A Crying Shame

Last night brought us the train wreck that is the completely irrelevant MTV Video Music Awards (and I am delighted to report that I did not watch them). Why irrelevant? Um, let's see...first when was the last time MTV featured music and B) when was the last time MTV actually played a music video? That would be a quarter to never, but I digress. The MTV VMA's have a long history of being a forum for outrageous behavior, mostly from young women who have decided that being raging skanks is the greatest thing they could ever do. But what happened last night was the crowning achievement of skankdom and given how low the bar has been set, that is really saying something.

Believe it or not, this is the least offensive of the lot

Former Disney (the Disney people may want to look at the training program and what it's yielding- Britney Spears, Xtina, and now Miley, unless of course it's some secret program for producing walking testbeds for free clinics) child songstress Miley Cyrus used the event to perform, and I use that word as loosely as her morals, a spectacle normally reserved for seedy strip clubs. There is no point in describing it. It's being replayed at a vomit-inducing pace so you'll get to see it, if you so desire.

Her father, Billy Ray Cyrus, no stranger to causing the nation to bouts of explosive vomiting (I give you 'Achy Breaky Heart' and dare you to argue), sent out a text after his daughter's routine, imploring the nation to pray for world peace. Given his daughter's performance, I think he meant piece, since that is what she was giving away. Upon reading that, I actually felt a little bit sorry for him. It was a crying shame. A shame that he had to witness that and an even greater shame that he seemed to be more concerned about world peace than his daughter's implosion broadcast to a worldwide audience. The whole spectacle was an enormous shame.

Mika Brzezinski, co-host of MSNBC's 'Morning Joe' was having none of it this morning. None. Of. It. She was on a tear this morning. At one point, she said the following, "The whole thing was cringe-worthy, but I feel bad for her. She is a mess. Someone needs to take care of her." Cringe-worthy is a bit of an understatement. It was, and is, sad. Sad that a young woman feels that turning herself into an obscene parody is the way to jumpstart her career and create an impression. Sad that the shame of it all will be lost on her and those around her.

The whole thing was a crying shame. Makes you miss the days when the worst thing the VMA's produced was a writhing Madge Madonna lip-synching badly to 'Like a Virgin.'

Satan's Kingdom

I paid a visit to Satan's Kingdom today. Many of you are not shocked by this but for those of you who may be wondering what I was up to, let these visuals be your guide:

No...too easy, I wasn't in Vegas

Inside Glenn Beck's studio would have been a good guess

HERE! Yes, this place exists and this is where I was

In fact, there is a Satan's Kingdom here on earth and of course, it's an official state recreation area here in Connecticutistan. Now how it got its name or how Martha Stewart and her cabal ever permitted its naming escapes me, but this much I can tell you, it made for a fun afternoon.

The stunningly patient and mighty fine SML, me, and the Boy joined several of the youth and other leaders from our Church youth group for a float down the Farmington River. It was a gorgeous afternoon, mild temps and no humidity! The water was not cold, which was good, given my epic and well-documented aversion to cold water. It was great to see the kids having fun and even nicer to enjoy an afternoon in the sun. It was even peaceful, which seems highly ironic given the name of the recreation area.

I'm glad we got to do this. I'm grateful that the Boy is cool with having his parents hang out with him and his friends. That says more about him and the kind of young man he is becoming than it says anything about us. We, his parents, are decidedly uncool but I think we can be pretty fun to be around in spite of our middle-agedness.

But that middle-agedness is biting me now...I'm sore from all the paddling. I need to get the heating pad....

Idling

As noted in my previous post, it would seem that summer really is coming to a close. BookFace is getting populated with pictures of kids returning to school. The Blogosphere, especially the Mormon Mommy Bloggers who have taken it to an '11' on the Over The Top scale it would seem this year, is filling with stories and images of the same - kids heading back to school. But here in this part of Connecticutistan, school is not yet in session and there's still a bit of idle time to be had.

But you know what they say about idle time and its results...'an idle mind is the Devil's playground.' Well, I've found that an idle mind is an absolute blessing. Sometimes there is nothing I relish more than to not have a single, and I mean NOT ONE, thought in my head. It's fantastic. Really.

But you can't be empty-headed forever. The results aren't good. You want proof? Two words: Paris. Hilton. I rest my case.

So it's good to heed the counsel of the sign: No Idling Allowed. I'm trying to heed it as the summer winds down. I know I've been idling as it comes to the Den of late. But that hasn't stopped new people from finding a seat here in the Den. I'm curious though as to what idle behavior led people to the blog by entering the following search terms:

bloody nipple
running like a dope
JFK assassination bloody shirt

Seriously. Those three are just a random smattering of the search words or phrases that have led people milling about the dork forest that is the interweb to the Den. I could not be more concerned. All the more reason to step up the quality of the writing here, I guess. Clearly, I need to stop the idling.

It's time. Summer's pretty much over. Enjoy the last few days and weeks of it.

As summer fades

If the the last few days here in Connecticutistan are any indication, summer is on her way out. The day time temps have settled nicely into the mid-70's, with light breezes, which has meant windows open and enjoy the tail end of summer as she cools off. It's been pretty fantastic.

The children in our neighborhood seem to be taking full advantage of these temperate days before they return to school. Today, though, that idyll was destroyed by this:

Not the exact truck but a reasonable facsimile

With our windows open in the late afternoon today, I heard it coming and I wanted to curl up in the fetal position. There is was...the awful screeching of pre-(and crappily) recorded carnival music being blared over a tinny bullhorn-esque device. The music ebbed and flowed like so much raw sewage with the movement of the truck. The dreaded ice cream truck. I'm telling you, the ice cream truck is pretty much like a clown on wheels. It inspires fear and revulsion, plain and simple.

And what it is it about those who pilot these Satanic vehicles? They pretty much fall into two categories: A) mustachioed, overweight men who have no business being near adults, let alone children and 2) your garden variety terrorist. Seriously, check out the pictures of the 'Top 10 Most Wanted Terrorists' and you'll see that at least six of them look far too much like the perv selling red, white and blue 'Bomb' pops (no irony there) out the back of a hammered van to the neighborhood kids. Thankfully, there are few kids on our street and the truck and its musical horror story were soon the way out. All was right in the world again.

It does seem strange, though, that it's only mid-August and it feels like summer is nearly over. It's been too short. Time needs to slow down, my friends, if only for a little while.