Happy New Year

Auld Lang Syne
Robert Burns

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot and days of
auld lang syne?

For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne,
We'll take a cup o' kindness yet
For auld lang syne

We twa hae run aboot the braes
And pou'd the gowans fine;
we've wander'd mony a weary foot
Sin' auld lang syne

We two hae paidled i' the burn,
Frae mornin' sun till dine;
But seas between us braid hae roar'd
Sin' auld lang syne

And here's a hand, my trusty friend,
And gie's a hand o' thine;
We'll take a cup o' kindness yet
For auld lang syne

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot
and days of auld lang syne?

For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne,
We'll take a cup o' kindness yet
For auld lang syne

Changes!

As you can see, I have changed the look of the blog. As a result, all my links and things have been lost so I have to redo them. The links will be back to normal soon. It may have been time for some house cleaning anyway. Chris and Christina, you haven't updated in so long, I am likely to cut your links. If you still read this crap, now would be the time to let me know so that I don't axe you.

I Finally Get to Play the Smart Kid

My pie-in-the-sky goal for my Graduate program is to graduate with honors. In Grad school (at least at UCO) that requires a 4.0 grade average the entire program. I'm off to a good start. Here are my fall grades:

Shakespeare's Comedies: A

Playwriting: A

Heroes and Heroines of the Bible: A

Working full time and taking a full time graduate course load has convinced me of what I have suspected all along: I NEED pressure to thrive.

He'd Better Be Worth It

I Will Read for Pleasure.

I finished the last two of my finals today, which means that I am done for the fall semester and one forth of the way to my MA. With the much deserved and needed three weeks before the spring semester I plan to read at least one Samuel Beckett novel, get back into my lately lax work out routine, and delve into my mission to learn Hebrew for real.

Grades forthcoming...

Air Conditioner Monster Caught!

The tree huggers at opossum.org claim:

They are exceptionally non-aggressive and non-destructive. They will not dig up your lawn, chew wood or wires, or create burrows.

After $1,100 worth of repairs to our air ducts, I disagree with them (though I must admit that I think a raccoon did the biggest part of the damage). Either way, this AC monster is caught and will quickly be disposed of in some fashion by the exterminators.

UPDATE:

Well, we have more than one. We have another opossum in another vent...and who knows how big the family is. It is to the point now where I am requesting prayers!

"Since 1892"

I may have been in college before it really occurred to me that this was not a Christmas carol.

When the B. C. Clark Christmas Jingle first aired, certainly no one could have predicted that over the years it would become the Oklahoma tradition that it is today. Intended to promote B. C. Clark’s annual Anniversary Sale, it has evolved over time into Oklahoma’s own Christmas carol.

The Jingle was first written and produced in 1956, and soon it developed a life of its own. The public made that clear in 1961 when B. C. Clark produced a new jingle thinking the original one was dated and had run its course. It was replaced with the old familiar one within hours, after a barrage of complaints

I Think It's Time for a Treatise to The Public

From the AP:

NEW YORK - The man gunned down in a spray of 50 police bullets on his wedding day was buried Saturday as hundreds of angry demonstrators honored him with a moment of silence before going jaw-to-jaw with police in a bitter confrontation outside a Queens precinct house.

The demonstrators taunted police, standing just inches away from a row of officers and daring the police to lay a hand on them. Some in the crowd held signs reading "Death to the pigs" and "Shoot back."

Perhaps it's time for the major Police unions to come together an issue a proclamation to the public reading something to this affect:

Whereas you the public have decided that we are the bad guys and;
Whereas to nonregardance you have cast our lives in favor of the lives of criminals and;
Whereas you have proven that you are totally ungrateful for the sacrifices of our brothers and the pain our families have felt and;
Whereas you believe that you are better able to interpret and enforce the law than we

We hereby resign our commissions as your protectors and agree only to the following job description:
1)When someone burglarizes your homes and your cars, we will respond and take a report.
2) When someone assaults you and robs you, we will respond and take a report.
3) When someone murders your children, we will respond and take a report.

Here are the acts that we will no longer do, as you have made it clear that you do not want us to:
1) We will no longer enforce traffic ordinances in attempt to make the roadways safe.
2)We will no longer patrol the streets of your neighborhoods.
3)We will no longer do active surveillance on known drug dealers.
4) We will no longer actively search for or pursue fugitives.
5)We will no longer respond to calls in which we may place ourselves in danger or, worse yet, endanger the lives of your valuable citizens.

In short, we will no longer risk our lives or the lives of our friends to assist a citizenry that has proven that it would rather not have us.

If after a sufficient period of time our absence proves to have been worse than is our presence and if at that time our citizens have adjusted their opinion of our value, we will be prepared to re-negotiate our terms with society.

Signed,
The Police Officers of the United States

Cops in a snowstorm

Since we had to get our cars out of this stuff just to go to work... (at the time our shift started, our division had seven cars stuck in ditches and snow banks)


We spent most of the night doing this,


And we did a little of this,


Until it was time to come home to this.


Ahhhhhhhh. What a day.