JUS2LIN

Now, again for the very first time, using phrases that, like "As Seen On TV!," lose their meaning because fewer and fewer people are watching original programming on the stationary screen (or using stationery)...

We give you [fingernail filing sound, Ms. Foley, please]

MANADEE, a cross between Xanadu and a manatee, but not a cross between Manwich and Sandra Dee.

Life is vanity and then you die.

Thanks to Robert and Beonca at Rave Motion Pictures; Tami at Beauregard's; Serge Ibaka of Oklahoma City; Amway Center in Orlando.

My father reminded me of the urban myths passed around in his childhood during the rollout of the Rural Electrification Initiative (originally authorised by executive order in my father's birth year), that when you saw plasma arcing from big power lines, it was the sign of invisible alien ships recharging.

He's 76.  He's earned the right to reminisce.

Dumbfounded = colloquial mashing of dumbstruck and confounded.

When freedom is just another word for business opportunity, I take down my American flag and replace it with the GE meatball.

Let's be honest here.  Washington and Jefferson weren't into proletarianism.  They were into the right to build your own business and determine how to redistribute your wealth the way you wanted, not the way neighbourhood thugs, poor do-gooders or despots wanted.

After all, we call it lobbying, not bribery.

After all, my wife and I built our wealth the old-fashioned way, we earned it one dollar at a time, saving at least 20% of our income and sometimes as high as 50% along the way to retirement so that when we get old, Uncle Sam is not our sole personal benefactor.  Sure, I'd like to spend our wealth now, but delayed gratification will pay off better.

Social networking is fine and good.  I enjoy virtual class reunions.  I like sending out well wishes and prayers via emails, IMs and such.

In the process of using free social networking tools, I share demographic (I almost said democratic) data in the hopes I won't notice getting pigeonholed into buying a product that I really don't need or isn't really good for me.

I eat raw oatmeal (cooked in the microwave for 2:05), bananas, and whatever is available at the local/chain restaurants where my wife wants to eat a dinner meal together with me.

I don't eat reconstituted oatmeal and oatmeal byproducts mixed with a slurry of sweeteners and other unrecognisable goo.

Call me un-American, if you will!

Trapped in the hell of processed foods and overpriced celebrity clothing lines.

The average modern lifestyle is Purgatory, is it not?

Live as an example to others, but to yourself first.

I leave you in the realm of sleight-of-hand billionaires who promise they only have your best interests at heart, if not your heart health in their best interests.

Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, I'm hooked on whatever you're selling 'cause I'm easily fooled.

If we did away with everything called the public interest, are you willing to step up to the plate and bat for your team that'll have to fund its own interests?

Are there enough people out there willing to pay for pure science and abstract art, those who truly understand that science/art is the bag of seeds for tomorrow's crop of new business opportunities?

Are you willing to hire and educate marginal employees, knowing you and your team have the skills to pull the non/antisocial crowd into the Way of Profitable Living?

I just keep on keepin' on, 'cause that's all I've got left to do, my retirement nest egg at the mercy of the rest of our business interests.

I'm not trying to make fun of us for the sake of laughter - I'm making fun of us because I see what you don't see in your comfortably unhealthy lifestyles.

This civilisation is taking all us lemmings over a cliff, sooner than you think.

Sure, it's inevitable, but we can delay it a little longer this time, I believe.

Imagine you're from another planet, and you're observing our planet in hopes of learning from the dominant species how to save your planet from repetitious bloom-and-doom cycles.

Of course, the dominant species type on Earth is a microorganism.  How is a typical microorganism adjusting to the changes of global weather and local ecosystem rearrangement caused by the recent boom of growth of a minor species, Homo sapiens?

Can any one species see its interconnection with others and act when looming catastrophe is evident?

I don't need the Book of the Future to see that answer, unfortunately, because I already know how the global ecosystem is like a closed-loop system.

We still have the chance to send representatives out of this snowglobe before it's completely shaken up and our recent round of technological achievements dashed against the thin atmosphere we breathily call home.

Otherwise, we're happily repeating ourselves.

Sigh... Otherwise, we're happily repeating ourselves. [yes, I had to say it]

Mmm, this Kool-Aid is good.  Did you add something a little spicy?  Cough, cough.