacks. The little commie shit is pecking on my window all day. It drives me crazy. BUT, the cardinal is a protected species. You can’t just walk outside your window and throttle the little bastard. You can’t shoot him down. (For one thing, there’s Villa Teresa school across the street and a stream of 9mm bullets is likely to do a slight amount of “collateral” damage, friendly fire though it may be.)
And you guys thought lawyers had it easy.
A cool cat with blue eyes.  Call him Sinatra

A cool cat with blue eyes. Call him Sinatra


I’m miffed again, Muffy. He came home with this long diatribe about a cardinal he wants whacked and he’s looking at me the whole time and I’m looking at him like “yeah, yeah, and … ” and he just doesn’t get it! I mean, there’s the solution to his big darn problem right there in front of him licking its paws, showing him the grandiosity of its belly, politely yawning a mouthful of sharp teeth, and he is without one single damn clue.
No wonder cats rule the world.

STORIES THAT INTERESTED ME

Your fat ass is good for your health

Five Ways the Earth Could Come to an End

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Don’t act as you were going to live ten thousand years; Death hangs over you. While you live, while it is in your power, be good.

The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius
Book IV, No. 17

January 7, 2009

DEATH DRINKS DUBLIO BREVE

Evil Empire Starbucks

Evil Empire Starbucks


As sometimes happens, I drop by the Evil Empire Starbucks to grab a cuppa to take back to work after lunch. Like any place that serves coffee on the north side of Oklahoma City I’m likely to see a few people there that I know, but not always. Sometimes I have to go next door to Saturn Grill before I see a face familiar. Evil Empire Starbucks is not like Sauced or the Red Cup in a lot of ways, but in some ways it is. Retired philosophers drink coffee wherever it is served, whether upscale or truck stop diner.
BECAUSE I SAID SO, THAT'S WHY!!!

BECAUSE I SAID SO, THAT'S WHY!!!


This day, on my way through the line, I found myself being served a grande hot chocolate (goodness! was it not a cold day?) by a lovely barista with whom I have often passed the time of day. Some of you may also know her. However, do you know her big secret? I do. She’s married to a hobbit that works for Ed in the bowels of Sauced.
Hobbit's wife

Hobbit's wife


On my way out, I paid obesience to the coffee codgers. The retired guys who know something just because they’ve lived through something. However, this was not something I wanted to hear particularly. We’re all going to die. Sooner or later, we all are gone from this life. This homespun philosopher, who should know from his vantage point of advanced age, reminded me that every moment, asleep or awake, Mother Nature is trying to find a way to get rid of us after the age of 40.
coffee codger

coffee codger


You know what? I don’t care how true it is, I don’t want to hear that. Just because MCARP says he’s ready to call it quits to middle age and start saying he’s “old”, doesn’t mean I have to do it. I am Peter Fucking Pan, baby, and I WON’T GROW UP. Don’t care what you say. We also talked along about how much time seems to pass faster after age 40. I got a theory about that. We experience time mostly through the observation of entropy. Because entropy has the upper hand after we’re 40, we “feel” like time passes more quickly because we see more entropy in less time than previously.
7jan09-012
So, in the spirit of never growing up and highlighting my youth, what I did next of course is go to work where Mrs. Taylor, a teacher in her real life, gave me that “you are late to class and do not have an admit slip, young man, what am I going to do with you?” look as I snuck by while she was on the phone. Whew! Thought I was going to have to go to the principal’s office and get something really nasty put on my permanent record. Where do they keep those permanent records, anyway? Who keeps them? Who looks at them?
TODAY’S THOUGHT

If your happiness depends on money
you will never be happy with your self.

Stephen Mitchell translation of Tao te Ching
Chapter 44

STORIES THAT INTERESTED ME

The helpful tax collector? IRS given power to cut better deals

The Milky Way’s Not Snack Sized Any More

A cool cat with blue eyes.  Call him Sinatra

A cool cat with blue eyes. Call him Sinatra

I guess I’m glad I fell asleep before I remembered to poo in his shoes, Muffy, because this dark he finally brought home the FANCY FEAST that I consider vital to my Way of Life. I made sure to put an extra layer of finest cat hairs all around the cuffs of his best black suit to show my appreciation and to make sure no other cats get near my guy. Hey! You Birds! Get off my lawn! Gotta run, Muffy. bye!

FOR NO GOOD REASON

January 6, 2009

THE EYES OF TEXAS …

great football game!

great football game!

No matter what happens from here on out, it was good to be a Texas and/or Big 12 fan at the end of the Fiesta Bowl. It was by far the best bowl game of the season so far and one of the better games I’ve ever watched. Great football teams come from behind, they find a way to win, and Colt McCoy and Texas and Mack Brown passed the test against a quality Big 10 team.

BECAUSE I SAID SO, THAT'S WHY!!!

BECAUSE I SAID SO, THAT'S WHY!!!


Of course, this now means that no matter what happens on Thursday, both Texas and Utah are going to claim to be national champions AND Texas will continue to believe that Oklahoma “stole” the Big 12 Title and the chance to play Florida and actually BE national champs rather than just claim it. If Oklahoma loses to Florida, the hue and cry will be heard ’round the world. Horns will weep in the street and lynch mobs will be formed. There will be an attempt by a small group of Texans to secede from the union. For being so proud of their so-big state, they can cry like babies over football. Of course, Sooners are never, ever, ever crybabies and that 15-15 tie didn’t phase me a bit. We’re just cool. We have “Sooner Magic”, which means that we find a way to come back. Except when we don’t. Please Please Please Coach Stoops win this one, OK? I’ll get excited about college basketball around the time of the Big 12 tournament and maybe not until the sweet 16 in March. Oh! Before I forget, there’s also USC that thinks they have a claim to the title of national champions. They won the Pac 10 and beat Penn State in the Rose Bowl and really looked dominating.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Sometime during my marriage, my wife must have bought “my-fault” insurance.

WHAT? NO POLITICS?

The truth is that after the November elections, I’d been following politics closely for my whole life and started being interested in the presidential election in the fall of 2007 and built up to the point that I was honest to goodness reading political stuff on the internet from 8 to 12 hours every single day. I know that the story about Bill Richardson bowing out is important, as is the appointment of Leon Panetta to head CIA, but I just can’t get too excited about it. It’s not that I think anybody much cares about my political pronouncements, but I’ll talk and write about it again and more and to the distraction of some, but I’m just not feeling it right now.

BLOGGING BUDDIES

MCARP

MCARP


MCARP complained in a comment that my picture looked like it was out of GQ and that his looked like it was taken at St. Anthony’s ER. He must think this one is better because he says it’s the one he uses on MyFaceCrack. He admits, however, that the photo has received at least one unkind review. The guy is a Photoshop Ace, I can’t figure out why he just doesn’t make himself look like he wants to look. Maybe put his face on a golden Bhudda being embraced by the multi-armed Shiva in an Edwardian-style piece of the two in a punt on the Thames. “Forbidden Kiss”. Or maybe lengthen his for-real beard into chin piece and long mustache Chinese elder style. I wish I could do that Photoshop stuff. Maybe someday.

Flibbertigibbit

Flibbertigibbit


Over on Nina’s blog, she’s changed her avatar to the one here. I think it’s only fair if she’s going to be so difficult about it all and be on hiatus and mess with the minds clueless men, this absolutely should be her avatar so that we might get the hint. I will say that any man who sees that and goes for it is likely to be a very competitive fellow, the kind of guy who looks for a challenge. We’ll have to get her to recite: “What part of ‘NO!’ did you not understand?”. Go with it, Flibbi, I think it’ll work for you.

A cool cat with blue eyes.  Call him Sinatra

A cool cat with blue eyes. Call him Sinatra


I’m miffed, Muffy. He’s supposed to sit at the window and let me in and out as I please and instead he put on hard shoes and a tie and left me outside all day where I couldn’t check every 15 minutes to see if he’d put out wet food. When he got home, I told him and showed him the food bowl several times and he ignored me. Tonight, when he’s asleep, I’m going to poo in his shoes. Time for a nap! Bye!

January 5, 2009

Mom-A-Tron

Mom-A-Tron

RebL’s blog covers the tongue like a bad hangover fuzz today and had me laughing all the way to Einstein’s goofing off for the lens. Blogblah is sorta kinda taking Sunday off, so go over to Mom-A-Tron to look for better than her old man can do. As a reward, I also post a LEGO video for RebL to show her obsessed son and leave it up to her what the heck the video is about and who the heck Michael Jackson was.

Today’s Thought

Who can find a good woman?
She is precious beyond all things.
Prov. 31:10

January 4, 2009

SATURDAY WAS A TOP DOWN DAY FOR BLOGBLAH

Are you gonna be my drop top girl?  It's a top down day

Are you gonna be my drop top girl? It's a top down day

I have beaucoups things to do to get ready for Monday and I’m working to get my calendars and contact lists all sync’d up and blah blah blah, but when it is 73 degrees Farenheit on January 3 in Oklahoma, there’s no way I could stay inside and pound away on the computer. Nor could I do anything else. I just had to get outside. Now, I know how Sinatra feels when he’s sitting on the window sill yelling at me to let him out NOW.

73 Degrees!

73 Degrees!


I dressed and got in the car and pulled it into the driveway and pulled down the ragtop and away I went on a little Saturday afternoon adventure when there was football on the television and everything (I don’t give a rat’s patoot about the NFL, so there it is). Perhaps you live in Tucson or in Charleston and don’t think it was REALLY 73 in Oklahoma City, so I even took a picture of the thermometer in the dash:
Since I didn’t really have anything to do or anyplace to go nor much money to do it with, I thought I’d just kind of drive around and see what was up and if anyone else was out on the streets looking for something to do or having found something to do or planning something to do.
Evil Empire Starbucks

Evil Empire Starbucks


The first place I went was the Evil Empire Starbucks since that was the closest place I could think of with outside seating.
However, there was not a soul around who I recognized among the sparse customers. I suppose the Nichols Hills people are all out of town at the lake or going to some bowl game or coming home from some bowl game or maybe they’re just skiing, but there wasn’t anything to keep me at 63d and Western and I didn’t even buy a cuppa there.
Red Cup?

Red Cup?


So, it was off to the Red Cup.
Yes, I know it’s called the Red Cup, but the identical white cup of coffee on the red counter you see in that picture is what I actually got. Along with a long note from Kurt the self-confessed bad businessman about how the menu is going to be curtailed and an equally long whine about his tiny digs and all the excuses for not serving his customers.
Lexi at Red Cup

Lexi at Red Cup


Good thing I don’t go to the Red Cup for the food or even for the coffee. What I do go to the Red Cup for is to see friends, which I had not found at the Evil Empire Starbucks. Sure enough, the first person I saw was old friend rarely seen these days, Lexi.
I have no idea why she was holding that rat in her lap, but she claimed it was a dog and who am I to argue when she’s there with her boyfriend and I want her to speak to me after she realizes her horrible error without me. She says she’s “good”, but we all know better depending on how she meant that.
Skip at Red Cup

Skip at Red Cup


Not two feet away from Lexi was the intrepid Skip, talking to Lars on the phone. He says he’s having a triune brain brainstorm session Sunday about 3:30 p.m. at Galileo’s and depending on the weather and how I’m feeling I just might go. Later, I saw Skip at Sauced! as well as the cup, but you don’t get two pictures and mentions that easily. Well, I guess you do.
Sauced! bike rack

Sauced! bike rack


Next on my list was, of course, Sauced! with it’s large patio outside and its clientele of young artist types and Paseo dug-ins and just the normal neighborhood folks. Here’s the famous Sauced! bike rack with several bikes installed because those bike folks seem to flock to Ed’s Place.

One of the people I saw at Sauced was fellow blogger and fabulous artist/architect/sculptor, Larry P, who runs the pop*modern blog, where I found the “THOUGHT FOR THE DAY”. Larry quotes a construction foreman as saying:
“I can explain it to you, but I can’t understand it for you.”
my oh my but ain’t that the truth!

pop*modern

pop*modern


Larry P was incognito at Sauced!, thinking about a beer and maybe not a beer but a thousand other things, but I took his picture so maybe you could recognize him if you saw him in one of those grainy black and white videos from a convenience store robbery or maybe a Scorcese film.

Speaking of fellow bloggers, I also saw LongRydeHome in all her beauty at Sauced! She was talking to some guys and she introduced me and all, but I wasn’t paying attention and I don’t know who they are. I wish I’d read her blog post for Saturday and had known she started out having a pretty hard day and what sounds like a good cry.

longrydehome

longrydehome


In the event, I figured she was working her mojo with the big, handsome guys whose names I don’t know and I drifted over to another table.
Christopher at Sauced

Christopher at Sauced


At the next table, I found a couple of friends chatting, Christopher and Andre.
I am very jealous of Christopher because he speaks foreign languages, has an absolutely gorgeous woman in his life and has and does travel the world. He even has a steady paycheck, which is a rarity in Blogblah world.
Andre at Sauced

Andre at Sauced


Andre, one of the cooler parts of a warm day, was deep into some kind of conversation around the table when I barged in, but it’s always great to see him. We talked about how dangerous a place it is between your ears sometimes.
BECAUSE I SAID SO, THAT'S WHY!!!

BECAUSE I SAID SO, THAT'S WHY!!!


For example, I thought this blog was going to be a good idea and a monster was created. Far too often I find myself in wonder at how good an idea it seemed at the time and how not-so-good it turned out.
Other than the schemes and dreams, though, there’s also a guy in my head at the head of the committee that doesn’t seem to like me very much and is yelling about what an imperfect screw up I am.
I blog to make him shut up.

AN INVITATION

Worst Ever

Worst Ever


Last, but not least, there will be an Inaugural Ballz celebration at my house on Jan. 17, the Saturday before Obama is sworn into office. It’s BYOB since I don’t drink, but there will be food, poker playing and a finale you won’t want to miss — the burning in effigy of the current Worst. President. Ever. Before that, we’re going to throw shoes and shoot BBs at the life-sized image I’ve had ever since Oz scared the hell out of me one April Fool’s Day a couple years back. Think 7:30-ish.