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Showing posts from February, 2019

Schmidt's Naturals

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About two years ago, I discovered I had developed an allergy to propylene glycol after my underarm deodorant left my armpits red and blistered. The worst part is propylene glycol is in most every deodorant I looked at (actually it's in a ton of crap). And unlike some people, I have to use deodorant because when I get hot, I sweat; when I sweat, it smells. Had the worst time finding something that didn’t leave me blistered, dealt with the sweat, and smelled good without giving me a headache from artificial scents. First, I tried, this "all natural" crystals thing. That was worthless. To get it to do anything, I had to put on repeatedly during the day and even then it didn't work very well and left my armpit feeling gross, like their was something caked on by the end of the day. I did finally find something that worked a lot better. But I was never really happy with it because it had no smell whatsoever and if it was a particularly hot day it would strugg

Nathan's Karma

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I watched Dazed and Confused last night on Hulu. It remind me of my brother Nathan.  I have two older brothers. Nathan was 12 years older than me, and Kevin (he’s the one who has spent most of his life in jail) was 11. (If you can’t tell, I was an accident.)  Nathan was good-looking and popular. Friendly and loved by everyone. I was closer to him than Kevin. I think because Nathan was the oldest and much nicer, and by the time I reached a certain level of awareness Kevin was already having trouble with his mental illness and his temper and his propensity for violence and I was, honestly, afraid of him. Fear does weird things to you...We lived out in the country, the middle of nowhere, and I remember Kevin telling me once about how there were things in the woods at night and they’d follow him and whisper and urge him to do terrible things.  When I was seven or eight, Nathan was killed by a drunk driver. He had went to help some friends, broke up a fight at a party, and wa

Hickory Wind

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Was listening to music on the way into work and Gram Parsons’ song “Hickory Wind” came on. This is one of my favorite country songs ever and it’s been covered by pretty much everyone. Hearing it this morning got me thinking about music, about Parsons, and about friends. Parsons came from money but had a terrible personal life. After attending an Elvis Presley concert, he threw himself into music to deal with his disintegrating family. Parsons had so-so grades but wrote a stunning admissions essay to Harvard. He attended the Ivy League School for only semester (that’s what happens when you attend none of you Gen Ed classes) but it was there he discovered country music when he heard Merle Haggard for the first time. When the Byrds later toured England, Parsons become good friends with Keith Richards (the two reportedly spent a lot of time alone listening to and playing along with obscure country albums). Through the Stones, Parsons met and became close friends with a guy nam

RDR2 CONFESSION

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Red Dead Redemption 2 confession — I pet literally every dog I see.

Love for Outlander

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I'm finishing up Season 4 of Outlander now. It remains a wonderful period/romance/adventure/drama with time travel in the background. It's lavish, well-shot, well-acted, well-written, sweet, sexy, dramatic, lots of great adventures and wonderful historical detail. Absolutely love so many of the characters. Whether you've read the books or not (I haven't) and you're felt remotely interested in the show but haven't given it a chance, you should. I'm actually a sucker for romance and relationship drama (especially period) if it's done right. The show has stayed good and avoided so many of the things that tend to annoy me with shows like this (stupid melodrama, twists that make no sense, confrontations that weren't earned, dumb and inconsistent character actions to set up plot points, and never allowing anything good to happen). I was fully expecting to be annoyed with Outlander by now but I'm still totally invested.