The battle of Fat Mike and Two Pigs

When I lived in Albania, two things I loved in America ceased to be. One was the Mary Engelbreit Home Companion, a magazine for people who love home decorating and all kinds of crafty fun. The other was Two Pigs, the world's greatest barbecue restaurant. Actually, it was less of a restaurant and more of a gathering place that served really, really, really good food. Today I visited the restaurant that is now in its place, and it truly tries to live up to the definition of restaurant. Whereas in Two pigs you walked in the side door, at Fat Mike's you walk in the front door. At Two Pigs you ordered at the counter and they brought your food out on paper plates. Fat Mike sends a waiter to your table who brings you place-mat style menus and food on cafeteria style plates. Gone are the pigs that decorated the walls and tables, and in its place are more sophisticated objects, like lamps and paintings. The food was good, although the sauce was a bit sweet for my taste. The loaded potato casserole was delicious, but a but heavy when paired with pulled pork. The fried green tomatoes were fab, but really, how can you mess those up?The battle may be a bit unfair, as there are Two Pigs and only one Mike, and he's apparently overweight, therefore unfit for battle. The Pigs win this one, in my opinion. Too bad they're not around to celebrate their victory.

The good, the bad, and the stupid

Today I drove a long way. When I'm driving, I always listen to the radio. I love music. But today I was flipping through the channels and came across a preacher who sounded reasonable intelligent, so I left it there. I like to listen to Alistair Bay and Ravi Zacharias, but I don't listen to just any radio preacher. Some of them are broadcasting out of their living rooms and got 'degrees' from Zippy online seminary. I thought this guy was okay. Then he started talking about communication. If you don't have a phone, use a fax machine, if you don't have a fax machine, use email, if you don't have email, use female! (He thought this was really funny.) Telephone or tell a woman! Then he laughed at himself. I don't know how long the laughter lasted because at this point I turned the channel and listened to Ke$ha. (I'm sure that would be much to the chagrin of this particular preacher.) I've heard that you shouldn't talk about "God's man" because God has chosen him to do this job, but I do take issue with the way this man is doing his job. When you are in a pulpit, how dare you degrade anyone for any reason. I know pastors hate the hear their congregations talk about them negatively and especially about their families (Preacher's kids live in a fish bowl, such a hard way to grow up) but really, you are a grown man in a position of responsibility for building up the people of God and you speak of 50% of the population of your congregation in this way? (Actually more, if you look at certain statistics. Women are more likely to attend church them men and most churches have slightly more women than men. If you want those exact numbers I will find them for you.) Anyway, what I'm saying is, I would never attend a church where a pastor spoke like this. I would not trust anything he had to say because he is living off of stereotypes and sad attempts at cheap laughs. How can I properly respect someone who would so obviously not afford appropriate respect to me? I can't. I won't. There are good pastors in the world who do respect people, so why should I waste my time with those who don't? Life is hard enough without having to sort out the good from the stupid in the pastors message. So I've said my piece. Amen.

e-rritation

I have been so irritated over the last week with e-stuff. I have been e-rritated. Hackers, email fraud, lost, changed and forgotten passwords... I'm in the cyber Wild West. How long will it take for the internet to be tamed? I think probably never. And although it does cause problems and headaches and is used for some pretty terrible purposes, I kind of hope it remains a little wild. We need security to keep children safe and keep criminals from accessing confidential information, but we also need a place where we can freely express our opinions and share ideas, not only for us in this hemisphere but also for our brothers and sisters who have yet to taste the freedom we enjoy. So call the sheriff when you have trouble, but long live the Cyber Frontier!

An idea for BP

I am not a tree hugger. I drive an SUV, and sometimes I take the long way home just to annoy the hippies living in Athens. (OK, that has nothing to do with me being anti-environmental. It is just a manifestation of my disdain of all things associated with Athens, Georgia. A much bigger topic for another blog post. Moving on...)I am not anti-environmentalism. In fact, I think there are a lot of things we could do that we should do in order to improve the environment. But I guess I would be considered anti-environmental because I don't think we should be doing them for the sake of the environment, but rather for the sake of those living in the environment. I am an animal lover, however I still put people before animals, which is why I am not entirely opposed to animal testing for medications. (I could be opposed to it for cosmetic testing purposes. I mean, seriously, people have massive reconstructive surgeries to make themselves feel better about the way they look. Why should we harm a rat to make sure a lipstick is OK? People tattoo makeup on their faces. By choice! Leave the rabbits and mice out of the cosmetic industry!) Having said all that, I now turn to the Gulf. I feel terrible for those who will for years to come bear the fallout of this disaster. BP seems unable to rectify things. I don't know what could be done to make things better, but about a year ago, I wrote a blog about Laurent Wolfe, a French dance music star/ environmental activist who made what is possibly the worst video in the history of music videos. But now I'm thinking, maybe he was on to something. BP, here's an idea! Maybe these girls could help clean up the Gulf, because after they performed in this video, I'm pretty sure they were never able to get work again. In this economy, they could probably use a job. So it's a win-win situation for everyone. So BP, listen up! (But everyone else, look away! Unless you're really depressed about the environmental disaster, then watch on. You could probably use a good laugh.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYfcF4oztsw

Shelly in Academia

I know I've been a lazy blogger. I've been pretty busy with a lot of other things. I wish I could say they were exciting things, but it's mostly reading about second language acquisition, international adult education, or qualitative research. And after reading about it, I write about it. It's pretty dry to most people. I do enjoy those topics, but most days I would rather be 'doing' them rather than 'reading' them. So all that is to say, I've been lazy but I've been busy.

My intention is to no longer be lazy, but to make blogging part of my busy-ness. Not because I have anything life-altering to say, I just like to write, and there may be some really bored person out there who might enjoy reading my random thoughts. And it's kind of exciting to think about people reading things that you write, right? I read papers written by college students (most of who are juniors) and what I have found is that they greatly overuse the word 'therefore'. It is one one my pet peeves, especially when it is used incorrectly. Therefore, I plan never to use this word again.