First an apology is in order. This morning I posted an entry about the "Stella Awards" only to be informed in a comment from my friend Eric Wharton that the Stella awards were fictions. I immediately deleted the post and I apologize. I have rarely been sucked in by those fake things on the net but this time I bit big time. I want to also publicly thank Eric for drawing my attention to the situation. When something in here is fake or a joke, I always preface it with that disclaimer and I never want to pass something along that is erroneous.


Blog Topic B: "THE SKY IS FALLING!!!"

Good lord Hurricane Ike is almost upon the Lone Star state...RUN! The Weather Warriors are in full battle dress and out on the beaches of Texas giving Paul Revere style cries of warning.
"IT'S BIGGER THAT KATRINA!"

"THERE COULD BE A TWENTY FOOT STORM SURGE!" This observation was upped from a possible 15 feet storm surge after they were told by residents that they were not worried about a cat.2 when their sea wall was 17feet tall.

"IT IS A KILLER STORM, PEOPLE!"

And in a final effort to bring in the big guns Gerald Rivera is now in Texas to either report on the carnage or open the long lost safe of Al Capone...which ever comes first.

Okay, okay...it's a hurricane and it is a cat two right now and could possibly become a cat three by the time it makes landfall.

The thing is, for over fifty years I lived in Texas and I along with the rest of the state, weathered as best as I can count, nine major storms...all over Cat 3 with a few of them cat 5's and we NEVER evacuated. What the hell is wrong with us, have we become so use to being scared shitless that we run every time a damn cloud comes up?

What did we do? Well we always had a few days warning so we stocked up with food and water, we battened down the hatches, and we RODE IT OUT! When it was all over, we climbed out, looked around and said: "Well wasn't that special!" Then we went on with our damn lives.

Yes we had damage...we cleaned it up ourselves. Yes we had deaths...we buried them ourselves. Yes many of us lost everything....we got to work rebuilding stuff OURSELVES.

I can not remember ever even considering contacting FEMA. Oh the Red Cross was nice., they would come in with hot coffee and sandwiches...that was a large help. We helped ourselves and we helped our neighbors...that was our "FEMA".

I actually heard a talking head on Fox chastise an official in Houston because the city has not issued a mandatory evacuation order for the city. "Would you rather see your people do without electricity for a week or more, than see them get out of harm's way?"

Well guess what.....during Rita when there was such an order, most of the deaths occurred among people trying to get out of Houston! You can not evacuate 5.6 million people from the fourth largest city in the country on even a week's notice without chaos setting in.

I look forward to how the Media will spin the story once the storm is over." WE SAVED YOU WITH OUR REPORTS FROM OUR WEATHER WARRIORS!"

Whatever.....

 

Sept 11, 2008.....seven years after the Twin Towers came crashing down. This event has been likened to the attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7th, 1941. If you look closer though you will see one big difference between the two cowardly attacks. Four years after Pearl Harbor America and her allies changed the face of the world and wiped out three dictators and their armies.

Seven years after 9/11 and what have we accomplished? It pales by comparison doesn't it.

On a brighter note, my brother called me last night and his big news was that Keith Oberman and Chris Mathews had been fired by MSNBC. I was overjoyed, until I looked into the situation. Seems they were not fired but were reassigned as "analysts". Oh well at least now they won't be masquerading as fair and impartial news commentators.

No matter what else you do today, you might want to stop for a moment during your busy schedule and give some thought to the more than 3,000 murdered Americans....they deserve that much at the very least.

I have come back and edited my entry to add this: Think back to 9-11-01, what were you doing when you heard the news and what did you think and feel at that moment? Just curious.
 

Before I get into my blog topic today I wanted to update everyone on where the challenge stands at the moment. I was surprised to receive an email from the GP Bandit who wrote that he/she/it was interested in seeing CC write that entry and was donating 15,000 GP's. This was followed by the gracious Queen of Blogville who gave 10,000 GPs and my good friend ~Wind in my Wings~ who sent along another 25,000 GP's. So at this writing the GP total is now up to 60,000GP's.....GET TO WORK CC!!

In an update on the challenge I issued to CCstring in my last entry, the GP total is now up to 35k thanks to generous donations...the pressure is definitely on! I would also like to offer a big "Thank You" to the SM.

When I got up this morning I read his blog which makes site-wide announcements and I was pleased to find that the "Most Viewed" optioned has been returned. Gee, you don't think he actually reads my blog do you....I may have to clean up my act.....NOT!

Oh and Nada.....you now are now in your rightful place...#2...congrats girl! This new blog is holding at #374...I got a lot of work to do.
 

There has been much talk of late about the so called GP Bandit though I am not sure why he/she/it are being referred to as a "Bandit" since rather than take GPs from people, he/she/it actually gives GPs to unsuspecting members. Both myself and Mel were the recipients of this person's largess and we are both very appreciative of the gifts. The only instruction which came with the fake money was that we were to "make some one's day."

I have done this and done it over and above the total of GPs given, having already gifted two different writers. I would now like to spend another 10,000 GPs but I want to do this in a more imaginative way.

I am, as of this day, issuing a challenge to my good buddy, the buckethead of WDC....CCstring

Hey bonehead, listen up. here is my challenge to you: I want you to write one serious blog entry; no typos, no "Blink Blink" nothing but serious word flingage by you. I will even give you a topic which you will have no trouble writing about. The topic is: The Birth of my First Child.

Now, if you accept this challenge and if you do the blog I will gift you with 10,000 GPs or I will gift the person of your choice with the GPs.

For the rest of you...I am doing this because I want all of you to see what a great writer my little buddy is when he puts his mind to it and is not busy bashing yours truly.

So how about it CC.....You up to a challenge?

Of course, it will probably take him days to even find this cause he is off hunting his latest quarry, the East Coast Buzzard which he wants to tame and teach to sit on his shoulder.....yeah, this should be good.

Anyway...there's the challenge...Are you man enough to take it on CC or are you gonna snivel and snot and beg to be let off the hook.
 

I would like to take a moment to throw a handful of confetti in the air and maybe release a balloon or two. You see, my new little blog has just crossed over its first 1k mark in views......a small but welcome milestone.

Views of a Blog....that is how a writer can judge whether or not he is doing his/her job of writing well. By seeing the numbers you know if what you write is done well enough to draw reader into your blog. If the numbers aren't there, then you know that maybe you need to improve your own skill or at least take more care as to a topic choice.

It is also helpful to know where your own blog stands in relation to all the other blogs here on WDC. It gives you something to shoot for, a reason to try and do your best with each entry. Sadly, here on WDC, that is no longer an option. The powers-that-be, in all their infinite wisdom, have decided that "Most Viewed First" will no longer be offered as an option on the pull-down menu on the Blog List Page.

I am not sure why this decision was made. Did someone complain about their blog being well down the list of Most Viewed? Maybe they got their feelings hurt, who knows. It seems that, like our schools here in America, WDC wants to do away with anything that smacks of competition. If everyone plays, then everyone wins a medal.....sigh....

What I found exceedingly interesting is the category which took the place of "Most Viewed First". Now we have "Best GP Reward First".

How sad is that....people actually reduced to paying for readers. Of course, from a purely business sense, I can well understand why the SM would do this. You want to keep those GPs circulating, keep folks buying more of them....that's REAL money in his pocket. Good Business.

Forget striving for excellence and trying to reach the top of a given form, just buy your way there with GPs. Sounds like a simple reflection of the prevailing American philosophy. If you can't perform, just buy your way to the top.
 

Let me be very plain in this.....In my humble opinion, Sarah Palin hit the ball out of the park last night. Some of you might be surprised to know that I was actually sitting on the fence before last night. I was not convinced that I could back a McCain/Palin ticket for president.

Last night answered a lot of questions for me. Sarah Palin impressed the hell out of me and that has rarely happened over the past 40 years. Now what you have to understand is that my opinion is not based on a learned, in-depth study or cerebral machinations of the issues. No, I follow my gut in things like this. My gut reaction kept me alive many times in the past and I have learned to follow it in most things. So last night I listened to it one more time and it spoke to me loud and clear: This is a woman who can add strength to the office of Vice President of the United States.

I have always been drawn to strong, intelligent, and decisive women and Sarah showed herself to be that in spades. She walked out in front of a larger crowd than she has ever faced before, she took a speech which was written for her, and she made that speech her own. She showed not one bit of indecision, not one bit of hesitation and she delivered a strong-voiced speech.

I thought it rather funny that the Dems, after the speech, complained of the "shrill" attack upon their party's candidate. Shrill? When have you ever heard anyone complain of a MALE being "shrill"? The Dems came off as sounding Sexist in the extreme....wonder what Hillary thought of that?

The Dems wondered out loud..."How could she find time to raise her five kids and be Vice President?" Uh? When was the last time a MALE was ever questioned about how he would find time to raise his kids and serve as Vice President? Sexist.

Is that the best they can do?

Bottom line: I WANT this woman to be Vice President. I want her to prove, once and for all, that a woman can do just as good a job as a man in this high office. It is high time for a CHANGE and by God, this is a change I can get behind wholeheartedly.
 

Sadly, once again war drums are sounding faintly from the East. Yes, it seems that the head of the Idiot Clan, CCstring is whipping up the natives into a war frenzy and he is making ready yet another unwarranted attack upon my innocent person.

*Sigh....*

Whatever......

From what I can gather from the few brave spies I have implanted inside the nefarious dude’s inner-circle, he has taken exception to my truthful depiction of his favorite bird, the Osprey as a lowly member of the buzzard family. Well, knowing in advance the hue and cry CC would put up, I decided to do exhaustive and in-depth research on the subject of the Osprey BEFORE I even mentioned the subject in my blog. This way I would be armed with the truth when CC begins to act like a defective pistol and go off half-cocked.

The first thing I did was to contact the Audubon Society, the recognized authority on all things Avian. I asked them to shed some light upon the controversy of the origins of the Osprey. Well just today I received an answer via e-mail from that august body which I will share with you here.

Dear Mr. Tor

Thank you for your inquiry and it is with great pleasure that I send to you the little known story of the Osprey. To begin with, the scientific name of the bird in question is Fowlubus Buttuglybus and he does indeed owe his origins to the Buzzard. The reason that very few people are aware of this is because, for centuries there has been a concerted effort by certain Liberal groups to hide the truth of bird in order to make him seem more noble than his actual origins. This all started long before Liberals branched off into politics and back then they use to bedevil the Audubon Society at every turn.

The truth of the matter is, long ago, during the age of the Caveman, a certain common buzzard became obsessed with rising above his lowly status as a mere carrion-eater. He wanted to seen as a majestic bird of prey, the envy of all the others in the bird world. To this end, the buzzard traveled to a certain collection of caves on the site of what is today, Los Angeles and made contact with a certain Witch-Doctor who just happened to be the forerunner of all plastic surgeons in modern times. The buzzard struck a deal with the witch-doctor who wanted to use the bird to experiment in his new theory of face-lifts, tummy-tucks, and wrinkle removal which would make his kind famous in the centuries to come.

Well, the operations....many of them...were successful and the buzzard was transformed. I enclose a before and after picture for your use. You can readily see what a skillful witch-doctor can accomplish, even back in the stone-age.

Here is a picture of the Buzzard BEFORE the surgeries

** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only **
Now this next picture is after the buzzard had healed and the bandages were removed: The buzzard has become the Osprey!

** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only **


I hope this information will be of some help to you and the truth of this Raptor Impersonator is finally exposed to the world. From what you have told me in your letter, I do not envy you having to deal with the CC person. He sounds like a decidedly unsavory character. Should you require further assistance, please feel free to contact me directly.

Yours Truly,
Byron J. Tuggle, director
National Audubon Society Historical Department


So there you have it my friends, the true story of the Osprey....the Raptor Pretender who is merely a dressed up buzzard.

 

*Tor enters his blog house and drops his bags on the floor. "Ah, home again," he sighed. "Four day vacations are nice, but it's good to be home again."


Yup, it is good to be back in Blogville again and I want to thank all my friends for the thousands of emails and calls from you who were concerned about me and my missing SoH.

The vagabond came straggling home yesterday, looking tired but satisfied after his prolonged absence. From what I can gather he has been off seeing the sites with that hussy muse, Hortense and for some reason he just can't stop grinning...I don't want to know!

Besides kicking up his heels with Hortense, Bubba (yes, my SoH has a name) also somehow got mixed up with that dang RufusTFirefly and ended up taking part in the sacking of Peculiar, Mo. This turned out to be a travesty of the first order and he barely escaped with his skin. So, here he is....back home, refreshed and ready to go to work.

Speaking of a Sense of Humor....Do any of you watch the Weather Channel? Mel is addicted to that damn channel, while I use it instead of taking sleeping pills....it works twice as fast for me and in no time I can be snoozing away. Well, anyway, it seems that the Weather Channel has taken to calling their reporters who do reports on hurricanes from the field, Weather Warriors! I almost fell out of my chair the first time I heard them refer to the reporters as their "Weather Warriors". What really amazed me is that they were able to do this with a straight face...THESE GUYS WERE SERIOUS!

I have noticed, today, many of the networks are in mourning over the fact that the much ballyhooed Gustave ended up being a Cat 2 storm when it finally came ashore. I have listed to a lot of: "Well it COULD HAVE....", or "It MIGHT well have....", or even: "It could have POSSIBLY been..."

Well bottom line: IT WASN'T, NOW WAS IT.

There was one scene...it happened yesterday and involved the greatest "Weather Warrior" of them all; the great Geraldo Rivera, the king of Hype. He and his camera man are standing on this bridge overlooking a levee. The water is high and wind-tossed, the rain falling in a steady downpour. There is a Tugboat just out in front of Geraldo and off to one side a large propane tank is floating free from a flooded dock.

Suddenly Geraldo starts yelling and pointing..."LOOK, THERE'S A PERSON IN THE WATER! CAN YOU SEE HIM?" He is gesturing at his camera man to get a 'tight-shot'.

"WE HAVE TO TELL SOMEONE...OH MY GOD, WHERE ARE THE COPS?"

Then you can hear Geraldo yelling to a group of cops who were standing close by. Shouting for them to come save the poor man in the water. Then you hear talking in the background. Then Geraldo speaks into the mic again.

"Okay, okay...the man seems to be swimming. Yes, I see now he is holding onto a safety line and he has a life vest on.....Thank God he is safe now."

The bottom line: The man worked on the tugboat and was sent over the side by his captain to attach a line to the floating propane tank so they could tow it to safety and away from the levee. This is standard operating procedure for a tug boat to send a man over the side to do this.

This one episode, to me, exemplified the style of coverage the Media has become famous for....get a little information then wildly overreact. God Bless those brave Weather Warriors....I just wonder how many of them will end up with Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome from the horrible effects of their time on the "Front Line of Gustav".
 

The search continues, at this writing but my sense of humor seems to be intent on staying hidden. In the mean time, those few of you who read my blog with any regularity, know that ever so often I will use my blog space to plug other blogs I have found interesting and entertaining. Well I would like to do that today.

"Mel, can I come sit on that porch with you? I feel calmer just reading your story about the deer and the spider."

This comment was left by Kay Jordan in the blog: "Invalid Item"  written by my sweet wife, Mel aka Mrs Tor and it struck me, when I read that comment, that Kay had nailed it.....calming is what Mel's blog is all about. If you love controversy, if you read for Drama and angst....don't bother reading this blog. But, on the other hand, if you enjoy unwinding from a hetic day by being pulled bodily into a quiet, pastorial scene and into the minds and lives of simple farm animals....this is a must read.

Calm...yes this is what she does so well, not only with her blog, but in real life as well. Mel has this same effect upon the people she comes in contact with in the real world as well. She has this way of looking directly into your eyes when you talk to her and making you feel as though you are the most important person in the world, at that moment. People and animals alike are drawn to her. I don't know how many times we have been out in public and complete strangers have approached her and struck up a conversation. She has this way about her that makes people want to talk to her. I usually stand there impatiently waiting, while waitresses, store clerks, or people in a check-out line tell her their life story....I am not a people person, as you have noticed.

Animals are no different. I have watched her approach and calm dogs I wouldn't get close to without a gun. I have seen her take a wild, skittish colt and soothe him, rubbing him all over and whispering to him, then I have watched in awe as that same colt will begin to follow her around like a little puppy.

This is what you get when you read her blog.....a calm and open spirit, willing to listen and wanting to share her dream-come-true....her small farm, her front porch, and all the animals she loves.

So if you want a break from the everyday hustle and bustle of a cold world, if you want to sit back and relax on the front porch with a friend and listen to a little story that will make you smile and forget the crap of the day, then head on over to "Invalid Item"  and welcome to our world.
 

"Momma always said; life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you are gonna find." Forrest Gump was an idiot. Life is more like a salt-water enema on raw hemorrhoids.....just a big pain in the ass. But....the thing is....as bad as life can be, it sure beats the hell out of the alternative. My God, I'm turning into my father...someone shoot me!

Did you know that there is other news besides the People's Democratic Convention? Yes, I am speaking of the "killer storm", Gustav. Killer storm? Hell the thing is still a tropical storm, not even a hurricane and already the Media is hyping it for all it's worth. I love it, yesterday I heard this breathless report from one reporter who said:

"Even though Gustav is only a tropical storm NOW, it is about to move over open water of the Gulf and COULD become a Cat.2, or 3, or 4 or EVEN a Cat 5 before it SLAMS into the Gulf Coast..... POSSIBLY AT NEW ORLEANS!!"

Yes, it COULD, it MIGHT, it is POSSIBLE....Where would the Media be without conjecture? And Louisiana, comfortable in its role as victim, has already declared a state of emergency....and the dang storm has only just now cleared Haiti. Who knows, their levees could break again....right?

Just for the record, anyone out there remember just a few months ago when levees all along the Mississippi were breached and whole towns were flooded? You just never hear of those folks anymore do you. I wonder why that is, could it be we hear no more about those towns because, rather than wallow in Drama, the people rolled up their sleeves and went to work rebuilding their lives.

"The squeaky wheel gets the grease." New Orleans....America's 'Squeaky Wheel'.

As you can tell, the search still goes on for my sense of humor. I am now offering a substantial reward for information leading to its recovery.
 

Question of the day: Where the hell did my sense of humor go? If any of you have seen it hiding somewhere please drop me a line and let me know so maybe I could retrieve it. I want to write something funny, but I get up this morning and what do I do....I turn on the news and get bombarded by Convention "News".

POOF! When last seen, my sense of humor was diving out a window and headed over the hill. You know, I was just now thinking....If things are so terrible in this country, and our present President was such a terrible leader, and if people are so unhappy with the way things are.....why is this election shaping up to be a hell of a lot closer than even the republicans thought?

Are we really that unhappy and are we all desperate for a change....after all, the media has been telling us for a solid year that we are...so why is this election going to be so close? Could it possibly be that the Media had it wrong? Could it possibly be that the people who were desperate for change, and who were so unhappy with the current administration, were the Media themselves....and the Liberals? Guess we will find out in November, won't we.

Oh and speaking of politics, have you noticed that here on the Blog Page, folks who write serious opinion pieces tend to go unread or at least uncommitted to. Two of the best, most articulate writers of opinion pieces on this site: Eric Wharton and Carolina Blue , write exelant entries that just cry for discussion, but they rarely get it. I wonder why that is. Is it because no one has an opinion or maybe because people are afraid to share their opinion if it differs with the author's.

I think I can speak for those two gentlemen mentioned above and say....All opinions are welcome in the comments section. We can disagree, we can debate, and we can still retain respect for our opponent. Heck, Eric and I disagree on most things political, but he is still one of my best friends....misguided or not.

Anyway...none of this is helping me find my sense of humor, so I think I'm gonna go see if its hiding in the goat pen. Hell, that dang dog, Sherman may have buried it in the back yard, who knows. If you guys run across it....email me!
 

"The best laid plans of mice and men....."

Yeah, that pretty much describes my quandary today. I am off today and tomorrow and I had fully planned on spending my blog space today hammering my good buddy CCstring , but then one of my other buddies...Eric Wharton got my blood pressure up and had me kicking da cat last night, after work.

So here I am, switching gears and instead of slapping CC upside the head, I want to address my good friend Eric's blog entry.

In his well written entry he put forth the earth shattering theory that our government has actually LIED to us. Not just this administration, but he goes all the way back to poor old Harry Truman and all of this just to point up how China isn't all that bad.

Let me see if I get this right....China isn't all that bad because, no matter what they do, America has done worse....is that about right?

Humm...well let me say this about that:

ALL governments, great and small, engage in lies and distortions. ALL governments, given the opportunity, will do or say ANYTHING in order to retain their power or to broaden the power and influence of their respective countries. This has been true since the first time some stone-aged clan decided to have a chief to lead them.

Not only did Harry Truman lie when he said Hiroshima was a military target, but FDR bent and even broke the accepted rules of neutrality by the Lend Lease Act and sending war materials to England BEFORE we entered the war. Lincoln LIED when he allowed the North to believe that the War of Northern Aggression was a holy crusade to free the slaves. He could have cared less about the slaves. He put off actually freeing them until he was convinced he would have to do it in order to hurt the South's economy to shorten the war.

All governments lie. Do you believe that the Crusades of the Middle Ages were about spreading Christianity? No, it was about the lucrative trade with Eastern Nations. They lied. Oh, oh, and don't even get me started on Emperor Constantine and the Council of Nicaea.

The thing is...I am tired of apologizing for America's past, present, and future. Being an apologist for America is a beloved liberal past time which I refuse to partake of at this late date in my life.

Yes, at different times in the past, America has been a real bastard but that does not change the fact that China is a clear and present danger. The real question is, which Bastard do you prefer...the one you know, or the one out there ready to take over as THE superpower of the world?

So please, don't tell me China isn't so bad because we have done bad things. There has to be a better argument than that.

The thing is, when ever I read or listen to someone beating their breasts and declaring how bad we as a nation has been in the past, in order to justify the actions of another country, my first reaction is: "So...What's your point?" We are ALL bastards and the only question is: Do you want to be the Bastard on top or the one on bottom?

Oh and what would such a political opinion entry be if I didn't end it by poking some fun at my liberal, Obama groupies? Here is a little joke that made me spit my coffee this morning....

The Presidential election was too close to call. Neither the Republican candidate nor the Democratic candidate had enough votes to win.

There was much talk about ballot recounting, court challenges, etc., but a week-long ice fishing competition seemed the sportsmanlike way to settle things. The candidate that caught the most fish at the end of the week would win the election.

Therefore, it was decided that there should be an ice fishing contest between the two candidates to determine the winner. After much of back and forth discussion, it was decided that the contest take place on a remote frozen lake in northern Minnesota . There were to be no observers present, and both men were to be sent out separately on this isolated lake and return at 5 P.M. with their catch for counting and verification by a team of neutral parties.

At the end of the first day, John McCain. returned to the starting line and he had ten fish.

Soon, Obama returned and had no fish. Well, everyone assumed he was just having another 'bad hair' day or something and hopefully,he would catch up the next day.

At the end of the 2nd day John Mc. came in with 20 fish and Obama came in again with none.

That evening, Harry Reid got together secretly with Obama and said, 'Obama, I think John Mc. is a low-life, cheatin' son-of-a-gun. I want you to go out tomorrow and don't even bother with fishing. Just spy on him and see just how he is cheating.'

The next night (after John Mc. returns with 50 fish), Reid said to
Obama, Well, tell me, how is John Mc. cheating?'

Obama replied, 'Harry, you're not going to believe this, but that no good, lying bastard is cutting holes in the ice.'



 

I was depressed last night, so I called Lifeline.
I got a call center in Pakistan.
I told them that I was suicidal.
They got all excited and asked if I could drive a truck.

I am off tomorrow so maybe then I will write a real blog entry, until then you will have to settle for a couple of smiles....hopefully. Here is #2.

A driver is stuck in a traffic jam going into downtown Chicago . Nothing is moving north or south. Suddenly a man knocks on his window..

The driver rolls down his window and asks, 'What happened, what's the hold Up?'

'Terrorists have kidnapped Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Oprah Winfrey, Rosie O'Donnell, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. They are asking for a $10 Million ransom. Otherwise, they are going to douse them with gasoline and Set them on fire. We are going from car to car, taking up a collection.'

The driver asks, 'On average, how much is everyone giving?'

'About a gallon.'

With those little words of wisdom....I'm out the door. You guys have a good Monday.

 

I felt a tap on my shoulder as I sat at the computer this morning. Mel stood behind me and was holding out her hand, in which rested the TV remote.

"Uh...why are you giving me the remote? I know the rule: The one on the computer does not get to control the TV....is this a trick?"

"Because there is nothing worth watching...you are hogging the computer...it is Saturday morning...and by gosh, I'm going back to bed!"

"A wise choice, my dear. Give me a few more minutes and I will join you there and we can chase each other around the bed like we was twenty again!"


Okay....let me make this quick. I spent the day yesterday actually WRITING, and my God it felt good. Some of us tend to forget what brought us to WDC in the first place....we wanted to write. Instead we get caught up in the social scene and our writing suffers. Well yesterday I managed to do a lot of editing on my novel, I also dusted off a half-finished novel and did some work on that thing. Lastly and by no means Least, I wrote a new and original short story to be used by my buddy Eric Wharton in an anthology.

He was SUPPOSED to email me a link so I could advertise the thing, but he didn't do it. As punishment, I will now email CCstring and give him Eric's phone number.....oh you are gonna suffer, my friend.

The new short story? Oh yeah...."Invalid Item" , go check it out if you have nothing better to do. It was inspired by a picture from a book....anyway, it was nice to be able to create again.

Now if you will forgive me, I gotta go...Mel is in the bedroom, so what the hell am I doing sitting here? I just hope she didn't do what she did last time....she took Mollie and Sherman with her to bed with orders for them to bite whoever opened the door!

Now where did I put those doggy treats?

 

I know most of you are familiar with those science shows that depicts rats who are trained, or conditioned to navigate an intricate maze. They really are amazing, aren't they. If you put forty rats in the same maze, at the same time, they will follow each other nose to tail through the correct paths to make it to the end of the maze.

But....

If the mean old scientists place a small partition across the learned path of the rats, then chaos reigns supreme! All those rats will panic, crawling over each other, snapping at one another, squealing and generally chasing their tails.

This is pretty much true whenever a Wal-Mart undergoes a re-model. Did I mention that my store is in the middle of such a re-model? Yes, my friends, the rats are chasing their tails in Missouri this morning and have been for two weeks now. Now under the best of circumstances, our clientele have the mental acuity of a kumquat, but when you throw in massive construction work, moved departments, and closed doors, you get something very similar to a mosh pit in an insane asylum.

Picture this, if you will: On any given day, during an eight hour shift, there are about 150 employees to handle the shopping hordes roughly the same ratio of Greeks to Persians at Thermopylae...with much the same outcome. Now on top of that, throw into the mix another 50 contract workers armed with sledge hammers, crow-bars, and heavy moving equipment and.....standing tall (a stationary target), in the middle of all this madness, is yours truly...at the center door....alone...unarmed. Yeah, you're right, I don't stand a chance.

The truly horrible aspect about all of this is that the construction is not scheduled to be completed until the first of Oct. As bad as that is, it gets worse because I have gone through these "re-models" before and I have never seen one finish on time. That means that this one could very possibly carry into...shudder....our heaviest shopping season, Nov. and Dec. Now that, my friends, would be a true nightmare of biblical proportions.

I have personally been lobbying management to either supply me with enough Valium each day to render me semi-comatose, or allow me to carry an M-16....either course of action would be acceptable to me.

So, in the coming months, please forgive me if I am not my usual, sunny self. If I seem to be a bit "snappy" well just chalk it up to a negative work environment will you and CUT ME SOME DANG SLACK!!! I promise to be back to being all sweetness and light AFTER the re-model....unless, of course I am dead or in jail. At this point I have no real preference between those two.
 

When we are young, we have a sense of urgency about us. You remember that? You know, that feeling of "Gotta do it NOW, have to HAVE it NOW". We wanted to see everything, to experience everything back then, didn't we.

Well the funny thing is, I have discovered that, as I age that feeling is becoming stronger again. The difference is that when we were young, it was merely a case of not having learned patience, but now....at a more "advanced" age, the feelings stem more from a feeling that time is no longer on our side.

This is where I am today. My body has been giving me hints that soon...sooner than I would like....time will become an issue. Thus I have this sense of urgency. There is so much I want to accomplish before I leave life's highway to the newer model sports cars.

What? Oh yeah, I know: "Whine, whine, whine, bitch, bitch, bitch...Get over myself!" Very wise suggestion...I'll work on that.

But, you know, that whole age thing is just a big pain in the ass. I mean, if God is going to allow us to age and for our bodies to fall apart, he should at least allow our brains to age at the same rate as the body...that would be ever so much kinder, you know.

Why, for instance, does my brain still operate as if it is sitting inside a twenty-five year old body? I mean, is it fair that every time I spot a beautiful woman, I react much the same way as I did in my twenties....In my brain that is, my body just stands there, blank faced...in neutral. How do I convince my brain that you don't jump into a model-T to chase a Corvette?

The same goes for doing physical stuff. Mel calls it my "Capt. Stupid." Yeah, Capt. Stupid does tend to take over and cause me to try things...like bare-back riding a horse that doesn't want to be ridden. Well I did it when I was twenty....Geeze.

I guess, to sum this up....My damn Twenty-five year old brain needs to age enough to catch up with my one hundred year old body....Yeah, like that's gonna happen.
 

WARNING: If you don't like humor in a blog....back out now. Yesterday I posted the first part of a little story that was merely an example of my own twisted humor. I will be posting a few more of those in the coming weeks, so beware. So, anyway, I got to thinking...maybe my brand of humor isn't really your cup of tea and that is why I decided to post some different examples of humor today. These examples take the form of jokes that have been sent to me, mostly by my dear wife whose sense of humor is downright wicked....how else could she live with me. I hope you enjoy the jokes and maybe get a little laugh to help you through another Monday.



Let's get the ball rolling with the ever popular "Blonde Joke" shall we. These are always a crowd pleaser....unless the crowd is all blonde, that is....geeze!

A blonde's car gets a flat tire on the Interstate one day. So she eases it over onto the shoulder of the road. She carefully steps out of the car and opens the trunk. She takes out two cardboard men, unfolds them and stands them at the rear of the vehicle facing oncoming traffic. The life-like cardboard men are in trench coats exposing their nude bodies to approaching drivers.

Not surprisingly, the traffic became snarled and backed up. It wasn't very long before a police car arrives. The Officer, clearly enraged, approaches the blonde of the disabled vehicle yelling,'What is going on here?'

'My car broke down, Officer' says the woman, calmly.'Well, what the hell are these obscene cardboard pictures doing here by the road?!' asks the Officer.

HELLLLLLO...... those are my emergency flashers!' she replied.


Don't you just love those blondes. Okay...moving right along....this next joke delves into the whole "older man-younger woman" scenerio and because I am older than dirt myself, it is one of my favorite types of humor....

An older, rather unattractive, white haired man walked into a jewelry store one Friday evening with a beautiful young girl at his side.

He told the jeweler he was looking for a special ring for his girlfriend.

The jeweler looked through his stock and brought out a $5,000 ring.

The old man said, "No, I'd like to see something more special."

At that statement, the jeweler went to his special stock and brought another ring over. "Here's a stunning ring at only $40,000" the jeweler said.

The young lady's eyes sparkled and her whole body trembled with excitement.

The old man seeing this said, "We'll take it."

The jeweler asked how payment would be made and the old man stated, "By check."

I know you need to make sure my check is good, so I'll write it now and you can call the bank Monday to verify the funds and I'll pick the ring up Monday afternoon," he said.

Monday morning, the jeweler phoned the old man.

"There's no money in that account."

"I know," said the old man, "But let me tell you about my weekend!"


Hee, hee, hee, that one never fails to make me laugh...yeah, I know, I'm a sick puppy. Anyway, this brings me to my last example of humor and it is my all-time favorite Wal-Mart Greeter joke.

A very loud, unattractive, mean-acting woman walked into Wal-Mart with her two kids, yelling obscenities at them all the way through the entrance.

The Wal-Mart Greeter said pleasantly, "Good morning, and welcome to Wal-Mart. Nice children you have there. Are they twins?"

The woman stopped yelling long enough to say, "Hell no they ain't! The oldest one's 9 and the other one's 7. Why the hell would you think they're twins? Are you blind, or just stupid?"

"I'm neither blind nor stupid, Ma'am," replied the greeter. "I just couldn't believe someone would sleep with you twice. Have a good day and thank you for shopping at Wal-Mart."

So there you have it....some examples of "humor"....things designed to make you laugh, or maybe just to smile. That can't be a bad thing, can it?





 

I first heard of CCstring long before he had that name. I was present, in the coffee shop in Buzzard Neck, Texas with my father when Billy Bob Rabinowitz regaled his friends with the tale of his latest misadventure.

You see, Billy Bob, besides being the only Jewish cowboy in Buzzard Neck, Texas, was also quite the inventor and entrepreneur. Old Billy Bob was always way ahead of the curve when it came to his inventions and so it was back in 1959, when this story unfolds.

It seems that Billy Bob had been working secretly on the process of making test-tube babies....people grown in a lab. Now as Billy Bob tells the story, his first customer in this business was a lady from Maryland who wrote him this letter:

Dear Mr. Rabinowitz,

I just came across your add, placed in “American Stupid” the best selling magazine in Maryland, and I would like to hire your company to make me a baby. You see I am a first grade teacher and the man I love is also in my class. Arnold String is 29 and exceptional brilliance (for Maryland), he should be able to graduate the fifth grade in two more years.

Now since it would not be professional for me to marry someone in my class, we do plan on getting hitched after his graduation. The thing is, I don’t want to wait to have a baby and I’m way too busy to do all that pregnancy stuff, I was wondering if maybe you couldn’t grow me a kid. I will have my doctor remove an egg and I will procure sperm from Arnold....don’t ask...then I will forward them to you, packed in with a hunk of dry ice...that should do it.

I am willing to pay whatever your going rate is and I do hope that you will be able to help me in my quest to become a mother.

Yours Truly,
Mary Lum

Well Billy Bob told us there was no way he could turn down such a heartfelt plea for help, not to mention the money that was going to be made, so he quickly answered the lady’s letter and told her he would do it.

Now at this point, it should have been a straight forward business transaction and Mary and Arnold should have received their baby and lived happily ever after. Unfortunately, as with most of Billy Bob’s business schemes, a small problem arose in the production. This particular problem came in the form of Jimmy Joe Chen. You see, not only was Jimmy Joe the only Chinese cowboy in Buzzard Neck, Texas, but he was also Billy Bob’s best friend and side-kick in all of Billy Bob’s many business ventures.

It seems that Billy Bob had Jimmy Joe helping out in the lab and shortly after he received the sample of sperm and egg from Maryland, Billy Bob got a call from another buddy of his Myron Skank, who was having a bit of trouble with a River Bottom wizard and asked Billy Bob to intercede on his behalf (a whole different story). So Billy Bob had to leave the lab and he left Jimmy Joe a note telling him to take care of the sperm and egg. In hindsight, Billy Bob admitted that the note was a bit vague, but he still could not understand how Jimmy Joe could have messed up the way he did.

When Jimmy Joe arrived at the Lab, he found the package containing the egg and sperm and he found Billy Bob’s note. Jimmy Joe scratched his head....”take care of the sperm and egg”? Now what did he mean by that. To date, all Billy Bob had let him do was clean up the lab. Except for that job he gave him of collecting all that chimpanzee sperm to experiment with...Jimmy Joe cringed every time he thought about that collection process. So Jimmy was at a loss as to what he was supposed to do with the package.

He finally decided that since all he did was clean up anyway, maybe Billy Bob wanted him to clean up this stuff. So he took the package containing the sperm and egg and he emptied it into a bucket which contained the remainder of the unused chimp sperm. There, that was tidy enough. He then left a note for Billy Bob.

Dear BB

I dumped the sperm and egg into the bucket with the chimp sperm. YOU throw it out cause I’m headed down to the lake to go fishing.

Your Pal,
JJC

When Billy Bob returned from the river bottom he was horrified to discover that his one paying customer’s “product” had been dumped into a bucket of old chimp sperm. He gave some thought to contacting Ms. Lum and asking for new samples, but he hated to have her think he was so careless as to have destroyed the first samples, so he just shrugged his shoulders and dumped the whole mess in his mixer and started the process.

Well to shorten the story just a bit....it worked....after a fashion. Within a few months ole Billy Bob had a baby. Thanks to his super-secret growth hormones and development process, the child was soon developed to the stage of a four year old. Billy hoped that Ms. Lum didn’t mind that he was such a hairy child. In fact, he hoped she did not have the same trouble he did...not being able to tell one end of the baby from the other due to excessive hair growth. Billy Bob figured that was because of that dang chimp Jiz that was mixed in with the other, but maybe the kid would grow out of it.

So finally the big day came and Billy Bob slapped two air mail stamps on the little tyke’s head...he hoped that was his head...and mailed him off to Maryland.

Billy Bob told us this story about six months after it all took place and he had just received notice that Ms. Lum was going to sue him. He sit there at his regular table in the coffee shop, surrounded by his friends and sadly declared that he was going to have to close up the Lab and maybe go into hiding for awhile down in the River Bottom. Me, being a young lad of ten, did not understand everything about his story, but the other grown men just nodded in agreement. As my dad told me later...this was not the first time Billy Bob had to go into hiding for awhile. I did not know it then, but I was fated to cross paths many more times with that pathetic little test-tube baby with the chimpanzee tendencies.

It was about fifteen years later when our paths would cross again....In Europe. But, that is a story for another time as this seems to have grown long in the telling. Next time: Chapter 2....Monkey Boy.


Personal note here: Many thanks to Nada for giving me the idea to do this thing in chapter form...once a week.

 

Have you ever had one of those days when you just didn't know which direction to take? What I mean by that is that I had two or three different blogs rattling around in my head, competing with each other for the chance to see the light of day on the blog page and I just could not make up my mind which to choose.

There was the comedy blog....the story of how CC and I first met. I almost went with that one, but then I was distracted by this political thing that was clamoring to be heard. I had almost chosen that one when suddenly there was this blog tugging at me...one about my personal memories during the '60s.

What to write, what to write.......

Okay, I got it. How about a compromise. I think I will do a blog on that silly damn "controversial" survey that seems to be making the rounds of the blogs. Yeah, that's the ticket...I'll do that one!

The very first question on this "survey" pretty much sets the tone and tells you a lot about the person who made it up, I think..."Do you have the guts to answer these questions and re-post as The Controversial Survey?"

Guts?

Let me clue you in here. It takes no guts to answer this thing. You know what takes guts? Being a mother and father, living in poverty yet still striving to raise their children and instill in them a strong work ethic and a drive to better themselves and to be productive citizens. Yeah, that takes guts. It takes guts to be an elderly man or woman living on Social Security and having to make a decision whether to buy medicine they need to live, or to buy food. It takes guts to be a young soldier in Iraq and to walk a patrol while restrained by all the silly "rules of engagement" which the politicians have put on them. You might as well take the clip out of their rifle and make them walk naked.

All those things takes guts. Not filling out a survey. So, having said all of that, let me now answer the survey in as few words as possible....Yes or No. I will let you "Judge" me by my simple answers. I will not copy the questions, God knows there is enough copies floating around blogville now. If you are interested, check out the questions on another blog and match my answers.

1. Yes

2.No

3.Against (yes or no didn't fit..sorry)

4. No

5.Yes

6.No

7.For (again...yes and no didn't fit)

8.Yes

9 No

10. Illegal..yes legal...no

11. No

12. 13. 14....NO

15 Yes

16 No
'
17 Is not even put in the form of a question so merits no answer.

18 is just too silly to answer

19 Do I sound afraid?