Pondering Cliff's Blog

Has anyone else noticed that something odd seems to have happened over at Cliff's Blog?

It used to be the kind of place you would go and read, and hope that noone else noticed that you were doing it. Sort of a guilty pleasure as you read the inane comments and views of Cliff, and you were able to ridicule him for what he said and posted.

But lately, it has been wholesome, uplifting, even (dare I say it) spiritual. Something is going on over there at Cliff's blog, and I for one DO NOT CARE FOR IT AT ALL.

I mean, it is becoming the kind of a place you would tell your pastor about. Somewhere you might talk about at a Sunday School Teacher's Training Meeting. His poll questions have evolved from "Do you pick your nose?" to "Have you been on a Mission Trip in the past 12 months?" To quote the Cliff I used to know, "Holy Crap, what is going on here?".

If you, like me are concerned with this paradigm shift, if you honestly believe, as I do, that Cliff's heartwarming blog entries are contributing to global warming, then it is incumbent upon you to do something about it. Let your voice be heard! Let the blogosphere know that we want Cliff's blog to be filled with meaningless drivel, the way that God Himself intended it to be.

Thank you, and good night.

The Etymology of Crap

It has been a long time since my last post, so I am way past due. I have to give thanks to Britty for the suggestion for today's entry. MAB and I have had numerous blog based discussions regarding this word, which we are fairly well in agreement has caught a bad rap. It is just a great word for describing things. It has uses as a noun, such as in "Could you please move your crap off the table?", as an adjective, as in "I have had a really crappy day/week/month/life" and as a verb, like in "Our plans to go away for the weekend were crapped out." It is also used, extensively by this author, as an expletive, i.e. "CRAP!, who left this matchbox car right in the middle of the hallway, where I would be sure to step on it in my barefeet." More recently this has been supplanted by "CRAP!!!, when was the last time the dog was let out, because something is soaking through my sock."

When I was growing up we had a drawer in the kitchen, (I am sure that all of you have one of these drawers in your house somewhere), where all the little items that didn't go anywhere else were kept. You would look in this drawer if you needed one of those little plug adapters so that you can plug in a three pronged cord into a two pronged outlet. You would look in that drawer if you needed a twist tie for any reason. There were always a handful of pencils with the tips snapped off, a screwdriver (but never the kind you needed, if you needed phillips, it was flat, and vice versa), some twine, electrical tape, paper clips and odd bits of hardware that came with some appliances (the majority of which we no longer owned). This was called the "crap" drawer. Anytime I would ask my mom for something she would say "Look in the crap drawer".

When Scott was a toddler, there was a Saturday morning that stands out in my mind when I discuss my proclivity to use the word crap. I had decided that morning to replace our hall bathroom sink, and install a vanity. I had to remove the old sink, put together a vanity, install the base, which involved cutting away a portion of the baseboard and fastening the whole thing to the wall, and connect the new sink to the existing plumbing lines. I had completed most all of this, but just needed to reconnect the cold water line, and Momma G had somewhere she needed to be. So with my assurances that there was about 5 minutes of work and clean-up left for the job, she set up the playpen in the hall, just outside the bathroom door, and plopped our impressionable little angel in the playpen to wait for his daddy to finish up. Two hours later, she returns to find that daddy is still in the bathroom, wrestling with a completely stripped out water connection, and Scott is hanging onto the side of the playpen saying "crap, crap, crap, crap...." All of this to say, that it must be a genetic thing, because I would have never said that in front of my child.

The Media is out to get me.

I should have known better than to bring up my solution for global-warming, because as soon as I presented my plan, crack-pot theories are being tossed out by the media in an attempt to drown out my voice in a sea of lunacy.

No doubt the local news writer who (whom?) I occasionally play basketball with has been reading my blog, and has notified his superiors at the paper about my "Two-fer Tuesdays"TM plans for solving the world's excess CO2 problems. This cabal then plotted on ways to discredit me. How else would they have come up with this unlikely article on the front page of the paper today, under the headline "Recipe for a CO2 Solution?".

Trib Article

Baking Soda? You have got to be kidding me. Who makes this crap up? It all sounds like alchemy to me, not a well thought-out plan such as "Two-fer Tuesday"TM .

Well we'll just have to see if combining CO2 with NaHO really makes NaHCO3. That seems to me to be about as likely as SO3 and H2O making H2SO4.

Prison Trip

We were on the Columbus Avenue Baptist Church Choir Prison trip this last weekend, and we had a very good time. We always enjoy these trips, when we have the opportunity to go and minister to prisoners. If you are ever presented with a similar opportunity, I would highly recommend that you take advantage of it. I have never been around a group of people that so clearly appreciates an act of kindness as when I go on the prison trip. The offenders in all the units are excited to see us as we arrive, pay complete attention the entire time we are there, and sing along and laugh and just enjoy themselves while the concert is performed. I am sure that a big part of it is that they spend a lot of time seeing the same relatively small group of people day after day and any deviation from the norm is appreciated.

Public Service Announcement
The serious portion of this blog has now ended. If you do not want to suffer my inane comments, I suggest that you stop reading the rest of this post, and do something more edifying with your computer time, like google your name and see what you come up with.

Random Observations from the Back of the Tenor Section.

This year our trip included a side trip to possibly the tackiest place on earth, the Texas Prison Museum. Here in addition to historical displays of various shivs and other homemade weapons that prisoners have made, there is a replica of a jail cell that you can have your picture taken in, complete with the stainless steel toilet/sink unit that no jail cell would be complete without. An electric chair, a model of the historic Walls Unit, and various other items of historical significance are also on display. At the gift shop, in addition to must-have items, such as leather beer can koozies (made by offenders), bobble head convicts in striped clothing, and other typical gift shop crap, you can purchase T-Shirts that are emblazoned with "Pen State" and other equally tacky slogans. I was going to suggest that they begin to offer a "My Daddy rode the lightning, and all I got was this lousy T-Shirt" shirt, but by then it was time to get back on the bus.

The next day, when we were at the Walls Unit, we were all very surprised to learn that one of our number, (I believe it was number 17), was not only a former volunteer at the Walls Unit, but apparently is also the only surviving Civil War veteran. (I may have that wrong, but ask Chuck, I think he can confirm it.)

Something that happened today.

I know that I am not the most ecologically with-it sort of person. I don't sort my refuse, have a compost pile in my backyard, or that sort of thing. But something happened today that really irritated me. Scott and I were on our way home after taking four tables to the church that we had borrowed for a garage sale that we had at our house today, when Scott commented that there was a new SUV ahead of us. He is at that age where he is always on the look out for a car that he might like for dad to buy him, and pointing out possibilities. (He turned 16 two months ago, and I think he is not enjoying sharing a truck with the old man.) Well, when I looked at the car in question, the driver tossed a bag of something, I assume the remains of a sandwich or whatnot, which unceremoniously plopped in the middle of the road. Not that it makes it any better or worse, but we were on a residential street, in front of a bunch of peoples houses, and I was left thinking, "what would this person think if people routinely just tossed their crappy garbage out of their windows on their street, or in their yard." I am sure a portion of my feelings are based on the fact that when Jan and I first got married we lived on 15th Street and Lyle, and had a large side yard that fronted a good stretch of Lyle, and I couldn't begin to describe the collection of trash that I would have to pick up every time I mowed, that people tossed out of their cars, but I will tell you that invariably there were diapers mixed in with whatever I found. I guess that experience made me realize that anywhere you drop your trash, you are just leaving it for someone else to pick up, and I can't imagine doing that, which causes me to be amazed when I see it happen. I should add, that we pulled up next to the littering car at the next light, and we just looked at the driver and passengers, with our best "what the heck is wrong with you" expression on our faces, but the returning look we received told us all that I needed to know. Some people still hold to the belief that they are the center of the universe, and the rest of us are here merely for their convenience.

Thanks for allowing me to rant.