Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Maybe Marx Was Right

Where'd the bailout money go? Shhhh, it's a secret

Am I the only one that this pisses off?!? Bankers are evil! Workers of the world unite! Up the Revolution!

Friday, December 19, 2008

The Ascendancy of Light and Life

The Winter Solstice is this weekend. The longest night of the year. Time for the rebirth of the Sun King when the daylight hours start to grow again, eventually bringing Summer back to us. It is ironic, then, that today it was nearly 70 degrees here and come Monday, after the Solstice, it will be down in the low 30's again. Strange are the ways of Mother Earth and Father Sky. I've come to expect no less.

Of course, Yule isn't the only holiday occurring in the next week or so. Many faiths celebrate this time of year. Our children are out of school now for their Winter break and will be spending both Yule and Christmas with their other parents. We have to take Megan to Knoxville, TN tomorrow to drop her off with her mother. I'm both sad, because I'll miss her terribly, and kind of looking forward to some adult time. The step-kids will be with their father, but Carmen is old enough to drive them over there this time. I find that I'll miss them, too. I have grown rather fond of the little terrors (who admittedly aren't so little anymore). Ysabel and I will be visiting with friends over the next week, I'm sure, starting with two of our rapier students and some others in Knoxville tomorrow, so we won't be too lonely. Still, I can't help but think about some of the people I used to know that I've lost touch with. I'm terrible at long distance communication. Maybe I just need to get on MySpace or Facebook and see if I can look up some old friends. Seems like the right time of year for it.

We'll also be stopping by and seeing my sister and brother-in-law on the way back home tomorrow. She tells me that she has aquired some relics of our past. Things that used to belong to our grandparents. Things I will recognize from my childhood. I will admit that I am bracing for some painful memories to surface. There is a reason I don't dwell too much on my past. But sometimes pain is necessary for healing, like the pain of getting a shot to cure a lingering sickness. Maybe now is the time to face such things and move past them. Or perhaps nothing will come of it at all. Either way, the acsendancy of light and life will prevail over the dark season and the dark season will wait its turn to come again. The cycle will continue despite the feelings and notions of mere mortals. I take some comfort in that right now.

Joyous Solstice to everyone! Whatever holiday you celebrate, may it be filled warmth, friendship and all that is good in life.

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Screw you, OPEC!

Ok, granted I'm no expert on economics, the commodities market or any such thing, but I do understand the basic concept of supply and demand. Which is why I'm vastly amused by the news article I read today about how OPEC drastically cut production of oil in an attempt to jack up prices and instead the price of oil dropped below $40 a barrel! I'm taking this as a sign that a majority of people feel the same way I do. I'm sick of the Oil Barons, be they Arab or not, holding the world hostage to their "black gold". It's time to move on. It's time to end their fossil fuel hegemony over our financial well-being. In short... SCREW YOU, OPEC!!

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Vaguely Disappointing

The weather here is kind of atrocious. But only sort of. I mean, sure it's cold and rainy and dismal. Apparently there was some freezing rain mixed in with the liquid precipitation, too. They even went so far as to cancel school where my wife works and delay school for our kids. But seriously, when I came to work, the roads were wet. Just wet. No snow, no real accumulation of ice. Just a lot of messy, damp ickiness. Now, I'm not saying that I actually want blizzard conditions or anything. Especially since I don't get a "get out of work free" card like the wife does (or school, for the kids). I have to brave whatever Mother Nature sends our way, which can be unpleasant at times. But this time, it just seems like there was a lot of hype over what was essentially a lot of rain. It's still raining, with the temperture hovering around 35 degrees. It's only quasi-evil. I'm underwhelmed.

Monday, December 8, 2008

Calling Boris Badenov!

We appear to have a squirrel problem. A rather large grey squirrel has moved into the walls of our house through a hole in the siding that was created by a woodpecker a while back. We have tried filling in the hole, but the little bugger just undoes the fix and moves right back in. Next step is to fill it in and put a metal plate over it. If that doesn't work, I'm bloody calling in Boris and Natasha! I'm just glad our furry adversary hasn't invited any moose friends to come stay with him. It would be a real pain having to yank a moose out through that tiny little hole. The antlers would be a real issue. Not to mention that moose tend to bite. My sister was bitten by a moose once......

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Cognitive Discordia

Today I find myself caught up in a raging storm of rampant ponderings. There is no eye to the maelstrom, no calm center. Just the howling, directionless winds filled with a hodge-podge of mental debris. So much has happened, is happening, will happen soon that it's hard to keep up sometimes. I want to let the swirling chaos out. Make it external so that it has more space to vent it's fury. But though the medium for doing so is right in front of me, the words just won't flow from my mind to my fingers. The storm is too primal to be contained with mere words. The images and impressions too wild and raw. Strange that most of them are so very mundane in nature. Plans for this or that. Memories of a holiday trip. Lists of gifts that need to be bought. Nothing that, in solitude, would cause such a tempest. But the disparate parts coming together all at once form a powerful disarray that denies all notions of order. Such is my universe today. I'll weather it, of course. Sooner or later I'll find focus again or the dam will burst and I'll be able to pour it all out into a blog post (or three). Until then, anarchy rains.