G-d is black

Supposedly there's a whole big debate if G-d is black or white.

Thanks to modern technology we now have the final definitive proof that G-d is indeed black:

have you ever been to Crown Heights on Labor Day? -in case anybody doesn't know, that's when the shvartzes have their annual west Indian-american day parade. Did you ever notice how nice the weather always is on Labor Day? It always seems to be one of the nicest days of the year.

I mean if G-d wasn't black don't you think he would make it rain on Labor Day at least once every 10 years? can you Remember a Sukkos (in NY) when we didn't have at least one rainy day? I can't. Can you remember any rainy Labor Days? I cant. (a couple of years ago it was supposed to rain but it never happened)
how about Lag B'omer? to me it seemed that it almost always rained sometime during the day.

On the subject of labor day:
Growing up in Crown Heights you have no idea that Labor Day is actually a major US national holiday (like memorial day, New Years, 4th of July etc.) I must've been like 16-18 by the time i realized that it's not just a local shvartze holiday, it's actually a major national holiday.
-I'll bet there's some 50 year old guy reading this thinking "really? is that true?" (as if anybody's reading this)
I could never figure out why it's called "Labor Day" I couldn't for the life of me figure out what this shvartze celebration has to do with "labor". (and I hate to sound so racist but it doesn't help that they aren't exactly known for having low unemployment & welfare cases)

As for the parade itself, virtually every float is a flatbed truck with banners of it's sponsor and/or country/island and a sound system loud enough to be heard in NJ.
How anybody in that parade, especially those riding on the trucks are not completely deaf is a mystery to me.

Isn't the whole point of this parade something about their heritage and culture? don't you think they would have some heritage/culture other than outrageously loud music? (especially now that we know that G-d is one of them, you would think they would have a bit more toichen!)

And why cant they just play music? why does any music played on labor day need to be so loud?
My neighbors had a labor day party which consisted of: A. a bar-b-q and B. -you guessed it- painfully loud music.
there are 4 people on a tiny little porch having a bar-b-q, why does the music need to be loud enough to be heard a block away?
or maybe after all these years of that parade they are so deaf that this the only way they can hear it at all.

A little side note:
some say God is black,
others say God is white.
Some say God is a woman,
others say God is a man.

everybody agrees that they're all correct.

-Apparantly God is Michael Jackson.

When It Rains It Pours

Ever have one of those days where you wish you wake up and it's just a dream? dont you just hate those days?

1st of all I think I figured out where the term "waking up on the wrong side of the bed" comes from:
the "wrong side" is the side that the baby's crib is on. I dont think there's any worse way to start your day then waking up 1/2 hour before your alarm to deal with a screaming baby. -especially when you didn't fall asleep until 3am the night before.

which brings me to a side point: who came up with the saying "sleeping like a baby"? I want to meet that baby. seriously, in my experience babies wake up every few hours and often are woken up by the slightest noise.
the saying should really be "sleeping like a teenager" Teenagers sleep 15+ hours straight easily, (my personal bests: 18 1/2 hours straight or 22 1/2 hours in a 24 hour period) and it's almost impossible to wake them up.
(boy do i miss those days...)

OK back to the point.
so finaly I'm done with the baby (I dont remember exactly what happened, probably my wife finished with the other kid so I dumped him on her) I'm thinking to myself: ok, well the bright side is that things can only get better...

wrong.

do you know the feeling you get when you turn on your computer and something got messed up so bad that you cant even load windows? (I hope you dont and never will know)
B"H I have my computer set up in such a way that this not much of problem, really only a minor annoyance. (my OS and all my programs are on one hard drive, all my data on other drives. I have a image of the drive with the OS and just reformat it if i have any problems, other than a few minor settings that were set since i made the image I'm basically right back where I was.)
Of course it took a lot longer then it should've to restore my computer, but eventualy I did it. I load up windows and I start getting excited, thinking my problems are all fixed and I can finally get to work.

wrong again.

Well everything went well until I tried to check something on my external hard drive.

there's nothing that ruins your day like realizing you have 300 gig of corrupted data on your hands.
to make a long story short I spent an hour and a half running various utilities trying to fix the disk but all to no avail. I guess the bright side of it is that anything on there thats really important I have another copy of. other than 60 gig of music and similar stuff I think I'll be alright.

but you always need to look at the bright side of things: at least my day didn't get any worse after that...

Puppies are Biodegradable

I couldn't let an entire year go by without posting... I figured there's no better time to start then now...
(to CS and Wires: believe me now? I told you I'd get around to it one of these weeks!)

My sister was telling me about her shabbos in Philadelphia, apparently they have something there called "First Friday". On the first friday night of very month there's some big shindig in some artsy neighborhood where all the art galleries are open late friday evening and lots of people come hang out , look at the art etc. (after a quick search on google I see that it's not just philly, there seems to be a lot of these things going on) The local Chabad House sets up shop in the Jewish art gallery where they provide people with the opportunity to light Shabbos candles, hear kiddush, have a shabbos meal etc.
first of all, as my sister is telling me all this I'm thinking to myself "something is just not quite right with this name 'First Friday'" for some reason it seems to me to sound kind of christian. Apparently I was confusing it with "good friday" or more likely this is what you get when you mix good friday with the last supper. maybe we should throw in the second coming for good luck...
Anywho, on to the point. It seems that this event attracts a lot of the vegetarian environmentalist-animal rights-wackos, the following is an excerpt of a conversation my sister had with one of them: (why do i always miss all the fun)
"How can you eat that [the chicken]? it used to be alive"
"so? it's dead now. -and it tastes good!"
"yeah, but don't you feel bad? I mean it used to be alive"
"what about you? do you eat fish?"
"Yeah"
"well how could you? it used to be alive! don't you feel bad"
"no but its not the same because... [I forgot the excuse]"
"so what? it still used to be alive"
Typical. pick and choose when your self righteous rules apply and when not. Then go and complain when you find someone who doesn't follow them the way you like...

on to the biodegradable puppies: one of the galleries had an exhibit called "Puppies are biodegradable" some animal rights wacko exhibit about saving some dogs (or something like that). To be honest, I don't really have anything to say about the exhibit but as soon as I heard that name I decided it was going to be the title of my next post.

if it wasn't so late and I wasn't so tired and this post wasn't already so long I would go into a whole rant about animal rights wackos. but as it stands it's late, I'm tired and this post is already too long so I'm going to have to leave it for another time...

Some Random Thoughts

♦ The following is something I recieved in an email describing this article on Chabad.org:
(If somebody can please translate this into english for me I would appreciate it.)

"This is a pretty good article on the subject of retrocausality, which is focusing almost entirely on the quantum wave/particle duality aspect.
The article nicely avoids stating anything exists in a kind of quasi undecided state (not wave nor particle), so it fits in with the transactional interpretation which is best suited to accommodating bicausality and reverse causality."

♦ Since when do they schedule these things? I would think people would be smart enough not to get on those flights.

♦ Ever wonder what chasidishe Shaigitz keeps himself busy with when he's not writing posts? I was looking through his computer the other night and I came across a picture of his fridge. now I understand... (this is the real deal, not something I found on the internet)

♦ A warning label from something I was putting together the other day: "Warning: screw tips are sharp" gee, I'm glad they pointed that out. I always thought objects with pointed tips were blunt.

EATING MY CAKE (Part 2)

OK, fine, so I didn't get it completely right in my last post on the subject, apparently I either misunderstood the phrase or heard it being used incorrectly. However, most of what I said still stands, though I need to change it from "makes absolutely no sense at all" to "Using a terrible example worded in a way which doesn't make much sense"
("Anonymous" kinda stole my thunder on this one in his (her?) comment on the previous post (I guess I shouldn't have waited so long before posting this) but I'll go ahead anyhow)

so what does "You cant have your cake and eat it too" actually mean?
To quote a couple of comments from the previous post:
" haven't you ever found a cake that was too pretty to eat? On the other hand, you want to eat it?"
"It means that you can't have two things which are mutually incompatible. Hence, "you can't have your cake and eat it too" - either you eat it, or you have it -but not both."

I don't know about the rest of you, but when I see a really good looking cake I'm thinking "That looks good! I gotta get me a piece of that cake" I'm definitely not thinking how terrible it is to no longer have such a pretty cake, -as I said in the previous post- what am I going to do with it? Frame it and hang it on the wall? At the very worst I might think "that's a nice cake, what a pity" but to want to keep it? No.

I think we see a difference between Men & Women's thinking here. (I think I'm cutting into Chasidishe Shaigitz's action here)

"Anonymous" pointed out those fancy cakes which don't get touched at L'chaims. But she (or is it he? I think I need to go with "It" to play it safe) missed part of it: at the end of the L'chaim they usually take those cakes from the women's side and bring them over to the men's side where they usually get at least partially eaten.
I always assumed that the reason they don't get touched on the women's side is that the women are all thinking "That cake looks so good, I would love to have a piece. But I cant have it 'cuz I'll gain to much weight"
apparently I was wrong.
It seems only half of them are thinking that.
The other half are thinking "That cake looks so good, I wish I could have a piece. But I can't -that cake is simply too pretty to be eaten"
Then it gets brought over to the men's side where (at least some of) the man seem to thinking "That cake looks good, I think I'll have a piece"

Of course I'm not talking about a cake which looks beautiful but looks like it tastes horrible. In that case I wouldn't want to eat it. However, the saying still wouldn't fit because here you only want to keep the cake, you don't want to eat it.

In other words this is a very bad example to illustrate the point of not being able to have 2 mutually incompatible things.
Either I want to eat it or I want to keep it, not both.
(or is it that a guy wants to eat it and a girl wants to keep it?)
A better example would be "you cant spend your money and invest it too" now that makes sense.

If you really insist on using cake as an example at least say it in a way that actually expresses the point (which doesn't make much sense) that you're trying to make: "You cant eat you're cake and keep it too"

Whatever you do, just don't try investing your cake or eating your money.

Oops, forgot a picture...

Mendy, this one is just for you.
I even managed to get a picture of a bird at the grand canyon.
unfortunately i couldnt get a picture of it yawning.

Good old days...

Chasidishe shaigitz is bringing back some good memories of times gone by....
I'm feeling inspired to post some pics of some old road trips...

(I still need to post a follow-up to my previous post. but thats just going to have to wait.)

Badlands National Park, South Dakota. summer '04.
I love this picture.


Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming. summer '04


Wind Cave NP, South Dakota. spring '04


Yellowstone NP, summer '04


Yellowstone NP, spring '04 (notice the snow?)
Could somebody Please explain this sign to me?


Yosemite, spring '04


Sedona, AZ. spring '05


The Grand Canyon, spring '05


Mount Rushmore, Summer '04



Glacier National Park, Montana, Summer '04


More Glacier NP...


Still More Glacier NP

And I thought this would just take like five minutes... Yeah right. Its like impossible to decide which pictures to post... I'll have to post some more pics soon...
Anywho, that was one serious, hardcore roadtrip back in the summer of '04.
I wish I could do that again...

I wanna eat my cake!

Ok since chasidishe shaigitz asked so nicely....

I've been wanting to write this for a while now, I just haven't had the time or patience.


don't you hate it when people use phrases or sayings that make absolutely no sense? And I'm not talking about misusing a phrase or misquoting a quote. I'm not even talking about when somebody says something really stupid, (I have a friend who is great like that, you can always count on him to say something that makes no sense at all. I used to have a whole collection of his sayings, I dont remember most of them offhand, but here's one I do remember: "You stupid genius!" anybody have any idea what that's supposed to mean?)
What I am talking about is normal phrases used by normal people in a normal conversation. At the moment I'm reffering to one particular phrase which I keep hearing and it just drives me crazy. every time I hear it I want to scream.

The saying: "You can't have your cake and eat it too"

could somebody please explain that one to me? what in the world is that supposed to mean?
The point it's used to illustrate is that you win some and you lose some, you cant have everything you want, somethings work out others don't.

now how does this saying make this point? what it seems to be saying is that you can either have your cake or eat it but not both.
what can you possibly do with cake other than eat it?
seriously, when was the last time somebody walked into a bakery, asked for a piece of cake, was given the cake and told "you can have the cake but you cant eat it" and the guy answered "ok, thats fine, I'll just frame it and hang it up in my living room"

how about eating your cake without having it? I would love to hear how thats possible.

kind of reminds me of dayenu "ilu kara lanu es hayam vlo he'evirenu bsocho bechorovo dayenu" (or something like that)
gee, thanks. who cares if we actualy make it across safe and sound the important thing is that the sea was split. if we drown? no big deal, at least he split the sea for us.
(yes i do know what it really means)
who cares if you can eat your cake or not, the important thing is that you have it.

I dont know about the rest of you, maybe you think being able to eat a piece of cake that you have is too much to ask.
but me? no. If I have a piece of cake I want to eat it, I'm not settling for anything less. (of course if you happen to have some cake and you feel it's not right for you to be able to eat it as well just send it my way)

to be cont...
I need to get some sleep...

Lebanese Men?

So much to write about, so little time...
I need to find a way to add a few extra hours to my day, I simply don't have enough time for everything I need to do.

Well, anywho, a few quick observations about the war in Israel:

Am I the only one wondering what happened to all the men in Lebanon? In all the news stories about all the "civilian" deaths in Lebanon the Lebanese are always claiming that it was Woman and children that were killed. (occasionally it's also the elderly or infirm) Every news report seems to be about some little kids and their grandparents who were killed.

Kinda makes me wonder where all the able bodied men are?

Now you might think they're all in the south fighting the Israelis. But apparently They're not there either: according to hezbollah they only lost about 6 "fighters" (that was like 2 days ago, I think it's up to about 8 by now) so obviously the men are not there either.

of course this brings up another question of exactly who are the Israelis fighting? After hours of fierce fighting they only killed like 2 hezbollah "fighters"? Who exactly are these gun battles against?
I guess hezbollah "fighters" are superhuman, if 2 of them can hold off thousands of Israeli soldiers for hours on end they've got to be some pretty tough dudes. We need some of those for our side.

The Big Google Conspiracy

I think Google is a big conspiracy, I think it's just a big front for the CIA or one of those agencies.

Just think about it, all these huge server farms humming away, harvesting everybody's private information.

It all started innocently enough, in the beginning they were just a search engine, crawling the web and indexing the pages they would come across. Seems innocent enough, just indexing and providing easy access to info that is already posted for the world to see. (although if people are not very careful about security they can find sensitive data ending up on search engines)

apparently they weren't satisfied with all the information they were getting by indexing and caching everybody's websites so they came up with a few schemes to get even more sensitive data:
(not in any particular order)

Google desktop: apparently they couldn't get enough data from websites so now they'll also scan and index your computer for you.

Gmail: so now they're also reading everybody's email. A lot of private information there.

Google analytics: they need to know who's looking at what websites, who's buying what from whom etc.

Google Wallet: (paypall competition - coming soon) that's an easy way of getting sensitive information. Apparently they weren't getting enough of this info from adsense / adwords.

google calendar: they need to know our schedules also.

Picasa: just names are not enough for them, gotta put a face to those names

google maps / google earth: gotta know where we all live.


kind of makes you wonder just how much does google really know about you?

then again does anybody really care? As long as they are providing good services, and providing them for free what do I really care if they have a bit more information about me then I would like.
(I just have to be careful not to discuss my bank robbery plans where Google is going to find them :) )

unless of course their next big thing is going to be "Google P.I." -find out anything about anybody for only $19.95

then we're all going to be in trouble.