just a sunset

Just a sunset picture, taken this evening. Nothing more, nothing less.

To Bose or Not to Bose

Bose, the company, spends megabucks on advertising. It is likely that in the deep impenetrable forests of South America, the natives have heard of Bose.

'Tis almost a cult thing. 'Specially this Wave Radio that they just FLOG on the TV, and NEVER lower the price. But somehow they make you think that you absolutely must have one, and you'd better buy it now or you'll lose out.

Sure they sound nice. But.

This sounds nicer, and cost $150 less.



Do ya think that maybe Cambridge Soundworks spends a little more money on their products, and a little less on advertising??? Hmmmm.... I wonder....

CD Promo????

Does this look like a promo shot for a new CD or what?? What shall we call them??

Auke and the Angels?

disappointed

Well, my dear friend Mike is unable to host his annual Superbowl party this year, due to commitments at work.

Contrary to a recent post by an unnamed blogger I do not enjoy work. It's not that I detest work, its just that it cuts into my leisure time so drastically. And now 'work' stuff has cancelled the annual superbowl party.

So I am disappointed. However, we shall have a superbowl party right here at our little house in Iowa, nevermind Mike and his work crap. :-)

In other news, I bought this the other day, just for fun.







Well, it ain't a 17" Powerbook, but it is 17", and was less than half the price of a Powerbook. Has the same hardware config too, big old hard drive, dual layer DVD burner, etc etc etc. And it has a cool orange lid. Just no cool Apple on the back of the screen, or MacOSX operating system. Can't have everything. It does have a beautiful 'Truebrite' screen, and will run 4 hours on a battery charge. It'll do.

Seriousness

I tell you what. You start surfing blogs, and yer head will start to spin. Holy crap there are a lot of serious people out there. How on earth do they stand themselves?

All these serious topics (serious to them I guess) they are discussing, will they really matter 2000 years from now?? I doubt it. But gosh they work themselves into a frenzy over stuff.

Am I in a frenzy over these serious blogs? Hmmmm. I dunno. I do know that its incredibly entertaining to read some of the stuff in blogs, filtering it through the 'will it matter in 2000 years' filter.

Or, try reading blogs through the 'I expect I will not survive this day' filter, or the 'I will likely not wake up in the morning' filter.

Suddenly most stuff just doesn't matter anymore.

Odd how I get like this as February approaches.

And another question I've never had a good answer to. A lot of blogging is dedicated to 'emerging church' stuff and 'anti-emerging church' stuff, and 'It says so in Scripture' stuff, and 'God said it it must be true' stuff. BUT

WHO decided that the printed words that we today call the Bible, are the only words inspired by God?? Hmmm??? Do you suppose it was a good Baptist that decided that? Or maybe an emergent that was WAY ahead of his time? Or a group of guys in the old boy network that thought, 'By jove, that's it lads'.

I mean WHO.

Not only that, but I thought this picture I took today was interesting. A lot going on in it.

fun with Windoze

Been playing with some stuff. Making Windoze look more like the lovely Aqua interface used in MacOSX. Not completely successful, but it certainly looks better than the usual Windoze interface.

Fun Fun Fun.

Mrs. Grumpy got her wise teeth pulled out today. She looks like a chipmunk. And she was acting rather drunk as we left the hospital....which is funny cuz she never drinks alkeyhall.

I intend to take some very close up shots of her extracted wisdom teeth, just to post here on my blog. Something to look forward to.

And here they are!!!



:-)

movies

Last evening we watched (or rather endured) the movie War of the Worlds. The new one, with Tom whatshisface in it, and that little girl, ummm, Dakota somethingorother.

What an absolutely lousy movie. I couldn't wait for it to end. It had no plot that I could discern, no moral message good or bad, no real decent action that didn't seem contrived. And the continuity team could have spent some more time, cuz some of us watching aren't as dumb as posts. (as an example, assuming Tom had the only working car, and was almost killed when it was stolen from him, then how did all those cars get parked so neatly on the ferry just up the road???)

I do believe I can say it was the worst movie I've seen in years, perhaps in my lifetime. Its only redeeming feature was Dakota, and even she did too much fake screaming.

So, check it out. I dare you. Watch it and tell me its worth the plastic in the the disc its burned on.

And tonight we are watching the Panthers get spanked by the Seahawks. Its been a bad weekend for television. (sigh)

seedless

So, if these oranges are seedless, eventually, we'll run out of oranges. Won't we? How will more oranges grow, if there are no more seeds?

Makes me sad, cuz I really like these oranges. But they've been spayed or neutered. They can't reproduce.

A tragic day indeed, when oranges become extinct.

time

Why is it that looking back usually seems much brighter and more colorful than looking ahead??

wicdlry

First off, took this pic today. Lots of lines in it. I like it better than the last pic I posted with lines in it. I used the red channel of the pic, then overlayed it on itself, blurred one of the layers, and combined them with 'hard light'. All using Corel Photopaint on my Windows laptop. (yes, bro, my Windows machine....for shame). That there picture is of the bridge spanning the Mississippi river from Keokuk Iowa, to Hamilton Illinois.



The title of my post is 'wicdlry'. It was what I had to enter into one of those annoying 'anti-spam' things when posting a comment on Cousin Joy's blog.

I wonder what 'wicdlry' means? Sounds rather ominous and cryptic. I might need to change my blog name to 'wicdlry'. A possible definition is 'the performance of all things wicked'. That's just gotta be cooler than being grumpy and loving it.

But of course I cannot change. I have been grumpy for too long. Switching to wicked is something I might have accomplished in my younger days, but now I am just too lazy. And being wicked is getting SO unpopular these days.

A unique way to waste time, I've found. Taking those antispam letters and creating words with them. Try it sometime.

Tuneage

Whilst playing away in Corel Photopaint this evening, I had iTunes on random play...who knows what might come on, cuz there's 5500 tunes in there.

As it turns out, Collin Raye came on, crooning the tune below. I kinda like it.

We are born, one fine day
Children of God, on our way
Mama smiles, daddy cries
Miracle before their eyes
They protect us, til we're of age
Through it all, love remains

Boy moves on, take a bride
She stands faithful, by his side
Tears and sweat, they build a home
Raise a family of their own
They share joy, they share pain
Through it all, love remains

Kingdoms come and go but they don't last
Before you know the future is the past
In spite of what's been lost and what's been gained
We are living proof, that love remains

I don't know, baby what I'd do
On this earth without you
We all live, we all die
But the end is not goodbye
The sun comes up and seasons change
Through it all love remains
An eternal burning flame
Hope lives on and love remains

more free?

So, maybe freedom is like being a kid? But we must clarify. Like being a well-loved and cared for kid. Before school. In diapers.



When we are in that 2-3 year old range, we can talk, we can walk. When we are in diapers we can poop when we like, where we like. We get fed when we are hungry. We can spill our food and its 'cute'. The biggest stress we face is the possibility of the existence of the boogie-man.

Everything is exciting when we are 2 and 3 years old. All manner of stuff is brand new. We aren't subjected to a whole lot of advertising. (although we do get some)
We are relatively innocent, thinking the best of people in most cases. We trust everyone. We are selfish. We cry whenever we want to, and don't worry about what people think of us. We aren't afraid to show dependence.

Funny I didn't think of this when I was 3. 'Twas a good life. I must have missed it, cuz I don't remember it. (well, other than the traumatic event when I was forced to hold SuzieQ's hand....and that didn't feel like freedom to me)

Maybe more tomorrow.

Free?

So with my brother doing a lot of talk about ‘freedom’, etc, I thought I’d put in a thought or two. Cuz I can. Keep in mind that no research whatsoever has gone into my commentary. (research is too much like work)

First of all, where did the term ‘free as a bird’ come from? Ever thought about it from the bird’s perspective? They spend most of their living breathing days hunting for food. Oh ya, that’s freedom for ya. And I’ve seen birds staring longingly at my warm living room during those wickedly cold days…

So, that’s settled. Being a bird isn’t being free.

OK, how about ‘freeware’? Software you can download to your computer, and it doesn’t cost you anything. Or does it? I can’t count how many people I’ve talked to who complain that their computer just keeps getting slower and slower and s l o w e r……

So, that’s settled. Freeware isn’t free.

OK, how about ‘the land of the free’? Well, lets see…ummmm….we have speed limits. There are fewer and fewer places we can still enjoy a smoke after dinner. We can’t take pictures downtown in a big city for fear of being arrested. We can’t expect our mail from other countries to arrive unexamined. We can’t eat anything anymore but what someone is telling us it might cause cancer or give us a freakin’ bloodclot or something. We can’t teach Intelligent Design alongside the equally unlikely theories of Darwin. We can’t go anywhere or do anything without being bombarded by advertising, telling us we must have this and that. We dare not live in a double-wide. God forbid we should discipline our children. (I can say God here, because we aren't in a public school setting) And make sure no one slips on the ice outside your front door. We can't expect our email to be private. Telemarketers may soon have our cellphone numbers. And on and on and on…..

So, that’s settled. The land of the free isn’t so free.

Methinks perhaps I’ll continue this another day. I am getting disgusted.

mmmmmmmm

Part of this evening's dinner....




Oh boy do I LOVE brussels sprouts. I ate way too many. They were perfect. Lightly covered in butter, just a little salt, not bitter at all. SproutNirvana.

New England and wasted time.

Well, as I sit here watching the Patriots and the Broncos, with 3:24 left to play in the game, I am thinking that there will be no rematch between the Patriots and the Panthers this year. Which is a shame. I was looking forward to watching such a rematch with my Patriots-loving friend in Michigan. Since I favor the Panthers, it makes for a good time. (this is football we're talking about here, in case you don't know)

I shall have a good time anyway. I have made it sort of a tradition now, driving from where ever I happen to live, up to Greenbush Michigan, to watch the superbowl at my good friend Mike's house.

This is my good friend Mike, expressing his undying love for me....



Since I had time to waste today, I made these...

I had an idea....

but it turned out like this....


What in the world???

Testing

Ok I am testing a new way to post to blogger. If you are reading this, it worked!!!!

I got it here....http://bradrhine.com/freq

all God's creatures...

I've posted this for my dear friend and arch-enemy, SuzieQ, since she's lost Stuart Little.

I'd be more than willing to send along several beautiful critters just like this one, to assuage the incredible feelings of loss she must be feeling.



Just another example of how benevolent I can be at times. :-)

oh man....

Oh man, I need one of these.....



Well. I don't NEED one, but I surely would like one.

Unfortunately, we already have 4 laptop and two desktop puters, so I am finding it hard to justify the $2000 for this ultimate expression of the electronic gadget.

(sigh) I'll get over it.... maybe.....

rut-roh

Some nasty weather movin' in...

Human

One could be convinced, from reading many National Geographic articles, that man is not part of the natural ecology of the earth. Me I don't understand the logic.

As an example, there was an article a while back about invasive species. Kudzu, it seems, is creating ecological havoc here in North America. What exactly is ecological havoc?? In order to accept this, one must believe that mankind is not part of the ecosystem. He brought kudzu to North America, and screwed everything up.

Would the same term be used had a giraffe decided to move to North America, and bring his prized kudzu with him, or would that be considered 'natural'?? Or if kudzu seeds somehow crossed the sea in search of fertile ground, would that create ecological havoc?? Why does the fact that mankind, part of the ecosystem in my opinion, brought the kudzu here make it 'unnatural' and create havoc?

To me, mankind is part of the ecosystem, and if he (or she, in deference to the ladies) decided to bring kudzu to North America, then it ain't 'havoc', its just natural.

Read enough of these articles and you will be firmly convinced that mankind was dropped on to the perfect earth from outerspace with one goal in mind - to screw it all up.

Its a daunting task, but I guess we're up to it!!!

flickr

Since I am a Yahoo member in good standing, I joined Flickr, just for fun.

Flickr is the sort of site that makes one long for high speed internet. Tons of pictures, from all over the place, just for browsing, and killing time. LOTS of time in my case, with my speedy gonzalez dialup.

But its very easy to add pictures to flickr, just email a pic to an address they give me, and 'poof' it adds the picture to my 'photostream' (what ever that means)

So I'll probably add a picture a day, or every other day, for a while, until it becomes boring.

On another topic, Cold Case was pretty good tonight. It was basically a Springsteen video. The whole show had Bruce Springsteen background music in it. Well done though, as always. I may have to add Bruce's tune 'Atlantic City' since it was the tune used near the end of the show, as they went back in time to the actual crime. I am not sure how they find music that so perfectly complements their show - I suspect half the time they pick the music first, then design the show around it!

Don't make 'em like they used to

First, something off topic. The picture below describes a benefit of living in southeastern Iowa. On my way home from work at about 2pm on a Saturday. Just look at that traffic.....



Today, since I only worked 'till about 1:30, and it was sunny and 50F outside, I decided to try and bash the fender out on the truck, where the turkey so kindly smashed into it on Christmas day. I needed to do this, because the door kept catching on the fender every time I opened and closed it. This is bad for two reasons... 1. it takes the paint off the edge of the door and fender, and 2. it makes a sickening sound that pisses me off.

So, in order to bash out the fender, I had to take the inner fender out. I have done this job on my 1965 Chevy Impala several times, and I wasn't looking forward to it.

40 minutes later I was done!!! Cheap ass truck (2004 Ford Explorer, in case you care) uses 8 little screws and 4 plastic 'christmas tree' clips to hold the plastic inner fender on. By comparison, my 65 Chevy has a huge heavy gage steel inner fender held on by at least sixteen 5/16"x1" machine bolts.

No wonder SUV rollover is a concern. The dadgum thing would disintegrate. Might as well put it together with chewing gum, it might hold better.

All in the name of progress I guess. Need to reduce costs so we can get those DVD players, and GPS navigation systems inside the truck!! We need to be entertained, and we don't want to get lost while we ride around in the flimsy P. O. S.

expression...

Check out the expression on my friend and co-worker Jose's face. He's about to break forth in a Nicaraguan tirade about something.

I wonder what he's going to say???

State of Fear

I am reading the novel 'State of Fear' by Michael Crichton at the moment. (ISBN# 978-0-06-101573-1 in case you care). This is my kind of story. The premise of the story is that the extreme environmentalist movement is nothing but a huge, fearmongering fundraiser, giving society something to fear, in order to control them. Not only that, but that 'global warming' is just a load of crap. The cool thing about the book is that all the documentation supporting the position that global warming is crap is footnoted and for real.

I like this story. I am not a tree-hugger. This is not to say that I believe we should wantonly pollute our earth, but there needs to be balance. And I believe that global warming is a load of horse-hooey. And I can't stand those Toyota Prius cars.

I look forward to the time, about 5-8 years from now, when all these hybrid cars become just so much junk. I believe the Europeans have the right idea, and have developed the diesel engine heavily, producing very fuel efficient and powerful cars, without lugging hundreds of pounds of environmentally unfriendly lead-acid batteries around.

But, people will be sheep. They will believe in global warming, and they will believe that they are assisting in reducing it by buying cars full of lead-acid batteries. I say 'WHAT EVER' I also try to imagine what kind of polluting bastards the dinosaurs must have been.... look what they brought on themselves. Probably too many '59 Cadillacs in their day.

Added to iTunes today....

song 'We Live' by Superchick
song 'More Shine' by Si*Se (free iTunes download, eh)

update on Club Med

So the dogs spent their week at what they thought was Club Med. I'd been telling them it was like Club Med, so you can imagine the looks on their faces when I dropped them off at the kennel before Christmas. If looks could kill.....

Anyway, it appears that Hank the Dog, who's a 9 year old Collie cross, and dumb as a box of rocks, survived wonderfully at the kennel. Dumdeedum, he just potters through life without a care in the world.

Scotty the 4 year old husky/shepherd on the other hand, who has a brain, came home thinner and coughing like crazy. He is as sick as a dog. Wait, he IS a dog. Well he's sick regardless.

So, the moral of the story is.... go through life as dumb as a box of rocks, and you might not get sick as often.

Music

So, the question has been posed....'How does one go about selecting music to download?'

Interesting question, which I am about to answer to the best of my ability. I don't really know. But here's what I do know.

Sometimes, I hear a song on the radio or satellite radio, and really like it, so I go find it and download it.

Sometimes, I hear a song at a friends house, or a friend tells me about a song, or I read about a song or an artist (on a blog, for example) so I go and download some.

Sometimes, I buy music that I listened to years ago.

Sometimes, I buy videos, not because I like the music, but because I like the 'visuals'. ;-)

Sometimes, when I have access to highspeed internet, I go into iTunes music store, and visit the iMixes section. I follow links such as 'people who like this song also bought this song'. I find some cool tunes this way.

Sometimes I am just plain predictable, and buy the mainstream hits.

Sometimes I am given CD's cuz someone has one and doesn't like it. I like all music, so I dutifully load the CD into my puter.

Sometimes, people send me their CD's, because they are in a band or group, and I must support them. (usually the music is quite good, if a little slow....)

The other day, I was in Chapters in London Ontario, and liked the music being piped through the store speakers, so I bought the CD.

Sometimes I buy music from iTunes because my brother likes it, and wants me to buy it, so I can burn a CD for him.

Sometimes, I buy music because I heard it on a TV show, and it was strongly emotional or dramatic. (I particularly like music from the show 'Cold Case')

Sometimes I buy music, cuz I liked the artist when they were on American Idol.

I love any music used in Apple Computer's iPod TV ads, so I buy it.

I always download the 'Free Track of the Week' from iTunes.

Sometimes I buy music, cuz I saw them on CNN, or The Tonight Show, or something.

Sometimes, I buy music for my wife, because she likes it.

That's all I can think of at the moment. Hopefully this will suffice.

Home, at Last

Well, I said we'd like to be home by 3pm today. As I turned into the driveway, I checked my trusty USCellular phone, and it said...get this.... 3:00PM

Guess I called that one right!!! Nice to be home. And the house was exactly as we left it, kinda small and ugly. :-)

Here's the list of stuff added to iTunes over Christmas, while I had access to all that highspeed internet....I am broke now. Gotta save up so we can eat again.

song 'Breathe' by Anna Nalick
album 'Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No.1 & The Nutcracker Suite' by Martha Argerich
song 'The Book of Love' by The Magnetic Fields
song 'Abide With Me' by Eden's Bridge
song 'First Day of My Life' by Bright Eyes
song 'Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm' by Crash Test Dummies
song 'The Luckiest' by Ben Folds
video 'Beverly Hills' by Weezer
album 'Midnight Son' by Son Seals
video 'Beat of My Heart' by Hilary Duff
video 'I Ain't No Quitter' by Shania Twain
video 'La Tortura' by Shakira
video 'Switch' by Will Smith
video 'White Flag' by Dido
album 'People Need the Lord' by Steve Green
album 'Priority' by The Imperials
album 'One More Song for You' by The Imperials
song 'Cotton Eyed Joe' by The Freight Hoppers
song 'Cotton Pickin' Time' by Blake Shelton
album 'Three Chord Country and American Rock & Roll' by Keith Anderson
song 'Hillbillies' by Hot Apple Pie
album 'Anthology' by Bryan Adams
video 'These Boots are Made for Walkin'' by Jessica Simpson
video 'Angels in Waiting' by Tammy Cochran
album 'Warm Strangers' by Vienna Teng
album 'Wildflower' by Sheryl Crow
album 'Music Inspired by the Chronicles of Narnia'
album 'The Quintessential Cole Porter' by Michael Hope

New Year, and Last Day

Its a new year, but its also the last day of vacation. (finally) Can't wait to get back to work....

Took some pictures of the kids tonight - our kids and my bro's kids, all lined up like bowling pins. So for your viewing enjoyment, here's one of the pics.



Off to Iowa in the morning. We gain an hour going back, so we hope to be home by 3PM. Might even have time for an afternoon nap.