Chocked full of lemony goodness

I'm fairly certain I am not home on the range, 'cause the skies look to be cloudy all day. In fact, it is supposed to rain on and off much of the coming week. Right now there is a heavy overcast.

The wife made lemon cupcakes with cream cheese frosting yesterday. Lemon cupcakes certainly help make one's day better.

I saw where a fight in the stands spread to the field at a NE Ohio football game. The game had to be cancelled. Stay classy Cleveland.

I watched the movie Good Will Hunting for the first time yesterday. That is a great flick. Since the movie came out in 1997, I suspect you may have seen it and are not waiting on my less-than-timely review.

I have some tomatoes that should be ready for picking today. I think I'll go look before it starts raining.

See how I brought everything a full circle.  I am pretty certain it is that kind of clever stuff that keeps all fifteen of you riveted to these pages and not the cry baby stuff of yesterday's post.

I am just whining, skip this post

Sigh

I am a complainer. I know it. I don't want to be.

I am subject to rapid mood swings. Lately they have been more on the downswing than otherwise.

Combine the above statements and you understand my lack of posting lately. No one wants to hear about my troubles (real and perceived). 

Right now I am about as low as I have been in a very long time. I buoy myself with the certain knowledge things can (and likely will) get worse. I do indeed have plenty to be thankful for (bad grammar notwithstanding). 

For a good while we were flooded with happiness around the old homestead. It seems God has installed the sump pump of despair to fix that situation.

Don't worry, tomorrow will bring back happy Joe.

Friday Music

One of my favorite scenes from one of my favorite movies.

Yeah, I like romantic comedies.  Sue me.

Here is a bonus scene if you have never seen the movie:



classic.

Fluff and stuff

Content has been lacking around here as of late. That won't change today.  To quote the wildly popular novels and mini-series, "winter is coming".  Get out and enjoy the summer.

Summer at last!

We hit 90 degrees yesterday for the first time in almost a year. The humidity was about 95%. It was hot, miserable, and the way it should be in August.  I mowed the yard in the heat of the day.  The AT&T guy did not come until almost noon and I had to work yesterday evening, so that was when I could do the yard work.  The wife trimmed some bushes and then decided she wanted a couple Of other shrubs dug up, so I saluted and set to work. My T-shirt was so soaked with sweat it felt like I jumped in a swimming pool. You could have wrung water from it. Surprisingly, the wife declined to give me a hug for my efforts.

Waiting

I'm sitting here waiting on the AT&T guy to show up this morning.  The wife waited all afternoon Friday and they never showed. They were supposed to come between noon and four.  At 3:45 she got a text that it could be another two hours. When the wife complained, AT&T r said the tech would "be there anytime".  When the wife asked was it "two hours" or "anytime" the AT&T chick said "Well, anytime up to two hours".

We will see if they bother this morning.  I had the same problem when they did not show up for installation last year. The only bright spot is they are still marginally better than Comcast in the customer service department.  If you can get out of the phone loop and talk to a real person.

That is a big "if".

Mobilize

One hundred years ago this month marks the beginning of WWI, The Great War, The War to End All Wars.  WWI is often lost in American history in part by our late arrival to the action, and in part because it is overshadowed by WWII.

The human and physical devastation of The Great War had a lasting effect on the European psyche that lasts to this day.  Not only was the First World War the direct causation of the Second (in Europe), but a significant cause of the Great Depression.  Too bad that fact is not taught in American history where we think bank runs and Okies and bread lines were a pure American phenomena of the 1930's.  The world was wracked in an economic slump, not just here in the good old USA.

Back to my point. There is an old military maxim that armies plan their tactics to win the last war.  The opening days and weeks of 1914 saw what happens when nineteenth century tactics met twentieth century killing machines.  Chew on this with your Raisin Bran this morning: in the first three months of  the war there were over one million military casualties. No one can even guess the civilian toll as battle lines were formed from The Netherlands to Switzerland and across the Eastern Front with Russia and through the Balkans. Ponder that a moment -- one million men.

Take some time to do a little reading on the forgotten war. The ramifications of the events of 1914-1918 last to this day in the boundaries, the economies, the politics of the modern world.  Everything changed in August of 1914.



*one good place to start is Barbara Tuchman's "The Guns of August"

How to turn $100 into $1,000,000 in days

How about a little Friday Music instead?

Here is a version from the 2007 Guitar Festival with Eric Clapton:



Oh, OK.  Go buy $100 in lottery tix.  I did not claim it was a wise investment, but you can turn a hundred bucks into a million if you are lucky.

You may have heard about it

A cop shot an unarmed young man outside of a convenience store. Allegedly, there is a video.  The police say it will be released, but it could take "days, weeks, or months".

There have been protests and riots. You know the story.

No you don't.  There have been no protests, no riots. The cop was black, the victim was white. Read it here..

I know folks from Indy and all over the nation have made their way to Missouri. Who is on their way to Utah?

Hello?

 Is this thing on?

Hello?


h/t Mr. B

Wants and needs

Down in the Carolina's, near the hotel where I often stayed, was this little burger joint. I always ordered a hamburger topped with pimento cheese and a fried green tomato.

I wish I had one now. Yes I know it is 7:00 in the morning.

Query

Other than his own chip shot, is there anything in the world that is better since Obama took office?

Hmm, he claimed he would end global warming and there isn't any. There's that.

Admission

I may have to renounce my English Lit minor from college, but Walden is dreck. Just because it is loved and shoved by the back-to-nature hippies and college profs does not make it good reading.

Moby Dick is just unreadable.  The same goes for just about anything from Hawthorne.

Now I see

Eric Holder and the Justice Department can allocate resources and investigate a police shooting in Missouri. They will not investigate the IRS.  They will investigate a local crime, where the Feds have no jurisdiction, but ignore the shooting of a federal officer by Mexican drug lords who used guns provided by the Justice Department. Holder will investigate Treyvon Martin but not the Black Panthers violation of voting laws.

In Obamaland justice may be blind, but it sure isn't color blind.

A black kid shot a white cop a few weeks ago in Indy.  where is the FBI?  Maybe it is because no one "protested" by burning down the neighborhood.

In the mood

This is a pictorial representation of my mood today. I believe no further words are necessary.

Friday Music

How about those baggy clothes?  Who thought that was a good look? $1.49 for gas!

It has been a cruel summer around here.

recess!

What do you think of this?

The cynical black helicopter paranoid in me says this is just one more example of the social engineering of the sort Dewey imagined for the education system. Build the herd mentality, develop the notion where we are all the same, everyone does the same thing. THEY know best. THEY will tell you what to eat, when to play, what to play, where to work, what you will be paid. In other words, 1984 writ large. This policy squashes individualism, prepares young minds for group think.

I suspect the same mindset that envisions this is a good policy are also dead set against keeping score in the mandatory games, less someone think they win or lose. They forget that the competitive kids, even at 6 years old, know who wins, who loses, who is good at the sport and who is not. There are some non-athletic kids who struggle to make it through PE class in elementary school once a week. Imagine their reaction to organized sports every single day.

I think the education experts forget that these are kids. They need time to depressurize. There is nothing wrong with walking around the playground, looking at clouds. Imaginations are fostered in youth. Forcing everyone to do the same thing every minute of every day is the antithesis of imagination.  As Einstein quipped:

“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”

Heck, this might be a good idea. I was wrong once before.

Random Ramblings Involving Rabbits and Wet Spots and the Best Pizza I Ever Ate

For some unknown reason I woke up a little after five this morning.

That is a lie.

I know why I woke up a little after five this morning. It was get up or pee in the bed. Peeing in the bed would certainly tick off the wife. More importantly, its not my turn to sleep in the wet spot.

That is a lie.

Sort of anyway. There is no chart or revolving agreement regarding any possible wet spots.

Maybe I should just start over?

I woke up a little after five this morning and I was not able to get back to sleep. Now I am sitting at the old laptop, swilling coffee and yawning. Just typing about a yawn makes me yawn. Now you want to yawn. Weird how that works, isn't it?

Collin Cowherd is an ass. An ignorant douche bag of magnificent proportions. On Monday he proclaimed the whole Kevin Ward Jr. accident involving Tony Stewart was a result of "Southern Culture". Ward hails from New York. Stewart is from Indiana. New York is north of Canada. No one has ever confused anyone from New York as remotely Southern.  A random German stopped on the streets of Schweinfurt could tell you that. Ask anyone in the south, Hoosiers are Yankees. Not damn Yankees (the ones who come south and won't leave), but northerners nonetheless. 

I am at a loss to explain how a Sprint Car accident between two northerners embodies everything that is wrong about NASCAR and the South in general. Does the ignorant jerk Cowherd even understand that Sprint Cars are not stock cars? Cowherd, like many in the Northeast,  thinks everyone who speaks with a drawl lives down on Tobacco Road. As my man Bugs says -- "What a maroon".

I have eaten some really good pizza.

I think that about covers it.

Jimmy cracked corn

I suspect I have a serious character defect. Long time readers are pursing their lips and mumbling "just one?". Anyway, I just can't seem to summon vast amounts of tearful grief over people I don't even know.

"Robin Williams died today" says the wife.

"I heard that. What's for supper?" says I. Is it sad?, I guess.  Am I losing sleep or shedding precious tears? Not really.  Crazy Muslims beheading kids bothers me more.  I have never really understood celebrity adulation.  I was stunned to see a random woman standing at Elvis' grave at Graceland sobbing hysterically nearly a decade after the King died with his arms around a toilet. Princess Di --didn't know her.  Lauren Bacall - that sucks.  Old guy down the street who waved at me when I took a walk? Too bad. What was his name anyway? I'm sorry but for me they are but random squirrels crushed under a Goodyear down on Washington Street. I do feel bad, but I'm just not emotionally involved. Like I said, it is a character defect.

I have never cared for autographs.  I can't think of a single actor or entertainer that moved me to the point of hysteria. I saw where folks are leaving flowers and teddy bears on the steps of the home used as the set for Mrs. Doubtfire.  It was a movie people.

I guess I am missing the celebrity-worshiping gene.  I don't read People or watch TMZ.  If that is your thing, then good for you.  I am not judging. I just don't get it.

Modern Fairy Tales

I dare anyone to call me out with the lie about how Islam is the Religion of Peace. Raping and beheading little girls, decapitating small boys because they believe in a different Deity* is not the act of a good person, a purveyor of peaceful intentions. It is a sick cowardly, evil way of life. It deserves the loudest condemnation of every civilized human. Where are the representatives of the Nation of Islam, crying out that these are not true followers of the religion? Where are the Imams, and the everyday acolytes, preaching out and speaking out from the Mosques in disgust and outrage?

I bet if Christians were committing the foul deeds we see every day in Iraq and throughout much of the Muslim world, the airwaves would be filled with frantic hysterical stories. But since this is what the followers of Mohamed do, then it is not news, just another day under Sharia Law. It is the daily embodiment of the old journalism school adage -- it is not a story when a dog bites a man...




*not really, just a different version.  The actions prove the Muslim butchers are no more than ignorant goat fuckers.

Peace in our time

Hey, remember when The Obama was so wonderful he got a Nobel Peace Prize just for saying he would make the world a better place?

I would venture the state of the world is far worse than in the waning days of Bush's presidency and the full effect of our cut and run policy withdrawal from Afghanistan has yet to come to fruition.

Obama may not have improved our foreign policy, but his golf swing looks better every day.

Facts are so inconvenient

2011

“After taking office, I announced a new strategy that would end our combat mission in Iraq and remove all of our troops by the end of 2011,” he said. “So today, I can report that, as promised, the rest of our troops in Iraq will come home by the end of the year.” source

 2014

 “This issue keeps on coming up as if this was my decision,” Obama retorted when asked if he had any second thoughts, in light of the terrorist force taking over regions of Iraq, about having pulled all American troops out of the country. source

I am certain, somehow, Bush is at fault.

via HotAir

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,,no, no, no, no, no, no

There seems to be a growing movements to draft the big loser from the last election to run as the Republican nominee in 2016.  If anyone suggests such a foolish notion as nominating Romney within reach of my Adidas, I will kick the suggestor directly in the crotch with all of the firmness and strength I can muster.

A sneaky non-post post

Maybe you noticed.  Probably you did not. I have not posted much this week. Usually when I don't put something on the old blog for a few days I have about thirty-eleven posts written in my head and ready to go. Not this time.  I've got nuthin'

Oh, I could tell you it is cloudy and it might rain. I could bore you to tears about my plans to mow the yard later. We could discuss this strange impulse to scratch my right elbow. No one wants to read any of that shit. Well guess what? The joke is on you because i just wrote about all of it. And you read it.

Friday Music

One of the bands I always wanted to see live.  Their Live at the Filmore East LP is a classic.

It is not you, it is me

I'm ass-deep in alligators. Your patience is appreciated.

Tales from bygone days.

Richie was the red-headed kid who lived down the street. he was feisty and arrogant and was born not with a chip on his shoulder, but rather a chunk of granite. He slipped from his mother's womb mad at the world and his anger on increased during each of his years.

Richie liked to hide in the ally and hurl insults at the older kids as they came home from school. Soon the insults became oaths and one day he graduated to throwing eggs, then snowballs, and finally he used rocks to gain attention.

The older kids ignored his feeble taunts. They even overlooked the handfuls of gravel. But as Richie got older and stronger his aim improved and the day he hit Jerry with a walnut sized rock changed everything. The older boys turned in rapid pursuit and beat the crap out of little Richie.

The neighborhood mothers were aghast. How could those older boys bully little Richie like that? When Jerry pointed to the cut on his head and the blood on his face, he was accused of over-reacting.

The next week Richie was back, throwing rocks at the older boys. They chose a new. longer path home, but Richie found a new spot to make his attacks. Once again the older boys caught Richie and this time they beat him mercilessly. Jerry and his friends emphasized they just wanted to be left in peace. The neighborhood called the boys bullies for their rough treatment of poor little Richie. The boys protested they had walked out of their way to avoid confrontation, neighborhood wags said just walking where they had no "right" provoked Richie into his attack.

Richie blamed Jerry for the rest of his life for the beatings he received.  Never once, did the rock-throwing that precipitated the events enter into his narrative. Richie Hamas grew up to be a very bitter man, blaming everyone else for his problems.

Things I know #11

Everyone has problems.  Even though my issues are weighing me down like cement overshoes soled in lead, I know I have plenty to be thankful for.

On the other hand, if I eliminated complaining as a source of blog posts, my entries would pretty much disappear.

Texting the texture of the text

I wish I had something interesting and exciting to share with you.  My life is boring beyond belief.  I do not live in the fast lane, rather I cruise along like a stately '72 Buick driven by a retired accountant. 

Here is a recap of my Saturday. I woke around 6:30.  Drank a couple of cups of coffee and watched an old movie while surfing the interwebs. Turned off the movie 'cause it was boring and started another.  Paused it while I ate some cereal. After the movie I read until it was time for lunch. Not even 24 hours has passed and I cannot remember what I ate. I helped the wife clean house. I dusted and ran the sweeper. She cleaned the bathrooms and mopped the floors (most of the downstairs is wood).  I fixed a BBQ ranch chicken salad for supper. After cleaning the mess, I retired to the patio where I smoked a stogie and read until dark. 

Don't get me wrong, it was a good Saturday. But not the stuff of novels or movies or even exciting blog fodder. I suppose, if you even read this far, you would agree.   Perhaps I should have followed my first instinct and posted a music video.

I do believe in Global Warming, I do believe in Global Warming

July of 2014 was the coolest July in Indianapolis history. When I write "coolest" I don't mean as in "hip", I mean as in weather, as in there is no man-made global warming, and hasn't been warming for a decade "coolest".

To my knowledge, we have not hit 90F yet this summer. I can say with certainty we have not even been close to 100F.

I will entertain counterpoint arguments in the comments.

Things that make me smile

What?  Are you trying to tell me you don't need a reason to smile? Its Friday!