[image:113:l] [image:114:l] Step inside, walk this way, you and me babe, hey hey.

Warning to Ulster County area people. Stay away from Dr Grossman’s dental offices. I switched there recently and boy am I regretting it. First I go in to get my teeth cleaned and they tell me I need 5 crowns, have a cavity, and then they’ll do the teeth cleaning. I was skeptical. They had been recommended by a person at work I don’t trust, but at the time was still on the fence about (see previous post regarding him). I called a dental hygenist friend to find out the reputation of the office or if in her professional opinion this sounded on the up and up. Unfortunatley I couldn’t get in touch with her during the week or two leading up the first appointment. So I tell them we can do 3 crowns on the one side but I’m not approving any more than that yet. I have it done and the guy at work chooses that time to mention that he went in there for a cleaning and received the same diagnosis. I then come to find out the same has happened for at least 2-3 other people I was later able to find out about.

If I had had that info originally I never would have let them back in my mouth. Then after the crowns are in I notice discomfort right around the area they did the work on when I chew on hard stuff. I go in today and the saw off part of the crowns the adjust the bite after making me wait an hour past my appointment time and I come to realize after leaving the teeth there now feel sharp at the edges and that the area that felt out of whack feels untouched.

I feel as if part of the reason for this is that they took no time to work with me and locate the problem because they are running a high volume business there that ushers people in and out like cattle. The place is huge, you never get the same Dentist or hygenist twice, examinnig chairs are set up either in tiny rooms or out in hallways with one next the the other with little space or privacy. The people who work there look right through you and you can tell their is no recognition of patients as anything more than a faceless and nameless commodity. It’s very impersonal there and I am developing an intense dislike for everyone assocaited with it. As I sat there in the chair in that tiny room with the saving grace of an Edward Hopper painting on the wall I saw staff outside my door giving me strange looks. I waited and waited as they peered in with sidelong glances like they didn’t want me to know they were there. And when the Dentist did his thing I could, out of the corner of my eye, catch sight of people at the door looking on like an unusual event was happening. I felt like I was in some dental horror movie where I was being sized up by dental technicians of death and their wary assistants stealing covert looks of sadness and curiosity over the next office sacrifice.

And I didn’t even get fondled like on Seinfeld.

Time to head on down to South Park and have ourselves a time. Isaac Hayes has quit the show because he’s a Scientologist that was unhappy with an episode called Out Of The Closet that originally aired in November making fun of that oh so silly religion. When the episode was set to be rerun last week it was suddenly pulled with word that famous Scientologist and subject of said title in need of coming out of a closet, Tom Cruise, was unhappy. Now consider this: Cruise, who has MI3 coming out for Paramount, who in turn is owned by Viacom, who also owns Comedy Central is rumored to have told the company he would not promote the new movie if the episode was allowed to air again. His publicist has denied this. And yet the episode was pulled. Hmmm.

True to their irreverence and brilliant sense of normalcy, Trey Parker and Matt Stone issued the following statement in regard to the decision to pull the show last week:

“So, Scientology, you may have won THIS battle, but the million-year war for earth has just begun!” the “South Park” creators said in a statement Friday in Daily Variety. “Temporarily anozinizing our episode will NOT stop us from keeping Thetans forever trapped in your pitiful man-bodies… You have obstructed us for now, but your feeble bid to save humanity will fail!”

South Park

In regards to Hayes quitting, the South Park creators had the following bit of sanity and coherence to say in response to Hayes claiming he could no longer, “tolerate the shows religious intolerance and bigotry.”

“This is 100 percent having to do with his faith in Scientology…He has no problem–and he’s cashed plenty of checks–with our show making fun of Christians.”

We had some good times with the Chef and his chocolate salty balls but it’s over. He’s dead to me and I only hope Trey and Matt find a fitting way to remove him from the show. Guys like him and Cruise exemplify the worst of religious intolerance. The more someone can’t take being hit the more vulnerable you know they are. Tomorrow a new slate of South Park’s begin with an episode being billed as the Chef’s return to South Park. My guess is it was done before all this and features Hayes, but I wouldn’t be surprised if by the end of what usually is an 8 episode run we see something having to do with the above.

Speaking of religion you can go to this site, beliefnet to take a quiz that will supposedly tell you what your best religion would be and rank according to percentage how much you have in common and fit in with a whole list of the worlds belief systems. It determines your ranking not only through answers to the questions but on how highly you rank the questions. My own number 1 with 100% was Unitarian Universalism. Secular Humanism and Theravada Buddhism ramked as my 2nd and 3rd best matches.

Frighteningly this thing has me ranked as a slightly better fit with Islam at 17% than Roman Catholicism which was last on my list at 14%.

What’s the 14% I have in common with Roman Catholacism I have to wonder? Our mutual disdain for Born Agains? A love of loose clothing?

At 23% I’m a better fit for the Jehovah Witnesses according to the quiz. Not with a birthday coming up in a month I’m not.

Scientology came in at 14 on my list with an amazing 46% match. Maybe me, Tom, and Isaac aren’t that different after all.

Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants came in at 5 at 74% prompting me to ask if there is any such thing in America anymore?

Mainline to Conservative Christian Protestants came in at 21 with 27 %. That’s a hefty difference for people supposedly part of the same religion. And I resent any poll that says I have 27% in common with George Bush or Pat Robertson. The only thing I have in common with these guys religiously is that none of us are good Christians.

I tend to think I’m more of the Secualar Humanist, not really knowing what the Unitarian Universalist are and only feeling like it sounds a bit suspicious. What little I could find out on the above site seems to have them a bit all over their place and pretty excepting and tolerant, but at the same time perhaps showing a bit too much tolerance of the Christian thing for my tastes. There is a bulletin board I’m going to check out later to find out more. If i start acting strangely in the coming weeks this may have something to do with it. If I start smiling alot, calling everyone my brother and sister, and not caring about trivialities like the upcoming Baseball season, the summer movies, or eating, please feel free to shoot me. I may protest at the time but that won’t be me. This is me telling you now before it happens. REMEMBER!

From the same packed site that you can find the home page of by clicking the above link or the following one, I also took a quiz that helps determine your spiritual type belief net II I was labeled a Spiritual Dabbler — Open to spiritual matters but far from impressed, just 1 point off of
Active Spiritual Seeker – Spiritual but turned off by organized religion, which I probably would have picked for myself if I had looked at the categories beforehand.

There are other quizzes on the site like the one judging how optimistic you are which i didn’t take because I didn’t have a good feeling about it.

These are of course very unscientific and I wasn’t always happy with the choices available. This is especially true of the later faith quiz in which I would prefer to not have had to choose any of the choices available but had to. It was not unlike my dating history.

Barry more that a Manillow night on American Idol tonight but unfortunately they didn’t do Barry tunes. He coached them through 50′s standards. Man what I would have given to see the perfect Catherine Macphee belt out Mandy. That would constitute girl on girl action wouldn’t it? Then again it kind of does when Barry does it too. I actually thought Chris is it? and his rendition of Walk The Line was pretty damn good. Good rocking version I’d actually listen to again. He’s got a good rock voice and I could easily see him fronting a rock band. Love Tyler but thought he sucked tonight. Mandissa was very good again. Pretty boy Ace needs to disappear. I don’t like the idea of him hanging around Catherine. He’s bad news.

Now that the topic of Idol has been broached and the tension regarding it’s silence on this site the past few months is hopefully alleviated let me say that I almost always agree with Simon. The man is brilliant and honest. He’s a straight guy with a lovely woman but his mannerisms and demeonor confirm my long held suspicion that all English people are a little gay.

And that’s a good thing.

As far as better tv goes 24 has rocked lately. No deaths this week but Palmer’s brother is in trouble as he tries to get to everyone’s favorite secret service agent Aaron. And a possible bombshell regarding Audrey gets dropped at shows end. Why is Palmer going to Aaron and not Jack? Is there another mole in the administration? The VP knew he was there and then he gets hit. The smae Vp with the MArtial Law agenda now being implemented. Everyone in LA has an angle man. If 24 has taught us nothing besides the greatness of Jack Bauer it has taught us that LA sucks arse and that bad shite happens there. LA should be renamed Jack Bauer because they wouldn’t exist without him. They could shorten it to JB. People would fly into JBX. THey couldn’t stay long though. Just an hour or 2 because nobody pisses on Jack Bauer and gets away with it.

Man did Jack screw over that German agent though. Actually felt kind of bad for him. But Jack’s not German. Jack assesses things and makes hard decisions fast. That’s why they keep a clock on him. I think the German guy could be back someday and i welcome him. He and Jack shared a bond in their brief time together. “Are we still good?” Jack asked him from the backseat of the car. Secret agent manlove baby.

And Tony and Edgar are still dead.

Rumor has it that show Lost is throwing one of those, what do you call them?. . . new episodes. . . on tomorrow night. Nice of them. I don’t even remember what’s happening on that show which is strange because nothing really ever happens on it. They’re on notice and better have a scintillating last month or two of the season. Gilligan gave us more island drama than this. Something tells me Gilligan would have stumbled and bumbled his way into solving all this Lost island stuff along time ago. maybe it would been a 2 parter, I’ll give you that. He may not have understood it but he’d have exposed all so that the Professor could explain it to everyone in the epilogue of part 2.

And Ginger was hotter than Kate.

There I said it.

You know why Gilligan would have ended this all by now? He’s a free spirit man. He’s not all repressed and scheming. He’s like Forrest Gump just living and acting. Man if you had Gilligan, Forrest, and Homer Simpson on this island the Others would have bailed out along time ago. Those 3 are men of action you see. They live by the adage that you have to be in it to win it and that the times make the man great not the other way around. The man needs simply to engage with his times. These current Lost fold are disengaged. They’re caught up in their flashbacks, their insights about the island they don’t share, their lack of communication, their ennui, angst, fear, and inability to ask the obvious questions at the obvious time.

But Gilligan, Forrest, and Homer? Maybe throw Peter Griffin in there too and that’s a can do spirit that’s not going to spend half an episode flashing back or getting all worked up about a black foggy monster. Peter would suck that thing into a vacuum. Forrest would run to the other side of the island and back searching every nook and cranny of that place until he found JFK, Emelia Earhart, the Lindhberg baby, and MLK who were all part of past experiments while Homer battled the evil mastermind with dueling motorcycles. And who might that mastermind be? Wouldn’t matter to Homer. It could be the Hanso guy, Monte Burns, Dick Cheney, or Stewey Griffin. But Homer would win because Homer doesn’t mess around like these hippie castaways today.

Don’t want to get too down on the show. It still has its moments and I’ll hang in a bit longer. Jack let the button go to redeem himself, Hurley may be the first to get laid, and Sawyer is a magnificent bastard who might be funnier than Hurley. But for god’s sake advance the plot a little each week! There’s more clues and progress on websites than the actual show. It’s getting a little too much like Kiss albums back in the day. A couple of cool episodes and alot of filler to make a whole album or season. Not just Kiss I know, most bands do filler. Some shows do it too. If it continues though this show is going to start taking some hits from fans and critics soon.

But anyway they have managed to muster together something like the 3rd or 4th new episode since the end of November for tonight so enjoy. If the past and the commercials I’ve seen this week for it are any clue I’m not expecting much to happen beyond a few mind games getting us closer to the tribal divisions that I could see coming about 6 months ago. 24 and Lost are at such opposite extremes.

Please feel free to post your religious quiz results and discuss your experiences and thoughts pertaining to the test. Like to see if I have any fellow Unitarians out there. Secular Humanists are my favorites though. Just realized that in both tests taken it was my first choice that came in 2nd according to their rankings. Does this show a glitch in their test or in me?