April 30, 2003

running for office

I nominated myself for the position of Information Minister in the administration of the slutpublican party. When they take power, I want a ringside seat and lots of microphones in my face.

michele didn't offer that position for hire when she laid her entire cabinet laid out her blueprint for a true and just government, but that was a simple oversight on her part. She has been very busy lately.

EVERY government needs a good liar on board. When Bill Clinton was President, he and Hillary took care of most of the lying, but a Slutpublican government will be too busy granting free tequila instead of prescription drugs to senior citizens, so it will NEED a good liar as a front man. I volunteer to do that job for the cause.

I am the right man, at the right place, at the right time in history. I can lie with the best of them. Baghdad Bob was my inspiration.

Go tell Michele to hire me.

heartless

I like blogs with really off-the-wall names. I thought that "Gut Rumbles" was pretty cool, because it just plain SOUNDS angry and somewhat smelly. I like the grouchy old cripple for the same reason. Go there, jock up. Otherwise, prepare to be offended.

Would you visit someone who called herself venemous Kate and expect to be treated like a Cabana-boy? (Hmm... wrong question. If you look like a Cabana boy, you may WANT to go there, as long as you have some nude pictures.)

Dammit, I'm losing my thread here! Kate does that to me.

Where was I? Oh yeah. How about a guy who calls himself mean Mr. mustard or a bunch of college gals who call themselves the bitch girls? Kindness is NOT US in blogdom. We are issued a fillet knife after our first successful post and we are REQUIRED to keep it sharp ever after. If you venture into OUR territory, be prepared for a cutting.

If you want The Waltons, go read possumblog, which is non-political, rated "G" and all about family values. Lots of interesting historical stuff in there, too. You might try kate's spot, too if you prefer lemonade over moonshine. Kate is so goddam sweet she upsets my stomach sometimes.

Hey, Kate! Did you ever go skinny-dipping on a warm summer night while drinking wine with people you didn't know very well? Did ever you wake up in the morning not entirely certain what you did the night before? You DIDN'T?

See? I rest my case.

If you want a blog that fits YOU, you can find one. Just look around.

But I really believe that this guy has his nerve! What is this "Between the Coasts" bullshit? Blogging from "The Heartland," are we? Well, mister, I believe that you are blogging FAR AWAY from MY heartland, because I live in the heart of DIXIE!

I KNOW people like you. You have no accent. You speak exactly like Dan Rather, except in a different tone of voice. That "heartland" thing is a steathy cloaking device you people use to explain the fact that YOU DON'T TALK FUNNY.

I HATE people who don't talk funny.

Southerners talk funny. People in the Applatachian Mountains talk funny. New Yorkers talk funny. New ENGLANDERS talk funny. Texans talk funny. Even GODDAM CANADIANS talk funny.

But you people from the "Heartland" don't. That's why I don't trust you.

my eyes!!!

I first read the title to say "Irrelevant and Overlooked" and I was CERTAIN that bo cowgill had linked me.

But I was wrong. He was linking to something relevant.

That leaves ME out.

work shit

I was insulted, along with every other salaried employee in the plant today, by the pinheads in Corporate. That's okay, because I am accustomed to that sort of behavior from Corporate weenies. It must be nice to live on Olympus instead of in the mud and the blood where I subsist. Having those Corporate bolts thrown at you is GREAT for morale, too. Bust your ass and get your ass busted.

Yeah. I love you, too.

The Union contract expires tomorrow and we have no Agreement. I may become a live-in operator next week if the communistic, mao-maoing idiots decide to strike. The truth is, just running a production job for a while would be a relief. I don't care if it IS twelve-on, twelve-off, around the clock for as long as it takes. Doing the TWO JOBS to which I am assigned, where I replace TWO operators, is a piece of fucking cake compared to what I do every day.

I have to watch only TWO JOBS? Throw me into that briar patch.

If those fools strike, it will be the worst mistake a Union ever made. I'll help run that plant without it ever missing a lick.

Corporate can piss on us again after we're finished.

everybody is peta now

I live where alligators proliferate. The goddam reptilian throwbacks to the days when dinosaurs ruled the earth are EVERYWHERE around here. Every pond on every golf course has at least ONE alligator in it, and if you walk up to the edge looking for an off-line Titleist, you just might shit your golf pants when an angry mama gator charges out of the water with malice aforethought because she has babies in the water where your golf ball disappeared.

I have no love for those creatures.

That's why I have a difficult time understanding the whining done by people in this story. What, exactly, did they EXPECT one man to do when apprehending a renegade nine-foot gator in a residential neighborhood?

Residents told News2Houston that they called authorities after discovering the gator Thursday in the middle of a road in the 22000 block of Lodgestone Court in a Cinco Ranch neighborhood in Katy.

Witnesses recorded the gator's capture on videotape, in which the game warden was seen tying the animal to the back of his pickup, and then dragging it down the street while children and parents watched.

"It was very inhumane," resident Lara Mercadante said. "It was awful. It was absolutely unreal. If you weren't here you would not believe that it happened. We never thought that it was going to end up the way it did."

Lara, I have another scenario for you. Suppose the gator-catcher never showed up and the reptile ATE YOUR CHILD? Would THAT be more "humane?" The only thing a gator likes to eat more than a dog or a racoon is a small child. Bejus!

Had that been MY neighborhood, we never would have called animal control. My neighbors and I would have shot that fucker dead in the street, then had fried alligator tail for supper that night. Plus a few really nice belts and MAYBE a pair of boots. A nine-foot gator has a lot of hide.

The game warden then took the alligator to the end of the street, and shot and killed it, authorities said.

"We at Texas Parks & Wildlife Department were disturbed as many other people were when they saw this video, as many other people were when they saw this video," TPWD Col. Jim Stinebaugh. "We sincerely regret that citizens were upset by seeing this happen."

What were they upset about? The dragging or the shooting? WHAT ELSE did they expect they guy to do? Feed it some raw chicken, pet it on the head and coax it into the passenger seat of the truck so that it could play with the radio while he drove it back to the wild?

"(The game warden) decided that the alligator was too big for him to catch and relocate and would have to be killed," Stinebaugh said. "It seemed appropriate to him that he would have to move the alligator, because it was not possible to shoot the alligator where it was."

However, officials said that as of a result of the incident, they are now reviewing their policies regarding nuisance alligator removal.

Yeah. Next time, THEY JUST WON'T COME!

Good job, bleeding-heart assholes.

more email

My loyal readers (or people trolling for links on my most wonderful and semi-popular blog) send me all sorts of interesting stuff. I enjoyed this one from the emuse.

Saw an anti-smoking billboard the other day that tickled my sense of irony.

First, it was some kind of cuddly-appeal-to-toddlers dragon puffing smoke clouds. But what I really liked was the tag line:

Smoking...Sooner or later, you'll end up in a coffin.

Excuse me? Sooner or later, every single one of us is going to end up in a coffin. "Life: Sooner or later, it will end." "Breathing: Sooner or later, it will stop."

This is the best the anti-smoking brigade can create? C'mon, if you're really against smoking, shouldn't your ad portray a really hideous reptile who is not afraid to screech "Smoking Kills Good Little Kiddies Who Take Up the Evil Weed?"

I like the idea, but Emuse doesn't spend as much time as I do telling really spooky stories to little children. I am REKNOWNED in my neighborhood for my ability to scare the living shit out of children so badly that they are afraid to walk home after dark unless I go with them carrying a flashlight.

The kids LOVE it and always come back for more. So, HERE is what I would tell them about smoking:

Did you know that some cigarettes have WORMS in them? You didn't? Well, it's the truth. That's why I always look at a cigarette REAL CLOSE before I light it. Usually, the worms leave a little, tiny hole in the paper, and if I ever see THAT, I throw the cigarette away. I know that it's got a worm in it. But SOMETIMES... they crawl in through the end of the cigarette and don't leave a hole. Do you know what happens if you smoke one of THOSE, with a worm in it? Well, you suck the worm down your throat, it eats part of your supper every night and grows to be as big as a SNAKE! Then, one night when you're asleep, it will eat its way out, RIGHT THROUGH YOUR EYEBALLS!!!

Heh. Kids pay no attention to a smoke-blowing dragon, but the vision of a worm eating through their EYEBALLS hit a home run in their imaginations. After that story, you can THREATEN to put a cigarette under their pillow at night and make them run screaming.

Did you know that vampires can smell cigarette smoke? Well they, CAN, and it attracts them. Plus if the room has cigarette smoke in it, vampires are immune to garlic, holy water and even crosses. That's why vampires ALWAYS look for people who smoke cigarettes. If you don't want to be bitten by a vampire, the best thing you can do is NEVER SMOKE A CIGARETTE. Especially at night.

I could go on, but I believe you get my point by now. If you're going to scare the shit out of a kid, be willing to do it right.

changing times

I received another email from Smiling Dave today that echoed something that has puzzled me for a while now. He wrote:

"One of our guys showed up about a half hour late to work today. As he was about to depart his home, he spotted some trouble on his block. A twelve year old boy had poured something flammable on his nine year old sister and set her on fire.

Our guy got over there quickly, grabbed the girl, and smothered the flames. She had only minor burns (none disfiguring); but was badly frightened). It took the guy a little while to get the child to her mother and to explain what had happened, so he was late coming in. (No problem. We are not clock watchers here.)

He was talking about it to a few of us, and somebody made a comment about the vicious little shit who did the deed. The guy said, "Aw hell. Don't you remember when you were twelve?" He said it in such a matter of fact and accepting way that it sent a chill through me. What's worse, the other guys present seemed to find his comment unremarkable. It got me to wondering what the hell has been done to us that a homicidal juvenile doesn't even upset us much? When did we all stop protecting children and decide that they'd just have to take their chances, when it comes to living long enough to reach adulthood? And why aren't pint-sized monsters like today's detected early and put where they can't do any more damage?"

I see it this way, Dave: A society GETS MORE of the lowest kind of behavior it is willing to TOLERATE.

Too many parents want to be their child's "friend" instead of a mentor and a disciplinarian. Schools teach "self-esteem" whether the kid deserves any or not. We have bureaucratic minions of the State ready to prosecute a parent as a "child abuser" for taking a belt to a well-deserving rump. Outraged lawyers sue when Little Johnny is called a "pint-sized monster," even if he IS one.

We accept unacceptable behavior today because we are taught not to be "judgmental" in a thousand insidious ways. As a result, we generate more and more unacceptable behavior because WE ACCEPT IT, rather than be judgmental.

Yeah, I remember when I was twelve. By then, I had experienced a rich multitude of butt-whippins from both my mother and my father, who used whatever weapon was handy at the time, when they believed that I strayed from the path they expected me to walk. They steered me back on course with blows to my young ass. I had judgmental parents. They had rules.

They were cheered and respected by other parents, too, as well as teachers and principals. If I screwed up in school, the teachers didn't have to discipline me. All they had to do was CALL MY PARENTS. They would handle the problem from there. My parents did not accept unacceptable behavior. As a result, I grew up flying right. About the biggest trouble I ever got into in my youth was a couple of fights on the school bus.

Very few people raise their children that way anymore. The parents aren't judgmental and they don't make rules. They let the kids make the rules.

That's why you have a 12 year-old setting his sister on fire. I'll bet he gets a real, loving discussion about how wrong it is to "act out" as a result, too, and then some anger-management classes.

That'll teach him.

April 29, 2003

a different kind of rumble

Alabama had an earthquake yesterday. Dax Montana got a taste of it where he lives in North Georgia. He must have been fairly sober at the time or he never would have noticed. (His archives are shot. Just scroll)

Hey, sugarmama! Did YOU feel anything? The epicenter wasn't far from where you live.

Never mind. Sugarmama feels nothing but anger, chagrin and a secret admiration for ME!!! (Bwhahahahaaa!)

Nothing happened around the Crackerbox. I live on a giant sandhill, which is a natural shock-absorber. You must have ROCKS to transmit tremors, and if you want rocks around where I live, you have to buy them.

I once started to purchase a small load of rocks off a truck when they were still doing construction in this neighborhood. When the guy asked me where I wanted them, I said, "Just dump them anywhere in the back yard."

"What do you want them for?" he asked.

"For my son and his friends to throw," I answered. He gave me the kind of gaze most people reserve for the Elephant Man when he pulls off his cloak. I ended up not buying any rocks because this South-Georgia, sandhill-dwelling construction contractor just would not understand how much FUN it is to throw a rock. Besides, his rocks were pretty shitty for throwing anyway. They were those irregular granite chunks imported from North Georgia. Shitty rocks.

I suffered TWO traumatic readjustments when I moved from the mountains of Kentucky to the sand-flats of Georgia. The first and most obvious was that THIS PLACE WAS FLAT AS A PANCAKE! Bejus! When you grow to the age of six nestled in the warm bosum of the Appalachian Mountains, this landscape seemed hit by a cosmic weed-wacker and trimmed to the same height everywhere you looked. IT FREAKED ME OUT. It stayed daylight WAY too long here in the evening, and the sun came shining through the bedroom window WAY too early in the morning.

I had a hard time dealing with that.

But the second part was worse. You couldn't find a rock to throw if you spent all day looking for one. Dig, kick the dirt and walk around, and all you'll find is sand. That's when I first learned the term "brickbat." A brickbat is a piece of broken brick that is the closest thing to a genuine stone that you'll find in Southeast Georgia unless you buy a truckload of imported rock.

In Harlan, I was throwing rocks when I was still in diapers. I learned to skip rocks across the swimming hole when I was very young. But rocks were EVERYWHERE, whatever kind you wanted, from the big, round windowbreakers to the smooth, flat skippers. Distance rocks, curve-ball rocks, the ones that would whistle when they sailed through the air. Just pick up a handful by the river and choose the right rock for the throw you wanted to make.

My son will never know that joy. Of course, he'll probably never feel an earthquake, either.

I'm not sure that he's getting a fair trade.

cell phone

I got a new cell phone at work today.

I didn't know that my old one wasn't working until last weekend, when some friends came by unexpectedly and said, "We thought you were dead! We KNOW the land-line is always busy while you blog, but we've called your cell phone for THREE DAYS and it's been off the entire time."

"Bullshit," I replied. "It's on right now. See?" I showed them the phone. It was turned on and fully charged. "I always keep it on in case somebody calls."

"Bullshit your ownself. Let's see." One of them dialed my number on his cell phone. My phone didn't ring. "Aha!" he said. "Listen to THIS!" And I heard that familiar message about how the Sprint user was not available now.

I dialed his number on MY phone and received some kind of message about roaming and using a credit card to make a call. I knew then that something was badly wrong.

I took the phone by the Information and Communications Gods today. "My phone has quit working," I told them. "Did I break it?"

"What are you doing with THAT THING?" one of the phone people asked. "We switched you over to Alltel and issued you a new phone two weeks ago!"

"No, you didn't," I said. "You may have switched me, but you never issued me another phone."

Much confusion ensued. They HAD cancelled me with Sprint, but issued MY phone to someone else by mistake. I ended up with a new one, even though I was treated as if the mistake was MY FAULT.

That shows you how much I use a cell phone. I was toting a dead one for two weeks and didn't even know it.

Trolls

I just read an email from someone who received a particularly nasty troll-attack because of a comment that person left on my page. Since the referrals came from MY address, the person asked my if I had written that brainless, anonymous filth.

I may write some brainless filth sometimes, but I ALWAYS sign my name to it. I don't troll, either. If I come for a fight or a pissing contest, it will be with YOU, not with your family, and ESPECIALLY not with your children. I am a crusty old Cracker who doesn't mind his mouth or his manners, but I have certain principles.

And as for the trolls--- I have stepped in dogshit that had more character and backbone than you have. Running around spraying anonymous, obscene graffitti on somebody else's wall is about as assholey as it gets. Real brave, too.

If there WERE two of you (instead of one puke-bucket using two addresses, which I suspect) you don't have a testicle between you. Or half a brain either.

Next time, just get your giggles playing with your blow-up sex doll. Bejus knows a real woman wouldn't have you.