I can never be a smartass when I want to.

The French have a term for the feeling one gets for discovering the perfect verbal riposte after the fact.  It is called 'l'esprit de l'escalier" or "spirit of the staircase".  Today for your viewing pleasure I have re-created conversations because I am that awesome (And by "awesome" I mean neurotic) in which I come out on top.  Feel free to insert your own "oh, snap" or "Oh, no she dih-ihnt" here. 

For example, me yelling at our dog, Zack for chasing the cats for the gazillionth time.

Me: Zack, Godammit!  Leave the cat alone!

Zack: *blinkblink* *lick*

He then proceeds to give me this look that says,"But but I'm a rescue and I've been so abused and I just want some fun in my pitiful life."

Me: D'awwww. *scratches dog's ears*

What I obviously should have said was, "No! Bad dog! Go lay down!"  Admittedly not very original or witty but at least I didn't get bested by a dog..

Conversation with  police officer who pulled me over for speeding.  Ironically, I was a DD on new Year's Eve.  People that were obviously hammered were driving by laughing their asses off.

Police officer: *giving me the steely officer glare* Do you know how fast you were going?

Me: (At this point I really had to pee and just wanted to get this over with.) *gulp* Er, no.

Police officer: I clocked you going 55.  The speed limit on this road is 45. Have you been drinking?

Me:  Eep.  No, sir.  I was the DD for a group of my friends tonight.

Police officer:  That's very responsible of you. (Issues ticket anyway.)

If I was going to get a damn ticket anyway, I should have said:

Police officer:  Do you know how fast you were going?

Me:  No, I didn't have my radar detector plugged in.

Thank you!  I'll be here all week!

And here is crap that made me laugh today.

Yeah? The maple kind?  I actually discovered this a few years ago but it still makes me laugh.

The fate of my fatass cat.

Every dog ever.

I really miss Mr. Rogers.

I started reading D.J. Paris’ blog this morning.  He is a snarky, well-intentioned, self-confessed dork (honestly, who isn’t?) with a literate and waggish blog.  He made an otherwise unproductive morning even less productive—but at least I had a giggle.

I have my own snark to vent this morning.  It is simply this: hey, internet—stop making stupid people famous!  It’s like television executives are at their weekly meetings saying, “Hey—that’s a thing.  Let’s make a show about it!”

I swear to Christ, I will be overjoyed when I stop seeing the damn Kardashians on every magazine cover.  Never has a family with less moral fiber and more inanity been put on public display.  I am no model of moral turpitude.  Honestly, y’all, one of my lifetime goals is to piss enough people off to have the Westboro Baptist Church protest me.  That would be awesome.  But I digress.  I am convinced that the fame (infamy?) of the Kardashian clan is one of the seven signs of Armageddon.  I tried watching an episode of the Kardashians.  My brain started crawling out of my ears in protest. I had to watch four straight episodes of Into the Wormhole in order to regain a sense of proportion and keep my grey matter intact. The only saving grace in this whole surreal non-reality is that previous overrated fame whore Paris Hilton seems to have stepped out of the limelight.

And Honey Boo-Boo—WTF?!  The child is seven, for the love of God, and she has a hitherto-unknown version of English.  I live in Georgia.  I have a brain (at least that part which I didn’t kill off with collegiate, alcohol-fueled antics) and these idiots are some of the scariest ambassadors for an already beleaguered state. We could have televised a biography of the many brilliant and capable people that hail from Georgia; for example, Deforest Kelley, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Ray Charles, or Alice Walker.  Nope.  We chose an illiterate exemplar of Southern humanity instead.  Way to go, TLC.  What exactly are we supposed to learn from this show?

Jersey Shore, My Super Sweet 16, Bad Girls Club, ad nauseum.  When did it become not only normal, but desirable, to act like a succubus in heroin withdrawal?  Most of these people just need a good ass kicking.  Or maybe we can make justified homicide legal, a la The Purge.  It wouldn’t be so bad if there were just a few of these inaccurately-labeled “reality” shows on television.  The problem is that there seem to be more and more of them every season.  

There are a few of these shows that have some artistic or entertainment value.  I will freely admit to being a Top Chef whore.  Partially because Michael Voltaggio is frankly yummy (if a bit of a tool) and partially because the cheftestants (barf) must possess actual talent to be considered.  I also have a minor Deadliest Catch and American Pickers addiction.  But as television goes further and further into the land of heinous crap moronic buffoonery, I will dive further into Doctor Who, House of Cards, and Downton Abbey reruns.  I know I am not alone. At least, dear God, I hope so.

Crap that made me laugh today.

Someone at Wendy's is a jokester.  Or a Satanist.  

It's NOT whiskers on kittens.

So I have been reading the brilliant Jenny Lawson's blog.  She posted a query about your favorite things of the year.  This is in honor of Oprah, who used to do a yearly show in which she would discuss her favorite things of each year.  Genius, really.  I wish I had thought of it.  Regardless, this is my list thus far:

(1) Nedhardy.com--a brilliant assemblage of the best of the web on any given day.

(2) Neil Gaiman (duh.)  He is pretty much permanently affixed to this list.

(3)Christophe Moroccan Argan oil hair treatment--leaves my hair satiny and manageable.

(4) Pieter Nooten "Sleeps with the Fishes" GORGEOUS album.  Go and buy it nownownow.

(5) sushi (again, duh.) I love the nostril burn after you sucked down too much wasabi.  Thank you, Japan.


(6)Earl Grey tea--Bergamot-scented deliciousness.

(7)Pineapple lumps--damn near impossible to find in the States, but this candy is proof of a benevolent deity.

(8)Failblog.com--If you ever need to feel better about yourself (or if you just need a good chuckle) this website is the most ingenious timesuck to ever grace the annals of the internet.

(9)Twitter--who invented this crack?!

(10)My dog's happy puppy dance when I get home from work.  This is also a permanent member of this list.

(11) "Best of Sinatra" CDs.  I have found that it is impossible to be in a bad mood while listening to Frank.  Seriously.  You start doing the Sammy Davis head bob and snap.  Within seconds you are inexplicably belting out "Chicago" like a cracked-out cabaret singer.  It's awesome.

Curse you, Kindle.

I got a Kindle for Christmas.  This is both a good and a bad thing.  It's good because I have now been exposed to a wide variety of books that I would either have ignored or would never have discovered on my own.  It's bad because many of the "Kindle editions" of these books have a ton of errors.  These blunders and oversights drive me up a wall.  I discovered that Laurell K. Hamilton has a very tenuous grasp of grammar and sentence structure--which also drives me nuts. I'm glad that I didn't pay full price for her books--I would have been annoyed.  I know that Ms. Hamilton has legions of fans, all of whom will probably burn me in effigy.  While I can appreciate her creative powers, I feel that her writing is not strong enough to merit her success.  To be fair, though, Laurell K. Hamilton is still much more palatable than that minion of Satan, Stephenie Meyer.  To say that her books are execrable is being kind.  (Stephen King agrees with me.  So there.) 

 I love the convenience of the Kindle and I love that Amazon makes suggestions for me; however, I also will always be an advocate for paper-and-ink books.  There is something so innately satisfying about opening that brand-new book from the store.  I love the slightly musty odor of old books from the library.  I particularly like purchasing books from a used bookstore.  It is always fascinating to see dog-eared, inscribed old editions of classic books. You can see where previous readers stopped reading and where they enjoyed a particular passage. I also like to make up stories in my head about the previous owners.  Why did they get rid of the book?  Did they leave it on a train somewhere in Europe and it ended up here?  Was it stolen from them in some kind of misguided literary mugging?

I just finished "Let's Pretend This Never Happened" by Jenny Lawson.  I need to try to make all men read this book.  I now know that I am not the only one who is a little, ahem, eccentric.  The bizarre conversations with which she torments her husband sound eerily like many of the conversations I have had with my significant other.  He is convinced I'm nuts.  While this is technically correct, he needs to know that ALL women are nuts.  It's not just me.

In an effort to help fellow readers out there, I have compiled a list of the good and the bad that I have stumbled upon via Amazon and the Kindle.

The Good: (and some awesome)

1. "Let's Pretend This Never Happened", Jenny Lawson Hysterical and poignant all at once--quite a feat.
2. "Ready Player One", Ernest Cline Very creative--a combo of a love story to the eighties and  William Gibson- influenced techno thriller.
3. "Wool", Hugh Howey
4. anything by Jim Butcher
5. "Fire and Hemlock", Diana Wynne Jones This book is gorgeous.  Go and buy it nownownow.
6. "Snow White and Rose Red" Patricia C. Wrede
7. "Dare Me", Megan Abbott

The Bad:

1. "Manifesting Mr. Right", Caitlin McKenna.  I am all for cheesy chick lit, but this was just bad.  Bland, trite, and predictable.
2. "The Bitch-Proof Suit", De-Ann Black  Ditto.
3. "Heart's Blood", Carolyn McCray.  Blech.
4. "Incubus Dreams", Laurell K. Hamilton To be fair, I did like the first few of the Anita Black series despite Ms. Hamilton's flawed writing.  At this point, though, she is just going through the motions.  Formulaic.

Damn, I Miss College Football Already.

I am convinced that Hell is a place without football. If God wanted to punish me, and I'm pretty sure that I already have a handbasket somewhere with the name on it, he would put me in a sports bar with nothing but bowling and badminton available on the TVs. We all know that God is a football fan. There certainly is a lot of prayer going on when the home team is behind in the fourth quarter.

God would not have given us Tom Brady or David Beckham if he did not mean for us to watch the game. These men are far too pretty to be wasted languishing in the mud; they are meant to be on national television preferably without their shirts. I'm not prejudiced here--I am an equal-opportunity football lover, whether it be college, pro, or World Cup Soccer. (We Yanks call it soccer. Just an FYI to the ignorant out there--soccer/football is one of the most popular sports on earth. Proponents have been known to cause riots and ludicrous behavior in even the most stodgy, stiffupper-lip Englishman.) Personally, I look forward to football season with the type of stomach-churning fervor heretofore only seen by sugar-crazed toddlers on Christmas Day. Football is the best sport on earth.

First of all, for those of us living in the weather hellhole known as the Deep South, the weather during football season is excellent. We get our first taste of fall with glorious, crisp, sunny days and cool nights. The ferocious African jungle-style heat has finally diminished and we are left with weather patterns that behave in an astonishing, Camelot-like fashion. You can actually sit outside in the middle of the afternoon and enjoy the day without spontaneously combusting. This is otherwise impossible to do during the ravages of summer in the South.

Football season also signals some of the greatest celebrations of the year. Anyone who has attended the massive, drunken hysteria of the Sugar Bowl or the Florida-Georgia game in Jacksonville can attest to the Mardi-Gras style debauchery that accompanies these events. Crazed people stagger haphazardly through the streets, slavering at the idea of warm draft beer and congealed nachos. (And that's just the locals.) Some of the people that travel to these events don't even possess tickets--they are just there to enjoy the monumental, inebriated pep rally surrounding it. In what other sport do we see fans standing around in freezing weather, painted up and liquored up? We get to watch sixty minutes of enormous, muscular men beating the bejeezus out of one another in the name of sportsmanship. (This body-painting phenomenon seems to be especially popular with large, beer-bellied men in Northern climes. If you have ever seen a Packers or Patriots game, you have seen this species. They tend to be half-dressed, painted in team colors, drunk as a tinkler's dam, and yelling their fool heads off. It's fabulous.) Football can also lead to some interesting and costly bar fights, particularly among the alumni of competing schools, but that is another story altogether. I don't have enough time to relate the utter insanity of London after an Arsenal victory. Or a Gunners' loss. Whichever. Londoners employ any opportunity to get hammered on strong beer and yell at one another.

During football season we get the best holidays: Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's Eve. As if these holidays were not enough for any one person, we have Super Bowl Sunday to cap it all off at the end. The local police probably loathe Super Bowl Sunday. It means that even the meekest of social drinkers will put
away enough beer to feel an elephant. I have seen adorable, well-bred Southern belles turn into roaring, drink-befuddled hussies when their team loses a game. I have actually witnessed well-educated men engage in Mike Tysonesque fisticuffs over a penalty. Without football, what else would we have to discuss on Monday mornings with our co-workers?

The superlative thing about football is this--it gives us all one last chance. There is always another season, another down, or another half to anticipate. We can recollect our own days out on the gridiron, or merely mentally place ourselves, Walter Mitty style, in that moment of glory when a hail Mary pass, against all the
laws of physics, leads to a game-winning touchdown. College football in particular gives us all a chance to relive that one exceptional moment that defines us. A graduating senior that kicked the field goal that won the Rose Bowl can forever relive that moment as he trudges to his job in the firm of Snooze, Bland, Boring and Trite, LLC. Most of the kids playing in the NCAA will not get a shot at the pros. Even for those fortunate enough to become a vaunted member of the big leagues, college sports is their one opportunity to make a mark before money, fame, and the media corrupt them. College sports are about making a moment based solely on love of the game.

For those of you poor souls that didn't get the opportunity to attend a big football school, you honestly cannot fathom the carnival atmosphere that precedes any game. It is one of the best parties in the world because you can guarantee that you have something in common with at least half the attendees. Stand outside Death Valley in Clemson or the Swamp at UF on a Saturday night. The fervor is palpable, the excitement as sharp and clear as a beacon. Football is ritualistic. Football is tribal in the primitive sense of the word. It can bring out the best in its fans. For example, look at the support and respect the LSU players got the first day they took the field after Hurricane Katrina. I have seen grown men reduced to tears or writhing in ecstasy. We have all seen couples get engaged at a football match. Their love of the game commingles with their love for one another.

Football can also lead to fights, brutality, and vandalism. Despite this, football can embody the best of human culture. For that one day, we are concordant and united with a common hope. Football is a splendid celebration of what human culture can be at its best--an example of competition, fair play, and unity. In short, football gives all of us a chance to win, however vicariously, and that is something that is all too rare. God is indeed a football fan because he knows for those three hours we are thinking of something other than ourselves.

The Devil's Party

Upon reading the book The Rebirth of Music by Lamar Boschman, an evangelist of some note, one cannot help but be impressed by the sheer audacity of his theories. Boschman avers, in a somewhat roundabout way, that all secular music, and rock music in particular, can make one an active member of the Devil’s party.  While the reader can appreciate the unique views that Boschman puts forth in the book—a quote directly taken from the back cover—one cannot agree with the somewhat medieval opinions about music that Boschman puts forth here.  The problems one encounters with the book are myriad and this mars any validity of the book.  First, Boschman often does not quote the sources for his sometimes outlandish stories.  He also seems to be using his book as a tirade against the evils of rock music without giving an authoritative counterargument about the sanctity of creativity.   Finally, he dismisses all music as secular in nature unless it is used for its “true” purpose—that of worship. 

            In the first few chapters, Boschman avers that lucifer—always in the lower case—was built as an angel with musical instruments built into his body.  After studying the Bible, one found no mention of this anywhere.  He gives Biblical references and quotes throughout the work to prove his points, but this allusion seems vague.  He only says that “some theologians” and “some scholars” believe that lucifer was the father of music.  Thus once he fell, music fell with him.  Boschman’s main argument here is that music’s sole purpose is that of worshipping God.  While this is certainly a great opinion there is no proof, Biblical or otherwise, to back up this claim. 

            As far as his arguments about rock music being the work of the devil, one finds them subjective and emotional.  He seems to blame all human excess on rock music, stating that, “Lucifer has influenced people to sing and dance before him as he hides behind the groups and uses them to receive his worship” (Boschman 11).  In other words, the devil is behind all rock music. He fails to see that alcoholism, drug abuse, and sexual excess are problems in their own right.  These issues are certainly not the exclusive domain of rock musicians, nor are “true” Christians immune to them.  He claims that there is a direct link between rock music and immoral behavior, yet he fails to substantiate this claim with any scientific or even Scriptural proof.

 Boschman also states that music should solely be used to minister to God—again, there is nothing in Scripture to back up this claim.  If Boschman uses music in this manner as a part of his personal belief system, he is certainly more than welcome to do so.  However, he states that the purpose of music is only for spiritual gain and implies that it is a violation of God’s law to use music in any other manner. It is true that the Bible lists worship as one of the uses of music, but nowhere in Scripture does it state that this is the only use for music.  Boschman also fails to see music as a creative force and to acknowledge that this creative force has been what has driven man to greatness.  Just as God created man, so we create new works to revere his name.  Thus the very act of creation is a form of worship. “Blessed is the man who finds wisdom,
the man who gains understanding, by wisdom the Lord laid the earth’s foundations, by understanding he set the heavens in place” (Prov. 3:13, 19).

While the book was not a valid argument against the evils of rock music, one can definitely claim that it was an interesting read.  It certainly will inspire the reader to study the Scriptures more closely.  As a persuasive treatise, the book failed; however, as a learning tool describing music as both the tool and the means of worship, Boschman’s book serves the reader well.