This week it’s all about jpegs.
Jpeg Mania, if you will.
Welcome to another Malarky Monday where we all get a chance to tickle your funny bone
and expand your views of the wonders of the internet.
For me, it’s about pictures this week.

The opposite of fast food:

A sad and horrible truth:

The truth about abduction:

A truth you never want to stumble upon in the old box of VCR tapes:
(*you never looked at Uncle Bill quite the same way after seeing him in a Catwoman costume)

And last but not least, speaking of StumbleUpon . . .
This little gem was sent to me by Moe as she knows and understands my total addiction and love of SU.
It’s always just one more click . . .

Please visit my fellow compadres of all things funny, weird and wonderful!!!!!

Moe

Morky

Grimm

Gem *will she or won’t she?   :mrgreen:

And don’t forget about the CONTEST!
Comment often!

I wish I was being funny.
I’m in a nasty mood tonight, sorry.
Thomas Jefferson said it best when he said,

“A government BIG enough to give you everything you want, is STRONG enough to take everything you have.”

Fuck the government and all their high paying ‘no-show’ jobs, bullshit posts and meaningless rhetoric.
I have had it.
There is a backstory but you won’t read it here.
Christ in a sidecar . . .
And as far as blogs being taxed, just wait . . .
These assholes will eventually tax excess pubic hair, if  they get their way, and they always do.

God help us all.

It’s been obvious to me for sometime now that I have some personal issues regarding my blog.
I spoke with a close childhood friend the other night (who occasionally reads here @Smoke and Mirrors)
and he said, “I can tell you really love your blog.”
He went on to say why he thought that way and I had to agree.
I do love my little place here.
It’s home.
As always with me, there’s a dark side, a side only seen by others like me.
It’s with that in mind that I came up with 10 blogging issues that you may be able to relate to:

If you’ve ever:

1. Fallen asleep at your laptop (sitting up) while updating your plugins, theme, blogroll or widgets, you, my friend have issues.
2. Spent longer than the time it takes to cook an 18lb turkey while looking for that elusive ‘perfect’ theme, I hope you had on your blogging Depends (for the times when the bathroom just has to wait)
3. Posted a spam email because it struck you as oddly interesting and you just happened to find the perfect accompanying picture to go with it, it’s BCD, pal
   blogging compulsive disorder
4. Had a conversation with a close non-writing friend and somehow wound up explaining how Google Adsense works, for the love of God, get checked.
5. Seriously contemplated ordering bumperstickers, t-shirts and keychain beer openers with your URL on them, you need a support group.
6. Suffered intermittent bouts of insomnia due to one of your unpublished drafts that’s been leaving you with desperate feelings of artistic inadequacy, there’s a strait jacket waiting somewhere with your name already written on it.
7. Planned an upcoming summer vacation with more than one or two people on your blogroll, you’re justifiably insane. Your wireless mouse is constantly talking to you but at least you’re happy in your own little world. Eat a Snickers. You’re nuts anyway.
8. Been jealous that Firefox can remember all 847 of your blog-related/ FTP passwords when you can’t even remember your cell phone number. There’s a word for people like you. Can’t recall what it is but yeah, you. (and me, I guess)
9. Spoken to a Verizon rep in Tucson, Arizona to get your DSL fixed and somehow managed to slip in not only your blog name but your URL as well. Crazy people can be smooth sometimes.
10. Wondered what you did with your time before you became a blogger.

I can say that this blogging thing still makes me happy
and that I am blessed to have a wife that
understands that.
Some people aren’t that lucky.
She knows what makes me tick, I guess.
And though I may tick a bit erratically sometimes,
she ultimately understands.
I’m nuts, but at least I’m lucky.
Don’t get much better than that.

“Still looking for that blue jean, baby queen
Prettiest girl I ever seen
See her shake on the movie screen, blog on . . .”
BLOG ON.

I was given this award a few months ago by Annie, a writer I truly admire (and a dear friend).
She gave me the award saying this; “Michael at Smoke & Mirrors because his landscape is beautiful and touching, albeit often sad, and so very real that his words can touch as no others can.”
I have to apologize for being so damn late.
Thank you, WC.

Here are the rules for the winners:

I’m bestowing this honor on five bloggers that I feel are deserving in so very many ways.
They are all wonderful and have added so much colour and creativity to our cyberspatial community.

Spasmically Perfect

Spaz and I go way back to the early days.
A comment of hers left me speechless and I haven’t stopped visiting her since.
If you haven’t spent some time at this very special blog you are missing out on some wonderful stories, prose and the thoughts of one incredibly creative woman.

Enreal

Not sure how we linked up initially but I’m so very glad that we did.
A visit to this place is simply magical.
Her words are not unlike a wonderful session of yoga for the restless mind.
Trust me.

Grimm

What can I say about a guy like me that is totally in love with his wife and kids?
Grimm is a lighter and much funnier version of yours truly.
This is a guy that really deserves more recognition that what he gets.
I found Grimm on BlogExplosion a little while back and have been thoroughly entertained since.
I am proud and truly honoured to call him a friend.

Poetikat

A blog that makes you laugh, cry and give serious thought to the many serious questions regarding our lives.
Kat is a writer/poet that truly inspires me to be just a bit more, creatively speaking.
Though she has an avid following I had to give her this award.
Please stop by and say hi to Kat.

Smith

Although he’s the ultimate blogslacker, he writes very well and has a joyfully sardonic sense of humor.
His view on the world is uniquely his own and I love the fact that he can verbally smackdown
the most intellectual of assholes with the most succinct use of the English language known to man.
Did I say he writes well?
Please visit Smith.
Someone has to at least tell him he won an award . . .  (yeah, i’m a wisearse)

Congrats to all!

A few tasty nuggets for you folks ‘Trick or Treating’ a bit early at my blog.
Can’t go away empty handed.
Candy, huh?
I’ll give ya schweet, sugar . . .
{if ya watch}





And, quite honestly, the scariest of all videos
I hate clowns.
Especially this one . . .
{& his gazillion grams of heart-killing saturated fat}
Thanks, Ron-bo.
Talk about a freekin’ monster.
Scarier than Bela Lugosi, IMHO . . .



Happy Halloween, folks!

Feels like invisible
no one can see me, but through me, never inside of me
a social quarantine, so absurd, so undeserved; a sucker punch to my internal notion of bravado
it’s the sudden realization of the parallel lines in my life that make it so
invisible . . .

Feels like invisible
not wanting the outside in, the vast shores of my life littered with too many complex intangibles,
opaque panes of cracking glass concealing inadequate truths, bruised skies of lies and the tattered directions to a place Google will never find, written on a discarded paper napkin,
the raindrops fall, rendering the Zhivago ink
invisible . . .

Feels like invisible
wounds, mainly self-inflicted; the worst and the thin, slicing kind
(they never heal and don’t bleed)
you’ll never see them, hemorrhaging my insides
but there’s a mirror in my mind, foggy and grey
and I reach out my hand and with my thumb, I slowly trace the letters:
i-n-v-i-s-i-b-l-e . . .
a shattered mosaic of my face stares back from deep within the dripping script;
the parallel lines of life and light making me a virtual prisoner, a blurred stranger in my own midst

Feels like invisible,
but not like everyday, but maybe for today,
it feels just like I do
invisible

These are supposedly comments written on report cards by teachers from a public school in New York City.
While I can’t actually believe they are true, they are incredibly funny.
Received these through an email from my buddy Henry.
He never bothers to check the authenticity, probably why most of his emails are so damn funny.
I have a few days off from work and will be somewhat absent from the blog.
Not really going anywhere but I need some downtime.
I really do.
I’m going to try like hell to visit some folks tonight that I haven’t visited in a while.
Two blogs to maintain has left me speechless.
Head over to Moe’s to see a few interesting things from me.
In the meantime, be safe and be well.
Enjoy these comments.

1. Since my last report, your child has reached rock bottom and has started to dig.
2. I would not allow this student to breed.
3. Your child has delusions of adequacy.
4. Your son is depriving a village somewhere of an idiot.
5. Your son sets low personal standards and then consistently fails to achieve them.
6. The student has a ‘full six-pack’ but lacks the plastic thing to hold it all together.
7. This child has been working with glue too much.
8. When your daughter’s IQ reaches 50, she should sell.
9. The gates are down, the lights are flashing, but the train isn’t coming.
10. If this student were any more stupid, he’d have to be watered twice a week.
11. It’s impossible to believe the sperm that created this child beat out 1,000,000 others.
12. The wheel is turning but the hamster is definitely dead.

She withers
head bent, possibly in prayer
longing for an oasis, a distant mirage in her thirsty mind

She cries
and tears fall, like raindrops,
disappearing into an arid, chocolate-coloured soil

She sleeps
while impossible clouds form, from some silent and sacred place
drenching the parched earth with a hope

the Sun shines
and the water of life seeps into her dreams
filling the soul with good things; understanding words,
compassionate whispers, small prayers

She rises
the warmth of the Sun on her face
surrounded by lush lavender, butter yellows, smooth pinks and
the tender hands of some unknown but tender Gardener
She feels enough love to grow on forever
And she does . . .

~m

Is it possible that angels walk among us?
I’ve never given serious thought to that question before but I’m beginning to think that the possibility actually exists.
I believe I may have one.
I’m mentioning names here or whether it’s a man or a woman.
It doesn’t really matter, does it?
I will clarify one issue by saying that if you’re on my blogroll, it’s definitely not you.
Don’t take it personally; you are all angels to me in some sense of the word.

There is a person in my life right now that almost fills my own personal notion of an angel.
A George Burns?
God, no.
I think I may be losing it :mrgreen:

It’s comes down to a feeling I get when this person asks how I’m doing.

I answer this person honestly, something I don’t usually do with anyone aside from my wife (and yes, she is one of my favorite angels).
The conversation between this ‘angel’ and me is nothing weird or intrusive, it just is.
But it has a depth to it that I just can’t explain.
Just thinking a little bit more about this than usual today, I guess.
I checked my Gmail tonight and received a personal message from a Smoke and Mirrors reader. (so many out there, huh?) ;)
I got a chill when I read the e-mail’s title: Angel’s Poem
A God wink?
Who knows?
Maybe my angel does . . .