December 31, 2007

I gotta make some noise

Originally published December 31, 2004

I told the girls that I would wait until they came home, but I lied. I gotta go explode some shit in my yard. I've heard all the ladyfinger firecrackers and pissant bottle rockets that I can stand. I'm gonna go wake the dead with some REAL fireworks.

Happy New Year, EVERYBODY!!!

And especially to... my blog friends.

End of the year

Originally published December 31, 2004

This evening, Sam, Stacey and I steamed oysters over an open fire in my back yard and ate them using the tailgate of my pickup truck for a picnic table. Is that a red-neck feast, or what? I bought 100 pounds of oysters, and we ate until we could eat no more. I still have at least 50 pounds remaining.

I bagged those up and put them in my freezer for the girls to take home with them. Sam says they have to pay seven dollars a dozen for fresh oysters in Fort Worth, Texas. I don't think they've researched a good wholesale seafood distributor, because I can get Louisiana singles at $40 for 100 pounds here, and they are a lot closer to Louisiana than I am. What the hell. They've got 50 pounds to take home.

When we went shooting today, I took an old phone book to use for targets. I like to shoot pictures of lawyers. Stacey discovered that she is a good shot and she was very enthusiastic about plugging anything I set up for her to hit. By the time Sam became interested in trying her hand, we had ripped that phone book to shreds and perforated every decent picture we could find. I killed ALL the lawyers.

So, I found some trash beer cans, threw them in the creek and Sam sank every one, usually with her first shot. I found a flattened Budweiser can and used the remains of the phone book to hold it up so that only the round bottom was showing. We were probably 50' away, looking at a 3" circle for a target. Sam said, "Daddy, I can barely SEE that."

She fired and put the shot right in the center of the circle. I mean DEAD CENTER. She shot again and said, "I think I missed that one." I didn't think so. I thought she put the second round damn near through the first hole. (Would you believe that at a distance, I have better eyesight than two young wimmen?)

We walked up to check. The second shot went through only half of the first hole. She had taken out another chunk about 1/4" to the right. I looked at her and beamed. "Sam, that is damn good shooting," I said. "Not many men can do that." Stacey was good, but she never shot THAT well; Sam did it over and over again.

As we were walking back home, I saw a glass jug laying in the leaves off the side of the trail. Samantha was carrying the rifle. I said, "Sam! Whoa! Look over there. Are you gonna walk out of here and leave that thing unshot?" I pointed at the jug. It was about the size of a half-gallon vinegar bottle and about 20' away.

"That thing? Daddy, that's too easy." I told her to shoot it anyway. She loaded the rifle, shouldered it and fired. The jug broke into pieces. She said, "See? I told you it was easy." She took about three more steps down the trail and stopped with a shocked look on her face.

"Daddy, I didn't have my ear-plugs in when I shot that bottle. I forgot that I wasn't wearing them anymore." And she didn't flinch from the "loud" noise, either.

A lot of shit has happened in my life during the past year, but I'm going out of 2004 on a high note. I've enjoyed visiting with my daughter and Stacey and I might even end up with a semi-clean house in the bargain. Can't beat that.

And I taught Sam to shoot, too.

Resolutions

Originally published December 31, 2005

I stopped making New Year's Resolutions years ago. Before then, I would make the resolutions, convince myself that I was serious about keeping them, and then break every damned one, usually before the end of January.

That crap was a waste of my time and a real blow to my self-esteem. If I broke promises that I made to MYSELF, for crying out loud, I HAD to be a really shitty human being, worthy of NO ONE'S trust. I finally figured out that I was better off NOT making resolutions that I was bound to piss all over than I was lying to myself like a delusional, disgusting swine.

But, being in touch with my feminine side today, I have changed my mind. Here are my Resolutions For 2006:

1) I will drink no alcohol today. Or tomorrow, when that day comes.

2) I am going to get off my dead ass and start recording on my home studio. I've had the damned thing set up for more than two months now and I haven't done diddly-squat with it. I'm gonna cut my own CD of original songs with me playing all the instruments and me singing all the vocals. Then, I'm gonna sell the CD on my blog.

3) I'm going to start playing golf regularly. I'm going to get good at the game again, too.

4) I WILL NOT buy any more firearms or musical instruments in 2006. I have more of those than I need already.

5) I will continue to blog.

6) I will sail to Belize with Recondo 32 this summer. I will survive the trip, too, even if I have to put his lovely, loud-mouthed wife, Georgia, in the lifeboat and tow her on a line 50 yards behind us when she gets in one of her bitchy moods. (Yes, she intends to go, too.) If she keeps bitchin' after that, I'll just cut the tow-rope when Recondo isn't looking. He's deaf. He'll never hear her cries for help.

7) I'm gonna get a cat for a pet, take LOTS of "cute" pictures of it and post the pictures on my blog every day. Heh. I threw that one in there just to take the pressure off of keeping ALL my resolutions.

8) I'm going back to Costa Rica at least TWICE in 2006.

9) I'm going to start a light weightlifting program and gain another 20 pounds. I'm still too weak and skinny to suit myself. I'm eating a lot better than I was, and I don't want to get fat. Yes, I am older than dirt, decrepit as hell and losing my hair, but I'm still vain.

10) I'm going back to work on my novel and I will finish it in 2006. I also intend to sell that fucker, make a mint and retire AGAIN, this time in Costa Rica.

Those should be no problem to keep.

December 30, 2007

I'm not insensitive

Originally published June 8, 2006

I have spent most of today deleting and blacklisting spam-slammers from my site. Yeah, I've had another attack, but I'm accustomed to that shit by now. I don't like it, but... sometimes... if you can turn off that decency-control in your mind, you can enjoy them.

Here are some of the really GOOD ones--- the kinda thing I want to spend MY whole day sending out, just to make my mama proud of me:

* "Barnyard sex," complete with 50 links.

* "Teenage sex," complete with 100 links.

* "Black lesbian sex," with a mere 25 links. WTF??? Black, teenage lesbian wimmen don't have sex with barnyard animals??? Bejus! My spammer is RACIST!!!

* "Viagra. Cialis." If you're an old fart like ME, and you ever hook up with a teenaged black woman who wants sex with barnyard animals, you're gonna NEED some of that shit to make you competitive.

* "Texas hold-em, on-line blackjack and ALWAYS WIN slots." Why not??? How the hell else are you gonna get the money to pay for black, lesbian teenagers fucking barnyard animals while dealing cards at the same time?

* "Little boys and golden showers." Oh, Bejus!!! How got-dam sick can you get? I think that THAT deviant spammer was sent to me by a Master's Degree holder, a real stable person, named "Beth."

* "Discount cathouse visits!!!" Save money NOW... by pre-ordering your black, lesbian whore and a barnyard animal, complete with a pissin' little boy... and GET TWO FOR THE PRICE OF ONE!!!

* "Bibles. The Complete King James version, signed by King James himself." I bought two. It WAS 6/6/6 when I did it.

* "College Degrees While-U-Wait!!!" Hmmm... I may have to go back to work, sooner or later. I bought SIX of those, at $49.99 apiece. I now have diplomas in Sociology, African-American Studies, Teacher's Education, Disgruntled Lesbian Studies, Economics, and Basket-Weaving for Quadraplegics. Put those with my legitimate English Lit degree, and I'm bound to go far in this world.

* "Wimmen fucking dogs!!! Dogs fucking college professors!!! Dogs fucking other dogs who have fucked wimmen AND college professsors!!! Order NOW and get a college degree FREE!!" I ordered two dogs... but I asked for only ONE college degree.

Okay... I'm being a real smartass here.

But did YOU ever notice... what those spammers offer isn't much different from the same idiotic shit that leftist politicians say every day? Vote for GORE--- or Hillary--- get a FREE black woman, a REAL lesbian, pissin' on a little white boy in front of a bunch of barnyard animals, PLUS insurance against Global Warming!!! Get some FREE MONEY, too!!!

Read the news, and what I just wrote doesn't sound totally ridiculous.

Reorganization

Originally published January 19, 2006

I never thought I would say such an outlandish thing, but it's true. Sometimes, I miss working at the chemical plant. It's been more than two years now since I last passed through the hallowed portal of the Front Gate the way I did for 23 years, and I often wax nostalgic about the place. I spent a large chunk of my life there and I'll always remember it.

One thing I certainly DO NOT miss about working at the chemical plant is REORGANIZATION: The Cutting Edge Trend of the Moment striking rapture among corporate potentates and hanging the Sword of Damoclese over my head. During my last 10 years at the plant, I survived five different reoriganizations.

"Reorganzation," for those NOT on the Cutting Edge of corporate shitspeak, is a value-added process of human resources reallocation designed to capture competitive opportunities for positive outcomes based on the synergy of change agents, risk-takers and effective teams. Something a lot like this, only less scientific where I worked.

When the company announced another "Re-org," everybody walked around with asscheeks clenched and wondered how long they could live on whatever severance package offered THIS time. This period usually lasted about 90 days, plenty long enough to give employees time to think about Getting Fired. A strange combination of angst, paranoia and pure-ass FEAR spread like a flu through the place. Those were Bad Times.

They never got me in one of those head-count reductions, but I saw a lot of good people get the axe, simply to cut the workforce. Those cuts almost ALWAYS came in management positions, too, because to get rid of a union employee, they had to eliminate an entire JOB, not just one or two people. I was management, so I always got the galloping fantods just like everybody else whenever the Reaper came to make his rounds every two years. Hell--- I had a wife and children to support.

What I experienced is nothing unique. I think all corporations do the same thing today. If you work for them, that "good" job you have is subject to change and/or cancellation at any time. Nobody is secure.

I understand costs and competitiveness, but reinventing yourself every two years sounds kinda schizophrenic to me. I also realize that no employer ever guaranteed me a got-dam thing except a paycheck for work performed. They never promised to keep me until I retired. They never said that they wouldn't get rid of my ass some day. It's a business; it ain't your family, no matter what bullshit some Sunshine Pumper hits you with in teamwork meetings.

It's a jungle, where you may be killed and eaten at any time. It's a hostile environment. I'm glad I'm outta there.

But... y'know... sometimes I STILL miss working at the plant.

December 29, 2007

Shrimp salad

Originally published January 18, 2006

I grew tired of eating boston butt and decided I was ready for a change. I was craving a couple of shrimp salad sandwiches. Yeah. That's what I wanted. Shrimp salad sandwiches with potato chips.

I checked and discovered that I had all the ingredients except shrimp on hand, so I went to the market and purchased a pound of fresh medium shrimp. The rest was easy, although slightly time-consuming.

1) Boil the shrimp. A lot of people don't know how to do this step correctly, so I will enlighten you. Put a pot of water on the stove and season it well. (I use old savannah seafood seasoning, but Old Bay or a shot of almost everything in your spice rack will do.) Bring the water to a boil. Add the shrimp. Watch carefully. When the water starts to boil again, the shrimp are done. Remove from heat and drain.

2) Peel the shrimp. If you cooked the shrimp correctly this step isn't difficult. Grab the shrimp at both ends and straighten it out. Pull on the tail. Half the shell should come off right there. Peel the rest by going from the underbelly up.

3) Cut up the shrimp. I dice them into small chunks, but you can do whatever you like. Put 'em in a blender if you want to. Hell, you don't really have to cut up medium shrimp at all, but I do, just for the texture.

4) Dice some vegetables. I use three stalks of celery, half of a sweet onion and sometimes a small kosher pickle. I didn't have a pickle, so I went with half a bell pepper this time instead.

5) Throw all the ingredients in a bowl. Add mayonnaise. I don't measure the mayonnaise. I just keep spooning it in and stirring until the mixture "looks" right. Add some paprika and red pepper to make a nice, slightly-pink color. Cool the salad in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes.

6) Serve on toasted bread. I put lettuce and tomato on the sandwiches I made today, but you can ride bareback and it's still good. Potato chips are nice on the side.

There's more cuttin' than cookin' to this recipe, but it's easy to do and damn nearly impossible to fuck up, unless you forget to peel the shrimp.

Bite my cracker ass

Origianlly published June 8, 2006

I have a fatwah that I'm gonna issue to every reader who called ME an infidel for suggesting that SOMETIMES... it's a good idea to put homegrown tomatoes in the refrigerator. Back up, shut up and listen to ME! I have a bomb-belt strapped to my waist and I wish to he HEARD!!!

Yesterday, I picked several more fresh tomatoes, a few banana peppers, and one bell pepper from my garden. I brought them inside and I put them IN MY REFRIGERATOR. Oh, YES... I DID.

While those fresh vegetables were "chillin," I cut up a beautiful hunk of beef tenderlion, into bite-sized pieces, along with a BIG-ASSED Vidalia onion, and I tossed a big slab of REAL butter and some smashed garlic into a pan to simmer.

(ASIDE!!!--- when I refer to "smashed garlic" in a recipe, I mean the whole-clove kind, where you pick out a nice bud, peel it, and then SMASH IT with the broad side of a knife to bust it up. Then you dice that mess and use it to cook with. Doin' THAT when you sautee will keep vampires away and also make your food taste pretty good.)

While my pan was sizzling and smelling up my nasty kitchen with the aroma of butter and fresh, SMASHED garlic, I tossed in the Vidalia onion slices and let them brown. Shortly after that, I added the beef-chucks and some sliced bell pepper.

I stirred, and waltzed around with a bottle of soy sauce in one hand, and a bottle of Worchestershire Sauce in the other. I did behind-the back, over-the shoulder, between-the-legs sauce addition, and I'm really regretful that nobody else was here to see me do it, OR see the spills that I made on my tee shirt.

I resembled a got-dam ballet dancer. (I was listening to "Sultans of Swing," playing LOUD on my stereo at the time.) I probably needed to be dragged off and shot, but I was enjoying myself.

While that wonderful-smelling delight cooked on my stove, I sliced up some CHILLED tomatoes, some CHILLED banana pepper, some CHILLED bell pepper, another Vidalia onion, and I dragged some kinda Mexican salsa stuff out of a can that I bought in the "Illegal Immigrant" section of the grocery store couple of weeks ago.

I threw all of of that stuff into a Tupperware bowl, soaked it with oilve oil and vinegar, added some super-secret spices, (including terragon and chives) and put a lid on top. I danced a cha-cha all over my kitchen while I shook the hell out of the bowl. I made it rattle like a cheap set of maraccas.

When I was finished... guess what I had?

Too bad, if you don't already know. I AIN'T GONNA TELL YOU!!! Go to MacDonald's and ask THEM. See if you can get the same dish THERE, with extra-large fries!!! BWHAHAHAAAA!!!

Rob can COOK!!! That's all YOU need to know.

December 28, 2007

Who do I trust?

Originally published January 18, 2006

Yeah, I KNOW that should be "Whom do I trust" to be gramatically correct, but "whom" is one word I wish we would get rid of. Just like the stupid rule that says "never end a sentence with a preposition." Isn't THAT just about the dumbest rule of which you ever heard? By whom up was that one thought?) But I digress...

The point of this post is a disturbing string of emails I have received from Paypal. Someone in Europe appears to be trying to use my PayPal account for nefarious purposes--- namely buying something and charging it to me. I HAVE an account, but I haven't used it in quite a while, and most assuredly NOT in Europe.

I checked my account and Paypal has blocked all the bogus transactions. Good for them. But I also received an email ALLEGEDLY from Paypal asking me to send them my password to confirm my account. Call me paranoid, but I balked at doing that.

How do I know that I'm REALLY dealing with Paypal? How do I know that it isn't the THIEF trying to fool ME so that he can turn around and fool PAYPAL? How do I know that the insidious, greedy hands of GOVERNMENT aren't behind the whole scam? How do I install a Paypal button on my sidebar so that I can start blegging for tips and make sure that the money actually comes to ME instead of to some thief or to the government??? See? I was ALL kinds of confused.

I took the coward's way out. I snuck into Paypal through Google, found my account and changed my password. I'm pretty sure that I ended up in the right place that way.

Hey! Thief! The new password is "gofuckyourself."

I gotta admit one thing. If all the emails were legitimate, Paypal must have pretty good security. The would-be thief didn't score anything.

Nothing is "free"

Originally published June 8. 2006

Every day, WITHOUT FAIL, if I bother to answer my phone when it rings, I get some dingbat offering me a can't-miss, something-for nothin' deal. Today was no different.

The phone rang. I answered it. I was greeted by a woman named "Teresa," who launched into some kind of spiel, and I cut rudely into her prepared speech, interrupting her in mid-pitch.

"Darlin,' I don't intend be rude, but WHAT are you selling that I don't want?"

"Mr. Smith! I'm not selling ANYTHING!!! I'm just offering you a wonderful opportunity, sponsored by Marriot Hotels, because you have been a good customer in the past. You can enjoy three days and two nights of FREE LODGING at a Marriot Hotel if you simply will..."

I cut her off right there, being all rude, and I hung up on her.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, even though it falls on a lot of deaf ears today. NOTHING in this world is "free." AIN'T NO SUCH THING, people, and the sooner you realize and accept that fact, the better off you're gonna be, unless your ambition in life is to be a fucking TICK, sucking off a host to keep you alive.

That's great, as long as you can swell up and get fat offa somebody else's blood. But what happens when you drain your host dry and he ups and DIES on you? What do you do THEN??? We're approaching THAT "tipping point" in this country today.

I have TWO people who are my "friends"--- even though I disagree with their approach to life--- who have made a fantastic career out of being TICKS for the past 20 years. They don't work, and they haven't worked for a LONG, LONG time now. They don't have to. They glom onto a lot of "free" stuff that OTHER PEOPLE pay for, and they constantly look for new ways to get MORE "free" money.

They FIND IT, too, because it's out there--- for those who don't mind grubbing for it. Those folks haven't talked to me for a while now, because the last time I saw them, they became all avaricious, with day-glow eyes and dollar signs dancing in their heads, when I told them that my shoulders were fucked up and I have trouble living a normal life today.

Holy Bejus!!! I got ADVICE!!! LOTS of "good" advice. I should bug Social Security until I get classified as "disabled." THEN--- I'll get a "free" check in the mail for the rest of my life, and if I KEEP bugging them, I get BIGGER and BIGGER checks--- all "free" in the mail.

Oh, yeah. Are my shoulder problems "work related?" If so, I should be able to bug Workman's Comp and my ex-employer to convince THEM to send me a check in the mail every month, once again for "free."

Something else I should consider. Since I'm not working anymore, I need to get a WHOLE BUNCH of credit cards, run them up to the max, and then declare bankruptcy so that I don't have to pay them off. HAR-HAR-HAR!!!

My creditors can't very well garnish a paycheck that I don't HAVE, can they? It's a LAW now that my creditors can't take my HOME. HAR-HAR-HAR!!! The joke will be on THEM, once I take 'em to the cleaners, because it's against the LAW for creditors to garnish disability payments or Social Security handouts.

I told them to go fuck themselves, and they laughed at my ignorance and my distorted sense of "honor." They've done it TWICE already, so they should know.

My aching ass. If they poured half as much time and effort into actually WORKING for a living instead of looking for new ways to get something for nothing, they'd probably both be rich instead of counting on the next "free" check in the mail to keep the wolves from their door.

They spend as much on buying gasoline as they "earn" by driving all over the place to different government agencies to get their children classified as ADD, and therefore disabled and deserving of a check in the mail, or fighting over a dead relative so that they can "inherit" some cash or property.

Know what REALLY chaps my ass? THEY think they're "smart." And they think I'm "stupid" for NOT doing what they do.

I suppose that they are correct and I am mistaken. They aren't alone when they ride on a "free" gravy train today. The only thing THEY regret is the fact that they are WHITE. If they were black, they could get a lot MORE "free" money than they already do. For NOT working. For bitchin.' For being ticks.

They're right. I've been a complete dumbass, thinking that I was supposed to take care of MYSELF in my own life. BWHAHAHAHAAA! What a ridiculous notion.

Just wait for that check in the mail. THAT'S the way to live today.

December 27, 2007

Suthern

Originally published January 18, 2006

Ask me why I love living in the south.

A thriller

Originally published January 17, 2006

I watched Quinton play basketball again tonight and his team won a squeaker, 31-28. They were ahead 29-12 in the second half when they went brain-dead and almost let the other team win. My butt-cheeks gnawed the varnish off the bleacher seat before that game was over.

Quinton scored four points, including one basket that brought me to my feet cheering. He was heading a fast break, tearing down the floor one step ahead of TWO defenders when he caught a perfect pass, went in straight-on to the hoop without slowing down and made a PERFECT layup. Sports fans, if you don't already know, that's the toughest layup in basketball, especially when you're less than five feet tall.

I practiced that shot with Quinton hundreds of times. I kept telling him, "You've got to lay the ball gently just over the front of the rim and allow your momentum to carry the ball off the backboard and into the hoop." He executed it perfectly tonight. As he was heading back down the court on defense, he looked up in the stands at me and grinned ear-to-ear, as if saying, "See? I remembered what you taught me."

Yeah, that boy is afraid of me, all right.

Speaking of taste

Originally published June 6, 2006

My mama was raised on a farm. I've noticed a common trait among ALL people who tended their own live animals for a while, then slaughtered and ate those critters. They like their meat cooked to a crisp.

We never had steak at home when I was growing up. We couldn't afford it, for one thing, but I'm kinda glad we ate simple foods the way we did. My mama was a wonderful cook, but she woulda fucked up a decent steak by burning the crap out of it when I was a boy.

HER idea of a well-cooked piece of meat was one that she either boiled into a tender mush (like chicken in dumplings) or blackened like asphalt and cooked as stiff as a roof shingle (like sausage).

When I moved out on my own and started cooking my own suppers, I became pretty good at it. I never mastered the art of making biscuits and gravy the way Mama did, but I made BETTER hamburgers and I could cook a damngood steak.

I decided to treat my parents to a culinary delight once, years ago, so I bought several rib-eye steaks, some salad fixings, a few BIG-assed Idaho potatoes and a fat loaf of garlic bread. I went back to the old homestead and starting preparing supper for me, my brother, his darlin' wife, Mom and Dad. I got really imaginative and brought some candles to light and place strategically on the kitchen table, to create a romantic ambiance.

When I started to cook the steaks, I asked everybody how they wanted theirs. "Medium rare" was the choice of everybody but Mama. "I want mine well-done," she said.

I looked at those beautiful, marbled rib-eyes. I thought about the obscenity of cooking one of those to "well-done" and I wanted to poke Mama in the eye with a long-handled grill-fork for asking me to commit that kind of sin. So, I cheated. I LIED to my mama.

I cooked all four steaks medium rare, but when I served them, I made a big deal out of telling Mama, "Okay. This one is YOURS--- well-done, just the way you like it."

I figured that I could get away with the hoax. That's one of the really good things about dining by candle light, besides the romantic ambiance. You can't see the food very well, either.

Mama tore into that steak and ate it as if she had been starving for a week--- she even made those contented, blow-through-your nose "Ummmm" noises while she chewed. When she was finished, she said, "Rob, I believe that you just cooked the best steak I ever tasted. You've gotta tell me what kind of spices you use."

When we cleared the dirty dishes from the table, Mama turned on the kitchen light and was shocked by what she saw. "ROB!!! There's BLOOD on my plate!!! YOU told me that my steak was well-done!!!"

I told her that her steak WAS well-done (technically... it WAS, because... I DONE IT and she liked it VERY WELL) and she probably mistook some spilled salad dressing or KETCHUP for blood on her plate. "Mama," I said, "Would I lie to you about something like THAT?"

She didn't answer that question, because she knew what I had done. But I changed her life that day. She never WOULD ask for a medium-rare steak after that. She just said, "Cook it like you did the last one I had. That was pretty good." Heh. Don't ask, don't tell wasn't invented by Bill Clinton.

Sometimes, you've just gotta do things like that... for somebody else's own good.

December 26, 2007

i read the news today, oh boy

Originally published June 5, 2006

Let's see what we have here in the Savannah Morning News. Ummm... we have a law requiring a picture ID before you can vote and a lot of people don't have one. IT'S A CRISIS!!! The government was supposed to provide picture IDs to welfare queens and dead Democrats, but government hasn't done that yet.

The excuse is, according to Sandra Williams, Chatham County's voter registration director, "We're still waiting for complete information from the state... they haven't said when it will be forthcoming."

Government in action.

Another front-page article says, "Have No Fear as 6-6-06 Draws Near." That's comforting to read, but I am disturbed by "the nexus of theology, mathematics and commercialism" that makes a big deal out of what really is a perfectly ordinary day.

I can't express stupidity any better than this: "Many people avoid the number; they're afraid of it almost and there's absolutely no reason to be afraid of it... It is not supposed to be taken as a timetable for when the world is going to end."

Heh. Tell that to Al Gore. The anti-Christ isn't going to get us. Global Warming WILL, and we've already reached a "tipping point," where WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!

Page Two: I believe Al Gore. The seven day weather forecast for Chatham County predicts temperatures with highs in the 90s and lows around 65 degrees, with a 10% chance of rain every day. Without a doubt... WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!

Also... some kids in Rice Mills Subdivision, about six miles away from where I live, ignited "Molotov Cocktails" in the woods nearby and actually set fire to one of those orange traffic cones that non-working "construction" assholes place along the road so that they can sleep peacefully in a DOT truck when they're supposed to be performing road repairs. Police are on Red Alert about that.

Bejus! Those kids have no imagination at all. If they had any vision, they'd be launching home-made rockets with toads strapped to them they way I did when I was young. But a Coke bottle filled with gasoline that has a rag stuffed in the top is a "poor man's hand grenade," and I think Homeland Security may become involved before THIS kind of terrorism is thwarted.

The cops are calling it an investigation of "explosives." They are urging residents of that subdivision to be "extra vigilant" and "report any suspicious activity." Fuck me dead. I oughta call them and report a suspicious-looking COP prowling my neighborhood and see what they do about THAT.

Somebody's "civil rights" were allegedly violated by the Tybee Island Police. BWHAHAHAHAAAA!!! A disgruntled citizen of Tybee put up a bunch of signs in his yard that said the Tybee cops were "gestapo." To prove him wrong, Tybee cops came with a search warrant and raided his home. The story gets confusing after that, because the cops cuffed a 14 year-old "child" and put that menace to society in a squad car while they searched the home.

Hey Catfish!!! Ever been fucked with by Tybee cops? Me, neither. BWHAHAHAAA!!

In the local news, yesterday was a slow day. No black yoots shot and killed any other black yoots. That's rare. But the police DID arrest two white shitasses for committing church burglaries. At first, I thought, "WTF did they want to steal from a CHURCH???" They took televisions and a CD player, plus a wireless microphone. Mster criminals, both locked up in the Chatham County jail now.

On the sports page, some guy I never heard of before collected over $1 million for winning a golf tournament in Dublin, Ohio. I looked at the final scores and realized that I never heard of ANYBODY in the top ten, except for Phil Mickelson, who won $237,000 for finishing in a tie for sixth place. David Duvall made the cut, but he shot 82 in the final round and finished dead last. He still collected $11,040 dollars.

I don't pay much attention to professional golf anymore. I think it's becoming obscene.

The Atlanta Braves lost again. Nadia Comaneci (remember her?) had a baby, fathered by Bart Conner (remember HIM?). I wonder what two Olympic gymnasts look like when they sport-fuck. Reckon they indulge in some very intriguing positions?

Somebody in a decal-covered car won a NASCAR race in Dover, Delaware. That's another "sport" that I don't pay attention to anymore, especially when they race in Delaware. If they ain't down South, it ain't really a NASCAR race, in MY humble opinion. And if I don't have $10 invested in a race pool, I don't give a shit who wins.

The magazine section had a decent crossword puzzle that took me almost 20 minutes to finish. The Dilbert comic strip was pretty good, and Hagar wasn't bad, either. I don't do math, so I don't understand the fascination with Sudoku puzzles. I've NEVER been able to solve one of those, not even when I try the ones designed for six year-olds. Fuck a Sudoko.

Home Depot has Poulan chain saws and Ryobi weed-whackers on sale. If I could drive that far, I might go buy one of each. I LIKE power tools, even when all they do is sit unused in my garage.

Oh, something else, too. The Morning News has a couple of BLOGS on it now. I've never read them, because the SMN requires registration to read their on-line stuff, and I don't register for ANYBODY. Who the hell do they think they are anyway? And if they want a GOOD local blogger, they should hire ME.

The newspaper. I just don't know what I would do without it.

I never understood it, either

Originally published January 17, 2006

As part of my duties in the chemical plant, back in my long-ago working days, I was responsible for interviewing potential new employees. Yes, as terrible as the idea may seem, Acidman had the power to decide whether you got a job or not. I often walked away from those interviews shaking my head and wondering WTF were those people thinking?

I read this post and had a terrible flashback to those times. Man, do I have some stories that'll curl your teeth! I also have some advice for job-seekers who want to get off on the right foot in an employment interview.

1) I cannot emphasize this strongly enough: FILL OUT YOUR APPLICATION PROPERLY. If you can't fill out a simple form that my twelve year-old son could handle easily without misspelling words, putting information in the wrong place and writing illegibly, how can I expect you to do a decent job for me? I didn't choose who to interview--- the gurus in Human Resources performed that task--- but when I saw a fucked up application, the interview was a waste of time. I already had decided NOT to hire that person.

2) DRESS APPROPIATELY. A coat and tie is NOT necessary when applying for a production job in a chemical plant, especially a job that entails getting VERY dirty. The spiffed-up dandy look may be appropriate if you're wanting to sell insurance, but it just ain't right when the job you seek involves a lot of manual labor. By the same token, don't appear to be on your way home from the beach, either. Flip flops, cutoff jeans and a dirty tee shirt with "I brake for TITS" on the front isn't a good outfit for a job interview. Try to hit somewhere in the middle of those two extremes.

3) DO NOT BE LATE FOR YOUR INTERVIEW! Bejus! If you can't be on time for a scheduled job interview, how can I expect you to show up at work on time? I can't and I won't hire you.

4) ACT LIKE YOU WANT THE FUCKING JOB. Sit straight in your chair, make eye contact with me and don't put your feet up on the table. Speak clearly, in more than monosyllabic mumble. If you don't appear to care whether you get the job or not, I don't care to hire you.

5) ASK QUESTIONS ABOUT THE JOB. Surely, you must want to know SOMETHING about what you're getting into if you're hired. What kind of work is it? How much does it pay? Is there opportunity for advancement? Stuff like that. I always figured that anyone who wasn't curious about the job might be in for a very unpleasant surprise if he got it, especially the dude or dudette dressed for Easter services in church. Just DO NOT start out by asking, "How many sick days do I get?" I might conclude that you're planning to lay out on me before you even get the job.

If this stuff sounds simple, that's because it is. But you'd be surprised at the number of people who just don't get it.

They never got a job from me, either.

December 25, 2007

Merry Christmas

Originally published December 24, 2004

To you, for being a good friend for a long, long time.

To you for welcoming me warmly into the Axis of Weevils, where I am honored to be.

To you for making me horny every time I see you.

To you for appreciating Tuco as much as I do.

To you for finally getting your shit in one sock. You really had me worried for a while there.

To you, dear one, for doing something nobody else had the balls to do once upon a time.

And to everybody else I didn't mention. Merry Christmas. May you ALL live long and prosper.

A Christmas story

Originally published December 26, 3005

I found this one here and you need to go read the whole thing.

INFANT DISCOVERED IN BARN, CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES LAUNCH PROBE

Nazareth Carpenter Being Held On Charges Involving Underage Mother
Bethlehem, Judea - Authorities were today alerted by a concerned citizen who noticed a family living in a barn. Upon arrival, Family Protective Service personnel, accompanied by police, took into protective care an infant child named Jesus, who had been wrapped in strips of cloth and placed in a feeding trough by his 14-year old mother, Mary of Nazareth.
During the confrontation, a man identified as Joseph, also of Nazareth, attempted to stop the social workers. Joseph, aided by several local shepherds and some unidentified foreigners, tried to forestall efforts to take the child, but were restrained by the police.

Also being held for questioning are three foreigners who allege to be wise men from an eastern country. The INS and Homeland Security officials are seeking information about these who may be in the country illegally. A source with the INS states that they had no passports, but were in possession of gold and other possibly illegal substances. They resisted arrest saying that they had been warned by God to avoid officials in Jerusalem and to return quickly to their own country. The chemical substances in their possession will be tested.

Yeah, it's funny, but only because we can see something like that actually happening today.

Should be interesting

Originally published December 26, 2005

On Christmas day, I went to my grandmother's house and had a nice dinner with some of my relatives. My brother and his wife were there, along with two of my uncles and their wives. It was a sumptious feast, and afterward we passed out a few presents for dessert. It was a nice get-together.

I met an aunt's nephew who just returned from a tour in Iraq. He is stationed at Fort Stewart, just about 50 miles south of Savannah, and my aunt and uncle picked him up when he flew into Atlanta on his way home. He was wounded over there. (Not in Atlanta--- in Iraq.)

What happened to him isn't funny, but it reminds me of the punch line from an old joke. He was on patrol when wounded by a roadside bomb. He had been sitting down. He stood up and seconds later the bomb went off, peppering his ass with shrapnel. Yes, his ASS. If the bomb had exploded a few seconds sooner, the shrapnel would have hit him in the head.

Anybody besides me ever heard the joke about the chandelier?

I've been pretty depressed for the past couple of days. I talked to my daughter on the phone, but I still don't know where my son is. He's not home and he hasn't called me. He has a birthday on the 28th and it's starting to look like I won't see him then, either. Whatta bummer.

My grandmother is going blind. She's 94 years old and still sharp upstairs; I think it's a crying shame that macular degeneration is taking her eyesight. She still likes crossword puzzles and scratch-off lottery tickets. She can't see to do either anymore. I don't know how much longer she'll be able to live in her house by herself the way she does now. The lights are still on, but she can't see out of the windows anymore.

If I were God, I'd have built the human body to last longer.

I thought about having myself a good strong drink. I didn't, for two reasons. First, I didn't want to break my string--- I haven't had a drink in 64 days now-- and second, I knew that drinking would make matters worse, because I wouldn't stop with just one. I would get drunk and wallow in self-pity, feeling more miserable than I did sober. Been there, done that, and I don't want to go back.

Instead of getting drunk, I made a date to play golf tomorrow.

That should be really interesting. I haven't touched a golf club since July 3, 2001, a date I remember well because of Elijah Clark State Park, fireworks, lots of liquor and some VERY surly and unpatriotic park rangers in a jeep that had flashing blue lights on it. Those bastards threatened to take me to jail. But that's a long story and I don't feel like telling it tonight.

I once was a pretty good golfer. I want to see how a three-and-a-half-year layoff affects my game. I've got a sneaky feeling that playing golf IS NOT like riding a bicycle and I'm not gonna step up on that first tee and hit the ball the way I once did. But I'm bound to have SOME muscle memory left, so I may not suck too badly. In fact, I'll go out on a limb.

Betcha I break 100 tomorrow.

December 24, 2007

Fruit flies

Originally published June 5, 2006

Somebody gave me a Christmas present a couple of years ago that came in an Indian River Fruit Company cardboard box. I don't remember what the present was, but I kept the box because it's a heavy-duty, double-thick, built-to-last container, perfect for storing potatoes, onions, grapefruit, oranges and other such edibles that don't require refrigeration.

Just don't leave 'em in the box too long.

Two days ago, I started noticing fruit flies buzzing around in various rooms of my house. The little bastards don't bite, but they are annoying as hell. I killed a bunch of them, but I kept finding more of 'em every day.

I checked my kitchen garbage can. Nope. No fruit flies there. The kitchen sink had a few dirty dishes in it, but no fruit flies. I wondered where the pestiferous bastids were coming from, and I thought about the box of fruit in the corner.

I grabbed a can of Raid, walked over to the storage box and gave it a swift kick. Fruit flies came boiling out of there. I gassed them with Raid, then searched for their home base.

It wasn't the potatoes or the Vidalea onions. It wasn't the grapefruit or the oranges. It was a got-dam PINEAPPLE I bought at Kroger's a couple of weeks ago when they had a Two-For-One sale in the produce department. I ate one of the pineapples and totally forgot about the other one.

Bejus! That pineapple became slightly... uh... over-ripe and gave birth to a bumper crop of fruit flies. I stuffed the squishy pineapple into a plastic bag, which stirred up ANOTHER swarm of fruit flies, so I gassed them, then I took the rotten over-ripe pineapple outside and threw it in my garbage can.

I still have a few stray bugs flying around the Crackerbox, but I got rid of most of 'em. I'll pick off the rest one by one.

Think about THIS the next time you eat "fresh" fruit from a grocery store:

The reproductive potential of fruit flies is enormous; given the opportunity, they will lay about 500 eggs. The entire lifecycle from egg to adult can be completed in about a week.

You've probably eaten the larvae without noticing them. And if you store fruits and vegetables in a cardboard box in your kitchen, you're asking for trouble.

Trust me on that one.

So... that's what's wrong

Originally published January 16, 2006

I woke up this morning feeling drugged and disoriented. I got out of bed, bounced off my chest-of-drawers once and staggered into the bathroom. I turned on the light while trying to remember why I was in my bathroom.

Oh, yeah... I needed to pee. I pointed Roscoe at the toilet (I sleep nekkid) and managed to hit the target with MOST of my output. I know that SOME went on the floor, because it wet my bare foot, and some splashed off the raised commode lid, because it didn't sound right, until I adjusted my aim. I couldn't see what I was doing because my eyes wouldn't focus.

I finished draining my lizard, reeled toward my kitchen, ricocheted off the wall a couple of times in route and loaded my coffee maker. I pushed the "on" button and nothing happened. I pushed the button several more times and became convinced that my coffee maker was broken--- until I realized that I was pushing the "off" button. Heh. Silly me.

That's typical behavior for me EVERY morning when I wake up. I once blamed my foggy brain on excessive alcohol consumption the night before, but I've been sober for 86 days now and I STILL act drunk in the morning. I require about 30 minutes, at least one cup of coffee and two cigarettes before I begin to function as a sentient being.

Thank Bejus for science, because now I know what is wrong with me, and it's perfectly normal. I suffer from sleep inertia.

For most of us, that bewildered, groggy, what-day-is-it? feeling lasts just a few minutes, but for some it can last as long as two hours. Wright found that the worst period of sleep inertia is the first three minutes after awakening, and it usually diminishes within 10 minutes. Using 16 volunteer test subjects who were asked to add randomly generated, two-digit numbers immediately upon waking after eight hours of sleep, he showed that sleep inertia diminishes short-term memory, counting skills and cognitive abilities.

It'll cause you to piss on your foot, too.

December 23, 2007

Where does the time go?

Originally published January 15, 2006

Thirty-one days from today, I'll be 54 years old. Just damn! Where does the time go?

I still remember being a kid in a coal mining camp in Harlan County, Kentucky, where I often sat on the floor and listened to my kinfolk tell stories about things they had done and places they had been during their lives. Those stories always fascinated me, for two reasons.

First, they were good stories, told by good storytellers. (If I have any storytelling talent, I come by it naturally. I was trained by experts.) My relatives taught me at an early age that the best stories are TRUE stories, enhanced just a little bit to make them more entertaining. I still abide by that philosophy today.

Second, as I listened raptly, I pictured a path through the wildflowers on the bottomland by the Cumberland River. Life was a walk down that path, where you picked wildflowers along the way. The farther you walked, the more flowers you picked--- and that bouquet was your collection of memories, the stuff that makes good stories.

I was six years old at the time and I hadn't walked very far down that path. I didn't have many flowers in MY bouquet and I envied the older folks for theirs.

Those were the days. Now, I'm older than most of my relatives were back then. I need a got-dam pickup truck to haul my bouquet today because I've gone AT LEAST halfway to the end of that path and I picked a LOT of flowers along the way--- when I wasn't falling in a mudhole or getting tangled in briars. I've also learned that the path is a lot steeper and more slippery than I ever thought it would be.

But I take heart from the fact that I'm still younger than these people. Bejus! Jimmy Buffett turns 60 this year. Old fart. But he's still walking that path and collecting memories wildflowers that never die and smell sweeter with each passing year.

So am I.

[Ed. Rob's original link was to CNN Netscape again which, as we all know by now, always goes to the current front page over there. Therefore, I've started trying to find articles about the same subject, but from different sources, to link to. This is about the second or third time I've done this and, since it works, I'mina keep doing it. Just wanted to make it known...]

English

Originally published June 4, 2006

I've always liked to write, but I also always suffered from a curse that I believe is common for English-language users. I can't spell worth a damn.

Usually, I can explain away a mangled, misspelled word by calling it a typo, but I ain't foolin' myself when I do that. I'm just trying to fool YOU.

I learned all the "rules" of grammar and spelling back when I was still in elementary school. But as I grew older and I tried to PRACTICE those rules, I realized just how ridiculous they are. "'I' before 'E,' except after 'C.'" Right.

Betcha a dollar that I can show you a couple of "exceptions" to that rule, which is another got-dam thing I never understood about English or English teachers: "The exception proves the rule." What kind of happy horseshit is THAT??? In MY humble opinion, any rule with that many exceptions ain't a farooking RULE. It's a "suggestion," and one that may frequently be WRONG.

I've said before that writing, for someone who likes to write, isn't so much a creative exercise as it is a display of craftsmanship, much like a skilled carpenter building a house. The carpenter has the right tools and he knows how to use them. Give him a stack of lumber, a few boxes of nails and a building permit, and he'll MAKE a house out of it.

Writing isn't much different, except for the fact that it's one hell of a lot easier to cut a 2" X 4" piece of wood into proper lengths with a circular saw than it is to string a lot of words together and have them all match up when you're finished. Plus, I can build something out of wood and tell by looking at it when it's finished whether I did a good job or not.

I can't do the same when I write. I may think that I got all the angles precise, ran all the pipes plumb and wired it flawlessly, but I never know for sure until somebody else opens the front door, flips a light switch and flushes the commode a few times. For all I know, the door isn't on its hinges, the lights aren't on and there's an elephant trying to give birth in a screaming toilet.

Strange, but true. I can LOOK at a piece of wood and tell whether it's any good or not. One that's nice and smooth, with a straight grain and no ugly knots in it OBVIOUSLY is better for a building project than that warped, knotty, gap-cut, splinter-encrusted piece of shit right next to it on the shelf at Home Depot. When an 8' length costs the same price for either one, which are YOU gonna buy?

I may fuck up that board when I get back home and begin sawing and driving nails into it, but at least I started with the right raw material. Set out with that warped, knotty sucker and how well you can use a tape measure, how well you can operate a saw, or how straight you can drive a nail doesn't matter. You were doomed from the beginning.

Words are like those lengths of wood in Home Depot. When you want to build something pretty, use the good stuff. Buy smart. Cut straight. But if you have no higher ambition than to slap up an outhouse in the back yard and let rampaging kudzu vines cover it up so that you never have to paint it, who cares what kind of wood you use? That ain't important.

Good wordsmiths can tell the difference and they chose wood from the shelf depending on what it's going to be used for when the building begins. If they want pretty, they build pretty, using pretty wood. But ugly also has its place in this world. A rose is a rose and it oughta look like one... but an outhouse is an outhouse and it should LOOK like one, too.

The English language ain't the straightest nail a carpenter ever tried to hammer into a good piece of wood. Don't get me wrong--- I believe that the language is beautiful, and it lends itself wonderfully to melodious poetry, descriptive writing and poignant song lyrics. But damn if it isn't an unweildy tool sometimes, especially with the odd spelling.

(My daddy always told me that I would never find a better dog than an ugly mutt. "Mutts KNOW they're ugly. They'll eat anything, and they're just grateful to have a home. Be good to one and it'll be the best friend you ever had."

He said that once at the kitchen table when he was feeling all philosophical after he came home from work and quaffed a big glass of Jim Beam and water. Mama was cooking supper and I couldn't resist my feral impulses. I knew that she heard what he said, so I asked, "Hey, Mama! Is that why Daddy married YOU? You were a mutt, needin' a good home?"

She flicked a piece of biscuit dough at me. "Yeah, that's right. Your daddy was a bastard who married a mutt. Whaddya you think that makes YOU?"

No wonder I turned out so warped, growing up in a home like that.)

But, I digress. The problem with English is that... it IS a MUTT!!! It's got Germanic roots, all tangled in Romantic sub-roots, mixed up with slang and idioms that vary from coast to coast in the same country, confusing regional accents and Gawd only knows what else thrown in, with acronyms and hip-talk seasoning the gumbo. And it keeps evolving (or mutating) every year.

I'm doing the best I can just to SPEAK English anymore. Don't expect me to spell it, too.

December 22, 2007

They stink

Originally published January 10, 2006

I went to watch my son play a basketball game tonight. I was very proud of him. He scored one-fourth of his team's points! Of course, he made only one basket in a 29-8 loss, but it sounds better if I say he scored 1/4 of his team's points.

His team is not very good. They've got no height, no speed, no good shooters (except for my boy--- he was 1 for 2 tonight, and that's 50% from the floor) no ball handlers, no rebounders and a coach who doesn't know his ass from a hole in the ground. I think I could do a better job with those boys, but that's easy for me to say while sitting in the stands.

I also saw my ex-wife's next hostage tonight. Wow. The guy must be rich or hung like a horse, because he looks like Fido's ass to me. The skinny, bald-headed bastard appears to be older than I am, too. I'll bet he's dazzled by that young pussy, if you can call 40 year-old pussy young, and he probably does at his age. (I did when she was 28 and I was 40.) I just hope he's good to Quinton.

I'm going to watch my boy play again tomorrow night and I'm gonna try to take some pictures. I also plan to introduce myself to Jennifer's new victim beau. I'll be polite; I just want him to know who I am.

Poor guy. He doesn't know what he's getting into.

Stereotypes

Originally published June 3, 2006

At the risk of being politically-INcorrect, I'm gonna lay some plain truth on the line here. If I offend your delicate sensibilities, I'm sorry, even if I do think that you're just oversensitive. You can run, you can hide, and you can stick you head under a blanket while shouting, "I can't heeeeear you!" and that's not gonna change the facts.

We have stereotypes because they are well-deserved by stereotyped people, because they display certain traits consistently. Look around. You can see it for yourself.

* The Irish are natural-born pacifists. Maybe if that tea-totalling bunch would take a drink every now and then, they'd quit being such wimps and learn to FIGHT instead of whimpering in fear all the time. They're very bigoted, too, because they hate cops and red-headed people.

* The Chinese have rhythm. Their kids are born dancing and they never stop. Something in their genetic makeup causes them to be averse to learning to read and write, so the Chinese have a well-deserved reputation for producing offspring who are poor students in school. But they HAVE tried to assimilate in this country. They realized years ago that naming a child "Fang" or "Wonton" or "Chow" might make him an object of ridicule, so they started giving their children American names, such as "Placenta," "Turdell" and "LaToyota."

* Jews are just crazy. They run around siring illegitimate children all over the place and about 70% of 'em live on welfare. The other 30% are in jail for murder. They have NO sense of family whatsoever. They're all drunks, too. Just go look at a Jewish neighborhood. There's a got-dam bar on every corner, and drunk Jews passed out in the street and sleeping on bus stop benches, right between the crack-dealers and the pimps.

* Blacks just won't get with the program. How do they EVER expect to earn equality in this country when black kids just want to READ all the time? Bejus! Tell that young'un to get his nose out of that book, steal himself a set of boxer drawers and a pair of pants two sizes too large. DRESS for SUCCESS. Learn to say "muthafuckah" at least twice in every sentence uttered, in between "y'know?" and "know what I be sayin'?" And what's with this wanting a JOB and working all the time? SHEESH! You be crazy?

* Southern Men shouldn't be so feminine. Gawd! What is it about hot weather that makes those men such pussies? Show 'em a gun and they scream like a woman. Hell, show 'em TWO GUNS and they piss their pants. And they have absolutely NO IDEA about how to treat a lady, because they have NO got-dam manners whatsoever. No wonder the South lost the Civil War if THAT'S the best the South could muster.

* Southern Wimmen shouldn't be so masculine. Them wimmen walk around scratching their BALLS, people! They chew tobacco and target-spit. They pull ticks off dogs by using their TEETH, if they've still got any. They're about the most UN-FEMININE creature you'll ever encounter outside a National Forest. They sweat like mules and smell about the same. If THEY fought in the Civil War, the South woulda won.

* Yankees are the most civilized people on earth. They speak with melodious accents that make you think of cold molasses pouring from a ewer and the wimmen are all thin, dainty and totally devoid of facial hair. The men have strong, muscular legs, which look better than ever when decorated with black socks and sandals. These people tan easily and often become so darkly-bronzed by late spring that they are mistaken for African-Americans, except for places such as Detroit and Chicago, where they actually ARE African-Americans.

* Californians are remarkable for their stability and rock-ribbed conservatism. Not the type to be hypnotized by glitter, glamor and glitz, Californians display an independent, self-reliant nature that is reminescent of the early pioneers who first settled this wild country. About half of all Californians have coke spoons wedged up their noses, but that still leaves the other 50% who merely have lots of tattoos, body-piercings and memories of a previous life as a palmetto bug. In this nutty world, it's nice to have California as a center of stability today.

* Hillbillies are just plain pathetic. They won't work, they're dishonest and they inbreed a lot. They develop a warped view of life because they grow up walking sidehill all the time, which is enough to make ANYBODY fucked up. (YOU try it for a while and you'll see what I mean!) They all cook moonshine, let their kids run around with no pants on, and have at least three old trucks up on blocks outside the mobile home with the leaking roof where they live, six families to the single-wide. With a kudzu-covered, wooden outhouse out back.

* Greeks all look like Anthony Quinn (even the wimmen). They like to dance a perverted-lookin' polka-thing, and they drink a melted-licorice syrup called "uzo," which will knock you right on your ass if you ain't careful with THAT stuff. No wonder Greeks act goofy all the time. They DO, however, know how to pitch one hell of a wedding celebration, but I would NEVER marry a Greek woman. I've got this thing about not being attracted to wimmen who have thicker beards than I do... which may also apply to Greek men, which explains why they drink so much uzo.

* Politicians may come from any state, any community or any background. But they all have one thing in common: they want to do "GOOD," while getting rich at the same time. I have a litmus test that I want to give to a LOT of politicians today. If I can brush the flies off a dog turd, stick it in a person's mouth and that person can continue grinning and talking while just kinda tonguing that dog turd between cheek and gum like a chaw of tobacco, without ever missing a beat, I'll show you a REAL politician. We elect such people to high office all the time.

I'm just glad that I don't "stereotype" people. I'm too enlightened for that kind of crap.

like a different team

Originally published January 11, 2006

Quinton's team won their basketball game tonight by a score of 36-32. It was a good game, and I swear that I didn't recognize the same team I saw play last night. This time, the boys acted like they actually knew what they were doing. Quinton shot twice from the field and made one, so he's maintaining his 50% field goal percentage. He stole the ball twice on defense, too.

My boy plays hard. What he lacks in height, he makes up for in hustle. I know what that's like.

After the game, I did just what I promised I was going to do. I introduced myself to the Bloodless Cunt's next victim. I walked up to him, stuck out my hand and said, "Hi. I've been wanting to meet you. I'm Rob, Quinton's daddy."

The guy looked at me without saying a word. He grabbed my hand and applied one of those bone-crusher squeezes that some assholes call a handshake. Bejus. I should have figured on that. He LOOKED like The Type.

I'm all for a firm handshake. I get the goosebump-willies and immediately distrust a man with a wimpy, dead-fish handshake. But this macho, "I'm gonna squeeze you to your knees" bullshit is almost as bad. The prick really impressed me with what a man HE is by pulling that shit on me. I think he was jealous because I've got more hair than he does.

I just smiled and squeezed back, thinking, "Oh! Don't hurt me, you awesome epitome of masculinity! I am SOOOOO impressed!" Fucking horse's ass. He and Jennifer fit together like an anus and a butt-plug. A perfect match: both of 'em shitty.

Well, at least I got THAT out of the way. Now I'll never have to shake his hand again.

December 21, 2007

Guns and gals

Originally published January 10, 2006

I didn't write it, but I'm gonna post it.

Top Ten Reasons Why Men Prefer Guns Over Women

#10. You can trade an old 44 for a new 22.

#9. You can keep one gun at home and have another for when you’re on the road.

#8. If you admire a friend’s gun and tell him so, he will probably let you try it out a few times.

#7. Your primary gun doesn’t mind if you keep another gun for a backup.

#6. Your gun will stay with you even if you run out of ammo.

#5. A gun doesn’t take up a lot of closet space.

#4. Guns function normally every day of the month.

#3. A gun doesn’t ask , “Do these new grips make me look fat?”

#2. A gun doesn’t mind if you go to sleep after you use it.

And the number one reason a gun is favored over a woman....

#1. YOU CAN BUY A SILENCER FOR A GUN.

The war on drugs

Originally published June 2, 2006

Thank Bejus that we have the federal government watching over us. Otherwise, you might be able to buy over-the-counter cold medicines without having to show a picture ID first.
[Ed. Link goes to front page.]

We NEED that kind of watchdog prowling the drugstores of America, because we have a REAL problem with "The Children" mainlining Contac and snorting Sudafed. I think I read somewhere (I can't recall where, but I'm sure that I read it... somewhere...) that if you break up Hall's Mentholated Cough Drops into little, tiny pieces and smoke them in a crack-pipe, you get a real, eucalyptus buzz offa those insidious things.

In fact, I think Peptol-Bismol is addictive. Yeah, I know that it tastes like pink chalk, but that's just a clever disguise for drug-pushers to use when they "hook" The Children. If you mix it with Alka-Seltzer Plus and strain it through a piece of cheesecloth, you end up with the new "Hillbilly Heroin," perfect for sucking up in a hypodermic needle and sticking into a vein.

Some of you people probably thought that laxatives were an unpleasant, but necessary part of life, if you suffer from clogged bowels. NOT SO!!! I think that The National Enquirer recently reported that Ex-Lax, when mixed with aspirin and club soda, makes a cheap version of crystal meth if you do it right in an "underground drug-lab" (THOSE are scary places!!!). That information came straight from space aliens who were pregnant with Hillary Clinton's love-child, so you KNOW that it's gotta be true.

In fact, some lawmakers today want to ban oregano, because it looks like marijuana, and that's reason enough to make it illegal. For The Children.

The War on (some) Drugs is a ceaseless battle, requiring eternal vigilance, because the drug pushers are SO damn clever. If the DEA and local crazed zealots law enforcement shut down one suppy-chain, another pops up to take its place.

Recently, I think I might remember maybe reading an article somewhere that suggested perhaps, possibly, in the right environment, given an undergroud lab, run by outlaw motorcycle gangs, with child pornography pasted all over the walls, and racist literature found within 50 miles of the place, with NO wheelchair access in clear violation of the ADA, plus a Sears catalogue with the wimmen's underwear section all stuck together with I-don't-know-WHAT kind of glue, some people with lots of tattoos and piercings all over their bodies--- including NIPPLE-RINGS!!!---were mixing Tang powder and Bisquick together and selling it in plastic bags as a "self-rising, Vitamin C Rush!!!"

The Children were buying that stuff and... and... fucking when they got a dose of it up their young noses!!! THAT CRAP HAS TO BE NIPPED!!! Nip it! Nip it! Nip it in the bud.

Our drug cops TRY, but they have a very frustrating job. People just keep on being people, no matter how much the government doesn't like it. That's why drug cops act like storm troopers so often. The more you harass, intimidate and arrest people for being people... the more the assholes insist on acting like PEOPLE, the same way they've done for 10,000 years of recorded history. The nerve of those shits!!!

Busting horrible, illegal drugs is a lot like trying to turn the tide away from the sand castle you just spent hours building on the beach. You can't stop it, but you'll feel much better if you turn around as your castle washes into the sea and beat the livin' shit out of an innocent bystander with your sand-shovel. At least you did SOMETHING to protect The Children.

Oh... let's not forget that we need to ban charcol-lighter fluid, Certs breath-mints and... oh, hell... just pick something. M&Ms. Klondike Bars. Gatorade. Whatever... just call it a "drug" and nobody is gonna question your motives, especially when you declare that you're doing it For The Children.

I'm a very unfortunate man today. I suffer from chronic pain and it's NOT going to go away unless I have something fairly drastic done to me. I'm willing to do whatever that takes, because I cannot continue to live hurting as bad as I do every day. But doctors are frightened to death to prescribe any pain medication to me.

I can't blame 'em for thinking that way, either. Those docs spent a long time and they invested a lot of hard work into getting that medical degree that allows them to open a practice. If I were in their shoes and I saw a patient with severe, chronic pain, I would make the same calculation that they do.

"Hmmm... I can give this guy medicine that takes away the pain, or I can tell him to suck it up. If I give him the medicine, I'll have the Feds crawling all over me and I may flush all of my study and all of my hard work right down the commode. I could lose my license to practice medicine if I give him what he really needs. So, fuck him. I'm gonna tell him to suck it up."

And that's what doctors DO today. I'm not blaming them. Hell--- they almost HAVE to work that way, thanks to the federal government being so worried about The Children while it fights a useless and totally ill-defined War on (some)Drugs. FORGET about The Patient. The Children and The Government are a lot more important than that piddling question of whether I can get out of bed in the morning or not.

Besides--- I learned a long time ago, from my government AND from Divorce Court. I don't matter. The Children do.

Whoever the hell THEY are

December 20, 2007

Mailing lists

Originally published June 2, 2006

I gotta question: How did I EVER end up on a mailing list run by PETA, Friends of Hillary, John Kerry for President and Moveon.org? I could understand the NRA or the RNC emailing me to ask for monetary contributions or voting support, but PETA? HILLARY? JOHN FUCKING KERRY? (Who served himself all of his life in Vietnam) MOVEON.ORG?

Bejus!!! They've obviously got the wrong guy here. I get DOZENS of emails every farooking day from those people. I know good and well that they didn't get MY name and address from a check I sent them, so why do they keep bugging me?

I have a sneaking suspicion... y'see... I have some friends who are very clever practical jokers. THEY probably put my name on those mailing lists and cackled like hyenas when they did. "BWHAHAHA!!! THIS oughta get a rise outta Rob! BWHAHAAAA!"

Guys, if you did that, it worked. You got a rise outta me. And if I ever find out FOR CERTAIN that you assholes did it, I'll beat every one of you to death, one by one, with a cheap, out-of-tune guitar. At night. In the dark. When you're by yourself.

I can't really be too angry, though. As a very clever joke back when I was still in college, I put a friend's name on a pornographic fuck-mill's mailing list after he got a job teaching in an elementary school.

I'm just glad now that I put his home address in the reply box instead of the address for the school where he worked. Heh. It was funny having that nasty stuff mailed to his home, because his wife kept asking him how he got put on THAT mailing list, but I could've gotten him fired and had him put on a police roster for sexual predators if I sent that crap to his school.

I finally 'fessed up to him AND his wife about why all those plain brown-wrapper porno fliers kept coming to his mailbox with his name on them. They forgave me, but they didn't see the same humor in the situation that I did.

I don't see it as funny anymore, either. I coulda cost my friend a lot by doing what I did in a moment of selfish, mindless frivolity. I NEVER would do such a thing again--- although that one WAS funny, once it all worked out okay. (The guy's name was Andy, and he was named "America's Teacher of the Year," complete with an appearance on the Today show and a visit to the White House to have President Bill Clinton give him the award and shake his hand a few years ago.)

I could have, unintentionally, fucked up his whole life with what I did back then. Of course, it would be totally understandable if he were an alcoholic who ever drank again after quiting for seven months. Then, if I aired his dirty laundry in public, using the biggest forum I could find, it would be for his own good, because somebody HAD to do it.

Who better than a "friend" to cut off his balls and try to destroy him? That's what friends are for... right?

Four the hell of it

Originally published January 7, 2006

Everybody else is doing it, so I'm gonna do it, too.

Four jobs you’ve had in your life: Burger-flipper, cookie-maker (Byrd's Famous Cookies, no less), semi-professional musician, manufacturing supervisor

Four movies you could [and do] watch over and over: True Grit, The Wild Bunch, A Clockwork Orange, The Outlaw Josey Wales

Four places you’ve lived: Louellen, Kentucky; Savannah, Georgia; Athens, Georgia; Rincon, Georgia

Four fiction books you can’t live without: Catch-22, Joseph Heller; Earth Abides, George R. Stewart; The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Robert A. Heinlein; Lonesome Dove, Larry McMurtry

Four non-fiction books you consider essential: Midway, Cornelius Ryan; To Hell and Back, Audie Murphy; Inside the Third Reich, Albert Speer; The Norton Anthology of Poetry.

Four TV shows you love to watch: Gunsmoke reruns; The Sopranos; Modern Marvels (the History Channel); The Bluebird Cafe

Four places you’ve been on vacation: St. Martin, Jamaica, Costa Rica, Lake Tahoe

Four websites you visit daily: Instapundit; Hog on Ice; The Other Side of Kim; Everybody on the "Bloggers I've Met" list

Four of your favorite foods: Blood-rare steak, shrimp any way you cook 'em, barbecued pork spare ribs, corned beef & cabbage

Four places you’d rather be: Jaco Beach, Costa Rica; Key West, Florida; in bed asleep; anywhere in the mountains.

Four albums you can’t live without: Great Days, John Prine; Old Dan's Records, Gordon Lightfoot; Crosby, Stills & Nash; Hold to a Dream, Newgrass Revival

Well... that was fun...

December 19, 2007

Dogs vs. cats

Originally published January 6, 2006

Cat lovers may adore their haughty, French-acting felines, but I prefer dogs. Cats act as if they're doing you a favor by living in your house, eating storebought food, clawing furniture to shreds, pissing on curtains and shitting in potted plants. Take really good care of them and they'll display their gratitude by hacking up a hairball on your carpet.

Let's see a got-dam cat do something like this:

"The dog approached her owner, who was lying on the ground in a pool of blood, and saw the infant... she snatched up the baby's leg with her mouth and rescued him from drowning," she said. [...] "...the boy finally breathed and cried out after the dog licked him on the face..."

Can you see a CAT doing that? I'm trying to visualize it in my mind's eye... Naw... Can't see it. All I can see is a cat walking away with its tail in the air while thinking, "Fuck this crap. None of MY business. I ain't gettin' involved."

The only thing that would bother a cat about this incident is the fact that nobody was around to open the door so that it could go outside and kill baby birds.

(UPDATE: Loyal reader Brian Cost sent me this link to prove, once again, that cats can't be trusted. Especially beware of the ones that scream and attack dogs.)

I learned it at school

Originally published June 2, 2006

When I first came to Savannah, I was a little, skinny kid who spoke with a terrible Kentucky-mountain, hillbilly accent. I was "different," and because of that fact, I was picked on a LOT. That's how I learned to fight with my fists.

It was either FIGHT NOW, or be picked on for the rest of my life. I chose door #1, because it was the less painful option in the long run. I decided to take my chances of an ass-whoopin' NOW as a trade-off to keep the rest of my life from being absolutely miserable. And guess what? When the bullies learned that I WOULD fight them, they started leaving me alone.

That's why I don't understand the thinking of the cut-and-run-from-Iraq assholery that leftoids are preaching now. They obviously did not grow up on the same school playgrounds that I did.

Human nature has NEVER changed, not a single time in 10,000 years of recorded history. If you don't believe that money, sex and power STILL motivate ALL of politics and almost all personal interaction today, you've been asleep under a rock for a long time. Or you're just a naive dreamer, who votes Democrat.

I learned when I was eight years old that giving in to a bully will guarantee that the bully terrorizes you every chance he gets for as long as he can. Fight him once, give a good account of yourself even if you lose the fight, and he will leave you alone and go pick on weaker prey after you show that you're willing to stand up to him.

We're now fighting a war against Islamic nut-balls terror waged by an enemy who is really nothing more than a crazed school-yard bully. The enemy expects us to cave and he's depending on his blustering, threatening bullydom to make us to do it, because he gets a lot of support from leftoids who never had a single playground fight in their pampered, titty-sucking lives.

Those cowardly wimps wouldn't stomp a palmetto bug on their own kitchen floor at 5:00 in the morning. They feel the bug's pain and express a lot of empathy for the bug. After all--- nasty-assed insects have just as much "right" to eat in my kitchen as I do, even if the bugs DON'T make my house payment every month. It's all about "fairness," or some similar kind of delusional crap that I don't understand.

But dream-riddled leftoids know how to win a war, which is by killing the enemy with kindness. Instead of bombs, we need to be launching COMPASSSION into Islamic strongholds. Send 'em daisy-cutters filled with REAL DAISYS and that'll bring 'em to their knees fast when we bomb the with flowers. Then, we can finish 'em off with a chorus of "Kum-bah-ya."

Every time the MSM starts whining about Vietnam or "quagmires" when they talk about Iraq, I see the schoolyard bully grin. He's winning without having to lift a hand when that shit happens. That's how bullies become successful bullies in the first place. It's INTIMIDATION that works for them.

They don't really want to fight. And they usually surround themselves with a few toadies who run around behind the scenes saying, "Oooh! You'd better not fuck with my master HIM, because he's reallyreallyreally BAD!!!"

Cowards listen to that crap. I never have and I never will. I KNOW better, from what I learned about bullies on school playgrounds.

Bejus! Can you imagine what the headlines would be TODAY, if we were dealing with WWII all over again? From the NYT: "Japanese Bomb Pearl Harbor!!! Some Say President at Fault!!!" Or... from the LA Times "Hitler--- Evil, or a Consequence of What We Deserve?"

Robert Fisk would have a field day reporting on THAT war. "I, MYSELF, toured Nazi Germany today, and there ARE no concentration camps and there IS no threat to the world here. The trains run on time. The mail is delivered every day. The German people are happy, healthy and not at all warlike. This country is a shining example of what government efficiency can do when handled by a great, compassionate man such as Adolph Hitler.

"Yes, some slogan-shouting patriots wearing swastica armbands and brown shirts beat the living shit out of me the other day, stole my clothes and threatened to shoot me in the street, but that happened because I represent all the evil of Western Civilization, except for the thriving, successful example of Nazi Germany. The very evil that these noble people are struggling to cast off, like the yoke upon a mindless yak's shoulders, put there by America and Europe, with their capitalistic fantasies of oppressive freedom, FORCED these peace-loving people into a war that they didn't really want.

"No, those weren't thugs and hooligans, sadists or monsters who attacked ME. Those were downtrodden, freedom-loving insurgents, displaying a sane, logical reaction to what I represent--- which is an Evil Empire of HAVES---supressing the HAVE-NOTS of this world.

"In fact, looking at the world from THEIR point of view, I really wanted to beat the shit out of MYSELF, because I deserved it."

Once upon a time, long, long ago, this country had balls. I'm talking about WAAAAY back at the beginning. We fought a rebellion against the most powerful nation on the face of the planet, and we won. We refused to pay tribute to lawless pirates when many in this country wanted to try to buy 'em off at the time. We won that battle, too.

The bloodiest war we EVER fought in our entire history was against EACH OTHER, circa 1861-1865. 600,000 dead men, all sacrificed to "preserve the Union," so that we could mutate into having spineless assholes such as Nancy Pelosi, Ted Kennedy and Trent Lott run our country today, as we pay about 60% of our incomes in taxes to feed the rapacious maw of government.... IF anybody still bothers to work at all.

Oh, yeah. That war "freed the slaves," too--- so that blacks could live in ghettos on welfare, hatch illegitimate children like chickens in a coop and slaughter each other by the dozens every weekend night, over dope deals gone bad or some kind of "disrespect" that one illiterate, degenerate thug gave another illiterate, degenerate thug, while rap music played on and on in the background.

Of course, GUNS are to blame for that problem. NOT government. And certainly not the PEOPLE actually wallowing in the illiterate, degenerate life-style of the ghetto, with all the futile fantasy, fucking and failure involved in breeding like rats, buying groceries with food stamps and spending $50 a day on Cash Three lotto tickets. Somehow, when government finishes spinning those FACTS, it's all MY FAULT for being born with white skin and not paying enough of MY money in taxes to help the "poor," who obviously cannot be expected to help themselves.

Oh... don't forget what a good job government is doing today with brainwashing our children public education. We have zero-tolerance for EVERYTHING anymore, including learning, unless it's politically-correct indoctrination.

I had one of the last BIG ARGUMENTS with my darling ex-wife after Quinton came home crying from school in the second grade because he was being "picked on" by a schoolyard bully. I told him to knock the living piss outta the guy, and I gave him a couple of boxing lessons to show him how to do it.

Jennifer almost shit her delicate, feminine panties when she saw what I was doing. Totally aghast, she said, "Rob, school isn't like it was when YOU went. If Quinton gets into a fight today, he'll be SUSPENDED, and probably expelled!"

I looked at her, and I looked at my son, who was afraid to go to school because of that bully. I said, "You speak as if that's a BAD thing..." but that's as far as I got. She did everything but jump up and down on my head and call me a dumbass cave-man for teaching my boy to fight. OhMyGawd!!! The RISK!!!

Whatever. Quinton went to school the next day and kicked the bully's ass. Quinton, despite being half the bully's size, beat that troglodyte like a drum, all over the playground. His teacher was glad to see it happen and she covered everything up.

Quinton never told his mama about doing that. But he told ME. "Daddy, I did what you said, and you were right. That guy didn't really want to fight. I don't think I have to worry about him any more." And he didn't, either.

But somehow... the war on terror is different from what I learned on the playground years ago. Somehow... we can TALK our way out of having to fight a bully today. And somehow... cutting and running is NOT the same thing as kissing the bully's ass and grovelling at his feet, because we're more enlightened than that. Somehow, cowardice is courage, or diplomacy is dignity, or compassion is whatever you wish for it to be... if you spin it the right way.

Bullshit. Sometimes, you've just GOTTA fight. And when you DO, you had better to it full-tilt-boogie with no holding back, especially when you're dealing with an enemy who doesn't understand or appreciate anything other than brute force. "Nuance" doesn't work on a mule, and it won't work on Islamo-fascists, either. Hit 'em hard, hit 'em often and make it hurt as much as you can.

That's how you fight a schoolyard bully. That's ALSO how you fight an alleged war on terror. Either go BIG, or go home.

And if you don't have the guts to do that, roll over and quit now. If that's what you're gonna do anyway, save everybody the trouble of watching you wring your hands and posture about it. Get the ugly over with right now. Give up. Cut and run. Kiss the bully's ass and call it a victory. Roll over on your back and piss straight up in the air. When the piss lands back in your face, call it rainfall and tell everybody that it tastes...sweet.

That's all it takes to "win" this war by leftoid standards. And we've got far too many people who want to "fight" it that way.

December 18, 2007

I ain't believin' this

Originally published January 2, 2006

I don't like cats. I don't like a damn THING about cats. Cats are haughty, rotten, selfish, cold-blooded killers that ALL need to be dragged off and shot.

I don't think cats really like people, either. They just USE people for free meals and a warm place to sleep. Piss a cat off and it will shit in your bed. On purpose, the no-good bastard.

That's why I have a problem believing this story. A cat might call 911 to save its OWN ass, but it ain't gonna lift a paw to help anyone else. That's just the way cats are, kinda like the French. Ungrateful shits.

A dog probably made that call and the cat just took credit for it.

THIS is more like a cat:

A Cat's Diary
(sent to me by Ruth Moran)

DAY 752
My captors continue to taunt me with bizarre little dangling objects. They dine lavishly on fresh meat, while I am forced to eat dry cereal. The only thing that keeps me going is the hope of escape, and the mild satisfaction I get from ruining the occasional piece of furniture. Tomorrow I may eat another houseplant.

DAY 761
Today my attempt to kill my captors by weaving around their feet while they were walking almost succeeded. I must try this at the top of the stairs. In an attempt to disgust and repel these vile oppressors, I once again induced myself to vomit on their favorite chair... must try this on their bed.

DAY 765
Decapitated a mouse and brought them the headless body, in an attempt to make them aware of what I am capable of, and to try to strike fear into their hearts. They only cooed and condescended about what a good little cat I was. Hmmm... Not working according to plan.

DAY 768
I am finally aware of how sadistic they are. For no good reason I was chosen for the water torture. This time however, it included a burning foamy chemical called "shampoo." What sick minds could invent such a liquid? My only consolation is the piece of thumb still stuck between my teeth.

DAY 770
There was some sort of gathering of their accomplices. I was placed in solitary throughout the event. However, I could hear the noise and smell the foul odor of the glass tubes they call "beer." More importantly, I overheard that my confinement was due to my power of "allergies." Must learn what this is and how to use it to my advantage.

DAY 773
I am convinced the other captives are flunkies and maybe snitches. The dog is routinely released and seems more than happy to return. He is obviously a half-wit. The bird, on the other hand, has got to be an informant and speaks with them regularly. I am certain he reports my every move. Due to his current placement in the metal room, his safety is assured. But I can wait, it is only a matter of time...

Friends

Originally published June 1, 2006

When I was in high school, I thought that having a LOT of "friends" was IMPORTANT. In fact, I had the bizarre notion that popularity equalled worth back in those days. And I tried very hard to be worthy.

As I grew older, I changed my mind. I realized that TRUE friends are few and far between, and "friendships" had nothing whatsoever to do with popularity or whether you dated a certain cheerleader or not. Friendship came from trust, and a certainty that you could count on THAT person when you were down and out.

True friends accept you as you are, warts and all. THEY know your flaws better than you do yourself, and they still believe that you're worth having as a friend. I'm very lucky to have a few of those people in my life today. I've known them for YEARS, and they've seen me at my very best and at my very worst, too.

THEY would never turn on me, kick me when I was down or slander my name all over the internet, even if they thought that I deserved it. Friends just DON'T DO THAT.

My ex-wife got all pissed off at me when I received a phone call at 2:00 in the morning from two of my REAL FRIENDS who were stranded on the road with car trouble on Highway 25, somewhere between Savannah and Augusta. I crawled out of bed and went to rescue them, while my darling wife harped at me, saying "YOU have to go to work in the morning! Let 'em find their OWN way home!!!"

I drove through the darkness up Highway 25 until I found them. Then, I gave them both a ride to their homes. THEN, I went to work, two hours late, but I called my boss and TOLD HIM ahead of time that I would be "a little late" getting to work, because I had "personal business" to conduct at 2:00 in the morning.

He asked no questions. Hell--- I NEVER missed work and I NEVER showed up late, so I had a lot of markers in reserve for me to use in a situation such as that one. I cashed a few of 'em that day for my FRIENDS. That's what I was saving them for.

When I got off work that day, I picked up one of MY FRIENDS, drove back up Highway 25 until we found his dead vehicle, hooked his car to my truck with a strap, and I TOWED his defunct vehicle all the way back to Savannah. I didn't get home again until well after dark.

The wife continued to bitch at me. "Are you outta your MIND, Rob? You spent half of last night and most of today doing something STUPID!!! Do you think that those guys would have done that for YOU???"

I didn't answer that question, but I knew the answer. The ex-wife simply could not understand the concept of friendship the way that I did. (She never had many friends--- I wonder why?) I thought, YES!!! Those guys WOULD have done the same thing for me, with no questions asked. That's what friends DO.

Those guys also know some of my deepest, darkest secrets, and they've never "shared" those with ANYBODY else that I'm aware of. Friends don't do that kinda catty, cuntly stuff. It's that pesky TRUST thing that makes friendships difficult to maintain for untrustworthy people.

Trust is the one thing in this world that can't be repaired once you break it.

If I received the same call tonight, I would do the same thing again. I also have no doubt in my mind that if I were stranded on the road and I called THEM, they would come and get me. Those guys are MY FRIENDS, and they would be there if I needed them. I haven't played that card many times in my life, but when I DID, my friends were there when I asked for help.

I suffer a lot of physical pain now, but I can cope with that. Hell, a human being can become comfortable with HANGING if he dangles from the rope long enough. But there's one thing that hurts worse than any physical pain you'll EVER experience in life.

That's BETRAYAL. When you trust someone and they betray that trust, it creates a wound that takes a long time to heal, if it ever does heal at all.

Jennifer did that to me, and I'm still reeling from it. Somebody else just did it, too, but I really didn't expect anything different from her. If you put your trust in a despicable person, you're just asking for trouble. I shoulda known better.

But I LOVE the soap opera brewing now. It's VERY interesting to see the people who defend what she did. I damn sure don't want THOSE assholes as "friends," because they are about as trustworthy and reliable as a screaming Global Warming freaktoid.

If I catch THEIR drift, it pretty much says, "You SHOULD fuck your friends!!! Especially if it's ROB!!! We never liked him anyway! There ARE no secrets in this world and YOU are the victim here because Acidman is pissed off!!! GOOD FOR YOU!!! Any sane, logical person woulda done the same thing that YOU did, given the chance!!! Don't be ashamed of being a big-mouthed, lunatic shitass!!! Be PROUD of it!!! He had it coming to him!!!"

As I said before, "with friends like that, I don't need enemies."

And anybody who applauds a vicious, vindictive bitch for being a vicious, vindictive bitch is NOT someone I want for a friend anyway. Y'all have fun together. Birds of a feather, and all of that.

Just be careful about "sharing" any secrets with people who have a trust-quotient below that of a rabid racoon. They'll BITE you, and it'll make you feel VERY STUPID when that happens. You'll kick yourself, because you shoulda recognized a Charles Manson personality when you saw it.

Oh, I SAW it... but I didn't heed my own good sense. I told her things I never should have said to a person so unstable and so fucked-up in the head. She is absolutely correct when she says that it's ALL MY FAULT!!! It is. I trusted someone who didn't deserve it. I ignored all of my good instincts and tried to be nice to a very un-nice person. But I'm gonna try my best NEVER to make that same mistake again.

Ask me again why I just want to be left ALONE. When I'm by myself, I KNOW who I can trust.

Bejus knows that I can't say the same thing when other people get involved in my life. I don't know about YOU, but I don't like it when people stick knives in my back. And I ESPECIALLY don't like it when other people cheer the stabber.

Y'all have some really screwed up values. Don't have many FRIENDS, either, do ya?

December 17, 2007

The list (2005 edition)

Originally published December 31, 2005

Here are the Top 10 Assholes of 2005 as chosen by a blue-ribbon selection committee, consisting of...ME.

10) Arlen Specter. “Sphincter” would be a better name. I’ve held nothing but contempt for this political weasel since he cast his nutless-wonder “Not Proven” vote during Clinton’s impeachment. This year, among his other great accomplishments, he decided that the Senate should investigate the suspension of Terrell Owens by the NFL. The guy gives barking moonbats a bad name.

9) Kofi Annan. The United Nations is a corrupt, useless, inept and anti-American organization. Who better to serve as head of this rabble than Kofi? A scandal in MY “Oil For Food” program? HOW DARE YOU suggest such a thing? Move along. Nothing to see here…

8) Ray Nagin. As mayor of New Orleans, he makes a pretty good case for why we should NOT rebuild the city. When we rebuild the city anyway, let’s put up a monument to his colossal incompetence. Make it the statue of a flooded evacuation bus.

7) The New York Times. “All the News That’s Fit to Print?” Bullshit. “All the News That Fits Our Leftist Agenda” would be a more accurate motto. I don’t trust anything they print today (not even the fucking DATE!) and I believe that the NSA “reporting” they did was downright treasonous. Gray Lady, my ass. Fat, pox-riddled whore is more like it.

6) John Murtha. I think the guy’s elevator doesn’t go all the way to the top anymore, and he’s a prime example of why members of Congress should be subject to some kind of regular “senility test.” When they become delusional and believe that the war we’re fighting today is in Vietnam, they should be led away to somewhere quiet, where white-uniformed attendants make sure that they take their medication every day and change their diapers as needed. Of course, if we required sane thinking in Congress, we’d have to get rid of at least ¾ of the dildos that we have there. Hmmm… I like the test idea even better when I put it that way.

5) Glenn Reynolds. I wouldn’t turn my father in to the cops for robbing a bank, but I WILL call Glenn, my blogfather, a shameless shill for PJM. I don’t like the idea of PJM, I don’t believe such a self-aggrandizing, mercenary scheme is healthy for blogging, I don’t think the blogging itself is anything special, and no amount of pimping that ride is gonna change my mind OR make PJM anything other than what it is: a goddam parasite that latched onto a willing, juicy host .

4) NYC Transit Workers. Unions do some fucked-up things today, but the transit goons reached new heights of fucked-uppedness with their Christmas strike. That fiasco surely was a bunch of sound and fury that signified nothing, except the fact that they pissed off a LOT of people. Hell-- they pissed ME off and I don’t ride the NYC subways. What a bunch of assholes.

3) John McCain. Which side is this guy on? Hell--- what PLANET is he on? He crashed five airplanes during his distinguished career as a military pilot and he flies his Senate seat with the same reckless incompetence. If you liked Campaign Finance Reform, you gotta LOVE John McCain. I think he’s not only an asshole, but a dangerous man, desperately in love with himself. Beware anybody who believes that his brain farts smell good.

2) Me. Myself. Acidman. Rob Smith. I’m a fine person to be calling ANYBODY ELSE an asshole after what I did in 2005. I damn nearly drank and drugged myself to death and pulled out of that downward spiral only at the last possible minute. I pissed away a lot of my life, I pissed off many a friend and I piss off MYSELF when I think about it now. I may never fully recover from some of my self-inflicted damage and I’ve got nobody but ME to blame. This list would not be complete without MY name on it.

1) Cindy Sheehan. That woman isn’t a grieving mother--- she’s a professional ghoul, using her dead son as a stepping stone to fame. She’s a disgrace to mothers everywhere and an insult to her son. She is beneath my contempt, but I’m going to generate a heap of it for her anyway. Besides--- I risk being branded as a sexist if I don’t include at least one woman on this list--- so take comfort, ladies. Cindy was the biggest asshole of them all in 2005.

Now--- go have a Happy New year and try NOT to be an asshole in 2006.

The ice cream truck

Originally published June 1, 2006

One of the most consistently exciting, heart-pounding experiences of my youth came when my friends and I heard the sound of the ice cream truck tooling through my neighborhood. It had big loudspeakers mounted on top, from which issued a tinkly, static-plagued version of "London Bridge (is falling down!)" to alert "The Children" of its presence.

When we heard that sound, we dropped whatever we were doing, shot home to shake a dime out of the trusty piggy bank, then ran barefoot down the street in hot pursuit of the truck. It was piloted by a cranky old man named "Shorty" and I don't believe that he liked kids at ALL, the bastid.

He would SEE us coming, yelling and waving frantically, and he just kept going, purely to make us suffer. Sometimes, we chased him for BLOCKS before he finally pulled over and stopped. Then, he acted as if he were doing us all a BIG favor by selling us ice cream.

Looking back now, I think that "Shorty" maybe had this problem. [Ed. Don't know what problem he had because the link goes to the current front page.] The old bastid was as surly as a mongrel dog and just downright mean to kids. The Ice Cream Man ain't supposed to be that way, but Shorty WAS.

But we still wanted the goods he carried, and we all were fascinated by the coin-dispenser that he wore on his belt. You remember those, don't you? That thing-a-ma-jig that had cylinders for pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters, with a button on top of each cylinder, much like the keys on a trumpet. Shorty made change by pushing those buttons and having coins shoot out the bottom of the device. It was really cool.

Ice cream trucks don't come where I live now. In fact, I haven't even SEEN one in years. Do they still operate? Are they still piloted by malevolent assholes like Shorty? Do they still play that horrible, static-plagued music over big loudspeakers on the truck? Do excited kids still chase them down the street SOMEWHERE in this country?

Did ice cream trucks go the way of the drive-in movie and just fade away to extinction? Or do they still operate in the inner city--- selling crack cocaine as their "snow" cones and dealing joints instead of popcicles? Maybe instead of becoming extinct, ice cream trucks EVOLVED to fit a new market.

I don't know, because I haven't seen an ice cream truck for a long, long time now. If kids today never have the chance to chase one, they're missing a memorable experience in life. I WISH that I could chase one today.

What a sight that would be: a decrepit old Cracker, hobbling down the street and yelling at the ice cream truck to STOP!!! Heh. Chances are that a good, drunk-driving ice cream man would turn around and run OVER me, for the good of humanity.

Maybe it's a nostalgia thing, imbedded deep in my psyche, but the Mexican popcicles I buy in the grocery store today don't taste NEARLY as good as the popcicles I remember buying off the ice cream truck when I was a kid.

Maybe part of that goodness was the thrill of the chase when I was young. Now, if I'm expected to chase ANYTHING, I don't, because I don't want it THAT much. Growing old sucks.

And if we don't have ice cream trucks anymore, well... that sucks, too.

December 16, 2007

HATE CRIME

Originally PUBLISHED April 6, 2006

I plead guilty to a hate crime: I HATE the got-dam critters that infest my yard.

I've spent the past week or so planting a garden, putting up bird feeders and adding a few more wind chimes around the Crackerbox. The work is finished, but I'm still suffering the after-effects of it. I don't mean sore muscles, either. I'm talking about insect bites.

I believe that southeast Georgia has some of the most bloodthirsty, annoying, pestiferous and PLENTIFUL bugs you'll ever find. Here are some with which I am doing battle:

1) Fire Ants--- The meanest ants on the planet. I've put out enough Diazanon to kill an army, but I can't get rid of the ants. They just move somewhere else and then counter-attack whenever they see me. I'm still popping little white blisters on my arms, legs and hands from where those bastards bit me. If there is a God, tell me why he put those fuckers in His creation. I've got no use for them.

2) Sand Gnats--- Those flying teeth aren't as bad in Effingham County as they are near the salt marshes, but they still show up to pester me in the mornings and late afternoons. MILLIONS of them swarm from wherever they live to feast on my blood. In their own special way, they are worse than fire ants. If they had the size to match their viciousness, they'd be as big as a Greyhound bus. Without a big bottle of Avon's Skin So Soft, I wouldn't be able to go outside at all. That whore-smelling stuff is the only thing I've ever found that will keep sand gnats from biting.

3) Chiggers--- Some people call these parasitic bastards "red bugs," but I don't. I usually call them obscene names. Root around in your bushes or ANY wooded area around where I live and you'll cuss 'em, too. They are shameless about where they decide to latch on to you (the crotchital area is one of their favorite spots) and they make a big, red welt that itches like hell when they burrow into you. The only way I know to treat the bite is to cover it with clear fingernail polish so that you cut off the chigger's air supply. Even then, they'll last a couple of days before they die. Real shit-asses.

4) Ticks--- Talk about blood-suckers! If you've never had a tick on you, just come visit me. I can remedy your ignorance very quickly. Some people say that you can get a tick out of you by sticking a lit cigarette to his ass, which will make him back out of where he burrowed in. I call bullshit on that idea. I've tried it, and all I ended up with was a cooked tick still embedded in my body. I think you ALWAYS have to pull 'em out by hand. Just make sure the head stays attached when you do that.

5) Yellow Jackets Be careful where you step around here. Yellow jackets nest in the ground, and if you disturb them, they come boiling out of their nest like suds from a warm beer. They're pissed off, too, and they will sting the living shit out of you. When they hit, it feels like you've been shot with a bullet. Hurts like all get-out. They're another good reason for a Bulldog to hate Georgia Tech.

I love living in the South (It's sunny and 80 degrees outside as I write), but I could do without these critters. And I didn't even mention the B-52-sized mosquitoes we have around here. I think they exist just to eat whatever is left over after the other blood-sucking insects get finished feasting on you. Flying hypodermic needles.

Every one of those bastards really bug me.

ARCTIC BLASTS

Originally PUBLISHED December 20,2004

Today, I had to go fetch my lawn chairs, my trash can and my Indestructible Plastic Container of the Gods from my neighbor's yard. I have two sets of wind-chimes blown down on my back porch and some shit that doesn't belong to me in MY yard.

Tell me that the wind didn't blow last night.

WILLIAM FAULKNER

Originally PUBLISHED January 12, 2005

I believe that I read just about everything the man ever wrote. Many people call him the ultimate Southern writer, but I disagree. I liked his early works, but when he hit his "stream of consciousness" phase, he totally lost me. A lot of what he wrote then sounds like the raving of a drunken idiot.

Well, he did have a fondness for the bottle...

I read once that a reporter from Life magazine showed up at Faulkner's home in Mississippi and found him digging in his garden. She shouted, "Mr. Faulkner, some people call you outrageous. What do you think of that?"

According to the story, Faulkner walked up to her car, unzipped his fly and pissed right through her window. Then, he tucked his Johnson away and said, "I don't know what you're talking about."

If that story isn't true, it should be.

December 15, 2007

BACON GREASE

Originally PUBLISHED December 21, 2004

Some people (mostly yankees) don't seem to understand a few basic facts of life that I learned as a young boy. First, you DO NOT put milk and sugar on grits. Second, you NEVER pronounce "y'all" with two syllables. Third, NOBODY with an ounce of pride drinks hot tea.

Bejus! My idea of a nightmare is to have someone serve me grits with milk and sugar, a cup of hot tea and then say, "YOU-ALL enjoy your breakfast." I see a case for justifiable homicide there.

But, I digress. What I really wanted to write about is bacon grease.

If you check out any decent Southern cook's kitchen, I guarantee that you'll find a big container of bacon grease among the rest of the herbs and spices used to season food. Bacon grease is the all-purpose Southern seasoning and it's good in almost ANYTHING.

The cook makes bacon for breakfast, but he or she SAVES the grease (or "the drippins") for later use. Put the grease in a container and allow the sediments to settle to the bottom. Then, you use the grease off the top when you cook something else.

Yeah, it's bound to clog your arteries, give you heart attacks and make you die before your time, just as it did some of my 90 year-old relatives. We once picked fresh greens from a spring garden, chopped them up in a bowl and had hot bacon grease as our salad dressing. That was called a "cracklin' salad" because you could almost hear the lettuce scream when that hot bacon grease hit it. It was damned good, too.

Biscuits, cornbread, beans, potatoes--- you name it. It's ALWAYS better if you season it with some bacon grease. I keep a container on MY counter and I use it almost every time I cook. I sometimes add a spoonful of bacon grease when I make boiled peanuts. It's good in EVERYTHING.

If you throw away bacon grease, you need to be dragged off and shot.

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IF YOU BUILD IT,THEY WILL COME

Originally PUBLISHED April 12, 2006

When I put up my bird feeders this year, I barely managed to walk away before the flocks descended on them. I saw lots of sparrows and some kind of powder-blue birds stuffing themselves out there, along with some cardinals and a few skanky-looking blackbirds. The doves weren't far behind, combing the ground under the feeders for spilled seed. That didn't take long.

But I didn't see any hummingbirds. I put up four hummer feeders and filled them with nectar, but nobody came to my party. Not one single hummingbird. I was a little bit disappointed by that fact, because I KNOW that Effingham County is FULL of hummingbirds during warm weather. I thought that maybe I put the feeders up too soon--- we've had a couple of chilly nights recently.

I guess I was wrong. I saw two hummingbirds feeding this morning and I think they must live nearby, because they keep coming back every hour or so. I think they are a "married" couple. One is a small, almost plain-looking female and the other is a big (for a hummer anyway) male with irridescent green feathers and a brilliant ruby throat.

If those two found my feeders, others will come. I really do like watching those little birds flying around like jet fighters. If I get a couple of more visitors, I'll be able to see some good, aggressive aerial combat out there. Hummers are fearless little fuckers and they'll fight each other over a feeder. That show is great entertainment.

I saw no fresh dog-paw prints in my garden this morning, so I don't need to load up the pellet gun and shoot a dog yet. Not YET. One of my neighbors is turning a beagle loose every morning to roam around and shit in somebody else's yard, and I suspect that THAT'S the dog that stomped all over my okra and banana pepper plants.

If that's so, his time is gonna come, unless I find out who owns the dog so that I can talk to them before I make their darling pet do the stinging-ass dance in my garden.

Speaking of the garden, my corn and beans are sprouting and the tomatoes and squash are taking off quite robustly. Other than the dog, the only problem I see is a proliferation of weeds in what always has been bare soil. See how "delicate" Mother Nature is? Throw some fertilizer on bare ground and just stand back. Something is gonna grow there, and in this case it's something I don't want.

Oh well. I've always said that gardening is a lot of work, and those weeds are just like the birds flocking to me feeders. They prove that if you build it, they will come.

Posted by Acidman @ 01:19 PM • Permalink • Comments [0] • TrackBack [0]

December 14, 2007

Speaking of taste

Originally published June 6, 2006

My mama was raised on a farm. I've noticed a common trait among ALL people who tended their own live animals for a while, then slaughtered and ate those critters. They like their meat cooked to a crisp.

We never had steak at home when I was growing up. We couldn't afford it, for one thing, but I'm kinda glad we ate simple foods the way we did. My mama was a wonderful cook, but she woulda fucked up a decent steak by burning the crap out of it when I was a boy.

HER idea of a well-cooked piece of meat was one that she either boiled into a tender mush (like chicken in dumplings) or blackened like asphalt and cooked as stiff as a roof shingle (like sausage).

When I moved out on my own and started cooking my own suppers, I became pretty good at it. I never mastered the art of making biscuits and gravy the way Mama did, but I made BETTER hamburgers and I could cook a damngood steak.

I decided to treat my parents to a culinary delight once, years ago, so I bought several rib-eye steaks, some salad fixings, a few BIG-assed Idaho potatoes and a fat loaf of garlic bread. I went back to the old homestead and starting preparing supper for me, my brother, his darlin' wife, Mom and Dad. I got really imaginative and brought some candles to light and place strategically on the kitchen table, to create a romantic ambiance.

When I started to cook the steaks, I asked everybody how they wanted theirs. "Medium rare" was the choice of everybody but Mama. "I want mine well-done," she said.

I looked at those beautiful, marbled rib-eyes. I thought about the obscenity of cooking one of those to "well-done" and I wanted to poke Mama in the eye with a long-handled grill-fork for asking me to commit that kind of sin. So, I cheated. I LIED to my mama.

I cooked all four steaks medium rare, but when I served them, I made a big deal out of telling Mama, "Okay. This one is YOURS--- well-done, just the way you like it."

I figured that I could get away with the hoax. That's one of the really good things about dining by candle light, besides the romantic ambiance. You can't see the food very well, either.

Mama tore into that steak and ate it as if she had been starving for a week--- she even made those contented, blow-through-your nose "Ummmm" noises while she chewed. When she was finished, she said, "Rob, I believe that you just cooked the best steak I ever tasted. You've gotta tell me what kind of spices you use."

When we cleared the dirty dishes from the table, Mama turned on the kitchen light and was shocked by what she saw. "ROB!!! There's BLOOD on my plate!!! YOU told me that my steak was well-done!!!"

I told her that her steak WAS well-done (technically... it WAS, because... I DONE IT and she liked it VERY WELL) and she probably mistook some spilled salad dressing or KETCHUP for blood on her plate. "Mama," I said, "Would I lie to you about something like THAT?"

She didn't answer that question, because she knew what I had done. But I changed her life that day. She never WOULD ask for a medium-rare steak after that. She just said, "Cook it like you did the last one I had. That was pretty good." Heh. Don't ask, don't tell wasn't invented by Bill Clinton.

Sometimes, you've just gotta do things like that... for somebody else's own good.

Posted by Acidman @ 08:29 PM • Permalink • Comments [0] • TrackBack [0]

Wanna chap my ass?

Originally published January 29, 2005

Commit these grammatical mistakes over and over again:

* Demonstrate that you don't know the difference between "affect" and "effect."

* Use "your" when you mean "you're" and the other way around, too. Your just fucked-up if make that mistake.

* Say "I" when you mean "me." Yeah, "my brother and I went fishing," is correct. "What happened after that is a secret between my brother and I" is ILLITERATE. I hate reading that shit.

* Ending a sentence in a preposition. If you DON'T do that, you probably irritate the shit out of me. THAT'S WHERE I COME FROM. It ain't, "The place from which I came." Besides, I've NEVER seen that rule etched in stone anywhere.

* "Gender." Don't even get me started on this PC pile of shit. If I had to pick the #1 LIE word in the world today, it would be "gender." Pussification at work.

*Tell me how cute your fucking cat is and post pictures. Bejus! I'll have a contest between my stomach and I to see if I can resist puking all over YOU'RE pictures of the cute cat that YOUR so proud of. Can you EXCEPT that reaction? How does it "EFFECT" you?

* Asking "Why?" with no follow-up questioning is just plain stupid.

YOU don't make those mistakes do you?

Posted by Acidman @ 08:04 PM • Permalink • Comments [0] • TrackBack [0]

December 13, 2007

JOBS I DON'T WANT

Originally PUBLISHED June 5,2006

I finally felt well enough to drive to the bank today to deposit a check that's been laying on my coffee table for three weeks now. I filled out a deposit slip before I left the Crackerbox and I wanted $100 in cash, and the rest of the money put in my checking account.

I saw an amazing thing at the bank. The cashier asked for a picture ID, so I showed her my driver's license. Then, she punched some numbers into a machine on her desk, and the damn thing spit out five $20 bills and gave me a receipt for my deposit.

I asked her... (her name was "Dawn," which I learned by reading the name-tag she wore on her ample bosum)... "Darlin'... does that machine count ALL of the money that you handle? You don't get to... like... actually COUNT IT YOURSELF anymore?"

She grinned and replied, "No, sir. This machine is BETTER than I am at counting money. It never makes a mistake and it's made my job easier."

I took my $100 and walked out of there stunned. WHY would you ever want to work in a bank if you can't handle a LOT of money, even if it's not yours? Banks will give you a TITLE, like Vice President of something, but they don't pay SHIT for wages.

I couldn't do that for a living. I would rather rob the bank and count all the money MYSELF!

Another job I don't want is being a pharmacist. The last precription I had filled was for Pepcid, and the young GIRL, about my daughter's age, gave me the pills after she entered all kinds of crap on a computer, then handed me a bottle of 30 pills that boasted... in her own handwriting... "triple counted."

Bejus. She "triple counted" PEPCID???

If I worked there, I would end up stealing a grocery bag full of hydrocodone and hopping the next flight to Costa Rica. I MIGHT "triple count" every pill I stole after I made it through Customs with that shit duct-taped to my crotch and encased in a condom that I stuck up my ass.

Those are two jobs that I don't want.

WHY work in a bank if YOU can't count the money? WHY work in a pharmacy if you have to nit-count PEPCID, for cryin' out loud? Naw... those jobs aren't for me.

I would end up with about $100,000 that wasn't mine (blame THAT error on "the machine") and I would be driving a fork lift to haul pain-killers on a pallet out of the drug store. I would end up in Costa Rica with lots of stolen money and gallon jugs full of Vicodin and Perocet decorating every shelf in my rented home, on the beach, complete with a maid who not only cleaned my house, but slept with me, too.

I also would have my picture thumbtacked to the wall in every post office in this country, where they serve up posters for "America's Most Wanted" criminals. BWHAHAAAA!!!

I could live with that, which is why I don't want to work in a bank or in a pharmacy.

Posted by Acidman @ 04:36 PM • Permalink • Comments [0] • TrackBack [0]

I LIKE IT

Originally PUBLISHED January 7,2005

I don't remember ever sleeping in the Crackerbox before with all the windows open. It's very nice. The night air smells of pine trees, oak leaves and dew--- and I have crickets and frogs singing outside my window.

Tonight, I can hear the whistle of the freight train clearly as it crosses the tracks at Blue Jay Road, a good 15 miles away. Damn! I LOVE the sound of a train whistle in the night. I fell asleep to that sound so many times when I was a boy in the coal mining camp that I believe it became stuck in my blood. That lonesome moan is music to my ears.

No snow. No ice. A low temperature of 53 degrees tonight. Windows open. Wind chimes. Southern sounds outside.

Life is good sometimes.

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December 12, 2007

Quinton came to see me

Originally published June 21, 2004

I almost didn't recognize my son when I opened the door. His hair is long now, and cut in a shag just like Jennifer's. He could wrap those flowing locks in a ponytail with no problem. I liked the spike-doo he wore during wrestling last year a lot better. I believe that my ex-wife wants a girly-boy instead of a young man in her life.

Quinton hugged me and handed me a hand-made Father's Day card. "I love you, Daddy," he said.

"I love you, too, son," I replied. That hug really felt good. I started to mist up, so I rubbed his head and asked, "What's with all the hair? You look like a Beatle."

"What's with all of THIS hair?" he asked, as he ran his fingers through my beard.

"I'm old. I can grow a beard if I want to. But YOU need a haircut."

"I'll get a haircut when you shave that beard," he grinned.

"It's a deal, but you go first," I replied.

I dropped down to one knee so that I could get a better hug and look into my boy's eyes. "Thanks for the card, poot. I sure do love you."

"I know, Daddy. I love you, too. Happy Father's Day."

The visit didn't last long, because Jennifer was in the driveway with the engine still running in her big, silver SUV. I waved at her as Quinton ran back to the car. When they pulled away, I went back inside, looked at my card and cried all over it. I started to take a picture of it and post it here, but that card wouldn't mean anything to anybody but me. But TO ME, it means a lot.

Quinton made that card and he hand-delivered it, along with lots of hugs. I haven't lost my boy yet. He made my day.

But he surely does need a haircut.

Posted by Acidman @ 06:26 AM • Permalink • Comments [0] • TrackBack [0]

Hurricane opal

Originally published September 17, 2004

I've been reading some posts from bloggers in north Georgia about the effects of Hurricane Ivan on them. These people are 400 miles from the Florida coast and they STILL got a scary dose of the storm. I feel their pain. I was staying at Blood Mountain Cabins in October of 1995 when Opal roared through there.

Jennifer and I went into Helen the morning before the storm hit. She wanted to shop for souvenirs and I wanted to drink beer. A place called "The Wurst Haus" has a nice, covered biergarten, so that's where I stayed with Quinton while my wife went shopping. A drizzling rain had been falling all day and I liked the biergarten because they had nice, dark beer and a covered place for Quinton to burn up some energy running around without getting wet.

I hadn't paid any attention to the news for days. (That's back before George put satellite TV in the cabins.) Some people in the biergarten told me about Opal and I listened to the news on the radio while we were driving back to the cabin. The storm was headed our way after it made landfall. "We should stop and buy some candles and a couple of flashlights," I suggested. "We probably won't need them, but it's better to be safe than sorry."

Man, those were famous last words. We stopped and bought our hurricane supplies with me telling Jennifer all along, "By the time it gets up here, it won't be anything other than a minor windstorm. We can handle that." I forgot about the fact that the cabins are at 3,000 feet in the mountains.

Some people who read this blog have SEEN Blood Mountain cabins. Imagine waking up at 4:00 in the morning with the entire cabin rocking on its stilted legs. Imagine hearing the wind howl in the trees like a banshee with its ass on fire. Imagine hearing what you first thought were gunshots in the woods until you realized that it was the sound of trees snapping off at the trunk.

Jennifer and I were sleeping in the cabin loft. I went downstairs and checked on Quinton. He was out like a light, which was fitting because all the electricity was off in the cabin. I then went to the sliding glass door that led to the deck and put my hand against it. I could feel that sucker BREATHING!

I am NOT making this up. Every time another howling wind rocked the cabin, I could feel the glass BEND with the force. I opened the door and stepped out onto the deck. I shined my flashlight straight up into the air and saw tree limbs the size of my LEG sailing horizontally through the air over the cabin and occassionally banging on the roof like thunder.

That shit lasted for six hours. Trees fell all over the place and hit three of the cabins, all unoccupied at the time. We survived, but it was a frightening experience because there is no "off" switch for that stuff. It goes on as long as it wants to.

George didn't get power back to the cabins for nine days after that. No power means no water in the cabins. Quinton wasn't two years old at the time, so we couldn't stay there and rough it with HIM on board. We also couldn't LEAVE until late that afternoon because all the roads were blocked with fallen trees.

Opal was a tropical storm when it raped and pillaged at Blood Mountain. Ask me NOW why I fear hurricanes.

Posted by Acidman @ 06:08 AM • Permalink • Comments [0] • TrackBack [0]

December 11, 2007

Just a day

Originally published June 19, 2004

I haven't felt good today. I've not been physically ill; I've just been down and depressed. I mowed my lawn, but my heart wasn't in it. Once upon a time, I would have been very proud of the grass I've managed to grow on this sandpile where I live, but it doesn't matter much to me now. I just cut the grass to keep the neighbors from thinking badly of me. I never did find that loudmouthed frog in the back yard.

Henry came over and gave me some squash and cucumbers from his garden. I ate them this afternoon while I watched the US Open Golf Tournament on television. I really should wipe the cobwebs off my clubs and start playing again. I used to be pretty good at that game. I THINK I miss playing, but I miss other things a lot more.

I took all of my guns out today and cleaned them. I like the smell of gun oil. According to the court order Jennifer has hanging over my head, I'm supposed to get rid of every one of those weapons before I can see Quinton again. I don't understand that. Jennifer has at least one gun that I know of, because I BOUGHT IT FOR HER. And if I wanted to kill her, I would have done it a long time ago. It's just more bullshit from a vindictive bitch that I made the mistake of marrying.

I bought my single-shot .22 rifle for Quinton. That's the same kind of gun I learned to handle when I was young and I don't see anything wrong with a father teaching his son to shoot and handle a firearm safely. In fact, I believe that it is a DUTY. A single-shot .22 rifle is perfect for the job, because it makes a person think about every shot. Plus, the ammo is cheap.

I'm not giving up my guns. I will NOT be an unarmed citizen expecting government to protect me from footpads, goblins, rattlesnakes, rabid racoons or barking frogs. I want to be able to shoot first instead of calling 911. I don't give a shit what a judge says.

Let HIM come live where I do for a while. He'll buy his own goddam guns.

I am in a rebellious, shitty mood. I am sick and tired of being sick and tired and I've had enough pure bullshit heaped on my head to last for a lifetime. Tomorrow is Father's Day and the closest I can come to seeing my father or my grandfathers is a visit to the cemetary, which I won't make. I want to see my son, but I doubt that possibility, too. It'll just be another day for me.

I'll go see mama tomorrow. She always makes me feel at home.

Posted by Acidman @ 06:39 AM • Permalink • Comments [0] • TrackBack [0]

Trivia question

Originally published September 16, 2004

Did you ever watch "Dobie Gillis?" Remember Maynard G. Krebbs?

Who played Maynard and what did his middle initial stand for?

More trivia

Also published September 16, 2004

I'm waxing nostalgic today for no good reason. I came up with this trivia quiz (it's really for old farts such as myself, but with reruns on cable today, maybe some of the young pups can answer a few of the questions.)

1. What was the name of the spaceship on "Lost in Space?"

2. What was Archie Bunker's home address?

3. What was the name of Sky King's airplane?

4. What villian was "rotten to the core?"

5. Name three regular characters on "Captain Kangaroo."

6. Who hosted the "Howdy Doody" show?

7. What did Ozzie Nelson do for a living?

8. Name the three sons on "My Three Sons."

9. What was the name of the smart pig on "Green Acres?"

10. What was the name of Festus Hagan's mule on "Gunsmoke?"

See what happens to me when I get bored?

Posted by Acidman @ 06:34 AM • Permalink • Comments [0] • TrackBack [0]

Rules

Originally published September 17, 2004

I don't care if you ARE madly in love. Don't call me at 2:00 in the morning to tell me about it. Don't tell me how wonderful the woman is and how happy she makes you. I don't want to hear that shit.

I ESPECIALLY don't want to hear it from a guy who said the exact same things about a different woman two years ago, right before he married her and she took him to the cleaners in the subsequent divorce. I know that when you fall off the horse, you're supposed to get back on, but you also should remember "once burnt, twice learnt."

The world is wonderful. You've never been so happy in your life. The woman is your true soul mate. The two of you take long walks together and play a game of kissing at every mailbox you pass. It's also TWO O'CLOCK IN THE FUCKING MORNING, dammit! Take your happy ass to bed and let me go back to sleep.

I don't want to hear that shit.

Posted by Acidman @ 06:16 AM • Permalink • Comments [0] • TrackBack [0]

December 10, 2007

Storytelling

Originally published September 16, 2004

I believe that most Southerners are natural-born storytellers. Maybe ALL rural people share that trait, but I notice it especially down South. Even poorly-educated people are good storytellers. They KNOW, almost instinctivly, what makes the difference between a good story and a boring tale.

It ain't the story that makes the difference. It's the way you TELL IT!

The people where I live know how to tell a story. They know how to give you just enough description of the scenery so that your imagination fills in the details and they understand the principle of Beginning, Middle and End. Hook 'em in the beginning... keep them listening in the middle... then surprise them at the end. And do it all in a slow drawl that shows you're in no hurry to finish.

A lot of the way I write comes from listening to good storytellers when I was young.

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Cancer survivor

Originally published June 19, 2004

Lookie here. I've been invited to join a Cancer Survivors Group. I wonder how they got my name and address? I also wonder what in the hell a cancer survivors group does. Do people stand around, swap horror stories and compare scars?

I don't believe that I want to join. First of all, I agree with Groucho Marx-- I don't want to join ANY club that would accept ME as a member. Second, I don't think of myself as a cancer survivor. I didn't do anything heroic or brave. I got lucky, that's all.

Having cancer damn sure changed my life in ways that will never be repaired, but the only real struggle I had during that time was keeping my head on straight while my not-yet-ex-wife moved her dope-smoking, unemployed lover into my house. That was a bitter pill to swallow. It also was the most heartless, bloodless thing anyone has ever done to me in my life.

Jennifer knew how frightened I was by the high PSA test and how I watched my father and my best friend die from prostate cancer. She knew how worried I was about the biopsy results. Still, she picked that time to become an adulteress, throw me out of my home and start a torrid affair with a person not fit to kiss my ass. She's a class act all the way.

I remember the night before the surgery. I had to be at the hospital at 5:00 AM and I didn't sleep much that night. I did a lot of thinking. I wasn't afraid of dying--- the thought of dying has NEVER frightened me. It's gonna happen some day and I hope to spit in the Reaper's face when he comes for me. I just didn't want to be ALTERED and live as only a part of what I once was.

I had a radical prostatectomy. It knocked me flat on my Cracker ass for a month. I wore diapers for three months after that while I practiced Keagle exercises to relearn how to control my continence. My dick was dead as a doorknob. I was one miserable sumbitch. I'll NEVER be right again, but I appear to be cancer-free. August 16th will make three years since I received the positive report on the biopsy. My last PSA test was a big, fat zero.

If I had it all to do over again, I'm not certain that I would consent to the surgery. I probably could have lived a good 10 to 15 years with the slow-moving cancer I had, and I believe that I would have been a lot happier, right up until I died, than I have been since the surgery.

Am I supposed to be PROUD and join a club because I didn't die (yet) of cancer? Am I supposed to consider myself as a "cancer survivor?" I don't feel proud and I don't consider myself to be a survivor. In fact, I wish now that I had never gone to the doctor for that biopsy.

I wouldn't fit in with a group of cancer survivors. I would rather have my old body back and die wearing it.

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December 09, 2007

Getting stoned

Originally published September 16, 2004

The hot summer day made everybody sweat, but the humidity was so high that the sweat didn't evaporate. It just dripped, running off your forehead and into your eyes where it stung like soap. Everybody was in a bad mood.

My brother and I got into an argument about something. I don't remember what triggered the event, but as usual when I had an argument with my brother, I decided to settle it by whipping his ass. I grabbed for him, but he knew all the Early Warning Signals by then (having HAD his ass whipped by me on numerous occasions) and he took off running.

I followed in hot pursuit.

Lemme set the stage here. I was about 10 years old. My brother was eight. My brother ran through a hole in the fence that we always used to short-cut our way to the Salter's house, where we liked to play. The Salter's had actual GRASS in their yard instead of the packed hardpan dirt we had in OUR yard. I knew what my brother was thinking. If he could beat me back to our house, Mama wouldn't let me kill him.

I could outrun my brother and I was closing fast. I believe that he realized that he wasn't going to make it to Mama, so he reached down without ever slowing his stride, picked up the ONLY GODDAM ROCK within 50 miles and threw it at me. He hit me right in the head.

All that did was make me even more pissed off, and I tackled him before he even made our property line. I pounded him on the back of the head a couple of times, then rolled him over to really put his lights out. That's when I saw BLOOD ALL OVER HIS FACE!!! He started screaming and I hadn't even hit him yet.

I paused with my fist over his face for a second before I realized that the blood was COMING FROM ME!!! I rubbed my hand across my forehead and it came away coated in blood. I sat back and let my little brother up. I was bleeding like a stuck hog.

My brother jumped up running for the house again. "Mama! Mama! You better come quick!! I think I just killed Rob!!!"

I thought he HAD killed me. My blood was EVERYWHERE. I remained sitting right where I was until Mama came. I'll give her credit for one thing: my Mama does NOT get the vapors and hyperventilate in such a situation. She grew up with three rowdy brothers and she raised two sons of her own. A bloody scalp does not frighten her.

"Get up and let me wash that blood offa you," she ordered, and I dutifully followed her into the yard, where she took a garden hose and washed me clean. She examined the wound. "That's not bad, Robbie. I don't think you'll even need a stitch in that." She bandaged me and I was fine.

That rock grazed me and opened up a razor-cut right at my hairline and the blood mixed with the sweat to make it appear to be a lot worse than it was. I believe that my brother was more frightened by the blood than I was. He apologized profusely later for almost killing me, but that still didn't stop me from whipping his ass the first chance I got. I still owed him that one.

And that's the first time I ever got stoned.

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People watching

Originally published June 19, 2004

I have a habit that drives some of my friends crazy. I enjoy watching movies with the sound turned off on the television. Without sound, I can pay better attention to body language and the physical techniques of acting. You should try it sometime, then apply what you learn to watching people in a grocery store or a Super Wal-Mart.

Everybody is an actor, every day. Some people are just better at the craft than others.

Anybody ever been subjected to morris massey? I was, years ago. I watched the tapes and read a couple of his books. I agree with a lot of what he has to say, especially the part about having all your values set by the time you're six years old and the "comfort zone" you seek to find after that. But I still believe in free will.

Why do people get tattoos and weird piercings? I've never felt the urge to decorate my body that way, even though I was a semi-professional musician for several years. A LOT of people I knew back then did, but I didn't. I've never had a permanent tattoo and I've never worn an earring, let alone a nose-stud, a cock-dangle or something that resembles a fishing lure stuck through my eyebrow.

That crap was out of my "comfort zone."

I like to watch people and try to figure out what sort of comfort zone they have. Take the 350-pound woman in the bright pink stretch pants at Wal-Mart. Watch her walk the aisles where her ass will barely fit between the rows of merchandise. Deep down inside, she knows that she's fat and a hideous sight in those day-glow stretch pants, but that's her comfort zone. She's never gonna change.

Same thing with the acne-faced kid of eighteen with the nose ring, tattoos all over and a sunken chest, which he displays in a ratty tank-top shirt with an obscene logo on it. Looking like Fido's ass is his comfort zone.

Businessmen and "executives" are just as bad. Take away the suit and tie and you take away their identity. They couldn't do business nekkid.

Think about it. If you put the coat and tie on the fat woman, put the pink stretch pants on the teenager and dress the businessmen in ratty tank tops, they'd all have heart attacks and need EMS to come rescue them. Once you change their CLOTHES, you've driven them out of their comfort zones. They'll nut-up. They'll panic. They won't know who they are anymore.

I know my comfort zone. I'll probably spend the rest of my life trying to figure out why I'm comfortable there, but I'll never change. I picked up my values a long time ago.

Everybody's comfort zone is different. That's what makes people watching so interesting.

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December 08, 2007

Frog war

Originally published June 18, 2004

I usually like the sound of crickets and frogs at night. They sing up a storm and I enjoy listening to them. But you can have too much of a good thing.

Last night, some horny damned frog perched himself somewhere around my back porch and just wouldn't shut up. "RACK! RACK! RACK-RACK-RACK-RACK!" The bastard sounded as if he were singing through a microphone into a bank of Bose PA speakers. I couldn't hear my television over his love song.

I grabbed a .22 pistol and a flashlight and went outside to dispatch his noisy ass. As soon as I opened the door, he cut off his set and took a break. I shined the flashlight all through the weeds the beautifully manicured grass in my back yard, but I couldn't find the obnoxious little shit. I decided to sit in a lawn chair and wait him out.

Mosquitoes attacked me, so I gave up on that plan. As soon as I went back inside, The Frog of Love started a new set and cranked up the volume. "RACK! RACK! RACK-RACK-RACK-RACK!" If I opened the door, he shut up. As soon as I closed the door, he started singing again.

I'm gonna find that prick today and kill him.

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Dark confessions

Originally published September 13, 2004

I am about to bare my soul to whoever reads this blog. For as far back as I can remember in my life, I have experienced sexual fantasies about wimmen I saw on TV. Some of them weren't even SUPPOSED to be sexy, but they were to me. Here are my top 10:

#1. Elizabeth Montgomery as "Samantha" on Bewitched.

#2. Amanda Blake as "Kitty" on Gunsmoke.

#3. BOTH of those chicks on "Three's Company." AT ONCE.

#4. Barbara Eden as "Genie."

#5. Patty Duke, back in her "identical cousins" days.

#6. MORTICIA ADDAMS!!! YES!!!! I ADMIT IT!!!! SHE MADE ME HOT!!!!

#7. Donna Douglas as "Ellie May" on The Beverly Hillbillies. I kissed her once.

#8. Lucille Ball. I'd be a liar if I didn't say Lucy looked like a hot-blooded redhead in her younger days. Yeah... I'll just BET that she and Ricky slept in separate beds.

#9. Miss Nancy on "Romper Room" when I was a LITTLE boy. See how rotten I am? I wanted to jump through that Magic Mirror and grab a handfull of titty when I WAS FIVE YEARS OLD!!!

#10. Emma Peel from "The Avengers." (That was Diana Riggs, right?) Any man MY age who says he never fantasized about peeling Emma is either a got-dam liar or a faggot. Ow, man---that skin-tight black leather! That ass! Those legs!!!!

Excuse me. I need to go take a shower.

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December 07, 2007

Weird mascots

Originally published September 14, 2004

I was eating a bag of Planters peanuts today and I made the mistake of really looking at Mr. Peanut on the front. WTF??? Here's a PEANUT, wearing a top hat, white gloves, a monacle and toting a walking cane. He looks FRENCH, for crying out loud. I can just hear him singing, "Zank Hebbin for Leetle Girls."

The French don't grow peanuts. Jawja farmers do, and they grow them by the ton. A more fitting mascot would be some weathered old fart on a John Deere with a straw hat on his head and his middle finger of one hand extended into the air as he grinned. "EAT ME!!!" Should be the trademark motto.

You know what else is a shitty mascot? Those got-dam dancing M&Ms. If M&Ms REALLY danced, they'd look like multi-colored cockroaches coming out of that bag and kids would run screaming from them while parents started stomping and spraying Raid all over the place. Who came up with that idea? A kid with MY kind of imagination could have nightmares over that kind of crap.

You know who else I never trusted? The Jolly Green Giant. Oh yeah--- he APPEARED benevolent and he had that booming "HO! HO! HO!" laugh, kinda like Santa Claus, but he was just too fucking BIG for that valley. If I lived there, I'd try to figure out a way to kill him before he got pissed off one day and stomped my village flat. What if Mike Tyson ever possessed the Giant's body? Would YOU feel safe in the valley?

I had a few problems with The Frito Bandito, too, but I won't elaborate on those because I'm straying into ethnic territory and I don't want to be called a racist again. I WILL admit that I suspect Ronald McDonald is gay.

Give me Tony The Tiger anytime.

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Costa Rican bands

Originally published August 24, 2004

If I end up fleeing to Costa Rica, I believe that I can make some money as a musician, probably enough to keep my boat afloat. I would have to adjust my repetoire and learn a few songs in Spanish, but I can do that.

Two things I liked about Costa Rican bands I watched play: #1) They don't use karaokie machines and other bullshit to make them sound like a ten-piece band with five-part harmony when two guys are on stage. They play straight-up, with just a couple of mics and a PA system. #2) They always seem to be enjoying themselves on stage. They flirt with the ticas and the ticas flirt back. That's MY kind of music.

That's also one of the big differences I noticed between Coata Rica and the USA. We are far too mechanical in everything we do today. Feminists and other cretins have made men afraid to speak to a woman. Wimmen are taught that any man who speaks to them is a rapist. We are FUCKED UP anymore, and I blame it all on Political Correctness.

See a good-looking tica on the street in San Jose or Jaco Beach. You don't insult her by telling her that she's pretty and you'd like to buy her a beer. You insult her if you DON'T DO THAT. Costa Rican wimmen like to look good and flirt. They expect that effort to be recognized.

Why are so many American wimmen afraid to do that anymore?

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December 06, 2007

A big, fat joint

Originally published August 24, 2004

I smoked some ganja when I was in Jamaica back in February. I hadn't tried any in a long time, but I was emotionally disturbed and in a real give-a-shit mode a few months ago. I took a few slashes off the old bong-pipe. Naw, that's not true. I sucked the GUTS out of that pipe and drank the water, too. Yeah, I inhaled.

I didn't enjoy it that much. The smoke made me stupid, sleepy and hungry. I believe that I disgusted my travel-partner with my behavior, but I didn't care at the time. I was in full self-destruct procedure. And I am GOOD at that.

I haven't done such a thing since, not even in Costa Rica where EVERYTHING is available for a price.

I wonder what ever happened to my college room-mate's old 1962 Dodge Dart? We tried to kill that car numerous times, but it had the Suffering Slant Six engine and the heart of a lion. It once spent two days under water with nothing but the roof showing. We dragged it out, changed the oil and put fresh gas in it and the sumbitch cranked right up and went chugging down the road.

It dried out and smelled like an old sweatsock, but we didn't mind. It still ran. We smoked enough reefer in that car to marinate the damned thing. That's why I wonder where it is today. You could cut out a roof panel and roll a big, fat joint out of it.

You smoke it. I don't care to.

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Red toenials vs. big boobs

Originally published September 15, 2004

James asked, so here goes. (Trust me... if you email me a good idea for a post, I'll post about it.) Next, I will be talking about boob size as related to red toenails. James said:

Next he will be taking about boob size as related to red toe nails.

Posted by James Old Guy at September 15, 2004 10:09 AM

How right you are, sir!!!

Let's lay out the ground rules before I start. For anyone who doesn't read this blog often, I am not a big-boob guy, but I SLOBBER when I see red toenails on a pretty feminine foot. I've got a FETISH, a KINK, a BEND in my orientation about red toenails on a woman. I don't think it's bad and I'm not ashamed about it. (MEN: If YOU never wanted to suck a woman's toes in your life, you're either unimaginative or gay. Period. I will brook no argument about that fact.)

Tits are very nice. Don't get me wrong about that. I like 'em just fine. But a set of basketballs just don't excite me as much as a small-breasted woman with pert nipples. That's just the way I am. Give me a fine ass, red toenails and a set of legs to die for and you can keep the tits.

But I digress...

I performed MUCH research into trying to find a link between red toenails and big boobs. Alas, I am unable to do so, so I MUST continue my research. I haven't found the ANSWER yet, but I know it's out there. I consider myself to be a pure scientist, working selflessly to make the world a better place to live.

I need volunteers for some serious lab work. Tits don't matter, but red toenails do. No males need apply.

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December 05, 2007

The post below

Originally published August 24, 2004

I once worked with a shift mechanic named Red Miller. He was a big, tobacco-chewing, grumpy old bastard who had a mouth damn near as big as the one Catfish has. He bitched all the time, but he could fix anything that was broken if you could get him off his ass and start him on a job.

He had three GORGEOUS daughters and a lot of us speculated about that fact at work. We looked at Red, looked at his daughters.... and said "NO FUCKING WAY!!!" We decided that the mailman was delivering more than bills to Red's wife while Red was at work.

A lot of people didn't like Red, but I did. He was an asshole a lot of the time, but he was genuine, 24-7. If he didn't like YOU, he said so. If he thought you were full of shit, he said so. He didn't worry much about hurting anybody's "feelings."

Red worked at the Hercules plant before he came to work for me. He got off a 3-to-11 shift one night and saw a car wreck on his way home. It was a bad one, too. Red stopped his truck and ran up to see if he could find any survivors in that tangled wreckage. He didn't.

What he found was his 17 year-old son. Dead.

I don't know what that must be like and I hope I never know. Kids are supposed to bury their parents, not the other way around. But Red lost his only son that night and he's the one who found the boy. That had to be rough.

I suppose that you can find a way to chalk up a car wreck as random fate, shit happens or a bad ticket in life's lottery. Maybe the grief is easier to bear when you don't have anyone to blame for the loss of a child. It still can't be easy, but at least you don't have to look at some grinning sumbitch in prison garb who KILLED your child.

I'm afraid that if anybody ever raped and killed my daughter, I'd go hillbilly on 'em. I would kill that bastard as sure as the sun rises in the east. I probably would be the one in jail after that, but I'd go with the satisfaction of knowing that I put an end to his antics. HE wouldn't ever get $1,200 for "hurt feelings." He wouldn't rape and kill again, either.

I see it as a very simple equation: He took something from me that can never be replaced. So, I took something from HIM that can never be replaced. His life.

I may be a red-neck, but I call that justice.

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curdle my grits

Originally published August 24, 2004

Sometimes, this world is just too ridiculous to believe. [Ed. Link goes to a list of stories about this. Think the one Rob originally linked is the fourth one down. His original link goes to the front page.] I'm sorry, folks, but I don't believe this guy should still be breathing, let alone receiving $1,200 for "hurt feelings" in prison.

His life sentence came after Jayne McLellan's battered body was found face down in a stream and MacMillan was found hiding in bushes nearby.

She had gone out with him willingly that night after MacMillan, a friend of her brothers, called her at home.

She had facial and skull fractures from being struck by a concrete post. She had been raped, cut with a knife and one of her nipples had almost been bitten off.

Stones had been put in her windpipe to stop her breathing and a concrete post was lying across the back of her head.

This guy had his feelings hurt in prison? Fuck him AND his feelings.

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December 04, 2007

Football day

Originally published September 4, 2004

I like to blog, but I like football even better. I've been watching games all day, including the 48-28 victory of my beloved Georgia Bulldogs over Georgia Southern. Southern played tough, but the score doesn't really reflect the nature of that game. Georgia emptied the bench in the second half and Southern did well against the subs. The UGA first string could have made that game ugly.

But the DAWGS look formidable to me. That freshman tailback, Danny Ware, reminds me of the good old days of Georgia football. That boy runs hard. I look for success this season.

Good ole Bob hit me with 165 spams while I was watching TV. I Blacklisted his ass again, but I have no doubt that he'll be back under a different name. What a fucking cockroach.

Young Jack came to watch football with me today. He is convinced that he's good enough to win a college scholarship. "My daddy says that they PAY YOU to play football in college," Jack announced. I tried to explain that his daddy was slightly wrong with that idea--- Jack could get free tuition, free food, a free room and free books, but college football players DON'T get paid any money, at least not under NCAA rules. He didn't like what I had to say.

But I fed Jack a few slices of fresh pineapple and he liked it as much as I do. He went away a happy boy, with 12 of Quinton's Playstation II games in a bag. I've got no use for them anymore. I haven't heard from my son in almost three weeks now. I haven't seen him in six months. That just ain't right, but that's the way it is. Jack can play those games. No sense in leaving them here to gather dust.

My upset pick of the day? Wake Forest will beat Clemson.

(UPDATE: Okay, I was wrong about my upset pick. But it was damned close.)

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The great fly ball

Originally published September 3, 2004

I was about Quinton's age and playing center field for the Rotary Club little league baseball team. We played The Optimists, and they had a hitter that I went to school with. His name was David Ring and he was as big as a house.

David could knock a baseball flat on one side when he was six years old. By the time of that game, he had four years of practice to improve his slugging skills. If he caught a pitch just right, he was gonna sail that ball a long way. We all backed up in the outfield.

We had a good pitcher. I was the #2 catcher on the team, so I knew what kind of stuff our guy had. He could throw one hell of a fastball. He could damn near put a hole in your hand when you caught him. I KNEW that fact from experience.

But he hung one in the wheelhouse for David that day. I saw the ball come off the bat and I knew that it was over my head. I took off running as fast as I could over that ragged ground of old Coke Field, just off President Street, where many a young man earned his spurs playing ball. I can still remember seeing that baseball hurling through a clear blue sky as I ran to catch it.

I reached out my glove and dived for the ball. There was no person more stunned than I was when I went rolling ass-over-tea-kettle and ended up with the ball in my glove. It was a spectacular catch. People applauded. I tried to act cool as I threw the ball back to the infield, but I hoped I didn't have to do that again.

I wasn't really THAT good, but I did it that time.

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December 03, 2007

Scars

Originally published June 2,2004

When I was young, I had very few scars on my body but I was proud of every one I did have. I called them "war wounds" and I showed them off to my friends.

I took a shower this morning and surveyed the scars I wear today. Bejus. I look as if someone cut me with a chainsaw, and those are just the OUTSIDE scars. I have a lot of others that you can't see, because they are on the inside. I'm not sporting "war wounds" anymore. I'm just wearing a worn-out body.

I remember every scar that I have and I know exactly where each one came from, but they are almost too numerous to count anymore, and I don't want to think about them in the first place. I've beat myself half to death in this life and the marks show that fact today. My scars are ugly and they testify to 52 years of hard living.

That's one reason I like giving Quinton a bath. His body is scar-free, except for one little character mark on his face from where he fell into the trampoline springs at a neighbor's house one day. Everything else about him is unblemished, unworn and pristine. I wish I still had a body like that today.

But I don't. I resemble Frankenstein's monster.

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Good question

Originally published September 5, 2004

This is one sick sumbitch, which is why I like him so much. Admit it. You've had AT LEAST one lover in your life that had a physical deformity that most people would consider to be gross, but you kinda liked.

I once knew a woman who had only four toes on her left foot. The one next to the pinky was missing. She told me that she had two brothers, one sister and a Mama with the same malady. That HAD to be genetic. But she painted all four toenails red, and that was good enough for me.

I once knew a woman with incredibly asymmetric tits. The right one was big and the left one wasn't. She couldn't explain why she was built that way and she was very uncomfortable about it. I liked it. She had a handfull on one side and a mouthful on the other. I was in hog heaven. She eventually went and had the left breast rebuilt so that it matched its partner. I still believe that she destroyed a thing of natural beauty.

I played football with a guy who has SIX TOES on one foot. I thought that was disgusting.

I once knew a woman who had no navel. I am NOT making this up. I am certain that she had an umbilical cord when she was born, but somehow the thing just grew over and she was as smooth as a paved road from breasts to pubes. Now THAT is odd.

I could go on, but I won't. I have SOME scruples.

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December 02, 2007

I'm going to bed

Originally published June 21, 2006

I hurt and I don't feel very good. [Me either, Darlin'...] But before I turn in for the night, I just want to say a few things:

* Big government is NOT a good thing. The bigger it gets, the worse and more out of touch with the "American People" it becomes. The way I see it now, the only difference between Republicans and Democrats is NOT whether they want big government or not, but what Big Government should demand that you do.

* Don't EVER wonder how Adolph Hitler did what he did. Read some leftoid blogs. Listen to leftoid politicians. That's all you need to know.

* Some wimmen are absolute, insane, constantly-on-the-rag nutballs. If you don't believe me, read some of my comments. Does the name "Tessa" ring a bell?

* Some wimmen are truly kind and wonderful. My mama was like that. So are a few others that I know. Does the name "Chablis" ring a bell?

* The older I get, the less I trust ANYBODY. What causes that?

* Not too many people think today. They react, which is totally different from thinking.

* This country is becoming totally pussified. People who want to eliminate "Risk," are going to kill us all. They'd VOTE for Adolph Hitler today if he promised them safety.

* Guns are NOT dangerous, when handled by people who know what they're doing. They are dangerous when handled by CRIMINALS.

* I dare not write about this shit* for fear of being called a racist. Truth is brutal sometimes. And if you run from it, you end up with an Adolph Hitler ruling your country.
[Ed. Article longer exists. It was a Yahoo news item entitled "weather hurricanes guard dc" whatever in the hell that meant.]

Am I crazy? I mean, I see this stuff plain as day in MY eyes. Look at 10,000 years of history. Am I all fucked up for thinking the way I do?

Maybe so. A LOT of people voted for Al Gore. They voted for John Kerry, too. Bejus. Did they really want that kind of jackass running our country? Would they vote for Hitler, too, if he promised them a chicken in every pot and a check in the mail?

I don't know and I don't care. I'm going to bed now. Y'all sleep tight and worry about global warming, or affirmative action or gun control, or free prescription drugs for dottering old farts with a million dollars in the bank.

I'll worry about the IRS taking everything I have.

Guess what? I have a lot more to worry about than YOU DO. And I have my government to thank for THAT!

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Deep thoughts on a shallow subject

Originally published June 15, 2006

I watched cartoons broadened my intellectual horizons today by pondering the socio-psychological significance of certain mythical characters who influenced American culture in strange, subliminal ways that still resonate in our lives today. Here are a few examples:

Popeye. Think about it. The guy is a DRUGGIE!!! He's got a tattoo, but no teeth. He appears to keep his head shaved. He smokes a pipe. (Uh, huh!) He lusts after a walking toothpick (hmmm... crack addict, perhaps?) named Olive Oyl and he's always getting his ass whupped in fights with a bearded bully--- until he EATS A BUNCH OF GREEN LEAVES!!!. Then, he begins to hallucinate, grows muscles that have muscles, blows steam out of his pipe with a noise like a Mississippi riverboat, and kicks the bearded bully all the way to the moon. Strawberry Fields Forever.

Wile E. Coyote. Running capitalist dog. That clever hunter spent a gadzillion dollars ordering exotic crap from the Acme Got-It-All catalogue, REALLY cool stuff, like rocket skates, giant sling-shots or big boxes of dynamite, which always blew up in his face, threw him off a cliff, or dropped a big rock on his head. All to catch a scrawny bird that weighed maybe 4.5 ounces WITH the feathers still attached.

Gimme a break! The show never tells how the coyote became so wealthy. Do ya suppose he just might be "disabled?" A "victim" of ADD? Geting a government check in the mail every month? Or was his daddy a Kennedy and he's living an expensive lifestyle with inherited money?

Face it. Wile E. could have spent a FRACTION of that money he pissed away on Acme gadgets and bought himself a vibrating Barcolounger, a big-screen HDTV and had his meals catered, delivered still steaming, right to his cave. The message here? Beats me.

Porky Pig. Okay. We have a chubby, hairless, pink-skinned, walk-with-a-mince stutterer, who always gets fucked by a duck. The only thing missing from Porky Pig cartoons is the city of San Fransisco as his home. Porky was the boar-father of every gay pride parade ever held.

Bugs Bunny. Gawd, but I love Bugs. It's too bad that his character became politically-incorrect at least 10 years ago. Bugs was bold, brash, fearless, and he could think fast on his big, thumping feet. When things seemed darkest, Bugs would crunch a carrot, ask, "Nhaaa... what's up. Doc?" kick his enemy in the balls and escape while that yaddayaddayadda noise played along with the sound of his running footsteps. Bugs is the very antithesis of the modern, metro-sexual man of today. Bugs doesn't whine. He's not "sensitive." I don't believe he's very "tolerant" of assholes, either. I'm gonna mis him when he's gone.

Tweety-Bird. That's the only critter I've ever seen in my life that makes me root for the cat to kill it. I ain't very fond of Grandma, either.

Elmer Fudd. Bejus! I think everybody in this world either worked with a doofus like Elmer, or had one for an uncle that nobody in the family wanted to be around. The worst thing about cartoon Elmer is the fact that he carried a GUN a lot. Tell ME that's not a subliminal gun-control message! I like guns, but the thought of some idjit like ELMER having one gives me the galloping fantods. Elmer should sell his gun, move to San Fransisco and develop a domestic partnership with Porky Pig.

Yosemite Sam. Heh. What's NOT to like about HIM? Except for the fact that he can't shoot for shit--- otherwise Bugs Bunny woulda been dead years ago. I like Sam's attitude. I also like his moustache. And the fact that he's bow-legged kinda warms the hardened cockles of my crusty Cracker heart. Sam is the sort I wouldn't be surprised to see in Webb's Seed & Feed Store outside Springfield, Jawja some day.

The Tasmanian Devil. Reminds me of ME when I get pissed off. Reminds me even MORE of a divorce lawyer who tornadoed my Cracker ass. In fact, ole Taz reminds me of at least ONE of my ex-wives. I think I LOVE him, but I HATE him, too. The Tazmanian Devil may seem like a savage whirling dervish, but if you really think about it, Taz is a very complex character.

That's as deep as I go for now.

Posted by Acidman @ 06:17 PM • Permalink • Comments [0] • TrackBack [0]

December 01, 2007

REORGANIZATION

Originally PUBLISHED January 19th,2006

I never thought I would say such an outlandish thing, but it's true. Sometimes, I miss working at the chemical plant. It's been more than two years now since I last passed through the hallowed portal of the Front Gate the way I did for 23 years, and I often wax nostalgic about the place. I spent a large chunk of my life there and I'll always remember it.

One thing I certainly DO NOT miss about working at the chemical plant is REORGANIZATION: The Cutting Edge Trend of the Moment striking rapture among corporate potentates and hanging the Sword of Damoclese over my head. During my last 10 years at the plant, I survived five different reoriganizations.

"Reorganzation," for those NOT on the Cutting Edge of corporate shitspeak, is a value-added process of human resources reallocation designed to capture competitive opportunities for positive outcomes based on the synergy of change agents, risk-takers and effective teams. Something a lot like this, only less scientific where I worked.

When the company announced another "Re-org," everybody walked around with asscheeks clenched and wondered how long they could live on whatever severance package offered THIS time. This period usually lasted about 90 days, plenty long enough to give employees time to think about Getting Fired. A strange combination of angst, paranoia and pure-ass FEAR spread like a flu through the place. Those were Bad Times.

They never got me in one of those head-count reductions, but I saw a lot of good people get the axe, simply to cut the workforce. Those cuts almost ALWAYS came in management positions, too, because to get rid of a union employee, they had to eliminate an entire JOB, not just one or two people. I was management, so I always got the galloping fantods just like everybody else whenever the Reaper came to make his rounds every two years. Hell--- I had a wife and children to support.

What I experienced is nothing unique. I think all corporations do the same thing today. If you work for them, that "good" job you have is subject to change and/or cancellation at any time. Nobody is secure.

I understand costs and competitiveness, but reinventing yourself every two years sounds kinda schizophrenic to me. I also realize that no employer ever guaranteed me a got-dam thing except a paycheck for work performed. They never promised to keep me until I retired. They never said that they wouldn't get rid of my ass some day. It's a business; it ain't your family, no matter what bullshit some Sunshine Pumper hits you with in teamwork meetings.

It's a jungle, where you may be killed and eaten at any time. It's a hostile environment. I'm glad I'm outta there.

But... y'know... sometimes I STILL miss working at the plant.

Posted by Acidman @ 07:45 AM • Permalink • Comments [0] • TrackBack [0]

KOSHER PIGMENT

Originally PUBLISHED August 11,2005

We made a food-grade pigment at the plant that went into a lot of foods and medicines. TiO2 is a brightening agent, so it makes cakes look more delicious, some pills easier to take and icing shine. We sold a lot of that stuff to a Jewish bakery in New York.

I am NOT making this shit up. For a while, once every year the bakery that bought a lot of our product flew a bearded rabbi to Savannah so that he could "bless" our pigment and make it Kosher. I watched the guy do it a few times, right there in the warehouse.

Times got hard later, and that's when I learned that a rabbi can declare pigment "Kosher" by telegram. Sure enough. They didn't fly the rabbi to Savannah anymore. Some kid showed up in a Western Union shirt and handed the shipping people a telegram pronouncing our pigment Kosher. We could ship it then.

It was GOOD pigment, but it was the same stuff I made every day. Calling it "Kosher" didn't make it any different from anything else we put in a bag.

Wanna bet? I'll bet YOU that you've eaten pigment I made, at least once or twice in your life. If you ever ate a cake, some M&Ms or took a white pill, you ate what I once made.

Didn't kill ya, either, did I?

Posted by Acidman @ 12:41 AM • Permalink • Comments [0] • TrackBack [0]

CRAWFISH

Originally PUBLISHED August 13,2005

I called them "crawdaddies" when I was a boy, and I never ate one. I CAUGHT a lot of them in the canals around where I lived, but that was just sport, not for food.

But--- things changed. I met some Cajun fuckers who cooked crawfish the way we do shrimp around Savannah--- in a big tub, outside, over an open fire. They dump the finished product on a table paved with old newspapers and you dig in.

Crawfish is a lot like a shrimp, only different. Unique taste and very good. And YES!!!! I suck the heads.

I can eat those things until my gut explodes

Posted by Acidman @ 12:24 AM • Permalink • Comments [0] • TrackBack [0]