Epic Guide

Our friend Aaron Finfrock passed away this week.  I and hundreds of people paid tribute to Aaron’s life.  I was moved by his family and friends’ show of love of his life.  I think that some things in life are truly sacred, one of them is death, because I believe that in death we all have a renewed life with God.

With that said, I am absolutely disgusted by out local paper, the Press Enterprise.  I found a nice obituary about Aaron on PE.com, which was disgustingly used as media for advertising space. I’m alright with banner ads and that sort of thing, but placing text ads links (flowers, gift shop, donate)  right in the body of the article, that’s wrong. Would I like to buy something when I’m reading a tribute to the life of a young man?  Who would want to buy something in an obiturary? How can death be used to directly make money?

I guess the Press Enterprise is exactly what its name is, Enterprise of the Press.  We know the “Press” isn’t much more than the presentation of some bias view of something, but rarely do we really see what the press is, the bias of money over ethics.

I will never, as long as I live subscribe to the Press Enterprise.

Google does it again, and blows us out of this world. Google has sent its search engine software to Mars, well…. at least they have a cool map of Mars.

I like talking about Google and our world. Like my last theory that Google and Yahoo are going to be the fall of China, Google has taken it’s Google Map software and inserted a topographical map of Mars.

It’s pretty cool and you can even see where the spacecraft have landed, check it out at http://www.google.com/mars/

I’m not one to give praise to Al Jazeera often, but I don’t want the rest of the world to be ignorant either.  The official website for the Anti-American network is the dot net, not the dot com.  So the next time you try to bring down the website with an American brut force attack, make sure it is http://www.aljazeera.net, you’ll know your in the right place because it wont be in English.

What does Al Jazeera mean?  The Peninsula in Arabic.

So, I was in class, yesterday. I gave my kick-ass presentation with my group.

This 40+ year old know-it-all says, “I like your print job, but your presentation had too much information.”

I said, “I just bought a new printer.”

So, it’s his turn to do his presentation. He absolutely blows it. Not only did it suck, he had too much information, it didn’t work, he spent too much time doing a scary video advertisement… it goes on and on and on. His own group was about to shoot him.

So after all of this pathetic stuff, the guy asks the class if he could put his personal website up on the screen so we could all review it and fill out a questionnaire.

So, here it is, http://www.phantombones.com, it’s a bit scary, but if you manage to look around the odd content, you’ll notice something………..

It really is apparent when you look at my company website, that I personally designed, http://www.redfusionmedia.com

So what do you think? I’m flattered, he stole my website, and not only that, I get to fill in his questionnaire.

Question 8a). What do you think of the navigation?

My answer. I rate it a 10, because I designed it and I know it is perfect, see more at www.redfusionmedia.com.

So at least I got that going for me. That’s my story and I’m sticking too it.

What is common sense but the general assumptions made by a society that inevitably are proved wrong, generation after generation?

“Common sense” in America is defined by cost and benefit.

For instance, it’s “common sense” to say that purchasing a car worth $20,000 for $15,000 is a good deal. This works very well economically speaking. Unfortunately this paradigm doesn’t work so well for other aspects of society.

Socially for example, marriages are failing because we weigh their effectiveness on a cost/benefit paradigm. How benefitial is it to get married to this person? What can they offer me….money, affection, power, status, attractiveness? Unfortunately, all of those attributes change. People can lose money, they can stop being affectionate towards you from other life experiences, they can lose power, status, and we all eventually become less attractive. And so then there’s this whorrible (I spelled it that way on purpose) sense of insecurity in marriage, because people are constantly reassessing how well their marriage is working based off of a system of cost/benefit. Marriage should be a COMMITTED relationship, not a cost/benefit, economic partnership. Marriage should have nothing to do with “common sense”.

Thomas Merton was a trappist monk from the 60’s. He advocated social change. He led anti-war and anti-nuclear development movements. He met with the Dalai Lama and Thich Nhat Hanh to promote peace with people of other religions. He talked about the irony of the fact that Catholics were more concerned with birth control than the war. Maybe we should think about our priorities as a nation…Maybe the religious right should stop fighting gay marriage and start fighting for more important issues like poverty, war, and social justice. Maybe leftist thinkers should stop trying to attack Bush’s intelligence and integrity and offer some solutions to crisis relief, healthcare and education.

“We have only to open our eyes and look about us to see what our sins are doing to the world, and have done. But we cannot see. We are the ones to whom it is said by the prophets of God: ‘Hearing hear, and understand not; and see the vision, and know it not’”

- Thomas Merton

 Our sins have much to do with preoccupation.

The Seven Storey Mountain - Thomas Merton

The Art of Happiness: A Handbook for Living - Dalai Lama

 Peace Is Every Step : The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life - Thich Nhat Hanh

NEW YORK — Paul Tagliabue is retiring as NFL commissioner in July after more than 16 years on the job.

The 65-year-old commissioner has led the league since 1989, when he succeeded Pete Rozelle, and had recently signed a two-year contract extension to complete the television and labor deals.

He finally got that done 12 days ago, finishing the most arduous labor negotiations since the league and union agreed on a free agency-salary cap deal in 1992. - ESPN

I think that Tagliabue has done a great job.  Starting with the keeping the league together though some tough negotiations over the last few player deals.  He also needs to be commended for the toughest drug programs in all of sports.  It is great the NFL hasn’t had the same sort of issues as Major League Baseball.

These are the fish that Jon is so facinated about.

A great piece of art, the real look at American taxes. This is a great visual look at how much our government spends. I’m not surprised at the military spending, that is to be expected during a war, and after 911. It is much more disgusting how much our country spends on entitlements, so take a look.

Click on the Death and Taxes artwork to see a larger view.

Our best friend, T.O., Terrell Owens finds himself a new team. I will always remember the good old “place the ball on the star” move. It was always better than the “Sharpe” thing, and a lot better than the crap T.O. dished out to Philadelphia. The final word, Owens will help the Cowboys, and I think he’s tired of being the bad boy. Here’s a good ESPN story on T.O.

Basketball - man, the more I watch basketball, the more I wonder, “what am I doing with my time?” We’ll at least I didn’t pick Kansas to go deep. I do think that the Gonzaga guy is pretty good, and I have them going deep.

Brett Favre, I love the guy, but I think that he will retire.

Baseball - I’m tired of the World Baseball League of “Don’t Try To Hard”. How can they call themselves American when they lose to a bunch of teams, Canada, Korea, Mexico, and we stole a game from Japan. They don’t want to loose there pay check, but they don’t mind loosing respect.

Canada? How the hell do we loose a baseball game to Canada? Give me a break!