Great Choices for the Dems

Liar, deceiver, compromiser, prone to outbursts of anger, cold and uncaring.




Used car salesman, slick talker, liar, practically a Marxist.


Well maybe we Republicans don't have much a choice ourselves either (Old guy, pseudo-Conservative who will probably have a heart attack his first week in office).

New Ponderings

Some ponderings I've had over the past couple of weeks:

1) For the life of me, I can't figure out what makes Britney Spears so compelling as a person. Not that she's compelling for me but she appears to be so compelling for most of the nation. Is she like that horrible train wreck that we just can't avoid turning our heads at, or is there something about her personality that people just like? Is it the tabloid media that's responsible for all the press she's been getting, or is she just a media whore. I will never understand the enigma that is "Britney."

2) Is it just me, or does anybody else feel like Obama is a used care salesman, Hillary is a lying sycophant, and McCain looks like he's stroke out within the first week if he were elected into office? What do we have to look forward to in the next 10 years of this country?

3) I wonder if the same people that now bitch about gas prices have ever, in their lives, bitched about the price of their "Venti half-caf/half-decaf, sugar-free, soy mocha lattes" from Starbucks?

4) Have you ever gotten a dozen eggs in which one of those eggs was fertilized, and then you didn't discover it until you had cracked the egg into a hot frying pan and seen the bloody yolk. Did you eat it anyway, or did you throw it away with the faint wondering of what it would have tasted like?

Okay, so I came back to Blogger

Tried Wordpress, hated it (Because I couldn't edit the .CSS template without having to pay something), and now I'm back.

So here's the deal: Because I didn't know what a a good thing I had until I left it, I moved all my old posts over to Wordpress. Problem is, now I can't get them BACK without cutting and pasting each and every one of them. And since I don't have the time or inclination for that pain-in-the ass process, I'm going to leave my posts on Wordpress as an archive. The last posing on that site will lead to this new "Ponderings."

So.....Back to Blogger: I have NOW CREATED A NEW "Ovedya's Ponderings" right here, where I can do all the neat funky design-thingies that Blogger started.

Everyone get it, now? You'll all have to update your site links to lead HERE, not THERE, and definitely not THERE.

What a pain I am, eh?

BTW: The last few posts I did cut-n-paste, because I think they are among the more brilliant in my archive. Please feel free to re-enjoy them.

~O

Words of Wisdom - Fred Rogers

Picked up a book last night: "The World According to Moster Rogers - Important Things to Remember." It's really a great book, filled with great words of wisdom from the man many of us enjoyed watching as children:

The Courage to Be Yourself

Part of the problem with the word disabilities is that it immediately suggests an inability to see or hear or walk or do other things that many of us take for granted. But what of people who can't feel? Or talk about their feelings? Or manage their feelings in constructive ways? What of people who aren't able to form close and strong relationships? And people who cannot find fulfillment in their lives, or those who have lost hope, who live in disappointment and bitterness and find in life no joy, no love? These, it seems to me are the real disabilities.

People have said, "Don't cry" to other people for years and years, and all it has ever meant is, "I'm too uncomfortable when you show your feelings. Don't cry." I'd rather have them say, "Go ahead and cry. I'm here to be with you."

Understanding Love

Love and trust, in the space between what's said and what's heard in life, can make all the difference in this world.

In times of stress, the best thing we can do for each other is to listen with our ears and our hearts and to be assured that our questions are just as important as our answers.

The greatest gift you can ever give is your honest self.

In the external scheme of things, shining moments are as brief as the twinkling of an eye, yet such twinklings are what eternity is made of - moments when we human beings can say "I love you," "I'm proud of you," "I forgive you," "I'm grateful for you." That's what eternity is made of: invisible, imperishable good stuff.

The Challenges of Inner Discipline

What makes the difference between wishing and realizing our wishes? Lots of things, of course, but the main one, I think, is whether we link our wishes to our active work. It may take months or years, but it's far more likely to happen when we care so much that we'll work as hard as we can to make it happen. And when we're working toward the realization of our wishes, some of our greatest strengths come from the encouragement of people who care about us.

It came to me ever so slowly that the best way to know the truth was to begin trusting what my inner truth was...and trying to share it - not right away - only after I had worked hard at trying to understand it.


We Are All Neighbors

All of us, at some time or another, need help. Whether we're giving or receiving help, each one of us has something valuable to bring to this world. That's one of the things that connects us to our neighbors - in our own way, each of us is a giver and a receiver.

If you could only sense how important you are to the lives of those you meet; how important you can be to the people you may never even dream of. There is something of yourself that you leave at every meeting with another person.

10/4

Ad Slogans...

Been having a lot of fun the past couple of days playing with the Ad Slogan Generator.

Here are the ones that cracked me up the most:

Plugged in "Ovedya" and got:

"Snap into an Ovedya!"

"Feel The Raw Naked Ovedya Of The Road."

"Four out of Five Dentists Recommend Ovedya."

"Little. Yellow. Different. Ovedya."

Plugged in "shag carpeting" and got:

"Whenever There's a Snack Gap, Shag Carpeting Fits."

"Shag Carpeting - The Appetizer!"

"It's the Bright One, it's the Right One, that's Shag Carpeting."

"Shag Carpeting - It Looks Good on You."

"Break Me Off a Piece of That Shag Carpeting."

Finally, I like to call my little beard, "the chin kitty." Don't ask me why, though I think it has something to do with the fact that it disturbs people on a subliminal level; and that's pleasing to me.

So I plugged in "chin kitty" and got:

"How Many Licks Does it Take to Get to the Center of a Chin Kitty?"

"The Chin Kitty that Smiles Back."

"Hungry? Why Wait? Grab a Chin Kitty."

"I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream for Chin Kitty."

"Promise Her Anything, But Give Her Chin Kitty."

"We Don't Make Chin Kitty. We Make Chin Kitty Better."

"Nothing Sucks Like A Chin Kitty."

And finally, my personal favorite, "From the Strong Come Forth Chin Kitty."

;o)

Growing Old

Let's grow old together:


Will someone please tell me what the hell is wrong with growing old?

A couple of weeks ago I went out with a buddy of mine to see the movie "300." It was opening night of the film, on a Friday night, so obviously the theater was packed with mostly younger - high-school-aged - people. Amongst the usual plethora of movie previews and commercials, one commercial came on the screen for Dove Bath Soap (Part of Dove's apparent "Campaign for Real Beauty") . The ad featured a handful of naked women, all mostly in their late 50s to mid 60s. The commercial very tasteful and very respectful (Watch it Here: http://www.campaignforrealbeauty.com/ )

About halfway through the ad a young man just behind me and to the right tells his buddy next to him "Eeew. That's disgusting. Man, who wants to see a buncha' wrinkly old women?"

It pissed me off.

What is truly "disgusting" is the fact that, for the past 30 years or so American culture has bought into the false dilemma created by advertising and marketing institutions that aging should be combatted with every fiber in our being; that we should buy products and submit ourselves to every new fad in plastic surgery - from stretching our skin to injecting ourselves with botulism (botulinum toxin, "one of the most poisonous naturally occuring substances in the world," according to Wikipedia). Americans spend billions each year trying to fight the aging process, and each and every effort eventually proves fruitless, giving further credence to the old addage, "You can't fight the inevitable."

So what's wrong with growing old? What exactly is so distressing about getting wrinkles around your eyes, on your forehead, around your knees; and what's wrong with frailty? Exactly nothing. Nothing is wrong with growing old. It's one of those things that every one and every thing on this planet have in common.

Dear reader, I would like to submit for your consideration the following idea. This idea might just free you from the years of needless stress, anxiety, and perhaps thousands of dollars in so-called "beauty products." That is, simply, "You are growing old. Deal with it. Age gracefully - that is, age with grace and dignity - and forget about all those idiots out there who tell you that aging is bad; that it's the enemy. Growing old is not bad. it's not "wrong." It just is. Why create a crisis for yourself? Why add to the stress that you already have to deal with? Learn to embrace your getting old.

Besides, many of us have spent many years and in some cases a lot of money trying to earn the respect of their peers and their elders. How rewarding it will be when we get to an age where young people come to us for advice. How rewarding it will be when other respect our opinions and wisdom just because we are older and more experienced.

Ladies and gentlemen: Age. And age well.

;o)

The 5-Second Rule

As I was uploading from Blogger today I remembered this gem and decided to bring it back to the top for potential new readers. I originally came up with this in October of 2003:

The 5-Second Rule

Most people don’t ever stop to think things through very well. That’s kind of a general rule for everything. Over the weekend I observed a young person in the kitchen of our church building drop an item of food on the floor, and then retrieve it back to his plate, citing the 5-second rule. In reality the food item had only been on the floor no less than a second before he picked it up. So that made me wonder: If you had dropped something on the floor and actually waited for 5 seconds before picking it back up and deeming it safe to eat, would you still actually eat it? I tend to think the answer would be no in most situations, because folks don’t really have any idea just how long 5-seconds can really be. To give you an idea, 5 seconds should be roughly the time it takes to decide not to retrieve an item from the floor and put it into your mouth. Go ahead and try it and you’ll see what I mean.

So who came up with this whole 5-second rule, anyhow, and what are some obvious exceptions to that rule, other than “5-seconds is just too long a period of time”? After all, if you develop a rule there have to be exceptions to that rule, right, some kind of guidelines that make that rule valid?

So here are a few exceptions (Some obvious and some not so obvious) to the 5-second rule. These are situations in which it is not safe or wise to follow the 5-second rule:

1) The 5-second rule does not apply on any publicly used surface. This means public transportation (busses, cabs, trains), restaurants (including the tables), roads and highways, and especially public restroooms (Note: If you are eating in a public restroom you’ve got a whole other set of issues you should be dealing with).

2) The 5-second rule does not apply to foods that have been chewed or moistened. If it’s already been in your mouth, and it somehow finds its way to the floor or a countertop, leave it there, because man, it’s gone. If you’re eating chips with salsa, or crackers with dip of any kind, the 5-second rule cannot be enacted. Likewise buttered bread, bread with jam, or bread with peanut butter cannot be retrieved from the floor if they fall condoment-side-down. Bread items can be safely, but carefully, brushed off on the un-condoment side. But if it’s got a hair on it, discard immediately (See exception #6).

3) The 5-second rule may only be used publicly in situations where a food item is wrapped with protective shielding, such as a plastic wrapper, tinfoil, or even a papertowel - providing that the papertowel has not come loose or absorbed anything after it’s been dropped. However, in these situations it is not necesarilly important to utter the words, “5-second rule,” especially if you’re not in the company of friends or family. It is considered uncouth to inform complete strangers of your intent to enact the 5-second rule. That is, unless they really seem to care one way or the other.

4) Generally speaking, the 5-second rule can only be enacted in the safety of your own home, alone or in the presence of trusted friends and family, or at the homes of friends and family who’s floor and countertops you can trust to safely harbor dropped foods for less than 5-seconds. In fact, as a general tule, if you have a friend or family member who’s home is particularly grungy, or if they have shedding pets, it’s not wise to drop anything on their floors or countertops, unless it’s a rag with some cleaner on it, or it’s got a vaccuum hose attached. But you have to be pretty “chummy” with that person if you’re going to show up at their place with a bunch of cleaning supplies. Most folks tend to be a little defensive when others try to clean their homes.

5) The homeless and mildly insane - or homeless and mildly insane are exempt from the 5-second rule exemptions, except if they’ve only been homeless for less than a year. It takes about a year for one’s immunities to get built up from living outdoors, especially in a large city. It also takes some serious gut bacteria to digest food that’s a day to several days old. So if you suddenly become homeless (heaven forbid) remember: 5-second rule for the first year, then gradually increase the time according to what your body can handle.

6) In most cases the 5-second rule cannot be safely enacted in situations where the food item in question has attracted hair. This is sometimes called “the hair threshold.” The hair threshold is loosely defined as the number of hairs a person is willing to pick off their food before eating it. In most cases, when enacting the 5-second rule, you should check with the “grossness threshold” of persons nearby. If, after retrieving an item of food from the floor that has attracted a hair and a person nearby suddenly says, “Eeew. That’s gross.” Then the food item should be immediately discarded with likewise distain. Generally, however, it is never considered civilized to knowingly eat a piece of food that’s attracted a hair.