Man, I Need To Get A Porkpie Hat...

Saturday in the park... I think it was the month of July...

Let the youngsters scratch their heads over *that* reference! MUAHAHAHAHA!!!

I sit before you now, hooded sweatshirt on, hood up, glass of Red Bull + grape juice at hand, ear plugs in (to block out the squabbling kids in the background), as another unplanned, stream-of-consciousness-type blog post works it way quickly from my brain to my fingertips and onto the keyboard, thus sounding the trumpet to signify the passing of another January day.

Another mellow day unfolded today - I guess I should be counting my blessings. In fact, let me do so now...

Terrific kids, great wife, big warm house, 2 reliable little cars (one paid off), a great job set-up, food in the kitchen, a solid church full of good people, good friends, and plenty to keep me occupied. I'm in good health, as are my wife and kids. I have a great extended family. There is no one that I can honestly say I hate, or even that I don't like. My life has been inundated with blessings - these are the good years.

And yet, many people I know, including many on forums I frequent, are having a really rough go of it. As trite and religious as this sounds, I pray for them. I don't know what else to do. It all seems so random. How does God decide who lives and who dies today? How does He decide who rides high and who hits bottom? How does He decide who stays healthy and who gets hammered with a potentially life-threatening sickness? Is any of it random, or does He really make the call in every single case?

I don't know which half of the conundrum is harder to dwell upon. If He set the world up so that people randomly experience hardship, sickness and death, such that even He occasionally shrugs His shoulders and says, "Well, that's just the way the cookie crumbles sometimes" then what's the benefit in that? If He really decides each case, who to let go about their business and who to drop the hammer on (and how hard), then it seems that would be a full time job - 6 billion people to monitor daily...

Just how involved is He in every person's day-to-day trials and tribs? Or does He just let it play out, and make Himself available to people when things are rough? Does He involve Himself in the lives of a handful only, and let the rest deal with life as it comes?

Ah, questions, questions...

Tomorrow, wifey runs her half-marathon. Gonna take the kids out there to see her cross the finish line. She starts at 8 am, and is aiming for 2.5 hours or faster. Running for 2.5 hours straight... I admire that she can do that. I might be able to run for 2.5 minutes without stopping - and then keel over, since my endurance level is lower than Congress' approval ratings...

I'll see if I can talk wifey into letting me post a pic of her crossing the finish line in tomorrows blog post.

These Are A Few of My Favorite Scenes:
For today, I set out to make good on my promise to post the street shootout scene from the movie Heat, but as I ripped it and reviewed it, it struck me as kind of a depressing clip. I mean, there is no dialog, just 5 minutes of cops and bank robbers shooting each other in the streets, with civilians running around. Cops get shot, cop cars get shredded with high-powered assault rifles, running and screaming and chaos and blood. Yeah, really uplifting Dave, thanks for sharing!

So I decided to ditch that plan and post something else instead. So here is a clip from Jerry Seinfeld's stand-up routine I'm Telling You for the Last Time. That's a bit more amusing than the gun battle, I'd say. But for those that might be bummed, here's a link to the gun fight on You Tube. For the rest, here's Jerry!




Besides, the gun battle clip was 50MB, which would have taken an hour to upload, whereas the Seinfeld clip was a much more manageable 15MB. It makes me wonder if there's a limit to how many files I'll be able to upload to this blog. I may reach a point where I have to delete some of the older clips - or at least replace them with You Tube links to the same clips...

I'm tired... Just thought I'd throw that in there.

I watched American Gangster last night - a thoroughly forgettable film. I wish I had checked the run-time before I started watching it. 2.5 hours? Are you kidding me? The movie wandered, dragged, scooted, sputtered, not knowing what it wanted to say, or how it wanted to portray the good guy(s) and the bad guy(s). Who was pathetic and who was noble? Beats me. Bah, I don't want to bore you with a synopsis of the storyline - let me just say it was 2.5 hours that, all things considered, I wish I could have back.

Now I'm eyeing the other film here (The Assassination of Jesse James), which also weighs in at 2.5 hours, and I'm wondering if I should bother with that one... I used to eagerly watch Netflix arrivals the day they arrived in the mail, rubbing my hands together in excitement. Now, if I watch one within a week of its arrival, that's quick. These two discs got here on the 13th. Here it is, the 24th.

I may cancel my account, who knows.

"Ah, gee, fascinating, Dave!" My apologies - that was probably tedious reading, if you even made it that far. Better wrap it up, I suppose.

Until tomorrow, Captain Dave, signing off.