Red State, Green Wheat

Title: Musings on a Midwestern visit.

This visit to our nation's bible belt (John 3:16 is scrawled in a bathroom stall at the KFC.) has been an enjoyable and enlightening one. Living in a blue area of California, you begin to wonder, what's it really like out there in the heart of red state country? And I think I'm getting a better idea. First thing that stands out is of course the many churches and church people. They've all been great and very friendly, and being a grandson I'm sure helps when you are from California. :) But I have a feeling they'd be just as friendly otherwise. But it certainly is a different culture out here. I'd think it would be impossible to live here and be a Christian who doesn't "go to church" and just attends a bible study. It doesn't fly perfectly well where I'm from, but here I'm pretty sure it would impact one's everyday life. Everybody knows everyone and your political and religious opinions weigh heavily. Ah, but this is speculation. It would make for an intriguing experiment, however. :)

But I digress, there are some other things that are interesting here. One is, the wheat is green! It has been explained to me that this is normal, and that the wheat is planted (about fallish, I assume) and comes up green and doesn't look like "amber waves of grain" until later. So while driving around the fields look like fresh-cut green lawns.

"A new world chess center" is a couple towns away in the Swedish-inspired city of Lindsborg! So says the New York Times!

Oh, and some of the famous Amish live here, as do the lesser known but similar Holdermans. I think they can drive cars though.

One more thing: The big meal of the day is called "dinner," be it at lunch or "supper". And supper is what you call the evening meal, regardless.

Golden Dragon

On Christmas Eve, I was very happy and fortunate enough to partake in Eastern culture as experienced here in the heartland of America! My grandparents and I went to the Golden Dragon, one of two chinese restaurants in the nearby "larger" town of MacPherson, Kansas. It was buffet style, as are most of the restuarants here, it would seem, and the food was pretty good. They even had chopsticks! Made me feel right at home. A very Merry Christmas indeed!

A Kansas Kinda Kristmas!

Hi Folks!

Well, tomorrow I'm headed for the land that Dorothy and Superman are from. A mythical place in which my grandparents also live! Moundridge, Kansas to be exact. I'm going to try to do a little blogging while I'm there, so we shall see how that goes! Have a safe and happy holiday season as well as a great Christmas! And don't let the weirdness of the season get you down. Talk to you soon!

Great Album

I just bought Supertramp's Breakfast in America. I really like it! Like with the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds, it's one of those great albums that you can listen to all the way through with a great aural landscape and great stories and at least three good hits. The album almost certainly sounds tacky now, and people who heard it in the seventies might consider many of the songs "played-out." But I just wanted to mention that I'm having a great time giving it a spin, and highly recommend it!

Bad Noir, But Local

On Friday night, after a meal lacking in "Chinese Fortune Cakes" with no "bits of literature" contained therein, my friend Sean and I headed to Tosca's where we believe the classic film noir no-one has heard of, The Raging Tide, had a memorable and perplexing scene. In the film, among the other confusing food items (Chinese Fortune Cakes in the Japanese Tea Garden was one) was a drink called a "Cappuccino." The way it was described in the scene was something like this:

"Have you ever had this? It's a Cappuccino."

"No, what is it?"

"It's a cup of hot chocolate with a little bit of brandy and a little cream on top."

Weird, right? Well we just assumed the filmmakers got it wrong and kept quoting it because it sounded so bizarre.

Ah, but just recently Tosca's was discovered to have this drink, prepared just this way as their specialty! Apparently it's a prohibition drink that they would serve as the secretive "House Cappuccino." So we went over to Little Italy in the city, had this strange "House Cappuccino" and quoted lines from The Raging Tide.

"By the by, the fish eat their breakfast!"

Legoogle

Here is a site with a bunch of close-up pictures of that Duplo Google case from three posts ago. Interesting stuff!

House

There is a new show on Tuesday nights called "House, M.D." It's the first time in a long time that I've really enjoyed a new TV show! It stars British comedian Hugh Laurie (who is very funny) as a serious, sarcastic American doctor with a heart of gold! Well, ok maybe not a heart of gold, but something like that. He has this quirky Sherlock Holmesian way of diagnosing patients. It's like a mystery show with medicine. I've really liked the first two shows I've seen. Of course, it's not without its little imperfections, but they are few. Hugh Laurie is very fun to watch. Check it out! It's on Fox at 9pm.

Beat the Holiday rush

What, I ask you, is the point of spam? Who in their right mind is going be taken in by:

"Beat the Holiday rush: Remote control Hovercraft"

Where is this rush for "Remote control Hovercrafts" coming from? Too bizarre. It's like spam for spam's sake.

Also, I love gmail, don't get me wrong, but I'm starting to get spam for it. The strange thing is the spam is addressed to (among several other email addresses):

"miguel_angel_ortega@gmail.com"

What??

Apparently I'm getting spam for Midgetb and Mikebatdorf, also. It's too bad, too, because these look like some very cool "Replica Rolexs" and "cheap high-quality software."