Posts by Ian:
Coming right out at ya!
December 20th, 2011Hi Folks
Susan’s younger, smarter, better looking, honest and modest brother here…. (ya know the drill). Today I wanted to talk about something very very important to my friends and I. Something that matters a lot to them and makes them frustrated and angry sometimes. However, I realized I needed to do a lot more research on this one and wouldn’t have anything ready until the weekend. So instead, I’m going to completely geek out and talk about…
3D Televisions!!!! (yes, non nerds can tune out now….)
I’m writing this to help educate anyone who wants to know and clear up some questions that they may have. Hopefully it helps at least SOMEONE…..
We were led to believe that the next big step in home entertainment was going to be 3D televisions. Now I admit, when people think about 3D, the memory of those horrid red and blue glasses comes to mind. However, 3D has progressed a lot since then. No longer do you have to watch movies with more messed up colours than the worlds weirdest acid trip! (no I never took acid, I’m just taking a guess).
Now days, there are 3 major types of 3D in the market. However, only 2 of them are used in 3D televisions at the consumer level. So here’s a breakdown of the types and the bullsh*t to avoid from the people who want to push it to you…
1: Active Shutter Glasses. Would you believe this tech has been around for quite some time? However, it seems to have mainly been reserved for the PC gaming market. These really do give you the best picture. You get the full 1080p picture in each eye, minimal ghosting or crosstalk and really are “the experts” favorites. However the downsides to this tech are as follows. In daylight, you will notice a “flicker effect” from the glasses. Enough to be slightly annoying. You really want to view movies at night in a dark room. Also the glasses tend to be a bit heavier since they require batteries and they will also need to be charged. Finally, they tend to make movies look a bit darker. So night time scenes in movies can be a bit hard to view sometimes. They are also expensive to replace. Between $85 and $150 per pair
2: Passive 3D glasses. These are lightweight, don’t require batteries, are very cheap to buy, and you can “borrow” a pair from your local theatre and use them at home. They are a popular choice because with kids watching 3d movies, glasses are bound to get destroyed. However, the bad part about these glasses is that you lose resolution from your movie. Each eye only gets half the picture. This means that your 1080p blu ray movie, is rendered in 540P per eye. You will notice that the edges of smooth objects can appear staggered or pixilated. Also there is a good bit of ghosting and cross talk to be had with this method. Now what p*sses me off, is that I’ve heard sales people actually claim “no, you DON’T get half the image, because your left eye and right eye both see 540p, so therefore, both your eyes together, see 1080P!!!!”. By that dumb ass logic alone, Active shutter glasses give you 1080P in your left eye, and 1080P in your right eye, so therefore you must be watching a 2160P movie!!! RIGHT??? If you want to have friends around to watch a 3D movie, or if you have a family who you want to watch 3D movies with, this solution is the cheapest. However, if you have a TV over 46”…. You will really notice a drop in quality. If a sales person tries to tell you that you’re getting a full 1080P picture, slap him, hard, across the face! (by the way, I do not actually recommend slapping him across the face hard as I’m being sarcastic and it’s more than likely likely illegal, and you will go to jail).
3: Parallax Barrier 3D. This works be literally having one screen on top of another. (it’s the simplest way to put it). Both screens show an image from slightly different angles therefore giving you a 3D view with no need for glasses! This is what the Nintendo 3ds uses. So why not use it in home cinema? Well, some very very very expensive sets do, however, there is bad news. You have to be sitting in a very particular spot, and pretty much not move away from it…. Even slightly… And for now, it’s as expensive as hell..
So will 3D television take off big time?
So far……… no….. And with the current technology….. no… Don’t get me wrong, 3D is amazing to view, however, there are problems with it. For instance, when you view something in real life, you continually look around and shift your focus. With 3D, you want to look around the screen, but since the camera filming the scene is fixed focus, you’ll just end up staring at some blurred objects in your field of vision and give yourself a headache trying to focus on them. This is uncomfortable for a lot of people.
There is also a lack of decent 3D movies to watch. Some people have tried to “post convert” 2D movies into 3D with some pretty bad results. While some 3D features… have frankly just been crap.
Pricing is also an issue. When they made 3D Blu-ray a standard, each Blu-ray had to come with both a copy of the 3D movie AND the 2D version too AND they usually throw in a digital copy too. For some reason, movie studios have felt this justifies a 3X price increase on some movies.
Online movie services such as iTunes, Amazon or Hulu don’t support 3D movies. For them to do this, it’s possible that another hardware upgrade will be needed for 3D to work with current 3D televisions (if at all).
I’ve watched a couple of 3D movies now and while I’ve been very impressed with the results that I saw, I just wasn’t impressed by either the quality of the movies (be it script or other), or the expense involved with purchasing them. After all, if people can illegally download 2D movies for free, why on earth would they spend $30 just to watch it in 3D?
If 3D is to survive and be a major dominator in the home theatre market, three steps need to happen.
1: Film the movie in 3D. Don’t do a lazy post conversion, it always looks terrible.
2: Drop your price and make it more attractive for the average consumer to purchase.
3: Don’t think you can make a horrible movie with a terrible script in 3D and expect consumers to have faith in future 3D movies from you (Green Lantern anyone?)
Well hope the above proved to be helpful or at least a good read.
Bye for now!
Ian
12 Meat Facts!
December 9th, 2011Hi Folks
Susan’s younger, taller, better looking, smarter and more modest brother here. I’ve been working a lot with the meat industry lately and I’m surprised by the amount of stuff that I’m actually learning.
I think it’s a great idea that people should be educated and that they have the resources to educate themselves. As a result, I wish to make my own contribution to YOU, the Consumer! So I proudly present to you, 12 Meat Facts!
Meat Facts!
1: You should always keep your meat cool. If possible, dress it up in sunglasses and a fedora hat.
2: Meat that smokes cigarettes will keep longer because it looks cooler.
3: Vegetarians are responsible for eating millions of lbs of crops every year, crops which could be used to feed tasty tasty cattle!
4: If you piss of a Vegetarian, they will protest and sing about you. If you piss of a meat eater, they’ll shoot you and eat you!
5: Wine connoisseurs have many different ways of describing a fine wine. Meat eaters have only one day to describe meat “Damn Tasty!”
6: Many people are blaming global warming on the gas produced by vast amount of cattle in the world. Meanwhile “bean” eating vegan hippies are getting off scott free!
7: A healthy regimen of daily exercise can often get in the way of BBQ’ing and beer drinking!
8: If you were to take all the cattle in the world and stack them on top of each other, you’d probably be arrested.
9: If you were to take all the vegans in the world and stack them on top of each other, you’d probably be arrested (but would feel less guilty about it).
10: Duck is a type of poultry that can be rhymed with many funny and humorous words, unlike Ostrich.
11: More people will eat an ugly animal rather than eat a small cute furry one. Hence many fast food chains won’t sell a Cat, Dog or Otter Burger.
12: Thanks to the internet, a lot of people these days think that their cat wants nothing more in life than to enjoy a “cheezeburger”
I hope all of the above facts have been helpful and educational!
All the best
Ian
Poetry Monday Presents….
December 5th, 2011Ode to the one I love By Ian H. Moore I love how you look I love how you smell Life without you Would indeed be hell I love how you feel I love how you taste I would never ever let you Go to waste I can love you alone Or enjoy you with friends I hope this feeling Will never come to an end I want you, I need you I desire you right now Every time you are near I just think "Wow" I love everything about you I think that's plain to see Oh Bacon you are certainly The meat for me!
Addendum to Ian’s Steak Story!
September 16th, 2011Susan’s Brother here again, this time with a follow up to my steak story!
I realized my steak story left a lot of questions to be answered……. well actually it didn’t, but I felt there were a few things I should clear up!
1: Steak in Ireland was cremated?
This is actually a result of the days where storage of meat would have been a problem. To combat this, food would have been cooked all the way through do eliminate bacteria. As a result, older generations always grew up on “Well Done” food. The food itself actually wasn’t cremated, this description was used for dramatic purposes only. However in my world (that’s filled with all sorts of bright colors, maniacal puppets and a bitchen soundtrack) “well done” might as well describe what you’d get from a cremetorium.
2: You were mainly raised on Beans on Toast???
I would like to point out that I as not RAISED on Beans on Toast, I just happened to like it very very much and was always happy when I asked for it, I got it! To this day, I still love beans on toast. I would also like to point out that I was not threatened as a child, shouted at, or given out to… which explains why I’m such a brat, maybe if I HAD been threatened or shouted at, I would have grown up to be a more grateful and honest person.(the only thing that threatened me as a child was me amazing good looks and my extreme modesty).
3: All of this still doesn’t change the fact that a rare steak is pretty damn tasty and the texture is the main selling point. Due to the fact I’m not a professional blogger, writer or reports, I say “Journalist integrity be damned!”. I will happily change what I have to say if it causes offence to anyone. So at this point I’d like to point out that I fully support PETA and I’ve been a vegetarian since birth and cannot stand meat at all. I’ve never actually been to Texas and my favorite meal is actually beans on toast that don’t have any sort of animal material on them, only vegetable oil spread (that I still can’t believe it’s not butter). I would never ever ever in fact eat meat at all, and the fact that people claim to have witnessed me pulling over to the side of that road, get out a knife and fork and try chasing a cow around a field trying to eat it while still alive only goes to show that some people are in fact liars. I have never done that to a cow ( or a sheep for that matter, so get them jokes out of your head). As a strict vegan I would never harm, or traumatize a delicious tasty farm animal of any type whatsoever. ( Also truamatizing a cow increases production of adrenaline which in turns affects the quality of the meat) (which doesn’t matter to me since I don’t eat animals because I support PETA so much and in no way think they are a bunch of a terrorists).
4: I would like to apologize now to PETA in case I offended them by implying that they are terrorists. Just because the USDA have labelled you a terrorist organization, just because you funded the ELF after they committed various violent acts, paid for Rodney Coronado’s defence fee’s after he BLEW UP a research facility at Michigan State University, just because PETA’s vice president Bruce Friedrich openly said “we’re going to be, as a movement, blowing things up and smashing windows … I think it’s a great way to bring about animal liberation … I think it would be great if all of the fast-food outlets, slaughterhouses, these laboratories, and the banks that fund them exploded tomorrow. I think it’s perfectly appropriate for people to take bricks and toss them through the windows … Hallelujah to the people who are willing to do it. “…. this in no way means that PETA are terrorists and I apologize for implying that they are.
Ian’s Steak Story!
September 14th, 2011Susan’s Brother here again to share with you another intelligent well researched tale…..Oh hell, in this case, it’s just a story from my past. Feel free to let me know if you agree, disagree, or have a related tale of your own to share!
IAN’S STEAK STORY!
I never ever ever ever ever liked steak.
You see, the problem was, I grew up in Ireland. Now there’s a lot of reasons Steak wasn’t on the menu, I mean, think about aul poor poverty stricken Ireland, obviously an expensive steak wasn’t going to be on the list.
Also there was the other problem, the COOKING OF THE STEAK! You see, in Ireland, it was well believed that there are two colors a steak should never ever be. Pink or Red. You see, that means it was undercooked and as a result you would die from eating Pink or Red meat! (oh ok, not sure WHAT the thinking was, but no way you were getting Pink or Red meat).
Steak in our house wasn’t even well done. It was cremated! This wasn’t just my house that practiced this though, just about every house in Ireland cooked steak the same way. Even my Scottish mum in law, she was raised on cremated steak. It seems this was a wide spread cooking technique.
A bad steak was a steak that didn’t take you half an hour to chew one fork full. Oh man, how I hated it. I would do anything to avoid steak. Imagine what an ungrateful little sod I must have been in my family. After breaking their backs at work to splash out and buy an expensive steak (well more expensive than the beans on toast I was used to…), after slaving away over a hot stove to ensure that the meat had reached that proper sun dried leather like quality…. The little brat of a son refused to eat it! In catholic Ireland it was pretty obvious………. I was possessed by the devil himself!
So I grew up HATING steak. Detested it. Avoided it like it was cursed! (or in my case, since I was possessed by the devil, I avoided it like Holy Water…). Then something happened. Something that can only be described as a miracle. I went on holiday to a place called “Texas”. While I was there I discovered many many things.
I felt what true love was like………….when I had my first ever Dr Pepper….
I realized how great an old movie could be when viewed in an awesome theater (http://bit.ly/qDR2UM) (actually, I always loved old movies, just this venue turned them into something even more amazing).
I realized that in Texas, it takes so many acres to feed a cow, rather than in Ireland, where you think about how many cows you can fit into an acre.
In America, it’s perfectly normal for people to wander into a diner at 3am in the morning wearing a bathrobe and slippers…..
I also had my first plane flight in a single engine Cessna, and wondered if turning the propeller off before landing was a way to save fuel! (actually turns out we had run out of fuel……… but I didn’t find that out until I had to push the plane from the runway to the fuel pumps)
And….. I got brought to a restaurant called “The Texas Roadhouse” in Abilene. Wow…… this was a complete different experience. First of all, you actually go to a display cabinet where they have cuts of meat on display, and pick the cut you want! (I didn’t notice a fillet of beans on toast though…). I was weary of steak, however, I was being brought out, and the girl bringing me out was insistent that I try a REAL steak. I had told her I hated steak, I had told her I wasn’t interested, but she looked at me with a smile, and said “You’ll LOVE a real steak, besides, if you don’t eat it, it doesn’t matter, we can get you something else…”. That was a far cry from being raised in an environment where I was told “You can’t leave that table until you finish every bit!” or “if you don’t finish all of that steak, I’ll send you to an orphanage…”. So because of her, I tried it. She ordered for me, and she asked for it medium rare….
It arrived…. It was………….. PINK IN THE MIDDLE!!! Oh god……. It was going against everything I’d ever been raised to believe in. Surely there was some mistake, they had brought me out an undercooked steak by misteak… I mean… mistake…. However, her steak was the same, she cut into it, and I followed suit…. (looking back on this, wow……… I must have REALLY seemed like I just crawled out from under a rock). Then, I did what I had always hated to do…….. I bit into the steak. I expected it to be tough, I expected to have to chew on it, I expected to have to smile at her and tell her I loved it, while trying to drop bits into my napkin, fold it up and deposit it in a bin without being seen………. What I DIDN’T expect…. Was for the steak to melt in my mouth. What I DIDN’T expect was for it to be juicy, tender, and full of flavor…… What I DIDN’T expect…….. was to fall in love with steak and order it every time we went out for the rest of my holiday…….
1998, I flew to Texas, I discovered the love of steak, I discovered a love of Dr Pepper, I discovered that Twinkies are in fact horrible, and that soft dough cookies are indeed lovely (usually in Ireland if a cookie is soft, it’s gone off…).
To this day, I still love my steak and it’s all thanks to one person who was kind enough, patient enough and had enough faith in steak to know that I could love it too.
It’s funny though, even now, when my parents come to visit me from Ireland, even when I was still living in Ireland, I could never get them to try a medium rare or rare steak. They really really don’t know what they are missing.
Letter From America..The Economy
September 3rd, 2011
So it’s been a while, but I have finally remembered that I was asked to provide updates and write a little something on my sister’s blog.
So I think I should talk about the Elephant in the room. No this isn’t a post about obesity in America, instead it’s a post talking about the Economic situation in America thru the eyes of an Irish man (an unfortunately sober Irish man, but I intend to remedy that later on this evening) (oh come on, I have my stereotype to live up to!).
Apparently this morning, it was announced that for the first time ever since World War II that the economy had a net zero jobs created for a month.
People are now very worried that the economy is heading for yet another recession. Already this week there has been two closures of Solar Plants in California with the lost of hundreds of jobs. (Mind you, only the plant visited by Obama was given any news coverage because people want someone to pick on).
However, on the very day that this announcement is made, a report also comes out regarding that this is one of the highest months for imported products from China, yet no one seems to be talking about this one.
It’s strange to me how the media will encourage us to try and seek out someone to blame (in this case, our President) however, they won’t encourage us to look in the mirror. Now it’s true, we alone didn’t cause the current crisis, however, that doesn’t mean we didn’t have our part to play. After all, no one forces us to buy imported goods, we could have easily refused to buy goods that were imported, but gee’s, who could do without the latest smart phone, or the latest trendy tech. Hell, just recently I bought a set of steak knives from “AN AMERICAN COMPANY!”… only to see in the small writing on the back that they were in fact made in China. DAMN CHINA! They forced us to buy their goods!!! (at gun point, while I was at the cash register!)
It’s nice to see however, that there are people out there showing a bit of sense. http://www.saveourcountryfirst.com/ New York has recently opened a brand new branch of it’s “Made In America” store! It’s a small step, but for a nation that takes great pride on who they are, this is a step in the right direction. Perhaps it’s a good way for people who claim to love their country to actually SHOW they love their country.
It reminds me of the “Guaranteed Irish” label that used to exist…. Oh no wait, it still DOES exist http://www.guaranteedirish.ie… But how many people have thought of it recently? (notice the way the website even has a list of all brands that are actually “Guaranteed Irish!……… oh no…. wait….. )
I remember the ads that used to be on Television and the radio for this, but did they fade out as people’s greed for a better bargain grew stronger? Did the government stop spreading the word because they got offered good deals for encouraging us to buy from abroad? Again the question is stated, who’s to blame? Is there a mirror handy?
I really envision the economic situation as something like this. Imagine a team of lumberjacks going out into the woods. They all climb a tree and slowly but surely they start to cut the tree out from underneath them. That tree is going to be so weak at the base that it will indeed crash and hey, guess what, we’re all going to go along for the ride!
Still, there is something to be said for imports, after all, just look at the Shamrock car! It was proudly made in Ireland for the Irish people! (when there wasn’t a mass market for cars in Ireland, when it cost double what a comparable import would have bought, had numerous design flaws and as a result, I believe only eight cars were ever manufactured). Hell, Ireland built the Titanic and I believe that didn’t fare much better…
Ya know, now is probably the best time to begin again. Got some land? Grow some veggies! Got a roof repair that needs to be done? Maybe find a roofer that needs some veggies and trade! Believe me, if we got ourselves into this mess, we can sure as hell get ourselves out of it.
On that note, I’m off now to relax, put my feet up, and drink some damn cold beer that’s been brewed locally in ……………….GERMANY??????? What the hell man…………………
Controversial Gainesville Pastor Burns Quran!
April 6th, 2011
A huge long post about Guns and Americans…
April 5th, 2011Yes, it’s the big one! We’ve seen documentaries about it, we’ve seen the news stories, we’ve talked about it with our friends and shook our head and the stereotypical images we had built in our heads, but now it’s time for the in depth, close up, and hopefully mildly entertaining look at the big issue… (not the magazine homeless people on the streets in Ireland sell, I mean the issue that I’m about to address here…)
GUNS AND AMERICANS!!!!
I consider myself to be in a good position for this one. I was born and raised in a country (Ireland) where handgun ownership doesn’t exist, and where Rifles and Shot gun ownership is tightly controlled as heck. In fact, the main concern regarding gang violence might have been a drive by “rocking” (ok, so that’s not entirely true, but you get the idea).
So my first experience with Guns in the USA was actually on my visit to Texas back in 98. I remember walking around Wal-Mart at 11pm at night (which was another first for me! A shop that didn’t close at 6pm!). I turned around a corner and suddenly I was confronted by a rack of guns. It was one of those “stare open mouthedly” at them for five minutes… kinda moments. Then I noticed the signs saying “Get your gas refills here”, “More pellets available behind counter”. I relaxed when I realized they were BB Guns and said to my friend who was with me “Gee’s, for a minute there, I thought they were REAL guns!” and laughed it off. They also laughed and said to me “Don’t be silly Ian…. The REAL guns are on that rack over there…..”. I turned my head and saw a rack 5 times the size that was just loaded with pistols, rifles, shotguns………. And there at the counter, was a 12 year old kid, with their father, an open box of ammo, and the father was saying “Now son…. Are you SURE they’re the bullets you want??”
THAT was my first real image of Gun Ownership in the USA. To me, it just seemed insane…
I can’t speak for anyone else but I know a lot of people shared this opinion, but growing up in Ireland, a lot of us were convinced that America was just a gun happy nation. It was irresponsible, foolish and in fact, crazy…. You’d hear news stories about shootings, you’d see things like the Columbine Massacre, and you’d wonder how on earth kids could get their hands on guns so easily.
I was dead set against ever owning a gun. When I went to Indiana, I had the unique opportunity to meet with an ATF agent during my stay there. He offered let me use his Colt Caribbean
and his Glock 45
(also known as the Tupperware pistol, due to the fact it’s made out of plastic and it as light as hell) to squeeze off a few rounds.
So what did I do?
I took him up on his offer, that’s what I did! It held a bizarre fascination for me. I wanted to know exactly what it was like to fire them, how it felt, and how it would make me feel.
The conclusion?
The Colt Caribbean was accurate, loud and let me know, that yes, it can be fun to target shoot. It requires skill, patience and a steady aim. I nailed targets left right and center.
The Glock 9mm was nowhere near as accurate, but I still hit every single target, (in fact, it got me some suspicious looks from the ATF agent who wanted to know where the heck I’d learned to shoot…). The difference was though, that with the Glock, feeling that kick come from my hand with each shot, knowing how easy it was to hold it and carry it on a person…. I was just left with the impression that no good would come from a handgun.
Whereas a rifle could be used for hunting, a handgun, it had only one purpose, and that was to inflict an injury on someone close up.
Oh and Automatics like the Glock, tend to Jam very easily.
And so, that was my opinion of Firearms and the USA… until I came to live here….
Now I admit, I started off by living on the side of a mountain in Central Oregon. The nearest Police Station was 2 hours away, the ambulance service about the same. I had to worry about Mountain lions, snakes and crazy mountain people ( of whom there are a few).
So we purchased a gun. A rifle to be (too) exact. We weren’t planning on hunting, we didn’t need to. This purchase was simply for defense. Actually, we didn’t even want to have to shoot anyone or anything, we just wanted something that would make a very loud noise and scare things off. However, I was surprised to realize my attitude had changed. For one, the rifle was good for long range, but close up, you couldn’t get a fast draw on anything. When you’re facing rattle snakes or a mountain lion, you really want to have something for very close range. So yes, we also wanted a handgun.
It was then I realized that yes, there are legitimate reasons for owning a gun. Reasons which I was never confronted with back in Ireland. After all, the most dangerous thing I ever had to face in Ireland, was the queue for the bar during closing hours (a spilled pint is a disaster!). Over here, you can pretty much get eaten or mauled pretty badly. Plus if something even starts running at you, yer not going to know if it’s intending to scare you off, eat you, or has rabies! So yup, living on the side of a mountain is a good reason to buy a gun.
We were lucky that we had friends who showed us how to use guns, fire them, clean them, and be SAFE with them. How to store them, how to carry them, and did I mention the bit about being SAFE? Did I mention that they did security and background checks before we bought the gun? Also, that a darn lock comes with the gun so you can lock it away from people and secure it! I always laughed at the questions that say “Are you on medication, are you a psycho, do you intend to shoot people…” After all, who’s going to answer yes??? Well the fact is, they aren’t taking that as proof that you can own a gun, the proof is in your background check with the police department. The questions are there so that if you lie and answer “No”, you can be prosecuted for lying to obtain a gun. It’s a legal thing, and it’s nice to know that because of it, they can send you to jail.
So what’s the problem with guns then? Well frankly, at this point, I have to say, it’s not the guns, it’s the gun owners. You see, there’s lots of irresponsible people when it comes to guns. People who don’t lock them away, people who leave them lying about so children can accidently shoot themselves or others. People who privately sell guns to others (and thus don’t do background checks for criminal records or psychological problems).
Yes you can apply to carry a hidden weapon on you , there are restrictions saying you can’t carry it into gas stations, liquor stores or meeting halls (or anywhere there’s a public gathering as such), however, what good is a promise not to do any of those things in the hands of a irresponsible person?
Also another thing to consider is the constitutional rights of people to actually carry guns. Again, growing up, I thought it was permission for any nut to arm themselves. Actually, it has to do with …. The Government. Or to be more exact, the corruption of the Government.
The amendment states A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
When British Rule was prevalent in the USA, the British didn’t want the citizens to be armed, this was because they feared that if they were armed, they would kick the British out of the USA. Funnily enough, that’s exactly what happened when the citizens of the US, formed an army, rose up against the British, and kicked their asses out. The Amendment was put in place so that citizens could be armed, so that if a similar situation ever occurred, they could once again rise up and take control of their country.
However, please note the part that says “A well regulated Militia…”. That’s the part that seems to have been ignored. There are Militia groups out there, but the old stereotype seems to be alive, that those folks are just nuts…..
Anyway, back to modern days… Now I’m living in the “Big Smoke” so to speak (actually I’m not, because modern Portland houses aren’t allowed to have coal burning fire places….. but you CAN own guns…). Gun crime is a reality here. It happens, and the short story is, that I reserve the right to defend myself. Here’s the thing though… I don’t want to have to. I would prefer to live in a world where people didn’t commit violent crimes, I’d prefer to never have my house broken into, or to be never mugged on the streets. However, I don’t live in that world. I live in a world where there are dangerous and violent criminals out there. So yes, I agree with gun ownership for protection. I don’t think people should walk around the streets armed to the teeth, but I DO understand people who keep a gun at home for their home protection. However………….. I also believe that the gun should be where small children or angsty teenage moron’s can’t get to it. I believe that owning a gun isn’t merely just a “right”, it’s a responsibility. If you own a gun, you HAVE to be responsible for it’s proper use and storage.
So my final thoughts on this one? America is not the gun happy, gun toting nation that I grew up to believe in. Yes, there are some nutty nutty folks out there, but you have them in every country, just over here, they can have access to guns. I’m not against the idea of people owning them, I do however wish there were better controls on ownership, especially the selling and buying of guns by private citizens. I wish we didn’t need to have them, but what can you do? I’m just grateful to know that we know how to use them, and we look forward to never having to do so.
The USA Headlines
April 5th, 2011A Letter From America
March 3rd, 2011Ok, so I’m back (and it wasn’t that long an absence!).
So taking to heart some of the comments I received, I have decided to be a little more philosophical, a little more heartfelt, and a lot less garbage… when it comes to my posts. There seems to be a genuine interest from people regarding what it’s like to be an actual Irishman in America (as opposed to an American who claims to be Irish because their great great great great great grandfather once dated a women who’s dog got it’s nails clipped by a person who knew a girl who had a servant who was from Galway….)
So before I start, I’ll promise you this, my posts will be random. However, should YOU want me to tackle anything specific, hey, just ask! I hope to tackle politics, jobs, housing, food, guns, driving and crime. Well that is to say I hope to comment on them, I’ll leave tackling crime and stuff to the police!
Food!
So what are the obvious differences?
Well, lets talk about food flavours specifically (or flavor to use the american spelling).
In Ireland, I’m used to having cheese puffs that are…hmmm… how shall I put it…. CHEESE FLAVOURED! That kinda makes sense to me. However, in the states, you can get many different flavours of cheese puffs. Pepper Jack, Swiss, Mild Cheddar, Strong Cheddar, Blue, ……… you can see where I’m going with this.
So imagine my surprise when I saw the following flavour of Cheese Puffs for sale in Memphis…
Who is Karl Cheese?
Yup, KARL CHEESE Flavour!
Now suddenly a question comes to mind. Who the hell is Karl Cheese and why do cheese puffs taste like him? Or do they taste like he smells? Should Karl Cheese be insulted at this? Or should Karl maybe see a doctor about that rather obvious smelly infection that he has…………
Yes folks, America, land of the………bizzare……. flavours…
Still, I did find stranger flavours in Finland…
Bet you're wondering what flavour these are...
Hey, I NEVER said that this post would be any better then my previous ones….. I just promised less garbage…and hey, I haven’t even mentioned refuse collection of any sort!
