Separation of Church and State Is A Sin

You know you've gotta be exceptionally extreme when the Republicans won't even have your back for you. I just came across this article on CNN about a recent Kartherine Harris interview with a Christian journal.

Separation of church and state is "a lie we have been told," Harris said in the interview, published Thursday, saying separating religion and politics is "wrong because God is the one who chooses our rulers."

"If you're not electing Christians, then in essence you are going to legislate sin," Harris said.

I think even the most right leaning of Republicans realize they don't need to be perpetrating discrimination and closed-mindedness to this extent.

I suppose its possible to find truth in the statement that the separation of church and state is a lie, but under quite different contexts than she would have her supporters believe.

And what a great thing to be teaching the younger generations. Don't work hard, and strive to make change and gain positions of power, cause after all, God's just gonna grab a name from a hat, and badda boom you're a ruler. Kick back, frat party it up, smoke some dope, skip out on any chance to fill the shoes of a hero; you'll have plenty of chance to send hundreds of thousands more without ever being one after all, once God chooses you!....On second thought, maybe that is the thing to be teaching the kids, its obviously worked for some.

Farewell and Adieu

Matt Good is running a private concert tonight for some of the luckiest bloggers and fans around. The guy goes through a wreck, and decides he needs to get away from VanCity and scrub the mind and still engages in a send off like that, so much for 'I hear Matt Good's a real asshole'.

To all those lucky fans, hope that's a blast, I can't imagine there will be any other concerts in the near future, let alone, any as intimate and honest as that one.

In other news, if you're a big fan of mixed drinks, apparently you coulda been sippin on bacardi and everyone's favourite carcinogen, benzene, recently. Granted, only at levels slightly above drinking water standards and not, one would hope, in vast quantities. No need to go all paranoid and ban Coca Cola on this one, just pointing out the facts.

Fishy

Last week I thought it would be a good idea to add some variety to the fish tank downstairs. Really, I was just sick of the boring gold fish lazing about the tank, so I picked up a South American Silver Cat. I'd had one before, a couple years back, and had it grow to a 5 or 6 inch long fish before we went away on a trip and it was overfed by my grandmother who was still active and able back in those days. They can be spastic little things, with a smooth sharklike skin, and they're a bunch more entertaining than your 5 cent goldfish.

Unfortunately, this one must have been carrying a disease from the store, and within two days of getting it in the tank it was belly up. My thought was just that it was shocked and that did it in, even though I've never really had much of an issue like that with fish in the past. But then, another 3 days after the silver cat made its journey through the municipal sewer system, the rest of the goldfish went for a float too.

And so yesterday morning was spent draining, disassembling and cleaning out the tank, right up until the part where I pulled something in the back of my right shoulder while rinsing out the tank and nearly dropped the damn thing on my feet. The shoulder ached for the rest of the day, and quashed any hopes, real or imagined, of getting some drywall up, all on top of the wasted morning. All for a bloody 4 dollar fish. I need to find myself some better hobbies.

And instead of going to the beach this week like I'd hoped, I was an idiot and answered the phone this morning to accept some work at my recently departed job because they're too swamped around there to get everything done. Between all the moving and running around, it hardly feels like I've even been off work in the first place.

Check the Colbert Video Challenge.

Playing Catch Up

I wasn't even a star in the wedding, and wow what a hectic few days its been. But all in all a success. A success in that nothing went horribly wrong at the ceremony. A success in that there were only minor issues with the reception, most of those likely driven by the open bar. And a success in that 2 days later I think I've caught up on my sleep, and that my liver has been rinsed through enough to keep going with normal day to day stuff and not feel like I should be at a meeting.

After waking up yesterday morning to go help the best man take care of rounding up all the tuxes so I could run them back today, I got roped into helping polish off the mountains of leftover food just from the rehearsal dinner. Then, 'since I was around', which was a common theme for most of the afternoon, I helped move some decent old couches, that I spent at least a few drunken nights on in my younger years, out of his parents living room. Then, it was across the city to move a substantially more heavy, hell downright tank, of a La-Z-Boy to replace the old duds.

Forget wasting money on gym memberships, I'm telling you right now, all you gotta do is spend a few weeks helping carry couches, bedsets and mattresses around.

But after all was said and done, I received enough free leftover beer to restore any beer gut that I may have shed and more. Of course my liver was still aching a bit from the previous two nights of open bar drinking, so I just came home fell asleep for a few hours and then started trucking through the first season of Lost, since its apparently only catching bits and pieces that has left me with a less than amazed impression of the show. We'll see what happens.

And as I just glimpsed at my cellphone on my desk, I must have gotten a voice-mail while I was asleep yesterday aft...what sounds like a friend holding up a phone to an audio promo for Snakes on a Plane, awesome. If I wasn't such a cheap bastard, I'd have call display and give em a shoutout. If I wasn't even more of a cheap bastard than people might really think, I'd actually consider going to the theatre to see it, instead of waiting a couple months for the DVD. If there's one thing stinginess teaches you, its patience.

A Big To Do

Its nice when that couple that you figured back in highschool was gonna get hitched some day makes it to the wedding day. A formal event to legally, and for some religiously, bind yourselves for the rest of your lives til death, or lawyer do you part. An obvious cause for celebration. But oh the traditions.

Spoken and unspoken, there are a million traditions and customs and nuances to weddings that just add to the whole craziness of the situation. Even without the presence of a 'bridezilla' or totally overinvolved parental figures, people like to hang on to what seem be, to me anyway, silly little formalities.

The gifting of china that may ever be used three times, otherwise living in fear of breaking, nicking, or overwearing ridiculously over-priced clay; formed, painted and fired. Ugly vases, tacky party dishes, weird contraptions with unknown function, I've seen it all come from one wedding alone, the couple forced to put on an appreciative face and give a smile and a thank you, and then inconspicuously find a new home, or convenient hiding place for the piece of work.

Tomorrow's ceremony and reception too will have its little trivialities to keep everyone outwardly happy, although there has to be a greater proportion of people than just myself who will be sitting there asking 'why?'.

The bride and groom are ready to go though as far as can be seen. No signs of cold feet, and everyone carrying themselves well and not getting stressed out. It should be a great wedding and a great start to more formal years of happiness. And now before the blog turns into a Hallmark card, I'd best cut this off.

Congrats to S.S. Intelligence Mountain.

Backyard Bloggin

Another chilled out day, and then a headache decides to rear its ugly head. I'm attempting to cure the situation with Pilsner Urquell, a few no-name acetaminophen extra strength tablets, and sittin outside to get out of the stuffiness.

As long as I don't cut myself with this nicely thinned blood like I did last weekend, I'll be good to go. The only question now is whether to watch Brazil or V for Vendetta, neither of which I've seen, both of which I've heard good things about. But then I have all the time in the world to watch both. That is, once the sun goes down enough to let me actually see the screen out here without squinting.

UPDATE: I guess my decision has been made for me cause apparently I'm a retard and downloaded a Spanish copy of Brazil without even english subtitles...so Vendetta it is.

UPDATE v2: I downloaded Vendetta onto my PC inside and my wireless connection out here is barely keeping me connected to the net, and definitely not enough to run it from inside...so Scarface Two Disc Anniversary DVD it is.

Kickin' Back

Movies, some reading, latenight TV, 3 hour Goldeneye binges; it can't get much better than this. Or can it?

I still have 4 weeks of nearly unobstructed freedom ahead. The trick is gonna be to stay amused for that time while spending as little as money as possible, and then continuing that trend for another 8 months straight of school without income.

After all that, I'm still maintaining the possibility of a month long road trip out west through the mountains that I only got a taste of a few week back, and to the ocean. Then maybe a jaunt down the coast, a zig across to Nevada and Utah, maybe a trip back down to the Grand Canyon, and the journey home.

But a month is a long time to go on student money without income, and without a travel buddy for at least part of the trip as of yet, it could be a rough time. Campgrounds and diner specials will quickly become my friend I'm sure. Anyways, that's plenty far enough away to not be concerned with yet.

Right now its time to take care of some leftover bachelor party beer and grilled meat.

Stink of Defeat

The past week ended up being a bit busier than I was really expecting, but now with work down, one buddy moved, and a bachelor party completed, its time to kick back and enjoy the quickly fading summer.

Of course, being busy has had its fallout, the most noticeable consequence being my removal from guest post status at Nick's blog; a result of my uninspired performance in The Sac...Photo Scavenger Hunt. Congrats are in order however for the survivors.

And so I must now go and shower off the stink of defeat, or perhaps its just the smell of a night of pubcrawling, in any case, this is all you fine people are getting for now.

Murphy's Law of Fieldwork

I'm in the middle of my last week at my co-op job and ready to be out of there. I've managed to schedule enough field work to make the already holiday shortened week go by a bit more quickly, but I'm also operating on less than 100% concentration.

Field work on the best of days under the nicest of circumstances will always see stupid shit happen; broken equipment, seized locks, wasp nests etc. When you add to that a bit of a lackadaisical attitude, field work leads to managing to finally lock the keys in your pimpin soccer mom van that you've managed to avoid, even if narrowly, all term.

The upside is that when you've done enough of the field work, and had all your fights with Murphy along the way, solutions to problems don't take long to present themselves, and you don't even have to call CAA to bust into your van. Instead, you stand in the middle of the street in a rundown neighbourhood with relics of circa 1940's and 50's small industry buildings around feeding a tape measure into your window to pull the lock. There's something to be said for those old flat style window locks, and for 12 years of wear and tear making the lock that much easier to pull....and bein' straight outta Compton.

Lock opened, keys retrieved with no questions asked, not too shabby. I thought I'd have it easy for the rest of the day, but apparently every other person in a bit of a rundown neighbourhood feels the need to have a German Shepherd, or some mutt combination with one, for protection.

I have nothing against German Shepherds, I actually happen to like them, but I don't however like owners who leave them tied up to a post all day long in the backyard with little to nothing for shade and not a cloud in the sky. I dislike the owners more when they see someone in the neighbourhood is going around to do some checks in wells that are installed right in the backyards, and then leave their dog barking at you for 20 minutes without either shutting the thing up, or taking it inside. Instead they leave it go nuts, so sparking a cacophony of all the rest of the dogs in the neighbourhood that goes on for 5 minutes in the distance as you move a block away.

Stupid pet owners deserve a slap, or a good mauling by a disgruntled pet more often. And I kind of want to have a dog around the house again.

This Just In

If you're gonna call someone stupid or 'developmentally challenged' or 'mentally handicapped' you probably shouldn't spell the word 'retarded' as R-E-T-A-R-T-E-D. If something is retarted it must have been a tart, butter, butter-pecan, whatever your choice, at some previous time. If you can't get it right, you're in no place to be making fun of mental deficiencies.

If I Were A Better Blogger:

-I'd have sweet stories about the long weekend and drinking beyond foam sword fights, sparkler cans, and only weakly successful mentos and diet coke experiments.

-I'd have better pictures of said activities.

-There would be changes to the template more often to keep even the most depleted of attention entertained.

-I would post a lot more a) insightful comments or b) drunk comments on other people's much better posts.

-I'd stop raving about the Blue Jays so much, but probably will now that they went on a seven game slide and all but took themselves out of the hunt.

-I'd give more shout-outs to all those other better blogs that have fun stories about travelling the U.K. or have contests amongst all the new guest bloggers or being an unemployed graduate and getting drunk harder and more frequently than me, or just a reminder of the classics more often. And then, I wouldn't let you leave til you clicked them all.

-I'd quote more of the meaty parts of other posts so you could be lazy and not click all those links, even though I always have them open in a new window or tab for you.

-I would actively reinforce the evils of Internet Explorer.

-I'd finally go ahead and move this blog to my own, easy to remember domain like I used to allude to and save the trouble of all those dashes and slashes or google searches for gaming servers and 'void'.

-I'd stop adding pictures that you can go to in the sidebar anyways to make the post look more full.

-I wouldn't make lists and pass them off as legitimate blog posts.

Fifteen Hour Friday

Nothing will quite drain you like 11 hours of jerking milky fluid into buckets, vials and jars. Add to that four hours of driving, that should only have been three if not for the main bridge home being compressed from 4 lanes to 1 for some obscure 'repair' work. More like a bunch of pissed off construction workers who felt like being thorns in a few tens of thousands of drivers sides.

And I didn't even get down to the 'falls' part of Niagara Falls, where I haven't been in probably 7 or 8 years. The last I remember it had become even more of a black tourist hole than I remembered as a kid. The development of the Casino owes the responsibility for that one.

The Falls themselves though are still awesome to see every time. The scale always takes a pause to grasp. I think with my time off I will plan a day trip down to check out the hiking trails downstream of the falls in the gorge, which apparently take you right down next to the river just upstream of the whirlpool.

Four days of work, and then its time for some birthday celebrations, some libations in preparation for and to confirm lifetime imprisonment of a buddy, and otherwise random projects and daytrips for a month. The Summer of George - Aaron style.

Too Much of a Good Thing

I love the summer heat. I don't mind working up a good sweat from as little as taking the garbage out to the curb. And I don't generally mind coping with it all without the benefit of a/c. But when I start losing sleep for consecutive nights then it starts to wear on me.

So this evening I've given in, turned off my PC and fan and moved my stuff to the basement; below the main floor where the rest of the family has had the window conditioner running, adding to the record high power consumption numbers. With all the cool air sinking down the stairs into the basement where the temperature is moderate year round, I figured I'd be better off with a bit of a musty. damp smell, than sweltering one more night upstairs.

The basement also has the benefit of my new stereo surround receiver and a clearer signal on the coaxial to watch the Jays begin their most important series of the season so far against the Yankees. Of course from here til the end, it goes without saying that every series against the Yankees, Red Sox, White Sox, and Twins is the most important of the season so far.

Bernie Williams just cleared the bases with a double, isn't he in a home yet? Must be nice to have a higher payroll for your eight starting position players than just about every other teams entire roster. What? You're sick of my bitching about the Bronx Bankrolls? Too bad for you, but I'm done for now.

Here's hoping I get a good night's sleep tonight so I can attempt to dredge up some creativity for round 3 of Nick's competition. I'm sitting in an okay position, but am gonna need to step it up if I want me a mix tape. I'd whore for your votes at this point, but Nick has gone and claimed the role of judge, jury and island kickeroffer so, maybe I can just get you to go whore him in my name?