Mawwage! That bwessed awaingement.

Yes, "The Princess Bride" is a favorite movie of mine.

But on to the meat of this entry. Something that's been going around for a while on Facebroke really summed up what I think about marriage.

If you want to get down to brass tacks, my wife and I are not "married". Due to issues with visitation and her ex-husband's creepy Oompah-Loompah vibes about his children staying in a house with two people who are "living in sin" (yet he now lives with a woman who he has not yet married and his children) we were forced to get a quick Justice of the Peace jobber at the county courthouse. Unlike our first marriages, this go around was a marriage license and some county clerk to read off a standard form and a signature on the dotted line. 

No religious personage officiated our marriage, it was totally a civil affair. A "Civil Union" if you'd like.

But, this is still considered a "Marriage" in the eyes of Local, County, State, and Federal Government. We have the right of survivorship, she is listed as a beneficiary on my insurance as my wife, we can file "married" on our Income Taxes, no one asks us if it was a full church do when we introduce ourselves as each other's spouse.

If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck...it's a fucking duck. And in the case of marriage, everyone agrees that we are married.

So what is the modern definition of a marriage? Marriage as it stands today in this country is a civil union that is officiated by someone whom the state recognizes as being able to sign the paperwork and officiate over the ceremony. This can, but is not required to be a religious personage. 

So gay marriage. What's all the fuss about? What's the objection?

• Religion? You never hear on the news about how the Pope is pressuring the governments of the world to ban marriage to atheists, pagans, secular deists, and the like so it can't be about that.
• Love? Marriage is used by many as an easy entry into the US and often the immigrant pays good money for someone to put up with them as a spouse until permanent legal status is obtained. So it ain't love.
• Child-rearing? Wife has long since had her last child long before she met me. She can not have any more. Elderly couples get married long past their childbearing years. People who are infertile get married all the time so it's not about reproduction. 

When you cut to the chase, Marriage (as the civil union that can be but does not necessarily be ratified by a religious personage) is simply an arrangement purely to afford extra services and benefits to people who claim life-long commitment to each other in a court of law.

Sounds a lot more like a legal contract doesn't it?

As the blurb wandering its way around Facebroke says...

That contract should not be limited to any particular gender any more than any other. If two men or two women can start a business together or buy a car together, why should a contract that allows them to share benefits or share insurance be any different? Once you strip away the distracting and unrelated questions of sexual practices and religious beliefs, leaving only the civic and legal agreement that is a marriage license, you quickly realize that there is no sensible argument against allowing same-sex marriages.

And another fun issue is the whole "Sanctity of Marriage" bullshit. Why do I call it bullshit? Isn't something to strive for? To keep the religious aspect of marriage pure? To keep it the way that it was in the Bible?

Well if that's the goal of organized religion...it suffered an EPIC FAIL worthy of the icanhascheezburger network's Fail Blog page. We have...

• Charlie Sheen and his "Porn Family" he wanted to create.
• Britney Spears and her 55 hour marriage
• Kim Kardashian and her 10 Million Dollar wedding that only lasted 72 days. That's just 12 days longer than my $30 World of Warcraft 60-day game time card.
• Larry King and his 8 divorces. Whatever happened to "Til Death do us part"? Having been through a divorce myself, I'm not trying to be a hypocrite. But eight times? Might want to be a bit more careful in picking a potential mate there.
• Jessie James, Tiger Woods, Newt Gingrich, Bill Clinton, and the "far to numerous to mention here" people who could not keep their peckers in their pants.

So really? Is allowing two guys or two gals to marry really going to add another black eye to the already battered and abused institution that is marriage? Really? Is it? By allowing it are we really going to have Nazi's riding on Dinosaurs causing the end of the world? 

So what's my take on the whole thing? Personally I do not want to see the rights of religion used as toilet paper in this debate. As much as I rant on about how a number of religious organizations out there want to see it banned forever, I do not want to force same sex marriage onto them.

Religion should be free in this country. If a church does not want same sex marriage, they should not be forced to perform the ceremony. They should have the right to say "We believe this way and that way does not include Adam and Steve!".

Fine. What would then happen is that there would be a major shifting in religions. People who are for equal rights for everyone will head to the churches that believe likewise and the people who are intolerant of such things will head to the churches that are equally intolerant. 

I'm groovy with that and I think that if that were the compromise that eventually occurs, most homosexuals and people who are "Straight but not narrow" (I love that phrase) would have no problem with it and would move on to more pressing matters in their lives. 

A PSA notification to my friends.

As a notification to our friends I am here to announce that we are getting a pet snake. This is going to cause some of you to freak out, some of you already have, and others are going to range from not caring one way or the other to "What kind didya get?"

1. The type of snake we are getting is called a ribbon snake. 
2. It will not hurt you.
3. It is not going to grow much larger than the thickness of a pencil.
4. It will not hurt you.
5. It is going to get about two feet long which is small as snakes go.
6. It will not hurt you.
7. It is not venomous.
8. It will not hurt you. 
9. It is going to be living in my stepson's room.
10. It will not hurt you. 
11. If you do not want to see it you do not have to as it will be behind a closed door.
12. It will not hurt you.
13. It will be in a terrarium with a securely locking screen.
14. It will not hurt you.
15. It is not strong enough to force its way out of said enclosure.
16. It will not hurt you.
17. It eats crickets and feeder gold fish so you will not see frozen and dead rodents in the freezer.
18. It will not hurt you. 

With that in mind, there is no reason to fear going to my house. You need never see it, you need never get near it, you need never go into the same room as it. 

Please remember that my wife is as deathly afraid of snakes as many of our ophidiophobic friends are. This was her idea as she could not stand to see her son disappointed by the fact that his father would not let him have a snake. If she can deal with living in the same house with a snake, there is no reason to freak out over visiting. 

That is all.

And did I mention that it is not going to hurt you? 

Just checking.

Fishing with Jesus.

Coming back from the store a few towns away we passed a church that had a sigh that said "Fishing with Jesus". I'm assuming that it's some sort of sermon...but I can't help but to take it to a stranger place.

Read this with your best Jeff Foxworthy/Redneck voice in your head.

Lo there ma children'. Today on "Fishin' with Jesus" we're fishin' on ol' lake Witchahatchee and today we're gonna show ya how ta catch some big ol' lunker bass.

We got our old buddy Judas here in the boat with us. Course lotuvya might remember Ol' Judas caught the biggest bass ever caught on our show, and like all our guests, ol' Judas let 'im go. We had ta whack 'is ass with a boat paddle, but ol' Judas finally let 'im go.

And hey, another thing, remember conservation is everybody's responsibility, so when yer out on the lake drinkin' beer, don't jus' fling yer cans outta da boat, fill 'em up with water, make sure they sink to the bottom.

And speakin' of beer, looks lak ol' Judas drank the last one out ta cooler again. I know I gave that sumbitch 30 pieces of silver to get more afore we left. Come ta think about it never got the change back either.

Now where's that daggum boat paddle again?

Yep...think my muse is high on acid, tripping balls again.

Why do I tinker?

Two years ago I bought one of those solar patio lights. You know...one of those you see in Walmart for $4-$5 that you can line a path with.

http://www.lampsplus.com/products/Set-of-4-Crackled-Glass-Solar-LED-Outdoor-Path-Lights__R1326.html

Granted this place has them at about $15 each but Walmart had one that was similar with the glass globe but not as well made as these are.

Well it died recently. So I decided to take it apart and see what was wrong.

Popped in a new battery and it was working again. So I took out the battery and put in a new Rechargeable NiMH battery (replacing the old and busted NiCad one). I also disassembled the unit and cleaned out the globe (full of bugs) and the solar panel (covered in dried crud). Put the whole thing back together and it is working like a charm.

A lot of people would ask "Why?"

"Why would you spend the better part of an hour digging out the tools, taking the unit apart, cleaning everything up and putting in a battery that costs about half of what the light fixture itself cost? Between the battery and your time you could have just bought a new one and had done."

Yes those people would be correct. The 2-pack of rechargeable batteries costs more than the light. And with my skills I could charge $10 per hour for my time. More even. But that's not the point.

There are two main points. The first one is that it gave me ideas.

While taking it apart and seeing how it is made and how it ticks...it gave me ideas. Ideas like mounting it onto a wooden staff and making it into a wizard's staff for Halloween, Cons, Cosplay, or even better making a bunch of them and selling them on Etsy. Keeping one or more for myself of course.

Then even more ideas. Get the translucent glass paints (for making the faux stained glass) and paint it different colors. You get the nifty crackle but in whatever color you want ranging from a dignified blue for manly wizards to a sinister red for dark lords of the arcane to "Pretty pretty princess" pink for...

Well I'd say for girls who want one but I've seen too many Anime Convention pictures where the rather large, obese, and only slightly less hairy than your average Wookie men try pulling off Sailor Moon.


[shudder]

Even more ideas involve getting a different LED and replacing the one in the unit. Get one of the color changing ones and frost the inside of the glass either with etching compound or with the Glass Frosting Paints that Krylon has.

But that hour of tinkering gave me so many ideas and fed my imagination. That's got to be worth something right?

The other reason I tinkered was for a more profound reason. There are so many things that are out of our control in our world. Unemployment, Global warming (or cooling...I lost track of which one it is this week), World Hunger, Disease, Politics, The Economy, Rampant Corruption, Crime, Drugs, the Ice Capades...

Sorry...had to throw that one in in honor of George Carlin. If you get it you know what I mean.

But the news loves to bash you in the head about how horrible things are. About how we the viewers are as private parts to the powers that be. They play with us for their sport and there's sod all we can do about it.

This was a challenge. Could I resurrect this device? It's not up there with coming up with a cure for HIV or the common cold, it's not as history changing as discovering the Higgs Boson. But it was a challenge. It was something that I had the power to influence. It was a goal that was potentially within my reach. I tried and had a victory.

And what if I failed? What if I couldn't get it working? Well then I had a nifty glass globe a nice battery holder and an LED...

Add a stick from the forest across the road...I'm sure I could think of something.