Turkey Hill "Box of Chocolates" Ice Cream

This stuff is awesome! It's co-branded with Gertrude Hawk chocolates and is therefore all different kinds of good. It's Turkey Hill chocolate ice cream with Gertrude Hawk chocolates in it including miniature dark chocolate raspberry cups, chocolate covered almond slivers and chunks of white chocolate. The whole mess is swirled with chocolate chips. The only thing I could find wrong was an error on the label, "12 servings per container" is obviously a misprint.

Urban Dictionary: Christianity

I was researching something earlier today and after clicking numerous links and googling terms from some of those results I somehow ended up on this urbandictionary.com page, much to my amusement. Some of the "definitions" were actually quite funny, while still holding more than a grain of truth. Here's a few of my favorites

"A religion that would have made sense had it not been for the nature and character of its followers."

"The belief that a cosmic Jewish Zombie who was his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree."   I laughed out loud when I read that one

"A pyramid scheme based on a philosophy that was fairly progressive 2000 years ago. It has been rendered obsolete by modern scientific understanding largely due to its inability to resolve its inconsistencies through intelligently-applied critical thinking. It now serves as a means of deterring social and political advancement and as a tax on the gullible."

"A really cool religion, because if you follow it then you can go around raping, beating, and killing people, and as long as you confess your sins at the end of the day and repent you'll go to heaven!!!!!"

"A good excuse to write jokes on Urban Dictionary."

"One woman's lie about an affair that got seriously out of hand."   LOL!!

"Nothing more than a Jewish sect with borrowed pagan holidays that got too popular for its own good."

"A Christian is a man who repents on Sunday for what he did on Saturday and will do again on Monday. "

There are seventeen pages of "definitions", some realistic, some not so much. It's good for a laugh if nothing else.

A Pimped Out Amish Buggy

Yes you read that correctly. I know the two phrases "pimped out" and "Amish buggy" don't exactly seem as if they should ever be in the same sentence but times, they are a changin', lol.

I live in Amish country, rarely a day goes by where I don't see Amish in their horse drawn buggy tearing up the road at a blistering 12mph. They are required to have lights and reflectors for safety so they have battery powered headlamps, rear lights and/or flashers as well as the typical reflective orange triangle. Over the past few years the light displays on some of the buggies have gotten more and more ornate as if many of the Amish are using them to express their creativity or individuality. On some of my later nights driving through the more heavily Amish areas I've passed upwards of two dozen buggies in rapid succession, some with over a dozen flashing lights on the rear. I've seen them arranged in all different patterns from stripes to geometric shapes to a big X, all merrily flashing away.

Tonight I saw something entirely new though, the ultimate in pimped out Amish buggies. Yes, a buggy underlit with neon, or probably LED tubes since they have to be battery powered. As I'm pulling away from a traffic light I look over just in time to see the horse, then behind it a blue glow on the road which turned out to be the light tubes mounted under the buggy itself. I headed home wondering if I'd just seen the Amish equivalent of a lowrider.

A bit of Googling turned up the following video to better show you what I saw. If the video does not start at the 59 second mark you'll want to advance to that point manually because the majority of the rest of the video is pretty boring, if not downright irritating. You'll probably want to turn the volume down right away, too.

The "WTF" Quote Of The Day"

This bit of ridiculous brought to you by Rick Santorum. "President Obama once said he wants everybody out there to go to college; what a snob!" I didn't know snobbery was defined by the desire for Americans to get an education, the hope that Americans would have more opportunities to find better jobs that pay more money, and the expectation that American job seekers remain competitive in the world job market as most studies now indicate the US falling behind when it comes to education. Job opportunities in technology and science related fields are on the increase, even as the US turns out fewer qualified candidates to fill them.

I guess that in Santorum's vision of America we would all be high school dropouts performing menial labor or working in dead end jobs with no hope and no future, more easily ruled over by our educated millionaire overlords as we salute the star spangled banner waving over the land of the ignorant and home of the barely employed. I'm not impressed with his vision of the US as a third world country mired in poverty.

He himself has an undergraduate degree, an MBA and a law degree. Of course since he isn't a snob he would never wish that good fortune on anyone, nor would he want anyone else to be suffer through the same opportunities and/or success he has had as a result of that education.

America's Love/Hate Relationship With Tim Tebow

No matter how hard I try I just can't understand the whole Tim Tebow issue. Why does a quarterback in the NFL warrant so much attention and why does the mere mention of his name elicit such fervent commentary from both sides of the love/hate crowd? It all seems rather silly to me.

Yes, I know many of the haters base their opinion on their interpretation of his actual performance but judging from personal experience and what I've seen and heard, this rational contingent is a minority. So he's a Christian and he's not afraid to show it, big deal. Good for him. Whoop-de-freaking-do. Get over it. His choice of religion hurts you how, exactly? The 2 or 3 seconds he spends on one knee ruins your football experience how, exactly? Oh, it doesn't. So what's the issue? It's not like he's the first NFL player to ever perform an on-field ritual derived from or related to religion and I doubt he'll be the last. It's not all that uncommon to see a player raise their eyes toward "heaven" and mouth a simple thank you (or more), or even to see a player make the sign of the cross. So why is Tebow so different?

No, I am not a Christian nor do I hold Christianity as a whole in high esteem, quite the opposite is true so you can forget that argument. I don't consider his brief displays offensive. What I do consider offensive is the generally asinine attitudes of people as a result. It's so blown out of proportion that his 2 second prayers took precedence over the game. More offensive to me is when "news" cameramen rush over to literally shove a camera into the man's face in hopes of catching his prayer on film while completely disregarding the game itself. WTF? The entire free world knows he prays, it's no longer "news". A man's prayer to his god of choice is frankly nobody's business but his own. I have little remaining respect for the religion but I do have respect for his right to practice and observe it.

Even sillier is how perfectly willing so many people are to heap blame on the man when his team loses, but how completely unwilling these same people are to give him any credit at all when they win. Don't you think that's rather hypocritical? Seriously, if he can play bad and be therefore responsible for the loss, why can he not be responsible for the win when he plays well? The Broncos' record improved dramatically when he took over as quarterback, but he sucks. He can throw pass after perfect pass to receivers who are running full speed some 30, 40, even 50 yards down field, passes so perfect that the ball practically falls into the receiver's hands without need for them to so much as break stride for even one step. But he sucks. He set team records, he set records in college, and he set records as far back as high school, but he sucks. So what, exactly, does a quarterback have to do before you admit he may have talent? Oh, that's right, he has to forget his religion when on the field because after all, that's what really determines an athlete's skill. Silly me.

Is he young and inexperienced? Yep. Will he make mistakes? Yep. Funny thing about that, every player on every team in every sport has been there done that. Yes, he and his Broncos got their ass handed to them by the Patriots. Wow, what a surprise. The Patriots are a team led by a veteran quarterback who's been one of the best for over a decade, a quarterback who's been to the Superbowl four times, winning it three of those times. Comparatively speaking the Patriots are an older and more experienced team. It should have been no surprise at all that a team led by a rookie quarterback still establishing himself as the team leader, who has still not played the equivalent game count of an entire season, would lose to a team such as the Patriots. Then again, the Patriots are smart enough to respect Tebow's abilities and properly defend against them, probably why they were the only team able to beat him twice. They beat Tebow by not allowing him to do what he does best, throw the football. No quarterback can be "good" when he has no protection and no open receivers for the majority of the game. The Broncos lost that game, not Tim Tebow.

Then there's the crowd who adore the man, and go apoplectic should anyone dare utter a single negative word about him. Again many of these people base their opinion on their interpretation of his actual performance but judging from personal experience and what I've seen and heard this rational contingent is also a minority. From my observations, most of these people think and speak so highly of Tebow simply because he is Christian, these people have no clue regarding his athletic prowess, most probably couldn't even name the team he plays for. I have family in this category, much to my embarrassment. This religion inspired pro-Tebow camp only know that Tebow is one of "them". However, if he were to unroll a prayer rug, kneel on it then prostrate himself while uttering a quick prayer to Allah I suspect they'd have a significantly different opinion. In fact, I'd bet most of this crowd would be shitting bricks, foaming at the mouth while rabidly demanding such public displays of religion be immediately, permanently, and irrevocably banned. Thus is the hypocrisy of Christianity. "God wanted Tim Tebow to win that game."  How absurd, like any "God" would be even remotely concerned with the outcome of a football game. That's funny.

What I find most interesting about the whole thing is that both sides use the same justification to legitimize their differing viewpoints, and this justification in actuality has nothing whatsoever to do with the issue. "He prays, therefore he is a good player" and "He prays, therefore I like him" are as equally nonsensical as "He prays, therefore he is a bad player" and "He prays, therefore I dislike him." Religion does not define the measure of a man, neither does his publicly displayed observance of that religion. From what I've read about the man he does a lot of good in this world through his own organization and through his participation and/or affiliation with numerous other charities and similar organizations. Those actions tell more about the man than his religion ever could. 

An Awesome Read

One man's story of his lifelong experience with religion, and the effects of his years spent examining that experience and religion in general.

He starts with "God is almost certainly a lie, religion is a scourge upon the world, and you are wasting your life with a cultish devotion to nonsensical superstitions and soul-crushing dogmas. Also, you don’t have a soul." then proceeds to explain his life experience with religion and how that experience led him to that belief. It's a long read, grab a drink and a snack.

http://txfx.net/2012/01/09/why-i-am-an-atheist/

Christmas Was Awesome!

Apparently I was quite the good boy this year because Santa hooked me up, big time! The guy is obviously a mind reader because he brought me something I'd have never thought to ask for, a flu! Woohooo go me!

I leaped out of bed first thing this morning for some festive vomiting then spent the rest of the day participating in traditional holiday activities like cold sweats, burning up with fever and sleeping. In between all that I gorged myself on all the holiday trimmings, like water and a bowl of chicken noodle soup. Of course I was all decked out in my finest holiday garb, pajamas and a fuzzy warm throw complete with bedhead so I looked my absolute finest all day long.

Between all that excitement, and the noise and constant go go go of the cat sleeping all over the house all day I'm about worn out.

Bah Humbug!