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Ruth Waytz

Not-Me: Is there no way you can do that?

Me: There’s now way I Want to do that.

Not-Me: It’s not about “want.”

Me: That’s ALL it’s about. In fact that’s all Anything’s about.

Turns out you really can get through life doing only what you want. The interesting revelation is that you may even be able to pull it off without first becoming a complete asshole.

Take the seasons for example –

I was just out on the East Coast (purely because I wanted to be).

The brightly colored fall leaves delighted me, and as I’d not seen that show in probably 30 years, I never stopped enjoying it.

I was talking to someone who lived out there, and who was adamant that the seasons – and the inevitable discomfort and compromise that define them – were not only enjoyable but in fact essential to a meaningful human life.

That without that cyclical suffering, human beings can’t properly experience life.

I had that conversation, and I absolutely saw her point. I wasn’t killed by the cold weather (but it had yet to begin in earnest, let alone drag on an imprison me indoors for months), and those leaves sure were gorgeous.

(Glad I didn’t have to rake ‘em though.)

Days later, I flew home – to my clear, sunny, mid-upper 70s. In other words, LA November.

In Other other words, Perfect.

Donna’s argument – and other people’s too – was that you just can’t live in Perfect every day. That it’s Just Not Right.

Standing there in the middle of it, though — arms outstretched, sun certainly warming me but not cooking me, I forgot about the colored leaves and felt nothing but wonderful under the wide blue expanse. Sorry Donna, the only thing to be said about living in Perfect… is that it’s perfect.

Agreed, I’ve had more than a few “where did those 20 years go?” moments lately, but it’s not because I didn’t freeze my ass off scraping ice off my car windshield or rake a few thousand leaves. It’s probably because I didn’t have a couple of kids, which is The Other mechanism by which we make ourselves feel the passage of time.

But that’s another story.

But living somewhere where every day is perfect? Yup. It’s perfect.

Appreciating this — Choosing this — is no more or less valid than any other life.

And suffering does not in fact build character; it just builds suffering.

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My body feels like a truck ran over it, so I’m being brief.

However, there are CUSTOM WESLEY WILLIS SONGS (kind of) at When Falls the Coliseum, and the always excellent Daniel Kalder has a new, highly navigable blog of archives up here. Check it out. Tons of great stuff available for your perusal. Plus, long-time online pal Brian Clark has shipped something my way via USPS, so I’m looking forward to that.

Also, Flickr is not just God’s Abandoned Vanity Project. It’s more than that.

Abandoned Cub Foods store (Green Bay, WI)

Axolotl

Deer Head

Tim Knox and Todd Longstaffe-Gowan Collection, Private Collection, London, England

Electrifying

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Mined from the blackened heart of Wikipedia:

ANTI-FROGMAN TECHNIQUES

“…generally, criminal or terrorist frogmen only have access to types of training which are available to civilians, or at least inadequate facilities.”

“…[objections to frogman vs. frogman combat techniques): It may result in an underwater knife fight, risky to both sides.”

“…there is said to have been a real incident when Russian frogmen shot two anti-frogman dolphins.”

COOL AS ICE

“The role of Kathy was offered to future Academy Award winner for Best Actress Gwyneth Paltrow. Her father Bruce Paltrow forbade her from accepting it due to the script’s sexual content.”

HARIONAGO

“…the Harionago is said to be a beautiful woman with extremely long hair tipped with thorn-like barbs. Her hair is under her direct control, and she uses it to ensnare men. She is said to wander the roads of the Japanese prefecture of Ehime on the island of Shikoku, searching for victims. When she finds a young man, she will laugh at him, and if the young man dares to laugh back, Harionago will drop her terrible, barbed hair and attack.”

LIST OF PEOPLE WHO HAVE CLAIMED TO BE JESUS

  • Wayne Bent — End of the World Cult.
  • Marshall Applewhite — Applewhite posted a famous Usenet message declaring, ‘I, Jesus—Son of God—acknowledge on this date of September 25/26, 1995: …’  This was two years before he and his Heaven’s Gate cult committed suicide to rendezvous with a spaceship hiding behind the comet Hale-Bopp.
  • Inri Cristo — A Brazilian man who claims to be the second Jesus.
  • Matayoshi Jesus -– In 1997 he established the World Economic Community Party based on his conviction that he is the God and Christ.
  • José Luis de Jesús Miranda -– Organizer of Growing in Grace who claims that the resurrected Christ ‘integrated himself within me.’
  • Jim Jones — Claimed to be the reincarnation of Jesus, Akhenaten, Buddha, Lenin, and Father Divine. Organized a mass murder suicide at Jonestown, Guyana.
  • David Koresh — Born Vernon Wayne Howell, was the leader of a Branch Davidian religious sect, proclaimed that he was ‘the Son of God, the Lamb.’
  • Ariffin Mohamed –- Also known as ‘Ayah Pin,’ the founder of the banned Sky Kingdom in Malaysia. He claims to be the incarnation of Jesus, as well as Muhammad, Shiva, and Buddha.
  • Laszlo Toth –- Hungarian-born Australian who vandalised Michelangelo‘s Pietà in 1972.
  • Arnold Potter — Schismatic Latter Day Saint leader; called himself ‘Potter Christ.’
  • Thomas Harrison Provenzano –- convicted murderer who possibly was mentally ill. Provenzano compared his execution with Jesus Christ’s crucifixion.
  • Georges-Ernest Roux –- Founder of the Universal Christian Church, now named Universal Alliance, clamed to be Jesus, then God, called the ‘Christ of Montfavet’ or ‘Georges-Christ.’
  • Ahn Sahng-hong –- South Korean man worshiped by World Mission Society Church of God.
  • John Nichols Thom — Cornishman who claimed to be the reincarnation of Jesus Christ and his body temple of the Holy Ghost. He was killed by British soldiers at the Battle of Bossenden Wood, on May 31, 1838 in Kent, England.
  • Sergei Torop –- a Russian who claims to be ‘reborn’ as Vissarion, the returned Jesus Christ. He founded the Church of the Last Testament and the spiritual community Ecopolis Tiberkul in Southern Siberia.
  • Ernest Norman — founder of the Unarius Academy of Science, was allegedly Jesus in a past life.”

WHY I WANT TO FUCK RONALD REAGAN

“It is written in the style of a scientific paper and catalogues an apocryphal series of bizarre experiments intended to measure the psychosexual appeal of Ronald Reagan, who was then the Governor of California and candidate for the 1968 Republican presidential nomination.”

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