First Flights

12 Aug 2013 Leave a comment

by C.O. Bonham in Random Musing, Well founded paranoia Tags: , , , , , ,

Well i made it back from St. Louis. Realm Makers was Amazing! I had never done anything like that before. Sorry it took so long to write a post.  I do have pictures but they were on 35mm film and now that they are developed I have to scan them to the computer.

After all of my posts against technology does it really surprise anyone that I do not have a digital camera?

So anyway I thought I could use that note to talk about my first plane flight and how my avoidance of techno gizmos made it more enjoyable for me.

First security, this is the most embarrassing thing ever. The stupid full body scanner is so sensitive that it picks up the rivets on your jeans and the metal clasp on my pony tail holder. then you get patted down. Very embarrassing. But at least I didn’t have any electronics to dig out of my bags and place out in the open. Well I had my cell phone but that came off with my belt so no big deal.

During the waiting period electronics are actually encouraged, because the airports now have free WiFi and numerous plugin stations.

But after boarding there is a very short period of time that you can use your devices. The guy beside me grudgingly shut down his I phone. The plane taxied out and then we sat there for like twenty minutes. Now note that my plane was not late arriving in Detroit from St. Louis, this means that they knew ahead of time that we would have to wait. That whole time no electronics could be used.

So I am trying to read my book and the guy beside me is just antsy.

So let this be a lesson: Bring paper. A book a puzzle book buy a news paper if you have to. Your pilot and the person next to you might thank you for it.

Over all flying was pretty mundane. I have been desensitized to motion by riding roller coasters. So the actual flight was no more upsetting than driving in a car. The only thing that really blew my mind was the fact that I flew to St. Louis from Detroit in less time than it took me to drive to the Detroit airport from my house. It’s like Wow! I can go somewhere I have never been before and not have to spend long boring hours behind the wheel to get there.

TGFF (Thank God For Fridays)

25 Nov 2012 Leave a comment

by C.O. Bonham in Random Musing, Theological Musings, Well founded paranoia Tags: , , , , , ,

Sorry I have been MIA for awhile I just got lazy again. But here is a new post  for Black greedy weekend.

Last November  I wrote a post about Black Friday. I talked about how it was over shadowing Thanksgiving and how it doesn’t really qualify as a holiday yet people treat it like it is one. It saddens me how many stores actually started their sales on Thanksgiving, and how many people came to the stores with this “I better get what I want” attitude.

I work in retail so I know because I was working not because I was shopping.

Why do we have Thanksgiving anymore? Is there a point? All of the decor jumps from Halloween to Christmas and all of the people just want their “Deals.”

Maybe we should just move the holiday to April and let it at least be overshadowed by the better of two Fridays.

It seems to me that the name Black Friday could easily apply to Good Friday. If you were one of the Apostles back in the first century you wouldn’t have been thinking about salvation the only thing on your mind would be that someone you loved had died.

And Good Friday is also kind of like Thanksgiving day for Christians. It celebrates the fulfillment of the promise. The completion of the prophesies. It’s the Narnian deep magic enacted in real life. It is the thing that we should be most thankful for.

Would it really kill the economy if retail stores just didn’t acknowledge Black Friday? What if they just offered really good sales all week long instead of these mega blitz events? What if people stayed home and thought about things to be Thankful for?

Yea, Like that would ever happen.

Did anyone see this picture go around Facebook?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It is certainly something to be thankful for.

 

Demon: A True Story

29 Oct 2012 1 Comment

by C.O. Bonham in Random Musing, Theological Musings, Well founded paranoia Tags: , ,

Halloween is here again. this time instead of a discourse on Vampires I am giving you a dark tale of the supernatural.  This is an actual experience of mine, it would be easy to write it off as a bizarre dream an exaggeration of an active imagination but these things do happen. Besides people who rationalize everything might never see a ghost but they never see a miracle either.

*           *           *

It began in a dream, an intense dream. The kind that doesn’t feel like a dream. In the dream I was at work assisting customers find things. “Yes sir we have GPS’s over here.” And then immediately there was another customer, “Yes ma’am the flash dives are on this wall back here,” walking them over explaining that “I’m sorry, I could have sworn they were on the wall earlier.” Near tears I see a face from the corner of my eye. The head quickly turned and the body ran off down another aisle. I started to follow it. It starts running. I am swarmed by customers they press in on me; each one insisting that I wait on them first everyone claiming that they were there before the others. I can’t take it any more I push and shove and say all of the things that I can’t actually say at work. There, the face, just for a moment and then gone again. I give chase, ignoring everyone and jumping over stack bases. Finally I catch it’s shoulder and spin it around. “Who are you?” I scream at it, “What are you doing here?” in my dream where you do not belong, I fail to finish. For the face is hideous and creepy. Green and warty with a wide mouth. But not like a toad, a toad’s face would have been kinder, this face was the image of evil the wide mouth was twisted into a wicked grin and the eyes were recessed as though they had been placed into a skull with nothing inside.

Then I awoke. I stared up at my ceiling, up at the hideous face still before me. It was there hanging upside down. The twisted grin now above the black eyes, and above the wide, twisted mouth a crouching body, frog like in form. The gargoyle kept grinning, drawing glee from my fear. I tried to call for help, but like in a nightmare that you can’t escape from, the cry of “Mommy” sticks in my throat and no sound escapes. I want to yell at it, to repeat the words of my dream. “Who are you and What are you doing here?” in real life hanging above my bed where you do not belong.

It is hard to breath when you’re scared to death. But finally I gasp a word, the only word that can ever prevail against this kind of evil. Not Mommy but Jesus. I close my eyes, because I do not have the courage or the strength to face this thing. I pray, “Lord Jesus please banish the evil from this place. Not just hidden from my mortal eyes but really gone. Please bring your peace and protection to this house and guard its residents from anymore unwelcome guests. Be they real or dreamt. Amen.”

I opened my eyes and stared at the empty ceiling. It was really gone and the room seemed a little brighter too. Then the wave of peace crashed over me it was like falling asleep after a truly exhausting day feeling so safe and so cared for that all there is left to do is sleep a real sleep that not only recharges your brain but your spirit as well.

*           *           *

Remember this Halloween, nothing can ever truly hurt you as long as God has your back.

For President 2012 . . . Remind Me Who’s Running

16 Oct 2012 Leave a comment

by C.O. Bonham in Random Musing, Well founded paranoia Tags: , , ,

Every Presidential election that I have voted in so far has misled me on the number of candidates that are running for President. There is always more than a Republican and a Democrat. Not only do you have the Green Party, Libertarian Party, Socialist party, and the Constitution party but you can also have countless non-party Candidates. Remember what they told you kindergarten, “Anyone can grow up to be President.” What they failed to tell you was that you can run but the media will refuse to recognize you as a candidate. It isn’t really fair is it? Of all the things that should make the news you would think that potential leaders of our nation would be one of them. But no. The news media is only interested in covering the republicans and the democrats.

So Who is really Running for President?

Candidates Certified to the November 6, 2012 General Election

(as of 8/31/12)

President & Vice President & Party

STEWART ALEXANDER & ALEX MENDOZA  Socialist

RICHARD DUNCAN & RICKY JOHNSON  Nonparty candidates

VIRGIL GOODE & JIM CLYMER  Constitution

GARY JOHNSON & JAMES P. GRAY  Libertarian

BARACK OBAMA & JOE BIDEN  Democratic

MITT ROMNEY & PAUL RYAN  Republican

JILL STEIN & CHERI HONKALA  Green

SUSAN E. DANIELS & JERRY A. VENESKEY  write-ins

NELSON KEYTON & JAY JENNELLE  write-ins

JILL REED & TOM CARY  write-ins

PLATT ROBERTSON & SCOTT FALL  write-ins

RANDALL A. TERRY & CATHY LEWIS  write-ins

MIKE VARGO & JEFF ANGELETTI  write-ins

And these are just the ones on the ballot for the state of Ohio.

Mike Vargo is from Ohio. I live in Ohio. So how come I haven’t heard anything about him? Though His chance at being president is slim if he is only a write-in candidate in his own state.
I found out that Constitution Candidate Virgil Goode is only on the ballot in 36 out of 50 states and most of those are as a write in candidate. It would be really nice if the country could get behind a Goode (pun intended) third-party candidate but if they can’t get on all fifty ballots then how can they ever expect to win?

Though it does make you think. If the news is lying about the number of candidates running for president then what else aren’t they telling us. Don’t listen to the TV ads and the mailers that you get. Put in the time to research the candidates and the issues. Voting is your right. But it is also your responsibility as an American citizen to be an informed voter. Because when a mindless mass believes the first thing they hear . . . Well that’s how 1984, Fahrenheit 451,  Logan’s Run, and The Hunger Games happen. And we don’t want those fictions to become facts.

Check out this quiz to see who you side with politically:
www.isidewith.com

Check out this well-informed site to learn about the election. Find out who is on the most ballots so that you don’t waste your vote. They have conveniently highlighted everyone who stands a chance of winning.:

http://www.thegreenpapers.com/G12/President-Details.phtml?n=ROBERTSON,PLATT

History of the Future: Part 3

15 Sep 2012 Leave a comment

by C.O. Bonham in Random Musing, Well founded paranoia Tags: , , , , , ,

I bet you thought that I forgot about the third part of my promised three-part blog post about random future events. Well I didn’t forget I just hadn’t gotten to it yet because here it is. Would you believe that this whole post is actually a Sociology paper that I turned in for a college assignment and that I got an A on it? Well I it is and I did.

Now for you enjoyment, The conclusion to a History of the Future:

In the year 2043 people will begin to get rid of their cell phones because they can control so much that losing it is pretty much the end of the world.  Identity theft increases one hundred percent because it is so easy, just steal a cell phone and boom you have access to their car, their house and their bank account.  Why aren’t people protecting this information you ask well the answer is because people are lazy, careless and stupid.  They tried voice recognition but too many people figured out how to over ride that while at the same time the system was so faulty that the phone wouldn’t always listen to its owner.

More emerging technologies that have a darker side to them all have to do with things that go in your body.  First, super contacts that let you look at movies and surf the web while pretending to pay attention in class, were found to cause blindness and had to be scraped.

The micro chips that are supposed to be so great, so no one will ever be given the wrong medication or go missing, will be found to have a weird reaction with some people and will end up giving them a very strange blood disorder (their blood turned green) and the program was suspended until doctors could investigate the implications of this phenomenon.  The program will remain suspended until the antichrist decides to use it as his “mark of the beast.”

As the oceans begin receding in the year 2049, everyone will begin worrying about global cooling and foretelling a new global ice age.  Even though we all know that the first ice age wasn’t really a global ice age, but only a localized one.  One scientist though, will discover that this melting and freezing of the ice caps is all actually part of a cycle that runs through about every ten hundred years or so.

Unfortunately for everyone, a radical terrorist group has acquired a very powerful EMP bomb and has launched it into space, when it reaches the Stratosphere they plan to detonate it thus wiping out every electronic device on the planet.  This will set everyone back for at a period no shorter than ten years.  Living history re-enactors such as pioneer groups and revolutionary war enthusiasts will lead the way in survival during the period of rebuilding that will follow.  At the end of that ten-year period they are still only up to about 1985 standards which is pretty good for only having ten years to rebuild the world.  Of course they weren’t exactly starting from scratch.

The future is not set in stone and this is only one of the many possible futures; the flow of events could be diverted at any point along the path to create a new series of events and then those events may be diverted to create a new series and so on.

Perhaps instead of America and Canada uniting, they stay separate or maybe Mexico will try to be declared officially part of South America rather than North.  And the last part about the EMP bomb will probably not happen because someone like James bond would come along to stop it.  But it’s still all speculation.

There is no way to really know what the future holds, no crystal balls, no horoscope, no fortune tellers, the only way to know what will happen is to just wait for it.

History of the Future: Part 2

04 Sep 2012 Leave a comment

by C.O. Bonham in Random Musing, Well founded paranoia Tags: , , , , , , ,

As promised part 2 of my three part post of Random future musings.  And you didn’t think I would keep up with this did you?

Things that are different geographically: America and Canada have merged creating a super nation called Amerida, mostly because it sounds similar to America, but also because Pan Am threatened to sue if they tied to call it Can Am.  All of the states and provinces get to keep their names and governments. Seriously the two countries were already so similar that hardly anyone really noticed any difference. They’re still working on Mexico but instead of partnering with Amerida it is just expected to be adsorbed as a state sometime in the next ten years, besides AmeriCandaMex sounds like a Mexican restaurant.  It will likely be called: Old Mexico (we already have a new one) or divided into smaller states.

The environment will be a big concern in the next 20-50 years.  The hole in the ozone layer is still a concern but it will be determined that it is a natural occurrence and that people are not responsible for it.  It was always there we just couldn’t detect it before.  All of the world’s power will now come from solar and wind energy.  Because no one can agree on just one type of alternate fuel, cars will run off of a combination of technologies, including: electric (with solar chargers), hydrogen, ethanol, and grass clippings.  The grass powered automobile will come along sometime in the next thirty years; I know this for a fact because my brother told me he was going to invent it.  Of course he also told me that he wanted to rule the world, so I’m not really sure if it’s very wise to rely on what my brother says.

Another development in automotive technology is the self diving car.  More deaths will occur in vehicles that are driving themselves than there ever were while humans were behind the wheel.  One problem will be with the voice response commands many people will be in their cars talking on their cell phones and they will say something like turn left not talking to the car of course but just telling their spouse where to find the milk in the fridge.  But the car takes that command and turns left– right into a building. Also in 2038 it will be discovered that a fatal flaw in the computer program allows the manual controls to be overridden and control of the car given to a hacker.  People will be kidnapped while driving their own vehicles and murderers will cause car crashes just to see how many people they can kill at a time.  But at the same time, insurance premiums for people who want to drive themselves will be outrageous not to mention the fines the government will give you if your car does not contain an onboard computer.  They say that it’s to ensure roadway safety but it’s obvious that the government just wants the power to control your car as well.

History of the Future: Part One

29 Aug 2012 Leave a comment

by C.O. Bonham in Well founded paranoia Tags: , , ,

As promised a three-part post. These are my random predictions for the future. You can write these off as humorous and misguided musings but only time will tell.

And now I present for your enjoyment a history of the future:

In the year 2024 all newspapers had to stop producing paper copies due to pressure from environmental groups as well as a dwindling number of subscribers, so now they can save the planet and their money.  The e-newspaper, now humorously dubbed the News, Sans Paper, still requires a subscription and is then delivered straight to your inbox every day or for just $1.80 an issue you may buy a single copy to download off of the website as a PDF file, sales papers are not included.  No reporter has yet tackled the question of why the price jumped after they got rid of the paper.

Other changes to the media include the new restrictions on how much can be reported during elections.  Thanks to the news outlets using exit polls to announce the winner of the 2016 presidential election a full three hours before polls on the west coast closed, (the first thing that Hawaiians saw when they turned on their TV’s was news casters telling them who the new president was; no one in Hawaii even bothered voting that year) they are now forbidden to report any results in a nationwide election until the day after.

In education news, the public school system has been dumbed down so much that by the year 2028 the only children who can get in to colleges are homeschoolers.  But because of the low attendance the tuition prices became too high for anyone to afford.  Universities were forced to dumb themselves down in order to stay in business.  The government actually tried to outlaw homeschooling for a while but there was no way to stop the movement without taking away all civil rights.  Besides everyone knew that the only reason they were against it was because homeschoolers have consistently done better than public schoolers in all subjects and grades.

On the religion beat, scientists discover heaven?  Year 2030: Scientists working on a project to tel-port matter from New York to L.A. were suddenly overwhelmed by what they called, “a feeling of the most intense joy that a human being could ever hope experience on earth.”  The feeling of joy left as suddenly as it had appeared.  One of the researchers also reported hearing a voice that told him, “It is not yet time; this is not the door that you are meant to enter by.”  The lead researcher is hypothesizing that they may have momentarily breached another dimension of some sort.  As a result of this story conversions to Christianity will skyrocket.

To the Future!

26 Aug 2012 Leave a comment

by C.O. Bonham in Random Musing, Well founded paranoia Tags: , ,

Here is a Random musing about the Future. In preparation for my special three part posting featuring my random predictions for the future.

People have been trying to predict the future ever since time began; but not many people can even remotely claim to have succeeded.  Astrology doesn’t work (mostly because there are thirteen zodiac signs but astrologers only use twelve), psychics don’t know what their talking about, and Nostradamus was so vague that he could have meant anything.   There are so many books and movies that are set in the future that they can’t all be right.  And after watching some of them I don’t think that I would want any of them to be right.  Who would want to live in a future ruled by apes or robots?  No one really wants to become the society that burns books or makes Children fight to death on live TV, right? The future that H.G. Wells wrote about in the Time Machine doesn’t sound too appealing either.  The future in Back to the Future 2 isn’t so bad, maybe even doable, in fact the year that it takes place in, 2015, is only three years away.

When you think about it the future can only go one of three ways: it can get better, it can get worse, or nothing can change.  The hard part is defining better and worse because some people look upon the past as being more favorable than the present.  I would also like to bring up the saying, “the more things change the more they stay the same,” this really makes it hard to project into the future because if the future is always repeating the past then nothing can ever truly change and America is doomed because the Romans and the Greeks thought they were the end all and be all of civilization too.

Of course things may stay the same in theory but things will always be changing.  Technology will advance and then knowledge will be lost and then rediscovered that’s all part of the cycle of history.  History is full of parallels and repeated mistakes.  This is because people never learn from the mistakes of their ancestors and so they just make the same errors.  Like the old cliché says “either learn from history or repeat it.”

A popular saying printed on Christian T-shirts, bookmarks, key chains etc. . .  is: “I know not what the future holds but I do know he who holds the future.”  This means that as long as God is in charge there is nothing to worry about.  But the future gives us plenty to worry about anyway; it’s the greatest unknown, the ultimate variable and just plain scary.  And the farther ahead you look the scarier it becomes, because the more time that goes by is more time for something bad to happen; like a natural disaster, or a layoff at work, it’s also that much closer to death.  And death is a scary thing to most people.  Unless, you know he who holds your future.

Comments

17 Aug 2012 Leave a comment

by C.O. Bonham in Random Musing, Well founded paranoia Tags: , , ,

One thing that some people fail to appreciate about our society is that this, more than any other era, is really the age of personal opinion. when else in history could you read a news story and then immediately put in your two cents. We go online read an article and then leave a comment. In fact reading the comments consumes more of our attention than the story that we came to read. The comments show what people really think. And reading the comments can also make you really angry. They can turn into real flame wars sometimes. Check out the following example that I made up and see if you can spot the commenter that makes me the maddest.

Headline: Ten year old boy eats Chocolate cake everyday. Doctors find no ill effects.

Comments

Cakeluvur: I like cake. You go kid!

Sparedarod: That is so wrong his parents should go to jail for not making him eat healthy foods. My kids don’t eat sweets ever. Cake is the Devil’s Food.

Cakeluvur: It can be Angel Food too! 😀

Spoildechild: @Sparedarod, You shouldn’t be so strict. Kids need to have things in life to make them happy or else they will grow up bitter and angry. Besides the article says that he got a piece of cake everyday. It’s not like they fed him nothing but cake.

Dietdiva: I wish I could eat cake every day and not get fat like this kid. 😦

Superdad: Maybe you should play three different sports like my boys. They eat all day.

Sparedarod: You are all crazy it dosen’t matter what else you eat sugar is toxic. I never had any sweets growing up and I turned out perfectly fine. We should ban all sugar.

Cakeluver: What we already have a higher tax on sugar than other foods.

DietDiva: No we have a tax on beverages. I pay the same tax for my unsweetened tea as i would if I bought a soda. McDonald’s even taxed my bottled water.

Superdad: @Sparedarod, You did not turn out fine at all it sounds like you turned into a bitter hag who thinks that everyone should suffer just because you had an unhappy childhood. Stop forcing your beliefs on others.

Peacemaker: Why do you people have to be like this? Everyone has the right to their own opinion. Everyone should stop putting down the opinions of other. If we all respected each others opinion then the world would be a happy place and we could all get along.

Now who do you think made me angry in the above example. That’s right it was Peacemaker. Everyone else had an opinion that contributed to the debate, even if some of them could have been nicer about it. But Peacemaker just commented on the arguing. His or her opinion was that people really shouldn’t have their own opinion. Peacemaker would rather everyone sacrifice their beliefs in the name of tolerance. But we can’t do that. We must keep arguing, debating and having different opinions. Because if everyone has the right to their own opinion then that includes everyone with a dissenting opinion too.

So come on leave your opinion. Lets see if we can start a good comment war.

Drinking, Highly Illogical

14 May 2012 Leave a comment

by C.O. Bonham in Random Musing, Star Trek, Victorian Fiction, Well founded paranoia Tags: , ,

I haven’t posted anything in a while so here is an extra long one.

Every age comes with certain privileges that we can choose to partake in.  At 16 we can drive at, 17 watch an R rated movie and, 18 we become voting citizens of our great nation. But then nothing truly interesting happens at 19 or 20 and then at 21 is finally given the right to legally buy and consume alcohol. Why? It’s such an odd number to choose? At least 18 has a certain logic, you can vote you graduate from high school and start worrying about things like student loans and car payments, 19 would at least follow in sequence. In Ohio we have to renew our drivers license every four years. So if they made the drinking age 20 then they could get rid of that extra year before your first renewal.

Does anyone really think that a 21-year-old will really be anymore mature than an 18-year-old? Is it some medical fact that at 18 alcohol will affect your brain cells but not at 21? Drinking will kill your brain functions no matter what age you are.

I found this website that seems to answer the 21 question though I have no idea where they got their facts from.

http://www.madd.org/underage-drinking/why21/

My question is really Why Drink at all? What is the point? And how can people stand it? Alcohol messes with your memory and it dulls senses it ruins your reaction time and it just tastes bad.

The only time that I am ever really satisfied after a bit of spirits is when I am sick. I think of it this way Alcohol is used to disinfect therefore drinking it when you’re sick will disinfect your insides. Maybe not technically true but it makes me feel like I’m doing something to get better.

In Victorian era fiction we read about Spirits being used as a medicine, a restorative, a calming agent, something to warm your insides, and yes like I said a disinfectant.

Am I proposing that we bring prohibition back? No. Consuming alcohol just doesn’t hold any appeal for me. It doesn’t make you have more fun it just shuts off your common sense. So drinking at home with people you know and who you know want the best for you is fine but anywhere else is just Illogical.

In his autobiographical book I Am Spock Leonard Nimoy, writes a fictitious encounter between Spock and one of his many female fans. She has just offered Spock a drink and this is how Spock refuses her:

Spock: Madam, my mind is in precisely the condition it should be. I see no reason to alter that condition with stimulants or depressants.

Spock is right, if you are thinking clearly and you are walking without bumping into things and falling down, who in their right mind would want to change it? Personally I do not like to feel stupid and clumsy, trust me I feel that way enough when I’m sober there is no way I would purposely place myself in that state of mind.

I have actually used Nimoy’s quote before to turn down an invitation to go out to a bar. Though after that I didn’t get many invitations to anything. Oh well, people who need to be inebriated to have fun mustn’t be very good company anyway.

If we could start using it like a medicinal helper instead of, “A sure sign of a good time,” (Bud light’s slogan) then maybe the drinking age wouldn’t matter so much. Maybe if people would stop doing stupid things with stuff that should be used sparingly then maybe we wouldn’t have to worry about monitoring alcohol usage in the extremes that we do. But people are stupid and they do drink to be numb and to get stupid. So the illogic behind the drinking age must be overshadowed by the illogic of drink itself.

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