The Opinion Review

I was born and raised here in Tulsa. I am proud of my city and have no desire to live anywhere else. I remember lots of folks I grew up with were always wanting a “way out” They would join the army, or try to go to LA and become famous musicians. There was always they typical opinion that you couldn’t get “known” here in OK in music… You had to go to California to do that…

 Many country artists have put OK on the map…Garth Brooks ETC… Those guys didn’t have to go to Nashville did they? Oh but their records were recorded in Nashville…The musicians that they played with and formed in OK were for the “road only”.

I  lived in Memphis TN for awhile… I thought it sucked… It would take at least 1/2 a day for a trip to the mall… It was just so big. Good to be back..And here to stay…

Tulsa has all the shopping, dining and nightlife that your big cities have but with way less time to get there… We don’t have any “tourist” attractions  and that’s fine… I couldn’t care less if we don’t have a six flags or major museum. It’s all good… I live here… I don’t need to take a tour.

It’s a very livable city… I’m glad to be living and working here… Can YOU dig it!

This book was written by a respected fundamentalist evangelical Christian. What is different about this one is that he seems to be swinging into another way of thinking. Which contradicts conservative Christianity and everything you may have learned if you been in church all your life. ( I have not)

I was raised in church but was given the freedom to not go as I became a teenager. I believe this was a good decision by my parents so that I could find God on my own…That’s what were supposed to do anyways right? Many church’s teach that you should “FORCE” your children to go to church until they go off to work or collage. Hmmmm? Dunno

Everything must change teaches that the church teachers may be wrong about the real message of why Jesus came. Perhaps he agrees with the saving of the soul stuff but that his real mission was also to change the way man thinks. Mainly… To love one another… Wow what a concept.

He ignores all the “end of the world” stuff and Jesus coming back in a fury of fireballs punishing all us sinners… Instead he teaches about a new way of thinking about God and his purpose to allow US to fix the mess we caused by each doing our part in changing the way we run this planet. Which of course is wrong…

Themes Like:

• Ending War
• Ending the Huge Gap between the rich and poor
• Loving our enemies
• Fixing the Environment.
• Helping those in Need.
• Ending our addiction to violence.

Are not all these things in the Bible? He lays out his case and suggestions for Christians to do these things… Of course many Christians disagree with his viewpoints. Go figure….

I have been checkin out The Postal Service for awhile lately. It was recommended by a friend..With so much music out there to check out I usually go with a recommend from people because there tend to be so much crap.

This is a side project of the singer of a band I can’t remember right now. But whatever right? Anyways I enjoy checkin this record out in my car. Almost every song is worthwhile. The music certainly has a style that is different from the typical radio play nonsense. I love those pinball machine beats. Different.

The lyrics are pretty good. The vocals a bit wimpy but it tends to fit in the messages of the songs. Which to me are a bit depressing with positive undertones. Nice way to put things togehter. The music is also a bit dreamy which is my cup of tea as REM is one of my favorites.

I know TONS of music.. I could write about albums all day long and neve run out of things to say.I always tend to go back to my roots but it’s nice to know that there are still new cat’s putting out decent records. When you can find them.

So…When I have the strangest dream… Don’t wake me I’m sleeping in…

There are 1000’s and 1000’s of blogs created on the internet every day.. With many free tools such as Blogger.com and free software like wordpress almost ANYBODY can start blogging with very little computer skills. And if I can write stuff that somebody might read then ANYBODY can… You dig?

Trying to get traffic and regular readers to your blog seems to be the real challange for me… Oh one of my blogs The Hip Opinion get’s between 20 and 60 vistitors everyday… And that makes me feel good…But what about folks that have 10,000 readers every day?

I have read a few books and looked at a few of the millions of websites that teach how to become a successful or profitable blogger.  I try to follow many of their tips.Some of them have been successful… I am getting  some page views at this blogging network.

Lately I joined Blog Explosion … I saw it on another blog I was reading. It seems pretty user friendly and “guarantees” blog traffic. I added one of my blogs but it hasn’t been “approved” yet… Surely it will because most of the ones I surfed there are blogger.com blogs…And I have one of those too .

With all of the networking sites that are suggested to help build traffic it’s hard to get anything done when you have a family and a full time job… But I’m gonna keep on plugging along…Why? Because I LOVE IT…Forever…For LIFE!

The summer of love involved the Beatles. You know, flowers, love, peace. Sgt Pepper was the big album for the summer of love in 1967. The Jefferson Airplane and the Doors were the other 2 big albums of that summer. The soundtrack to the Viet Nam war.

Rolling Stone Magazine has called Sgt Pepper the biggest most influential album of all time.. Hmmm? I dunno. It is a great record as I am a big Beatles fan but it’s certainly not my favorite. The White Album holds that title for me.

Sgt Pepper does have some great moments . The Benefit of Mr Kite and Lovely Rita are pretty groovy. I remember listening to this record back when I was about 6 or 7 years old…Bouncing on my bed in front of a compact record player… Just soaking it all in… It is very infectious music.

Did Sgt Perpper change the face of music? Was it the pivotal changing point from rock and roll crap to something people could actually listen to? Even musical Scholars? Sure, whatever works.

George Martin and the boys were very proud of the record. John Lennon dissed it later however saying it wasn’t really all that great… Or something like that… I read it in a Beatles book. It hurt Paul’s feelings.. Heck there’s enough Beatles books out there to start a new religion… Anybody think of that?

It’s usually movie time on the weekends.. Now that I have this review blog I can go ahead and write about the movie I watched. This weekend it was “Martian Child” A great little family movie.

Having an adopted kid myself this movie really spoke to me. Adopted kids are great… More folks should step up to the plate and help take care of some of these kids without parents. Especially the ones that are always fighting abortion clinics.

But what about when you get one that believes he is from Mars? This is not really uncommon because my cousin claimed to be from Saturn for many years as a kid… Heck, I think he IS from Saturn. And that’s pretty freakin groovy..

While watching the movie I found myself wondering if the kid really WAS from mars. Nice job there. His continues spacey ways led you to believe that he may be a martian. It was touching for him to grow closer and closer to his widowed father that kept loving him through it all…

The kids seems to “collect” things for his earthy experiments.  This gets him expelled from school. It must have been from a private schoole because you cant get kicked out of public school because you have problems… Every child has a right to an education. All you need is an IEP (Individualized education program)

That is unless you bring a gun to school or something. But these matters are for another day or blog.

Say… Check the movie with your kid… Espcially if he/she is adopted.

Hey this was a real treat.  Big Fish was a movie I had never heard of. My girl recommended it.. A nice little movie about life dreams - and stories.

I have always enjoyed Tim Burton movies (except for the Nightmare before Christmas cartoons). His style and use of colors and such are always entertaining and quirky. He is not my favorite director or anything but he is quite creative.

Big Fish is a rare gem that is underrated. It is clean and a good story about stories of a man that allows him to be immortal…Even in death. The movie does have a dark streak to it but that is a typical Burton theme… But the story of life shines through in a heartwarming way.

To be the biggest fish in the river means to never get caught… Check it with yer family.. Ya dig?

Did you know that you can go buy a brand new computer and it can be totally locked up and full of crap within a few weeks… Totally unusable… You have to run some kind of maintenance tools or your system is going to quit working for you and that’s going to suck. Then your going to get frustrated and want to smash your computer…OMG.

Even though nearly all systems you buy from the store have tons of preloaded software to help keep your box running smooth… I always uninstall all of that stuff because they will want your money and subscriptions and stuff. Buying the computer was expensive enough for this poor geek so I go to the internet and get free tools… Like CC Cleaner

This little program has been around for many years. It’s totally free and does a great job of simply cleaning up crap that builds up over time on your computer. Once installed you can simply click “run” and it will totally clean up the garbage in under 10 seconds… And it does it good… The last time I ran it on this laptop it cleaned over 500MB. And I don’t even use this machine that much… Very thorough

Check it out! Totally FREE!

I’m having a smoke while writing this blog..  I have been smoking again after a 6 year recess… Unfortunately I was with a girl for a short time that got me hooked again… Yea, Like it’s HER fault…LOL.

 With the “sin” tax on smokers these days it can cast enouph to send a man to the poor house to be a smoker. And since I’m there already I needed to find a brand that I could smoke and not go broke while doing it..

Enter - King Mountain See they are cheap.. Online… I of course don’t buy smokes online as I live in Oklahoma and we have “smoke shops” which are cheaper anyways… If you want to be a smoker this is the place to be. And I hear it’s illegal to buy/sell smokes online anyways because of tax purposes…

I have tried many other cheap cig’s but these seem to be the best… And they are consistent because many cheap cig’s tend to have good and bad batches…

So what is the real solution - QUIT! All of us smokers know it’s bad for you…

There is always a debate as to which are the best diapers for your baby. We have a little 2 year old running around and he likes Pampers .. (Don’t they all?)

This baby is new to me as a step parent am I am just now getting to know him. And since I have very little experience changing diapers it’s time to give it a try. So between working, blogging and doing some laundry I have little time on my hands… Oh and I also need to go to my spiritual meetings too.. Diapers and Dates. Hmmm?

 Many believe that cloth diapers are the best… Environmental issues.  And I don’t know if I would want to do that much more laundry… Isn’t there enough already?

Diapers are expensive… What about the good ol’ ghetto “Best Value” brand… Compromise like that may not be good for your baby’s butt!