A Cat Named Steve

Today I got into a little Facebook political argument that resulted in sadness.  One of my former co-worker’s posted an article slamming Christine O’Donnell for being an idiot at her recent political debate for not knowing that the 1^st Amendment of the Constitution includes the Establishment Clause which is the foundation for separation of church and state.  Christine O’Donnell was defending keeping the education of Creationism in schools.  This is the Christian view of the beginning of the universe, which as Catholics does not necessarily contradict scientific teaching that IS accepted and taught in public schools.  Chris Coons attacked O’Donnell for not knowing that this is unacceptable teaching in public schools because of the Constitution’s Establishment Clause.  I do not defend Christine O’Donnell’s lack of knowledge of the Constitution Amendments, and it seems pretty clear to me excluding the over-attack of the media from my opinion, that she’s not the most ideal candidate.  However, I want to argue that Coon’s use of the 1^st Amendment to remove religious teaching in schools is complete bullshit.

The Establishment Clause was inserted into the 1^st Amendment to ensure that the United States would never become a Theocracy and declare a single religion as the only lawful practiced religion.  This was written by our early politicians who understood that America was made up of people who had recently fled countries where they were persecuted if they didn’t practice the specific religion of their former country.   In other words, the establishment clause was inserted into the first amendment so that we would be free to practice religion without interference from the government.  Instead it seems we have the opposite effect taking place in which these words are being manipulated to slowly remove the freedom to practice any religion at all.  With the exception of behind the closed doors of a church and within the comfort of my own home, tell me where it is going to be still accepted for my daughter to be a practicing Catholic?

My brief Facebook argument was a rude awakening to the futility of political views ever reconciling together when at the core they are separated by ideology and religious principles.  In the deceitful and cunning name of tolerance we are stripping out the very existence of God in society.  Where is the tolerance for the majority of us that are religious??  As this abuse of Constitutional interpretation continues, individuals practicing religion will only become more legally inhibited to when, where, and how they will be able to practice their beliefs.  If Hell can be defined as the complete absence of God, then what does that say about the direction of our country as politicians use the law to gradually strip God out of our daily lives?

A few weeks ago I spent the the weekend in Jersey with Lucas, and other fantastic people.  While we were there we worked with our buddy, Brendan Walsh, and created two commercials for a video contest with cheaptickets.com.  Brendan is a video genius, and it was a blast to work with him.  The winner of the contest wins $50,000 of plane tickets.  Needless to say, both of our videos made it into the final 6 and we have one week to get the most votes and win.

Please take the time to check out our sweet videos and help us win!

My wife and I filmed the video under JimW, and our friends Jim and Ryan filmed one under BrendanW.

Thanks for your votes and enjoy:

http://cheaptickets.promo.eprize.com/toocheaptoadvertise/vote

It’s not uncommon to hear someone start a story by saying “funniest story I have ever heard…”

Usually this is a blatant lie.  The odds of someone actually telling you the funniest story they have ever heard of is not too good.  People know a lot of stories.  However, the odds are good today that I am telling the truth when I say that this is the funniest story I have ever heard, and I must share it with the world.

My wife, Bernadette, is a nurse, and she has a co-worker who’s husband works with autistic people.  The man calls up his wife last week and asks her if she’s sitting on a toilet because she had better get ready to pee her pants.

One of the autistic men that this guy works with was staying at home by himself, and left a voicemail for his mom that he had found a leprechaun, but not to worry because he had trapped the leprechaun in his closet and was feeding it Lucky Charms.  Naturally, the mom was a little concerned about her son and called the non-emergency police line to see if they could send someone to check up on her son.

The police showed up the house and came inside.  The autistic man brought them to his closet to show them where the trapped leprechaun was…

The police opened the locked closet door to find a US Census worker, a midget wearing a green shirt, locked inside.  The autistic man had been pushing Lucky Charms underneath the door to make sure he was fed properly.

The poor Census worker rang the door bell not knowing that he was about to be picked up with force and locked inside a closet for several hours.  Green may be a poor choice of clothing for a midget, but I’m sure this guy was scared out of his mind.  At least he was given food!!

HOW AWESOME IS THAT?!?!

As far as I know there were no charges pressed by the midget census worker.  Lucky Charms are pretty good after all.

I love my mother.  Marilynn is a wonderful and classy woman, and she raised me well.  Here’s the thing though…

I got married last October and I’m pretty sure I have put on my “married 15.”  In my defense, I never did the Freshman 15 in college so I had to pull it off at some point.  In my wife’s defense, she doesn’t cook bad food.  In fact, she cooks better food than I would make or buy myself, so that’s not the issue.  The problem is simple: my mom was starving me.

She didn’t mean to.  It wasn’t some cruel African dictatorship type of thing.  It’s just that my mom sees portions differently.   Case in point: we used to have taco night growing up, and mom would make enough for everyone to have two tacos.  TWO!  I don’t know anyone in America that only eats two tacos.   That’s like eating one slice of bacon.  It can’t be done with any type of satisfaction.   Tacos are like bacon.  If you’re cooking them, there should be a rule that requires you to provide a seemingly unending supply so those eating will not become frustrated.

Okay, my mom didn’t really starve me.  I’m just lazy and need to hit the gym now.

Yesterday was my first Father’s Day.  I can only communicate in a one-way fashion at this point, unless I have a genius kid that has figured out how to do Morris Code through kicking.  I’m pretty sure that most parents talk to their unborn babies as if they are babies, and say lots of cute things.  Not me.  I let my kid know that I was letting them off the hook this year, but in the future I expect a nice breakfast made for dad on Father’s Day or some other gestures of royal treatment.  You’re not going to get anywhere with baby talk so this is a perfect opportunity to educate them.  Besides, I know they’ll be a disgruntled teenager some day and I will long for the days when I could just tell them what I was thinking and not get any response.  My kid is going to be awesome!   Tonight I’m going to talk to them about how to get through college without going to class and come out with a degree and better paying job than everyone else.  I know I won’t be able to tell them this later or I’d be a bad parent, or at least get punched in the face by my wife, so I’m going to take care of these tips now.

iPhone4 gets delivered to my apartment on Thursday!  Who’s excited for me?  It’s shipping straight from China.

I watch a lot of movies, and I’m inclined to say this is one of the crappiest summer movie seasons in a long time.  However, don’t laugh, but the Karate Kid is AWESOME.  Check it out and you will not be disappointed.  It was funny, had great acting, awesome fight scenes, and some good life morals to it too.

I am working from home today which is why I’m blogging.  Have a wonderful week everyone!

Give me one good situation where someone on a unicycle is acceptable!  There is no such situation, and just because it’s in a circus doesn’t make it right.  There used to be a scary couple at Franciscan University that rode unicycles and I always found it disturbing.  At my last job there was a guy in my building who used a unicycle to get to work.  The guy would ride down busy streets, weaving in and out of traffic on one of them.   I don’t know what it is, but this evokes the response of something so freakish and disturbing that I immediately start laughing uncomfortably and then try and photograph the moment to send to all of my friends.  What could possess a person to want to be the subject of a freakishly funny picture text?   As soon as I finished asking this question, about half of my friends came to mind.  Either way, I would like to make the following statement: there is no circumstance where a unicycle is acceptable.  On to other things…

I am stoked for the new iPhone 4!  It looks awesome and I haven’t upgraded my phone since the first generation iPhone back in September of 2007.  It’s time to move to new awesomeness.  Being able to take and edit HD video on the phone will hopefully add to more awesome blog posts.

This is a little rap about where I live.

This is the best drumming video ever!  To make things even better, the band recorded at Aardvark Productions in Steubenville where I have recorded many times.  It seems so fitting!

You may wonder why I went from weekly posts to monthly posts.  I am experiencing a new phenomenon that many refer to as the “40 Hour Work Week.”  It’s something I’d always heard about, but it seemed to be more of a myth or folklore.  I’ve always worked full time, but it was never until recently that my job actually required me to put in full time hours.  This always allowed for many extra hours to be devoted to things like internet surfing, emailing, and thinking about random things that lead to quality blog posts.  However, in my current state it has become much more difficult.  I can’t complain because I like keeping busy and earning my paycheck so the rest of you will have to suffer.  It’s good for the soul.

How about my FIRST PLACE Reds?! Yes, I used a possessive pronoun there. I might share them with Luke, but not for long. Who would have thought that good pitching, solid defense, & timely hitting could make a good combination? Somebody should have told that to Reds teams of the past…oh 11 years or so.

The 9 worst beers in America. – I’ve had the first one, and boy is it gross. Think “liquid-compost-pile-combined-with-rotting-seafood-juice-under-95-degree-sun-with-95-percent-humidity-in-a-can”…A simple focus group could have solved the issue of Budweiser apparently not knowing it tasted like crap.

Steve D watching Pride & Prejudice? I never thought I’d see the day, but I guess anything’s possible when you make as horrible of a trade-off as Star Trek for it. I think everyone loses in that situation. “Beam me up, Scotty!” I would also like to point out that both Steve D & his wife vowed not to watch each other’s movie, and they both caved. Sure, maybe I deleted my account on Facebook & couldn’t decide which phone I wanted to use, but I never vowed not to use either of them…

Breaking News:

Steve D is a hypocrite! “Hey bro, I think you’ve got a 2×4 sticking out of your eye…”

Here’s a video of a guy doing something

So, Google may know what you’re thinking, but Facebook knows what you’re going to do…

If you’re in Cincinnati on Friday night, come to the Southgate House. I hear there’s a sweet band playing there…Not only is there a show, they’re recording it – engineered by none other than our own DanB…He has a Twitter account too – follow him.

Back to the Reds – if you’re a baseball fan – specifically a Reds fan, I don’t understand how anyone wouldn’t be able to enjoy the past few weeks of baseball in Cincinnati. It’s the best the Reds have played for as long as I can remember, and it’s nice to be on the winning side of things for once. Sure, it may not last, but who cares? ENJOY WINNING! This isn’t New York or LA, we can’t pay for championships.

Since Luke shared some of his favorite music, I’ll share some of mine:

Butch Walker – I haven’t been to a show in over a year, so when Butch Walker came near Cincinnati, it was a perfect opportunity to go to a show…Except for the fact that nobody would go with me, so instead of going by myself (which I’m sure still would have been amazing), I ditched my already-purchased tickets & hung out with friends instead. I hope this regret doesn’t follow me the rest of my life.

Nickelback – This band is SWEET! I’ve never heard such originality come from Canada before.

Just kidding – SteveD is the one who really likes Nickelback. And Creed…I think he had a life-size poster of Scott Stapp in his room in high school…I’ll just leave you with that.

Extremely gross thought of the day:

Last night I got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom.  It was a successful trip, but on the way back to my bed I had the misfortune to slam my foot into a suitcase that was on the floor.  The result was that I came close to taking off half of my big toe nail.  Sometimes when men get injured we think we can alleviate part of the problem by doing something else stupid.  In my case, I have an almost irresistible urge to finish the job because I don’t like that my toe nail is partially hanging on and I want to put it out of its misery.  Obviously, if I acted on this I would immediately regret it.  When I was 12 I came close to ripping off my braces on several occasions.  It always seemed to me that ripping those pesky metal brackets out of my mouth would make my teeth feel better.  It’s a good thing I ignore my impulses at times.

Trade Fail.:

I’m not a Trekkie by any stretch of the imagination (Urban Dictionary makes it clear that a Trekkie is a fan of more than one series).  I’ve never seen a Star Trek tv episode in my life, and I always thought the fans were weird.  However, I bought into the hype last summer when the new movie came out that was advertised as a Star Trek movie for non-Trekkies.  I went and saw it and thought it was a sweet action movie.  My wife has refused to believe that this movie could possibly be good and refused to ever watch it.  In a somewhat similar situation, my wife loves Pride and Prejudice (the Keira Knightley version), and I have refused to watch it.  At some point in time we made an oath that I would never watch Pride and Prejudice and she would never watch Star Trek.  This was a great agreement until she volunteered to watch Star Trek the other weekend and I agreed to make the trade.  I’m slated to watch the chick flick of all chick flicks tonight as a result, and this is one of the biggest trade failures of my life. A good trade would have been getting her to watch Braveheart or Saving Private Ryan, or some other high man points movie that could do nothing short of make her into a better person and better appreciate the objective good in life.  Instead she watched Star Trek, a mediocre action movie that I’m fairly indifferent towards.  Say some prayers for me tonight.  I’m hoping to watch 24 and get some good Jack Bauer violent fixes before I settle in for the estrogen massacre.

Perseverance Award:

I’d like to present the annual ANCS Perseverance Award to our very own, Lucas Hennessey.  The ACNS Perseverance Award is given out here to honor those who can endure true sacrifice and not waver in their steadfast dedication to a good cause.  Lucas recently decided to reduce technology in his life by deleting his Facebook account for good and deactivating his cool Google Droid phone.

Breaking News:

Oh wait, Lucas just friended me on Facebook with his new account, and is apparently excited about the new Droid OS release.  Perseverance Award revoked.  That lasted about as long as the time I joined a soccer team.  Okay, it was almost a week longer than I was on a soccer team so I’ll give you that.

Isolation:

I share blog writing with two guys who think hockey is an alien activity.  I’ll admit, it’s not as American as Baseball and Football.  I’ll admit that it’s not very American at all, which is odd cause I’m not a big Canada fan (I feel safe saying that as I don’t think we have too many Canadian readers).  However, it was the ONLY sport that I was ever half way decent at as a kid, AND I find it entertaining to see a bunch of dudes move around insanely fast in a coordinated manner and beat the living crap out of each other.  I think it’s the best live sport (subjective oppinion).  My team was knocked out of the playoffs so no more tweets, Luke Carey.  I do, however, need a new sport to follow for the summer.  Any recommendations?  I was thinking going with a classic American summer sport like Synchronized Running or Couples Beach Volleyball.  I’m up for anything at this point.

We’ve been so busy here at ACNS that we forgot our own birthday!

I first posted on April 28th, 2009, and here we are over a year later, still going strong. What started as a stupid hobby for me has become much more than that – a stupid hobby for a couple people. But seriously though, working on ACNS is one of my favorite things to do, and I truly appreciate the fact that people like SteveD & Lukecarey are willing to give up their own time and help me out quite a bit (h/t to DanB & BillE too!)

However, it’s the fact that all of you keep coming back to read what we have to say that keeps us going. Otherwise we would be sending our thoughts into internet-oblivion, where nobody cares. You readers give us a destination for our thoughts, and that’s pretty cool. I feel really sappy for having just said that. I’m crying tears of joy right now.

Anyway, thanks for reading. Happy Birthday to us.

I don’t know who they put in charge of determining Nutrition Facts for  food, but these people should be arrested they are so bad at their job.  I’m sure their measurements of Vitamin C, Zinc, and Sodium are spot on, but when it comes to determining a serving size, these people must be on crack.  The only other conclusion that can be made is these people are very little.  Little people might eat less or use smaller plates and bowls.

Let’s get straight to examples.  A serving size of any American cereal is  barely enough food to satisfy a small child.  It barely covers the bottom of the bowl.  Maybe these health experts have determined that 110 calories is all that the human should intake for daily cereal, but that goes against the very notion of the “bowl of cereal.”  I have never seen a bowl small enough to accommodate a serving size of cereal.  Therefore, these so-called serving sizes are at best Un-American.  I guarantee that you are having at least 3 or 4 servings every time you sit down for breakfast.  Does that make you feel fat?  It shouldn’t.  It should make you red with rage towards the health Nazis telling you to only eat three spoonfuls of tasty Kellogg’s goodness.

Or how about Pringles?  Or any snack food for that matter?  A serving size is a few handfuls.  When I open a can of Pringles I intend to finish that can.  I don’t open a can of soda, drink 10% and then save the rest for later.  That would be ridiculous!  I crush the can in one sitting.

My point is this.  Serving Sizes are not accurate.  They are lies.  In the name of truth, I demand some accountability and some honesty!  If you can tell me the last time you ate the recommended serving and you weren’t on a strange diet then please let me know because I’m losing faith quickly, and I no longer trust nutritional facts.  What is the world coming to??