NFL Football Playoff picture

Wow, this was an interesting day in the NFL today! My current favorite team the Atlanta Falcons just made the playoff by winning over the Vikings in Minnesota. And I think the Falcons can actually win the NFC South next week if both Carolina and Tampa Pay lose again. What a bunch of miracles coming at the end of the season for my other two teams: Dallas and San Diego.

So, last night the Dallas Cowboys lost to the Baltimore Ravens which helped out the Falcons and today the San Diego Chargers beat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and so all Atlanta had to do was win and they're in. The Chargers are still in it with a record of 7-8, and they can actually win the AFC West next week if they beat the Denver Broncos. Buffalo had to win in Denver to keep San Diego alive and they did.

Cowboys win next week against the Eagles and they will be in as a Wild Card. I must admit I almost gave up on the Chargers and the Cowboys a couple of weeks ago, but they've come back from the dead and are still fighting until the last week of the regular season. I would rather see anybody but these overrated teams in the Super Bowl: NY Giants, Pittsburgh, New England, Indianapolis and especially Denver.

Go Chargers!!!! Go Cowboys!!!

Merry XMAS , War is Over

Who you calling ILLEGAL Pilgrim?

"This problem with illegal immigration is nothing new. In fact, the Indians had a special name for it. They called it "White People." " Jay Leno

"My whole family has been having trouble with immigrants ever since we came to this country." Edgar Y. Harburg

"Remember, remember always that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and revolutionists." Franklin D. Roosevelt

The end of an Error

* I am so looking forward to January 20, 2009- Bush's last day in office: Just one of the many things to be grateful for this Thanksgiving. But really, I have 3 things to be thankful for: my wife Kathy, my health and my job.

* This month we have moved to our new place, this will be our sixth abode since I moved to Georgia 14 years ago. We also had to put down our beloved 21 year old Siamese cat Jasmine this week. She has been with us the entire 14 years as well.

* November is a special month for us. We celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary a couple of weeks ago. Actually Kathy and I met and have been living together since 1992, so 16 years.

* I am off next week for the Thanksgiving break, and then after that 3 more weeks of school until the Christmas break. This has got to be the fastest semester since I started teaching 6 years ago. It seems that the older I get every year has gotten shorter and shorter. Half of the school year has just gone by in a blur.

Country First = Fascism

Listen up now y'all. Are we supposed to listen and believe these foolish Republicans who created and managed this mess, this fiasco that we call an economy? Conservatives always blamed the helpless, the victims first and take credit for the good things that happened during their watch. Always. Always.

My fellow prisoners, if Bill Ayers is so evil than you have an obligation to go after his employers and his associates right now. This minute. Where is Bill Ayers and what is he doing right now? What are you waiting for McCain and Palin (AKA Main Pain)? You are NOT thinking of our country's security first if you are not going after Bill Ayers the terrorist. Or is it really because Ayers is not the issue. The issue is about McCain and the Republican party's insecurity so they need to raise doubt in voters' minds by scaring them. The usual fear tactic that has worked before in previous elections.

Looking back at my prediction for the outcome of this election from a previous post more than a month ago, I still stand by the 14 percent margin of victory for Obama. And by the way, I stand corrected Obama is actually as much WHITE as he is Black. He is half black and half white. The media loves the tension and the drama of the perceived closeness of the polls, but seriously folks, it ain't close. If you look at the electoral map, McCain will lose by over 100 votes, if not more. Not even close at all. I seriously think it will be a landslide.

Well, of course I also live in a country that voted for Boooosh not once but twice. Hey, guess what people, you got what you deserved. If you voted for Dumbya, then you are suffering the consequences. Stop whining and Stop blaming other people for your actions and bad choices. Country first, my ass. Country first, thinking second.

No Child Left A Dime

RELIGULOUS

In what respect, Charlie???

Turn out the lights, party's over for GOP

News Flash !!! Senor Juan Sydney McCain wants to suspend his campaign for the next 100 years. Too bad, you and GrandMa Palin came so close this time. May be you can try again in the year 2118.

But seriously, what happenned there Mister War Hero Numero Uno patriot? Chickened out at the last minute? Don't have the guts or the nerves to have a one on one debate with Barack Hussein Obama ? Too scare or more like too embarrassed about the current fiasco that the Republican party and the capitalist rich yuppies thugs who stole all the money and ran. Girlie Maaaaan.....

* New movies out this week:

1) Michael Moore's free "Slacker Uprising". I've already watched part of it last night. I was not that impressed and I am a big Michael Moore fan. His ego is almost as big as he is.

2) Chuck Palahniuk's "Choke", from one of my favorite authors. Fight Club is one of my top 10 movies of all time so I can't wait to see this one.

3) Bill Maher "Religulous", from one of my current favorite atheist comedians / talk show hosts. This one looks like a winner. Religions are ridiculous. Religious people are ridiculous and should be made fun of. Often. And Openly.

4) I will wait to see the Coen Brothers' "Burn After Reading" when it comes out on DVD. Their last effort was too uptight, too straightforward and unfunny. Of course it also was a big mainstream hit and even won the Oscar for best picture last year. I am ready for some old skool irreverent dark humor a la "Fargo".

5) That stupid piece of crapola "An American Carol" looks and sounds lame. You couldn't pay me enough to see it. OK, may be if you pay me about a million dollars.

The Con in conservative

I wanted to name our new kittens Kinko and Kinka, but my wife wanted to go with the artists' names so we settled for Pablo and Georgia (for Picasso and O'Keefe). Then last week I heard a kid from my school told me that he had a couple of cats named Kiko and Kika. Hey, great minds think alike. Our school has a population of around 80% Hispanic kids, and I finally got to meet all the students, all 688 of them this week. There is one Asian girl in the whole school. That makes two of us at this elementary school.

McCain in the Membrane

Insane in the membrane is Senor Johnny Sydney McCain. El Loco!!!




Go Russia Go!!! K G B #1 ! Putin' On the Ritz...

My Prediction

OK, we're 55 days from this year's presidential election. Here is my early prediction for the outcome. Obama, the first ever black president will win by a landslide: 14.9 % margin of victory. He will be the first Democratic candidate to win my state of Georgia since Jimmy Carter. He will also carry virtually all of Southern states with the exception of Florida and Texas.

Another bold one, Sarah "Lipstick Pitbull" Palin will resign from the VP nomination on October 19. She is pregnant with her sixth and seventh children: both homosexuals.

The Escalation AKA Surge

Make good choices and vote, vote, vote.

VOTE EARLY AND VOTE OFTEN.

Thoughts on current events

* Some public schools in Barrow County, Georgia want to teach the Bible in the classrooms. I say Sure, why not? It's one of the greatest works of fiction. Wonderful literature. I would also recommend teaching books from the other religions as well as atheist and agnostic works. And Pornography as Film History.

Soldiers in the military AKA Professional killers: How do you serve our country? What did VietNam ever do to our national security back in the 60's? Why did we invade Iraq, a country that had nothing to do with 9/11, had no WMDs, and no connection with Al-Quaeda? Not to mention no OSAMA BIN LADEN. The only military people I have respect for are the National Guard, who are actually doing something useful for the United States.

Anti-Abortionists AKA Pro-fetus: These people are hypocrites. They say that they are for the life of the fetus once it's inside the mother's womb (belonging to the woman and cannot survive without her), but once the baby is born they disregard them. Case in point, Sarah Palin and her 3-month old newborn infant. Family values, my ass!!! Where are your priorities? Your child needs you now more than ever but you don't care about that, do you? You could have say Thanks, but no thanks to the nomination like you claimed you said to "The Bridge to Nowhere".

About that Sarah Palin VP choice. What a joke! Now we got GrandPa McCain and GrandMa Palin on the GOP ticket. What a laugh riot! The woman can't even control her own daughter, and now she wants to run the country and be second in line for the leader of the free world. May be she should focus on being a mom first. Talk about a novice: her current experience include 20 month on the job as Gov. of a state with 600,000 people and her last job was the mayor of a town with 6000 people. If this is the best the Republicans can do, then we are in for a landslide, folks.

* And one more thing, I ain't YOUR FRIEND. So stop calling everyone "my friend" you moronic ex-con incompetent pilot war mongerer senile mofo. No you don't work for me, you work for the government of the United States of America. If you work for me, I would ask you to go get me a glass of water. Show me the money Johnny.

Green Acres is the place to be?

The new school year officially started here in Cobb County a couple of weeks ago.  Man, where did the time go? I just came back from a week in California.
I'm at a new elementary school this year and here is our theme song, sing to the tune of the TV show Green Acres, of course:

P-R-I-D-E, SPELLS PRIDE
P-R-I-D-E, SPELLS PRIDE
P-R-I-D-E, P-R-I-D-E, P-R-I-D-E, SPELLS PRIDE!

GREEN ACRES HAS A LOT OF PRIDE!
HERE WE LEARN BY STANDING, SIDE BY SIDE
RESPECTING DIFFERENCES IS WHAT WE DO,
GET READY TO EXCEED, YES ME AND YOU !!!

More San Diego Pix

Sea World was a disappointment: crowded, over-priced, over-commercialized, and tons of frivolous mindless entertainment.The smiling Panda. One of the highlights of the zoo.Our first day down at Mission Beach. We spent about 4,5 hours in the sun.  Without sunblock for me.  That was not a wise decision as I learn a few days later.

Sunny San Diego trip

Kathy watching the sleeping sea lions at La Jolla Beach

At Mission Beach for some boogie boarding and body surfing


My grumpy niece Halle

Comedian of the week

Ladies and gentlemen,
Boys and girls.....
Please welcome to the stage, the one, the only, Emcee INSANE IN THE MEMBRANE, Our featured comic of the week: GrandPa Johnny MacSame !!!!!

Workout regimen

+ 50 Jumping Jacks
+ 50 Sit-ups
+ 50 Push-ups
+ 50 dumb bell Lunges
+ 50 Shrugs with 25 lbs dumbbells

How am I doing? Swell, Fairly Decent, Not Unwell, All right, thanks for asking.

Tomorrow is the 50 minute Walk/Jog/Run day at the Gym. Three more days until our trip to San Diego. We're going to Cali, Cali, Cali.....

We're all adults here.

* The Surge is working
B.S.!! Hogwash!!!! Baloney!!!
Here's my analogy for the fiasco in Iraq: The war in Iraq is like a car driven off the road into the ditch. The surge is similar to avoid hitting a tree, but the car is still plunging down the cliff below. Another way of looking at it is a basketball game in which we were down by 30 points at the end of the third quarter. Iraq is the other team. The surge means we scored about 10 straight points in the fourth quarter. But the reality is that we are still losing the game by 20 points. Yeah, admit it, it's a lost cause. No winners, only losers in a war. No WMD, No Bin Laden, No connections to 9/11, No Al Quaeda. No Shit Sherlock.

* Vintage / Classic / Antiques
Euphemism for old, crappy, run-down, or grungy used stuff.

* IPod, IPhone, Blackberry, bluetooth
Pretentious over-priced redundant yuppy electronics that are being glamorized and sexed up for the current Generation E. (Entitlement) I can do without these. What can I say, I'm a Luddite.

* SUVs, Mini-Vans, McMansions, Breeders, Soccer Moms
'Nuff said.

*Black and white in America
America is made up of not only blacks and whites. There are Tan, Brown, Yellow, Red, Pink, and Gray people. Not to mention all the mixed races between white and brown, tan and pink, gray and yellow, red and black, etc. There are many gradations of color combinations of the races in the U.S.A. But you won't see that by reading the tabloid magazines or watching the biased media. I'm sick and tired of media people talking as if there are only 2 races in America.

InDecision '08

"The difference between McCain and Obama is 98 years in Iraq." Howard Dean

Worse of the 2 evils

Why I live here?

1) Mike Luckovich, the finest editorial cartoonist in the world.
2) The Silver Comet Trail.
3) Trees, trees, trees everywhere.
4) The Smyrna Public Library.
5) The Smyrna Community Center across the railroad tracks, where we got married 10 years ago.
6) WREK-FM, Georgia Tech's college radio station. Absolutely amateurish, Unpredictable and adventurous. Juvenile fun, I love it.
7) Voice of the Arts, WMLB 1690 AM Radio. The only AM Radio station that I listen to. Predictably eclectic and diverse. Sometimes too whitebread and structured for my taste. What is my taste? How about playing funk right after bluegrass, then mix in classical and follow by blues. I'm glad that they don't take themselves too seriously and play Comedy once in a while. Refreshing radio really!!!
8) Sweet Tea.
9) Cheap Housing. 900 bucks a month. Five minutes from work.
10) My wife and in-laws.

Howdy from Atlanta AKA Loserville

There aren't many things I like about living in this town called Hotlanta, ATL, A-Town, the new South or whatever the hey they tout themselves these days.

For one, the traffic is RIDICULOUS, the drivers are as rude and incompetent as you'll find anywhere in the U.S., and I have lived in big cities from Los Angeles to Baltimore to Dallas and San Francisco. I have seen more accidents and disabled cars on the side of the roads in my first week here than the entire years I have been in California.  People either drive too slowly on the left lane or zooming by way too fast on the right side.  They don't understand the concept of Going with the Flow. There are many weavers, darters who cut across 3,4 lanes at a time and brakers for no reason.   Now, I personally think it's perfectly safe to drive around 15 miles over the speed limit.  But when people blowing by at 90 miles an hour no matter where or what the condition is just unacceptable and foolish. And they might as well strip off the turn signals or rear view mirrors on these cars because nobody is using them anyway.
Secondly, the architecture is remarkably bland and boring.  Strip malls after strip malls after shopping centers look exactly the same.  Newly built subdivisions with these gigantic MacMansions and their over-manicured landscapes yards and bushes just make me want to vomit or take a whizz on their flower beds.  The developers and leaders here don't seem to care about the aesthetics or environmental effects of what they are building.  Downtown structures have no character or individuality.  Many major cities in America have at least one landmark in their skylines, I can't think of one for Atlanta.  If you know of one, please let me know, I'd like to see it.
Thirdly, the people.  Oh, the humanity of it all!  Of course, this is the Deep South, people are extremely religious.  They also love their guns, their NASCAR, their country music, and their goddamn pickup trucks.  In Kennesaw, a suburb of Atlanta, households are required to own a gun.  Yes, it's true, it's one of the city's ordinances.  You will find all your stereotypical Southern rednecks down heeere.  Jeff Foxworthy is from around here, and he's proud of it too.  So was Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., but somehow I don't think he would be proud of this city if he were alive today.  Southern hospitality my ass! My wife and I (we're an interracial couple) were denied service or just ignored by the waitstaff and the cashiers of many fine restaurants such as Bojangles, Howard's Cafeteria, Cracker Barrel among a few others over the last 15 years that I've been living here (Smyrna, Marietta, Atlanta).  Just recently last month, we ordered and sat and waited patiently for almost 50 minutes until we learned that the waitress did not even put in our orders.  May be it was an honest mistake, but the point was she did not talk or check with us for the entire 50 minutes.  We left after having finished our third glass of water.  We've gotten looks, given the silent treatments, denied service or just plain ignored.  So we know and experience prejudice first hand every day.  The majority of people and their thinking is backwards and way behind the times.  The leaderships of this red state is corrupt and incompetent as in many southern states.

 If I have to make a list of the things I enjoy about living here and it would start with my favorite editorial cartoonist: Mike Luckovich of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.  Pictured above is one of his latest works.  I look forward to reading the editorial pages every day just to see the featured cartoon.

My Mama's 4 Obama

Picture's worth a thousand words

The illustration is titled "The Politics of Fear."

"The cover combines a number of fantastical images about the Obamas and shows them for the obvious distortions they are. Satire is part of what we do, and it is meant to bring things out into the open, to hold up a mirror to prejudice, the hateful, and the absurd."

The appropriate response to this The New Yorker front cover is: Laugh! Enjoy! Bump! Pound bruh! Hollaaaaaaa!. This is the power of art, controversial and provocative. Art isn't just some pretty picture that you frame up and put on the wall. Great art makes you think and even upsets you. It asks questions like what is the intention of the work? What is the artist trying to convey? Is he (Barry Blitt-the artist) successful in bringing the message across? Good artists have the ability to say so much without using a single word. I like the way that artist/cartoonist told a story that would take several thousand words to describe in writing. You also gotta think about the context of the current political climate. It is satire at its best. Brilliant!
This reminds me to post in the future about the reluctance of people to use the word nigger. Relax, people, it's only a word. Words are neutral, they are not racist, sexist or demeaning in and of itself. People with harmful intentions use those words to inflict anger, hostility or hatred. The word nigger itself is neutral. Go ahead, say it with me: Nigger, nigga, niggaz, niggas with attitude, my nigguh. See? Nothing. As usual, it's the context or the intention that makes the word "nigger" ugly. Black people do not own this word, and in America there's this thing called the first amendment, you know freedom of speech. I can say any words like brother tucker, sucker, ducker, hucker, lucker, and yucker all day. And that also gives me the right to say nigger whenever I like. As long I don't intend to hurt anyone, right? Well, Fudd rucker. There are laws that protect my rights to say and think however I want. Own the word, embrace it, and Chill out! It's a word, don't let it control your thinking.

HAPPY BASTILLE DAY !

Insane in the membrane

Grandpa McCain is going to be in Atlanta tomorrow, Monday. Can't wait. He is quite a comedian, ain't he? Bomb, bomb, bomb, Bomb Iran...

Summertime...

And the living is easy...



Sketchin' fun
And oodles of doodles.

Military Mentality

Iran has test-fired 9 missiles today. Here's what I think about that.

"What! They have bigger dicks, let's BOMB them !" George Carlin.

Geez, the bigger dick theory is at work again. These men are so insecure about their manhood that they built these phallic looking bombs and guns and bullets to make them feel better about themselves. Even the fighter planes, rockets and missiles look like penises. Then they fire them off, taunting the other dickheads around the world. Sometimes, the best thing to do is ignore these mofos and go on with your lives. Sure, son, you have the biggest one, good for you, now go home and play with it.

What a bunch of fools. The military has 2 purposes: kill people and blow things up. I have personally witnessed these acts in my first 10 years of life, the entire ten years of the VietNam war. My elementary school was bombed and dozens of people lost their lives. Two millions Vietnamese died in the war. That's 2,000,000. I think a lot of people would change their minds about the military and war if they have a relative or loved one killed in a war. Many veterans did too. War is over, if you want it to.

A Day in the Life

Ahhh, the life of a school teacher. Starting next month I will be going back to the usual 7 to 4, Monday-Friday schedule which includes getting up at 5 AM. But right now this is a typical summer day for me.

My ceiling fan at 7 AM , first thing I see when I get up in the morning.


A cup of joe, java, the brown liquid of life at 8 AM


Here's where I read the morning paper, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.


Checking my emails, surfing the web at 9-10 AM


Drove the kitties to the vet clinic for their second set of vaccines at 11 AM


These 2 kittens: Pablo and Georgia, they're now 11 weeks old. Almost 3 pounds.


Our humble abode, a little bungalow across from a park.


At 1 PM, more light reading from The Intellectual Devotional book that Kathy got from Chattanooga.


Went to Publix supermarket for some groceries at 2 PM



Played some soccer and went to the Gym for about an hour (4-5 PM)


6 o'clock. Got our dinner here because my wife broke her toe today.


Chillin' out and eatin' pizza in the living room. Yep, those are my art work on the wall.


Did some drawing & doodling in my sketchbook at 9 PM


That's all, folks. Back to bed at 11 PM. 'Night! Tomorrow is another day.

cartoon of the week

USA! USA! USA!

More pix from Chattanooga !