Long Live Toast

Oh well, time to give up on toast. I made this blog because I wanted to learn how to use Adobe's photo manipulation software, such as Photoshop© and Elements©. Everyone I knew was starting to get annoyed at all the goofy pictures I sent them, but if I could not show them to someone, it seemed like it was not worth the effort. I made this site to post the pictures I made so I would not feel like I was wasting my time. I was wasting my time, but I didn't want it to feel that way :).

Here is a good example of WHY some people got mad at me. My friend got her navel pierced, and sent me a picture because she knows I'm not a fan of pierced body parts (or tattoos for that matter). I replied with an edited version of her pic (I removed the top half of the barbell-looking jewelry and added the cow tattoo)


I know it's crude humor, but I thought it was hilarious! Unfortunately, she thought the exact opposite. To make a long story short, here's a picture describing our discussion after I emailed this pic to her. I'm the guy on the left:

Anyway, two months later, I am as good at photo editing now as I am likely to get. It's fun to mess around with photos, but I have no desire (or ability) to become an expert. And I'm getting sick of looking at pictures of toast. I can't remember why, when I created the site, I went with 'toast' as the theme, other than it was the dumbest thing to blog about that I could think of. Sadly, I can think of no more toast related BS to write about, no matter ridiculous (going through the archives, it's clear that I've exhausted 'ridiculous'). I will continue to eat toast, but probably wlll not blog about it when I do. It's time to move on to more important things.

I know what you are thinking. "Why not devote your blog to the 20th amendment? What is more important: toast, or the 20th amendment to the Constitution?" I'm not about to try to tackle that age old question. "Toast for the masses", or "congress convening on Jan 3"... it's just too close to call. I'll think of some theme eventually though.

I'm going to try to continue the "Is this guy mentally ill or something" style of writing, but no more toast. Thanks to all who read and didn't complain about what an idiot I am :)

Bush Retires!

I just saw on the Drudge Report that President Bush is retiring! Wow, you would think that this would be blasted from every news outlet across America, but for some reason, no one is reporting it.








UPDATE: It turns out that the President is only replacing the tires on his limo. Re-tiring can mean different things to different people I guess. Safety first!

The End of a Nation

This is a stunning defeat for America. In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court of the United States today struck down the Declaration of Independence as unconstitutional. Justice Scalia wrote the dissent, saying only, "Why oh why did we let O'Connor come back!?!" Justice Ginsburg and O'Connor co-wrote in the court opinion stating that "...the officials who drafted the Declaration were not democratically elected, since women and some minorities were not allowed to vote. Therefore, the court declares the entire document null and void."

Since the document has been invalidated, America is once again under British rule. The most noticeable result is that the United States of America will now be changed to the United States of Great Britain, and judges will have to wear white wigs.

Democrats immediately claimed that this was just another example of Republicans destroying America. Sen. Kerry (D) voiced concern that "Republicans are continually outsourcing good jobs oversees. Now all the high paying positions such as "Senator" and "Representative" are being outsourced to Great Britain, leaving only minimum-wage jobs like "Mayor" in America."

England immediately reinstated a tax on tea in "the colonies across the pond", and have sent a case of Newcastle Brown Ale to the President with a note saying, "Sorry old boy, but Tony needs you to vacate his new summer home by week end." A law forcing steering wheels to be placed on the right side of the car is still on the floor in Parliament.

The American media apparently does not consider this an important news story, as it is hardly being reported at all. "People just aren't interested in news that doesn't make a conservative or two look bad", said NYT writer Paul Krugman.

Next week the court is expected to rule on whether the Constitution is unconstitutional.

Toast of the World

I found nothing but good news on the toast front in New Jersey. They eat it up there in the traditional form, but also enjoy many variations. My brother-in-law is jewish, so I was excited to try some jewish cuisine. He presented me with a loaf of challah bread.

Challah is the jewish word for "bread designed to be a pain in the butt to slice". It was good bread, but it's true flavor came out when it went stale. With a little butter, romano cheese and garlic, we made it into croutons. Crouton is the jewish word for "little pieces of stale bread converted to toast". It was fantastic! They are particularly good on salad.


I've often pondered ways to join the wonderful taste of toast with the horror that is salad. These "crouton" things are just the thing that's needed to make salad edible. Frankly, I'm amazed that they are not for sale in the supermarkets. Seems like it would be a money maker.

The method they use to produce toast in New Jersey is very similar to the method they use in the heartland. New Jersey law requires toast to be made in a stainless-steel clad toaster that is "impeccably cleaned". This one is covered with fingerprints so would not be legal in NJ, but we used it anyway! Sure, it's dangerous, but we had no paper towels, and life without toast is no life at all. I blurred out my mother's fingerprints so the NJ cops can't use this photo against her. You can't be too careful in this brave new anti-toast pc world.

Vacation

I had a great visit to New Jersey. We did a lot of fun things, one of which was going to see the Colbert Report in the city. He's as liberal as John(sic) Stewart, but acts like a conservative to be funny. It really works for me. I find his show to be the most enjoyable show on TV at the moment (save perhaps 'Arrested Development"). Unfortunately, they confiscate your camera if you take pictures. So obviously I could not use flash, hence the blurriness. Don't tell them please.


I snuck into his chair for this picture. I know I look a lot like Michael Moore in this picture, but they say the camera adds 10 pounds to your weight. And there were like 20 cameras in the room.




After the show was over we headed to the subway. Check out the sign in the subway that my wife and I posed under.

You can see I look somewhat better with less cameras on me (and my wife's still got it too!). But isn't that weird to have a subway sign still telling you how to get to the World Trade Center buildings?

(Unrelated: This is funny!)

Marriage Does Strange Things

Have you ever heard that married couples begin to look alike as they grow older? Apparently that is not exactly true. Married couples actually begin to look like each other as they grow older. On my way back from New Jersey I stopped by the White House in Washington. I was lucky enough to catch the Bush's doing a press conference on the lawn. I was amazed at how much Laura looked like George.


Maybe it's just me though.

I'll probably never understand...

My wife came home after visiting relatives for a couple of days with the kids. Immediately, the arguing began. "Why do you always let this place fall apart when I go away?" Of course it was just her being hysterical. I checked the toaster, and it worked fine. I snapped a photo so you know I'm not lying.


You can clearly see that not only is it not falling apart, but that it even has the proper clearance from other appliances for optimal toasting. *Sigh*. Women. Sometimes I don't think I'll ever understand them. It reminds me of that old cliche, "Women - can't live with 'em... pass the toast."

I'm on vacation until the 21st. I'll be in the tropical resort section of New Jersey! It's where the rich and famous vacation. At least that's how the brochure described it. Hopefully I'll get some good photos of this tropical paradise, and the toast-eating habits of some of the natives. Have a great January!

Conservatism, it's not for kids

It is thought that Winston Churchill once said, "At age 20 you're a liberal because you have a heart; at age 40 you're a conservative because you have a brain." While it does not appear that Mr. Churchill ever actually said this, it is still an accurate statement. I've been researching some of the best conservative bloggers out there, and was amazed to find that many of them were liberals a short while ago. I'm happy they grew up!

Case in point, Glenn Reynolds, well known creator of Instapundit. He's relatively conservative now, but not in the 80's! I was looking at the 1982 archives of the now defunt www.PeaceIsTheWord.Dude.com blog (Mr. Reynolds' primary blog until 1985), and found an old photo of him.

I called him up earlier to ask about the photo. "Back then I used to think that the world would magically be a better place if only we hugged each other a lot, and gave more tax money to the government to spend wisely. Yeah, I was a solid Democrat. I've learned much since then." I mentioned that I skimmed the old blog and he said, "Read the whole thing", and then updated his statement with a "heh".

Sister Toldjah is another relatively recent convert. She is conservative now, and a strong supporter of Bush and his efforts to rid the world of terrorist scum. Things were different a few years ago though.


I interviewed her in 1997 while doing a piece for The New Republic. We were trying to understand why there were so few southerners registering as Democrats lately (she's from the Carolinas). As I entered her house to begin the interview, the first thing that struck me was the anarchy poster framed on her living room wall (of which I forgot to get a clean picture).

She was a big fan of Jimmy Carter, and apparently Star Trek, TNG. I asked her about the 1997 interview yesterday to see how her opinions have changed. "Oh, lots has changed. I realize now that Carter is damaging America, perhaps deliberately. I understand that liberalism is an idea that sounds good, it just doesn't work. I've stopped dying my hair and wearing it weird. Also, I rarely wear my Star Trek costume anymore."

Michelle Malkin had perhaps the most dramatic change in her point of view. She is staunchly conservative, and spends most of her blog-time exposing falsehoods proclaimed as fact by the liberal MSM. But who can forget her speech at the Democratic National Convention just 6 years ago! Remember the deafening applause when she said, "President Al Gore will be just as good of a President as Clinton was."? She was probably right, and I am extremely grateful that we didn't have to find out the hard way. I wouldn't want to suffer for 4 more years just to prove a point.


I showed her this photo to get her reaction. "Man, I'm never going to live that down. Give me a break though. A lot of people start off liberal, until they get the facts."

She's entirely correct. If you see a liberal, don't show them scorn. Give them the facts. It's extremely likely that they will be joining our ranks soon.

oops!

Oh well, I guess I goofed up. Did you know that when you replace the standard blogger.com comments with Haloscan, it deletes all the old comments? I didn't, and it does :(

UPDATE: Cool :) Thanks for letting me know the comments were not lost. If you want to switch to Haloscan, but want to keep your old comments visible, do this:

1) Click the template tab, copy your whole template and save it in notepad, in case you screw up.
2) Go to Haloscan, and create an account. Choose the automated conversion method and it convert your comments to Haloscan work for you.
3) You have to add some code to get your old comments back. Here's the code I used:

if(<$BlogItemCommentCount$> > 0){
document.write('<a class="comment-link" href="<$BlogItemCommentCreate$>">Old comments <$BlogItemCommentCount$></a>')
}

The place to put it is right after the line that starts with:

<a class="comment-link" href="http://www.haloscan.com/comments/...

and ends with:

</script></a>

make a new line and insert the code shown above. All done!