Ponies done been good to me, listmania, and a response

Labor Day Weekend: along with the group from QHS, drank lots of tasty Yuengling, talked of baseball stats and the merits of this song and that, bet on the ponies, and played baseball.
At the track: I actually managed to hit 4 exactas in a row, about which Bryan was quite impressed. Before you get too excited, the first three of those were exactas involving the 2 favorites so the pay out was nice but just enough to continue my wild betting of $5-8 per race. The fourth was a random choice that inolved the #10 horse, who was running at 29-1 odds. He came in second. The 4-1 horse came in first. I put a dollar on this possibility. I won over a hundred bucks on that accidental insight. So, I ended up leaving the track with a fuller pocket than when I got there and only spent 3/4 of it on beer over the next 2 nights. Ah, the ponies. I'm already looking forward to next year.

Songs: The seven stout-hearted list-addicts came together, CDs in hand, laying out our vulnerable top 25 for all to judge and rank. We hashed out why this Beatle song rather than that (or in my case, no song at all), should a song be over 10 minutes long when 5 minutes would do, and made the realization that the swinginest twins from the Foothills Council actually have heard a song, or two, from black artists. One day, they may even realize that women sing too!

So, here is my list, in no particular order:

Pretty Good Year, Tori Amos
Rambling On My Mind, Robert Johnson
Me and Bobby McGee, Janis Joplin
Hallelujah, Jeff Buckley
Eulogy, Tool
Here It Is, Leonard Cohen
Breathe Me, Sia
The Sounds of Science, The Beastie Boys
Fear, Sarah McLachlan
Perfect Circle, REM
Blue Sky, Patty Griffin
Somewhere Over the Rainbow, Izzy
Downtown Train, Tom Waits
Lean On Me, Terry Callier/Beth Orton
Thunder Road, Bruce Springsteen
Kid Fears, Indigo Girls w/Michael Stipe
Simply Beautiful, Al Green
Buildings & Bridges, Ani Difranco
Space Dog, Tori Amos
Romeo & Juliet, Dire Straits
Joga, Bjork
Ain't No Sunshine When She's Gone, Lighthouse Family
The Gambler, Kenny Rogers
No Ordinary Love, Sade
Just Like U Said it Would B, Sinead O'Connor

This is my contribution. We are going to rank 75 out of the 174 possibilities (1 song repeated, A Day in the Life by The Beatles) and send them to the Statsifyer who will work his magic to tell us what the best 50 songs are according to we seven. What a great hobby we have!

Playing Baseball: Played an almost 8-inning game on Sunday. Muscles I didn't even know I had have all banded together to scream at me for this terrible transgression. I look forward to the day when I can once again walk with ease.


Here is the rest of the baseball story.
Top of the 8th: Bryan's on the mound.
Mark Low steps up to the plate and rockets an 80 mph line drive directly into Bryan's eye.
Bryan drops to the ground faster than a 20 lb bag of cement dropped off a 5 story building.
Black eye ensues.
Luckily it was only a tennis ball or I'd be wiping his drool off his chin for the rest of our lives.

On the getting together of good friends: With so much chaos and tragedy in the world, particularly during this time of suffering for so many in New Orleans, it is amazing and necessary to laugh. Laugh we did.

Happy Birthday to Sue J. in California, to Shannon, wherever you are, and to Kate, I hope people sufficiently celebrated the full wonderfulness of you. And RIP to Bob Denver, aka Gilligan; it's weird when a person who played such a silly, vibrant character dies. What will the skipper do now?

WARNING - moral babbling ahead:
In my previous post, I commented on the state of religious hypocrisy (wow, that's a redundant phrase) in this country and I received a comment that asked for some further discussion and thought on this. The question posed to me: When my faith informs my actions, should I not say the reasons for my actions?" My first reaction is Why? If you are helping the poor because you believe that your god will look favorably on your kindness, or because you were taught in Sunday school that this is the "right" way to act toward your fellow human, why do you need to announce the reason behind your action(s)? Does it matter to those who have been assisted that you believe that your god is happy with you? Does it make your actions any better? Or worse? Does it really help those aided any more to know that you are a little holier because you've acted in accordance with the tenets of your religious beliefs? Again, believe what you will, and if this makes you reach out to more people under the guise of moral rectitude, fine. I love that you are helping people, but I don't care why. If we didn't have religion to throw up in front of us, would we still help, and could we do so without feeling self-righteous and more secure in the knowledge that your future halo just got a little brighter?

A bigger issue to me is that those spouting religious dogma as they do their "acts of kindness" are so often blind to the need(s) of those they are "helping". If you believe that prayer in schools is the best thing for those children who have no money, because if they pray and show great zeal for "god", then they can go to heaven where they will be fully rewarded, is this the best help you can give, particularly because you believe it to be so important? Does this take into consideration the needs of those children with not enough food in their bellies and no hope of climbing out of the poverty into which they have been born? My point is that people of great religious fervor put on blinders and only see the right and wrong of the world in one shade, or I guess two: black and white. I saw a bumper sticker the other day, 'If you're christian, you can't believe in abortion' - really? Why not? I can be a good person who helps other and lives life with respect and sincere love for others, but I might not be able to mentally or financially handle a child. And who is that person driving that car to tell me that I'm wrong because they, or their god, don't agree. I now feel like I'm rambling and that I could write about this forever, because it is an issue that must be discussed and one point leads to another and to another, and right now, I'm just arguing with a huge "Christian" right that feels the need to push its beliefs into my house. And the safety lock is only so strong on my front door.