hobos and the size of God

One of the websites I frequent often mentioned flickrvision and wrote it is what it must feel like to be God. It’s amazing. No, you can’t fire and brimstone your enemies, or finally forgive that rotten SOB for what he did that time with your credit card that you are STILL getting off your credit report because of some stupid moth—f—king rule that says, “well, you handed him the card.” I DIDN’T TELL HIM TO SPEND $8,000!! DON’T YOU PEOPLE LISTEN? WHAT THE F—K ARE YOU COPS GOOD FOR?!? Fine, just close the account. Fine. Whatever.

Where was I? Yeah, um, Flickr itself seems to be like Photobucket – just a free place to store your pics online and look at their ads. I first found them (and added them in my column over there -->) for their pic-based search engine. Go there and type in “owls.” You get a page of pics. Now do a new search (bottom left) and type in “Scranton.” Now you also get a ring of related searches you can do by clicking on the tags floating around your page of pics. Very cool.

But this flickrvision is just a popping up of pics as they are loaded from the world to flickr. I’ve seen some repeats, so their engine is a little lazy – but regardless, it really is like sitting in Heaven and looking towards Earth.

Speaking of God, I always thought Larry Flynt was a dick. Still do. Not “has one,” but “is one.” I think what is left of the flesh above his shoulders gets adequate blood flow only when he reviews pictures sent in for his “Beaver Hunt” section. At all other times, his neck functions just as the stem of a mushroom, sustaining that cell-based thing on top that functions with no higher ability that a mushroom’s cap.

I will give him credit in that he made the emotional investment (up to his capacity, which is scaled somewhat below the capacity of my border collies) and wrote about the passing of Jerry Falwell. It seems that the two struck up a friendship. I am glad. The writing is a bit tortured in that you need to endure the “I, me, mine” bullshit before he finally realizes that Falwell is the reason he is writing – so write about him! In fairness, I guess Larry knows deep inside that he is repugnant on every level of his existence and therefore needs to talk about himself in a positive manner. It’s like a self-image self-help book thing. God bless him. Still a dick.

Onward.

I grew up in Scranton in the 1960s. Scranton is (or was) a crossroad for train traffic throughout the northeast. Hobos were commonplace along the tracks and in town. It was part of everyday life to talk with them in the neighborhood, but never at the tracks. You also never walked and talked at the same time unless you were in control of the direction – and you never let them touch you. Stories were plenty of danger. I remember seeing the markings on curbs in front of houses. Some people claimed to be able to read them, but the explanations contradicted often. There was logic to what we viewed as kids – we knew the nice people and the mean people, and the signs were in front of the houses that belonged to the extremes of naughty and nice. It wasn’t lost on me even as a kid that a good sign was on the curb in front of the Christian pastors and a bad sign in front of the Catholic guys.

I found this site of hobo signs that is very cool. It brings back a time of innocence for me.

I was surprised both to read this article and realize that it has been 20 years since the first story came out. I remember the first articles on it. Seems the Great Pyramids are poured-in-place concrete and not huge slabs of limestone dragged into place by legions of slaves. Made since when the articles first came out and now have the science to back it up. While textbooks be updated, or is the old tale too good to change?

Back to God for a moment, I am quickly humbled when I see His hand in my life and then see His day job. Kinda makes me glad He moonlights with filth like me. I don’t understand why, but am glad nonetheless. I remember a conversation from years ago. When I shared His involvement with my everyday life, a woman said, “What makes you think you are so important that God would deal with you? He has much more bigger things to take up His time.” The proper rejoinder is, “It all depends on how big you think your god is. If he is only capable of a limited number of things, then you’re right. My God is capable of everything. That’s how He got his name.”

This is disturbing. She should have that thing looked at. Bet she lives in a country with socialized medicine.

One of the most enjoyable parts of the net for me is reading the collected thoughts of people. Two sites worth absorbing: the Saddest Thing I Own and Anonymous Apologies. If writing evokes an emotion, it doesn’t matter if the emotion is happy or sad.