Best Quotes from the New Tumblr Terms of Service

Before I could log on to Tumblr today I had to agree to their new (Jan., 27, 2014) terms of service, privacy policy, and community guidelines. On a whim–and because it was a snow day–I decided to read them all the way through.

Check Out My New Trivia Blog

Since March 2011 I’ve been writing a weekly trivia quiz presented every Tuesday night at Cups Coffee & Tea in Roanoke, VA.  It’s kinda like a traditional “pub quiz,” except without the beer, fried food, or unruly drunk people. (The people are still, occasionally, unruly, but they’re less likely to punch you in the face or puke on your shoes at the end of the night.)

A Blog Post I Wish I Had the Time to Write

Douchebag McGee, the Quran-burnin' "pastor"

I try not to be a blind re-poster, but this is the most damned sensible thing I’ve read in a while.  It’s the kinda thing I wish I’d had time to sit down and write myself.

I don’t always agree with Jason Linkins’ stuff on the Huffington Post, but I dig his style and I’m with him 100% on this whole “Ground Zero Mosque/Burn a Quran” nonsense.  Check it out.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/10/this-is-how-the-media-wor_n_712229.html

Rhizomatic Awesomeness

This post is really about an awesome blogpost I found called “Hyperbole and a Half.”  The post I loved so much is called “Things that can make you feel like an idiot almost instantly.” So those of you who want to skip my meanderings and jump right there, go ahead.  It won’t hurt my feelings.  But…

For those looking to kill a bit of time online and learn some cool things, read on.

Hot Mormons

Hot back in the 1970s...in a 1970s kind of way

Here’s the best overheard snippet of real-life dialogue I’ve heard in a while.

“I’m not going to join a fucking religion just because they have hot chicks.  They’d lock me up in some temple and you’d never see me again.”

So sayeth the maintainance man from my apartment complex to his co-worker as a gaggle of young Mormon missionaries drives away in a minivan. 

BristoLevi 2.0

I never much got into relationship-centered reality t.v.  No Bachelor or Bachelorette for me, no The Hills, no Housewives of Anywhere, and certainly no New Jersey Douchebags or whatever that show is called.  But I swear to God, if Bristol Palin and Levi Johnston get their own show, I’m on that like white on rice.

Separating the Art and the Artist

Mel Gibson’s got me thinking.  In case you hadn’t heard, fresh evidence has surfaced of his piggish treatment of women and his raging bigotry.  TMZ has a recording of a pretty vile conversation he had with the mother of his most recent child, where he tells her she’s a bitch and a whore and she deserves to be raped by a gang of black men because she dresses provocatively.  (Of course, he didn’t use the term “black men.”)  Apparently he’s been quoted as telling the mother of his most recent child that, when he hit her, she deserved it.   All this makes me wonder if the millions of devout Christians who loved Passion of the Christ so much will still sing his praises.  And that, in turn, started me musing about the line between art and artist, the point at which an adoring audience will give up on one of their favorites, and the question of whether it’s moral to support and fund and praise the art and work of someone you find detestable.

Kevin is not amused

[Here’s a guest blog from my cat.  We just moved to an apartment in a new city, and he seems to have lots of opinions about the whole thing.  I did the transcription and translation, so any errors in the manuscript are my own.]

Boxes and Books

The thing about moving, see, is that it’s all about boxes.  Finding boxes, sorting boxes, packing boxes, loading boxes, moving boxes, unloading boxes, unpacking boxes, re-sorting boxes, and getting rid of boxes.

Prejudice, Apartment Hunting, and White Liberal Guilt

Here’s what I recognized recently:  there’s nothing like exploring neighborhoods and looking for apartments in a city you’re unfamiliar with to reveal how prejudiced you actually are.  Like many graduate-degree-holding, NPR-listening, artsy-fartsy liberal types, I always like to tell myself that I’m above the sort of bigotry that I roll my eyes at when it’s demonstrated by folks I’d generally consider unsophisticated, ignorant thugs.  Spending a couple days driving around a city looking for cheap apartments, however, reminded me that I have some thuggish impulses occasionally, too.