May 28
Big Screen TVs Squashed by UHD
Bigger is Better if You can Stand it
When I was a kid, the “cool” place to sit in a movie theater was in the very back row. As I got older, I realized that defeated much of the purpose of going to the movies: a larger than life BIG screen experience. By sitting at the back of the theater, one essentially makes the 35 foot screen equivalent to watching a 50 inch screen from ten feet away. You can hold up your hand and block out the screen if you want.
I’m now of the philosophy that to fully appreciate the movie going experience, the screen should be just shy of comfortably filling my peripheral vision.
So, it should be of no surprise that, as something of a home theater aficionado, I buy the highest quality big screen I can afford. Currently that means a 75″ 1080p Samsung Series 8 8000 that I bought a year or two ago. If I had my way, I’d have at least a 120″ TV.
I’ve also been working to upgrade my home theater speakers, which included transitioning to Definitive Technology speakers. Having tastes that exceed my budget, I haven’t bought a full compliment yet but I did buy a Definitive Technology center speaker.
And here is where my 1st world problems start: my legacy Ikea TV stand (from the days when I ‘only’ owned a 65″ Sony Vega), is barely large enough for my Samsung, but more to the problem: it does not accommodate my center speaker, so I’m forced to sit my speaker in front of my TV. This is only barley tolerable when I’m watching a letter-boxed movie and the image isn’t blocked by the speaker.
I’m not prepared to wall mount my TV or speaker for the time being, for various reasons, so this problem sent me on a hunt for a TV stand or entertainment center that would accommodate both my center speaker, components and TV without my image being blocked.
This issue is further exacerbated because my speaker not only fires sound forward, but up towards the ceiling as well, so I don’t want to trap it inside a cabinet or under a shelf. So, I’ve spent a good bit of time trying to find an attractive solution and have been surprised to find that there are few good choices to accommodate TVs larger than 65″.
Where Have All the Really Big Screen 1080p TVs Gone?
My search took me both online and to brick and mortar stores like my local Best Buy, and it was here that I was surprised to find 65″ Ultra High Def TVs are now as cheap, or cheaper than my 75″ 1080p TV was a couple of years ago. Perhaps with the release of UHD Blu-Rays and some streaming content starting to be released, it will finally be worth buying an UHD TV. This was a new temptation and I started to fantasize about moving my 75″ TV to another room, thinking I might be able to forego the Ultra High Def and instead get a larger 1080 big screen.
So, I perused the TVs in Best Buy and then later, at home, online and to my dismay, I started to learn that big screen TVs – bigger than 65 inches, have started to disappear. My search finally lead me to this article “Where Have All the Really Big 1080p TVs Gone?” that explained the disappearance: Ultra HD happened. In terms of TV pricing, the race to the bottom has run its course; right now, manufacturers are now looking for reasons to charge more for their televisions, not less.
So, I’ll probably be forced to commission a custom TV stand that fits my needs and I’ll likely be making for UHD TVs to become both big and affordable.
Oh, how shall I ever survive?
Apr 30
Trumped Trump
Donald Trump could almost qualify as a cartoon character, except for the dark rancor that spews from his round, orange mouth. What at first might have seemed like an extension of one of his reality TV shows has long crossed the border into scary fascism.
Here is why I think the man is a danger based on his own words:
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Donald Trump is xenophobic
“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending the best. They’re not sending you, they’re sending people that have lots of problems and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bring crime. They’re rapists… And some, I assume, are good people.”
“Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on. According to Pew Research, among others, there is great hatred towards Americans by large segments of the Muslim population.”
“I have a great relationship with the blacks. I’ve always had a great relationship with the blacks.”
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Donald is antithetical to the values of liberty and justice
“I would bring back waterboarding and I’d bring back a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding.”
“We’re losing a lot of people because of the Internet. We have to see Bill Gates and a lot of different people who really understand what’s happening and maybe, in some ways, closing that Internet up in some ways.”
“I would certainly implement that. Absolutely… There should be a lot of systems, beyond databases. We should have a lot of systems… They have to be. They have to be… It’s all about management.” (In reference to supporting a database and ID cards to track Muslims in the U.S.)
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Trump’s willful ignorance which includes science, history and world affairs
“I am totally in favor of vaccines. But I want smaller doses over a longer period of time. Same exact amount, but you take this little beautiful baby, and you pump–I mean, it looks just like it’s meant for a horse, not for a child, and we’ve had so many instances, people that work for me. … [in which] a child, a beautiful child went to have the vaccine, and came back and a week later had a tremendous fever, got very, very sick, now is autistic.”
“Just so you understand, I don’t know anything about David Duke, OK? I don’t know anything about what you’re even talking about with white supremacy or white supremacists. So I don’t know. I don’t know — did he endorse me, or what’s going on? Because I know nothing about David Duke; I know nothing about white supremacists.” (fusing to condemn former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard and noted white supremacist David Duke, who endorsed Trump for president)
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Donald’s sexism
“You’re disgusting” – said to a female lawyer during a court case after she asked for a break to pump breast milk for her 3-month-old daughter.
“26,000 unreported sexual assults [sic] in the military — only 238 convictions. What did these geniuses expect when they put men & women together?”
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Donald Trump’s pandering
“I love the poorly educated.”
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Trump’s arrogance (and insecurity)
“All of the women on The Apprentice flirted with me – consciously or unconsciously. That’s to be expected.”
“My IQ is one of the highest — and you all know it! Please don’t feel so stupid or insecure; it’s not your fault.”
“Look at those hands, are they small hands? And, [Republican rival Marco Rubio] referred to my hands: ‘If they’re small, something else must be small.’ I guarantee you there’s no problem. I guarantee.”
“I think apologizing’s a great thing, but you have to be wrong. I will absolutely apologize, sometime in the hopefully distant future, if I’m ever wrong.”
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Donald’s immaturity
“I never attacked him on his look, and believe me, there’s plenty of subject matter right there.” (On Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul)
“You know, it really doesn`t matter what [the media] write as long as you`ve got a young and beautiful piece of ass.”
“A person who is very flat chested is very hard to be a 10.”
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Trump maligns, bullies and incites violence
“He’s (John McCain) not a war hero. He’s a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren’t captured, OK, I hate to tell you.”
“There may be somebody with tomatoes in the audience. If you see somebody getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of them, would you? Seriously. Okay? Just knock the hell — I promise you, I will pay for the legal fees.” (Encouraging violence at his rallies)
“That was so great. Who was the person who did that? Put up your hand, put up your hand. Bring that person up here. I love that.” (Praising two audience members who tackled a protester at his rally in South Carolina, Feb. 16, 2016)
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Donald Trump is avaricious
“The point is, you can never be too greedy.”
“The beauty of me is that I’m very rich.”
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Donald’s creepiness
“I’ve said if Ivanka weren’t my daughter, perhaps I’d be dating her.”
“My fingers are long and beautiful, as, it has been well documented, are various other parts of my body.”
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Donald Trump is a conspiracist
“An ‘extremely credible source’ has called my office and told me that Barack Obama’s birth certificate is a fraud”
“I watched when the World Trade Center came tumbling down. And I watched in Jersey City, New Jersey, where thousands and thousands of people were cheering as that building was coming down. Thousands of people were cheering.”
“It’s really cold outside, they are calling it a major freeze, weeks ahead of normal. Man, we could use a big fat dose of global warming!”
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Sadly, ‘The Donald’ might be right about at least one thing…
“I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot people and I wouldn’t lose voters.”
Mar 30
Clown and Pig have Bad Intentions
Have you ever watched a horror film that depicted a possessed or evil doll and thought that it stretches credulity to think that anybody would ever buy such a creepy looking toy in real life?
Annabelle the doll from the 2014 movie says, ‘Take me home. What could go wrong?’
Chucky from the 1981 movie “Child’s Play” has eyes that only a serial killer could find enticing.
Well, wonder no more. I spotted these two evil stuffed toys leering out from the bin of an arcade claw game in a local Steak ‘n Shake, just waiting to dine on the flesh and soul of some foolish suburban family.
Stuffed Clown and Pig will drink the warm blood of your children.
“Here you go kids. – Enjoy your new stuffed toys and sweet dreams!”
Feb 29
Fit to be Tied
Trying to increase my fitness, I’ve been working out six to seven days a week, for 30-90 minutes a day. – A pretty respectable workout routine. And yet, in spite of the fact that I’m going out of my way to pick up weights and run, I get very irritated anytime I forget my water bottle or music and I have to walk a single flight of steps to retrieve them so that I can start my exercises.
Jan 23
Elven and Hobbit Power Tools
Amazon recommendations for me under, “Power & Hand Tools”. Oh Amazon! You know me so well!
Jan 07
December 2015 – Quote of the Month
“The most formidable weapon against errors of every kind is reason.”
~Thomas Paine
Dec 28
India Observations Redux
I’ve been back from India for over a month and thought I’d share a few more observations from the trip to compliment my Bangalore Vernacular post from October.
- There are many road-side options to buy motorcycle helmets, and although drivers often wore them, passengers (which are very common), seldom do. – This lack of head gear includes children and women who often ride on the same bike with the helmeted man driving.
- Many women ride side-saddle in saris as passengers on motorcycles (usually without helmets – as noted above). – A very scary sight: I kept dreading seeing a woman’s dress get pulled into the spokes of the bike – yanking her hard onto the road and into the fast moving, chaotic traffic.
- Even though there is an over abundance of garbage piled along the roads, there is almost no graffiti to be seen.
- Although male-female Public Displays of Affection (PDA) are not to be seen, men platonically hold hands, hug, and walk with arms around each other in spite of the fact that there seems to be strong cultural currents of homophobia.
- Traffic speed is controlled by large speed bumps.
- Motorists drive the center of the road – apparently to maximize the options available to them in terms of lanes and passing.
- Given the very poor state of road maintenance, tire repair and replacement stands are common road-side sights.
- At night, the vast majority of people street-side are men. – Women go missing.
- People seen along the roads, squat as opposed to sit: this includes older people.
- The areas around the India airports of Bangalore, New Dehli and Jaipur (at least), are kept relatively tidy and are complimented with extensive gardens.
- There are swastika (svastikas in Sanskrit) – an ancient symbol of auspiciousness in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. Of course, India had the symbol before the Nazis, but it still catches the eye and one realizes how deep and dark the Nazi symbolism is to the Western eye.
- In spite of the ever-present refuse, markets areas smell good with the scents of flowers and food – only occasionally punctured with something more pungent.
If I had to sum up my experience in India into a bumper-sticker, I’d say that it isn’t always pretty but it is always interesting. Poverty and pollution are realities of India and likely to shock those who have not previously visited a developing nation, (or ventured outside of their Caribbean vacation resort compounds). However, the open minded traveler is well rewarded with a country full of vitality, amazing sights, warm hospitality and countless pleasant surprises. Just don’t drink the water and you’ll be more than fine.
Nov 13
Travel Tip for Parents
A traveling tip for parental units: When the airport luggage carousel is jam pack surrounded with adults trying to get their bags, you’d be wise to move the little kiddies away from the machinery instead of letting them play with it, occupying a much needed spot. Alternatively: keep your mouth shut if your spawn gets clipped by an adult heaving a 50lb suitcase off of a conveyor belt when there is no more than 6 inches of space on either side.
Continue reading
Oct 29
Bangalore Vernacular
I’m a few days into my first trip to Bangalore (Bengaluru), or for that matter: my first trip to India.
A few initial, random observations:
- People are very friendly (but then again: I’m of the philosophy that you find what you’re looking for when you travel).
- Plugs tend to spark a bit when you stick them in an outlet.
- Driving on the road involves extra dimensional spaces that did not exist a moment before your car somehow, wondrously, did not collide with an oncoming auto, motorcycle and pedestrian.
- Vehicles use their horns as a form of echolocation. The regularly send out beeps, testing if the coast is clear and letting others know they are there. Pedestrians, motorist and cyclist do not seem at all perturbed by the regular blasts and few honks seem to be in anger.
- The city is exceedingly vibrant and forever in motion. There is a continues stream of street vignettes: each different from the last.
- Service is top notch.
- There are a lot of street dogs. (A lot more than there are street cows.)
- People tend to be sharp dressers – and women’s outfits are often particularly striking and beautiful. – Makes me wish that we could see some of those fashions take hold in the US.
- Apparently, Indians can’t recognize an American accent when they hear one. Compared to Greece, when every person could identify an American from a block away before ever opening one’s mouth. Indians can have a conversation with you and then ask what country you’re from.
- As we drive on the right side of the road in the US, we also tend to walk down the right side of hallways and rooms. Conversely, in India, everything is reverse. This results in regular confusion and near collisions as I walk down the inappropriate side.
Sep 28
An Absolute Monarchy in the Minds of Men
For all of the humanistic conventions and relative progressiveness of Pope Francis*, that is enchanting the people; here, at the bedrock is what continues to disturb me: the fostering of supernatural, magical beliefs. If the disservice and damage that this magical mindset does among the everyday individual is disturbing enough, it is downright scary when found in the halls of power.
*(Although not reflected in change of doctrine.)
In his congressional office, Rep. Bob Brady, D-Pa., drinks from the glass of water Pope Francis used during his speech to Congress.
As reported in “The Blaze“:
Brady took the glass to his Capitol Hill office where he sipped some of the water. The Pennsylvania Democrat passed it around to his wife and staffers.
“Anything the pope touches becomes blessed,” he told The Post. “I think so and no one is going to change my mind.”
According to The Post, Brady invited Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) to his office to dip his fingers in the remaining water. Brady’s wife and mother apparently also took part in that practice.
And so, one is reminded of Francis Bacon:
Atheism leaves a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation; all of which may be guides to an outward moral virtue, even if religion vanished; but religious superstition dismounts all these and erects an absolute monarchy in the minds of men.
– Francis Bacon
Sep 03
August 2015 – Quote of the Month
The best way to destroy an enemy is to make him a friend.
~ Abraham Lincoln
Aug 30
Based on Your Browsing History, Amazon Recommends…
I take a perverse satisfaction in these screen captures from my Amazon account.
Taken as a group, they paint quite the picture.
- A motion activated light
- A dustbuster
- Wireless video camera with night vision
- A life sized animatronic clown
- 12 D-Cell Batteries
- Mask Latex
- Cable Splitter
Sounds like the making of a hell of a party if you ask me!
Aug 02
July 2015 – Quote of the Month
The world is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.
~ Bertrand Russell
Jul 31
Drive-in
I hadn’t been to a drive-in since my early twenties. That’s some time ago. With summer at hand, and a plan to take Friday July 24th off of work, we found ourselves free to stay out late on a Thursday night (avoiding crowds), so we headed out to the Moon Township ‘Dependable’ drive-in.
We drove about an hour, sat in lawn chairs in fleece jackets in the cool summer air, endured neighboring cars shining headlights into our eyes, watched the Minions movie in a distant screen and listened to thin, tinny sound through old speakers mounted on a pole next to us. My 75 inch high-def TV and surround sound offers far superior visuals and sound.
We had pizza, a corn dog, popcorn and funnel cake buried under powdered sugar. Drive-in health food.
Sunset on the drive-in snack bar.
A wonderful, vintage snack bar intermission between the double features.
… And yet it was wonderful. – A slice of Americana; a dream of summer internal; a heartfelt pull of childhood nostalgia. I salute the proprietors the ‘Dependable’: the staff was friendly, the food was good and they clearly had a love of the vintage heyday of drive-ins.
I’ll happily do it again.
Jun 04
May 2015 – Quote of the Month
Long stormy spring-time, wet contentious April, winter chilling the lap of very May, but at length the season of summer does come.
~Thomas Carlyle
May 31
Only the Essentials Vending Machine
Spotted in the men’s room of the Toronto airport – everything you need for an evening out.
From a vending machine in the Toronto airport – only the essentials – pain killer, condoms, breath mints and tattoos
May 02
April 2015 – Quote of the Month
It is a curious thought, but it is only when you see people looking ridiculous that you realize just how much you love them.
~Agatha Christie
Apr 27
Princess with Medium Skin Tone
I often use Apple’s iPhone Siri to read texts to me. When receiving an emoticon, she describes it. And so I was greatly amused when I received a text with an Apple princess emoji and Siri described her as, “Princess with Medium Skin Tone“.
I think that should be the title for the next Disney princess movie.
Apr 04
March 2015 – Quote of the Month
No winter lasts forever; no spring skips its turn.
~ Hal Borland
Mar 30
Smithfield Street Bridge on a Foggy March Morning
Smithfield Street Bridge on a Foggy March Morning – iPhone photo by Glen Green
(Click photo for a larger view)
Sharing a quick iPhone photo from a beautiful, foggy March Morning as the sun rose behind Smithfield Street bridge. – No crop, no filters and unprocessed.
Mar 02
February 2015 – Quote of the Month
Of winter’s lifeless world each tree
Now seems a perfect part;
Yet each one holds summer’s secret
Deep down within its heart.~ Charles G. Slater
Feb 21
January 2015 – Quote of the Month
Man is the only kind of varmint sets his own trap, baits it, then steps in it.
~ John Steinbeck,
Sweet Thursday
Jan 24
Too Bad Boko Haram Didn’t Deflate a Football
A ridiculous amount of national news cycles has been spent on America’s favorite tax dodgers – the NFL and their latest sports cheating scandal, “Deflate-Gate“. – I’ve watched the story either lead, or take second on the TV news all week.
As if there weren’t already entire series of channels devoted to covering sports, such petty concerns dislodge any number of real-world problems. Take the Boko Haram as a single example. The moment that these barbarians would touch one blonde hair of a white American girl, then we’d have a new war to go to. – But until then, we can hardly concern ourselves.
Protesters march against the killing of over 47 students of Potiskum Government Comprehensive School in Yobe State, Nigeria, Nov. 17, 2014.
Jan 24
December 2014 – Quote of the Month
For disappearing acts, it’s hard to beat what happens to the eight hours supposedly left after eight of sleep and eight of work.
~Doug Larson
Jan 12
November 2014 – Quote of the Month
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone.
It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.
The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities.
It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population.
It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some 50 miles of concrete highway.
We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat.
We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people…
This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.
~Dwight Eisenhower
Dec 30
The Nightmare Before Christmas
Whereas others have decorated their house for the winter holidays – namely, christmas, we’ve kept the arachnid Halloween decorations up in our entryway – Cirith Ungol (Sindarin for Spider’s Cleft, or Pass of the Spider).
All Photos by Yours Truly – Glen Green. Click on images to see larger versions.
In a ravine she lived, and took shape as a spider of monstrous form, weaving her black webs in a cleft of the mountains. There she sucked up all light that she could find, and spun it forth again in dark nets of strangling gloom, until no light more could come to her abode; and she was famished.
– J.R.R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion, Of the Darkening of Valinor)
Shelob
Glow in the dark spiders in the windows
Spider feeds on a painted Dollar Store Hand
Skeleton Hand caught in the Web
Silhouette of Spider back-lit against Halloween Lights
Cocoon Corpse Covered in Newly Hatched Spiderlings
Spider Infested Skull Hanging Inverted from the Ceiling
Spider with Glowing Eyes and Baby Glow in the Dark Spiderling
Cocoon Corpse
Cirith Ungol – The Spiders Pass in the Daytime
Shadow Casting Webs
Giant Spider, Prepared to Drop Down on Unsuspecting Halloween Guests
A Hall of Spiders and Their Victims
Cocooned Corpses Strung from the Ceiling
Dark Shapes, with Many Legs and Webbed Corpses
One of the pleasures of adulthood – you can pretty much do whatever makes you happy insider your own home. For me, that means a hallway of giant spiders will continue haunting and hanging all winter long, because, why the hell not?
Nov 29
Halloween Hands
According to the calendar, Halloween is over, but it lingers in my heart. – I had quite a lot of fun decorating this year. The following iPhone photo is an example of one Halloween project where I took cheap, boring, Dollar Store hands and gave them various treatments to jazz them up. Procedures included painting, stains, melting plastic and gluing on plastic insects. (Also acquired at the Dollar Store.)
The top hand shows the basic, untreated $1 dismembered hand acquired from the Dollar Store.
$1 dismembered hands from Dollar Store – jazzed up
Nov 17
October 2014 – Quote of the Month
There is a child in every one of us who is still a trick-or-treater looking for a brightly-lit front porch.
~Robert Brault
Oct 29
Why I’ll Never Retire
Between the amount of money I spend on and cheap Halloween decorations and on fireworks for the Fourth of July, I’ll never be able to retire.
This weekend, on Saturday the 25th, we had a Big Halloween Bash. In preparation for it, we’d been decorating since late August. What took two months to put up was taken down in quick fashion with the help of a few stalwart friends over the course of five, hustling hours the following day.
The photo above shows the decorations in the basement ‘staging area’, where they’ll be sorted and backed into containers before being stashed into the attic for a few years. (I can only do a party of that magnitude every so often.)
The photo is also noteworthy because it doesn’t show an entire room of decorations that has yet to be taken down. That room is the Spiders Pass (“Cirith Ungol” for my fellow Tolkien fans) – full of giant spiders, webs, and cocooned corpses. That room still stands even now in the anticipation of Trick-or-Treaters. Unfortunately, if last year was any guide, we’ll one have one group of three kids. – Still: those kids will get an eye full and clean up in candy if they come!
Oct 06
September 2014 – Quote of the Month
Remember your humanity, and forget the rest.
~ Bertrand Russell
Sep 29
Giving Up the Ghost from Sticker Shock
I was in a gift shop at a nearby hospital the other day, and since I’ve been keeping my eye out for Halloween decorations, I spotted this little, 3 inch tall ghost:
Not much to it: a cotton ball, black cutout paper eyes and mouth and a small piece of sheer white netting. Not impressed, but curious what something like this goes for in a gift shop, I flipped it over to see the price:
$16.99 (+ tax). I was curious what the manufacture charged, but I didn’t see it for sell on the manufacture’s site Giftcraft.com. Perhaps they’re handcrafted by Italian artisans and only sold on spec.
Sep 08
August 2014 – Quote of the Month
It’s a most distressing affliction to have a sentimental heart and a skeptical mind.
~ Naguib Mahfouz
Aug 31
The Driving Dead
Although I dearly, dearly love summer I’m already thinking and planning for Halloween.
On the negative side, I’m spending way too much on Halloween decorations.
On the plus side, I now expect to drive in the HOV lane thanks to my new copilot.
Jul 31
Ghostly Gettysburg
I had an occasion to visit Gettysburg Pennsylvania this weekend for a little R&R.
As expected, the area is rich in history and amazing stories: tragic and heroic.
But I was also amazed how swamped the area is with ghost stories.
The first hint came when it was posted on Facebook that we were going to Gettysburg for a long weekend. Many people commented that we should be sure to check out –such-and-such– ghost tour, or haunted –whatever-.
And then on arrival, we saw at nearly equal parts, paranormal bunk to actual history in what was being hocked in the stores of downtown Gettysburg.
I begin to realize that people had made the association of ghosts to Gettysburg due to all of the violent deaths that had occurred in the area some 151 years earlier.
As for me: I love a good ghost story. I love fantasy and all manner of fiction. However, I don’t like fiction sold as reality. Of the lot of paranormal pitches that I saw, perhaps the worst was a ‘psychic medium’ because parasitic ‘psychics’ pray on the memories and lives of the credulous.
But beyond that offense to morality, I found the real history compelling enough without having to pretend that some poor solider, who was blown apart in his prime, was stuck for all of eternity roaming the same tract of land.
Images from downtown Gettysburg:
Ghost Walks
Psychic Medium Tarot Card Readings
GPS Paranormal Investigators
Haunted Gettysburg Tours
Gettysburg Ghost Tours
Gettysburg Candlelight Ghost Tours
Fear believes, courage doubts. Fear falls upon the earth and prays. Courage stands erect and thanks. Fear is barbarism. Courage is civilization. Fear believes in witchcraft, in devils and in ghosts. Fear is religion. Courage is science.
– Robert Ingersoll
Skeptical Hippo is Skeptical
Jul 14
June 2014 – Quote of the Month
Sherman made the terrible discovery that men make about their fathers sooner or later… that the man before him was not an aging father but a boy, a boy much like himself, a boy who grew up and had a child of his own and, as best he could, out of a sense of duty and, perhaps love, adopted a role called Being a Father so that his child would have something mythical and infinitely important: a Protector, who would keep a lid on all the chaotic and catastrophic possibilities of life.
~Tom Wolfe, The Bonfire of the Vanities
Jun 24
Mow With Attitude
Shopping at the local Farm and Tractor store, I found myself eyeballing a zero turn tractor. (Such is my life these days.)
“Bad Boy” Elite Lawn Mower
My eye was caught by the ‘Elite’ ‘Bad Boy’ lawn mower.
Elite Bad Boy Control Panel
Looking closer I came to the tractor’s control panel…
Mow With Attitude
“Mow With Attitude”. Everyday I’m reminded that we live in a surreal world.
Jun 15
May 2014 – Quote of the Month
Overheard at a gravesite: “And they all said ’I’m sorry for your loss,’ as if you were someone who could ever be taken from me.
– Robert Brault,
May 30
Beware the Pond
It’s very nice of the tree to warn us.
(Sighted outside of a church wedding this month.)
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