Jesus Jokes II

A crowd is gathering. A woman is screaming. They are pulling her to a post in the middle of the square, all of them collecting stones.

As they bind her to the post in the middle of the town, Jesus steps up, saying "You without sin cast the first stone."

Silence.

Then, out of the back of the crowd, a stone whirs forward and strikes the woman dead.

Jesus looks around and says "Damn it, Ma, sometimes you really piss me off!"

Jesus Jokes

Jesus walks into an inn, slaps down three spikes and says "Hey, can you put me up for the night?"

The Living Room Paint Parade

As noted on a previous post, here's the process and results of our living room.


We did our best to get the right color



Seriously, we did our best


We had to prime first


Of course, this picture doesn't do justice to the green

Obviously, it started as some sort of golden ideal, but manifested in what we found as "Sour Lime" but after looking at it like to refer to it as "Avocado Delight."

The problem with painting any room is that you have to deal with the light that reflects off that paint and defines that color to your eye. Our living room is not exactly bright, except when the front door is opened. So we have "bright closed," "bright opened," "cloudy closed," and "cloudy opened." For the evening hours - as this was going all the way down the hall - we have incandescent and compact fluorescent bulb light. This, should you ever have a similar experience, creates 6 different versions of what you put on the wall.

I think we hit it right.

Thoughts?

Marian Call - Get This!

Marian Call is a favorite find of mine, a brilliant artist. I purchased her first album online.

And now she's got another album coming out, just for the nerds. That's right: NEEERRRRRRRDDDS!

And by nerds, I mean - or she means - songs that indirectly relate to Firefly and Battlestar Galactica. Totally hot.

You can hear a good example of what she does on her MySpace page. Check out the info on her new album here.

I Got This at IKEA

Not really, just a cute photo of my niece.

This Is Why Organized Religion is Defunct

I swear my grandparents had this print in their apartment

Primarily, Catholicism is an absurd anachronism, a bloated, dying whale, flailing on the beach, an organization that promises the way to God but is, in fact, deterrent in its nature by the inherent structure of hoops and hypocrisy.

Let's look at South Carolina today:

A South Carolina Roman Catholic priest has told his parishioners that they should refrain from receiving Holy Communion if they voted for Barack Obama because the Democratic president-elect supports abortion, and supporting him "constitutes material cooperation with intrinsic evil."

The Rev. Jay Scott Newman said in a letter distributed Sunday to parishioners at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Greenville that they are putting their souls at risk if they take Holy Communion before doing penance for their vote.

"Our nation has chosen for its chief executive the most radical pro-abortion politician ever to serve in the United States Senate or to run for president," Newman wrote, referring to Obama by his full name, including his middle name of Hussein.

What a fucking douche.

This priest is saying that if you support a guy who has an idea that is against the human-fabricated doctrine of the church, then you're just as bad as him.

Lest we forget that Jesus congregated with liars and thieves. His mission was one of love and compassion, not of structure and pomp, circumstance and silk robes. The Catholic church is running a show where very few take seriously their stance on birth control, many support the pro-choice movement, and just about everyone wonders why the phallocentric mastery doesn't whither a little and allow women to be priests. The last pope invoked infallibility, basically saying that God doesn't want women to be priests.

The Catholic church has lost Jesus, and God only lives in the churches because God lives everywhere. If God could put a sign on the Vatican, it would read: "Under Old Management - Salvation now found elsewhere."

Fielding Oral Sex

Today (names have been changed to protect the absurdly under age):

Little Shambles: There's a rumor going around about Bob and Sally, but I don't think it's true.

Me: Yeah?

LS: Yeah, everyone's talking about it.

Me (throwing out the inevitable): Is it that they're having sex?

LS: No, people are saying Sally gave Bob a blow job and I totally don't think it's true.

Me: Wow. Well remember that if you ever have any questions....

LS: I know, Dad.

Synopsis: My daughter is in 7th grade and today was the first time I've ever heard her say "blow job."

**shivers**

My Favorite Painting in Cincinnati

Earlier this year, I visited the Cincinnati Art Museum for the first time in my life. And I fell in love. With this:


The Midnight Mass by Edward Timothy Hurley

Much more impressive in person, this painting struck me. Done all in deep blues with white highlights, a town in silence, covered in snow. That night quiet, every echo and word and scream muffled by the coating of Winter, I felt peace. And quiet. And sadness. Sadness because the only color aside from the blue/white wash was that church window. The only warmth was the parish.

And I didn't want to be there.

I identified myself with the observer, because - obviously - someone had to paint it. Late, alone, in the cold, and outside. I am that guy. Not because I don't like gatherings or don't like church (not that I do), but because I know inherently that I am not one of those people, in the cold, gathered in the church, at midnight. There is much more important work to do.

I just hope Hurley had a friend or two to drink a late glass of wine with while painting this.

No.

A friend to see it afterwords. The painting was created alone. Quietly. With aid of a heavy coat and the padding of snow.

This is not the Grinch hearing the song of the Whos, but reality: no malice, no anger, but a somber realization that sometimes, just sometimes, it's okay to be alone, to be quiet, and to enjoy it.

Love it.

Disagreeing with Dems - Fairness Takeover

Lest anyone - gods forbid - think I am a left wing mouthpiece, allow me to hit on two things that have been mentioned in the media in the past couple days.

Dems Target Private Retirement Accounts

Democrats in the U.S. House have been conducting hearings on proposals to confiscate workers’ personal retirement accounts — including 401(k)s and IRAs — and convert them to accounts managed by the Social Security Administration.

Triggered by the financial crisis the past two months, the hearings reportedly were meant to stem losses incurred by many workers and retirees whose 401(k) and IRA balances have been shrinking rapidly.

Holy box of fuck, NO! Stop! I'm the furthest thing from right wing, jizz-clappy, Reagan-idol-worship, but this is not right. Ever. Even if all the money drains from every 401(k): wrong.

You see, when you take the initiative to invest in a retirement plan, you are given all the tools you need to make your choices. If you choose to NOT study up or take more risk than you should, then you're at a loss. If you invest in a low-yield, low risk funds that will weather this storm, you're in luck (honestly, if you're not retiring in the next 10 years, leave everything alone - you'll be back on your feet before you know it, or lose everything when the world ends in 2012).

But the Government does not have the right to take private funds and control them. Does anyone else have any other information on this? I'd like to hear it because the story scares the hell out of me.

The Fairness Doctrine

The right's chattering, the left has mentioned bringing it back. Stop. For the love of the hairy balls of Jesus H. Christ, stop this madness.

The fairness doctrine, for those who do not know, was abolished in 1987 as a way to present controversial issues in a "balanced" manner for anyone who has a broadcast license. After it was gone? Hundreds - nay, thousands - of political talk radio shows have been spawned, most of them polarized.

Right now, the right wingnutters hold the scepter of broadcast talk radio. And that's fine. Why? Two reasons:

1. Would you prefer that political douchebags like Limbaugh and Hannity mask their abject disgust towards democrats and gays and, occasionally, colored folk or allow them to dump their bigotry for all to see?
2. Liberals, for the most part, already own the internet. Why? I'm not sure, but it appears that the ingenuity and learning required to become tech-savvy beyond logging onto your AOL email or typing "www.google.com" into MSN's search box eludes these folks. TV is going to go digital and lose millions of viewers to confusion in about 2 months. If that ever happened to radio, goodbye Rush.

So note to democrats: Stop. During this election cycle, the Nazi right pulled a lot of shit to make us sound like government-takeover nutjobs.

Don't prove them right.

Blogging Pause Unpaused - Fam Painting

Looks like I've been out for a couple days here. Time just melts away.

Spent the weekend with my folks who were in town with one of my sisters and my niece. We went across the river to Newport, did some window shopping at the levee, spent way too much at GameWorks - for the kids, of course. Shooting zombies had nothing to do with it. It's like a Dave & Busters, if you're familiar with that franchise, although not as big. But you can still pay $50, convert your credits to tokens, receive tickets as a prize, and purchase $8 of crap for those tickets.

We also spent some time visiting some local restaurants because - seriously - Cincinnati has some damn good eats. We hit the Dilly Cafe (formerly Dilly Deli) and Bella Luna, which will show up on that other blog I manage if I can get my ass in gear to actually write something on it. I've also got to put Seny out there because - damn - that's some maxed-out quality on all levels.

Then the 'rents left and we were left with the big plan: paint. So after a Sunday of prep and Monday and Tuesday of painting, we're done. Painting at least. The saddest part was turning the OMG-My-Parents-Are-Coming pristine cleanliness into a dismantling so we can put it all back together again.

Before/After pictures updated here later today.

[UPDATE: See here for pictures.]

So that's my story. I know. I know. I missed you too.