Friday
Our friend, Lisa, got married this afternoon. The wedding was held at Log Haven, in Millcreek Canyon. It was a small affair; I believe that there were thirty guests (if that many). It was a short, but very nice ceremony followed by lunch. We had met Matt, the groom, a few times before. Nice guy. He’s from Australia; they’ll be moving there in a few weeks. (We’re considering a trip there sometime in 2006 or 2007.) We also met members of both their families.

An odd note about Millcreek Canyon: It’s free to go into the canyon, but there’s a fee that must be paid to exit it.

A great benefit of the wedding being held in the canyon: We got above the fog/smog layer that has been blanketing the SLC Valley for the past three days. It was refreshing to see real, honest-to-goodness blue sky and sunlight.

This evening, before Friday Night Coffee, I got a new phone, a Samsung A620. It’s smaller, but a little thicker, than my old phone. And, hopefully, it will not drop as many calls as its predecessor.

There was a really good turnout for coffee tonight: , , and Matt, Dave, Steve and Leah, Dave and Alyce, and Dave were there. At this rate, we are going to have to start numbering the Matts and Daves in our group. We referred to the two Daves, collectively, as “Dave (not Dave).” Apologies to Was (not Was), but it was convenient. The Dave occasionally known as (not Dave) started referring to himself as “!Dave,” which for non-computer geeks is pronounced “Bang Dave.” After leaving the bookstore we headed to Cheers: North for a bite to eat. Apparently, someone decided that it was a good night to play the All-80s channel for the music. (BTW: (not Dave) – you were correct: Top Gun came out in 1986.) I don’t remember how, but our conversation took a dip into the “Who had really good on-screen chemistry in the movies and on TV” realm. g0t random conversation topics? We do. Lots of them. And plenty of non-sequitors, too.

News
Morning Edition: Grocers Look to Provide More Diverse Products
Morning Edition: DJ Looks to Brean On-Air Endurance Record
Morning Edition: ACLU Gets Behind Rush Limbaugh
Day to Day: Promoting the Tougher Vows of ‘Covenant Marriage’
All Things Today: A Twentysomething Takes Umbrage at Media Monikers
All Things Considered: How Cold Is It? Well…
All Things Considered: An American Woman’s View of the Hajj

Random Access
“Those who know what’s best for us must rise and save us from ourselves…”

Let me get this straight: Spongebob Squarepants is promoting a “pro-homosexual agenda?” According to James C. Dobson, he is. Not only that, but he’s apparently enlisted Barney, Big Bird and Clifford the Big Red Dog to help him recruit kids.

What happened to the days when a cartoon was just a cartoon? When did we start turning jaded eyes towards the most innocuous things and seeing them as looming threats to our ways of life? Apparently, it’s okay for Wile E. Coyote to mercilessly persue – with the express intent to kill – the Road Runner, but Heaven forbid that our children be led astray by a sponge. A talking sponge. An asexual, talking sponge.

As my father would say, “That doesn’t even make crazy peoples’ sense.”

Many people would say that America has made great strides forward in the name of social progress and advancement. I’d say that this is true. To a point. There are still glass ceilings that women and some minorites can’t break through. Ethnic Group A still marches down Main Street, USA because they want to public extoll the fact that they hate Groups B and C. And don’t even bring up Groups X, Y and Z… It’s sad to admit, but there are still cases that prove that “…with liberty and justice for all” has not fully lived up to the assertion that “…that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.”

That’s right. I don’t know what’s going on behind your closed doors, but I’m pretty sure that it doesn’t fit my narrow-minded paradigm. I’d better take steps to see to it that you can’t do those things here. My white-picket fence world can’t have you bring any of your different viewpoints into my neighborhood.

It’s a damned cartoon, you nimrods. Here, let’s look at this from a different angle:

  • How many times have you seen a Bugs Bunny cartoon where Bugs, after pulling a fast one on Elmer Fudd, plants a big kiss on the befuddled (no pun intended) hunter? On the lips, at that. Does this mean that Bugs and Elmer are secretly carrying on an affair? Should we not allow our children to watch classic Warner Brothers cartoons because they might see this?
  • Popeye the Sailor – paragon of manly, vegetable-eating underdog virtue – walks around with a pipe. Not only that, his young nephews do, too. See, kids? Smoking’s okay for you! And, if I remember correctly, he has bussed Bluto on the lips a couple of times, too. AND, if memory serves correctly, in the classic Popeye cartoons (not the ones of the late 70s and the 80s), he resolved most of his conflicts by fighting. That’s a good one for the kids: Eat your veggies and then go pound the snot out of someone!

But, now we have an animated sponge hanging out with his buddy… and all of a sudden they must be gay. Right. So… were Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids (the cartoon, not the recent movie) promoting homosexual orgies? Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think so. Were The Banana Splits pushing the Furry/Plushy agenda? Somehow, I doubt it. And what about The New Zoo Revue? Were Doug and MaryJo secretly telling kids that bestiality was okay? Umm… no.

Nine Hells.

It irritates me that someone has nothing better to do with their time than to invent ways to “prove” that something is evil and wrong. And since I’ve gone off on a “why parents should parent their kids” rant not too long ago, I won’t get back on that tangent. For now.

Spongebob, gay?
Idiotstick. No, make that “Idiotstick with a pulpit.”
</rant>

Stray Toasters

Quote of the Day
On the way to Lisa and Matt’s wedding, and I wound up having to take a slight detour, due to an accident on I-215. We hit a particularly dense patch of fog along the way. This sparked two or three different comments from . Unfortunately, they all tried to come out at the same time. What came out was:

“It’s worse foggier up here…”

That’s when she realized what she was saying and stopped talking. And that’s when I started laughing.

Namaste.