Guest Posting

My Brother came to town on the way home for Christmas. After checking thoroughly to make sure it really was my brother, and not some practical-joking Diety, I took him home from the airport, and we chatted for a while before he drove off in my truck for the holidays. Among the things we talked about was whether or not he'd do a guest post for this blog. He said, Yes.

So here it is.

Dave


I'm sure you will anyway, but check for technical errors only. No editing of content. Got it, mister?

(Got it)

Greetings to all, hoping that this finds everyone enjoying a wonderful holiday season, whatever particular holiday that may be for you. This is Dave's brother, contributing a guest posting upon his request. I've never done anything even remotely like this before, so bear with me as I ramble on for what will seem like an eternity, while saying what will amount to next to nothing. Writing has never really been my strong suit, which is probably why I'm a bean counter now. I'm going to dig deep, deep into my arts & sciences past when I used to write alot (poli sci major - fat lotta good that one did me) to come up with whatever it is that I do come up with, but what the hell, it should be fun.
Well, for me anyway.
As far as an introduction goes, I'll be brief. In fact, since he's done a fair, but not completely accurate, job of describing me, there's really only a couple of clarifications that I want to note. The first is that I have never voted for Dubya.
Never.
I want to stress that.
Alot.
Even when that meant voting for that simp Kerry. God, what a dead fish. I felt like it was the 80's and I was faced with Michael Dukakis again. Ew.
I think Dave still sees me in the light of my college days, though, when I actually was the stereotypical right-wing frat boy. But I've mellowed since then. Basically, I'm a pretty centrist guy with a healthy distaste for extremism from either side. If I had one political wish for the year, it would be for complete Congressional re-districting, done by a wholly independent, bipartisan committee of some sort (former judges and lawmakers who are completely removed from the system - and that by their own choice - usually do a nice job in situations like that). The people should pick the politicians, not the other way around. Not sure who said that, but I agree whole-heartedly. I believe that that would be the first domino to fall in the chain leading to the return of civil discourse in politics.
I know, I know.
That's probably about as likely to happen as Ann Coulter having Al Franken's love child, but a man can dream, can't he?

The second clarification? I loathe and detest everything about Family Circus, including little Billy's trails.

Now that I've got those things cleared up, from here, I think that I'll just do some random, stream-of-thought-type stuff.

- I would suggest to everyone that they include in their day a visit to the comics page of whatever site you enjoy. I use the Houston Chronicle. Never read the actual paper (I'll bet the editorial section is pretty scary - it is DeLay country, after all), but they have a top-notch comics page. Huge selection, and the best part is you can build your own page. You get only the ones you choose, and they're from that day. The only drawback is that they don't carry the Sunday comics on most of the selections. The Washington Post has a pretty broad selection as well. Any way you go, adding that bit of laughter to your day is a nice treat.

- Is it just me, or is the 24 hours of A Christmas Story one of the greatest television programming moves ever? First off, the movie itself is arguably the best Christmas movie out there. And the fact that it's on for an entire day? Genius. Catch a scene here, go do something else, watch another scene later, whatever. My four favorite scenes, in no particular order: 1) The "f dash dash dash" scene. Specifically, the part where Ralphie's mom calls Schwartz's mom to rat him out. The screaming on the other end of the line is hysterical; 2) Ralphie modeling the bunny suit from Aunt Clara; 3) The flagpole scene. Enough said; 4) and finally, Ralphie beating the hell out of Scott Farcus. Not the actual beating up, but two tiny pieces of the scene: the hushed and awe-filled, "Did you hear what he said?" from the crowd, and Schwartz trying to warn Ralphie that his mom was coming, and then trying to play it cool when she got there. Loved it.

- How about Judge John Jones, huh? I think that "breathtaking inanity" is going to be one of my favorite phrases of the decade. Unfortunately, from reading the fallout and reaction from his decision, there's going to be plenty of opportunity to use it. I read where one of the former Dover school board members said that the Constitution does not call for the separation of church and state. Wow. Luckily for him, he's wrong, and the same amendment that makes him wrong also provides for his right to make such asinine statements.

- One month, two weeks, five days before pitchers and catchers report.

- I was sitting in my seat on my flight to Big-D during boarding, and a lady comes down the aisle looking for her seat. She finds another person sitting in her seat, and says, "I think you're in my seat. I'm in 18C. What is your seat?" The person in 18C says, "I'm not sure. Let me check." Now, how do you get on a plane and not know where your seat is? I could see, "Oops. I'm supposed to be in 17C", or "Oh, I thought this was 18D", but "I'm not sure"? Hello, there are other people in the world, and they don't need to put up with your dumb ass. And this person wasn't kidding, either. They had to dig for the ticket stub to find out where they were supposed to be sitting. Amazing.

- Saw a flyer posted to a street light in my neighborhood the other day. It said, "Lost Dog, Miniature Terrier, Lucky". Irony is a cruel bitch.

Well, I think that's all from me for now. It's been fun, but I'm reminded why I don't do this on a consistent basis. I can't seem to just sit down and write off the cuff. It's got to be in final form, for lack of a better term. I suppose that trying to do this more often would be good practice for getting over that, but I guess that's up to Dave.
And even if he said I did fine, could I trust him?
I just found out, for instance, what he really thought about the chili I made for lunch one day during last year's trip home. At the time he said he liked it. In fact, when I pulled out the chili mix package just two days ago to show him that I'd brought some with me (can't get it in this part of the country), he was all excited. But when I got home to Mom's and showed her, she filled me in on how things really were. Sure, he can call me a fascist neo-nazi to my face, but all of a sudden he's too worried about my feelings to tell me what he really thinks about my chili. Oh well, it's not like I can think of a screen name, anyway.

Steve (the Brother)

As a final note, I'd like to add that Mom is wrong. I did like the Chili (Cincinnati-style, over spaghetti. mmmm).