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July 31, 2004I can't help itI just had to pass this one on. I see a certain symmetry there.
coach atwoodIf you lived in Georgia from anywhere between 1966 and 1976, you probably heard of Bubba Atwood. He built winning football teams wherever he went. He won championships. He had the ability to take a bunch of boys who barely had hair on their balls and turn them into football machines. He was a damn good coach. Bubba played quarterback at some podunk college, but he graduated with a degree in psychology. I look back now and I realize that I was a rat in his Skinner Box. He KNEW how to motivate his players and to make you give 120% on every play. YOU couldn't cuss on his practice field, but HE could. If you got into a fight on the field, you settled it with boxing gloves in the gym the next day. And you fought until somebody gave up or neither you nor your opponent could raise arms above belt level anymore. Then, you ran penalty laps for losing your cool on the field. Do you think Bubba Atwood gave a shit about your "self-esteem?" Fuck NO, he didn't. He gave a shit about whether or not you could play football. And you played it HIS WAY or you didn't play. He preached discipline. We ran plays over and over again until we got them right. If a lineman jumped offsides in a game, he was doomed to a week of running until the sun went down. If a running back fumbled, he spent a long time playing "bull in the ring" and he had better not drop that ball again. (Bull in the ring, for those who don't know, is an exercise where 30 players form a circle and count off by number. One poor sumbitch is put in the middle of the ring with a football in his hands. Then, the coach starts calling out numbers from 1 through 30 and if your number is called, you fire off from the ring and knock the shit out of the poor bastard in the middle. Sometimes, Atwood would call three numbers at a time if he was really pissed at somebody.) Bubba Atwood didn't tolerate fuck-ups. Bill Boyd, my defensive coach, was just as mean. That walking cinder-block was frightening. He would be on the practice field, see somebody blow an assignment and yell "GIMME A HEADGEAR!!!" Twenty helmets came flying his way and he grabbed the first one he could reach. He didn't care whether it fit or not. He put it on, buckled his strap, and dressed in only shorts and shoes, proceeded to demonstrate HOW TO DO IT RIGHT. Pity on the poor person who encouraged his wrath. He got an ass-whuppin' in front of the entire team. But I DO NOT believe that I was abused or mistreated as a football player. I knew the job was dangerous when I took it, and pussy coaches don't produce winning teams. I was proud to be a Jenkins Warrior and I'm still proud of that today. I am proud that I played for Bubba Atwood on teams that seldom lost games. I learned a lot about myself from that experience. If I could do three-a-day practices in the August heat of a Georgia summer and run THREE FUCKING MILES at the end of last practice in full pads, I knew that I could do anything I set my mind to. Later in life, that toughness never failed me. Maybe that's why I'm kinda short in the modesty department. I KNOW what I am capable of doing. I don't know whether I want Quinton to play football or not. I have a lot of injuries from that game that haunt me today, a lot worse now than when they first happened. But a young man needs to discover himself, to find out what he is able to do, to overcome fear, fatigue and pain and take one more step when he thinks he's about to drop. Football, as coached by Bubba Atwood, taught me that.
brunda
This is the hotel cat who took up with me for seven days. And YES, I did let the shitass sit in my lap. She ate a lizard and puked on my front porch one morning. Goddam cat.
still no shirt
That's me, right before the ritual shaving of the beard(s). Aila liked playing with my camera. I don't know why my eyes look so bizarre. Maybe I look that way all the time and I simply don't notice.
looking out my front door
I woke up to this sight every day at Jaco Beach. I could live like that for a long time before I got bored with it.
Chica Linda
I believe that her name was Maria. I also believe that she looks even better nekkid. But I wouldn't know about that...
pineappleI was having serious stomach problems before I went to Costa Rica. I thought either my ulcer or my pancreatitus was flaring up again. I couldn't eat anything and my belly hurt all the time. I was afraid to get too far away from a bathroom and I dared not fart for fear of producing a wet lump in my pants. But from the time I got to Costa Rica and started eating fresh pineapple for breakfast every day, all my problems went away. I believe that I have discovered a real health food. Pineapple tastes good and it cured what ailed me. I bought three pineapples at the grocery store today. I'm going to keep a supply on hand from now on.
it worksI agree that this technique is how you properly handle a situation where your alligator mouth gets your hummingbird ass in trouble. Deny, villify and stomp off in righteous indignation.
what can I say?The woman is good.
what a shitty dayYoung Jack came over to see me today and I gave him some Costa Rican coins that I brought back from my trip. I really like that boy. He's like a second son to me. He calls me "Uncle Rob" and he never misses a chance to come visit. He went to Clarke Hill Lake with Quinton last week. He told me that Quinton was very proud of the post cards and letters I sent him from my last trip to Costa Rica. "Quinton talks about you a lot," he told me. "He misses you." I was happy to hear that. I just wish that Quinton would say the same thing to me. I have no idea what goes on in my boy's life anymore, but I know his mama well. She is a true bloodless cunt and she'll fuck with Quinton's head every chance she gets. Maybe some day all will be well, but right now, it sucks. I miss my son. I've never been treated so badly by anyone else in my life than what Jennifer has done to me. I'll never understand why. I never did her wrong the way she's done me. Now the rain is falling and Jack has gone back home. I am depressed and I feel the walls closing in on me. I need to get out of here. I'm going down to Weisenbacker's to get something to eat. I have friends there.
preciousI've always been fascinated by gadzillionaire politicians who preach about caring for the poor and the downtrodden while they keep their personal fortunes intact. Why doesn't Ted Kennedy fling a few million a year of his own money into the government programs he expouses? Why doesn't John Kerry or John Edwards do the same? They damn sure don't mind taking MY money. That's because they are FUCKING LIARS and self-aggrandizing, power-hungry manipulators. Bejus on a bike. If they really thought government needed more money to do good things, they'd be putting up some of their own dough for the cause. But they don't do it. They want to take YOURS and MINE and show their compassion by spending somebody else's money. I don't call that compassion. I call it theft. Anybody who votes for John Kerry in November has clabber for brains. "I've seen it in the people I've met and their desire to take our country back for the American people. I saw it in a college student in Pennsylvania who sold her bicycle and sent us a check for $100 with a note that said, 'I sold my bicycle for democracy.' " There's your Democrat party in action.
duh?This is just plain crazy. Her sister, Tillie Shapiro, said, "She was just a caring person … She cared about people, and people who were disadvantaged." Did she give away all of her money to liberal or Democrat causes? If she felt that strongly, why not? I don't like to speak ill of the dead, but the woman was a blithering dingbat, as most leftists are. Some people are just too stupid to believe.
required readingThis is a topic that proves what fools some people are. When you go apeshit over second-hand smoke, you're playing right into the government's hands. People are such delicate flowers today.
July 30, 2004too much of a good thingThis is disgusting. Somebody needs to be dragged off and shot.
bleachersI read that book by John Grisham while I was in Costa Rica. It was pretty much a throwaway beach-book that I left at the hotel when I checked out. But certain parts of it sent me spinning 'way back in time. I played for Bubba Atwood during the glory days of Jenkins High School football in Savannah. I played in three losing games in three years. We were winners and we KNEW IT. But, by Bejus, we earned everything we got. I both loved and hated Coach Atwood. He drilled the shit out of us and made us the most well-conditioned team on the field. He ran our asses off. We won a lot of games in the fourth quarter when the other team ran out of gas and we were still going strong. If you wore the Red and Silver at Jenkins, you paid for it in blood, sweat and tears. Atwood was a harsh taskmaster. But he got your ass in shape to play. In a lot of ways, a football coach is like a father to everybody on the team. Atwood cussed and praised, he yelled and screamed, and he MEANT IT when he said that we would run laps and wind sprints until the sun went down. I believe that he was a winner because he demanded perfection. He could rake your ass over the coals one minute and then pat you on the back the next, depending on how you performed on the field. I learned a lot of lessons from playing football that have served me well in life. I learned to be tough, I learned to ignore pain and I learned what it means to be a winner. I learned what IT TAKES to be a winner. It ain't easy and Coach Atwood taught me that. Coach Atwood is dead now, but his influence on me remains alive. I'll never forget the man. He made one hell of an impact on my life. I feared HIM more than I ever did anybody on the field. I didn't want to let him down, because I loved him, too. I wanted to make him proud of me and I would have stuck my head into a fire if he told me to. I can understand the meaning of Bleachers because I played for a coach a lot like Eddie Rake.
over their headsI can't believe that so many people knew what I was talking about when I mentioned being sent to "The Group W Bench" at the Atlanta airport. "Alice's Restaurant" lives on, doesn't it? Complete with Officer Opie with the eight-by ten glossy photos with circles and arrows on the back detailing the scene of the crime in front of blind justice. Got-dam! That almost makes me feel young again.
I don't like itA lot of people believe in things that I don't. That's okay with me as long as those people don't try to shove THEIR BELIEFS down my throat. I'm a live and let live kinda guy. Don't tread on me and I won't tread on you. But don't fuck with me, either. Too much of the world today is dedicated to the mission of FUCKING with people who just want to be left alone. Look at the federal government. That octopus fucks with me all the time. Look at environmentalists, anti-smokers, lawyers and my ex-wife. They ALL live and breathe for the sole purpose of fucking with me or somebody else. I don't like it. I don't like goddam "customer service" that runs me through a machine and keeps me on hold for 15 minutes before I get to speak to a human being. I don't like it. I don't like dickweeds who drive in the left lane when they are not passing another vehicle. I don't like it. I don't like political correctness nor do I like people saying "gender" when they mean sex. I don't like losing my job because of my blog. I don't like a system where what I do on my own time scares the shit out of a multi-billion dollar corporation who would rather fire (excuse me..."retire") a valuable employee than risk a stupid lawsuit from some neurotic nitwit. I don't like neurotic nitwits who believe that the sun rises and sets right square in the crack of their asses, and insist that the entire universe should stop expanding and cater only to THEM. I don't like whiners. I don't like people who encourage whining (yeah... I watched the Democratic Convention). I stick by my friends. I don't like squishy people. I don't like being told what to do by someone who doesn't know me or care about me. That uniform doesn't impress me. Any asshole can get one of those. In fact, aside from the military, a LOT of assholes wear uniforms and try to tell me what to do. I don't like it. I want to be left alone. What is wrong with that? I mind my own business and I try to live a good life. I believe that the world would be a better place if EVERYBODY behaved the way I do. I am not petty, vindictive, venal or vain, and I don't like people who are. Hollywood celebrities piss me off when they talk politics. Politicians piss me off, period. Leftists piss me off because they are barking moonbats. Our divorce courts piss me off because they side with a bloodless cunt over me. I stay pissed off a lot. Slavery was abolished in 1863. Look around today. We are ALL becoming slaves to a government that cares nothing about the individual. Government exists to stretch its own power and it is damn good at that job. Government tells us how much water our toilets can flush, how fast we can drive on a highway, where we can and cannot smoke, what we can and cannot do in bed, and they TAKE OUR MONEY to pay for this shit. I don't like it.
truth in advertising
I shamelessly stole this picture from here.
I love it
I love many of my adorable readers... but I prefer RED toenail polish.
bwhahahah!!!See why I like this guy?
Ann CoulterI lot of people don't like this long-legged conservative, but I do. Sure, she's outrageous and over-the-top sometimes, but I admire those traits in a writer. She's damn sure not boring. Looking at the line-up of speakers at the Convention, I have developed the 7-11 challenge: I will quit making fun of, for example, Dennis Kucinich, if he can prove he can run a 7-11 properly for 8 hours. We’ll even let him have an hour or so of preparation before we open up. Within 8 hours, the money will be gone, the store will be empty, and he’ll be explaining how three 11-year olds came in and asked for the money and he gave it to them. That's good stuff.
incredibleYou're gonna want to save this. Look at it now. Show it to your children. And NEVER forget.
good readThis fine rant hits on all eight cylinders with the whiff of a turbocharger in there.
i cussed them outI got pissed at several companies today and I cussed them out over the phone. I cancelled my long-distance service because they charged me for calls that I didn't make and then treated me like dirt when I called to complain. I was on hold for 15 minutes before an actual human being spoke to me and I was righteously outraged by then. I cussed the person who actually picked up the phone. I ain't paying that fucking bill, either. I am pissed off at Earthlink. My email doesn't work any more and the damn thing cuts off and shuts down my computer every five minutes if I try to use that service. I called them, too. I got a mechanical voice telling me to deal with them through my email. HOW IN THE FUCK AM I SUPPOSED TO DO THAT WHEN MY GODDAM EMAIL DOESN'T WORK??? THAT'S WHAT I'M CALLING ABOUT, YOU ASSHOLE!!! Customer service has gone right down the toilet today. Once upon a time, I remember being able to pick up the phone and call someone when I had a complaint. You can't do that now. You get a fucking machine that wants you to press a series of menu buttons so that the company hopes you just get frustrated enough to hang up and eat their shit. Keep up the good work, robots. I got rid of my long-distance service, Earthlink and AOL today. Three different companies lost a lot of money from me because they don't have the common courtesy to provide a living person for me to talk to. Fuck 'em all.
politicsI will need two bottles of Listerine to wash the taste of the DNC out of my mouth. I look at people such as John Kerry, Billary Clinton, Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson and I want to puke. I don't see the federal government as my friend, nor the salvation for all my woes. I see the federal government as my enemy. The federal government takes my money, suppresses my rights as an individual and does it all at the point of a gun, backed up by limitless resources. Remember when Bill Clinton uttered the biggest lie of his lying career? "The era of Big Government is over." My aching ass. Yeah, the era of big government was over. We went straight to REALLY BIG GOVERNMENT after that. This mutation of what the Founding Fathers envisioned is never going to stop. I am a lonely voice in the wilderness who happens to believe that I CAN TAKE CARE OF MYSELF. Got dam. I've never received a dime from the federal government and even if they offered it to me, I would refuse to take it. I've already got a mama and I damn sure don't want some gasbag in congress to assume that role. I want to be a free man. Too many people can't handle freedom and politicians are quick to recognize that fact. Fuck up your life? NO PROBLEM!!! We'll just take money from people who DIDN'T fuck up their lives and GIVE IT to you. Got ten illegitimate children from eight different fathers that you can't feed? NO PROBLEM!!! We'll just take money from people who didn't fuck up and GIVE IT TO YOU!!! That's what the federal government has become today. It is a goddam octopus with a slime-drenched tenacle inserted into every aspect of our lives. It exists to perpetuate itself and grow larger every day. Fast-talking assholes in fancy suits and well-coiffed hair have convinced far too many people that this is a good thing. It is not. Freedom carries a lot of risk. If you live free, you take your chances on failure or success, riches or poverty, good times or bad times. That's the way life should be. The only way government can make life "fair" is to punish achievers and reward the incompetent. That's a twisted way of looking at fairness, but that's what government does. Government ENCOURAGES you to fuck up so it can be there to help you. I don't buy that shit. I prefer to take my chances. I don't believe that I will vote in the next Presidential election. Why bother? No matter who is elected, government will continue to grow, it will create more regulations, it will take more of my money and intrude into more of my life. It's not a matter of who wins. I lose no matter what. I want to live free. Government doesn't allow that today, no matter who is President.
my listMy daughter did a good job of minding the blog while I was in Costa Rica. She posted her top 20 favorite blogs from my roll and I want to do the same. But I know that if I do, I'll hurt somebody's feelings because I left them off the list. Well... tough shit. You wouldn't be on my roll if I didn't like what you do. If you don't make the top 20, consider yourself #21. WIMMEN BLOGGERS 1) I like this one because she is intelligent, articulate and she forgave me for something I didn't mean to do. I hope to meet her some fine day. I am her blogfaddah. 2) I always check up on this fine woman because she makes me feel funny in my pants. I am HER blogfaddah, too. I want to see her nekkid some day. 3) This opinionated, brassy, southern belle is my kind of woman, except for the fact that she's far too young for me and she doesn't like cigarette smoke. She's part of the Original Crew and she helped to save my life, whether she knows it or not. 4) I can't believe that this one calls herself a spinster. I'd marry her in a minute if she agreed to clean my kitchen. 5) I like bellicose wimmen. The smell of gunsmoke makes me horny. 6) I would take a bath with this one. I want to try some of that soap. 7) I suspect that this one is a firecracker in bed. I'll never know for sure, but I fantasize about her. 8) I cannot leave this sweet thang off my list. She is beautiful, vivacious and she even painter her toenails red for me at the First Annual Jawga Blog-Meet. She has serious cleavage, too. 9) Here's another member of the original crew. She sent me red toenail pictures, so she HAS to be on my list. 10) I really should put this blog on both of my lists, but I'm picking Shell over Lionel because... well, she's got a finer ass. Men Bloggers 1) My blogfaddah, Glenn Reynolds. Gut Rumbles never would have begun if I hadn't started reading him and I am amazed at how prolific he is. I don't know how he does it, but I like what he does. 2) Samantha was right when she said that this guy reminded her of me. He reminds me of me, too. 3) I believe that this is the most under-rated blog out there. I've met the writer in person and he is a truly sick soul. He reminds me of me, too. 4) I never miss a day visiting here. That's another blogger I've met in person and I lust after his wife. She's a lot better-looking than he is. 5) I've been reading this guy for a long time and he's one of those people that I think I KNOW, even though I've never met him. Blogging does that to you. 6) I still believe that this blog is awesome. I once called HIM the "Most Under-Rated Blogger" until Velociman came along. He's still under-rated. 7) I like the name of this blog and I suspect that I have a lot in common with the writer, even if he IS a goddam yankee. 8) I can't leave this guy off my list, even if he does cat-bomb me from time to time. I've met HIM in person, too, and I really like the guy. He's really not as grouchy as he pretends to be. 9) Here's another one of my blog-children who has come a long way in a short period of time. He's good. 10) I like this guy, too--- he has a sharp wit, a keen eye and he makes me laugh. If you are on my blogroll and not on this list, do not despair. I SWEAR that you were the next one I was going to list.
she's back!!!Heh. I knew nothing so blase as a broken arm could stop this woman. She's a better blogger with one arm than most people are with two. Good to see you blogging again, darlin.
the frenchI believe that dave munger has it right.
more scenery
Sunset at Jaco Beach, taken with the sun behind me.
sunset
This is sunset at Jaco Beach. Lovely view.
very interestingI'll have to read this book. I seldom react with a visceral dislike of someone when I first see that person, but it's happened twice to me with politicians. The first was Bill Clinton and the other is John Kerry. Something about Kerry just gives me the creeps, the same way Clinton did. I was right about Clinton. He was exactly the sort of slimeball I expected him to be. I suspect that I am right about Kerry, too. Mr. Hoffmann is chairman of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which plans what it calls a grass-roots campaign. "We're going to tell the truth — the fact that he was a perpetual, habitual liar," Adm. Hoffmann said. "I don't care whether it was perjury or lying before the Senate of the United States, or that two of his Purple Hearts are at least very specious, if not absolutely false, because he filed false after-action reports." That statement fits my initial impression of John Kerry.
trivia questionHere's a great line from a great movie: "Custer was a pussy. You ain't." What was the movie and who said those words to whom?
July 29, 2004by the wayI was trying to run my blogroll tonight and I came to one conclusion. Blogger still sucks.
pensive thoughtsI took a nap this afternoon while rain fell hard outside the Crackerbox. I woke up not knowing where I was. For a moment I believed that I was still in Costa Rica with bags to pack and a plane to catch. When the fog cleared from my brain and I realized that I was at home in my own bed, I wished that I was somewhere else. My good neighbor Henry collected all my mail while I was gone and he delivered it today. In the mix was a letter from Jennifer telling me that I still owed her $106 for Quinton's medical bills. I wrote the cunt a check. The biggest mistake I ever made in my life was siring my son. I love him like a rock and I am proud of him, but if I take a step back and analyze my situation carefully, I know what a mistake his birth was. Jennifer wouldn't have the stranglehold on me that she does without Quinton. And I haven't seen or heard from my boy since Father's Day. I married Jennifer and I was totally in love when I did. I was totally in love with her the day she divorced me. I left the Effingham County courthouse and pulled off on the side of the road the first chance I got. I sat in my truck and cried like a baby. She went merrily off to fuck somebody else and never thought about me again, unless she wanted some money. Having prostate cancer is no picnic in the park. Sometimes I wonder if just dying from it wouldn't have been better than what I've been through the past three years. I wonder why so many sheeple hate George Bush and love Bill Clinton. Clinton is a complete slimeball, the dick-directed asshole. But a lot of people prefer HIM over what I believe is a good man. Bush doesn't please me all the time, but at least he's not getting blow-jobs in the Oval Office. Yeah---I believe that a President of the United States should have more self-control than to do what Clinton did. Jimmy Carter should either shut up his face or be dragged off and shot. Bejus! The guy was a totally incompetent President. He was a complete fuck-up, and a lot of the problems we have in the Middle East tiday are the results of HIS assholery. If I were going to make an idiot burrito, Jimmy Carter would be right in the middle of the wrap. He wasn't worth a shit when he was Governor of my beloved state of Georgia, and he's not worth a shit today. The Dems love that grinning bastard. Go figure. I love living in the South. I like the weather, I like the pretty wimmen and I like the way people interact here. I can't see me EVER living up north. And people who vote for a flip-flopping prick from Taxachussettes deserve what they get. Kerry won't carry Georgia, because too many people here think the way I do. The guy is an asshole. My bullshit detector ran over the red line and broke while I was watching the Democratic convention. That circus of morons wasn't even worth a TV brick hurled at the screen. Okay, I am finished with my rant.
how we metI crawled out of the Pacific Ocean after a thorough ass-whuppin' in the surf about 11:00 in the morning. I took a shower, got dressed and walked down to Main Street at Jaco to find something good to eat. I stopped in at a steakhouse that had a really interesting menu and cold Imperial beer. I decided to eat there, at a table facing the street. I ordered filet minon in some kind of mushroom sauce, with fresh vegetables and mashed potatoes. It was a delicious meal and I liked the view from where I sat, so I stayed there and drank beer for a while. An iguana was crawling around loose in the place. I saw Aila walking down the sidewalk. I had enough beer in me to make me fearless and I had seen already how Ticos hoot and carry on when they see a good-looking woman. I also saw how Ticas are not offended by that kind of behavior. In fact, they appreciate it and throw a little more swing of the hips into their walk when they know someone is watching. I said, "Oye, muchacha. Tu es muy linda. Yo estoy en amor. Quieres una cervesa?" (Hey, girl. You are beautiful. I am in love. Want a beer?) Much to my surprise, she stopped in her tracks, walked into the restaurant and sat down at my table. I ordered her a beer. She stayed with me for three days. I believe that a lot of Costa Rican wimmen do such things--- they see an American on his own and provide a few days of company in exchange for a nice place to stay, a few good meals and some gifts. Aila never asked me for money (except in the casino) but I bought her a bathing suit, a sun dress and a visor and I wined and dined her well. I also gave her 30,000 colones that she didn't ask for when we parted company. She was insulted at first (or at least she pretended to be). "No estoy un puta!" she said. (I am not a whore!) "Lo se," I replied. "Pero tu es mi buena suerte in el casino. Asi quiero comprar una cosa. Yo voy esta dia y queiro tu recuerdes me." (I know. But you are my good luck in the casino. So, I want to buy you something. I go today and I want you to remember me.) In the end, she took the money. I'll probably never see her again, but I hope she spends that money well.
Sweet bejus!I guess that geoffrey gets credit for this post. Actually, I want to KILL HIM for making me follow this link. I learned about my dark, suppressed urges there.
truthJohn Kerry, the French-looking flip-flop artist, suitor of rich wimmen and mealy-mouthed bastard, who also served in Vietnam, has a lot to say about his service in Vietnam. Did I mention that John Kerry served in Vietnam? A few other people served, too. Go check that link. I stole it shamelessly from this guy, who should have been on my blogroll a long time ago.
like my shirt?
That's Aila wearing my shirt and nothing else, early one morning.
same old shitNow that I'm back home, I started paying attention to the Democratic national convention. I am NOT impressed with what I see. Every speaker spouts the same old, tired bromides about ending poverty, making health care free and giving something to everybody. Oh, yeah--- and Bush is EEEEVILLL. It's all bullshit. Take Ted Kennedy's speech, for example: I've served for many years in the Senate and have seen many elections. But there have been none more urgent or more important than this one. Never before have I seen a contrast so sharp or consequences so profound as in the choice we will make for President in 2004. What? Does that mean you finally sobered up for once in your fat, rich life? There's a reason why this land was called "the American experiment." If dedication to the common good were hardwired into human nature, we would never have needed a revolution. If each of us cared about the public interest, we wouldn't have the excesses of Enron. We wouldn't have the abuses of Halliburton. And Vice President Cheney would be retired to an undisclosed location. And if you weren't above the law by being a fat, rich Kennedy, your slimy ass would be in jail for vehicular homicide. Enron nor Haliburton ever got drunk and killed somebody. YOU DID, Senator Kennedy. Yeah--- let's talk about "abuse" and who should really be retired to an undisclosed location. Yet in our own time, there are those who seek to divide us. One community against another. Urban against rural. City against suburb. Whites against blacks. Men against women. Straights against gays. Americans against Americans. That pretty well sums up the Democrat campaign strategy, doesn't it? I've never heard Republicans say that if you elect a Democrat, churches will burn, black men will be dragged behind pickup trucks and wimmen will ALL DIE from back-alley abortions. YOUR PARTY does that, Mr. Kennedy. Time and again in America's history, we as Democrats have offered new hope — of a stronger, fairer, more prosperous future for all our people, a society that feeds the hungry, shelters the homeless, and cares for the sick — so that none must walk alone. Yeah--- you created a welfare system that imprisons people in poverty, you created "fairness" through laws that discriminate against innocent people, and you built a government filled with corruption and waste that serves itself more than it does others. Good job, dumbass. When the elderly faced poverty and sickness that threatened their golden years, we created Social Security and Medicare. One a Ponzi scheme that cannot last and the other a government waste-mill that will go broke in a few years, if the two together don't bankrupt the entire country first. Good job, dumbass. When the voices of many citizens went unheard and their lives were blighted by bigotry, we fought for equality and justice, for civil rights and voting rights and the rights of women, for the cause of Americans with disabilities. Yeah--- and we got Affirmative Action, sexual harassment laws, and the ADA, all of which did nothing more than make lawyers rich and divide the country. Good job, dumbass. When higher education was beyond the reach of veterans returning home from war, we created the GI Bill of Rights — and we have continued ever since to make college more affordable for millions more Americans. Yeah, and with what you've done to public education, most of the people who go to college today can't read or write. Good job, dumbass. I can't go on with this rant without puking on my keyboard. I quit.
Pura vida
Life is rough in Costa Rica.
assault by cigaretteOnce upon a time, the USA was a nation filled with rugged indivualists, able to fight off the British, the Indians, the French and anybody else who asked for a fight. Once upon a time, we were tough. But not today. Through rampant government legislation and the whining of some big-mouthed assholes, we are rapidly becoming a nation of fucking CRYBABIES. How did we go from a country that once said "Don't Tread On Me" to an "I Am Afraid of EVERYTHING" society? We became pussified. I blame the got-dam government for every bit of this crap. Legislators ENCOURAGE people to be wimps because wimps like a nanny in their lives. I don't. Robert Zangrando claims he has been assaulted by cigarette smoke. The smoke that wafted into his condominium from the cigarettes held outside by his neighbor, Nicole Kuder, was willfully blown in his direction and invaded his home, he says, which led to his additional allegations of battery and trespass. This guy has serious issues that should be handled in a nut-house instead of in court. A decent judge would take one look at this suit and tell the baliffs to turn a fire-hose on the weak, whining bastard and wash him AND HIS GODDAM LAWYER into the gutter where they belong. Sweet Bejus! The most neurotic, fucked-up people in the country are setting the standards for everybody else. If we continue down this path, the USA is a doomed country. The right to breathe smoke-free air is the focus of a trial scheduled to begin today in Summit County Common Pleas Court. It is likely to include a visit by the jury to the adjoining Stow condominiums, testimony from expert witnesses and testimony on how the errant smoke led to Zangrando's health problems and decreased the value of his property. What a barking moonbat--- what a wimp---what a fucking idiot. But he'll have his day in court with this bullshit lawsuit, and if his lawyer can pick twelve MORE fucking idiots to sit on the jury, he may win. Some people just cannot handle freedom. They are too delicate. "There have been an increasing number of lawsuits in recent years that corresponds to people's increased awareness of secondhand smoke and the physical harm it can cause," he said, "and the gradually increasing societal disfavor of tolerating such exposure." Bullshit. There have been an increasing number of lawsuits in recent years because most people HAVE NO AWARENESS that second-hand smoke DOES NOT cause physical harm to ANYONE. The EPA started this crap with a forged study and the World Health Organization spent 10 years LOOKING for a link from second-hand smoke to health problems and couldn't find one. Still, perception is reality. Like the sheeple some people are, they believe in the boogie-man in the closet and the monster under the bed when no one is there. The government encourages such pussified behavior because it makes government more powerful. We'll just SUE the monsters away and pass laws to make sure they never come back. Why do you think the EPA forged their second-hand smoke study in the first place? It was a pure-assed power-grab. And assholes such as Zangrando are ready to aid and abet the government in its quest to dictate more and more of how we live our lives because he wants some money. Prostitution is illegal except in a court of law. This whore gets a chance to win "life's lottery." The hooker on the street gets a chance to go to jail.
my tica
Here's a picture of Aila. I picked those purple flowers and put them in her hair. Ain't she purdy? No mangos were involved.
spanish teacher
I learned a lot from this sweet thang. She is the bartender at the hotel where I stayed in San Jose and she gave me Spanish lessons every day. I've never had such a lovely teacher in my life.
shoes
I took this picture simply because it's been a long time since I had a barefoot woman in my house. The small sandals belong to Aila.
home againI am back at the Crackerbox now. My flight from Atlanta was delayed for an hour and I arrived here shortly after midnight to find my house a stifling inferno. My air conditioner froze up while I was away. I hope to rehabilitate the sumbitch tonight before I go to sleep. I just hope the compressor didn't die. At the Atlanta airport, people were breezing through customs like lemmings heading off a cliff. Everybody went through with a nod and a wave until I handed my card and my passport to the official in charge of doing the waving. He looked at my documents, punched something into his computer and said, "You go over THERE." I was sent to the Group W bench, where I waited for more than ten minutes for some bastard in a uniform to show up and tell me why I was sent there. I asked him did I look like a terrorist or a smuggler? I also said that he could search both of my bags and any body orifices he wanted to explore because I was as clean as a whistle. He looked at his computer screen. "Mr. Smith--- are you divorced?" he asked. I told him that I was. "Well," he said, "you just got another gift from your ex-wife. You have a restraining order for domestic violence against you. That's what threw up a red flag." "I haven't seen or spoken to that bloodless cunt for more than four months now. I've never committed ANY violence against her and this is the SECOND TIME she's done this shit to me," I said. "Yeah, I've been there and done that myself," he replied. "Go on through." He didn't crack either one of my bags. He recognized bullshit when he saw it. I know good and well that if the roles were reversed, I WOULD NOT do to Jennifer what she is doing to me. I know because the roles WERE REVERSED once in my life and I never asked Samantha's mama for a dime when I won custody of my daughter. I'm not that spiteful, nor am I that sadistic. Jennifer is.
July 28, 2004sound effectsLast night, I was woken from my sleep by the sound of a banshee screaming. I sat up in bed because I thought somebody was dying and maybe I should rush to the rescue. I listened a little longer and decided rescue was not neccessary. I WAS HEARING THE SOUNDS OF AN ENTHUIASTIC WOMAN HAVING A GOOD TIME!!!! "Oh God, oh God, oh GOD!!! Yes...yes...yes...oh NO, ohmygod No! Yes! Oh God! AIEEEEEE!!!!! Oh, God! Oh, God! Yes...oh, no...yesssss AIEEEEE!!!! That sound was accompanied by the thumping of the bed against the wall in the room next to mine. That went on for almost an hour before I heard the guy finally groan "Oh, my GOD!" himself. Then things became quiet. I opened my door and started clapping my hands in the hallway to applaud a job well done. The next thing I know, people are clapping all over the hotel. We pretty much gave the couple a standing ovation for some incredible sound effects during sex. I wonder if they heard me and Maria the other night. She was very enthuiastic and quite the screamer herself. But we did not get a standing ovation from the hotel residents. I am disappointed.
July 27, 2004New BlogOkay, you can visit my new blog Here I don't have my blogroll finished. I still have a ton of blogs that I haven't gotten around to adding yet. Tell my what you think, any changes that should me made or whatever. It still needs a lot of work, but here ya go anyway.
adiosI leave for home tomorrow. I really do not want to go back to the Crackerbox yet, but I am ready to leave San Jose. This place is too busy, too full of hustlers and too much like St. Patricks Day in Savannah for me. I prefer the hinterlands of Costa Rica where everybody really does live on Tico Time. I have about 150 pictures from this trip (some of which ARE NOT suitable to post on my blog--- I had some fun with both Aila and Maria with the camera-- but forget about seeing those. I am NC-17, not XXX.) and I look forward to sharing a few. I have a pretty good eye with a camera and a lot of the pictures turned out very well. Just some random thoughts before I catch my plane tomorrow: *You have never been righteously cussed until a Costa Rican woman does it in Spanish. *DO NOT walk the streets of San Jose at night with a lot of money in your pocket. All I lost on this trip was a six-pack of beer, but the thieves and footpads are out there if you are foolish enough to let them rob you. *Bought pussy is just as good (and maybe better) than all the "free" stuff any woman offers you. *Mangos are evil. Stay away from them. *Costa Ricans in San Jose do not like George Bush--- and I took píctures of some graffitti on walls to prove that fact--- but people at Jaco do not give a shit about politics. That is why I prefer Jaco over San Jose. *I took my daughters advice (apostrophies do not work on a Spanish keyboard) and I have not paid ANY attention to the news for almost two weeks now. I made the mistake of listening to highlights of the speeches from the Democratic Convention last night. I started to call room service for a barf-bag. *If you decide to visit Costa Rica, first talk to someone who has been there ahead of you. You can save yourself a lot of money and confusion through good advice. *242,000 colones goes fast when you spend it like you are the federal government. Unlike the government, however, that was MY money I was pissing away, not somebody elses. *I will sleep alone tonight. My choice. *Somebody said in my comments that the BC will have a field day in court because I blogged about buying a piece of ass. I hope that she DOES bring that up in court. She sits on the most expensive piece of pussy I ever had in my life, and I will pay for that gash for years more if she has her way. And she GAVE IT AWAY to someone else when she was still married to me. Yeah--- let us discuss that in court. THAT is a true puta. Fucking whore. *I am going to spend the rest of my colones tonight on food and drink. I hope to sleep on the plane ride home.
The right to chooseI did one thing in Costa Rica that I have never done before in my life. I BOUGHT a piece of ass in a straight-up business deal. When I came back to the hotel after watching a play, I spied the guy I met at the bar at beginning of my trip--- the guy who operates the escort service. I sat down at the bar and he remembered me. We talked for a while, sipped a couple of cold cervesas and he asked me again if I wanted a woman. This time I said yes. He whipped out a cell phone, make a quick call and said, "Maria is coming. You will like her. She is very HOT." About 20 minutes later, a taxi pulled up outside and one of the most beautiful wimmen I have seen in my life stepped from the rear seat, paid the driver and walked into the bar. She was my "date" for the evening. And she was, indeed, hot. Later that night, when Maria was gone, my blood pressure was back to normal and my legs did not wobble when I tried to walk, I pondered upon what just occurred. I bought a piece of ass. I got my moneys worth, too. She had a commodity for sale that I wanted to buy, and we agreed on a fair sales price. In business, I believe that is called a "win-win" situation. Any man who says "I never paid for it" is a got-dam liar. If I had back all the money that "free" pussy has cost me over the years, I would be a rich man. I believe that prostitutes are more honest than most other wimmen. At least prostitutes tell you right up front how much the pussy is going to cost. You never know how much you will pay for a woman who is not selling it outright. Either way, it{s going to cost you money. Besides--- why is abortion legal and prostitution is not? A woman has a "right to choose" when it comes to ending a pregnancy. The same people who keep prostitution illegal are the ones who constantly harp about a woman having a right to do what she wishes with her own body. She can have all the abortions she wants, she can GIVE AWAY her body anytime she wants, but if she sells a piece of ass, she is a criminal. Somebody explain that to me.
July 26, 2004LazyI called into work today for no reason. It's finally under 90 degrees outside and I wanted to enjoy my day. Stacey insists that since I took the day off that I must clean the house, so that's what I've been doing. I've also been working on my new blog, which I'll have the URL posted soon. I really want to get off blogspot and onto MT but the template editing isn't as easy as blogger and since I design my own layouts I like to be able to play around with my templates. I'm using MT now and I took a look at the Edit Template section and there are about 10 different templates. I have no clue about any of it, so I'll stick with blogger until I can figure it out. Don't have much to post about today. I have no desire to turn on the news. I'm already tired of watching the Democratic Convention, and everything else on is depressing.
a night on the townI did something last night that I have not done in a long time. I went to see a play in a theater. The play was called The Love of Rosa and it was about three guys trying to win Rosa by destroying each other. It was pure slapstick comedy, filled with eye-rolling mugs, ridiculous wigs and costumes, Three Stooges violence and a happy ending where Rosa rejected all three suitors and went off with a stranger. I enjoyed the play tremendously. I went back to the hotel after the play and I saw an old friend in the bar. I took him up on his offer this time. I was lonely and I wanted some company. Between the play and my company, that is best fifty dollars I ever spent in my life.
July 25, 2004I LiedI said I wasn't going to post anything political, but I got to browsing some websites on Gay Day at Disney World. I remember watching the news one day and seeing people in an uproar over some pretty sick things going on during Gay Day. I'm all in support of Gay Parades, parties, and picnics, but when I see things like this I can see why some are so against it. I wish these people would realize that not all of us are like this, but you'll never be able to make them see that as long as the ignorant ones continue act this way. It's pretty much the same thing when it comes to racism. You have your extremists and that's all people tend to see. Hate exists beacuse of shit like this and this.
Sunday AfternoonWe just arrived home from Shreveport. What a weekend. I was reading my comments from the last post and really enjoyed all the different view points. I thought about responding to one in particular, but it's still the weekend, and I'm not ready to debate politics now. I'm tired, I smell bad, and I have a couple of bucks that I want to spend on myself later and I don't feel like arguing. Anyway, I'm going to go wash the smoke and alcohol off myself and lay down for a nap.
Back in San JoseJaco Beach and Aila are memories now. I am back in San Jose and the soothing sounds of Pacific waves crashing on the beach at night have been replaced with the noise of traffic, car horns and barking dogs. Today is a holiday in Costa Rica. It is their version of Cinco de Mayo and they are celebrating their independence. Most of the stores are closed and very few people are out in the heart of downtown. I had to walk a LONG WAY to find an internet cafe that was open. I enjoyed the post below from Samantha. We had our ups and downs during her teenage years, but at least a few of my values stuck with her. I told her all her life that she could be anything she wanted to be if she was willing to work for it. I also told her never to ASK for a handout, never EXPECT one and learn to stand on your own two feet. I support gay marriage--- NOT because I believe that gays are getting the shaft under our present system, but because I KNOW DAMN WELL that straight men are fucked most unrighteously in divorce court every day. Let us take away the injustice that is built into our divorce system, thanks to years of whining by feminists and stupid laws passed by pandering politicians. Let gays get married. That will fuck up this money-mill, child-custody machine wimmen have created in our courts. I do not care that my daughter is gay. She has never tried to rub that fact in my face and I accept her as my daughter, no matter what. But I agree with her that some Gay Pride crap I have seen in Key West and on the news from San Francisco is pretty disgusting. Being gay DOES NOT mean having no fucking dignity. Act like a human being, and I will treat you as one, no matter what your race, creed, religion or sexual preference. Act like a freak, and I will consider you to be a freak. And I will treat you as one.
July 23, 2004Why I Am The Way I Am"Acidaughter, it's been a revelation to read some of your stuff. I never knew that a I'm glad someone brought this up. People ask me all the time, "how can you be gay and I side with the republican party more than I do the democrats, but I'm not 100% republican. No one is 100% any party, I don't care what they say. Maybe I'm a little more of a libertarian. Here's a little bit about what I believe, politically. Liberals seem to think conservatives are your fag hating, racist, wife beating yet church going drunks who live out in the middle of nowhere and are completely useless to the world. Those are extremists. Just like you have your liberal extremists, (i.e. terrorists, Michael Moore) and your Muslim extremists. From what I've seen, conservatives seem to be average hardworking people, who believe that you should work for what you have and that the government shouldn't be allowed to come in and take ANY of it. They believe everyone should be treated equal, no special privileges for ANYONE because of race, (affirmative action in colleges) religion, sex OR sexual preference. That would be racist, right? Conservatives see the world how it is. They see where the evil is and want to do something about it. Liberals overlook the evil and try to cover it up with violent protests and Bush Bashing. The liberals who stand in front of the White House protesting "PEACE" should be over in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other Middle Eastern countries protesting to the REAL invaders of peace, the terrorists. There will never be peace on earth as long as terrorists exist. Conservative see this, liberals don't. Liberals believe that the terrorists aren't to blame for this problem and The United States and the Bush supporters are. When it comes to gays: I've never once, on any blog, ever been insulted or had any On the other hand: I don't believe I should get any special privilege for being gay, but I don't understand what the big deal is about gay marriage. How is Stacey and I getting married going to affect YOUR straight marriage? It's not. We're not asking to be married in a church in front of a pastor, we just want the same benefits as straight couples. A straight couple can get married, live in two different states, each have 3 different lovers and get divorced 6 weeks later and they get all the benefits that a loving gay couple can't have. I just don't see why this is such a big issue. I'm pro-choice. Yes I know, that's a liberal thing. But I believe that a woman should I believe in less government spending and lower taxes. LET PEOPLE LEARN TO TAKE CARE OF THEMSELVES. I'm tired of seeing people everyday pulling up to the pharmacy and the grocery store in their Escalades and brand new Dodge pickups pulling out Medicaid forms and food stamps for coke and potato chips, while I work hard everyday to make the payments on my average car to afford $100 on groceries every two weeks for necessary food. Something needs to give there. When it comes to the war, I believe that Afghanistan is more important than Iraq. I mean, Afghanistan holds (or held) the man who was responsible for the death of over 3,000 Americans. I believe that rebuilding Iraq and supplying them with weapons and money will only turn around be used to harm us in the long run. It's happened before. We should be trying to rid the world of terrorists, not to help create them. Now that we're in this war, we need to finish it. Quit bullshitting around and take care of what we need to take care of. I believe the war with Afghanistan is necessary, the war in Iraq could have waited. It's Friday and when Stacey gets off work at midnight we may be heading to Shreveport to do some gambling. (she'll do the gambling, while I relax in the luxury hotel at the Horseshoe that we're not paying for) So I probably won't be blogging much over the next couple of days. I hope everyone has a safe and fun weekend. If it's Saturday and you're reading this, get out and enjoy yourself. Life's too short. Posted By Acidaughter
win some, lose someI won 212,000 colones playing blackjack in a casino last night. Alia and I went out to eat, then strolled down to the beach to watch the sunset. It was beautiful. She asked me if I liked to gamble, I said yes, and she took me down the street to a casino. She likes slot machines. I don't. I prefer cards. I broke a US $100 bill at the cashier's cage and gave Alia 5,000 colones to piss away on the one-armed bandits. She converted that money to coins and went off with a bucket full in her hand to get raped by the machines. I took 30,000 colones and sat down at the blackjack table. By the time Alia went broke, I had more than doubled my money. She whined for some more fodder for the machines, but I said "NO!" and told her to sit down and watch. I was on a roll and I don't like anyone fucking with my luck when the cards are coming my way. They were at the time, and I was taking advantage of it. A big, burly guy named Dave, from Indiana, was sitting to my right, betting 1,000 colones per hand and losing steadily. I usually bet 4,000 per hand, but I was so far ahead at the time that I was up to 12,000 a pop. "Dave, don't leave this table," I told him. "If you go broke, I'll GIVE you 1,000 colones per hand just to stay where you are." "Hell, man," he replied. "I'll PAY 1,000 colones per hand just to watch what you're doing." I kept winning. The chips were piling up like smokestacks in front of me. People stopped playing at other tables and came over to watch. The house switched dealers three times. The pit boss started lurking around to see if I was cheating. Still, I continued to win. I hit a "rummy," (three, four, five of spades) which pays three-for-one, and I had 12,000 bet at the time. I took 24,000 off the table, left 24,000 out there and drew a pair of sevens off the deal on the next hand. Three sevens pays four-to-one. I took a hit and drew another seven. KA-CHING!!!!! I was really on a roll. Dave put a hand on my shoulder and said, "I see God sitting on your shoulder." I don't believe in God, but Lady Luck sure was with me. I never count my money at the table, but I knew that I was really in the black at the time. Then, something happened that I've never seen before in all my years of card playing. I was back to my standard 4,000 bet and I was dealt a pair of aces. The dealer had a seven. I split the aces and doubled. I drew another ace. I split that one, too, and put 4,000 more on the table. I drew another ace. I split THAT one and put 4,000 more on the table. And I'll be damned if I didn't get a FIFTH ACE on the next card. I split it and put 4,000 more on the table. What are the odds of drawing FIVE STRAIGHT ACES in a game of blackjack played with five decks of cards that have been run through an automatic shuffler? I don't know, but the odds have to be really remote. I hit each of the aces and drew king, ten, nine, eight, nine. That's 21, 21, 20, 19 and 20. I thought, "Sweet Bejus! I just may break the bank tonight." The dealer hit his seven and drew and four. The next card was a king. He had 21. So, for my FIVE FUCKING ACES, I ended up with push, push, lose, lose, lose. I couldn't believe it. I looked at Dave and said, "I just heard God speak to me. He told me to QUIT, right now." I cashed my chips. I had a total of 242,000 colones. That's not really a lot of money (about $500), but it sure looked impressive when the cashier paid me off. I had a wad of bills thick enough to choke a horse. For the first time since I've been in Costa Rica, I felt nervous walking home. Alia was pissed at me because I wouldn't let her go dump any of it in the slot machines. Alia has to work today, so I'm off on the town to spend some of my money.
July 22, 2004Poor PrisionersIf we'd worry about destroying the terrorists and protecting our country as much as we worry about this bullshit, we wouldn't have a terrorism problem. All the "abuse" put together couldn't come close to the pain, suffering and horrific murders that the evil in those countries has done to OUR prisoners and hostages. But who cares, right? I'm just a mean old republican who has no compassion for those of different cultures. It will never sink in with these democrats who are all in an uproar over this prison "abuse" until their son is decapitated alive by some Arab spouting freak. When another 9/11 occurs (and I believe it will) and it's their mother, daughter or son on one of those planes or in one of those buildings, maybe they'll come to realize that sometimes things like racial profiling and focusing on what our country needs to do to protect it's self from terrorists is just a little more important than how we treat suspected terrorists and criminals in prison. I'm just mean.
clean shaven manI no longer have a beard. Aila, (prounced Ah-EEE-la) said that it tickled her neck when I kissed her, so I started to shave it off yesterday. I was halfway through whacking off my beard when she came to the bathroom and said, in Spanish, "Let me do that." She took the sissors and razor and did the job herself. I looked very handsome and 20 fucking years younger when she was done. Then, she unbuttoned my pants and let them fall to the floor. My cut-offs made a "CLANK" sound when they landed, because I had about 800 colones in change in my right front pocket. I was commando underneath. She mentioned that I had another beard that she didn't like, so I let her cut that one, too. Yeah, I allowed her to take sissors and razor to my crotchital area. I kinda liked it. She didn't Bobbitt me. After she was finished, we took a shower together and then went to the luxurious king-sized bed to test-drive the new equipment. Both she and I agreed that the experiment was a grand success. Y'all forgive me for not blogging much these past few days. But really.... I have more important things to do.
looks good to meI just dropped by the check on the blog, and all seems well there. I believe that Sam is doing a good job and having fun doing it. She is indeed the fruit of my loins. I'm going back to play with Aila (yes, that's her name) now. See you folks later.
July 21, 2004DisturbingThis is just disturbing. "Surveillance video from Washington Dulles International Airport the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, shows four of the five hijackers being pulled aside to undergo additional scrutiny after setting off metal detectors but then permitted to board the fateful flight that crashed into the Pentagon." I believe that they'd be able to walk in to the same airport, walk through the same detectors, and do it all over again. Things will never change.
MedicaidWhen I hear politicians talk about medicaid/medicare, they always seem to bring up senior citizens. (most pharmacy's don't accept the old medicare) I work in a pharmacy and I have only one senior customer on medicaid. 99% of our medicaid customers and women (most under 25) and their many, many, MANY children. I have one lady in particular with 5 kids. Three have different daddies. All are on medicaid. They get petty medicine, (lice shampoo, cough suryp, skin creams, etc.) which for some reason costs the most (the lice shampoo normally costs almost $500 per bottle) and seem to pick up medicine at least twice a week. The elderly man on medicaid is only allowed 3 perscriptions per month. He takes medication for his heart, blood pressure, and diabetes. What is wrong with this picture? I read in the paper a few months ago that the medicaid funding is running low. Hmmm, I wonder why.
More WarThank the Philippines for this. Stacey's brother may be headed off to Iraq in a few months. All you can do is hope and pray that he stays safe and makes it home in one piece. I really don't know how I feel about this war. One minute I'm all for it, then the next I'm against it. When I sit down and think about it, what I'm against is the way were handling things over there. The whole, sit around, spend money on a bunch of people who hate us, train future Iraqi soldiers to use weapons which will one day be turned around and used against US, kiss ass method pisses me off. It's not the troops fault, but the fault of people running this war. I don't get it. If an American soldier hurts an Iraqi, that's all you hear about on the news for weeks and weeks. All the liberals get offended because we're harming people (despite the fact that this is a WAR) But when an American soldier is killed, they print it really tiny at the bottom of the screen for maybe 30 minutes and you never hear about it again. What's wrong here? Have I ever mentioned that I DESPISE Michael Moore? While I was surfing the net around midnight last night trying to find (which is quite hard to find though I'm not surprised) where he was quoted saying how there should have been more blacks on the 9/11 planes. A poor ignorant dipshit who works with my beloved Stacey doesn't believe he said this. He never heard about it. Of course the liberal media isn't going to repeat anything negative that Moore says. But I found a few articles talking about it anyway. This one explains a lot about this fat freak. Go read it. I told myself I wasn't going to blog about anything political, but I couldn't help it. The news pisses me off, Michael Moore pisses me off, and Iraq pisses me off. I sure hope my dad is having a good time. He sounds like it. While he's there, he ought not turn on the TV or open a newspaper the entire time. Posted By Acidaughter
don't look for meI'm gonna let my darling daughter handle most of the blogging for the next few days. I've made a new friend.
July 20, 2004Photos!I thought about posting on the news, but I get so tired of the bullshit that I decided not to. It's depressing and puts me in a bad mood. No use getting all worked up over something I can't do anything about. So I decided to post some photos! I like this photo. I don't really know why, I just do. I saw this and had to run in and grab the camera. I can't wait to show his girlfriends when he gets older. Sometimes I just get sick and tired of dealing with'em Poor Ruby started her first period a few months ago. It was raining and I couldn't leave her outside, but I couldn't let her bleed all over my carpet either, so I found a pair of old panties, stuck in a maxi pad, and embarassed the hell out of her. My black bitch. Alex is my lab/golden retriever mix that we rescued from a home who couldn't care for her anymore. She's a wonderful companion. Acidman at my grandmother's house. I like this picture. Posted by Acidaughter
OoopsVelociman Should have made the list. I believe he was another one of the bloggers my dad and I talked about during out discussion and he had nothing but compliments to say. For some reason I never made it to Velociworld this afternoon. Either I skipped over it or it was one of the pages I couldn't get to load. I'd add Velociworld somewhere between 14-16 on the list.
July 19, 2004Acidaughter's Top 20It's monday afternoon, I've had a shitty workday, and to relieve some stress I sat down at the computer and visited Acidman's entire blogroll. He has not one blog rolled that I did not like. Reading all these blogs made me want to start mine back up. I compiled a list of MY favorite top 20 blogs that are blogrolled here. I judged these based on content, neatness, and over all attractiveness. I had my top 20 list already made up before I got halfway though the roll. Unfortunately I had to take off a few to make room for others. Anyway, here is my list. And please don't be offended if you're not listed. There were a few blogs that I couldn't get to load (thanks to my dial-up) 20) Across The Atlantic 18) Sugarmama 16) North Georgia Dogma 15) Hog On Ice 14) Key Issues 13) Blogosferics 11) Kim du Toit 10 1/2) Velociman Can't forget Velociman.
9) Mad Ogre 8) Beth Donovan 7) The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler 6) Dog Snot 5) Caught in the Xfire 4) Smoke On The Water 3) Allah Is In The House 2) I don't see Indigo listed. Maybe I'm just blind or maybe he's taken her off for some reason. Anyway, she used to be blogrolled so I'm adding her to the list. We've shared dog tips, she gives great advise on EVERYTHING, she sends me some of the funniest e-mail fowards and makes sure all of them are true by snoping the out first. She's my internet grandma. How could she not make my list. 1) Baldilocks I wish mends could be made with Dagoddess cause she would rank high on my list too. I still read ya :) God, I hope all these links work cause I sure don't want to go back and edit my mistakes. Posted by: Acidaughter
crazy dayRain has fallen off and on all day today, sometimes in torrents. That's why I ended up at the internet cafe early this morning. The skies have been cloudy and there's no sport around the swimming pool or on the beach. I don't mind getting wet in la lluvia, but it's difficult to get a suntan that way. Plus, I didn't want to just sit around my room (excuse me--- my SUITE) and read or watch TV all day. So, I post some Random Thoughts: *I don't believe that Costa Rica has the prudish sexual harassment laws that we have in the US. The wimmen are beautiful, they dress to show off their assets and they are flattered when men notice. They don't sing "I Am Woman, I Am Strong" one minute and collapse in a fit of tears and trembling, crying for a lawyer the next because some man whistled at them. No weak sisters here. *Security guards and policia all carry 9mm handguns. I haven't seen a .38 or a .45 since I've been here, and I look at such things. Jose told me that in order to buy a handgun in Costa Rica, the buyer must petition the government, be granted permission by the government to own a gun, and then take a handgun training class before a license is granted. No Second Amendment here. *Costa Rican wimmen don't paint their toenails red. They either have nekkid toes or that white-shit French thing wimmen do today. *According to people who know, iguana tastes just like steak. I am going to try to check that out for myself. *Costa Ricans admit: their economy is based on three things. #1 is tourism, #2 is laundering drug money through their banks and #3 is sex. Everybody knows what's happening, but the government and everybody else ignores #2 and #3. It's good for the economy. *A Cuban cigar is not all it's cracked up to be. *Costa Rica grows a lot of sugar cane, but they don't make rum. I don't understand that. *I am reading John Grissom's Bleachers now. I have some things I want to say about that book, but I'll wait until I finish it to do so. But if Grissom didn't play high school football for a tough coach who produced winning teams, he damned sure knows somebody who did. *Why can't I just stay here forever?
good!!!!I don't know why assholes do it and I don't know what motivates a person to be a professional tapeworm, but they're out there. A visitor to your weblog Gut Rumbles has automatically been banned by posting more than the allowed number of comments in the last 200 seconds. This has been done to prevent a malicious script from overwhelming your weblog with comments. The banned IP address is No, that IP stays banned, and if it got anybody else, I'm sorry. Fucking prick. If I knew who you were, I'd show you what BANNING really means. Asshole.
picturesMan, do I have some pictures from this trip. Jaco Beach, at least where I'm staying is a sort of cove, with mountains extending out into the ocean on both ends. The mountains funnel the surf onto the beach so that the waves are REALLY BIG. But I'm not certain that the surfing is as good as it was at Tamarindo. The waves here rise up really tall, then crash into a boiling cauldron of foam and spume as they roll toward shore. I watched some guys surfing, and it looks as if a 10-second ride is the best you're gonna do here. When I was out in the water yesterday, I watched those humongus waves coming at me and I thought of a wolf, curling his lip in a snarl right before he bites his prey. I don't know if my pictures will show just how impressive the surf is, but I'll post several when I get back home. Yeah. I've got lots of pictures and I intend to take plenty more.
a barking lizardI have a barking lizard in my bedroom. I heard the sumbitch crank up my first night at the hotel. I was lying in bed watching an episide of Deep Space Nine in Spanish. (Hey, julliette--- if you think Cisco sounds like a macho dude in English, you ought to hear him in Espanol. I think they got the Spanish James Earl Jones to dub his voice.) All of a sudden, I heard a very loud "REEP! REEP! REEP!" coming from the top of the stand-alone closet in my room. I sat bolt upright and thought WTF was that? "REEP! REEP! REEP!" it said again. I got a chair from the kitchen and grabbed one of my sandals. I climbed on the chair to see what the hell was making that noise up there. I was gonna kill whatever it was. It was a lizard, a small, salamander-like lizard with a red throat and brown skin. I looked at the lizard and the lizard looked at me. "REEP!" said the lizard. I lowered my Sandal of Death. "Here's the deal, amigo," I said. "I've got lots of room here and you're welcome to share it with me under two conditions. Number one, you cut that "REEP!" shit out when I turn the lights off. Number two, don't come crawling across my face when I'm asleep. If you can handle those two rules, you and I will get along fine. Comprende?" "REEP!" So far, he's held up his end of the deal and I've held up mine. I took a picture of the little rascal last night, after he crawled off the top of the closet and hung upside-down by his toes from the ceiling for a while. I believe that he was mosquito-hunting, and that's fine with me.
and a cat in my lapThe hotel has a resident cat named "Brunda." The hotel has 11 rooms on the ground floor. Guess which covered porch Brunda likes best? You got it--- MINE! Last night, a rip-roaring thunderstorm blew through, with lots of thunder, lightning and torrential rain. I went out on the patio to smoke a genuine Cuban cigar, a Cohiba, that someone GAVE ME in the tiki restaurant yesterday. Those babies cost at least $6.00 each in the tobacco shops I've visited. I was enjoying my cigar and the thunderstorm when the next thing I know, Brunda is sitting in my lap. That fucking cat just made itself right at home and started rubbing its head on my chest. "You don't know what you're doing, gato," I said. "I am not your friend. I hate you and all your kin. If you tried this shit at the Crackerbox, I'd grab you by the tail and throw you into the stormy night." The cat just sat there and hummed like a kitchen appliance. Hell, I let her stay there. Something about Costa Rica just really mellows me out.
July 18, 2004three years--- tres anosI did something last night that I haven't done in a long time--- three years, in fact. I slept like a rock for ten straight hours. I left the windows open on my bedroom and fell asleep to the sound of the surf rolling onto the beach. I believe that the sound rocked me like a baby in a cradle. I awoke this morning to a beautiful sunlit day. I took a shower, walked down to the tiki restaurant at the hotel and had a fine breakfast of eggs, pancakes, rice and black beans and fresh fruit. I actually woke up HUNGRY for a change. I went back to my room and watched the final round of the British Open, which was a thriller if you like golf the way I do. Watching that tournament made me remember something that I'll get to in a minute. After Todd Harrison beat Ernie Els in a playoff, I switched off the television, donned a bathing suit and challenged the Pacific Ocean to a fight. I got my Cracker ass whipped. I thought the surf was something at Tamarindo, but it's pussy stuff compared to Jaco. I got a full body massage from waves that knocked me ass over teakettle more than once. It was fun, but about 30 minutes of that beating was all I could stand. I went back to the beach, stretched out on a towel and read for a while, until the incoming tide threatened to wash me away. I packed up my stuff and went back to the tiki restaurant, where I had Chef Isadora cook me a hamburgosa grande, with papas fritas and a cold cervesa. Man, that was good. After I ate, I went back to my room for a brief siesta on my luxurious, king-sized bed. I napped a while, took another shower and went to lounge around the pool, just to check the Three years ago, during the last round of the British Open, I was in a seedy motel room with $60 to my name. My wife, who I loved with all my heart, had just told me that she wanted a divorce and I truly believed that my life was shattered. I KNOW what heartbreak feels like. I had a wild animal caged in my chest that was trying to claw its way out. The pain was more than I thought I could stand. I wanted to die. So, I tried to kill myself, and I did a pretty good job of it, except for one small detail: I didn't die. After the British Open concluded this morning, I walked outside in my bathing suit, a towel draped over my shoulder and a book in my hand. I gazed at the Pacific Ocean. Bejus, but it was beautiful. I thought, "I'm glad that I didn't die when I wanted to. I would have missed this." Three years--- tres anos--- a lot can change during that time. It hasn't been an easy road to travel and that bloodless cunt Jennifer keeps fucking with me every chance she gets, but the worst is over. I can handle whatever happens next. All she can do now is go after my money and deprive me of my son. That sucks, but it's not a wild animal in my chest trying to claw its way out. Life has been rough for the past three years, and it's not going to be a picnic for a while longer. But for right now.... it sure is nice at Jaco Beach.
You Know EverythingI really wanted to do a post on "Things You Don't Know About Acidman", but what you read here is what you get. You know most everything already. He has no secrets. I could cat bomb the blog, but that would be just...wrong, but he likes dogs. I'm sure he won't mind if I post a photo of my sweet, adorable pooch, Ruby...
Awwwwwww, you know she's a cutie! Now you see why I quit running my own blog?????
July 17, 2004spanish lessonsIt's a three-hour drive from San Jose to Jaco Beach. My driver today was Jose, who is the fellow who picked me up at the airport on my first vist to Costa Rice. Jose speaks pretty good English, but when I saw him in the hotel lobby, I spoke nothing but my pidgin Spanish to him until we were well on the road. He told me that I had gotten much better at espanol than I was the first time he met me. I told him... Yo hablo espanol porque quiero ser major como su lingua. That was supposed to mean, "I speak Spanish because I want to be better with your language." I don't know if I said what I meant, but he understood me. "Bueno," he replied. I took a Spanish lesson for the next three hours and it was a good one. I also gave him English lessons, too. I now know that a racoon is a mapache in Spanish. I also know the difference between a calle and an I learned a lot of other words, but my favorite part of the trip came when we passed a couple of typically good-looking Costa Rican wimmen walking down the road. "Dios mio, I said. "Muchas chicas bonitas aqui, todas con grande tetis." Jose asked me, "Como se dice in English 'tetis'? I said, and I am quoting to the best of my recollection: "Breasts is the polite word. But usually, hombres call them Boobs, Jugs, Tits, Nay-Nays, Melons, Ta-Tas, Bazongas, Headlights, a Rack..." and Jose stopped me there. "Iraq?" he asked, appearing very puzzled. I had to explain that I didn't say "Iraq;" I said A RACK, as in a rack of lamb or a deer with big antlers. He nodded his head, then gave me about a dozen Spanish words for the same anatomical appendage. Then, he pointed to his groinal area. "Como se dice in English 'peni'?" I said, "Penis is the polite word. But Dick, Cock, Pecker, Meat, One-Eyed Monk, Trouser Snake, Tube Steak, Roscoe..." and Jose cut me off again. "Roscoe?" he asked. I told him to forget about that one because that was the name I gave my personal anatomical appendage. He grinned. Then, he gave me about a dozen Spanish words for the same thing. We discussed a woman's... vagina... with the same results. We both could come up with ABOUT A DOZEN WORDS to say the same thing. Isn't that an interesting thing about language? A bird is a bird, no matter what language you speak. But tits, cocks and pussies have dozens of names, and I'll bet that's true all over the world. Not much of a post, but the discussion sure made the time fly.
My DadI've always wanted to post something about my dad. Many people like to leave comments and bullshit about him when they know absolutely nothing. Here are some things about Acidman that I know some of you out there don't want to read.
It's AcidaughterWhile Acidman is out cruising the beaches of Coasta Rica in search of beautiful women, red toenails, and good music, his lovely daughter has broken in and taken over Gut Rumbles. I sure hope all you acidfans don't mind. I'll only be here a while, and for the acid-obsessed trolls out there, fuck you. Start in with me and I'll track you down and violently murder in your sleep.
guest bloggerI may have a guest blogger posting on this site while I'm enjoying myself in Costa Rica. I don't have handy access to a computer, so posting from me will be light, although I will try to check in every day. Some of you people know who she is, but I'm not going to say. Either she identifies herself or you figure it out.
my spanishI know that my Spanish sucks. I speak in the present tense all the time, I have a limited vocabulary and I sound as if I'm reading from a Dick and Jane primer to someone fluent in the language. Yeah, I'm kinda like Johnny Weismuller's Tarzan ("Me Tarzan. You Jane.") or one of those heathen Indians from an old western movie ("White man bad. Speak with forked tongue. Indian no trust."). But I'm getting better. I still have troulbe with the difference between "estar" and "ser," the difference between "mucho" and "mas," and the difference between "bueno" and "bien." I'll tell you what else fucks me up frequently. The Spanish language has GENDER!!!! Yes, gender in the true meaning of the word, not some kind of pussyfied, politically-correct, hide from the truth bullshit people use when they really mean sex. If a dog has a litter of puppies, some are male and some are female. They are male or female because of their SEX, not their goddam "gender." But in Spanish, words are different by gender. You have "chicas bonitas," who are "muy buena." But you also have "ninos bonitos" who are "muy bueno." Something can be either "linda" or "lindo," depending on what it is. THAT is goddam GENDER, folks. And people who use the word "gender" when they mean sex should be dragged off and shot for being the cowardly asshole that they are.
New digsI am at Jaco Beach now. (That's pronounced "Wha-ko" in espanol, which sounds a lot like Whacko. I should fit right in here. I am staying in the finest hotel room I've ever occupied. It's a three-room suite with air conditioning, color TV, refrigerator, stove, microwave, a king-sized bed, and I'm about 200 feet from the Pacific Ocean. I like this better than San Jose.
strange dreamLast night I dreamed that my mama asked me to hold services at her church. She told me that the preacher was sick and they didn't have anybody to fill in for him. She had all her hair in my dream and she appeared to be ten years younger. "You're a good public speaker," she said. "Why don't you do it for me?" I told her that I couldn't. I couldn't get up behind a pulpit and say things that I don't believe. I couldn't lie to those people. She started crying and I woke up. Mama worries that I'm going to hell for being an athiest. I don't believe in God. I don't believe in life everlasting, nor do I believe that sinning unbelivers spend eternity burning in hell. I believe that when you die, that's it. It's just like being anesthesized for surgery except you never wake up. You don't dream and your "soul" goes nowhere. I don't see The Hand Of God working in this world. I believe that life is chaos, then you die. You control a lot of your own destiny by the choices YOU make, but you don't control it all. Sometimes, Shit Just Happens through no fault of your own. That's the chaos part of life. When a Shit Just Happens moment occurs in life, a lot of people try to explain it by saying, "It's God's will," or "God is testing you." I want to upchuck when I hear that shit. Why the hell would God "test" anybody? If he's omnipotent, he already knows how you'll do on the test. And why would it be "God's will" to give a 13 year-old boy a fatal case of cancer when he let Adolph Hitler live to do what Hitler did? In MY humble opinion, all religions are the result of superstitious people trying desperaetly to explain the unexplainable in life. If religion makes you feel better, fine. I've got no problem with that. But I look at the sex scandals in the Catholic church and the mad mullahs of Islam, and I ain't real impressed. There IS no God. Frightened people and people craving power INVENTED him.
July 16, 2004i was propositionedI went down to the hotel bar around 9:30 last night for a nightcap before retiring. I started talking to a well-dressed fellow at the bar and he asked me what I thought of Costa Rican wimmen. "Muy hermosa," I replied. "Mi gusta mucho." "Tu quieres una chica?" My Spanish isn't that good, but I know "Do you want a woman" when I hear it. Evidently this guy runs kind of a free-lance escort service with a few wimmen working for him. I asked him how much, and he replied that the woman and I could decide on a price, but he could have one up to my room in 30 minutes if I was interested. I declined the offer. To tell you the truth, I was too tired to enjoy sex after all the walking I did yesterday. But the guy gave me his business card and asked me to call him if I changed my mind. I might do that. I have to admit: The Conquistadors injected some mighty fine genes into Costa Rican wimmen. They are beautiful, nicely shaped and they dress to show off what they've got. That's one of the big reasons I like walking the streets. It's a beautiful country in more ways than one.
Chop suey with cervesaCosta Rica has a fairly large Tiawaneese population. They flock here in droves as tourists, and many of them stay and open small businesses. I dropped into "Wan's Restaurant and Bar" yesterday, where I drank Imperial beer (since that pissant STOLE the six pack I bought at the market) and ate a plate of chop suey big enough to choke a horse. The bill for two beers and the food was 1200 colones, or less than three dollars. I intend to back there today, just because I liked the place. The owners jabber in Chinese behind the counter and in the kitchen, switch to Spanish for the local customers and manage enough English to handle the touristas, too. I was impressed. Today is the first day I've seen the sun shine since I got here.
bush es maloA lot of Costa Ricans I talked to yesterday do not like George Bush. They blame him for causing a recession in the US that hurt the Costa Rican economy. They also don't like the war in Iraq. Bush es un caballero loco. (I finally found an English language keyboard to type on.) I don't know enough Spanish to debate these people, but I stuck up for my President. "Bush es el jefe magnifico. Tiene los cojones del toro." That was supposed to mean that Bush is a magnificent leader with the balls of a bull. It didn't get me into a fight, so everything worked out okay. I didn't come here to be political, but they started it.
third time's the charmI'm going to try my luck walking the the market and back again today. I think I know what I'm doing now. What the hell-- I've been lost twice already and all it cost me was a lot of walking and a six-pack of stolen beer. I saw some things in my meanderings yesterday that I've not seen in Costa Rica before. I suppose I pretty well got off the beathen track. I saw a guy sleeping on the sidewalk in a cardboard box. Actually I didn't see the guy-- just the box and a pair of legs sticking out of it. I also saw some really skanky character rummaging through a garbage can and eating breakfast off what he discovered there. I KNOW such people exist in every city everywhere, but I had never seen them here before.
July 15, 2004interesting dayThe two hour time differene here had me up at 3 AM this morning. (if my punctuation seems a little off, I blame it on the Spanish keyboard. Some of these keys don't produce what they are supposed to.) I watched the sun come up and decided to take another walk into town. I was certain that after yesterday, I could find my way back. I did, too, after about four hours of walking. I got robbed on the streets of San Jose and mangos were involved. I stopped at a grocery store in the market area and bought a six pack of Imperial beer. I thought I knew where I was. Up ahead was the internet cafe where I asked the cab driver for directions yesterday, and my hotel was three blocks down and two block to the right from there. But instead of retracing my steps, I decided to explore. If I go two blocks to right from HERE, THEN turn left, I should run into the right place. I didn't. I don't know where in the hell I was, so I started asking for directions to the Fleur de Lyes Hotel. Nobody ever heard of it, until a young boy stepped up and said he knew where it was. He looked a little scruffy and he could have used a bath, but what the hell. I followed him. Somewhere along the way he offered to carry my bag for me. I thought he was simply gunning for a nice tip, and that beer was getting heavy by then, so I let him take my bag. He led me hither and yon for about ten minutes, then said UNO MOMENTO and ran across to the other side of the street. He picked up a stick and starting knocking mangos out of a tree and stuffing them into my bag. I looked around and saw the Holiday Inn just a block or two away. I can see that building in the distance from my hotel balcony and I knew immediately that the little shit didn't know where the hell my hotel was. "Mi hotel no esta aqui," I said. He offered me a mango. I refused, explaining as best I could that mangos and I don't get along. I turned and pointed to the Holiday Inn. "No esta aqui," I repeated. By the time I turned back around, that sumbitch was sprinting away with my beer and his mangos tucked like a fucking football under his arm. I yelled OYE! but he never even looked back. I wasn't about to chase him, so I lost a six pack of beer to a thief. I made it back to my room by walking ALL THE WAY back to the market, going to where I saw the cab driver and walking back the way I should have come in the first place. I was just about tired of walking by then. But I learned something. You've got petty thieves in Costa Rica, just like everywhere else.
July 14, 2004i'm here!I arrived in Costa Rica safe and sound. Riding First Class is one hell of a lot better than flying coach, but it's still seven hours on an airplane and I am tired. Plus, I got lost for about two hours on the streets of San Jose this afternoon. I'm staying at a different hotel this time and I went walking and forgot how to get back to it. I knew EXACTLY where in was on the street--- hell, I walked past the first hotel I stayed in TWICE--- but I finally had to stop a cab driver and ask for directions to get back home. I remembered my camera this time, so I hope to post a lot of pictures this trip. It's rained like hell most of the day, but the weather is clearing now and tomorrow looks promising. I've found a store that sells Imperial beer and a nice restaurant that serves fish, shrimp and black beans with rice. I'm set.
July 13, 2004one moreHow long do house spiders live? I've had this same brown spider behind the commode in the Master Bathroom since I moved into the Crackerbox almost three years ago. It's weaved webs all the way up to the ceiling now. It ran a stringer clear over to the towel rack about a year ago and I broke that one. "Bad spider," I told it. "You can have all of this house you want behind the commode, but stay out of my towel rack." I believe that the damned thing knew what I said. It never again tried a horizontal attack on my bathroom. It went vertical. It went REALLY vertical. That's a healthy, web-spinning spider and it's welcome to stay right where it is. I like looking at the artistry of the web, and it catches and eats mosquitoes, too. I like my spider. I don't have to feed it, it doesn't shit on the floor and it never whines at night. How long does a brown house spider live?
off to the rodeoI gotta go to bed early tonight. My flight leaves at 7:15 tomorrow, which means I have to be at the airport no later than 6:00. Even 6:00 is cutting it close for me. If I have one truly anal trait in my nature, it's a sense of punctuality. I am NEVER late for ANYTHING. People who are NEVER ON TIME really chap my ass. That's one thing that drove me right up the wall at Kerr-McGee. I didn't like to go to meetings in the first place, and I went to very few that accomplished anything, but I REALLY GOT PISSED when the same people ALWAYS showed up late every time, for every meeting. You probably work with at least one prick like that. I knew what they were doing. Flying into a meeting five minutes late was supposed to demonstrate to the boss just how fucking BUSY they were. (Kerr-McGee likes that. You're supposed to be late, run around like a chicken with it's head cut off, have your shittail hanging out and look stressed all the time. That's how you become a valuable Human Resource.) I didn't buy that horse-shit. I saw it all as a Time Management issue. If you have so much work that you can NEVER make a meeting on time, you can't handle the job you've got. Other people manage--- why can't you? I'll catch my plane on time tomorrow. I always do.
communityWhen I was talking to the reporter from People Magazine today, she asked me why I kept blogging when I began to suspect that it might cost me a lot if I kept doing it. I gave her three reasons. First, I know good and well that I would be dead now if I didn't have this blog. Only people from the Original Crew or the ones who go 'waaaay back in the archives know just how hurt and broken I was when I started writing on the internet. I DID wake up every morning and look at my alarm clock on one side of the bed and a .38 pistol on the other side and wonder which one I would reach for. I was that bad off. Second, writing every evening gave me something to do to fill in TIME, which weighed on me like a ton of bricks in those days. I couldn't sleep, I couldn't eat, I knew the woman I STILL loved was screwing around like a mink in heat, right in front of my face and my friends, and I had a dead dick and an ugly scar running from my navel to my crotch. I lost 30 pounds and I've never gained it back, and I wasn't a real hefty guy to begin with. If I wasn't busy doing something else, I dwelled on that shit and it sucked me into a black hole of depression. I could fill in the sunset hours at my keyboard and I didn't think about anything else. That was a blessing. Third, I feel a sense of "community" in the blog-world. If you look down my blogroll, you'll find some interesting people there. I've met a bunch of them by now, and I hope to meet many more, but I know it's unlikely that I'll ever see 'em all. Still, I believe that I KNOW THOSE PEOPLE!!! They are like an extended family to me. Some of them piss me off, some of them make me laugh and some of them make me want to hug them--- you know, just like family. I don't know what it is, but something about blogging makes me feel connected and I got that feeling at a time in my life when I needed it the most. I thought that I had lost everything. I was sinking fast. But I didn't drown. I always reached for the alarm clock instead of the .38. I did that because of the Original Crew and the outlet for my emotions that I found here. You can like me or you can hate me--- I just ask that you understand one thing: this blog cost me my job and it's causing me problems in divorce court. But it saved my life. That's the truth.
drive-in moviesI passed a drive-in movie theater on the way back from Folly Beach a month or so ago. You seldom see those big screens with the elevated car-bumps in the parking lot anymore. I miss them. I got laid a lot at drive-in movies in my younger days. There are few drive ins left in operation. Before this drive in, I think the last show I had seen at one was Disney’s “Black Hole”. The best way to enjoy a drive in is to prep well for it. Stock up an ice chest full of Cold Ones and goodies, because a Drive In is more of a tailgate party than just going to the movies. As soon as they switch the features, we will be going again. That's from the mad ogre and he knows whereof he speaks. Going to the drive-in once was a rite of passage, a glorious experience, a place to make out and watch a movie at the same time. Even shitty popcorn tasted good there, especially after you smoked a good joint and watched Moses part the Red Sea. I liked drive-in movies in the winter, when I could throw a blanket in the car and "snuggle" with my date under that blanket when we got cold. Man, I did a whole bunch of snuggling back then. Fogged-up windows and a blanket leave a lot of room for exploration at a drive-in movie. I've searched the floorboards for a missing bra more than once after a rewarding night of snuggling. Damn! If I ever win the lottery and become stinking rich, I'm going to open a drive-in movie theater. I owe it to The Children.
that's a hootI was just interviewed by a reporter from People Magazine. She's doing a story on "Blogs That Ruined My Life." I don't know if I really qualify, because my life is not ruined, but my blog has cost me a lot, and I ain't talking about money. I spoke to her the same way I write on the blog: wide-open and honest. Maybe I'll have 15 minutes of fame in my future.
i like his commentsI like people who express themselves eloquently, with a crisp bite of sarcasm and that tell-tale edge of anger that burns in every sensible person's soul. Yeah. this guy does that. Go shake his hand.
4.6 GPAI received a totally illiterate email from someone who claimed to have a "4.6 (GPA) in school." Man, that's really high. The best you could EVER do when I was in school was a 4.0. That meant straight "A" grades in every class. I was a jockstrap and not really focused on subjects that I didn't like in high school. I graduated with a 2.9 GPA. Trigonometry really sunk me. I almost failed that course. I liked words and reading. I didn't like or understand math. I did well in courses that I enjoyed and bombed those that I didn't. I made 1166 on my college board exam the first time I took it, and I was as hung-over as a drunken sailor that morning. Some friends and I utilized a fake ID to purchase demon rum and we drank most of the night before the test. That wasn't the best planning I ever did in my life, but my score was high enough to get me into the schools I was interested in attending. I sorta figured that Harvard was out of the question. I was graduated from college with a 3.01 GPA, just low enough to keep me from having an honors degree, and economics plus biology did that to me. I hated both courses and scraped by with a fucking "D" in both of them. I then took the GRE exam (sober), scored over 1400 on it and went to graduate school, where I had a 3.8 GPA. I didn't have to take courses I didn't like (except for Sociology-- which I aced--- it's a bullshit "science") in grad school. I don't understand this 4.6 GPA bullshit. In my day, things were simple. A=4. B=3. C=2. D=1. F=0. How do you make a fucking 4.6? I'll tell you how that happened. Most teachers can't teach, most students won't learn and the stats were looking really bad. So, they changed the benchmarks to make everybody LOOK better. Nothing changed with the teaching and the learning, but the numbers sure shot up. 4.6, my aching ass. I read recently that we're going to be blessed with a more "fair" test for the SAT. Maybe somebody can score 2000 out of 1600 on that one.
which would you rather be?Sometimes it doesn't take much to get the wheels spinning in my head. I don't always gain traction when that happens, but I usually write about it anyway. Here is my question: Would you rather be a piano player in a whorehouse or a politician? What's the difference? My answer? *The piano player in the whorehouse is doing honest work, unlike a politician. *He admits that he works in a whorehouse, unlike a politician. *He'll play your requests without asking for a campaign donation, unlike a politician. *He doesn't get pussy on the side and try to hide it, unlike a politician. *When he tinkles the ivories, he's making music, not flashing a capped-toothed smile for the TV cameras, unlike a politician. *A whorehouse piano player also knows when to quit playing, unlike a politician. You can probably figure out which one I prefer.
high-speed shitI don't know where this guy finds these stories, but he's getting good for a chuckle a day now. Heh. this one reminds me of the tale about grandpa running his brand-new model T into the outhouse and ending up dipped in shit. "It was quite the sight," said Alan Brittin, a Yakima County Jail inmate on contract from Auburn who was involved in the chase. "Imagine a honey bucket doing 90 miles an hour." No, I cannot imagine that. I REFUSE to imagine that.
the beardI got rid of my beard. I chickened out on the buzz-cut and kept my moustache and a well-trimmed goatee, but the rest of the facial hair is gone. Samantha and Stacey were right. I DO look younger. I don't FEEL any younger, but I damn sure look better. I wonder how the chicas bonitas in Costa Rica will like my new look? I didn't pursue that sort of exploration on my last trip. I intend to this time.
a new walletI bought a new wallet to take to Costa Rica. The wallet I've been carrying for about five years now is worn out, falling apart and pretty well shot in the ass. Today, I unloaded the old wallet and loaded the new one. I don't know why, but I almost felt as if someone I loved had died. Quinton bought me the old wallet for Father's Day when he was half the age he is now. I hate to throw the ragged old thing away. It carries a lot of memories. I found all kinds of stuff in there (phone numbers, notes from work, some crap that I couldn't identify and an old blank check with my mini-farm address on it). I tossed every bit of it in the trash. The new wallet is a good, sturdy, leather model that should last me at least another five years. But I'm going to miss the old one. It was special. It rode on the right cheek of my ass for a long time.
She means wellThe lovely Ms. Georgia just called me in a panic to warn me that the weather is freezing in Argentina. I said, "So? I'm not going to Argentina. I'm going to Costa Rica." "Yeah, but that's somewhere close to Argentina, isn't it? It's in South America, isn't it? I just thought you ought to know that it's winter down there. I don't want you to freeze to death." Thank you, Georgia, but Costa Rica is in Central America, not South America. It's a long way from Argentina. The 10-day forecast I checked before I packed my bags shows high temperatures in the low eighties and low temperatures in the upper sixties for San Jose. I believe that I can handle that kind of weather without freezing to death. I'll probably get wet, because it's still the rainy season, but I'm not packing any long-johns or a winter coat. I don't think I'll need 'em. (By the way, Recondo and Georgia saw the Grand Canyon yesterday and they intend to spend tonight in Las Vegas. They may get to Seattle one of these days.)
a racist rantYeah, go read this racist rant. The fact that it was written by a black man doesn't remove the poison from it. Many young blacks likewise regard speaking correct English, or even observing the rules of polite society, as "acting white." White liberals often cheer them on in their self-destructive behavior or at least "understand" them and defend them. What? Blacks are "used" by the left? That can't be true. That would make them... well, SLAVES.
My daughter
Samantha and Stacey made it home okay. But they did get wet along the way. That looks a lot like Panama Beach to me.
wide range of choicesWhat is the single most significant event in human history? I heard that question asked on the History Channel yesterday and I've been thinking about it ever since. I believe that learning to build a fire and the invention of the wheel are pretty significant. The discovery of the New World, the printing press and Napolean's defeat in Russia qualify, too. The American Revolution was significant, as was our victory in World War II. Jonas Salk's polio vaccine, microchip technology and the Personal Computer have to rank fairly high. I would suggest that landing a man on the moon was significant, but people became bored quickly with that one and we dropped the ball on taking space flight any further. Here's MY pick for the most significant event in human history: The Invention of the Atomic Bomb. That one scientific breakthrough changed the world the way nothing else has done. Man finally figured out a way to wipe himself off the face of the planet. The fact that we DIDN'T wipe ourselves off the face of the planet during the Cold War is testimony to a little bit of good sense among world leaders, but it's more a testimony to the awesome power of the atomic bomb. Mutual Assured Destruction worked to keep peace. Today, we still live in the shadow of the bomb. Terrorists will get one some fine day and they, unlike responsible people who avoided blowing everything up during the Cold War, will use it, probably in a place such as New York City or downtown Los Angeles. I believe that it's only a matter of time before the atomic bomb changes the world again. Anybody got a better pick? (UPDATE: I didn't think about beer when I was making my list. But it just might be the real winner.)
more proofYes, children, global warming is real and people are dying as a result. Temperatures reached minus 6.8 degrees Celsius (19.8 degrees F) in the state of Rio Grande do Sul on Sunday, the lowest mark of the year, while the neighboring state of Santa Catarina was hit by the coldest temperature in 10 years, minus seven degrees (19.4 degrees F). You'd think those wonderful computer climate models that pretend to predict the weather 50 years from now could have seen this event coming. Oh. They're not accurate on the forecast for a week from now but THEY ARE accurate for 50 years in the future. I see. Global warming is a crock.
July 12, 2004ready to goI got a head start on my trip to Costa Rica today by packing everything I'm going to take with me. It's all zipped-up and ready to go. Two bags, one that I'll send as cargo and one that I'll use as a carry-on. I could probably fit everything I'm taking with me into the carry-on bag, but those alleged "security screeners" at the airport would confiscate my nail clippers and my Bic disposable razor to prevent me from hijacking the goddam airplane, and that would chap my ass. Does anybody buy a ticket to Costa Rica and hijack an airplane to KEEP IT FROM GOING THERE??? If that's ever happened I want to meet the idiot who did it. I want to bitch-slap that foolish bastard. Where could you POSSIBLY want to go that's any better than Costa Rica? I haven't found that place yet. But, since we are in a war against terrorism, we have THE GOVERNMENT handling airport security and it is tight. I've had to take my shoes off TWICE in the past year as I went through an airport, while Apu, Abdulla and Mohammed walked right through without being stopped. Checking arabs because we're being attacked by arab terrorists is "profiling," which is a form of racism that we cannot tolerate today. So, my Bic razor and my nail clippers will fly in the cargo bay, in the name of National Security. Me and my carry-on will be riding First Class.
rooting for the underdogIs it just me, or is it an American trait to root for the underdog? I LIKE IT when somebody unknown wins a big golf tournament or some team spotting a lot of points upsets the favorite. I don't want to see that shit happen to my beloved Georgia Bulldogs, but given any other contest, where I haven't placed a bet, I pull for the underdog. Maybe I do that because I am not a big man and I often thought of myself as the underdog. Underdogs have to try harder, but they can bite you if you don't watch out. Yeah... I like the underdogs. But I don't like that term, "Underdog." I write frequently about "Tall Dogs" and I know exactly what they are. Tall dogs strut and assert dominance. The term "underdog" implies whimpering and sprawling on your back when intimidated by a Tall Dog. I've never done that and I never will. Have you ever seen a smaller dog whip the shit out of a bigger dog simply because he had more fight in him? I have. And that's always been my philosophy in life: "It ain't the size of the dog in the fight. It's the size of the fight in the dog." Maybe that's why I root for the underdog.
10 reasons why i hate black peopleIn response to the email posted below: 1) I DON'T hate black people. But a lot of people believe that I do, so fuck it. 2) Racism exists in this country and I'm sorry to say that it always will. So will sexism, classism, eliteism and every other kind of "ism" you can name. People have ALWAYS picked on anyone they could, and they always will. That's simple human nature and you'll see it over and over again if you study history. 3) Being black is no excuse for failure. You may have a steeper climb, but you can make it. Look around. A lot of black people have. You can do it, too. 4) Stop making your own bed and bitching about sleeping in it. Black people who listen to Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton and expect the government to give them something for nothing are blind sheep. Those "leaders" have a vested interest in keeping the slaves on the plantation. If you listen to them, that's where you'll stay. 5) Learn to read and write. That's not "acting white." That's the key to success anywhere you want to go. And ANYBODY can master those tools. 6) Nobody ever said life was fair. It ain't and it never will be. Get over that fact. You're not the only people ever pissed on by life. Look at the Jews and the Vietnamese. THEY were pissed on, but they didn't lay there in the puddle to be pissed on again. 7) I've never liked labor unions because they preach the lowest common denominator as a standard for performance. I do not believe that we should dumb down the rest of society, create "4.6" GPAs and engage in the tacit racism of low expectations for black people. That kind of crap only exacerbates the problem. 8) Black men: raise your goddam children. I've heard this shit too often to recall--- some 20-something black guy bragging to his buddies at work that he KNOWS he's a man because he's sired three children by different wimmen. He doesn't know his kid's names, but that doesn't matter to him. He thinks he's a man. Dogs do what he did. Fathers don't. 9) Accept responsibility for your own actions. I know that it's a lot to ask in today's victim-oriented society, but do you really believe that hip-hop and rap, ebonics and baggy pants are the way to get out of the ghetto? I don't think so. I believe it's the way to keep yourself mired there and it's YOUR CHOICE TO MAKE. 10) Blame all of your problems on ME. That's right. If you are unemployed, living on a welfare check, semi-raising illegitimate children and unable to read the want ads in the newspaper, I DID THAT TO YOU. Me. Whitey. It ain't YOUR fault. Racist bastards such as myself took away every opportunity in your life, made you drop out of school and become pregnant or a jailbird and bitter because manna from heaven didn't fall right into your lap. Just do me one simple favor. Take a good, long look in the mirror before you point a finger at me. Okay, there's a racist rant. Now, all you bleeding hearts and Acidman-haters can have a field day with it.
i love to be lovedFrom my email: I don't know who the fuck you think you are but, you need to relize that all black people aren't the same and all black people aren't dumb. I'm a 12 year old black female and I have a 4.6 in school right now and I'm not on walefare so I'm making a go of life in this country. You see its people like you that piss me the fuck off because you think that none of the black people are civilized intelligent people. Black people nearly built this fuckin country because lazy white fuckers like you couldn't do shit but sit on your got damn ass. White people wouldn't of never been better off without us because we have done so much for this country. Who made the cell phone? Or the gas mask, the mailbox, blood banks, the sole of a shoe, incandescent light bulbs? It sure wasn't anybody white because most white people don't do shit. Also black people aren't the only people who commit crimes in this country. A lot of white males beat their wives, white children kill each other and most white women are whores and porn stars. And guess who has us over in Iraq getting all of our soilders killed? BINGO, you guessed it a white man. I also really don't understand why white people call black people colored either. Its crazy because when white people are born they're pink, angry = red, sick = green and when they die they're gray. And no we aren't going to Africa if you don't like it take your old ass over there and die miserable. I really hope you get some of the hatred of of your heart before you croak. But I guess you just are a racist, red neck cracker and a dumb, ugly, old, rotten fucker. Just drink some prune juice and let this shit go. I'm pretty sure this one is a troll, but I enjoyed reading it. For a 12 year-old girl with a "4.6 in school," she sure has a fucking eloquent vocabulary. She can't spell or punctuate, but what the hell. They don't teach that stuff in school anymore. They give people 4.6 GPAs just for showing up. But I did learn one thing from this letter. I honestly did not know that Thomas Edison was black.
July 11, 2004understand my upbringingI was raised by a long line of Kentucky hillbillies. My grandfather once made moonshine so that he could sell it and buy shoes for his 5 children to wear to school. I see no evil in what my grandfather did. I knew him well and a more honest, fair man you'll NEVER find on the face of this planet. My dad was the youngest section foreman ever to achieve that position in the Harlan County coal mines. He was 23 years old when he was promoted, and he worked with rough cobs in that hole. He did well and earned their respect. I remember seeing my father come home from the mine looking as black as any African American I've ever seen. Coal dust was a part of life in Harlan County back then. My daddy wore it proudly because it put groceries on the table and clothes on my back. I was taught to achieve. I was taught to read and write. I was given the tools I needed in this world by MY PARENTS, who wanted the best for me and my brother. "Given?" No, that's the wrong word. I had a work ethic and a sense of responsibility HAMMERED into my head. Second best didn't mean shit to my father and he always set the bar high. Mama was always there, but she expected the best you could do, too. My parents taught both me and my brother to do well in life. I played football on a championship team that lost a total of three games in three years. I was the youngest General Foreman ever to achieve that rank at the plant where I worked. I was making more money than my father was when he died. I suppose that he was proud of me, but I'll never know for sure because he never told me. My brother is a high-octane litigator, feared far and wide in courtrooms all over the counrty. For a couple of hillbilly boys, we both did well. So, when you want to call me a "virulent racist," just stop a moment and think. I grew up poor and didn't KNOW that I was poor until I hit high school. The first steak I ever ate I bought with my own money and cooked for myself. I was 20 years old at the time. What black people call "soul food" today was a staple at my house. Cornbread and pinto beans ("miner's strawberries,") according to my dad, and fried fatback (salt bacon) was a delicacy. We ate a lot of potatoes and leftover stew. I got a college degree. The first person on EITHER SIDE of the family to actually graduate from college. I'm still proud of that. I did it, and I worked two jobs the entire time I was in school. I'll never use the N-word again. That just distracts people from the real meat of the matter. You can start from the base roots and make something of yourself if you are bound and determined to do it. Or, you can sit on your ass and whine about the curve balls life throws you. Those who sit on their ass and whine deserve the N-word. They don't have to live that way. You want a really obscene word? Try "choice."
just for conjectureI don't read oliver willis very often. He's a good writer, but he's too lefty for me to take as a steady diet. Oh! Did I forget to mention that he's black? Excuse me. He calles ME a "virulent racist" so I should call him black, or worse, just to live up to my reputation. Let's get this part out of the way. I will never, EVER use the forbidden N-word on this blog again. I took that vow several months ago, and tonight I'm making it public. I will censor MYSELF to protect delicate ears and eyes. As a "virulent racist," I believe that it's the least I can do. But I will NEVER have someone hand me a dog turd and tell me to call it a rose. I will tiptoe through the tulips of political correctness only so far. I don't judge people by the color of their skin or their sex. I judge people by their capabilities and their performance. I spent too many years of my life as a supervisor in a chemical plant with a 60% black work force to believe any differently. If you want to know whether I'm a racist or not, ASK THE PEOPLE WHO ONCE WORKED FOR ME!!! Oliver, you liberal dickwad, judge me not when you don't know me. Oh, hell. I just judged YOU, didn't I? Well... I'm letting that liberal dickwad label stick.
god done goodI just received a call from Recondo 32 and his lovely wife, Georgia. They are somewhere in Arizona now, after spending the night in Santa Fe, New Mexico. I mentioned, being alert the way I am, that Arizona was NOT on that diagonal course they planned to take on the way to Seattle. They told me that how they got where they are is a long story and I probably didn't want to hear it. I didn't ask questions about how they got there. But I DID ask Recondo about what the country looked like out there. He summed up something I've felt numerous times in my life. "God done good."
ow!The grass is cut, the hedges are trimmed and the yard looks good. That job should last until I get back from Costa Rica. I have one question. I used all kinds of power tools with whirling blades on them to do my yardwork today and I walked away without a scratch. But I went inside to take a piss when I was finished and caught my dick in my fucking zipper as I was closing my pants. OW! Damn, but that hurt. Have you (male readers only) ever done that? Hurts, don't it? Then, when you realize what you've done, you have to grab the zipper and hurt yourself some more by pulling it DOWN to get your dick out of the wringer. I guess that's what I deserve by going commando most of the time. Oh, man. This just hasn't been my day.
another picture
That's my bald-headed mama and my beautiful daughter again. I don't feel much like writing today. I'm very pissed with the way Jennifer ditched Quinton in a place where I wouldn't allow him to stay, while I remain on her absolute shit-list of places my boy can be. If you step back and look at the big picture, she HAS to be doing this crap out of sheer meanness. I cannot find any other reason to explain her actions. Quinton has more family than just his mama and whatever dick she wants to suck into my boy's life. I had a difficult time with Samantha during her teenage years, but we've come a long way toward resolving those differences. I feel really good about that fact. I do not want to lose my son. I don't believe that I should, either. I haven't seen my boy since the middle of February, except for a few ball games I attended. That's SIX FUCKING MONTHS and Jennifer will drop him off with a pair of drunks, but keep MY SON away from ME. I would say that the whoring bitch needs to be dragged off and shot, but she'll excerpt that post from my blog and use it against me in court the way she's done before. So, I won't say that about the whoring bitch. No, she needs to live long and prosper. My mama loves Quinton. Samantha loves Quinton. Neither one has seen my boy in a long, long time. Mama has cancer. She's gone through all the chemo the doctors could throw at her and she's not cured. She's not GONNA BE CURED. I know that fact and I believe that she does, too. Nature will take its course and whatever happens, happens. But in the meantime, my ex-wife continues a vendetta against NOT ONLY ME, but my entire family. That's just pure-assed vile, vindictive and vicious. My family means a lot to me and it should to Quinton, too. But he may never know what he missed. Jennifer, I hope you are proud of yourself. Bejus knows only YOU could be.
a brother of mineThis guy needs to start a blog. Here’s how it worked in a nutshell: The local logging provided jobs, the timber-sale markers provided funds for the local schools, the retail businesses thrived, the forests looked better then because they were maintained and managed. The local economy was self-sustaining. The communities were small but they thrived. Now the area is full of ghost-towns, the local schools are now dependent on Federal funds and gimmicks like state lotteries for their funding, the saw-mill has long been dismantled and shipped to Mexico, and what was once a great place to raise children is now a play-ground for rich schmucks from back east wearing their Birkenstocks, riding their mountain bikes and driving their $40,000 BMW’s with a fucking Sierra Club sticker on the bumper. They click their tongues at the quaint locals and, if the locals are lucky, maybe these schmucks might throw a couple of bucks their way buying some stupid t-shirt with a wolf on the front. I like the guy's attitude. I think it's a lot more healthy than what we get from environmentalists today.
such is lifeA wicked thunderstorm blew through here around 8:00 last night. The electricity was out for two hours and the lightning was like a strobe light in my windows. Thunder rolled continuously, like a kettle drummer on meth. The rain fell hard and sideways, in drops big enough that they sounded like hammer blows on my roof. Henry came over just as the electricity went out. He was drunk and wanting some more beer. I gave him some, and he told me that Quinton was spending the night at Jack's house again. "Yeah, I had to take Jack back home before I started drinking, because that ex-wife of yours called MY Jennifer and asked if Quinton could spend the night. She must be really busy on weekends." I am certain that she is. When Henry told me that, I called the ex and got the answering machine. Big surprise. Last weekend, half the Rincon police department was at Jack's house after a domestic dispute that resulted in beatings and loud cussing. Even Crazy Henry doesn't think that it's a fit place for a young'un over there. "They get drunk and beat each other up," he told me. "Jennifer is five months pregnant. What's a PREGNANT WOMAN doing getting drunk and having a fist-fight with her husband?" I'll tell you what she was doing THIS weekend. Giving my son a place to stay while his mama went out to get her pussy lathered up. I want someone to explain to me how MY ex-wife Jennifer sees nothing wrong with dumping Quinton in a house run by unstable people with police records while she has a court order to keep Quinton away from the Crackerbox. In her eyes, I am an unfit guardian for my own son, but two drunken, battling strangers are NOT? I want to hear her explain that logic to a judge. I have NEVER had the police come to my house except to serve me with another bullshit warrant or another court order that Jennifer issues whenever she gets bored. And I end up paying HER LAWYER when she does that shit. My ex-wife really IS a bloodless cunt.
a comment on a commentIn response to a post I wrote about the stealth tactics of the Sierra Club in courting hunters for woodland protection, I received this missive: I own guns, I am a (life)member of the NRA, but I don't hunt (anymore). But anyone who needs a roadway and a vehicle to go hunting is a fucking pussy. That kind of "hunter" would be better served by going to one of the "game ranches" we have down here in TX where you can shoot an animal that's just been let out of it's cage from the comfort of your air-conditioned SUV. I think Mr. Small and I are talking about two different subjects. I know what he means when he speaks of "game ranches." I once went quail hunting in a place where the birds were raised in cages, set out the morning of the hunt, and so goddam tame that they wouldn't fly. You could reach into a thicket and pick one up in your hand. That was total bullshit to me. I never fired my shotgun that day. But I HAVE walked five miles through the woods to go fishing, and when I had a stringer full of bass and bream, I hiked five miles back out with my fish. I remember thinking at the time, "I'm glad that I quit fishing when I did." If I were a deer hunter (which I am NOT), I want a got-damn ROAD nearby. I don't consider myself to be a "pussy." I have been deer hunting. I have helped other hunters haul a kill 500 yards to the nearest road. That's a lot of work. Five miles is out of the question. And the "tinder" piles up year after year because environmentalists won't allow good forest management practices. Paper companies own a lot of land in Effingham County, Georgia. They grow pine trees. They harvest the trees and plant new ones, and they also clear the deadfall and fire-bait from the woods. The clearing encourages secondary forest growth (which is what a deer feeds on) and the fire-breaks and roads keep fires from getting out of control around here. We have an abundant deer population as a result. We wouldn't need "smoke jumpers" if we had a road into the place. I want to say this: While I disagree with Mr. Small's point, he presented his argument in a reasonable (although passionate) manner, unlike a troll. He is welcome in my comments any time. Just because I don't see eye-to-eye with you doesn't mean that we can't discuss an issue over a beer without resorting to fisticuffs. I believe that he is wrong and I am right, but I ALWAYS think that way.
another picture
This is a picture of my daughter with my 93 year-old grandmother. Those are two of the three favorite ladies in my life.
pictures
That's me on the crabbing trip. I am supervising the operation. I am NOT wearing any underwear.
coincidence?I think not.
July 10, 2004my beardWhen Samantha and Stacy were here at the Crackerbox, I retreived a lot of old pictures that neither girl had seen before and we sat on the couch looking at them. One was a picture of me and my grandmother on her 91st birthday, May 23, 1991. Samantha really liked that one. Mommie has both hands on my bicep as we lean our heads together for the camera. She appears as happy as a lark. I look suntanned, fit and vigorous. I was 49 years old at the time, still married, unaware of prostate cancer and downright delighted with my life. All of that fantasy ended two months later. In that picture, I also had my hair buzz-cut like a Marine boot-camp denizen and I had a clean-shaven face. Samantha liked the way I looked. "Daddy, you should cut your hair and shave that beard. You look much younger in this picture," she said. "I WAS younger in that picture, Sam," I replied. "Sam is right," said Stacey. "You need to shave that beard and put some peroxide in your hair. The sun will turn all that Those girls set me to thinking. I'm leaving for Costa Rica Wednesday morning. Nobody (well...ALMOST nobody) knows me down there and I can be anyone I want to be. Maybe I will shave my face and get a buzz-cut before I go. My beard is long enough now that my chin-whiskers are soft and I find myself stroking them when I'm pondering deep subjects, such as what to put in the microwave for supper. What the hell? WHY NOT!??? as they said at the end of The Wild Bunch. The great thing about hair is that it grows back if you don't like what you did to it. I'll be in Costa Rica for two weeks. I can grow my goddam beard back in two weeks. Rehab from a buzz-cut may take a little longer, but it's not like I'm in the running for "American Idol" or any such shit. I believe that Monday is a good day for my hair to dye. I'm going to the local tonsorial parlor, get a professional shave and a buzz-cut. Done by a woman. While I relax in a reclining chair. Then, I'm going to buy some of that Sun-Lite or whatever that peroxide spray that the redheaded girl used on me in Key West. I will annoint my head with that oil while I'm in Costa Rica. I will be a new man and I will post pictures.
i was wondering when someone would askI posted a short work of fiction yesterday. The idea for the story had been fermenting in my mind for a long time and I intend to take what I wrote on the blog, flesh it out a little bit and attempt to sell it as a short story. From my comments: Okay, you can write. My reply: Key, "Different" is an allegorical tale about someone who doesn't fit the world that he's born into and figures out a way to go somewhere else. Does it make more sense now?
happy birthdayI'm late. The illustrious frank J., my arch-enemy and derider of puppy-blenders and Aquaman, celebrated his second blogiversary yesterday. Congratulations, Frank! And my bionic Roscoe was one year old on the same day. Imagine that. I see a correlation between those two events, but I'm not sure what it is.
the crackerboxI have the sooper-dooper carpet cleaner out of its box now and the damn thing scares me. I think it might actually WORK, if I bother to load it up and plug it in. Samantha and Stacey came by on their way out of town yesterday. They stayed at mama's house while they were here. I warned them ahead of time that the Crackerbox was a pig-sty and I wasn't lying. When my doorbell rang, I opened the door to see both girls dressed in surgical masks and latex gloves. "Is it SAFE?" Stacey asked. I thought that they displayed the cleverness and wit I expect from intelligent people until Samantha looked around and said, "Daddy, you really DO live in a pig sty." I could have done without that. We visited for a while and I slipped Samantha some cash. I didn't buy her a present while she was here (mainly because I don't know what she has and what she wants) and I told her to buy something with the money. She protested that she didn't need it, but I persuaded her to accept it. Lemme tell ALL YOU CHILDREN out there. When a parent hands you a wad of cash, TAKE IT!!! The mama or daddy is doing that for one of two reasons, sometimes both at the same time, and they are GOOD reasons. First, the parent has more money than you do, and he or she would just piss it all away on trips to Costa Rica or other such nonsense if you didn't buy yourself something nice with it. Second, parents sometimes do that sort of thing to atone for past sins. I don't believe that I was as good a father to Samantha as my father was to me. (although he seldom gave me money. He expected me to earn my own.) I can't buy my way out of the past, but I can offer something in the quest for redemption. On my recommendation, the girls were headed to Jekyll Island for a day, then over to Panama Beach, Florida, then back to Fort Worth, Texas. They should be home sometime tomorrow if all goes well on the trip. I hope it does. And I might even crank up this carpet cleaner today.
the woodsI own guns, I am a member of the NRA, but I don't hunt. Okay, I'll go bird hunting occasionally because quail and dove are a challenge to hit on the fly (I also like to eat quail) and I enjoy watching a well-trained bird dog work. But I remain a target-shooter most of the time. I don't like the slant on this story. Any time the Sierra Club becomes involved in ANY issue, I immediately smell a rat. And I don't have a lot of respect for most journalists because I WENT to J-School and I know what a flock of idiots come flying out of that place. The president of the National Rifle Association warned a convention of outdoor writers last month that it should not be seduced by environmental organizations such as the Sierra Club, which promise to protect hunting habitat but actually are scheming to ban guns. The Sierra Club is using the oldest trick in the book here. Make friends with your enemy, earn his trust, then stab him in the back. The Sierra club wants NO ONE in the woods except Gaia and they can lie about it all they want to, but I've watched the way that organization works. They are a bunch of crazed greenies who want to drag us back into the stone age. Their ONLY agenda is to stop progress, control private property and Save The Planet by giving THEM power. Since the late June convention, several outdoor columnists, writing in their own newspapers, have lambasted Robinson's speech. They also have said his accusation that environmental groups have a stealth plan to ban hunting guns was alarmist and false. Soooo... we have "outdoor writers" from San Francisco and Spokane advocating the Sierra Club's position. Those writers live in two of the most liberal, fruitcake areas in the entire country and THEY are quoted as speaking for the mainstream? Gimme a break. Asked to comment on the criticism, Andrew Arulanandam, a spokesman for the NRA, said that Robinson "provided reasonable commentary in an honest, factual and civil manner. The glaring anomaly here is individuals with journalism backgrounds wanting to choke off the oxygen of free speech." That's how the Sierra Club works. That's how a lot of journalists work. You are either with them, or you need to be silenced. In Spokane, many of the outdoor writers said they disputed Robinson's statement that roadless areas are closed to hunters. In fact, roadless areas are open to hunting and fishing, if sportsmen are willing to get out of their cars and ply these areas on foot or horseback. This bullshit is pure Gaia propaganda. If I have to walk five miles through the woods to shoot birds or catch fish, that's okay. Usually, you can put your catch in a sack and walk out with it strapped to your back. It doesn't weigh very much. But walk those same five miles and shoot a 200-pound deer or a 400-pound elk. How are you gonna get THAT out of the woods? Even gutted and skinned one of those kills weighs too much to tote on your back for five miles unless you're in really good shape. Even then, I would take a few choice portions that I could carry and leave the rest for the buzzards. THIS idea appeals to "outdoor writers?" They obviously don't spend a lot of time in the woods shooting large animals. We've already seen the results of this "roadless woodland" policy. When the woods catch on fire, nobody can get in there to quell the flames because we OUTLAWED GODDAM ROADS. I've never understood the environmentalist mindset on this issue. Somehow, they can justify in their minds that it is better for the woods to burn than to have man utilizing the woods as a resource. That's environmentalism in a nutshell. And you want to trust THOSE PEOPLE with your Second Amendment rights? I don't think so.
you decideOne of these two notorious liars is lying. Which one is it? I tend to believe Daschle, simply because of the laws of physics. Given the gravitational pull of Michael Moore's moon-like ass, we can calculate that if Moore and Daschle ever embraced, a pool of lying anti-matter would result, creating a Black Hole in the universe. Daschle would disappear. Moore's ass is too wide even for a Black Hole to swallow, so he would be stuck halfway in and halfway out. We would have remaining only Michael Moore, the half-man invisible from the ass down. Since Michael Moore still appears to have legs, he must be lying.
July 09, 2004yeah. That's the ticketI've been there and done this. I don't know how many other people have been fucked out of their medical coverage by such clever tactics used by the corporate assholes in charge of doing such things, but Jay's tale rings true to me and I'll bet that it does for a lot of others, too. Why is it that my CAR INSURANCE can't cancel my policy without advance notice? Why is it that my HOMEOWNERS INSURANCE can't cancel my policy without advance notice? Why is it that my MEDICAL INSURANCE doesn't have to follow the same rules? I can answer that question. They did it because they wanted to from the minute I walked out the gate at the plant. And they can. I was a drain on the Bottom Line, so they got me off the books. Better watch that COBRA stuff if you ever leave a job and want to keep your medical insurance.
fictionI got the idea from here. This is my own work of fiction. Different Eugene was an eleven year-old boy, small for his age and somehow... different. His body appeared to be constructed from mismatched parts. His large, melon-shaped head rested precariously on a long, narrow neck. His shoulders were pinched and his arms dangled as if attached only by baling wire and duct tape. His legs were bony and hairless. The boy had poor eyesight and wore thick, black-framed glasses that magnified his eyes so that many people who saw him thought of a mutant owl. Eugene was an embarrassment to his father, a big, strapping construction foreman who had been hanging steel and pouring concrete for years. Dad often stared at Eugene, shook his head and shot his wife an accusing glare. No way was that boy the fruit of HIS loins. The other kids in school picked on Eugene mercilessly, the way kids do to anyone... different. Eugene never fought back. He took the bullies and the hecklers with a quiet complacency that only encouraged them to increase the bullying and heckling. He was knocked down, spat on and kicked, but he simply lay on the ground and took it. Then, he would get up and go about his business when the beating was finished. The fact that his son wouldn't fight was another thing that really angered his father. Dad knew from years in construction that a man has to earn respect if he doesn't want to be crapped on all his life and that sometimes means using your fists to settle disagreements. He once bought two pair of boxing gloves and attempted to teach Eugene to fight, but the boy wouldn't even try to defend himself. He just stared at his father with those magnified, owlish eyes and let his gloved hands dangle at his sides as Dad punched him. Dad finally gave up in disgust. Eugene had a job. A neighbor delivered the morning paper. The neighbor didn't mind crawling out of bed at 4:00 every morning to throw the papers, but he didn't like to do his collection runs. He hired Eugene to collect for him and paid the boy 5% of the take. Eugene was a tireless collector and he seldom missed a customer. For a boy who wouldn't fight, he was downright aggressive in making people pay their newspaper bill. He rode his bike around the neighborhood every evening and all day on Saturdays to hound people who owed money. Sometimes they paid him just to make him go away. Eugene spent his money on items he found at garage sales and often rode his bike out to the local dump to rummage through the trash for discarded treasure. He ended up with an old toolbox full of tools, lots of electronic odds and ends, a couple of broken radios and his most prized possession: a genuine miner's hard hat with a functioning carbide light on it. After supper, Eugene always retired to his room and tinkered with "inventions." He put things together, took them back apart, studied the components some more and tried putting them together a different way. He wore his miner's helmet with the carbide lamp aglow when he worked. Sometimes he muttered, "No. That's not it. Gotta try again." Dad didn't understand his son. One evening, he drank a few beers and barged into the boy's room. "Just what the hell are you doing in here?" he bellowed. "Why don't you go out and play ball like the other boys do? Why don't you make some friends? Why do you have to be so different?" Eugene looked up from the pile of parts he was assembling and gave his father a crooked smile. The carbide light shined directly in his father's face. "You'll see," he said. "Aw, Christ," replied Dad. "I'll never understand you, boy." He went off to the kitchen to fetch another beer. Two days later, Eugene was in the garage driving nails into pieces of scrap lumber he recovered from the dump. Dad heard him hammering away and went out to check on the boy. Hell, if Eugene turned out to be handy at carpentry and building things, maybe he WAS Dad's son after all. "What'cha building, son?" Dad asked. "It's finished. It works," replied Eugene. "Well, what is it? I can help you if you want me to." Dad thought that just maybe for the first time in Eugene's life a nice episode of male bonding between father and son could happen here. Dad knew all about construction and building things. "No, thanks. I want to do it all by myself." Eugene kept pounding nails while that carbide lamp glowed on his melon-shaped head. Dad exhaled a sigh of frustration and went back into the house. The next morning, Eugene announced over breakfast: "Tell Mr. Beecher that I won't be collecting for him anymore." Dad was stunned. "Son, that's a good racket you've got going there. You make quite a bit of money for an eleven year-old. Why would you want to quit?" "Because it's finished and it works," Eugene replied. "What's finished?" Dad asked. Eugene rose from his chair and went back to his room. He returned a minute later with a strange object in his hands. "This is," he said. It was a box that appeared to be the guts out of a few junk television sets and some microwave parts with wires running like veins all over it. A radio antenna protruded from the top and a rheostat from an old electric oven was mounted on a flat metal plate on the front. A bank of D-cell batteries was strapped to the bottom. Eugene had donned his miner's hat while he was in his room. "What does that do?" Dad asked. Eugene smiled his crooked smile. "Come and see." Eugene led dad to the garage, where the wooden box he constructed the night before was waiting. Eugene lifted the hinged lid, placed his device inside the box and climbed in behind it. "Don't be mad at me, Dad," he said. "You know as well as I do that I don't belong here. I'm different. Ive known it all my life.." With that, Eugene closed the lid on top of himself and the device. Dad heard a crackle like someone splitting a ripe watermelon and he saw a flash of light from the box. The air suddenly smelled of ozone and gunpowder. In a panic, he leaped to the box and opened the lid. "Eugene!" he shouted. The box was empty.
pretty accurateAre you a democrat? Take this simple test and find out.
horny bastards!I KNEW that a goat will attempt to mate with anything that stands still long enough, but I didn't realize that pigs are such sluts. Damn, eric. You're dipping your blog into a sexual sewer of beastiality and unbridled lust. I like that quality in a blog.
admit itHave you ever used foodstuffs as sexual aids? If you say "no," you're probably lying. I thoroughly enjoyed reenacting that scene from Nine and 1/2 Weeks where Mickey Roarke blindfolds Kim Bassinger and they sit in front of the refrigerator while he feeds her everything from whipped cream to olives. Hey! I thought that was one truly erotic scene, and I found out when I tried it that IT WAS truly erotic. Ever used a... never mind.... Just admit that you've fooled around in bed (or on the kitchen counter) with stuff you bought at the supermarket. Admit it. Groceries--- for more than just nutrition.
preach on!I can be pissed off by a lot of things. Hell--- just read my blog and you know that fact. But the ONE THING that I encounter more than anything else, that TOTALLY CHAPS MY ASS is that fucking idiot in the left lane who creates a rolling roadblock on the highway because the dumb sumbitch doesn't know how to drive. Keep right except to pass. Good question, and I'll provide the correct answer. PEOPLE ARE IDIOTS! That dumbfuck in his Caddy with the Florida license plates is on cruise control, going one mile an hour faster than the car in the right lane. The geriatric old pissant probably won't LIVE long enough to see it happen, but he thinks he's "passing" that other car. He should be pulled over by the police, dragged to the side of the road and shot in the name of traffic safety. That one--- over there. She's doing the same speed as the eighteen-wheel truck in the right lane and yakking on a cell phone. Do you think the clueless twat REALIZES that she's got traffic backed up for MILES behind her? Hell, no! The only thing SHE ever uses the rear-view mirror for is to apply make-up while driving. She should be pulled over, dragged from the car and shot on the side of the road. Be prepared for a spate of indignant letters to the editor from the white-knuckled crowd, Sunday drivers, little old ladies (of both sexes) and sanctimonious left-lane vigilantes arguing that if some motorists are allowed to get away with going 66 in a 65, society will soon collapse in a wave of anarchy. I disagree. The indignant letters will come, but they'll come from FUCKING IDIOTS who most vociferously defend their right to drive in the left lane whenever they want to. I've seen this happen in the Savannah Morning News in response to a Letter to the Editor I wrote. Idoits become really defensive and insulted when you call them idiots. Some people simply cannot handle the truth. People, drive in the right lane unless your gonna pass whatever is in front of you. And when you decide to pass, PASS! Don't fart around creeping as if you're trying to sneak up on a covey of quail without scaring them. Hit the gas and go, and when you pass what's ahead of you, GET BACK IN THE RIGHT LANE! Easy instructions. Too difficult for some to follow.
the volcano blow
several people alerted me to this story. The truth is, I'm sorry that I missed it. The volcano rumbled once during the three days I stayed right at its base. The damn thing shook me out of bed at 3:00 AM and made me walk outside to see what all the commotion was about. I didn't see much, because the top of the volcano was shrouded in clouds that night--- the flashes resembled heat lightning that you often see on summer nights in southeast Georgia---but the rumbling of the earth was impressive. I had been banged on the head by a renegade mango by then, but I'm pretty sure that I noticed something when I studied the volcano the next morning. All the lava appears to run down the backside of the mountain, toward a big lake and away from the town of Fortuna. Maybe that's why Fortuna is still there. I hope it's still there a week from Saturday. That's where I'll be.
July 08, 2004arrggghhh!Where did it come from? How did it crawl into my brain to start playing over and over again? I CAN'T GET RID OF IT!!!!! I'm gonna tie my pecker to a tree, to a tree I once backpacked all over the mountains with a friend who sang those lyrics over and over again while we walked. He sang that song LOUDLY at night when he was drunk around a campfire. I never saw him actually tie his pecker to a tree, but he damn sure sang a lot about that plan. I haven't thought about him or that silly ditty in years. But it sucked itself into my head a few minutes ago and now I can't get rid of it. Maybe I should go tie MY pecker to a tree. I've got plenty of twine from the crabbing trip.
business lettersI gained a reputation at work for writing the finest business letters anyone ever read. Business letters usually read as if they were written by a soul-devoid android, programmed to speak in nothing but infinitives. Here's an example: From: Corporate High and Mighty I hated letters like that. "You are to be commended?" WTF is THAT? Am I commended, or not? Stop all that infinitive shit and say what you mean. Here's how I wrote MY business letters: To: Tim Which letter would YOU rather receive after you busted you ass on 16-hour shifts for a couple of weeks?
holy shit!Looks as if I'll break the 1,000,000 visitor mark shortly. Who'da thunk that when I started? (Update: it's too late to offer a prize for number 1,000,000. That one came and went while I wrote this post.) I thank each and every one of you from the bottom of my cold, racist, Cracker heart. YOU are the ones who made this such a fun ride.
star trekMy father gave me both a blessing and a curse when I was young. He taught me to love reading and he also steered me toward a lot of science-fiction books when I was growing up. I read everything Heinlein ever wrote. I enjoyed Bradbury, Asimov and Laumer. I had a head full of stars, and I remember gazing at the night sky while huddled in a sleeping bag and thinking, "I want to GO THERE some day." Alas, I'll never realize that dream, but I've lived it vicariously a thousand times, through books and Star Trek, which remains to this day my all-time favorite TV program. The introduction hooked me from the beginning. Take some majestic music, show me a picture of a starship and mention "Boldly go where NO MAN HAS GONE BEFORE" and I'm a goner. Yeah. I'LL sail with you, captain. I still watch the reruns on the sci-fi channel. I see now that the sets are cheesy, the special effects suck and the show operated on a shoestring budget. Shatner frequently went over the top in his acting. Not every episode was a work of art. But it was the SPIRIT of the show and the CHARACTERS that came to life for me. Captain Kirk--- the wild-ass cowboy who bedded wimmen of every alien persuasion. Spock--- ruled by logic and never fully understanding the passions of humans. Bones--- a country doctor at heart, who always had the best lines in the show: "Jim! I'm a DOCTOR, not an archeologist!" Scotty--- loving his ship and tending the engines. ("Coptin! She con't take any more!") Sulu, always reliable at the helm. Checkov, young and full of cum. Uhura, lovely and competent. I watched The Next Generation, but I felt creepy about a "Federation" that sounded a lot like a communist wet dream to me. No money? No private property? Nobody has to work? Just push the replicator button? Then why the fuck go to Starfleet Academy and bother to achieve anything? It's all FREE, just for the taking. Piss on that idea. Picard was a much more realistic ship's captain than Kirk (the ship's captain doesn't lead away teams), and I lusted after Commander Troy. But that show never grabbed me by the throat and shook me the way the original series did. I confess. I've been to six Star Trek conventions. I never dressed up in a costume, but I have a T-shirt signed by James Doohan, DeForest Kelly and Walter Koenig. That's a collector's item. I've never washed it or worn it. I wanted the hot chick who played Yeoman Rand to sign my shirt, too, but I never got past the mob around her. I'll never ride on a starship, but I still look at the night sky and dream. We CAN go there and we SHOULD go there. Full ahead. Warp factor eight.
another quizI stole this one from my blog-daughter and I believe that it's all a bunch of crap. 20 Questions to a Better Personality Wackiness: 64/100
You are a WEDL--Wacky Emotional Destructive Leader. This makes you an anarchist. You don't give a damn. When push comes to shove, you just forget about it--it's just not worth the heartache. What this means for others is that dealing with you can be aggravating, because they find they can't get you motivated about things they care about. What this means for you is that you are happier, calmer, and saner than they are on their best days. I DO NOT have a sweet tooth.
viva las vegasI've gone to bed shit-faced before, but never quite like this. "These psychological damages, which naturally flow from such a 'fecetious' mishap, are increasing 'excrementally,' " Levinson wrote in the lawsuit. Yeah, those are shitty puns, but who knew that lawyers had a sense of humor? (Link stolen from a friend.)
new findI've never read this blog before. I believe that the writer is a misplaced Southerner at heart.
NANNY LAWSWant to know why nanny is controlling more and more of your life every day? That's because of lawsuits such as this one. Obviously, if you get drunk, fall down and go BOOM, you're not responsible for your own actions. "The judge overlooked federal case law," said Eriksen, a partner at Romano Eriksen Cronin & Mullins in West Palm Beach, Fla. "This is a pure contributory negligence case. We ought to encourage ship owners to act responsibly." "We ought to encourage ship owners to act responsibly." What, exactly, should the ship owners have done to protect Lawrence W. Hall from his own foolishness? Ban alcohol FOR EVERYBODY on the ship, because a drunken bastard such as Hall might drink too much and fall down? Hermetically seal each passenger in a thick coat of shrink-wrap plastic and hang them like cocoons in their staterooms for the entire voyage? Assign a 24-hour bodyguard to everyone on board? What utter bullshit. Do you notice that every time you read about a lawsuit such as this one, the reason for the suit NEVER is a greedy client and a money-grubbing lawyer collaborating to shake down a business for some quick cash. No, it's always about some Higher Good, such as Saving The Children or "encouraging" businesses to make life fail-safe. Alan R. Schwartz, chief judge of the 3rd DCA, interrupted Peltz almost immediately, asking him to name a case holding that a ship owner owes no duty to protect its passengers. That's a fucking JUDGE spewing that crap out of his mouth. What he's REALLY saying is: "You're gonna win the case, but I'm sending it to trial anyway, just so you bleed through the nose paying legal fees and still run the risk of having a dumbass jury find you responsible for Mr. Hall's tumble. Maybe you should just go ahead and pay the extortion money for this shakedown by the legal system. It could be cheaper to pay NOW rather than pay later." What the judge should have said was, "Fuck him and feed him beans," but judges seldom behave that honestly, because law is complex. Every case they hear involves deciding how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. That's the way our legal system works. And when cases such as this one succeed, people clamor for LAWS to prevent recurrance. Politicians are happy to pander to the masses, so we get new laws. And we become less free every day.
July 07, 2004better thoughts
Let a troll see how low he can go on this one. That's a picture of my daughter, hugging my bald-headed mama. They both are beautiful to me. (Question: does anybody see a family resemblance in that photo?)
pricelessMy latest troll uttereth these profound words: Oh yeah, while I'm thinking of it, you may want to reconsider who is a witless drone. I did. You are. It would seem to me that a grown man who invites strangers into his home to piss on the carpet and then complains about it really isn't in a position to question anyones else intelligence. So, you ADMIT that you are a stranger who came into my house to piss on my carpet. I don't know where you got your fucking "invitation," but the fact that you think you HAVE ONE answers every question I have about YOUR intelligence. Plus, I'm getting really sick of the fifth-grade (Special Ed) grammar you use. If you're (your? YOU decide. You have a 50-50 chance of guessing correctly) going to piss on my carpet, at least do it without pissing all over yourself, too. It's "anyone else's intelligence," asswipe. See... we have this thing in the English language called an aprostophe that's used... well, never mind. You wouldn't understand. You may consider it cowardly to hide behind fake emails, to me it makes perfect sense considering how much time I spend running around poking snakes with sticks. BWHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAA!!! YOU "poke snakes with sticks?" Is that what you call running around with your needle-dick in your hand and pissing on other people's carpets while you piss all over yourself, too? What BALLS you have! (DREADFUL comma-splice in that last sentence the troll wrote. Automatic "F" in freshman English---but the sentence made "perfect sense to him---ed) See, folks? I've told you over and over again that trolls are too fucking stupid to realize how fucking stupid they are. Also, there really isn't any need to get angry at spammers. Your the demographic dude, a single lonely old guy with disposable income who spews his email address around the web. Take some time to educate yourself about server-side filtering if you don't like it. A good craftsman learns how to use his tools. (The guy's NEVER going to get that "your" and "you're" thing straight---ed) Ummm... moonbat II ... maybe you don't understand this fact, but I PAY FOR THIS SITE. WITH MY OWN "disposable income." It is not a fucking billboard for some cheesy con-artist to use without paying me a fucking dime. That's an invasion of MY PRIVATE PROPERTY. Never mind. You probably don't own any private property and never will. You'll be a piggy-backer all your life. Besides, I've got your "tool" semi-erect in my pants, bionic, empowered and ready at all times. Awww...I'm breaking one of my own rules here. I'm feeding a fucking troll.
the hunterMy only question is... what's he hunting FOR???
amazingI never knew until today that my 93 year-old grandmother had never seen a crab in her life. When she told me that, I was stunned, but then I thought about it. She lived most of her life in the hills of eastern Kentucky, where crabs aren't found very often. When she moved to Savannah, she was old and frail and didn't stomp up and down salt-water creeks fishing with a chicken-neck on a string. I had already cooked the crabs by then, but I brought her two, one male and one female, to examine. She was fascinated. "Are they red in the water?" she asked. "No, Mommie, they turn red when you boil or steam them. In the water, they have white bottoms, green tops and a band of blue along the shell and pinchers." "How do you know one is a male and one is a female?" I showed her the bottoms of the crabs. A male blue crab has something that resembles the outline of an erect penis embedded in the under-shell. A female has a wide, semi-circular outline with a small point at the top. "That's how you can tell," I said. "Well, I''l be," replied Mommie. "Did you know that you can tell the same thing from a turtle's belly?" I had to admit that I didn't know that, but I do now. The next time I find a turtle, I'm going to flip it upside-down and check its sex.
more food for thoughtA comment by the mad ogre on a previous post set me to thinking. He said, "Grits? One of the reasons I want to try some vegemite is because of the visceral hatred some people have for it. Many people also have a visceral hatred for grits, which I LOVE, so I calculate that I'm a likely candidate to taste vegemite and say... "Hum. Not bad once you figure out how to eat it." If you've ever been sick as a dog where nothing would stay in your stomach, forget about oatmeal and soup. Try a bowl of grits. I'm not talking about that five-minute jiffy shit, either. That ain't REAL grits. REAL grits takes 15 minutes to cook in a pot on the stove while you stir them until they get thick and glue-like. If you don't season the grits, they won't taste like much, but they'll settle nicely in an upset stomach. You can feed grits to a baby and never get an upchuck. When my mama was recovering from her last round of chemo, she had trouble eating ANYTHING... except grits. She LIVED on grits for about a week. All you yankees and limeys can look down your snotty noses at grits and make disparaging comments all you want to, but it won't change my mind. I like grits. I've eaten them for a long time, and if I live to be a toothless, dottering old man, I'll STILL be eating grits. Cooked right, grits are one of nature's most perfect foods. I believe that it's a case of either you like them, or you don't. But I'll bet that a lot of grit-haters never even TASTED grits. Just do like I'm doing with vegemite. Don't knock it until you've tried it.
bad newsI hate to hear about this, but I'm also surprised. I thought old "Scotty" died a couple of years ago.
i agree... sortaHere is some food for thought. I seldom delete comments from my blog. I've picked up my share of trolls, but that seems to go with the turf after a while. I am tempted to say that I don't understand what motivates a troll to continually show his ass in someone else's comments, but that would be a lie. I know EXACTLY what makes those people tick. *They tried to write a blog of their own, but nobody read it. *They are too fucking dumb to realize how fucking dumb they are. *If another reader responds to a troll in the comments, the troll thinks he's gaining readership and is very proud of himself. Since his own blog is a dismal failure, he's more than happy to piggy-back on someone else. *Most trolls I've seen will vote for John Kerry, if the troll doesn't fuck-up his ballot in homage to the "disenfranchised" in Florida and negate his own vote. It's all part of that piggy-back mentality, plus the fact that most trolls are witless drones. *All trolls are vandals at heart. To me, vandalism is a venal type of crime, committed by a venal person, whose cardinal sin really is pure envy. If THEY can't have what you've got, they'll just trash what you have. That idea makes sense to a venal mind. *Vandalism also is a crime of cowardice, and most trolls are cowards, hiding behind various email addresses and fake IDs to stay submerged in the sewers where they dwell. *If you write a blog, ignore the trolls. If you don't feed them, they go back to the sewers and crawl up somebody else's commode. Trolls I can take, even though they disgust me. But I want to KILL every goddam spammer who hammers my site hustling penis-enhancement pills, porn, Viagra and Direct TV. Those asshole should DIE!!!!
daughter vs. crab
This is a picture of Samantha checking one of the dip nets we placed strategically in the creek. I didn't get a picture of what happened when she retreived the net, discovered a claw-clicking Blue Monster in it and damn nearly freaked out when the big sumbitch came crawling out. Samantha let out a feminine shriek, dropped the net and started doing some kind of ritual war dance in the mud. "Get the crab, Sam!" Stacey yelled. "Don't let him back in the water!" The crab was scuttling back from whence he came. Sam kicked the crab, stomped it, grabbed the net and beat the crab some more, then pinned it to the mud with her foot. "Daddy! Come get it!" I did. One claw was broken off and the crab appeared to have all the fight whipped out of him. I picked him up by the back legs and tossed him in with his brothers in the tub. He just floated there, dazed and confused. I'm pretty sure that he was dead by the time I put him in a pot. I think he died of post-traumatic stress syndrome. The end result of the crabbing trip is posted below.
ummmmm! good!
This batch wrestled with chicken-necks and lost.
we're off!It's 5:44 in the morning and I have my truck loaded with nets, rotten chicken parts, a big tub, some snacks, bottled water and beer. I have all the necessary hardware-- pocket knife, needle-nose pliers, twine, camera and band-aids. I am ready to go crabbing. Now the challenge will be cranking those two girls out of bed and hauling them over the bridge into South Carolina before we miss the tide.
July 06, 2004vegemiteI've never tasted vegemite, which I gather is the Australian equalivent of American peanut butter. Vegemite is made from the leftover yeast in beer vats and some people tell me that it tastes like shit. (When people say that I wonder... do they eat shit and say that it tastes like vegemite?) Well, I'm an adventurous kinda guy. I'll try anything once. I am going to accept this offer. I will most certainly post a review after I receive my Standard Mitey Unit of the stuff and eat some. If it tastes like shit, I'll say so. Hey! I worked 24 years in a corporate environment. I know what shit tastes like. (Thanks to seppo for the link!)
July 05, 2004done dealI have all my travel and lodging set for the Costa Rican Grand Return. I'll be seeing a few different parts of the country this time. I requested the same driver that I had before, because I really liked him, but I'll take what I can get, as long as the driver picks me up on time and takes me where I want to go. My mama asked me last Sunday about me letting Gerio use the van to take his family out for dinner on the first trip. "Weren't you afraid that he might steal the car?" she asked. I told her, heck, no! That thought never even crossed my mind. By then, I thought of Gerio as a friend and I was happy to do him a favor. "Yeah, and you trusted Jennifer, too," mama said. "Look where THAT got you." Maybe she has a point, but I'll still take my chances in the same situation. I tend to trust people who have never given me a reason to distrust them. Yeah, I'm that mushy asshole who wants to buy the whole world a Coke. Perfect harmony and all that shit. (except for Michael Moore. I despise him, and he'll NEVER get a Coke from ME.) I've paid for that attitude, but I won't change. I like myself that way. (UPDATE: I asked for a coach seat, but I'm Flying First Class for the same price!!! I've never done that before.)
safetyI broke one of my own Golden Rules last night when that stick of dynamite blew up in my launcher. This morning, I found pieces of the launcher and charred bits of rice paper in the bed of my truck, a good 40' away from The Scene of the Crime. I stopped and thought about that. How many times have I lectured operators and supervisors in a chemical plant about how nobody EVER gets hurt or killed doing something that he KNOWS is dangerous? Bejus! That was my mantra. If you understand the danger, you prepare for it, you wear the right PPE and you're CAREFUL, every step of the way. Nobody gets hurt. The one that'll bite you in the ass and fuck you up is the one that you take for granted. It's the job you've done 100 times and believe that you could do in your sleep 100 more times. It's the one where you know the dangers, but you're SURE that nothing is going to happen to YOU. Approach a job with that kind of attitude and people get hurt, or killed. I dropped that bomb down the tube last night and I didn't back up very far. Hell, I'd done the same thing 100 times before and I knew that I could do it in my sleep 100 times more. Sure, it was a stick of fucking TNT with a triple-blast phospho-charge in it, but it wasn't THAT dangerous to ME. Not right then, anyway. I got careless and I'm lucky that I'm not sporting some wounds this morning. I am fortunate that I didn't hurt someone else. It's the one you take for granted that'll get you every time. I'm not saying OUTLAW FIREWORKS! Hell, no; they're too much fun. But, Got-dammit, be careful.
i promisedI had to finish this story. I promised that I would. Key... you OWE me!
rumor, or fact?I've heard that a couple of friends of mine intend to drive their hot-rod "snake" Mustang to this guy's house tonight for a pit stop on their way across the country. If it's true, I pity Eric. Eric ain't got enough beer for Ms. Georgia and he ain't got a "challenge coin" to throw down on Recondo (who DOES have one). Besides, Georgia farts in her sleep and Recondo snores. Eric just THINKS I trashed his house when I guest-blogged for him. Wait until he gets a good dose of my friends. I know. My couch has a permanent indentation in the shape of Recondo's head from the number of times he's slept over here and my blow-up bed has Georgia's ass indelibly imprinted on it. I'm always hung-over and out of beer the next morning when they come to visit. I like those two, but they are a bad influence on me.
missed opportunityI should have written this, but I didn't, because I'm not Tim Blair. But I would have thrown this one into the mix: "Let me tell you something: When I was a kid, this 'kid from the East' worked on a garbage truck. In fact, I learned my first cuss word while hanging on the back of the truck with a black man named Rastus who just learned that his Cash Three lotto tickets were all losers. I loved him like a brother. One of the greatest joys in my life was hauling rotten, stinking garbage on that truck in the New England summertime. That's where I also learned that rich people throw away more stuff than poor people do, and I believe that my understanding that fact made me a Democrat and jump-started my life in politics. Don't buy that 'Liberal Rich Guy From Massachessetts' label. I am a GARBAGEMAN!." John Kerry: Anything he believes that you WANT him to be.
early haltMy fireworks display last night was NOT up to its usual standards. I couldn't find my stainless-steel cannon with the 4" flange on the bottom, so I used a reinforced paper tube that came with the fireworks. The first two TNT rockets went off just fine and lit up the sky most impressively. I thought I was on a roll. The third one, however, did something that I've never seen before. I don't know if the launching charge was a dud or if the thing got hung up sideways in the cannon, but instead of hearing that satisfying "WHUMP!" and watching the rocket fly into the sky, I heard a thud, a sizzle and that goddam bomb stuck its head just above the end of the tube and stayed there, throwing sparks. I thought, "OH, SHIT!" and did a duck and cover move. That sumbitch exploded six feet away from me and sent shrapnel and burning gunpowder everywhere. It blew my launcher in half. The flash gave me a two-minute case of complete night blindness. The explosion made my ears ring for an hour. This weren't no lightweight charge I was firing. I wasn't hurt, but I was very excited by the experience. So excited, in fact, that I had to go inside and check my pants for accidental stains. Luckily, no children were around. I did hear one neighbor yell, "Hey, Rob! Are you all right?" I told him that I was, but I didn't shoot any more fireworks after that. That thing could have put my eye out.
the holeI don't know what to think about this. I believe that the guy has issues.
July 04, 2004fuck him and feed him beans
I stole the picture from here because I just couldn't resist it. Yeah, the fat bastard is sucking down a bucket of baked beans and he probably ate the bucket, too, but we all already knew that Moore was a fat bastard. Just take a good look at Michael Moore's fingers. Bejus! They're encrusted with FILTH, as if he's been digging in his double-wide asscrack for his next movie idea. It's one thing to be a fat, unwashed, lying bastard, but it's something else to eat with hands like that. My mama would bitch-slap the hell out of him if he sat down at HER table without washing those nasty hands. (Of course, I don't believe that mama has a chair strong enough to support the fat bastard.) If I have one truly obsessive quirk (okay... I've got a LOT of them, but this one is the most obsessive) it is my fastidiousness about my nails. Hands and feet. I cannot STAND having dirty or untrimmed nails. I may walk around with my zipper half-zipped and a piss-stain on the front of my pants, but my nails are gonna look nice and neat. Michael Moore wouldn't understand. There's nothing nice or neat about the fat bastard.
really?I watched a piece of pure blather on CNN this morning where some news-dude attempted to suggest that Iraq is NOT better off now than it was under the iron fist of Saddam Hussein. He looked at electrical output, oil production, infrastructure and civil unrest and determined, with a long, mournful face, that Iraqis are really in the shitter now, compared to where they were two years ago. I hurled my TV Brick at the screen. "BULLSHIT!" I yelled. Hitler made the trains run on time. Was that good for the German people? Yes! Of course! (Unless you were one of those "undesirables" being loaded into cattle cars and hauled off to a concentration camp. Having THAT train run on time was NOT a good thing.) Germany had law and order under Hitler. If you pissed off der Fuhrer, you were executed on the spot or sent to a concentration camp. Jobs were plentiful, especially in the slave-labor department. Need work? Somebody's got to keep the fires burning in the crematoriums. The entire point of that report was POINTLESS. Bejus on a bike. A sadistic dictator who left mass graves all over his country, gassed thousands of Kurds, killed on a whim, starved his own people while lining his pockets with cash and crushed dissent mercilessly was BETTER than what the Iraqis have now? Because the trains ran on time? Because electricity was more reliable? Because the country produced more oil? Where has our moral perspective gone? I would rather live in a fucking cave and hunt and gather for my subsistence than live under a regime so blood-soaked and corrupt that I never knew when the goons might appear at my door to rape my daughter, feed my son into a shredder and cause me to vanish into the night, never to be heard from again. What good is an "efficient" government if it exists only to oppress the people it governs? I can do without that kind of efficiency. It's too early to determine exactly what Iraq will become in the next couple of years. That country is experiencing serious growing pains right now. But to suggest that Iraq was better off under Saddam is obscene. That's like saying, "Yeah, Rob beat his wife and molested his children, but after he was locked up, his lawn isn't NEARLY as well-manicured as it was before." CNN. The most trusted name in news.
my daughterSamantha and Stacey made it to mama's house shortly after 9:00 last night. I went to visit this morning. I don't really mean to brag (Oh, yes! I DO!), but I have a beautiful daughter. She got a lot of her looks from her mama, but I'm still proud to call her the spawn of MY loins. She's a looker. I like Stacey a lot, too. She and Sam make an odd couple because Samantha has always been petulent, tempermental and quick to fly off the handle. Stacey is laid-back, mellow and the kind of person I feel comfortable around without being able to decide exactly why. Stacey is just good people. We had a nice, long visit today. We're going crabbing on Wednesday. I checked the tides today and we need to leave early in the morning to catch the water right. I told them that I would pick them up at 7:00 AM and they both promised to be ready. I have no doubt that Stacey will be, and she'll probably bog a foot in Sam's ass to get her out of bed on time, too. I look forward to the adventure. I hope we catch every crab in that creek.
disturbingI am disturbed by this post. I'm not upset with anything The Lion had to say, but I really got the heebie-jeebies reading the comment from a self-professed public school educator of 22 years. The writing is horrible. The syntax is fractured. The philosophy is sophmoric at best. Inarticulate is too kind a word to describe this idiot. THIS PERSON TEACHES SCHOOL??? Bejus! Save our children.
228 years oldDo you ever stop to think about what a YOUNG country we live in? We went from a ragged bunch of colonies to the greatest superpower in the world pretty damned quickly. I'll tell you how we did it, too. We allowed people the freedom to achieve. I am delighted that I was lucky enough to be born and raised in this great nation. We may not be perfect, but we're one hell of a lot better than any other place I see out there. Let freedom reign. Happy Birthday to the good, YOUNG USA!
he probably grew rice in Vietnam, tooNow we know the truth. John Kerry is farmer at heart. He looks like one. "I learned my first cuss word sitting on a tractor from the guy who was driving it," he said as the crowd chuckled. "And I learned as a kid what it was like to look in back of me, and see those rows, and see that pattern, and feel the sense of accomplishment. And end up dusty and dirty, tired but feeling great." John Kerry--- gadzillionare man of the earth with tractor oil pumping through his veins. Ketchup farmer. Tiller of fertile fields when the woman has a lot of money. Asshole.
guest bloggingShe didn't learn her lesson the first time. She invited reprobates to blog-sit for her again while she I am a chivalrous man. I am THERE for ya, baby!
July 03, 2004i don't know whyI made the trip to South Carolina today and bought a bunch of fireworks. I intend to set them off tomorrow night. Fireworks are illegal in Georgia (our blessed nanny watches over her children) but I can make a 15-minute drive across the river and buy any got-dam thing I want short of a nuclear device. I have a bunch of voodoo balls, TNT rockets, Roman Candles and assorted noisemakers. I bought a 100-pack of 3' long sparklers, too. Usually I have every kid in the neighborhood over at my house on the 4th of July and New Year's Eve, because I light up the sky. I don't know who will be here tomorrow, but I'll bet that one person won't be. That's the cop on the block. It's amazing how the police sometimes turn their heads and ignore outright law-breaking when you're setting off fireworks on a holiday and making kids go "oooh!" and "ahhh!" as they watch them explode. I'll give the kids sparklers, but I don't allow them to handle the heavy stuff. That's MY JOB, and I like doing it. I haven't had a single injury or death yet. Jack already visited twice today and asked me if I was going to put on another show tomorrow night. I told him to come by and see. I just wish that Quinton were here, too.
going crabbingMy daughter sent me an email today and said that she and Stacey would like to go crabbing while they're in Savannah. Samantha's been crabbing since she was a tiny tot, but Stacey has never done it before. I told Sam that I would take them. I know of a wonderful honey-hole over near Bluffton, South Carolina, but the dumbass, revenue-enhancers in that state passed a law a couple of years ago requiring a FISHING LICENSE to crab in their creeks. I don't have one and I'll be damned if I'll pay South Carolina $25 to catch crabs. I told Sam that we'll go anyway. If we get caught, we'll all plead complete ignorance of the law, apologize profusely and I'll pay the fine. But we're talking about four hours on the incoming tide in a place near the middle of nowhere. What are the chances of getting caught? Slim to none, I calculate, and I'm willing to risk it. It ain't like I never fished without a license before. Crabbing is a lot of fun. The right bait is essential. Anything stinking, rotten and disgusting will work. I buy chicken necks (CHEAP!) and I leave them out in the sun for a couple of days before I use them as bait. They get ripe and funky, just the way a crab likes them. Tie a chicken neck on a piece of twine and drop it in the water. Wait a few minutes and slooowly, very slooowly pull the bait out of the water. Have a hand-net handy to catch the crab that will be hanging on to that piece of rotten meat. I also like to bait dip-net traps, sink them in the water and go check them every 15 minutes or so. You can catch four or five BIG BLUES at a time like that. Usually at my honey hole, I can catch a bushel of crabs before the tide gets too high to make the effort worthwhile anymore. Crabs are the garbage collectors of the salt water, but they make mighty fine eating. Do you know how to pick a crab? A lot of people don't. The Southeastern Blue Crab is NOT like those crab claws you buy at Red Lobster. No, it's a sneaky critter that hides its delicious meat in all sorts of nooks and crannies. Here's how I do it: 1) Boil the crabs for at least 10 minutes, with lots of seasoning in the water. 2) Take a cooked crab. Tear off the shell on top. Break the crab in half. Peel away all the gills (dead-man's fingers) and that other, yellow shit inside there. 3) Carefully disengage the legs with a delicate, twisting motion. Big chunks of white meat will come out still attached. 4) Break the crab into quarters, then open it like riffling a deck of cards. Pick the meat from all the nooks and crannies. 5) Save the claws for last because they're easy. It's a lot more work picking crabs than it is catching them, but when you're done, try this: *Two cans of cream of celery soup. Add one can of milk and one can of water. *Throw in a whole stick of REAL butter. Add three tablespoons of Worchestershire sauce. *Heat on the stove while dicing, very fine, one onion, one bell pepper and two stalks of celery. Saute' the Holy Trinity in a separate pan until the onions become translucent and limp. *Add red pepper, black pepper and salt to taste. (I like mine COVERED in pepper right before it starts to simmer.) *As the mix begins to simmer, add the Holy Trinity. Stir. *Add all the crab meat you've picked. Stir. *Cook on low heat so that you don't scorch the milk, and allow the mixture to simmer while you stir frequently and smell the amazing aromas coming out of that pot. *Serve with oyster crackers and cold beer. That's ACIDMAN'S FAMOUS CRAB STEW and if you ever try it, you'll like it.
away they goRecondo 32 and his lovely wife, Georgia are on their way to Washinton state. They called me a few minutes ago. The interesting part of that conversation was a proposition Recondo had to offer. Georgia is flying home at the end of the trip, but Rick is driving back. He wanted to know if I would fly to Washington, meet him and ride back with him. I'm going to do that. I'll get back from Costa Rica just in the nick of time, and I can change clothes, take a hot shower, pack another bag and catch a one-way flight to Seattle for less than $300. I'll pass the lovely Ms. Georgia somewhere in the air along the way and SHE can drive my truck home from the airport. Then, I ride in a car all the way across the country. WTF? I've got nothing better to do.
this is scaryI read this post and realized that I knew what he was talking about. I recognized the NAMES. I gotta get out more.
i'm hereSeveral people emailed me about this post. I sent the guy a response because I believe that I have a story to tell. Yes, my blog cost me my job and the company I worked for made no bones about that fact. They paid me a shit-load of money to go away and be quiet. I took the money and ran. But the whole thing still chaps my ass. I knew when I started this blog that I was risking a lot with some of the things I write, but I did it on my own time, not the company's. Less than six months before my ouster, I was given a big, fat financial reward for being a "Top Gun," a high-octane performer. Then, they turned around and "retired" me because of my blog. Suppose that instead of writing a blog, I practiced some sort of voodoo religion and bought a couple of billboards to advertise my expertise in goat-entrail reading. Would I have been fired for that? I don't think so. But a blog can bite you in the ass, especially if you write what I do. Fuck 'em. I made out like a bandit.
joni mitchellWell, not quite. This one is better.
water poloHow long can you tread water? How long can you do it with some hairy brute shoving your head under the surface and kicking the shit out of you? Play water polo and you'll find out. My college team was pretty good because we had Jim Weinzettle as our goalie. Jim was 6' 9" tall and an All-American swimmer at the University of South Carolina before he transferred back to Armstrong State College to finish his degree. Jim set all kinds of ACC records in the breastroke and the butterfly and qualified for the Olympic trials in 1972, where he ran into a guy named Mark Spitz. Jim was good, but he wasn't THAT good. He finished 11th in the trials in St. Louis and didn't make the Olympic team. But he was one hell of a goalie. That fish-man could tread water with his belly-button showing and spread those long arms so that nobody could score against us. He was a formidable goalie. I, on the other hand, played only to survive. I'm a good swimmer. I'm not in Jim Weinzettle's class, but I've passed every lifeguard test I ever took and I've never been afraid of water. But when you get into a game of water polo, swimming isn't everything. You're in 10' of water with people trying to KILL YOU!!! You grab a pass and some bastard on defense immediately tries to DROWN YOU! You try to swim with one hand on the ball and OTHER PEOPLE show up with elbows, knees and fists to KILL YOU!!! Pass the ball to a teammate and the sharks will kill you ANYWAY, then swim off to ravage whoever you passed the ball to. That is one hostile sport. I loved it.
rugbyI almost joined the Savannah Shamrocks rugby team when I was in college. I was still a jockstrap in those days and I played every intra-mural sport the school had to offer. I have trophies for softball, flag football, basketball, tennis and even TWO trophies for water polo. How many people do YOU KNOW who ever played water polo? (The most violent, exhausting game I ever played.) I liked the idea of playing rugby until I went and watched a game. Holy Bejus! That was like watching a mugging with rules. I enjoyed the party afterward (ruggers DO KNOW how to party after a game) but I decided not to join the team. Instead, I wrote a song about rugby. The Rugby Blues One day when I was feelin' mean They were one man short on the very first day Hey! I was scrumming! All kinds of bodies went flying by I was feeling poorly. All I could do was moan and cough I learned a lesson... I've pondered long on that fateful day (Words and music by Rob Smith, written in 1976)
July 02, 2004what am I afraid of?That's a good question and I'll try to give a good answer. 1) I am afraid of snakes. I don't know why, but just something about a head on the end of a tube that crawls around, disengaging it's jaw when neccessary to eat prey disgusts me. I have a really visceral reaction to snakes, and it is ALL Fight or Flight. I usually kill them, bury them and go back to check that the headless bastard didn't crawl out of his grave while my back was turned. I fucking HATE snakes. 2) I am afraid of heights. I wasn't like that when I was young. I could climb the highest tree in the woods and LAUGH while I was up there waving in the wind on small branches. But as I got older, I developed vertigo, which really plagued me at work. I HAD to climb to a lot of high places, and I got so dizzy that I could barely stand up. I don't know if I really call that fear, but it damn sure discombobulated me. My handprints are still on handrails at that plant. 3) I am afraid of my government. My ongoing, never-ending divorce has given me a taste of what THE STATE can do to you, and I find it frightening. Just suppose that you were accused of a crime that you didn't commit. Do you realize what you're up against? You may be innocent, but you'll lose everything you've got trying to prove it. THE STATE will grind you, break you and spit you out like sugar cane in a grist mill. That's scary. 4) I am afraid of wimmen. They're ALL crazy. And MEAN. 5) I am afraid of the booger-man. I don't know who he is or what he looks like, but I know that he's out there. He might be disguised as a mango right now and waiting for me in Costa Rica. He might be a good-looking woman with red toenails. He could be anything and he could be anywhere. But I KNOW that he's out to get me. 6) I am afraid of sounding paranoid. Have YOU seen the booger-man lately?
never mindI have a better quote for the day. BWHAHAHAHA!!!!
so long, MarlonYeah, marlon brando is dead. He was a good actor, but like Orson Welles, he really let himself go to shit in his old age. Good night, Vito. (Quote of the day:"Hollywood is ruled by fear and love of money," he told a reporter. "But it can't rule me because I'm not afraid of anything and I don't love money.") Sounds like me.
no wayI've been stewing over that Spiderman II trailer I saw today. I keep asking myself, "What would YOU say if some dipshit entertainment reporter asked YOU what you wanted Spiderman to do if he were real?" I believe that I would sound a lot like a Miss America contestant. "I want Spiderman to end poverty, secure world peace and save the environment." I wouldn't go all political and connect my role in the movie with a Presidential election. Of course, that's what I would say if I were an actor in the movie. As someone who doesn't act for a living, I would tell the reporter, "That's the most insane fricking question I ever heard. Spiderman IS NOT REAL AND HE NEVER WILL BE. Who gives a flying fuck about what he would do if he were real? He'd probably declare war on dumbasses and wrap YOU in a Web of Death. Is that the best question you have for this interview?" Aw... I can't help it. Dumbasses piss me off. (Which brings me to another inane point. If Spiderman fell in the water and got his web-shooters all clogged with river silt, could Aquaman kick his ass? Hey! Don't laugh. I'm asking a relevant question here. It's as relevant as what that entertainment reporter asked.)
fender mustangIf you want to talk about a good, reliable, easy-to-play electric guitar, I offer the Fender Mustang as a perfect example. It wasn't an expensive guitar, but you could make any sound you wanted to make with it. I don't know why Fender quit making that model. The closest thing I can find now is the Telecaster, which I really like as an all-purpose electric guitar. The Telly has a raw, buck-nekkid sound by itself, and you can soup it up with some electronics to make it sound REALLY bad-assed. I own a Telecaster and I like it, but it ain't a Mustang. If I ever find an old Mustang at a guitar show or a garage sale and I can buy it for a reasonable price, I'm going to add it to my guitar collection. I have a lot of fond feelings for that old axe and I want one. I'll play "Little Black Egg" on it. That's the first rock-n-roll song I ever learned to play.
what were the odds?I was thinking about this incident today and I started to wonder... what were the odds of that happening to me? There I was, spending most of the day in Fortuna, taking a cab ride home at night and arriving at my cabinito just in time to have a mango fall out of a tree and hit me on the head. Ponder that one for a minute. First, I had to arrive on that path at the exact moment that the mago decided to jump from the tree and mug me. Second, I had to be in the right place at the right time so that the crazed mango could hit me on the head when dropping out of a very bushy tree. Third, I had to be alone and in the dark to give it all a full comic effect. Thank Bejus that there were no witnesses. What were the odds of that happening to me? I should have bought a lottery ticket that day.
i am honoredI don't know why a few of my readers sometimes do such things, but I receive presents in the mail. I got another one today. It's a book titled Why Every Son Needs a Dad. The dedication page is signed by the person who sent it and I want to thank her from the bottom of my heart. Thank you, darlin.'
edentulousHow many people do YOU KNOW who can work that word into a coherent sentence? Got-dam! I am impressed by that woman.
oh, gag me!I just watched a trailer from Spiderman II on HBO and I could not believe what I heard. They asked two of the leading characters in the movie about what Spiderman would be like if he were real. The asswipe who plays the human octopus said, "I hope he would vote for John Kerry." The piece of witless quim who provides the pussy in the movie had this to say: "I wish Spiderman would kidnap the President and take him back to his lair, you know... so somebody else could take his place." Hollywood actors. So brilliant. So sophisticated. So butt-fucked politically. I've never heard a pack of blithering idiots make as much noise without realizing how foolish they sound than fucking actors. Where do they get the NERVE to step outside the script and open their mouths? That's not what they are paid to do, and whenever they do it, they come across as morons. That COULD be because they ARE morons, but I'm not going to pursue that point. I AM going to say that Spiderman II just lost a ticket from me.
becoming popularWhat makes people want to read a certain blog while they ignore others? I've asked myself that question numerous times and I still don't have an answer. I receive more visitors in one hour than many blogs get in a week and I don't understand why. Some of those people with no audience write better than I do. Here is my theory: *I blog a lot. I usually put several new things up every day. Yeah, freshness counts. *I beard the lion. I don't fear controversy and I believe that I can back up what I have to say with facts. I don't care who I piss off. If you can't take a joke, fuck you. *No other blog out there is like mine. I've never tried to copy anyone or pretend to be somebody I'm not. Yeah, individuality counts, too. *I do it because I like doing it. That fact shows, too. *I am a Blog-Pappy, many times over. My children are loyal to their daddy and I try to treat them well. *I don't write about politics all the time. I don't post only snippets of the news. I write about what's on my mind RIGHT NOW. If I were a Jepoardy category, I would be "odds and ends." (or po-por-eee, if I knew how to spell that word.) *I am literate and I write with style. Yeah, I'm proud of that fact. *I've been doing it for a long time without burning out or quitting. This blog is a journal, and I've kept it up for almost three years now. Sam Clemens once said that everybody starts a journal at some time in their lives, but very few keep it up for more than a month. I've done better than that. *I keep 'em guessing. Admit it. You never know WHAT you're going to see when you visit Gut Rumbles. If I wanted to be consistant, I... well, I don't know what I would do. Consistancy ain't my forte. *You know it's ME here. A blog with no personality is no blog at all. Why do you think I get all those red toenail pictures via email? Wimmen KNOW I like 'em and they send them to me. They remain anonomyous but I have their feet on file. Bejus, but I love that! *I'm just a wonderful person. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
small worldFrom my email: My father just emailed me and told me about your article. Thank you very much. I can use all the help I get. I stopped talking to the people at Irish Kevins because the conversations were one sided. I also quit drinking 2 1/2 years ago and lost some of my balls. My partner, Jake tries to put a bug in my ass to talk more. I am getting better, but Jake takes care of most of that now. Thanks again for the write-up and stop in to Kevins or Ricks and I will give you one of my CDs........Gary That's in response to this that I wrote during my trip to Key West. I'm not kidding, folks. Gary is worth going to see. I never thought he would see what I wrote about him, but the internet is a sneaky bastard, as I well know. You throw it out there, you never know who might see it. I would LOVE to sit and pick with that guy some day.
trembling earthThis is a dangerous path to walk. I'm going there anyway. Unpleasant truths make delicate ears uncomfortable, but somebody needs to say this. It speaks about a real problem in this country. "Let me tell you something, your dirty laundry gets out of school at 2:30 every day, it's cursing and calling each other n------ as they're walking up and down the street," Cosby said during an appearance at the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition & Citizenship Education Fund's annual conference. PUSH probably didn't want to hear such rhetoric, because Jesse and his compatriots have a vested interest in keeping black people at the bottom of society. As professional grievance brokers, black leaders would be up the creek without a paddle if their flocks actually began to SUCCEED in life. They don't want black people to succeed. They NEED a downtrodden minority to justify their own existence. In MY humble opinion, a lot of blacks simply squander golden opportunities for success in this country today and then blame their own failure on "racism." I dealt with too many of these assholes as a supervisor in a chemical plant to delude myself into believing otherwise. Opportunity is EVERYWHERE in this country, and it's wide-open for anyone who wants it. But it comes with a price. Learning to read and write is a really, really BIG help when you want to climb the ladder of success. Understanding before you start the climb that the ladder may be steeper for YOU than it is for someone else is no reason to quit climbing. In fact, knowing that truth should make you MORE DETERMINED to achieve the climb. Don't sit on your ass and whine about life being "unfair." OF COURSE LIFE IS UNFAIR!!! Who ever told you that life WAS fair? It ain't and it never will be. Government can't make life fair and God doesn't seem to give a shit about it, so just adapt to the circumstances and endeavor to persevere. The best thing YOU can do is to arm yourself with enough knowledge and a solid work ethic so that you are PREPARED for the curve balls you see in life. "I can't even talk the way these people talk, 'Why you ain't,' 'Where you is' ... and I blamed the kid until I heard the mother talk," Cosby said then. "And then I heard the father talk ... Everybody knows it's important to speak English except these knuckleheads. You can't be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth." Imagine that. If I axe you where yo' hoe be tonight, and you tell me that she be eating skrimp down the skreet at da club, I definitely want you to perform brain surgery on me. Now, I'm going way out on the trembling earth. It doesn't have to be this way. Too many immigrants have come to this country and carved out a piece of the American pie for me to believe that blacks can't do it, too. I don't buy slavery as an excuse. I worked with too many Vietnamese people who came to this country after the war and couldn't speak English at the time. They worked their asses off, spoke English only in their homes and pushed their children to excellence in school. Every one of them prospered. If THEY could do it, anybody can. Cosby elaborated Thursday on his previous comments in a talk interrupted several times by applause. He castigated some blacks, saying that they cannot simply blame whites for problems such as teen pregnancy and high school dropout rates. I WILL NOT use the N-word here. See? I've learned MY lesson. "When you put on a record and that record is yelling `n----- this and n----- that' and you've got your little 6-year-old, 7-year-old sitting in the back seat of the car, those children hear that," he said. Whoa! I said pretty much the same thing in more angry words a few months ago and I was massively de-linked by a lot of "sensitive" bloggers. Well, I've got news for you. Blacks in this country are making their own bed and then bitching about having to sleep in it. Opportunity is out there, but it won't come knocking on your door. You have to go out and GET IT. That's just the way life works, no matter what the color of your skin. Be-bopping down the street in baggy pants with your underwear hanging out when you should be in school, and learning to say "muthafucker" before you learn your alphabet ain't the way to success. It's a dead-end street (excuse me...SKREET) and the best that you can ever hope to find there is a welfare check, a prison sentence and a flock of illegitimate children, who see life as nothing but another dead-end street. It's all a self-fulfilling prophecy. I am not a racist. I am a realist.
my first supervisory actAs long as I'm pontificating on the subject of football, I want to tell a story. I don't remember who we were playing at the time, but they had a fourth and one on our thirty yard-line. I was defensive captain and I called the signals. We huddled and I announced ""6-5 spread." I got a protest from that asshole Billy Holland, who always thought that he should be team captain. "6-5 SPREAD? That's crazy! We oughta to run the pinch. They need less than a yard." I said, "Billy, shut up in my huddle or I'm getting you out of this game. We're gonna run a 6-5 spread." "You can't get me out of this game. Only coach can do that." I stepped from the huddle and called a time out. I jogged to the sidelines and told my coach, "Either you take Billy out of the game right now, or you take ME out. He's causing dissention in my huddle and I'm not gonna put up with that." Coach took Billy out of the game. I still remember the stunned look on his face when that happened. I went back to the huddle and called a 6-5 spread again. "Anybody got any questions?" I asked. Nobody did. We ran the spread, the other team tried a sweep, the way I expected, and I tackled their all-state 230-pound tailback for a three-yard loss. Billy Holland never lined up in my huddle again after that. That was my first act as a supervisor.
screw soccerI must respectfully disagree with one of my favorite bloggers here. Soccer is a boring, pussy sport. Get pissed at me all you want to, but I simply do not see the fascination in watching a bunch of pansies running around a field and kicking a ball that goes out of bounds a lot more often than it finds the goal. I don't like ANY sport that frequently ends games with scores of 0-0, after an hour of sound and fury, signifying nothing. I was in Costa Rica for the Championship de Nationale, which is the Costa Rican equilivant of Super Bowl Sunday. The National Championship soccer game, and EVERYBODY in Costa Rica loves soccer. Every esquela in the country has a soccer field and every kid old enough to shed his diapers is kicking a ball on any flat piece of ground he can find. They love their futbol there. I watched the game on a big-screen TV, but I wasn't thrilled by it. The game was played in a pouring rain (at least the pussies played in the rain, unlike even MORE PUSSIFIED baseball players) and a lot of guys went sliding on the muddy turf in a 3-0 victory for whoever was wearing the red jerseys. I applauded and yelled when everybody else did, although I usually had no clue about what I was applauding for. It damn sure wasn't for a lot of scoring. Give me gridiron football anytime. I understand that game and I believe that it is a truly American sport. The design of the offense is to score points and the design of the defense is to PREVENT the other team from scoring points, but the whole game boils down to a bunch of individual battles on the field. You hit and you get hit. You stop the other guy from doing what he wants to do. The average football play lasts seven seconds or less. During that brief seven seconds, all kinds of violence whirls around you and the sounds people make are remarkable. Yeah, you growl like a wild animal. You hear the "oofs!" and "ugghs" of bodies slamming against one another and you go beserk because that's what a football player does. You use hands, elbows, knees, forearms and whatever else it takes to stay on your feet while very large, very angry people attempt to knock you down. At the end of that seven seconds, you get up and prepare to do it all over again. It's a goddam war out there and only the strong survive. If you play the position I did, strong-side linebacker (or "monsterman") you can bet your sweet ass that somebody is assigned to hit YOU on every play. But if you don't want to hit, you shouldn't be playing football. I enjoyed the violence when I played and I enjoy watching it now. Wearing the pads and the helmet made me feel like a knight in armor and I feared no one on the field. I got my ass racked, knocked right-over-tea-kettle and damn near handed to me on a tray a few times, but I gave back better than I got. Pain was a given on the football field. I didn't think I really played a game if I didn't have some blood on my uniform at the end. That's American. That's suck it up, grab your jock and go. That's real football.
saddam is a democratI always thought so.
July 01, 2004booked!I'm going back to Costa Rica. I am staying 20 days this time and I intend to see some of the country that I didn't catch the first time around. I may go over the the Caribbean side this time, just to say I've been there. I want to go back to the volcano at Arenal, but the rest of the trip will be played on the first bounce. The best adventures are unplanned. That BILL from Jennifer today just put me right off my grits and I decided to stop sitting around the Crackerbox and vegetating. I sent her a check and called my travel agent. I leave a week from Monday. Heh. I also figured that since I was paying for the time share this year, I SHOULD USE IT, so I booked myself a week at Daytona Beach in August. I like the idea of spending the summer AWAY FROM HERE. The Crackerbox is depressing anymore. I doubt that I'll be able to duplicate the first experience I had in Costa Rica. That trip was the most theraputic thing I've ever done in my life. The country is sooo beautiful and the people are sooo friendly that you can really get a lot of spiders and snakes out of your head there. I know I did. I didn't want to come home the last time. I'm going back and I believe that I can make the trip with one carry-on bag and a small suitcase. I have four outfits to wear. If my clothes get stinky, I'll wash them, or buy something new. But I'm traveling light. And I intend to keep doing that.
from the ex-wifeHey! A big, fat letter from Jennifer in the mail! I can't wait to open this one. It's copies of some medical bills for Quinton and a post-it note saying "You owe me $300 for the time share, plus half these medical bills." That's the kind of correspondence I get from her today. I talked to Quinton last night on the phone. He won't be around to see his sister when she comes to town this weekend, because he's headed for Virginia today, to visit some people Jennifer knows. One of those people is a doctor that Jennifer once screwed before she met me. The guy gave her a case of venereal disease, but had the chivalry to call her and tell her to get checked once he found out what HE had. She got that problem fixed and told me that the sex was a complete bust. "That was all a big mistake," she said. Yeah. I believe anything YOU say.
i always wanted a sisterI grew up in a male-dominated household and I played with boys when I was young. I thought girls had cooties and I wanted nothing to do with them until my hormones kicked in and made me a lust-crazed teenager. But by then, I had missed the boat on a whole lot of things a sister could have helped me with. I didn't understand wimmen and they scared the shit out of me. I WANTED ONE, but I didn't know how to go about accomplishing that goal. I was tongue-tied and foolish in their presence. Asking a girl out for a date once took me three days to work up enough nerve to actually pick up the phone and call. Then, if she went out with me, I acted like a frightened asshole the entire time. A sister could have helped me. An OLDER sister. If I had a sister when I was growing up, SHE could have familiarized me with feminine undergarments, told me that girls like sex, too, and that wimmen are just as afraid of men as men are of wimmen. Alas, I was cast adrift in those days and I had to learn all those hard lessons on my own. Damn! I miss the sister I never had.
blunt truthBill Clinton says he wrote a BOOK (YEAH, RIGHT.) "Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed there are many rewards, if you disgrace yourself you can always write a book." -- Ronald Reagan (1911-2004) (Shamelessly stolen from here.)
how odd...Yesterday, my Site Meter just disappeared from my page. It was there one minute and gone the next. I saw it missing and thought, "WTF?" I tried to figure out what I might have done to cause it, but I hadn't messed with any of the guts on my blog. I just posted a few things and went off to surf other sites. I like my Site Meter. I use it to read a lot of blogs that I wouldn't know about if I didn't find them on my referral list. I wondered where the hell my meter went and what caused it to go away. I never did discover what happened. I just turned off the computer and went to bed last night. Hell, I knew that I could install another Site Meter if I had to. But this morning, everything was back to normal. Except for one thing. I had about a 12-hour gap where no hits or visitors were recorded. Site Meter came back by itself, but I still don't know where it went and what it did while it was gone. If Site Meter were my teenage daughter, I'd ground the living shit out of her until I got a very contrite explanation of that AWOL episode. But what do I know about computers?
i've wanted to do thatYes, I'll admit it. I have wanted to murder Chuck E. Cheese, the fucking rat, with my bare hands more than once. Kids may like the place, but I don't. To me, it is a loud, rambunctious, out-of-control Thunderdome for the young that makes really shitty pizza. The only redeeming quality about the one in Savannah is that they serve beer, too, so I can get quietly tanked while watching otherwise civilized children run amok all over the place. I can take such an experience only in small, occasional doses. You can drop a lot of money in that place and end up with nothing more than a car full of hyper-activated children, screaming and fighting while clutching cheap, plastic toys in their hands, thanks to all the coupons they "won" playing arcade games. Most of those toys last about two days and then end up in pieces clogging the intake of your vacuum cleaner. Yeah, I am convinced. Chuck E. Cheese should DIE!!! But I like this line from the story: Chuck E. Cheese's is a nationwide chain of pizza restaurants that caters to small children and the parents they bring along. Its namesake, mascot and main attraction is a friendly man-sized rat wearing a baseball cap. Sounds a lot like Michael Moore to me.
bathing suitsI like some of the ones I saw here. Just scroll to the bottom of the post for some eye-candy. It's work-safe, so enjoy.
yellow jacketsOne of the reasons I always carry chewing tobacco with me when I hike or camp is for medicinal purposes. Yeah, I enjoy a good chew and I like the sizzle it makes when I spit in the campfire, but that's not the real reason I bring it along as an essential supply. I've scared up a nest of yellow jackets more than once in my life, and a wet tobacco poultice is the only thing I've ever found that will take away the sting and reduce the swelling when you get hit by a dozen or so of those bastards. Yellow jackets live in the ground and you won't know they're there until you step in the wrong place. If you make that mistake, the sumbitches come boiling out like orcs in Lord of the Rings and they are seriously on the warpath. A single yellow jacket can sting you more than once, too. One flew right down my shirt one day and hit me five times before I could kill him. If you find yourself in a cloud of them, you'll be doing the damnedest boogaloo you ever imagined as you run for your life. The stings feel like small-caliber gunshot wounds. A commenter suggested on a previous post about hornets that you should just stand still and don't move in that situation. Try that trick on yellow jackets. They'll sting the ever-lovin' piss out of you, whether you're moving or not. Yellow jackets are about the meanest insect I've ever encountered. Maybe that's why I hate Georgia Tech so much.
A scoopKerry doesn't want to release his divorce papers, but he's pissing in the wind. The papers already are available here for your reading enjoyment. (Link via another guy in Georgia.)
Damn!I am not nominated here. I am shocked and appalled. I've been pushing the boundaries of good taste for two and a half years now and I never submitted ONE POST foul enough to qualify? I must stagger off to my bedroom and cry now. (Since I'm not in the running, go vote for adam.)
watermelonsIf you are still so naive as to believe that greenies aren't red on the inside, just read this. I love this quote: But supporters and environmentalists say personal property rights do not trump the rights of a larger community to save the eco-system. I'm sorry, but I disagree. If the "larger community" is so all-fired determined to "save the ecosystem," LET THEM BUY THE GODDAM LAND THEMSELVES. Then, it will be THEIR private property and they can do whatever they want with it. Then, THEY can pay the taxes as they bask in the glory of watching the land return to a jungle state. They can hug the trees, pet the weeds and worship Gaia to their heart's content ONCE THEY OWN THE LAND. But using government fiat to FORCE people to use their own land only the way environmentalists see fit is obscene. The guy behind this bullshit is running for governor? Good. Elect him at your own risk. Barking fucking moonbat.
John & Jesse
Jesse, you want me to suck WHAT? Okay, just gimme a second to position myself...
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