Someone requested more of the “Vince” strips. I did get sort of distracted after I began this story arc. After beginning it, I was reminded looking through the old stuff that Vince was something of a recurring character in the spring of 1993, a sounding board for Janis. All the arcs are similar in nature, so I have abandoned chronological order and for the rest of the week will offer what I call “The Best of Vince.”
Male Bonding Does Not Involve Duct Tape
By Jimmy Johnson
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293 responses to “Male Bonding Does Not Involve Duct Tape”
Ghost, I still carry a “John Wayne” can opener from sometime in the 70s. I’ve bought reproductions for both my daughters and their husbands to carry. I can never forget a scene from Harlan Ellison’s short story “I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream.” The captured survivors were trapped in an ice cave, starving while piles of canned food surrounded them! I don’t expect to be hounded by a global sentient computer, but you never know when you may need a can opener– ask the survivors of hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.
I learned today that my brother-in-law will be having Thanksgiving with his family, so tomorrow afternoon I will shop for the ingredients for a Thanksgiving meal for my Mom and me. I’m thinking a turkey breast with dressing and gravy; asparagus casserole (wouldn’t be Thanksgiving without my Mom’s asparagus casserole, even if I do have to make it for her this year); green bean casserole; and baked sweet potatoes. (Normally, it would be her sweet potato casserole, but that would be three casseroles, and besides, I can’t make it half as well as she does.) Cranberry sauce and dinner rolls, of course.
Even with the loss of my sister since last Thanksgiving, we have much to be thankful for, not the least of which is that my Mom has come through her recent illness so well. I’ll set three places at the table…one for my Mom; one for me; and one for my sister and all other family members and friends I wish could be with us, but who cannot.
Shopping list made; bedtime.
Debbe 😉 Hazel Eyed Girl… 🙂
ITunes is pretty much a mystery to me, but back when I had a bunch of stuff from Napster and LimeWire I found a website that told me exactly what to do to get it all in ITunes. I don’t remember but it must have been pretty simple if I could do it.
Good morning Villagers…
Granny Carol…I will post the entire list, thank you.
Spent 45 minutes trying to log into this blog, GoComics did not show the strip, but comments were being made (I made one…imagine that) Had to go to Yahoo to see the strip; so I decided to try one more time…and here I am 🙂
Sandcastler…..beer, beer and more beer and hot wings of course….gosh that was so many moons ago.
GR 😉 and reddish blonde at that, with hints of gray coming in on the sides.
gotta go…..got to get in at least a couple of hands of solitaire….
ya’ll have a blessed Monday…I am
David, carry a Leatherman PST on belt for just such emergency. Also a Swiss key in pack, gets around the TSA regs.
Binyon’s work, “For the Fallen,” is partially derived from Yom Kippur prayers.
Requiem 3 Voices in the Wall
9, November 1992
See them walking halting to the wall,
Hope pinned on their faces, faces drawn and white.
They come for healing, for surcease from doubt and grief.
Standing in the dark reflection, see them fight,
See them wrestle with emotion see them lose,
See the years-old layers shatter in the hard reflected light,
That pours from all the names written on the wall
See the strongest of them stand and start to sway,
Watch their vision cycle swiftly back across the years,
See the faithful drop down on their knees to pray,
See the strong ones as they crumble and their eyes brim full of tears,
See them asking for forgiveness; see them trying not to falter,
See them choking on their memories and remembering their fears,
In the presence of the names written on the wall.
Hear the popping of the flag in the wind,
The muted driving anthem that all of them fought under,
How it drove them forward unsuspecting,
Programmed from their birthrights not to wonder,
Whether cause was righteous, or if it was a blunder,
That wrote the many thousand names written on the wall
See their trembling fingers touch the stone,
As they find an ancient agony, a single graven name,
Of a child or friend or lover taken from them out of time,
See their twitching faces as they try to fix the blame,
For the loss that changed their lives and fates,
The answer echoes back again,
Silence from the names in stone written on the wall.
See survivors who are left to carry on alone,
Children come to find a father they have never known,
Parents, seeking children, lost a lifetime’s years ago,
Finding solace gazing at the somber reach of stone,
Thinking of the pasts that might have been,
Thinking of the varied futures that they might have known,
Asking, seeking answers from the names graved in the wall.
The things they leave behind them tell a story all their own,
Single roses, ribbons, medals, photos dimmed and cracked by age.
Letters washed with teardrops, speaking volumes ‘cross the decades,
Scream like jets of sleepless nights, of loneliness, of rage,
Tell of dislocation, empty days, going on alone,
A generation’s saga on a single wrinkled page,
But no answer issues from the names upon the wall.
See them leaning on each other as they leave,
See the changes in their faces as they leave the shouting stone.
Tourists come by busloads, taking pictures for their albums,
And the victims of the conflict come in pairs or come alone.
To remember those who stayed behind, who failed to come away,
A million different reasons, pilgrims coming one-by-one,
Hear the voices of them all calling softly from the wall,
“Please remember us,
There is no other answer hidden here”
emb 7:30 pm “redistribution of wealth. We need that” would this be an elected board to decide what percent of what I earn I can keep, or would it be a set dollar amount ?
…. … about the nice hospital suites – we paid for one of those when my wife had a heart valve done, had an extra living room and couch bed for a family member to sleep on and she wanted someone there, the Scrabble set was pathetic, so I donated a nice new deluxe set to the place. …..
http://www.fitsnews.com/2014/09/24/obamacare-architect-lets-die-75/
Ghost, asparagus casserole? Recipe, please?!
John/Richmond:
Note that I wrote, “We need that [WWJD? Remember the young rich man?], but it will not be enough. My guess is, for the long haul, with many changes in land use, consumption, food habits, etc., Earth can sustain a reasonably comfortable human population of 1 billion. Good luck.”
It is usually easier to describe the way the world needs to than to know how to achieve the necessary changes peacefully. There may be no way. There may be no way; that’s the rock. And I don’t believe we can make them un-peacefully. That’s the hard place. That’s why I said “Good luck.”
But, as the supposedly Chinese sage said, “If we don’t change direction, we will end up where we are headed.” We are headed for catastrophe, a mix of various economic, social, international, and ecological disasters. I may not be here when it hits. Neither may my kids, now in their 50s. But my grandkids will. Peace, emb
Jean dear, I have it but have never added it to my computerized recipe collection. Never needed it until now. 🙂 I’ll do that this evening and post it.
From comments on TDS (concerning a comment that is not currently there), it appears someone’s post got moderated away. Not surprisingly, it was someone I had begun to suspect late last week was an incipient troll. I also somewhat doubted the person’s gender was actually that suggest by the name used.
I’m still trying to imagine what one would have to say to get banished from TDS.
Mother Earth does indeed have a way of dealing with problems. What we seem to forget, in our hubris, is that She may deal with them in ways not beneficial to humankind. Or for that matter, even in ways that *includes* humankind.
Cue the Four Horsemen? I hope not. But like emb, I’m not terribly sanguine, either.
Two corrections: “It is usually easier to describe the way the world needs to change than to know . . ..”
Also, my earlier “correction” wasn’t one. Let’s try again. “When HST was president, I believe there were topsoil > we do now, and I think HST was wrong then.”
Dear eMb, I’m not understanding your comment about HST and topsoil. What does the “>” mean in this context?
As for The Dark Side today, when I opened GoComics, I had no problems with the site. And I must say that all the people making comments were very pleasant and civilized.
Jean, I think emb meant to say there was more topsoil when HST was president than we have now. > meaning greater than in a mathematical sense.
Do I have it right, professor?
Apropos to our recent discussion of deer hunting is this. I guess it makes sense…what could be more “free-range” than a deer?
http://m.apnews.com/ap/db_268773/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=42oY8ET5
Charlotte, Mark, et al.: Yes, = more than, but they also apparently mean omit the enclosed when copying to M. Word.
Here’s the sentence in words: “When HST was president, I believe there were less than 4 billion people in the world, we had more topsoil than we do now, and I think HST was wrong then.”
Peace, emb
Well, I just proved it. The first sentence above would not print the symbols. I will substitute @ and #.
Charlotte, Mark, et al.: Yes, @ = less than and # = more than, but they also apparently mean omit the enclosed when copying to M. Word.
Hope @ and # don’t have editorial meanings in M. Word.
Yes, Debbe, please post your list!
Yes, GR6, I see which comment was removed on TDS. I too was wondering about who that person really was! I don’t remember if it was today or yesterday that Janis was referred to as that “b***h”! That was NOT nice!
OK – I went back a couple of days on TDS, and I see that all posts by that “person” have been removed. Good!
Yep, Gal, I sort of saw that coming. Perhaps due to recent experience here?
That was the remark that caught my attention, too. And I didn’t remember previously seeing the name used on TDS, although I don’t read comments over there regularly enough to be an expert on who comments.
The commenter used a female-sounding name; made some rather crude remarks; and took a decidedly pro-sex stance…to the point I remember thinking, “That sounds like the bizarro-world Lilyblack.”
I hope Jackie and Mike are OK. The last thing she said last last evening wasn’t encouraging.
All human history attests,
That happiness for men –
The happy sinner! – since Eve ate apples,
Much depends on dinner.
~ George Gordon, Lord Byron
We are OK guys. Today was Mike’s last radiation treatment and we have a 10 day space before we will see chemo doctor, so hopefully he will begin to feel a little better. The tumor being radiated is in his spine at shoulders and embedded in disc bones, so real danger of total paralysis. The radiation doctor says we won’t know for several; weeks how successful it was but was optimistic.
He is very nauseated and can’t/won’t eat from the pain medications. That was how last chemo attempt went downhill.
I seldom read TDS but I saw that female(?) commenter and instantly thought of “you know who” as they say in Harry Potter.
That was when I said I got as far as middle of comments and a fight was breaking out. It wasn’t anyone I had ever seen, there are a few of you over “there” and you know each other, plus I see some that used to be here too and aren’t.
Has anyone like Ghost or Debbe (Spent Hen) thought of putting a note over there that it is safe to come back here?
Love to all,
Jackie