July 31, 2002

I told you that I'm

I told you that I'm in a heat-stressed, foul mood, but I'm going to maintain some Southern decorum and administer only a light slap of the silk glove to LYNN for the cry-in-her-whine post about good writing. She says:

"Practice is good but I don't have much faith in it. I think there are some things you simply must learn while you're young. Throughout my years in public schools I was required to actually write something once or twice a year. Oh how the other kids moaned and groaned and whined every time a teacher gave a writing assignment! I thought we should have one at least once a week. I always got an A so I thought I was good at writing. Now I know I was cheated. I didn't learn anything from all those A's. Getting an A doesn't give you any incentive to work at getting better; it just makes you feel smug. It made me think I was better than I really am.

I love beautiful writing but I can't write beautifully. That is more frustating to me than not being able to sing or play an instrument or paint a picture because sometimes I feel like I'm so close. People who don't care much about their writing are actually lucky because caring always hurts."

Lynn, I don't buy that post. It sounds simpering and full of self-pity to me, and I am the expert, because I do BOTH all the time. You write well and you know it. I WRITE WELL, and I KNOW IT, too. Do you ever look at a post YOU WROTE and say, "That's GOOD?" right before you hit the "publish" button and send it out for others to read? Don't lie to me about THAT, darlin', because EVERYBODY does it, especially if they recognize good writing when they see it.

You didn't write "once or twice a year," just for school and just for that "A" grade, did you? I'll bet you were a lot like me. You wrote a lot of things school never saw because you wanted to write. You did it because it was IN you and it had to come OUT. You practiced, whether you want to admit it or not.

Writing is a lonely occupation, and people with thin skins should never enter that jungle, where all sorts of evil creatures bite, rip and tear at your ego everywhere you turn. I once papered one entire wall of my bedroom with rejection slips from some of the finest publications in the world before I ever saw anything I wrote published. That's pretty devastating for a young man who believed his talented ass was truly on fire and ready to light up the world.

But I didn't quit. I practiced. And practice does matter. It is everything, from how a carpenter learns to drive a nail straight into the wood every time, to how your beloved musicians never miss a note when the auditorium is filled for a concert. Talent is 10% ability and 90% want-to for most people. I sincerely believe that. If it was easy, any asshole could do it.

I've been playing guitar since I was 12. I still get my doors blown off by musicians that I know I will never touch in skill and musicianship, but I learn all I can from them and get better in the process. I'll never be as good as I once dreamed of being, but I'm one hell of a lot better than I once was.

So don't tell me you missed the boat when you were young. You write better today than you EVER did in your life. And you'll write better tomorrow than you did today. Just keep practicing.

One of these days, you'll get it ALMOST RIGHT.

In the meantime, have some cheese with that whine.

Here's another example of GREENS

Here's another example of GREENS GONE GOONEY, which is why I hold fucktard environmentalists in such utter contempt.

"Thousands of tons of U.S. emergency food aid destined for crisis-stricken Zimbabwe has been diverted to other countries, and a new shipload may be diverted within days, because the donations include genetically modified corn that the Zimbabwean government does not want to accept.

Read the article and notice how unfounded fears by ecological idiots may result in the starvation of millions of people, and the idiots remain convinced that MASS MURDER is the right thing to do in the name of protecting our fragile ecosystem. HEY, YOU WITLESS ASSHOLES!! LITTLE, STARVING KIDS ARE PART OF THE FRAGILE ECOSYSTEM!! Maybe the most important part, but your personal politics won't allow you to admit that simple fact.

Whatta bunch of maroons. Whatta bunch of environmental neuticles.

And anyone who argues with me on this point will receive a mindless blast of venom in return. I am heat-exhausted and in a foul mood.

The SUPREME BITCH has done

The SUPREME BITCH has done an olfactory check of the blogs, and Yours Truly is included. The spite-mistress herself says that my sweet, unassuming, angel-self "to me stinks of highball whiskeys and the water after the peanuts are boiled and coconut oil (must be the recent vacation). Go visit him, he is one sexy bitch."

I beg to differ. I stink of raw moonshine and 112-degree man-sweat, with a lingering aroma of barking fish, which DOES smell somewhat like coconut oil when it comes from me. I will not dispute the "one sexy bitch" comment.

THE GODDESS "can only be Elizabeth Taylor's White Diamonds perfume, and something fruity and saccharine sweet and grossly overpriced from the Body Shop. (Apologies if you hate White Diamonds Goddezzbidch, Christ knows I can't stand the cheap shit.)"

I don't have a problem with that assessment, except for the failure to mention the tangy blossom of sex-stained motel sheets unwashed for several days.

SUGARMAMA makes the list and "looks like she's as big around as my thigh probably smells like chocolate Godiva. No wait, sorry .. its chocolate SlimFast shakes. And a sensible dinner, probably red meat. Raw. Dripping. Bloody. Or is that Jason's broken body?"

I'll buy that, as long as I don't have to sub for Jason. She may beat him to death with a softball glove that smells of well-aged leather before their romance officially ends.

DRAGONFLY JENNY "exudes the smell of corn chips, Franzia (that wine in a box) and the cardboard waft of old movie ticket stubs, faintly rendolent of butter and sugar-pop."

I BUY FRANZIA!! GOTTA PROBLEM WITH THAT?? BITE ME!!

Excuse me... I got carried away for a moment. To me, Jenny smells of mesquite smoke, sliced lime and tequila. And all that other stuff, too.

Now, let me attune my sniffer to THE SUPREME BITCH. Hmmm... this is most interesting... yes, burning sulfur is there, along with an interesting mix of creosote and formaldahyde. Just a slight, wafting tinge of red toenail polish... combined with red peppers and Tabasco. Yes, she's definitely rosy-red, with thorns. All in all, a WONDERFUL STENCH!

I just lost back-to-back posts,

I just lost back-to-back posts, and this time I can't blame it on BLOGGER.

The heat index reached 112 degrees today. It's been 105 degrees every day for the past week and a half, so you might think another measly six degrees added to the fires of hell wouldn't be worth mentioning. You would be wrong.

The difference between a heat index of 112 degrees and a heat index of a mere 105 degrees is very noticable. I noticed it all day, especially at work this afternoon, when I actually began having fevered visions of coming home, filling my nasty bathtub full of cold water, adding the entire contents of my ice-maker dish to the mix and sitting my naked Cracker ass down in there.

The power grid noticed the difference, too. I've had two blackouts that ate this post since I got home. The first one lasted about 30 seconds. The second one lasted 10 minutes. I'm going to publish this NOW, before the next one strikes.

Then, I'm going to fill my nasty bathtub full of cold water...

July 30, 2002

Man, go read DAX MONTANA'S

Man, go read DAX MONTANA'S blog about his recent camping trip. I really liked the "Daddy in a Lawn Chair and Kid by the Campfire" picture. I've taken my boy camping since he was LESS than a year old and he loves it. Teach 'em YOUNG, Dax.

I was going to leave a lengthy comment on his page, but he has so many pictures there that the "comments" box froze up, so I'll go ahead and POST what I wanted to say for EVERYBODY to read.

I have been an avid backpacker since I was in my 20's. I don't walk as far or as fast anymore, but I still love the challenge of hiking into the forest with everything I need to survive strapped in a sack on my back. Ride "Shank's Mule" up and down those mountains and you'll grow a true appreciation for the Indians who lived there first and the Daniel Boones and other mountain men who came later. I drink from the springs the way they did (find water coming right out of the rocks, squeezed by Mama Nature's contractions, and you'll never go wrong), I pick wild berries and herbs and I chew spearmint-tasting birch-bark and Mountain Tea when I can find it.

I love it. I've never felt so isolated and so together at the same time as when I've hunkered down through a violent thunderstorm in the middle of nowhere, then watched the ensuing fog roll through the trees like the spirits of ancient ghosts, still on the hunt that killed them. I am not a religious man but... damn! That'll make you feel in touch with something.

As DAX did, I named my son "Quinton" because he is the fifth son in my family line. (Plus, it's a goddam GOOD Southern name anyway.) I want him to experience the same feelings I've had in the woods. Son, someday GO THERE and DO THAT! Daddy'll teach you, and he wouldn't lie to you about what you'll discover.

You don't learn it from reading books about it. That helps, but being there is the only real way to know.

I once was part of a "teamwork exercise" where eight of us were supposed to pretend that we were on a rafting trip down a cold, snow-melt white-water river where we crashed upon some rocks, killed our tour-guide and were left stranded on a sand bar. We were given a handout with all the facts about injuries to the party, temperature, wind, weather forecast and distance from rescue. We were asked to fill out a 1-through-20 list of "WHAT TO DO" in order of importance, then meet with the "team" and prove that eight heads are better than one when it comes to solving a problem.

I told my "team" at the beginning, "I've actually DONE this kinda stuff before, and here are my answers." A woman named Lisa, whose closest experience with the great outdoors was a tanning booth, immediately began to bitch about ME taking over leadership of the team as SHE attempted to assume leadership of the team through sheer decibel-level.

You know me, folks, if you read this blog. I am as mild-mannered as Clark Kent and I always hide my light under a bushel. I listened to her idiot raving for a few minutes and I said, "Well, there's an option I would take in this situation that's not on this list."

"Oh, yeah? What's that?" bitched Lisa.

"I would drown your squawking, dumb ass in a minute before you killed us all, you flying dingbat! SHUTTHEFUCKUP!"

The team was confused, which showed me why Hillary Clinton is so popular in some circles. People will listen to a crazy woman just because they believe it's a sensitive, politically-correct thing to do. Decibels count. I finally said, "Listen to her if you want to. In real life, I would leave you all behind and get out of there myself if you want to follow to her. You've seen MY answers. Decide."

They did.

The lower the score, the better you did according to survival experts. My team made a 15 on the test, which still beat every other team in the exercise. They listened to some of what I said, but "compromised" with Lisa for the rest of the answers.

My individual score was a 3. Lisa has hated me ever since. Her individual score was in the "You're DEAD, dumbass!" range.

I learned that stuff in the woods.

As Graham Nash said, "Teach Your Children Well."

Dax, don't ever stop taking the kids camping. Teach them well.

I started moving to a

I started moving to a different office today.

For the past five years, I have occupied a small, dingy, dusty sheetrock cell that is a Wisconsin pneumonia hole in the winter and a Finnish steam-bath in the summer. The place is piled high with all the essential things we need to run the area that cannot be left in normal storage places because they will grow legs and walk off at night, never to be seen again. I lock my door when I leave and all the supervisors have a key. They can find that stuff if they need it, but it can't grow legs and walk away.

I liked the office from hell for one simple reason. I was right across the hall from the shift supervisor's office and about seven steps away from the Finishing Control Room. I could keep a pretty good finger on the pulse of the area from there just by listening to what people were saying outside my office door.

My boss suggested the move. It's a much better office, large enough to hold meetings with five or six people, and it has its VERY OWN CLIMATE CONTROL, so that part is great. The boss believes that as we "empower" people to take more initiative and responsibility for their jobs, I don't belong right across the hall to ask for advice. Plus, the operators should go to their supervisors with problems instead of coming to me first, which I'll admit DOES happen too much with me where I am now.

When I started my move, however, I discovered that INS was not notified ahead of time, so I had no network connection for my computer, nor a line for my phone. The phone line was hooked to a fax machine used by the area engineer, and the area chemist in the office next door had run his modem cable through the ceiling, down the wall and plugged it into the outlet in my new office. They both commisserated with my misfortune over having no phone and no network connection until I could get INS off it's coffee-drinking, web-surfing ass to come set me up. I agreed that INS needed to do something quickly.

I unplugged the area chemist's network wire from MY connection and plugged mine in. I unplugged the fax machine and plugged in my phone. I made one call to get my phone number transferred to the old fax connection, then I told those two: "You're right fellows. YOU BOTH need to bug the hell out of INS to get this shit straightened out. Good luck. Now get outta MY NEW OFFICE!"

Sometimes it's GOOD to be Tall Dog.

I'll miss being right in the middle of the action, but I'm not that far away, and my boss is absolutely correct about that empowerment stuff. I kicked back today, put my feet up on my VERY LARGE desk and ate boiled peanuts while enjoying the grand vista of my new estate. I believe I'll grow accustomed to that place quickly.

My weblog owns 50% of

My weblog owns 50% of me, which actually is a little low in my opinion. Check how blog-obsessed you are at the expense of a real life WITH THIS TEST that I borrowed from THE GROUP CAPTAIN.

I agree with ALLISON when she left this comment on the Captain's page:

"What's a life? Where can I download one?"

By and large, Bloggers are a strange but witty bunch. Okay! The "wit" part may be only half-true, but we're definitely strange.

I found this on JONI'S

I found this on JONI'S BLOG and it's just too good to pass up, so I'm stealing it.

REAL WOMEN VS. MARTHA STEWART

Martha's Way: Stuff a miniature marshmallow in the bottom of a sugar cone to prevent ice cream drips.
The Real Women's Way: Just suck the ice cream out of the bottom of the cone, for Pete's sake. You are probably lying on the couch with your feet up, eating it anyway.

Martha's Way: To keep potatoes from budding, place an apple in the bag with the potatoes.
The Real Women's Way: Buy Hungry Jack mashed potato mix and keep it in the pantry for up to a year.

Martha's Way: When a cake recipe calls for flouring the baking pan, use a bit of the dry cake mix instead and there won't be any white mess on the outside of the cake.
The Real Women's Way: Go to the bakery. They'll even decorate it for you.

Martha's Way: If you accidentally over-salt a dish while it's still cooking, drop in a peeled potato and it will absorb the excess salt for an instant "fix me up."
The Real Women's Way: If you over-salt a dish while you are cooking, that's too damn bad. Please recite with me The Real Women's Motto: I made it and you will eat it and I don't care how bad it tastes.

Martha's Way: Wrap celery in aluminum foil when putting in the refrigerator and it will keep for weeks.
The Real Women's Way: Celery? Never heard of the stuff.

Martha's Way: Brush some beaten egg white over pie crust before baking to yield a beautiful glossy finish.
The Real Women's Way: The Mrs. Smith frozen pie directions do not include brushing egg whites over the crust so I just don't do it.

Martha's Way: Cure for headaches: Take a lime, cut it in half and rub it on your forehead. The throbbing will go away.
The Real Women's Way: Take a lime, mix it with tequila, etc., chill and drink. You might still have the headache, but who cares?

Martha's Way: If you have a problem opening jars: Try using latex dish washing gloves. They give a non-slip grip that makes opening jars easy.
The Real Women's Way: Go ask the very cute neighbor to do it.

And finally the most important tip:

Martha's Way: Don't throw out all that leftover wine. Freeze into ice cubes for future use in casseroles and sauces.
The Real Women's Way: Leftover wine??

Joni sounds like a REAL WOMAN to me, and she's got a picture of pretty red toenails on her page, too. Go there!

July 29, 2002

My friend JB is WAY

My friend JB is WAY BEHIND THE CURVE on this post. I noticed this terrible problem about a month ago and offered my services to fix it, as long as I could round up a stalwart partner, preferably a younger woman with bodacious ta-tas, to accompany me.

"We've lost many of the nudists who made the English Garden a special place," said park director Thomas Koester. "Especially good-looking young women and men who made it such an attraction aren't here as much anymore. It's becoming a real problem."

I totally agree. The older I become, the more difficult I find it to attract good-looking young women. Hell, I would settle for attracting a good-looking young MAN, just for an ego boost about now.

"With fewer nudes it could hurt tourism," he added. "You can sit in a beer garden anywhere. The special fascination here is that you might bump into some naked people in the beer garden or walking along on a path."

Oh, yes... that glorous experience of bumping into some nekkid people in the beer garden or along the path... That's what I go to Key West for. Well, that and the hot tub and the swimming pool and the nekkid Continental breakfasts on the balcony every morning. DEJA VU offers all of that with a big privacy fence around the resort so that you never encounter curiosity-seekers. Just nekkid people from all over the world.

I have reservations in August that I'm going to cancel tonight. My partner in crime can't make it and I really don't want to go by my myself. The place is a lot better if you bring somebody to get nekkid with.

I'll discuss rescheduling later...

Food for thought, from Catfish,

Food for thought, from Catfish, who will eat anything:

*Honk if you love peace and quiet.

* The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese in the trap.

* If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something.

* When everything is coming your way, you're in the wrong lane.

* If Barbie is so popular, why do you have to buy her friends?

* Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.

* Inside every older person is a younger person wondering what the hell happened.

* 99 percent of lawyers give the rest a bad name.

* I feel like I'm diagonally parked in a parallel universe.

The lovely, long-haired Donna obviously

The lovely, long-haired Donna obviously didn't get TOO upset about my on-line dating posts. She said she found some of it AMUSING and even wrote about it.

Now, she wants a can of pepper spray, a sawed-off baseball bat and a football helmet in return.

Excuse me... I'll be on E-Bay for a while, searching for good deals.

Bejus! Going back to work

Bejus! Going back to work after vacation almost makes me wish I never went on vacation in the first place. E-mailbox overloaded. People expecting subject-matter expertise from me about problems from last week when I didn't have a clue what they were talking about. Hot and humid as hell, no pool, no beach and no Tiki-Bar serving frozen margaritas. No more "barking fish."

Just back to farting dust again.

July 28, 2002

I just aborted an attempt

I just aborted an attempt to make a blooming Vidalia onion. The breading pretty much fell off the rascal when I attempted to turn it in the pot, so Outback is safe from my competition for now. My blooming onion looks kinda shitty.

I'll eat it anyway, because nobody can make a genuine, sweet Vidaila onion fodder for the trash can, no matter what you do with it. In fact, the damned thing TASTES GOOD.

My son has returned "home," and I go back to work tomorrow. It's another Sunday evening.

Eating a shitty onion to celebrate seems altogether fit and proper.

Oh. MY. God! While I

Oh. MY. God!

While I crawl around the nether-world of the blogosphere like the dung-beetle I am, THIS ONE-TIME NEOPHYTE goes out, gets published and hires a male model to pose for the picture featured prominently on the page. JB's always been a little over-the-top, so I'm not surprised that he hired a guy who resembles Charlton Heston after talking to the burning bush in The Ten Commandments to do his dirty work. I would hire Rick Moranis myself, but that's just me.

I know that the REAL JB is the guy at the top of the page, the one with the scraggly beard, the ill-fitting suit and that child-molester gleam in his eyes. Don't let him fool YOU!

I have a precious document

I have a precious document on my desk that I believe I will keep for a long time.

Last night I declared war on my son. I destroyed his fort, tore down his carefully-constructed defenses and rooted him all over the floor. I gave him "Wet Willies" in both ears. I told him that I would show NO QUARTER, just the way Santa Anna did at the Alamo. He called a "time-out," which I granted because I was a merciful barbarian, and totally exhausted by then.

He ran down the hallway saying, "I need some PAPER! Where's some PAPER?" I told him where to find it.

He came back with a piece of notebook paper where he had written:

From: Quinton

A Peace Trety

To: Daddy

I signed it with a flourish and immediately violated the the thing by launching another attack. My son screamed, "But we've got a PEACE TREATY! You SIGNED IT! Bwhahahaha!" as I pressed every tickle-button I know on the boy.

The "Peace Trety" is a little worse for wear, being somewhat wrinkled, because I made a big production out of blowing my nose on it, wiping my butt with it and saying "See what I think of your TREATY? I don't need no stinking TREATY! Governments do this ALL THE TIME!!! ATTACK!!!"

Quinton didn't really want peace, but I thought the written "Trety" was a pretty imaginative thing for an eight year-old. I'm gonna hang on to that document, even if I didn't abide by it.

Donna, of BEHIND THE MASK

Donna, of BEHIND THE MASK left multiple comments about my smartass post giving my opinion of "on-line dating etiquette rules as dictated by a woman." When I first read the rules, my immediate GUT RUMBLE was: "Bejus, you haughty bitch! What group of web-holies got together sent white smoke out the chimney announcing that YOU were just chosen Popestress Of All? BITE ME! And I responded with that attutude.

I may be willing to reconsider my original position. Donna posted this:

I just checked for any online responses to my recent personals ad and saw this one:
"long hair on girls is so cool. can't explain it. but I'm hopelessly hooked on it. I would so want to run my fingers thru it, maybe brush it for you (once in a while, not all the time!), and maybe just be in the right position walking behind you so the scent hits me just right (girls' hair always seems to smell so good, even when they use the same shampoo!). Of course, not to get too carried away, but kissing a girl with long hair is just the most sexy thing ever. especially when it falls all over your face, etc., while you're kissing her. not a sexual thing, it's just so much a "girl" thing, and girls always have really cool scrunchies, etc! ok, enough about that. You're tall, beautiful, and writing ads here, so is this not a great country, or what? OK, maybe from my point of view. But, seriously, I'd love to meet you, even if you pull your hair into a bun, although I'd probably not like that as much! I'd love to get a smile out of you!"

I don't know if that's a typical response to a personals ad, but I certainly hope not. It sounds fricking creepy to me. If I were a woman, I wouldn't date that guy. I wouldn't RIDE A BUS with him on board unless I had a can of pepper spray, a sawed-off baseball bat and a loaded pistol in my possession at all times. AND my long hair stuffed into a football helmet.

Maybe some rules are necessary. Here are mine:

1) If you're a perverted fetishist, be SURE to mention that fact. There may be someone out there for you, but it's probably not me, and I don't like unpleasant surprises. (This rule does not apply if you write to the actual ME. I AM a perverted fetishist, but I'm doing this as a public service to normal people, so work with me here.)

2) Grammar and punctuation DO count. If you're semi-literate, get off-line and troll the bars. You'll have a better chance picking up drunks than you do attracting someone who can read and write.

3) Avoid cliches. "Moonlight walks on the beach and romantic candlelight dinners" have been run over more times than last week's dead armadillo on Highway 21. Try, "Would you like dinner at 'Pearls,' then a walk down River Street to the Bayou Cafe to hear some good music?" That's what I would write and that's what I would want to read if I were a woman. (Donna-- don't hesitate to correct me if I'm wrong here!)

4) If you say you're gonna call, then call. If you're NOT going to call, then have the balls to say so as politely as you can, right away. Don't blow smoke. Be honest.

5) If you like John Prine and she likes head-banger grunge-rock, you probably won't have much in common. Don't waste each other's time.

6) You WILL NOT find the man/woman of your dreams on the first date with a stranger. If you enjoy each other's company, that's a start. But only a START. It takes time to get to know someone. Make sure you BOTH know that.

7) Be sure to sleep with me on the first date. I like that in a woman.

8) Forget #7!!! That one popped out before I remembered that I am performing a public service here.

9) If you DO find the right person on-line, you'll have a bodacious story about "how we met" to tell your friends for the rest of your life. I believe it CAN happen.

10) Who am I to make rules? No web-holies sent white smoke up the chimney and declared me Pope. But this is MY BLOG and I can write anything I want to.

That's my NEW opinion, subject to change at any moment.

Hmmm... I'm not certain that

Hmmm... I'm not certain that THIS SEMI-PORNOGRAPHIC MATERIAL is proper for posting on a Sunday morning, but I did it anyway.

The Truth Laid Bear finally

The Truth Laid Bear finally updated the BLOGOSPHERE ECOSYSTEM and I am a "Crunchy Crustacean." I missed being a "Lowly Insect" by a mere TWO LINKS, so some of you folks need to get busy and help me grow six legs.

I wanna EVOLVE!

The bosumless pagan JENNY is an "Insignificant Microbe," so I'm doing my part to lift her up the food chain with MY link. THE GODDESS is a "Wiggly Worm." (I wouldn't mind checking out the "wiggly" part, but I'll bring my own worm, thank you.) There's a link for you, too, dear.

See how EASY it is?

Here's a cogent, well-written piece

Here's a cogent, well-written piece on CIGARETTE TAXES that reminds me of me. Kim du Toit may have an odd name by South Georgia standards, but he's got a great blog.

July 27, 2002

ROB'S RAMBLINGS 1) What's a

ROB'S RAMBLINGS

1) What's a Low Country Boil? (if you can't answer that question, name a dish from YOUR region of the country that outsiders never heard of)
Start with a big pot of water on a propane cooker. When the water starts to boil, throw in 10 pounds of baking potatoes. Add a pound of salt and about 1/2 bottle of worchestershire sauce, an entire small bottle of Tabasco and 8 ounces of Konrico Creole Seasoning. Allow the potatoes to boil for ten minutes, then add 10 pounds of corn on the cob. When the water returns to a boil, toss in 10 pounds of sausage (Polish Kielbasa is the best) cut into 3" pieces. Add one dozen Vidalia onions, whole, but peeled. Stand back and smell that rascal for a while. UHHH-HUHHH!!! Stick a potato with a long grill-fork and as soon as it's tender enough to slide off the fork before you can haul it from the pot, turn the propane fire off. Toss in 10 pounds of headed shrimp still in the shell, cover the pot and wait five minutes. Spread newspapers all over a picnic table and dump the pot on the table, being VERY CAREFUL not to scald the shit out of your barefoot, shorts-wearing self. Provide beer, home-made shrimp sauce, squeeze-it butter containers, salt, pepper and a bale of paper towels. Build a fire and throw all the trash in there when you're done. That's a Low Country Boil.

2) Do you prefer a bath or a shower?
Shower, definitely. If you saw the water-stains and soap-scum in my tub, you wouldn't sit down in that fucker, either.

3) What do you believe is your most attractive physical feature?
I have NO most attractive feature. I'm beautiful from head to toe.

4) Have you ever told a deliberate lie to spare a friend's feelings?
Yes, I have, and anyone who answers "no" to this question is either a goddam CONSTANT liar or someone I wouldn't want for a friend. I don't lie as a rule, because my short attention span makes ficticious babblings difficult to keep track of. The truth is easier to remember. Sometimes, the truth hurts, too. You don't always need to inflict that pain on a friend, especially when a nice lie has no major repercussions. Be truthful most of the time, but be nice whenever you can. If it's a major big deal with serious repercussions, however, I would rather the friend hear it from me than be a laughing-stock later.

5) Do you ever dream about being unexplainedly nekkid at work?
Yeah, about once a month. The dreams once upset me. Now I believe that they are delightful fantasies.

6) Have you ever broken someone's heart?
I did, and I regret it to this day. I had to make a choice between the lovely Dora and the bloodless cunt I married. I chose wrong, I paid for it in spades and I still hope Dora doesn't hate me for what I did to her. I'm sorry, Dora.

7) Are you a registered organ donor?
I am, although I don't expect any of my organs to be worth a shit to anyone by the time I shed the mortal coil. I'll be more likely to NEED some sort of transplant than ever to donate an organ, but my OK for harvesting whatever medical science can salvage is right there on my driver's license.

8) Who gave you your first romantic kiss?
A girl named Patty Black. We were 12 years-old at the time. She later became pregnant in high school and committed suicide with a shotgun in her father's car on the side of Eisenhower Road in Savannah. She was a pretty girl and I'll never forget her.

9) Even if you're happily married today, do you still sometimes think about an old flame? Who was he/she?
I'll despise myself for the rest of my life because of what I did to Dora. She's happily married to a policeman in Tennessee now, but I'll always believe that she was the one that got away. Got away? Hell, I THREW HER AWAY! Damn me.

10) Do you pay attention to which way the toilet paper is put in the hanger? Should it unroll from the front or the back?
Don't know, don't care and don't pay any attention. I usually don't even put it on the damned hanger. It sets on the edge of the sink. I just don't want to run out.
[edit]

If you don't believe that

If you don't believe that some men will do ANYTHING for sex, read about THIS GUY.

Bell, who was described as a "sad sexual misfit", was charged with 24 counts of sexual assault, one of attempted sexual assault, one count of making documents without authority, one count of uttering and one of fraud.

The father of three admitted in the Brisbane District Court he sought out female doctors to examine his scrotum and penis, making up stories he had been hit in the groin.

I've never tried that approach. Of course, if I knew a nice, friendly nurse, I might give it a shot.

I told you this crap

I told you this crap was coming. Now, HERE IT IS.

A 5-foot-10-inch, 272-pound man has sued four major fast food chains, claiming their fare contributed to his obesity, heart disease and diabetes, his attorney said on Friday.

Yep, the poor, unsuspecting bastard would weigh 135 pounds today if fast food companies had not deceived him over the years. He thought Double-Beef Whoppers with extra cheese were fat-free and the purest form of health food. He also had employees from the fast-food chains tackle him regularly on the street and shove their fare down his neck as he howled in protest.

New York attorney Samuel Hirsch, who is representing Barber, said consumers are not getting adequate warning about foods that could cause obesity, diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure and elevated cholesterol levels.

"Fast food chains failed to disclose the contents in terms of calories, fat grams and sodium. Even when posted, the information is not easily understandable to the public," said Hirsch.

I'll tell you what IS easily understandable: a disgusting fucktard who doesn't want to take responsibility for his own behavior and a slimy, bottom-feeding lawyer who has the moral compass of a crack-whore. Both of these individuals should be dragged off and shot immediately. Naw, that's too merciful for such unmitigated assholes. Sharp-toothed donkeys should BITE THEIR GENITALS OFF first; then, they should be dragged off and shot in a day or so, if they fail to bleed to death first.

Barber told MSNBC he didn't realize fried food was bad for him until three years ago, and that he had been eating fast food for decades because it was convenient.

"I didn't find out how bad it was until 1999," he said. "I ate a lot because I was by myself."

Barber was by himself because there was no room for anyone else under the rock where the dumbfuck lived with his head up his ass. He's a complete waste of the time-space continuum. This guy has the gall of Bill Clinton and the intelligence of an intestinal parasite. His lawyer IS an intestinal parasite.

Hirsch, who accompanied his client on the MSNBC show, said they particularly wanted better labeling for the "real offenders--the Big Macs and Big Whoppers." Now, he said "you have to be a rocket scientist" to be able to read labels that he said were deliberately designed to be confusing.

Put warning labels on the food and a dorkle such as Barber will EAT THE LABEL, too, because he likes the tasty glue on the back. Then, we'll require warning labels on the fricking WARNING LABELS, for crying out loud.

This story makes me want to puke. No, that's not true. This story makes me crave a Double-Beef Whopper with extra cheese.

I'm in the mood for some health food.

OTHER THINGS I NOTICED ON

OTHER THINGS I NOTICED ON JEKYLL ISLAND

1) A beautiful woman in an orange bathing suit wearing a straw hat and purple sunglasses. She was exquisite to behold but obviously high-maintenance. She had a tattoo on one ankle and one of the prettiest asses I've seen in a while. She was with a fat fuck twice her age.

2) MY EX-WIFE!! No, upon further study, it wasn't her coming to spy on my caretaking of our son. It was a yankee woman who simply bore an uncanny resemblance to the bloodless cunt. She could heave her bosum until hell froze over and I wouldn't think of asking her out. If her umbrella blew away on the beach, THAT BITCH was on her own.

3) All the waitpersons spoke with West Indian accents. They wore dreadlocks, too. Either Jekyll Island has an uncanny attraction for people from the West Indies or those faking Geechees (look it up if you don't know what a "Geechee" is) are playing the yankee tourists like yo-yos. I pick door #2.

4) I watched a pair of mockingbirds attack a red hawk and run the big bird out of town. It was immediately after one of those early-evening thunderstorms and the sky resembled an angry, purple bruise at the time, with all its fury spent. I watched from our second-floor balcony. The mockingbirds were fearless and determined, obviously protecting a nest nearby. The fight was beautiful to watch. I don't know what environmentalist neuticles think about such things. I believe the good guys won.

5) I stiffed a waiter named "Sammy" at The Buchaneer Restaurant. He tried to charge me for a shrimp cocktail I never received, he brought me a bottle of ketchup for my fries after I was finished with my meal and he left the cherry out of my son's cherry coke. He spoke with a West Indian accent, but I left him no tip at all. I told Quinton why I did that.

6) The next morning, I tipped a waitress named "Pam" $6.00 on an $8.00 breakfast bar tab. She had custom-made pancakes cooked for my son, kept his milk-glass full and brought me over-easy eggs when I asked for them instead of that curdled sawdust on the buffet table. I told Quinton why I did it, too. He understood.

7) My son and I built an elaborate sand castle, complete with flying banners made from marsh grass and seaweed. A yankee boy came up, wearing fins, goggles and dorkle swim-gloves, and said, "What if I DESTROY your castle?" I removed my chick-watcher sunglasses and said, "If you destroy this castle, young man, I'll hang your yankee ass upside down in the water until you stop blowing bubbles, then I'll cut you into little pieces and feed you to the crabs." He left the castle intact. I told Quinton why I did THAT, too. He understood.

8) We got totally lost leaving Jekyll Island. I ended up in downtown Brunswick, Georgia, with no clue where I-95 might be. I stopped at a 7-11 store to ask directions, but the Iranian proprietors no speakee de English very well and do not know I-95 from the Allytollah Khomeni. I suspect that they were a sleeper terrorist cell, but I found a set of greasy auto mechanics next door who asked me "How the hell did you MISS it, dumbfuck?" then told me where I needed to go. And they sent me right to I-95, too.

9) I boogie-boarded my son's cracker tail off. Tall Dog may be broke-dicked and ancient, but he can still cut the mustard when it comes to the sand and surf. Besides, I wiped the boy out every time he started to whip my ragged old ass. That's the nature of cut-throat competition.

10) I am sleepy now, and I have much to do tomorrow. The boy and I had a wonderful time on the Golden Isle. We'll do it again sometime, the first chance I get

July 26, 2002

Does THIS WOMAN know me,

Does THIS WOMAN know me, or what?

"Situated in the tree-shaded Victorian midtown of a moderately-sized urban center, I have been long accustomed to the random bohemian, hippie, tweaker fiend, poor white trash, homeless, or neighborhood freak wandering in to peruse the mechandise or perhaps chat me up."

Yes, dear, I will be there soon. Sooner than you can possibly imagine...

"I had to make use of the lavatory and fetch a drink for my parched throat. And I could do none of these things because I had to sit for a goddamn hour and babysit this street freak's battered, drugged-up ass."

See? I'm THERE already!

Great Moments In Sports, episode

Great Moments In Sports, episode 88:

My son and I were about waist-deep in the surf, searching for sand dollars ("Sea Biscuits," as I once called them). You find them by squinching your bare toes through the bottom-sand until you feel one, then telling your eight year-old son "I've got one! Under my LEFT FOOT!" and you let that water-fish dive down and retrieve it for you. We had about 40 piled on the boogie-board we took out with us, when I saw a comely yankee-girl decend the boardwalk down to the beach. She carried a lawn chair, an umbrella, some kind of feminine straw purse (Gawd knows what was in THAT) and a John Grisham novel. From the corner of my female-checker sunglasses, I watched her set up the umbrella, lay out the lawn chair and settle back to read her novel. She looked good to me.

"I've got ANOTHER ONE!" I told my son. "RIGHT FOOT this time!" and under the water he went to find it. Just then, a gust of wind came blowing off the ocean. The wind uprooted the umbrella and sent it tumbling down the beach. The woman leaped from her chair to chase the umbrella and her CHAIR started rolling down the beach, too. She stood there in shock for a moment, and I KNEW what she was thinking: I can catch the chair now, but the umbrella will get away. I had better go for THE UMBRELLA! And off she went in hot pursuit, with the umbrella blowing farther away with every tumble.

I said, "Quinton! Hold onto the boogie board! Daddy'll be right back!" And I charged through the surf, looking just like David Hassledork (or whatever his name is) on "Baywatch." Yes, my abs were flexing and my delts were flowing as I hit the beach slightly behind the umbrella but chased it down and caught it. The woman, breathless by now, arrived immediately thereafter, displaying her heaving bosum in her bikini top. (Did I mention that I am a sucker for a heaving bosum in a bikini top?)

"Ohmygod! THANK YOU," she said. About that time the chair came tumbling down the beach and I caught it, too. "I believe these belong to you, don't they?" I asked. "Oh, yes! THANK YOU again. I didn't realize that the wind was so strong on this beach."

Right then, I had a choice to make. The OLD ROB would have introduced himself, made some small talk and asked her out to dinner that night. The OLD ROB would have calculated his chances of getting laid and figured that, given the heaving bosum and all, they were at least 50-50 if he played his cards right. The OLD ROB would have used his son in the barter by saying, come meet my boy, and after that saying that four days without adult conversation made me hungry for some tonight. I could have pulled it off.

But I didn't even try. That broke-dick thing bothers me a lot, and even though I believe the that woman was ripe for a memorable Jekyll Island romance (she had BEAUTIFUL red toenails), I simply returned her chair and her umbrella back to her place on the beach and told her that I didn't think the umbrella was a good idea. "You have beautiful, fair skin," I said, "but the sun will be behind the trees in a few minutes and I'm too old to go chasing this thing down the beach again. You'll be fine right there in your chair. That's a good book. I've read it and I really liked it. I need to go check on my boy now. Nice to meet you."

And that was that. I never even asked her name. I went back in the water and chased sand dollars with my son.

People, I sometimes miss the old, raw moonshine Rob.

THINGS I LEARNED ON JEKYLL

THINGS I LEARNED ON JEKYLL ISLAND WITH MY SON

1) It's a beautiful place. You really don't want to leave when your time is up. You also can spend a lot of money really fast there.

2) Every restaurant has a chef in a big, white hat and his job is to drench everything you eat with exquistie, garlic-laden sauces. The food is delicious, and my son and I ate it all, then raced for the bathroom afterward to see who could make the loudest "barking fish" noises on the commode. Damn! That's good stuff, but four days of seafood will make you believe that a covey of quail is flying out of your ass every time you have to fart. I wouldn't recommend that experience to everybody I know. Only the really staunch can survive it.

3) The weather was perfect. We went and ate the breakfast buffet at around 9:00 in the morning, lounged around the pool for an hour or so, then went to the beach, which doesn't exist at high tide. The waves come all the way to the big granite breakwater (which didn't exist the last time I was on Jekyll Island), so you have to wait for the tide to ebb before the beach becomes visible. Once my son saw a foot of sand, we hit the Atlantic Ocean. We collected sand dollars and hermit crabs and sea shells and we built the most exotic sand castles on the strand. My son attempted to make friends with some of the yankee boys in their clown-like costumes (you know-- the water shoes, the fins and goggles with a shark's fin on top, the jiggling, white, jelly-bellies and the SWIMMING GLOVES, for crying out loud) and Quinton finally asked me, "What's WRONG with those guys?" He stood there knee-deep in the surf, barefoot and bare-backed, looking tanned, muscular and altogether comfortable as the waves broke around him. I told him, "They're YANKEES and they can't help being dorkles. They don't know any better. Just try to be nice to them." He did, but he learned the EARLY WARNING SIGNS of a yankee and identified them left and right from them on. "DADDY! LOOKY THERE! THAT'S YANKEE FOR SURE!" Uh, Huh. Water shoes, doofus water toys, snorkel, mask and a bad attitude. "Don't point," I told him. "That's bad manners."

4) We returned past the Tiki-Bar at around 5:00 every afternoon. I bought my son a cherry coke and a frozen marguarita for me. We went back to our room and waited for the evening fireworks, which happened on schedule every day. Around 6:00, thunder, lightning and cosmic rainfall fell from the sky for about two hours, then we went out to eat. We did rent three movies that we watched during the rainstorms. The Scorpion King is one of those entirely witless, highly-entertaining movies you really want to watch during an early-evening thunderstorm. I LOVED IT. Bwhahahaha! I insisted on watching Blackhawk Down because I read the book, and the movie was excellent, except for the fact that Quinton couldn't keep track of all the characters and kept asking me pestering questions all the way through it. I shut him up when I told him that he was acting like a YANKEE! I made a mistake last night by renting Blade II which was a shitty movie filled with more fucking F-words than the fucking law should allow, and I didn't like all the fucking dialogue, which was mainly, "Fuck you!" "Oh, yeah? Fuck YOU, TOO!" My son didn't like it either, and asked me, "Why does everybody have a potty mouth in this movie?" I said, "They're yankees. They can't help it."

5) My son wants to start his own blog. He wants to tell scary stories on it. I think it's a great idea.

July 22, 2002

Myself and my son, who

Myself and my son, who is my sole male offspring (that I KNOW OF) and heir to my vast empire, are about to pack up the truck and go to Jekyll Island for fours days of sun, surf and seafood along the glorious Gold Coast of Georgia. I expect to be the color of an old copper penny by the time I return. I DON'T expect to be blogging in the meantime.

But keep your shirts on (except for YOU, Joan). I'll be back.

These next few days are for me and my boy. Male bonding and such stuff.

It's gotta be better than Mississippi.

Ladies and gentlemen, we must

Ladies and gentlemen, we must face bravely certain unpleasant facts in life. Here are three: 1) Janet Reno is running for governor of Florida, where JB & BLUE live. I know you're embarrassed by it, but you guys have my deepest sympathy. Try not to hang a chad when you vote FOR that witch in the primaries.2) Janet Reno is an incredibly UGLY woman, inside and out. My worst nightmare during the Clinton administration was that Janet Reno and Warren Christopher would copulate and produce disgusting offspring. If the two ugliest people in the world ever mated, what would their child be like? ALIEN couldn't touch that frightening picture with a ten-foot pole. 3) The Democratic Party in Florida gave more money to THIS GRINNING JACKASS than they did to Reno. A LOT MORE.

It's not favoritism, according to party spokesmen. It's simply good sense, according to me. Janet Reno is a festering boil on the asscheek of Florida, just as she was as head of the US Justice Department. If she wins the Democrat nomination, Jeb Bush is a shoe-in for another term. Party leaders really wish that Janet would drive her little red truck off the road and into a mangrove swamp where she could dance with the alligators. If that happy circumstance doesn't happen, they want the GRINNING JACKASS to win, and that's where they're putting their money.

JB--- VOTE FOR JANET! Do it as your civic duty, do it for America and do it to fuck with the local Democrats.

It's the only way to ensure that Janet Reno ends up like bug-guts on the windshield in the gubinatorial election.

I found myself running dangerously

I found myself running dangerously low on cigarettes this morning, so I dragged my son off the couch where he has crashed for the past two nights, threw some breakfast down his neck and hauled his sleepy head off to Wal-Mart. I got cigarettes, and we bought munchies for our vacation-- some kind of cheese-doodley-corn-chip creations, a big can of mixed nuts and a bag of Snickers. I finished boiling the last of the 1 & 1/2 bushels of peanuts yesterday evening during a spectacular thunderstorm and we'll take some of those, too, because I'm having to jump up and down on the freezer lid to make it close now. I figure four pairs of shorts, clean underwear and a couple of bathing suits will do me. I'm not packing ANY socks, because I'll wear sandals or go barefoot for four days on Jekyll Island.

I still haven't decided about the golf clubs. I probably ought to take them even if I don't go play-- it's better to HAVE them and not WANT them than to WANT them and not HAVE them.

They're kinda like a woman that way.

We don't need to leave until about 2:00, so I have some time to kill. I really should mow my grass (grass, hell-- I oughta cut the fricking WEEDS) but it's already 10,005 degrees outside with 150% humidity and that grass-cutting crap sounds far to much like work for a man on vacation to do. I am certain that I can find a reasonable excuse not to crank up the old lawn mower ("I DON'T FUCKING WANNA!" .... okay, sounds reasonable to me-- ed)

Yeah, I believe I'll just empty the trash cans, haul my $100 "Curb Caddy" out to the edge of the road so it'll be there for the Wednesday pickup, wipe my sweaty brow, throw in the towel and declare my work complete for the next four days. Plan your work, then work your plan. That's me.

And I plan to work seriously on my suntan.

Since Sesame Street is politically-correct

Since Sesame Street is politically-correct enough to put an HIV-positive muppet on the show, why not add a CRACK ADDICT, too?

The strung-out and developmentally disabled character, who goes by the legal name of Tonya and the street names of “sweet white desire,” “crackpipe annihilator,” and “Jermaine’s bitch” will join the cast of Sesame Street on September 30th, for its 25th anniversary season.

Diversity is a beautiful thing.

July 21, 2002

It takes a lot to

It takes a lot to make me belligerent, but THIS DOES:

Tips for men who like women online dating etiquette

.1. Let's start at the beginning. Choose your screen name wisely. We're not favorably impressed with the likes of what BeachBum876, or 6FootSwell has to offer. We've worked hard to have a successful career and expect the same from the men we date. We're skeptical that SuccessfulRichDude is anything but a dude. Romantic_Dreamer makes you sound like a sap. Nothing about those names is encouraging.
Yeah, if you were that fucking hot and successful you wouldn't be ADVERTISING for a date. Does "Just As Desperate As You Are" ring a bell? Don't lecture ME, ya dipshit.

2. The women tend to get bombarded on these services, due to the male female ratio balancing clearly in favor of those with boobs. Don't expect a response. Similarly, don't write your life story on the first email. We're sorting through tons of emails. Respect our time.
Yeah, you're too busy to read e-mails you solicited but lonely enough to solicit them in the first place. If your "INBOX" was full, you wouldn't be trolling for dick. Dipshit.

3. Equally bad are first emails containing questions that would require us to write a novel in order to adequately answer it:
Isn't that the purpose of the essay section in our profiles? Better to ask something specific like, "do you have herpes?" or "didn't we have a one night stand back in '92?"
No, I never had herpes until I met YOU in '92. Dipshit.

4. If the woman specifies she's looking for someone between the ages of 30-40 and you are just shy of 23…she's not interested. Similarly, if she wants a black man, and you are white…you aren't going to be the one to change her preference. If you are gay, don't contact a woman no matter how much you the love the handbag she's carrying in the photo. She probably won't have a child for you and your partner no matter how nicely you ask.
You ALWAYS find selective women offering themselves for dates on-line. They simply become OVERWHELMED with the number of men they actually know lusting after them, so they troll for absolute strangers and set very tight specs. Dipshits.

6. Don't write a poem in your "about me" section. Don't write a poem in the "about your ideal woman" section. And don't, under any circumstance write one in the first email you send your prospective mate.
Prospective mate? I want a DATE! I may be hollow, do you spit or swallow? Meet me, greet me and EAT ME, ya dipshit.

7. Spelling still counts. Grammar will get you everywhere.
"I" before "E" except after "C." Wanna fuck?

8. Don't send the same stock email to every woman. We often sign up for these things with our friends. We talk. A lot.
Yeah, I know that. The best way to lay ALL YOUR FRIENDS is to do a good job on YOU. You tell your good friends and they'll want a piece of the action. They'll lay me and I'll have you to thank for it. Dipshit.

9. If she says, let's get together Thursday and you don't hear from her she's not interested. It sucks, I know but so does the email saying "I don't think we're a match."
If she says "let's get together Thursday" and you don't hear from her, she's a lying cunt. SHE sucks, the dipshit.

10. Which leads me to perhaps the most important one. If we say it's not a match, don't send emails telling us we're a bad person for not feeling the chemistry with you. That only makes us more confident that we made the right decision.
In your dreams, dipshit.

I wonder what THE GROUP

I wonder what THE GROUP CAPTAIN thinks about THIS SCATHING ASSESSMENT of British tourists as tightwad assholes everywhere they travel?

Britons are the rudest, meanest, most linguistically incompetent and least adventurous holidaymakers in the world, according to the results of a survey.
New research shows that, despite being among the most well-travelled globetrotters, Brits are the least liked by foreigners.

Can the British actually be worse than the fucktard yankees who tour Savannah wearing shorts, sandals and black knee-socks while yammering in that fingernails-on-a-blackboard accent they have? Can the British possibly be worse than the fuckwits in their Cadillacs with New Jersey plates who stop dead in the middle of Bay Street to peer in myopic confusion at street signs hoping to find River Street when the Savannah River is clearly visible a stone's throw away? Turn right, asshole! GO TOWARD THE RIVER! YOU CAN'T MISS IT! If you get wet, you went too far.

I don't know. Maybe they could miss it, somehow. But I surely wouldn't miss them if they went away.

The British CAN'T be THAT bad.

As I said before, euthanasia

As I said before, euthanasia can be a good thing. THIS STORY is either bizarre or tragic. I report, you decide:

Florence Ruth Holba of Billings died Friday after the tractor driven by her husband, Edwin Holba, rolled over her, troopers said.

Mrs. Holba was standing behind the tractor when Holba's foot slipped off the clutch, the patrol said. The tractor rolled backward over her, pinning her beneath it.

Holba got off the tractor but fell when he went to check on his wife, the patrol said. Holba, who has limited mobility, was unable to stand and crawled for 23 hours until he reached his residence and called for help shortly before 10 a.m. Saturday, troopers said.

For one of the few times in my life, I am at a loss for words here...

SUNDAY STUMPERS 1) You know

SUNDAY STUMPERS

1) You know about a company on the brink of a major advancement. This will make you a killing on the stock market. Do you use the knowledge to your advantage?
You're damned right I do. Insider trading may be against the law, but true insiders do it all the time. The stock market has taken my 401-K and reduced it to a 102-F over the past couple of years, so IT OWES ME! Yeah, I would cash in on my knowledge. It wouldn't violate my personal code of ethics at all.

2) Your best friend is about to make a major mistake. He/she is going to marry/commit to a very unsavory person. Do you say something?
I've done it before and I would do it again. The friend never listens, but it gives me the chance to say, "I TOLD you so" later. I wish only to have a chance to do what Larry did after he had sex with his best friend's fiancee. He told the friend about it, and when the friend became very angry, Larry said, "I did it as a favor to YOU. You don't want to marry that slut. If she'll screw ME, she'll screw ANYBODY!" The wedding never happened, because the friend realized that NOBODY should EVER marry a woman who would screw Larry.

3) Kissinger, Abe Vigoda, Jennifer Connelly....who needs their eyebrows tweezed more?
Jesus... probably ME as I grow older. I'm gonna need my goddam EARS tweezed before long. Why is it that a man loses hair where he wants it and grows hair where he doesn't as he ages? It's a cosmic design flaw, and that's one of the reasons that I'm a athiest.

4) Gay Marriage - legal or not?
HELL NO! I have nothing against gay people. (In fact, given my track record with women, I'm giving serious consideration to going gay. I just haven't been able to convince myself yet that some guy's hairy butt is more attractive to me than Cindy Crawford's beautiful ass. Once I overcome that one small obstacle, I'm out of the closet in a flash.) I simply believe that the "Gay Marriage" concept is a slippery slope that is bound to lead to insane mutations later. Besides, what's the fucking point, really?

5) Your pet is old and feeble. The best friend you've had in your entire life is in pain. Do you euthanize?
I've done that. It broke my heart, but it was an act of love. I stopped the pain. I only hope that someone will show me that sort of kindness and mercy if I ever lose my acceptable quality of life and suffer every day. In many ways, we are kinder to our dumb animals than we are to our fellow human beings.

July 20, 2002

I'm TOO OLD for this

I'm TOO OLD for this shit!.

If I keep reading THIS BITCH I'm going to fall out of my chair, hit the floor head-first at the wrong angle and die laughing. Or maybe end up worse off than Christopher Reeve. All I know for sure is that NOTHING GOOD can come from visiting her site. Evil lurks there, and it is dark and ugly. I'm never going back.

At least not tonight.

A frightening thought just occurred

A frightening thought just occurred to me. If I actually generate a large audience for this page, I may have to clean up my act a bit, listen to my Mama and stop using all that fucking obscene language I sometimes apply in situations where I deem cuss-words necessary to get my true GUT RUMBLE across. I'll need to go straight and write for MY AUDIENCE instead of for me.

Naw... ain't gonna happen. What you read here are the unvarnished, freshly-hatched thoughts that fly from my imagination like a frightened covey of quail going airborne into a clear sky from the brush. I don't know where the rumbles come from and I seldom know where they're going to go, but what you see here is the way I do it. I don't believe that I could change if I tried. (That's a goddam lie! This asshole was an advertising copywriter once upon a time. He can whore any way you demand---ed)

Don't listen to the editor. He drinks a bottle of Scotch for lunch every day, the reeling bastard, and he doesn't understand what a highly-sensitive life-form I have evolved into since starting this blog. He remembers the OLD ME, if he can remember what he did with his car keys five minutes ago. The NEW ME is different.

I used to be raw moonshine. I am fine, aged wine today.

Wanna see a real hoot?

Wanna see a real hoot? Try this:

The first one sucked me in instantly and I want to give this guy a great big fat hug. Although, he's kind of touchy about girls, so I best just give him the proper distance he deserves. Acidman Mars at Monsterman is da Man. That was a lot of male redundancy.

Next up, give some love to zz bidches. Actually she is the Goddezzbidches, but she sometimes goes by Joan. Welcome Joan. Take your shoes off and stay awhile.

That's from DAWN OLSEN who makes me think SHE'S the kind of woman I WOULD BE if I were female.

Thanks, darling (as I preen). I'm really not down on women as an alien race. I believe that they ARE, but some of the shit that's happened to me is my fault, too. It always takes two to tango.

But I'll take a big, fat hug any time you offer it. And the Goddess is great, isn't she?

Oh, My Aching Ass part

Oh, My Aching Ass part 104.

In fact the parties, constituted partly by regular customers and partly by new or occasional or once only customers, amounted to gatherings numbering in the order of 20 to 40 persons. Some would participate in the party whilst being naked whilst others wore scanty and revealing clothes. There was no obligation to remove clothing and some might wear ordinary clothing. Furthermore, there were no promises or pressure to participate in sexual intercourse. However, sexual intercourse and other sexual activities were the order of the entertainment for the evening. Condoms were supplied for the purpose. They were offered on a ´help yourself' basis from plates in the bedrooms referred to below. There was a room for changing and hanging up clothes, an outdoor spa where people frequently bathed in the nude and at least two rooms each containing a double bed with a single mattress on the floor. These rooms had their doors removed. This facilitated the desires of both exhibitionists and voyeurs. In fact the uncontradicted evidence of the inquiry agents include accounts of couples and larger groups participating in various forms of sexual intercourse in these rooms, in view of observers inside or outside the rooms concerned. Mr Edwards attended twice in his capacity as inquiry agent. On his account occasions of viewable conventional sexual intercourse was so common as to eventually become boring by repetition as the evening wore on. However, joint sexual activities of larger groups contributed a degree of variety. He gave an account of one episode where a man announced that his wife enjoyed a ´gang bang' and invited others to join them. In this episode the woman had oral sex with one man whilst a series of others had vaginal intercourse with her and whilst her husband sat in the room masturbating."

A woman in a wheelchair is suing because she was discriminated against at the party. Read the gory details HERE. Thanks (I think) to OVERLAWYERED for this one.

I haven't seen the 76%

I haven't seen the 76% worshipable woman for two months now. I mentioned on this blog that she slept with me after I predetermined a seductive evening and succeeded magnificently in all my goals, including a perfect fix-a-flat injection.. She dropped me like a hot rock after that, even after leaving slobber-trails all over my body the next morning before she went home. I called her "angel" in the morning, too. Go figure.

I don't understand women. I don't know what makes them tick, I can't fathom how their feminine brains function and they remain totally inscrutable to me. It's frightening. I can attract them, I can woo them, I can bed them and I can love them, but I'll be GODDAMNED if I'll EVER understand them.

Maybe I'm just not meant to...

A strange thing happened this

A strange thing happened this evening. My BC ex-wife showed up with my son at 6:00 and he had his suitcase with wheels loaded with the clothes he needs to spend the week with me. He tore into the house, gave me a hug and went straight to his room to crank up the Gameboy II. He left the suitcase in the middle of the living room.

The BC walked up to the door and asked for an "emergency phone number" so she could reach Quinton if she needed to speak to him while we were gone. I told her that I didn't have a number yet, but we would be at the Jekyll Inn from Monday night until Friday morning and that I would have Quinton call her EVERY NIGHT if that made her feel better. I was standing there with the door open and the 105 degree heat outside competing seriously with my air conditioning. I finally said, "Why don't you just come inside and sit down?"

She did, and we talked. She said, "I'm sure going to miss that sweet boy every day he's gone."

I said, "I miss him every day of my life. He's been gone a year now for me."

"Yeah, I know how hard that must be."

"I've noticed that it bothers you a lot."

"It does bother me. I'm sorry that things worked out they way they did."

I kept my mouth shut. I didn't say the obvious, which is "THINGS WORKED OUT THE WAY THEY DID BECAUSE YOU FUCKED AROUND WITH A DISEASED, UNEMPLOYED, DOPE-SMOKING ASSHOLE AND FLUSHED EVERYTHING WE ONCE HAD RIGHT DOWN THE TOILET, YOU BLOODLESS CUNT!" No, I didn't say that. She asked me for a cigarette and I gave her one. We talked about work, and we locked into an old, familiar pattern of both of us thinking scarily alike about how to deal with the latest problem on the horizon. The scene reminded me of what we once did every evening around the kitchen table after supper. It was eerie.

She's still an attractive woman, but she doesn't appear nearly as beautiful to me as she once did. I've seen the monster inside, and that changes a lot of my perceptions about her. She once was my partner, my lover and the best friend I had in the world. Not anymore.

But I can close my eyes right now and feel every nook and cranny of her body, smell every scent of her and recall the way she warmed her cold feet against my warm belly at night while making purring snores as she slept. I don't know if I'll EVER forget that. Hell, I still sleep on "my" side of the bed today.

When she left today, she paused at the door and said, "Thanks for inviting me in. It was nice to talk to you again." Then she hopped in her fancy sports car and went home to suck the unempolyed dope-smoker's cock.

Yeah, it was good for me, too

July 19, 2002

Yeah, it's THAT TIME AGAIN

Yeah, it's THAT TIME AGAIN where I work. Here's what DONNA had to say about it:

I just received my annual review today, which went so-so... it wasn't bad, but after all of the work I've done for this place, it wasn't exactly raving either. I guess that's the way it always it though. No matter how good you are, no employer is ever going to tell you that at any review without a "BUT" included. What makes me a bit angry, is that I'm already taxed with the work load and wonder how they think I could possibly handle any more. I told my boss flat out that if she wants me to do more of this or that in particular, then she has to lighten my load on this or that other stuff. I've had additional responsibilities piled up on me as well, due to cost cutting measures like not re-hiring a biller we just lost. My bosses response? She said I should work even more hours! :( Hmmm, what was I saying yesterday? Oh yeah, "I HATE THIS JOB!" I ended up with a 3% salary increase, which was about what everyone else received. And while I certainly know that any increase is nothing to complain about in the current state of the economy, and will certainly help pay for my recent dental expenses, it's just sooooo not about the money!

No performance review ever should come as a surprise to the person who receives it. I have been guilty of this sin, and I hope to never do it again. But the company I work for ties my hands in many ways about rating my people. It's a corporate brain-fart mentality taken to the nth degree.

I have four supervisors who work for me. I don't have a clunker in the bunch. Yeah, I can rate them #1 through #4, but I wouldn't swap a single one of them for most of the others I see in the plant. My #4 guy is BETTER than some #1s in other areas. But the system doesn't allow that fact to intrude into the neat little matrix constructed for performance reviews. I rate a good guy as "Meets Expectations" because me meets MINE, which are high, while another half-assed boss rates a pissant "Exceeds Expectations" just because the pissant comes to work every day and kisses the boss's ass. It's not fair, but it's the world I work in. One of my guys MUST "need improvement," whether he does or not.

Well, everybody "Needs Improvement." Some people just need more than others.

From the looks of the

From the looks of the old hit-counter, I'm about to roll the thing over to five digits shortly. I find that amazing, even though I have shamelessly whored all over blogdom trying to make it happen. In the beginning, the only time the hit counter moved was when my Mama came to read, and I always knew it was her because she invariably wrote me a tearful e-mail about cutting out the foul fucking language I sometimes use.

Today, I regularly receive comments and e-mails containing fouler fucking language than I EVER use. In less than seven months, this blog has gone a lot farther than I ever dreamed it would when I started. It feels good.

I want to thank some people for the company I've enjoyed on this trip. That "madness is bliss" maniac from Florida, JB gave me my first permalink, which I richly deserved because I TAUGHT HIM HOW TO DO IT! The ungrateful wretch never sent me a boquet of roses for that favor, but he has promised to buy me blood-rare steak and shrimp if I ever make my way to St. Pete. If he ever comes to Savannah, I'll do the same, and maybe even pay for a lap-dance at one of the cultural emporiums of artistic self-expression we have around here. But he buys his own beer.

The darling HEATHER was next. When I found her blog, I was my usual kind self by linking to a post that she wrote about personal flatulence. The gassy woman has adored me ever since. She also introduced me to the saucy Diana who proceeded to tickle my fancy many times on my comment page. I love both women, but we are ships passing in the night. Heather already is taken and Diana lives too far away. Besides, Diana has met a mass-murdering, child-molesting, dope-dealing, tax-evading Hannibal Lecter who has fooled her with his charming ways. DON'T FALL FOR IT, DIANA! Run while you can! Run to Rincon, Georgia. I'll SAVE you!

Then came THE GODDESS, who certainly perked up more than my comments page with some of her outlandish, shameful behavior. By god, the woman reminds me of me.

Everybody on the blogroll over on the left has been a cyber-friend and a person who thought enough about my site to link to it. There's sweet and dentist-tormented DONNA, who writes with the sort of brutal personal honesty most people aren't willing to hang out there for others to read. How about DRAGONFLY JENNY who claims to be some sort of pagan witch with no T-Ts? She never gets mad when I call her an environmental neuticle, and she understands the proper use of tequila. Hell, she doesn't NEED T-Ts to fascinate me.

The ultimate firestorm I've encountered so far is THE SUPREME BITCH, who is like a dose of rubbing alcohol on raw flesh. I LOVE her attitude and she calls me "one sexy bitch, I might add." SAME TO YOU, DARLIN'! See WHAT SHE DOES?

I've been trying all afternoon to get LIONEL MANDRAKE incorporated onto my blogroll, but the BLOGGER spiders and snakes keep interfering with my best efforts. I'll post him in the hall of fame (shame?) the first chance I get. I graduated from "auditioning" to "regular" on his site without having to endure buggery on the casting couch, so I figure JOAN made a grand sacrifice for me.

LYNN is always there to prove that I have civilized, cultured blog-pals, and DAX MONTANNA is around to be my bodyguard in some of the dark alleys I wander. SUGARMAMA and MAMA JOIE keep me loving Southern women, and ANDY AND COMPANY are still out there to be had, because World-Wide Rant has linked to me but never put me on their fucking blogroll.

Andy, resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.

Thanks for the ride, folks. It's been a lifesaver.

And I MEAN that.

Remember the old Jim Stafford

Remember the old Jim Stafford song "I Don't Like Spiders and Snakes?" Well, I don't either! And BLOGGER has become a veritable Okeefenokee swamp lately. What IS this shit?

I upgraded to PRO, so I'm paying good money for the lack of service I continue to experience. I would never have started this journal without BLOGGER and I am the loyal sort who always wants to reward a favor done for me. That, and the fact that I wanted to publish when common blogspot swine couldn't, is why I upgraded.

But my loyalty is being tested to the fullest, and I am beginning to crack under the pressure. BLOGGER better straighten and fly right, or Acidman is gonna get out of the swamp.

THINGS I LEARNED WHILE DEAD

THINGS I LEARNED WHILE DEAD IN MISSISSIPPI!

1) Airline Security sucks. They confiscated my 2" moustache sissors at the first checkpoint I hit in the Savannah Airport, but let me carry a cigarette lighter, a bottle of Old Spice after-shave and a Gilbey's Traveller of vodka on the plane. They took a $2.00 pair of Wal-Mart sissors and left me with two Molotov Cocktails and the means to ignite them. Great thinking... downright GOVERNMENTAL.

2) After security confiscated my moustache-trimmer sissors to ensure that I would not use them to hijack the plane and crash it into a tall building, Delta Airlines doubly-insured against that possibility by CANCELLING MY FLIGHT! I had to go back through Checkpoint Charlie, stand in line for 45 minutes and book another flight. Then, I had to go BACK through Checkpoint Charile, where the very same woman who confiscated my sissors searched my carry-on bag a SECOND TIME! Great thinking... downright governmental. She probably would have checked my shoes except for the fact that I was wearing sandals.

3) The new flight ran late. As we circled Atlanta, I showed the stew--- excuse me-- the FLIGHT ATTENDANT my 6:05 ticket to bumfuck, Mississippi, and asked her if I possibly could make it, because the time was 5:50 and the plane wasn't anywhere near the ground yet. She assured me that if I missed my flight, I would be booked on the next one, which left Atlanta at 10:15 that night. I was mightily reasurred by that information.

4) I disembarked on a concourse about as far away as I could be from where I needed to be, and that's a goddam BIG airport. I ran down an escalator, caught the Atlanta Airport mini-train, ran UP and escalator, then had to pee really bad. I had a choice to make. I could run like hell for my departure gate, piss all over myself and maybe make the flight, or duck into the nearest bathroom and have clean pants until the 10:15 flight that evening. After prostate surgery, and wearing a diaper for three months until I regained control of my bladder, I knew better than to run. Even though I don't need the diapers anymore, when I have to go I HAVE TO GO! I hit the bathroom, and I'm glad I did.

5) I arrived at the gate for my 6:05 flight at 6:25 and THE PLANE WAS WAITING FOR ME!!!! The other passengers may have been pissed off, but I was delighted.

6) Mississippi looks a lot like South Georgia, only not nearly as interesting.

7) Mississippi is just as hot and humid as South Georgia, just not nearly as interesting.

8) People in Mississippi are just as friendly as people in South Georgia, but that's a Southern thing and is expected Down South. Manners still matter here.

9) I really liked my rent-a-car and the motel I stayed in. I want to hire the maid who cleaned my room to do my house once a week. I'll pay her well, too. And I may just buy a Toyota one of these days.

10) I don't want to hear any more crap at work from ANYBODY about how God himself squatted down and shat pigment technology in Hamilton, Mississippi. I toured the plant. They do some things better than we do. We do some things better than they do. But the White End is just as dirty, just as dusty and just as WHITE as where I work. I fit right in there. I had a big, burly black guy named "Pat," who is my equilivant there (he is called a "Superintendent." I am called a "Coordinator.") and he said, "You're dressed kinda nice to be going out there. It's dirty and dusty." I told him, "Let's go. I FART dust." He laughed and said, "So do I, my man. Follow me." We went, and I learned that brothers in the White End are brothers all over the world. Yeah... we DO fart dust. And we're goddam PROUD of it, too.

Now, to bed and to work in the morning. I have many more stories to tell.

Did y'all MISS ME?

July 15, 2002

Okay, folks, I'm off to

Okay, folks, I'm off to Mississippi.

I will be back, blogging tirelessly (that's a blogger in a pickup truck running on a bare rim and throwing sparks in his wake) when I return Thursday evening. You will have updates about those dirty repulper shafts and the paddle-stuff I'm going to investigate. I will thrill you with descriptions of the beautiful place I'm going and the wonderful adventures I am certain to have there. So, stay tuned.

Now, it's OFF TO THE RODEO!!!

July 14, 2002

I just took the WHAT

I just took the WHAT VEGETABLE ARE YOU quiz and discovered that I am BROCOLLI

I'm a broccoli! I'm introverted but always try to be more outgoing. I'm sort of dim on the outside but inside I'm really a good person and always trying to fit in. Even though a lot of people don't like me, they really do learn to love me!

This is a bullshit test. I'm about as introverted as a used car salesman and as dim as a fireworks display. Okay, some people don't like me, but FUCK THEM! And what's this "learn to love me" crap? To KNOW me is to LOVE me.

Don't take that pissant test. It's bullshit.

Catfish is at it again:

Catfish is at it again:

As the blonde was standing by the first tee waiting for her golf lesson from the club's pro, she watched a foursome in the process of teeing off. The first golfer addressed the ball and swung, hitting it 230 yards straight down the middle of the fairway.

"That was a really good shot," said the blonde.
"Not bad considering my impediment," said the golfer.
"What do you mean?
"I have a glass eye," said the golfer.
"I don't believe you!"
So he popped out his eye out and showed her.

The next golfer addressed the ball and swung, hitting it 240 yards straight down the middle of the fairway. Again, the blonde exclaimed, "That was a really good shot!"
"Not bad considering my impediment," said the golfer.
"What's wrong with you?" said the blonde.
"I have a prosthetic arm," he replied.
"I don't believe you, show me," said the blonde. So he screwed his arm off and showed it to her.

The next golfer addressed the ball and swung, hitting it 250 yards straight down the middle of the fairway. "That was a really good shot," said the blonde.
"Not bad considering my impediment," said the golfer.
"What's wrong with you?"
"I have a prosthetic leg."
"I don't believe you!"
So that golfer screwed his leg off and showed it to her.

The fourth golfer then addressed his ball, swung, and blasted it 280 yards straight down the middle of the fairway .
"That was a wonderful shot," said the blonde.
"Not bad considering my impediment," said the golfer.
"Now what's wrong with you?" she asked.
"I have an artificial heart," said the golfer.
"I don't believe you, show me."
"Well, I can't show you out here," the golfer said. "Come around behind the Pro-Shop."

As he nor the blonde had not returned after a few minutes, his golf buddies decided to go see what was holding things up.
As they turned the corner and went behind the Pro-Shop, sure enough, there was their pal -- screwing his heart out.

In response to my shameless,

In response to my shameless, pathetic, whimpering troll for links last night, THE GROUP CAPTAIN displayed a sense of chivalry, grace and good manners (not necessarily combined with good sense) and linked GUT RUMBLES to his "auditioning" blogroll. I am grateful for the kind gesture.

I only hope that my continued presence there is not contingent on a "casting couch" experience. I believe the good Captain saves the couch for the ladies, but you never know about bloggers, especially British ones. They have a strange fascination with "buggery" in that country.

I'll go to the couch if I must, but I'll hate myself in the morning.

I've said it before and

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I LOVE BELLICOSE WOMEN, especially when they're ex-Marines and can whip a wild bear's ass.

Did the forensic pathologist say,

Did the forensic pathologist say, "He's baaack?" when pieces of THE SAME DEAD GUY washed ashore a year apart?

You don't have to worry about that happening where I live. Our delicious blue crabs make certain of that.

Some people die heroic deaths,

Some people die heroic deaths, some people die tragic deaths and some people die a really embarassing DUMBASS DEATH. If this guy has listened to his mama and chewed his food carefully, he would be alive today. Or, if he had listened at a very early age when she said "DON'T PUT THAT IN YOUR MOUTH!" he wouldn't be my latest nomination for the Darwin Award.

Hello, sports fans. It's 2:30

Hello, sports fans. It's 2:30 in the morning and I can't sleep. I hate it when that happens.

So, I have a favor to ask anyone who reads this post. I sent my whorish e-mail to THE BEAR to get my site placed on the Blogosphere Ecosystem and I wanna see my GUT RUMBLES up in lights. Last week, I found LYNN and THE GODDESS strutting their stuff there, and I wanna strut alongside them.

The only way I'll make it is if charitable, good-hearted people such as yourself put A LINK on your site to mine. Hey--- you'd do it to feed a starving child, wouldn't you? You'd do it for World Peace, wouldn't you? You'd do it to Save The Planet, wouldn't you?

Well, that's the added benefit of putting a link to me on the next blog you write. I register on the Blogosphere Ecosystem, and all those other wonderful things happen, too. So remember, find some justification (or just do it as a personal favor to me) to link to my site in the very next blog you write. The Bear updates on Monday mornings, so act now.

You'll be glad you did.

July 13, 2002

I'll bet they voted Democrat,

I'll bet they voted Democrat, too. If they could make it to the polls in between smoking marijuana and KILLING A CHILD.

Where do these people come from? How can ANYBODY do that?

I read this thanks to ANDY but I'm not sure anybody needs thanks for it.

CONFESSIONAL An old man walks

CONFESSIONAL

An old man walks into a confessional. The following conversation ensues:

Man: I am 92 years old, have a wonderful wife of 70 years, many children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. Yesterday, I picked up two college girls, hitchhiking. We went to a motel, where I had sex with each of them three times.

Priest: Are you sorry for your sins?

Man: What sins?

Priest: What kind of a Catholic are you?

Man: I'm Jewish

Priest: Why are you telling me all this?

Man: I'm telling everybody.

Thanks to Ed, the ex-linebacker

BWHAHAHAHA! I made my summer

BWHAHAHAHA! I made my summer peanut connection today! I'm getting a bushel and a half of fresh green peanuts next Friday (that's about 75 pounds) for $45 from Jesse and Lelia, who farm about 50 acres in Springfield, just up Highway 21 from me. Now you see why I said peanuts for $1.80 a pound at the Super Wal-Mart was ridiculous, even though I bought them at that price. I like my boiled peanuts. I'll cook them all next weekend and load my freezer with goody-bags that will last me at least until Super Bowl Sunday. I bought two bushels last year and I have three bags left today, but I still had a family back then. A bushel and a half ought to be just about right for me.

I also picked the last of my corn this morning, along with two lonely tomatoes. I reaped a large paper grocery bag full of corn, but pickings will be slim from now on unless I plant greens in the fall. The okra and two bell pepper plants are the only things still producing in my garden. Jesse and Lelia also sell corn, but I don't need any this year. My crop turned out well. I finally found the corn worms today, which amazed me because I had picked so many ears without finding worms in them. If I had left those ears on the stalks another two days, the worms would have eaten them all. I shucked what I picked on my back patio and threw the worms in the dirt. A pair of mockingbirds are having a feast outside right now, enjoying the buffet I provided for them.

I bought a 50-pound bag of Diazinon last weekend (on sale because fuckwit environmentalists want to ban ALL insecticides since chemicals are baaaad), I spread it around my house, and I no longer have ants crawling all over my patio and my garage. The cricket assault appears to be over, too. God bless good chemicals.

If Jenny reads this, I want her to know one thing. I probably spend more time outdoors, growing things and watching nature at its best and its worst, than any "environmentalist" you know. I grow my own food. I love to shoot guns, but I don't hunt, not because I love the precious animals but because I think freezing my ass off in a deer stand is boring. I would rather shoot a beer can at my convenience. I backpack and camp regularly (well, I USED TO... I haven't done much of anything for the past year) and I can build a fire in the pouring rain, then cook exquisite meals using nothing more than rice, salt-cured ham and powdered soup mix. I can sleep peacefully in a hammock on the side of a mountain where I have ground two feet under me on one side and 20 feet below me on the other. I can put 40 pounds of stuff in a sack, strap it to my back, and live well for four days in the wilderness. If I pack it in, I pack it out. I don't litter and I plant flowers. I work in a toxic chemical plant and I believe that I am more of a TRUE environmentalist than any of those hockwads making all the noise out there.

Nature doesn't need protection. People need to know how to protect themselves from nature.

I know how to make my own beer, wine and whiskey, too. If the environmental Armaggedon finally comes, you tree-huggers are gonna need somebody like me around to teach you how to survive in your "natural" world.

As a public service to

As a public service to my feminine readers, I offer THIS TIP on the proper care and maintenance of your breasts, through vigorous exercise.

"the exercises will strengthen the chest muscles up top of the breasts providing an added lift and perkiness to the entire area."

I'm all for breasts, and the more lift and perkiness, the better. So, try the exercises.

Then show me the results.

I really don't know why

I really don't know why anybody wants to be a police officer. The job requires that you deal with the absolute scum of the earth every day. You may be shot or stabbed by some raving maniac any time you respond to a call, and you risk lawsuits and jail sentences if any aggrieved armchair quarterback or bottom-feeding lawyer sues because you didn't play by the Marquis de Queensbury rules in what amounts to Urban Combat. Even ordinary citizens lie to you all the time ("No, officer, I didn't realize that I was driving 55 in a 25 MPH school zone").

I don't know what to think about THIS BIZARRE CASE, but my gut puts me on the side of the cops while some quiet inner voice asks, "Did they really have to shoot the guy 14 times?"

Of course, the family called the cops in the first place, the guy was certifiably nutzo and he was armed with a screwdriver. He didn't listen to the warnings he received, even after the police fired bean-bags from a shotgun at him. He charged the cops with his pathetic screwdriver.

It's easy to say now that they should have tackled him and wrestled him into submission. It's easy to say now that they should have run for cover, kept the guy hemmed up and called for a tranquilizer dart to subdue him. But if I were there in a blue uniform and I saw the nutball with the screwdriver charging at me, or at one of my partners, I would plug the crazy sumbitch.

I want to go home at the end of my shift the way normal workers do. I want to sit on my couch or blog on my computer and have a glass of white zin when I come home from work. But mainly, I want to come home. I don't want to be lying dead in a stranger's back yard with a screwdriver through my heart.

Cops have to make these choices all the time, and they're almost always second-guessed. I don't know why they do it.

Outraged Democrats in the US

Outraged Democrats in the US Senate called a time-out from their ceaseless bashing of President Bush over his dealings with greedy corporations to CUT THEIR OWN DEALS with greedy corporations by riding corporate jets to Nantucket, where they will peddle influence, solicit campaign contributions and suck up like the political whores they are.

Asked about the propriety of Democrats -- many of whom have criticized President Bush and congressional Republicans for their ties to corporations accused of accounting abuses -- voting to close debate on corporate-accountability legislation and then flying to a resort in corporate jets, Ravitz-Meehan said: "I don't think there is any tie between the vote and their mode of travel." Getting to Nantucket, she said, is "logistically difficult, and expensive to reach commercially."

Yep, you know how those frugal Democrats are, worrying constantly over logistics and pinching every penny until Lincoln grunts.

The Democratic senators attending the Nantucket retreat are DSCC chairman Patty Murray (Wash.), Senate Majority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (S.D.), Bill Nelson (Fla.), Daniel K. Akaka (Hawaii), Evan Bayh (Ind.), Joseph R. Biden Jr. (Del.), Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.), Jon S. Corzine (N.J.), Byron L. Dorgan (N.D.), Richard J. Durbin (Ill.), Edward M. Kennedy (Mass.), John F. Kerry (Mass.), Blanche Lincoln (Ark.), Ben Nelson (Neb.), Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.) and Ron Wyden (Ore.).

Pauper citizen-legislators, every one, far too poor to afford the $303 commercial airline ticket to the party. There are no official events or presentations planned, she said, although some senators up for reelection this fall might discuss their campaigns with the donors.

Do you really think so? These people should be pumping Port-O-Lets for a living. They suck harder than a vacuum truck.

July 12, 2002

I told you THIS GUY

I told you THIS GUY WAS A DORK.

Now that the eight year-old girl who allegedly started the ruckus over the "under God" suit turns out to be a church-going Christian in the custody of her mother, Michael Newdow shows his true colors at last.

"This is MY issue. I have a right to send my child to a public school without the government inculcating any religious beliefs. I'm saying I'M injured," he said.

Newdow never married the girl's mother, although now he is, of course, representing himself again in court in an attempt to seize custody of his daughter. This guy is some piece of work. Do people such as this absolute waste of DNA get up every morning and say, "I'm gonna be the BIGGEST ASSHOLE IN THE WORLD today!" or do they simply lack that mental divining rod most people are born with that quivers violently to provide an asshole alert when behavior crosses certain lines?

I think the asshole DECIDED to be an asshole a long time ago, and he DOES get up every morning determined to be THE BIGGEST ASSHOLE IN THE WORLD every day. And if you dare to question his asshole behavior, he turns up his assholery rheostat another notch and calls YOU an asshole for daring to call HIM an asshole. That's what kind of ASSHOLE this guy is.

Fucking asshole.

I fixed my permalink to

I fixed my permalink to THE FINE ART OF BITCHING, so you need to click it over there on the left frequently. The Supreme Bitch who posts that stuff is a lot more nasty, ill-willed and altogether vicious to the fuckwits of society than I am, and I thought I was a contender. I cannot compete in her league. She spews acidic venom like a Rainbow lawn sprinkler on 360-degree full-twirl. I admire that sort of vulcan-forged, vitriolic spleen.

Even SWEET, MUSICAL LYNN was impressed. She identifies with the "inner bitch" concept.

"Look girls, we all have an inner bitch. And we all know that most of the time it's not a good idea to let her have her way but trying to deny her existance and covering her up with excessive sweetness just makes us disgusting. Get rid of the sickly sweet frosting. A light sprinkling of cinnamon sugar will suffice."

The Supreme One doesn't even bother with sugar. She's Tabasco all the way.

This hot hassle of a

This hot hassle of a hell-week finally ended at work today, and have the weekend off to rest and prepare for my trip to Hamilton, Mississippi next week. I have my itinerary all set. I leave Savannah at 3:00 PM Monday, fly to Atlanta on an actual jet aircraft, spend two hours in the smoking fishbowl there, then climb in the back seat of a crop-duster plane for the rest of the trip. I believe I land in Hiram Jackson's cow pasture in Longbegone County, Mississippi, around 6:00 PM central time. (Hiram offered to let me sleep in his hayloft, as long as I promised not to make love with his nymphomaniac daughter, but that sounded too much like a travelling salesman joke, so I booked a room at the Best Western in the nearby metroplex of Columbus.) I think I get to the motel by mule train, and I am supposed to hitch-hike to the plant the next day. I am ready.

I sat down with all the industrial bag filter experts at work today and picked every last morsel of information I could glean from them. That process took about 35 minutes. I am scheduled to meet for THREE FRICKING DAYS to discuss standardizing industrial bag filters across the four pigment plants my company owns. If the other people invited to this dog-and-pony show can talk for THREE FRICKING DAYS about bag filters, I don't want to be in the same room with them. I'll just have to choke somebody midway through day two.

Of course, I never would have been chosen for this trip or allowed an expense account if the bosses really wanted me to wax philosophical about bag filters for three days. My boss, abetted by HIS boss, who was following orders from HIS boss, said. "Talk about bag filters. Then blow their asses off and go check out Hamilton's finishing end. Find out about the new disc-flow pumps they're using and whether production likes them or not. Talk to the maintainers to learn what it takes to keep them running. Check the design on their rotary filter repulper shafts. See if you can get some drawings of the weld patterns on the paddles. Hang around the packaging areas and watch how their equipment operates. Talk to the operators. Talk to the supervisors. Find out if what they have is any good.

In other words, I am off on an INDUSTRIAL ESPIONAGE mission, camouflaged by that twitty bag filter excuse.

I don't know how I can be called a spy, since the reason for the trip is "Site Sharing." That's the unbelievably avante-garde notion that what works well in one plant should be passed along to the other plants so that nobody wastes time re-inventing the wheel. Unfortunately, we only share information that Corporate Headquarters has thoroughly vetted, screened, filtered and blessed, such as bag filters. Only then can we officially engage in "Site Sharing."

Well, I going to do some unofficial site sharing, and I speak the language of pigmenteers. Those guys (or maybe gals) will talk to me, because we all live, breathe and fart that white pigment dust. It's like wearing a Mason's ring. Fellow travellers recognize it and accept you as a brother. I'm looking forward to meeting those people. I may actually bring back some useful information.

But it won''t be about bag filters.

July 11, 2002

I love it when a

I love it when a plan comes together. Or turns into a total "oh, SHIT!"

If you don't do ANYTHING else today, check THIS LINK.

Dammit, BLOGGER still has the "Copy Shortcut" stuff dysfunctional, so you'll have to scroll down to the "Priceless" post on Lionel ManDrake's page to see it, but it's worth the trip. GO LOOK!

I just did, again. BWHAHAHAHAHA!

Gawd! Just read this headline

Gawd! Just read this headline and see if you can keep a straight face: Former President Clinton offers advice on politics of tackling AIDS.

How about YOU start by keeping your wandering pecker in your pants, Mr. know-it-all?

I have always said that

I have always said that the "War On Drugs" was doomed to fail because I read history and I know people. From the dawn of recorded time, people have done three things, no matter how strict the laws were against them.

They: 1) Gamble. 2) Have Sex. 3) Get Stoned. And anybody foolish enough to think that laws can STOP people from doing these things must be SNIFFING COW PIES.

"The cow dung emits gases like sulfur, and addicts sniff on these gases to get high," the official at the agency said on condition of anonymity.

Despite harsh anti-narcotics laws that call for death by hanging for drug traffickers, Malaysia does not have legislation to cover such acts as cow dung sniffing, the official said.

I like the Holy Trinity of Sin as much as anyone, but if you take away my White Zin and give me a cow turd, I just may have to straighten up for a while.

When O.J. Simpson offered the

When O.J. Simpson offered the million-dollar reward for finding the "real killer" of his ex-wife and a restaurant employee who was attempting to return a pair of forgotten sunglasses, I sent O.J. an e-mail. I said: "YOU DID IT, FUCKWAD! NOW WHERE'S MY MONEY!" I never got a response. Evidently, O.J. is delusional and has managed to convince himself that he DIDN'T do it, after twelve of the dumbest shits ever dropped on this planet found him not guilty in court. So, O.J. continues his ceaseless search for himself, as long as it's somebody else he finds.

At first, he did a lot of searching on golf courses, which is where I would look for a cold-blooded murderer, if I were looking for O.J. He left no divot unturned and no sand trap unraked in his search for clues. He found none.

So in total desperation, O.J. is hoping to lure the real killer out into the open by making a PORNO MOVIE with two white women. That ought to do the trick.

Yeah, it'll have Nichole Brown and Ron Goldman spinning in their graves. YOU DA MAN, O.J.!

Yeah, I'll pick this one

Yeah, I'll pick this one for my Quote of the Day

"Democrats have no credibility or standing to attack on this issue. The corporate corruptions being discussed today all began in the 1990s and were shaped by a culture of dishonesty and situational ethics that flowed directly from the White House".

-National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Rep. Tom Davis of Virginia (via LUCIANNE)

Here's some more FUEL FOR

Here's some more FUEL FOR THE FIRE in my burning hatred for self-righteous, shit-witted "environmentalists."

To the list of reasons for this year's surge in Western wildfires the Forest Service wants to add another: environmental activists.

The report, slated for release today, found that 155 of the agency's 326 plans to log overgrown, high-risk national forests were stymied by appeals. In Arizona and New Mexico, sites of some of this summer's worst wildfires, that figure rose to 73 percent, and climbed to 100 percent in the Pacific Northwest.

Environmental activists responded by hurling insults and attacking the credibility of the US Forest Service: "This study is about as solid as an Arthur Andersen financial statement," said Ted Zukoski, staff attorney for the Land and Water Fund of the Rockies in Boulder, Colo.(and a scathing stand-up comic in his own right, thinking up that slapdown Arthur Andersen thing--ed)

Yeah, and reports of those wildfires also were as solid as an Arthur Andersen financial report, weren't they, wiseass?

Bejus. Whatta buncha maroons.

July 10, 2002

When I watched the Congressional

When I watched the Congressional hearings over the Enron scandal last February, my gag-reflex went into hyper-mode at the sight of a bunch of political thieves excoriating a bunch of corporate thieves for doing less lying and book-cooking than the political thieves do every day. It was black comedy and pure hypocracy. Very few people noticed at the time.

The political dipshits are at it again, posturing before the camera and manufacturing outrage at CEOs who lie about chicken feed compared to Congress. But at least THIS TIME somebody notices the pomposity and assholery displayed in this circus.

Tom Schatz, president of Citizens Against Government Waste, said that over the past five years Congress has spent a total of $142 billion beyond the amounts it had budgeted.

"That's more than 12 times the misstated figures from Enron, Xerox and WorldCom combined," Mr. Schatz said.

The government's financial books are in such poor shape that officials cannot account for $17.3 billion of taxpayers' money from fiscal year 2001. Rep. Walter B. Jones Jr., North Carolina Republican, recently wrote to Treasury Secretary Paul H. O'Neill to demand an explanation of what the government calls "unreconciled transactions."

"Unreconciled transactions" is a government euphemism for "we lost the farking money and don't have a clue where it went." $17.3 BILLION lost, without a clue where it went. And THESE CHEESEHEADS have the nerve to sit in judgment of ANYBODY about unethical accounting practices? Yes, Enron, World-Com, Xerox and others deluded their stockholders and played fast and loose with their money.

Congress deludes the American taxpayer on a far grander scale and plays as fast and loose with the money as a drunken sailor in a cheap whorehouse. Compared to Congress, the crooked CEOs are the Pope. If President Bush wants to lock those cheating, lying executives in jail, lets build a BIG prison and put about 3/4 of Congress in there with them, where they belong.

I keep wondering... why do we put up with this shit from pure gasbags in expensive suits who squat in that corrupt cesspool of Washington DC, and claim to be "leading" this country? Only catfish and turd-wrestlers thrive in such an environment. Congress may be the only place in the world where the best of the bottom-feeders rise to the top.

We have nobody to blame but ourselves. We elect those rotten bastards, over and over again.

This guy HAS A PROBLEM.

This guy HAS A PROBLEM.

After being stopped Sunday night and failing sobriety tests, Sherman told a state trooper that he would agree to the year in jail but wouldn't quit drinking or get treatment, court records show. Sherman said he wasn't concerned because drunken driving was not yet a felony. He added that he probably would have fled from the trooper if he weren't pulling a boat with his car when he was stopped.

The records show that Sherman had four drunken-driving and related convictions in Colorado in 1993 and '94 and 17 in Minnesota from 1982 until July 2000. His driver's license was revoked in 1984 and suspended in 1993.

Why is this guy still on the road when MADD-induced DUI laws in Georgia treat somebody with a perfect driving record as a common criminal if they're stopped for no traffic violation at a scratch-and-sniff roadblock and have a .08 reading on a breathalyzer? The war on "drunk drivers" is a vedetta by MADD abetted by revenue-hungry government officials. It doesn't "save lives." It makes a lot of money. Many people perfectly capable of operating a motor vehicle go to jail for DUI and pay a heavy price where I live, while this fuckwit does it 22 times? THERE's your drunk driver these draconian laws are supposed to keep off the roads. He's still there and unrepentant to boot.

Something's not right with this picture.

I was going to write

I was going to write a semi-apology to JOAN because I was not properly sympathetic to her downer-type mood yesterday with a post I wrote on the GROUP BLOG a bunch of us contribute to. I wrote my post of contrition on the group blog, but it won't publish, because BLOGGER's "server went boom." Again.

BLOGGER PRO still works.

So far, the step up has been worth the money. You don't suppose BLOGGER is going mercenary and DELIBERATELY screwing up, just to generate more paying customers, do you? ("If you're in the know, you'll swap to PRO") In this era of corporate malfeasance and comic-bookkeeping, nothing nefarious and dirty surprises me.

Anyway:
To: Goddess Joan
From: Acidman
Subj: Heartfelt Apology
Ref: Blog of Yesterday

I sit down. I shut up. I sympathize. I hope you feel better. I am sorry for being an asshole. Please forgive me.

Love, Acidman.

This was one of those

This was one of those really long, tiring days at work. A scheduled power outage plus major maintenance throughout my area kept me on the move in the heat and the dark from 6:00 this morning until 6:30 this evening. I am whipped. My feet hurt, I smell like an old mule and I've had nothing to eat all day except a boiled egg this morning.

I won't blog much. Hot shower, sizzling steak and cold white zin for me, then it's bedtime.

July 09, 2002

BLOGGER PRO is better than

BLOGGER PRO is better than regular BLOGSPOT, but it still has its own share of brain-farts. They don't seem to be as frequent as BLOGSPOT, but they pop up unexpectedly just like the stray crickets in my house. I see all kinds of bell-and-whistle attachments to this program, but I don't know how to use them yet. The new, ad-free GUT RUMBLES is a work in progress, so if this page goes all nutted-up, it's just me stirring the fire with a short stick and setting my face ablaze because I don't have a clue about what I'm doing. But, nothing ventured, nothing gained. Right?

I believe George A. Custer said the same thing just before he rode into the Little Big Horn.

I won't get my new

I won't get my new fix-a-flat elixer until tomorrow. The pharmacy didn't have it in stock and had to order it from some certified root-doctor (that's supposed to be a PUN) at Corporate Headquarters, or some such crap, and it wasn't ready today.

I forgot to tell the story of what happened when I dropped that prescription off at the local CVS yesterday. I handed the prescription, along with my bazillion-refill bottle of Viagra, to a young lady behind the counter and told her to fill them both and that I would come back after work the next day to pick them up. She looked at the terrible doctor's scrawl on the script and asked me if I knew what it was. I told her that I had no idea because I had never tried it before. She called another young lady over and together they tried to decipher what the doctor had written.

"Mr. Smith, I can't read what the doctor wrote. Do you know what this is for?" the second one asked.

"Yes," I replied, smiling as politely as I could. "I'm supposed to put that stuff in a hypodermic needle and inject it into my penis. It's supposed to give me an erection. Do YOU know what that is?" I thought about what I had said for a moment while both women looked at me with a somewhat stunned expression. "I don't mean 'do you know what an erection is.' I figure both of you know what THAT is," I explained. "I meant do you know what is the stuff that goes in the needle? That's what the prescription is for."

The second woman recovered quickly. "Oh! You probably want some whatevershesaid." She went to the computer, punched some keys, and informed me that they didn't carry whatevershesaid at that particular CVS outlet, but they would order some for me ASAP. There was one other problem with the prescription. The elixer comes in 10, 15 and 20 something-or-anothers and the doctor seemed to have written "5" on the script.

"He meant the strongest one you've got," I explained helpfully. "Call him and ask. Tell him I told you that. Straight up, no mixers. And don't forget about the Viagra, either." I left the store.

I don't know if I was a topic of conversation after that, nor do I care. When I say I left shame and embarrassment in my rear-view mirror a long time ago, I'm not kidding. Those women work in a pharmacy and they're supposed to be trained professionals. Other people have the same problem I do after prostate surgery. That's why some root doctor invented that drug in the first place. I am authorized to receive some, and I want it. And I want more Viagra, too. Maybe both together will give me something even better than what I once had, except for the goddam shot.

But I am NOT going to quit smoking.

Uh, oh. I believe LONG

Uh, oh. I believe LONG HAIRED COUNTRY BOY is suffering from Blog Burnout and needs to convalesce for a while. I realize that there's a lot of really stupid stuff in the news today, and it'll give you serious GUT RUMBLES if you read it and let it get to you, but a serious blogger has to hang in there despite the overwhelming disgust he sometimes feels and the overpowering urge that he feels daily to choke somebody as brainless as, say, Tom Daschel. It's a dirty job, but somebody's got to do it, kinda like the guy who drives his truck around in the hot sun pumping out Port-O-Lets all day. Talk to Old Blue and he'll tell you about it.

If you can't run with the big dogs, stay on the porch.

I wish this country could

I wish this country could show a spark of sanity and stop locking people in jail for violating marijunana laws. GREAT BRITAIN just did, and we're usually way ahead of them in the "great idea!" department.

Pressure from police, medical experts and politicians for Britain to take a less punitive approach has swayed Home Secretary David Blunkett, who is expected Wednesday to downgrade it to a low risk category C drug.

The downgrade -- making cannabis a Class C rather than Class B drug -- will put the drug in the same category as anabolic steroids and growth hormones and make possessing small amounts of it or smoking it in private a non-arrestable offense.

I don't smoke the stuff anymore, but that's not just because I am subject to random piss-tests at work. Pot makes me stupid, then I get really hungry and eat everything I can get my hands on. Then, I go to sleep.

I don't like what pot does to me. But I know a lot of people who DO like it (I'm a MUSICIAN, for crying out loud) and I don't believe any of them belong in jail for smoking a weed that Mother Nature produced all by herself long ago. We all would be better off if the government stopped wasting time, manpower and money arresting people in medical marijuana clinics and busting young people with a few joints in their pockets and concentrated their efforts on real menaces to society. Like maybe ... TERRORISTS.

Researchers said in March that relaxing cannabis laws could save Britain around 50 million pounds ($77.1 million) a year and free up the equivalent of 500 police officers. Makes sense to me.

But the fuckwits in charge in the US are running a "war on drugs" and they don't have time to stop and think about the silly, ineffective and downright criminal things THEY do. So hide the bong. Keep your stash out of sight. Pull the curtains when you light up at home.

The police may knock down my door and shoot ME in their courageous battle against the likes of YOU.

I believe I have the

I believe I have the same talent as this BLIND PSYCHIC. I, too, have magic fingers that can predict the future if you allow me to fondle your ass.

Although he claims to have spent many years training his fingers, with his index and middle fingers the most sensitive, Buck says even amateur buttock readers can make a broad-brush assessment of people's personalities.

"An apple-shaped, muscular bottom indicates someone who is charismatic, dynamic, very confident and often creative. A person who enjoys life," he said. "A pear-shaped bottom suggests someone very steadfast, patient and down-to-earth."

He is quick to shoot down any suggestion that his buttock groping might be motivated by anything other than a genuine desire to probe people's futures.

"I do not need to feel bottoms for my own pleasure. My wife is quite beautiful enough for me," he said.

Hell, I'm better than this blind guy. I can SEE WHAT I'M DOING.

And I'm best at reading the pear-shaped behinds of pretty women.

July 08, 2002

Here are some totally disgusting,

Here are some totally disgusting, racist, ethnophobic, politically-incorrect jokes. Sent to me by Catfish:

1. What's the Cuban national anthem?
"Row, Row, Row your boat"

2. Where does an Irish family go on vacation?
A different bar.

3. Did you hear about the Chinese couple that had a retarded baby?
They named him "Sum Ting Wong."

4. What would you call it when an Italian has one arm shorter than the
other?
A speech impediment.

5. Why aren't there any Puerto Ricans on Star Trek?
Because they're not going to work in the future either.

6. What do you call an Arkansas farmer with a sheep under each arm?
A pimp.

7. Why do drivers' education classes in Redneck schools use the car only on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays?
Because on Tuesday and Thursday, the Sex Ed class uses it.

8. What does it mean when the flag at the Post Office is flying at half-mast?
They're hiring.

9. What's the difference between a southern zoo and a northern zoo?
A southern zoo has a description of the animal on the front of the cage, along with a recipe.

10. How do you get a sweet little 80-year-old lady to say a dirty word?
Get another sweet little 80-year-old lady to yell BINGO!

11. What's the difference between a northern fairytale and a southern
fairytale?
A northern fairytale begins "Once upon a time..."
A southern fairytale begins "AAHHHHH...Y'all ain't gonna believe this
shit...."

12. My, my, how time have changed. Years ago, when 100 white men chased 1 black man, we called it the Ku Klux Klan.
Today, they call it the PGA TOUR.

13. Why is there no Disneyland in China?
No one's tall enough to go on the good rides.

BWHAHAHAHAHA! Villains fear me. Heroes

BWHAHAHAHAHA!

Villains fear me.
Heroes envy me.

Acidman is...
The Hungry Tsunami

What's your SUPERHERO NAME?

JENNY disagrees with my screed

JENNY disagrees with my screed below about the pinheads behind environmental-scaremongering. In her comment, she says we should find a "happy medium" between freezing to death in the dark and "full-scale waste of resources." I'm all for that meet in the middle concept, but it can never happen when dealing with rabid environmentalists. There is no middle ground for them.

I don't see human progress and improved standards of living as a waste of natural resources. I see them as proper UTILIZATION of natural resources, which generates wealth and gives people the means and the opportunity to utilize those resources wisely. Careful environmental stewardship comes only when people stop having to struggle for food and shelter. The enviro-whacks don't accept that fact. And what really pisses me off about the greenie-weenies is that they want to save the planet through increased regulation, ursupation of individual rights and ham-fisted government intrusion into ever more aspects of my life.

Jenny says the only agenda environmental nutbars have is "the survival of the human race and the enjoyment of the natural world." No, the true agenda of outfits such as Greenpeace and the Sierra Club is the destruction of capitalist economies and the increase of their own power and enrichment.

I agree with NO WATERMELONS:

Green activists love to point out that the "true costs" of coal burning and other "non-renewable" power sources are not recognized on our utility bills, and they say that if those costs were recognized that windpower would be cost-competitive.

OK, suppose they're right. Then let them talk the public into paying more for electricity so these costs can be paid. Why don't the greens do this?

Because they're watermelons - they're green on the outside and red on the inside. They're more interested in big govt programs, more regulation, more taxes, and demonization of opponents than they are in real practical solutions to their alleged concerns. And they can't raise money without raising issues, so the bitching will never stop.

Eco-idiots bear a lot of responsibility for the recent terrible forest fires in Colorado and Arizona. Their mindless opposition to any kind of forest managment stopped logging and clearing in those woods and created the perfect pyre when it was ignited. The cretins "saved" the forest by causing it to burn up.

The problem is, all you have to do is mention the words "commercial" and "forest" in the same breath and the local pseudo-environmentalist will file a lawsuit before you can finish your sentence.

The uncertainty caused by such lawsuits has decimated the logging industry in Arizona, and that has contributed heavily to the situation we find ourselves in today. It has been estimated that nearly 40 percent of our Forest Service's budget is swallowed up just fighting lawsuits filed by "environmentalists."

That's some weird way to protect natural resources. But the environmental movement is full of weird people.

They're... UNNATURALLY weird.

Update Okay, Jenny, check THIS POST BY TOM on the subject.

Today, I received some good

Today, I received some good news, and some bad news.

The good news is, my PSA results were ZERO, which means I still appear to be fully cured of prostate cancer. That's nice to know, but I would feel better if I knew that my pump was coming soon. That's the bad news. The urologist said that a mere nine months is too soon to rule out recovery of the nerves that control erection. He seemed insulted that I was was giving up on his surgical skill so soon. It didn't seem "soon" to me, especially after not a single glimmer of even minor improvement the entire time, and I told him so. He said to wait 18 months. If nothing stirred by then, he would talk implant with me. For the meantime, he gave me a prescription for a different fix-a-flat elixer to try by hypodermic injection. And he told me to stop smoking.

I dropped the prescription off at the drug store on the way home. Hell, I'll pick it up tomorrow and give it a try. Maybe it works without the painful side-effects of the other stuff. Maybe I'll like it.

Yeah, and maybe nine months from now I'll get my pump.

July 07, 2002

I hate Sunday evenings. My

I hate Sunday evenings. My son just left and I feel as empty as... empty can be. As empty as his bloodless cunt mother's stone heart. As empty as Cynthia McKinney's brain. As empty as the Social Security Trust Fund. As empty as this house when he's gone.

I hurt. I want to scream, I want to cry and I want to break something. I want to "act out."

But I won't. I'll get a little misty, then put some John Prine on the stereo and iron a week's worth of shirts. I'll put some boiled peanuts in a zip-lock bag for work tomorrow. I'll rinse the dirty dishes and put them in the washer. I'll have a glass of white zin.

I'll go to bed early tonight and hope that I can sleep. Then, I'll get up and start this shit all over again tomorrow.

The headline on THIS STORY

The headline on THIS STORY would be hilarious if it weren't such an accurate picture of how screwed up our government is today.

JACKSON LEE EYES CORPORATE REFORM

We're in good hands now, folks.

If only a few more

If only a few more tall, air-headed blonde women had come to Pamplona and gotten nekkid in the street, THIS NEVER WOULD HAVE HAPPENED.

The tall blonde women are welcome to practice getting nekkid in my yard, so that they can do a better job next year.

I wonder if THE BOSS

I wonder if THE BOSS cheated his way around the golf course the way the Big Creep used to do? If President Bush played the round in just over two hours, he didn't have time for the famous Clinton multiple mulligans. But he may have taken some "gimme" putts. I just hope they weren't from fifteen feet on a downhill, sidehill lie the way Clinton did.

OH, MY ACHING ASS! Yeah,

OH, MY ACHING ASS!

Yeah, WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE yet again, this time because Planet Earth will EXPIRE BY 2050 unless we drastically alter the way we abuse this fragile ecosphere, this tender blue ball, this delicate chunk of 4 billion year-old, volcanic-forged, meteor-strike-surviving, iron-ore based, endlessly patient orbiting rock we exist upon.

Bejus on a bicycle and Christ on a crutch! How does this continuous stream of absolute bullshit continue to find its way into print? This puke-generating bilge is enough to make me reach for the Profanisaurus just so I can find EXACTLY the right words to describe my feelings about the dire predictions and the dickheaded pisspots who make them. Just read some of this silly shit:

A study by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), to be released on Tuesday, warns that the human race is plundering the planet at a pace that outstrips its capacity to support life.

In a damning condemnation of Western society's high consumption levels, it adds that the extra planets (the equivalent size of Earth) will be required by the year 2050 as existing resources are exhausted.

Weren't these same assholes saying exactly the same thing in 1970? None of their certain starvation, impending plague, dawn of the New Ice Age, inevitable resource-depletion and unavoidable excruciating death to us all happened after that first time these cretins discovered their heads up their rectums and mistook the round object for a crystal ball, and it isn't going to happen now.

What is this "damning condemnation" anyway? It's a bunch of hogswallop issued by an agenda-driven pack of anti-civilization loogey-heads who wouldn't know science from voodoo even if their favorite witch doctor tried to explain it. These aren't brilliant minds spreading these scare-stories. They are idiots. I have a better head on my PECKER, for crying out loud.

The report, based on scientific data from across the world, reveals that more than a third of the natural world has been destroyed by humans over the past three decades.

Yes, and I see the steaming, smoking, devastated ruins everywhere I go. Utter ruination. Complete destruction. Not one living thing able to survive on 1/3 of the planet. I've seen it for myself!

Okay, I lied about that. I haven't seen evidence of utter destruction anywhere except that hole in the ground that once was the World Trade Center in New York City. Most of the rest of the planet looks pretty healthy to me. I suppose that I have my misguided ideas because I am not privy to the "scientific data from across the world" that the WWF (Worrying Wangheaded Fartbrains) has. Otherwise, I would have reached this conclusion along with them:

Experts say that seas will become emptied of fish while forests - which absorb carbon dioxide emissions - are completely destroyed and freshwater supplies become scarce and polluted.

The report offers a vivid warning that either people curb their extravagant lifestyles or risk leaving the onus on scientists to locate another planet that can sustain human life. Since this is unlikely to happen, the only option is to cut consumption now.

Yes! Sign the Koyoto Treaty! Freeze to death in the dark! Return to the bliss of the simple life of the 15th Century!

Martin Jenkins, senior adviser for the World Conservation Monitoring Centre in Cambridge, which helped compile the report, said: 'It seems things are getting worse faster than possibly ever before. Never has one single species had such an overwhelming influence. We are entering uncharted territory.'

Martin, your brain is in uncharted territory. You should be dragged outside and shot before you reproduce. The world has all the pud-pulling nimrods it needs already.

Matthew Spencer, a spokesman for Greenpeace, said: 'There will have to be concessions from the richer nations to the poorer ones or there will be fireworks.'

Okay, as an American, I'll concede that you are a blithering moron. Is that good enough, or do you still feel the need to light a kiddie sparkler and provide fireworks by running around screaming "The Sky Is Falling!" while training a tiny, childish trail in you wake? Never mind; I know the answer.

The WWF report shames the US for placing the greatest pressure on the environment. It found the average US resident consumes almost double the resources as that of a UK citizen and more than 24 times that of some Africans.

I am definitely ashamed of that. To alleviate the pain in my conscience, I'll donate an Eveready flashlight with two new batteries to one of those Africans, so he can hang it from the ass of his water buffalo as he plows his subsistence farm with prehistoric tools. Then, I'll go to the Super Wal-Mart and buy another flashlight. You know how we consumin' Americans are.

A spokesman for WWF UK, said: 'If all the people consumed natural resources at the same rate as the average US and UK citizen we would require at least two extra planets like Earth.'

Find them. Move there, and take all your idiot minions with you. Name your new home "Bizarro World," then freeze to death in the dark on your very own planet.

Just butt out of my life on mine.

Sunday Stumpers (Via THE GODDESS)

Sunday Stumpers (Via THE GODDESS)

1) Are rules made to be followed?

That depends on the rule. We still have antiquated "Sodomy Laws" in Georgia, which NOBODY obeys, except for some needle-necked religious freaks who don't enjoy sex anyway and wouldn't need the laws to make them keep their pants on, even when they sleep. I've never paid attention to those rules and go out of my way to violate them every chance I get. Very few people who drive Highway 21 pay attention to the speed limit, and if you DO, you're asking for a spot in the middle of a seven-car, two tractor-trailer pileup, so I drive as fast as everybody else. I carry prescription medicines (Clariton and some antibiotics) along with my motrin, tylenol and aspirin in one pill bottle in my lunch box at work. I rip the "DO NOT REMOVE" tags off matresses. I also scoff at "No Smoking" rules whenever I can get away with it, and I cross the street against the light. I am guilty of Contempt of Congress, too.

But, by Bejus, I NEVER get in the "10 items or less" checkout line in the grocery store unless I have 10 items or less, and I believe that anyone who violates this rule should be dragged outside and shot immediately. I also do not litter. I believe slower traffic should keep to the right lane on the Interstate, and any road-hogging idiot violating this rule should be dragged from his vehicle, shot immediately, then staked to a red-ant hill.

Like I said. It depends on the rule.

2) Do you have an unrealized dream? What is it?

I want to travel into outer space before I die. Some people say I went there long ago, but I mean the REAL THING. I want to leave earth's atmosphere, feel zero-gravity and see the stars the way I've never seen them before. If there's ever a sign-up list for people willing to help colonize Mars, my name will be on it.

3) Abbott and Costello, Laurel and Hardy, or Lewis and Martin?

Abbott and Costello. Dean Martin is dead, and Jerry Lewis should be dragged outside and shot. In France.

4) You find a shopping cart in the middle of the parking lot at the grocery store. It has a case of soda, some chips, and the latest issue of TV Guide. Do you take the stuff back to the store and let the manager know that someone left this in the parking lot? Or, do you simply load the goods into your car?

First of all, we don't have "soda" down South, except for Club Soda and Baking Soda. Soft drinks are "Cokes" no matter what the hell they show on the label. And I take the stuff back to the store and tell the manager about it. I have a great many bad habits, but thievery is not one of them. Except for some very minor exaggerations I sometimes accidentally allow to spring up undetected on this page, I am a scrupulously honest man. I don't steal. That's a GOOD RULE.

5) What super power would you like to have?

I wish I could fly. I dream about being able to do that sometimes, and those are the best dreams I've ever had. Except for the ones that violate Georgia's sodomy laws.

My vocabulary of foul language

My vocabulary of foul language is extensive, so I don't really need a PROFANISAURUS. If you don't cuss well or simply want to improve your existing skills, the Profanisaurus is excellent study material.

cable laying euph. To excrete solid stools. As opposed to crop spraying (qv).

lab kebab abbr. Labia kebab; fish mitten (qv); vertical bacon sandwich etc.

mumblers n. Tight women's bicycle shorts through which you can 'see the lips moving but can't understand a word. See also Twix lips, camel's foot, hungry arse.

There's more...

July 06, 2002

My air conditioner is working

My air conditioner is working now. I fixed it.

Actually, I'm the one who fucked it up to begin with. I changed the filter Wednesday night. I was gone all day and night Thursday, then noticed that the AC wasn't working when my hangover started to wear off on Friday. Today, I analyzed the problem and decided that the only thing different about the AC was the new filter. So, I removed it. That's when I saw that it was installed upside-down. That's also when I noticed this tiny switch that must be satisfied by proper installation of the filter before the AC will operate.

I installed the filter correctly and my AC started working. I solved the problem. I am a brilliant handyman.

No, I am a slobbering, slack-jawed, retarded dumbass for screwing up something as simple as replacing an AC filter, and then not realizing that my incompetence HAD to be the reason the AC stopped working. I am a genuine, squirrel-headed idiot sometimes.

It's the English Major in me.

This is MY KIND OF

This is MY KIND OF WOMAN.

The stranger "went rushing by and then he slammed on his brakes, and then he came into the yard, and he said 'Somebody call 911 quick, there's a bomb in my car,'" Cassidy said. "He was scared and excited, and just kind of wired."

Then he demanded that Neely-White give him her pickup.

She refused.

"Have you ever had anything you really love? Well, I love that truck," said Neely-White, 55.

She said the man threatened to set off the bomb if she didn't give him her truck. "I said, `No sir, you go ahead and set the bomb off. My house needs work anyway."

Then, she shot the fucktard, too. Bellicose women. Gotta love 'em.

I wish Bill Clinton would

I wish Bill Clinton would stick to Hoovering dollars and chasing pussy all over the world and leave US FOREIGN POLICY to those who think with the big head instead of the little one. Said the big creep:

If you're in a business, a friendship or a marriage and you don't control it all, you will never believe it's perfect. You enter all kinds of compacts because you believe your life will be richer and better and fuller on balance if you commit yourself to institutional cooperation of all kinds," he said.

Can ANYBODY tell me WHAT THE FUCK THAT MEANS?

That bastard needs to be committed to an institution, all right. One with padded walls and saltpeter in the scrambled eggs.

Two weeks ago, the New

Two weeks ago, the New York Times lied through its Gray Lady teeth and screeched that Alaska is baking because of global warming. Now, Fairbanks has a RECORD LOW TEMPERATURE for the Fourth of July.

The cool weather is well in keeping with the trend set last month, where a surprisingly nice May was rudely ushered out by the coolest June since 1985. The monthly average at the airport was 58.2 degrees, with average temperatures wavering between 48 and 69. The high for the month was 78 degrees on the 16th--the first time June hasn't produced an 80-degree day since 1980--and the low was 36 on the 22nd. Temperatures in colder outlying areas like Chatanika and Two Rivers dipped below 30 that day, damaging some frost-sensitive vegetables like zucchini and spinach. Rainfall for the month was at or below normal, though rain fell on more days than it usually does.

Yep, looks like a clear case of global warming to me.

All together now.... "WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!"

I'm all for nekkid people

I'm all for nekkid people running in the streets, but why do they have to be STUPID NEKKID PEOPLE?

"While I certainly feel uncomfortable doing this, it is nothing compared with the suffering felt by the bulls, when they run through the slippery streets before being slaughtered in a ring," said Phelps, a tall blonde who has also shed her clothes to campaign for vegetarianism and circus animals' rights.

What color is the sun on her planet? She makes ME uncomfortable, even if she is a tall, nekkid blonde.

I took a PSA test

I took a PSA test at work last Wednesday and the results should be in tomorrow. Tomorrow is my appointment with the urologist to see about my pump installation, too. If the PSA looks good, I'm going for the pump. If the PSA looks bad, well... I'm going for the pump anyway.

The GODDESS related this advice in an e-mail:

Jim, being a fireman/paramedic, told me about a call he went on once upon a time. Woman called saying that her man had a heart attack. When the paramedics arrive at the scene the woman was standing out on the landing of the apartment building in her robe and nothing else. She pointed the crew to the bedroom and when they walked in the guy was lying on the bed, eyes open, not moving and with a huge woody. They tried reviving him but with no luck. He'd died in the saddle. The pump was still doing its job, though! Yep, he had a pump. None of the guys in the crew were going to release the thing so they loaded the man into the rig under his tent. The docs at the hospital pronounced him. By this time he had been intubated so as he was once again covered up it was a regular circus tent with two poles. One at the head.....the other at the other head. Everyone decided the morgue or the mortician could take care of the pump.

Maybe you should ask your doc for a unit that will deflate if you go out with a bang.

Hell, no! If I go that way, (I can't think of a BETTER way to go) I want to be wheeled out under a tent supported by my personal center pole. I want Roscoe to live on after me.

He deserves it.

I have been doing MANLY

I have been doing MANLY THINGS. Stripped to the waist, armed with a sharp blade and dripping manly sweat under a hot Georgia sun, I scraped the scales from numerous slick fish bodies, cut off their round-eyed heads and ripped their guts out with my bare hands. That is savage, bloody work, fit for a savage, bloody MANLY man.

But I don't smell manly. I have fish scent all over me and that's not the aroma of testosterone. In fact, I smell like... well, never mind.

You hear a lot about

You hear a lot about Deadbeat Dads but you seldom hear about the purely BEAT DOWN DADS. A man faces a stacked deck in divorce court, and it's an obscene experience to go there.

I am ready for a

I am ready for a nice nap now, but I have a cooler full of fish that aren't going to clean themselves, so the nap will have to wait. An oddball storm front rolled in this morning in an impressive display of thunder and lightning, then the "mostly sunny" skies predicted by the weather forecasters turned iron-gray and overcast. With the weather showing its ass, we didn't go offshore in the 24-foot boat we chartered. We hung close to land and hit a few honey-holes where we could book for port if Mother Nature had another PMS fit.

We caught some keeper trout, some Spanish Macks and a bunch of whiting. The trout haul would have been better if the size limit was 12" instead of 13". It's a crying shame to release some of those that we brought to the boat because they were 1/2" short. We also caught about 30 baby sharks and four sting rays, which we threw back, too. Hook a sting ray and you'll think you've got Moby Dick on your line.

My son didn't go. He had a dream about a shark last night and absolutely refused to have anything to do with the ocean today. I dropped him off at my mom's house this morning so he could swim in her pool and get a full dose of Mamaw's spoiling while the rest of us went fishing.

About the time we got home, the clouds lifted and the sun emerged from hiding. Now it's a beautiful day and hot as hell.

And my air conditioner still isn't working.

July 05, 2002

I have a crisis of

I have a crisis of epic proportions in my house. My goddam air conditioner has quit working.

This is a brand-new home, finished in October of 2001, and the French doors to my back patio leak when it rains, the paint is already peeling off the roof molding and a plague of crickets has descended upon me. I have more blackberry vines than grass in my yard and every faucet in the house works backward. You want hot water? Turn the faucet to "cold." You want cold water? Turn the faucet to "hot." Now, the goddam air conditioner has quit.

It didn't quit, as in upped and died, the way my computer modem did. The goddam thing is running its ass off. It's a veritable dervish of sound and fury in the back yard. But it signifies no cold air. The temperature in my house is 85 degrees right now and the humidity is 1000%. I have to get up at 5:00 in the morning to make the fishing trip, and I know I'll be wallowing in a puddle of sweat in my bed, even with all the ceiling fans going full blast. This sucks.

I have a homebuilder's guarantee on the house with a toll-free number to call if I find anything wrong in the next five years. A broken air conditioner is something wrong in my book, so I called today. The repair service is closed for the holidays and won't be open again until Monday. In the meantime, I sweat.

Oh, well. I never slept in an air conditioned house for the first twenty years of my life, so I suppose I can persevere through this dilemma. I'll be brave.

And come Monday, I want my goddam air conditioner fixed!

This is the BEST GODDAM

This is the BEST GODDAM BLOG I've seen in a long time.

I think I'm in love with that cranky bitch!

Don't worry. The federal government

Don't worry. The federal government is ON TOP OF THIS. Or maybe they're not. The FBI is playing very coy.

The problem is that those pesky Middle Eastern men keep doing all this terrorist stuff and we don't dare keep a close eye on THEM, because that would be RACIAL PROFILING and we can't have that in this country. No, we conduct intensive searches on Oriential women, paraplegics, black businessmen and ex-Vice-President Al Gore when they board a plane just to show how fair and stupid we are. Abdul The Mad Bomber has his rights, and we're going to protect them. He looks just like an Oriental woman to airport security, because they protect our airline passengers by exercising no judgment whatsoever. They may not be competemt, but they are politically correct, even if they allow 50% of a sting operation with fake guns, knives and bombs to pass their watch undetected. That's better than hassling Abdul, who may sue if he didn't have a bomb that day. Hell, he may sue if he DID have a bomb. And he might WIN in Mississippi.

I have to fly to Mississippi next week. I can see it now:

"Acidman... take your shoes off. And stand over there next to the 83 year-old woman in the flowered dress.

We're always on the alert for potential terrorists around here."

I suppose it was a

I suppose it was a welcome break from SCREWING CHICKENS.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) -- One of four men suspected of gang-raping a teenage girl as part of a tribal punishment in a remote eastern Pakistan village was arrested Friday.

Police raided a poultry farm in southwestern Baluchistan province and arrested one of the alleged rapists, Abdul Khaliq, said Col. Farman Ali, a senior police officer. The farm was owned by Khaliq's friend, he said.

"We could tell he was a likely rapist, because he had his dick stuck in a chicken at the time," said General-General-Sergent-General Akbar-Fubar-Fuggedaboutit. "Screwing chickens is one thing. In fact, screwing goats and camels is one thing, too. Okay, screwing any kind of hairy, smelly animal we can catch is one thing to a Muslim. We are, after all, hairy, smelly people ourselves, Allah be praised. But we do not tolerate gang rape. No sir. No way. Except when Allah decrees it. And CNN doesn't find out about it."

Gen-Gen-Sgt-Gen kept Abdul Khailq's chicken as "evidence" and promised to keep it closely guarded until Abdul's trial. "Yes, the chiken will never leave my sight. I will go everywhere with this chicken and even sleep with it at night."

The chicken had no comment on the matter, but I saw fear in its beady eyes.

I made some of this shit up!--ed.

I have a simple piece

I have a simple piece of advice for THESE MORONS:

MOVE OUT! GO SOMEWHERE ELSE!

Yes, you blighted citizens of Washington, DC. Your local government has been totally corrupt for years, your police department is utterly incompetent, your public schools suck, crime is rampant despite (maybe because of) some of the strongest gun-control laws in the country, and you dimwits put up with it! Not only do you put up with it and reelect political clowns such as Marion Barry, you have the unmitigated gall to demand the right to inflict your stupidity on the rest of the nation. Go screw yourselves! We've already got Massachusetts and California. We don't need another festering boil of political insanity on the buttocks of this nation.

Good grief! Cynthia McKinney is probably considered to be intelligent by these blithering cretins.

Let Great Britain have them.

I'm BACK, tanned, robust and

I'm BACK, tanned, robust and freshly-shorn. I believe I lost about ten pounds in the barber chair and now that the clipping is done, I feel pretty. I had my hair cut short. I have a manly, virile look about me now.

Well, at least I look like a semi-manly, potentially-virile, gray-headed old fart with a nice haircut.

I really believe that I look better than the pony-tailed, wild-haired, bohemian old fart who walked into the barber shop. (Excuse me. That was a"Hair Salon." Barber shops don't exist anymore.) I look demented with long hair. I AM demented, but it doesn't show at first glance when my hair is cut short. In my new disguise, I can fool people who don't know me.

My son will be with me in about three hours. I have the fishing trip money and I bought some drinks and munchies to take with us tomorrow. I hope he catches a fish as big as he is.

I'll take a picture if he does, and I'll enjoy the sea breeze blowing through my no-longer flowing locks.

I have been a busy

I have been a busy guy today. The Superfund site that was my kitchen is now clean and sparkling. I have tile-burns on my knees from the scrubbing I did and a severe case of the wrinkly-fingers from the toxic-waste cleanser I used. (I also killed SIX MORE CRICKETS today, and I've checked the attic, so I still don't know where the interloping Jimenys are coming from) I vacuumed the house, cleaned the guest bathroom at the end of the hall (ewwww!) and even mowed my lawn, all before 12:00.

Now, I'm going to the bank to withdraw money to pay the fishing-boat captain tomorrow, and I'm going to get a haircut, too. Last night, I found myself on Ed the ex-linebacker's back porch (the smoking room) with three women who told me:
1) I was handsome and charismatic
2) I was a wonderful musician
3) Dick doesn't really matter

They were honest on two out of three, which is a batting average that'll get you on the Major League All-Star team every time. But I still believe they're telling that "dick doesn't matter" story just to make me feel better. Of course, they all told horrible stories about their husbands' inability to ...um... rise to the occasion, which I suppose was meant to um... pump up my self-esteem. I don't think that strategy worked, but I loved the handsome, charasmatic, wonderful musician part. I also enjoyed charming the ladies, even if they were all married to good friends of mine. I had a good time last night, and slept blissfully on Ed's couch.

The women all liked my pony tail, too, and the modified Frank Zappa moustache I have now. I hope they enjoyed the look, because I'm about to go get rid of it. It's just too damned hot for all this hair I'm wearing now.

BLOGGER PRO says it will allow you to post pictures on your blog. If I can decipher how to do it, I'll show berfore and after views of Acidman. In the meantime, I'm off to the bank and the barber shop.

I am a dumbass. I

I am a dumbass. I didn't get a new server. I signed up for BLOGGER PRO and paid the extra $10 to take away the ad on my page. PRO then ate the very first post I wrote, and that goddam ad still appears.

But I can publish now, and you simple, freeloading blogspots can't. Neener, neener, neener!

I believe that I may

I believe that I may get off BLOGGER and go with a paid-for server. If I can afford to go to the Super Wal-Mart at 6:30 in the morning and buy an entirely new computer because I have a dead modem on my old one, I can afford to pay for a decent server. BLOGGER has been good to me, but it has chapped my ass with its ups and downs and frogginess to the point that I'm sick of it. If I could get back the number of posts BLOGGER swallowed during one of its frequent brain-farts, my archives would be at least 1/4 larger than they are.

Besides, I scribed away on my 1996 Compac Presario with its 13" monitor since I started this site. Now I have a battleship gray HP with a 17" monitor and I feel as if I'm typing posts on a movie theater screen. Like Tim the Toolman, I'm going "Wah! Wha! Wha!" MORE POWER!!!!

Hell, BLOGGER probably will eat this post, too.

BLOGGER ate my original description

BLOGGER ate my original description of my Fourth of July activities, and I've decided that it's probably for the best. Steamed clams, snow crab legs, smoked ribs, fireworks, a keg of beer, good friends, lots of home-made music and a crash pad on Ed the ex-Linebacker's couch last night is all you need to know.

Happy Birthday, USA!

July 04, 2002

My modem died on me

My modem died on me last night. Just upped and died, as we say down South. I turned the computer off and hoped that it would do like that Ox beetle and revive itself during the night, but it was still dead as Dillinger this morning.

Well, I was ready for a new computer anyway. I got one, too.

July 03, 2002

I live 30 miles from

I live 30 miles from Vidalia, Georgia, and JB brags about buying Vidalia Onions in Florida for less drachma than I pay here where they're grown. Well, guess what, podnah? You can NEVER be overcharged for a genuine Vidalia onion. They're worth every cent no matter what they cost.

I can't say the same thing about a pack of cigarettes, especially when the government sets the price through brutal taxation. Do you think smugglers might just LOVE this act of stupidity?

Harlan County, Kentucky, where I was born, stayed a dry county through the concerted efforts of two dissimmilar forces: the Bible-Thumping Baptists and the Whiskey-Running Bootleggers. The Baptists kept the county dry because they were dour folk who truly believed that God wants you to have NO FUN AT ALL on earth. You earn that fun shit in heaven after you die by living as wretchedly as possible until then. The bootleggers were a lot more pragmatic, motivated by a free-market love of profit. They knew that people always want their firewater, even some of the Bible-Thumpers when they're out of sight of the Reverend, and they provided a needed service. So, Harlan County was dry, but you could find a drink there any day of the week, any time you wanted one, and nobody ever asked for an ID.

You have the same situation developing in New York. People will go out of state to buy their cigarettes, or they'll buy them from bootleggers, who will be there to fill the niche in the market. And the politicians can cut the moral horseshit about discouraging smoking. They're discouraging smokers from buying overpriced, legal cigarettes, that's all. They're LEGISLATING their own crime wave.

Buncha maroons.

This sounds like something that

This sounds like something that should have happened to ME last month. It was RAINING SNAKES in my world, too.

Thanks for this one, JB.

I am off work for

I am off work for the next four days. June was the MONTH FROM HELL at work and I could stand a break. Plus my crackerbox house is approaching critical mass as far as the need for serious scrubbing, vacuuming and scouring goes. I have been extremely slack about my domestic chores except for doing just as much laundry as I required to have clean clothes to wear every day. Last night, when my friends came over for supper (an extra-large pizza with everything, delivered) one of them went into that shipwreck I call a kitchen and said, "You don't know how to parch peanuts worth a damn." I had to explain that those weren't parched peanuts in that tupperware bowl he was eating from. They were boiled peanuts, all dried out because they had been on the counter since last Saturday. He said, "Oh. In that case, they're not that bad." He ate a few more before the pizza arrived.

It's nice to have friends that remind you of you.

I haven't let housekeeping go to the point where I have roaches and rats challenging my dominance over the natural world right inside my home, or see maggots crawling like living rice-kernels around the kitchen garbage can, but I do have an outbreak of crickets to deal with. I've never had a plague of crickets in my house before.

I suppose the six days of rain we had last week that laid about a foot of water on my yard may be a factor. The chirping Jimenys might simply be seeking high ground and relief from the flood. I just don't know how in the hell they're getting IN HERE to being with. I've killed over 30 in my house during the past two days. That's 30 FRICKEN CRICKETS! KILLED IN MY HOUSE!

They are everywhere, and the survivors are starting to sing for a mate at night, which is an irritating noise when you're trying to sleep. I bragged in the post below that I know a lot about insects. But crickets never were a specialty of mine, and I don't know exactly how to combat this invasion except to keep a can of Raid handy and gas every hopping, jumping, chirping invader I see. I've looked all over for their Underground Railroad that they use to break and enter my home, but I can't find it. Of course, I haven't looked in my attic in a long time. You don't suppose...

Up there attached to the rafters is the Mother Of All Crickets, about the size of an urban-assault-vehicle SUV, with an abdomen pulsating with life. She came built-in with the house and awaked from her cocoon in the pink attic insulation last week. Now she hangs there pendulously and shoots out offspring like a demented, insectile Pez dispenser, causing crickets to rain down at night from the air conditioner vents like oak leaves in the fall. I'm going to go check.

If I don't post any more blogs after this one, you'll know she was there, and she ate me.

The lovely and talented Jenny,

The lovely and talented Jenny, of No shirt, no shoes, no teeth, no problem is on the opposite side of the fence from me on this topic:

Teaching kids to appreciate insects and spiders is a wonderful idea. (I myself try to teach that to kids, and adults, at every opportunity.) But doesn't having the kids kill the bugs sort of defeat the purpose? Yes, scientists have so far found it necessary to kill some creatures in order to conduct important research. But I really don't think we should be encouraging kids to do this. It just feeds the unhealthy human instinct to dominate the natural world rather than view ourselves as part of it.

I appreciate insects and spiders more than most people I know because I once collected, murdered and mounted them in display boxes when I was a young man determined to dominate the natural world around me. From the time I was ten years-old until I was thirteen or so (whever it was that girls became more fascinating than bugs to me), I spent a lot of time roaming the flowerbeds, fields and forests around my home in search of insect prey. Armed with net and kill-jar, I was a formidable hunter. I soon had a large and growing collection of some of the most rare and beautiful beetles, butterflies and moths in the southeast US.

I also was noticed throughout the neighborhood and my fame spread from house to house until I started receiving phone calls whenever someone discovered a mysterious six-legged creature on their property. I would respond, much like an entomologist X-File agent, by hopping on my Sting-Ray bicycle and peddling to the scene. I sometimes found terrified housewives pointing at some huge beetle crawling down their driveway. "What IS that thing?" they would ask.

I would bend over, pick it up in my bare hand and examine it closely. "This is a Rhinocerous Beetle," I would explain calmly. "You can see from the large horn above the vicious-looking, clicking mandibles how it got its name. I'm surprised you found it in daylight, because Rhinocerous Beetles prefer a nocturnal habitat. They are very large beetles and their appearance is frightening, but they are absolutely harmless. You wanna hold him?" And I would kinda wave the bug at her.

"No! No! Just get it... er... HIM out of here!" And I would take it home, pop it in the kill jar and wait until the vicious-looking mandibles stopped clicking. Then, I would mount it in a box with the rest of my collection.

I almost met my match with an Ox Beetle. A neighbor called about that one, too, and I was astounded when I saw it. A Rhinocerous Beetle is large, but an Ox Beetle is HUGE. Imagine moving your garbage can one day and discovering a jet-black bug about the size of a small cell phone crawling around in the compost underneath. The poor woman who found it nearly had a heart attack, but I quickly rode to her rescue. I wasn't so calm when I saw what THAT one was.

"Holey Moley! That's an OX BEETLE!" I exclaimed, eagerly snatching it up in my hand. "This is the first one I've ever seen for real!" The damned thing was so strong that I couldn't keep it from forcing its way out of my clenched fist, which barely fit around the monsterous bug. I took it home and threw it in the kill jar and referenced my illustrated book of insects to make sure the Ox was really what I had. It was.

Sometime that evening, I checked the jar and old Ox had ceased movement, so I removed him and mounted him on a piece of styrofoam I kept on my desk. I would need to rearrange my beetle display to give the Ox a place of honor, and I figured that I would do that the next day. But when I awoke in the morning, the Ox was gone. "Hey, Mom!" I called, "Did you do something with my Ox Beetle?"

She stuck her head in my bedroom. "Did I do WHAT?" she asked.

"My Ox Beetle," I explained. "I put him on the mounting board last night and now he's gone. You didn't throw him away, did you?"

"Oh. My. God." Mom pulled back out of my room and didn't enter it again, until after I heard an odd noise in my closet three nights later and found Ox wedged in the corner, still impaled on the mounting pin and scratching his powerful claws against the baseboard in a futile attempt to dig his way back to the land of compost. The stubborn critter had played possum on me, revived and broke for freedom. I put him in the kill jar for 48 hours after that, and he didn't get away again. Mom had to verify (from an appropriate distance) that the creature was officially deceased before she went back in my room.

I still remember much of what I learned about insects during my collecting days. I can identify almost every butterfly or moth that I see and I'm still fairly good with the exotic beetles. I would like to interest my son in insect collecting, because that form of wildlife is plentiful in Georgia and it's a great hobby for a kid who really likes the outdoors. You can outfit yourself with everything you need for very little cost and it's a great way to fill up a summer day.

And it really helps a young human being figure out his place in the natural world, which at the top of the food chain, dominating all other creatures great and small.

They must have been educated

They must have been educated in PUBLIC SCHOOLS. Inability to read a calender or know the days of the week cost the National Education Association a cool $800,000 in a Washington state court yesterday.

"We are astounded that the NEA missed or ignored this deadline," said EFF President Bob Williams. "Apparently NEA officials think complying with state laws isn't a high enough priority to merit close attention, but we expect this judgment to remind them that we value teachers' rights here in Washington."

The real problem is that NEA officials think educating our children isn't a high enough priority to merit close attention. They would rather concentrate their efforts on buying Democrat politicians and the protecting the pathetic status-quo, where public education benefits only the union, not the students.

Vouchers may allow parents to opt their children out of the cesspool of inertia and incompetence that much of public education is today. And the NEA will have no one but itself to blame.

Who are the real BOOK-COOKERS?

Who are the real BOOK-COOKERS?

... let's compare what happens when deceptive accounting practices are discovered in private industry versus when they're discovered in government.

Without the SEC, the supposed guarantor against corporate hanky-panky, lifting one finger, the market has exacted high penalties. Enron and WorldCom shares of stock and their reputations are virtually worthless. Heads have rolled.

By contrast, what happens when Congress cooks the books and deceives Americans into believing that government debt is $3.5 trillion or $6 trillion, when it's really $35 trillion? Absolutely nothing.

Oh, no! Something happens! The crooked spendthrifts get reelected.

Sometimes it just doesn't PAY

Sometimes it just doesn't PAY TO ADVERTISE.

Chris Antus' T-shirt read, "fugitive." He was. And the rotten bastard robbed HIS MAMA!

Thanks to BOB AND CATHY

Thanks to BOB AND CATHY for this one:

The Georgia Three Kick Rule

A big-city California lawyer went duck hunting in rural Georgia. He shot and dropped a bird, but it fell into a farmer's field on the other side of a fence. As the lawyer climbed over the fence, an elderly farmer drove up on his tractor and asked him what he was doing.
The attorney responded, "I shot a duck and it fell in this field, and now I'm going into retrieve it." The old farmer replied, "This is my property, and you are not coming over here."

The indignant lawyer said, "I am one of the best trial attorneys in the US and, if you don't let me get that duck, I'll sue you and take everything you own." The old farmer smiled and said, "Apparently, you don't know how we do things in Georgia. We settle small disagreements like this with the Georgia Three-Kick Rule."

The lawyer asked, "What is this three-kick Rule?" The farmer replied, "Well, first I kick you three times and then you kick me three times, and so on, back and forth, until someone gives up." The attorney quickly thought about the proposed contest and decided That he could easily take the old codger. He agreed to abide by the local custom.

The old farmer slowly climbed down from the tractor and walked up to the city feller. His first kick planted the toe of his heavy work boot into the lawyer's groin and dropped him to his knees. His second kick nearly wiped the man's nose off his face. The barrister was flat on his belly when the farmer's third kick to a kidney nearly caused him to give up. But the lawyer summoned every bit of his will and managed to get to his feet and said, "Okay, you old coot, now it's my turn."

The old farmer smiled and said, "Naw, I give up. You can have the duck."

July 02, 2002

Okay, just this. GUT RUMBLES

Okay, just this. GUT RUMBLES is ahead of the curve again, because THIS ARTICLE reaches the same conclusions I reached LAST NIGHT about Global Warming. But I have one serious problem with the post I wrote last night. I was WRONG!

According to CNN's Michelle Mitchell, leading climate scientists have reached "a unanimous decision that global warming is real, is getting worse, and is due to man. There is no wiggle room."

From this, it follows that what men have wrought, men must undo. The Kyoto Protocol calls on industrialized nations to hold their CO2 emissions to 1990 levels, principally by placing draconian limits on all energy releasing activities and by investing massively in such alternative fuel sources as wind power and solar cells. Anything short of this, says the conventional wisdom, all but guarantees an uncomfortably hot future for posterity. Asks Bob Herbert of The New York Times: "Do you think, maybe, we should be paying more attention to this?"

THE SHORT answer is no.

If there is one thing more remarkable than the level of alarm inspired by global warming, it is the thin empirical foundations upon which the forecast rests. According to Richard Lindzen, a professor of meteorology at MIT, the best available evidence shows that global mean temperatures have risen by a mere 0.5 degrees Celsius over the past century, and that global concentrations of CO2 over a century have also increased by a statistically insignificant percentage, to 0.036% from 0.028%.

Acidman said that CO2 concentration in the atmosphere was 0.3%. I was off by a factor of 100. The actual concentration of that deadly greenhouse gas in our atmosphere is 0.03%. I fucked up the numbers.

What do you expect? I'm an ENGLISH MAJOR, for crying out loud!

But it doesn't change the fact that 0.03% of our atmosphere is making people go crazy, proposing really stupid solutions to a problem that doesn't exist. Let's call CO2 laughing gas instead of greenhouse gas.

I'm not going to blog

I'm not going to blog tonight. I am tired, I have friends coming over for supper, and my site won't call me "Acidman" anymore.

Don't you just hate it when that happens?

July 01, 2002

The always thoughtful LYNN offers

The always thoughtful LYNN offers this opinion on GLOBAL WARMING:

Weather forecasters are only partially successful at predicting the weather three or four days ahead, so I find it hard to believe that anyone knows with any certainty what the global climate will be like years in the future. That doesn't mean that environmental causes should be abandoned. I just think that we should stop panicking every time someone publishes another new bit of out of context data.

Global Warming is the most fantastic scare that I've ever seen come down the pike and I am totally amazed how this piece of bumfoolery has been swallowed by the world. The Greens hit the jackpot with this scare, in spite of the fact that they have NO SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER to back up their frightening claims. Every prediction they make is based on computer "climate models" that cannot input KNOWN data from 50 years ago and produce an accurate picture of the climate today. But we're supposed to believe that the models that can't model what already HAS happened can predict what WILL happen 100 years from now. Never has a more unmitigated piece of absolute flim-flammery been pulled on a gullible public. PT Barnam is rolling in his grave because he didn't think of THIS con-job.

Since sulfur dioxide, nitrous oxide, lead vapor, mercury, dioxin and carbon monoxide pollution is dropping radically every year, the Greens needed to invent another frightening bugaboo to keep the "WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE" movement rolling. They picked the perfect menace: CARBON DIOXIDE!

It's perfect. Nature produces CO2 in vast quantities, it is essential to life on this planet, people exhale it every time they breathe, plants use it for photosynthesis and most people don't know what the hell it is. Ask people who want to regulate CO2 emissions to answer this question:

The CO2 contents of the earth's atmosphere has tripled in the last 100 years. CO2 now makes up what part of the atmosphere?
1) 30%

2) 10%

3) 3%

4 0.3%

If you didn't know, that killer greenhouse gas makes up Three-tenths of one percent of our atmosphere. (That would be #4 for those environmentalists who do math worse than this English Major does.) In other words, it is a trace gas, almost insignifcant in our atmosphere. Today, in Savannah, Georgia, WATER VAPOR reached more than 80% of saturation in the atmosphere. Water vapor is a true greenhouse gas, and the most influential one on the planet. But climate computer models don't consider water vapor in their calculations. First, because they don't know enough about it to understand how it works, and second because it provides no justification for shutting down power plants, wrecking economies and stopping the advancement of civilization as we know it, which is the true agenda of the environmental movement. Giant Cray computers humming through the night, running countless calculations at nearly the speed of light produce lots of data. But it's all garbage in, garbage out in the global warming scare-machine.

If those riding the bandwagon of climate change had a truly legitimate, scientific case, would they need to resort to THIS SORT OF FAKERY to prove their point? I don't think so.

It was hot as hell in Savannah, Georgia, today, but guess what? It was hot as hell in Savannah 100 years ago, too. It's ALWAYS hot as hell in Savannah in July. Savannah is in the DEEP SOUTH.

If anyone mops sweat from his/her brow and tells you "I don't remember July ever being THIS hot before," tell them to check the climate records. Nobody may remember it, because memories are short. But we came nowhere near a record high temperature for this day. Were you hot on July 1st last year? Don't remember, do you?

I'll give you a hint. If you live near Savannah, you were. And if your grandmother lived here 60 years ago, she was hot, too. We've had hot weather in the summer for a long time.

So, as Lynn says, stop panicking about it. You don't need to fear global warming. You need to fear those who have something to gain by making you afraid.

Today was a hot, miserable

Today was a hot, miserable one at work, with temperatures in the mid-90s, humidity about 199% and no breeze at all. I believe the heat index was somewhere around the surface temperature of the planet Mercury, and I'm NOT talking about the side that always faces away from the sun. It was farking HOT.

I left work and went to my mama's house to visit with her, my 91 year-old grandmother and my daughter, who came in from Texas yesterday with her roommate, Stacey. My 19 year-old daughter showed me her two tattoos, so I showed her the scar on my left bicep from my henna episode in Key West. Now I know where her cyber-name "Blue Dolphin" comes from. She and Stacey are going to North Carolina to visit Stacey's brother tomorrow, so I told them to be back by Friday night, because I'm picking them up at 6:15 Saturday morning for the deep-sea fishing trip. I hope we catch some nice ones.

I left Mom's and went to the Post Office to buy some 3-cent stamps. The place resembled a fire-ant hill with the top kicked off. I only thought I held the US Post Office in contempt until today. Now I feel absolute revulsion. Of course, I'm as stupid as everybody else in the place for waiting until today to deal with the rate increase, because I COULD have gone there yesterday and bought stamps from one of the vending machines when I had the whole place to myself. The WTOC mobile TV-van was there, with Channel 11 reporters interviewing people for the evening news standing in those Disney-World type lines at the main counter . I was hoping they would stick a microphone in my face, but they probably knew better.

"Sir, what do you think of the increase in postal rates?"

"$%#$@%&%$#@!!*&%$*#@!!" I never would see myself on the tube at 11:00 if I voiced an honest opinion.

So, I elbowed a sweet little blue-haired woman on a walker out of my way, stepped on her neck as she lay fumbling for her "I've fallen and I can't get up transmitter" and got my stamps from the farking machine. I'm pretty sure the sweet little blue-haired woman will be okay. I saw the EMS ambulance with lights and siren going full blast pulling into the parking lot as I was leaving, and running over that cute little dog and the homeless man.

Boy, was I ever glad to get out of there.

If you keep throwing your

If you keep throwing your blog out there, interesting people seem to find it. This very amusing TEXAN wrote me today, so I checked HER blog and found this:

Today in the course of my blog-meanderings I ran across Acidman, which I deeply appreciate for both its writing style and its honesty. From what I can tell, he's some kinda aging Southern redneck with hippie leanings and an occupation that exposes him to high concentrations of toxic chemicals. Hey dude, if you ever find yourself in Austin, c'mon by the RV park for a sip-n-chat!

This woman calls ME a "kinda aging Southern redneck" and names her blog NO SHIRT? NO SHOES? NO TEETH? NO PROBLEM!. Well, I just want to get a few things straight with her.

1) I am NOT "kinda aging." I am mature, like fine wine and wise philosophers. Besides, everybody is "aging." I'm kinda OLD!

2) I am NOT a "Southern redneck." I am a Southern good-ole boy and there's a world of difference, as anyone from Texas should know. I drive a pickup truck and I have a Confederate flag license plate on the front bumper, but I DO NOT throw beer cans out my window when I drive down the road. I throw them in the bed of the truck so that they may be recycled to help to save our fragile planet.

3) "Hippie leanings?" Oh, no darlin'! I have not one single hippie bone in my body. I am "Bohemian."

4) "An occupation that exposes him to high concentrations of toxic chemicals?" Oh, no, darlin'! Yeah, I'm around all that deadly shit every day, but it won't hurt you if you know what you're doing. I've been handling, breathing and bathing in all sorts of evil chemicals for 22 years. You ought to know from reading this blog that it hasn't affected my mind one iota. "Exposed" is what I am when I go to Key West. Marinated is what I am from work.

5) "C'mon by the RV park for a sip-n-chat." Now, THAT sounds like a wonderful idea.

If I ever get to Austin-taceous, I'm going to see if she's serious about that offer. In the meantime, I'm going to keep reading her blog. You should, too.

By the way, darlin'... welcome to my blogroll, too.