Three Things

Let's lighten things up a bit today. Courtesy of Penny is the meme below. I find it interesting in that it causes introspection, something that is good for us from time to time.

Three things that scare me:

• The inexorable march towards collectivism
• The regression to police states in western countries to 'combat terrorism'
• The decline of personal responsibility and the rule of law

Three People who make me laugh:

• My son, who can be a real ham.
• Dennis Miller, who combines insights into the human condition with his humour.
• George Carlin. I rarely agree with anything he says but he can still make me laugh. I just wish he would pull that pickle out of his ass.

Three things I love:

• Play guitar.
• Listen to music.
• Travel.

Three things I hate:

• Hate itself.
  
• Ignorance and the unwillingness to learn.
• Loud and obnoxious behaviour.

Three things I do not understand:

• Indecision. Look at the situation, analyze it, decide. Then live with the results of your decision.
• Behaviour or words designed to hurt someone. It is just plain stupid.
• The need of many human beings to be led by some sort of authority, instead of acting and thinking for themselves.

Three things on my desk:

• A flat stone painted by the mother of an ex-employee with a stylized lion representing my status as a Leo.
• A 'Sunlight' lamp to help me get through those gloomy Ontario winter days.
• A business card holder made from cores extracted from drill holes during exploration for gold and silver. I am a 'gold bug' and the thing, though ugly, is symbolic of the sort of hope explorers have of the next big mining discovery.

Three things I want to do before I die:

• Visit as many countries as I can.
• Live to see my son produce some grandchildren for me to play with. I'm just a big kid at heart.
• Make a theatre release movie. I have several ideas for scripts and when I have the time I would like to promote the ideas, get funding, then ultimately enjoy the finished effort with a big tub of buttered popcorn.

Three things I can do:

• Make decisions quickly.
• See 'the big picture.'
• Make scratch waffles. My son loves them, so every Sunday I make a batch large enough so that we can have breakfast that day and he can toast leftovers for breakfast during the week.

Three things I can't do:

• Play cards. I can't remember the rules from one occasion to the next.
• Dance. I can't remember the steps for structured dances, even for something simple like the waltz.
• Read music. I play 'by ear.'

Three things I think you should listen to:

• Birds singing.
• Music from generations prior to yours.
• Your spouse and children. They sometimes have important things to say.

Three things you should never listen to:

• People who tell you that you can't do something.
• People who tell you that the collective is better than the individual, that somehow theories proposed by or actions taken by groups are better than individual efforts.
• Any sort of hate speech.

Three things I'd like to learn:

• Everything, as long as it doesn't require a lot of memory work. I guess that pretty much means there is no number two or three for this category, doesn't it?

Three shows I watched as a kid:

We didn't have a television when I was growing up, but when I was able to watch TV at the homes of friends or relatives, I liked these shows:

• Naked City
• Playhouse 90 -- My favourite episode was "For Whom the Bell Tolls," with Maria Schell.
• Ozzie and Harriet