March 30, 2012

This post will self-destruct in five seconds



One of the local cable stations fills its programming with old TV shows. Late at night you can catch episodes of Mission Impossible. Not the Tom Cruise cinema showpieces, but the original TV series. Back in the late Jurassic of my youth, I thought this show was the bomb. Re-viewing reveals some serious plat holes.

One thing was clear, we knew who our enemies were in the halcyon days of the late Cold War.  Each week the IM Force outwitted nefarious Eastern Bloc Commie MoFos. Today, the socialists are in the White House.

We just are not supposed to say so.

I am pretty sure, if the IM Forces were still extant, it would be out blackmailing and swindling erstwhile capitalists. I suspect Clinton used the last vestiges of the Agency to bring down ENRON. Of course, the Secretary will disavow any knowledge of the action...

March 29, 2012

Usurping the Slurpy Machine

My cubicle was larger than most, befitting my minor manager position. The cube was on the back wall of the office, next to the door that lead to the factory floor. I could see daylight if I stood and peered over the rows of cubicles and through the glass walls of the important people up front. Across the aisle was an engineer. A most cool guy.  It did not take long to learn we shared a sense of humor -- dry and sarcastic. In a word, we cracked each other up.

I have always been a guy who knows a lot of jokes. tell me one and I will remember two. Dave-the-Engineer knew even more jokes than I did. Most days we started the morning tossing punchlines over the walls. No need to tell the set-up, we both knew the joke. Passers-by would shake their head in wonder, not understanding what was funny.

Later I went through various different responsibilities and my cube location and size changed many times. Once I returned from vacation to find my cube was gone. My stuff had been moved to another location.

Later, I moved up front to a better cube right across the aisle from the glass walls. By that point I was a Corporate employee, plying my trade as a salesman while working from the plant. My cube was next to an old glass office. I was allowed to use the glass office for phone calls.  The Plant Management types understood I discussed stuff the genpop of the office did not need to be privy to. But there was no way in hell they were going to let me have a glass office. It could sit empty, but to them, I was still just the guy who used to sit in the back.  I was not one of them.

March 28, 2012

Heartbreak Ridge: a movie review

Is it just me, or does this blog suck more than ever these days?

I have no idea why anyone stops by.

Here is this week's picture from my desk calendar.

If you do not find this hilarious, I don't what to say.

sorry about the shitty scan

March 27, 2012

A short treatise on American Exceptionalism

Tuna salad on really fresh Wonder bread. Carrot sticks. Nine (9) potato chips. Diet Dr. Pepper.

How about you?

I am a gifter



Now it is stuck in your head too.

March 26, 2012

The Obama Presidency in Pictures


Sartre was a douche

The Muses are laughing at me. All seven, especially Clio, that bitch.

I could spin a tawdry tale of misspent youth. I could regale you with life on the road. I could opine upon the politics of the day. Perhaps I could jiggle your chuckle meter with a joke or anecdote.

Perhaps I will write a post telling you what I am not going to do instead.

March 23, 2012

Unsavory people

How did that happen?  There were no spam comments in the blog spam folder this morning. I suspect that means I will get slammed over the weekend.

I have multiple email accounts. I imagine I am not alone.  I have a couple associated with this and my other blogs. I have a work email account. I have two email accounts at home. One for family and friends, one for giving out to businesses and other people.

Since only about a dozen people have the primary account address, it rarely gets junk mail, except when the wife forgets and gives it out. The secondary account gets a little more junk mail and spam.  Lately that account has been slammed with spam.  I am getting 30 or 40 junk emails every day. Usually two of each one. I have spent hours doing the "unsubscribe" thing, and marking the unwanted messages as spam, but it does little good. I sometimes think the spammers collect the email addresses in the unsubscribe folder and sell them as possible contacts to other marketers. If I can think of it, others have too!

Speaking of despicable human beings, you will not believe the story I caught on the local news. A few weeks ago tornadoes trashed some towns in Southern Indiana. It seems a worthless prick of a human being was posing as a Homeland Security officer and purloined a bunch of the donated supplies for himself. Sickening. I should not be surprised, some asswipes were stealing copper pipe the very evening of the tornadoes.

Make no mistake, man is a predator, and did not arrive at the top of the food chain by accident.

March 22, 2012

I'll take "Eric Holder's full of shit" for $500, Alex...

Is there anyone who really thinks asking for identification prior to voting is a burden on anyone?  Is there an honest person who truly thinks such a requirement is discriminatory?

One has to offer identification to drive, cash a check, gain employment, collect unemployment, get food stamps, or open a bank account.

Schools give picture IDs. Many employers require photo IDs, the State will give you a FREE picture ID. Besides a nun in a convent, or perhaps an Amish farmer in the most rural area of Hooterville County, or the Uni-Bomber types living in shacks in the Montana hinterlands, who really is burdened by the requirement to provide identification prior to voting?

Are we really expected to believe the homeless guy living in a box under the overpass has two objectives in life -- scoring some Mad Dog 20/20 and voting?


Democrats and the Ship of State....


March 21, 2012

Blah Blah Blah

I have the bestest readers on the interwebz.  Thanks to all for their kind wishes.

The fine weather continues. I can live with it. It looks like real late March weather is coming -- rain, cooler temps, wind.

Still coughing.  Perhaps I need to visit the doctor. Maybe tomorrow.

What a shock -- the killer of the Jewish kids in France appears to be a Muslim.

Religion of Peace my ass.  Wake up America World. We are in a religious war.

March 20, 2012

The Big Hawaii

Today is my Birthday. The big Hawaii, as in 5-0.

I was born via caesarian birth on the first day of spring. I have a tiny scar on my left shoulder blade to prove it. Today, such a scalpel slip would pay for my kid's college funds.  In 1962, my parents were glad I was alive. Stuff happened.

 I was born a poor white boy. My parents were LMC, but  I grew up rich in other ways.  In fact, I never felt deprived as a child. The house overflowed with love and if Mom gave me the stern "No" at the cereal or toy aisle, then that was just how it was. I ate peanut butter or bologna an drank Kool Aid with lots of sugar and turned out fine.

I did the normal stuff a kid did in the 1960's and 1970's.  Many of those tales I have related here. I was no wilder than most of my friends. In those days we weren't so concerned with self-esteem and nobody blamed the world if life treated you like a turd sandwich.  You got in fistfights in the morning and went bike riding with the other guy in the afternoon. Mom wasn't worried if you were gone all day because if you misbehaved the neighbor's Mom would beat your ass in her stead.

I coasted through Little League, through Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts and school. I went to college, married a fine women and raised three great kids. Life is good.


I have made fifty trips around the sun.  In my mind, I am at life's half way mark, Reality math says otherwise. I don't ponder the situation much.  Every day is a new day.


Since the weather is so fine, I think I am going to pull out my very best cigar from my humidor, the Ashton Cabinet that has aged the better part of a decade, and burn it in good spirits for lunch. Later, I might have some cake, and I suspect the family will gift me some stuff and some cards.  If not, I can live with that too.

I am mellow. I have fifty good reasons to be so.

"But Joe", you ask "What can we do for you?"  Comments, bunches and bunches of comments would be nice.

See how easy I am to get along with these days?

March 19, 2012

Head scratchers.

Lots of companies get tax breaks. Big Oil does. So does GE and Big Auto. The tax breaks given to the failed alternative energy companies are huge.

I am not going to argue the validity of tax breaks for corporations.

I do know this. President Obama has argued that the best way to reduce prices at the pump is to remove the tax breaks in place for Big Oil. In what universe does increasing costs on a supplier reduce the price to the consumer? Ponder the position. Obama actually believes (or expects you to believe) that oil prices will go down if Big Oil's costs go up! Seriously?

Obama says increasing the supply of oil will not reduce the price, but reducing demand will. Stay with me here liberals -- reducing demand means the supply will increase! At this point all we arguing about is the methods. Obama does not want you to drive a car, to use oil; he is just sneaky about his position.  Oh, he has stated his objections to energy use, but he is trying to hide it from the average ignorant part-time news watcher.

Liberals and progressives want you to think they are smarter than you and I.  This is not about common sense, it is about power and control.

This place is going to the birds

Not this place, this place , as in the homestead. While doing some yard work yesterday, I noticed stupid robins have tried to build a nest on the brick ledge where an angle of the hose comes together. I tore it down. They can nest in the trees, but on the house is going too far.

Part of my deck is fenced in with a privacy fence.  As I went out to throw some chicken breasts on the grill, I noticed another nest was built on the top of the fence, in the corner where the fence meets the house. I picked up the nest intact and heaved it into the flower bed by the Big Grasses.

Yes, go ahead and call the EPA, the Sierra, Club, the green-enviros of your choice.  I trashed two nests in one day. Robin sucked in the batman comics and I do not want his namesake nesting on or around my house. Birds shit and make a mess and are unhealthy. A few years ago a pair of doves tried to build a nest in the gutters, and the subsequent flood made a real mess.

I took the opportunity to trash both rebuilding efforts again this morning. I will continue to harass the birds until they move on. In the meantime, I have sprinkled poison on the nesting sites and will be off to WalMart later today to get some mothballs to aid in my efforts.

update 11:18 AM...I just walked through the living room and glanced out the windows.  there I spied a damn dove head peeking above the gutter! yes, a dove has built a nest in the gutter.  I chased her away and tore out the nest.  In my experience, doves a re dumber than rocks, and once they get an idea in the head the yare persistent. This war with the birds is going to be a long battle...

March 18, 2012

Our Sunday Chat

I have had this lingering cold and nagging cough for more than a week now. I tried to sleep in my bed last night, but lying horizontal brought a hacking fit, so it was back to the recliner to try and sleep. This marks night eight. I have not slept in my own bed.

I think I am going to have to break down and go to the doctor Monday. I do not feel really bad, jut a persistent hacking cough.  Now it appears I have passed the cold to my wife. I think this is one part of my life she was not the least bit interested in sharing.

The spate of nice weather has left the daffodils and other spring flowers in rapid bloom around these parts.  Some of the flowering trees in the neighborhood are in bloom. I guess I am going to have to do some yard work as the weeds are already spreading in the flower beds. I have to cut down the big grasses , too. Many around the subdivision were mowing yesterday to even up the lawn after fall and winter. I avoided the temptation despite the raggedy condition of the yard. maybe today? I fully expect Mother Nature to bring back a dose of cold reality over the next month or so. I would not mind being wrong about that though.

It is early Sunday. The sun is on the rise and it looks to be a good day. I hope you have a great one.

March 16, 2012

Spring!

Spring. Warm temperatures. Flowers in bloom.  And the girls shed the sweatshirts, the coats, the layers.  Belly buttons are back in view..





This is for you Big Dick, wherever you are.  I miss your Fatty Fridays...

Tristate Tollway Traveloque

I spent a good portion of the week in the Windy City area. The weather was wonderful. Traveling I-65 between Gary and Lafayette in Indiana was the adventure in frustration it always is. Traffic engineers and politicians can view first hand the idiocy of having one half the vehicles on a highway travel at a slower speed than the other half. Semi-tractors travel at 65 mph, while cars travel at a speed limit of 70 mph.  In reality, the difference is closer to 15 mph between the trucks and cars and anytime a truck moves to the left lane, traffic can back up for miles in a hurry. 

Since I was (and am) still hacking a lung on a regular basis, I found myself at the Target near my hotel Wednesday afternoon. The weather was perfect and I was shopping for cough medicine. I guess Robitussin is a controlled substance in Illinois, I had to present my ID to the high school kid manning the scanner/register. Since he was underage, the clerk/associate/team member/whatever had to get a manager to approve the purchase. As we waited, the clerk attempted conversation. I felt like warmed over turds, but I tried to be nice.

Clerk: You from Indiana, huh?
Moi: Huh?  Yep.
Clerk: I was in Indiana once (like it was some exotic far-flung destination, not just a very short car ride away).
Moi: Yeah (not really caring), What part?
Clerk: I don't know, but it seemed like a nice place.
Moi:  Hmm.
Clerk: (wistfully)Yeah, I visited Indiana once...

I once spent a wild weekend in Paris, France. I guess if you are teen from Naperville, Illinois, the Hoosier State must hold the same allure.

March 15, 2012

Best of bad blogging Volume IV

Here is another post from 2005. It speaks for itself:


July 28, 2005


Ode to my baby girl.

My daughter will leave for college in a few weeks. I am terrified. Not for the reasons you might think. She is smart, fun and driven. She knows what she wants and will make sure she gets there. She has worked three jobs this summer to make money; she knows things will be tight paying for college. She has applied for every scholarship imaginable. I know I have taught her right from wrong. If she does not now know the difference there is not much hope. She will party and have a good time. She will also remember why she is there – to learn.

I am terrified because I know my daughter will be leaving forever. She will come home for breaks and holidays. She will spend her summers in her familiar yellow painted bedroom. However, she will be gone. After college, she will move out and be on her own working, eventually falling in love, gaining a new family in time. Never again will she look at my home in the same light, it will be a stopping point, a place to sleep, a rest stop on life’s highway. I am terrified for me, how will I get along when she is gone?

We have not always agreed. I get pretty mad at her, probably a lot less than her aggravation at me. We are so much alike, it is scary. We laugh at the same things. We are both pig headed. Both are convinced of our inherent righteousness in every matter. The biggest difference is she is beautiful and good.

I remember the day my wife found out she was pregnant. We skipped the needle on my favorite John Cougar album, jumping for joy. I remember the night she was born. I came home from the hospital, elated, exhausted, and sobered by the enormous responsibility now placed on my shoulders. I had never even held a baby prior to that night!

I remember the nights driving her in the car, mile upon mile down the country roads through the cornfields. This was the only way to get her to sleep. Have you ever smelt corn growing in the field? That scent still reminds me of my baby girl, crying in her car seat as she drifted off to her sweet dreams.

I remember the afternoons I picked her up from the babysitter. We went to the park to swing endlessly; she could never get enough. She then would sleep on my shoulder in the old recliner until my wife came home from work. My little girl’s love of spicy foods was foretold the time she ate my chili as a toddler. She ate bowl after bowl, tears streaming down her cheeks. The chili was over spiced, the result of too much beer while cooking. She loved it.

My heart was ripped apart in her early teen years, when girls can be so mean to each other. I had no way to help her. Soon new friends came along. I watched her grow into a beautiful young woman in high school: class president, scholar, and friend to all. I am sorry I rode her too hard for her grades. I did not tell her enough that I love her.

Now she is leaving for education, adventure and excitement. In a small way, I envy her: too soon will she find the burdens of bills and work, and life. I hope she has fun, stays safe, and thinks sometimes about her Daddy. I will be thinking of her.

March 14, 2012

Through the looking glass

Only the political left can spend more than the year before, but not as much as they  wanted to spend, and call it a budget cut.

Only the left can try to force a business to add coverage to their employer-provided benefits and when the business complains, accuse said business of trying to take something away.

That is the current "contraception" kerfuffle in a nutshell. The Obamaites decreed that all PRIVATE businesses should now provide coverage for contraceptive pills/devices in their insurance plans. Except the Catholic Church has some severe religious issues with that notion. Remember the famed wall between Church and State?  Isn't that also a wall between State and Church? Now, somehow, protecting the religious freedom of private citizens has become a so-called "war on women".

Some on the Left would have you believe the business and Churches and "Righties" in general want to take away your access to birth control pills. This is like advocating 3+3=11. No one is advocating there should be no access to contraception.  The argument is whether the Government can force a private business to pay for certain benefits.

 Note the term is benefit -- an extra, like vacation or paid holidays. An incentive to get you to work at that business. Should the Feds dictate mandatory vacation days? Heck, I negotiated my vacation time when I came to work at my current employer.  I did not want to start over at one week. Should the Government determine how much vacation we get? Why should the Feds tell us what insurance we are offered? Hey, my last employer had much better life insurance, it is not fair!

This is all about moving to a single-payer, national health system. When the real cost of this "free" coverage mandated by the State kicks in, then there will be a hue and cry to nationalize the whole system.

Just remember all you Progressives out there -- as I heard a commenter say on the radio -- when the State provides contraception, it is only a step from them forcing you to take them. 

March 13, 2012

people watching

I find it ironic to watch drivers circle the parking lot looking for a close space to park at the Gym.

In a country state of mind today



March 12, 2012

Shortstop in the oats

I am sick. It is a good thing I had some posts canned and ready for this weekend.

I am pretty sure most normal human beings, if they felt as poorly as I, would be in their local hospital under the care of Doctor House, or more accurately, his real-life medical counterpart. I suspect many of you would be on your knees praying to your various gods for succor.

OK, really I have a cold accompanied by a bone jarring cough. I have slept -- if you call it sleep -- in the recliner the past two nights. I think I shall survive. That is my plan anyway.

Outraged against Rush?



Where are you Liberal, progressive women? I cannot hear your outrage, I have not read your angry blog posts.

chirpity chirp

You don't mean to tell me your outrage is just political posturing? Surely not?

Give back the money, Obama.

March 11, 2012

Turd Corn, the best of bad blogging Volume III

Here is a post from April of 2005:

April 16, 2005


Changes

My Grandma was born in 1909. That is 95 years ago for you fellow history majors.

When she was born, she had no electricity or telephone. There was no radio or television. People sent telegrams by Morse code if they wanted to communicate over long distances.

In her rural Indiana life a car was a rare sight indeed. Airplanes?, why the Wright brothers just flew a few years before. He father plowed their meager farm with a horse. She saw the childhood diseases that claimed her sister and her friends eradicated.

In her life my grandma saw not only the marvels I listed above, but two world wars. The rise and fall of communist Russia. Men going to space and the moon. She walked the Earth with Teddy Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan. She saw computers and talking pictures and cars going more than 200 MPH at Indy. She saw airplanes and jets change the way we traveled and opened up the world.

Her Grandfather fought in the Civil War. Her husband fought in WWII. Her Great Grandchildren were alive to see terrorist scum attack our nation on September 11.

My grandmother saw technological and societal changes and upheavals never before seen in the history of man.

What a life she led. What a time she lived.

My Grandma died today. I already miss her.

Say a prayer for her tonight.

March 9, 2012

The Government in Action

You may remember a few weeks ago I recounted how we messed up the boy's taxes. You can read it here.

All worked as expected.  The bank rejected the automatic deposit, the State and Feds got the money back and issued a check.  The State got him his money in about a week.  The Feds were a little slower, but his check arrived this past Monday.  That would be on March 5.

Today, he gets an official looking letter from the IRS. I opened it, expecting an audit or who knows what..  It was a letter telling him that his funds deposit was rejected and that the IRS would be sending him a check in three or four weeks.. Today is MARCH 9, 2012. Let me repeat -- he received the check on MARCH 5.

Even better, the notice is dated March 12, 2012. Today is MARCH 9.

I cannot wait until these people take over Health Care,




More than a great athlete



And then this one, you have to click the link, there is no embedding allowed:

link

That is one of the funniest skits on SNL in decades.

March 8, 2012

Livin' Large

I jumped on Indiana Highway 19 just a mile or two shy of the Michigan border. I rode its macadam southward. The sky was sunny, the outside temperatures were cool and inside my black metal and plastic cocoon it was comfortable. It was a good day for driving.

The highway struck south toward the heart of the state like a crooked arrow.  A few rises and dips marked the way. Like most state highways and roads in farm country, the pavement was narrow and patched and took random right angles to connect villages and towns and  to avoid farms and creeks and ponds, following the paths of old wagon roads.

I drove through Elkhart, the late morning traffic was light. Onward through Waukarusa, where a funny story happened once to me during a job interview.  I passed some Amish in their wagons and buggies near Nappanee. An Amish lady on a bike reminded me of Elmira Gultch. I laughed and hummed a doot da doot da doo doo as she disappeared in my mirror.

Talk radio kept me company as I cruised through the small towns dotting the flat farmland of North Central Indiana. I spent mile after mile alone on the road, no cars to be seen in any direction for five, ten minutes at a time. I came eventually to Peru, former winter home of the Ringling Brothers Circus and Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. Coming out of Swayzee I picked up highway 13 and angled to the southeast  I drove on through Elwood, and later past the Boy Scout camp where I spent a few summers. . Onward toward home, my ass cheeks tiring.

Soon I came to another highway, 32 by number. I skirted Anderson on old 9. Stopping for fuel in Pendleton, both for the car and my belly. back in the car I drove southward on 9 towards home.

On the trip I reveled in the feel of the small towns and cities that marked my path. The farms and fields familiar and strange at the same time. The architecture of the homes of Etna Green and Mentone were just like what we would see in Mulberry or Morristown or Lapel. The homes shared the  unique look of the houses and homes you find throughout the upper midwest, the majority with covered porches.   If you have driven the backroads and highways through the Old Northwest Territory, you know what I am talking about.

The rivers -- small by some standards -- flow beneath the bridges.  The river names a musical reminder of the state's Indian heritage -- Wabash, Mississiniwa, Tippecanoe. Some I cross more than once on my journey southward.

I could have taken the four lane road or the interstate. I could have shaved an hour from my journey.  Instead, I wandered the heart of the Hoosier state. Alone with my thoughts, enjoying life on a sunny afternoon. I don't make a lot of money, but spending a day in this manner is wealth untold.

Some days it is good to be me.

March 7, 2012

It is only a game

I know, sports is just entertainment. Players come and players go. But this is a sad day in Indiana sports history.

This is worse than class basketball. This is far sadder than Reggie's retirement.

It sucks.

update.  Tonight, Jim Irsay, owner of the Indianapolis Colts is going to go to bed, look up at the darkened ceiling and utter these words "I just cut Peyton Manning WTF was I thinking".

update 2:  Tonight, Peyton Manning is going to grab a beer from the fridge, look at his wife and mutter " I just got cut from the Indianapolis Colts.  WTF?"

More Turd Corn, the "best" of bad blogging

This is a true tale first published in October of 2009. If anything, I have underplayed the incident. I destroyed that restroom, You could smell the stink in the whole restaurant. The rental stunk too. I suspect it was destined to become a "Seinfeld" car. This rerun retrospective post is for Mr. B

Yesterday I found myself winging my way to Northern Wisconsin. I scored a very cheap flight and I was not up to the 8 plus hour one-way drive. Remember, I have been sick -- it will be important later.


I arrived about 20 minutes early to my appointment and was sitting in the car checking messages etc. Suddenly, I felt that familiar twisting cramping rumble deep in my guts. I tried to deny it, the traveler's worst nightmare.*, **


I discussed my business with my customer, as my bowels twisted and gripped and squeezed like an anaconda in my intestines. Luckily, the fates kept the machinations silent. They would make me pay for this small gift later.


I made from the customer and to the rental car. I was in pain and needed to find a restroom stat. I had had some bouts of diarrhea during my illness last week, but nothing like this.


I drove couple blocks to a Dairy Queen I had seen coming into town. I ducked in the back door and into the one-holer designated "MEN". As I flipped on the light and locked the door, I was it by a coughing fit (remember I have just recovered from pneumonia?). It is difficult to concentrate on squeezing your ass cheeks together when you upper body is wracked with coughs. The sphincter is a tricky SOB, and just when my attention wandered for a mere second, it acted like its name sake; an asshole.


You cannot eat soup with a fork and the sphincter was not designed to hold liquids either. As I stumbled toward the toilet, my bowels erupted in a hot fecal explosion of Mt. St. Helens proportions. My pants were half off and I hovered over the seat as a brown rain of turd lava rained down.


I opened my eyes to a scene of devastation. There was shit all over the toilet, all over the seat, all over the floor, all in my tighty whities and on my pants and up my back. I settled onto the seat, crabs and germs be damned, as another explosion rocked the Dairy Queen men's room.


I shrugged out of my shoes, and tried to pull the filled underwear out of the pants without spilling more of the ass soup on my Dockers. I began the long tedious cleaning of the Dairy Queen men's room, myself and my clothing. The tightie whities now brownies I buried in the trash. I used wet towels and most of the available ass wipe to clean the floor, bowl and seat. I got my self cleaned too. The pants had a spot about four inches around on the upper backside, that I could cover with my shirt tail. Somehow the front of my shirt tail was splattered with liquid shit the color of Georgia clay. I washed shirt tail and pants  as well as possible in the sink.


I used much of the soap and shrugged back into my coat and headed back to the rental. The town  I was in consisted of a factory, some houses and the ill-fated dairy Queen, so I drove to the nearest city searching for a place to get some clothing. The wet pants were uncomfortable on my bare ass.


I went into a Kohls in Manitowoc and grabbed some jeans, underwear and a cheap T-shirt. I felt as if all the shoppers were staring, my shit-stained shirt tail tucked in the front, the back part left out to cover my backside. I changed in the car and headed into the store once again as my guts began to rumble once more. Had I driven, I could have just checked into a hotel. I considered it anyway.


After I stunk up the Kohls men's room with a smaller crapfest, I packed my dirty clothing into the Kohl's sack, wrapping everything well. Luckily I had not brought my laptop, so I could put the sack into my briefcase. I said a silent prayer that the TSA assholes would choose today to search my bag.


I made it home around 10:30 without further incident. I took a quick shower and threw my clothing into the washer.


Let me use this opportunity to apologize to the fine employees of the city redacted Dairy Queen.




* Except maybe waking up minus one kidney in a hotel bathtub filled with ice.


** Or discovering the hot chick you picked up in the bar at the Airport Holiday Inn in Portland is really a Dude. Not that that has happened to me, but I hear things.


If there is something you read here before and want me to dedicate a rerun in your honor let me know in the comments.

March 6, 2012

Third Baseman in the Wheat



The Doobie Brothers was (were?) the first real, big-time band I ever saw live in concert. I saw them at old Market Square Arena in Indianapolis sometime in the mid to late 1970's. I have seen them a couple of times since. Like many 1970's bands the Doobie Brothers went all ballady/jazzy for a period and it ruined them, just like a similar path did in Styx, REO and Journey. I suppose they thought abandoning their rock roots was the way to overcome the vileness of the punk movement. Besides it sold records. Still, compare this gem to the sickening What a Fool Believes.

What was your first concert?

March 5, 2012

If you are not part of the problem, we have a final solution...

Why yes, here we have more examples of the Party of Tolerance. The people who wanted "civility" in the wake of the Gabby Giffords shooting, the enlightened ones.

Is it no wonder it is the lefties who have racked the highest scores in the destroy their fellow man pinball game? Former Pinball Wizards like Mao, Hitler, Pol Pot, Che, Trotsky, Castro, Lenin, and Stalin all played for the lefty team. Sorry to say, the Gulags and Killing Fields and the ovens of Buchenwald were the genius of the progressive mind. Wasn't it Obama's friend Bill Ayres that claimed we needed re-education camps in America?

This is the written version of the self-same hatred we saw etched upon the faces of the crowd shouting down the little African-American girl as she headed to class in Little Rock in 1957. Oh, for the historically challenged,  it was Democrats who were for segregation. Democrats wrote the Jim Crow laws.

Diana Wagman opines in the LA Times she would not even allow herself to borrow a up of sugar or a few eggs from her Republican neighbors.
 Next time I drive to our cabin, I'm going to make sure I take everything I could possibly need. I don't want to ask my neighbors for help. I hope it's their weekend to stay home.
 Why this attitude? These neighbors have the unmitigated gall to be Tea-Party Republicans. The horror!

 For the record, here is a list of accomplishments of the evil Republican Party:


Ended slavery, established the first National Parks, busted the big trusts, desegregated the schools, passed the Civil Rights Act, created the EPA, and ended the Vietnam War and Cold War.

Democrat Presidents were in office when we entered WWI, WWII, Korea, and Vietnam. Truman was also in charge at the beginning of the "Cold War".

Somehow, evil despicable Republicans should be vilified despite a record of environmentalism, civil rights and ending wars? Alice, reality called.  They want their looking glass returned.

h/t RobertaX  who says it so much better




March 4, 2012

Centerfielder in the Corn

There has been lots of talk and ink and electronic words scattered about the political landscape regarding contraception. Here is Joe's basic rule of thumb:

If you cannot afford a lambskin/rubber/condom/raincoat/love sock/willie warmer/johnny bag/pudding cup or the monthly script for The Pill (or gas/bus fare to get to Planned Parenthood since they claim that to be their mission) you probably should not be making the beast with two backs.

If you don't have the greenbacks to prevent pregnancy, you sure has hell cannot afford to have a baby. Kids are a lifetime commitment and they are expensive.

If you are poor and cannot control your sexual urges, I suggest you 'handle' the problem.

March 3, 2012

Kernels of Corn in the Turd, best of the blog.

This one is for you CnC

I wrote this one back in September of 2011: Sometimes my imagination runs wild:

I sometimes compose the wit and wisdom of this piece o'crap site while doing other activities.  I am very good at multitasking. I had a long political post writing itself in my cranium while I was mowing the yard yesterday.


Picture a bunch of monkeys sitting at cheap desks deep in my cranium pounding away at old Underwood typewriters. There is probably a bunch of whiteout in use. Not all of it is sniffed. A couple of the typewriting primates are smoking cigars. Another is drinking beer.  One is just hitting keys at random. One little spastic rhesus monkey is in charge of research, but he can never seem to keep focus on the task at hand. One old monkey wearing a Cubs hat seems to function as a pseudo-editor. His ADHD keeps him distracted. That is how my posts are written.


So, back to the post my monkeys and I were working on yesterday. I have scrapped it in my mind along with the treatise on the French Foreign Legion, a long dissertation on the Cold War and a discussion of the Julio-Claudian women. I decided I did not want to spend a Sunday morning ranting about liberal dipshits like Al Sharpton or Morgan Freeman. Their hypocrisy and idiocy is apparent for all to see -- if you choose.


This decision is not too popular. The monkeys are screaming and throwing shit balls around my corpus callosum in a fit of rage right now. They want me to really expose old Morgan Freeman for the ignorant motherfucker he truly is. I am not going there. The Great Apes are in a rage. They yell that instead of wasting their talents on political rants while I pushed the mower, they could have been composing intricate sexual fantasies involving nurses costumes and thigh-high fishnet stockings with garter belts. The tufted capuchin is shrieking about how we should have focused on the mowing yesterday instead of progressive idiocy and I might not have cut down that orange chrysanthemum..


Things are turning ugly.

Let me know if you have a favorite old post you want me to republish. 


March 2, 2012

A private public post for you

You can't quit. Your birthday is coming up.

You can't quit. You bring a slice of beauty to the imperfect world. You give us sunny even when we know you are surrounded by gloomy clouds. No one ever accused me of being the king chief of the optimistics, but you have overcome so much.  Each day is a victory, 'cause you are still alive and fighting and finding truth and beauty with your poetry and art. 

You can't quit. I am selfish, I want you to entertain me. Where else can I experiment with really bad attempts at Haiku and get naught but encouragement?  Besides, when I close shop on this piece o' crap in a few weeks or months or years, I want it to seem like my own Idea, not like I am copying off you. As we all know, it is all about moi? Right?  RIGHT?

I will buy into the notion you are bored. Perhaps you have writer's block. Take a break. Watch some flowers grow. Walk the beach. Live. Breath. Write.  In no time you will be ready again.

Or ignore my semi-lucid ramblings. Do what feels right. Consider this an interwebz ovation, a hearty, standing acknowledgement of well done. Whether you come back for an encore is up to you.

Either way, I treasure the memories and offer thanks for making me ponder.


Lighten Up Francis

How about a little music for a Friday morning to mellow out from a long week.  As a bonus we will take a break from the usual classic rock you find around here.



Beauty and loads of talent too.  Sorry about the ads, there ain't no free lunch.

March 1, 2012

My decreasing level of tolerance

Why is it when a person on the conservative side of the aisle proposes legislation the press and progressives et. al claim "They are trying to force their will/values/morals on me". Yet when the left proposes legislation that in turn is contrary to my will/values/morals I am being unreasonable?
Consider everything here that is of original content copyrighted as of March 2005
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