"What was something that you witnessed or experienced in your life in the last year that made you happy?"

While everyone I'm sure expects me to write about Wesley or Bruce Wayne, I'm going to go totally off the wall for this one. I have tons of personal moments I'd like to indulge a little blogging with. Buuuut, I'd rather not people I see on a daily basis know them. Yes, I'd rather tell a complete stranger something than people I know. I know, I'm such a freak.


So.
On February 24th, 2007 (yeah I know! Almost a year ago). My best friend and I Jill (IDK my BFF Jill?) went to the Masquerade to see one of our favorite bands, Retard-o-bot play. It was my second Retard-o-bot show and the guys in the band are totally down to Earth and really friendly. Luckily for me they actually remembered me so I was pretty much "one of them" for the night. I hung out with Benny Normal, who plays keyboards and bass, for most of the night just sitting on the steps educating young smokers on what their habits were doing to their lungs and digestive systems. By the end of the night it was just me and Jill left, still hanging out with the band. We were sitting outside while they were packing their equipment in the trailer.
While Jill and I were sitting outside Benny came back over and sat down to talk some more. He looked at me and asked, "Did you get any of the keyboard?!" It seems like an odd question but the overly hyper keyboardist has an uncanny system of destroying all his equipment at the end of the show and showering the crowd with it. I informed the red headed psycho that no, I had not. "Considering you were at the other end of the stage and didn't migrate to our side." That's when Mr. Peter Pepper, singer of R-O-B, walked over to me with a stage prop. He held in his hands a giant pink Styrofoam cupcake. He placed the cupcake in my hands and walked off without a word. I assumed I was just holding it for him while he put something else in the trailer. So I asked Benny, "What exactly does he want me to do with it?" "I'm pretty sure he just gave it to you." Well, that was a surprise to say the least. When Mr. Pepper walked back towards our way I said, "Peter what am I doing with this?" Again, he said nothing and just moved his hands in my general direction apparently implying "it's yours." "You're giving it to me?" Once again, not one for words, Peter said nothing and just smiled really big and skipped off. No I'm not just saying that. He really did skip off.
The giant cupcake hung in my room above my bed for months, until I painted the walls. (Now it hangs in my closet). Every time I look at it it fills me with utter joy. My awesomely large and pink cupcake. That serves no purpose whatsoever.
An inanimate object that puts a smile on my face every time I see it, now there's true happiness.


Mr. Cupcake on stage with the Bots!


And there he is.
Large and in charge.

if you click them they get mighty bigger.

Follow up to Star One.

The reason I was drawn to finding out about Churchill's writings was that he has always been my favorite politician. I had heard he had written books before, but never had known what genre and how many. So I figured now was a good of a time as ever to find out.
I think after experiencing the cruelty of war and the chaos it brings first hand really helped Winston as a leader. He was able to analyze not only the surface of war, but the underlying elements and the first hand experiences. After his involvement in war he could make better judgments as a leader. He could determine the seriousness of the situation, the general simulation of what could possibly happen, and decide if involving the United Kingdom would help more than it would hurt.
I would rather have a level headed leader that had experienced war. I say level headed simply because you cannot elect someone that is still emotionally devastated after war. And also, you cannot have a leader that is out simply for revenge for previous wars.
However, someone with knowledge of other countries tactics, and a clean slate that holds no grudges could be a good thing for a powerful country, like the US.
I do believe being a good writer is a powerful trait for a leader to have. They are then able to communicate their views to their country without just getting up and making a three hour speech that no one truly understands the point of. A book, however, has the availability for other leaders that will come after their time to study and analyze. It permanently imprints specific facts and views of the country into history. It also connects the leader to his people. It shows that he can take the time out of his "busy schedule" to create something that the entire nation can benefit from, other than tax returns, and creates a bridge from the mind of the leader to the mind of the entire population.

Star One. What was up with Winston writing?

Winston Churchill is most famously known for as being the British Prime Minister from 1940 to 1945 and again from 1951 to 1955. Churchill, however, was also an author during his life. When Churchill was twenty-four, he published his first on-fiction novel. It was titled The Story of the Malakand Field Force and was published in 1898. The novel is a detailed account of the 1987 military campaign on the Northwest Frontier, in which Churchill participated as a lieutenant in cavalry. In Malakand Field Force, Churchill describes the battle system of the Indians and the horror sights of seeing bodies piled six-foot high. The experiences in the Northwest Frontier gave Churchill a feel and more of a grasp than any other leader during World War II of trench warfare.
Churchill's second novel was titled The River War: An Account of the Reconquest of the Sudan and was published in 1899. Churchill also wrote this historic account while continuing to be an active military officer. The unabridged version contains many drawings, photographs, and colored maps of the areas of battle and all the territory surrounding it. The unabridged version also contains vivid narratives of Winston's personal adventures, his views on British expansionism, and passages of deep reflection of the requirements of a civilized government, criticism of military and political leaders. In 1902, when Winston became a member of Parliament, they felt that some of his opinions, beliefs, and statements should be edited out of the book for political purposes. Thus, the book was shortened to one volume, cutting out the "controversial" pieces of it.
In 1923 Churchill's next book was published, titled London to Ladysmith via Pretoria. The book is dedicated to the staff of the Natal Government railway. It is Churchill's personal accounts of the beginning five months of the Boer War. In 1899 Churchill had been captured as a war reporter. He then escaped and rejoined the army, going to Ladysmith to take Pretoria. Churchill and his cousin were two of the first military leaders to make it to Pretoria, and received the surrender of multiple Boer guards.
Churchill's next book was entitled A History of the English-Speaking Peoples. Churchill began writing it in 1937, however due to war and other of his compositions, it was not published until the years 1956 through 1958. The book began as a four volume historical account on the history of the "English-speaking people" and the American side of them. Since the United States had broken away from the crown they had created a division between the English-speaking people. The book dealt with the division, the causes, and the other nations that were still united under the crown. The fourth volume of the book was not completed until Winston was eighty. The four volumes of the text are titled: "The Birth of Britain", "The New World", "The Age of Revolution" and "The Great Democracies."
Winston's final book (that I'm talking about, he wrote around 25 apparently) is titled The Second World War. The book contains six volumes and is a historical account from the end of the First World War, until July of 1945. The book was opposed at first because a majority of the population saw him as a leader, and not an historian that was unbiased and able to cite nothing but facts.



and then we can't forget Churchill's famous V for Victory! pose.




sources
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/PRchurchill.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winston_Churchill