Odds n ends

So I want everyone to breath a deep sigh of relief: I have successfully avoided a post concerning religion. I was considering it and then said to myself "WTF? RU RETARDED???!!! IDK WUT UR THINKING!!!11!!!ONE!"

So instead I'm going to just toss out a few odds and ends for your consideration:

I find myself annoyed by musicians who use their music as a forum for 'sharing' their political opinions. Yes, even when I am in agreement with them. Rationally I understand that they, like many people, want to share their opinions and thoughts with others. And I understand that their music is a natural method that they can use to communicate with us, the masses. So why do I still find it so hard to deal with. The band that flipped this switch for me is Filter. I've been listening to their last album and the entire thing is a huge political diatribe against the war in Iraq. Fundamentally I'm against the war too, and if the Filter guy and I were to sit down and share ideas we might be close to agreeing. That said, I really don't want to have that crap interfering with my enjoyment of the music. Discuss.

Anyway, that's number one.

Over the last 8 months or so, I've been averaging a few thousand words written each day. There have been periods where I am in between projects and doing editing or preparing query letters, etc, so the numbers aren't there. But there have also been days where I crank out in the 10k range. I feel really good about the whole thing: even if I never get published, I'll eventually die knowing that I pursued this dream hard core. I'm currently plowing into my third novel of the year. The second one is a rough draft, currently being read by my mother (God love her) and my first is being read and considered by an agent. If I fail, it won't be for lack of trying.

Finally, I find myself a Cub Scout Dad. How the HELL did this happen to me? Where did I go wrong? What crime did I commit that Karma has revisited this back on me?? In the last month, I've sold cub scout popcorn outside Jewel (grocery store), worked the concession stand at Bingo Night at the Moose Lodge (we get the proceeds from that for our yearly cubscout purse) and took Theo to a huge reenactment of pioneer days in America called The Trail of History (I wanted to rename it something more apt like The Day Where Grown Men Sit Around All Day Firing Off A Cannon).

I can't decide what was stranger: the bingo night, or the frontier days knockoff. They were both mega-freaky. Bingo night was EXACTLY like the stereotypes! I always thought that it was greatly exaggerated. For those who read this that actually go to bingo night somewhere, forgive me. I LOVE BINGO!! whew.

And the Trail of History. That was completely nutso. It was like Ren Faire for American settlers time. Everyone in costume, displays, things being sold and made. There were Red Coats and Minutemen walking all over the place. There was some guy who had set up his frontier days blacksmithy. There was a dentist from that time period (read: torture specialist). All kinds of other things like that.

Oh, and I go to a weekly pack or den meeting. Theo seems to love it, so I'll take the shot to my ever fading sense of coolness (which was tiny and pathetic to begin with...) on his behalf. The things we do for parenthood.

Anyone wanna buy some caramel popcorn? stop it me. now.