JamesSlusher.com

I’m still messing around with the look of the blog (as if you can’t tell).

I want to go with something like this current one (It is a variation on the Default Wordpress theme) or the gray one I had yesterday (Wordpress Classic 1.5). I want to have the recent comments stuff and wouldn’t mind a picture of myself somewhere in the header (the smaller and blurrier it is, the better. I know my limits).

One would think that a guy who spends 5 or 6 hours a day messing on his computer would be able to do that fairly quickly and easily.

Heh.

There are obviously some gaps in my FTP knowledge. I can’t seem to upload an entire folder (the whole theme) at one time. I have to go in and create a directory and upload each file in the directory one by one. I find it a bit tedious, so I have been a bit wary in doing it.

I like the current theme, but can’t seem to get that little description to move to the left. Or my picture to the right, it really doesn’t matter, I just don’t want them in the same place.

I’m going to keep messing with it as time and patience allow.

UPDATE: I got the description moved, now I am going to try to get the colors changed a bit.

I received the first 2 votes of my budding political career yesterday. And they weren’t from my wife or me.

Yesterday, North Augusta held it’s municipal elections and I was written in twice for one of 3 City Council seats that were being decided. I didn’t win, but I just want to thank all of my supporters and all the volunteers that worked so hard in getting me to where I am today. I couldn’t have done it without you.

Actually, the two votes came from my next door neighbors, the Bedenbaughs. I’m currently renovating their den for them.

I must be doing a bang up job.

Oh, and as much as I love North Augusta, this is painful.

I’m trying out a new look.  With the Chair and Automan essentially a dead “brand”, I’m going to move away from it.  So I will be trying out new colors and looks over the next few days until I’m satisfied with what I’ve got.  Feel free to voice your opinions.

Just how big of a screw-up does someone have to be for G. W. Bush to lose confidence in them?  Bigger than him?

Never mind, I’ve answered my own question.

Yeah, yeah, I know, I know.  I’ve needed help for a long time, blh, blah.  Get it out of your system.  I’ll wait.

Okay, here is what I need and since I don’t know what else to do, I will throw it out to the Internets and see what happens.

I have been wanting to do a video podcast or vlog or whatever you call it for some time.  It will be based on my personal forays into home repair and improvement.  I have already filmed a bunch of video of different projects I have done.  I am going to call it I Did That and I want to put out a video or two a week, maybe 5 or ten minutes each.

The problem is that I can’t film it, think up the story line, edit it, do the projects, work a full-time job and be a decent father and husband.  And those last 2 things are the most important.  Thus,  I can’t do it alone.
What I need is this:

• A camera(wo)man, not for every single scene, since some shots are just me talking to the camera.  I just need a tripod for those, which I already have.
• A video editor.  This is probably the most important. Editing video takes me a long time.  It is currently my big bottleneck.  I’ve got hours and hours of video that needs to be shaped into something.

What I’ve got to offer is this:

• Not much.  I’ve got a small budget so that I could just pay you for it, but it won’t be a ton of money.  The pay would be based on time spent if you were working the camera, by the job for the editing.
• My undying friendship, eternal gratitude and a position on the board of directors of  I Did That, Inc. should it ever materialize.
• Did I mention undying friendship?

So that is where I am at.  I’m not asking for full time or professional level work.  This is a doing it for fun and maybe someday making money if lightning strikes sort of thing.  I don’t even need the same camerapersons and editors for every show.  If every single one had a different person doing it, that would be fine with me. If you, or someone you know, is at all interested, let me know.

We went to Atlanta on Friday to see a Braves game and celebrate my Cousin-In-Law’s birthday. We left around 10 a.m., which was rough since I had worked the night shift and had only gotten off work at 7:15 a.m.  I napped a bit on the way up there and after a huge lunch at the Olive Garden, Marilyn and Robert dropped me off at the hotel for another nap and they went shopping.

I got back up and we headed down to the game, enduring about a 2 hour travel to go 15 miles.  Admittedly about 30 minutes of that was all my fault.  I gave Marilyn one wrong direction, turning right instead of left and it lead to half an hour of trying to get back with closed off roads and one way streets.

The game itself was anti-climactic, at best.  Mark Redman got shellacked for the second time in as many starts and the Braves were down by 5 runs by the end of the top half of the 1st inning. The rest of the game was really just spent praying for an offensive explosion that never materialized.

One very cool thing did happen.  Between the 5th and 6th innings they played the Gym Class Heroes song Cupid’s Chokehold.  Very, very cool.

The final score was 11-6 with the bad guys winning it.  Not very cool.

On the way out the next day, I finally talked Marilyn into taking me to Gladys Knight and Ron Winan’s Chicken And Waffles. Amazingly good food.  I had the smothered chicken with  macaroni and cheese and fried corn.  Robert Lee actually had chicken and waffles and Marilyn had a veggie plate.  The only food left on anybody’s plate was what could not physically be stuffed down the old gullet.  Absolutely wonderful.  If you get a chance, I highly recommend it.

We had a great time even if the Braves sent a tee up there to pitch.  Maybe next year Robert will have the decency to have a birthday on John Smoltz’s turn in the pitching rotation.

It seems that every couple of months now we have some minor celebrity standing up and braying out some racist crap at the top of his jackass lungs. This time it is Don Imus. Hopefully he will be the last for at least a year, but I’m not getting my hopes up. In today’s public discourse it seems that the jackasses feel obligated to bray. Hell, half of them are getting paid by Fox to bray.

Here is what he said:

IMUS: That’s some rough girls from Rutgers. Man, they got tattoos and –

McGUIRK: Some hard-core hos.

IMUS: That’s some nappy-headed hos there. I’m gonna tell you that now, man, that’s some — woo. And the girls from Tennessee, they all look cute, you know, so, like — kinda like — I don’t know.

McGUIRK: A Spike Lee thing.

…ROSENBERG: It was a tough watch. The more I look at Rutgers, they look exactly like the Toronto Raptors.

Now, it’s not enough that he was just a sh!!heel to a group of girls who should be on top of the world right now with a fabulous accomplishment. It’s not enough that he is insulting their looks when he himself looks like a stand-in for the Cryptkeeper. (Or better yet, check this out. That’s hitting the nail on the head.) It’s that he has to be a racist jackass about it and then he and his buddies (and others) have to sit around and make up excuses for it.

I’m going to go over this again just to be sure I’ve made my point.

When you do/say racist things, that makes you a racist. Period. Like Chris Rock says, “What do you have to do, shoot Medgar Evers?”

Some might say that that is an awful tight line to hold to, that one slip like that shouldn’t a racist make. It does. Just like one fling makes you an adulterer and one punch makes you a child abuser.
The line needs to be tight, the standards very stringent. America burnt it’s karma on this subject long ago. There are too many tragedies, too many injustices and too many humiliations to let any more go. This is not an envelope that can be pushed. In fact this envelope needs to be sealed tight and mailed off.

So should Imus be fired? Yes.

Should he be shunned by others? Yes.

Is he a racist? Yes.

Should everyone with a show be held to this standard? Yes.

Does that include black people? Yes.

It really pisses me off when other jackasses start braying on about how “rappers say things like that why can’t he?” Nice strawman, dude. Bad behavior doesn’t excuse other bad behavior. And if you believe that line of thought so much, rappers use the word “n***er”, too. Would it have been okay for him to call them that? I didn’t think so.

In fact, stop with the angry rich white guy crap, right now. O’Reilly, Hannity, Gibson, et al. just STFU. I know you guys have it tough, what with all the brown people oppressing you with their desire for something resembling simple human dignity, but you are cordially invited to STFU and keep it shut. I know it’s not gonna happen, though. Jackasses are built to bray.