Dwarf-Tossing

Apparently Dwarf-Tossing was a thing people did back in the 90's. I guess I missed that trend. I had better things to do with my time back then-like play video games and go to concerts. It's been banned in many states, including my own, Florida. At first, it seems like a good idea to ban this. After all, it's dehumanizing and disgusting.

However, what I think is dehumanizing and repulsive isn't what should be banned. I'm incredibly uncomfortable with this activity, but I'm also uncomfortable with the government forbidding it. If a little person wants to make money with their body by doing this, you have no right to tell them not to. Part of freedom is making choices that you personally don't approve of, and you don't have to approve of them. However, you have no right to stop someone else from doing something that harms themselves.

Line jumping at Disney World

Recently I got into a Facebook discussion about line jumping at Disney World. Someone had the obnoxious experience where she was in line for a popular ride and a group of people pushed their way to the front. Generally speaking, VIPs and sick children are allowed to do this, but for the rest of us it's exceptionally rude. I'm not sure if you will be asked to leave the park, but if a Disney cast member sees you you might be sent back to the end of the line. Regardless, people in this discussion all jumped in and said they'd certainly say something to the line jumpers, they'd confront them, one even said he'd "slap them".

I love Facebook warriors.  I've noticed in life that people with training in martial arts generally don't like to fight in the real world, while people without training in the marital arts love to be confrontational and obnoxious.

Line jumping is frustrating, but why let it spoil your time there at the parks? Let it go. Eventually someone who is that rude and entitled will have it all come crashing down upon them, and it's not your job to cause that to happen. Also, let's say you do say something, and the line jumpers have a short fuse and take you up on your challenge to fight them? Is it worth ruining a family vacation and possibly getting kicked out of the park? Of course it isn't, but Facebook warriors and tough guys never seem to understand that.

Vinnie Vincent cancels his concerts

Surprise! Vinnie Vincent canceled his comeback concerts. Sorry for posting about the same topic twice in a row, but it broke overnight. While people are still hearing about it, I'm sure the rock community will not be surprised or disappointed, just irritated. People do change, but apparently Vinnie has not. Which is sad. When we saw him in Atlanta a lot of us thought it could be the beginning of a welcome comeback. Since then, he's had the same old drama that seems to follow him around. 

Your first divorce might be bad circumstances/bad luck. Your fourth divorce is probably 100% your fault. Your first canceled concert might be bad luck/back circumstances. This time, it's pretty clear who is to blame. 

Vinnie Vincent upcoming concert

It's been about a year since his first public appearance in decades, and so far he's cancelled his December show-er, I mean "postponed" and showed up before the Kiss Cruise on stage to play guitar in front of his fans. It didn't go well, and you can click here to see him onstage at that concert. He is at least smiling and interacting with the fans but he looks like someone who has never picked up a guitar in his life. While it appears that his February concert is still going to happen at this point, neither the venue or his website appear to be selling tickets. I tried to buy two on Friday night and the website wasn't working. This is the email I wrote to the admin:

I'm not optimistic I'll get a return email, which is an odd way to business. I'm also very hesitant to buy the tickets, prepare travel and book a hotel room. He canceled once, who is to say he won't do it again?

Scripture Sunday Jacob 7:12

"If there should be no atonement, mankind is lost." Mankind being lost is a harsh statement, but in this context it's very true. God created humans, and humans created sin. It would be perfectly fine of God to say "Well, you guys screwed it up, you are on your own." But he didn't-he gave us His son to take the penalty for sin so we don't have to. If it wasn't for Christ atoning for us, we would truly be lost.

Why did God create humans in the first place if he knew that we would just sin and ruin things? Can't God see the future? This is a perfectly legit question and when I die, I hope to get the chance to ask Him of this. Just because we have questions doesn't mean we throw everything out of course, and I'm not going to put God on trial, but I can't wait to get this one answered.

Emotional support alligator?

So, now emotional support alligators are a thing. Really.  I've spoken about emotional support peacocks before, and fake support dogs too.  It's a big issue for me because I think it shows massive entitlement problems. No, an alligator is not a dog and no, your emotional support alligator does not have the same rights as a seeing eye dog or even a pet dog.

I'm not sure alligators can be trained as emotional support animals. One thing a trained assistance dog has to do is switch off it's fighting temperament. A German Shepard or Belgian Malinois is very good at biting things, and it takes great effort to convince the dog not to give into it's natural desires. An alligator does two things in the wild-make baby alligators and attack things-parpharsing Jaws here. In order to train it not to do so, it would require super human effort. I'm sure it can be done, but do you want your kid playing with an emotional support alligator? Probably not.

This is madness. If you want a pet alligator, fine, it's your life you put in great risk. But guess what? Your desire for exotic pets don't trump my right to live or frankly, my dogs right to life either. If your alligator attacks a human or another pet, you should be held 100% accountable. Your right to do stupid things stops where my safety begins.

Album of the weekend

Buckethead-Polar Trench

Music is subjective. Just because I don't like or like a certain artist doesn't mean that I think everyone should share my opinion. I can appreciate talent, and to some extent I have great respect for anyone who can make a living off their artwork-whether it be paintings, movies, or music. In our thin skinned culture, I'm not sure people share my opinion. I've seen many people get offended when you state an opinion about art that they don't personally share.

Buckethead is amazingly talented. No question one of the best guitarists out there. His music puts me to sleep and while I appreciate it, it's not my thing and no, I don't like this album. The amazing Roger Ebert said that it's never a good sign when you check your watch during a movie. It's also not a good sign when you notice the song has bene playing for two minutes and you think it's been playing for much longer. That sums up how I feel about this album. It goes on for much longer than you think it does. Which wouldn't be bad if you enjoy the music, but it's not particularly pleasant when you do not enjoy it..

Celebrity Big Brother II

Apparently every year they are going to do a "celebrity" version of Big Brother. It's reality TV, so their version of celebrity is greatly different then yours. In fact, if you have the time to be on Big Brother, you probably aren't much of a celebrity. Real celebrities would you know, be working on what made them famous not starring in a realty TV show.

And I love Big Brother. I used to watch the live feeds but I've sort of moved passed that stage in my life-now I focus mostly on the weekly shows. One of the interesting aspects of Big Brother is that it takes people from every walk of life, locks them in a house and demands that they interact. A Jewish podiatrist from Miami and an Arkansas good ole' boy would never meet in real life, but they have before on Big Brother.

I will always love Big Brother but I have zero interest in watching the celebrity version.

Grammar Nazis

My degree is in English, yet I still make a lot of grammar mistakes. Some of them are the result of my poor editing skills, some are a result of ignorance, and some are just, well, mistakes. 

Being an English major who makes mistakes in grammar is particularly troublesome because everyone loves to point out your mistakes and then insinuate that your degree is somehow worthless. Oddly, when I meet a math major who makes mistakes in calculus (and yes, that does happen) I don't assume her degree is somehow deficient.  Another fun way to irritate an English major is to name some obscure book you've read than look in disgust when you say you've never heard of it.

Grammar Nazis are the worst type of people because they use your mistakes to make themselves feel smarter and better than you. Some mean well, some are just prigs-but all of them fail to comprehend that everyone makes mistakes in grammar no matter who they are-no matter what you major was in college. A photographer takes bad pictures sometimes. A tattoo artist messes up lines from time time to time. Yes, even English majors can make mistakes too.

Manny Pacquiao fight

Manny, at age 40, won his fight on Saturday night against Adrien Broner. I didn't watch the fight-I'm not going to watch the remains of Manny fight anymore and I've always thought Broner was overrated-so I can't actually critique how he did. After the fight apparently he called out Floyd Mayweather to see if there was any interest in a second battle between the two aging champions.

Let me spoil it for Manny: No one wants to see that fight happen.

The first fight was incredibly boring and there is widespread agreement that it didn't live up to the hype. They charged one hundred dollars for it and there universal outrage that the fight didn't live up to it's cost. That's partially the fault of the people who bought the fight-even back in 2015 (!) both men were a little past their prime and the boxing hardcore fans should have known that the fight wouldn't live up to it's hype. I feel more sorry for the casual fans who bought the match without knowing the circumstances behind it.

Mayweather-Pacquiao II will never happen, and thank God for it.

More thoughts on Gillette

Like I mentioned in my previous post, this will help Gillette in the long run.  A good way to attract business is to do something that grabs attention. Gillette has done that brilliantly. They've played both sides of the argument like children.The right will whine and complain-thus giving Gillette more attention. The left will flock to Gillette to buy their products, just like how some left wingers buy Ben and Jerrys and Nike just to show how woke they are. Gillette will win while both sides become further split.

One more thing to remember: Gillette hasn't always been so gentle and sensitive. I'm not going to post the pictures here, but there have been times that :: gasp :: Gillette has shown women in skin tight clothing with the word "Gillette" in fairly unique places.  That'll be conveniently dismissed/forgotten now that Gillette has joined the right side of belief in 2019.

Scripture Sunday Alma 36:3

I think troubles seem worse when "thou art in they youth", simply because you have less life experience. What seems like a garganutan problem at 21 may not seem like much of an issue at 31, and you may have no idea why you got upset at all about it at 41. Don't be too hard on yourself for feeling that way, it's just how life works. 

This passage is very reassuring to me. "Whoever shall put their trust in God shall be supported in their trials, troubles, afflictions and shall be lifted up on the last day." I can see so many parents and mentors telling the young people in their lives this passage and praying that the advice is listened to and absorbed. Of course just hearing that doesn't mean that you won't have problems-sometimes very serious ones-but for some of us just knowing that God is their supporting us is incredibly comforting. 

Bird Box challenge

I haven't seen the movie and shockingly, I don't have a Netflix subscription. Sorry, just not much of a movie person. So if I'm way off, I apologize. But apparently someone got into a car accident while trying to drive blindfolded. I wish I was making this up, but I'm not. It's so ridiculous that I thought it was fake news at first. Sadly, it is a real story.

What do you say about this?

If you want to blindfold yourself and walk around aimlessly, go ahead. It's a free country and if you are looking for ways to put your life at risk, you should be free to do so. However driving a car blindfolded puts all of us at risk, including your own loved ones. This girl should get serious jail time. Not for being stupid, but for being so unbelievably irresponsible.

Album of the weekend

Judas Priest-Jugulator

First off, the obvious-it's the first album they did with their new lead singer, Tim Owens. His voice is spectacular, and while you can't replace Rob Halford, Owens does a very good job at coming as close as possible to the original sound of Halford. Owens gets a bad rap because he's been in 57 different bands, but his voice is great.

The overall sound of this album is a bit complicated. Some critics say that Priest shifted from traditional metal to a thrash sound and they were disappointed in the change. I can understand how they feel about this, but to me I think the transition worked pretty well. The songs "Burn in Hell", "Bullet Train" and "Brain Dead" are great songs, no matter what genre they are in. In fact, if Halford sang on this album I think it would be regarded in a much better light.

That asks an interesting question-when a singer is replaced will people automatically think that the music is bad strictly because it's not the original singer preforming it? I think Halford is among the best voices in metal history. He's in my top 5, probably top three. No, Tim Owens is not as good as Halford.  This album however, deserves a much better reputation than what it has.

Super Size Me!

Remember the 2004 movie "Super Size Me" with the now scandal plagued Morgan Spurlock? Seriously, look him up. Dude was has a history of sexual misconduct and even Louis CK would tell him to take a cold shower. He's done other work since this movie but he's always struck me as such a raging egomaniac that I can only take him in small doses.  I watched the movie Super Size Me again because it's an excellent propaganda piece. It got people to believe that something other than their personal choices was responsible for their current health conditions.

I'm not saying some part of your weight isn't genetic, it certainly is. I'm also not saying that we don't all have weaknesses and bad habits. Eating fast food is like smoking marijuana in my view. It's not healthy, but a little but now and then won't kill you. However if you do it all the time-like this jackass did-you are going to suffer the negative consequences of it, and yes, it's partially your fault. Morgan Spurlock asks the question "Where does corporate responsibility end and personal responsibility begin?" In my view, he never answers it because that would negate the apparent thesis of his film-which is, "I am not accountable for my actions."

The movie is old, and with McDonalds now trying to go healthy, it's partially irrelevant. But it's still a great representation of someone who decided to blame everyone else but himself for his problems.

Gillette embraces the social justice warrior community

Gillette, the razor blade/shaving  company has embraced it's politically correct side with a new commercial advertising both shaving products and social justice. It's an indictment of "toxic masculinity" and an embrace of politically correct social justice platitudes. Of course, the usual suspects are outraged, and the usual suspects have embraced Gillette. Me? I think it's sad and hilarious at the same time, but I don't use their products in the first place. Here's an interesting screen shot: 

328,000+ plus (including myself) dislike the ad, 75,000 like it. 

This won't hurt Gillette. When Nike embraced the SJWs sales and profits skyrocketed. Gillette is probably going have the same thing happen. 

Jeff Bezos personal matters

Whenever a long marriage ends in divorce, it's tragic no matter what the circumstances are. Even in cases of infidelity, where one side is clearly more at fault than the other, it's hardly as black and white as the public would like to think it was. Because we don't see the complex interactions of husband and wife on a daily basis, we put people into boxes and color them as "good"or "bad" because it makes it easier for us to understand their behavior. It also makes us feel like the good guys. If a man or a woman had an affair, then they must be evil, untrustworthy, narcissistic, etc. It's nonsense of course, but it's how most people think, sadly.

No, I'm not arguing for infidelity, and yes, I think it's morally wrong no matter what the case is. However, we are humans and sometimes we do wrong things. Let's remember the case of King David-who committed adultery and had the husband of the woman killed to cover it up. God was displeased, but still forgiving.

God is more forgiving than humans are. I'm guaranteeing you that there are people out there who think Jeff Bezos is human garbage who should be cleaned out in his divorce. Worse, there are people who think Bezos should be punished. If he (God forbid) gets cancer they'll call it karma. Think I'm kidding? Look what happened to Tiger Woods. Some people can't get over his scandal so they'll think anything bad that happens to him is deserved.

This story, and the reaction by the public, is just tragic all around.

UK police confiscated a sword

This is a screen shot from my Facebook page-I can't find a link to the story online. If it's true, I find it both comical and sad. The comments that were under this photo were absolutely hilarious. I feel sorry fo the cop in the picture-he seems oddly depressed. 

Don't you feel safer that a sword was taken off the streets? This sword looks pretty dull, I'm not sure even King Arthur could cause much damage with this. I'm also 99% sure that the person who owned it wasn't planning on going on a killing spree with it. 

I'm ethnically English-one of the first questions I asked my biological mother was what nationality I was. I feel so sorry for what happened to that country. If they are confiscating sword from people and arresting them "hate speech" violations, than we should all thank God that our forefathers rebelled against the crown so many years ago. 

Scripture Sunday Mosiah 4:11

At first, this verse reminds us of the good things God has given us-a remission of sins, a taste of His love, the knowledge and glory of who He is-and then reminds us that in order to keep having those things we need to call on the Lord daily, be humble, and stand steadfastly in the faith of that which has to come. It's pretty clear that all the good things are contingent on the remaining humble and having faith. 

"Being in power is like being a lady. If you have to say you are, you are not."-Margaret Thatcher. I love that quote. Humility doesn't mean never being proud of your own achievements, but in this context is means remembering that God is gave you the abilities needed to acquire your achievements . In his eyes, your achievements don't mean much unless you give Him glory. 

You also need to have faith, which in some cases is harder than having humility. I admire people who can "just believe" like it's a choice, but for many of us it's much more difficult. 

Religious parents who refuse treatment for their kids

Religious belief can be a form of delusion sometimes. That's odd, coming from someone who is religious and runs a blog that is religious is nature-but I just read a story about a couple from Michigan named Rachel and Joshua Piland. Apparently they let their baby die instead of getting treatment, because "God will always provide".

This is a madness. In fact, their children should be taken away from them and yes, if they have any other children then forced sterilization should be an option. Of course the child dying is the true tragedy here and should be front and center. Like I just said, this couple should be jailed, given forced sterilization, and removed from society. Preferably for life.

Your religious beliefs are fine, even admirable. But they don't trump the life of innocent children. For the record, even if this couple was LDS, I'd still think they should be jailed.

Album of the weekend

Metallica-St. Anger

I know what you are thinking. "St. Anger? This album is terrible." And no, it's not their best. But is it as bad as it's reputation?

After the six year break between Load/Re-Load their changing sound, hairstyle, the battle with Napster, Newstead leaving the band, Hetfields drinking problems, we were all eager to see what kind of music Metallica could create. Would it sound more like Ride the Lightning or the Black Album? Many of us thought that the The Black Album was the beginning of the end for this band, and Load/Re-Load didn't help the matter that they had fundamentally changed their sound and more importantly, their attitude. The dark, philosophical lyrics of Lighting or Justice were swapped out for the more radio friendly lyrical content of the Black album and the useless and forgettable sound of Load/Re-Load.

So St. Anger was going to be, well, interesting. I've been listening to it a bit this week. Many of my friends dislike the album-in fact, they wrongly think it's their worst. No, it's not their best but it's no where near Load/Re-Load, which are easily the worst Metallica albums in their canon. The title song, "St. Anger" isn't as hard or fast as anything off Hardwired (an amazing album), but it's better than any song off Load/Re-Load.

Perhaps the best thing you can say about this album is that it's better than their most recent releases at the time.

Closing of a roller rink

So, apparently they still have roller rinks. I had no idea these things even existed. They'll have one less roller rink, because one is closing in my former state. To the surprise of no one,  many people are complaining about it. So many in fact that one is led to believe that if the roller rink had this many customers in the first place, it wouldn't have gone out of business.

Remember Kent Brockman on The Simpsons? That episode where he is shocked and disgusted that a carousel is being torn down to make a store that sells designer mouse pads? Yeah, that's what I'm thinking about right now. People need to get over this. Times change, and that means that your favorite hobbies you partook in 50 years ago won't be the same things as what kids today do. No, there is nothing wrong with that. It's called "life". I'm not sure that you played mumblety-peg with your friends, and perhaps your parents complained about "kids today" and not playing games like that.

You don't have to like it when the world moves on from your favorite things-but you do have to accept it. No one is stopping you from roller skating, they are just stopping you from roller skating here.

Unmarried pregnant teacher fired from a Catholic school

You hear about these stories from time to time, and why they make the news is beyond me. An unwed pregnant teacher has been fired from a Catholic school.  Imagine that. A Catholic school teacher is being fired because she didn't live up to the ideals that the school required her to adhere by. This isn't about having sex before marriage, it's about contract law. Many Catholic school contracts have "morality clauses" that state you can lose your job if you don't follow the teachings of the Catholic church.

Here's a novel idea: If you don't like living by those rules, don't get a job at a Catholic school. This is only news because the mainstream media wrongly thinks it is some kind of discrimination. It's not, it's about common sense.

Do Catholic schools pick and choose what rules they want their teachers to follow? Absolutely. I know of Catholic school teachers who are Masons or have been divorced and remarried or who live with their boyfriends/girlfriends out of wedlock. Remember, it's only against the rules if you get caught doing it. But if you do, your fired.

Government shut down

Longtime readers (both of them) will know that I'm a libertarian who thinks government needs to be drastically shrunk down. I'd start with the department of education and work my way down from there. Sure, it's a dream world and no, I don't see it happening anytime soon. The bureaucracy is too bloated and sadly, too powerful to just be shut down and no, there is no way it'll chipped away at until it's totally abolished. So right now, all I can do is dream.

Setting aside my personal distaste for the idea of building a massive government project that the border wall will be, I don't have terrible sympathy for employees not getting paid during this government shut down. I feel sorry for their families, but I feel more sorry for people buried in red tape and being pushed around by government bureaucrats, which does happen all too often, sadly. 

Trump is a very polarizing figure. He has done many things that I agree with, but right now the enemy of my enemy is a friend, and I hope his shut down continues to last. 

Teacher feeding a puppy to a turtle

I must have missed this, but a teacher apparently fed a puppy to a turtle in a high school science class.  I get it, nature is cruel and yes, in the wild these things happen all the time.  I live in Florida and I'm 100% positive that alligators eat stray puppies, kitties, and other cute little animals.

But what kind of turtle eats a puppy? Seriously, that's a big turtle. And why in the world did the teacher think that it was okay to do this in a high school science class? Even if the puppy was "sick" and going to die, feeding it to a turtle in a science class is a colossal lapse in judgment. The teacher should have been suspended for this-a high school science class doesn't need to see this. In fact, even if the puppy was sick, there are other ways to deal with that than feeding it to a turtle.

Apparently the turtle was put down because teacher jackass here didn't have the proper permit for it. Bang up job my friend.

Scripture Sunday Mosiah 3:12

Rebellion is a good thing. In fact, the spirt of punk is about the spirit of rebellion. Unfortunately, people in 2018 don't really understand what rebellion is. Rebellion is simply going against what is popular. Mosiah didn't know that in our modern times, true rebellion would be obeying God, since no one seems to want to obey him today.  Rebellion isn't always a good thing, and rebellion against God is something you probably want to avoid. 

This passage says something interesting though. "Wo to those that know that he rebels against God." While it's fairly easy to find out what the word of God is in this time, not everyone agrees that this or that is the word of God. Ask yourself this-would a Catholic agree that the Book of Mormon is the word of God? Of course not. Would a Baptist say that the pope speaks the Word of God? Of course not. 

You can't always know that you are rebelling against the word of God. Yes, sometimes you can, but not always. Rebelling against the word of God when you aren't sure what His word is isn't really rebellion.

Gamestop

Gamestop, the video game retailer, is just about finished. With more and more games available via download, how could they survive? Selling only hardware won't get you much. My guess is that they'll have to become like Newbury Comics (the New England based music retailer chain) is. Focus more on selling pop culture than on selling actual media that we can get in the privacy of our own home without leaving our couch.

I won't be sorry to see Gamestop go. I understand that they need to make money first and foremost, but I was tired of getting 5$ for my trade ins. I love retro gaming, but I gave up on Gamestop years ago. Some might be surprised to hear a huge video game fan have no sympathy for the demise of a store dedicated to video games, but to quote Kent Brockman, "No children will cry when this puppy is put to sleep."

Album of the weekend

Kiss-Monster

This is the most recent Kiss album with new songs on it, and it's clear due to the age of the band members that this will probably be among the final Kiss albums period. With Kiss right now, you know what you are getting. You either love them or hate them. No one is downloading the album and saying "Wow! This is not what I expected!" or buying this album for their first Kiss experience. It doesn't work this way. Is this album good? Yes and no. It might have a good song here or there and it's nice overall, but it's not as good as their classics and it's not even as good as Sonic Boom, their previous album.

I like the songs "Freak" and "Hell or Hallelujah". That's it. Than again, I only liked a few songs off Sonic Boom so nothing changes from there. Paul Stanley once said that he thinks songs like "Modern Day Delilah" and "Hell or Hallelujah" are as good as "Love Gun" or "Detroit Rock City", but because they are newer and not connected to your life in a certain way no one wants to hear them. He's partially right-no one wants to hear these songs at concerts-but he's also wrong. They are still good, but not as good as their classics. That's a good description of this album.

Second Brexit referendum

So apparently, there is a movement for a second Brexit referendum gaining traction in the United Kingdom right now. If you support this, I want to ask you something. If "remain" won the election, would you be demanding a second vote? If you said yes, you are a liar. Lying to all of us is one thing, no one cares. Lying to yourself is far more damaging because when you believe your own lies (and we've all been there to a certain degree), you fall into denial.

No, if your side won you would not be calling for a second vote. Saying you would be in favor of that reminds me of someone who was caught naked in bed with his girlfriend and then when his wife walks in he tries to say they were only playing Nintendo. He might believe that, but I'm doubtful his wife does.

Vitaminwater 100,000$ phone challenge

New rule: I can't take you seriously if you say you can live without your iPhone/droid from your Twitter/Facebook/Instagram account.  90% chance you posted how much well you could do on that challenge from....your smart phone. Vitaminwater is apparently giving away 100,000$ to someone who claims they could live without their phone for a year. They claim that using a computer is okay, but you can't even use another persons phone. Oh yeah, Vitaminwater is demanding that the winner of this take a lie detector test.

Like it or not, technology has changed and people can no longer live without their phones-that's how we socialize now a days. Yes, you need to unplug. I did that recently on my beach trip. It was heavenly to stare out at the water for a few days. But I still like being able to contact my loved ones and family if I need to, and not rely on landlines and writing letters.

Happy New Year!

One of my favorite holidays is New Years Day. I love how refreshing it is-you can make new resolutions, change your life, and start over. New Years Day provides the best opportunity for self improvement. 

Happy New Years everyone!