Never gonna give you up, you Islamic terrorist bastards!

The Kindle is now less expensive. By $25 to be exact. IF you are willing to allow advertisements to be downloaded as screensavers.

Now, I’m up for that. Especially if Hooters is advertising. Oh, and Victoria’s Secret. And any vacation resort that uses gals in bikinis in their ads. Thing is I already have one, so I’m thinking they should offer discounts on e books if you allow the ads to download to your Kindle. Sort of like the Vampire Girl Kindle skin up above but being able to change it out all the time.

BTW, I’m very much into the Kindle these days. I got one for my birthday last August and have become the voracious reader I once was years ago. So much so that loving wife has limited me to one book at week. It’s agony I tell ya.

Yeah, it’s Christmas music but with gals like these it’s Christmas every day of the year.

Hat-tip to My[confined]Space.

Emma Watson all growed up. And looking kind of brunettish here.

Wow. Talk about discipline. The guy who got his beret shot-off that is. He doesn’t lose a beat despite no doubt losing a few hairs on his head. And those around him. They all barely move. Amazing.

Then again I’ve been around two accidental discharges in my career and when the round went off mostly I just sat there in shock and awe for a second, and then turned in the direction of the boom. One was a guy standing behind me and over a bit at a cleaning table. The sound of his .45 echoed throughout the room as we all turned to stare at him, grateful no one was hurt. The second one was at the outdoor range – also during cleaning – but the guy was off by himself while the rest of us were receiving baton training about 150 feet away. He was with another agency – firing with us as a guest – and once we were sure he hadn’t shot himself or anyone else, we all did our best to look in the other direction not wanting to be witnesses in what would no-doubt be an investigation by his agency.

He didn’t get invited back though.

I’ve been lucky otherwise. Although there were two foreign officers from Nigeria I shot with back in the late 1980s that gave me a scare. They didn’t have an accidental discharge. Because we didn’t let them. Them showing up at the range barefoot and trying to slide the rounds in backwards (both true I swear), was enough for our firearms instructors to pull them aside for some special attention.

Oh, the commenters at Say Uncle note that they are probably firing blanks. Could be – probably are, although their not reacting is incredible either way. And I have to say that I’m not fond of any formation where you’re pointing the weapon at the back of the head of the guy standing in front of you while locking and loading.

Just not prudent if you know what I mean.

I hate to break it to these guys, but I’ve had a “growing sense of worship” for the “gifts of the feminine” since I read my first Playboy.

And grow it did.

Okay, past that I got nothing. This film is creepy on a number of levels. First, the speakers all sound like the serial killers you see in those scary movies. You know, with that slow, hypnotic lyrical voice that lulls a gal to sleep more slowly than a ruffie but without the morning-after headache.

“Hello, Clarice.”

Secondly, it’s an insult to the 95% of women who love men for what they are, which is men. Manly men. But with a sensitive side. Men who don’t mind washing a dish now and again, always notice when they’ve had their hair done, and never comment on how much their butts have grown over the years. The other five percent? Lesbians and women who love inanimate objects. Not just enjoy now and again like normal women, but actually fall in love.

Third, these guys somehow think I’ve given them permission to apologize for my being a man. I didn’t. I have nothing to apologize for. Okay, okay, maybe I should apologize for trying to feel-up my old girlfriend in high school, but it’s not like she complained and it’s been a long, long time and I’m sure she’s forgotten.

Anyway, I can’t imagine any woman being impressed with what is the obvious pick-up line that is this video. Granted, I’ve been out of the dating scene for 29 some-odd years but I really don’t see, “Hey babe, how would you like to co-create something amazing” as being any more successful than “Hi, will you help me find my lost puppy? I think he went into this cheap motel room across the street.”

And that “How’s it going, babe” vibe is maybe the most creepy thing about the video. The way it repeatedly slips in sexual innuendo with apologies for war, violence against women, religious persecution, and assaults on the family is so icky I felt like I needed a shower after watching it.

Don’t believe me?  Here’s one jewel out of many spewed forth by the guys in this video.

“I honor your capacity to listen to your body and it’s needs for food, rest and playtime.”

Get that? Playtime, baby. It’s on the way. Inserted deliciously between apologies for misogyny, pornography, and commercialization of beauty.

Foreplay with a purpose.

And how nice of them to help take their minds off of all the “man-caused” evil in the world by allowing them to focus on what’s needed -  a nice slice of double-fudge chocolate cake, a nap, and a slap and tickle afterward.

Not exactly subtle. Nor original. Men have been using important issues like world hunger, war, global warming, and women’s rights to get laid since the 1960s.  Before that it was “I’m being shipped-out to tomorrow and I might not make it back” which was used to great success by millions of men in WWII I’m told.

Most women knew it was a line. And still do. Which is one reason I don’t believe they need apologizing to. Women are smart. Tough. They can take care of themselves. Apologizing to them in this way – for these things -  plays them off as weak fools who simply cannot handle the world around them. Including the men around them.

And they can.

It’s one of their “gifts of the feminine.”

What’s not to worship?

I found this interesting post about “Testimony Sunday” over at Maggie’s Farm and had to laugh. I’ve never been to a regular protestant service, having only attended two Southern Baptist weddings, so I’ve never experienced this. But since I’m the kind of Catholic who dreams of bringing back the solemnity of the Latin Mass and absolutely cringes at the ritual “Sign of Peace” shaking of hands (germ city), I don’t think I would take it very well. I like my church-going experience to be quiet, reflective, and with as little human interaction as possible.

What’s funny is how the kid reacted though.

Jonathan thought this was the coolest church service ever. Having only been to Lutheran services to that point, the idea of church where people would get up and cry and talk about their alcoholic parents and being beaten, going to school in awful clothes, having only bread and milk for food for a week – or alternatively, having husbands that went off for “affairs,” – we had covered in our Ten Commandments teaching that “adultery” was stealing someone else’s husband or wife, and I think he dimly grasped that something like this was up – and the police coming to your house or being teased at school… well my goodness, this is the most interesting church we have ever been in, Dad. Can we come back next week?

Beats putting the kids in the “cry room,” although the kids who really wail are never somehow put there. And I have to say I’d love the chance to verify some of the rumors one hears.  But you’ll never catch me testifying. I may share a thing or two here in my semi-anonymous status, but no way I’m going to talk about my fantasy of feeding grapes to Monica Bellucci while standing in the middle of a couple hundred fellow parishioners.

That’s between me and the priest during confession.  You know, when I really want to make him feel uncomfortable.

Yeah, I know, I just posted this photo, but this alternative title just popped into my head and I couldn’t waste it . . .

Again, hat-tip to My[confined]Space.

He thought, thereby confirming his nerd-dom . . .

Hat-tip to My[confined]Space.

That’s Monica Bellucci by the way.