Cerebrate Good Times

I don't normally get political on here, for three reasons. 1. It's boring. 2. I lack the patience to truly think through all the nuances of a well-reasoned debate. 3. I'm not sure anyone was ever convinced to change their views based on something presented by another person. (Prove me wrong!) But here we go. I'll try to keep it brief. My political background: I grew up in a white, Republican household in Utah. Not surprisingly, I inherited values considered conservative: traditional families, limiting governmental power, all that. My first job out of college was working with a company that lists strongly to the Tea Party side of things. When Obama was elected I genuinely thought it was a disaster. Then I left the company and started having more conversations with people. And I'm confused about these two ideas. 1. Conservatives in this country tend to identify themselves as  Christian. 2. They don't espouse the ideals that I think Jesus himself would a...

Katie just informed me that she watched a documentary on 9/11, which made me think. I often hear people talk about shows they watched that hold no interest for me. I'm not sure exactly why that is, but I feel there isn't much to be gained from certain subjects. They may hold some perspective as to the triumph of the human spirit, but I feel like the negatives outweigh the positives. Here are a few things I don't really want to get into detail about. The Holocaust Climate change Crimes against children True crime in general The dangers of [x common thing in your life that will kill you] When it comes to man's inhumanity to man, I feel like I get it. I know people can be horrible; I don't need to know all the details about specific Nazi war crimes to understand the depths to which people can sink. I feel like maybe this leaves me ignorant, but I don't know. If I see a headline about another Catholic priest involved in a child abuse scandal I don't thin...

The days of the friendly door-to-door salesman are long gone. Aside from the worry of letting a dangerous stranger into your house, you can get anything you want delivered to your door sans creepy person who won’t leave, through the internet. Since moving into our new house, we have been constantly beset by salespeople, especially for water softeners. I have no idea if “no solicitor” signs really work, but if they do, I’d like to come up with something more creative, that will at least give them a chuckle as they leave me alone. Here’s what I’ve got so far. Abandon all hope, solicitors who enter here. Solicitors will be subject to merciless mocking. (skull and crossbones) solicitors Flowchart: Are you selling something? -->Yes-->Get off my property He who wishes to sell to me must first answer these questions three: Do you value your life? How much? Do you want to live to your next birthday? Thanks, I already have a water softener. Or whatever other crap you're selling. In fa...

One of the challenges of today’s lifestyle is clutter. In this case I don’t mean the accumulation of physical possessions so much as the use of our time. Periodically I find that I need to weed out some of the things I spend my time on, not because there’s anything wrong with them individually, but because I could be doing more valuable things with my life. To that end, last night I purged a bunch of apps from my phone that I rarely use, which frees up system resources and probably speeds it up a bit. Then, this morning I deleted several of my Google Reader feeds. I had collected a lot of items that I enjoyed reading at first, but after a while it became a chore to read every post. I have also whittled down my TV consumption over the past few months (having no TV reception and no cable/satellite is great for that). I could catch most of what I wanted on various websites, but it has ended up being enough of a chore that even the few shows I used to watch just don’t seem important to me ...

Can we talk about January for a second? I just want to say that it’s the worst month ever. In October, when the weather starts to cool off, you can still look forward to Halloween. Ditto November, with Thanksgiving. And then everyone puts up their Christmas lights, and even in the cold, dark December you have that holiday to look forward to. But that generally stops on January 1. It’s the coldest month (Sorry, Australia, we’re North-America-centric on my blog), and the post-holiday depression is starting to sink in. Any snow on the ground starts to get gray and grimy, and spring is still so far off as to be a  distant memory. You start getting tax information, you find out how much you overextended yourself financially for Christmas, and the whole world just seems to be in a funk. Or is it just me?

I have a question for all of you: When did it become unfashionable for women to wear pants? I don’t mean dresses. I mean, they are apparently supposed to wear unimaginably tight leggings, or what appear to be simply dark nylons. It seems like every time I’m in a public place anymore, the pantsless trend is very much in evidence, with everyone looking like they’re one dropped quarter away from busting a seam and mooning the world. And even when they wear jeans, they’re that horrible hipster combo of tight and low-rise, giving everyone a muffin top. Seriously, I thought clothing was supposed to improve your appearance. And sadly, this part of the trend appears to be infecting men, too. It’s been five years since I’ve found a pair of casual pants that doesn’t make me feel ridiculous. I’m getting desperate to find new jeans that don’t feel like jeggings. I know there’s nothing to be done on my part. Women dress for the scrutiny of other women anyway, so I’m an innocent bystander. And as fo...