- I have an accent
- There are other terms I can use to refer to a “bubbler”
- Racism happens outside the TV world
- There are some who have never seen snow in person
- Texas has a HUGE population
- My slice of the world is a lot smaller than I thought

…dear Liza, dear Liza.

It’s become apparent that I’m not gonna get to sleep until I get this out.

This past weekend Eileen, Grace & I went to Columbus, OH for Grace’s first Oireachtas (Irish dance competition).  As usual, Grace impressed me with her dedication, heart, guts and, well, grace.

While processing the events from the weekend, I browsed the photos Eileen took.  After I saw all of them, the cacophony of thoughts and feelings which usually swarm through my head was suddenly silent, replaced by this single warm, glowing, strong, wonderful feeling.  I honestly struggle to describe it properly as I don’t recall feeling this before.

This is as close as I can get right now:  You know that silly little cliche “I will move heaven and earth for that kid“?  It doesn’t seem silly to me any more.

She really is an amazing kid, raised by a amazing woman, and I will do whatever I can to bring all the good in life that they so obviously deserve.

So Grace and Eileen, thank you both for the best Christmas gift I’ve ever received.  (k)

Just watched the “final 3″ race, which is probably the most entertaining I’ve seen since I’ve been watching.

Anyway, the OMG part.  Big Easy spent HOURS trying to figure out the word scramble, eventually giving up, taking the penalty and losing the race.  I noticed that on his second try, he confirmed the letters “F A R N Z” with one of the brothers.  The word was “FRANZ”.

How Kafkaesque.

I first saw this written on the bathroom wall at a bar I worked at called Max’s Place in Wales, WI.  I believe this was sometime around 1979.

Those who write on bathroom walls
Shall roll their shit in little balls.

And those who read these words of wit
Shall eat those little balls of shit.

Another one from the same bathroom & time-frame:

Here is sit low-down and broken-hearted.
Tried to shit, but only farted.

Whatever happened to bathroom poetry?

I do not know what racism feels like because I’m white.

I do not know what sexism feels like because I’m a man.

I do not know what heterosexism feels like because I’m straight.

I do not know what religionism feels like because I’m not religious.

I do not know what ageism feels like because I’m young(ish).

I do not know what ableism feels like because I’m able-bodied.

While I may never know what any of these feel like, I fully appreciate they are wrong, unfair and impact those they target in negative ways.  It’s my personal goal to ensure I’m never the source of any of the ISMs and to point them out when observed.

My 36th birthday wish was to marry her some day.

So was my 37th birthday wish.  I bought a ring that year.

I did not change the wish for my 38th birthday.  I learned later that year she had no desire to re-marry.

I gave her the ring the following year for Valentine’s under the guise that it was a symbol of how much she meant to me.  It wasn’t a complete lie.

My 39th birthday wish was to spend the rest of my life with her.

I always blew out all the candles in a single breath.

She left me Monday.  Next week would have been our 4-year anniversary.

Stupid superstitions.

…to make the pain go away.  Lord knows I’m tryin’.

I’ve been using FaceBook more often over the past month or so.  One thing I still just can’t get into are the various FaceBook apps.

Long ago, when I first signed up for FB, I would accept any application that was sent to me, figuring my friends were sending these to me because they thought I’d be interested.  This resulted in eventually amassing a veritable assload of apps associated to my FB profile.  No sweat there as my FB usage slowly dwindled down to a “why do you even have a profile” level, and I stopped caring.

Fast-forward to recent times.  I’m a bit older, a bit wiser and a bit more careful about what and who I attach to my FB profile.  When time came to use one of the apps, I think it was one of those movie quizzes, I noticed some curious behavior.  After doing what I had to do (answer questions), I was presented with a screen that gave me the impression I can’t move forward until I invite at least X number of friends to use the app.  I found this curious, then looked closer.  Sure as shit, I was given a big, fat button to click on for inviting my friends, but if I didn’t want to do that, there was a nondescript hyperlink, in small font and really hard to see, that gave me the option to skip that step.

From my perspective, they were trying to trick me into recommending their app to my friends because a friend would be a LOT more likely to use an app I recommended than just one they just happened to see around somewhere.  If they weren’t, why make the “skip this step” link so easy to miss?  At the very least, I found it to be sneaky and lame.  At worst, the app developer was trying to get me to forward on their app to my friends like morons in the internet forward false stories.

So after catching on, I now almost always skip that step.

Sometime later, again after approving an app to pull information from my profile (since that is the ONLY way to get info about the app – more on that later), I had a “Test your IQ” thing on the screen.  It gave me the impression that a whole bunch of of my friends had already used it.  I clicked, and clicked, and eventually ended up on some external web site outside FB which, after a handful of questions, smelled of a big advertisement.  I had warning bells going off all over, so I just backed out of that and went on with my day.

Then I read an article about some of the issues with FB apps.  So I decided to be more observant and cautious.  The next time I saw one of those IQ ads, I knew immediately they were once again trying to trick me.  Not only was it telling me a whole slew of my friends used this IQ app, but it was now telling me I was being challenged to take it by some of them, and one even said the person said I was “dumb”.  I knew right then and there it was all BS.  My friends haven’t used that app, and none have challenged me.  It was essentially advertising trying to trick me deeper into the hole.  Now, whenever I see that “IQ Test” ad, I will give the app that provided it a low score and immediately remove it.

Anyway, so one would think the best way to determine if you want to use an app is to simply get some information about it.  The preferable method is to do so WITHOUT GIVING THE APP PERMISSION TO ALL MY DATA.  Guess what?  You can’t – or, to be more specific, I can’t figure out how.  If you’re lucky, some apps will have a fan page with some information.  So far, more often than not, the fan page is useless.  If it does provide information about the app, it’s extremely minimalist and generally un-informative.

This is especially frustrating if you are actually interested in an app.  For example, Mafia Wars.  Some of my friends use it, and one has actually invited me to join.  To date, I cannot find any information in FB about the app on how it’s played, what it looks like, etc.  I haven’t yet approved it’s access to my profile, so maybe all the details will be provided once I do so.  Is it really necessary to open up all my private information to this app just so I can decide if I want to use it (or, even worse, TRUST it)?

So, as things stand, it’s going to be rare for me to actually use any of those apps as I find a vast majority of them exhibit SPAM-like behavior.  Unless, that is, someone can show me how to get information about apps without opening my life to them.

On the way to the local facilities, I walked past a digital jukebox and saw some simple album art.  It said “Sand In The Vaseline” written in what I believe was red.

Approximately a second later, I was stopped in my tracks and had the following thought: “Wait.  What?!?”

That thought was the beginning of a line of thought which is not “family friendly”.

Post research: Why am I not surprised it’s a “Talking Heads” album?  Strangely I just brought them up in conversation within the past week.