Is There A Better Time Of Year Than Early Fall?...

If so, I'd like to know when it is.

Today was motherfucking gorgeous. It is warm enough to have shorts on and to have the windows open, allowing a gentle breeze to filter through the house. The sun is playing hide-and-seek with the clouds. The colors, while not yet at their peak, are spreading daily throughout the woods. The air is crispy-crisp and lends itself to comfortable nights out on the deck with fires in the chiminea. It is also prime sleeping weather.

And how did my dumb-ass choose to spend this glorious afternoon? By watching the stank-ass Bears lose to the Lions. I feel like a world class schmuck. I'm probably never going to watch football again.

A Bloody Weekend Ahead...

The last weekend of September each year is the weekend all the area ski patrols gather to be re-certified for the upcoming ski season. Saturday we spend the whole day being refreshed on fracture management, backboarding, treating open, bloody wounds, and identifying potential medical issues. I'm especially looking forward to a segment on pneumothoraxes and pericardial tamponade. Often, they try to make the scenarios as lifelike as possible using fake, squirting blood and phony impaled objects. We break half-way for a lovely chicken lunch and finish the day off with a bunch of beers.

Sunday we update our CPR certification and do a chairlift evacuation. This involves shooting a line up over the lift cable and using a simple belay system with a seat to lower the skiers down. It's usually a fun day if the weather is nice and the fall colors are getting close to their peak.

This is usually around the time I start letting my beard grow out for the winter. Megan is thrilled. Seriously. She actually likes the beard. Go figure.

A Little Something For My Cubs Fans...

Seeing as the Cubs are on the brink of either great success or massive (predictable) failure, I thought I'd post a little something I happened upon recently. Some guy named Pat Imig did a post featuring audio captures of Harry Caray's last broadcast, a Cubs rout of the Phillies at Wrigley. In it, you can hear Harry:

• Call Manny Alexander "Danny".
• Commiserate with Tom Arnold about his divorce from Roseanne.
• Accuse the Wrigley vendors of spiking his chocolate malt cup with alcohol
• Tell Steve Stone not to take the game too seriously.
• Attribute Hack Wilson's success to sleep deprivation and alcohol.

There's much more. This really took me back to the days I used to tune into games around the seventh inning just to see how fucked up Harry was. Enjoy!

The link is HERE.

The Wait Is Over!...

The Office is back tonight!
9:00 PM Eastern.

Watch it, bitches.

Stop Giving Ben Stein Work...

Yeah, he's really monotone.

Ha ha. Hilarious.

Big fuckin' deal.

I'm A Master!...

Having participated in my third Green Monkey Music Project, I have earned the title of Green Monkey Master. I thank Splotchy for this honor and for all the work he's done in creating cool, themed music mixes. This one was Halloween-themed. While my songs aren't necessarily scary, they do contain minimal references to Halloween-based elements. Here are my selections:

• Dick Dale - Ghostrider In The Sky: I've had the pleasure of seeing Dick Dale, the king of surf guitar, in concert a few times. He's a no-nonsense kind of performer. Most of you know him as the guy who did the theme to "Pulp Fiction".
• Fats Waller - Abercrombie Had A Zombie: I figured a zombie was fitting for Halloween. Fats Waller music is almost always fun and swinging.
  
• Tones On Tail - Movement Of Fear: This song is pretty eerie-sounding so I thought it fit. There isn't a lot of Tones On Tail music out there, but I think what exists is pretty neat. I'm sure Bauhaus and Love And Rockets fans are probably familiar with them.
• Donovan - Season Of The Witch: Usually Donovan is singing about butterflies and rainbows, but here he strays into the darker side. I love Donovan, cheeseball as he can be. I met him at a Tower Records and he signed the liner notes on my copy of "A Gift From A Flower To A Garden".
• Velvet Underground - The Black Angel's Death Song: That's a pretty scary title, huh? I really like the Andy Warhol album this is off of.
  

I Like Obscure References...

Who knows why I might be prone to say,
"I wouldn't touch that with a ten-foot polecat."
THE ANSWER
Some of you probably know.


Edited to add: Didn't you people ever watch cartoons!?
The answer is hidden somewhere in this post.

Devangelism...

If religious folk insist on evangelizing by going door-to-door and sharing their beliefs, I think it's high time those of us who have different beliefs start engaging in a little devangelism.

Let me be clear, my devangelism campaign would in no way try to change people's existing beliefs. If you want to worship an invisible man in the sky, fine. If you like the sense of community an organized religion gives you, who am I to criticize? If your religion is one of the things you need to motivate you to be a better person, hey, as long as you're trying to be a better person. As long as your beliefs do not impact my life, we're cool. I'll even overlook the ringing church bells. They're actually kind of pretty. The only thing I'm looking for is an admission that you could be wrong.

I've written a few times about my own beliefs. For anyone new to this blog who cares, I sum it up HERE. I just think that more people admitting they could be wrong might diffuse a lot of the tension we have in the world. Face it, we can't know what the truth is. Not yet, at least. Until we can have empirical proof of the nature of a higher power or lack thereof, let's stop pretending like we do.

I saw this a while back. It may have been on one of your blogs. Notice how reluctant the people are to hear what this guy has to say, yet they expect others to listen to them spread their beliefs. It's a two-way street. If people want me to listen to them preach, they have to afford me the same courtesy.

Alas, The Dream Is Over...

As expected, the Jan/Marcia "love stew" rumor has been debunked.

However, in my mind, it will live on in perpetuity.

And it may include Cindy, too...

I Think My Head Just Exploded...

I don't care if this source is reliable or not. Please don't ruin this for me!

Maureen McCormick aka Marcia Brady claims she did lesbionic things with Jan Brady aka Eve Plumb back in the day. Maureen will details her sexual experiences with Eve in her new tell-all which doesn't hit stores until 2008.

A source told The National Enquirer, "The most explosive comments will be how the then-blonde, blue-eyed cutie developed a crush on Eve Plumb, which led to some sexual play. This book will certainly come as a shocker. While Maureen is not a lesbian, she reveals there were some sexual hijinks going on behind the scenes. It's bizarre because she played such a virginal character on the show."

Kinda puts the "Marcia! Marcia! Marcia!" line in a whole new light, huh?

Is It Me...

...or does anyone else find it just a tad bit, I don't know, narcissistic to have a magazine that bears your name and features your own picture on every fucking cover?

Perhaps Oprah feels like she just isn't getting enough exposure.

Documentary Film Of The Day: Okie Noodling...

Noodling (or noodlin', as it is more commonly pronounced) is only legal in four states. It is the act of catching catfish with nothing but your hands. Noodlers go into lakes, find holes where catfish live, and dangle their hands to entice them. When the fish defensively bite the noodlers' hands, they try to grab the fish through their gills and haul them out of the water. Some of these fish are massive, upwards of 50 pounds. The sport can be very dangerous. Often noodlers must dive down to find holes and if they get caught on anything, they can drown. They are also in waters full of biting snakes and turtles as well as beavers. This is the kind of documentary I love - a portrait of a small cross-section of society that does a highly specified thing. It's not a long film (about an hour). I found it fascinating. If you've liked my other Netflix recommendations, I think you'll like this one.

A Really Arcane Post...

Did any of you watch the Nickelodeon show "Double Dare"? For those of you who didn't, it was basically a kid's game show produced by middle-aged men with food fetishes. The contestants would answer a series of insultingly easy questions (to keep it competitive, they selected THE dumbest kids to compete that they could find), they'd compete in "physical challenges (i.e.: excuses to dump food and goop on the kids), and the winners would do an obstacle course where they'd collect flags which represented prizes. The further they got, the more valuable the prizes became.

Part of the obstacle course involved a slide that kids had to climb up to retrieve a flag. The middle of the slide was coated in whipped cream, chocolate sauce, and I believe semen. Whatever it was, it made the slide super-slippery; slippery to the point that if you tried to climb up the middle of it, you basically ruined any chances of advancing in the course because you were now covered in shit and would be stuck at that particular obstacle spinning your wheels and getting nowhere. Kids eventually realized that if you climbed up the side and avoided all the crap, you were home free and the rest of the course was fairly easy. Any person paying attention realized this and yet there were still these morons that fucked it up and would get stuck winning next to nothing due to their lack of preparation (watching a few episodes to get a handle on the finer points). I used to scream at these imbeciles for their ignorance, knowing that if I weren't so apathetic and had actually gotten off my lazy ass and applied to be on the show, I would've totally kicked ass.

Shit Disturbing...

I haven't really weighed in on the whole MoveOn.org Petraeus ad thing because, frankly, it's just so trivial. Maybe it was in poor taste, maybe it wasn't. Who the fuck cares? I am not too worried about hurting the delicate feelings of a 5-star general. I figure he's tough enough to take it. Come to think of it, has anyone asked him what HE thought of it. I know what everyone else's opinion is. At any rate, in the grand scheme of things this hardly warrants the amount of attention it has gotten by both the government and the media.

People (pundits) have said this is really going to hurt MoveOn. Are they serious? I liken it to people who think a young actress is going to hurt her career by doing a nude scene. All this free publicity is only going to help MoveOn. As usual, the right has taken this complete non-issue and made it into something monumental. I wouldn't be surprised if this was MoveOn's intent all along.

Let's face it, the power structure is terrified of more people getting involved. We are a threat. With the intronets, our threat has grown. A long time ago, back when the war talk was just revving up, I signed some thing on some website expressing my disapproval. Ever since, I have gotten e-mails from this group that I have never read. I never gave this group any money. The group was MoveOn.org. I'm thinking about giving them money now because it's a chance to prove yet again that the punditocracy and politicians are full of shit and out of step with what people think in this country. Plus, they (MoveOn) are shit disturbers and I like shit disturbers. Wouldn't it be a giant "Fuck you" if, as a result of all this hand-wringing, MoveOn's donations skyrocketed? I think they probably already have and I'd like to help in that cause. I urge you to do the same. Come on. You can spare $5, right?

Now, if I could only remember their URL...


Edited: HERE is MoveOn's explanation for the ad and supporting material. Like I've said many times, I'm never going to trust anyone outright (not TV news, not Michael Moore, and certainly not any right wing press), but it is so much harder for me to trust the administration's line on anything given their recent track record that I'm open to hear what MoveOn has to say.

There He Goes Again...

While listening to Admiral Oo-Oo-Ah-Ah in his press conference today I heard him refer to it, yet again, as "my government". Multiple times.

You're probably wondering why I was listening to him in the first place. Well, I was actually in TOO good a mood today and felt that I needed something to temper my joyousness.

Anytime I hear him say this I have this image of him as a little kid fighting over a toy in a sandbox. I can just hear him saying, "No! It's MY government and YOU can't play with it!"

For the last time, it's OUR GOVERNMENT, not yours! Get that through your thick, simian skull, fuckface!

Blog Improvements...

One of the things I like about blogging is the back and forth. I like to leave comments and I also like to check back to see how my comments were received.

I am a major league dorkasaurus.

However, I realized that I very seldom respond to people's comments on my own blog. That's pretty lame. From now on, I'm going to make the effort to reply to each comment at the end of the day. Now that I have a computer to use at home, this should be a lot easier. It may take me a while to get into the habit, but I promise I'll try.

There's nothing really funny about this post. Fuck. OK, how about Booger Sausage?

God, I'm a fucking child.

Keep Digging...

There's a popular saying that goes, "If you're in a hole, stop digging."

My question is: What if you're not done yet? Say you've only dug down about a foot, but you need to dig deeper to complete your task. What do you do then? Should you stop anyway and call it done?

I can tell you from my experience in the home building business that if people adhered to this adage, it would bring the excavation industry, let alone the entire construction industry, to its knees. It's utter madness.

I suppose you could dig from outside of the hole, but a lot of times that's inefficient and can add a lot of time and cost to the project.

Now, if "hole" and "digging" are merely metaphors, well, that's a different story.

Mr. Green Gene...

He Most Certainly Does...

I found this while doing research for a post about
how the word "pubes" makes me cringe.

When You're In A Hole, Go Back To The Toilet...

If you're like me, you'll often use the term "buttload" to describe a large quantity of something.

Let's examine this, though, shall we?

Is a buttload actually that much? Even if you were to completely fill a toilet bowl to the tippy-top after an evacuation, something that would require an exorbitant level of fiber intake, you're only talking about a few liters - tops. To give you a frame of reference, the average toilet uses 1.6 L of water per flush . The ASI (American Scatological Institute), a bogus organization I just made up, cites the average weight of an American's bowel movement at about half a pound. A half a pound ain't nothin'! And that's the high end! The average bowel movement of someone in Burkina Faso is about the size of a pea.

So, I think we can agree that the term buttload and all its subsidiaries (shitload, assload, crapload, etc.) do not accurately express a significant amount of something. Instead, they should be used to convey a moderate amount of something. For instance, a buttload of corn would be about an ear's worth. A shitload of beer would be a couple cans or so. And an assload of crap would be exactly that.

Please make a note of it.



By the way, I deeply regret that last post. I am leaving it up as a reminder to never venture into the world of puns again.

And The Bar Lowers A Little Bit More...

Hey, would you say that this little guy's father's brother is his skunkle?





C'mon! It takes a lot of effort to come up with a post this lame.

I Thinks It's High Time I Got My Own T.V. Show...

I mean, seriously, who else is going to be able to fill the void left by Barbara Mandrell back in 1981? Carrot Top?

Fat fucking chance...

Stickling...

This afternoon, I accused Megan of being a stickler (exactly why I can't remember). Actually, I believe I sarcastically asked, "Stickle much?"

I wasn't sure if stickle was a verb and I'm now too bored by the subject to even look it up. I mean, you never hear anyone say, "I hate to stickle, but..." or "Stop stickling, you stickler!" After contemplating it I knew it was worthy of a blog post. That, my friends, is how desperate I am for material these days.

Pictured above is Richard E. Stickler, Assistant Secretary of Labor for Mine Safety and Health. Do you think he lives up to his name? Judging by the problems with mines these days, I have my doubts.

Rhyming Assistance For Aspiring Songwriters...

To the best of my knowledge, nobody has ever rhymed:

bigot

with

spigot.

You can thank me later.

Next Time, Try This...

Last night, I did something I rarely do . I completely avoided Dum-dum's speech. I also avoided any pre- or post-speech analysis.

This morning, I feel fresh and clean. The air tastes sweeter and despite the gray clouds, it's sunny in my heart. It took me this long to realize that he's gonna give the same infuriating speech he's given for the last five years no matter what the current situation is.

Now, if I can only resist the urge to read about it on the intro-nets this morning. That will be a true test of my will.

Who Do You Get Your Crawlers From?...

Up here, there's only one name to trust when it comes to nightcrawlers,

Walt

Walt's Crawlers have the tangy flavor fish love.
With one of the most expansive worm farms in the north,
Walt has just the crawler you need.

Ask for them by name at your local bait shop.
Remember, if it's not a Walt's Crawler, it's just a worm.

My Choices For The Latest Green Monkey Music Project...

First, hats off to Splotchy for doing all this. I love sharing music and this has been a great way to do it. The latest installment contains songs with non-English lyrics. Here are my contributions:

• Buckwheat Zydeco - Drivin' Old Grey: I bought some zydeco music because I thought that one Paul Simon tunes was fun. Zydeco music is like banjo music in that it makes you feel happy. You can't help but tap your feet.
• Ibrahim Ferrer - Boliviana: Some of you may be familiar with Ibrahim from the Buena Vista Social Club. This is from one of his solo albums and one of his prettiest in my opinion. It's a shame he passed away not that long ago.
• Fred Buscaglione - Porfirio Villarosa: I was turned on to a bunch of Italian music by some Italian friends of mine. This is one of them. He does a lot of songs about gangsters. This one is kind of fun.
• St. Moses Choir of South Africa - Halefa Tshele Wetswe: While I was in South Africa I had to attend a few church services. I must say, if church was like that here, I might consider going just for the music. It was really amazing. This is off a disc of S.A. gospel music I bought while I was there.
• Los Fabulosos Cadillacs - Vasos Vacios: I can't remember how I happened upon these guys. I think I liked the cover art on the CD, so I bought it. They've got a cool, ska sound.
• They Might Be Giants - Greek #3: Leave it to me to work a TMBG song into a world music mix. This is a Greek translation of one of their songs.
• Paolo Conte - Genova Per Noi: Another Italian, this guy is an old school crooner, sort of an Italian Tom Waits. He's awesome.
• Edith Piaf - Hymne A La Amour: When I first got to France my junior year of college, they had a crash course in French. The teacher played an Edith Piaf (pictured above) song called "Milord" and we had to figure out what she was saying. I like this song a lot. I think it's about love.

Be sure to check out the rest of the entries HERE!

Random Shit...

Luckily it didn't come to this.

Basically, I came in Monday and turned on the computer. I got some cryptic error message that turned out to be something about a corrupted registry. Our computer whiz couldn't come until Tuesday, so Monday was lost.

Bored yet? Just wait.

Tuesday he spent the better part of the day trying to fix the glitch. I was mainly concerned with the vast amounts of data I could potentially lose. While I do back things up, I was dreading the idea of tracking down the CAD files for all the homes we've done. I also get extremely uncomfortable when someone is sitting at MY desk working at MY computer while I sit like a dope watching. Finally he was able to get Windows working and I saw all my stuff was safe and sound. There are all these little issues that keep popping up, but nothing too terrible. The biggest thing was getting our 3D modelling program - the one we do all of our work on - to work again. Right before lunch today we stumbled upon the solution. It's amazing the unease and vulnerability you feel when your computer is sick. I've had headaches and backaches and ass-aches the whole time.

- I'm sorry I haven't been commenting as much on your blogs. I also missed a whole bunch of shit that's been happening besides O'Reilly's birthday. I didn't see any of the Petraeus debacle, but that's probably for the best. I'm sure it was just what I would have expected. At least I did get to see the Britney travesty. Thank god we have people like her around to make us feel superior and to take our minds off the fact that our current government is shit.

- You know what I'd like in a president? I want someone that can at least envision a peaceful world. I know it's not going to happen anytime soon, but it'd be nice to have a leader that understands that war is never going to bring an end to war. I really don't think most of the candidates can imagine a world free of war, with the possible exception of Kucinich. To me, that should always be the ultimate goal.

- As you may have seen on Megan's blog, we captured the mouse and set him free. Little bastard.

- You know how they have those lists of "the best shows nobody's watching"? I'm curious to know the best blogs I'm not reading. I read all the ones in my links, but would like to know others that y'all recommend.

- Fuckin' Michael Medved. What a nuisance.

-Did I happen to mention what a fuckin' turdburger the fuckin' computer situation has been?

-Just a little early heads up. Flannery and Doc are coming to Chicago over the weekend of Oct. 13th. I'd love to have a little (or big) get-together for whoever wants to, but would like other people to suggest places since I've sorta picked the last two times. The best kind of place would be one that could accomodate a big, noisy group. Any input is encouraged.

-Edited: Apparently, Flannery and Doc are not coming as promised. I'd still be up for a gathering if people want to. Let's discuss...

I Apologize For My Absence...

One of the worst parts about not having my computer the last two days was that I missed our favorite skunk-ass fucking miserable excuse for a human, Bill O'Reilly's birthday on the tenth. Here is an indexed list of O'Reilly posts I've done. As you can tell, I'm quite fond of him.

• First - Name Calling
  
• Second - O'Reilly vs. Soros
  
• Third - Something About Clams
• Fourth - Fairly Uninteresting Post About Colbert & O'Reilly Being On Each Other's Shows.
• Fifth - My Interview With O'Reilly
  
• Sixth - My First Poo Post
  
• Seventh - The Second Poo Post
  
• Eighth - The Home Depot Boycott

It was nice to see Olbermann beat O'Reilly's ass in the key 25-54 demographic recently. Billy, your audience is dyin' on ya!

Technical Difficulties...

Please bear with us.

Yesterday, my computer crashed. I hope to be up and running later today.

Fucking bullshit...

Stupid, Crappy, Shitty-Ass Bears...

Mark my words, they won't win another game this season.




Note: For those of you who would call me a fair-weather fan, don't worry. This is just something I have to get out of my system. I'm sure they'll win a game this season.

Maybe.

Jabberjaw: Harmless Toon Or Propaganda Tool...

It was the summer of 1976. The bicentennial celebration was in full swing. However, around the country and around the world, beaches were vacant. In fact, they had been vacant ever since the June 1975 release of the movie "Jaws". It seems the film had sufficiently scared potential beach-goers shitless. They were staying away in droves. Resorts and hotels were reeling. Zinc Oxide manufacturers were going belly-up on a daily basis. Something had to be done.

Thanks to documents recently obtained through the Freedom Of Information Act, it has come to light that our government approached William Hanna and Joseph Barbera and tasked them with changing people's perception of sharks. This was based on a previous propaganda campaign in which Hanna and Barbera were able to allay rampant public fear of "Space Ghosts".

After a lot of trial and error, "Jabberjaw" was born. His impact was immediate. No longer did people feel the need to be nervous about venturing into the ocean. A cross between the Three Stooge's Curly Howard and Rodney Dangerfield, Jabberjaw portrayed sharks as they truly are - docile creatures that are more interested in playing drums in a rock band than they are in attacking innocent swimmers.

Thanks to the efforts of Jabberjaw, beachside communities began to reemerge and once again thrive. Zinc Oxide was flowing like rain. Sure, there were a few subsequent "Jaws" sequels with terrifying shark sequences, but none could supplant the image people now had of sharks as goofy, good-natured, slightly squeamish rock musicians.


Interesting note: Jabberjaw was launched on September 11th, 1976. The plot thickens...

Whaddya Think?...

Should I start smoking crack?

Everything I hear is that it is WAY fun and very cool.
I suppose I could just try it and see what I think.
Luckily it's not supposed to be too addictive.

Well, It Was A Good Run...

At my last house, I grew accustomed to having the occasional non-human intruder find its way into my house. When you live in the country, it's bound to happen. I had mice (maybe 4 or 5 a year), a chipmunk (that I was somehow able to catch and release), a bat (just its corpse), a big ol' snake (story HERE), and a three-toed sloth. The sloth was easy to catch. It moved like molasses.

Up until last night, I have not had any signs of a rodent breaching my perimeter. It's been nice. Megan and I were sitting on the couch when I heard what sounded like one of the cats puking. Her cat was inside and seemed fine. Mine was out on the deck, so I opened the door to let him in. It was dark, so I didn't understand why Megan was freaking out as the cat came into the light. He had a mouse in his mouth that was still alive (he likes to have a little fun with them prior to the execution). While he thought he was bringing us a present, we were less than enthused. He released it and it took off under a bookcase. Now, you should know that I am a bit of a baby when it comes to mice in my house. We tried for a while to corral it while cursing at my confused cat. Ultimately it found a hole that prevented any further hope of capture. The little bastard probably opened the door for his buddies and they're all probably having sex as I write this, producing more beady-eyed varmints to come fuck with my life.

Where The Hell Am I?...

I'm hiding...

Kinda like the weapons of mass destruction...



Actually, I'm just really busy at the moment.
I promise some levity as soon as I get a sec.

More "Planet Earth" Love...

This really is a phenomenal series. Last night we started with the one on caves and right away I knew it was gonna be tough to watch, what with all the batshit, cockroaches, and pigmentless salamanders. I was especially interested in the Cave Glow Worms with their luminous butts that dangle their sticky, silken strings with which to snare flying insects. I thought the term "mucus hammock" was particularly poetic. Talk about a great name for a band...

You Make It Too Easy, Mr. Decidinator...

Mmmm, Dana. You smell just like Count Chocula.



Please deposit your own caption in the comments section.

Mungry...

That's what I say instead of "I'm hungry."

It saves valuable time - time that could be spent trying to come up with a decent blog post.

I Love Work!...

Words can't express how nice it is to return to the office after a long weekend of leisure. It's so fucking wonderful to come back to a phone ringing with different people needing you to do this or that. It's especially fun to get ready for work before the sun has come up. It's moments like these that I can't help but get a little sarcastic.

Are any of you like me in that the majority of your idle thoughts are devoted towards trying to dream up feasible get-rich-quick schemes so that you can retire and do whatever the hell you want and wake up whenever the hell you want and travel wherever you want and never worry about stupid fucking money ever again? I've come up with a few, but it's going to require a lot of work to implement them.

Dammit.

Hey Man, Is That Freedom Rock?...

Well turn it up, Man!