leftovers

Messages flying into view with a mind designed to capture you Gadgets that send our words into space, spoken broken then interlaced Strength of will not to split in two, information stagnating in a mental queue Recreational knockoffs of the original toys that we used to love These are details of a modern life, oh oh oh These are the things required by a modern life, oh oh oh These are details of a modern life, oh oh oh These are the things required by a modern life, oh oh oh Wars hidden behind mirrors and smoke, too expensive to fix so discard when broke Laughing behind your poker face, the shortcuts are trampled in the human race Strength of will not to fall apart, trust mistakenly placed in the human heart Slipshod reproductions cast of the original ones that were built to last These are details of a modern life, oh oh oh These are the things required by a modern life, oh oh oh These are details of a modern life, oh oh oh These are the things inspired by a modern life,...

I am outraged, incensed and deeply saddened by President Elect Obama's choice of having pastor rick warren perform the invocation for his inauguration. When the news broke yesterday, I couldn't believe it. It felt like a bad dream. I held out hope that perhaps it was an error, or that someone else had made the decision and Obama would correct the situation. However, today, I was dismayed to find that not only did Obama take responsibility for the decision, but had the audacity to defend the choice in the name of "inclusion." How ironic that inclusion includes people who use religion to divide, demean, and destroy. If you don't understand why I am saying that, it's because rick warren preaches at a large church here in southern California, where he spews hate behind the pulpit, stating that same sex marriage is equal to incest, pedophilia, and polygamy. This is not some quote I am making up in order to be dramatic, you can watch the words coming out of h...

I write so often here about my hometown, that I have failed to include much about my new adopted hometown: Los Angeles, California. I moved here on Memorial Day weekend in 2000, just a matter of days after I received my Bachelor of Arts degree from Fort Hays State University. My brother and I had been planning the move together for quite some time, so as soon as I graduated and finished up the yearbook (I was editor), we packed our cars and headed west. The idea of moving to LA came to me when I was working as a desk clerk at Days Inn in Hays, Kansas, during college. We had an atlas there that I would sometimes peruse while I was bored in between customers. Probably something about the nature of working in a hotel, dealing with travelers from all over the place, inspired me to pour over the maps of all the 50 states in the atlas. In addition to the mystique of Hollywood, the fact that my mom and her family lived in Los Angeles for a short time during her childhood had always intere...

One thing about me that concerns my family is my complete infatuation with Long John Silver's, the fast-food restaurant chain. I never really realized how deeply I was smitten with the joint until I moved to LA, where locations are few and far between. My earliest memories of Long John's involve the store in Hays, Kansas, where my family would sometimes eat. I say sometimes because it was usually sort of a special occasion. See, Long John Silver's is a seafood restaurant, and as such, it was considered more expensive than regular fast food restaurants. Living in Kansas, seafood was somewhat of a novelty. The rare instances when we had seafood at home were on Christmas Eve when we had the traditional Strecker supper of Oyster Stew, or after my parents sent us kids to bed and they would have a clandestine crab-leg party in the kitchen (I often smelled the crab legs cooking and would eventually wander into the kitchen trying to guilt my parents into handing over some of ...