A Quick Retrospective on Photoshop

Since I don't feel all that much like blogging today, I thought it might be nice to take a look back, as I publish my 966th post since I began, to the best of my Photoshop pieces. But since I'm too lazy today to copy/paste all those images from past posts, you get to click on the following link:

Ricky Shambles' Cause For Concern Photoshops

Ah, memories. Enjoy!

Van Mural Wednesday: Jungle Fever

So back in 'Nam ... or a South American jungle. Or something. The art is good, but the image takes some brain power to process, so the potential for accidents with this beast on the road is high.

Just a Few Questions

Do men with larger penises seek out smaller women so they look even bigger in perspective? Do men with smaller penises do the same thing?

(Congratulations! You are Queen of the Giant Cock Tower!)

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If Jesus and Mary Magdalene ever really nailed it, do you think it was weird for Jesus to call out his mom's name when he came?

(Oh Mary, Mary, quite contrary... Mom - oh, shit...sorry...give me a minute. I swear this almost never happens.)

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Would Dick Cheney consider it torture if someone pulled his dick through the middle of a CD and showed him porn?

(You'll never get me hard - oh, shit, is that torture video? Shit!)

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If it wasn't for the Laserdisc, would Compact Discs (CDs) have been called CDs? Would we just call them Ds?

(Hey, what Ds you pick up at FYE today? / Dude, I burn my Ds from tha internets; nobody buys them anymore.)

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Are you disappointed that the last question was not also about penises in some form?

(And what form should those penises take? Discuss.)

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Are Canadian lesbians more Canadian because they eat beaver?

(Nothing to see here folks; that was just terrible.)

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If God created ALL things and evangelicals say he did not create evil, how do you rectify that argument?

(He "allows" evil, of course! / But if he didn't create it, how does it exist? / Begone Satan!)

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The CDC is now saying every child from 6 mo to 18 years get a flu vaccine; do you believe the hype?

(Hype my ass, daddy gov't needs to pay the bills and scarin' the public and fuckin' the vaccine folks gets that done. Kinda.)

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Do I have too many questions?

(Please check yes or no.)

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Does this post have anything to do with the fact that I'm dangerously close to 1000 posts?

(Smack that 1K, bitch. That's right. Smack it like you mean it!)

Liquid Jesus Beer - Get Saved

A thought fart while coasting through some Google Image Search results. Needed to be done. Though it would be cool, it's unfortunately all smoke and mirrors folks. Until I get my homebrew going....

Fixing the California Economy

This video embarrasses me as a human being. Enjoy.

Disability: Not as Easy as You'd Think

This is a personal blurb. Feel free to skip, though I'll go light on the glurge.

My mother-in-law is 58. 32 years ago, she began showing symptoms and was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. That's where your body sees the cartilage between the joints as an enemy to be attacked. 26 is absurdly early for symptoms and diagnosis.

She's had shoulders, knees, and elbows replaced and rebuilt, some twice. Once your cartilage goes completely, your bones will actually fuse together. Her wrists are fused, ankles and parts of her spine in process. Her fingers are curled tightly and almost immobile. She can barely get up from a sitting position, let alone do anything more complicated than that. She's been studied by doctors all over the world. She is 58.

This weekend we were in Cleveland to keep an eye on her in the hospital because she'd come down with pneumonia. It appears to be clearing, but the big issue that came through the family discussions was disability. Despite her limitations, she is still a licensed nurse and was working as of 3 weeks ago (interesting note: she is certified in CPR to do compressions with her elbows because she can not do them with her hands).

So stubborn as she is, she has finally agreed to go on disability. But you can't just go on disability. Short term disability is not quite the obstacle course, but since she is not yet 62, she can't just stop working and collect Social Security. So that's where disability comes in. And it turns out that even with some 30 years of records of limitations and surgeries and remedies and descriptions of her condition, there is about a 95% chance she will be turned down in the first round of long-term disability application.

And the reviewers work in groups. And when the group reviews the case and the Denied stamp goes on the application and is resubmitted, another member of the group is assigned to it for round 2. And since group dynamics in a working environment generally don't put you in a position where you are comfortable pointing to your colleague and saying "you're wrong," round 2 denial comes at a chance of about 99.9%. I guess that's a combination of job security and the governmental sieve to weed out some of the cheats by effort level.

Now, once denial 2 comes around it goes to court and as soon as they see her wheeled in, it's an immediate win. Unfortunately, that stage can take several months, enough time to leave a gap between short term and long term.

And then we spin out into a multitude of issues like rent, day-to-day care, inability of kids to support her, inability of her mother (with whom she lives) to take care of her, and - always - where is this money going to come from?

But I shall not bore you or trouble you with that. I haven't written since Van Mural Wednesday and thought I'd give you a taste of my world for the past couple days. But I guess if it were a real taste, you'd get a back-of-the-tongue lapping of that antiseptic, hospital, hand-cleanser-and-rubber-gloves that chokes you a bit and makes taking down food a little more difficult. And I wouldn't want that for anyone.

Gates, Obama Draw Out the Whacko Racists

I was heading back from Cleveland to Cincinnati this morning (more on that tale to come) and having been somewhat detached from the mass (and winged) media all weekend, I was surprised to find my drive filled and garnished and flourished with the whole Obama/Gates situation. Last we left it on Friday, Obama said his words were unmeasured in that generalized non-apology we've all come to know and love from all politicians and had contacted the two parties involved and invited them to have a beer at the White House.

(Sidenote: Yay beer! The last 8 years all the fun was drunk out of the bottle with our always-recovering POTUS.)

(Sidenote 2: As far as opinion goes on matters where not all the facts have been presented, I'm going with Gates as a "Do you know who I am" kind of attitude and Crowley as perhaps over-reacting to that. Race doesn't really seem to be an issue; Crowley just doesn't like dickheads.)

I should've been tipped off on Saturday when I heard a blurb on one of Cleveland's AM stations on a short errand about how Crowley should take Obama up on the beer offer and wear a wire and expose the other two men as frauds. Right. A wire in the White House.

But today my mouth was left agape. Listening to Quinn and Rose on Akron's 640 AM. Apparently they did some research and found out that there is a contingent of elitist blacks who meet with Obama at Martha's Vineyard, and they include Gates, and are socialist, communist, Marxist, Leninist folks that are pushing for a rise in the voice of revolt of the blacks, perhaps even with a revitalized Black Panther movement.

Rose, the female of the pair, then went into her absolute conviction that after the Gates incident this cadre of black Illuminati directly called Obama and told him he was required to bring up the issue in public and be outraged. This, of course, was the cause for the plant in the press conference, etc. She subsequently entertained the idea that she was being racially profiled as a white Italian woman because she wasn't treated very nicely one time when she got pulled over. And then wrapped the segment wondering why a black tenured Harvard professor and black POTUS were whining about the plight of the Black Man.

In my disgust and changing of the channel, I reflected on this event and the Sotomayor hearings and I smiled. If Barack Obama is doing this on purpose, it is not to bring about a black revolution. The events of the past month, if anything, have drawn out the truer candor of racism across America. The more inflamed the right wing becomes, the more loose they get with everything from their tightly-wrapped bigotry to their whack-job conspiracy theories.

And I think this is only the beginning of what we are going to see in the way of how truly hateful and dark the hearts of some of those on our nation's airwaves can become.

For now, how about that beer?