Here is a view on something, yes, in THIS universe. It's swing. I don't know what it is about it. (Yes. I mean Lindy-Hop.)
I don't know what it is about the dance that is just an escape from this world. When the buzz of techno, the scream from... screamo, the unbelievable bass from rap, the twang of country (yes even the twang) starts to grate my nerves like the knuckles of the devil himself, there is swing.
When you listen to the songs it's like your thinking 'This doesn't sound bad.... It doesn't look bad.... Where's the sin?... Fishy.'
But the truth is, aside from skirts falling up whilst their owners are defying gravity, it's NOT BAD! However, the music does have a strange possessive effect on the human limbs. I know it's a whole new concept. Cool/Goodness=Error or Redefinition of cool?
Yeah that's it. You must remold your place you hold cool in. It's a new cool. The kind where you can call people Hepcat. Yes I just did.
And it's not dumb to act dumb. It's not bad to act... good? Yeah. There really is no move in swing where your the knitters on the side lines say 'Does that girl want to get pregnant?'. There's only those flips where they say. 'It's a good thing she's not pregnant!'.
Oh! And dressing nice is cool!
I can't wait to strap on those suspenders and slick my hair into a ghoulishly slick state and swing onto that floor.
You should join a new swing club that is opening on Fridays at.... I really don't know. I shall post more information about that later!
Ciao!

I went to McDonald tonight... delicious. NOT. How has our country become so satisfied with greasy byproducts being handed to us by sweaty, pierced teens with no experience in the hygiene department. Granted there are a few who are simply looking for a good day job, but for the majority it's quite depressing that education and aptitude aren't considered priorities anymore.
I don't even have to comment about the cleanliness of our table, but I must admit that the things we put into our mouths these days are nauseating. Granted, I haven't seen a Big Mac for about five years, which means that it was probably a gently sloping decline to the state it is in now, but that palm sized, deflated, lukewarm burger was not my idea of big a meal and it has definitely gone from being a bargain to at a well worth, if not overpriced, dollar.
I realize my veganism must have been growing fervently in my absence from the culinary world (outside my own kitchen)because the strawberry shake I had certainly tasted like more than one of the ingredients had been a powder at one time or another.
I think I've filled my rant quota for the time being. And on the note of healthy and delicious food, I'll just give a little shout out to a girl named Isa Moskowitz. She is a founder of the Post Punk Kitchen, authoress of Vegan with a Vengeance (a kick-butt cook book for angry vegans everywhere), and an all around awesome person. She makes you feel that, instead of being the nerdy, conservative one in the crowd, by being a vegan you have something to stick to the man. I felt like quite a rebel as I made mango spring rolls today. Eat that fast food America.

Ah, the sweet, greasy aroma of Mexican food wafts through my olfactory glands. Although delicious, one thing that is particularly precarious to find. The perfect tortilla. Ode to flaky yet doughy mixture. Why is the recipe so difficult to concoct? There is never a mixture that is neither flaky beyond belief, or edibility, nor a tortilla so doughy, and thick, that it should be considered flat bread.
In the midst of all this tumult, I am here to recommend two brands of tortillas that will satisfy the craving of the Latino variety.
The first is one most people probably know of, or at least the restaurant. Bajio serves the most delicious tortilla. It is doughy, but you don't feel like it should be in a petree dish. Whether or not it is already cooked when purchased, I do not know, but what I do know is that after it is cooked the crunch is virtually irresistible.
Not only are they delicious, they are purchasable in Bajio Mexican restaurant for a small fee (not).
The second can be purchased at Walmart, they are called Baja Cafe. I am completely against corn tortillas so I am not sure if they have a corn variety, but we eat the flour all the time and they are large (which is a must for this family), moist, delicious, tasty, floury, not corn. Pretty much everything required in a tasty tortilla.
It was short today, hope this helps next time a fiesta is in session. Happy eating.

The time has passed for nice things. Cuff links, colognes, shoe polish. Well at least for most of us it has. What ever happened to gentlemen...
Today I am going to post about something that I have tried to find but have failed. What ever happened to people writing a review about a cologne? It's difficult but not impossible. It's hard to decide which cologne to buy when they are all hidden behind a glass case and without reviews they are virtually impossible to decide on. So today I am going to give six colognes that are, in my opinion, great.

The first is Black by Stetson. It is sweet, subtle, and also has just enough of a dark side to be seductive. I got it as a gift and have bought it again and I must say that the price is definitely a must. (three bucks at Walmart, hurry before it's gone.)

The second is Cuban Blue. That link sends you to a four pack, which I purchased. The orange and red are OK, maybe even great good, but I think Blue is much better. The Gold is just plain awful, like over scented baby wipes.
As for blue the scent is foreign, spicy, a slight pine scent, and says attractive but not on the prowl.

The third is Essential by Lacoste. It's fun and spicy. It's more of a friends cologne, rather than a lover.

Now I will get to colognes that, in my opinion, are irresistible.

The fourth is Soul by Curve. Even though it looks and seems, and even kind of smells, like perfume, it's not. I really enjoy the smell. It's sweet, but not so much that it's too strong. Beware though, it smells very different after it has evaporated so don't judge it out of the bottle.

The fifth is Hugo Boss by Hugo. It's sweet and also has a tinge of old time aftershave.

The sixth and final cologne is my personal favorite. Every person who has smelled it has said the same, I don't know what it is about it, but it has something for everyone. It is Axelab by Axe. Now I know what you're thinking and no it does not come in a can, it is much better than the cheap aerosol stuff. The only problem with this cologne is that I can't find it at any local stores, only on line. It is sweet, seductive, spicy, pretty much everything. I recommend it to everyone. I recommend it for me. *Christmas present* *cough cough*

Tis' definitely the season for movies, but the quality lately has been a disappointment. Last week I had a crazy night on the town and went and saw Four Christmases. Although the commercials were impressive and reviews from friends were positive, the movie was quite the disappointment.
Don't get me wrong, the movie itself was hilarious, witty, and yes, probably true about most of us, but what really flipped my switch off was that there couldn't be a scene with humor that was accompanied by humor that went beyond crass. In truth many scenes were down right offensive.
Beware of spoilers.
The movie is set around two partners, played by Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon, who are in love but not interested in marriage, kids, or the responsibilities involved with a serious relationship.
Every year these too lie to their relatives and say they are off doing a charitable something for various third world countries\ non profit organizations. But this year their flights are canceled and because they are caught on camera their plot is revealed and they are forced to go visit their various relatives.
They travel to their various relatives who are hippies, hillbillies, straight laced church goers, and cage fighters. Each is accompanied by their set of off color downfalls and each family has their family members with their strange sexual preferences (like twenty year younger men). They struggle through the family reunions and then in the end live happily ever after.
There were a lot of things that bothered me but I will mention one scene in particular was offensive to me.
There was a scene near the end of the movie where Vince Vaughn's and Reese Witherspoon's characters are volunteered to be in the nativity play at a local church. They get out on stage and lines are forgotten and swaddling clothes are accidentally girted around fat stomachs. At this point I was already shifting in my seat. What can I say, I could tell where this was going and I didn't like it. My concerns became realities. Reese Witherspoon, who is playing Virgin Mary in the play, forgets her line and Vince Vaughn who is playing Joseph starts to mock her as Mary. He goes on and on and I am appalled. The entire scene is mocked and and in the end the church cheers at the immaculate performance.
By this time I was ready to leave. I had put up with enough garbage up until this point and this about pushed me off the edge of my seat and out the door. But, unfortunately, I stayed. I assumed the worst was over, and it was, but there was more dirty jokes to come and though the ending was witty and satisfying, the journey was not well worth the trip. I don't recommend this movie. I have to say that in this instance the bad outweighs the good and there are hopefully better ways to spend your time.

Hi all. I haven't posted in a really long while because I have been working so hard on my book and my other blog and everything in my life, but the problem is that my other blog (Blog for the Intellectual Potato) is to funny (or tries to be funny) to write any of my serious pondering. I've had a few in the past little while that I need to get out so here they come, watch out.
It becomes evident in even having a light conversation with me, I am sheltered. I come from a safe home, a safe haven with no drug abuse, or really any abuse really. Setting that aside and trying not to laugh, I though the electric chair was just a joke for the longest time... like a week ago.
OK, stop laughing. Now I guess I thought way to highly of my fellow people, but I just assumed that we weren't cruel. This sounds really naive because I know that torture is real and the electric chair is not by any stretch of the imagination torture, but still it gets me thinking, if it's not torture, is it really humane. Or even pushing the envelope further, is it really human?
Isn't the whole reason why we are the prominent life on Earth because we can see into the future, make logical assumptions, and then map the easiest, or most efficient root to the point in time that we want to arrive in? So I start to think about capital punishment which I have no expertise, or even much experience with, but still, I understand the electric chair.
Now lets just set aside all that for a minute and make an example. Your dear family member is murdered, no, your dear family member is a murderer. You say your final goodbyes and then she's shipped off to the electric chair. Now I know that your thinking 'Yeah, but that's just, what if you were the family of the murdered person', and that's all horribly, impossibly sad, but still, the murderer is killed brutally in the electric chair and never lives to live a better life after punishment...
The very definition of punishment is to be subjected to pain , loss, confinement, death, etc., as a penalty for some offense, defined by dictionary.com now it does say death, but isn't the point of punishment to make the person suffer so that he or she will live on as a better person because of the suffering. Maybe not. It has become apparent to me that we are less worried about bettering other people than we are about satisfying our own selfish revenge. Is that really human? Isn't that what an angry dog would do, strike back as hard as it could until the thing that angered it was lifeless? And yet no one feels that capital punishment is wrong.
The real question, from a christian perspective, is who are we to punish. Now, I agree, a criminal must be punished severely, especially for murder, but like I said before, what's the point? God is the only person who can judge them fairly anyway. Were they in their right mind? Do we even have all the facts straight? Isn't the point of the next life so that we can receive our eternal reward or punishment? And most of all, are we not downsizing the savior himself in saying that this person can never be forgiven, not even through him?
Now I don't know anything about criminal justice or recovery or anything, but what do we gain from murdering a murderer. And even if we must, why do we do it so savagely. Are there not painless injections for the same purpose? Who are we bettering by ending the life this way instead of that?
That's the question I would like to ask, or answer: Who are we bettering in capital punishment? The offended are appeased an the offender is never bettered for what they did. They aren't out their being a better person, making this world a better place. Now of coarse a great percent of these people are never going to be a better person, won't ever repent, but I'm talking about a small percent.
The family is put at rest, but are they?
I guess in the end it isn't any of our choices to decide, even though the choice is put in all of our hands.
Only God knows all. Especially all we're doing wrong.

First off I would like all reading my fabulous blog to take a look at the layout. Doesn't it just say earthy to you. No, no trees were harmed in the making of this layout. No, not even as references.
Today I'm just going to talk a bit about health class. Now I know what you were thinking because it's the exact same response wired into the minds of every other pubescent on the planet. Sex. Sorry, but last time I checked, sex wasn't health.
So why said wired response? Why is the class that is supposed to rid our faces from zits and keep our hands washed, filled with yearly death statistics and facts about long term damage to your liver from alcohol addiction. Whatever happened to shower once a week and don't pick your nose? It's something I've never been taught by the system. It's something I'd sure like to see back.
Is teaching us every name on the street for cocaine really going to help us resist addiction? Is teaching us about STDs and 'long term relationships' really going to cut down the high teen pregnancy statistics?
I think not.
So why doesn't anybody question the big cheeses around here. We're all sent to school (or most of us are) but no one is asking us what we want to learn or what we beleive.
Maybe the reason we're learning all of these things in school is because our parents are failing to teach us that drugs are bad, alcohol is dangerous, fifteen is not the time to become a parent?
No group of parents I've ever heard of haven't uttered a 'Drive safe' about every time we leave the house.
It's time we asked ourselves what we truly beleive and stop asking our curriculum what we beleive. If you think it's high time to start a family than by all means go for it. (that is total sarcasm, NOW IS NOT THE TIME!) but if you know what you beleive, than who is a school to tell you that you're wrong.
What if I don't know what I beleive? Well than I guess it's time to do some thinking. It's not that hard. If you know, than you know, if you don't than weigh the options, think of what feels right, then ask why it feels right and see if your reasoning is justified. If not than you've found out part of who you are.
I guess I'm diving pretty deep on a first post but I'm just sick of people being for the environment but not knowing what that means, and I refuse to listen to anyone about climate change with a cigarette hanging off their lip.
In short, if your parents didn't teach it too you, your gene pool is already a losing ticket, so don't try.
JUST KIDDING!
In short, don't trust whatever is shoveled down your throat. Always know what you beleive and don't. Maybe someday we'll only be taught what we need. (Yeah right!)