Random apartment shots...

The apt is not all "finished" yet, but probably 90%...

The "library."

We have a hutch, like the fancy people.

I have kind of a ridiculously good home-gym setup now.  If I'm not in great shape in 6mos, anybody reading this has permission to punch me in the face.

Religion has even ruined gospel music for me.

I used to, despite my religious misgivings, enjoy some down home, old school style gospel music. But having had attended a recent gospel shindig, I found I wanted stab myself in the brain w/a dull fork in order to end all the "praise-Jesus-salvation" ignoring-reality-tripe. Though, to be fair, it might just be the urban contemporary stuff.  It reminds me of that palate destroying Christian rock/hip-hop nonsense.  Bet I'd dig on some blues gospel, still.

The wife calls it my "I love me" table...

Whereas I tend to think of it as the "Hey, people actually used to like me... sometimes" table.

Passing as respectable.

I totally don't recognize that dude/feel like I'm wearing a costume.

Driving in Liberia is... different.

Case in point, no license plate?  Just draw one on.  Good to go.

Roadways in Liberia...  the carrying-about-stuff-on-your-head bit still is very cool.

Oh, yeah... and there doesn't seem to be a single stoplight IN... THE... COUNTRY.  Seriously.

Liberia & sushi. [And beer.]

Apparently there's not one, but two sushi restaurants in town.  Go figure.  Only been to one so far, but it wasn't half bad.  Not as good as Japan [but then, what is?]  But pretty good.

The local beer, however, is a little... lacking, imho.

Rainy season in Liberia.

They're quite serious, apparently. Lotta rain.On a clearer day [we do have a nice view.]

Girded for battle w/the elements.

Oh Japan... - "Teacher Used “Sexual Harassment Dice” to Decide Classroom Punishments."

So wildly inappropriate that it goes around the bend to kind of 'well-done.'

Teacher Used “Sexual Harassment Dice” to Decide Classroom Punishments | Japan Probe:

"The 59-year-old teacher at Ogi Elementary School in Iruma, Saitama Prefecture, apparently had three dice, one with sides marked with the words “hug” and ” forgiven,” another marked with “kiss,” “snot” and “forgiven” among others, and the third marked with “snot” and “forgiven.” Students who forgot to bring something to class were forced to roll one of the dice. The teacher has apparently admitted to kissing one boy and acting as if he would put snot on one girl. He nicknamed the dice the “sexual harassment dice.”

“I made the dice while playing with the children. The first two dice were for boys, and the third was for girls,” the teacher has told the Iruma Municipal Board of Education. “I apologize deeply for my complacent teaching method.”"

"Beyond The Invisible" podcast w/ guest Joe Rogan = brilliant.

2 and a half hours of DMT, isolation tank, hallucinogenic, conspiracy theory, comedy awesomeness.

Download here - Beyond The Invisible w/ guest Joe Rogan – 10/24/10 : Truth Frequency

Training.

10/25 - 8x8 - pushups, bw rows, ovr press, curls, ovr x
10/27 - hs 40/16/8, 8x8 - cr, r flyes, shrugs, grip, 3x20c bridge

Don't know what to be for Halloween? Here ya' go...

"I have to call you back.  It's just my subconscious."

Sweet, delicious blasphemy.

I'd actually disagree with Hitchens a bit, it's not that "religion poisons everything" as it's the unwavering unthinking allegiance to any belief system that is the culprit. Religion is the most obvious target, and the most common abuser, claiming infallibility & omniscience. Political ideologies follow a somewhat distant second, imho.

Of course "substituting dogma for critical thought poisons everything" is far less catchy.

Nothing explains everything.




Via Is Everyone Driven By Fear; an Evolutionary Artifact, our Chief Success Mechanism? | Free The Animal

"Talking To Dad."

Via Fumblog » Archive » Talking To Dad

Making history more interesting - "...the more that "bad" people existed, resisted, and won, the greater was what I called "the margin of freedom" for all of us."

Thaddeus Russell: Why I Got Fired From Teaching American History:

"Five years ago, I had every reason to believe that my job as a history professor at Barnard College was secure. I had been teaching there for four years, I had published my dissertation with a major publisher, and because I had tripled the sizes of the introductory U.S. history course and the American Studies program, colleagues told me they "would be shocked" if I were not promoted to a tenure-track position.

But that was before my colleagues knew what I was teaching.

...I showed them that during the American Revolution drunkards, laggards, prostitutes, and pirates pioneered many of the freedoms and pleasures we now cherish -- including non-marital sex, interracial socializing, dancing, shopping, divorce, and the weekend -- and that the Founding Fathers, in the name of democracy, opposed them. I argued not only that many white Americans envied slaves but also that they did so for good reason, since slave culture offered many liberating alternatives to the highly repressive, work-obsessed, anti-sex culture of the early United States. I demonstrated that prostitutes, not feminists, won virtually all the freedoms that were denied to women but are now taken for granted. By tracing the path of immigrants from arrival as "primitives" to assimilation as "civilized" citizens, I explained that white people lost their rhythm by becoming good Americans. I presented evidence that without organized crime, we might not have jazz, Hollywood, Las Vegas, legal alcohol, birth control, or gay rights, since only gangsters were willing to support those projects when respectable America shunned them..."

Cute/Awesome NYCC photos.

Via Are These The Best NYCC Photos In The World? Bleeding Cool Comic Book, Movies and TV News and Rumors & marniejoyce's photosets on Flickr

NYTimes profile on LIberia's president.

And a good summary of the political, economic and social scene here.

An Uncompromising Woman - NYTimes.com

Watched - September & October.

Started doing these "watched" posts so the Mrs would have an idea of what was going into the brainpan unit, video wise at least.  Together again so this'll be the last of these.

Flying US to Africa I caught Date Night & The Joneses, both pretty entertaining.

Once in Liberia watched the season of True Blood, Louie & the latest season of The Closer that I'd saved for the wife, plus the damn-near-entire-run of Will & Grace that she'd borrowed from a friend.

Netflix gave us Funny People and Gone, Baby Gone.  The latter was really quite good.

Slow 'net speeds mean I'm really only watching the 'best of' of TV - Modern Family,  The Venture Bros, UFC 119,  Modern Family, 30 Rock.  New show Terriers is really good.  Noir-ish, even.

AFN let's me catch most UFC events, once I figure out the schedule.

New BBC series Sherlock from Amazon.co.uk, though I'd seen it before, bought it, really well done.  Nice Sherlockian update.

Japan is different/awesome.

"No such thing as vegan."

Funny/interesting.

Indeed - "...if I were a member of a group fighting for equal treatment, the right to go off to die in the pet war of whoever is currently occupying the White House would pretty low on my list of priorities."

Why DADT? | The Agitator:

"But I’d think if I were a member of a group fighting for equal treatment, the right to go off to die in the pet war of whoever is currently occupying the White House would pretty low on my list of priorities.

...I guess my point is that there has been a lot of political capital spent on getting DADT repealed, and it seems to me that while the resulting benefit would be symbolic and obviously important to the gay servicemen and women who would be able to serve without being required to lie about who they are, the population of people directly effected seems to be comparably small..."