Anyone hungry?

I know I posted this last year for Christmas, but it is one of the funniest SNL skits evah.



Since GG and I heard this when we went out for supplies yesterday, I now have to post this.



Merry Christmas to those of you who are celebrating it and to those who aren't have a great day!!

Can I just say...

Indiana sucks. I don't mean to offend those of you who are form the Hoosier state, but really your state sucks. GG and I traveled east yesterday to PA to see my parents for the holidays and Indiana was the only state that couldn't be bothered to salt or plow the state roads. We were on the Indiana turnpike and it was just plain dangerous to drive on it. The roads were slick and you could not get any traction most of the time. We saw at least nine accidents where people were stuck in ditches because they had slid off the road. GG and I both did a little prayer when we got into Ohio and neither of us pray often, but we were glad to leave Indiana behind. Unfortunately, we have to drive back through Indiana to get back to Illinois on Saturday, but all we can do is try and be safe, but get through Indiana as fast as possible.

Ohio has the nicest service areas I have ever seen. Nice new buildings, we even found a Panera Bread in one station which meant we did not have to eat your standard roadside fast food.

Pennsylvania needs to have service station more often. We went over 50 miles without seeing one service station which means, of course, that when we needed to fill up on gas we had to get off the turnpike, pay the toll, get gas, than get back on the toll road to keep going east. I know it is mountainous and such, but really a small service station is not too much to ask and maybe a sign saying the fact that when we saw a service station that it would be 60 miles before we could see another one, we would have stopped and gotten gas at the one service station we saw, although that was earlier than we needed too if we had known there wouldn't be another one for so long.

Fuck you Pope Benedict

That is all I have to say about his proclamations that there is a "gay threat". He says that saving humanity from homosexuality is just as important as saving the rainforest.

FUCK YOU POPE BENEDICT!!!!!!!

I know not all Catholics are homophobes, in fact I am sure many American Catholics are good people, but when the head of your church is so homophobic and bigoted, it is hard to get past that. This is not a good representation of your faith and IMHO faith in general. This is what leads to violence against homosexuals and against all people. Catholics need to stand up and tell their Pope that these proclamations are not acceptable and are not representative of their own views.

Happy Hanukkah!!

But when they saw the army coming to meet them, they said unto Judah: 'What? shall we be able, being a small company, to fight against so great and strong a multitude? ...' And Judah said: 'It is an easy thing for many to be shut up in the hands of a few, and there is no difference in the sight of Heaven to save by many or by few; for victory in battle standeth not in the multitude of an host, but strength is from Heaven. They come unto us in fullness of insolence and lawlessness, to destroy us and our wives and our children, for to spoil us; but we fight for our lives and our laws. And He Himself will discomfort them before our face; but as for you, be yet not afraid of them." (The First Book of Maccabees) 

Tonight is the first night of Hanukkah as many of you are aware of and some of you may be aware that Hanukkah is not a major holiday within Judaism or at least wasn't until the Jews started to assimilate and the little Jewish children saw their goy friends getting gifts for Christmas and they wanted to get into the action. So Hanukkah was born as a highly celebrated holiday within Judaism, it went from a minor holiday to what is considered a favorite if you ask any Jewish child. And with this honor of becoming a favored holiday and a holiday that is celebrated we had to create a story, a reason why it is worthy of celebration. As Jews we learn that the Maccabees defeated the Greco-Syrians and that the miracle of Hanukkah is that the oil in the Holy Temple which was only supposed to last for one day lasted for eight nights, but is this really a miracle? I grew up and for many years thought about the miracle as the oil and as I got older, the whole idea of religious freedom is added into the mix. The discussions become about how important religious freedom is as Jews who have been persecuted for our religion. Into middle and high school the discussion around Hanukkah still emphasized the oil as a miracle and religious freedom as the lessons we should learn from Hanukkah. Then in my freshman year of college a new lesson was proposed by a rabbi whose house I was at for a meal, the miracle is not the oil, the oil could have easily lasted for eight days, it is the defeat of a huge Greco-Syrian army by the small army of the Jews. It is the overthrow of a theocracy by a small band of rebels. I still think about that every Hanukkah, I think about how a small group can change the world.

I am really struggling to focus on this post so I will end it here and hope that maybe someone, somewhere will get something out of this post. I have been thinking about this post for a while, but today I just can't get it together. I had this whole paragraph likening the gay rights movement to the Maccabbees, but it just didn't work for me so it is gone now. Anyway, so I will leave you with a great modern adaptation of the Dreidel song to help you celebrate Hannukah.



h/t FranIAm

And in the Winter concert that we did at the public school preschool I work at, we did sing the Dreidel song, but it was not nearly as cool as this version.

YouTube Fridays

This is the Neil Patrick Harris edition apparently. I have seen this Sesame Street clip before, but I really like and wanted to share with y'all.



I really like Les Miserables and I just found this clip of Neil Patrick Harris and Jason Segel from How I Met You Mother singing one of the songs from Les Mis and am mildly enthralled, I hope you enjoy this at least somewhat.

Snow Day!!

We have no school today. It is a snow day. Yay, so my winter break starts a day early. No school for the next two weeks. I can now finally get over this cold that I have been fighting for a few weeks, But first we have some plowing to do. I hope everyone has a great day.

What do you expect?

So as many of you may realize I now live in Chicagoland where it is fucking cold as hell, I keep waking up to 7 degrees on the thermometer, and I moved from NC where it never get this cold, well at least not this early in winter. But that is not what this post is about, it is about the fact that I since I live in Chicagoland we have to continuous coverage of the whole Blagojevich scandal. And I know that this is big news, a sitting governor being indicted on corruption charges and I know that he is an asshat, but really do the local news need to have someone stationed outside his house every morning just waiting for him to go to work. I am sure that every media outlet has someone around in case there is big news, but really do we need to see this reporter come on and say things like, "Blagojevich has not gone to work yet." "He is still at home." "He just waved hi to the reporters." What the hell do you expect him to say, "Hi, I suck. I tried to sell Senate seats and am a corrupt asshat." How about we just not show the reporter every ten minutes unless something really happens, not the man goes to work. What the fuck do you think he is going to do, sit at home and cry? He claims he is innocent, which is probably a lie, but still he is still the governor and hence he has to govern. So to the local Chicago news find more worthy new stories than stationed one person to do nothing but freeze their ass off waiting for a man to go to work.

Movie Review- Four Christmases

Four Christmases is a movie about a couple, Reese Witherspoon and Vince Vaughn, who intend to go to Fiji for Christmas and avoid their families. They lie to their respective parents, but are caught in their lie when their airplane is not able to take off due to weather. They are interviewed by the local news and hence are found out by their parents that they lied about their Christmas plans. They then have to visit the parents, her mom, her dad, his mom and his dad. Hilarity ensues. Ok so it might not have been hilarious, but it was funny and there were some hilarious bits. Witherspoon and Vaughn actually do seem to have some chemistry. Their acting styles, or at least as I see it, were reflected well in their characters. Vaughn is a bit of an obnoxious goof where Witherspoon is a bit more subtle and mature in her character. They are surrounded by several great supporting actors in Robert Duvall, Sissy Spacek, Jon Voigt, and Mary Steenburgen as the parents and Jon Favreau as one of the brothers of Vince Vaughn's character. I also have to add that the other brother of Vaughn's character and the love interest of Reese Witherspoon's character as two country music stars who I would have never guessed were in the film. They were so well made up and looked so unlike themselves that I didn't even know they were in the film and was surprised when I just saw that they played the parts they did. Overall, this is a dumb, but enjoyable movie. GG and I recognized elements of our own families in each of the scenarios and I would venture that most other people would recognize either themselves, their family or people they know as well in each of the families.

Do the right thing- Fuck you Huckabee

I just want to post this clip from Jon Stewart's interview with Huckabee about gay marriage. As usual Stewart was well spoken and got his point across that anti-gay measures are bigoted and mean-spirited. And as usual Huckabee was bigoted and mean-spirited and used the same tired lines about gay marriage redefining marriage taking away from the idea of one man and one woman. But it is a great interview and reason number (oh whatever number it is) that I really like Jon Stewart.

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Mike Huckabee Pt. 2

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

Be careful next time you kiss your sweetie

Apparently, if you kiss wrong (?) or something you can go deaf from kissing. A women in China went deaf when the pressure in her mouth changed so dramatically that it caused her ear drum to be pulled out. So just a gently word of warning, be careful and do not go deaf from kissing.

I love to fly

I went back east this weekend for my Nana's 90th birthday on Saturday, so I flew out early Saturday morning and then back early evening of Sunday. It was a bit whirlwind and tiring and such, but I do so love to be in the airplane and just kind of relaxing. The takeoff are awesome, IMHO and then being above the cloud cover was amazing. It looked like I could just walk across the big fluffy clouds to the horizon. It was amazing. I think if I could find a job where I could fly and work with kids or a job with kids that allowed me to fly regularly with the corporation paying of course, I would really want to take it, but alas I have found no jobs like that. So I guess I will go back to enjoying the working with kids and the occasional flying whenever I can make up an excuse to be in an airplane.

Lets get it on...

Apparently, Americans are just not as horny as Greeks, Brazilians, Swedes or Israelis. In a study conducted by Durex, it was found that Americans rank the third lowest in times per year that we have sex and the countries listed above are the four countries with the highest average amounts of sex per year. The conductors of the study then went to those four countries to discover their secret of why they are so horny and really it is pretty basic, the people of these country value sex experimentation more than Americans, they value pleasure more than Americans and they communicate better in bed than Americans. But Sweden goes out of their way to help their citizens have a better love life.

In Sweden, men and women take sex education seriously. In their equivalent of high school, Swedes can take classes on kissing, and in college, the course catalog includes electives on desire, the ethics of contraception and abortion and other hot topics. All that hard work pays off: 61 percent of Swedish women reported having an orgasm the last time they had sex, according to the Durex survey.

They have high school classes on kissing and college classes on desire and contraception. Hmmmmmm.... So I guess we just need to follow Marvin Gaye's advice.


Marvin Gaye- Let's get it on

600 pounds of men and one small roll of sausage

Oh get your mind out of the gutter, I am referring to this fucking funny complaint call about a smaller package of sausage from some guy in Texas.



h/t Sir Robin

Santa=Buddha?

As I was driving through the town I currently live in, I looked over and there was a Buddha kind of like this one, who was wearing a santa hat.



Now, unless I am mistaken I am relatively sure that Buddha is not Santa Clause or anything like that. I mean I know the Laughing Buddhas may look fat and jolly and even usually carries a sack, but still I am not convinced that Buddha and Santa Clause are the same person, although they are both fat, jolly and have a large sack of presents...so maybe... Who knows?

They eat what?

I had some interesting culinary experiences in the northern woods of Wisconsin while visiting GG's family up there. This is a very rural area and so hunting is, of course, an important means to gain food for some and sport for others. GG's stepfather likes to hunt and apparently had a successful hunt. I have no issues with the eating of venison, it is not something I am especially fond of, I have had venison bloogna, sausage, jerky, and bacon at various times of my life. So the eating of deer in and of itself is not really that big of a deal to me, but there is one thing that GG and her mother ate that did sort of gross me out, deer heart. Apparently, this is a prized part of the deer for GG and her mom. GG was very excited that there was heart available when we got there and her mom and her had heart fried up for breakfast one morning along with pancakes. I had just pancakes, it just didn't look that appetizing and really the thought of eating the heart of any animal is just odd to me. Now venison may not be that odd and is served in restaurant often enough I suppose, but the next thing they ate is just a rural special I figure, raccoon. Yes, you read that right GG's mom made 'coon. She had told one of her neighbors if he caught a 'coon a trap to save it for her and she would go over and get it. Well apparently, a while back he had found a 'coon as there was a 'coon in their freezer and GG's mom par-boiled it to remove the fat, then roasted it and slathered it with bbq sauce. This was then served and enjoyed by a majority of GG's family, mom, stepdad, several aunts and some cousins. I did not eat the 'coon either. Raccoon is beyond odd to me and according to GG, she ate 'coon quite often growing up. She also ate squirrel at times as well, but squirrel is not very good according to GG and her family. I just can't imagine eating squirrel or raccoon. These just seem to be animals that are off limits to me, but I also didn't grow up with a hunter in the family or in really rural areas so I guess that explains it all.

But the ultimate odd food, in my opinion, are the microwavable pork rinds (Chicharronnes) that we found at the convenience store that is the only real store close to where GG and her family's hunting cabin is located. These are just odd and we had to buy a pack of them and then I had to take a picture and post a picture of them. This is just odd. Microwavable popcorn=OK and pork rinds=OK even though I don't eat them, still pork rinds are fine, but microwavable pork rinds are just weird and strange.

So now you know how I spent my Thanksgiving, visiting with GG mother and stepfather and her extended family and watching people eat odd foods.

UPDATE: In case anyone misconstrues this post, I am not making fun of anyone's food choices especially my girlfriend or her family, I am not. I eat and enjoy gefilte fish so far it be it from me to make fun of anyone's food choices, except Lutefisk, jellying fish in lye is just plain fucked up.