What Cheer, Netop?

Hey, here's a poll brought about by thinking about certain things too much!

[Poll #707665]

Televangelist Gene Scott died at the age of 75.

I know I saw him clicking around on teevee from time to time, in particular in around '93 when I was spending a fair amount of time watching cable and waiting for temp jobs.

He had sort of a distinctive look -- he would wear dark glasses all the time and would occasionally put reading glasses on over his dark glasses, which is not necessarily something you see a lot. He was sort of scruffy.

He would have sort of pledge breaks where there would just be a phone number on the screen to call to give money and there would be a video of horses or something and some nifty jazz would be playing, leading one to think that at least one corner of his psyche was sort of hip.

He was constantly asking for money. It was really just out there to see. He didn't seem to care whether anyone thought he was greedy or what. Probably many televangelists are like that, but Gene was the only one I ever saw, so it seemed pretty novel to me.

I remember one time he give the following little speech, or something like it.

He began, "Now, I've been getting some criticism, some letters lately complaining, 'Gene, all you ever do is ask for money!'"

There was a dramatic pause.

Then he thundered, "But I wouldn't have to do that if you would just open up your wallets and give!"

Here's an article about him from the LA Times in 1994 which touches on some of the above, including the horses.

I wrote to my sister and her husband asking about what the founding fathers meant by religious freedom (this grew out of a discussion in a previous Livejournal entry), and today they responded. Yay!

( What they wrote is interesting but long so I'll put it in a cut tag )This entry was updated with new information at 4:34 pm Eastern time on November 19.

I had a dream last night in which I went to Hell.

Most of the dream took place in a Limbo-like place where I and a bunch of other people were waiting to be judged. (I think we went there by bus.) It transpired that God had only recently actually begun creating things, and that everything and everyone that I had previously encountered had been fake (and I myself had not been real), just sort of a thought experiment by God to make sure he got everything right.

Then God finally got around to making some stuff. The first two things He made were the tenth and third levels of Hell. [I don't know if Hell is actually supposed to have that many levels, or if so what they're for, but that's what it was in the dream.] Then, once those were sorted out, He made me and one other guy named Ray Bonneville (not someone I know in real life). Then, being as we were unrepentant sinners and all, he sent us to Hell (10th level). The next day he created about a dozen other people and sent them to Hell too. This is about where I woke up.

It turns out that if there's just you and one other guy in Hell it's not that bad -- hot and humid and far from pleasant, but, you know, you adapt. (Or at least I did; Ray got pretty morose.) [Providence is going through a muggy spell -- in Providence we call these spells 'summer' -- and I think this influenced my vision of Hell.]

Also, there was a toy store in Hell. It sold some odd crushed objects that I realized after a couple of minutes were models of cars that had been in bad car wrecks.

Despite the potentially grim subject matter, the overall mood pervading this dream was cynical amusement.