Friday, December 20, 2013

So, about the Duck Dynasty kerfluffle

Look, the Duck Commander folks are going to be fine, on or off TV.  Let's not forget that Phil Robertson was a multimillionaire with his own wildly successful business before he ever got on TV, OK?

With that being said, I think A&E just screwed the pooch.  Hard.  They knew who the Robertsons were.  They knew what the Robertsons believed.  That's the hook to the entire show!  And Duck Dynasty has a huge audience of people who are happy to see hard-working Christians on their TV sets.  People who pray over their dinners, and enjoy watching a TV show where a family prays together before they tuck in to their meal.

So A&E caved to the tiny minority and suspended Phil Robertson "indefinitely".  How'd the rest of the Robertson clan react?  Well, just like you might suspect:

We have had a successful working relationship with A&E but, as a family, we cannot imagine the show going forward without our patriarch at the helm.  We are in discussions with A&E to see what that means for the future of Duck Dynasty.

I was reading somewhere else about how the Robertsons had signed a contract and they couldn't get out of it without paying a load of cash, and blah blah blah.  Someone else responded "You have no idea just how much "Screw You!" a redneck can come up with when he puts his mind to it."  I have no doubt that the Robertson clan is going to either get their way with A&E, or find some other place to do their show.  Or for that matter, to simply fold up shop on the TV show and go back to being wildly successful millionaires in Louisiana.  But I've heard that Glenn Beck has already put out an offer to bring Duck Dynasty to his Blaze TV.

Now, wouldn't THAT be a hoot?

Kicking the Hornet's Nest

You know a guy has hit his target when he writes a blog post denouncing Atheism, and he gets 1,430 comments on it.

Wow.

Well done, Sir!

By all means read the article, and if you have the time read some of the comments.  They're....  instructive.

Thursday, December 19, 2013

Remember, kids....

Bleach is our friend.  Always keep some handy.  You never know when you'll have to completely disinfect the bathtub.  We filled it up, dumped bleach into it, and let it sit overnight to make sure anything in there was dead.

Woo. Hoo.

You want to have fun?  Try plunging your toilet, only to have sewage back up into your bathtub.  Then go outside to the spot where the pipe meets the sewer and see water (you wish it's only water) dripping into the crawlspace of your house.

Yeah.  I should be in bed right now.

UPDATE:  Tree roots.  You could actually smell them as the snake was cutting through them.  There were at least four sections where the plumber had to back the snake out and push it back in to deal with the roots.  We'll see how long his clean-out job lasts, but with the sweet-gum trees around here, it's only a matter of time before they plug it up again.

Sunday, December 15, 2013

You want to know how you love someone?

It's when you hurt when they hurt.

When they cry, and you feel that stab in your soul.

It's not some teenage infatuation, or some pop-music ideal of love.  It's sharing the sorrow that they have, and both wanting to take that pain away, and yet understanding that they have to undergo that pain on their own, yet still suffering with them.

Every description of love seems to involve the glassy-eyed, Romeo and Juliet, "Let's die for each other!" kind of love.  I've seen every few novelists actually get into the painful side of love; the part where you hurt in your soul because your loved one hurts.  I suppose it's because so much writing today is done in a politically correct, pussy-whipped sparkly-vampire novel, and that sucks, because it takes away so much of the actual experience.

But then, if the writers haven't experienced it, how can they write about it?

Meh.  I've drank to much.