What a beautiful story… Kevin Skinner!

He’s humble, genuine, and incredibly talented!

GO KEVIN!

Cheers,
Cranky Blogger

PS: Is there anything making you cranky today? Speak up! The floor is yours!

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To reminisce is to live again... Today I dreamt of you...

Life is short!

Enjoy it while you can!

Snapshots of paradise...

Paraty - RJ - Brazil

Cabo Frio - RJ - Brazil

Paraty - RJ - Brazil

Paraty - RJ - Brazil

Niteroi - RJ - Brazil
Niteroi - RJ - Brazil
Niteroi - RJ - Brazil

Buzios - RJ - Brazil

Buzios - RJ - Brazil


Buzios - RJ - Brazil

Buzios - RJ - Brazil

Buzios - RJ - Brazil

Cabo Frio - RJ - Brazil

Cabo Frio - RJ - Brazil

Cabo Frio - RJ - Brazil

Cabo Frio - RJ - Brazil

Cabo Frio - RJ - Brazil

Cheers,
Cranky Blogger

PS: Is there anything making you cranky today? Speak up! The floor is yours!

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The best burger in the world! Even if I have to run 100 miles to burn it off…

OMG! It’s incredible how the taste of certain foods can actually take you back to a moment in time. I just had the most scrumptious sandwich that took me away back when I was growing up. The Brazilian famous X-Tudo, which could be translated as the “cheese everything.” The sandwich is basically a cheeseburger with everything in it: fresh buns, hamburger, cheese, fried egg, ham, bacon, lettuce, tomatoes, onion, ketchup, mustard, and mayo. Don’t ask me how many calories this baby can load up… I don’t really want to know, since I just eat one. The term X-Tudo comes from the word cheeseburger, and since the ch in Portuguese sounds like a sh in English, when pronounced with the Brazilian twang it sounds a lot like the letter x (xis). Well, earlier this evening “my sistah from another mistah” and I just went out for a stroll and bought all the ingredients for the “Everything Burger.” I haven’t had one of those in quite a few years. Wow! I just stuffed myself with a load of memories from childhood. The first bite took me straight back to a kiosk at the beach… What a feeling! Thanks for driving me around tonight, Rob! You have to try one next time…
XOXOXO!!!

Cheers,
Cranky Blogger

PS: Is there anything making you cranky today? Speak up! The floor is yours!

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The love story of Ralph and Edna...

Just because someone doesn't love you the way you want them to, doesn't mean they don't love you with all they have. Ralph and Edna were both patients in a mental hospital.

One day while they were walking past the hospital swimming pool. Ralph suddenly jumped into the deep end. He sank to the bottom of the pool and stayed there. Edna promptly jumped in to save him. She swam to the bottom and pulled him out. When the Head Nurse Director became aware of Edna's heroic act she immediately ordered her to be discharged from the hospital, as she now considered her to be mentally stable.

When she went to tell Edna the news she said, 'Edna, I have good news and bad news. The good news is you're being discharged, since you were able to rationally respond to a crisis by jumping in and saving the life of the person you love. I have concluded that your act displays sound mindedness.

The bad news is, Ralph hung himself in the bathroom with his bathrobe belt right after you saved him. I am so sorry, but he's dead.' Edna replied, 'He didn't hang himself, I put him there to dry. How soon can I go home?

Cheers,
Cranky Blogger

PS: Is there anything making you cranky today? Speak up! The floor is yours!

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Fifth World Conference On Women – “An idea with widespread support…”

Fifteen years after the Beijing Fourth World Conference on Women, it’s time to get together again and reevaluate the issues affecting women today...

DAW – Division for the Advancement of Women
5WCW - Fifth World Conference on Women
Get Involved - Do your part!

First World Conference of the International Women's Year
Mexico City (19 June to 2 July 1975)

Second World Conference of the United Nations Decade for Women: Quality, Development and Peace
Copenhagen (14 to 30 July 1980)

Third World Conference to review and appraise the achievements of the United Nations Decade for Women: Quality, Development and Peace
Nairobi (15 to 26 July 1985)

Fourth World Conference on Women - Beijing, China - September 1995
Action for Equality, Development and Peace
Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action.

Cheers,
Cranky Blogger

PS: Is there anything making you cranky today? Speak up! The floor is yours!

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Violence against women – Let’s get together and roar: “NO MORE!”

You can close your eyes and pretend that it doesn’t exist, or there are better and more fun things to do with your reading time… But it’s all here staring at our faces. Tomorrow it could be you, your mother, your sister, your daughter, or someone you grew to care for. Global awareness and the power of education are some of the keys…
(Darned… This crap pisses me off.)

"Around the world at least one woman in every three has been beaten, coerced into sex, or otherwise abused in her lifetime. Most often the abuser is a member of her own family."

"Physical violence is estimated to occur in 4 to 6 million intimate relationships each year in the United States."

"Nearly one in every three adult women experiences at least one physical assault by a partner during adulthood. Approximately four million American women experience a serious assault by an intimate partner during a 12-month period."

Afghanistan - Gulbar - Burnt by her husband





USA


Korea


Liberia - West Africa

Guatemala

Saudi Arabia

Brazil

“What does it take to get someone talking about domestic violence?
A picture of a celebrity with fake bruises may seem like a cheap trick but at least you noticed her. The thing is, real victims rarely show their bruises, or indeed their emotional scars. All too often they don't even admit that there is a problem. But domestic abuse is not something that should be kept quiet.” Which is why we want you to act now:

A - Admit its a problem
C - Call it by its name - domestic violence
T - Talk to someone

UK Domestic Violence Campaign

UK Domestic Violence Campaign

UK Domestic Violence Campaign

National Domestic Violence Hotline

1800 - 799-SAFE

Cranky Blogger.

PS: Is there anything making you cranky today? Speak up! The floor is yours!

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Women's rights...

I woke up this morning and one of the articles in my mail box dealt with women’s rights in Pakistan. This is one of those “touchy” subjects, because the truth of the fact is, I don’t really give a damn what religion people follow, or how beautiful the religion is supposed to be, but men screwed it up and carried it out the wrong way, (or any other crappy excuse…) When it violates human rights, there’s no excuse, period. When you see women stating that they were gang raped to settle some bullshit family dispute, had their first born basically murdered because the in-laws made the decision not to send her to the hospital, or had some SOB pouring acid all over their faces, one cannot help wonder, “WTF is this?” “What in the hell is wrong with this world?” And last, but not least, “Damn… I’m lucky I wasn’t born there!” And let’s not even go on a different tangent, and get into cutting off female genitalia, or having young boys drinking sperm out of old farts… It’s too early in the morning for that … So before anyone has a conniption over this, this is my thought. If your religion is not killing anyone, or violating anyone’s rights to be, carry on and light up your candles. If the excuse is that “people” over the years distorted your religion and they are now going around raping women or doing any other zealot nonsense, light up some candles again, do some serious praying, and change that situation… What’s not right is seeing human beings being treated inhumanly for the sake of any religion.

That will do!

Cheers,
Cranky Blogger

PS: Is there anything making you cranky today? Speak up! The floor is yours!

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Those darned immigrants...

My best friend sent me a joke not too long ago that reminded me about the HBO special of one of my favorite comedians, George Lopez - “Tall, Dark & Chicano.” Since humor doesn’t allow anybody to feel left out, here we go…

My friend's joke:

“A Russian arrives in New York City as a new immigrant to the United States. He stops the first person he sees walking down the street and says: __ Thank you Mr. American for letting me into this country, giving me housing, food stamps, free medical care, and a free education! The passerby says:
__ You are mistaken, I am a Mexican.
The man goes on and encounters another passerby.
__Thank you for having such a beautiful country here in America. The person says:
__I not American, I Vietnamese. The new arrival walks farther, and the next person he sees he stops, shakes his hand, and says:

__ Thank you for wonderful America! That person puts up his hand and says:
__ I am from Middle East. I am not American. He finally sees a nice lady and asks:

__ Are you an American? She says:

__ No, I am from Africa. Puzzled, he asks her:

__ Where are all the Americans?"
The African lady checks her watch and says:

__ Probably at work."

Now here's the comical truth. From the HBO Special – Tall, Dark and Chicano - George Lopez.

“Tell your kids that they can be whatever they want to be, as long as they set their mind to it. They can become president of United States; they can become a Supreme Court Justice. It’s been done! There are a lot of Latinos out there. And the Republicans, I’d be a little afraid, you know... I’d be a little afraid to not have our vote. You need our vote, yet you want to get rid of us out of this country. When hotel rooms can clean themselves... when food can cook itself... and crops can pick themselves... when little white babies can raise themselves... Then maybe we'll leave this country. Maybe! But until you start doing shit for yourselves, the only question you need to ask yourself is, what can brown do for you? ”

“… We do all the work that nobody else wants to do. If an immigrant is taking your job, then you got a fucked up job. ‘What happened Scott? Well, I was selling flowers on the side of the freeway, until Ramon (or Consuelo) came; I was making $13.00, $14.00 a month, and that son of a bitch..."

“We do all the things that no one else wants to do.”

“When you want a wall built in the middle of the summer, and you want to build fast, and you want to build cheap, and you want to build without a permit… Who do you call?”

“When you want to go back to work, because you had a baby and you want resume your brilliant career. But you want to bring someone into the house, to care for that young child, while you can go on with your career and someone can nurture and practically raise your child for you, and you want it done for $3.00 hour, who do you call?”

“We are not going back to Mexico. Those 12 million people are not going back to Mexico, so let’s forget that argument right now. We are not going back to Mexico, but I’ll make you a deal… On the Mayflower, the original illegal aliens came to the United States. There were people already here when the Mayflower landed. We’ll go back to Mexico and we’ll rebuild the Mayflower and send 12 million of the ancestors of the original illegal aliens back to Great Britain… We go, you go! ‘I got pilatis, that’s not gonna work.’ Because we can build the Mayflower like that,” he snaps. We don’t even need hammers. We’ll use our heels."

That will do!

Cheers,
Cranky Blogger

PS: Is there anything making you cranky today? Speak up! The floor is yours!

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Quotes of the day...

"The easiest thing in the world is to be you. The most difficult thing to be is what other people want you to be. Don't let them put you in that position." - Leo Buscaglia

"Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around." - Leo Buscaglia

"Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted." - Albert Einstein

"Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever" - Mahatma Gandhi

"Good girls go to heaven, bad girls go everywhere..." - Jim Steinman

“It does not matter how slowly you go, so long as you do not stop.” - Confucious

"If a man does not know to what port he is steering, no wind is favorable to him." - Seneca

“Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.” - Confucious

"It's not your blue blood, your pedigree or your college degree. It's what you do with your life that counts." - Millard Fuller

"... And in the end it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years." - Abraham Lincoln

"Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, drink in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming "WOO....HOO...What a ride."

“Find the person who will love you because of your differences and not in spite of them, and you have found a lover for life.” - Leo Buscaglia

“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

“Immature love says: I love you because I need you. Mature love says: I need you because I love you." - Erich Fromm

"One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain." - Bob Marley

“No one can drive us crazy unless we give them the keys.” - Doug Horton

"10% of life is what happens to you, and 90% is your attitude towards that."

“Although no one can go back in time and create a new beginning, anyone can begin now and create a new ending.” – Chico Xavier

"Immature Love Says " I Love You Because I Need You". Mature Love Says " I Need You Because I Love You" - Erich Fromm

"People always think they know what truth is, like it was toilet paper and they've got a supply of it in their closet. But what you learn as you get older is that there is no truth... There's only bullshit. Layers of it. One layer of bullshit on top of another... And what you do in life is pick the layer of bullshit you prefer, and that's your bullshit." - Bernie LaPlante (Dustin Hoffman) from the movie The Hero.

"Is sex dirty? Only if it's done right." - Woody Allen

"Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away."

♠ Peace! ♠

Cheers,
Cranky Blogger

PS: Is there anything making you cranky today? Speak up! The floor is yours!

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