Happy Valentines

All right...

Just to prove I'm no grump, I wish all of you a happy Valentine's Day...especially if you have a special someone to share the day.

And here's my valentine to the world.

(In case you don't know, that is Hobbes the tiger from Bill Watterson's comic Calvin and Hobbes, giving all of you the heart sign.)

Love And Potatoes

with valentine's day a week and a half away, i thought i'd post this. it's somewhat offbeat, i admit, but appropriate in its way.

*

if you say 'my love is like a red, red rose,' i disagree.

if you ask why, here are some reasons.

roses only last like a couple of weeks; that is, if you leave them in water. and they really only exist to be pretty. so if you say 'my love is like a red, red rose,' that's like saying 'my love for you is temporary and transitory and based solely on appearance.'

but a potato is entirely different...and in some ways better.

potatoes last for a long time. in fact, they actually sprout even if you just leave them in the sack. that part alone makes it a good symbol. it means, 'my love grows even when i'm alone.'

but wait; there's more!

there are so many ways to enjoy a potato; you can even make a battery with it! here's a link to show how it's done. that's like saying 'i have many ways in which i show my love for you.'

try doing that with a rose.

potatoes are somewhat plain, but to compare your love to one is like saying 'it doesn't matter at all what you look like, i'll still love you.'

(photo from chan4chan.com)

First Conversation Of The New Year

Ace: First...happy new year.

Deuce: And a happy one to you, too.

Ace: Did you celebrate last night?

Deuce: Yep. Started about ... oh...about 3 in the afternoon. Maybe 3:30. No later than 4. Started drinking the bubbly. Some sort of sparkling wine. Asti Spumanti, if I remember the name. Had some cheese and champagne crackers with it.

Ace: For dinner?

Deuce: More or less.

Ace: Damn. Eat healthier. Try to make that one of your new year's resolutions. I just opened a bottle of some dry red wine and drank two glasses of it . Went to bed around 10 p.m.

Deuce: I gotta admit, I went to bed a lot earlier than that. Woke in the middle of the night and finished off the sparkly. Hair of the dog and all that.

Ace: You did all of this at home?

Deuce: Yes.

Ace: Good. You stayed off the roads. I know you can be dumb sometimes and crazy at other times, but at least you're not stupid.

Duce: Hey, you were talking about new year's resolutions. You got any?

Ace: One of them is to stay away as much as I can from racists. Cut them out of my life if possible. And I think they're going to be more prominent. Obama's halfway through his term. He's had a lot of opposition. From the public, and I know --I just know -- that's a lot of it is because he's black. And it's true schadenfreude on my part to know that it gives them pain that a black man is president. To them, he's an inferior person; if he's a person at all and not some cross between a primate and a human.

Deuce: How do you think he's doing?

Ace: As best as he can. The Republicans in Congress will be sand in the gears of government and will act worse than they did during 2009 and 2010. They'll oppose him for the sake of opposing him.

Obama's too reasonable. You can't be reasonable with them. They're like dogs. You gotta be hard with them. It's the only thing they respect.

And who's more like an animal: Obama or the congressional Republicans?

But fuck them and fuck those who support them. They remind me of Nazis.

Deuce: You know what they say on the internet. Once you mention Nazis, it can only go downhill from there. Or so I remember.*

Ace: Fuck that fucking bullshit. I'm not talking about your redneck stormtroopers or your psychopathological SSers. I'm talking about your basic hometown Nazis. Like a lot of Germans were in the 1930s.

But at the same time I realize these Republicans and their supporters aren't Nazis, who wanted to a big transformation of Germany. They're more like Francoists; Instead of radical revolutionaries, they're radical reactionaries, with evangelical Protestantism and big business taking the place of the Catholic church and the nobility in Spain. So you might as well call them home town quasi-fascists.

Deuce: Damn. You don't like those people.

Ace: I never have. When I was younger and Richard Nixon was president, they used to show the uglier sides of their souls too much in public. Nixon was the dark soul, the demonic side -- their shadow, to be Jungian about it -- of what they were.

I also used to read and see a lot of comparisons between a lot of my "fellow citizens" and Nazis in the 1970s. By the early 1980s, those comments disappeared. Don't know why. It still applies.

But enough of that now. I gotta start walking. Wanna get in shape and lost some weight.

Deuce: I'm gonna go to the grocery story. Get some green leafy vegetables. You're right. I should eat better.
*
ADDENUM: Deuce was referring to what's been called Godwin's Law. For an explanation of it, please click here.

A Toast...

to the upcoming year.

The other projects I mentioned before are going all right, but slower than I expected.

Just thought I'd post this picture to keep a little bit active in this blog. And damn...I didn't realize that I hadn't posted here in 20 days.

I wish all of you a Happy New Year, along with a healthy and prosperous 2011.

A Happy Hanukkah...

which starts at sundown tonight, to all of my Jewish readers, and especially to Ben Grimm, also known as The Thing of the Fantastic Four.

You didn't know he was Jewish? I cite Wikipedia:

Born on Yancy Street in New York City's Lower East Side to a Jewish family, Benjamin Jacob Grimm had an early life that was one of poverty and hardship, shaping young Grimm into a tough, streetwise scrapper. His older brother Daniel, whom Ben idolized, was killed in a street gang fight when Ben was eight years old. This portion of his own life is modeled on that of Jack Kirby (co-creator and original artist of the Fantastic Four)...(Kirby) was born Jacob Kurtzberg, grew up on Delancy Street, his brother died when he was young and his father was named Benjamin.

If you want to read the rest of the article, please click here.

By the way, the drawing was done by Kirby.

As for the writing on Ben's collar, I don't know what it says. This gentile is no Hebrew scholar.

Happy Thanksgiving

I wish that everyone I know and for everyone who reads my blog.

I have one exception, though. His initials are H.S. He's from Cincinnati. And he's native American: Half Iroquois, if I remember correctly, and half another tribe whose name I forgot.

This day, for him, is like Adolf Hitler's birthday for a Jew, however orthodox.

Also, it's one month by the calendar and 31 days total until Christmas. If you aren't going out tomorrow to shop, be thankful for that.

One Thing Done At Least...

I didn't post during the last two days because I had several things to do and I wanted to put some time and effort into them. I had put off doing many of them for too, too long. The weekend gave me a good start toward getting them done.

However, I only got a few things done. They were minor. The paralysis of my soul continues.

One thing I did was getting candy for the beggars/urchins who might've stopped by Sunday night for Halloween trick or treating. I usually get few to no visitors; but I was prepared, as the Boy Scouts suggested.

But I had no visitors, just as I thought would happen. I looked out my kitchen window and saw some of the kids who live in the apartment complex, along with their parents, walking away from the complex and toward neighboring streets.

Now I have a bowl full of 22 bite-sized Milky Way bars. I admit I ate a few of them before Sunday evening. I'll get them out of my reach and put them in my kitchen. That way if I want some, I must get up and move.

I hope you had a good Halloween. And I remind you that, as of today, it's only 25 days until Thanksgiving, 55 days until Christmas, and 61 days until New Year's Eve.

For The Fourth

I know it's early, but I might as well post this now as the holiday starts.

I hope all of you have a happy -- and safe -- Fourth of July,
*
O! say can you see by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
O! say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

A Poem For Valentine's Day

I'll spend tomorrow -- Sunday, Feb. 14, also known as Valentine's Day -- by myself.

However, for those who have someone else in their lives, I offer you this:

For each other, they had a thing.
And then one night, they had a fling.
And how they made each other sing
In strongly orgasmic cries!

Bad Gifts For Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day will be a week from this Sunday -- ten days away.

Since I'm single, I don't have to worry about getting something for my significant other.

I saw this suggestions for things NOT to get and the reasons why:

Candy is fattening and flowers die.

I pass it onto you for your enlightenment.

a forecast for valentine's day

tomorrow is valentine's day. i'll probably be spending it alone at home, watching television.

i have no wife. i have no girlfriend. i don't even have a lady friend who'd give me a sympathy swive.

but don't feel sorry for me.

i haven't spent anything on a card. i haven't bought a gift or two. i won't spend anything for dinner and entertainment tomorrow.

i'll be saving money. that's a good thing during the current economic situation.
*
i'm posting this today instead of saturday because i want to get it out of the way.

addenum, february 18: yes, i spent valentine's day watching television. but i didn't watch cops and america's most wanted on fox, as i usually do. instead, i watched three reruns of law and order that nbc broadcast.

one way to crazyness

i've just had a little too much of the family lately.

there were the christmas family gatherings, and with all of them so close after thanksgiving. on those two holidays, you're practically obligated to be with family -- some of them you probably don't like.

if you feel the same way that i do, here's a reason it might be that way.

as for new year's eve, you're usually with people who want to be with you and you want to be with them. so you are often a lot happier and up for a celebration. you often get drunk or plowed or blasted or whatever you want to call it out of a sense of happiness -- not from a sense of resentment, despair and hate.

tomorrow night i'm staying home alone. i usually don't go out to celebrate because i don't want to do it among strangers and i don't want to travel at night because of possible drunken drivers.

if i get some inexpensive bubbly, i might drink some of it. if i don't, then i'll drink a few good beers. by midnight, i bet i'll be in bed -- asleep.

new year's day plans include doing my laundry and some chores around the home. and watching whatever college football bowls games are on television. i might even post that day. i'm working on some things and they might be ready by then.

if not -- have a happy new year.