I’m a bit of a fanatic using quotes on many of my posts since I normally use them to further verify a point or opinion I’m trying to make. I’m a believer than even though many of the persons I quote are long dead, their opinions and thoughts are still valid. Human nature unfortunately doesn’t change all that much from one generation to another. Back in the day there were just as many annoying a-holes as there are today. The funny thing is they express their a-holeness in exactly the same way. This just further supports my use of them whenever I deem it necessary. Not all quotes are friendly and nice and there are just as many derogatory things said about damn near everyone as not. Let’s take a look at a few not so flattering quotes concerning men by a group of less than happy women.
“A man is a creature with two legs and eight arms.” Jayne Mansfield
“God created Adam. Then corrected her mistake.” Brooklyn Woman’s Bar Association
“Whatever women do they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good. Luckily, this is not difficult.” Charlotte Whitton
“A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.” Gloria Steinem
“I married beneath me. All women do.” Nancy Astor
“A man without a woman is like a neck without a pain.” Anonymous
“The man is a domestic animal which, if treated with firmness and kindness, can be trained to do most things.” Jilly Cooper, Cosmopolitan Magazine
“I require three things on the man. He must be handsome, ruthless, and stupid.” Dorothy Parker
“A man in love is incomplete until he has married. Then he’s finished.” Zsa Zsa Gabor
For most of my life I’ve been called a pessimist, a cynic, and an all-around “downer”. I’m not too crazy about the term cynic and the term pessimist is primarily used only by those folks that consider themselves optimists. First of all, the term cynic doesn’t apply, I am a pragmatist.Cynic is a derogatory term used primarily by optimists to denigrate those of us who prefer a stark truth to a flowery disappointment. As far as being a “downer”, that’s a term that makes no sense whatsoever. Speaking the truth is never a “downer”, it’s just that simple. Here is the posted definition of an optimist directly from Wikipedia and we all know they never make mistakes.
optimist (ˈäp-tə-mist), noun
A person who is inclined to be hopeful and to expect good outcomes.
I know many, many, optimists and had many discussions and arguments about the advantages of being pragmatic and not having good thoughts about every damn thing you can think of. With that thought in mind I decided to do a little research to get some thoughts on optimism from a few so-called experts. Let’s see what you think about this.
Optimism: A cheerful frame of mind that enables a teakettle to sing though in hot water up to its nose.
An optimist is a man who, instead of feeling sorry he cannot pay his bills, is glad he is not one of his creditors.
Since the house is on fire let us warm ourselves. Italian saying
If you count the sunny and cloudy days of the whole year, you will find that the sunshine predominates.
A cheerful resignation is always heroic, but no phase of life is so pathetic as a forced optimism. Elbert Hubbard
An optimist is one who believes that a fly is looking for a way to get out.
If it weren’t for the optimist, the pessimist wouldn’t know how happy he isn’t.
After reading the above, what kind of person are you? Are you a glass half-full person or a glass half empty person? I stand proudly as a pragmatist against any and all optimists. It’s just that I prefer reality rather than a continuing hopefulness that everything will be just fine, and everyone will own their own unicorn. Here’s a quote from one of my favorite writers and his definition of pessimism, I hope all of you optimists out there enjoy it.
Pessimist – One who, when he has the choice of two evils, chooses both.
I love sticking my finger in the eye of the American education system. It seems to me to be little more than a means to raise revenues more than educating our children. As in all things the term, “Follow the Money”, remains consistently true. In my early years a number of former teachers of mine did everything in their power to convince me to become an educator. Thankfully they were unsuccessful. I know now that only certain types of people can enjoy a successful career as a teacher and I’m not one of them. I’d love to teach young children but would probably be fired for my continuing conflicts with a multi-layered and liberally biased administration. It’s when I read things like I’m going to list, I’d lose my ever-loving mind. These “malaprops” were collected from test papers from grade school, high school, and college student’s papers. OMG
Samuel Morris invented a code for telepathy.
Gutenberg invented the Bible.
Bach was the most famous composer in the world and so was Handel. Handel was half German, half Italian, and half English.
Solomon, one of David’s sons, had 500 wives and 500 porcupines.
There were no wars in Greece, as the mountains were so high that they couldn’t climb over to see what their neighbors were doing.
Afterwords, Moses went up on Mount Cyanide to get the Ten Commandments.
Good punctuation means not to be late.
Adam and Eve wore nothing but figments.
When a baby is born, the doctor cuts its biblical chord.
If a pronoun is a word used in place of a noun, a proverb is a pronoun used in place of a verb.
I have one more I’d like to add which will be the cherry on top of this educational sundae.
“Julius Caesar extinguished himself on the battlefields of Gaul.”
I’m in dire need of anything that will help me forget this Christmas season. First, we had windstorms, then rainstorms, then 4 feet of water in the backyard, then a loss of power, loss of internet, no telephone service, and finally cooking what was to have been a great dinner on the gas grill on the deck. Scallops, mussels and clams just aren’t the same after trying to cook them properly when its 15 effing degrees. Am I whining too much? I sure am. I have to be man enough to put all this crap behind me and start fresh, but I just can’t do it. I’d like to string both Mother Nature and Santa Clause from the nearest tree by various body parts that I won’t mention. I can assure you they would be painful.
Maybe my attitude will improve once I can shower and shave with hot water. The electric just turned back on at 10am today. Scrub-a-dub-dub.
Late last night we were able to have an emergency run of propane to the house which heled warm everyone a little. The temperature was hovering around 45 in the house at the time. Twenty minutes later after three and a half days our power was restored. I need to spend the rest of today trying to return things to normal. The blog will return tomorrow, and we can try to put this wonderful nightmare of a holiday behind us.
Another quick note. It’s our third day without power, heat, internet or patience. Our generator just ran out of propane so now we can sit around and freeze our collective asses off. Ho! Ho! Ho! Deck the effing halls. Hopefully we’ll get some good news tomorrow.
This entry will be different than some of my others. Since this massive wind and rainstorm hit, I can’t access WordPress since we’ve been without power since 12/23/2022 at 1130 am. I’m typing this on an old school word processor and will post it if and when the internet comes back up. My computer is operating with the help of a generator that’s still working but quickly running out of propane. We currently have no idea when the power or the internet is going to be returning but like the saying goes, “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.” This post is being written on Christmas eve and will be posted under that date as soon as possible.
Regardless of Mother Nature’s interruption I still would like to wish all of you a very merry and safe Christmas. I’ve got to go now because I have another batch of “lemonade” to make. The grand kids will be here soon, and they don’t care at all about the lack of electric power or no internet. Their first question will be “Which of these gifts are mine.” You gotta love them.
What better things are there to do on these snowy, wet, cold, slushy, and otherwise crappy days? My favorite thing is to just go to my bookshelf and randomly pick a book to read and to look for interesting information. Since it is the holiday season I thought why not talk about death. Unfortunately, or fortunately the book that I picked at random this morning contains quite of lot of information on death and dying. So, in the spirit of the season I’m going to supply you with a list of actual ways people on this planet decide to be buried. Some of these ways are a little strange but who am I to judge.
Create a certified, high-quality diamond from the cremated ashes of your loved one.
Send a symbolic portion of your loved ones cremated remains into Earth orbit, onto the lunar surface, or into deep space.
Have your cremated remains placed in a “reef ball” to help seed this planet’s coral reefs.
Have your remains frozen in liquid nitrogen, with the intent of restoring your body (in good health, of course) when technology becomes available to do so.
Have your remains frozen and transformed into organic compost and buried with in a potato-starch coffin that promotes plant and tree growth.
Have your remains incorporated into fireworks, so you can have a custom fireworks display for your friends and loved ones.
Create a custom portrait of your loved one incorporating their cremation ashes.
Have your body mummified the old-school Egyptian way.
Donate your body to be “plastinated” or embalmed for public display for educational and instructional purposes.
Now that I’ve succeeded in depressing you let me take it one step further.
It has been estimated by scientists that since human beings became a distinct species, more than 100 billion, give or take a few million, have died.
It is estimated that more than 135,000 people will die on your next birthday. Just give a kind thought to the 135,000 people who are estimated to pass away on the same day.
You have a higher chance of being killed by a donkey than of dying in a plane crash.
You’re slightly more likely to die from a cave-in than from contact with hot tap water.
Death from being struck on the head by a coconut occurs for about 150 people each year worldwide.
Mike Edwards, cellist for the 1970’s band, The Electric Light Orchestra (ELO), was killed by hay bale that rolled down a hill and smashed into his moving van.
Let’s talk about shopping. I’m not a shopaholic by any means but my better-half is. She keeps me posted on many things and it never ceases to amaze me how the prices have soared since the pandemic. I’m not here to say that’s a good thing or a bad thing but it is a thing we have to deal with. I myself do a lot of food shopping and I track food prices fairly closely to save a buck here or to save a buck there. It usually takes a lot to surprise me but the prices in the last year have been rising at a ridiculous rate. I don’t know whether it’s just the ability of every business in the country to gouge the crap out of the population or maybe there is some other logical reason for it. Honestly, I think it’s a little bit of both. Just to satisfy my bizarre curiosity I decided to do some price matches from the 1950’s against our present prices. This list is primarily products that everybody uses and needs, and I retrieved the 1950’s numbers from my archives which are unquestionably accurate and for the present-day numbers you can thank Google. Prepare yourself to be truly depressed.
1950’s v. 2022
Bread (1 lb.) $ .14 / $1.75
Bacon (1 lb.) $ .77 / $7.61
Butter (1 lb.) $ .87 / $5.00
Eggs (Doz.) $ .72 / $3.42
Milk (Gal.) $ .44 / $4.41
Potatoes (10 lb.) $ .57 / $6.00
Coffee (1 lb.) $ .51 / $2.99
Sugar (5 lbs.) $ .47 / $ .59
Gas (Gal. Reg.) $ .26 / $4.02
Postage $ .03 / $ .50
I’m all for getting the people who supply these goods to us a fair wage and a fair price but to see this much of a change in some of these categories leads me to believe some of these prices are not fair. It seems that everyone these days is an expert on just about everything so I’m sure I’ll get some trolls complaining about this post. These are my opinions and if you disagree with me, I’d recommend that you start a blog, do some research, post your own information, and then answer all of the lame-ass email criticisms you’ll likely to receive from people just like you. Merry Christmas!
I’m a bit of a history nut and because it’s the Christmas season I began wondering, how the Christmas we celebrate came to be. Of course, having a trace of Celtic blood in me leads me directly back to the Druids and some of their odd and unusual celebratory customs. As far as I can tell that’s where the tradition of mistletoe began as it was a part of many of their holiday ceremonies. As I read through a number of books there was absolutely no history of kissing under the mistletoe in the days of the Druids. The tradition of hanging a sprig in the house is supposedly linked to them as well. That came much later with the earliest recorded mention in some sort of music from 1784.
In illustrations of Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol, there appeared pictures of people kissing under the mistletoe. It’s quite likely that those illustrations popularized the custom. Leave it up to us Americans to take an old Bronze Age custom and turn it into just another reason to be kissing on someone.ofofofI was also curious of where the custom of bringing a tree into the house originated. As best I can determine it started with the Germans who got it from the Romans, who got it from the Egyptians who got it from the Babylonians. Who knows what’s true and what isn’t. It seems that those pesky Babylonians passed down a lot of crazy traditions to anyone who’d listen. Apparently, there was some sort of Babylonian fable concerning an evergreen tree that grew out of a dead tree trunk. Sounds stupid to me but any reason is a good reason when you want to throw a party or orgy.
The first written record of a decorated Christmas tree comes from Latvia, in the 1500’s. Local merchants decorated a tree and danced around it in the marketplace. When they became too tired to dance, they set it on fire. I’m sure glad that custom didn’t make it to the present day. Around that same time the Germans in their infinite wisdom passed a law to limit the size of a Christmas tree to just over four foot high. You gotta love them Germans.
Jump ahead a hundred years when it became common in Germany to decorate Christmas trees with apples. During the 1700’s in parts of Austria and Germany, evergreen tips hung from the ceiling and were decorated with apples, gilded nuts and red paper strips. The first mentions of using lighted candles came from France in the 18th century. Those quirky French must have a fondness for the occasional house fire. As Europeans emigrated to America, they brought their customs with them. The Christmas tree was introduced in the United States and grew from tabletop size to floor-to-ceiling. If you’re going to live in America, everyone knows things must be bigger and better.
In the 1880’s trees began to be sold commercially in the United States and were normally harvested from the forests. The first glass ornaments were introduced again from Germany and were mostly balls. Toys and figurines also became more common during those years. Sears, Roebuck & Company began offering artificial Christmas trees for sale – 33 limbs for $.50 and 55 limbs for $1.00. There was nothing that Sears Roebuck won’t rush to sell to make a few bucks.
The 1900’s brought us the first Christman tree farms because the surrounding forests were being overharvested. W.V. McGalliard planted 25,000 Norway spruce on his farm in New Jersey to get the ball rolling. President Theodore Roosevelt actually considered banning the practice of having Christmas trees out of his concern about the destruction of the forests. His two sons disagreed and enlisted the help of conservationist Gifford Pinchot to convince the President that the tradition was not harmful to the forests. In 1966 the National Christmas Tree Association began its time-honored tradition of having the Grand Champion grower present a Christmas Tree to the First Lady for display in the Blue Room of the White House. Currently there are approximately 25-30 million real Christmas trees sold each year in the United States. Almost all of these come from farms.
Just a tip from a former college student who worked part-time on a Christmas tree farm in Edinboro, Pennsylvania in the 1960’s. It was the worst job I ever had. I smelled like pine trees for months and ruined most of my clothes because of the sap. That job convinced me to say the hell with tradition, just get me one of those beautiful artificial trees. I never looked back.
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