Addendum: Scared yet?

Residual effects from that time in the HJ, perhaps?






Kinda makes you take the Lord's name in vain, doesn't it?

A little help for my countrymen

Regard:

As you and I know, my fellow Americans, this is an escalator (or a picture of one, rather). Aren't they helpful? They help us to ascend and descend with ease and comparative swiftness. Such nice things, except for when they eat childrens' shoelaces; and really, whose fault is that? Was it the escalator who didn't teach you to "make the bunny ears," "loop, swoop, etc."? Probably not...but I digress. See, as much time as Americans spend on escalators, one would expect that they would know how to use them. But, during my Christmas shopping trips, I was confounded once again by the complete lack of any such understanding. It wasn't that people were falling while getting off or tripping while getting on, or even getting their shoelaces caught. It was the fact that people, generally groups of people, will get on and stand there, sedentary, on both the right and the left. Here's my point:

STAND ON THE RIGHT.
MOVE ON THE LEFT.

That. is how. it works. It's like driving on a multi-lane highway; drive in the right lane, pass on the le...oh, wait, yeah, a lot of people aren't getting that, either. Anyway, unless you want me to start carrying a shiv and using it on you as you stand there blocking my way, learn how this works. It's easy, really. Just repeat yourself, "Stand on the right, move on the left." You could even shorten it, "Stand right, move left."

Just get out of my way, for the love of all that's holy, you idiots.

Habemus Papam

Yes, indeed we do have one. It's just that after watching the mini-series about PJPII last night, I miss him. In this particular discussion/remembrance, I choose to forget that he was, appropriately, very old-school Catholic and might have thought I was going to hell for taking BC, and I am concentrating on the fact that he was the cutest Pope EVER. When they get Thomas Kretschmann (see Fig. 1) to play him, that says something (I'm going to go ahead and ignore the mini series, also about PJPII, that stars John Voight, see Fig. 2, and airs in but a few days).

Fig. 1

Fig. 2

John (Señor Unsavory) Voight.

And today, as I was perusing Manolo's Shoeblog, er, WORKING, I was again moved to thinking wistfully about our Polish Johannes Paulus. This is—partially—why:




This is also why:


Compare and contrast, kids. I don't know where I saw it, but somewhere in my surfing, I saw a picture of PB16, and it was captioned, "BOOGADA BOOGADA!" Apt, no?