Happy New Year to all of you and your families! May 2010 bring you good health and prosperity.

In case you were wondering, I'm not letting Toby drink this New Year's Eve. He and his doggy pals formed a ruckus this past fourth of July when they purchased beer with a fake ID and threw a soiree while I was away. His pals cleared out of my house just as I pulled up to my driveway. Needless to say, I became suspicious when I got home and saw ashtrays piled high with cigarette butts and Toby, in a drunken stupor, singing Abba's "Gimme Gimme Gimme A Man After Midnight" in the middle of the living room. (As I said, he was drunk).

Bad, bad, Toby;0)

Angelina

When I was in ninth grade, I had an amazing crush on a girl who was NOT named Angelina. However, every time I heard this song and the lyrics "Girl you left me nothing, nothing but a photograph" (3:28) I was instantly reminded of her.

You can tell how well it went, can't you?

If you didn't listen to this song then, you more than likely wont like to now. Love this song still.



Also, I'm starting a new blog called Dulcet Pandemonium where I can post songs/ videos like this more often.

I'm doing it all wrong

Christmas Eve was a huge payday for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac executives. The top executive echelons of the financially distressed companies received 6 million dollars a piece, with lower raking minions receiving about 2 million.

Here's the real outrage: ME! I'm going to school so I can better myself, while simultaneously working full time and taking care of my parents. Now I'm asking myself, "Does life really have to be this combative?" Obviously the answer is no. If I can divert my energies to smooching my way into either Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac or an existing (government subsidized) corporation equivalent, I can make bank! After all, thanks to you, my fellow tax payers, the government will pay anyone anything for everything, regardless of the substandard work performance or the uselessness of the product being sold.

By the way, have any of these executives conclusively fixed the enormous financial upheaval plaguing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? Have they earned their pay?

Better yet, why don't we cut the middle man on the government's prodigal spending and just send your checks directly to me. Doesn't that make more sense to you? Why add Uncle Sam's second pair of hands to this process when it's infinitely more efficient to just handover your finances directly to me? Now all I have to do is smooch you good folks and not some bureaucrat who's a part of a good ol' boys network.

I can provide an address to mail your checks to for those of you who see the light.

Merry Christmas!

A blessed & Merry Christmas and a Happy New year to all my blogger pals and their lovely families- this includes their four-legged family members that are as mischievous as Toby;0)

I've been extremely busy the past three weeks with school ending for this year (to resume in about three weeks) and various others things exploding here and there. Forgive me if I seem to have ignored you or forgotten about your blog, but the fact is that I have NOT. This weekend should allow me time to catch-up on many things that need completion.

Again, God bless all of you and your families!

Men's Fashion and Other Stuff

I'm not someone who is overly interested in fashion or fashion design. I do appreciate dressing nicely and appropriately, but I have no interest in knowing who is wearing what to the Grammy Awards or what designer is incorporating some bazaar new fashion dynamic into his or her seasonal attire. But there are a few trends in current men's fashion that have (regrettably) caught my attention, primarily because they annoy like a bad song stuck in one's head. Here are just a couple (I'm aware there are more).

1) Men who wear tennis shoes with suits.

Is it really necessary to dress yourself in a three-piece suit just so you can destroy the coherence with a pair of Adidas? Who came up with this idea? Is this considered fashionable? Someone obviously thinks this is hip and trendy.


2) Men who wear dress shoes without socks.

Again I ask, is this something that your average man considers appropriate and fashionable? How many men do you know that will dress in formal attire, with dress shoes, and leave out the socks?

The Nutcracker

I was watching the Nutcracker this evening on PBS and I was reminded of the stereotype and stigma attached to men who perform in ballets. Some people believe that it's less than manly for a male to dance ballet for a living, since it is (or was) considered a predominantly female operation. In the Nutcracker (and other ballets) not only are there grown men performing, but also some very young boys. Imagine yourself for a moment the parent of a nine or ten year old boy. Would you allow and encourage your son to take up ballet lessons if he showed interest? Some individuals in this society - mostly fathers - would hear nothing about such things.

Rachmaninoff's "Hail Mary" (Orthodox)

As I understand it, the Hail Mary prayer in Greek is very common in Eastern Catholic Churches as well as in Orthodox Churches.

If you want to find this Hail Mary performed beautifully on CD, then do yourselves a favor and buy this one:

It is by the Choir of New College, and it contains not just the music performed in the video above, but some of the most beautiful Catholic sacred pieces many of us have come to love. It's also a GREAT Christmas gift for someone who wants an introduction to a variety of sacred music. The Choir of New College is one of the best ensembles in the music business.

An Incident (this post is not intended for children)

I have an account with YouTube. Once in a while, I find something on there that is truly informative or educational or infused in some way with meaningful Catholic spirituality. Also - and you may not believe this - some of the videos used in my science classes are located there, requiring a visit on my part to re-evaluate that data disseminated during lecture. A few weeks ago I got an email entitled "wakey wakey wakey" (this is how he wrote it) from a YouTube subscriber. The entire email was a diatribe of the Catholic Church and the supposed rampant molestation of children by priests, under the noses of apathetic Church hierarchy. This individual, who goes by the name of rock9711, apparently prowls YouTube for Catholic content, then sends emails to individuals who have left comments in the channels posting Catholic videos. Initially, it appeared to me that this lunatic was with an anti-Catholic fundamentalist sect, who felt compelled to awaken members of the Catholic Church to their inevitable damnation. But there was a completely different motive compelling this natural-born fool that I will discuss at the end of this post.

Needless to say, I was a little ticked. I don't go on YouTube or elsewhere to knock on other religions, so I expect the same courtesy be extended to me. I may critique the methodologies and theological soundness of non-Catholic faiths, but never have I willfully and maliciously disparaged other belief systems or the individuals who adhere to them.

Here's a snippet from one of the early email responses I got from rock9711 after I suggested he consult a book that contained actual facts:

"i have a book without naked pictures of little boys and girls like the one that your priest and bishops and pope carry around in their back pockets ,, a book your church used to burn people alive for touching or try to read ,, a book which spells out the faith of an institution here on earth that claims to follow its principles and values. a book which spells out the doom and destruction of an institution which is blood guilty... an institution which spreads falsehoods and lies... a book which tells of mans beginning and why he is on earth and why we grow old and die and a book which teaches that soon there will be a new kingdom on this earth that will be free of all men who kill and rape ,, all the things your church practices on a daily basis now for the last 1,500 years ,, and a book that calls any false religion a harlot that will be made to know poverty..."

What an asshole.

In another email he writes:

"SEEK GOD AND BEG FOR FORGIVENESS .. YOU MURDERESS WHORE AND PEDOPHILE CATHOLIC CHURCH... THE UNITED NATIONS MILITARY POLICE WILL SOON DEAL WITH THIS WHORE CHURCH... MAYBE EVEN BEFORE THIS PAGAN CHRISTMAZ ,, THAT IS ON DEC 25TH.. THE SAME DAY THE PAGAN ROMANS WORSHIPED THE SUN,, WHILE YOU WHERE WORSHIPING A VIRGIN CALLED MARY... TWO DINGS DON'T MAKE A DONG OF SHIT IN THE REAL WORLD..

YOUR WHORE CHURCH IS IN COURT... THATS THE BOTTOM LINE!!!"

He writes again:

"HAVE YOU SEEN MIRACLE ON 5TH STREET.. ? ASK SANTA TO HELP THE CATHOLIC CHURCH WHEN IT GETS THE WARRANT TO SEIZE ALL RECORDS AND DOCUMENTATIONS FOR THE LAST 100 YEARS... AND THEN SEE YOUR HOLY FATHER SHIT HIS PANTIES.. HEY LOOK THERE ELVIS!..

YOUR PEDOPHILE NAZI CATHOLIC CHURCH IS IN SUPREME COURT FOR THE MOLESTATION OF 950,498 KIDS AND THE BUTCHERING OF 750,000 PEOPLE IN CROATIA AND THE THEFT OF GOLD... I WOULD SAY YOU NEED A WIZARD MORE THAN YOU NEED SANTA..... \

HEY LOOK! A BUNNY WITH CHOCOLATE"

I have to admit, that if I had been the bigger man and smarter than this misanthrope, I would have left him alone and refrained from responding to his nonsensical gibberish. Unfortunately, I stooped to his level, and for every email I got from him I fired one back. This exchange unfolded during the course of about two days and it involved almost two dozen email responses. I'm posting a few that contain limited vulgarity. The others he wrote were too derisive and explicit for me to post here. Eventually, he relented and after a series of back-and-forths he sent me a final email:

"my name is charles,,Pedophile Prowlers,,

we do some under cover work for the capture of men that abuse children,, and in some cases through the use of "pedophiles within the catholic church" messages are sent ,,, and in some case we do receive some angry comments from certain people which are not pedophiles ,, but some are.. in which we report this to authorities that handle it from there.. in this case, based on your comments there is no need for concern on your part...."

Outside an election year, I have never been fed heaping humps of BS by any one individual at any time. Yet this rock9711 wants me to believe he is doing society a great service by hatefully seeking out peaceful Catholics on YouTube - who are there only to share their faith with Catholics and non-Catholics - and through a series of bloody-minded accusations and misrepresentations, expose the pedophiles among them and report them to the proper authorities. What a humanitarian! I can't begin to tell you how many things are wrong with his ridiculous rationale.

Since that final email, he has blocked me from his channel, which means I can no longer leave any messages on the videos he posts. How cowardly is that?

Why don't you pay a visit to the newest member of the Catholic faith and tell him what you think about his methodologies.

rock9711