Why does it seem that the cultural pendulum has to swing to extremes?

We have points in society where individual expression tends to be repressed. Just shut up and fit in. Don’t make a scene. Be yourself, but not really.

Then, we have points where we go to the opposite extreme, and it’s do or say whatever you want. Only, it’s not quite like that. You can’t say whatever you want. You still have to fit in to the new paradigm, which is just another form of shutting up and fitting in. Once again, you can be yourself, but not really.

Can’t we have a balance?

Can’t we have a society where you can choose not to use the f-word in every sentence and still be “cool”?

Can’t we have a society where actors and actresses can choose not to do nude scenes and still get jobs? Seriously. Most movies don’t have nude scenes, so why does it sometimes seem a requirement that actors and actresses (especially actresses) do a nude scene before they get offered “serious” roles?

Can we have some balance? Please?

Can we have a society where people are free to worship as they please, and not be treated as second-class citizens, or doorknobs, because of it? A society where religious people and non-religious people can be tolerant of one another? Where we don’t have to push everyone one way or the other?

Can we have a society where we have more respect and faith in one another, and less of the divisiveness which little minds try to foster to pit neighbor against neighbor for their own gain, and not the betterment of all?

Can we maybe have a little more faith in the other guy to be able to manage his (or her) own life, as we do our own?

Can we all realize we need to control ourselves more and others less?

Can we realize that individuals are more likely to learn from their mistakes and large groups are more likely to repeat them?

Can we recognize that it happiness is something to be found within and not by buying more stuff without forcing that same view on others?

Can we find balance? Or are we doomed to repeat the cycles again and again?

If you read any sort of commentary these days, whether in newspapers, websites or blogs, or listen to them on the radio or watch and listen on television (I think I’ve covered all the bases…), it seems that politics in the U.S. these days is driven by wingnuts and loose screws.

The question is which is better.

Think about it.

First, let’s consider the wingnut. Wingnuts are nuts with wings. That means you can loosen or tighten them without tools. Granted, sometimes they may get rusty and you might need a tool or oil or something to loosen them up, or sometimes you might want to tighten them a bit more and use a tool to do it.

But, the basic function of a wingnut is to allow assembly (or disassembly) without the use of tools.

And, that can definitely be a good thing. For example, if something is loose, you can fix it right then and there. Just turn the wingnut a little. Tighten it up by hand and—presto!—it’s fixed.

If it were a regular nut, sure, you might be able to turn it a bit with your fingers, but chances are it’s still going to be loose. And, that means going to the garage or basement to grab a wrench. And, that may mean putting it off, until later.

And that means that the nut stays loose, which could pose a safety hazard. Maybe it’s not a big safety hazard—after all, if it were, you would have went and gotten a wrench. But, maybe it’s something minor. You just have to remember not to sit in that chair until you’ve fixed it. Maybe you’re on your way to see a movie and are running late, so you’ll fix it later.

Well, after a movie and dinner and maybe some shopping or something, you’ve forgotten all about the chair. So, you get home and sit down.

Crash!

You find yourself on the floor. Hopefully, you didn’t hurt yourself.

The whole incident could have been prevented, of course, had the chair used wingnuts instead of bolts.

Likewise for a shelf, a TV stand, etc.

So, a wingnut can definitely be useful and save you from getting hurt. It can save you money too, because, otherwise, your chair could be broken and you’d need to go out and buy a new one. Or spend a lot of money fixing it.

All of which could have been prevented by a wingnut.

On the other side, we see loose screws. What use is a loose screw?

A loose screw is always a potential hazard.

The important thing here is to distinguish between a loose screw and a screw. Properly tightened in place, a screw is good. But, then it’s not a loose screw. A spare screw, that is, a screw that is not in use or installed, is not a loose screw. It’s a spare screw. A loose screw is a screw that is in place but not quite right. It’s too loose to effectively hold things together.

So, a loose screw is a potential hazard.

Mind you, if something is held together by many screws, one loose screw may not pose too great a danger. However, as the number of loose screws increase, the hazard increases potentially.

The bottom line is that too many wingnuts is rarely going to be a problem whereas too many loose screws is a dangerous hazard.

As you may or may not know, because I don’t remember if I’ve mentioned it and don’t feel like looking it up, I have been working on a new design for one of my under-attentioned sites which I will be relaunching, well, as soon as I can wrap things up.

So, if you like reading and talking about science fiction (scifi) or speculative fiction, listen up…

So, if you like reading and talking about fantasy fiction, listen up…

So, if you like reading and talking about horror fiction, listen up…

So, if you like reading and talking about bizarre (bizarro) fiction, listen up…

Okay? I will need some testers. People I know. People I can trust. That means you, if I know and trust you and you’re not a complete psycho.

So, if you think that is you, speak up now or forever hold your peace, or at least hold your peace until the public relaunch of the site, and then only if I decide to let you in then. You know. You hesitate and you takes your chances.

You must like to read.

You must have patience.

You probably shouldn’t be offended easily.

You must be talkative (type-a-tive?).

You know where to leave your pledge to be treated like a number and a guinea pig. Oh, no, I didn’t mean in the Halls of Congress. I meant below…

Seriously. Yet, one of the things I am apparently listed for in Google is “tila tequila haircut”. I know I mentioned Tila Tequila naked before in a post about comment spam, but I’m pretty sure I’ve never blogged about her haircut.

Oops. I guess I mentioned Jenny McCarthy’s haircut in that same post. Well, that explains it. They have both had the same haircut though not necessarily at the same time.

And, speaking of which, if a woman is wearing an apron, she’s not technically naked, is she? She might be naked underneath that apron, but aren’t we all naked beneath whatever it is we are wearing? Still, I get people searching for “naked women wearing aprons” but why does no one ever search for “naked women wearing evening dresses” or even “naked women wearing bikinis”?

Stranger yet, how about the people searching for “esmy yp drr”? What???

Or, what about the person that wants to know “a windy christmas meaning”. Um, it means it is Christmas and it’s windy.

Someone else searched for “woman and man”. Well, that narrows things down.

Others want “woman baking naked”. If they wear a hair-net, would that still be considered naked? That’s an interesting point to ponder. As I said, we’re all naked beneath our clothes, but is head-wear classified as clothes or its own category? Maybe it’s its own category. I don’t think they’d let you go to church wearing nothing but your hat. Maybe some churches. But, I bet there are very few churches that will let you work the soup kitchen wearing nothing but a hair-net.

I also get searches for “nude strange women tails”. Okay.

Others include “how to kill a bold jumper spider” and “should i kill bold jumping spider“. Easy questions. First answer, don’t. Second answer, no. Easy.

I wonder if there’s an italicized jumping spider?

I blame Michelle for this one: “don’t give me no pop, don’t give me no tea, just give me that milk! wisconsin milk!”

How about “people with tail”? There’s an untapped market here. Ha ha.

Someone else was looking for a “vowel-to-consonant ratio of 3:2″. Okay. I’m sure you’ll find the answer here somewhere… Not!

The people searching for this worry me: “kids underwear pics”.

Anyone know how to play the “game of naked apron”?

Well, I guess there is opportunity for all, as some people come here looking for “nude men aprons”.

By the way, if you want a really cool apron with some hot naked chicks, well, you know where to click…

FTC Disclaimer to keep the government pinheads happy: If you buy that apron, I make money. So, you know, please buy the apron.

Someone else was looking for a “tail woman”. So, if you are a tail woman, you might want to submit a photo and a profile. You might get seen by the guy of your dreams on this blog. Apparently, they are out there. On the other hand, it could be women looking for a “tail woman”. I don’t know.

Looking for “christmas fruit cakes for gift giving”? Well, don’t. Most people don’t want them. They are good though.

If they are good ones, that is.

To whoever was searching for this, I guess “tab_hty” must mean something.

I think “christmas regirfting” must be what you do when you get one of those bad fruit cakes.

Oh look, I got someone searching for “megan fox“. How disappointed they must have been. You know, kind of like the people that pay to watch her “act” in anything.

Cruel, I know.

Still waiting for someone searching for “nancy pelosi loose screws“. Ha ha!

Of course, I will be really worried if I start getting people looking for “nancy pelosi naked”.

Of course, the most popular search term for the month so far is “yblagulous“. That’s kind of sad, really.

Maybe I need to put up some pictures of naked women wearing aprons?

Nah. You don’t have to worry about that. They all run away screaming when I ask them.

A long time ago, I (quite accidentally) learned a way out of doing memes.

Some bloggers, of course, refused to do them on principle. But, back in the day, memes were all the rage. You don’t see them as much anymore.

At least, I don’t.

I used to get tagged by memes (and, in turn, tag others). But, sometimes you get tagged by memes that just aren’t as easy to do. So you put them off.

Well, if you put them off long enough, you may not have to do them anymore!

Accidentally, of course.

One day, I decided I would try to knock out some memes with which I had been tagged. I found one that I had even started, so I figured that would be a good one to finish off, seeing that some of the work was already done.

So, then I followed the link to where I had been tagged, to refresh my memory of what I needed to do, only the post was gone. Completely gone.

What?

The blog was still there. The blogger was still active. But, for whatever reason, the meme post was gone. Kaput. No more. Deleted, I suppose. Vanished without a trace.

Huh?

Who goes back and deletes an old meme?

Was it because other people didn’t do it either?

Why go through the effort of deleting it?

I don’t quite understand. I mean, I’ve done memes and tagged people and they never did finished the meme. But, I didn’t go back and delete it.

Well, I guess I got out of doing that meme, even if it was partially finished.

Normally, I don’t blog about dreams, namely because no one cares.

But, since I’ve been under the weather and am fresh out of blog post ideas, well, we have to dig down deep. And, since I’ve, in the past, turned some dreams into short stories or such, why can’t I turn a dream into a blog post?

Seriously, the only other idea I have is a discussion on “under the weather” and how far can I take that, really? I mean, no matter how we feel, aren’t we always under the weather? Maybe if you’re in a plane, you might be in the weather, maybe, but most of the time, you are under the weather no matter how you feel.

Except, of course, if you are on the International Space Station, in which case, you’re above the weather. And, in which case, you’re probably not reading this blog, so it’s a moot point anyway.

So, anyway, many moons ago when I was still school-aged, I had a dream where I was in school. The bell rang and I headed for class. Then, I realized that this is summertime and I’m not in school! This is a dream! This is what is known as lucid dreaming; that is, you realize you are in a dream and can pretty much do whatever you want.

Which is what I did. I decided I wasn’t going to class. I would go elsewhere. But, what about all those kids crowding the hallways? No problem. I will just walk through them.

And so I did.

That was, of course, until I walked into a vampire, who was convinced he was real.

Yeah, you can’t make stuff like this up.

I don’t know what you call that. I guess a regular dream became a lucid dream which became a regular dream again. I suppose. Who knows?

Anyway, that was many moons ago. And, my encounters with vampires in my dreams have come a long way since then. Apparently.

Before getting into last night’s dream, I should probably preface that by mentioning that the last blog post I read (saw, remember, etc.) yesterday was this and the last thing I watched before going to bed was Sanctuary. And, being that last night’s episode was about vampires, well, you can add two and two together and see where this is going…

So, anyway, in this dream, photographic evidence was uncovered of a vampire that looked just like Speedy. There were all sorts of old photos of Speedy with fangs, showing that, indeed, this vampire had been around for a long time. But, instead of realizing the best thing might be to just keep that sort of thing to himself, Speedy decided he wanted to expose this vampire to the world.

Mind you, going around saying there’s a vampire that looks just like you isn’t probably a good idea to begin with because people will just think you’re nuts, the other thing is that it pretty much paints a big ol’ target on your back for the whole vampire community that wants the world to continue to believe they don’t exist.

At this point, I should also mention that I tried on new gloves yesterday too. Don’t you just hate it when the fingertips are just a little too long and they sort of bunch up when you press on something? It’s so hard sometimes to find gloves that fit, well, like a glove. So, gloves were apparently in the back of my mind too. The importance of this will become apparent later on…

The gloves were all black, by the way. I like black.

So, anyway, since Speedy was intent on exposing the vampires and since this would no doubt result in his death, I decided I had to protect him. So, I wiped out the vampires.

All of them.

In the world.

With a thought.

Yeah, I’ve come a long way since that vampire that wouldn’t let me walk through him since he was convinced he was real.

So, that was that. For that dream, anyway. In the next one, I was 16 again and back in school.

At the mall.

Yeah, times have changed. I was 16 again, but knowing all I know today, like one of those movies where you have a big meeting at work and you wake up and your mom’s yelling at you to get ready for school. So, anyway, they were teaching school at the mall. And the teacher was probably only a couple years older herself, if not 16 as well.

And, instead of textbooks, we had printouts. Dot-matrix printouts on pin-feed paper. Figure that one out. So, I’m flipping through this thing, which has class schedules and stuff, but very little in the way of actual stuff that would be in the textbook. Thinking I’m not paying attention, the teacher calls on me to answer a question. Since I wasn’t really paying attention, I look through these pages to find an answer, only nothing makes a lot of sense.

At some point I realized that I graduated years ago. I didn’t need to go through this again. So, I left and I caught an elevator with some slightly older kids. I told them I’ve done all this before and I was tired of hanging out with 16 year olds.

This elevator was kind of funky too. It had tools on display behind glass.

So, anyway, we reach where ever we were going, and I tag along with this group. Except that they are there to rob the place.

Well, I can’t let that happen. So, I think I grab the lead guy’s gun and put it to his head. As the tip of my black glove scrunched against his head because the fingertip of the glove was longer than my finger, I realized I didn’t have his gun but was instead making a gun with my gloved hand and putting it to his head.

Which can’t be good.

But then Little Too woke me up because she had to go potty.

So, yesterday, I posted a challenge for you.

Well, sad to say, it was a trick question. There is no snowman. Just pretend he melted.

You can kind of see a skeleton head in there if you look at it real hard. Or an alien.

What? You don’t believe me? Okay, here…

See him there? Compare with the original image. Drawing the lines obscures it a bit. See it?

You just can’t make this stuff up.

Okay, you can. But I didn’t actually put that skeleton dude in there. It is completely random, and mostly in your overactive imagination. But, you see him now, right?

Well, I was on track to beat November’s traffic levels as well as last December’s traffic levels, to make this the best December ever* in terms of traffic on this blog.

But, then I got sick and had to resort to lame posts, which didn’t help traffic. Though it didn’t hurt it as much as one might think, but it’s still a dip that threatens to make this not the best December ever in terms of traffic on this blog.

So, you know, you got a couple lame posts, which I managed to finish up and post and schedule before almost passing out. So, they might be lame, but I kind of think you should appreciate the effort I put into putting those lame posts up.

And you may be in for more lame posts, such as this one, because I’m not back to normal yet.

Anyway, so for today’s post, your challenge is to find the snowman hidden in the image above. Answer tomorrow. And, by that, I mean I’ll give the answer tomorrow; you give your answers today. Okay?

*Probably. So far.

Thoughtless Thursday

Bought Less Thursday

Caught Less Thursday

Doubtless Thursday

Droughtless Thursday

Grout Less Thursday

Pout Less Thursday

Route Less Thursday

Wordless Wednesday

Boardless Wednesday

Bored Less Wednesday

Cordless Wednesday

Ford Less Wednesday

Gourdless Wednesday

Hoard Less Wednesday

Poured Less Wednesday

Roared Less Wednesday

Swordless Wednesday

Toured Less Wednesday

Toward Less Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday