Sunday Music.

    Now, I've been playing the guitar for more than thirty years, and I like to think I'm pretty handy with the instrument.  However, every now and then, some kid comes along and just makes me stop and wonder whether or not I've wasted the past 30 years learning the guitar when I could have been doing something easier like solving Einstein's "Unified Field Theory."

    Anyway, this kid's pretty good, and though he's no Stanley Jordan, he does a pretty fine job of showing that playing the guitar can be a heck of a lot more than just simple pickin' and grinnin'

    So, enjoy!  It's kind of fun.  Even if it does remind me that I can barely walk and chew gum at the same time. 

-DP

*update*    Now, never one to leave any stone unturned, The Aurora Walking Vacationing skeptic Paul sent me the following:

    I was happy to simply write "Mapple Leaf" off as a typo, but curiosity got the better of me, and I consulted Google. While "Maple Leaf Rag" is clearly correct, as this image of the cover sheet of the second edition printing of the sheet music shows, "Mapple Leaf Rag" is a very widespread misspelling. I can't quite understand why, but this Fulara kid was probably just reproducing the title as he learned it originally.

    It should also be noted that Adam Fulara is a Polish citizen, and since English isn't his native language, he probably didn't notice the misspelling.  Here's a brief Wikipedia entry on him, and here's a link to Adam's website.

*update #2*    Here's a requested link to a YouTube video of Stanley Jordan playing the best damn version of "Stairway to Heaven" you'll probably ever hear.  It'll probably break your head if you try to figure out what the heck he's doing.  But, as Stevie Ray Vaughan once said: "Stanley Jordan is so good, it's not even fair," and I'm inclined to agree. 

Tags: Adam Fulara, Stanley Jordan, YouTube, What the hell is a Mapple?, Aurora Walking Vacation

A Lone Tree...

   
    I'm just killing some time before a friend of mine swings over and drags me out for his birthday, and I thought I'd scribble a bit about a picture I kind of like. 

    A while back, I posted my Foggy Day photos, and I got an interesting question in my email today asking about the lone tree in the fog and just how much touching-up I had done to the picture before posting it.  So, above is the original, and here's the touched up version:

    Anyway, after having to prove that I didn't do much to the photo by sending the original to this person, I was obviously forced to look at them both again.  As odd as it sounds, they both have a uniquely different "feel" to them.  The original picture is kind of spooky with a sort of "Hello!  I'm just hanging out by this tree here in the fog waiting for some zombies to come and eat my brains" feel to it. 

    The second picture seems much warmer to me.   It's like a hazy , super-smoggy, summer sunset. 

    How about you?  Do these seem like two completely different pictures to you?

-DP 

Just a Random Thought.

   
    You know what really makes me mad? 

    Sometimes I tell people I'm crazy, and they look at me like I'm normal. 

-DP
   

Tags: Random thoughts

Heartbroken Am I...

       
    It's happened... 

    I'm heartbroken.  I'm devastated.  I'm sitting here with the cold, crippling feeling of despair clutching my throat and freezing my heart with the realization of a love that can never be. 

    It's not so much the fact that Giada DeLaurentiis is married and living on one of the coasts that puts her out of my reach.  It's not even an issue as to whether or not she's ever even heard of me.  Indeed, I could tumble under a garbage truck, and she'd still bash out her perfectly grilled chicken breast with angel-hair pasta, topped with a drizzle of balsamic vinegar and toasted pine nuts without shedding a single tear.

    No.  The cold reality of this heart-shattering misery came as I turned on her show Everyday Italian to see her sweet, smiling face while I bellied up to a bowl of Chef Boyardee Ravioli.  It hit me.  And, suddenly, I felt dirty.  So very dirty that I had to change the channel.  I could almost feel her disgust.  I felt shame my friends.  It was a deep, filthy shame at the epiphany that Giada DeLaurentiis could never love a man who eats ravioli out of a can.

    What can I say?  I'm weak.  That horrible, mushy, flaccid pasta stuffed with a meat-like substance and smothered in an oily, cloying, throat-coating concoction of tomato sauce enhanced with god knows what just speaks to parts of me that even the most beautiful chef on television could never hope to.  It's wrong, I know.  But, now and then, I just crave, and the end result is that I wind up attacking a can of processed quasi-Italian ravioli like a great white devouring a fresh bucket of chum.

    Oh well...  I am off to dwell in my shame, but did you know you can buy some pretty big, honkin' cans of Chef Boyardee products?  Hello?  Who in their right mind would eat five gallons of beef-a-roni?  But, my love for Giada be damned, I've got two and a half pounds of bad ravioli to eat.  Yeehaa!

-DP    

Tags: Giada DeLauretiis, Chef Boyardee, DPoem's disturbing love triangles

Well, Now That That's Out Of My System...

    Well, I think I've gotten my requisite ranting political and religious blog entries out of the way for the New Year (not bad since it's only the 3rd of January, eh?).  Woohoo! 

    Anyway, to celebrate, here's a piece of Gruyere for your enjoyment:

       Yes.  I believe this is going to be one heck of a cheesy year.  And if you're lactose intolerant, well...  umm...  try the veal? 

-DP   
   

By George!

        
    Sorry...  I don't mean to get ragingly political, but this was just too good to pass up.   

    So what do you do when you are the president of a country where the majority of its population is calling for, at the very least, an investigation into the last six years of your time in office? 

    Well, if you're anything like George W. Bush, you sit down with pen in hand and scribble out a message to the Wall Street Journal and its editorial page hoping to distract your constituents with tax cuts in the hopes that they might overlook the fact that you misled them time and time again in making your case for a bungled war that would eventually cost the lives of more than three-thousand of your citizens.

    How does it feel to be reduced to a blubbering, ass-kissing infant, Mr. President?  Personally, I think it looks pretty good on you.  But, let's take a look at some of the things you've said, shall we? 
   
    First, there's this little bit here:

Tomorrow, members of the 110th Congress will take their oaths of office here in Washington. I will have the privilege of working with them for the next two years--one quarter of my presidency, plenty of time to accomplish important things for the American people.

    Yes.  Let's not waste any time investigating "Curveball" or "Yellowcake" in your case for charging into a meaningless, misguided war that, as it turns out, everyone but you, your Vice President, and Donald Rumsfeld knew didn't need to be fought in the first place.  Let's accomplish "important" things.  Let's give Americans ponies and maybe they won't want to try you for treason and crimes against the Constitution.

    And then there's this:

I believe that when America is willing to use her influence abroad, the American people are safer and the world is more secure. I believe that wealth does not come from government. It comes from the hard work of America's workers, entrepreneurs and small businesses. I believe government closest to the people is more responsive and accountable. I believe government plays an important role in helping those who can't help themselves. Yet we must always remember that when people are hurting, they need a caring person, not a government bureaucracy.

    Yes, Mr. President.  It's clear, according the National Intelligence Estimate released earlier this year the repercussions of your using America's influence abroad.  You have not kept us safe.  You will continue to endanger America by giving those who wish to harm her a bottomless well of injustices from which to draw fodder for recruitment.  Good job, you bungling, half-witted man-child. 

    Oh, but wait.  In your little love note to America, you mention this unique little nugget:

Our priorities begin with defeating the terrorists who killed thousands of innocent Americans on September 11, 2001--and who are working hard to attack us again. These terrorists are part of a broader extremist movement that is now doing everything it can to defeat us in Iraq.

    Now, I understand you seem to believe in your twisted, misguided, little mind that Iraq is somehow synonymous with the "War on Terror," but what you fail to realize is that it has been proven many times that those two are NOT linked in any way whatsoever.  Hell, even you yourself have admitted this.

     So, forgive me, Mr. President, but I would like to see proof that defeating those who attacked us is a priority to you.  Your actions contradict your words in that you removed out troops from Tora Bora where the terrorists were largely believed to be and redeployed them to overthrow an innocent sovereign nation that had nothing to do with those who attacked us.  I don't understand how our presence in Iraq can be seen as attempt to bring the terrorists to some level of justice since they weren't there in the first place.  And now, thanks to the rhetoric of your bungling, impotent administration that preaches the philosophy that it's somehow better to fight the terrorists there than it is to fight them here, it becomes clear that your only intention was to use the innocent civilians as human shields in much the same way their recently executed evil dictator attempted to during your father's fight in the first Gulf War.  And what gives you the right to slaughter innocent bystanders in such a way as that?      

    Indeed, Mr. Bush, it would seem that the only person in this country who has forgotten 9-11 is you.  You've abandoned our pursuit of those responsible for the deadliest attack on American soil to, in my opinion, exact some pathetic, petty Bush family vendetta.

    So, perhaps you should have stated that our priorities began with defeating the terrorists; however, since then, you have taken our mission in a direction which has turned America into an untrustworthy nation and a global embarrassment. 

    I find this Ironic, Mr. President:

Our Founders believed in the wisdom of the American people to choose their leaders and provided for the concept of divided and effective government.

    You seem to have forgotten that you were never chosen to lead this once great nation which now stands red-faced because of your actions.  You were appointed by the United States Supreme Court, and through your subsequent and constant fear-based hectoring of the American people, you somehow managed to remain in a position for which you are wholly unqualified.

    Moreover, the fact that you possess the gall to evoke the Founders of this great nation to support you in anyway, I'm certain will have them spinning in their graves.  Your administration has stripped away the rights of American citizens, your duplicitous manner of doing business has created a untrustworthy government, and the corruption upon which you turn a blind eye is nothing, I believe, our founders would ever have endorsed. 
   
    Trust me, Mr. President, you have created a climate of mistrust among your constituents.  And, because of that, I hardly think that the majority of Americans will see your essay as anything other than an attempt to distract the prying eye of public opinion from your administration's incompetence by pleading for a "new direction" and a sense of bipartisanship which you have never once embraced for the past six years. 

    Personally, I hope these final two years of your administration find you suffering the disgrace you so richly deserve.  I hope you are held accountable for the countless American and Iraqi lives your irrelevant war has cost.  And I hope we return to hunting down the terrorists whom you, through your alacrity to invade Iraq, have unintentionally pardoned and allowed to remain free to grow. 

    So, George?  If you think the promise of tax-cuts is somehow going to lead Americans to ignore the inhumane atrocities, the duplicity and your failure to uphold your oath of office, I think you are considerably mistaken.

    Sucks to be you, Mr. President. 

"You know, one of the hardest parts of my job is to connect Iraq to the war on terror."—[President Bush in an interview] with CBS News, Washington D.C., Sept. 6, 2006

    I imagine it is, George.  I imagine it's got to be utterly baffling since no connection ever existed.

Tags: President Bush, The Wall Street Journal, The War on Terror, Iraq,

When Americans Die, Pat Robertson Smiles...

    Well, I suppose I've waited all year for yet another twisted, bizarre prediction from the slobbering, prattling Pat Robertson, and he didn't disappoint.  This year, Ol' Pat's saying that God told him that the United States will be attacked by terrorists, and millions will affected.  Again.  

"I'm not necessarily saying it's going to be nuclear," [Robertson] said during his news-and-talk television show "The 700 Club" on the Christian Broadcasting Network. "The Lord didn't say nuclear. But I do believe it will be something like that."

Robertson said God told him during a recent prayer retreat that major cities and possibly millions of people will be affected by the attack, which should take place sometime after September.

    Now, I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that Pat Robertson is utterly freaking bat-shit crazy probably insane, and I wonder how long it will take him to realize that he's really no different from the terrorists?  We know your god hates us, Pat, and I'm sorry that he doesn't exactly speak clearly when he talks to you.  Perhaps, you shouldn't worship such a bigoted, marble-mouthed retard.

    Last year, God told Pat that a tsunami would hit America, and well, not only did one NOT hit America, from what I gather, it was a pretty lousy year for surfing altogether.  So, either Pat's lying, or God's lying.  Which is it?

     The sad thing is, people still listen to these pseudo-Christian morons, and people are still dumb enough to not only listen, but to send in fat wads of money so that they can continue to spew their unenlightened, fear-mongering dreck from their cushy pulpits upon the masses.  They've taken Christianity and turned it into a pervasive, hateful cancer eroding America's common sense in pursuit of money and power.  George Bush did the same damned thing when he spouted that God told him to attack Iraq, and look how that turned out.

    Personally, I don't believe in any God, so I can find a great deal of hilarity and hypocrisy in these ejaculations of our nation's "religious" leaders.  However, if you do believe in god, I'm curious as to how you can sit there and allow these maniacs to blaspheme a god that you love and respect?  It's got to be a tremendous insult to watch people like George Bush, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, et al, take something you value and worship and use it to further their own individual power-hungry agenda. 
       
-DP
  

Tags: God, Pat Robertson is Crazy, Televangelism, Worthless Psychics