A Different Letter From Frank

My friend Frank sends me his hallucinations and other mental storms in letters. Recently, though, he sent me what he called a different kind of letter:

I didn't know he had a sense of humor.

The Biggest

Dallas Hughes remembered, with a lot a pleasure, the old saw based on a verse in Psalm 23:

Yea, though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, I will fear no Evil, because I am the biggest Son of a Bitch in the Valley.

By the time he was a teenager, he stood somewhere between 6 feet 4 inches and 6 feet 5 inches. He weighed between 240 to 260 pounds. So he truly was the biggest son of a bitch in the high school, if not the valley.

Third And Long, Fear And Money

Nicks was born at Third and Long-- literally.

His family's house was at the corner of Third and Long streets on the east side of town. It used to be called "the other side of the tracks" when the railroads ran through town.

He was not born among the poorest of the poor, but he knew his family didn't have a lot of money. So he decided to get rich.

Nicks became rich not because he desired or loved the carrot of wealth, but because he was afraid of the stick of poverty.

After he became rich, his outlook was the same. He feared different things: Thieves, con artists, and taxation.

Happy Birthday

...to me; today is my 57th birthday.

So noted and marked on the calendar.

Now I must say that I'm in my late 50s. If I said I was in my middle 50s, I'd be lying.

The Nature Of Hell

In a physics class at a nearby college, the professor asked this question on the final for extra credit:

Is Hell endothermic or exothermic?

(NOTE: In layman's language, does Hell absorb heat and therefore get hotter? Or does it release heat and therefore get colder?)

One student wrote:

First, we postulate that if souls exist, then they must have some mass. If they do, then a mole of souls can also have a mass. So, at what rate are souls moving into Hell and at what rate are souls leaving? I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving.

As for souls entering Hell, let's look at the different religions that exist in the world today. Some of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell. Since, there are more than one of these religions and people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all people and all souls go to Hell.

With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially.

Now, we look at the rate of change in volume in Hell. Boyle's Law states that if the temperature and pressure in Hell is to stay the same, then the ratio of the mass of souls and volume needs to stay constant.

So, if Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter hell, then the temperature and pressure in hell will increase until all hell breaks loose: That is, Hell is exothermic.

Of course, if Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in hell, than the temperature and pressure will drop until hell freezes over: That is, Hell is endothermic.

So which is it?

If we accept the postulate given by Ms. Theresa Banyan during my freshman year, "That it will be a cold night in Hell before I go out with you," and take into account the fact that I still have not succeeded in having a date with her, the second case cannot be true.

Therefore, Hell is exothermic.

The student was the only one who got the extra credit.

Avant-Garde Emoticons (Or So I Thought)

Well, I'll be damned. I posted this on Sunday, Sept. 12, and I present it to you here:
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I found this earlier this year while I was surfing the net.

You might say: Hey. Emoticons. No big deal. In fact, they annoy me. Why do you post them, anyway?

True. But look at the year it was printed.

Yes, your eyesight is right. It's 1972.

Damn! That was 38 years ago, when I was in high school.
*
But I checked the net today and found that this wasn't created in 1972. Instead, it was created in 2009 by Mitch Ansara, who has a blog entitled Spacesick. Please click here to see the original post.

9/11 Plus 9 Years And 1 Day

I didn't post anything yesterday about the ninth anniversary of 9/11 because I had nothing original to add to the conversation.

And the less said about it the better, because of these two controversies:

• The protests against a planned Islamic community center a few blocks from the World Trade Center;
• The threat by Terry Jones, a minister from Gainesville, Florida, who had urged people to burn copies of the Koran on Sept. 11. (He called off his efforts, thanks to the Powers That Be.)
  

But I thought this today: These things are signs of something roiling inside America's body politic. And it will come out in the fall elections as a strong reaction against President Obama.

A Side Job, Probably Unwanted

Since the National Football League is starting its full schedule -- Thursday's game between the Green Bay Packers and the New Orleans Saints was no more than an appetizer, compared to the full feast of games today -- many of the play-by-play announcers will be promoting their networks' shows.

Especially the bad ones.

I can imagine announcers like Joe Buck and Jim Nantz -- whose sense of selfimportance sprays right out of your televison set into your living room -- saying:

It's A. as Average Joe/Fat Schlub and and B. His Hot Wife and C as their Goofy/Annoying Neighbor in Generic Sitcom Title -- Tuesdays at 8, on CBS (or Fox).

As they say those words, I'm sure they think to themselves:

Oh God, take me now. It's bad enough that I have to waste time talking about a decent show during the broadcast. But promoting a bad one ... ?

And when I imagine them saying one thing about these shows and thinking a very different thing about them, I have a large case of schadenfreude.

Unwanted Dependency

Here's a joke I saw on the internet last week:

Last night, my wife and I were sitting in our living room. I said to her, "I never want to live in a vegetative state, dependent on some machine and fluids from a bottle. If that ever happens, just pull the plug."

She got up and unplugged the TV, then took the beer in my hands and poured it down the kitchen sink.

It's very relevant today, since the National Football League starts its schedule in full today.

A Strong Criminal Outlook

He has such a strong criminal outlook that he'd break the law of physics if he could.
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Now 666 is the mark of the devil.
And 333 is half of 666.
Therefore, 333 is only half as evil.
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"Hey -- Dave just got knifed!"
"That's forking terrible!"
"Hey -- that's too spoon!"
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You can
Make a living
By successfully
Dying.
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Penn State? How about Poon State?
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Some like it hot.
Some like me hot.
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"I didn't shoot him. He walked into the path of a bullet."
"Just one bullet? How about 20 of them?"
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Play with fire? Pay with pain.
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We don't see things as they are.
We see things as we are.
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A humane humanitarianism.
The opposite is an inhumane inhumanitarianism.
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Step aside and let me fail on my own.
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Drinking vermouth
On the campus
Of Dartmouth ...
College, that is ...
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"We're using the law to keep justice away."
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Don't follow your dreams. Follow the drums.
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Let me tell you a story
About my time in Purgatory ...
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Step aside and watch me self destruct.
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Your pride, your soul, your worth as your dinner -- it's a bitter food to eat.
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A touch of gray.
Guess who has it?
Yep -- F.J.
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Would you like a martini
As the whole world burns?
Or rather, instead,
A bullet through your head?
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Fu -- fu -- fu --
FUDGE!
And lots of it, too!
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Corn flakes and cognac is the true breakfast of champions.
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"If you think you hate me, just think about the hatred I feel for myself -- and how strong that can be."
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Is there any ketchup around here? I can't sell out without ketchup.
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Morte de jour is French for death of the day.
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It's part of the pornography that falls on our lives like dirty cold rain.
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A circle jerk? Why, that's nothing more than a bunch of guys giving each other a helping hand.
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A dry T-shirt contest? Is some church putting it on?
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I put the stud in student. So holla for a schola'.
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Music: What emotions sound like.
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"Think of that when your roasting in the dungeon of fire!"
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"Hey, B! At night, you used to come out of your closet like a bat coming out of a cave . Why haven't you done it lately? You got a new girlfriend to impress?"
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There is a reckoning, in the future, for us all ...

Just Wondering ...

At the left is Commissar Leon Trotsky, a leader of the Bolshevik Revolution that established the Soviet Union. He also was renowned and important theorist of Marxism.

At the left is Colonel Harland Sanders, renowned founder of the Kentucky Fried Chicken chain of fast-food restaurants.

Twin sons of different mothers? You make the call.

Entertaining The Cows

Beau lived in a small town near the country. Many of his friends were farmers.

One Sunday, Sam, one of Beau's farmer friends, had an open house to show people their new barn and their repainted home.

Beau, Sam, and some other men were standing around and talking when Johnny, Sam's son, ran up to the group and exclaimed:

"Hey, Dad! The bull's out in the field and he's screwing all the cows!"

Johnny wasn't a bad kid. He just had a tendency to say things before he thought about them.

Sam took Johnny aside and told him gently but firmly:

"Son, around here we don't say the bull is .. er, uh ... screwing the cows. We say he's entertaining the cows."

Johnny said, "OK Dad." Then he went away.

Fifteen minutes later, Johnny ran up to the group of men and said:

"Hey Dad! The bull stopped entertaining the cows!"

Sam said, "That's nice to hear Johnny," glad and relieved that his son had used the word he had suggested.

Johnny then told the group:

"Yeah, the bull stopped entertaining the cows. And now he's screwing the horse!"

Nostalgia? No Sir

I have no nostalgia for the yoke, like the ones that farmers use on oxen or cattle.

There's no need to yoke sheep. Just get their leader under your control and they will follow the leader.

I have no nostalgia for oppressive organizations, like some forms of religion. At the least, they will yoke your mind and choke your mind.

Where's George? All Over The Place

There's a website entitled wheresgeorge.com. At it, you can enter the serial number of a dollar bill or other U.S. paper currency, then follow their travels.

It helps if you write wheresgeorge.com on the bill and the person who gets it enters its latest location.

I entered about ten bills. Four have been tracked and noted. One of them had a very interesting travel history.

I entered it into the wheresgeorge.com's tracking system on June 5, 2008. The next entry was made Sept. 6, 2009 in Reno, Nev. It had traveled about 1,800 miles during that time.

I also checked for bills that had been entered in the city of G., a nearby community where many of my friends and relatives live. One bill was entered into the system on June 30 of this year after it also had traveled about 1,800 miles.

It was first entered on July 3, 2007, in Corpus Cristi, Texas. The next entry was on May 14, 2009 in Myrtle Beach, S.C. It had traveled about 1,170 miles in a year and 10 months.

The next listed entry was on May 12, 2010, in Bloomington, Ind. the bill had traveled about 560 miles in a year.

Then it traveled the 60 miles from Bloomington to Greenfield in about a month and a half.

Time Travel

Recently there came to mind a want ad I saw on the net.

It was for time travel.

If I remember it correctly, it went like this:

WANTED
Someone to go back in time with me. This is not a joke. P.O. Box 322, Oakview, CA, 93022. You'll get paid after we get back. Must bring your own weapons. Safety not guaranteed. I've only done this once before.

I haven't heard or seen if things went well.

Then there was the man who would try to travel back in time and change history. He told his friends, "You'll know I've succeeded if Germany loses World War II and Wednesday comes after Tuesday."

He must've succeeded.

How Inappropriate!

Whenever I hear the word inappropriate, I often let myself get bent out of shape with annoyance.

If something is inappropriate, it's a truly awful thing that shouldn't be said or done. A good example is child molestation. Another is a marriage that's loveless and full of unfaithfulness.

But more often, people call something inappropriate if it's minor and probably just embarrassing. Two examples are getting a speeding ticket or farting in church.

It's used to keep people in line and another example of crippling middle-class respectability. And if you consider those things to be heinous and unmentionable, you can imagine the efforts to ignore and forget and repress the awful things and the resistance to dealing with them.

When I think of the whole appropriate/inappropriate thing, I'm like Winston Smith in 1984 when he said, "I hate purity and I hate goodness."

Some New Lingo

Sometime in August, I came across two new on the internet. I didn't know them before and I present them to you now.

The first is TL;DR. It's short for Too Long; Didn't Read.

I think it should be DR;TL. I'll explain why in this dialog:

Deuce: I didn't read it.

Ace: Why not?

Deuce: It was too long.

That gives the action -- or inaction -- and the reason behind it. And some people say you should give a reason for your actions or inactions only if someone asks you. TL;DR gives the reason first, as if apologizing for the action or inaction.

This examples shows that there is a difference in how you word things and the intent behind them.

The other is the abbrevation TITS OR GTFO. It means the poster in a thread (cyber talk for conversation, especially at a forum site) should show a picture of a woman's naked bosom or go away.

I found that expression a little too vulgar. I would reword it as:

My good sir (or good woman), please present a picture of a bare bosom (or your bare bosom) or vacate the premise immediately!

See how much more classy that is?

Patterns In The Universe

Behold.

On the left is a picture of three neurons of a mouse's brain.

On the right is a picture of a computer simulation of the present universe.

The resemblance is either a damn coincidence or ...

I don't believe in a personal God. But I believe there is some force or forces beyond our control; and these forces form and shape the universe. I call them The Divine or The Numinous.

It isn't God, but it's like God. And to quote the Psalm 14:1 -- the fool in heart says there is no God.

ADDENUM: If you want to see the picture in more details, then please click on it.

Petty Crimes And Teenage Years

I never committed any petty crimes: Not because I was afraid that I'd be punished if I had been caught, but tbecause hey never appealed to me.

Two petty crimes that appeal to teenagers and others going through adolescence are minor vandalism and shoplifting, also know as the five-finger discount.

The closest I came to committing minor vandalism came one Saturday evening during the spring of 1968, when I was in eighth grade. Three friends and I were out and about. We were walking because we didn't want to ride our bikes in the dark and because we didn't have our driver's licenses.

One of us -- not me -- threw a rock at a street light. As soon as he threw it , we all ran.

The street light didn't break.

As for shoplifting, I knew one man who did it at a five-and-dime store when he was in junior high school. I call him J., for that is his first initial. He not only did it; he bragged about it.

J. ended up a loud, obnoxious man and an alcoholic. He was puny in his youth; that might explain his attitude later in his life.

He was an accountant and then a day trader. He now says he's retired.

I haven't seen or talked with him in six years. To me, that's no great loss.

He also married one of the more popular and better-souled women in our high school class. That was when she had the reform/save this guy attitude toward her boyfriends and lovers.

Sometimes I think less of her because she had sexual intercourse with J. It happened when they were married, but ...

I still think well of her, but I let that one little thing about her bug me, however slightly.

My Gripes About Businessmen

Man, I have plenty of things to gripe about regarding businessmen and their collective mentality. I'll list some of them below.

If businessmen could put it into words, their definition of freedom is:

• To make as much money as possible, no matter the worth of the good or service you're providing;
  
• To pay as little of that money as possible in taxes;
• To use that money to buy the same things owned by everybody you know or the people you want to impress, no matter the worth of worthless the good or service is.

In short, it's the freedom to be like everybody else. And that's not freedom, truly; it's more like indentured servitude to an attitude.

Another thing I let bother me about business men is their crassness: Their scorn and mockery of paintings, novels, plays, and other forms of art, which are for women or effeminate homosexuals -- or as they call them, faggots.

Another form of their crassness is their arrogance and boasting, especially in the display of their possessions. They were low key about this until about 1979 or 1980, and I noticed the big change came after Ronald Reagan was elected president.

Before that, you didn't mention or show your wealth because it was in bad taste and a sign of insecurity. Also, come the revolution and when the Bolsheviks take over, they'll kill you with no remorse. Therefore, keep a low profile or hide.

I always thought that Marxism or class jealousy would keep people humble and modest, and not arrogant and boastful. It's just vulgar and disgusting. It's a sign of nouveau and parvenue wealth.

Some people - me, for example -- have very good reasons to call business organizations and associations the Chamberpot of Commerce.

A related thing, and just as disgusting, is the academics who praise capitalism and the free market in the abstract without criticizing specific and concrete business practices. It's as if they've never worked for a business or in a business or know anyone who did. The business mentality buys them to give a sheen of goodness and morality to their actions.

But ... but ...

You can always buy them off. They're ready to deal and negotiate. That's the one good thing about them.

You must worry about the people with strong and inflexible ideals: The fanatical hard-core Christians, Moslems, and Marxists You can't buy them off. You must fight them off. And the fight is to the death or one side or the other.

Insomnia

You might ask why I'm up at this time of day and posting in my blog.

The answer is insomnia. This poster explains it very well.

I woke up sometime between 2:30 and 3 a.m. I went online and started to surf the net. I stopped to look at familiar sites. Then I came here and decided to post a few things.

I'll sleep about six hours and that's it anymore. I'm a light sleeper; when I'm awake, I'm awake. I've tried throughout most of my life to go back to sleep after I wake in the middle of the night, but it's no go.

So now I'm up. And now I'll post.

Later today, I'm sure, I'll take a nap.