Speaking of Zombies.................

The Zombies..............................It's Alright With Me



The Zombies.................................Tell Her No




The Zombies....................................She's Not There



The Zombies......................................Time of the Season

Collateral..........................

"I could never convince the financiers that Disneyland was feasible, because dreams offer too little collateral."
-Walt Disney

Practice................................

"I know you've heard it a thousand times before. But it's true - hard work pays off. If you want to be good, you have to practice, practice, practice. If you don't love something, then don't do it."
-Ray Bradbury

image via mme scherzo

Life its Ownself......................

The educational opportunities never stop.  Unfortunately, learning is optional.  For those interested in the more advanced of studies - go here.

You can always invest in real estate.......

Happy................................

The Carpenters......................Merry Christmas Darling

Argue..............................

By and by Lord....................

Will The Circle Be Unbroken.................The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and a lot of friends, including Johnny Cash, Roy Acuff, Chet Atkins, Bruce Hornsby, Chris Hillman, Ricky Scaggs, Levon Helm, Bela Fleck, Jerry Douglas, Roseanne Cash, Earl Scruggs, Marty Stuart, Emmylou Harris, and many more.

Advice............................

thanks dennis

Thoughts..............................

"If you can't read and write you can't think. Your thoughts are dispersed if you don't know how to read and write. You've got to be able to look at your thoughts on paper and discover what a fool you were."
-Ray Bradbury

image via mme scherzo

Punditry.....................................

Greg Mankiw on the post-partisanship presidency
"Reasonable people can disagree about whether President Obama is a good or bad president.  But the claim that he has tried to transcend partisanship and find a middle ground is just impossible to square with the facts."

George Will on bewitchment:
"Even Jonathan Swift, who said that promises and pie crusts are made to be broken, might have marveled at the limited shelf life of Barack Obama’s promise of a “balanced” deficit-reduction plan — substantial spending cuts to accompany revenue increases."

Paul Krugman on health care costs
"The point is that if you want to control Medicare costs, you can't do it by kicking a small number of relatively young seniors off the program; to control costs, you have to, you know, control costs."
  "The key is having a health insurance system that can say no - no, we won't pay premium prices fro drugs that are little if any better, we won't pay for medical procedures that yield little or no benefit."

Victor Davis Hanson on being a confused misfit:
But what we cannot stomach is all the sermonizing about “fair share” and “play by the rules” and “the one percent” from those who seek to be exempt from their own rhetoric. Can’t Warren Buffett keep quiet and just leave his $50 billion to his heirs — and let the wonderful federal government do what it must with a $30 billion estate tax on his earnings? Can Bill Gates’ people really manage the Buffett $50 billion better than HUD or HHS? And if so, why a HUD or HHS? 

Walter Russell Mead on health care by lobbyism
"The law is a blunt instrument; fixing the health care system by government fiat is like neurosurgery with a hammer. It’s going to hurt more than you think, and will harm more than it helps. Let’s hope politicians figure that out before too much damage is done."

Darlene Love................................Christmas

Space....................................

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
-Viktor Frankl

Hate it when that happens.......

Tyranny..................................

Why do I get that uh-oh feeling every time I notice that the mileage number on the little oil change sticker thing on my windshield has been exceeded by the number on my odometer?   I know that my car's motor oil does not need changed every 3,000 miles, even though the sticker says it does.  The friendly Ford Motors owner's manual says to change every 7,500 miles is plenty often enough.  Yet, exceed that magical 3,000 mile number on the sticker and the internal pressure starts to mount.  Turns out I'm not alone.  The psychology behind this pressure to change oil is sort of impressive.  Even though it is a waste of money and stresses our beloved Gaia, we continue to be tyrannized by the little stickers.  Full story is here.

thanks Craig

Grandma knows best..........................

Big Ray meets Santa.  Full story here.  One of life's greatest lessons, up close and personal.

Don't.......................

The Rolling Stones...........................Play With Fire

The art of prediction...............

Tom Asacker revives his 2009 New Year predictions - here.   It is well worth reading.  A sample to whet your appetite:


7. Success will go to those with the best questions, not those with the cleverest answers

Do you know the definition of an expert? An expert is someone who knows more and more about less and less until he knows absolutely everything about nothing? And a generalist? A generalist, like so many afflicted with digital A.D.D., is someone who knows less and less about more and more until he knows absolutely nothing about everything. Successful people know that they’ll never know enough, especially about what really matters. So, they pay attention. They catch on and refocus rapidly. They never stop trying and learning. They’re driven by the questions, by their desire to understand and to change things. 

“All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure.” —Mark Twain

Words.......................

"What is it that we humans depend on? We depend on our words... Our task is to communicate experience and ideas to others. We must strive continually to extend the scope of our description, but in such a way that our messages do not thereby lose their objective or unambiguous character ... We are suspended in language in such a way that we cannot say what is up and what is down. The word "reality" is also a word, a word which we must learn to use correctly."
-Niels Bohr

Shouts..............................

"We are the miracle of force and matter making itself over into imagination and will. Incredible. The Life Force experimenting with forms. You for one. Me for another. The Universe has shouted itself alive. We are one of the shouts."
-Ray Bradbury

self-portrait of Giacomo Balla
via Mme Scherzo

Self-correction..................

Nicholas Bate and the art of - here

Tending to agree....................

via

Think I met him at the Mall.................

Run Run Reindeer.................

Beach Boys............................Little Saint Nick

Babe..............................

Spirit...............................I Got A Line On You
(psychedelia alert)

Pick your fights carefully...............

via

Opening paragraphs...................

"When people call a private investigator because someone they love is missing, especially a child, the fear bubbles in their voice like boiling lard.  When Nita Morales called that morning about her missing adult daughter, she didn't sound afraid.  She was irritated.  Ms. Morales phoned because the Sunday Los Angeles Times Magazine published a story about me eight weeks ago, rehashing a case where I cleared an innocent man who had been convicted of multiple homicides.  The magazine people came to my office, took a couple of pretty good pictures, and made me sound like a cross between Philip Marlowe and Batman.  If I were Nita Morales, I would have called me, too."
-Robert Crais,  Taken

Sure seems like it....................

via

About those Mayans......................

href="http://www.december212012.com"> The Official Countdown

Reeling like a merry-go-round......

Chuck Berry.....................Run Run Rudolph

Downsizing....................

Go far away..........................

The Rose Garden............................Next Plane to London

Sippican Cottage...................

............where the parenting is first class.  Read this.  Short version:

"I advise you to get a little boy or two and watch them. They're better than television, and use less electricity."

Finish lines.........................

Sean Carpenter points to four videos of fabulous finishes.  Never give up!

Checking...........................

Springsteen.................Santa Claus Is Coming To Town

Advice.............................

Nicholas Bate points to some sound advice.  Reminds me of a favorite saying around our long ago fraternity house (usually spoken when we were about to make some silly choice): "Never let book learning get in the way of your education."

A lot............................

"Reality leaves a lot to the imagination."
-John Lennon

via

Look beneath the disguise................

Sam...............................

"I wonder how many men, hiding their youngness, rise as I do, Saturday mornings, filled with the hope that Bugs Bunny, Yosemite Sam and Daffy Duck will be there waiting as our one true always and forever salvation?"
-Ray Bradbury




Thanks Jeff

A strange, strange world.............

Four Jacks and a Jill.................................Master Jack

Aberrations...........................

One important thing to remember about single family residential construction is that the the years 2000-2006 represent a far greater aberration than where we are today.

thanks bill

Althouse on parenting............

Ann is all fired up on homework, "equality", and parents.  Can she get an Amen!?    Full post his here.  Excerpt here:

"Leave the kids alone, let them go out and play, and the forces of nature should do more than wealthy parents taking them to lessons."

Peace and harmony.......................

Bon Jovi.............I Wish Everyday Could Be Like Christmas

Here come the regulators.....................

The Spirit of Enterprise blog disbelieves in my favorite law, "the law of unintended consequences."  Full post is here.  Money quote is here:
"The destruction of farms and other economic value to preserve open space may or may not be worth it. Let us not, however, hear that any such consequence is "unintended" when it is entirely foreseeable. Foreseeable consequences are intended, whether or not they are desirable. Remember that when assessing the value of any regulation."

Just check him on Facebook...............

via

A difference maker................

thanks david

The pursuit of happiness (circa 2012)......

.....according to Mathew Brock.  Don't know if he is totally right, but I suspect he is a lot right.  Full story is here.  Excerpt here:
"The American Dream does not always include buying a house, nice car and high salary. It means being free to do what makes you happy. Older generations need to recognize younger generations may have a better idea of what happiness means than they ever did."

thanks craig

Ooops......................

via

Steve Allen presents......................

The Five Americans...............................Western Union

Ringing............................

 Here's my Sweetie ringing the bell at the Salvation Army's red kettle yesterday.  The generosity of the Newark community continues to amaze me.  A very high percentage of the Wal-Mart shoppers were willing to put money in the kettle.  What was really fun was watching parents hand some very young children a dollar or some change to teach them an early lesson about giving.  Very cool.

Glowing............................

Andy Williams..............It's The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Reckoning...........................

    "Say that we are a puff of warm breath in  a very cold universe.  By this kind of reckoning we are either immeasurably insignificant or we are incalculably precious and interesting.  I tend toward the second view.  Scarcity is said to create value, after all.  Of course value is a meaningful concept only where there is relationship, someone to do the valuing."
-Marilynne Robinson, When I Was A Child I Read Books: Essays

Willingness..........................

Every departure from the Tao
contaminates one's spirit.
Anger is a departure, resistance a
departure, self-absorption a departure.
Over many lifetimes the burden of
contamination can become great.
There is only one way to cleanse oneself
of these contaminations, and
that is to practice virtue.

What is meant by this?
To practice virtue is to selflessly offer
assistance to others, giving
without limitation one's time,
abilities, and possessions in service,
whenever and wherever needed,
without prejudice concerning
the identity of those in need.

If your willingness to give blessings
is limited, so also is your
ability to receive them.
This is the subtle operation of the Tao.

-Verse 4
Hua Hu Ching:  The Unknown Teachings of Lao Tzu
Brian Browne Walker

Eye of the beholder........................

File this one under "Hey, wait a minute."  A list of twenty of the ugliest buildings in the world is here.  Here are two I concur with:

Here are two they left out:

Here is one that should never ever be considered ugly; Newark's own, the seven story Longaberger Basket office:

Know................................

via