American History in GTO's Own Words

My daughter, young Galadriel Tanqueray Onassis, recently summarized for me what she has learned about American history.

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American history synapses. (1776-present day)

"Oh hey lets fight the British so we can be cool by ourselves"

[insert revoloutionary war here]

"now lets make some laws n junk"

"oh, better idea. These people are dumb let's take all their land and put them in these lame reservations"

[insert indian wars here]

"oh, and lets enslave these people cuz they suck.

[insert civil war here]

"Just kidding! Give them rights. They're equal"

"Yeah! War! America! Beer! FOOTBALLLLLLLLLLL"

********

I think she totally gets it!

Rihanna the stylista

offers her styling services to a select group of fans at Topshop’s Oxford Circus store on October 4 in London, England.

Five lucky girls who entered a recent Topshop competition won a meet-and-greet with the 22-year-old singer and a styling session with her inside the store’s personal shopping suite.

As an added bonus, they also got to keep the outfit Rihanna selected for them.

Good for the girls, but based on this outfit, I can only imagined what pieces Rihanna put together for the five. A definite demented elf chic is going on here...

Shuffling on...

For the third time since capturing the Government in 2008, the Democratic Labour Party has reshuffled its Cabinet.

This time around, it's because ailing PM David Thompson has had to shed most of his portfolios. His role is now that of Prime Minister and Minister of National Security.

Here's the full list of Ministerial changes:

1. David Thompson – Prime Minister and Minister of National Security
• Senator Darcy Boyce – Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office with responsibility Energy, Telecommunications, Immigration and Investment.
• Senator Harry Husbands – Parliamentary Secretary in the Prime Minister’s Office


2. Freundel Stuart – Deputy Prime Minister, Attorney General and Minister of Home Affairs

3. Christopher Sinckler – Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs
• Senator Jepter Ince – Parliamentary Secretary in the Ministry of Economic Affairs

4. Senator Haynesley Benn - Minister of Commerce and Trade

5. Ronald Jones – Minister of Education and Human Resource Development

6. Michael Lashley - Minister of Housing and Lands, Urban and Rural Development
• Patrick Todd – Minister of State in the Ministry of Housing and Lands, Urban and Rural Development with responsibilities for Urban and Rural Development

7. John Boyce - Minister of Transport and Works (In addition, Leader of the House)

8. Denis Lowe - Minister of Drainage, Water Resource Management and the Environment

9. Donville Inniss – Minister of Health
• Senator Irene Sandiford- Garner – Parliamentary Secretary in the Ministry of Health

10. Richard Sealy - Minister of Tourism

11. Dr. David Estwick – Minister of Agriculture, Food, Fisheries, Industry and Small Business Development

12. Dr. Esther Byer- Suckoo - Minister of Labour

13. Steve Blackett – Minister of Social Care, Constituency Empowerment and Community Development

14. Stephen Lashley – Minister of Family, Culture, Sports and Youth

15. George Hutson- Minister of International Transport and International Business

16. Senator Maxine McClean – Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade


And in related news, apparently the Cabinet reshuffle didn't sit too well with former Minister of Economic Affairs, Dr. David Estwick. He had scheduled a press conference to express his thoughts on the matter, but apprently cooler heads prevailed and he was convinced not to go through with it.

I understand Estwick's pique over his perceived demotion, but really, how was he going to hold the PM to ransom over it?

Resign? He would only be cheating himself out of a place in Cabinet and relegating himself to the backbench.

Go independent? Independent Parliamentarians don't get very far in Bajan politics, and he knows it. Just ask Hammie-La...

Cross the floor? After his former colleague and leader Clyde Mascoll crossed over to the BLP anything is possible, but I somehow doubt Estwick would go that route. Though I would pay to see him and Owen Arthur trying to mesh their economic policies... Wuhloss.

Above all, Estwick would come over as the bas guy if he criticised his leader for changing his portfolio. Public sentiment is behind PM Thompson, and that's that.

Do You Recognize These People?

So, as I stated before, I'm completing my migration from analog to digital photography by working through my backlog of film rolls.

Some of them are exposed film rolls I've never processed.

Some of them are unexposed rolls of film that I am running through my legacy workhorse Nikon N80 on various creative projects.

My "serious" projects were always shot in B&W.

Shit I didn't care about I shot in color.

The B&W stuff I take to Crick Camera because my darkroom equipment is in storage and the folks at Crick are professionals who know how to do things right.

My color stuff I'll take to Walmart or whatever is convenient because I don't give a shit.

Which was the case the other day when I dropped off my last exposed roll of color film at the CVS Pharmacy near my office. It was an old roll, I had no idea what was on it so I had no emotional investment in the content. It was a fucking crap shoot.

I had them process the film straight to CD with no prints.

My first hint that something was amiss was when I pulled the contact sheet. I had absolutely no recollection of the people in the pics. But it's hard to tell from a contact sheet so I figured I'd wait until I got home and could pop in the CD and to take a closer look.

When I put in the CD, It said "...There Are No Viewable Pictures On This Disk..." and it gave me 2 options..."Install" or "Exit".

When I clicked on "Install", it locked up my PC and I had to do a hard, "power-off" reboot.

I finally pulled out the negatives and found that they didn't match the contact sheet. They appeared to be pictures of little girls and Barbie dolls, so I thought maybe they were old pictures of my daughter and her friends.

So basically, some downtown CVS photo employee grabbed a bunch of shit, threw it into an envelope, slapped a reciept on it and called it done.

I took this whole hot mess back to CVS today, explained things to the Manager, who re-explained things to the "CVS Pharmacy Photography Professional" I had dropped my film off with who promised to fix it!

She fed the negatives into her machine, stabbed at some spots on the touch-screen monitor like she'd never seen it before, exclaimed frustration many times, over and over (while muttering about another co-worker who had fucked things up and called her for advice while she was on break), and finally managed to pull up some images.

There were indeed pictures of little girls and Barbie dolls, but they weren't my daughter or any of her friends in any house I've ever lived in. This is not my film.

So let's recap.

I drop off a roll of my film for processing and I get back:

1: A contact sheet from someone else's roll of film
2: Negatives from someone else's roll of film
3: A CD that has NO PICTURES on it and locks up my computer.

COST: About 6 bucks, 2 hours of my time, and a roll of film that may or may not have been priceless.

As a result of all of this, here are a bunch of pictures I didn't take of people I don't know that I paid 6 bucks to get.

Enjoy!

Our Song

If I were in a relationship with that Special Someone, this would be Our Song.



OK, or maybe this one.

Random Shots From Old Rolls - Vol. 1

In my balls to the wall transition from analog to digital photography, I'm processing old exposed rolls and exposing unexposed rolls.

Here are some random (and clumbsily punched up) shots from an old roll left in my Nikon N80 from a few years ago.

Friendships vs. Relationships

So, I posted this offhand comment on my Facebook page yesterday about how I was becoming increasingly "...convinced that having lots of cool female friends is way better than having a "girlfriend". 95% of the good, 0% of the bad."

While this isn't entirely true, it's mostly true. But that's not really the point.

The point is, a conversation ensued.

"MY BFF: lmfao!!! It's totally true.. I do way more for you than I would ever do for some scumbag boyfriend, and you are way better to me than any scumbag bastard loser fucking cock sucking prick boyfriend has ever been to me. lmfao! Apparently I'm having a day. lol

ME: This why we will always be BFFs! We take care of each other and we have each other's back!

MY BFF: Indeed we do my friend, indeed we do. See you tonight!

Sandy (old GF): He's baaaaaaaaaack

ME: LOL! I never go away, Sandy! I'm like a fucking boomerang. I might fly off on an adventure from time to time, but I always circle back to where I started. It's like a goddamn law of nature. But, you know this about me. ;-)

Sandy (old GF): Oh yes I do, that's why I love you and think of you often."

Then, after this kumbaya hug-fest among old friends, some Facebook troll dropped by and started saying this shit:

Ross wrote:

"Lots of cool girlfriends means you never find that one cool girlfriend...cant have both...shed the "female friends" and open the door to possibilities..."

Ross wrote:

"Cant have both...life is about choosing...Id love to have 2 girlfrirnds but it doesnt work that way....thats what makes them special, that there isnt all the other women around...most women who have a special man int heir life would agree...it sounds all nice and popular but it doesnt work...maybe the reason you havent found that special one is that you allow other women in your life..close friendships with the opposite sex is a form of intimacy..."

Ross wrote:

"there is a natural order of things (boundries) and one reason so many men and women are unhappy is that they fight that natural order...why do married people hang with married people...why do people seek intimacy with one person...its call intimacy...otherwise its not....you cant have a relationship with a woman or man and have all these other intimate relationships with the opposite sex..its unnatural"

Well! Needless to say, shit got ugly. My BFF went all Richmond on him, had a little "come to Jesus meeting" with him, and now he ain't so fucking "chatty" no more. In fact, he doesn't seem to even be online anymore. Deleted all of his comments and crawled back under a rock. Dayum.

But this too (although incredibly entertaining), is not the point.

The point is, I want to know your thoughts on the following question (BTW, this is asked from a 'straight' perspective...obviously a 'gay' perspective would elicit a different array of answers):

QUESTION: If you enter into a committed, intimate, long-term relationship with a member of the opposite sex (including but not limited to marriage), are you allowed to keep your close friends of the opposite sex or do you have to cut them loose in order to make your new relationship work?

Discuss.

P.S. - As a man who's closest friends are all women, including my first wife and many former girlfriends, I already know the answer to this question and am not seeking "advice". Just curious about what other people think. There are no "wrong answers".

GO!