Adventures in My Mind

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Nov 27, 2002

Happy Thanksgiving!


Gobble! Gobble!

0 Comments | Link to this post   posted by Teddy 1:38 PM

Nov 26, 2002

To all you spammers out there, please read and take note of the following: I am quite happy with my penis size. Thank you very much.

I am not interested in increasing my size (well maybe a little. who isn't?), my hardness, my strength, or my endurance (maybe the wife is. what women isn't?). When I shower at the gym or stand at a public urinal, I do not worry that the guy next to me is packing more punch than me. When I am "with" the wife, I do not pain over whether or not she is enjoying herself as much as she would be if I were to upgrade to TrouserSnake v. 2.0. My confidence is fine.

Or at least it was until the spammers started.

My confidence is not shattered, but perhaps there are some cracks appearing around the edeges. Apparently a large part of the spamming world feels that I do, indeed, need some help in the masculine equipment department. Each day I get no fewer than 3 or 4 adverts telling me that the power to improve my penis is at hand (pardon the pun). While I believe that I am doing just fine down south, I wonder if I should take advantage of theri easy and effortless ways to increase size and improve perfomance of my mannly hydrolics. I have my choices: herbal, creams, pills, and powders. I fear anything that involves gadgetry. Never hook your John Thomas up to a piece of machinery, even, or maybe especially, if someone says you'll be better off for it.

I used to go through my day without thinking about my penis, except for the moments (almost always private) when I needed or wanted to use it. Now, I can barely think of anything else. I walk the downtown streets wondering if the guy next to me has tried the latest performance increasing techniques newly imported from Asia. I grab lunch and wonder if the cashier has recently pleasured his lady with his increased length and width! My infernal member is consuming me! That was actually a dream I had once, but that is between me and Dr. Freud.

I want to go back to old days, when I was entirely confident about Mr. Willy. We've had a wonderful relationship for so long. I would hate for these spammers to damage that relationship by continuing to bombard my fragile male ego with suggestions to the contrary. I think I need a filter.

0 Comments | Link to this post   posted by Teddy 10:57 AM

Nov 22, 2002

It's a pretty festive mood around Castle Carroll these days: Sami's birthday was the other day. She turned a very graceful 30 something. I love you, Bug. And we're all excited about the upcoming holidays. Aidan can't stop talking about seeing his grandparents, both sets, for the holidays. Every day he says "Aidan go a pap pap gramma's house." And everyday we have to say "not today."

He's also pretty excited about seeing Santa tonight at Light Up Night here in downtown Pittsburgh. For those who don't know, Light Up Night is the annual kickoff to the Holiday season here in Da Burgh. The mayor dashes madly from event to the other, lighting one Christmas tree after another, and applauding one abysmal 7th grade chorus performance of "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" after another. There is ice skating, bands, choruses, festive decorations, parades, dancers, and other merry makers and carousers all over the downtown area.

We're going to go see Santa and stop and look at the windows at Kaufmann's and Lazurus department stores. It should be fun. Aidan is just at the right age to be excited about the upcoming holidays. And Sami and I have always loved this time of year. This is just one of the many, many things that makes it fun to be a parent.

0 Comments | Link to this post   posted by Teddy 1:56 PM

Nov 20, 2002

Many of you know my history (and hopefully future) as a filmmaker. In that vein, The Reel Truth is the funniest goddammed thing that I have ever had the pleasure of watching.

Watch it over and over and then know that all of those people exist. Really!

0 Comments | Link to this post   posted by Teddy 3:23 PM

Nov 19, 2002

The land of the free and the home of the brave ... or else!

PA bill to require pledge in schools

Just when you thought that the jingo bandwagon has pulled out of the station and left you behind, PA lawmakers have made room for some more. Students will be forced to display their patriotism by reciting the pledge or singing the National Anthem every morning. State Senator Allan Egolf says that he introduced the bill after he found that many classrooms did not display the flag or require their students to recite the pledge. "It's getting away from teaching about what our country stands for, what our founders did, and why we have the country we have," Egolf said.

Since when does our country stand for forced participation in ritual activity? Since when does reciting the pledge every morning teach students anything at all about The Founders, their philosphies, and what they accomplished? When did rote memory and mindless recitation become a proper civics lesson?

Never fear, though. The children will have the right to not participate if they cite personal or religious beliefs. And of course the teachers will have to be good little Nazicrats and inform the children's parents that they decided not to pledge allegiance. Now that's my kind of freedom!

What about passing a bill that requires all students to be able to recite the preamble to the Constitution or to be able to recite The Bill of Rights and be able to write 5 pages on what each means to the freedom of The United States of America? Or better yet, a continuing education course for state legislators that shows the inverse proportionality between freedom and government coersion? Nah, let's just stick with the pledge thing. Less writing.

0 Comments | Link to this post   posted by Teddy 1:38 PM

Nov 15, 2002

Oh. My. God!



Happy weekend!

0 Comments | Link to this post   posted by Teddy 2:03 PM

Nov 14, 2002

Bad Teddy! Bad Teddy! No posts for nearly a week. How could I be so thoughtless to my readers -- all 8 of you. Well, you have my sincerest apologies. A very busy home and work schedule have conspired with a great lack of anything to say over the last week. Aside from my slack-jawed amazement at how W. and the GOP have shaken things up with a lame duck congress since their unprecedented election results, there's not been a whole lot going on.

Oh, sure, we still have the daily trials and tribulations of the soap opera like melodrama unfolding between Washington and Baghdad. But the joy of commenting on those absurdities has long since disappeared. And since there are no shark attacks, mosquitos, child kidnappings, missing interns, or snipers on the loose, there is obviously no other news to report.

On a side note, I've been debating the merits of third party candidates on a couple of other blogs that I read. I am a dyed-in-the-wool supporter of opening ballots to third, fourth, fifth, or whatever candidates. The more voices the better, I say. To continue to support the two party structure in this country is to continue to stifle proper political debate. There is too much diversity in this country to think two parties can effectively represent the myriad opinions and viewpoints that arise from it. Near as I can tell, the only true differences between Dems and Republicans anyway are abortion rights and gun rights. Aside from that, they are all just the same bunch of nicely dressed panhandlers pandering to the money groups that will continue to support their power structure.

And that's what it's all about: Power. People fear third parties because they erode the power base of their chosen political allegiances. Even the supposed egalitarian-minded Dems are still fuming over the candidacy of Ralph Nader in '02. "If it weren't for Nader and the Greens," they say. "Gore would've won." Well, yeah, welcome to democracy. Sometimes you win. Sometimes you lose. And as I said on another site, those votes did not belong to Gore. They belonged exclusively to those who cast them in any way that they saw fit. But boy didn't they love them in '96 when Perot was eroding the power base of the Republicans.

Personally, I love to see all power bases eroded. It closes the door on dogma and the status quo and opens the door to change and random chance. Carefully crafted messages disguised as solutions become transparent and trite; and the need for quick thinking and problem solving rise to the fore. In that sense, I guess I'm just a fan of entropy. Let's tear down the walls of the castle and see what we can rebuild from the rubble.

0 Comments | Link to this post   posted by Teddy 10:40 AM

Nov 8, 2002

Just when you thought it was safe to visit your favorite Middle Eastern country:

CIA Killed U.S. Citizen In Yemen Missile Strike

That's right in one fell swoop the United States government has gone from indefinitely confining it's citizenry suspected of terrorist ties to killing them. An un-manned Predator spy plane fired a Hellfire missile at car driving through the Yemeni countryside killing the car and all six of its occupants. One of those occupants was identified as Ahmed Hijazi, a man of dual Middle Eastern and U.S. citizenship. Another of the occupants, and the presumed main target of the operation, was Abu Ali al-Harithi, suspected of masterminding the October 2000 attack on the destroyer USS Cole.

I know many of you may be thinking to yourselves that Mr. Hijazi should have kept better company or perhaps he could've been up to nothing but no good riding around the desert in a car full of known terrorist. Well, you are probably right on both counts; however, let us not let the facts get in the way of the truth: those killings were illegal in nearly every sense of the word. Not only did the U.S. ignore international laws on extra-judicial killings, but it killed one its own without even the slightest attempt at a trial. What madness is this?

Of course, the Whitehouse is off the hook because the order to make the hit did not come from there. Not long ago, in a move that can only be seen as a way to create plausible deniability, the Whitehouse empowered key personnel with the ability to perform such covert operations without first consulting the President or any of his senior staff. Brilliant! An entire government full of loose cannons and not just Uncle Dick and Rummy.

And yet we still put pressure on the Israeli's for their acts of targeted assassination. "Not the same," says the U.S. For once I agree. The Israeli's have never intentionally or accidentally killed one of their own while violating international law. We now have.

0 Comments | Link to this post   posted by Teddy 3:27 PM

Nov 6, 2002

New from the I-can't-believe-something-like-that-is-necessary file:

NASA seeks to debunk debunkers with new "yes-we-really-did-land-on-the-moon" minibook. Amid fresh media buzz over conspiracy theorist claims that Apollo moon landings were faked, NASA recently agreed to pay aeronautics engineer James Oberg $15,000 to write a monograph countering debunkers' claims point-by-point.

Not only that, but they've launched a Web site that debunks the Moon Landing Hoax debunkers.

Come on people, why does everything have to be a conspiracy or a plot or connected to the "unknown"? How is it that in a world that is increasingly more difficult to make a good life for yourself that there are people out who have enough time on their hands to conconct such wild notions and lunatic explanations? What of jobs? What of hobbies? What of friends and families? What of the real world?

Mr. Green has an accute loathing for such people. I myself don't feel as strongly, but am nevertheless concerned about the growing belief in pseudoscience, superstition, conspiracy theories, and the supernatural. Never before have so many people been so smart. As a race we have greater access to education and the tools of education, i.e., books, than ever before. While literacy rates could stand some improvement, they too are at historic highs worldwide.

Yet the popular media is saturated with programs and stories of the supernatural and pseudoscience presented as fact. How is this so? And I don't ask that rhetorically, I mean, how is this so? Are our frightened little animal brains that much more powerful that our reasonable human minds? Even when faced with hard evidence contrary to their beliefs many "believers" will still maintain their viewpoint. See the long-shattered theories on crop circles. (In case you haven't heard and/or you're a fan of M. Knight Shyamalan, they aren't made by little green men or their incredibly technologically advanced flying saucers. It was people. People, some lengths of rope and a couple of 2x8s.)

I blame it on shortcuts. That's right just plain old laziness. It's difficult to explain the mysteries of the universe by becoming an astrophysicist or a molecular biologist. It is easy, however, to explain an mysterious flash of light in the night sky as an alien space ship. It takes no expertise, no schooling, no reading. You need no theories or equations or proof of any kind, other than your own eyes, which can be fooled by even the most rudimentary distortions.

Many humans just don't seemed to be satisfied with the explanations that science gives them. They seek the mysterious and the unknowable. So does science, but like I said, that is too hard. They fabricate fantasy scenarios to bolster their foolish beliefs and theories. The caveman explained thunder and lightning as the wrath of the gods. Modern man explains the unexplainable by the unprovable. Oh, how far we've come.

To the believer, I say, If it truly is the unknown that you seek, open any book by Carl Sagan, Michio Kaku, or Stephen Hawking for proof that the universe is full of mysteries more grand than your fevered imagination could ever create.

0 Comments | Link to this post   posted by Teddy 10:11 AM

Nov 1, 2002

Today's post is from guest blogger Jim Kukral. Jim is from Ohio, which explains much about him and today's post. He used to have a blog of his own, but a penchant for controlled substances and underage cheerleaders spelled doom for that endeavor. So he's come to Adventures in My Mind to invite you to an Adventure in His Mind.

It seems Jim's gotten a little tired of the electioneering of politicians and the messages that they send at this time of year. Please note that Richard Head and Marge Schott are thankfully not running for any kind of office in the state of Ohio.

The following post and the opinions expressed therein do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this blog or its management. Thank you.

Start Rant ...

Election Commercials

"Can you believe what Richard Head did to the State of Ohio? He sent his children, to Private School! How can you honestly vote for someone who doesn't care about you or your school system? Vote for Marge Schott, cause Richard Head hates public schools, and you, it's proven!"

1.1 seconds later

"Marge Schott wants you to believe that Richard Head isn't the best candidate for the job. What you don't know is that Marge Schott voted against notifying you of child molesters in YOUR community. Stop the child molesters, Vote for Richard Head."

Again...

"Richard Head has reached a new low. His smear campaign against Marge Schott made a baby and our Grandmother cry. Marge Schott would never make your Grandma cry. Marge Schott loves your Grandmother, like you do. Vote Marge."

And on, and on, and on..ad nauseum. Millions and millions of advertising dollars wasted on circuit court judges, city councilmen and small town mayors, all for a $15,000 a year part time job, usually. In other words, gravy money for a few hours a week of work, if that.

What would happen if we banned tv advertising for election campaigns? There would be no voters, right? Guess what, hardly anyone votes already. So we lose some? At least the people who would vote are educated about the issues most likely.

The ONLY thing that makes me feel better this time of year is pulling out my copy of 'Bob Roberts'. A political satire starring Tim Robbins. Thank you for listening. I need to go hit the play button. Happy voting, you idiots!

End Rant

Thanks Jim. Happy November everyone!

0 Comments | Link to this post   posted by Teddy 8:40 AM

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