The things that go through my head

It’s not a secret that I absolutely love Ted talks. There are so many wonderful bits of educational goodness at that site. Any time when I am feeling pessimistic about the world, I head on over to Ted and find a reason to feel optimistic. Take Steven Pinker’s talk about “The Myth of Violence”.

This doesn’t really make sense, does it? We live in a terribly violent world with ongoing wars, commercialism, global warming, stupid government, and patriarchy. But there are reasons for optimism.

While we are still a violent society, we are much less violent than we used to be. Just take a gander through the pages of the Bible. Imagine living in a time period when the death penalty for such crimes as talking back to your parents, adultery and theft were socially accepted. It is really hard for me to wrap my brain around that. I am so used to going through my day and knowing that the worst punishment I face for any crime is imprisonment in jail or perhaps a pesky fine. I will probably never lose a family member due to warfare or violence or capital punishment.

We can always do better as a society and there are still more things wrong than right. But it’s good to remember that things have gotten better.

Remember a few months back when I got into a hit and run accident and totalled off my beautiful little white 1996 Pontiac Firefly?
Well, I have to admit to having gone through a wee bit of post-traumatic stress, being the overly sensitive person that I am. I used to be a very aggressive driver, maybe a little too much. No, I didn’t drive around town swearing and waving my middle finger out the window while weaving in and out of traffic, leaving a trail of road-rage inflicted drivers in my path. But I did find it rather difficult to stay below the speed limit and I am impatient with people that chat on their bloody cell phones when the light is green. I’ve got places to go and things to do! So I may have occasionally needed a little restraint. But I really took it the other way after the accident. Here I was driving 30 klicks when I wasn’t even in a school zone. Luckily, my boyfriend took me to skool with a few well-placed snarky comments. I totally had it coming.

I was giving him the pleasure of being a passenger in my fine new purple Geo-Metro. (I can never remember the year.) Did I tell you that she only has 123 000 klicks under her belt? That she doesn’t burn any oil between oil changes? That the parts to fix my car are super dirt cheap? That my brother is a Geo Metro aficionado that fixes my car for nothing? No? Well, there you go. My purple Geo Metro is the sweetest ride ever. It also came with a free Nickelback CD and a working CD player. Yes, it’s true that I miss my AM/FM radio and tape deck, but CDs are OK too. But the best thing about my car is the fact that I can drive to the farm four times on a full tank of gas.

As we were driving he pointed out all my flaws as a driver. The fact that I was being tail-gated by an angry swearing dude on a cell phone because I was going really slow. Well, so what, I like driving slow. Of course, I always used to lose my temper at people that drive twenty klicks under the speed limit. Hmmmm. Maybe I am being one of those stupid drivers I am always complaining about.

I wasn’t going to drive like a complete and utter tool! No more of this nonsense. Life is too short to drive twenty klicks under the speed limit and obsess about the number of deaths caused by motor vehicle accidents. It just isn’t worth it. When I took the kids skating in Radisson last night, I drove like a maniac, in the dark, on the highway, over the speed limit, and I didn’t even freak out when I saw a deer crossing sign. I didn’t even fret upon the fact that nearly everybody I know that lives in rural Saskatchewan has totalled their car by running over an innocent deer. I have almost forgotten about that deer I almost murdered because I just didn’t see it. Lots of people die that way. And I didn’t even worry about it. Really. It was really nice.

Am I normal?

The air is filled with hopey, changey goodness. On Tuesday, on the same day that I get a teenaged daughter, the United States of America gets the chance to witness history. A handsome black man with a white mother and a black father by the name of Barack Hussein Obama, a beautiful black Jackie Kennedy for a wife and mom-in-chief and two pretty daughters, will be sworn in as President of the United States after 8 years of an illiterate moron in charge of the place. The PEOPLE exercised their democratic right to vote and threw the bum out and everything will be flowers and kittens and free medical marijuana in every pot from now on!

Isn’t it just great to be alive?

PS: But Barry smokes cigarettes!

I haven’t been blogging this weekend because I have been too busy playing Rock Band. I can’t tell you how much I love this game. It is the best waste of time I have ever had. It rules. I can strum along on my guitar shaped video game controller and feel like I actually have some talent. The family makes a great band, Katy as the lead singer, Hannah on drums and me on guitar. I think that my nerdy blogger boyfriend has gotten tired of it, not that I could blame him for that. I couldn’t get interested in SPORE and he is addicted to that game.

What I love the most about Rock Band is the fact that it gives me a new appreciation for musicians. I can hardly play Enter Sandman while stone-cold sober on a plastic controller. I usually get booed off the stage in EASY mode because I am so terrible. Can you imagine how badly I would fail at making music if I had to play with a real guitar and I ingested the substances that these rock stars use? That would be very funny and you would all have a great time pointing and laughing but it would definitely not be musical. It would be sad.

I love living vicariously through others with the use of technology. Thus, I love Rock Band. As my children would say, it’s my BFFFL.

Mrs. Lovejoy and her ilk are at it again.  Sales of individual cigars have been banned in Maryland. If you want a cigar, you have to buy 5 at a time.  The rationale for this pointless action is to prevent youth from becoming addicted to tobacco and becoming lifelong users of cigars.   Also, they are worried about the recent trend of hollowing out the cigar and filling it with marijuana.  In other words, the kids wisely chose to stay away from tobacco, a highly dangerous and addictive drug and went for the safer alternative.

Even if you believe that eradicating use of marijuana and tobacco is a good idea, I just can’t imagine why anybody thinks that banning the individual sale of cigars is going to make any difference.  The kids will just find some other way to entertain themselves.  This may even be a good opportunity for some enterprising youths to make some moeny.  I’m sure that some kids will buy a five pack and sell them individually to their friends.  Trends come and go and adults over-react, often in counterproductive ways.  Besides, there are much better ways to get people to voluntarily give up their bad habits.

*Tanya will use any excuse to post a picture of demon weed.  Doesn’t it look sweet against my blogs’ background colors?

Yet again, the reefer madness against my favorite plant is debunked. After all this time and all the studies that have been done about the medical uses of cannabis, you would think that it would have been legalized by now. Hell, in my perfect world, where everybody gets a pony, use of cannabis will be mandatory. OK, maybe forcing unwilling people to ingest cannabis may be problematic but still. There is no way in a rational world that this beautiful, sweet-smelling plant should be so demonized. In this case, use of cannabis has been shown to reduce dementia in rats. Long story short, you know what I will be doing when I’m old. For the full scoop, follow the link.

Oh no! I have written my Friday 4:20 post early! What on earth will I have to write about tomorrow?

I haven’t been posting lately. I started writing a post for Remembrance day but I messed it up and deleted it. It’s too bad because I have lots of smart things to say about it but every time I try to write about it all I get is WAR IS BAD!!!11

But who cares about that? I bought a car! A fabulous car. This should help me get over the pain I experienced when I lost the old car. I succumbed to peer pressure and here I am driving a very beautiful Geo Metro, which is a shinier version of my old car, with less mileage. Hooray!

Too bad I still haven’t settled with SGI. Just trying to get an appointment with the insurance adjuster is turning out to be much more difficult than I imagined. Why don’t they ever return my phone calls? HOW RUDE!

Also, here is a pic of someone parked way too close to my fabulous new car. What is wrong with some peoples’ children, I tell ya.

I would like to think that I despise all over-commercialized holidays equally, but sadly that is not the case. Even though I hate the way my wallet gets picked every Christmas, Easter, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Valentine’s Day, I have to admit there are some parts of these holidays that are harmless fun. Christmas is great, if you decide on a few rules to limit the commercial orgy. For example, adults don’t buy each other presents is the rule at our house. Halloween is tonnes of fun too. What could be wrong with constructing a costume to go over your snow suit and taking the kidlets door to door to beg for candy from strangers? Well, let me tell you, the costume buying part of this expedition always gets my goat. I am the mother of two girls and the most important thing I can do for them is try to help them navigate all the patriarchal pitfalls that get thrown at them, just because they were born female. Halloween is unfortunately a very patriarchy-friendly holiday. Allow me to demonstrate. The following pictures were taken with my new Crackberry while I was shopping at Value Village and Superstore. Read more…

I just started working on something interesting this weekend and since it’s a writing project and I need to reduce my distractions, I probably won’t be updating this blog as often for a little while. I know, I know, my legions of fans are sorely disappointed. But don’t fret! If I do well at this project I will have something big and meaty for the world to read. At least, that is my dream and hope. Whether it actually turns out that way is yet to be determined.

So see you later.