For roughly six or seven years now I've talked about getting rid of cable television.

At first, I dumped cable and went to DirectTV. This worked for a while and then I got tired of DirectTV's bullshit hidden charges and their schemes to trick you in to added programming with out your permission. I found myself having to review the monthly bills for crap I didn't order.

Then I tried PrismTV but they don't have it in my neighborhood which ended up being a bad thing for my local phone company because I told them to go fuck off. They switched my phone service from $13 a month to $32 a month when I didn't even ask for it.

We had just 911 service and they put me on their new plan even after I told the asshole on the phone "I can't get Prism here because the engineer said I can't; so no, I don't want to switch. Do not switch me".

So the end came when I had switched back to cable and my bill was $185 (internet and tv). I realized that by having 1,000 channels of complete shit was being supported by me (and every one else). No one actually watches most of these loser shows and my money was going to support them even though I didn't watch them.

Today I now have ROKU which I can say is awesome, even though I don't have ESPN or some other channels. I instead have my computer to give me all my sports updates and I can watch highlights later if needed.

Now I'm paying $63 a month, not forgetting the $99 a spent for the box.

Eminem and Rihanna have a hit here. Great new song, deep meaning. Rihanna has monsters, one of them being the fact she had another relationship with Chris Brown after being physically abused by him. Eminem has monsters... for example pain from not getting to live "as a regular civilian" or because of his OCD "conking me in the head." In fact he's willing to admit "I am nuts for real."

Being friends with the monster is being able to cope with our weaknesses. We all have at least one... somewhere. Do you manage to navigate life by being friends with the monster? Maybe you let the monster get the best of you. As we mature we learn to live with these flaws better.

I can only speak for my 36 years of experience, but I think I'm friends with the monster, it wasn't always that way.

LYRICS

EMINEM LYRICS
"The Monster"
(feat. Rihanna)

[Hook - Rihanna:]
I'm friends with the monster that's under my bed
Get along with the voices inside of my head
You're trying to save me, stop holding your breath
And you think I'm crazy, yeah, you think I'm crazy

Do you have a little time for a little easy online atheist

This week I found out Edward Snowden is an agnostic humanist, and Diana Nyad is an atheist. 

We have re-opened posting on the Atheism United wiki, it was closed due to uncontrollable spam.  Over the years many people have asked me to put a link to their website on this site or one of the other sites I manage.  My solution was to help all atheist sites by making the longest list of atheist sites ever created.  I can always use your help, even if just to be a watchful eye attacking spammers.  Please link to the list on your own blogs and sites.  Why?

You can Google the name Gregory Chad Wallin-Reed to understand my post.  There are too many articles concerning this case. 

But I think this case, while the extreme, is what I fear more than gun carrying drug pushing douches.

I know where those assholes are and I don't go in their neighborhood. They don't come in mine. 

It is these paranoid, gun holding, white, American Patriots who lie and cheat after shooting at people who,  while doing a stupid stunt, didn't deserve to be chased by the nut sack who I hope will serve the next 50 years behind bars.

My fear is that people like this will shoot me or my family just because their opinions differ from my own. 

Quite a few #Republicans should be out of a job because of their negligence. I want to fight back. But I refuse to accept this idea from the DNC that a donation will do the job. Democrats don't need my money to do their job. They will get their paychecks tomorrow even when others will not. The democrats must learn how to respond to the dishonest tactics of Republicans better. When the Republicans say "the american people want this" someone needs to be there to say "actually polls show the american people don't want this."

You don't need my money to fight something that the Republicans promised to their base. The Republicans promised gleefully they would shut the government down as a tactic. They are getting what they want... the destruction of America so they can get their own sick twisted ideological goals based on a misinterpretation of a bronze age book and whoever is willing to give them the most money.

Here is how they asked for money: http://my.democrats.org/GOP-Shutdown

On a scale of 1-10 how mad are you at the Republican party for holding us hostage, risking our credit rating, and trying to restrict us from affordable health care?  I am a 10.  It makes me sick that they are treating our fiscal health and literal health like a game.  Oh how ironic, I'm sick... I don't have health insurance!

Let the Republicans know you will not be voting for them in the future.  Here are some of their twitter feeds.

I went to a funeral yesterday. It was a very sad experience and I cried when my friend got up to speak about her son.

He was her first born. He was twenty years old and just getting his life started.

I didn't know him. I had only met him a few times. He was a nice guy. Some one who you'd like to hang around because he was quiet and gentle.

Seeing how his passing had an effect on the two hundred and fifty people who showed up I suspect that my impressions of him were correct.

There was a lot of crying going on. A lot of sad people.

...

When loved-ones leave we are sad. I've seen in extreme cases, military people leave their families behind and there is a lot of crying. People don't like to see their most loved, most cherished friends and family leave.

In most cases they know that they will return eventually and they might think that, in cases of war, that they might not return.

Therefore the level of sadness/tears are more intense.

...

If a person dies, those people who loved and cherished them the most will cry. Their crying is very intense, which shows the level of their sadness.

They know, deep inside their mind, that this person is gone. They know that there is zero percent that they will return.

Over time, the further away we are away from that moment of death, the level of sadness/crying lessens. Over time it will, in almost all cases, stop completely.

I didn't hate this movie but it isn't one of my favorites. The main reason why I tolerated it was because it was more of a "mythical" story line (it came from the DC comic realm).

I'm not sure if they could make a series using the same storyline and make it good. So many shows today are ridiculous (see Agents of Shield) or (Falling Skies) for examples.

I just can't see a half hour show and if they don't make it an hour long it will totally fail after the first season. Either way, the subject matter might keep it afloat for more than four seasons.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/09/27/constantine-tv-show-in-development-at-nbc

I played golf today with my favorite Christian golfing partner.  I said something like "and if you think I'm a non-conformist with my atheism..."  and he cut me off and said "I don't think you're non-conforming, I see you like most other people.  Almost everyone is atheist now." The numbers don't necessarily back his claim, but his perception is that most people are atheist.  This certainly wouldn't have been the case in our discussions 10 years ago.  

We came to a point of agreement that the majority of Americans don't practice religion actively.  Maybe we're products of the sights and relationships we have in our liberal Philadelphia area.  I suppose our perception might be different if we lived in the bible belt.  Thankfully, we don't.  

It feels damn good to know I played a role in getting us this far.  Hopefully you have done enough to feel the same way.