February 28, 2006

i think too much

I had a very nice dinner tonight. I don't have a clue what it was, but it had a big chunk of fish, lots of strange vegetables, some kinda micro-shrimp and a lot of rice on the plate. I can't believe that I ate the WHOLE THING, because it should have been hauled on a fork-lift to my table. Bejus! That was a LOT of food and I felt.... I dunno... DECADENT for pigging out the way I did.

The meal cost less than 5,000 colones, and that included two cups of VERY rich coffee after I sat paralyzed at the table, unable to function as a human being because my belly was so full. I did some quick math (I was an English Major--- I don't DO math) and calculated that, after I factored the F of X into the equation, inverted and multplied, did all the gozentas and took a wild-assed guess, that meal cost me $10.00 US, once I included a generous tip for my most attentive waiter.

That's Costa Rica, folks, if you'll just get off the beaten track .

Okay that's enought of me JEERING at you folks because I'm here and YOU'RE NOT! I'm gonna open a travel agency and show people how to have a good time, eat sumptiously and endure insane cab rides for a modest price. I'm gonna get rich and retire to Costa Rica.

But I'm totally off-topic here. Living high on the hog with piglet money does that to me...

Last night when I couldn't sleep, I did a lot of thinking. In the past two days, I've probably walked close to 20 miles. I don't take taxis here in San Jose. I walk. I LIKE walking, and I'm not that far away from remembering when I couldn't make it to my mailbox and back in one trip. I'll be sore tomorrow, but I walked ALL DAY today. It felt GOOD, too.

When I did sleep last night, I dreamed that I had a puppy dog in bed with me and he wouldn't be still. He kept pawing and licking at me until he pissed me off. I dreamed that I grabbed the dog by the nose, stuck his face in my armpit and said, "If you start that shit again, I'm throwing your ass outside for the night! You BEHAVE!" and I dreamed that the dog behaved and slept with his nose in my armpit, just like a fuzzy cuddle-muffin. Is that weird, or what? I MISSED that dog when I woke up.

You'll NEVER dream about a CAT doing that.

I also had plenty of time to get all existential. I thought about the hookers trying to solicit me off the porch last night. And I thought about my BC ex-wife. Guess which one I decided was most honest? Guess which one cost the most money? There's an inverse mathemetical Parallel of Pussy that needs to be taught in school. If a woman sells it outright, you know what it costs, right upfront. Hell, if it's GOOD, you might even throw in a generous tip.

Have her "give" it to you, and that's one expensive damn hole you end up paying for. There's whores and then there's... uh... ex-wives. In MY humble opinion, whores are.... never mind. I don't want every ex-wife in the world wanting to cut my nuts off because I suggested that they are nut-cutters. Gawd! Wimmen are the only creatures on the planet who will nut-cut to PROVE that they ARE NOT nut-cutters. Go figure that one out. I can't.

I'll just tell you guys.... If you don't think a pussy has teeth, you've never been to divorce court.

I'll probably piss off a lot of wimmen by writing this, but I speak with the voice of experience. And if I weren't speaking at least a modicum of truth, there would be no divorce lawyers driving Porches and no such thing as a pre-nup agreement. Guys are totally dumb, and you chicks figured that fact out a LOOONG time ago. Don't give me that "weaker sex" shit. I KNOW better.

Still, I wish I had a woman with me right now. Yes, I do. I would LOVE to show her around San Jose, buy her some killer food and treat her like a queen. I would take her with me tomorrow to Jaco, then down the coast to wherever we end up. If she followed me, I'd give her a time to remember.

And I'm not talking about sex. I'll GET sex while I'm here. It''s for sale, on the open market, just like any other commodity. If I see something I want, I'll rent it. Great fun, no guilt and everybody ends up happy, What's wrong with that? It's really no different than enjoying that fine meal I had tonight.

I just wish I had a companion. I'm funny that way.

But I believe that I'd be better off with a good dog nuzzling my armpit at night. I've never had a dog I treated well turn around and bite me.

bits and pieces

I'm gonna be sore tomorrow.

I didn't sleep well last night. I had another attack of the crawlies and the restless leg cramps that woke me up at 3:30 AM and I couldn't go back to sleep. I'm in a non-smoking room, and even though I don't believe that the management will throw me out for lighting up in there, I didn't do it. I abide by most rules of courtesy because... hell, I'm COURTEOUS. I wish more people were.

So, I got out of bed, dressed my nekkid self and went out to the front of the hotel, on a walled-in area surrounded by concertina wire and a locked cast-iron gate to have a smoke. On the way, I passed the night clerk, who I took totally by surprise as he was surfing internet porn on the hotel computer. You shoulda SEEN that guy switch windows when he saw me. Too late, bub. I saw what YOU were doing. What the hell-- he was working a midnight shift. Ya gotta do SOMETHING to stay awake. At least he wasn't masturbating at the time.

I ended up smoking THREE cigarettes before I went back inside, and during that time I was propositioned by THREE different prostitues. All three were knock-out beautiful, too, but I wasn't in the mood. Plus, I don't trust the street-walkers here. I'm all for a good whore, but I'm kinda choosey about the ones I pick. Maybe that's why I've never been robbed or picked up any nasty diseases in my frolics.

I went out early this morning and covered a bunch of the town. I didn't get lost a single time, either. I think I've been here enough that I know the right landmarks to look for so that I always know pretty much where I am. If you ever come here, DO NOT rely on the Banco de National building for guidance. That sumbitch may be the tallest on the skyline, but it looks the same from all four sides and it will fuck you up if you let it. I learned that lesson the hard way.

I saw a lot of the captol city that I never saw on other trips, probably because I WAS TOO DRUNK TO NOTICE BEFORE. I've done pretty good so far. Not even one cervesa, although I was sorely tempted today. I met some sympatico Americanos in a restaurant and they were mightily impressed that could speak Spanish. Fuck me dead. They were from MISSISSIPPI, for cryin' out loud, and it don't take much to impress them folks. Their command of the local language consisted of "Mashes grassy-ass" and "Gimme one of them servey-thangs ya got back yonder."

I ended up being their translator for a couple of hours, because I SPOKE THEIR LANGUAGE as well as Spanish. I told them that I didn't drink alcohol, but that didn't matter to them. "We'll buy the servys if you order 'em, and we'll pay for your pussy-assed COKE, too. " Dayum. I didn't have anything else to do, so I took the job for a while.

Y'know what? I HAVE NEVER sat in a bar and NOT consumed alcohol in copious quantities before. I did that today and it was kinda fun, even if people do give you strange looks when you just say "NO" when they insist on buying you a drink. I told everybody that I was the "designated driver," which elicited hoots from those Mississippi Crackers. "Yep. He got us here, and he's gonna get us home."

They were still drinking when I left, but they all assured me that I am their friend forever. "Hasta yo' mama, Rob," was the last I heard from them.

I'm getting out of here tomorrow and going to the beach. I arranged transportation and lodging at a pretty good price, and I'm looking forward to the trip. I can stand this city for no more than a couple of days. The food is good and the sights are nice, but this place ain't the Costa Rica I like. Too many bums and beggars and criminals to suit me. I dropped $100 in a casino today, so I've done my part to support the local economy. Onward and upward tomorrow.

La pura vida.

undercover

I am blogging from an undisclosed location.

I left beautiful Rincon, Georgia at 0700 yesterday morning. The temperature was 27 degrees and I had to scrape ice off the windshield of my car before I could drive. My trip was uneventful after that, except for a truly exciting ride from the airport to where I am now. I thought Jamacian cab drivers were suicidal, but I rode with one yesterday who could put a stoned Rashta-mon to shame.

I always ride in the front seat in a cab here, because I can see better that way. Yesterday, I wanted to crawl into the back seat and cover up my head. Bejus! My driver was either VERY GOOD or VERY CRAZY. He cannon-balled down the streets as if he were playing a damn video game where he got bonus points for colliding with other cars or killing pedestrians. Or scaring the shit out of his passenger.
I don't know how we made it to the hotel in one piece, but we did.

I gave him a decent tip to make up for the hole my anus gnawed in his front seat during the ride.

I'm glad I wore a long-sleeved shirt on the trip. I needed it last night. It's kinda chilly here, with a nasty wind blowing. Still, I think I can survive. If I lived through that cab ride, I can handle almost anything. I'll be here in the city today, then off to the beach tomorrow, where the weather is supposed to be a lot warmer.

I was intending to post yesterday, but I couldn't get into this got-dam iMac computer I'm using at the hotel. Of course, it might have worked better if I remembered the address of my site, which I didn't. It came to me in my sleep last night. Funny how you have to put those slashes and dots in EXACTLY the right place to make a computer do what you want it to do. Finnicky bastard.

For those of you who thought I was dead because I didn't post yesterday, I'm still alive. For those of you who are curious about where I am, take a wild guess.

February 26, 2006

vandalism

I frequently rant about idiotic environmentalists and how totally delirious most of 'em are. I get tired of the "WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!" alarms and the "Let's Save the Planet" pomposities they spew. They behave a lot like religious zealots, in MY humble opinion, and religious zealots scare me. Environmentalism isn't a science anymore--- it's a cult.

I'm not suggesting that all environmental laws are crazy--- just most of them--- and I'm not advocating uncontrolled pollution of the planet. But I AM wondering why so many people answering opinion polls claim that "the environment" is VERY important to them while we still have a litter problem in this country.

I don't litter. Oh, I may flick an occasional cigarette butt or a freshly-picked booger out of my car window while I'm driving, but that's about it. I never throw trash on the side of the road. That's what garbage cans are for.

But other people damn surely do. A LOT of other people. Recently, I had a guest from the frozen north who commented several times on the amount of trash scattered along the roads here. I couldn't deny it and I couldn't defend it. But the truth is, I really hadn't noticed it until my guest pointed it out. The roads had always looked that way.

That's what chaps my Cracker ass when I read a story about how 68% of the people favor some ridiculous small-particle emission regulation in the name of "clean air." Fuck small particles. You want to do something to REALLY improve the environment? Stop throwing your got-dam trash on the road.

I am thoroughly convinced that most people favor environmental regulations for three reasons: they don't understand them, they think the rules don't affect them, and they believe that it's a sign of deep spiritual wisdom to be "for" the environment. Ignorance is bliss.

If a vast majority of Americans really took environmentalism seriously, we wouldn't have so many MacDonald's wrappers and empty beer cans decorating our roadsides. It takes a lot of sorry, worthless bastards to make that kind of mess, and we seem to have no shortage of those in spite of laws against littering.

Littering, hell---it's pure vandalism to me.

In the end, that's what's gonna styme the environmental cultists. They'll lose the fat, dumb and lazy once those people realize that THEY may have to modify THEIR behavior to comply with a new commandment regulation. The natives will get restless then. You can't expect people who throw trash on the highway to follow any law that requires effort on their part.

The government is supposed to do that.

the truth is out!

When he posted an old picture of himself, I thought he looked familiar. Now, my suspicions are confirmed.

the owl

I was going through some old pictures last night and I found it: The picture I took of a big owl sitting in an oak tree in the front yard of my old mini-farm. I like the photo because the owl has its head turned sideways, looking at ME as I took its picture. Its eyes shine a bright, reflective red and I don't know why, because I wasn't using a flash. I remember taking the picture at about 5:00 one evening when I saw that rascal posing in the tree.

The owl appeared shortly after I had a bunch of trees cut down on my land. When I bought the mini-farm, the previous owners appeared to have crammed the house onto those five acres of property with the deliberate intention of removing as few trees as possible. That made the place look very rustic and well-shaded, but I didn't like those twenty or so 60' tall pine trees snuggling up next to my home, especially not with hurricane season approaching.

I made a deal with a timber guy. He would clear my land in exchange for the pine trees, which he would haul off and sell. I got him to agree to cut down a lot of scrub woods, too, even though he didn't want that wood. I thought it was a pretty nifty deal--- I got my land cleared for free.

Now I realize that the timber guy screwed me blind, because he made a fricking FORTUNE selling those trees and I was stuck with cleaning up the mess he left behind. He should have payed ME for the privilege of getting all that wood, but I didn't know any better at the time. (You can look here to see the end result. That alpaca is standing in what once was thick woods.)

After the guy cleared my land, strange things started happening around Acidman Acres. Believe it or not, I had THREE CATS as members of my household at the time. One mysteriously disappeared after going outside one evening. It was a black cat, and I suspected that something was seriously amiss when the cat never came back and I discovered a few chunks of black hair and hide blowing around my yard.

The second cat ended up flopping in the road, mortally wounded with a broken back. I had to put that one down. After that incident, the third cat never went outside without keeping a wary eye peeled toward the sky. She became VEEEERY jumpy for a while, and that cat usually wasn't afraid of anything.

That's when I first saw the owl. I'm not positive, but it damn sure looked a lot like this one. It was about two feet tall and built like a cinder block. It made the usual "who-who-who" calls, but occasionally released a horrible shriek that sounded like a woman being raped. Hear THAT noise right outside your window at 4:00 in the morning, and you'll sit bolt upright in bed and reach for a fucking gun. That sound could raise goosebumps on a corpse.

The owl stayed around for a couple of weeks, then disappeared, never to be seen again. Of course, I didn't see any squirrels, field mice, snakes or other such creatures for a while, either. Two other neighbors lost small cats during this time.

I figured that when I had the woods cut down around my house, I opened up some ideal hunting grounds for that owl. It ate very well for a while, then moved on to somewhere else when prey became scarce. It killed cats, not for supper, but because they were competition in the hunt for food. The owl was protecting its territory, waging a turf-war. It won, too.

That owl was a magnificent creature and a perfect example of Mother Nature at her most ruthless. It was a merciless winged killer, silent in flight and deadly in attack. Impressive.

I missed seeing the critter after he went away. But I probably would have felt differently if I were on his dinner menu.

That owl was a bad-ass.

see?

I really have started a trend in blogging. Here's another person posting a picture of his ass on his site.

Shameless, I tell you. Shameless!

February 25, 2006

oh, shit!

Somebody is going after my throne.

This is some serious crap-blogging.

i'm flattered

They ain't exactly the prettiest buncha boys I ever saw, but their band has a nice name. I wonder if I can sue the shit out of them for some kind of copyright infringement. I feel so violated.

Of course, that would probably be a waste of time, because if they're musicians, they piss all their money away on booze, loose wimmen and drugs. At least that's what I did when I was a semi-professional musician. And those guys don't exactly look like choirboys.

I think I might have posted a link to that band before, when I was too drunk and drugged to remember doing it. They seem eerily familiar.

I wonder if their music is any good.

beards

I read this post and I had to laugh. Eric has a lot of fricking nerve to be singing the praises of ANY razor, because he ain't got no beard. I've seen heavier growths on a Jawja peach than the fuzz that sprouts on his face. He doesn't need a razor. He may as well scrape his cheek and chin with a popsicle stick, since he's just going through the motions anyway.

When I was a boy, I couldn't WAIT to start shaving. I watched my father do it, and I thought it was a manly act, even if he did make funny faces in the mirror getting at those hard-to-reach spots. He used a safety razor, but he applied lather using the old-fashioned cup-and-brush method. I thought putting on lather was way cool, too.

Occasionally, my father would pop the blade out of the razor and hand it to me, so that I could lather up my face and pretend to shave. I enjoyed doing that and I even practiced making funny faces in the mirror the way my father did, even though I had to stand on a chair to see my reflection.

But the novelty of shaving quickly wore off when I started actually NEEDING to do it. Even then I got screwed, because I grew formidable whiskers on my chin and under my nose, but only fuzz on my cheeks. Long sideburns were fashionable in the late '60s, but I couldn't grow any, dammit. And moustaches were forbidden in high school. So, shaving became an almost-daily part of my life, and it wasn't fun anymore. I learned to hate doing it.

I grew my first moustache when I was a freshman in college. I've shaved it off and grown it back at least 50 times now. I've gone for the Frank Zappa look, the neat Tom Selleck style, the David Crosby bushy curl and even added a goatee on occasion. A few times, I've grown a full beard, although my sideburns remain kinda wispy to this day.

The main reason I usually grow some kind of hair on my face is simple: I don't like to shave. Shaving is a nuisance, a pain, a chore. I avoid as much of it as I can.

That's one reason why I find wimmen so fascinating. They (well, MOST of 'em anyway) shave their legs, their armpits and sometimes... other intimate places. That's a LOT more surface area to cover with a razor than a man has to deal with. I am delighted that I don't have to do THAT.

Considering what wimmen do, I would be much more inclined to listen to THEM talk about a good razor than pay any attention to Baby-Faced Eric on that subject.

don't laugh

I think I dated her once.

it's so... beautiful

The nominated tune "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp" from "Hustle & Flow" with music and lyric by Jordan Houston ("Juicy Jay"), Cedric Coleman ("Freysier Boy") and Paul Beauregard ("Deejay Paul") has, by my count, 10 repeated words which would not pass network clearances. They are "fuck," "shit" and "niggaz." ---army archerd

Hip-hop is such beautiful music. I've been far too.... niggardly in my praise for this kind of art.

lotta fun

Imagine a place waaaay back in the woods in Bumfuck, South Carolina. Add what appears to be an old barn, converted into a concert hall upstairs and a U-shaped room, perfect for THREE sit-and-pick groups downstairs. Put it a half-mile down a dirt road on the bank of a blackwater creek. Have about 100 people show up with guitars, mandolins, fiddles, banjos, dobros and other instruments on Friday night. Imagine LOTS of good music.

Well, such a place exists, and that's where I went last night.

My friend Willy hauled me up there and I probably couldn't find the place again without a damn good map. It's in the middle of NOWHERE. An elderly couple owns the property and they provide coffee and snacks for the musicians--- they pass a hat for "contributions" to pay for that--- and I had a GREAT time. Bluegrass is the preferred genre, but you probably can pick just about anything except rap and have people play along. (Shit. As if you can "pick" rap music anyway.)

Some of the musicians are damned GOOD, too. I hate it when I encounter a 13 year-old boy who can pick rings around me, but I met one last night. That little fucker could tear up a banjo, too. A one-eyed man with silver hair was as good a mandolin player as I've ever heard. A little old lady who resembled Barbara Bush played the hell out of the fiddle. I even saw some clog-dancing.

I played until my fingers hurt. In the downstairs area, pickers and fiddlers wandered from group to group so that I got to play with a LOT of different people, most of 'em fine musicians. I liked the atmosphere. Somebody would say, "You know such-and-such?" and the answer would be, "What key ya do it in?" "I play it outta 'G.'" "Just hit it and we'll follow you." And off we would go, winging it into the wee hours.

I've gotta go back there. If I can ever find the place again.

February 24, 2006

twice now

How many of you people use AOL? If you use it, are you happy with it?

I ask, because to me, AOL is like a case of herpes. You can't get rid of it. The symptoms may disappear temporarily, but damn if that shit doesn't come back. While thumbing through my last batch of bills, I discovered that I was using AOL again. In fact, I had TWO FUCKING ACCOUNTS!! I knew immediately what it was--- another AOLerpes attack.

I had AOL in the past and I kept it as an emergency backup after I got my high-speed service. I never used AOL. Somehow, months later, I ended up having TWO accounts with them, so I cancelled BOTH, after a marathon session on the phone to India, or somewhere with a similar accent. That took care of AOL for a while, but now BOTH accounts are open again. WTF? I thought I got rid of them, but evidently they were simply in remission.

Excuse me while I call India again...

who's counting?

I am, that's who. And if my calculations are correct, today makes 126 days since I last took a drink of alcohol. That's more than one-third of a year. I don't intend to drink today, either.

One (actually SEVERAL) of my kind readers suggested that I start taking magnesium supplements to cure my night miseries of cramps, aches and restless legs. I bought a bottle of 100, with calcium and zinc included, and started taking them on Wednesday. Last night, I slept like a rock for nine straight hours. Maybe you folks gave me some damn good advice.

I succumbed to temptation. I'm going back to Costa Rica next week. I bought my tickets and reserved a room in San Jose for two nights so that I can gamble and whore enjoy a couple of good restaurants before I strike off elsewhere, probably back to Playa de Jaco or maybe Puerto Viejo. I'll play this trip by ear once I get there. I plan to stay at least a week, maybe longer if I feel like it.

I haven't seen or spoken to my son for two weeks now. I've tried, but to no avail. I even called the BC at work and left a message on her answering machine asking her to call me or have Quinton call--- anything--- to let me talk to my boy. No response.

I don't care what kind of shitass she thinks I was in the past and I don't care how much she hates me now. Using my son as a weapon against me is both immoral and sadistic. I AM HIS FATHER and nothing she does in this world is gonna change that fact, no matter how badly it chaps her ass. I had intended to wait six months, to see if I could stay sober that long, before I went back to court to petition for having my visitation restored.

That's too long now. I'm going to do it as soon as I get back from Costa Rica. And if that pissant Domestic Violence order is still in effect, I want that dropped, too. Bejus, but I hate to think of the money it's going to cost. I'll spend it, no matter how much, to put Quinton back in my life.

But I'm not going to say "It's worth it." It ain't, because this entire situation is complete bullshit, generated by a bloodless, sadistic cunt and abetted by a court system that doomed my ass from the first time I walked into it. I'm being held hostage and I have to pay my own got-dam ransom to the kidnappers. I don't like doing that. I would rather rake the money into a pile and set it on fire in my yard than have it extorted from me, which is ACTUALLY what's happening.

Enough of that crap. I'm putting myself into a bad mood when I started out talking about pleasant things.

Okay, let's recap: I'm still sober, I'm sleeping well again, I'm going to Costa Rica, my garden is tilled and it's a warm, sunny day. I'm going to quit bitching about things I can't change right now and enjoy what I have. It's just a matter of serenity.

Life is good, if you let it be.

February 23, 2006

angry jews

Okay, I'm posting a religious cartoon, sorta. I'm doing it deliberately, too--- to inflame Jewish tempers, enrage the Jewish street and provoke riots and angry demonstrations. I realize that some people may die when outraged Jews vent their fury, but that's a price I'm willing to pay as long as I don't get killed myself. It's a Freedom of the Press issue.

You know how crazy those Jews get when you make fun of their religion. While I'm waiting for the powder keg to explode, I think I'll read some more about the religion of peace.

trendsetter

I knew it would happen. somebody posts a picture of my ass on their blog, and the next thing you know, you get this. I'm just whatchacall a trend-setter, a bellwether, a bad influence trailblazer, daring to hang my buns in the wind. Already people are beginning to follow my example.

The only problem is... her ass looks better than mine.

Step two

I forgot to mention that I tilled my garden yesterday. I also got a little carried away with the tiller and made the plot almost twice as big as I originally planned. It's about 40' X 40' and I don't have enough timber to make a border around it now. Hell, that can wait.

I raked it today and got rid of all the surface growth I had plowed up. I also cut down a small tree that was blocking the afternoon sun at the back end of the garden. Then, I went back over it with a good coat of 10-10-10 fertilizer and a light raking.

I'll let that set and air for a while, then I'll add the cow shit, the compost and some more fertilizer before I give it another light tilling. It should be ready for planting by St. Patrick's Day.

To make it look really good, I need to buy some more landscape timber, but I'm going to lay what I have before I get another truckload. Looking at what I've accomplished so far, I think I can make a good garden this year.

It's kinda fun playing in the dirt again.

i confess

Okay, I admit it. I have a cat. Here is his picture.

His name is "Manson" as he's okay as far as cats go. He doesn't claw on my furniture and he hasn't pissed on my curtains yet. I believe that he thinks he's a bulldog.

He does, however, like to go hunting outside and bring me trophies to prove his prowess. This morning, he came home with a Ruger .357 Magnum pistol. I don't know where he finds those things, but he does stuff like that a lot.

Ain't he cute?

comments

I love having comments on my blog. Some of my regular visitors are clever wordsmiths and often their comments are better than my posts. Of course, I get my share of idiots, too, but those people just prove something I've suspected for a long time: We have a LOT of idiots in this world.

Take my post about the Powerball Lottery winners. Here's a good one:

if the were poor, and black, you wouldn't feel happy if they won.

does that help to clarify it?

Posted by anon at February 22, 2006 04:05 PM

Okay, this nutless wonder won't use his real name (but ya gotta admit--- that "anon" handle shows a LOT of imagination), doesn't understand the concept of capital letters, can't spell and probably has the IQ of a fence post. Looks a lot like a member of the Democrat base to me, especially since he implies that I am a racist, which is what Democrats do to demonstrate their compassion.

But he's wrong about one thing. I was delighted a few years ago when a black janitor won the Georgia lottery. (I like rags-to-riches stories, regardless of race.) I just thought the guy was crazy when he held a multi-million dollar check in his hand and announced that he was gonna keep his job mucking bathrooms. That's either one hell of a work ethic or a sign of complete insanity. If I were in HIS shoes, I think I would have hung up my mop for good.

Of course, the black guy was no more nutzo than the 28 year-old white boy in Effingham County who won $28 million in the lottery. (Joey, proprietor of "The Swamp Fox" convenience store on Highway 30, sold that winning ticket and received $80,000 for his trouble.) I saw the boy on television as he proudly announced that he was gonna use his winnings to pay off his pickup truck and buy a double-wide mobile home. (I am NOT making that up!)

Then, there's this one:

Do you NOT find it the least bit ironic that you root for the underdog and count yourself among the working class in this country, yet you continually take up for that born-rich, never-had-a-real-job, silver spoon sucking, spoiled, worthless, screw-up, coward, draft-dodging, ex-alcoholic, useless drugstore cowboy, wannabe Texan George Dumbya Bush? Any Irony there whatsoever? Or do you identify with him? Just curious.

Posted by bluecollarwhiningleftist at February 23, 2006 02:14 AM

Is that classic left-speak, or what? Every word just ooooozes with love and compassion. Personally, I think the guy who wrote that comment is a pea-brained, pouty-assed, envy-ridden, shit-headed imbecile, with a severe case of hidden penis syndrome, but that's just MY humble opinion. I could be wrong. His brain MAY be larger than a pea.

Comments. I LOVE 'em!

interesting

If you're kinda bored, or screwing off at work, go here and see how much you remember. I plugged in MY birthday and learned:

*I am about 5 years 7 months younger than George W. Bush (He still LOOKS younger than I do. The Presidency has aged him, but in comparison I look like I've been President for about 20 years.)

*3 years 8 months older than Bill Gates (I'm better looking, even if I AM an old fart.)

*I was 49 years old at the time of the 9-11 attack on America (I remember that day VERY well. I was back home with Mama after the BC dropped her bomb on me and banned me from my home. I was drinking coffee on the back porch when my grandmother called, all excited, telling me to check the news on television. I did. The towers were smoking and I watched them fall, one by one. I remember thinking at the time that the death toll must be in the tens of thousands. I also suspected that our military may have shot down Flight 93. I'm glad that I was wrong on both of those counts.)

*38 years old when Operation Desert Storm began (I watched it on CNN with Dora, shortly after I separated from my first wife. I kept waiting for Bernard Shaw to get blown up.)

*33 years old when the space shuttle Challenger exploded (I was at work, on a day shift in the chemical plant. I don't remember how I heard the news, but I DO remember being unable to find a television to watch.)

*22 years old when President Nixon left office (I still remember watching him give his dorky double-V salute as he boarded the helicopter that hauled him off in disgrace. I thought, "You dumb bastard." Until that moment, I didn't really believe that a pissant affair such as Watergate could cost a US President his job.)

*17 years old at the time the first man stepped on the moon (I stayed up all night watching it on television with my father. I thought I was seeing the beginning of all my science-fiction-induced fantasies come true. Of course, that was back when I still believed that Walter Cronkite could be trusted, too.)

*11 years old at the time President Kennedy was assassinated (I was in the sixth grade and I got out of school early that day when the news was announced. I remember EXACTLY what I thought: "Oh, boy! This gives me a head-start on the weekend!" That was the most important thing about the assassination to me at the time. I didn't realize what a big deal it all was until I came home and saw my mama. She was watching the news on television (Walter Cronkite, of course) while she ironed clothes. She was crying.)

*5 years old when the Soviet satellite Sputnik 1 was launched (I remember that. I also remember standing outside at night and trying to find the sputnik in the sky. I never did see it, but I didn't have much sky to work with at the time. I was still a hillbilly boy in a Harlan County coal mining camp. The mountains blocked out a lot of the sky.)

I don't remember the Korean War ending when I was one year old, but the rest is pretty clear in my memory.

Try it yourself.

February 22, 2006

"snivelling puritans"

I like that term. "Snivelling puritans." It's the perfect description of the nanny-state nabobs who run around with puckered assholes and trembling knees, worried to death that somebody somewhere might be doing something "dangerous." Buncha pricks. THEY are more dangerous than the alleged risks they seek to protect people from.

Read this and mark these words:

The problem is that our present masters don't understand the limits of government. The nanny state quickly descends into the police state.

Think about that the next time an anti-something law is trumpeted by the nannies and applauded by the sheeple. Do you really want a bunch of snivelling puritans telling you what you can and cannot do?

I don't.

i'm a musician

I never learned to play the piano, but I'm willing to try. I want to start...

... on one of these.

i think i pissed myself

I finally got some sleep AFTER the sun came up this morning. I managed to snatch a few ZZZZs curled up on my sofa in some kind of tortured yoga position and I woke up feeling like shit. I made a pot of coffee, thought about injecting it intraveinously, but decided to put it in a cup instead.

I almost had a terrible accident. I went to the computer, took a big sip of coffee and saw this. I barely avoided choking myself and spraying Millstone Irish Cream all over my monitor.

I DO think I pissed my pants a little.

no more baloney

I just saw the winners in the $365 million Powerball lottery jackpot. They were eight employees from a ConAgra meat processing plant in Lincoln, Nebraska. That's right--- good ole blue-collar folks. In fact, three of the eight showed up at the award ceremony after working the graveyard shift the night before.

I'm delighted to see that. I LIKE it when ordinary working stiffs win such megabucks--- over $22 million each in this case--- because it's such a by-gawd American Dream come true. A shift-worker one day and a multi-millionaire the next. Ya gotta love this country.

A few years ago, I watched some guy collect a humongous lotto payoff as he was described as a "retired real estate developer." He and his family just LOOKED rich as Midas already. I didn't know the guy, but I was disappointed that HE won. I was stunned by my reaction.

I thought, "He doesn't need the money". Bejus! That sounded like something a pissing, moaning leftist whines when he advocates a tax hike for "The Rich." The guy won, fair and square. He bought the ticket, so he deserved the prize, no matter HOW rich he was already. What the hell was I feeeeling? Did I think it wasn't FAIR??? I wanted to go wash my brain out with soap before I went totally nutzoid and started voting Democrat.

I think I suffered a brief attack of Class Envy there. I was ashamed of myself.

I didn't have that problem today, because the winners WEREN'T rich and I spent enough time pulling shiftwork in a manufacturing plant to identify with them. How sweet it must be.

Still, I wondered why I reacted that way. It's an American trait to root for the underdog, but I've got no use for government attempts at income redistribution in the name of "fairness." But I would rather see a working stiff win the lottery than some rich, retired guy. Why? Damnifiknow.

I really confuse myself sometimes.

piss-blogging

I see what this guy is up to. He couldn't run with the Tall Dog shit-bloggers, so he's trying to create his own niche, where he can reign supreme. King of the Golden Shower. Pee-Daddy. Urineous Maximus.

Bah. He's just pissin' in the wind...

can't get no....

Yeah... I'm 54 years old and i'm satisfied.

I get it so seldom now that it's ALL splendiferous.

yeah, I know

Yeah, I know what time it is. It's very late. Or very early, depending on how you look at it.

I thought my insomnia problem was history. For the past couple of weeks, I've been sleeping like a log every night. In fact, I was beginning to think that I was sleeping TOO MUCH, although I figured that I just needed to catch up on all the sleep I missed after rehab.

But for the past three nights, I've managed to fall asleep at a reasonable hour and then wake up shortly thereafter with aching joints and some kind of crampy, Restless Leg Syndrome. I can't go back to sleep after that. I've gotta get up, walk around and stretch for a while before I even get fit enough to sit on the couch. I ain't sleepy anymore after that.

I've noticed a strange thing. I ache, I cramp and I fidget. I feel uncomfortable all over. Nothing I do makes it any better. Then, in the middle of my fretting, the sun begins to rise. Then...

I don't understand it. Just as soon as it's daylight outside, all the bad-feeling crap goes away and suddenly I'm fine again. No more discomfort. No more pain. No more crampy, crawly, sweaty aches. It's as if sunlight cured me.

When this stuff first started, I thought that I might be getting a Post Acute Withdrawal aftershock, a holdover (hangover?) from rehab. That PAW crap had me averaging about two hours of sleep per night for a while, if I slept at all, when I first got out of Willingway. But THOSE crampy, crawly, sweaty aches didn't disappear when the sun came up. THESE do.

What causes THAT?

I gotcher muppet-- right here!

Acidman -- [noun]: A real life muppet 'How will you be defined in the dictionary?' at QuizGalaxy.com

Might be something to this quiz. People who have seen the Crackerbox frequently notice the similarity to a garbage can, and I AM kinda grouchy at times. Call me Oscarob?

(I shamelessly stole the quiz from a lewd street performer.)

chapped his ass?

When I worked at the chemical plant, I saw a guy get fired when he was caught stealing toilet paper. It was a sad story, too. The guy had a good job, made good wages and had more than 25 years of service with the company. But he flushed it all down the crapper by stealing six rolls of generic toilet paper, the John Wayne kind, y'know: rough, tough and takes no shit off nobody. It was so bad that it should have been issued as punishment in progressive discipline cases. I always wondered why somebody would risk losing a good job over something so cheap and trivial.

Maybe he stole the toilet paper because he was worried about getting killed.

A man accused of fatally beating his roommate with a sledgehammer and a claw hammer because there was no toilet paper in their home has been arrested.

Bejus! Think about what a good television commercial that story would make. "You'd better buy Charmin next trip to the store--- or you just may wind up with your blood on the floor."

Something like that, with Mr. Whipple brandishing a sledgehammer.

February 21, 2006

ingrate

Go read this. Keep a barf-bag handy.

i fear my government

Here is one reason why. If the authorities ever set out to get you, they probably will.

Even when you don't deserve it.

lotsa money

Somebody check my math here. (I'm an English Major--- I don't do math.) I read this post and thought about something I suspected long ago: sometimes, numbers are so big that they are beyond our comprehension. Especially when those numbers represent DOLLARS. We lack the perspective to really understand the pile of money we're talking about.

Let's run some numbers. The writer says that the federal government spends $87,836 per second, according to the latest budget. Round to $88,000 and multiply by 60: I get $5,280,000 per minute. If I transmogrify that number times 60, I conjure up $316,800,000 per hour.

Here's where the numbers become unfathomable. A college graduate can expect to earn $2.1 million in his (or her) entire life. Those without a degree tend to earn only HALF that much.

Most people can kinda get a handle on $5,280,000; they can imagine what it would look like, they can think of ways to spend it, and they can comprehend that 5.3 MILLION DOLLARS is a shitpot full of money. But when you get to HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS, you've lost people who think one hundred DOLLARS is a fair amount of cash, a thousand is a bunch, and a million is a fortune. And that's damn near everybody.

So, when you apply advanced mathematics by pushing buttons on a calculator, you discover that at $316.8 million per hour, a 24-hour day comes out of the machine to total...$... damnifiknow. My calculator doesn't count that high, but I believe that the number is somewhere close to FOUR BILLION DOLLARS per day.

If you took that much in $1 bills and laid them end to end, they'd reach... who knows? A LONG got-dam way, that's for sure. And here's where the dollars stop meaning anything because the number becomes unreal. NOBODY can visualize that much money laying in a pile somewhere. But our federal government spends that sum every day, day after day. The mind simply boggles.

Don't forget that we also have state and local governments doing the same thing, just on a smaller scale. That's LOTSA money.

Think about that fact the next time they carp about needing more.

kid games

I lament frequently here about how kids today are lazy little couch potatoes with candy asses and no imagination. When they aren't being shuttled to candy-assed soccer games by their yuppie moms, they are parked on a sofa playing video games. They own oodles of toys that play with themselves while the kid watches. They have cable TV with surround-sound in their bedrooms. No wonder so many of them are fat.

You KNOW that you're an Old Fart when you begin a lot of sentences with "When I was a boy..." as you launch into a diatribe about how today's youth ain't worth a shit. Well, when I was a boy, we didn't have all that electronic stuff to play with and we had to invent own own fun and we actually played OUTSIDE instead of sittin' on the got-dam couch alldatime and today's youth ain't worth a shit because they don't do any of that anymore. Spoiled is what they are.

Nobody plays marbles anymore. Tops are ancient history. I've not met a kid in fifteen years who could build his own kite. Hell, most kids don't know how to fly the store-bought ones. The art of making rubber band guns is gone. Tree houses (or "forts," as we called 'em) come pre-fabbed out of plastic parts from Wal-Mart today.

I first realized that I was a dinosaur before Quinton was born. One of my neighbors cleaned out his garage and piled a bunch of junk on the curb for the garbage collectors. Among the castaway items was an old baby carriage with four perfectly good, ball-bearing wheels on it.

Do you know how long that treasure would have lasted when I was a boy? The neighbor might not have gotten back inside his house good before those wheels were confiscated and attached to some kind of go-cart, scooter or wagon hand-built by enterprising young lads, who had vast supplies of wood and nails that they confiscated from construction projects after the carpenters went home in the evening.

I was deeply saddened to watch those wheels lay by the curb for five days before the garbage truck rumbled up and hauled them away. I lost all respect for the younger generation right then and there. Not one single kid in that neighborhood saw those wheels and felt an irresitable urge to steal them and build something that would roll. I wanted to weep.

What sent me tumbling down this particular memory well was this post. I happen to know that the writer is my age and he occasionally posts about his youth in ways that remind me of ME. I always thought that he was pretty slick, but not nearly as imaginative as I was in MY youngdomhood ... until now.

I had one of those rockets he writes about. Mine was powered by a baking soda and vinegar engine. You put the rocket on the launching pad, added baking soda to one compartment, vinegar to another, buttoned it up and got the hell out of the way. The two ingredients mixed, reacted to create gas pressure and BLOOEY! The rocket took off into the sky, waaaaay up there, until it ran out of fuel and came back to earth.

When the rocket started to fall, the capsule on top opened and a parachute deployed to provide a gentle landing, if the thing managed to avoid getting hung up in a tree or touching down on somebody's roof. That's why playing with that rocket was NOT a sedentary activity. You often had to climb something and perform serious acrobatics to retrieve it from an errant landing.

My friends and I conducted a lot of experiments to learn the effects of space flight on frogs, lizards and other creatures that we could catch and draft into our astronaut program. After much trial and error, we finally refined our technique to the point that a few astronauts actually survived their flights with minimal physical damage. Early test subjects were not so fortunate, I am sad to admit.

But even I, with the imagination I had, never thought to attach a camera to that rocket. Got-Dam! THAT would have been the ultimate in coolery, even better than the time a frog disengaged from the rocket at the apogee of its flight and tumbled from the sky like a warty, croaking rock, ending up impaled and disemboweled on a Spanish Bayonet plant. EWWWWWWWWW!

Of course, we didn't have access to a darkroom and we probably never could have figured out how to make a camera actually WORK in flight, but it would have been fun to try. Just Damn! That's a really GOOD idea.

So, my hat is doffed in your general direction, Elisson. It's too bad you didn't grow up in my neighborhood. With TWO great minds inventing grand projects, there's just no telling what we might have accomplished. Just think about it...

We could have mounted those carriage wheels to the rocket, taped a frog to it, and shot the rocket off down the street like one of those supersonic cars that run the Bonneville Salt flats. We'd have the fastest frog on earth!

Of course, intoxicated with such grand success, we'd probably get the bright idea to tape a pipe-bomb on it and accidentally blow up a neighbor's station wagon after the frog-piloted rocket-car suffered a steering-control malfunction... but even THAT would have made one hell of a story to tell if we survived our punishment.

I wax nostalgic. Ahhh.... the things kids just don't DO anymore!

sensational

I love interesting comments on my posts. I got some good ones about circumcision. Did I read them wrong, or were ALL of the pro-circumcision comments from wimmen, who don't HAVE dicks--- at least not the last time I looked?

I liked their reasoning, too. A clipped dick is "prettier." (HUH?) I've had sex with MANY wimmen who didn't realize that I AM NOT circumsized until the act was over and they saw Roscoe on break. The foreskin stays the same size when a penis becomes erect. Think of what happens as being kinda like one of those push-up ice cream bars. Sprout wood and the "ice cream" rises right out of the holder. Anyone who can "look 'em in the eye" and tell the difference between a clipped and non-clipped dick at that point has either really good eyes or one hell of a lot of experience.

The disease crap is just that--- crap. But there IS that "risk" thing doctors mention that makes wimmen hyperventilate and develop the vapors even if the "risk" is a got-dam lie. Soap and water eliminates that alleged disease problem, and I've never known any boy (or man, for that matter) who didn't ENJOY washing his pecker... Strictly for hygene purposes, of course.

I'll tell you the REAL difference, from my PERSONAL EXPERIENCE. (Listen closely, wimmen--- you might learn something here.) When I had my bionics installed, they caused a permanent semi-erection until they softened up a bit. For about six months, I walked around with the head of my Roscoe pushed out past the foreskin and I found the situation VERY irritating.

At first, having the head of my dick rub around inside my pants was uncomfortable to the point of actually being painful at times. Then, after a while, I LOST SENSATION in that area. Not completely--- I didn't go altogether dick-dead--- but I damn sure wasn't as sensitive as I had been all my life. Even today, now that the bionics are all broken in, I notice the difference. It ain't as good as it once was.

You clipped guys may call BULLSHIT and say that if it got any better you couldn't stand it, but YOU don't have a comparison to make. I DO. You just don't know what you missed because you never had it.

When my son was born, I was adamant that he would NOT be circumsized. I'm not, my daddy wasn't, HIS daddy wasn't, none of my uncles were and--- amazingly enough--- not a single one of us EVER had any kind of disease or infection problem. I think we all liked washing our dicks... a LOT.

Of course, I would not be surprised if that BC ex-wife of mine decided to have Quinton circumsized. She might use "disease" to justify doing it, but that wouldn't be her true motivation. She's just sadistic. And I think circumcision is a barbaric act.

I apologize to all my Jewish friends, but I still think the Big Clip is one religious ritual you folks could do without.

February 20, 2006

ain't her call

This woman needs to be dragged off and shot. Who the hell is SHE to make such a decision?

An Illinois judge has halted the circumcision of an 8-year-old boy while his father contests the mother's plan for the operation.{...} The 31-year-old mother has said two doctors agreed with the circumcision, saying it will prevent medical problems.

The boy is eight years old, for crying out loud. If he's not suffering severe medical problems RIGHT NOW, Mama should leave his dick alone. Teach him to wash the damned thing and she's done all she needs to do to prevent future medical problems.

I wouldn't eliminate the possiblity that she wants to lacerate her son's pecker just so she can fuck with his father. I've seen that kind of crap happen in divorce situations. It's all about symbolic emasculation.

Leave that boy alone.

more racism

It's bad enough that global warming is racist, but now it's a double-dose of bigotry from Mother Nature. hurricane katrina was racist, too.

It found the storm-damaged areas had been 75 percent black, compared to 46 percent black in undamaged areas of the city. It also found that 29 percent of the households in damaged areas lived below the poverty line, compared with 24 percent of households in undamaged areas.

Bejus! Katrina aimed her heartless wrath at blacks and poor people, that racist, elitist bitch. Read that article and the fact is obvious.

Mother Nature must be a Republican.

vasectomy

I went to see my 94 year-old grandmother yesterday (this time she gave me a tupperware bowl of vegetable soup to take home--- she ALWAYS wants to feed me when I visit!) and when I arrived back home, I saw my next-door neighbor and his wife outside. I walked over to talk to them.

They just had a baby a few days ago. They have a son who is Quinton's age (12), so that's a pretty good gap between young'uns. I congratulated them on their bundle of joy, then asked Mrs. Neighbor if, considering the elapsed time between birthings, she knew what causes babies.

She pointed an accusing finger at Mr. Neighbor. "HE does it," she replied. "I keep telling him to get fixed, but he won't do it."

"Oh, no, man," Mr. Husband said, shaking his head. "I saw how the dog acted after HE got fixed and I don't want no part of that."

I explained that he could "get fixed" WITHOUT losing his jewels the way the dog did. In fact, I told him that the procedure takes about 10 minutes and you get off the table and go home after that. "It ain't bad at all, especially if you like the smell of barbecue," I said.

"Huh? What's barbecue got to do with it?"

I told him The Story of My Vasectomy. (Told earlier here.)

I decided to get neutralized after Quinton was born. He was my second child, so I figured that I had done my part in replenishing the world population and I was getting too old to be having any more kids anyway. I made an appointment with a urologist to have myself altered to an "all juice, no seed" mode.

The operation was quick and easy, with the most unpleasant aspect of the whole thing being when he took a soldering iron and cauterized the cuts he had made inside my jewel-pouch. I saw a wisp of smoke just before the aroma hit my nostrils. It smelled just like roasting pork! (Maybe there IS something to that "all men are swine" mantra chanted by feminists...)

"You need to have that done," Mrs. Neighbor said when I was finished with my tale."

"Barbecue??? You gotta be shittin' me. BARBECUE???" Mr. Neighbor asked. I could tell that he was none too enthused about the idea.

He may not have the er.... balls to get a vascetomy, but I do admire one thing about him. I think he's got the right idea about being a father. Months ago, I told his son that I would sell Quinton's basketball goal to him for $20. (I paid $170 for it. It's a good outfit.) It's not doing anything now except taking up room near my driveway and at least Neighbor Son will use it. He told me not to sell it to anyone else because he wanted it. I agreed.

Mr. Neighbor told me yesterday that his son had saved $18 so far and would have enough money to buy the basketball goal next week if I were still willing to sell it. "You're not gonna buy it for him?" I asked.

"Hell, no," Mr. Neighbor replied. "He can earn the money and buy it himself if he wants it bad enough. He'll appreciate having it more that way."

Just damn! That sounded exactly like something MY father would say when I whined about wanting something when I was 12 years old. I mowed many a lawn and raked leaves in many a yard earning money for that special toy I HAD to have when I was a boy. I don't believe that enough kids get that kind of tough love from parents anymore and I believe that the kids are poorer for it because "GIMME" is all they know. It's NEVER too early to teach a young boy to work and save for what he wants. Do THAT and he'll grow up to be a better man than most.

I don't expect Mr. Neighbor to run out and get a vascetomy, the gutless pussy, but I DO expect his son to buy that basketball goal next week. The boy has been eyeballing it for a while and it's almost within his grasp now. I'll help him move it when he hands me $20. I hope he enjoys it, too, because he EARNED it, even if I am giving him a fantastically low price.

Oh, by the way... did I mention that Mr. and Mrs. Neighbor are BLACK? African-Americans? Hmmm... I don't believe that I did. Well, I'll mention it now, because they are.

That fact should be irrelevant, but it's not in today's world, especially since I'm such a "virulent racist." I confess my TRUE motivations.

I'm selling the kid the basketball goal to keep him busy so he won't be running around raping white wimmen.

diseased bastards!!

That's IT! It's bad enough that cats kill baby birds, fuck and fight all night long with each other, leave footprints all over my freshly-washed car and turn some bloggers into cute-addled cretins. Now, cats are killing otters, too. The humanity!

Cat faeces carrying Toxoplasma parasites wash into US waterways and then into the sea where they can infect otters, causing brain disease.

That explains a LOT. Cat shit causes fatal brain disease in otters. I suspect that it does the same thing to humans, except instead of killing people, it just makes them brain-dead. Symptoms include emotional confusion, irrational behavior and an uncontrollable urge to take pictures of a cat and post them on the internet.

Piss on AIDS, Avian Flu, Alzheimer's Disease and even Toenail Fungus--- Feline Fuckard Syndrome is a TRUE menace to civilization as we know it. It's already an epidemic, ruining the brains of most Democrats, all environmentalists, the Ninth Circuit Court and laurence Simon. We must act and act NOW to stop this deadly scourge.

It's time to declare a Catwa.

If justification for a good jihad ever existed, this crisis is it. If we need to make a choice between the two animals, I say SAVE THE OTTERS! Otters rank FAR above cats in the "cute" category, they have better whiskers and they don't hack up hairballs on your carpet. This one is a pure no-brainer, just like people infected with Feline Fucktard Syndrome.

We MUST do it, For The Children-----Kill a cat today.

my ass!!!

She posted it. Go look. Gawk. Slobber. Become all tingly with lust.

I have NO shame!

February 19, 2006

i agree

I feel his pain.

WTF is wrong with you cat-lovers? Just because YOU think your cat is just the cutest, most adorable widdle fuzzy-wuzzy that ever barfed on your carpet doesn't mean that everybody else wants to see a picture of the got-dam thing on your blog. Why don't you go ahead and post a picture of a big, fat, blue hemorrhiod hanging out of your anus while you're at it? Bejus! You people are SICK!

I hate cats. I especially hate YOUR cat when you post a picture of it. The only time I've EVER seen a cat do something "cute" was when one tried to grab its ass with all four paws and fell out of a tree after I popped its butt with a pellet gun. Now THAT was "cute." The sneaky bastard hasn't been back in my yard since, either.

I guess that if you post a lot of cat-pictures it spares you the trouble of actually having to write anything on your blog, you lazy turds. Hell, you don't even have to be literate to post cat-pictures, which is probably why you do it. You're not only illiterate, but YOU SUCK, too.

Fuck your cat. Fuck YOU for posting pictures of your cat. Fuck your BLOG for having nauseating cat pictures on it. I hope the got-dam thing pisses on your curtains and makes your entire house smell like rotten cat piss forever. I hope it shits in your bed. Wouldn't THAT be cute? Be sure to post a picture.

Fucking cats. Steve H. is right. Blogging is doomed.

Cats are killing it.

read it

Here's a good article about Hurricane Katrina relief efforts. I especially like the "think locally" idea. Any time you put the job of handling a disaster in the hands of a distant, bloated, bureaucratic federal agency, you're gonna get a slow, inept, wasteful and inadequate response. That's the nature of the beast.

But there I go again. I keep forgetting that a big, expensive federal program is the answer to every problem that comes along today.

he's usually correct

I suppose that I'm one of the "core readers" that this guy mentions in his gloomy prediction about the future of blogging. I like his blog. In the past, Steve has been remarkably accurate in his observations about blogging, such as the time he called ME a good writer, and I think he's right again here:

As you know, I have said repeatedly that blogging was "over." By that I meant that the Internet had become so congested it was no longer a meritocracy. In a market where not much is available, merit matters, because everyone is aware of the products that exist. People can compare the products and make choices based on quality. In a congested market, that doesn't work. You need help to get your product noticed. People end up choosing products that are well-known. Quality, by itself, is worthless.

Like I've said, you can forget about making a name for yourself blogging now, unless you're good at licking big-blogger rear ends and you can stand the taste. Even then, you're almost certain to fail. Kissing up to big bloggers can get you ten or twenty thousand visits per day, if they take a real shine to you, but there are a lot of people whose lips never leave big-blogger backsides, yet who can't break the one-hundred mark. And twenty thousand visits won't get you anywhere. You may feel like a big deal at that level, but you'll still have to have a day job. In the big scheme of things, you'll still be a zero.

I look around blogdom today and realize that I'm one of the graybeards out there. I've been running Gut Rumbles since December of 2001, and that's a LONG time in blog-years. (Which are kinda like doggy-years: ya gotta multiply by seven. Or maybe it just seems that way.) I get about 3,000 unique visits per day, but if you throw out the Google searches and the people who come here when they didn't really mean to, I probably have a couple of hundred actual readers. That's not too shabby, but it damn sure ain't Tall Dog territory.

I don't expect to do much better than that if I blog until I die. When Alex Hawkins was waived by the Baltimore Colts to fill the expansion team roster for the Atlanta Falcons in 1966, a reporter asked him if he expected to be a star now that he wasn't playing behind Raymond Berry and Lenny Moore anymore. "If I was gonna burn up the league, I'd have done it in Baltimore," Hawkins replied. I feel the same way about blogging. If I was gonna be a Tall Dog, I would have been one by now.

That's okay with me. I enjoy blogging and the traffic I get is sufficient to feed my ravenous ego, which is the whole POINT of blogging, in MY humble opinion. I've never attempted to be a "new media" journalist here. I don't consider myself to be a serious, deep thinker. I don't give a shit about changing the world, either. I just want to jump up and down, show my ass and yell, "HEY!!! LOOK AT MEEEEEE!!!"

If blogging is a passing fad that's reached the "saturation point" and is soon to go the way of the hula hoop and the CB radio, I won't be surprised. But that doesn't mean I'll quit blogging, either.

I like jumping up and down and showing my ass too much to quit.

February 18, 2006

take a minute

I would do it for anybody, but this one is special because he's a homeboy from Effingham County. I received this in my email today, and I'm printing it in hopes that you will respond:

The hubster and eldest spawn are off camping this weekend with some friends of ours. Guys weekend out...they do this often, however...this one is really special to them all. Why? Because, Mikey, errr....Michael...hell no...he's Mikey, is in town on leave. Mikey's 19 years old, a helluva Marine and headed to Iraq in the next 2 weeks. He's ready to go, he's willing to fight, however, he's nervous. Who wouldn't be? Iraq and Effingham County aren't really similar at all! Anyway, I would really, really, from the bottom of my heart appreciate you sending any sort of message (not an f-ed up you're dying for nothing one, nice ones) to give to him before he leaves. He's a great kid, and I really appreciate him and those like him who are willing to protect our ass. No matter how you feel about the war, how many 19 year olds that you know would head over there? If you pray, tell him, if you feel thankful, tell him, if you wish him Godspeed - tell him. If you have military advice or are a veteran, depart some of that wisdom. Please send it to me at: writing4areason@aol.com and I will be sure to print it out and give it to him. Sometimes ya just gotta let someone know you appreciate them having your back!! Semper Fi!! (and if you want to send this on...please do...the more the merrier!!) If you don't want to leave your full name or whatever....leave your blog addy, or whatever...please let me know where you are from....so he can see it ain't just us Jawja crackers wishing him well!!

Good luck and give 'em hell, Mikey. Thanks for your service to our country.

it's hilarious!

This one sure made ME laugh!

It's funny how that check goes out every month and I seldom know where my son is. You can laugh yourself into tears if you think about it.

Weather... or not

I almost booked myself another trip to Costa Rica last night. I was feeling depressed and drag-assed and I just wanted to run off somewhere, get away, breathe some different air. I discovered some "found" money at the bank yesterday, and it was more than enough to pay for the trip. Besides, I haven't been to Costa Rica in more than a year now, and it's about time I went back. My Spanish is getting rusty.

I decided not to book the trip because I try not to make decisions when my brain isn't functioning correctly, which really cuts down on my decision-making anymore. I really DO need to plow my garden and get it ready for planting next month. Today is a good day to do that. It's warm, sunny and very nice outside.

Of course, if I lived here, I would be on the next plane to ANYWHERE else. I don't think I would ever come back, either.

My Cracker bones ache just looking at THAT forecast.

February 17, 2006

this is vile!

I've been known to post some downright disgusting stuff, but I draw the line at doggie porn. I might sit and WATCH IT happen, but I would never post pictures of it.

That's just vile. And tasteless. And funny as hell.

a case of the drag-ass

Maybe I'm suffering from Post-Birthday Depression. Maybe my biorythmns are out of whack again. Maybe it's a Post Acute Withdrawal aftershock. Maybe it's something I ate in the Mexican restaurant last night.

All I know is--- I've had a real case of the drag-ass today. The blahs. The don't-give-a-shits. My body feels tired and my mind is numb.

I was hoping to see my son this week, but he never was home when I called and he never answered any of the messages I left. I'm not surprised, considering the way he disappeared during Christmas and HIS birthday, but I still get depressed when this crap happens. I'm afraid that this is one hole I'll never dig myself out of. I can't do anything about it RIGHT NOW, so I shouldn't let it eat at me, but it does.

In other news, an ugly, catty soap opera is playing backstage at the Blog Theater now, and I appear to have a featured role, although I wasn't aware that I ever auditioned for it. Well, it ain't the first time I've seen THAT happen. Still, I'm always amazed that some people have so little to worry about in running their own lives that they can find plenty of time to stir shit in somebody else's. Bejus weeps.

I did manage to haul my dragging ass to the State Patrol Office today and renew my driver's license, which expired yesterday. I opted for the 10-year extension this time and I just hope I live long enough to see THIS ONE expire. I didn't even have to take a vision test. What really surprised me was how polite and efficient everybody was. I was in and out of there in less than five minutes.

After that, I drove into Savannah for a meeting with my Personal Banker to discuss some mega-dollar, high-finance matters involving my vast investment holdings. I felt about as bright as a twenty-watt bulb during my wheeling and dealing, no doubt convincing my banker that I am a drooling cretin, but I did manage to roll my 401-K over into an IRA, which I've been meaning to do for about three years now.

Much to my surprise, I discovered that I had some after-tax money in there! I don't recall where it came from, but I moved it from my bulging stock portfolio right into my wallet before Uncle Sam discovered it and taxed it again. I also received a Happy Birthday gift certificate for a meal at The Exchange Tavern on River Street. HAH! That drive into town was worth the trip.

Now, I just want to go to sleep. I sure hope I feel better in the morning.

let us pray

I offer my congratulations to the happy couple, but... but... I'm worried about the rest of the world.

hmmmmm...

Your Pimp Name Is...

Backdoor Kisses

I don't know about this. That guy looks kinda... light in the loafers, if ya get my drift. That "Backdoor Kisses" thing suggests some pretty disgusting stuff when you have a mind as polluted as mine.

Besides, he looks 'waaaay too interested in stroking his own nipples to suit me. I'll stroke female nipples every chance I get, but my own are NOT erogenous zones. All they do for me is hurt when the weather is cold. (Another reason I like living in the South.)

I regret taking this pissant test.

separated at birth

I don't believe it! Mama never told me about my twin brother.

She should have kept him and given ME away.

is it just me?

Is it just me, or does this article really have a snarky tone to it? It's from the New York Times, so I KNOW that it couldn't be biased, with a strong anti-Wal-Mart slant. The illustrious NYT would NEVER do something like that.

Still...

My opinion about Wal-Mart is simple: I shop there because I can get what I want at the lowest price I can find. That's all I need (or care) to know. (I'm just selfish that way. I've never worked for Wal-Mart nor owned any Wal-Mart stock.) The fact that "a group backed by unions" leaked the contents of Lee's Garage to the NYT says a lot to ME about the story, but maybe I'm just being suspicious.

I really don't see any dirt in this "expose." Change a couple of adjectives used by the writer and it could be a very positive story.

But I don't believe that it was meant to be.

February 16, 2006

humility

Just damn! I'm good. In fact, if I just had a little humility, I'd be perfect.

I was doing a Google-search on something and ended up in my own archives. I got lost there for a while.

I would think that guy had a great blog even if he weren't ME.

jawja politicians

My beloved state of Georgia has produced its fair share of asshole politicians. I always kinda liked herman talmadge, even if he WAS crooked as a snake, because he chewed tobacco. He single-chawedly preserved spitoons as a fixture on the Senate floor until he left office. Alas, that piece of Americana vanished when he did, making the Senate a poorer place, especially since Herman took his overcoat full of cash with him.

I cringed when we elected lester Maddox as governor, even if he did win on a "fluke." The crazy old bastard turned out to be a pretty good governor, but his reputation as an axe-handle-wielding segregationist and a buffoon who rode a bicycle backward overshadowed everything else about him. He wasn't good for Georgia's reputation.

Of course, Jimmy "Peanut" Carter REALLY put my state in the shitter by being not only one of the most incompetent Presidents ever to occupy the office, but also by refusing to shut up and go away once voters ran him off. Every time the grinning nincompoop opens his mouth today, something idiotic flies out of his neck. He's more irritating than a case of jock itch and even more embarassing.

But our true, prize-winning Asshole of Them All is cynthia McKinney. I believe that she is the highest-flying winged dingbat we've ever inflicted on this country and that's saying a LOT when you look at Jawja politicians. If you follow that link, you'll get a frightening dose of the kind of people who take her seriously as a sentient being.

I don't. In MY humble opinion, if Carter is jock itch, she's syphilis.

Oh, well. At least we managed to produce Zell Miller.

no attribution!

I am quoted in The Professor's latest Tech Central column, but he doesn't give me a link. Bastid! Well, I suppose it IS a link if you follow the link to his page where he first printed the quote. I am described as a "disgruntled blogger." BWHAHAHAHAA!

Who? Me?

Just damn! I had forgotten about writing that. I musta been drunk at the time...

happy birthday to me!

As of 0600 this morning, I am 54 years old. Yep, on this day in 1952, at six o'clock in the morning, I came kicking and screaming into this world. I've been kicking and screaming ever since, although that shit wears me out a lot quicker now than it once did. I don't kick as high or scream as loud anymore, either.

Today got off to a good start. Here, I've been selected as blog of the day to add to the glory of my victory in the crap-daddy contest yesterday. See? You can't say that MY LIFE has been wasted. I've got links to prove otherwise.

In waxing philosophical, as I usually do on my birthday, I've discovered that I can divide my life into clear segments--- the phases I struggled through to become the man I am today.

0-7 years: Hillbilly days, in the Kentucky coal mining camp, where the basic values I carry today were ingrained in me. When Recondo 32 and I drove through there in 2004, I didn't recognize the place anymore, but I remember living there very clearly. I have fond memories of those days, but getting out of there was the biggest favor my parents ever did for me.

7-10 years: Difficult transition time, when I learned what it's like to be different from everybody else. I was little, skinny and I talked with a funny accent. I got into a lot of fights.

10-14 years: The Huck Finn period, when I ran the woods like a savage with my equally savage friends. Climbing trees, shooting BB guns, skinny-dipping in the Gun Club Lake, camping out, killing snakes, collecting insects and making war with anything we could find to throw, shoot or launch at each. Bejus! It's a wonder that any of us survived. Today's risk-averse soccer-moms would hyperventilate and drop dead of the vapors if their children did what I did back then. It was fucking WONDERFUL! Every boy should have the chance to live like that.

14-18 years: Tumultuous times, when puberty hit me hard. Those were the Jockstrap Years--- football, basketball, baseball, softball, track and anything else you can name. If it was a game, I played it. That's also when I started regarding wimmen as mysterious, fascinating creatures who made me feel funny in my pants rather than as cootie-depositories to be avoided. They scared the shit out of me, but I wanted one anyway. Physically, I finally lost my cherry. Mentally, I remained confused most of the time.

18-24 years: The Bohemian Period, when I dabbled in higher education while learning to smoke dope, play guitar for money and actually catch pussy when I chased it. I flew the familial coop and started living on my own for the first time. I also discovered that I really liked alcohol. A LOT.

24-29 years: Early Retirement. I chucked a job as an advertising copywriter and became a full-time bar musician. I drove my father crazy by "spinning my wheels" (in HIS opinion) and going nowhere with all that education I had. I didn't care. I was as happy as a dead pig in sunshine. I was responsible for myself and an ugly-assed dog and neither one of us was high-maintenance. Life was good.

29-38 years: Nose to the Grindstone time, when I first learned what marrying the wrong woman can do to you. I put my guitar down and went to work in the chemical plant when that first darlin' decided to get pregnant and lose what little sense she had to begin with when I married her. GAWD! On the plus side, I got a pretty good daughter out of the deal and I learned a very valuable lesson: If you think that you can lift a self-destructive loser UP, you'll end up being dragged DOWN when you try. If I could pick one part of my life to go back and live over again differently, this would be it.

38-40 years: Starting over again. I was flat-ass broke, heavily in debt, homeless and damn near hopeless. I had my truck, my guitars, a few clothes, my job and not much else. I frequently had to make a choice between eating or buying cigarettes because I didn't have enough money to do both. (Cigarettes always won.) I was in a hole so deep that I didn't believe I would EVER see sunshine again. Those were bad times.

40-49 years: The Salad Days in the beginning, except for my father's death. I fell deeply in love for the first time, with a woman who was just as broke as I was. Together, we paid ourselves out of debt and began to prosper. I fathered a son. I bought a mini-farm. I had more than I ever DREAMED I would have and I remember thinking, "This is too good to be true." It was. Cancer and divorce laid a big reality check on my Cracker ass and it damn near killed me. I just THOUGHT I had been in a black hole before. Hell, that was just a rut in the road. I still haven't fully recovered from 2001 and I don't know that I ever will, at least not completely. Strange. I experienced both the happiest and the most miserable days of my life in the same period. I also started blogging.

49-53: Down, down, down days. Impotence. Incontinence. Got a bionic dick and wondered why I bothered. I lost my job because of my politically-incorrect blog and became a full-time drunk. I didn't give a shit about ANYTHING anymore. Spent a lot of time feeling sorry for myself. I knew that I was dying, killing myself one drink, one bottle at a time, but I didn't care. When I wrote that I often made a choice at night between setting my alarm clock and reaching for a pistol, I wasn't making that shit up. After I "retired," I didn't have to set the alarm anymore, but I still thought about that pistol. I was a dead man walking anyway. Mama died and I checked myself into rehab just in the nick of time. That was a close one.

53-?: Who knows? I have some vague plans, but I'm not exactly on fire about anything except not taking a drink today. I'm still blogging, working on a book (my 2006 Writer's Market came in the mail yesterday) and living one day at a time. I know better than to say "the worst is over," but I feel pretty good right now. I think I'll hang around a few more years to see what happens next. I've had some pretty remarkable ups and downs in my life, but I've gotta admit one thing: it's not been boring. I've got plenty to write about.

So... happy birthday to me.

know your slurs

I frequently refer to myself as a "Cracker." I think it's supposed to be a derogatory term meaning "poor white trash" or "ignorant redneck racist," but I don't care. I have a pretty good idea of who I am, which makes it difficult to hurt my delicate feeeeeelings with any kind of insult.

Besides, I like to flip the Finger of Impudence at political correctness and calling MYSELF a Cracker is a good way to do that. It insults sensitive people, who then trumpet their sensitivity by trying to insult ME with insulting slurs because I had the insensitive nerve to use insulting slurs on my insensitive, insulting blog. I enjoy the show. If I can chap a sensitive ass with my insensitive vulgarity, then my insulting, insensitive, vulgar day has been well spent.

I've crossed the line in the past, however, by using the forbidden N-Word. I don't do that anymore. I learned my lesson about sensitivity the last time I spoke the unspeakable, and I don't want to go back there. Flayed by the sharp tongues of the righteously indignant, I wept for days afterward and promised never to sin again. I haven't, either.

I noticed that when I stopped using the N-Word, it vanished from our language, too, making the world a much better place--- one big, sensitive "Chocolate City," you might say.

I apologize for getting carried away here. I really just wanted to link this post, so you can learn the origin of words you shouldn't say anymore. Study it now so you'll be prepared for the future.

The list is getting longer every day.

February 15, 2006

oh, so sensitive

I've said it before, but it's worth repeating: I met more absolute dumbasses in graduate school at the University of Georgia than anywhere else I've ever been, and that includes Florida, where people drive like total fucktards. I don't think UGA was unique, either. I believe that a LOT of people, all over the country, are educated to a degree without ever learning to pour piss out of a boot.

this shit is what passes for thinking in college today. Bejus!

The University of Washington's student senate rejected a memorial for alumnus Gregory "Pappy" Boyington of "Black Sheep Squadron" fame amid concerns a military hero who shot down enemy planes was not the right kind of person to represent the school.

I shudder to think what their idea of the "right kind of person" might be. Hillary Clinton? Tookie Williams? Jane Fonda?

Student senator Jill Edwards, according to minutes of the student government's meeting last week, said she "didn't believe a member of the Marine Corps was an example of the sort of person UW wanted to produce."

Jill, the University of Washington should hang its head in shame for producing YOU, you pitiful, misguided shitwit.

Ashley Miller, another senator, argued "many monuments at UW already commemorate rich white men."

Uh... Ashley, Colonel Boyington was not rich and he was part Sioux Indian. I suppose you don't have to study much history for a degree in Ignorant Feminist PMS, do you?

Senate member Karl Smith amended the resolution to eliminate a clause that said Boyington "was credited with destroying 26 enemy aircraft, tying the record for most aircraft destroyed by a pilot in American Uniform," for which he was awarded the Navy Cross.

Smith, according to the minutes, said "the resolution should commend Colonel Boyington's service, not his killing of others."

Right. War is unhealthy for children and other living things. Don't want no white-man Marine baby-killer 'round here. Let's all hold hands and sing Kumbahya. The Spirit of the 60s lives on at UW.

Dumbasses.

don't think about it

This post may not be shit-blogging, but it's close. It's uh... food for thought, but you're better off if you don't think about it.

I read once that a 24-hour stomach virus doesn't exist. No such thing. If you've ever experienced an episode of bowel-blasting diarrhea coupled with copious vomiting, you probably suffered from food poisoning, not any kind of flu.

Whatever it is, I've had it and it's a miserable, disgusting malady. It never killed me, but it made me WISH I were dead. I've always chalked up such episodes to my level of kitchen hygene, which is poor, even by third-world standards. Now I see that maybe I didn't poison myself.

Maybe MacDonald's did it.

Jasmine found that in four of the five restaurants, the ice that came from the self-serve machines had more bacteria than the toilet water. Three of the five cups of ice from the drive-through windows had more bacteria than the toilet water.

Heh. Do ya reckon that when you order a Coke, they'll start asking, "Do you want fecal coliform or E. coli with that?" Maybe you should answer, "No, just scoop me something to drink out of the toilet. No ice."

BWHAHAHAHAHAAA!

(Link shamelessly stolen from here.)

hoops and hurdles

I've often thought about starting my own business. I think I have some pretty good ideas for making money, and most of 'em are legal, too. But I don't believe that I could deal with the headaches, the bullshit and the massive pains in the ass required to become an entrepreneur.

Just go read this to see what I mean.

Are all these licenses, permits, registrations and inspections really necessary for doing legitimate business in this country, or are they simply another way that government can squeeze money out of people through excessive regulation? As consumers, do WE get the bang out of the buck that this stuff costs? After all, WE are paying for it, not the business owner, in the form of higher costs for whatever goods or services the business provides.

A business that doesn't make a profit doesn't stay in business, unless it's Amtrak or some other taxpayer-financed entity. I sometimes wish that every business in this country operated THREE cash registers--- one to collect the money it actually costs to operate the business, one to deposit the actual profit from the sale, and the other to hold the government's hefty take off the transaction. Seeing that split might be a real eye-opener for a lot of people.

Buy a dollar's worth of doughnuts and watch a quarter go into the cost register, a nickel go into the profit register and seventy cents go into the government's register. Realize then, for the first time in your life, that you just paid a sneaky, underhanded 70% TAX for those doughnuts, even BEFORE sales taxes were added. (I just pulled those numbers outta my Cracker ass, but I'll wager that I'm pretty close to reality when you include ALL the costs government inflicts upon a business.) Does the government really do enough FOR you to justify that kind of TAKE? I don't think so, but I'm just a cynical old bastard.

Besides, I would never require a business to use three cash registers like that. It would increase operating expenses and drive up the cost of what I wanted to buy.

That's government's job.

a crap tale

I think it was the spring of 1977. I was playing guitar for a living and Recondo 32 was attending some kind of basket-weaving classes at the University of Georgia so that he could milk the GI Bill for all it was worth. He and his lovely wife Georgia came home to Savannah at the end of the Winter Quarter to visit with friends and family.

Recondo needed to return to Athens for his last final exam on a Tuesday, and he asked me to give him a ride. I had Monday off, I was still familiar with all the good watering-holes in Athens and I had nothing better to do, so I agreed. I planned to go on Monday, get drunk and spend the night in Athens. I could make it back home in time to play Tuesday night.

We piled into my 1974 Vega and headed off for adventure. The weather was warm, so I was dressed in a tee-shirt, running shoes and a pair of Bill Rodgers satin jogging shorts that resembled a loin cloth, the better to display my sexy, muscular legs.

The shorts had no pockets, so I stuck my wallet in the elastic waistband, in the back where my wallet rode safe and secure, just above my asscrack. I wore no underwear (this fact is important). We stopped for beer and gas somewhere along the way, at a convenience store that sold Polish sausages the size of donkey dicks.

Those sausages turned slowly on a rotating grill behind a glass window and smelled wonderful as they sizzled and sweated globs of grease. I was hungry, so I bought one. I ate that sucker in about three bites and washed it down with cold beer.

I must not have chewed that thing sufficiently to fully subdue it in my belly. A few miles down the road, that sausage began to percolate and mortify as it combined with beer and my digestive juices to produce some fascinating noises and a few farts of world-class quality. Recondo cursed mightily with his head out the window a few times. I was proud of myself.

Before we arrived in Athens, I stopped farting because I felt something other than gas attempting to escape my anus. I knew what it was. Past experience had taught me the signs of a Sneaking Turd, that wiley dungwad that poses as a fart and fools you into shitting your pants.

I wasn't falling for THAT trick again, so I clenched my asscheeks and held on grimly all the way to Athens. By the time we arrived at Recondo's place, I was growing desperate and my clench-muscles were beginning to fail. As soon as he unlocked the front door, I duck-waddled as quickly as I could to the bathroom to relieve my anxiety.

I heard a plop! as I half-masted my jogging shorts and besat the throne, but I didn't think anything about that noise. I was simply delighted that I had reached the pooper in the nick of time. A foul eruption of beer, Polish sausage and other semi-digested detritus spewed from my bowels. The stench was horrible, but the relief was exquisite. Oh man, that felt GOOD.

When I was finished, I turned to look in the toilet before I flushed. (Do YOU do that? Y'know... admire your stool, check for worms or just make sure that you didn't blow your asshole off after a most excellent crap expulsion?) I'm glad I did, too, because I suddenly realized what made that plop! when I first sat astride the stone pony.

It was my wallet.

Yep, in my desperation I had forgotten all about my wallet being in the back waistband of my pants. It had fallen into the toilet and I had buried that sucker in sausage-shit.

I have seen many terrible things in my life, but that sight still ranks among the worst. Worst EVER. One lonely corner of my wallet, like the tired hand of a swimmer going down for the third time and praying for rescue, stuck just above the cess and the mess. I had no choice but to fish it out.

You can talk about "filthy lucre" all you want to, but I have SEEN it with mine own eyes. I will not regale you with the details of what I did next, but let's just say that the bathroom sink and a lot of soap and water were involved. So was a mighty test of my gag reflex.

In the end, I saved my wallet and the money in it. I also spared my dignity by never telling Recondo what I had done. In fact, the only reason I'm telling the story NOW is because I want to win this contest foul and square.

I AM the Crap-Daddy!

shocking!

Technology is our friend. We should use it... For the Children...

my two cents

I haven't blogged about Dick Cheney shooting his hunting companion.
I didn't write about it because I LIKE Dick Cheney and I couldn't think of a way to spin the story to avoid stating the obvious: Cheney was careless.

If I had done what Cheney did when I was a boy, my father would have whipped my ass, taken away my gun and put me in the doghouse forever. Cheney made every gun owner in the country look dangerous because he ignored three of the four basic rules of shooting.

The Four Rules 1. All firearms are loaded 2. Never let the muzzle of a firearm point at anything you are not willing to destroy 3. Keep your finger off the trigger unless your sights are on the target 4. Be sure of your target and what is behind it

The rules are simple and easy to follow. Every time you read about a firearm "accident," you'll find that somebody violated at least one of these rules. Dick Cheney should have known better.

Don't get me wrong--- I would still rather go hunting with Dick Cheney than ride in a car with Ted Kennedy, but I'm not about to defend what Cheney did. He was careless, period. And when you get careless with a firearm, bad things can happen.

I just hope he's man enough to quit making excuses and take responsibility for his actions. (Mrs. Armstrong has downplayed the accident, saying, "This is something that happens from time to time. You know, I've been peppered pretty well myself.") That's pure bullshit and Cheney needs to stand up and admit it. He's not doing gun owners any favors by suggesting that shooting somebody is kinda par for the course when bird hunting. It AIN'T, and I have just one thing to say about it:

He fucked up.

February 14, 2006

it's only money

Put the federal government in charge of ANYTHING and this is what you get.

The two audits found that up to 900,000 of the 2.5 million applicants who received aid under FEMA’s emergency cash assistance program — which included the $2,000 debit cards given to evacuees — were based on duplicate or invalid Social Security numbers, or false addresses and names.

I don't do math, but I think the gozintas indicate that more than one-third of the people that FEMA paid handsomely for "hurricane relief" simply stole the fucking money. I'm not surprised, because in the aftermath of Katrina, the government's objective was to throw as much money as possible at the problem. The money-throwers didn't really care where the money went. They just didn't want to be called stingy, heartless or racist.

It sure makes ME feel warm and fuzzy knowing that my tax dollars were spent so carelessly compassionately. People NEEDED that aid so that they could:

*Afford a $450 tattoo. (SO? It said "I Survived Katrina.")
*Buy a diamond engagement ring for $1,100. (HEY! Valentine's Day was coming!)
*Purchase a .45-caliber handgun for $1,300 (HEY! That one makes sense to me! The dumbass just paid too much for a .45.)
*Indulge in "adult entertainment." (WHAT?? Hooker rental isn't on YOUR list of emergency expenses?)

Of course, these expenditures were mere petty cash. I'm amazed that the government even noticed it. Big-ticket items included "114,341 trailers for $1.7 billion," which the government may or may not have received and which may or may not have been occupied. "Discrepancies" in FEMA's bookkeeping make it "difficult to ascertain the exact units available or whether government-owned property was otherwise accounted for."

That's nice to know. It makes the "24,967 manufactured homes obtained for $857.8 million and 1,295 modular homes at $40 million — resulting in 10,777 such homes sitting empty in Hope, Ark., in sinking mud without proper storage" a lot easier to understand.

I'll tell you what I DON'T understand: we still have people in this country convinced that government should be in charge of health care.

happy valentine's day

After two divorces, I've spent a lot of money lot of time pondering the concept of "love" and what it really means. I'm beginning to think that love must be a lot like pornography. I can't define it, but I know it when I see it.

I remember seeing my dad asleep on the couch one Saturday. He had a half-read paperback book open on his chest and he snored fit to wake the dead. My mama bustled around the kitchen, doing mama-esque things with a pissed-off kind of energy. I looked at my sleeping dad and then looked at my pissed-off mama.

"Mama, do you ever want to just kill him?" I asked.

"Yes, I do!" Mama replied. "I don't know why your father looks forward to his days off so much. He doesn't do anything but sleep on that couch. He drives me crazy sometimes. But I love him."

I think that's a good definition of love: It's the state of being where the other person drives you crazy sometimes, but not enough to make you actually kill them. You'd rather have 'em asleep on the sofa and pissing you off than not have 'em at all.

Y'all have a happy Valentine's Day!

"moderate"

"Moderate" is a word I should have included in this list. The dictionary definition says, "avoiding extremes of behavior; calm. temperate; reasonable." I'm all for moderation if that's what it means. But the political definition is not the same.

In politics, a "moderate" is anybody even slightly to the right of the Democrat lunatic fringe. Ted Kennedy doesn't qualify as a moderate (just barely), but howard dean did, until he started acting all goofy and fucked-up, screaming weird stuff and doing his rabid racoon impersonations. Then, even the MSM had to admit that Dean was kinda immoderate, just barely.

Hell, if you Google "moderate democrat," you'll find not only Joe Leiberman and Evan Bayh decribed as such--- you'll also see Mary Landrieu, Diane Feinstein, John Kerry and even Arlen Specter (a Republican) called "moderate." WTF? Those people are about as moderate as a drunk around free liquor. Is Hillary Clinton next? (Go here to see the moderate, middle-of-the-road reaction to a post that moderates didn't like.)

Besides, why is being "middle of the road" considered a virtue anyway? That's where you find dead animals and yellow stripes.

yeah, she's crazy

I'll apologize beforehand to anyone with delicate sensibilities for the heartless rant I am about to write. I'll start by saying, yeah, she's crazy. ANYBODY who does what she did HAS to be crazy as a shithouse rat, nutty as a fruitcake, completely FUBAR.

But I don't care how looney-tunes she is. I don't want her walking around free in MY world. I want her taken OUT, so that she never has the chance to nut-up and kill again.

When I lived on the mini-farm, I once discovered a rabid racoon in my back yard. I think the sumbitch was rooting around in search of garbage to eat, but I didn't care about what motivated the critter. I saw the red eyes, the slobbering mouth and the complete lack of fear it showed when it saw ME, and I didn't run back inside to call an animal psychologist to handle the situation.

I ran back inside and fetched a shotgun.

I gave that poor animal a dose of intensive therapy that solved all of its problems once and for all. Thanks to my counceling, it wasn't crazy anymore. It wasn't a menace to me, my family, other animals or anybody else in my neighborhood.

It was DEAD.

That racoon couldn't help being rabid. Being diseased wasn't its fault. It probably couldn't tell right from wrong. But explaining the REASON that it was a menace didn't make it any less of a menace. The damned thing was dangerous and that's all I needed to know.

Crazy people are no different from rabid racoons. They are a menace and they can't be allowed to run around loose. I don't care WHY they are crazy and I don't give a shit about "curing" them. I simply want them gone forever before they hurt or kill somebody else.

Locking them up sounds like a good idea, but it doesn't suit me. It doesn't guarantee that they won't be free again some day, after some brilliant head-shrinker pronounces them normal again. If you think it can't happen, just keep an eye on John Hinckley. That prick is well on his way to becoming a free man.

Hinckley has lived at St. Elizabeths since he was acquitted of the shootings in 1982 by reason of insanity. Since then, doctors say he has made substantial progress, and his attorneys told the court he has proven that he poses no danger to himself or others.

It might be fitting to require Hinckley to go live with his lawyer and see how certain the shyster remains about that "no danger to himself and others" shit when HE has to bet HIS life on it. But that ain't gonna happen, even if it would be poetic justice. Hinckley will be a free man eventually. Just wait and see.

You see, Hinckley was insane once, but he's not insane now. And he won't ever be a bad boy again. Honest. His lawyer is willing to bet YOUR life on it.

Isn't that insane?

still sober

I think today makes 116 days since I last had a drink of alcohol. I think. I got good and drunk the night before I went into Willingway, which was October 21st, so you do the math. After 100 days, I quit keeping an exact count.

In reply to some commenters and emailers about the Austin blog meet: Yes. I believe that I CAN attend and NOT drink. Actually, I am flattered that you are concerned, because you seem to assume that I won't be drinking BEFORE then. Hell, that would make another 73 days or so, which is more than half-again my current record.

But I don't like to think that far ahead. I've made it this far by deciding not to drink TODAY. The TODAYs add up after a while, and that's the way I intend to keep going. I believe that you can talk yourself right into a big slip if you start thinking in terms of months or years or.... forever. That's just too damned depressing for someone who loves alcohol as much as I do.

But it doesn't love me back. I'm better off staying divorced from that bitch. And I will--- at least for TODAY.

I still crave a drink from time to time. In fact, I cannot recall a single day since I left Willingway that I didn't at least think about taking a drink. But it's not as bad as it was at first. It's no longer a wild beast caged in my belly and clawing at my guts for hours at a time. The cravings come less frequently and they aren't as strong now. But I still have 'em.

I don't want to stumble after I've come this far. If I didn't believe that I could resist temptation in Austin, I wouldn't go. But I think I can. I'll start by NOT drinking that first DAY. Besides, I want to make a good impression on people I've never met, and that will be EVERYBODY who comes.

Even the people I've met before have never seen me sober.

February 13, 2006

it's a go

I have my e-tickets for the airplane, my room (with wireless internet service) is booked and I'm all set to attend the blown-eyed blodgers meet in Austin in April. Now I'm just wondering... what to wear, oh, what to wear...

Looking at the list of likely attendees, I expect this gathering to be a good one--- with intellectual conversation, philosophical debate, keen analysis of current events, witty bon mots and perhaps mass skinny-dipping in the hotel pool. Dignity, with debauchery.

I'm bringing a bottle of red nail polish. I intend to open the Acidman Toenail Painting Salon for the ladies who wish to wear the mark of the beast my handiwork on their pretty feet. I might even bring a guitar, too.

Hope to see you there!

outed!

I never suspected... but I should have known. The signs were obvious: the way he blows a kazoo, all those hand-knit sweaters, the "wine-tastings," hanging out (near men's rooms) at the mall, the Brokeback thing... I should have seen it.

He's really the grouchy old faggot.

big deal

Pardon me if I'm not impressed.

I've seen catfish do the same thing at blog-meets.

(Link shamelessly stolen from this guy.)

big brother?

Bejus! I thought random piss-tests were an invasion of privacy. I've taken several when the cup was thrust upon me, but I bitched about doing it. I STILL believe that employers should judge an employee by work performance and not by what he or she does off the job. Just because a business issues you a paycheck doesn't mean that it owns you.

But a piss-test is NOTHING compared to this.

An Ohio company has embedded silicon chips in two of its employees - the first known case in which US workers have been “tagged” electronically as a way of identifying them.

I don't mind wearing a picture ID or toting an electronic door key on the job. I don't mind if my employer wants to put tracking devices on those items and keep a chart of where I go on the job. Hell, I don't mind giving an employer my fingerprints or even a sample of my god-dam DNA if they want it.

But I draw the line at having a chip embedded in my body. First, NO employer needs to know where I am 24-7. Second, if this practice becomes commonplace for employers, how long will it take the federal government to decide that EVERYBODY needs a chip, for our own protection. Homeland Security, don't ya know.

I don't like this idea. It gets under my skin.

February 12, 2006

another blog award

I've been nominated. I want your vote. My competition is good.... but not THAT good. A collection of second-bests at best--- #2s you might say. Read their work and admit it: They don't know a turd from a tamale when it comes to shit-blogging.

The pollster may be the Wizard of Wipe, but I deserve the title of Crap-Daddy.

smart dogs

I went to visit my grandmother today. And her little dog, too.

Mommie inherited Fancy, my mama's Yorkshire Terrier. Fancy was a Christmas present my brother and I gave to mama nine years ago. After mama died, the little dog almost grieved itself to death before she finally accepted Mommie as her new Place Where the Sun Rises and Sets. They make a good couple now.

Fancy is an extremely intelligent dog, with a large vocabulary. She understands a lot of what people say, and Mommie sometimes SPELLS OUT words she doesn't want the dog to hear. F-O-O-D, for example. C-A-T is another one.

My brother and I started remembering smart dogs we knew in the past and trying to outdo each other with stories about those dogs. I once had a dog who knew every toy he owned by name. He also knew the word "bath" and would disappear every time he heard it. My brother had a dog who could climb trees (I SAW that one in action.) He also had a dog who knew the word "medicine" and would disappear every time he heard it.

Smart dogs. Did YOU ever have one?

i want to share

I wrote this missive as a comment to a comment on my latest post about global warming, but I don't want to leave it buried there. I want to share it in a post of its own so that YOU, my dear readers, may better understand the science of climate change. This information is too precious to be lost in my comments. People need to understand the FACTS about this crisis we face.

Once the oscillations in the pi of the countersign delta-waves are factored into the upper lumbar equation (i.e. the headbone connected to the neck bone), an inverse multiplier results, causing a ripple effect in the F(x) constant interface. Hence, Global Warming.

You also get fries with that.

I realize that such truth is stunning, but it came straight from a computer model I dreamed about, so you can't argue with it. Just embrace it and do what you're supposed to do: weep and tremble with fear.

Are you afraid of snakes? You ARE? Well, Global Warming is gonna cause snakes, too. Big, nasty, fanged, slithering bastards, crawling up your walls and hiding in your closets. Creeping into your bed when you're asleep--- if you DARE to sleep when you know that WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!!

Disagree? Keep that nonsense to yourself. During a crisis such as Global Warming, cooler heads should prevail.

got no use for it

Last night, I went to see mike cross play at the fabulous randy wood concert hall in beautiful, bucholic Bloomingdale, Georgia. I first saw Mike almost 30 years ago when he played at the Night Flight Cafe on River Street in Savannah. He has gained about 70 pounds since those days, but he still puts on a good show.

The Randy Wood Concert Hall is a small 105-seat room next door to his guitar shop and behind a restaurant that serves barbecued fried rice. (I am NOT making that shit up.) Last night was the second concert I've seen there and I really like the place. The acoustics are great and there's not a bad seat in the house. Nice, intimate atmosphere.

Mike Cross is a songwriter, guitarist and fiddle player who could make a living as a stand-up comic if he ever got tired of music. If you ever have the chance to see him play, take it. He'll keep you laughing when you aren't tapping your toes to his tunes.

But the concert isn't what I want to talk about. Lemme tell you about the weather. The Great February Blizzard that is laying some serious Global Warming on the northeast decided to drag her skirt through southeast Georgia during the concert. Mike Cross played for almost two hours last night, and while I was watching inside, the temperature dropped about 30 degrees outside.

It was colder than a well-digger's ass sitting on a witch's tit while the balls froze off a brass monkey by the time the show was over. I wanted to hang around and talk to a fellow blogger I met there, but we were shivering in the wind and our friendly chat quickly turned to dental chatter, so we went our separate ways before we froze our buttocks off. Maybe next time.

The high temperature was 48 degrees with gale-force winds in sunny downtown Rincon today, and this frigid crap is supposed to last for another couple of days. I don't like it already. The possibility of snow flurries tonight is in the forecast, but I don't believe it. It doesn't feel like snow to me. (Heh. Read Jimbo's post about the computer desk from hell, too.) It just feels cold, and I've got no use for it.

A week ago, I was planning on starting on my garden. Now, I'm worried about the cover blowing off my hot tub and the water in there freezing, even with the heater on. No gardening for now. The low temperature is supposed to be around 26 degrees tonight and the high tomorrow a mere 45. Down to 21 tomorrow night.

FUCK THIS!

It's times like these when I miss having someone to share my bed--- not for sex, but for warmth. This is supposed to be the Sunny South, for cryin' out loud, not suck-ass Siberia. It's too farking cold to screw, even with a bionic pecker. I don't know how you got-dam yankees stand it where you live. But I'm beginning to feel a certain amount of kinship with you.

No wonder your dispositions are usually so foul.

reality vs rhetoric

What was Hillary saying about the plantation? Oh, yeah. It's a Republican thing.

I noticed that fact at Coretta King's funeral...

i want credit!!

Bill Quick may have named The Blogosphere, but I put shit-blogging in it. Even though I don't do a "Carnival of the Crappers" anymore, I still want credit for my disgusting idea. A lot of people stole the theme for a lot of posts since I originated it, and they don't say... well... shit about ME being the original crap-daddy.

I'm starting to get pissed about it. Especially when they shit-blog with pictures.

February 11, 2006

my sentiments exactly

I believe that aliens recently visited earth, studied human behavior and attempted to send their findings back to their home planet. That's when their dilitheum crystals died and rendered their communicators inoperable. But their message was urgent. Those findings were important. Their leaders needed to know what earth was like. So...

they did the best they could.

why the left keeps losing

This post is a year old, but the mindset it reflects never changes. Ask me again why the left keeps losing elections.

The people clapping as the troops ship out in 2005 clap because they know that the war is fucked beyond recognition and because of their own, personal guilt over being part of the electorate that put this damned Kriegsmaschine in power (twice!) that is now turning our youth into splatter from IEDs.

Huh? I never realized my real reasons for applauding our troops until the "Donkey Hottie" psychoanalyzed me. I thought I applauded because I wanted to show my support and acknowledge their courage, committment and dedication. Boy, was I mistaken.

Anyone who supports an actual, moral, culture of life can’t respond to sending troops to death in Iraq with applause, only with indignation.

Or by being furious and then weeping, as the writer did, just before launching into a typical leftist stream-of-consciousness screed of psycho-babble. Just damn! If the writer received such a barrage of vivid imagery and symbolism from a fucking beer commercial, I shudder to think what psychic overload a decent book might cause.

But what do I know anyway? I must be a member of that "seeming majority of Americans who want a theocracy." See what I mean about psychic overload? That's why the left doesn't win elections.

Too many furious, weeping, psychic dingbats on that side.

(Thanks to joni with the red toenails for the link.)

the strong arm of the law

Here's a good example of why I love my country, but I fear the government.

In building their case, prosecutors attempted to show that Tausan was part of a ``criminal street gang,'' which could add three years to any sentence. To prove it, they obtained search warrants to gather any evidence that demonstrated membership in the Hells Angels, including anything that had names, slogans or symbols on it. None of the members whose homes were targeted had been charged in the Sullivan case.

Call me a skeptic, but we're talking about a MURDER case here. I cannot believe that the police committed 90 officers to a series of home invasions raids intended to gather evidence that might prove that this guy was a Hell's Angel, simply to tack three more years onto a prison sentence for murder. That's a ridiculous waste of money and manpower.

I see it as a pure scratch and sniff operation, with the criminal street gang excuse used to justify it. I think the police just wanted a reason to raid the Hell's Angels. If they happened to find a meth lab, some illegal drugs, a few guns, or a big bundle of cash just laying around, well... that would be a remarkable bit of providence, considering the fact that they weren't really looking for that kind of stuff.

In executing the search warrants, officers collected clothing, paperwork, clocks, sculptures, motorcycles, a mailbox, a piece of sidewalk on which members' names had been written and even a refrigerator door that had a Hells Angels decal affixed to it. They needed to rent storage space to house it all.

No meth. No drugs. No guns. No cash. Just a bunch of crap.

The end result was that "Tausan argued the killing was in self-defense, and a jury acquitted him and another defendant on all counts in 1999." The "evidence" gathered was worthless. (Doesn't that kinda remind you of "Alice's Restaurant," where Officer Opie had all the 8 X 10 glossy photographs with the circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one, only to learn in court that the judge trying the case was blind? Pretty funny, right?)

Actually, not a damn thing is amusing about this case. It's a fine example of how "to protect and to serve" can mean "break into your home and steal your stuff" when law enforcement chooses to abuse its power. In MY humble opinion, that's what happened here. And the sad part of the story is that the police actually abetted the REAL criminals in this case.

Lawyers got more than half of the settlement money.

global warming strikes again

Throw another log on the fire. Baby, it's cold outside.

AccuWeather.com is forecasting this storm will have a longer lasting impact than just the snow it will deposit on the Northeast. In effect, this system will open up the gates that have been holding back the Arctic air for most of the past two months. The very cold air will funnel south, by the middle of next week it will reach the Central Plains, and even Texas and the Deep South will feel the chill. The Winter Center meteorologists are forecasting that the second half of February could be as cold as any February we have experienced in quite some time.

See? That's what makes those greenhouse gases so got-dam tricky. You just can't depend on them to do ANYTHING right. Plus, they are insensitive. Maybe even racist. They damn sure ain't politically correct.

They make climate "experts" look kinda foolish when the experts are standing ass-deep in a snowbank and screaming "WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!" from Global Warming.

UPDATE: Oh, hell. It's too late for action now.)

February 10, 2006

popcorn

I love popcorn. I use the microwave stuff a lot, but I'll occasionally return to my roots and make some in a pot on the stove, the old-fashioned way. I think stovetop-popped actually tastes better, but the microwave version is less trouble for a lazy bastard (like ME) because it doesn't require any clean-up afterward, unless you pour it out of the bag and into a bowl.

I like to eat popcorn out of a bowl--- not with my fingers, but with my face. I lick the popcorn out of the bowl. That's right, just like a got-dam dog. Did you know that popcorn will stick to your tongue if you try to eat it that way? Well, it will.

I don't know why I started thinking about eating popcorn with my tongue. Maybe this had something to do with it.

just a note

I received a lot of interesting comments on the post I wrote about ADHD. I really expected to get a few death-threats over THAT one, because so many parents DO medicate their children today. I was suprised by the lack of frothing.

I still believe that too many boys get diagnosed and doped simply for behaving like boys. If you look at the "symptoms" of ADHD, they are remarkably similiar to the description of ANY energetic and undisciplined young man. Also, as libby mentioned, this situation is particularly strange when we're supposedly engaged in a War on Drugs.

One fact I did not mention in that post is worthy of note: ADHD is recognized as an official "disability" by the federal government, and if you have a certified ADHD child, you may collect disability benefits from Social Security. Although I am certain that NO parent would allow the lure of a check in the mail each month to influence their parenting decisions, money is a factor in the ADHD equation. Did you ever see the federal government spend money on something that we didn't get MORE OF once the checks started flying?

I'm just sayin'....

not excited

The opening ceremony for the 2006 Winter Olympics was today. I have a confession to make: I don't give a shit.

Maybe it's because I spent most of my life living around Savannah, Georgia, where the weather is NOT conducive to snow and ice, and I never played any of the games featured in these Olympics. Of course, the ancient Greeks didn't play those games, either, but I'm not going to quibble about why the hell we even HAVE winter Olympics in the first place. I'm just going to say that they suck.

The only two events I can bear to watch are the downhill ski races and wimmen's figure skating. The downhill is entertaining because a few people usually bust their asses in spectacular crashes. That's always fun to watch, especially when they take out that flimsy racecourse fence and roll a long way in the snow. I get a real kick out of seeing that.

Wimmen's figure skating is simply beautiful. I lust like the skimpy costumes, the fine asses and lovely legs on the skaters. I also imagine how stiff their nipples must get under those skimpy costumes. After all, they ARE skating around on a big block of ice... it's gotta be cold out there... and I know what happens to nipples when they get cold. I fantasize about various ways of warming them up.

I can tolerate a little bit of the bobsled races and the ski jumping, because there's always the possibility of a royal ass-busting in those events, too, but those are too rare to make watching the uneventful runs worthwhile. The rest of that crap just leaves me cold, if you'll pardon the pun. Cross-country skiing? Curling? Any of those snow-athalons? Fahgedaboudit. I'd rather watch paint dry.

I'm about as interested in the Winter Olympics as I am in learning to ice-fish, which I'm not interested in at all, except to suggest that it should be an Olympic event.

Why NOT? It would be just as exciting to watch as most of that other stuff.

quote of the day

Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities - but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world.---Sir Winston Churchill (The River War, first edition, Vol. II)

(Quote shamelessly lifted from this blog.)

If the date of publication is correct (1899), Churchill was 25 years old when he wrote that observation about Islam. Not much has changed in the last 107 years, has it? At least not with Islam.

What HAS changed is our ability to face the unvarnished truth if that truth is unpleasant, ugly or politically incorrect. We prefer sweet little lies that don't hurt anyone's feeeelings.

Amid the current brouhaha over those "offensive" cartoons, I am appalled by the moral and intellectual rot displayed by so many people today. This decay is what happens when the Cult of Compassion has its way. Spend a few decades with educators believing that building a child's self-esteem is more important than teaching him to read and write. Preach that being "judgmental" is some kind of thought-crime. Praise "multi-culturalism" as something grand and unifying. (ALL HAIL DIVERSITY!) Advocate "tolerance" in the face of the intolerable. See cowardice and call it courage.

If those aren't "retrograde forces," I don't know what is. When the blithering moral equivalence crowd can't see the difference between this and this, and they manage to convince people that there IS NO DIFFERENCE, we've totally lost our grasp on reality.

We'd better hope that we're not seeing the beginning of a battle between radical Islam and Western civilization in the Middle East right now. We'll lose because we no longer have the guts to fight it.

i've seen it myself

I think I wrote about a scene similar to this one that I witnessed in the Atlanta airport about a year ago. I can't find the post in my archives, (I did find this) but I remember what I saw that day: a bunch of our military guys and gals headed off to Iraq and receiving a standing ovation from the crowd as they passed through the airport.

That was a sight sure to chill the marrow in a leftist, surrender-monkey's bones. In that busy airport, people stopped whatever they were doing and cheered our troops.

We've come a long way from the Vietnam War, whether some people refuse to admit it or not.

today

February 10th is my father's birthday. If he were still alive, he would be 76 years old today. He died on October 12th, 1992 and I still think about him. A lot.

Happy birthday, Dad.

Bottled water

If I had to choose a symbol of just how absurd people are today, I'd pick a plastic bottle of designer water. I can't think of anything else that so perfectly represents new-age, self-indulgent, feel-good delusion in modern society.

I might think differently if tap water were of dubious quality and people risked developing cholera, typhoid, dysentery or some other nasty disease from drinking it. That's not the case here. I've been to places in the USA where the tap water was so sulfurous that it smelled and tasted foul (made a pot of coffee undrinkable, too), but that rotten-egg stench didn't mean that it was unsafe to drink. It might make you gag, but it wasn't going to kill you.

I bought bottled water in those places for cooking, brewing coffee and making ice for mixed drinks. I paid less than a dollar a gallon for it, too. And I've been to very FEW places where I had that problem.

Bottled designer water does have certain benefits. It is portable and potable. But its convenience doesn't explain its popularity. I believe that most people who drink bottled water do so because they are convinced that somehow it is better than tap water. Maybe it is, to some people, bit I have to ask one question: Is it 10,000 times better-tasting than tap water? If not, you're an idiot to buy it at that price.

Plus, bottled water ain't exactly environmentally friendly:

"Making bottles to meet Americans' demand for bottled water requires more than 1.5 million barrels of oil annually, enough to fuel some 100,000 US cars for a year," according to the study. "Worldwide, some 2.7 million tons of plastic are used to bottle water each year."

Once the water is consumed, disposing the plastic bottles poses an environmental risk.

The study, citing the Container Recycling Institute, said that 86 percent of plastic water bottles in the United States end up as garbage and those buried can take up to 1,000 years to biodegrade.

But bottled water is healthier than tap water, right?

It said that while consumers tend to link bottled water with healthy living, tap water can be just as healthy and is subject to more stringent regulations than bottled water in many regions, including Europe and the United States.

Considering the facts about bottled water, people would have to be incredibly wasteful, foolishly extravagant, woefully ignorant and downright delusional to buy it. Sales are skyrocketing.

See why it's the perfect symbol of the New Millineum?

you can't say that!

Here's an example of tolerance as we practice it in the good ol' USA. I think one thing that really chaps my Cracker ass about the whole Political-Correctness movement is its utter lack of humor. Practicioners don't even notice the amusing irony in what they do: They are intolerant of anybody who isn't tolerant.

After the nine nursing students from Emporia State University were introduced to the House Health and Human Services Committee on Wednesday, Rep. Mike Kiegerl said, "Since they're here, they can resuscitate me."

Some fellow lawmakers and people in the audience cringed at the remark, and it angered the chairman, Rep. Jim Morrison, R-Colby.

Sweet Bejus! What's WRONG with Kiegerl? That remark was sexist, insensitive and cringe-inducing. It reeks of intolerance!

"He needs to be straightened out," Morrison said of Kiegerl. "That's an uncalled-for comment."

BWHAHAHAHAAA!!! How DARE Kiegerl say that? Gather the pitchforks and torches! We're gonna "straighten out" this insensitive prick and teach him a hard lesson about being tolerant. We'll pound some got-dam tolerant sensitivity into him, even if we have to kill him doing it. It's for his own fucking good!

You don't think that's funny? You know--- the idea of such tolerant people being so intolerant? The suggestion that some kind of thought police need to "straighten out" this guy? The kind of lynch-mob mentality that sensitive people display when they hear something they don't like?

The truth is, it AIN'T funny. It's downright frightening.

February 09, 2006

serious blogging

As a blogger, I have certain moral obligations to make my site informative, accurate, insightful, enlightening and well written. Kinda... professional, y'know? Like Pajamas media. The fact that I totally ignore those moral obligations is irrelevant. I have 'em, and that's what counts.

On rare occasions, I discover opportunities to do something good and decent on my blog. I usually ignore them, but I'm going to make an exception here. I guess I just have a soft spot in my heart for half-faced people.

That's serious stuff.

on the lookout

I've been watching. First, I thought it was Dan Rather. Then, I became convinced that it was Bill Clinton. Later, I decided that it was Steve Spurrier. Now, I'm wondering...

Earlier, I eliminated Hillary Clinton because she doesn't meet the qualifications. I'm pretty sure that it's supposed to be a guy. That leaves Hillary in the clear, right? Maybe not.

She COULD be the Antichrist.

clean teeth

I read this post and remembered my days as a student at Armstrong State College. My degree says that I majored in English Literature while I was there, but that's not entirely the truth. I devoted a lot more hours to playing cards in the student center than I did to studying the classics of literature.

One of the fringe benefits to cutting classes in favor of a good card game was the opportunity to get my teeth cleaned a lot. Armstrong taught a Dental Hygenist program with a lot of young wimmen as students. Those darlin' ladies had to recruit vicitims volunteers to serve as practice dummies "patients" upon which they honed their teeth-cleaning expertise for classroom credit. They descended like vultures an army of white-clad angels upon the student center to fill their dance cards.

I signed up every time I was asked if the darlin' was half-way good looking. I've been scared shitless of dentists all my life, but I've never had a problem with feminine fingers (or anything else feminine) stuck in my mouth. I sometimes had my teeth cleaned two or three times a week in those days. For FREE, too.

Maybe it's just one of my many perversions, but the act of lying defenseless in a reclining chair while a pretty woman used medeval-looking torture devices to scrape gunk off my teeth always seemed kinda... erotic to me. That may sound sick, but I surely had clean teeth as a result. And I helped those darlin' ladies earn a degree, too.

My only regret was (and still is) that Armstrong didn't offer a course in nekkid full-body massage.

another "crisis"

I think I hear tort lawyers baying in the distance...

I once worked with a guy named Mac who had an eight year-old son (Little Mac). Little Mac had some discipline problems in school and Big Mac was called in for a meeting with his son's teacher. The teacher suggested that Little Mac might be suffering from Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, so she recommended seeing a doctor and having the boy put on Ritalin.

Big Mac had a Big Mac Attack right then and there. Producing a mist of flying spittle, he told the teacher where to go, what she could kiss and where she should stick Ritalin on her way. It probably was a spectacular eruption and I remain disappointed that I wasn't there to witness it. I also totally agree with Mac's opinion on the matter:

"Got-Dam! They want to dope my boy for doing exactly what I did when I was his age! He ain't SICK! He's a BOY!"

I believe that Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder is a crock of new-age, organically-farmed, low-sodium, cholesterol-free crap invented by navel-gazing fucktards to enrich quack doctors, encourage bad parenting and further enable the Pussification of America. It's a fucking feminist plot designed to emasculate men at an early age rather than waiting until they're grown and hauled into divorce court to have their nuts cut off. It's a got-dam...

Excuse me. I digress.

It's ridiculous that Ritalin is handed out like candy to perfectly normal boys today (FOUR TIMES as many boys as girls are "diagnosed" with ADHD. Doesn't that fact alone raise some interesting questions about this "disease?"), but that's a subject for another post. Just look at the "risk" of death we're being threatened with here.

An FDA review found fewer than one case of death or serious injury per 1 million ADHD drug prescriptions filled, with one exception: 1.79 cases per million of nonfatal cardiovascular or cerebrovascular problems in adults treated with amphetamines.

Weeping Bejus. Twenty-five deaths. We're talking ONE IN A MILLION here, MAYBE caused by ADHD drugs, when "Spending on ADHD drugs soared from $759 million in 2000 to $3.1 billion in 2004." By Gawd, that's a crisis if I ever saw one. Besides, the story had the word "risk" in it, so wimmen started hyperventilating and developing the vapors after reading it. The government must act right now to ease the pussy palpitations stop this senseless wave of slaughter. We need action that is BOLD and EFFECTIVE.

We need warning labels.

In MY humble opinion, we need to drag this story off and shoot it, right after we slap on a warning label that says: "THIS IS ABSOLUTE BULLSHIT!!!" But that ain't gonna happen; instead, the story will be used to justify a flood of class-action lawsuits filed by money-grubbing lawyers against evil drug manufacturers. If they can manage to pack a jury with hyperventilating wimmen, lawyers have a gold mine.

I despise ridiculous lawsuits, but the end result of one over ADHD drugs might not be bad. Parents might be forced to actually parent their children instead of expecting a drug to do it for them.

trivia

I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdgnieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh?

Strange... but obviously true. I had no difficulty at all reading that paragraph. Did YOU? Loyal reader "Jeffreys Bride" sent me a bunch of "Fun Facts" and that was one that I thought was interesting. I don't know if they truly are FACTS or not, but I enjoy trivia even when it may be complete bullshit. Here are a few others:

* The first couple to be shown in bed together on prime time TV were Fred and Wilma Flintstone.

I can believe that. When I was a young'un, I noticed that Ricky and Lucy always slept in separate beds. I remember thinking that my mama and daddy slept in the same bed because they couldn't afford the LUXURY of TWO beds. Of course, at that time my only experience in sharing a bed with someone else was sacking with my brother, who frequently pissed in his sleep.

The first actual human couple I remember sleeping in the same bed on television was Rob and Laura Petrie on The Dick Van Dyke Show. By then, I was old enough to like the idea of sleeping with Mary Tyler Moore even if she DID piss in HER sleep.

* Every day more money is printed for Monopoly than the US Treasury.

I dunno about that one. Too many politicians spend real greenbacks as if they WERE Monopoly money for me to accept this one without question.

* The percentage of Africa that is wilderness: 28%. The percentage of North America that is wilderness: 38%.

Tell that to a barking moonbat environmentalist. He'll call you a liar and throw his copy of Al Gore's Earth in the Balance at you.

* The first novel ever written on a typewriter: Tom Sawyer.

If that one isn't true, it ought to be. Sam Clemens loved new-fangled inventions and went broke investing in them.

* Q. If you were to spell out numbers, how far would you have to go until you would find the letter "A"? A. One thousand.

Just damn! I never noticed that fact before!

* Q. What do bulletproof vests, fire escapes, windshield wipers, and laser printers all have in common? A. All invented by women.

Throw out the laser printers and I see a common, feminine connection in those inventions: all provide safety, security and warm, fuzzy feelings because they reduce "risk." Wimmen don't like "risk." It frightens them. Call something "risky" and wimmen get all hormonal and do crazy things. That's why they voted in droves for Al Gore in 2000.

* Q. Which day are there more collect calls than any other day of the year? A. Father's Day.

I'm just gonna let that one stand without comment...

* 111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321

Pretty cool, huh? It took a really bored-ass individual to discover that one. I liked it because YESTERDAY marked the 'leventy-'leventh (111) day since I last took a drink of alcohol. (I don't intend to drink today, either.)

I LOVE trivia!

(UPDATE: Okay, maybe I was wrong about Rob and Laura sharing a bed. It was Samantha and Darrin on Bewitched I was thinking about. Yeah, I had the hots for Samantha, too.)

i rest my case

As I have mentioned numerous times before, I hate cats. I also believe that cat-lovers are very sick people in need of therapy. I recommend that they get a good dog.

Here's what a cat will do for you.

A burning candle knocked over by a house cat has been cited as the apparent cause of a blaze late Sunday afternoon that injured two women and did $500,000 damage to the River Place Condominiums near downtown Naperville.

The damn things will try to KILL YOU! And what does a cat do when the shit hits the fan?

The fate of the cats was not known.

That's right. Terrorist cats will set your home on fire and then haul ass, thinking only of themselves, the selfish bastards. You just can't trust a got-dam cat.

A dog, on the other hand, is loyal, loving and courageous.

See the difference? A cat will SET a fire, while a dog will SAVE YOU FROM DYING in one. A cat will run off and leave you to burn, while a dog will stick by you. If I were a religious man, I would be certain of one fact:

All dogs go to heaven; cats go to hell.

(Thanks to Ruth Moran for the links!)

February 08, 2006

quiz

I'm curious about the answer to THIS question myself. I'll tell you MY philosophy:

* It's okay to piss in the shower.

* It's gross and disgusting to piss in a bath.

* It's even MORE gross and disgusting to piss in the bath when you're in there with another person.

* It's NOT okay to shit in the shower. Especially not when you're in there with another person.

* You shouldn't shower in the shitter, either.

I threw that last one in just because I LOVE alliteration!

mind-blowing

It's a sad fact, but true: Men sometimes let the little head do the thinking for the big head. It's a physiological problem. Men have only enough blood in their bodies to supply either an erection or a cogent thought--- they are incapable of doing both at the same time.

So, maybe this woman was hoping to perform a lobotomy the hard way (if you'll pardon the pun).

Look what I found!

Is Bugs Bunny Jewish, or just a run-of-the-mill infidel? I never realized how much Yosimite Sam resembles a red-bearded Muslim mullah when dressed in desert robes. Or that Jake Plummer resembles Jesus Christ. Does that reference to "smothering gerbils" mean what I think it does?

The guy ain't worth a shit at prognosticating football games, but you've gotta like ANYBODY who calls himself the bacon-eating athiest jew, even if he does live in Canada. He's got a pretty good blog.

But I really wanted to link him just so that I'll appear in the search if anybody ever Googles "Bacon-Eating Athiest Jew."

in case you missed them

Here's a fine example of a blogger performing a valuable public service. If you missed the commercials during the Super Bowl, she provides a link to them.

Heh. Pajamas Media, eat your heart out.

i stand in awe

I posted this picture just because I can. It's my RIGHT as an American citizen. It's an exercise of my FREEDOM--- something that some people can't understand. If it pisses off a Muslim, that's tough shit. Get over it. You Muslims pissed me off first.

Allah can kiss my Cracker ass, but you Readers Without Turbans need to go here to see where I stole the picture. The warning you get disappears if you go back and visit the site again, but I surely was impressed the first time.

Just damn! I'm a minor-leaguer when it comes to offending people. This guy is a Tall Dog.

one-question IQ test

Take it here.

(Yeah, in case you're curious. I passed it.)

you are what you eat

I'm an English major. I don't do math. But I know how to write $415,000,000 and I know that a "federal study" means taxpayer dollars. I can even extrapolate, cogitate and calculate a gozinta that tells me an eight-year study cost $51,875,000 per year to consume that much money. What did we learn?

In the end, those assigned to a low-fat diet had the same rates of breast cancer, colon cancer, heart attacks and strokes as those who ate whatever they pleased, researchers are reporting today.

I'm certain that the money was well-spent, even if the end results are... well, hard to swallow. I thought we needed to eat a lot of cardboard, dirt and organic tofu if we wanted to live forever. A lot of people forged lucrative careers out of preaching that gospel. Now, a $415,000,000 study over eight years says that those people are full of shit? Can't be.

EVERYBODY KNOWS that a low-fat diet is healthy. Just look at all the "lite" stuff people buy at the grocery store. It's GOT to be better for you than the un-lite stuff, because it costs more money.

I know one thing. If I can get $415,000,000 from the government, I think we need another study.

who ya gonna believe?

I remain certain that WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!! anyway, but now I'm really concerned about HOW. When 86 evangelical Christian leaders tell you that global warming is real, you'd better get ready for it, because these people KNOW. They don't need to be scientists or experts in climatology. They have a direct pipeline to God himself.

When they weigh in on the issue, you can take their opinions to church the bank.

The statement calls for federal legislation that would require reductions in carbon dioxide emissions through "cost-effective, market-based mechanisms" — a phrase lifted from a Senate resolution last year and one that could appeal to evangelicals, who tend to be pro-business. The statement, to be announced in Washington, is only the first stage of an "Evangelical Climate Initiative" including television and radio spots in states with influential legislators, informational campaigns in churches, and educational events at Christian colleges.

Yep. When you want to do God's will today--- or maybe UNDO God's will if global warming is one of those "mysterious ways" in which God works--- you by-pass prayer and go straight to the REAL power: the Federal Government. That's just practical politics; after all, we're not a bunch of ignorant sun-worshippers anymore.

Speaking of the sun, here's a crazy bastard who suggests that we're headed for another "mini ice age" instead of the frying pan. The damned heathen blames climate change on THE SUN, for crying out loud. Did you ever hear such a ridiculous notion in your life? Where has he been for the past 20 years?

That Russian scientist sounds like a superstitious fool to me. I'm gonna put my faith in the preachers, who KNOW what they're talking about.

February 07, 2006

the party of vandals

I think what I dislike about Democrats is their total lack of manners or decorum or shame.

That was a disgusting show.

it's outrageous!

I've been cruising a lot of blogs today, sampling the different reactions to Muslim Mania over those "offensive" cartoons picturing He Who Must Not Be Cartooned. I saw a lot of firey rhetoric: "Fuck 'em, the camel-humping, splodey-dope sand monkeys. They want outrage? Let's shove a few nukes up their unwiped asses and tell 'em to outrage THAT!" The Usual Suspects weighed in with their typical hand-wringing: "I feel their pain. We should expect that kind of outrage when we deliberately insult their religious beliefs."

I thought that this was a pretty good post, reflecting a lot of what I believe. We may be slightly more civilized about it, but we regularly display, right here in this "free" country, the same mindset as the Muslim mobs.

One regret I have is that this battle should have been fought and won in favor of intentionalism and individualism inside our own western universities years ago; instead, the victory went to our progressive academic collectivists, whose fidelity to PC culture, identity politics, free-speech zones, tolerance training courses, et al manifested themselves in a “tolerance” culture that now has the goverment looking inside individuals’ heads (hate speech, hate crime) and effectively chilling all speech by defining tolerance in an Orwellian sense of tolerating only that speech which is so bland and banal that it is unlikely to offend anyone. (Emphasis mine.)

Face it: The sad fact is that most people cannot handle freedom. They don't realize that their own personal liberty depends on somebody else having the right to offend them. Freedom is not for the faint of heart or the easily wounded. It takes a cast iron ass to live free. That's a quality sorely lacking in this country today.

Americans may not take to the streets to cry for jihad or fatwah when they get pissed off, but they damn surely flock to the government to whine and sue when they get hurt feelings. We're even rewriting our own got-dam LANGUAGE to make it more politically-correct inoffensive to the delicate ear. We've gone brain-dead with tolerance.

...the Union isn’t in trouble for excluding people. They’re in trouble for not rewriting their constitution to “explicitly mention” some noisy people who, one suspects, are less interested in access to this particular group than enforcing the use of a wide bland smear of magic words that somehow insulates them from exclusion. --- James Lileks

The Union's crime: failure to mention explicitly "people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgendered." Yes, we actually take such neurotic, puling crap seriously today. And here's where it leads us:

If Chinese radicals were ransacking Western embassies because of a cartoon, and were backed by the Chinese government, we would be outraged, demanding apologies, severing relations, and so on. But when Muslims do it, backed by Islamist governments, we are supposed to take it on the chin, to "respect" their religious traditions, issue mealy-mouthed statements, etc. In many ways, this is the real offense: treating Muslims as if their violation of global norms, and thralldom to medieval conceptions of politics and religion, were somehow acceptable. --- here.)

To do otherwise would be judgmental and that's a horrible attitude-crime today. We can't think of these people as lunatic, fanatic, ignorant, blustering, seventh-century savages, even if that's the way they behave. We must "respect" their grievances, real or imagined. If we reached out and tried to understand them better, we would feel their pain. We need to modify OUR behavior to suit THEIR requirements lest we offend them.

Sometimes I think we're just as fucked-up as the Muslims, just in a different way.

ass-alt weapon?

What's wrong with this picture?

It's either pure dumbassery, good photoshopping or the latest idea in trigger-locks.

don't want no short people...

I am 5' 7" tall. I once was 5' 8," but when I turned 50 years of age, I shrunk one inch as the rest of my body began to fall apart. At my current rate of shrinkage, I may become a full-fledged dwarf if I live long enough. Gravity is a merciless bitch.

I'm gonna claim to be a persecuted minority due to my height, because I don't like the results of this survey. Prejudice rears its ugly head again and I am offended.

Men who are taller than 6 feet four inches have a real advantage in life: They are more likely than their shorter friends to have a better education.

A better education not only translates into a more challenging and interesting job and higher salary, but also gives these men a social advantage. The opposite is also true and quite troubling. Shorter men could face discrimination as they are expected to be low achievers, Reuters and Sweden's The Local report of research from Sweden's Karolinska Institute.

I think that's a load of pure horse shit myself, but I'm no tall Swedish scientist. My daddy always told me that as long as my legs reached all the way to the ground, I was as tall as I needed to be. Still... I am righteously indignant. As long as we're gonna celebrate a Black History Month, I think we should have a Short People History Month, too. It's only fair.

Blacks already grabbed the shortest month and claimed it as theirs, which just adds a perceived insult to my feelings of injury. Out of 12 months to choose from, why pick February? The shortest month! Huh? Was that mere coincidence, or was it just another way to slight the vertically-challenged? I sense diabolical machinations at work.

My outrage may fester and erupt into senseless violence unless somebody appeases my wrath immediately. I demand governmental affirmative action, a "leg-up," for short people as compensation for our group suffering at the hands of heightist bigots, especially tall wimmen who think we make rude slow-dance partners because our faces end up buried in their tits when we embrace. I demand that Blacks give us February as OUR month and take... I dunno... August as theirs. I'm pissed off.

I've got a right to be angry and throw a temper tantrum. I'm tired of getting the short end of the stick.

watch out!

If you have a blog, be careful what you post there. It can get you in a lot of trouble.

Sheesh! Anybody who complained about seeing "a provocative photo of her bare midriff in unzipped jeans" in THIS case needs to be dragged off and shot. I'd like to see her bare all over--- but that's only because I cherish freedom of speech with all my heart, especially when it's a hot babe doing the speeching.

I'll bet you that the American Taliban turd in the punchbowl who complained was a fat, ugly, jealous woman.

(Link shamelessly stolen from here. And if the picture doesn't appear on MY link, go follow HIS to gander at the babe.)

blog-hopping

My blogroll is a filthy place.

Look! A post about mick jagger's nutsack.

And over here! A post about animal fellatio.

What's this? Bejus! It's a photo from a kiddie porn snuff film. Ugly kid, too.

Check this. One of the many possible uses for duct tape!

Yes, we have titty-fucking, too.

What's that glowing in the dark over there? Oh... it's her ass. Don't ask.

That's not a blogroll. It's a got-dam kink farm.

I believe it

It's California. I believe it.

fatwah me

I wanted to link to this so that I could find the cartoons in my archives. Never can tell when those things might come in handy. I could use a good fatwah declared on me to attract more traffic to my blog.

Plus, I found it on a blog I never had seen before. I figured the picture of the backward underwear deserved a link.

February 06, 2006

i can't answer that

I decided to take another blog test (that I found here) because I really wanted to know my "Five Factor Personality Profile." My score was close to what I expected. I'm not going to post the results (Hell--- if you read this blog, YOU rate me on Extroversion, Concientiousness, Agreeableness, Neuroticism and Openness to Experience.), but I am going to discuss one of the questions.

You value honesty and following the rules

.

MY answer: Yes and No. It all depends...

I've written before about how I believe that little white lies are lubricants that keep the wheels of society rolling without a lot of unnecessary squeaks and squeals. The nekkid TRUTH sometimes acts as sand in the gearbox. I also believe that we have too many got-dam rules and that only a complete sheeple even tries to follow them all.

Yet, I still put a high value on trustworthiness. Do I sound confused? How can I possibly say that lying and breaking the rules is okay, then turn around and claim that trustworthiness is a virtue?

Easy. I'm a big believer in situation ethics. Take "honesty," for example. I don't cheat at cards and I've never fooled around on a wife when I was married. I've never lied on an expense report I filed for work travel. I've never cheated on my INCOME TAX, for cryin' out loud, although not from any moral constraints. I would cheat the IRS in a heartbeat, if I could only figure out a clever way to avoid detection. See? I've told the truth even when I knew that doing so would cost me dearly.

But I'm a liar, too. Often, telling a little white lie is more a matter of diplomacy than it is deception. ("If you can't say something nice, keep your mouth shut!") If I go to a friend's house for dinner, you can bet your sweet ass that I AM NOT going to tell the cook that the meal sucked, even if it did. I am going to eat it and say that I enjoyed it. Pure social lubrication-- situation ethics--- that's all.

I try to keep my word and I am successful most of the time. But I still agree with my favorite line from The Wild Bunch, when Dutch tells Pike: "It ain't your WORD that counts! It's WHO you give it to!" If a person's OWN word doesn't mean anything to HIM, you ain't gonna break his heart when you trade in the same currency, which is worthless.

I have no problem lying to a liar. He's gonna think you're lying even if you tell the truth, because he's a liar, so give him what he expects. He doesn't deserve anything else.

I keep my word to people who keep theirs. It's trading in the same currency again, only this time with precious tender. So, give him what he expects. He deserves nothing less. Situation ethics.

Those are MY rules. I don't violate THEM. But I see a BIG difference between "the rules" and "the law." I am a habitual offender under laws that I think are petty, stupid or despotic. In fact, some of those LAWS violate my RULES. Given a choice between the two, guess which way I'll lean?

I think of myself as an honest man, while I admit that I lie. I follow my rules, but I don't always uphold the law. See why I thought that question was complicated? I thought about my friends (who are kinda like me--- liars and rule-breakers themselves) and decided why I love and trust them.

I value consistency.

it sucked

The Super Bowl kept me on the edge of my seat. I had to sit that way, in the most uncomfortable position I could find, to keep from falling asleep on my sofa during the game. I picked the winner and I was reasonably close on predicting the score, but the contest itself was a boring affair. The game SUCKED.

Neither team looked like a champion. Little bits of scrap paper and a few uneaten corn chip crumbs, caught in a powerful vacuum, kept flying off my carpet and sticking to the TV screen because of the officials, who absolutely SUCKED.

The officials were in good company. I should have known that the game was gonna have a very high SUCK quotient when I listened to the National Anthem, as performed by the Goodyear Blimp Aretha Franklin and Neville What'sHisName. They sucked. The only thing that could have made their singing worse was Aretha having a wardrobe malfunction and dropping a humongous titty to the turf.

Speaking of terrible music, the Rolling Stones didn't do much better at halftime. Bejus! They sounded like a shitty garage band that hasn't learned to tune a guitar yet. Take away Mick Jagger mincing around the stage as if he had a buzzing dildo stuck up his ass and they've got NUTHIN,' other than Keith Richards resembling an animated corpse. They SUCKED.

As I predicted, the commercials were the highlight of the evening. The Bud Lite "Streaker" was my favorite. I laughed out loud at that one. But I didn't get the point of the "Riot-in-the-Office" spot, where some low-level manager jerk hid Bud Lite all over the place to improve employee morale. The employees then tore the office apart, destroying the place while looking for beer.

As a recovering alcoholic, I don't know about that one. It reminded me of Jack Lemmon in the greenhouse scene from The Days of Wine and Roses. Exactly what message were they trying to send? It made ME want to stay sober.

I detected subliminal racism in the "Brown and Bubbly" Pepsi commercial. No doubt about the target audience there, despite the presence of a couple of token white faces in the rap-recording session. That music SUCKED, but it was easier to take after hearing the National Anthem.

In the end, the Steelers won, 21-10. I was very happy when the game was over--- delighted that I didn't pay $600 to watch that shit live.

Did I mention that the game SUCKED?

February 05, 2006

pre-game meal

I just finished eating my Superbowl pre-game meal. I had lasagna with collard greens and carrot-broccoli cole slaw. It looked like a strange combination on a plate, but it tasted pretty good.

The recipe is easy: 1) Search your refrigerator and remove leftovers that aren't growing mold yet. (If moldy, scrape off mold.) 2) Heat in mircowave. 3) Eat.

Doesn't that sound just mouth-watering?

blog fodder

1) You heard it here first: The Pittsburg Steelers will defeat the Seattle Seahawks by a score of 27-13 in the Super Bowl. The game will be neither close nor exciting, unless your idea of excitement is watching injured Seahawks being carted off the field while coach Mike Holmgren appears to be passing a painful kidney stone on the sidelines.

2) The highlight of the Super Bowl will be the television commercials, at least one of which will be very entertaining, leaving viewers talking about it for days without ever remembering what product it advertised.

3) Some bloggers are desperate for subject matter. I'm not certain about the fold vs. wad controversy, but I DO know that most wimmen use more toilet paper daubing their twats after a #1 than I do wiping my ass after a #2.

4) Why are Muslims enraged over cartoons published in a newspaper? A NEWSPAPER??? WTF are they doing looking at a newspaper? Most of the ignorant bastards can't read and they damn sure ain't wiping their asses on one. I don't get it.

5) Okay, I DO get it. It doesn't take much to enrage a Muslim. You'd be enraged, too, if you had to wipe your ass on your finger all the time. (Especially if you used that same finger to pick your nose.)

6) Why do I giggle and think of Michael Moore trying to wipe his gargantuan ass when I hear the word "fatwa?"

7) I like Westerns as much as anybody does. That's why I'll probably watch Broke-Dick Mounting one of these days, even though I don't particularly want to. It might give the term "saddle-sore" a whole new meaning.

8) I agree with this guy. The Super Bowl stopped being a mere football game years ago, when it morphed into a glitzy, frenzied, overblown, All-American extravanga of shameless conspicuous consumption and shameless money-grubbing hype. That kind of shamelessness shouldn't happen on a Sunday--- not for religious reasons, but because too many people have to go to work with screeching hangovers the next day. Let's fix that problem by making Monday-After-The-Super-Bowl a national holiday.

9) Which do YOU find more offensive? this? Or this?

10) Anybody who whines about a shortage of blog-fodder probably tried to wipe his (or her) ass with a finger and got it stuck there.

quote of the day

"To the intelligent man or woman, life appears infinitely mysterious, but the stupid have an answer for every question." ----Edward Abbey

(Quote shamelessly stolen from here)

Why did I think "politicians" when I read that quote? I believe I'm in a trough at the bottom of my biorhythmic sine wave and I can't climb out of it.

I'm Stuck on Cynical.

What's that droning noise?

Yeah, he says it, but he doesn't mean it. It's just the required drone every political big-spender must emit from time to time to relieve some pressure, kinda like a long-winded fart from a gas-filled belly. Once that noise is made, Bush can resume spending taxpayer dollars like a drunken sailor.

Of course, the Party of Vandals must contribute its droning, too. Get ready to hear the word "Draconian" a lot. ANY reduction in funding (or even a spending freeze, for that matter) for ANY government program (no matter how useless and wasteful) is a Draconian Spending Cut and everybody knows that Draco was... okay, most people never HEARD of Draco, but they know damn well that anything described as Draconian is very bad. Isn't Draco an evil character in the Harry Potter books?

In the end, all this gas will pass and nothing will change. Congress will continue lunatic spending and Bush's veto pen will continue gathering dust on his desk. We see this frenzied posturing every few years, right before we return to Business as Usual, but it's become a necessary ritual--- kinda like singing the National Anthem before a football game even though two out of three people don't know the words.

I have decided that if we EVER have a budget surplus again, it will have to sneak up and bite us on the ass the way it did Bill Clinton. It will surprise everybody--- until Congress works overtime figuring out how to piss it all away.

"The retirement of the baby-boom generation will put unprecedented strains on the federal government. By 2030, spending for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid alone will be almost 60 percent of the entire federal budget," Bush said.

"And that will present future congresses with impossible choices: staggering tax increases, immense deficits or deep cuts in every category of spending."

What's this "future" shit? Hell, we'll all be DEAD in the "future." Politicians think no further ahead than the next election. Hanging onto office is a "now" issue. They aren't gonna lay a Draconian Cut on ANYTHING that may cost them a vote.

So, sit back and enjoy the dog-and-pony show. That's all you're gonna get.

February 04, 2006

"offensive"

This fact probably does not come as a complete surprise to many of my readers: I sometimes write posts INTENDED to offend people. I seek to push a few sensitivity buttons, set off some outrage alarms and generate a bunch of horrified gasps in my audience. I do it DELIBERATELY. On PURPOSE. I get my sick jollies that way, especially when my plan works.

I don't have to put a lot of effort into achieving my goal, either. It's EASY to do, because people are so EASILY offended today. (Just saying that people are easily offended today probably offended somebody.) We are taught to find offense even if we really have to look hard for it. Even if we have to be semi-illiterate to find it.

Americans once were proud and defiant (Don't Tread on ME!); now, Americans are spineless and pouty (You Hurt My FEEEEEEELINGS! Woe, woe, woe FEEEEELINGS!). I blame hormonal wimmen, delusional Democrats and greedy lawyers--- the Three-Pronged Fork of Fucktards--- for this pathetic mutation in our culture. The whiners, the wheedlers and the weasels combined to define "offensive" at its lowest common denominator: anything that might possibly, under ANY circumstances, upset the delicate mental balance of the most neurotic, unbalanced individual among us.

Certain exceptions to the rule exist just to make the rule more baffling. You may fling all the dung you want to hurl at Christians, Conservatives and white Southern men. You may even fling dung at a black woman, if she happens to be Secretary of State in the Bush administration. But you'd better be careful outside of those exceptions, lest flung dung blow right back in your insensitive face.

Sure, the rule makes no sense. It's not supposed to. It's an EMOTIONAL thing and emotion trumps logic every time in this game. Political correctness is more important than good sense in deciding what is offensive anymore. You shouldn't be judgmental. (Especially not when you're actually being judgmental.)

And THAT idea offends ME. Almost as much as this does.

The religion of peace

Deeply offended by cartoons portraying Mohammed as a whacked-out, bloodthirsty, lunatic bomb-head, peace-loving Muslims set fire to the Danish and Norwegian embassies in Damascus today. Protesting against what the Muslims regard as an insult to their Religion of Peace, 500 demonstrators gathered in the Pakistani city of Lahore to shout "Death to Denmark" and "Hang the culprits."

Other insulted protesters attempted to approach the French and United States embassies with their peaceful messages, including "Behead the Infidels," but were turned away by police with water hoses and tear gas. Disappointed by the heavy-handed response of the authorities, some Muslims chanted "Europe, Your 9-11 Will Come," referring to the Muslim custom of performing The 9-11 Happy-Feet Dance in the streets when feeling particularly religious and peaceful.

Allah Akbar! Such dignity they have! Such respect for life!

Our dangerous, manical, bloodthirsty, zealous Religious Right sure could learn a lot about civilized behavior by studying these peaceful people...

the end

Quinton's basketball season really IS finished now. As luck would have it, his team drew THE TALL GUYS again for the first playoff game and the score wasn't even close this time. Quinton's team lost 65-43.

That score is NOT a typo. The two teams combined to rack up more than 100 total points. Quinton's team scored more points today than they did in any other game this season and they STILL lost by more than 20. It was a busy game.

It was the last one, too. Just damn!

the cat's ass

Awww.... ain't this adorable, precious widdle kitty-snookums cute?

Actually, I think ALL cats should look like that. Makes a Purr-Fect target for a pellet-rifle shot.

(Thanks to Myra for the link!)

not interested

Today, I refused to join "The Grassroots Army of Conservatives," despite a plea via telephone from Newt Gingrich hisownself (well... a recorded message from Newt, which is the next best thing to Newt hisownself) asking me to sign up. They wanted a "contribution" of at least $100 for the privilege of membership and I didn't want to be a member that badly, even though GAC promised to Save The Nation. I respectfully hung up on them.

If this were still 1992, I might have sent them $100. Hell, I was so disgusted by the Democrats back then that in a moment of pure frustration, I sent money to Ross Perot and joined United We Stand. In MY humble opinion, ANYTHING was better than the Democrats. Now I realize that I was mistaken.

I've seen what Republicans do when handed control of the Presidency and both houses of congress, and I am thoroughly disgusted with THEM now. I expected fiscal responsibility; I got runaway spending. I expected smaller government; I got BIGGER government. I expected change; I got more of the same politics as usual.

Republicans are no different from Democrats in one regard: BOTH parties believe that the federal government should manage every aspect of your life, right down to the molecular level. They disagree only about how the government should do it. If my choice at the polls is simply selecting which incompetent micromanager I prefer, I would just as soon not vote.

I don't think voting matters much anymore--- at least not in the long run. This country is headed down the shitter and neither party has the balls nor the ability to stop it. When you vote today, you're not going to change anything. You're just selecting which lemming you prefer to follow off the cliff.

When Republicans scold the Democrats for quashing Social Security reform after creating a nightmarish Medicare drug benefit program themselves, they've lost me for good. They shouldn't cry that Rome is burning one one hand while they're busy conducting the fiddle orchestra with the other. If that's what passes for "leadership" today, I'm not interested.

So, I kept my $100 today. Government gets too much Money For Nothing already.

February 03, 2006

crap-blogging

I never thought that Jimbo would stoop so low... but I should have known better. He IS a lawyer, after all.

And lawyers know what it means to be full of shit.

Kosher Spock?

I thought the art of the mind-meld was a speciality of the Vulcans, not Jewish guys from Atlanta. Vulcans were so good at it that Spock even managed to mild-meld with a crawling chunk of rock in one episode of the original Star Trek. Pretty impressive, right?

Bullshit. Spock ain't got NOTHING on this guy. And he melded with some specimens who are a lot more mindless than a crawling chunk of rock. I don't know how he did it, but he damn surely got into MY brain.

I feel.... violated...

(UPDATE: I just hope he's not using this method when he... uh... melds...)

Look, Ma! No hands!

If you don't know which toothpaste used "Look, Ma! No hands!" in its television commercials, you probably won't pass this test. It's for Old Farts.

I aced it.

(By the way... I am more proud of getting 27 out of 30 correct on this test, even if Denny did beat me with 28. What chaps my ass is the fact that I missed ALL THREE that I guessed at!)

some lies never die

As soon as I saw the headline ("FBI Joins Ala. Church Fires Investigation") I KNEW that I would see a lie in the article. Sure enough, there is was:

In 1996, race was a factor in a series of arsons that damaged rural black churches in Alabama and elsewhere.

Remember that lie? Remember the commercials during Bill Clinton's Presidential reelection campaign, warning folks that more black churches would burn if they voted Republican? Remember what complete bullshit that was?

I do. But some lies never go away because they fit certain selfish agendas better than the truth does. An "epidemic" of church-burnings was GOOD for the Democrats in 1996; so, they invented one. They did such a good job that their lies became conventional wisdom, thanks to the useful idiots in Mainstream Media, who reported the lies as gospel.

The same thing happened with the EPA's 1993 report on second hand smoke. That pack of lies STILL rears its ugly head in anti-smoking laws today, despite the fact that the study was thoroughly debunked years ago.

It's too bad we didn't have bloggers fact-checking some asses back then.

'splain it to me

My daughter recently sent me TEN one-dollar-off-per-pack coupons for Marlboro cigarettes, which is the brand I smoke. I went shopping today and redeemed all ten coupons at the grocery store. I was told that I couldn't use the coupons to get $10 off a CARTON of cigarettes even though a carton has ten packs in it--- I had to purchase individual packs.

Even with my horrible math skills, I calculated that a dollar off ten individual packs was still less than the cost of a carton, so that's what I bought. That's also where the scene became kinda bizarre, at least in MY humble opinion.

The cashier had only four packs in the Marlboro rack behind the register. She took those out, placed them on the checkout counter and then opened a fresh CARTON, from which she removed six more packs. She placed THOSE on the counter, then took the remaining four packs from the carton and PUT THEM IN THE RACK. She then rang up the ten individual packs and honored my coupons by deducting a dollar off the price of each pack.

I need some help from my readers here. Why couldn't I use the coupons for $10 off the price of a carton? I bought four packs that came out of the rack and six packs that came right out of a carton. Does the cigarette supplier have some nefarious way of KNOWING THE DIFFERENCE? Doesn't the store buy ALL of its cigarettes by the carton? Doesn't the supplier redeem those coupons for $1 each no matter HOW the cigarettes were sold?

I still ended up with a carton of cigarettes that cost me less than the regular price for a carton, so I'm not complaining. I simply am mystified by the process itself.

How do those coupons work?

i know the feeling

According to the rain gauge in my front yard, more than 3" of rain fell on the Crackerbox yesterday. The weather report predicts more rain today. This monsoon is putting a crimp in my gardening plans, because I can't Roundup the weeds I want to kill until the weather clears.

The steady downpour made for good sleeping last night. I opened one of my bedroom windows so that I could hear the rain fall and lay down to read for a while at 10:00 PM. I didn't do much reading. I fell unconscious before 10:30 and slept until 7:00 this morning. I woke up feeling pretty good, too.

That makes 21 hours of sleep in two days. If I can keep sleeping like that for about another month, I might be close to catching up on what I missed during my struggles with insomnia. I was awfully damned miserable for a while there.

Lack of sleep may never kill me, but it surely does make me feel like shit. After seeing this story, I concluded that my brain must work a lot like the brain of a laboratory rat.

The sleep-deprived rodents had a much harder time remembering how to navigate the maze and learned more slowly than did the rats that were well-rested. In addition, the rats that got enough sleep sprouted neurons in the hippocampus, a part of the brain known for spatial learning, which increased the growth of brain cells. This did not happen in the animals whose sleep was restricted.

That explains why I felt so dull and spaced-out when I couldn't sleep. I wasn't sprouting neurons in my hippocampus! That's bad. If you stop sprouting, you feel like shit, too.

Everybody knows that a hippocampus is a terrible thing to waste...

brave new world

Is this incident a hate crime? I find so much so utterly wrong with the story that I don't know where to begin discussing the... wrongery of it. But I'll try.

A woman accused of using racial epithets while waiting for food at a Connecticut Taco Bell drive-through window was arrested Wednesday.

"Using racial epithets" is a CRIME in Connecticut? Does this mean that calling someone a sonovabitch is okay, but calling someone a BLACK sonovabitch is a criminal offense? Or is BLACK sonovabitch acceptable as long as you don't substitute the forbidden n-word for BLACK?

Am I guilty of a thought crime because I assumed immediately that a person named "Jamelle" was black African-American? Can I be arrested for that? If Jamelle IS black, can I call him a slope-head, a mick, a wop or a greaser and get away with it because he's obviously NOT Chinese, Irish, Italian or Mexican?

What happens if I call him a cunt?

Jennifer Farrelly, 19, of East Windsor, has been charged with ridicule on account of race, creed or color...

I'm confused here. Is "ridicule" the crime, or is ridicule criminal ONLY when "on account of race, creed or color?" What happens if I call him a cocksucker?

Farrelly denied using racial epithets when she was interviewed by police, saying Byrd caused the dispute by ridiculing her for parking her car far away from the drive-through window, the warrant states.

Great. He ridiculed ME first! But Byrd didn't get arrested, so I suppose that generic ridicule is legal, while race-based ridicule is NOT. Makes perfect sense to me. Calling someone a dumbass is okay as long as you don't specify the race, creed or color of the ass.

Byrd's supervisor told police that Byrd should not have been working the drive-through because he had gotten into a similar incident with another customer, the warrant states.

What if I call Byrd's supervisor a shit-for-brains boss? I don't give a damn WHAT your race, creed or color might be. You simply NEVER get into fights with your customers at a fast-food restaurant under ANY circumstances. Byrd has done that TWICE? Why does he still have a job? Did the boss NOT FIRE HIM for fear of being called a racist?

What if I call Byrd AND his boss a pair of generic assholes?

(I need to ask this guy how HE would handle a Byrd-like employee. I believe that I already know the answer, but he should take another poll just to see what other people think.)

Here's MY humble opinion on this pathetic affair. BOTH people in the car were total jerks. (Don't EVER piss off the persons handling your food when you can't see what they're doing to it. Want SNOT with that?) Byrd is a jerk with a bad attitude. The manager is a jerk with no balls. Connecticut lawmakers are a bunch of jerks who should be ridiculed for making ridicule a crime. Is the word "jerk" racist, creedist or colorist?

The entire story is ridiculous.

February 02, 2006

end of the season...sorta

Quinton's team won their last basketball game of the season tonight with a comfortable 29-23 victory. I used the word "comfortable" because it WAS comfortable, after the boys fell behind 8-0 to start the game. Having watched every game this season, I was impressed to see them wrap up their schedule that way. Those young 'uns have improved a great deal since that atrocious first game.

They ended their season 10-4. Lo and Behold! They made the PLAYOFFS!! The "official" season may be over, but they play again on Saturday in the championship tournament. Maybe they'll get another shot at the tall boys and beat them this time.

Quinton scored only one point, but he sat out a lot of the game. He WAS sick Monday and he was still all crouped-up tonight. When I asked him why nobody called to let me know that he wasn't coming to the game on Monday, he put a hand on his throat and said, "Daddy, I had no voice!".

Bejus. I shouldn't be surprised at such a lie, because he's studying at the feet of The Master Liar Herself, but I still didn't like it. "Well, I'm glad you're better now. If that ever happens again, just ask somebody to call me, okay? That'll save me a long drive in the dark." I let the matter drop right there. I figured that he forgot to call or he didn't want to call in front of his mama.

Either way, I wish that he wouldn't lie to me.

damn good post

That's all I'm gonna say. This is a damn good post.

good news

His biopsy results came back negative for cancer. That's damn good news.

I mentioned in his comments that I once worked with a guy who pulled PSA scores higher than 10 every time he took the test and underwent THREE biopsy procedures, all of which were negative, before he quit chasing that ghost. (He also was so bored-out after three biopsies that he sounded like a bassoon when he farted.) As far as I know, he's still pulling high PSA scores today with no evidence of cancer.

He went to several different urologists and none could explain what caused the high PSA scores. It's a disturbing fact, but sometimes "I don't know why" is the best answer a doctor can give you. Too many things other can cancer can screw up that test.

Of course, one negative biopsy isn't a guarantee that you're cancer-free, either, although it is one hell of a lot better than a positive result. The doc can hit only PART of the prostate with his needle-gun, so if the cancer is on the backside of the prostate (in the FRONT, considering where he inserts the gun) or in a place he didn't hit, the biopsy won't catch it. That's why the doc wants to do another biopsy.

Dr. Acidman recommends keeping a close eye on the PSA for a while. Get it checked about every three months and watch for any increase in the score. Only if the score stayed high and kept increasing would I submit to the indignity of a second biopsy.

But that's just MY humble opinion. I could be wrong.

ballsy?

She seldom posts anymore. 11 days between posts and six days since her last one. When she drags herself from her torpor, gets off her dead fine ass and actually BLOGS something, what do you get? Bejus!

dawg porn.

eleven cars

I'll be 54 years old in two weeks. I've owned a total of ELEVEN different cars in my life. In the comments on a previous post, this guy seemed surprised that I haven't owned MORE than eleven cars, because HE HAS and he's not nearly the old fart the decrepit bastard the fossilized turd as old as I am.

I tend to keep a vehicle for a long time for two perfectly good reasons. First, I don't like making car payments every month. Before I quit drinking, I could put that money to better use--- such as paying bar tabs instead of sending it off to a bank. (Some people buy cars today and finance them for 72 months. Bejus! That's SIX FUCKING YEARS! That ain't buying a car; that's getting MARRIED to one.)

Second, I have learned to take pretty good care of an automobile. Wanna know the big secret? Change the oil and oil filter every 3,000 miles. That's the biggie. You'd be surprised how long a car will last if you do that one simple thing. Too many people don't. (Of course, you shouldn't be changing the oil every time you drive, either, but that's just MY humble opinion.)

Here is a list of the vehicles I've owned:

1) A 1968 AMC Javelin. The first car that was MINE, all MINE. I bought it for $1,000 from a friend who joined the Navy in 1972. The car had 110,000 miles on it when I sold it for $500 in 1976.

2) A 1974 Chevy Vega. The less said about that piece of shit, the better. I bought it for $500 in 1976 and sold the corpse for $100 in 1982. I got my money's worth out of it.

3) A 1974 GMC Suburban. Bought it for $500 from a friend in the military who was shipping off to Panama in 1978. That vehicle had more than 120,000 miles on it when I sold it for $200 in 1984.

4) A 1974 Chevrolet Impala. That was the first car that my first wife destroyed by driving it for three days with the oil light burning. I don't remember how many miles it had on it, but it definitely died before its time.

5) A 1978 Ford F-150 pickup truck. My first pickup and the reason that I don't like Fords today, even though it had more than 100,000 miles on it before my first ex-wife made it the SECOND vehicle she destroyed by driving it with the oil light burning.

6) A 1982 Chevy Camaro. My first BRAND NEW car! I paid off the loan on that baby just in time to lose the car in my first divorce. My ex-wife took less than a year to make it the THIRD vehicle she destroyed by driving it after she put sugar in the gas tank as a clever scam to collect insurance money. The dingbat didn't understand the difference between liability and comprehensive insurance and never collected a dime, but she damn surely killed that car.

7) A 1988 Chevy S-10 Pickup Truck. My SECOND brand-new vehicle. I paid less than $8,000 for it, put 130,000 miles on it and sold it for $1,500 twelve years later. As far as I know, that little red truck is still running today. It was a good 'un.

7-A) A 1990 Eagle Talon. Technically, that car belonged to the Bloodless Cunt when I met her, but I drove it a LOT, so I'm adding it to this list. That sumbitch was FAST and one hell of a lot of fun to drive. I once made the trip from Hartsfield International in Atlanta to Savannah in two hours and 20 minutes in that car. That's when I learned that it would go 130 MPH without the accellerator touching the floor.

8) A 1994 Chrysler Grand Caravan. Every yuppie needs a van at some point in life. That one was mine. I learned to dislike that fucker in a hurry. It was like driving a school bus. It remains the only vehicle I ever traded before it was paid for.

9) A 1996 Ford Explorer. The BC wanted it. I traded in the van and bought it. After less than a year, I remembered why I don't like Ford products. I never had any major mechanical problems with the Explorer, but little things were ALWAYS going wrong with it--- door locks failing locked, windows falling out of their tracks, various rattles and other strange noises that couldn't be quieted--- annoying body hardware defects.

10) A 1998 Chevy Cheyenne Pickup Truck. I'm still driving that one today. It has 110,000 miles on it and still runs like a sewing machine. I've never had ANY mechanical problems with it. Every time I think about selling it, I wind up needing a truck to haul something and I change my mind. I'll probably keep it until I die, or IT dies, whichever comes first.

11) A 1999 Chevy Impala. That's the car I inherited when Mama died. Right now, it has 15,012 miles on it (Yes. 15,012, that's all.), and I've put more than 4,000 of those miles on it myself. It has all the bells and whistles (including a built-in electronic butt-warmer in the driver's seat) and handles like a sports car. I figure that if I take care of it, that car is good for AT LEAST another ten years or more.

That's the history of the Acidman vehicle fleet. Eleven rides (twelve if you count the Talon) over a 38-year driving career. I suppose that's really not very many, especially when I consider where I stand right now.

I may never buy another car in my life.

explain it to me

Last night, I fell asleep on my sofa at 9:00 PM. I slept until 9:00 this morning and I don't believe that I MOVED for twelve straight hours. When I finally woke up, I felt...

Like SHIT!

I swear to Bejus--- if I didn't know better, I would think that I have a got-dam HANGOVER this morning! My body aches as if I've been beaten with a baseball bat and I have a low-level, throbbing pain in my head, right between my bloodshot eyes. Even after drinking a whole pot of coffee (Don Francisco's "Vanilla Nut"), I still feel discombobulated and confused. My neural network is misfiring across unbridged synapses on my internal power grid. If I had a "low battery" light on my forehead, it would be glowing bright red right now. I feel stuck on stupid. I just lit the filter end of a cigarette. I think I've forgotten how to tie my shoes.

I've been sleeping a lot better lately and awakening refreshed and invigorated, once I get past my usual sleep inertia. Hell--- I slept like a rock last night, too, but I awoke feeling dull, as if someone stuffed my brain in a cardboard box full of styrofoam popcorn and then shrink-wrapped the entire package with multiple layers of plastic sheeting.

I need to brush my teeth to get this foul, Dead Pig In Sunshine taste out of my mouth, but I'm afraid to look in a mirror. I have a sneaking suspicion that I'll see a reflection of Fido's Ass staring back at me. Besides, with the muscular coordination I've demonstrated so far today, I probably would stick the toothbrush in my eye. I just ain't RIGHT this morning.

What causes that?

February 01, 2006

go fish

You know the food is bad when even your toilet won't eat it.

dinah shore

Just Damn! I wonder how many of my readers ever even HEARD of Dinah Shore, let alone remember her. I'll never forget hearing her sing, "See the USA--- in your Chevrolet." I'll bet she sold a lot of cars.

I've owned a total of 11 cars in my life and seven of those were Chevrolets. (The others were two Fords, one Chrystler and one American Motors.) The only Chevrolet vehicle I've ever had chronic mechanical problems with was a 1974 Vega, and EVERY 1974 Vega had chronic mechanical problems, piece of crap that it was. Other than that lemon, I've always been happy with a Chevy.

That's why reading this makes me feel bad. If General Motors goes tits-up, another one of my American Icons will have vanished from the scene, like when Johnny Unitas retired from professional football. Like when drive-in movie theaters disappeared. Like when Elvis died.

I heard a radio commercial for a local GMC dealership the other day. In the commercial, a pitch-man boasted that $1,500 of the cost of every GM vehicle went "into the American health-care system." The gist of the message was that you might wind up dying for lack of medical care on the sidewalk outside a hospital if you bought a foreign car.

I thought that the commercial was pathetic. I knew that the $1,500 per car wasn't a donation to the American health care system, unless the UAW has a lot of doctors on its membership roll. I also knew that any company forced to BRAG about how roughly 10% of the cost of a typical GM vehicle went for ONE employee benefit, the company wasn't about to stand up to the union. I also knew that nobody can stay in business that way.

I think the GM Golden Goose has been slaughtered, plucked, seasoned and stuck in the oven. It ain't done yet, but it's only a matter of time now.

how to piss off wimmen

As soon as I saw the title of this article, I knew that it was written by a woman. I didn't need to read the by-line. "4 Things He Doesn't Want to Talk About - Ever" just REEKS of estrogen and bullshit. (Excuse me for being redundant.)

#1) What He's Doing Wrong in the Sack Just sample this giggly bit of feminine insight: "You think it's just good natured kidding, but he finds your little jokes about his size or staying power neither funny nor cute." Oh, really? Let's just turn that one around.

"You think it's just good-natured kidding, but SHE finds your little jokes about HER fat ass, droopy tits and the fact that HER pussy is the size of a mayonnaise jar but not nearly as much fun to fuck neither funny nor cute."

C'mon, wimmen. Admit it. You'd laugh so hard you'd roll right off the bed if a man said that to YOU, right? Guys just have no sense of humor when you make witty jokes about their bodies or their sexual shortcomings. Thank Bejus that wimmen don't have that problem.

#2) Celebrity Gossip WTF? Only some celebrity-obsessed loser with no life of her own would even THINK to include this subject on a top-four list of ANYTHING. Besides, guys LOVE celebrity gossip. Mention Lorena Bobbitt and see if you don't get his undivided attention.

#3) Your Food and Body Image Issues True. That's called "WHINING" or "ACTING FUCKED UP IN THE HEAD" and men don't like it. It makes them think of Lorena Bobbitt.

#4) Other People's Relationships "Many women have a natural need to know what's going on around them." Horse shit. Most wimmen simply are prying, rumor-spreading busybodies who see life through a distorted lens, thanks to digesting too many soap operas and too many romance novels when they aren't busy gossiping. They can read between the lines of a blank page, but usually have no clue what's ACTUALLY going on around them. If they did, they'd be better drivers.

Now... if this post doesn't piss off a few wimmen, I'm losing my manly touch.

coffee snob

A few years ago, I quit drinking coffee because it upset my stomach. I didn't give up caffiene (which is one of the essentials in the Four Basic Food Groups--- the other three being nicotine, alcohol and cholesterol); I just switched to getting my required daily joltage from high-octane soft drinks such as Mountain Dew instead of java. Plus, I could put vodka in Mountain Dew.

But a stint in alcohol rehab and bunch of AA meetings put coffee back in my life. Big time. Hell--- I think AA would cease to exist if coffee were banned at the meetings. The unwritten 13th Step in the program is learning to clamp your bladder until the next bathroom break.

So, I drink a lot of coffee now. I started out with my customary Maxwell House or Folger's, but with my addict's proclivities, I soon graduated to The Hard Stuff. I blame catfish. He got me hooked.

Cat offered me a cup of coffee while we were sitting around the bonfire at his blog meet a month ago. I accepted and REALLY liked the way that coffee tasted--- kinda like regular coffee with chocolate and nut flavors mixed in. Later, I learned that it was Don Francisco's Vanilla Nut gourmet blend coffee.

I made a special trip to the grocery store to buy a can of that stuff. I also purchased some Hawaiian Hazlenut, Columbia Supreme and Kahlua Vanilla Creme, too. That's what I drink now, in a cup the size of a beer mug. (Speaking of which, I need to take a picture of my coffee cup and send it here. Mine is BIGGER than their's.)

Yes, I have become a Coffee Snob. A fucking Java Yuppie. The next thing you know, I'll be buying triple lattes from Starbucks, wearing Birkenstock shoes and driving a Beemer. I should be ashamed of myself.

But I'm not. I'm a coffee snob.

dedication

Live-blogging the State of the Union speech ain't diddly-squat. Any asshole with a keyboard can do that. You want to impress ME?

Live-blog your own heart attack.

(UPDATE: Okay, it wasn't a heart attack. It was a heart episode, whatever the hell THAT means.)

state of the union

(Picture NOT taken last night. Cindy dressed as a hooded, desert-dwelling character from Star Wars for the SOTU speech.)

I suppose that I ought to write a thoughtful, profound post full of deep insight and intellectual analysis about last night's State of the Union address. In fact, I probably should have "live-blogged" the event, just to demonstrate what a serious, thoughtful, profound, insightful, intellectual, analytical masturbatory pajama journalist I am.

But I couldn't figure out how to blog and trim my toenails at the same time, so I didn't blog. I will, however, offer a brief recap of what I remember about last night.

1) My toenails looked a lot better after I trimmed them.

2) Cindy Sheehan was arrested for attempting to show her ass protest against the war. Take a look at the picture above. See where the cop has his hand? See the orgasmic expression on her face? Now I understand what REALLY motivates Cindy Sheehan. The slut.

3) Democrats cheered themselves for wrecking any attempt at Social Security reform, proving once again that they are pure vandals at heart.

4) Best line of the speech: "Second-guessing is not a strategy." Of COURSE it isn't, if you're a Democrat. Vandalism is.

5) I would rather look at my feet than see Hillary Clinton's face on my television. That woman gives me a case of the galloping fantods.

6) Why did the Supreme Court justi wear their flowing black robes to this event? Do they sleep in that get-up? To ME, they resembled a bunch of voodoo priests sitting there dressed that way. Of course, that's exactly what they ARE...

7) I wondered, so I'm gonna ask. Ladies: Do you think George Bush is a handsome man? I do, although I'm not really qualified to make that assessment. (Hell--- Bill Clinton gives me the creeps but a lot of wimmen think HE is sexy.) Y'all give me an honest answer.

8) Between now and 2008, am I gonna hear "there's GOT to be a better way" until I puke? That's a perfect mantra for the Democrats. It doesn't offer any answers, but it IS vandalistic.

9) Bush wore a blue necktie.

See? I really DID watch the speech. (And this guy live-blogged it. Sorta.)

addendum

I want to make a few comments in response to the comments on the post below.

* I don't have Georgia red clay in my yard. I have SAND. The "high" in High Point Drive comes from the SAND HILL I live on. If you want to prep the soil for planting around here, you need to add everything but SAND.

* The high-nitrogen fertilizer is for the Silver Queen corn I'm going to plant. That fertilizer doesn't go into the garden until the corn is a couple of feet tall.

* Roundup kills plants when it is absorbed through the leaves, not the roots. It also breaks down in about 30 days. If I spray now and plant in late March, Roundup won't cause any problems in the garden.

* Peat moss is for pussies. Cow shit is cheaper and easier to get.

* Folks, it ain't like I've never grown a garden before. I once owned a mini-FARM, and I had a BIG garden there. A LOT bigger than a 30' X 20' plot.

* Trust me. I know what I'm doing (for a change).

I hope that clears up any questions you have...