Monkling’s Blog

This morning I saw an article in the paper about a couple who were divorcing because the husband cheated in an online virtual world. I guess that brings cheating to a whole new level.

Apparently this couple, themselves, first met online in that same virtual world, Second Life. Now maybe it’s just me but the whole thing seems a little weird and creepy right from the start. I guess on the one hand, these people had a lot in common since they were both apparently obsessed with this fake world. But uh… if that’s what you spend all of your time doing, pretending, well it just seems to me maybe they both are missing a few pieces upstairs in the first place?

I can’t imagine anyone spending hours & hours in a virtual 3-D chat room day after day, pretending to be someone else. I have a hard enough time keeping up with what I think and feel in real life. I confuse the heck out of myself as it is. Yeah, then toss me in someplace where I’m supposed to make up a second life?? I don’t think so.

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I know my blog is supposed to be funny & I think most of the times it is. Once in a while, though, you know I get off the humor track. Normally I don’t like to post serious stuff. I especially like to keep away from politics. Today I’m going all out and mixing serious stuff and politics.

I am posting a link here for a video. If you’re an unwavering Democrat, you probably won’t like this. If you are Catholic, you should look at this.

Eleventh Hour

If I lose half of my regular readers for posting this, so be it. It’s not like I have that many people reading my blog in the first place.

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Yes, you read it here first. I have come up with the solution to deliver us from our reliance on oil and electricity. It’s the perfect plan. Obviously if we can keep the thermostat lower in the winter and raise the air conditioner temperature in the summer, we’d save energy and money - right? So here’s the brilliant plan:

In the winter, take some sort of drug that lowers hormone levels so that you get hot flashes. (Naturally, if you are already in menopause, you already have that covered & don’t need any drugs.) If you can get those hot flashes fired up enough, you’ll barely have to turn on the heat all winter. There’s even evidence that this might work for men. Of course that article speaks about how to avoid them and that’s not what we’re talking about here but I just wanted to illustrate that my energy saving plan will even work for you guys.

For that hot weather, we need something a bit more drastic. I got this brainstorm at ‘that time of the month’ when I felt colder than normal. You’re going for anemia here. You want to drop that iron level down. Sure you might pass out and feel weak but hey, it’s a small price to pay to feel cool during the hot summer months.

If you do that for a few years, I bet you can save enough money to go on a nice, European vacation. Now would all that sweating through hot flashes and passing out from anemia be worth it?

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Last night was the Al Smith dinner in NYC, a charity dinner to raise money for the poor. McCain & Obama both spoke at it. If you missed them, you have to see their speeches. They were hilarious:
McCain
Obama

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I have been getting ready for this Saturday’s Great Apple Festival. Do you think this is overkill:

I am toying with the idea of making mini cheesecakes - caramel apple cheesecakes. I am also thinking of making apple rugelach. Since neither of those are an easy, just throw it together sort of dessert, they may not happen.

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A company called Boston Dynamics created this robotic dog. They call it Bigdog. It’s the size of a large dog, can carry stuff and climb up rough terrain. I saw an article online about it and there was mention of a YouTube video of it. The video on the actual company website is a lot clearer.

Now what I want to know is this - does this look like a dog to you?

Those legs remind me more of insect legs and if you watch the video, they seem even more so in motion. Plus there’s that droning sound. I’m telling ya, it’s The Fly minus 2 legs and wings. I’m betting if they can figure out a way to get it to fly, they’ll add wings to it.

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What’s really good about the Internet is it brings people together. What’s really bad about the Internet is it brings people together. Before this whole online stuff, I lived in my little world where the only people I knew were from work or the neighborhood, from Church or school. Period. I’d watch stuff on the news and sure, that disaster happening way across the country was terrible but it didn’t really touch me in my little bubble. Not on a personal level.

Then I found this online community of writers 15 years ago and suddenly I knew people all over the country. In March, 2007 I started a blog and that expanded the number of people I knew even further. I’ve come to care about these people I’ve met and that’s all fine and good.

The trouble with caring, though, especially when these people are scattered all over the US, is I’m finding that when things happen in other states, it suddenly matters a lot more. An earthquake in northern CA, a wildfire in southern CA, a tornado in KY, a hurricane in FL, a bridge collapsing in St. Paul - I can’t sit here saying, “Oh, how awful!” shoot off a prayer and then carry on with business as usual.

So I’m finding myself paying much closer attention to Gustav. This time around, it’s personal. I know y’all are praying that New Orleans won’t get hit too badly. Keep up those prayers. I want to see Katie back home. That girl’s been through enough awful things in her 25 years to last her a lifetime already. She’s a newlywed. She deserves a break - time to spend with her new husband, just enjoying married life.

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A King penguin was knighted in Norway. Seriously. You can read the story here.

Completely off the topic of penguins and knighthood, this past Friday was a Holy Day, the Assumption. In Italy it’s a holiday, meaning there were no Italian classes for the seminarians. I’m not sure if they all decided to do something for the 3 day weekend but my son did. Not that he shared this information with me. No, why should he tell his mother he is off in Florence? He did, however, tell his sister.

Being the pain in the ass I am, I then sent him an email saying something like, “Sure, go off without telling me.” He emailed me back with the phone number so we were able to talk to him today.

“So how do you like Florence?”
“It’s nice. I went to Pisa today. I wasn’t too impressed with it.”
“I hope you took lots of photos.”
“Yes.”
“Did you see the Tower?”
“Yes, but I didn’t go in it. They wanted 15 Euros.”
“Did you see David?”
“No. He’s in some school but there’s no lack of naked statues on the streets of Florence.”

I guess in a way, it’s good he’ll be there for 5 years because there’s no way we would get to see everything I’d like to see in just 1 visit.

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I’ve been watching a bit of it and then Katie posted on her blog about the Olympics & it got me to thinking. It’s not a new thought. I probably think about this every time the Olympics rolls around. If I were to pretend I was in some sort of great physical shape and if I was 30 years younger, what sport would I want to compete in at the Olympics?

It would have to be something fast. I have narrowed it down to running or speed skating. I think I’d lean more towards running because I don’t like those outfits the skaters have to wear.

Okay, I thought we had a break in the thunder & lightening but apparently not so I’m afraid you all will be deprived of a long post. Ever since my dad’s computer got fried in a lightening storm, I shut mine down at the first rumbles.

If anyone is obsessive about keeping up with the latest medal rankings, schedule, and all the rest - this site has everything. And it certainly should, considering it’s in China.

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It seems Long Island has its own version of the Loch Ness Monster. Something washed up on the beach in Montauk & no one is quite sure what it is. You can read the article in Newsday but if you have a problem looking at dead creatures, well you have been warned.

Considering this happened in late July and my sister just happened to be out in Montauk on vacation in late July… well I think it’s something she thought up. That would explain why she didn’t mention it to me and I had to read about it in the news. She figured it would look way too suspicious if she told me about it. Must have been either her or my brother who also goes out that way.

Someone even set up a blog about the monster. They’re giving away a year’s supply of some energy drink to whoever brings in a live monster. I can just picture people dressing up in Montauk Monster suits.

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