Fear not, parents.

My blog is Rated G, apparently.

Oddly enough, my other blog, incoldblog.net, is Rated R because I mention murder several times. Funny, it being about historical crimes and all.

Dude.

Want me to automatically think you’re a jerk without ever meeting me?

Put one of these on your car.

Seriously. Are you TRYING to come off as a stupid moron?

Of course, living in central Illinois, these effin’ things are everywhere. And immediately when I see one, I think the person driving and/or riding in the vehicle is an immature idiot. And I’ve been trying to be less judgmental, so that’s a watered down version of what I really feel.

As an aside, The Onion has weighed in on this issue.

This shouldn’t have amused me…

…as much as it did. (Click for the full-sized version.)

Courtesy of Idiot Comics.

(As an aside, I think it’s funny that I hate cartoons, but for some reason enjoy internet-based cartoons. I’m not sure what that says about me.)

Tennessee Williams on being a writer.

I recently finished the book I mentioned I was reading in an earlier post-Memoirs by Tennessee Williams. Chapter 11 begins with this…

What is it like, being a writer? I would say it is like being free.

I know that some writers aren’t free, they are professionally employed, which is quite a different thing.

Professionally, they are probably better writers in the conventional sense of “better”. They have an ear to the ground of best-seller demands: they please their publishers and presumably their public as well.

But they are not free and so they are not what I regard a true writer as being.

To be free is to have achieved your life.

It means any number of freedoms.

It means the freedom to stop when you please, to go where and when you please, it means to be voyager here and there, one who flees many hotels, sad or happy, without obstruction and without much regret.

It means the freedom of being. And someone has wisely observed, if you can’t be yourself, what’s the point in being anything at all?

Wow. I’ve been pondering this passage for some time now, and each and every time I reread it, there’s a sense of how deeply Williams understood the craft of using words to create.

Lewis Black – End of the Universe

Lewis Black – End of the Universe

Another great comic-Lewis Black.

This is true.

Even if I’m not a librarian, this’d totally work on me.

(It’s not totally clear since I had to shrink it, so click on it to be taken to the full-size version.)

Courtesy of XKCD.com.

A loving tribute to Burger Station.

Oh, Burger Station. How your greasy goodness calls to me, wherever I live in this country.

Burger Station, located in Winfield, Kansas, is quite possibly the best burger joint in the entire world.

“But,” you may say to me, “it can’t be! (Insert your own choice of burger joints here) is much better!”

And you’d be wrong. Very, very wrong.

Here’s the thing about Burger Station. The plain burgers are good. Great, even.

But what transports an ordinary burger into a burger that is to die for is chili. You absolutely MUST get the chili cheeseburger, should you ever be lucky enough to pass through Winfield. It could be a life-changing experience. I’m not kidding.

Part of the charm of Burger Station is the total incongruity of the look of the place versus the tastiness of the burgers. As you can see from my photos, it’s not exactly a shiny beacon.

You can enter from either the door on the left or the door on the right. And you won’t go much farther-it’s just a counter with room for about, oh, five people to stand comfortably.

But being Burger Station, there are never just five people in there. It’s usually CRAMMED with eight or nine people.

And you can watch your burger being made, too. After it’s done, you know you’re in for a great eating experience because, by the time you get to your car to dig in, the sack is already nice and greasy.

It’s just all good. So, so very good. (If the folks who run Burger Station stumble upon this blog entry, please excuse me the next time I come in and order more burgers than one person should logically eat in a week. I can’t help myself.)

Photos of people waiting for the train carrying Robert Kennedy’s body.

I found photos tonight taken from the train that carried Robert F. Kennedy’s body on June 8, 1968. I found them to be haunting and intriguing for a number of reasons-not the least of which would be the impact the man seemed to have on the every-man, not a small feat for someone who wasn’t a President in a time of great racial tension.

(In Googling for more information, I discovered that, at one point, the crowds were so thick on the tracks that two people were actually killed when they didn’t clear the tracks.)

This is a first-hand account of the train that day, including the accident, by one of the federal agents on board.

This is the link to the rest of the photos.

Summer rain.

There are few things I like more than a nice, rumbly summer storm. We’re having one right now.

Thunderstorms are always enjoyable when the tornado danger has passed. During the spring, thunderstorms can be rather nerve-wracking here in the midwest.
Although I will admit, thunderstorms, when we lived in the mountains, were a whole lot more pleasant. There just isn’t anything in this world like the sweet smell of rain in the mountains in the summer. Here, it doesn’t tend to cool anything off, but rather makes it sticky and humid.

Still, though. The rumbly part is nice.

Product Placement.

Quite possibly the best scene in any movie. Ever.