Prepping for a secular wedding

Tina and I are prepping for the sweet-ass wedding we’re shooting this weekend in Maryland. Have you heard of it?

Regular-reader Luis V. and his fiancée Becky F. are joining together in matrimonial bliss … only they’re doing it without god, or gods, or Buddhas or Buddhas dressed up as gods.

And little old me and Tina, too, are going to be there with bells on and cameras hooked around our necks.

One sticky point to the whole thing is, I hurt my back earlier in the week.

Yeah.

Seriously.

Don’t tell Luis. Or Becky.

They’re busy entertaining guests right now. Shhhhhh.

What happened, you ask?

Well, I’ll tell you.

I was out with Lu on Monday afternoon. We were having a good ol’ time. I chucked the ball. She brought it back. At one point, I looked at her and asked, “Are you limping?”

She looked at me and said, well, nothing. Talulah doesn’t understand a word I’m saying.

But she looked at me and limped away.

So I said, “Let’s go inside.” And she followed, albeit limping, like she knew what I was saying.

When we got to the stairs, Talulah was just pathetic. It’s three flights to our apartment. So I leaned down to lift her up … with my back — not my knees — and when I tried to stand up, I felt something yank in my lower lumbar that felt worse than when a woman has your scrotum in her mouth and she turns to look at the TV without opening up.

Don’t tell me it’s never happened to you.

Anyway, I thought for sure I would be rocking it by the weekend in time for the wedding. And up until Thursday, I wasn’t rocking anything.

Finally, I bought one of those worker belts that everyone wears at Home Depot. And I also swam at the gym on Thursday, which seemed to be great for the injury.

I feel okay now. And damn if I’m going to let a little back injury stop me from kicking ass this weekend.

But just imagine me, wearing my suit, with a Home Depot back brace and suspenders on. It’s going to be great!

Stay tuned for pictures and stories.

Stories of large fish that I’m going to catch.

(BTW, don’t I look like I’m pooping in the picture above?)

Thanks, Bill for the shot. It’s great!

Do you know how you can tell Monopoly is an old game?

Graphic reads, You can tell monopoly is an old game because there’s a luxury tax and rich people can go to jail.”

Via Tastefully Offensive

If you show one side of the all mighty, shouldn’t you show the other?

There’s a video from a religious singer named Chris Tomlin called “How Great is our God.”

Apparently it’s all the rage in churches and praise services everywhere. In the video, there is beautiful photography, ostensibly showing God’s grandeur in nature.

But showing that is a bit beguiling, as nature has many dimensions.

Here’s the video recut with just as appropriate footage.

Thanks, zqtx!

Wait, there aren’t enough seats in your megachurch?

 

I saw this update on Facebook:

If we could somehow reclaim all the people who were once a part of the Body but have pulled out, hurt by the church or the people in it, I wonder if we would have enough seating to hold them all?

How many responses can I come up with?

Firstly, people like me who leave the church don’t do it because of the church or the people. The people and the church, the socialization and the support if you will, are the reasons to stay. We leave because the message stinks. Heck, “God” isn’t why we leave. The reason is thanks to self education about religion, mythologies, the sources of those inspirations and the result of those inspirations.

Secondly, believers are worried about having enough chairs in the event the masses that left suddenly came back? Does that mean these people want to build bigger churches, just in case? Most of the churches I know about offer multiple services. Wouldn’t one creative idea be to add another service? That sounds like a great problem to deal with once that problem faces you head on.

Thirdly, it’s heartening that there are so many who have left the fold that should they ever decide to return, there wouldn’t be enough space.

Wondering about the amount of seats in your church. Is this a weird version of greed?

How might you respond to this?

2008 version of FOX News: “the president has no control over gas prices”

The 2012 FOX News is debating the 2008 FOX News in a vicious battle that may result in blood shed and bitter riots.

About the video:

Uploaded by mediamatters4america on Mar 5, 2012

Following GOP strategy, Fox News is again blaming the Obama Administration for rising gas prices — a claim that has been repeatedly debunked by energy analysts. But back in the summer of 2008 when the average U.S. gasoline price hit a record high of $4.11, Fox said that “no President has the power to increase or to lower gas prices” and the only way to reduce our vulnerability to gas price spikes is to use less oil.

Ignorance *is* bliss: homeschoolers pen song for Santorum

 @JoeMyGod, you may want to post this one. 

Never watched cable or read a magazine, Camille and Haley Harris wrote and performed the above oeuvre with the gusto of ignorance never before seen!

Because if you live in a bubble with only the ideas your parents taught you, you might feel strongly about … their views!

How about that!

Phenomenal.

More about the duo here.

Via The Daily What

Sometimes I wish Talulah would act like a dog

Tina and I are those people … those pet people.

When we go grocery shopping, we wear our matching t-shirts with Talulah’s dear face screen printed on them.

Or when we go to Target, we wear our matching Zoe hats.

While other parents tell nauseatingly endless stories about their kids and laugh, we tell Talulah stories and laugh. We go out of our way to make sure you’ve reached the end of your rope. And then we tell you another story just to seal the deal. When you’re back in the privacy of your home, you say, “Gosh, Jeremy and Tina are nice and all, but freaking let up on the Talulah stories! I mean, I didn’t get to finish my story about little Johnny picking his nose and then eating the booger!”

And then we email you a picture of Talulah sniffing her butt.

Talulah is like a child to us, though. Just like other parents, we leave our child alone for hours at a time. Talulah isn’t allowed on the furniture unless she’s invited, and if we come home and notice the couch pillows are awry, we point at the couch and say, “Ta-lu-lah … What is this? Talulah? Wha…”

And Talulah lowers her head with shame, cowers into a ball, and faces the other way. She often army crawls out of the room.

Or at night, we tell her to go to bed, which is a large dog pillow just beside my side of the bed.

Everyone has snuggled down, and the lights go off. And then we hear Talulah stir. Usually that means she wants to get up in bed. To which we say, “Talulah, go lay down. Go to bed.” But sometimes she gets up to retrieve her Alligator squeezy squeaky toy that we call Talulah’s baby.

She finds it where ever it is in the house, brings it back to bed and cuddles with it.

See, Talulah is sooooo cute, don’t you think?

The View on Kirk Cameron

I half regret writing my tongue-in-cheek headline yesterday about Kirk Cameron.

I don’t want him to shut up. Like I said about Rush Limbaugh, he shouldn’t be censored. He should be allowed to say whatever the hell he wants, and deal with those consequences.