... it's where you can go to talk about what's been on your mind, which, one hopes is neither Andrew Sullivan nor the Nobel Peace Prize.
October 10, 2009
At the Your Obsession Café...
... it's where you can go to talk about what's been on your mind, which, one hopes is neither Andrew Sullivan nor the Nobel Peace Prize.
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Did you know that there is a-
National Information Office for Meat in Norway?
But what about all the good work he's doing with his Foundation:
From: Barack OBAMA (mrbarack@theuspresident.com)
Reply-to: elpresidente@acorn.ve
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 2009 09:37:38 +0000
Subject: ACORN FOR THE CHILDREN
My dear one,
How are you today? Hope all is well with you and your family. I must apologize for contacting you in this manner, as we have not met personally.
I am Barack OBAMA, the President of the united States of America (USA). I got your name by searching the internet for a reliable partner who would share my dream to help the poor children of the world.
Since a child growing up in the ghetto of Chicago, I have wanted to help poor children. With the assistance of the minister of my church, we started a charitable foundation called ACORN (Assisting Children of Revolutionary Nations). My plan was to follow in the foot steps of distinguished American presidents like Bill Clinton who created the Clinton Foundation to encourage charitable work around the whole globe.
Our ACORN foundation has accumulated many millions of dollars through donations from union workers and generous American employees. We have already begun bringing poor girls from latin America to take on jobs in the US service industries. And this is just our beginning.
But my political enemies are seeking to destroy my accomplishments and i need your help. The Republican party have launched a campaign of lies and violence to recall our funds. Because of their attacks, we have had to take our ACORN money and place it in a trunk box with a private security company located in Los Angeles, California. The security company does not know the content, as it is described as expired ballot papers.
I would need you to pick up this box and keep care of it until my retirement in 2016. My associate Mr Rathke will give you the secret key and the location of the box if you will help us. I assure you this transaction is 100% hitch free and fully legal. My political rivals do not know you and you will be safe.
For your assistance I would appoint you as Eminent Second Vice President of the ACORN Foundation, with an annual salary of $250,000 (two hundred fifty thousand U.S.dollars), payable for ten years. You will be entrusted to use this money as you see fit for the social upliftment of the children of the world.
Please contact me by private email only (elpresidente@acorn.ve). Because we both fear god I know I can depend on you to keep this between us and no one else. When I have your assurance, I will send Mr Rathke to contact you with the details.
For the children,
(Mr.) Barack OBAMA
The ACORN Foundation
My latest obsession has been reading Arabian Nights. It's right up there with The Decameron, especially if you can find a version with the dirty bits left in.
I love the parts with stories within stories within stories. The whole thing is amazing.
I love the photograph... the abstract pattern of purple and green.
I've gotten over the peace prize, but I did apply for next year's myself.
Mostly today I'm procrastinating on writing a sermon for tomorrow.
Peace to you,
Chris
Do you know it snowed in Des Moines today?
The Wisconsin Employees' Right to Know Act specifically exempts lutefisk in defining "toxic substances".[1 [wiki]
What's on my mind these days is how to do a career change at age 52.
I've been a technical writer for the past 25 years or so, and I make good money at it. But I can no longer avoid the fact that it bores me to tears.
Recently took a Myers-Briggs Interest Inventory. My type indicator is ENFP, which explains in part why I don't find tech writing stimulating. Alternative occupations which would be a more natural fit with my M-B type would be social work or counseling. But if I took two years off to get a MSW degree, I would have only 10-15 years working in the field before retirement, and student loans to pay off.
So what to do? Finding the answer to that question is my obsession for today.
When Lutefisk is Outlawed, Only Outlaws Will Have Lutefisk!
Tis a beautiful day out here.
Soon to be followed by a night of heavy drinking and possible polka.
Polka and Disco have exactly the same beat.
Let it be said, that's a very nice photo.
I am going to make hard cider or altbier this weekend. I can't decide and I only have one open fermenter so I have to make a choice.
I might wait on the altbier, since apples are prime right now.
If you have a good AM radio and double antennas combined what a phase shifting device, you can completely null out a local broadcaster in the daytime to hear the station that's underneath it.
Usually, this revealed station is playing polkas.
The Wisconsin Employees' Right to Know Act specifically exempts lutefisk in defining "toxic substances".
I love all things fish...except lutefisk. Tradition? Somethings deserve to die out.
My present obsession appears to be welcome mats, how many bad ones there are out there. Some try to be clever and just aren't. "Hello, my name is Mat," or "This household serves only the best of wines. Bring some?" (That is so dirty you wouldn't care to enter) Or, "Don't tread on me." But my obsession has to do with the unwelcomeness of actually stealing one. The act of stealing a welcome mat. That causes my tender brain to short circuit.
But I must set aside my obsession for awhile. A friend is moving to New Zealand possibly permanently. He's trying to sell everything he owns, and asked me to come over to photograph his belongings to post them on Craigslist. He thinks he can get a better response if they're listed individually as well as one large group. The request comes at a good time as I just now finished a book on my specific camera and now my head is so full of new information and I know what every single button and switch and menu choice does and how to use them, why, I can hardly stand myself.
I also just now got a new spiff-o i-ttl flash that fires remotely and I know how to model light. So howdya like them apples?
I'll probably resume my welcome mat obsession when I return.
I liked your last post.
It shows that you don't like how it feels to be Alinsky'd by the socialists who you helped put into power.
Sullivan has targeted you because you're becoming influential. You're now a threat to the agenda he and his support.
The Alinsky method: If you don't actively delete a comment (hiding amongst the thousands) that he can manage to misconstrue as somehow arguably offensive, then you become the owner and "publisher" of that sentiment. And then he can make claims that you're homophobic and that you need to have your uterus inspected - or something. You're guilty of a hate crime (soon).
If you don't have offensive comments - as the vile Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs has proven - they'll just sign up and post offensive comments to your blog themselves as sockpuppets. They'll post the N word, and the Gay word and whatever word they want to put in your mouth.
That's how they work, Ann, these friends of yours, these political fellow travellers of yours.
And it will do you no good to fight back against it because while today it's Andrew, tomorrow it will be Josh. Next week it will be Kos. Then Jerome. And so on. And on. And on.
That's the power of their network. It's neverendingly vicious and coordinated - mostly through the Journo-list. Why do you think gays have flocked to mainstream media employers?
And you're on their radar after your posts in the Roman Polanski affair.
They want to fuck children (and they want to maintain the political power that will allow them to do that).
You stand in the way of their desires.
And for that, they have to make you pay, these friends of yours.
Some obsessions are funnier than others.
Perhaps someday we will be marketing our latest obsession under the brand name “Bissage’s Pride.”
Until then, our research continues!
My present obsession appears to be welcome mats, how many bad ones there are out there.
Chip Ahoy: Have you tried out cowmats yet? They're pretty indestructible and nobody would want to steal or vandalize them.
I haven't cooked a good fat rib-eye steak in aaaaaages.
Intended to have just half but then got carried away and scarfed the whole thing.
Yesterday, pictures of this sexy sexagenarian were on my mind. Currently an aerobatic pilot, this former beauty queen flew for the airlines.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/c/a/2009/10/09/BANP1A2PDE.DTL&o=0
Of late a few signs of economic recovery are budding. A long planned road and bridge widening near our home is suddenly beginning and has signs erected thanking the Stimulus Money. One of my best developer clients who has held out with no help from the banks for a year told me yesterday that "things are loosening up". Let it be true. Work is a necessary part of a good life, and many are desparate now.
Obsession--as in finding our house cat playing with a dead garter snake in the living room Thursday at midnight, right in the path I walk to go the bedroom.
I'm thankful I didn't step on it in the dark, or find it alive under some box or pile, or see it slithering down the hallway, but am totally creeped out wondering how it came to be in the house and how long it was cruising around before the cat found it.
We'd brought two potted plants in from the deck two weeks ago, and it could have come in with them. But that would mean two weeks of cluelessly sharing the same residence together. AARRRGGGGHHHHH
Garters are harmless but having one turn up in enclosed living quarters is surreal enough to keep me mentally obsessing and feeling hyper vigilant.
My obsession: looking at shoes on zappos.
I want to know why I moved to Minnesota. It snowed today. Temps started out the day in the upper 20s. It's sunny now, and the snow is melted, except where it's in the shade.
Catsup (ketchup, if you prefer) has been on my mind since supper two nights ago. I'm starting a personal jihad against high-fructose corn syrup, which is what catsup is nowadays, so I wondered what catsup used to be and how I'd make it from scratch.
Well, it started out as a tangy tasty dipping sauce, and there are all kinds of catsup, including tomato catsup, green tomato catsup, walnut catsup, oyster catsup, mushroom catsup, gooseberry catsup, cucumber catsup, currant catsup, apple catsup, and a couple of tarted-up vinegars filed under catsup: celery vinegar and spiced vinegar. All those are from the 1887 White House Cook Book, which serendipitously appeared at Project Gutenberg this morning.
I shall make catsup - it's cheaper than the traditional mid-life crisis.
More Obsession and Reflection...
The present tally of comments on yesterday's Big Prize threads stand at 1274.
Counting may be my way of trying to get my mind off the snake, but as I said earlier those numbers represent an amazing amount of time and energy spent in thought, discourse, attack, defense and creative expression.
Barack the Balla has been on my mind.
No sooner do I critique a photo of Pres. Obama playing basketball, the following day after my post the Whitehouse flickr stream posts a couple of shots that would seem to be an attempt to counter a couple of my points.
I make fun of him playing in Martha's Vineyard, against a couple of the kind of guys you'd expect to find at Martha's Vineyard, then they show him playing against his body man, Reggie Love, formerly captain of the Duke Basketball team.
I also complain that he's always shown playing offense, and speculate he probably looks goofy on defense, so a shot of him looking good defending suddenly appears on the stream.
Who knew my seldom visited blog had that kind of influence on the public relations team trying to guide the public image of President Obama?
Fred4Press-
I almost have to try it now..heh.
Chip Ahoy-
Rub your welcome mat with lutefisk..
[ok,ok I'm out]
My husband is out and about seeking #cowmats in the flesh.
Black dog and white rooster soaking up rays.
I woke up and immediately thought about painting. I am learning how to watercolor. It's not an obsession yet, just a new hobby, but I sure hope it turns into an obsession because I might get better at it.
When I see an Althouse picture, I always think about painting it, because they are just so lovely. The accomplished artists I know tell me that I need to take my own pictures, but then there's that camera issue. Unlike Chip, I read a technical manual and my eyes just glaze over.
I think this is where you come in, Scott. Technical writing is a very worthy profession if you are good at it. Try to think of it as counseling, because it really is a form of that for a technophobe like me.
Being bored, is simply a state of mind that you choose. Instead of diving off a cliff, why not take a psych or sociology course at the community college and see if you can figure out a way to make it applicable at work. It seems to me from that MB pattern, that you just might need some more interaction with people. Talk with your employer about possibly doing that as an extension of your job. Heck, call up some of your users and get a dialogue going about how you might be more helpful.
You might also think about volunteering through your church or a local non-profit, requesting contact with others. If none of the above works out for you, you can always hang out here and counsel us! Isn't that what often happens here anyway, just not in any formal sense. Think about that...
Technical writer to social work or counseling:
I'm an ENFP and a counselor.
There could be jobs in helping professions that don't require getting a new degree.
Also consider teaching or tutoring.
And any road you go, get ready for the pay cut.
Because there's not exactly a market shortage of helper types to drive up salaries.
You do it because you must. Like a starving artist.
@Bill White
Yes! Make your own, it couldn't be easier. I make six of each variety we like; chunky spicy, smooth/sweet, chunky/garlic and smooth Indian spice.
Other than the excellent flavor the biggest difference is that homemade will separate or weep more than commercial.
I make cold pack dill and bread & butter pickles too...nothing compares to crispy homemade pickles.
"Unlike Chip, I read a technical manual and my eyes just glaze over."
Me too. Just get a camera like mine and figure out how to turn off the flash. The rest is all about finding the subject and framing it. I would tweak it in iPhoto a little. Also, take many pictures and trash anything out of focus or unappealing. Crop to make better compositions and apply what you've learned to framing your next set of pictures.
Black dog once the rays are gone.
Actually a few low remaining rays are hazing the camera view, giving it a pleasant fog.
"Dylan changed everything I believed about myself, about God, about family, and about love."
Misdirection!
Scott --
Do technical writing p/t on contract to pay for school while you go to school.
Chip --
I am so sorry that common thief stole your mat.
Nobel Peace prize --
You know the surprised and disbelieving question which popped up even in many liberals' minds when they heard Teh News Friday?
"Why? / What for?"
That's what a lot of us who did not vote for the man asked ourselves all last Fall when he was running for POTUS.
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