Magazines with Disclaimers

Like many people, I sometimes have to sit in a waiting room. During a recent wait, I picked up a financial magazine and started thumbing through it. Apparently, the individual who picked up the same copy of this magazine (that shall remain nameless) had puh-lenty of time to kill. He (or she, I really should not assume here) decided to add the following disclaimer to said magazine:

|- quoted material -- author unknown -|

Notice: This magazine may be read only by those that meet the following qualifications:

• You are male-born-male.
• You voted for Bush and believe he can do no wrong.
• You believe that men are from Mars and women are from Venus, and Mars is a much better planet.
• You are white.
• You are heterosexual and homophobic.
• You have no mannerisms that could possibly, in any way, be considered even slightly feminine or wimpy, such as feelings, emotions, concern for others.
• You are Republican.
• You voted for Bush and believe he should be king.
• You are pseudo-Christian (as opposed to real Christians, who don’t skip those parts of the bible that mention Jesus’ concern for the poor and disadvantaged, overturning the moneychanger’s tables, etc).
• You can be Jewish, if you are sufficiently right-wing, willing to suck up to pseudo-Christians, and agree to sell your soul when the Rapture comes. But be advised that we can revoke this privilege at any time. Also, we have a strict quota on the number of Jewish subscribers. (This is “affirmative action”, after all.)
• You are eager to lay off workers and outsource their jobs, and can do this as easily as flicking a crumb off your table.
• You are eager to make money off the backs of those who don’t meet these qualifications.
• You believe Bush should be king and that he can do no wrong.
• You equate capitalism with democracy.

If you do not meet these qualifications, you are nothing but a scraping from the bottom of the barrel and we don’t want you as a reader.

|- end quoted material -| 

That unofficial disclaimer was more noteworthy than anything else I found in the mag. Seriously.

Resolutions

Ah, yes. New Year's Eve. A time for reflecting on the past year, reviewing one's performance, and making resolutions. My blogging performance, sad to say, has been dismal. Part of that has been due to the change in my day job. I am still playing the technical writing game. But in my new location, I have less time and rarer opportunities to make updates here at Prophet or Madman. And whenever I have had a few minutes to do some blogging, I wasted it. I couldn't choose what I wanted to write about, or how I wanted to approach a subject. So I just skipped it. Of course, blogging isn't everything (it's the only thing! Kidding). This year has also been about recuperating. Last year at this time, I was recovering from an emergency appendectomy. This year, as some of you regular visitors may recall, I broke my left foot over Memorial Day weekend and it required surgery. Well, I had the screws removed on Thursday afternoon, so I am currently recovering from that procedure. So here are my resolutions for 2007:

1. I resolve to be kinder to my body. To listen to it, and to work on improving my overall health.
2. I resolve to spend some more time on this blog. I'll probably have to do it early in the morning or late in the evening, but I want to do my best to ensure that there is some quality content here and have it updated a few times a week.
3. I resolve to manage my time better. With a longer daily commute as well as a paid position at the theater, I'll have more deadlines to face in the coming year. But I will have to find a way to manage them so that I can also complete projects around the house.
4. On top of all of this, I resolve to deepen my spiritual walk. I recently completed a 2+ year study in world religions while digging deeper into the spirituality of my ancestors. I now have to find a way to bring all of that into my daily life. Perhaps I'll share some of that journey with you here.

That's all I have for now. Best wishes to everyone in the blogosphere for a fantastic 2007.

My Dummies Book

Myspace Layouts Create your own: Dummies Cover Generator

Operation: Pat Robertson Freedom!

Background Info: I believe that most folks are familiar with avengelist Pat Robertson's prayer campaign against the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS). In case you are unaware of the program, I'll provide a few details here, and you can also check out CBN's page for Operation Supreme Court Justice. Now Pat Robertson started requesting prayers for certain Supreme Court Justices as far back as 1996, but the actual campaign did not officially kick off until July 2003. Shortly after Robertson's announcement, People for the American Way released their own press release, critical of the cleric's plan. An Interfaith Campaign: I propose an Interfaith campaign to counter-balance Robertson's naive extremism. Hey, it's all freedom of speech, right? Maybe I'll work on an actual home page for the campaign, and it will be a send-up of Pat's own site. In the meanwhile, check out this nifty banner ("loosely" based on the header graphic for the page describing Robertson's own -- and in my opinion, misguided -- prayer request):

And remember:

People who want to share their religious views with you almost never want you to share yours with them. --Dave Barry, author and columnist (1947- )

AWOL (again)

Hey there Prophet or Madman-philes. I have not dropped off the face of the known world. I was just completely wrapped up in trying to meet deadlines in three areas of my life: professional (day job), creative (theater gig), and studies (papers and projects). I am happy to say that any rumours of my demise were entirely premature. In fact, everything seems to be turning out well in all three areas. I will be back to write more on these topics. I just wanted to touch base for now, let folks know that I am alive, and that -- yes -- more Milo & Otis pics will be posted in the near future. Meanwhile, if you are in the area, go to Montgomery Theater and check out the final production of the year: The Desk Set. It's the revival of a 50-year old gem. Written by a local guy, The Desk Set was the toast of Broadway in 1955 and was made into a Hepburn-Tracey movie in 1957. I was the lighting and sound designer for this gig.

Scarey Costumes...

...and voter apathy. This recent Foxtrot nails both (click image to go to the comic page). Check it out as soon as you can because gocomics.com limits the free viewing period to only a week or so.

Friday Pet Blogging | Catanatomy

Mrs. Brainwise has been snapping pics faster than I can upload them to my Flickr account (here). And about 2-4 times more often than I post here these days. But your patience has been rewarded with this up close shot of Milo's cute li'l nose ... and tongue.

Milo thinks Friday Pet Blogging is lip-smacking good!

Check out the rest of the parts in this set: Catanatomy

And one by one, the pet blogging posts steal my sanity ...

More Pet Blogging See the Friday Ark, featuring a compilation of today's pet blogging posts, over at The Modulator. Check the M&O Archives for some previous Milo & Otis appearances. Carnival of the Cats, coming at you every Sunday. And one of the funniest/cutest/obsessivest (OK, I know that's not a word!) sites for cat photos, StuffOnMyCat.com is a must see. Take it from them: Stuff + Cats = Awesome!

Kryptonite?

File under: "Life imitates ... comics?" OK, so it didn't happen in, say, Smallville. But you still have to love a story about finding a "rare" meteorite in Kansas.

Rare meteorite found in Kansas field By ROXANA HEGEMAN, Associated Press Writer AP Photo: Workers pull dirt away from a 154-pound meteorite as a team from the Houston Museum... GREENSBURG, Kan. - Scientists located a rare meteorite in a Kansas wheat field thanks to new ground-penetrating radar technology that someday might be used on Mars. The dig Monday was likely the most documented excavation yet of a meteorite find, with researchers painstakingly using brushes and hand tools to preserve evidence of the impact trail and to date the event of the meteorite strike. Soil samples also were bagged and tagged and organic material preserved for dating purposes. [ Full Story ]

Now, before you start combing rural Kansas for Kents, you should know that "scientific experts at the site were able to debunk prevailing wisdom that the spectacular Brenham meteorite fall occurred 20,000 years ago. Its location in the Pleistocene epoch soil layer puts that date closer to 10,000 years ago." But according to Carolyn Sumners, director of Astronomy at the Houston Museum of Natural Science, "Native Americans could have seen it." Hmmm... might be fodder for a decent Elseworlds storyline.

Friday Pet Blogging | Crate

Left to his own devices, Otis will get into any and everything. Point in case: my folding cart with I used to haul some stuff to a presentation last month:

Hiya! Come down and play!!

You can see the crate love (heh heh) Otis has for this new toy of his at Crate and Otis.

And one by one, the pet blogging posts steal my sanity ...

More Pet Blogging See the Friday Ark, featuring a compilation of today's pet blogging posts, over at The Modulator. Check the M&O Archives for some previous Milo & Otis appearances. Carnival of the Cats, coming at you every Sunday. And one of the funniest/cutest/obsessivest (OK, I know that's not a word!) sites for cat photos, StuffOnMyCat.com is a must see. Take it from them: Stuff + Cats = Awesome!

Friday Pet Blogging | Sunbeam

Mrs. Brainwise recently spent some quality time with Milo, and got some quality photos out of it, too. Here is the first of several shots of Milo in another of his fave spots: catching the afternoon sun by the back door.

Milo lovin' the sunbeam.

He looks like he is hugging a sunbeam. Just look at him! Oh!! He is certainly a ray of light in our household. I'll post the rest of the set later.

And one by one, the pet blogging posts steal my sanity ...

More Pet Blogging See the Friday Ark, featuring a compilation of today's pet blogging posts, over at The Modulator. Check the M&O Archives for some previous Milo & Otis appearances. Carnival of the Cats, coming at you every Sunday. And one of the funniest/cutest/obsessivest (OK, I know that's not a word!) sites for cat photos, StuffOnMyCat.com is a must see. Take it from them: Stuff + Cats = Awesome!