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 |  My second blog. What you get are pieces of me; my humor, my memories: be welcome. |
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MY BOOK! http://www.lulu.com/davidmac73 This picture was in the header of my first blog and I wanted to bring it back. Me and my sweetie on our wedding day....it is my favorite picture. ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** This is my second Blog on WDC. The first Blog, Random Thoughts, is finished and done and I loved almost every minute I spent doing it. This blog will be somewhat different than the first because I want to use this space for my humor and my memories. The humor may sometimes fall flat and the memories may, at times be boring, but isn't that the way it is with life. Please join me here and partake in these pieces of me and if sometimes you find the jokes unfunny or the memories dull, then please come back another day and maybe you will find something to your liking. After all, like my daddy always said: "Some days you get the bear, some days the bear gets you." Thank you, vivacious   for this neat new logo for my blog! Yup, this about says it all, I think!** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** I thought that Independence Day was the appropriate day to put this great new siggy in my blog....Thank you sultry ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** Please check out Scarlett's Newsletter for Bloggers: The Blogville News
** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** Thank you, Startiara  for this lovely Siggy!! ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| I have had many and varied jobs in my years near the bottom of the food chain. Some of them have been boring and tedious while others have, shall we say, had their moments. Some of the more interesting jobs I have held in my life was: Fishing guide, RC Cola route driver, Zoo keeper, and bodyguard. Today I would like to tell you about one of those “interesting” jobs; that of a fishing guide. The year was 1970 and I was fresh out of Uncle Sam’s Service and had just moved back to Livingston, Texas. In my absence, Lake Livingston had been completed and had begun to fill up. 184,000 acres of water and, when I came home, there were only two fishing guides on the lake...my father was one of them. The influx of rich folks from Houston who wanted to catch a bass was amazing and dad had more business than he could handle so he asked me to join him and take some of his overflow business. Well, hell that was great with me, where else could I get paid for doing what I would be doing for free otherwise. When the lake was built it covered up a whole bunch of smaller lakes in the river bottom and because dad and I had spent our lives fishing those other lakes, we knew how to find them once the big lake took them over and that is where the big bass were found. They would stick pretty close to the original lake beds which were now a part of the larger body of water. Anyway, I stayed booked up with clients pretty much six days a week back then and for the princely sum of $50.00 a day....TO FISH!!! Yeah, I know, fifty dollars a day, six days a week, $300.00 dollars don’t sound like much does it. Well consider that at the time dad got me into the guiding gig I was making $1.50 an hour working 60 hrs a week and no overtime.....do the math. At the time I was married with a kid on the way and a wife that didn’t work (not unusual back then). Let’s just say that being a guide meant that I was: “shitting in high cotton and wiping my arse on the top leaves” as my ole daddy use to say. The hardest thing about that job was putting up with spoiled, rich assholes who thought their fifty dollars bought YOU not just a fishing trip. Not all of them were like that, to be honest, some of them were good people but I had just enough bad ones to make it all seem more like work than play at times. The purpose of telling you all this is so that I can now tell you about the absolutely strangest, funniest guide party I ever had to take out on the lake. There were two or three Marinas on the lake which booked fishing parties for me. The customer would go them and request a guide then the owner would give me a call and if I was not already booked I would agree to take that customer out for the day. So it was no surprise to me when I received a call very early one spring morning from a certain Marina owner who said he had a group who wanted to go crappie fishing. Normally back then I only took out bass fishermen, we were kind of snobby that way; if it wasn’t a black bass it wasn’t worth fishing for. I told the owner as much and let him know that I really wasn’t interested in taking a bunch of “cane-pole totters” out to catch perch....I WAS A DAMN GUIDE, AFTER ALL!! Well he insisted and he told me not to bother with my boat, they had one of their own and they wanted me to use their boat. It was a damned pontoon barge and there were six of them who wanted to go fishing! My boat held three people....me and two clients....like God intended it to be. Now they wanted me to run a damn slow moving pontoon boat loaded with six damn perch fishermen and their cans of worms? You have no idea how insulted I was that this owner even considered that I might stoop so low as to do something like that. I made myself quite clear....NO! Then he laid two more facts on me: 1. They were willing to pay double the going rate plus a generous tip if the trip was a good one. 2. They would supply any and all liquor which I may need...free 3. They were all women who wanted a big, strong man to captain their boat! “Tell them I’ll be there in twenty minutes....meet me at the dock.” What can I say; pride is one thing, but a boat load of women with money and booze is a whole nother affair! Well sure enough, I made it to the Marina in record time and hurried down to the dock. The first thing I saw was this big ole boxy shaped Pontoon barge floating next to the pier, a dinky little twenty-five horse motor sitting at the stern of the beast. As I got closer I also see the women who had already boarded their vessel and were waiting on me. There were six women alright and the youngest among the bunch had to be sixty-five years old. It was wall-to-wall “blue hair” all over that damned boat. The Marina owner rushed out about then and made the introductions as the “ladies” gathered around me. He could tell I was not a happy camper and he hurriedly introduced us to each other then begged off and fled the scene; not wanting to wait for me to say anything we both might regret. Well I can tell you one thing, those women had more on their mind than fishing. They were giving me the once over like I was some damn prize bull in the auction ring. Now call me old fashioned but I believe that shaking hands upon meeting someone is good enough; a full body hug and a kiss on the cheek (only cause I turned my head real fast) was not needed. BUT THAT’S WHAT I GOT FROM ALL OF EM! Well I loaded their butts onto the boat and we sailed out of the Marina, the barge chugging along like a sick cow, wallowing through the calm water. On the way to the first fishing hole I was bombarded with questions by all the women, who seemed to have started to begun hitting the bottle even before we left shore. “Is this the first time you ever took girls fishing?” “Girls?” “Well, women then, (giggling from all six). Is this your first time?” (more giggling) “Yeah...my first....be gentle.” This was met with gales of raucous laughter and a slap on my butt by the oldest one of the group. I think she was the sixty year old’s mother. “Do you work out?” “No.” “The Marina owner said you were a soldier, we Loooooove big strong soldier-boys! (more giggling). Well it went like that until we made our first stop at a likely looking spot for crappie then I had to bait all their hooks and get their lines set out. They settled back in their chairs, fixed themselves stiff highballs and promptly got snockered! In two hours time everyone of them was drunker than Cooter Brown; singing ribald songs with questionable lyrics, dropping their poles in the water and calling for me to rescue them, and making lewd comments about my butt every time I had to bend over the side of the boat to retrieve those floating poles. Finally the leader of this lecherous bunch of females demanded that I take them to a place she had heard about. It was called Pine Island and it was out in the middle of the lake, on the big water. Now those pontoon barges were not really made for traveling over the big water on a lake that size, at least this one wasn’t and I told them so. They insisted. They demanded that I take them to Pine Island since they were paying the bill. Fine. I slammed the boat into gear and off we went, headed out to the big water and Pine Island. On the way there I asked one lady what the big deal was about Pine Island, as far as I knew it was not a place to go to catch crappie. Well she gave me this mischievous little grin and said she had been told the place had a great sandy beach and some shallow water, just right for skinny-dipping! I swear I almost jumped overboard right then, but I didn’t. I stayed in the boat and grimly made way for Pine Island, wondering if I was gonna survive this trip without killing something. I guess the good lord was looking out for his wayward boy, because we were almost to the island when this dark cloud blew up over the lake. It was spring after all, and the lake was subject to quick moving and violent storms that time of year. I breathed a great sigh of relief and pointed to the onrushing storm clouds. “Sorry ladies, but looks like we are gonna have to beat it back to the Marina before that storm catches us.” Amid boo’s, cat-calls, and loud complaining, I wrenched the wheel of the barge around and headed, gleefully back the way we had come. Half way back off the big water, the storm struck with it’s full fury and suddenly I was fighting a gusting wind, eight foot swells and a driving rain. The old pontoon barge would climb slowly up the side of a giant swell then fall down in the trough so deeply that half the boat would go under, bow-first with the engine sticking out of the water....only to pop back upright and struggle over the next swell. I thanked God many times that day for those buoyant pontoons which kept us from actually sinking. All I had to do was keep us from capsizing. As we made our way slowly over the storm lashed waters of the lake, all six ladies stood in a tight group all around me. They said they were frightened by the storm, but I had my doubts after having to turn loose of the wheel with one hand to slap at some wondering fingers! We finally made it to protected waters and the storm passed leaving us all soaking wet and looking like drowned rats...in their case, drowned geriatric rats. As we neared the Marina one of the ladies made one last effort to restart the party. “You are all wet, why don’t you take that shirt off?” GAWD! I kept the shirt on and ran the pontoon boat into the first docking space I came to. I tied the boat off and told the ladies they could settle up with the Marina owner, I was going home to get dried off. I came back to the marina the next day and to my surprise the ladies had left me the full $100.00 for the day plus another hundred dollar bill for a tip! I kind of have a suspicion though, that they knew exactly what they were doing...it’s called PAYBACK! You see they just went on and on to the Marina owner about what a wonderful guide I was and how strong and manly and stuff and how good I looked without a shirt. They generally made some innuendo's about what MIGHT have happened on that outing, without just coming right out and say it. As you can imagine, I had the almost impossible task of making the Marina owner, my dad, and all our fishing buddies believe that absolutely nothing happened. Yup those ladies made my life miserable that whole summer because those guys never let up about me and my boat load of horny women who just LOOOOOOVED me! |
| Off topic: I just want to let everyone know that my last blog entry was a JOKE! I am a great lover of the Pun and all things Punastic (is that a word?) so I could not resist the chance to not only slap a good Pun joke on you, but at the same time to yank the chain of my buddy, Carolina Blue . Thanks Ken, for being a good sport about it and if any of you have any doubts....Ken is the man when it comes to REAL history and I'm just a rank amatur. ****************************************** It is not often that a person, any person, gets the opportunity to make someone's dream come true, especally if you are a member of the working poor like your's truely. Well a week or so ago I got that chance and I can not tell you what a wonderful feeling it is. The fact that it was the dream of someone I love with all my heart just made it that much better. I guess a little "Backstory" is in order here so that you might better understand what has transpired. You see Melinda, my sweet lady, use to be in the horse training business. When she was a young lass, in her twenties and early thirties, Mel trained Morgan horses and Standard breed horses for show as well as for racing...you know, those races with the little buggies zipping around the track. Now both the racing and the Show scene was pretty high class as for as the owners go and when Mel did this in California she met and trained horses for a lot of very rich folks and show business types. She can drop names with the best of them when urged to do so. I know she has met both William Shatner and Charleston Heston just to name two. Well as so often happens with many of us, life got in the way and after a divorce and after moving back to Michigan to help care for her mom and dad, Mel was forced to leave her beloved horses and the training of them far behind. The thing is, like us and our writing; the love of training and working horses never left her but she had to follow a different path with her life. The thing is the fact that she still yearned to train and own champion stock was very evident to me. She sets here at this computer every day and visits different websites online to look at horses and study their bloodline. She belongs to a few different communities online that are dedicated to rasing and showing horses. Now even though she would spend a part of each day looking and dreaming, she would never let herself seriously consider getting back into the game. That costs money we don't have and will never have and she knew this. You can easily pay 8 to 10 thousand dollars for a good brood mare with a championship bloodline and that is not the kind of disposable income we can even dream of having. Well it seems that she has been trading emails with a gentleman and his wife who own a horse ranch in Kansas, they raise purebred Morgans, and Mel was trying to sell one of their horses for them. She thought her sister might want it. It turns out that her sister could not invest the money at the time so the sell fell through. In the meantime the man found out that his wife had contracted breast cancer and when Mel told him that her sister would not be buying the horse he had a different proposition for her. He told Mel that since his wife was so sick he needed to cut back on his herd so since he knew how much Mel loved horses, if she could pay to have this mare shipped down to Texas, he would GIVE Mel the horse! Now here is where my chance to make a dream come true comes into play. As most of you know, through my blog, I have been suffering computer woes and I was planning, last week, to go down and buy a brand new computer with all the bells and whistles. Well after Mel told me about this man's offer and then told me how there was no way we could afford to have the horse shipped all the way down here (roughly the same cost as said computer) I told her to call him back and tell him we have a deal! I will gladly limp along on this old computer or no computer at all if it means she is finally going to be able to get back to a life she has yearned for, for over twenty years. I wish you all could have seen the look on her face when I told her to go ahead and get that horse. The light of joy in her eyes and the spring in her step was priceless. I am so very blessed to have been able to do this for my love. God gave me the opportunity to make her happy and it is the most wonderful feeling I have experienced in many years. So there you have it.....next week or so we will be the proud owners of a regestered Morgan mare named "Time Will Tell" and what is great is knowing that when I see Mel put her arms around that horse's neck for the first time, I will see her heart complete and happy, and like the commercial says: "PRICELESS". Yup, like I have said before in this blog....I am such a lucky man. |
| Last week, in a comment to Carolina Blue 's blog, I issued a challenge to him. As many of you probably know, Ken is a pretty fair writer of all things history; in fact you might say Ken is all about the history. Well me being me, I decided to issue a challenge to Ken, albiet a friendly one, just to see how good he was with his history. As I told him in the comment, this challenge was to see if he was able to run with the big dogs or have to stay on the porch. The challenge was this: "If you can, please tell me who invented the wristwatch and when it was invented. PLease feel free to either respond with your answer in your own blog or via email to me directly." Well I was not disappointed, Ken replied via email to me within a few days with his answer. It was a well researched and well presented dissertation upon the history of the wristwatch. Unfortunately for Ken, it was completely wrong! Here is his answer to my question. I am reproducing it from the email with Ken's premission..... David, I checked multiple sources on this wristwatch question; surprisingly, I got several answers. The most common answer was Patek Phillipe, in the 1890's. That firm still makes some of the highest-priced wristwatches on the market. The next most-common answer was Louis Cartier, either by himself or in partnership with Hans Wilsdorf. Cartier, of course, is no slouch either in the pricey watch market. The final answer was Swiss watchmakers Jacquet-Droz and Leschet. I await the decision of Da Judge! Ken Well under any other circumstances I would give Ken an "A" for effort, after all you can see that he did his research. But, alas, this is the big time and if Ken wants to run with us big dog-history types, he's gonna have to do better than that!  Here now is the true and real answer to who invented the wristwatch and when....read, Ken and be amazed! The wristwatch has its roots deep in the shrouded mists of ancient history. The first recorded wristwatch was developed and used by Alexander the Great. Early in his career, Alexander discovered a blend of herbs which, when mixed together and mashed into a paste, could be applied to strips of cloth. The herb mixture would then cause the cloth to change colors as the sun struck it from different angles in the sky. He had each of his generals wear one of these treated, rags tied around their wrist and this way they were able to co-ordinate the troop movements of the different commands. For instance, if Alexander wanted his general of calvery to attack the flanks of the enemy at a specific hour, he would give that commander the color to look for and when the general's rag band turned that color, he knew it was time for the attack. This new instrument was first used in the battle of Issus, in 333 b.c. and helped Alexander to defeat the army of Persia under the command of King Darius. **************************************************** So there you have it Ken, the answer to the challenge. It's okay that you were not aware of this little known historic fact; after all only us Big Dog Historians have heard of this ancient device. Oh, I can hear you groaning and whining now. I guess you want to know the name of this ancient invention so you can do your own research....well okay, since you are a buddy, I will share it with you. Have you never heard of ALEXANDER'S RAGTIME BAND????   !!! |
| Off Subject: I had planned on making a different entry today but I have to wait until I get the Okay from Carolina Blue to use the contents of an email he sent me on his research into a certain history challenge. If and when I recieve that, I will of course make the planned blog entry. *************************************************** I would like to take this opportunity today to thank everyone who responded to my blog the other day and rated and reviewed my new short story, "Invalid Item"  . Thanks to all of you, this story is now about a hundred times better than it was when first posted.Now I did the story and posted it on Thursday. I then blogged about the story and asked for reviews. The next day I decided to use WDC's Plug Page and Request Review Page to further gain help in polishing the story. Today is Saturday and I have noticed something kind of amazing to me. I found that plugging my story in my blog brought signifiantly more attention to it than either of those offical WDC pages. As a direct result of posting it in my blog I recieved 37 views and 10 QUALITY reviews of the story. On the other hand, after using both the Plug page and the Request Review page, I have recieved only ONE review from that source. This has caused me to rethink the usefullness of these pages. It has also made me appreciate the circle of like-minded writers I have found through my Blog. I have also seen the light as to how best to use WDC. Now correct me if I am wrong, but I was under the impression that this site was for serious writers who want to improve their skills and want to, at some point be published. Well if that is the case, then I submit that the best way to do that is to find yourself a group within this vast site who are willing to help you, then always ask them to review your work and you do the same for those folks. I find that this works much better than simply throwing your item up on some page and hoping someone will come along and decide to read your stuff. Yes, this is a vast site, with almost a half a million members and it may surprise you to know that many of those members are here more for the social interaction than for any serious goal of writing. I have seen comments made in other blogs about "hanging out with friends in scroll", or "Boy did we ever have fun in Chat." The thing is...that's fine if that's all you want out of the site, but there are some here who want more than that. We want to hone our skills and some, like me, seriously need their skills honed if they ever hope to be published. So what you have to do is figure out what you really want out of the site then gravitate to like minded folks who want the same things. "Oh, is he talking about a CLIQUE?" Well if that's what you want to call it...then yes, call it whatever you want...just find the place you are most comfortable with within the confines of the site. Maybe what I am talking about is lowering your expectations....do not automatically believe that everyone in here wants the same things you want, that will drive you crazy. CASE COLORS Now when I first came to this site and began to look it over, one of the first things I noticed was that different members had different color cases. Well at first I made the assumption that to have a yellow case or a blue case, meant that those members were further along the evolutionary writing ladder than I was with my little black case. These must be folks who had honed their talent to such a degree that they had gained some kind of site-wide recognition for those skills. After two years here I have discovered that nothing could be further from the truth. On a daily basis I discover black cases who can write rings around me and my little yellow case. By the same token, I also discover Blue cases who couldn't write their way out of a paper bag, with the top open! Now of course there are exceptions to that rule. There is a cadre of Blue cases in here who are massively talented in both writing and reviewing and some of them have been a big help to me in my own writing. But, do not make the mistake of just assuming that the color of the case means anything at all when it comes to the level of writing skill. Now I say all of this so that those of you who have not already made this discovery for yourself, will not just automatically think that just because a member's case is different in color from your own, then they must be a better writer. No. Not at all. You have to feret out those for yourself and then pick their brain to help your own writing. They are out there and they are willing to help a serious writer. In fact, if you will email me I will send you the names of some really good black, yellow, and blue cases whose writing skills and reviewing skills just shine through. Sorry, I tend to ramble sometimes. What I am trying to tell each of you is to decide what you want out of WDC and then take steps to see that you get what you need. You see, WDC is, in the final analysis, a business. It was started by a couple of very smart kids who saw a niche that needed filling and they filled it. There are hundreds of such sites on the internet and I have seen a bunch of them, but as these sites go, this one is head and shoulders above the rest. The trick is to find in it what you need and use it, then ignore the rest. Trust me, doing this would save all of us a lot of angst, not to mention the upset of heightened blood pressure and the resultant whining and snotting when discover that not everything here is how we would want it to be. This is why I have my group of like-minded, serious writers, writers who I always run to when I need help with a story and never depend on the Plug page or the Review page for my help. Thank you, my friends for the help....you are why I am here and why I am a better writer today than I was two years ago when I stumbled in here. |
| The title of this blog entry was inspired by the simple fact that I could not come up with a damn title...okay? Do me a favor and fill in the blank and title the entry for me. Yeah, so I'm lazy..sue me. I better not say that too loud, I am sure there is someone out there just looking for someone to sue; it's the great American pasttime now. For some it is the only financial planning they can make. Hey, is it just me or is Rachael Ray getting just a bit chubby? I mean, it's only natural since she likes to sample all that good food she cooks and besides..what's wrong with a girl on TV looking like a natural, real, woman, with a few well defined curves? She is still the cutiest thing on the airwaves even if she has put on a few pounds. I just want to pinch those cute little cheeks everytime I watch the show....well...pinch something...yeah, cheeks, that's the ticket! While I'm sitting here polluting the internet, I got a pet peeve to share with you...not a rant, mind you, nothing that serious; just something that makes me grit my teeth and growl just a bit. Here's the deal....Something that really ticks me off are the editors of SOME of the newsletters here at WDC who use that particular forum to tout their own work. I HATE THAT! I mean, if you are going to do a newsletter, why not go the extra mile and put out the little extra effort to actually hunt up OTHER WRITERS and their stories to highlight? Now don't come in sniviling about how hard it is and how you just don't have the time. I know what kind of work is involved in a newsletter...hell, the first ten issues of The Blogville News was WEEKLY and I did every one of them....so yeah, I know it's a lot of work. I also know that I NEVER used the newsletter to highlight or promote my own stories either. So, just suck it up suzie and do the right thing next week! Now before therer is a general uproar and outcry...I did NOT mean all of you editors are guilty of this...just some of the lazy ones or the more self-absorbed ones. Oh, oh, another pet peeve: Have you ever dropped an email to one of the higher-ups (red or purple cases) about a problem and instead of a personal answer, you get back a goofy form letter telling you to take your problem to so-and-such forum to seek an answer? I mean, would it have cost them anything to actually send us a personal email with their own personal opinion or suggestions to help us....again...lazy. And finally, I leave you with proof positive that not all the idiots live in L.A., New York, or Chicago. Yesterday, in Houston, this idiot's pet cockatoo escapes it's cage and flies outside. The dang bird lands up in the top of a pine tree and won't come down so the owner promptly climbs up the tree to "rescue" his bird. Well what does the bird do? He promptly flies to the top of an even HIGHER tree. Of course the bone-headed owner goes from smaller tree over to the larger one and continues upward to reach his bird. End result: Man has to be rescued by a Coast Guard Helicopter from the top of a seventy foot pine tree! What an Idiot! Hello? The damn bird had wings, he could fly, how did this goofball think he was going to rescue the damn bird? The only reason for this fiasco has to be that the man was a recent newcomer to the city...probably moved from Chicago. |
| Damn, I just noticed a hair growing out of the wart on my chin. Does this mean I will never be asked to compete on Dances with the Stars? Of course I am just kidding; actually I thought I would change the blog up a bit and try writing more “stream of thought” sort of thing. Yeah, well that work’s until the damn stream runs dry. But really, how many of you out there have ever fantasized about being on that show? I know I have and I dream of being a contestant every time I watch it. Come on, guys, you know you have wondered what it would be like to be dancing cheek-to-cheek with one of those scantily clad beauties haven’t you. I mean how could you not fantasize every time one of those ladies starts shaking that thing and making the little fringe on those tiny costumes shake like a Pentecostal preacher talking in tongues! Yeah, well like I said...I dream but then mean old reality always sets in and the voice of reason intervenes and reminds me that it would do no good for me to ever actually make it on that show. The first time I grabbed one of those cuties the wrong way Mel would rip off my privates and beat me to death with them...ah, but a guy can dream can’t he. On a brighter note, I am so very relieved to know that Al Gore is at the forefront of the battle to clean up our planet. Of course he is going to save us all. Have you ever wondered where he finds the time to do all this wonderful stuff? I mean, it wasn’t that long ago he invented the internet....his words, not mine. Speaking of saving the planet, have you noticed that all the Hollywood elite are “Going Green” as they say now. Yes, that’s right, the media even has a catchy new phrase ready for the new crusade: “Going Green”. Brad and Angelina, Clooney and DeCrprio are gonna save the world from Global Warming! Of course the East Coast loonies are joining their Left Coast cousins in the great struggle. I have to ask...ARE ANY OF YOU GUYS GONNA GIVE UP YOUR DAMN PRIVATE JETS AND LUXURY SUV’S TO HELP OUT THE OLD OZONE? The damn Earth has been cooling and warming on a fairly regular schedule for eons now and it will continue to do it whether we help or not. Yeah, yeah, I know....WE POLLUTE! Hell, it’s what we do, we leave waste. Animals crap, people burn fossil fuel...get over it. You want to know what will set everything right with the world? You want to know what will stop all the pollution and give us back “The Green”? All we have to do is get rid of about 25 to 30% of the people on the earth today, go back to the horse and carriage and tell the Arabs to take their oil and stuff it where the sun don’t shine. PRESTO! The Earth will revert back to a “Greener” state. All you gotta do is “De-louse” the planet. Okay, everyone who wants to volunteer to be part of that 25 or 30%, please stand over there....AWAY from me. See how easy that was? Okay, yeah, I see a problem....how do we chose who is in the “eliminated” group who will be sacrificed in order to take some pressure off the poor planet? Well gee, Do we really need third world countries? I mean, isn’t two enough, do we HAVE to have a third world? Well I will give you some time to talk it over among yourselves and decide who has to go. While you are discussing that, I will move onto a different topic. Immigration: Are we ever going to do something about illegal Immigrants? OF COURSE WE ARE NOT GOING TO DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT! Why on earth would we stop the massive flow of illegals from Mexico? If we did that then we would have no one to feel superior to, not to mention, we might have to mow our own lawns...gawd, give me a break. Not only that, but the Democrats NEED them. Illegal immigrants form the bulk of a whole new class of people for the Democrats to pass Social programs for and if they can’t pass those programs, they can’t build giant bureaucracies to oversee those programs. I mean it would make it almost impossible for them to pass out the pork if that happened! Ohhhhhh, this has felt so damn good! Is there someone I forgot to offend? Oh wait, I know....the other day I saw a woman who weighed over three hundred pounds and she was wearing short-shorts and one of those damn thin tee-shirts they call “wife beaters”! I swear I damn near lost my lunch. This woman had the gall to insist that she was not fat; she RETAINED fluid! Like I told her: “Yeah, and the Hoover Dam retains fluid too....just not that much! Well children...that about does it for this “Flow of thought” blog. I just typed what came into my head without censoring it first....this makes me laugh. If you were not amused well I’m sorry about that. Hell we can’t be deadly serious our whole life can we? "Bisexuality immediately doubles your chances for a date on Saturday night." ----Rodney Dangerfield |
| A really funny thing happened to me today when I sat down here and opened up my blog to add an entry. It suddenly dawned on me that after 500 entries in the first blog, and 183 entries on this current blog.....I had nothing to say. Everytime I tried to come up with a topic, I realized I had written on that before. Three times I tried to come up with something original and each time the light in my pea brain flashed a neon sign: BEEN THERE, DONE THAT! Well that just sucks. Let me rephrase that...it sucks for me, you on the other hand are pretty lucky, you don't have to read any rehashed gobbly-gook. So instead of boring you with my words I am going to leave you with a joke for today. I am also going to start including a quote at the end of my blog. I was sent a really funny set of quotes by famous people on the subject of Sex so of course I just had to share them with you. Okay, without further yapping from me...here is your joke and your quote...have a great day, my friends. ****************************************************** A gas station owner in Maryland was trying to increase his sales. So he put up a sign that read, "Free Sex with Fill-Up." Soon ccstring pulled in, filled his tank and asked for his free sex. The owner told him to pick a number from 1 to 10. If he guessed correctly he would get his free sex. CC guessed 8, and the proprietor said, "You were close. The number was 7. Sorry. No sex this time." A week later, CC, along with a buddy, Bubba, pulled in for another fill-up. Again he asked for his free sex. The proprietor again gave him the same story, and asked him to guess the correct number. CC guessed 2 this time. The proprietor said, "Sorry, it was 3. You were close, but no free sex this time." As they were driving away, Bubba said to CC, "I think that game is rigged and he doesn't really give away free sex." CC replied, "No it ain't, Bubba. It ain't rigged. My wife won twice last week." "Sex at age 90 is like trying to shoot pool with a rope." --George Burns |
| It is not unusual for me to get inspiration for my blog entry from the entries of other really talented bloggers, today is no different. Today the inspiration for my entry comes from vivacious 's latest entry: "Why?" . Why do we Blog? Well maybe it has something to do with the human need to reach out, to connect with others. What other medium allows a poorly educated, member of the lower social class of the working poor to exchange ideas and dreams with people from all walks of life, from all over the world? If you look around Blogville you will discover a curious thing; This is one of the few places in the world where you are not judged by what you own or what you wear, or the color of your skin. Here, in Blogville, it is your words that are important. Something else you will discover, if you chose to look a bit closer at Blogville; you will find that there are real friendships forged among people who, in the real world, would probably never get the opportunity to interact. Thus is the power of words. In this space we share our words, our thoughts, and our beliefs without having to deal with the trappings of our social baggage. We meet on common ground of writting. I have shared in this blog before that it is my belief that very few of us will ever go on to become the next Steven King in this world but that doesn't really matter. We share the common dream that it MIGHT happen and so we toil over the keyboard and when we do this we become a member of an elite group of sufferers....WE ARE WRITERS. We are all use to sitting down at the computer and opening a vein....we bleed for our craft! . Our blog is just another version of that writing. Here we can come in and talk about our hopes and dreams and we can gain strength from other writers who are going through the same trials and tribulations as we are going through. Here in Blogvile we can blow off steam, we can rant and by doing this we can get stuff off our chests and move on. Here in Blogville, we can be silly or serious, mad or happy, and there will always be someone to share the emotions with us....we are never alone. That is why I blog. |
| I would like to begin my blog by publicly thanking *Barbara Maria* for giving me a blog topic. In her own very funny blog today, Barb wrote: “ Why is it that Wallmart cashiers ( most, not ALL!) are so overwhelmingly unfriendly...? Can we say, "ATTITUDE!!!" I would like to shed some light upon this subject of cashier attitude if I may. There are many different kinds of jobs in this world of ours. Some of these jobs are rewarding and fulfilling even if they might be very difficult, others are simple and mindless labors that might be carried out in solitude, away from the public eye. One thing all other jobs have in common though is no matter what they entail, none of them comes even close to being as soul-rendering, demeaning, and thankless as the job of a Wal-Mart cashier. My own job, with this company runs a distant second to that of the Cashier. Let’s look at some facts of the job for a moment, if you please. 1. The cashier is trapped....They are not allowed to walk away from their register. They are confined behind a small counter and must deal, face to face, up close and personal, with the customer. 2. The cashier is not allowed to have a bad day.....They are never allowed to talk back to the customer, no matter how much of an idiot that person is. They are not allowed to let their personal feelings show, even when the customer curses them, throws things in their face, or calls them names. To do so would be to court dismissal outright in some cases and at the very least it would mean being written up by management. 3. Any shortcomings in policy, or mistakes in pricing, is almost always blamed on the cashier personally by the ill-informed customer, thus causing the cashier to become the target of their ire. In most cases, those cashiers you encounter in Wal-Mart or any large retail outlet are female, usually but not always they are young, and for the most part they are being paid minimum wage which is about $5.75 an hour. Now add to this the fact that most of them have small children at home and many are the sole breadwinner in the family and maybe you can see what kind of stress they bring to the job even in the best of times. Let’s take it one step further, shall we. Let’s put ourselves in the shoes of one of these cashiers for just a moment..... You are that cashier. You are scheduled a mere 32 hours a week and you are making $6.00 an hour. Maybe you are married and your husband works but with both paychecks together you still bring home a couple of thousand dollars a year below the poverty level. Now you are standing at your register and waiting on a long line of customers. You have a long line because management refuses to schedule enough cashiers to handle the business in order to save money. You have been at your station five hours straight with no break (it happens alot). Now your line is a “Ten Items or Less” Express Lane and a lady steps up to the counter pushing a shopping cart loaded with about $250 worth of food and clothes she wishes to purchase. What do you do? Now remember there are about five other customers standing behind this lady waiting to check out and they all have ten items or less. If you tell the woman she must go to another line you run the risk of getting cursed out by her in a very loud voice. If you go ahead and check her out the other people behind her will all be mad at you, after all, it’s your fault this woman can’t read the sign. I know, you think that example is a little extreme, but it’s not really. It happens on almost a daily basis. Now when this happens to you, you are expected to stop checking and call over a member of management to handle the problem....which slows the line even more. Then when the manager comes over and the woman starts gripping at them, the manager will turn to you and tell you to check her out! THEY WILL NOT STAND UP FOR THE CASHIER! There is an old saying at Wal-Mart: The customer can get away with anything if they yell loud enough. The cashier, like I said, is not allowed to have a bad day. You can not talk back to a customer, you can not defend yourself against a verbal attack, you MUST smile no matter what and if you fail then you can lose your job. Customers tend to know this and take full advantage of it if you let them. Many times what angers customers the most is when the cashier tries to enforce the rules which the store tells them they must enforce. I can not tell you how many times I have seen managers override the rules then chastise the poor cashier for only doing what she was TOLD to do in the first place. The end result is that the manager is a hero, the cashier is a mutt, and the customer is vindicated and marches out the store feeling quite superior. As I said in the beginning, my job runs a distant second to the job of a cashier for being stressful. Like them, I am trapped in my station and can not just walk way from an idiot when they start to rant and rave. The difference is my own personality I believe. I refuse to let any man or woman treat me like a doormat. I refuse to allow anyone to curse me, spit on me, or lay hands on me....all of which has been done at one time or another to our cashiers. My regular customers know me well enough to know that I am not above pulling the badge off and taking them into the parking lot if need be. The job just isn’t that important to me and I guess maybe it shows in my bearing and attitude. I am always just as respectful to the customer as they are to me....no more, no less. One day that will probably cost me the job but at least I will have my self respect and that is a hell of a lot more important in the long run. So, yeah, Wal-Mart cashiers sometimes have an attitude but the thing is, one has to look a little deeper and see where that attitude is coming from. Of course the cashier could always quit and take a simpler, more peaceful job.....say like a door to door Bible salesman in Iran! |
| I thought I would try something a little different today in this blog space. I decided, as a public service, to conduct an interview with another member. The public service is that maybe some of you who have yet to meet this person, will run for the hills and be spared the whole ordeal. The person I chose as my very first interview subject is ccstring. So, without further ado, here is the interview which was conducted over the past week or so, via the phone and emails. I hope you not only learn something, but are mildly entertained. ***************************************** T: Hello CC, and thank you for agreeing to have this interview with me. CC: WHAT! YOU MEAN I HAD A CHOICE!! YOU DANG FLAPPER FACE, LET ME OUT OF HERE! T: Sorry CC, too late for that, the tape is rolling. So, let me start off by asking you...How are you adjusting to life on the outside of the prison walls? CC: I AIN’T EVER BEEN IN PRISON YOU DANG SMELLY-FOOTED, PERVERT! Wait....does involuntary commitment to the Sunny Dale Home for the Nervous count? T: Well, no, not the first time but after five such commitments I think we have to count them. So tell me, CC; Did those frequent forays into the funny farm have anything to do with what you use to keep in your tool shed? I am sure all the readers would love to hear about that. CC: Oh, so this is how it’s gonna be is it. You promised not to drag Bucky into this thing. T:CC, this is hard-hitting journalism at its best, you really didn’t expect to keep secret the fact that you use to hold a monkey captive in your tool shed did you? CC: Tor, you big liar! Bucky was NEVER a dang captive. I just kept the door locked for Bucky’s own safety, der’s perverts out there ya know! T: Uh....CC...I think the courts decided WHO the perverts were in that little love-shack of yours. Now for the next question: Is it true that you are still famous around MSN Chat rooms for holding what you liked to call Chat Safaris? CC: OHHHHH, that just tears it! You know very well that it wasn’t me that did that stuff! T: You mean to say that you were never with a large group of chatters who popped into, among other room, the Bondage Buddies Room? CC: Uh...well...yeah, I was there but.... T: So you admit it! CC: I WAS THERE, BUT YOU WUS THE ONE LEADING US! T: So if I was the “leader”, as you say, why is it that when we all popped in there, one of the members yelled: “Hey everybody, look who’s here, it’s Dumplin-butt CC, and he brought some friends this time.” They seemed to know you very well indeed. And, what about the Vampire Room you took us to? Do you deny trying to get in some quality neck nibbling while you was there? CC: Wus dose VAMPIRES? I thought they were just kinda friendly, heck us guys in Maryland nibble each other’s neck when we meet on the street. We are just “friendly” like that. T:Ewwww....TMI! Okay, let’s move this thing along shall we. CC, can you shed some light on this rumor I have heard around WDC lately? Is it true that you are compiling information for a book you want to write? I have heard that it is to be called: “How To Make Women Do Anything You Want Them To Do and I also heard that you are using a number of the ladies in WDC as examples of how your “system” works every time. What do you have to say about all that? CC: THUD! *Silence, followed by the sound of running footsteps, then the slamming of a door. * T:HEY, CC, GET BACK IN HERE! T: Well, I guess we will have to cut the interview short. It looks like CC has run out on me. Poor sucker didn’t have a chance against my Mike Wallace, ambush style of interview. I wonder iffin I can get me an Emmy for this report? I gotta go and practice my acceptance speech now. You folks stay tuned and if I can find out where he is hiding, I will try to get CC to come in here and finish the interview. |
| On April 1st Wal-Mart is changing over to a more uniform dress code for it's employees. The old code was: Wear nice street clothes with the Wal-Mart vest or smock over them, you know...that blue thing with "How May I Help You" written on the back. Personally I wanted to change mine to read: "Do I LOOK Like I care?" but management threatened my life, not to mention my livelihood. We will be going to khaki pants or cargo pants, with a dark blue polo shirt. Now when word of this change first came down, about two months ago, Wal-Mart assured everyone that the company would furnish us with 2 shirts and a voucher to buy 2 pairs of pants. Well I took that with a grain of salt. Sure enough, last week, with the deadline fast approaching, the corporate office sent out emails to the store managers explaining that Wal-Mart would NOT be furnishing either two shirts or a voucher for pants. This came as no real surprise. I am sure that some dead-from-the-neck-up middle executive finally woke up and realized that Wal-Mart employs over one million people world wide and the cost of furnishing even two shirts to each employee would be just a tad high. Not to mention that the same deal would have to be offered from now on to all newly hired employees. You can imagine the amount of grumbling that took place with this annoucement but, like I said, I really did expect it. So last saturday, while shopping for computers, Mel and I also managed to make a few department store stops and I bought a couple of pair of the required pants (all I had was jeans) and a couple of the dark blue polo shirts. I decided today that I would go ahead and begin to wear the outfit and see how I liked it. I figured there would be some adjustment to be made since we will be without our vests. Those things had large pockets and a lot of them in which we carried all our different items we use on the job. I wanted to see if I could make do with the one shirt pocket and the pants pockets. Boy was I in for a surprise. Standing there at the front door, I was shocked at the number of customers who commented on the change in garb. I started to get comments from the lady shoppers like: "Oh, that looks good on you." "Have you lost weight?" "Sweetie, you clean up real good!" THUD! That last one is a high compliment indeed from one of those East Texas home girls. Well I couldn't help myself, I began to strut around that door, pulling out the buggies, greeting the customers and checking bags like one of those runway sluts showing off the fall line up at a fashion show! The down side of this is I think I may have hurt myself trying to suck in my gut for eight hours....dayum, I may have to buy me one of them girdles to help me out. Even the other associates were making comments about the new outfit. Hell I even got a wolf whistle when I walked down the back hallway headed to the break room. I wheeled around real fast to see who the culprit was but all I could see with this bunch of wimmen standing down the hall, all grouped together and giggling! I must have turned about four shades of red as I hurried to the safety of the smoke room. I tried to put it into prespective for one of my co-workers who told me how good the new outfit looked. I told her: "Darling, you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. No matter what clothes I wear, I am still me, and that ain't nothing to write home about!" But, I must admit, it was fun getting that kind of reaction from people and I can't wait until the first when everyone in the store will be wearing the same thing. Before you leave, I want to call your attention to zwisis's latest blog entry: "Invalid Entry" . She has a little bit of little known knowledge about Hemingway that really blew me away. |
| Did you know that there are over 497,000 members on this site? Wow, just think about that for a moment; almost a half a million members on this ONE writing site out of thousands of sites on the internet. Now one would think that with a membership like that, the site would be able to boast of many of it's members being, at some time, published by the mainstream publishers. Well you might think that, just looking at the numbers. I submit, for your consideration, this very disturbing fact which you may or may not already be aware of: Every year mainstream publishing houses are sent over 150,000 manuscripts for their perusal! Now when you consider the fact that even the largest publishing houses rarely print more than 5 or 10 titles a year, you see where there might be a slight backlog. Now, having input these numbers and thought about it a bit...what are the odds? Personally I think that if one person out of that 497 thousand membership makes it by being published by a major publishing house is minuscule at best. As I read on a publishing site today; it is a buyer's market when it comes to novels. Now before you start throwing things at the screen, I am not putting down our membership nor am I advocating giving up on the dream. I could no more do that than I could stop breathing. What I am saying is we, as writers should seriously look at POD or Publish on Demand. This cuts out the "buyer" or the Publishing house and it goes directly to the reader...the person who buys the books. Now I know there are some out there who look down their nose at POD as just another Vanity or Self Publishing venue. That's not so. The writer is not required to buy vast amounts of books then pound the bricks to sell them. The public orders the book, it's printed and sent to them. That is one scenario, there are others. Bottom line is, the author works at promotion of his work and he gets the rewards, not some damn faceless publisher. Now I already plan on submitting my anthology of short stories to a POD format but now I have decided to do the same to my finished novel. The thing is, all writers on this site should look into this option and you have a wonderful forum right here on WDC to get all the information you need.
Voxxy is one of several very talented writers on this site who have published using POD and my hat's off to all of them. They have done what the rest of us merely dream about. Go to that forum and get involved and get some answers to your questions. Now I am not telling everyone to stop submitting to mainstream publishers. No, go ahead and submit away, that is your right and your privilege. But, when you get tired of your manuscript being tossed away unread due to having a paper clip on the wrong side of the paper or some other procedural error...then by all means, check out POD. |
| Hello, my name is Tor and I thought I would give this blogging thing a try. Yeah, well that's how I feel today as I try to take back up where I left off during my computer woes. I feel like I am brand new at this. It's funny how when you do something every single day for two years and then for some reason you miss a few days, it seems like the down time has been forever. Well as for my computer woes.....they are still there but I am getting a handle on them...finally. I can now open more than one page at a time so I will be able to read everyone's blog...something I haven't been able to do the past few days. I could open the blog page and I could see the "blog-peeker", but I could not open a blog...the whole mess would just freeze up. So far...today...things are working rather nicely; slow but nice. The biggest problem now is I have no "word". That's right...I can not just open word and write on one of my stories. It says the file is missing. D'OH! It's all good though....in a couple of weeks, after another paycheck, this puppy is making DA BIG PURCHASE! I'm gonna buy a brand new puter! Now with that in mind, Saturday Mel and I journeyed to the city of Lufkin, Texas which is about fifty miles from us. We traveled there to check out computers at the local Best Buy store. For those who are not familiar with this chain, they have some kick-butt eletronics of all kinds and usually have some good prices. I had already decided that if I found something I wanted, in my price range, I was going to come home with a new computer. Well...that was the plan, anyway. We left home about noon and just planned to take our time driving to Lufkin....about a forty-five minute drive normally. We got there around two in the afternoon....two hours to make the trip. Not bad when you figure in the three times I had to stop on the side of the road and re-apply the duct tape to Mel's mouth and retie her hands behind her. I don't care how much time I wasted, it was worth it not to be given directions on the entire trip! Well after we arrived, we decided to stop first and eat an early dinner. For that we chose the Lufkin Barbeque Company. Man if you ever want barbeque so good it will make you slap your mama, you gotta give this place a try. Ribs, sliced beef, and links all on the same plate, accomlpanied by potatoe salad and baked beans....man I can still taste that good cooking! After finishing off two plates which could have served as a week's supply of food for a third world country, we left there full as ticks and happy as two dead hogs in sunshine! I tell you, it was hard to even walk across the parking lot and cimb back in the car. From there we made our way across town to the local Best Buy and when we walked in the door I thought I had died and gone to heaven! As far as the eye could see, along one wall of the store, sat brand new, gleaming, computers. There were bunches of desk-top computers and droves of Laptops, all with huge monitors and state of the art programs. Hell it was like driving into a Ferrari dealership in your old Edsle and seeing how the other half live! I made a beeline to one of those state-of-the-art Laptops. Damn, this thing was so fast that it looked like it was doing sixty, just sitting there on the shelf! I read all the information posted in front of the machine as I loveingly caressed the keys with my fingers....Ohhhhhh! I finally called this little weasle, computer geek over to me and asked the big question.... "How much is this one, bubba?" "Well, sir, the price is right there on the information card." I looked again and saw the numbers he was indicating..... "Hell, boy, is that the price? I thought THAT was the dang serial number of this model." Mel punched me in the arm. "WHAT?" I yelled. "I really did think it was the serial number. I mean, really, you can't put that many numbers in a price can you?" Well, that settled it. After the geek told me that this particular model was one of their "less expensive" models, I knew I wouldn't be buying one today. Have you ever noticed how they call them the "less expensive" models, instead of the CHEAPER models? I wonder if he describes his girlfriend as Less Expensive, instead of Cheap? So, having put my dream on hold, we decided to just look around at the other big-boy-toys they had for sale and generally make a nuisance of ourselves. Mel made the big mistake of pointing out to me that they had a big home entertainment center with their 50inch big screen all set up in a Home 'Theatre setting....OMG! It was then I realized just how sharp these guy were. Not only did they have this huge, plasma screen monster hooked up and running but, knowing men loved to shop for these things, they had a show playing about the behind the scenes making of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue! THUD! You wanna talk picture quality? Well I can tell you right now that, from what I saw on that screen, the day they shot the swimsuit issue, it must have been cold on that beach....WAHOOOO! As you can readily imagine that observation got me beat about the head and shoulders by Mel as she herded me out of that department and into the stereos and sound systems. That was great too. We watched, and listened to a Boise home theatre system which was hooked up to a tv showing the movie SeaBiscuit. Man the sound those little speakers put out was amazing. I stood there and listened to the sound of the big horserace scene in the movie and it sounded for all the world as if Seabiscuit was about to galloup right up my wazoo! I actually turned around to see if he was behind me. That pretty much did it for my shopping adventure. I left there sure in the knowledge that I would NOT be buying one of those fancy new puters anytime soon. Hopefully, in two weeks, when the Eagle craps again, I will be able to swing a deal and bring one home. Until then, I am going to be limping along on this damn Model T. I want to again apologize to everyone whose blog I usually visit and I promise that in the next few days, unless something else happens, I will be catching up with all of you. BTW.....thank you so much to Scarlett who so kindly gifted me with one of them Merit Circles.....thank you hon! |
| What a sad day this is. At this very moment....if I were a horse.....you would shoot me just to end my misery. Okay, hands in the audience from all those who might remember me mentioning that I had a slight computer problem. For those of you who have slept since then, and have not the slightest inkling of what I am talking about, let me recap.... 1. I had a wonderful HP computer...it was fast, it was reliable but unfortunately it was five years old. 2. It died. 3. I panicked, grabbed it up and took it to the computer hospital where the sleazy computer doctor pronounced it dead. 4. Said sleazy computer doctor then seemingly rode to my rescue by offering to sell me a "used" tower he just happened to have and for only $300. What a deal! I would be back up and running on the same day....I jumped at the offer. 5. Fast forward two weeks....."Used" computer CRASHES. It has a corupted file and it loses all my documents (everything I had ever written was in there} and all my pictures (about 250 family photos)...GONE. 6. I charge back to sleazy computer guy's place....demand satisfaction...he offers to do an even swap..he just happens to have ANOTHER TOWER....do you see a pattern here...oh, did I mention, it has WINDOWS 98!!! 7. I took it. I came home and for a week it worked. 8. This morning it stopped working. I spent the morning taking it back to sleazeball. He discovers that my browzer is a 5.0.....the rest of the world is using a 7.0....I NEED AN UPGRADE! Oh did I mention that Window's 98 will not run a 7.0 browser? Well it won't. The best we could do is download a 6.2 version. It worked when we tried it at his shop. 9. I get home. Mel hooks it up....THE MODEM STOPPED WORKING! 10. Another trip to town....to our local telephone company who is our internet provider. They give us a new modem (they cost $130). We come home and connect the new modem. 11. The computer now works.....if I only open one page at a time....sometimes.....maybe. So there you have it. That is as brief a summary of my woes as I can give you. I now have less than half a computer....sometimes. Oh did I mention that all sales are final? So, my friends this is how I have come to this sad state of affairs. I will TRY TO POST THIS...maybe. Then, using only one window at a time, I will check my email, then try to read a few....very few blogs. I will not even try to leave a comment to any blogs. I will do only the barest of tasks and I ask you all to please forgive me for not visiting most of you. This will be business as usual until I am able to replace this nightmare with a brand new, never before owned, computer. I have no idea how long this will take...at least the weekend and considering the finances, maybe a couple of weeks. So....I will be here, but just barely. I will mostly be out of sight I am afraid. I just hope and pray I am able to post this damn thing without losing it. So until my computer woes are behind me.....you folks take care. |
| I am sure that all of you are aware of those dang map thingys that they put in cars now days. You know, the ones that tell you what road to take and where to turn and it has this annoying voice....usually FEMALE. Well I bet you don't know that my dear wife, Mel was the inspiration for that gizmo. She is like a living, breathing, version of OnStar for the love of God! I swear the woman can not sit in a car and just ride. No, she has some genetic defect that causes her mouth to go into high gear and her finger to point, as soon as the car starts to roll. Last week, while I was off, I decided to go with her on her rounds to pay bills, you know, get a little "together" time in for the two of us: Couples who pay bills together, stay together...that sort of thing. I think I heard that on Dr. Phil....the idiot! Well of course we took my car. You see whenever we go somewhere together she always insists on taking my car....burn MY gas....wear out MY tires. This means that I am the one driving and I think she loves that best of all because then she can get into her "DIRECTIONAL" mode. Everything starts out normally enough. We get in the car, I pull out of the driveway and proceed up to the intersection...then it starts.... "You going left or right?" I hang my head....here we go again...." Well HONEY, I USUALLY go left, since LEFT takes us into TOWN!" She totally ignores the sarcasm and as we sit at the stop sign she says: "If you go right, we could stop by the garbage place and pay that bill first, then we could come into town from the back way." "Yes DEAR". I turn left. As we enter traffic on the main highway, she starts with the finger action: Jabbing her index finger repeatedly in front of her she says: "Look out, that car is going to pull onto the highway!" "Honey," I answer with admirable restraint. "That car is a good six hundred yards from us...I see it....it's okay!" "But would you have seen it if I hadn't of said anything?" "We'll never know, will we," I growled. Then it only gets worse as we arrive in town and begin to make our way around to the different places...The utility company, the telephone company, the insurance place, our landlord's business....all stops we had to make that day. As I pull into the drive through lanes of the Telephone company she pops up with: "The lane on the right is open, use that one." "I don't want to use that one HONEY! I want to use the one next to the building...OKAY?" "Well you don't have to be such a grouch." My knuckles on the steering wheel are white from the pressure. I wait my turn in the lane I WANTED, then I pull out of the drive-thru.... "Are you going left?" "NO" "Well if you go left, then you can take the back road around all the traffic and come up on the water company without going through the red lights. Did you not know this?" "OF COURSE I KNEW THIS!:" I shouted at her. "I just wanted to go right, I like right, right is the way I always go!" "Well I thought maybe you just got lost." she said smugly. :"Lost! Did you say lost? Oh yeah, here I am in a town of 5,000 souls, a town I was born and raised in, a town I have driven in for the past forty DAMN years and I'm gonna get lost????" She sat silently through this tirade and when I had run out of breath she said in an even more smug voice. "Honey, while you were shouting the light turned green....did you plan on turning SOMEWHERE?" DAMN WIMMEN!!!! I would have said something more but car horns behind me forced me to go forward.....AND TO THE DAMN RIGHT! It was my own fault, I should have known it would be this way. Every time we are in a car together it is the same thing...the woman CAN NOT JUST RIDE! I told her that the next long car trip we make, I am going to duct tape her mouth closed and tie her hands behind her back for the entire trip. She would explode within fifty miles if I did that. I am curious...are all women like this? Can any of you out there ride in a car with a male driver and just let them do what they are so adept at doing in the first place...driving. Can any of you just ride and let the man find his way on his own? Maybe it's not just Mel, maybe it's just women in general. Maybe you all feel the need to guide us poor, dumb men from point A, to point B? What about it...are any of you guilty of driving your husband crazy when he DRIVES??? |
| Blogs are such a uniquely 21st. century form of communication. The blog is the next step in the sharing of information worldwide. Not only does it serve to inform but it also entertains us....some more than others. Just think about it for a minute....How many of you out there had even heard of a Blog back in 1995? Now, today, there are literally thousands of them all over the internet. Every talking head on the network news seems to have their own blog where they dispense even more of their particular kind of information. I have to wonder who writes the stuff for some of them, don't you. Actors have them, Actresses have them, singers have them, as do all those who are just famous for being THEM....everyone has a blog. Oh and did I mention...everyday people, like me and you...we have them too. You see that is the beauty of the blog format; anyone can start one and make it anything they please. Like everything else in this world you get out of a blog just what you put into it. Now I know what some of you purist out there are saying: "The Blog is not really writing." Well to that I have to say: "Horse pucky!" I'm sorry, but here we must agree to disagree. Now remember, I said back there that a blog can be whatever you want it to be and it can be as good as the effort the writer puts into it. Well doesn't the same hold true for anything you write, be it poetry, short story, or novel? Let's look at the blog page on WDC for a moment, shall we. There are something like 860 active blogs on this site with over 1600 total blogs listed. Within these individual blogs you can find humor, pathos, entertainment news and news of world events. You can find deep philosophical discussions or just plain silliness. What all of these blogs share in common is that writers took the time to sit down and submit words to the screen in such an order that would convey whatever message they were striving for. Now the blog length on this site is 500 entries. This means that by the time a blog is finished, a writer has spent at least an hour a day for five hundred days committing words to the screen. Now I haven't made an in-depth study, but I would estimate that the average length of a blog entry would be about five or six hundred words. Multiply that by 500. Now that is longer than a lot of novels on the market today. That is a lot of hard work by some very talented folks. How is this not writing? Some of you "serious" writers out there...when was the last time YOU put 200K words on a screen or paper in a year long effort to entertain or enlighten? That's what I thought. That's why it bugs me when I hear folks say: "I'm going off to do some REAL writing so I will not have time to merely blog." My question is: Is the Blog keeping you from REAL writing, or are you using the blog as an excuse NOT to attempt other writing. In other words, have you begun to rationalize that if you had only not done a blog, then you would have already finished that Great American Novel......then its only your excuse. Now I can only speak for myself but for me the blog is what fills my time between stories, since I am primarily a short story writer. I can sometimes go months without a good idea for a story coming my way. Now in the past, before blogging, when I went through these dry spells with no stories, I did not write...nothing...nada...zip. I would sit around and worry and obsese over the evil "BLOCK". Now however not a day goes by, hardly that I am not writing. I am exercising those muscles and keeping in shape for when a story does come along. At the same time I am learning. Every day as I read other blogs, I learn something else about writing effectively; how to turn a phrase or how to describe a certain thing better. Then, when the story happens, I am ready not only to write it, but to spend less time in rewrites trying to get it the way it should be before submitting it somewhere. So please, write any kind of blog you want. Make us laugh, make us cry, or teach us something we did not know before, but most importantly.....write. build sentences, paragraphs and pages until you are a competent word carpenter. But please....don't tell me that the Blog format is not real writing. |
| Walking in the door after work. Silence. Mollie and Sherman no where in evidence to meet their master with joyful tail wagging and happy licks and barks. Silence. I make a quick circuit of the house. Find Mollie and Sherman hiding in the bedroom...they seem to know. Impending doom looms over them. They cringe and slink out into the living room, trying to stay clear of daddy. Smart dogs. I turn on the television to some vanlia faced, tuber-brained, talking head doing the news. So this is to be my life. Sitting in a recliner, watching boring television...I actually FEEL brain cells dying by the minute. My computer is dead. The second death in three weeks...this time there is no easy fix. So the night passes....and the next day...into the next night...and day...NOTHINGNESS. I spend my time off either watching TV or, thanks to the quick thinking of my lovely wife, I play two new Xbox 360 games which she bought in a moment of pure panic as she thought about what it would be like trying to live with me when I have no computer. I fought the Civil War....the damn yankees lost this time! I piloted a sub in WW2.....BIG DEAL! I return to my recliner....the TV on..... NO, NO, NO! Do not look to the right; That way there be madness! Too late. As I sit in my chair, I look to the right and there it is....that sad, lonely space where, just a few short days ago sat my computer tower. Gone now. Now, next to that empty space sits a forlorn and abandonded monitor and it's partner in misery, the keyboard. Both useful for no more than paper-weights now...they sit and mock me in my impotentance. Then, as I look upon that sad scene, I hear it...faint tappings coming from the darkened monitor screen; like dozens of little fists knocking on the inside of the screen, begging to be noticed, begging to be acknowledged. I cover my ears but it's too late...the knocking sound increases. It is the Blogger's of WDC knocking on my dark screen...demanding to be read, demanding comments, reviews, ratings...THEY ARE THERE, I TELL YOU!!!! *************************************** And that, boys and girls is how I have spent the last few days without computer access. I tell you truely, I have walked to the edge of the abyss and I have stared over into the darkness below. But I'm all better now! Now I have a computer again. Now all is right with the world and I am back among my fellow writers in WDC. Now I can just tell myself it never happened...yeah, that's the ticket...It never happened! I did not hear all of you banging on the monitor screen. Nope. Never did. Not for a minute. That's my damn story and I'm sticking to it! Each and every one of you were in my thoughts the past few days and it is good to be back with you again. Hopefully there will be no more interruptions in service and all will go as planned in the universe. If not....WELL IT WAS CC's FAULT! Okay...that's it for today. The doctor at the Mental Health Emergency Room put me on some really kicking happy pills and I need to go take one and lay down before I start hearing you guys knocking again! |
| Okay, it's offical....TODAY IS A DRY DAY! For the past two hours I have struggled to write a blog entry. Twice I have reached the halfway point of a entry only to hit the delete button and start over. Two totally different subjects....flushed down the toilet of my alzimer's ridden brain. Gone in the fog. Each started strong and self-confident only to wither in mid paragraph and ooze off in the mist of confusion. Damn I hate days like this! The first topic: Memories That Help Us Write. Ah this was a good one too...GONE! The second one: A Rant About Psychology, Psychologist and other Witchdoctors. Oh yeah, this one was a sharp, cutting, indictment of useless pesudo-science.....I hit a wall! Maybe I need some couch time with one of those witch doctors....GAWD! So, instead of all that good stuff, what you get today is a sad, self-indulgent effort to merely turn the day "Blue" instead of "black". I guess now all that is left is for me to go and read all you bloggers who actually have something to say, unlike me. Have a good day. |
I read a lot of blogs, especally when I am on vacation like I am this week. Yesterday I read Kenzie  's blog and found it quite interesting and informative as usual. If you have not yet checked out this talented lady's blog, please do so.Yesterday she shared with us some of the different and interesting newsletters she subscribes to and there was one that stuck out from the rest for me. The author of the newsletter was bemoaning the dirth of female writers on the New York Best Seller list for non-fiction. In essance she said that less than 15% of the authors on this list were women. Well, being the curious type that I am, I decided to hop on over to the New York Times Best Seller list and check this out for myself and here is what I found: The New York Times lists the top 35 sellers in each market. Hard Cover Non-Fiction--10 out of 35 books listed were written by women. (something more than 15% isn't it?) Hard Cover Fiction-- 19 out of 35 books listed were written by women. Paper Back Fiction-- 25 out of 35 books listed were written by women. Now that last number jumped out at me right away. 25 out of the top 35? WOW! Now I know there are those who will say that fiction in general and paperback fiction in particular, is not "serious" writing but I beg to differ with you. ANY writing is serious. It is a serious effort that all authors slave over and give birth to. And another thing...that paperback market, though you might dismiss it as not "serious" writing, is where the money is. I think that where women authors lag behind in Hard cover non-fiction, they more than make up for in the fiction in general and paperback fiction in particular. In fact I think there should be some big push made to get more MALE writers in the fiction market. I have long known that the majority of book buyers in general are women and I think that is the reason female authors are sought out by publishers, especially in the field of Fiction. After all, don't most women want to read books written from a female point of view? Hell, I have even toyed with the idea of writing a book under a female pen name just to see if it will be better recieved. In fact...dare I say it...MEN ARE DISCRIMANATED AGAINST WHEN IT COMES TO FICTION IN TODAY'S MARKET! There, I said it! I have finally become a member of an oppressed minority! You won't read my stories because I am a man! Nevermind that most of them are drivel....YOU DON'T READ THEM CAUSE I'M MALE!!!! I think we guys need a telethon or sumptin. We are tired of being termed as second class citizens in the world of popular litrature. Maybe if we make all publishers feel as if they are performing a non politically correct act by rejecting a male author then we would start getting more stuff published. That's my opinion and I'm sticking to it! Now I'm gonna sit back and listen to the wimmen howl in protest. This should be interesting. |
| I had quite a surprise waiting for me in my mail the other day. I was delighted to see that I had recieved a blog comment from someone who I thought was gone! pwilli had commented to one of my earlier blogs and I have to tell you that it was such a joy to hear from him again. I had wondered for some time now, where pwilli had gotten off to. I still remember the day I clicked on his name in my favorites only to discover that his blog was no longer there. Patrick...if you read this; WE MISS YOU BUD! Bite the bullet and start a new blog. There are a lot of us who enjoyed reading your words. In other news around Blogville, partyof5dj has been AWOL for awhile now and I can only assume that he is happily roaming the mountain trails of Montana and enjoying the onslaught of Spring in that area. I can't wait until he drops back in here and regals us with whatever misadventures he has managed to have over the past week or so. I would also like to draw your attention to another blog writer who has made a difference here in WDC. Nada was the driving force behind getting a blogger's membership renewed for another year. Now she didn't have to do this, but she took it upon herself to spearhead an effort to raise GPs for this worthy cause and she did it in record time too. Within hours, the needed GPs had been gathered and the membership had been paid for.I believe that this is a great testement to how much Nada is liked and respected on this site. She is well known for her kind and gentle heart and she is always ready to help any of her fellow bloggers who need a hand. It is because of people like Nada that I continue to come back in here day after day and do what I do. Thank you, Nada for being such a kind and caring lady. In other news around Blogville, the next time we hear from pencilsoverpens she will be in her new home in Canada! I know you are all sending her good vibes for the big move and I can't wait to read her first impressions of the great North Land.On a personal note: My vacation is almost over; I go back to work on Sunday. Mental note to self: Never again take a vacation week during Spring Break! You see when Spring Break happens here in Livingston, Mel changes from working evenings to working early mornings....Six FREAKING A.M. Now the up side of that is that she is home with me in the afternoons, but the down side is that I can not go back to sleep after she leaves so all this week I have been unable to sleep late. I HATE not getting to sleep in on vacation! Add to that, the fact that we have had rain storms the past few days. Now normally I love the rain storms but NOT when I have to deal with a neurotic Lab who is scared to death of lightening and thunder. As a result of this, the past two nights I have had this hundred pound dog diving under the covers of my bed, curling up BETWEEN my legs, and spending the night shaking like a bowl of jello!!! Not condusive to a good night's sleep! As I write this, the thunder has started again and she is under my desk with her front feet curled around my foot in an effort to hug me...again...shaking like jello! Well it's time for me to get off this thing and I would like to leave you with one final thought. I know we have little or no say in who gets promoted around here but I think that there are two people who would make wonderful Moderators: Nada and Scarlett . We should start a write-in campaign for them.Okay...I'm done. |
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