Hello to my 6 subscribers. Vale of Tears has come to an end. It is sad, but true. I feel I cannot continue with this style of blogging, even though it satisfies some nefarious impulse - the vent unbridled critique upon something I find absurd.

The problem is that I am trying to get established as a real writer. And a blog that just dumps crap out there may not be the way to advance that career.

So I've started a new blog with less vitriol and more of something constructive. You can read it at the link below. And click the "subscribe" button if you want to be on my mailing list.

http://literaryoutpost.wordpress.com

See you over there, no longer anonymous.

Jeffrey M

I read the news today, oh boy

[content critical of transvestitism in Virginia schools deleted]
Poll:  World is a happier place than 2007.  Disagree.  Its getting worse and will continue to do so, even if the economy improves.  Perhaps the poll reflects opinions of “the one percent”.  The truth is, democracy, freedom and humaneness will devolve into anarchy that will be swiftly replaced by a dictatorship.  My prediction for 21st century AD.  Well, Plato said it first.  Sorry kids.
Romney claims to be “severely conservative” which does not sound cheerful.
The most paltry of the culture mavens are in a flurry over celebrity Beyonce’s advertisement for a fashion company that has some racial controversy, or whatever.  Who cares.  WHO CARES???  All of you, just shut up!
Crazy inbred hating-in-Jesus-name church calls off their protest at Powell’s funeral.  Oh good.  One less event where so-called Christians blaspheme and make the church a laughingstock.  One less event where the rest of us are lumped together with a wrong, sickening and illegitimate sect claiming association with the historical Christian church; a day where all of us gossipers, complainers, coveters, blame-shifters and lusters can breathe a sigh of relief that our secret sins were not made the object of some holy war by a band of self-righteous Pharisees who know nothing of grace, God, Jesus, redemption or the Bible.  They are not going to hold up signs that say God Hates Fags and Queers Burn In Hell at the funeral of the tragic situation of the Powell family.  That’s a relief.  It may have had something to do with the 1800 who pledged to picket the church if they went through with their plan.
And finally,
Feds are investigating an alarming, horrifying, barn-burning travesty in which dogs are being made sick by tainted chicken-flavored treats from China.  Go, FDA, go!  And meanwhile.  Watch one or two of the documentaries coming out about how bad a job you are doing.  Maybe in between doggie-snack factory raids.

one memory

I have this memory about my dad, from when I was thirteen or maybe twelve.  I asked him if he would go throw a baseball with me.  We lived in Sydney at the time.  So we went down the street to a park.  It was Balmoral park.  And we threw a ball for a while.

Why do I remember that?  The park was at the bottom of our street in Mosman, New South Wales, Australia.  And I remember that day and that time, like it was some memorable time.  But all we did was walk down to the park, at my suggestion, and throw a ball for a while.  Twenty minutes tops.

It was the same as I would do now.  If one of my kids asked me, I would say, Sure, and would walk down to the end of the street, and would throw the ball, back and forth, for as long as they wanted, and then he would say he’s had enough.  And we would walk back up the hill, to our house half way up, and I would go back to playing the drums, and he would go back to reading the paper with his beer.

From the Journals of Alistair Bugge – an Excerpt

Alistair Bugge is the deranged biographer of Lucy Burden, the arch-villain of the book.

This text is written in a mock deranged, Old English.  Some words are invented.

Three supplicants come to the cave where Lucy Burden, also called Minstrel, lives in exile.  They seek to be partners in wealth and power, but soon learn that they are to be her disciples.  They submit to her lordship and she reveals that she is neither male nor female.  Inside the cave, they find a young man in torment.  The three novices watch from a hiding place as Minstrel does her awful work.

Click here to read an excerpt from my novel project, The Former Hero.

One man’s summary of the political scene

Romney:  One of the very plutocrats that are overthrowing this country.  Mega-rich former CEO making tens of millions annually just on investments, and paying the low 15% interest rate on them.

Gingrich:  former lobbyist (though he denies it), two-timing philandering husband, having affair while leading impeachment trial against Clinton, first Speaker of the House to ever be charged with ethics violations, undisciplined leader-by-chaos with 7-figure line of credit at Tiffany’s.

Perry:  In-your-face Evangelical opportunist, howlingly ignorant loser.

Paul:  Proponent of “Austrian School Economics”, isolationist, calls global warming a hoax.  Some good ideas, but unelectable.

Santorum:  Blown up in media for his opposition to contraception and support for criminalization of all non-traditional-marriage sex acts.  Positions on other issues?  Who cares.

Obama:  Most authentic Christian testimony of the ‘08 race, faithful to his wife, blameless of political scandal.  Attacked in the most unbridled vituperation, not for his behavior, but for his ideas, race and parentage by those who want to protect their hoarded millions.  Pro-entrepreneurship, pro-civil rights, balanced on military, good public speaker.  Not perfect.  Did not keep all his campaign promises.  Unable to succeed against the Tea Party congress.  Thwarted in his efforts to regulate mortgage and investment industry.  But the best candidate in the field at this time.

Kim who?

Am I the only one who finds Kim Kardashian completely forgettable?  A cartoon face generated ex nihilo from the pure white noise of pop culture?  A sock puppet?

A sex object masquerading as a whore?  A purveyor of skanky, fennel-cake New Jersey perfumes?  An idol to herself soliciting worshippers to the new cult of herself?

 I know the name because it’s forced upon me by the grocery store checkout.  I have no idea what she does except blog about herself.  I hear she’s on Leno and Letterman a lot.  I hear she’s one of those people who is famous for being famous.  Just the latest Paris Hilton.  Thankfully, that means her popularity will become passe’ in a year or so.

Supposedly she’s attractive.  I wouldn’t know.  I had to google her to find out what she looks like.  And for the life of me, I CANT REMEMBER HER FACE.  No joke.  The minute I look away, I forget what she looks like!  If I saw her on the street, I wouldn’t recognize her.

Which gives me a certain satisfaction, actually.

I would do anything to make her cry.

Tried iTunes movie rental, gave up

Here is my chance to advise everyone never to use iTunes to watch a movie.

The download took about 45 minutes because the maximum rate that the Apple servers will send to you is about 800 Kb/sec, even if you have a big fat pipe to the internet.

I rented the movie Contagion twice in attempt to watch it.  Both times, the movie crashed during playback and locked my computer.  I had to manually kill the iTunes application to get control of my computer back.

Then when I restarted iTunes, the movie wasn’t there to ‘resume’.  I ended up buying it twice and never finishing.  Not going to do that again.  In fact, this is my first encounter with streaming a movie from something other than Netflix, and it was unsuccessful, and stole my money.

Am I prepared to navigate the customer support system to get my $8 back?   No.

I’ll just wait for the DVD to come in the mail from Netflix.  But if you’ve been wondering about renting from iTunes, I suggest you stay away.  They haven’t figured it out yet.  At least not in my experience.

American products

Wonder why the world hates Americans?

  ‘Lazy’ used to be a bad thing

Doesn’t this just make you want to hurl?