Dear Deacon NAME REDACTED,

I was disheartened to hear, yet again, your homily turn into a declaration against those who vote pro-choice.  I will admit, it took you longer to get there today than usual, but having to tie together All Souls Day and abortion takes some rhetorical skill.  Once more you played to a captive audience and pushed only part ( Read more... )

I just need to get a few things off my chest to help the stress that builds when I hear people being ridiculous.  Allow me to bullet point.

• When a Democrat co-worker says "I don't understand why people have such a problem with Obama.  So he's a Muslim, so what?" and then questions you when you try and correct her, you've got to wonder what the ( Read more... )

Doesn't it break some sort of internet law when you make up a meme about yourself? All of the games below are illustrated by John Kovalic. Bold the ones you've played, Underline the ones you own.

10 Days in Africa
10 Days in the USA
10 Days in Asia
10 Days In Europe
aBRIDGEd
Apples to Apples Party Box/Crate
Apples to Apples Expansion Box 1
Apples to ( Read more... )

See, this one's something fun. Any of them that come across telling me I'm against something or an evil person if I don't repost them get filed into the same crap pile as those e-mails telling me I'll have bad luck if I don't forward them on. Memes are supposed to be a cute way to let others know about your personality or life and shouldn't be ( Read more... )

(BTW, I know that we're already back home. I'm late in posting. So what ( Read more... )

Today we mostly walked around on our own. We saw some more ruins (ruins like crazy around this place). Kind of an uneventful day with just short trips around the city. The weather was beautiful and the day ended with a trip through Piazza Nuvono listening to a few local Italian bands play. Bass, accordion, guitar and some woodwinds played all ( Read more... )

Well, today didn't turn out how we planned and we are much better for it. Our original plan was to head to Pompeii and get some pictures with my miniature volcano from "The Downfall of Pompeii" board game and the real Vesuvius. Well, after some debate and advice from our tour guide, we instead stayed in Rome and took a tour of the Roman Forum and ( Read more... )

Our last day in Florence. Sigh. Such a beautiful city. We took a 3 hour walking tour this morning that included the Duomo (4th biggest dome in the world) and innumerable other sites in the city. Some great discussions of the Medici family, the founding of Florence, the growth of the city, wars with Sienna, etc filled a great morning. The ( Read more... )

A question for gaming geeks: Ever wonder why the Medici family is so prominent in games set in Italy? It's cause they freaking owned the place. Today we took a tour of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, home to Botticelli's "Birth of Venus" among many, many other things. Turns out the Medicis owned the gallery building, along with half of Florence ( Read more... )

Catholics are weird. Wait, lemme back up. After spending almost a day in Florence with maybe 6 hours or so to wander around, we thought it would be best to head out for a day trip. Sienna is a nice town that is still not too touristy. We arrived at some point after finding out the difference between a Rapida bus and a Diretta bus. Apparantly, ( Read more... )