Haven’t posted anything in a while, but couldn’t resist doing so when I came across the following (someone’s signature actually):
Capitalization is the difference between “I had to help my uncle Jack off a horse..” and “I had to help my uncle jack off a horse..”
> amazing how superstitious humans are. I had a travel agent come to my place of work. The receptionist handed him a tag with the number 13 on it and he bluntly refused it saying he would accept any other number but 13. “13 is the most unlucky number”. I asked the receptionist to please give him another tag. I jokingly mentioned to him that at least it wasnt Friday the 13th. And the man is a pastor 
I will no longer accept all this limitations placed on us by our environment e.g., gravity. Why can’t I fly, why can’t I move an object by exerting my mental powers (telekinesis), why can’t I put a thought directly into another persons head (telepathy). i am going to put a small object at an easily accessible place in my room and every day from now on, spend 5 minutes attempting to move it simply by willing it to do so! Let’s get started!
Had quite a vivid/terrible dream yesterday. Must have been close to the morning I think. In it there were 3 or four girls from my set back in school. And I knew in the dream that they were dead. And there they were digging their own graves and already the graves were knee deep. They had this zombie expression on their faces. In the same place I was modeling a woman and the structure must have been quite big because it appears I was looking up at it from behind. And I was thinking the skirt was too short and in the manner of dreams I could increase the skirt’s length by just drawing a new line at the place were I thought should be the proper length. I woke up shaken and started praying for the girls’ safety. Thankfully I think I can only remmeber one for sure now, but when I first awoke I was sure of 3 of the four faces. Someone close was also arranging and re-arranging what appeared to be stuff from some god’s shrine in the same dream.
If you can lay your hands on a copy of Amazing Grace (2006) - you should watch the film. It’s about William Wilberforce’s effort to pass the bill that ended slave trading in the British empire at the close of the 18th century. Of course slave trading (or owning of) continued especially in the Americas for another seventy years or so. Consider it part of your cultural education (especially those who find it a pain to rid history books).
If you can get a copy of “City of God” - it’s a must watch. It’s based on a true story of a slum in Brazil and it’s occupants struggle for survival amidst gangsterism fueled by drugs and poverty.
(08/08/2008)
Cut my hair myself on Saturday. Since I literarily skinned it, it wasn’t too difficult. I just stood in front of a mirror and ran the electric clipper over and over again all over my head. Of course I couldn’t see the back so i went over that portion several times just to make sure it was smooth. Would be the third time or so I would be doing so. My barber seems to have moved away so until I find another I am comfortably with, I will probably repeat the process when next I feel like a hair cut
I was told a 42-year old married Nigerian mother and Dentist by profession died recently in the U.S. of ovarian cancer. She was married to a Nigerian medical doctor. The story is quite complicated but from what I gather she had been responding to treatment in the US when the husband decided the whole family was moving to Nigeria. I guess her condition must have detoriated rapidly in Nigeria. Learnt she practically dragged her weakened self back to the U.S. unaccompanied by neither the children nor the husband. She checked into a hospital, an operation was performed, but when they opened her up, it was decided that nothing could be done to save her and she was given 3 weeks to live. She died about 2 weeks later.
I am not pointing accusing fingers at anyone because as is usually the case, the true story may be more complicated than the version which I got. I “feel” for the lady and her family.
I have always felt knowing when one would die may be a good thing - especially if one hadn’t suffered too much from the ravages of the disease or condition. The psychologists would probably talk about the various grieving stages such as denial, anger, acceptance etc. I think it allows one to make peace with self, God and others. Sort of take care of one’s affairs.
What’s happening in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somali, Pakistan, etc just helps to strengthen the case made by the evolutionists that we originated from some single-cell micro-oganism (and all that’s in existence from some big-bang way back in time)
Because human life has become a dime a dozen (ok, it’s always been that). If we dispose of each other worse than the animals do, what then makes us better than them? It’s said that a man who does not read is not better than a man who cannot read. Same goes for us humans who claim we have brains but refuses to use them.
Bombs kill people in Iraq and other places. A girl of 13 complains to the authorities that she was gang-raped by 3 men and the authorities decide that she was guilty of adultery, fill a stadium with over 10,000 people and then proceed to stone her to death in front of the willing spectators.
(Spoiler alert - this piece is not complete!)
Dear Margaret,
Yesterday was the first of April. After thinking till my head hurt about what prank to play and who to play it on, I came to the realization that all the people within fooling distance were fools and may not appreciate emphasis being placed on their foolishness on a hot day in April.
I got on a scale this morning and discovered that I had sweated 2Kg off in the last week and not through exercising but because of the heat. It is literarily as hot as hell and my conviction has been strenghtened that come hell or high water I must make heaven! There is of course no better wish/prayer for a person on this side of the pearly gates than the saying “May you be in heaven 5 minutes before the devil knows you are dead.”
I do not (of course) intend to go soon but as they say “sh*t happens.” Apart from the heat everything is dandy.
Now that the plesantries have been done, I think I will proceed directly to the meat of the matter for which I am disturbed enough to decide to write you at this early hour.
I have given it much thought and come to the unfortunate conclusion that this thing between us won’t work and there is no future in it.
I didn’t make it to church again! I was too wasted to get up - drifted in and out of sleep (and no, you evil minded person thinking evil minded thoughts about me - it wasn’t a typical hangover! I just didn’t go to bed early enough
I promised myself several times now to make one of the in-week services, but I always seem to have an excuse (sometimes valid) whenever the time rolls around. I need to make an extra effort as my soul is in danger of …
My barber seems to have moved away, so I asked one of the workmen demolishing the next building to hop in and give me a skincut in exchange for lunch - well you know how that turned out! Actually, I asked my younger brother - and he did an OK job (not his first time of course). It could have been smoother of course, but since I decided at 10PM to get a cut, coupled with the state of the light, I have to live with the consequences. And if anybody makes fun of me and asks awkward questions such as “did you use a knife to cut your hair”, I could always reply “no, your brother did”
I haven’t been getting enough sleep lately, I think it’s the computer - I am always at it day and night. I really need to get a life. Even though “edgy” is not a description one would normally apply to knife, still it conjours images of “sharp and mean” which is good? No? But when applied to a person it connotes touchy, snappy, ready to break?
By the way, that barber’s disappearance is kind of fishy - maybe he destroyed some groom’s hairdo on the eve of his wedding and the groom set his posse of 7 groom’s men on him (one could only wish)
Social Commentary 5 (July 2008):
At the Greyhound bus station:
One “nigger” to another customer at the counter (making appropriate gestures)
“You have a great body, it would look even better on my phone.”
(Meaning he wanted to take a picture of her using his phone)
After whatever expression the lady gave him facially, he said laughing: ”Just playing with you!”
Social Commentary 6:
“Know Pain” - the signboard of some clinic just on the outskirts of Richmond I believe. I suspect it’s run by some non-native english speakers (no offence meant - probably Asiatic). I wonder how much custom they get with that signboard - “Know Pain” - indeed!
The person was obviously chasing me with intent to do me harm. After a long run, I ended up in a vast desolate landscape with shrubs and a few scattered trees hinting at denser forest on the horizon. The feeling it evokes in me is almost sadness coupled with awe. I soon came to a deep and wide chasm (the bottom was not visible). The only way across was a 10-story vertical slim “pillar” make of huge blocks stacked one on top of another and loosely held together by mortar. The was connected to a similar vertical pillar on the other side with a strip of land probably the same length across as the pillars were tall and about 4 feet wide. It looked really old and I got the impression that the surrounding land must have been at that level until something happened and everything fell away leaving only the “bridge” at that level.
I scrambled up the sides. At the top, there was a tractor balanced precariously and exactly the width of the thin strip of land that linked both sides together. It was so tight there was no way to get on top of the strip and I had to make my way across hand over hand hanging over the chasm. The strip began to unravel and as it came down, I swung to the pillar on the other side amidst the debris of the collapsing walkway. I then made my way down. I continued to run and from a distance I could see that he was able to make it across the chasm by jumping over the rubble from the bridge. I kept running and soon came to a settlement. I asked a group of people sitting down under some shade how I could get to my home town (strange) and an old man got up and asked me to follow him. He took me through a fence unto a windy tarmac road with clay-red earth on its shoulder. He said I should be able to get transportation from there. I thanked him and for some strange reason discovered I knew the place where I now was, and how to get to my home town. Then I woke up. I am sure I have seen that same setting in a dream many years ago when I was much younger - go figure.
(original draft on May 30, 2008)
The sentence below is from “The vanishing hitchhiker” (http://www.snopes.com/horrors/ghosts/vanish.asp) . The last part “before things went to hell in a handbasket” just tickles my fancy for want of a better way to put it. It’s something I can re-read like 10 times and still want to read again. Certain novel combination of words (yes, I know it’s not new) just moves me that way.
Quote: “This form of the legend often surfaces in the wake of a natural disaster, with the encounter said to have happened maybe al of a week before things went to hell in a handbasket.”
You may want to visit the site itself - it’s about urban legends.