Day #14,245

So Far, So Good...

First, a big THANK YOU to everyone who left words of encouragement concerning my 39th B-day. They were greatly appreciated!

Dad drove back from my sister's place yesterday to take care of a few odds & ends, one of which was taking me out for dinner. I was tempted to scar up his credit card with a 32 oz. ribeye and a bottle of Brunello di Montalcino, but at the last minute, I suddenly had the craving for a positively obscene pile o' pastrami.

There's a Noo Yawk-style deli hereabouts that I like quite a bit called Kenny & Ziggy's. I dunno if it would meet with Elisson and The Brooklyn Dodger's approval, but they have a separate meat & milk menu, so I'm guessing they're kosher.

As one who is not of the Chosen People, I was free to gobble on some treyf, and gobble I did. They have a sammich the size of your head consisting of a gigantimous pile of brisket served between two potato latkes, and I gleefully schmeared applesauce & sour cream over the latkes, which in turn leaked onto the thin-sliced brisket, sending the whole thing into the realm of the anti-kosher. T'was farookin' delicious, though!

Also noshed were a pile of half-sour pickles, some 'tater salad, a bagel with a schmear, and a bowl of rice pudding just to round things out. Probably 4000 calories of deli goodness. Shaddap about the calories, it's my birthday!

When I got home, my present (from myself, alas) was waiting for me on the doorstep. I was hoping it would arrive last week for the weekend, but UPS bricked on the pickup. Ah, well. Better late than never.

So, I open my box from Amazon.com, and there's the latest book from John Scalzi, and the final Harry Potter tome.

Talk about temptation... I'm about halfway through Philip Pullman's 'The Subtle Knife', the 2nd volume in his Dark Materials trilogy, and I've got Scalzi's 'The Last Colony' and Rowling's 'Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows' in front of me... Which to read? Which to read??

No contest, really. The fantasy gets put aside, and I tore into the Scalzi novel. Started at 8 pm last night, got 5 hours of sleep, woke up and finished it by 7 am. Damn, that man can write.

So, take note, Rockhauler! I tucked a copy of Scalzi's 'Old Man's War' in one of those bags of books I gave you! Get on it! Then get to work on Pullman's 'The Golden Compass', which is also in there!

I also picked up The Thin Man DVD collection from the local pre-owned DVD shop. All 6 Thin Man movies and a documentary on William Powell & Myrna Loy for $30! They were selling it as used, but if these have ever been played, they were opened in a dust-free environment and handled by elves wearing sterile latex gloves. Mmmmm... Elves... latex... mmmm.... oh, shit, where was I going with that???

Anyway, I think I'm up for a dose of Nick & Nora before diving into the Harry Potter this evening. I might even have to shake up a cocktail to get in the proper spirit!

July 30 In History!

Another Wikipedia-Fueled Post!

1419 - First Defenestration of Prague. (Isn't defenestration a great word?)

1608 - At Ticonderoga (now Crown Point, New York), Samuel de Champlain shoots and kills two Iroquois chiefs. This was to set the tone for French-Iroquois relations for the next one hundred years. (Gee, ya think??)

1619 - In Jamestown, Virginia, the first representative assembly in the Americas, the House of Burgesses, convenes for the first time.

1729 - Baltimore, Maryland is founded.

1864 - American Civil War: Battle of the Crater - Union forces attempt to break Confederate lines by exploding a large bomb under their trenches.

1866 - New Orleans's Democratic government ordered police to raid an integrated GOP meeting, killing 40 people and injuring 150.
(This sets the tone for 150 years of Democratic & Police Corruption in N.O.)

1932 - Olympic Games: The Games of the X Olympiad open in Los Angeles, California.

1945 - World War II: Japanese submarine I-58 sinks the USS Indianapolis (CA-35), killing 883 seamen. (Providing the historical basis for Quint's speech in 'Jaws', one of the best scenes in a movie ever!)

1954 - Elvis Presley makes his debut as a public performer.
(Hail to the King, Baby!)

1968 - El Capitan born, Dallas, TX

1971 - Apollo program: Apollo 15 Mission - David Scott and James Irwin on Lunar module, Falcon, land with first Lunar Rover on the moon.

1975 - Jimmy Hoffa disappears from the parking lot of the Machus Red Fox restaurant in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit, at about 2:30 p.m. He is never seen or heard from again.

1990 - The first Saturn automobile rolls off the assembly line.


July 30 Births

1549 - Ferdinando I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany (d. 1609)
1763 - Samuel Rogers, English author (d. 1855)
1818 - Emily Brontë, English novelist (d. 1848)
1855 - Georg Wilhelm von Siemens, German industrialist (d. 1919)
1863 - Henry Ford, American industrialist (d. 1947)
1898 - Henry Moore, English sculptor (d. 1986)
1904 - Tsarevich Alexei of Russia (d. 1918)
1922 - Henry W. Bloch, American co-founder of H&R Block
1929 - Sid Krofft, Canadian children's television producer
1934 - Bud Selig, American Commissioner of Baseball
1936 - Buddy Guy, American guitarist and singer
1939 - Peter Bogdanovich, American film director
1941 - Paul Anka, Canadian singer and composer
1945 - David Sanborn, American saxophonist
1947 - Arnold Schwarzenegger, actor, bodybuilder, & Governator
1948 - Jean Reno, Moroccan-born French actor
1950 - Frank Stallone, American singer and actor
1956 - Delta Burke, American actress
1957 - Rat Scabies, English drummer (The Damned)
1958 - Kate Bush, English singer/songwriter
1960 - Richard Linklater, American director
1961 - Laurence Fishburne, American actor
1962 - Alton Brown, American television host and chef
1963 - Lisa Kudrow, American actress
1964 - Vivica A. Fox, American actress
1971 - Tom Green, Canadian comedian and actor
1974 - Hilary Swank, American actress
1977 - Jaime Pressly, American actress


July 30 Deaths
579 - Pope Benedict I
1683 - Maria Theresa of Spain, queen of Louis XIV of France (b. 1638)
1718 - William Penn, English founder of the Province of Pennsylvania (b. 1644)
1875 - George Pickett, American Confederate general (b. 1825)
1898 - Otto von Bismarck, 1st Chancellor of the German Empire (b. 1815)
1912 - Emperor Meiji, Japanese emperor (b. 1852)
1945 - A sh!tload of sailors off of the USS Indianapolis
1996 - Claudette Colbert, French-American actress (b. 1903)
2003 - Sam Phillips, American record producer (b. 1923)
2007 - Ingmar Bergman, Swedish stage and film director (b. 1918)
2007 - Bill Walsh, Hall of Fame Football Coach

One More Trip Around The Sun

Count Your Blessings, No Matter How Sparse They May Be

Well, I was schlepping into work today, feeling out of kilter and depressed because another birthday had crept up on me.

I turned 39 today, and have sweet f#ck-all to show for it. Huge debt, no wife, no kids, driving a gas-sucking redneck sled 'cause it's necessary for hauling my large ass around, my cat's got fleas, the G5 iMac's deader'n fried chicken, & my friends are disappearing into the Great Unknown one by one... Yeah, life sucks.

Then, I get into the office and find out my boss's father died over the weekend, throwing her into a downward spiral requiring hospitalization.

So, y'know, things *could* be worse... A lot worse.

I've got a job that grates at my political sensibilities, but it's honest work that occasionally helps people in need and manages to get the bills paid.

I've got two parents still married to each other after 43 years, & both in good health. My sister has finally settled down and married a good man and now has two beautiful children.

My health is not as robust as it used to be, but the handful of pills I swallow daily keeps the gremlins at bay, and I'm getting better about choosing rabbit food instead of chilidogs.

The friends from years past that I care most about are still in touch, and even if we don't see each other as often as I'd like, I know they're still there to lend support if I need it.

There's a growing list of people that seem to give a shit about my life enough to drop by this hole in the Intarweb most days and see what's going on. Most of 'em I'll never meet face to face, but quite a few I have met, and would be proud to call them 'friend' when we're all old and gray.

Waitaminnit... I'm already old and gray. So are they. Damn.

It's easy to bitch about things. Hell, it's my usual state of affairs. Still, underneath the Monstrous Layer of Suck, there's still a silver lining. Perhaps a bit tarnished, but it's still there.

So, Happy Birthday to me. One more year gone by. Next year might require a party of some sort, I'm thinking.

WTF???

Friday Afternoons Go Much Too Slow!

Cowboy Blob's got his Friday Photoshop/Caption contest up.

Most times the muse escapes me for Blob's contests, and I avoid entering lest I suffer terminal embarrassment from an uber-lame entry. This week, my idea was just so-so lame, but the picture weirded me out so much I had to share it with you.

Check out this beastie:



My entry - "It's easy and fun to grow prize-winning hamsters using our exclusive McGwire/Bonds injectable "vitamin" solution!"

Go over and make your own entry!

Oh, it's a wombat, in case you're wondering...

Grim Reaper LOLCat??

Death Comes Creeping On Little Cat Feet...

OK, this story is just too bizarre...

Oscar the cat seems to have an uncanny knack for predicting when nursing home patients are going to die, by curling up next to them during their final hours.

His accuracy, observed in 25 cases, has led the staff to call family members once he has chosen someone. It usually means they have less than four hours to live.

I remember reading about a cancer-sniffing dog once. A death-sniffing cat, though? Dunno about that. I'll be kinda leery of having either one of my critters curling up next to me in the future...

I love this next bit:

Doctors said most of the people who get a visit from the sweet-faced, gray-and-white cat are so ill they probably do not know he is there, so patients are not aware he is a harbinger of death. Most families are grateful for the advanced warning, although one wanted Oscar out of the room while a family member died. When Oscar is put outside, he paces and meows his displeasure.

That's because the cat must devour the departing soul!! According to one of the Far Eastern beliefs (and I can't remember which one at the moment), the soul at the moment of death leaves the body and transforms into an invisible butterfly. You know how cats sometimes seem to see things that we can't? That cat just wants to bat that soul outta the air and play with it until it stops wiggling...

Well, might as well commemorate the occasion with another LOLcat!

Visualize Using Your Turn Signal!

So Easy In Theory, So Difficult In Practice...

Pammy over at Lollygaggin has a tale posted about one of the millions of drivers who have no idea what the little stick on the left side of the steering column is for.

It reminds me of the time Rockhauler and I were going out to see a friend in Arkansas, and encountered another of these clueless morons.

We'd left Dallas with a carload of booze and guns, the usual accoutrements of our road trips. Rockhauler was still driving his Chevy Nova back then.

After exiting in Mt. Pleasant for a Mickey D's lunch break, we were getting back on I-30 when we were almost sideswiped by an Oldsmobuick that just had to be in front of us. The dickhead rocketed across the traffic lanes and started to accelerate away.

Well, we weren't going to stand for that shit. Time to give this asshole a piece of our minds, and maybe a buttstroking from the SKS rifle after using the bayonet to poke holes in his tires.

Well, it might have come to that. All we really wanted to do was tell him to turn off his left turn signal, which had been lit up ever since Rockhauler spotted him racing up behind us.

I scrabbled around in the car for a Sharpie and something to write on. Managing the road bumps as best I could, I wrote on a piece of McD's bag in big block letters "TURN OFF YOUR BLINKER" then, on the flip side, "ASSHOLE". The plan was to drive up alongside him, show him the sign, then when he turned off the signal, show him the other side and give him a quadruple one-finger salute.

Problem was, we just couldn't catch the guy. Rockhauler had the accelerator kissing the floor, and that little 4-banger engine was screaming for all it was worth. Like in 'True Grit', that hoss was loaded down with an excess of fat men & iron... Oh, and liquor, too. Can't forget the genuine, double-rectified bust head.

We finally topped out somewhere near the century mark, and that Oldsmobuick just kept pulling away from us. Rockhauler finally let off the accelerator and said "Fuck this. He's in Arkansas by now." Disappointed, I held on to the sign anyway.

Imagine our mutual glee when 40 miles down the road, there's the Oldsmobuick, in the loving care of a Texas Department of Public Safety State Trooper. He's pulled over on the right shoulder, with the left blinker still on...

I held up the sign ("ASSHOLE" side facing out!) as we passed, both of us laughing hysterically, but I'll bet the dickhead driver was too preoccupied to notice!

We All Scream For Ice Cream!

De Gustibus Non Est Disputandum!

I ran across this web site that lists 101 oddball flavors of ice cream.

I'd call bullsh!t on some of the flavors, except that I've seen 'em with my own eyes. If you go to any of the larger Asian supermarkets, they'll have 20-30 of these flavors in their freezer. Not quite Ben & Jerry. More like Nguyen & Minh Thuy.

I'm just seriously ooked out by most of these. Somebody bring me a Dairy Queen dipped cone to get these tastes out of my head!

Mmmmm... howzabout a double dip cone of raw horseflesh & squid gut!


1. Fish
2. Octopus
3. Squid
4. Ox Tongue
5. Sweet Potato
6. Fried Eggplant
7. Crab Ice Cream
8. Corn Ice Cream
9. Koshihikari Rice
10. Wasabi
11. Shrimp
12. Eel
13. Nagoya Noodle
14. Chicken Wing
15. Miso
16. Cactus
17. Raw Horseflesh
18. Goat
19. Whale
20. Shark Fin Noodle
21. Oyster
22. Abalone
23. Seaweed
24. Deep Sea Water
25. Spinach
26. Garlic

(Note: I will confess to having eaten garlic ice cream... It was at a garlic-themed restaurant in London, Ontario. They caramelized the garlic, swirled it in a syrup to form a candy shell around the garlic bits, then mixed it in the ice cream. If you've ever had roasted garlic, you'll be familiar with the smooth mellow flavor, unlike the sharp pungency of raw garlic. It was... a unique flavor. I'd eat it again, but it won't ever displace mint chocolate chip...

27. Sesame, Soybean and Dried Kelp
28. Lettuce and Potato
29. Wheat
30. Curdled Bean
31. Silk
32. Chicken
33. Stout Ice Cream
34. Potato Liquor
35. Red Wine
36. Tulip
37. Cherry Blossom
38. Soy Sauce
39. Pit Viper
40. Indian Curry
41. Pearl
42. Salad
43. Charcoal
44. Miso Ramen
45. Chili Pepper
46. Cheese Risotto
47. Natural Salt
48. Grated Yam
49. Cypress Tree
50. Cream Cheese
51. Squid Gut
52. Squid Ink
53. Char Grilled Seaweed
54. Hot Spring Water
55. Dracula Cool Garlic Mint
56. Genmai Ice Cream (unpolished rice)
57. Aojiru, a broth of green-leafed vegetables,
58. Rice Straw
59. Environmentally Friendly Miso
60. Hojicha Bitter Green Tea
61. Persimmon
62. Pickled Plum and Shiso
63. Collagen Lemon
64. Tomato
65. Deep Water Gelatto
66. Herbal Remedy Ice Cream
67. Potato
68. Cheese
69. Finland (????)
70. Natural Viagra (great, a woodie with my smoothie...)

Flavors from Venezuela. Hugo Chavez probably made 'em make these at gunpoint.

71. Spaghetti Bolognaise
72. Tuna Fish
73. Onion
74. Fried Pork Rind
75. Rose (as in the flower)
76. Beet and Corn
77. Carrot

From Taiwan:

78. Cuttlefish
79. Tuna and Seaweed with Fruit
80. Peanuts and Wine
81. Pineapple Shrimp
82. Mango Seaweed

From Great Britain:

83. Stilton Cheese Ice Cream

From the U.S.A.:

84. Cold Sweat Ice Cream. Along with milk, sugar and the other usual ingredients, this ice cream is made with three kinds of peppers and two kinds of hot sauce. It’s so spicy that just touching it makes your fingers feel hot. It’s not a top seller. One of the ice cream shop’s regular customers said it tasted like, “fire - with a side of fire.”

85. Chicken Fried Steak Ice Cream. Ever wondered what happens if you mesh fried steak and ice cream together? DallasFood.org introduces a new way to screw up your diet quickly and easily. It's basically frying a piece of steak with egg, butter, sugar, and milk, and topping it off with an ice cream scoop.

86. Nogger Black Ice Cream. The world’s first racist ice cream! This is a liquorice flavored version of the classic nougat-flavored “Nogger.”

87. Chunky Bacon Ice Cream
88. Barbecue Flavor Ice Cream
89. Cackalacky Spice Sauce Ice Cream
90. Mushroom Ice Cream
91. Mushroom-Pecan Ice Cream
92. Chocolate Garlic Ice Cream
93. Haddock Ice Cream (More fish?!?!?!??)
94. Bay Leaf Ice Cream
95. Lox Ice Cream
96. Durian Ice Cream
97. Lobster Ice Cream
98. Sauerkraut Sherbet.
99. Potatoes-and-Bacon Ice Cream
100. Squash Ice Cream.
101. Mustard Ice Cream

I think I might just hurl after all that...

Last Stand At The O.K. Corral

Another Sordid Heckle & Jeckle Tale

I was traveling to work the other morning, and I spotted a sad sight... They're tearing down the O.K. Corral, a local nightclub.




I hate to see a bar demolished, especially one I've got a history with.

Let me take you back to Houston, TX in the halcyon days of the early 80's... It was morning in America, the Gipper had the godless Rooskie Commie bastards shitting borscht in their britches, and Houston was a Country & Western town.

This was just after the release of 'Urban Cowboy', and the honky-tonk craze was in full swing. Houston had not one but two FM country radio stations, KILT and KIKK. KIKK was by far the most popular of the two, and you couldn't turn around without seeing one of their bumper stickers plastered on a pickup. There were also at least half a dozen C&W stations on the AM dial, mostly coming in from the surrounding counties.



KIKK was so ubiquitous that in the Houston metro region, anyone who listened to C&W music was referred to as a KIKK-er, or "kicker". Going out two-stepping was commonly referred to as "going out kicker-dancing". Since KIKK went off the air in the 90's, you rarely hear that phrase anymore.

When you did go out honky-tonkin', the place to see and be seen in a big ol' hat & boots was Gilley's, out in Pasadena. There was another popular place up in Conroe called Johnny B. Dalton's, but that catered to the real cowboy crowd, not the urban wannabes.

I can't mention Johnny B's without mentioning their infamous Quarter Pitcher Night, where after paying a $10 cover, you got pitchers of draft beer for two bits. Towards the ass-end of the 80's, me and several co-workers would play the "whoever pisses first loses and buys everyone bourbon shots" game, at least until a guy named Stover got us busted by whizzing in a pitcher under the table. But I digress...

If you didn't want to drive out to Conroe, or drive all the way to the Ass End of Creation That Actually Smells Like Ass, aka Pasadena, you could always head to the NW corner of Long Point & Gessner in Spring Branch.

Now, the years are long, and my memory is tainted by much chemical abuse between then & now. As far as I can recall, the place was called Wild West in the early 80's. It later had the name changed to Midnight Rodeo, and later to OK Corral, when it switched from a redneck clientele to one more suited to norteño and conjunto music.

Now, it must be said that in 1982 I was too young to get into bars. Even with the 19 year old drinking age back then, I had a long way to go. Still, that Country & Western saloon holds a near and dear place in my heart for their actions above & beyond the call of duty for a redneck watering hole. Lemme asplain...

I've mentioned Heckle & Jeckle, my juvenile cohorts in crime, before. This was another of our outings, in the summer in between 8th and 9th grade. I was bound for Spring Woods High, Heckle & Jeckle were heading for Stratford High, and that summer was our last hurrah before being split up.

We had bicycled over to the old Dollar movie theater on Long Point one Saturday morning to watch a flick, and ended up staying several more hours just horsing around and bullshitting with the teenage crowd that always seemed to congregate there.

We finally headed back to my house, and as we got closer to the big C&W honky tonk at the opposite end of the shopping center from the theater, we saw a huge crowd gathered outside. This was really odd for a Saturday afternoon, so we biked over that direction to see what was going on.

We pushed our bikes through the edges of the crowd, and gazed with 13 year old eyes at a crowd of scantily clad wimmen standing up on a flatbed trailer.

Yes, friends and neighbors, we had inadvertently stumbled upon a wet T-shirt contest. Wild West was holding some form of Redneck Games that weekend, and we just happened by at the right time.

OK, here's the thing about 13 year old boys. They spend as much time as possible daydreaming about nekkid wimmen, and at least a third of that time playing Yankie The Crankie. The usual source of erotica for a 13 year old in 1982 was usually a purloined Playboy, or a shopworn Penthouse, maybe even a Hustler or a mail-order p()rno catalog lifted from the stash of someone's older brother. 13 year olds, for the most part, are still 2-3 years away from any remote chance of seeing actual live breasts larger than an A-Cup.

Oh, to the moms out there with young teenage boys? Yeah, they're monkey-spanking more often than you can imagine. I just want to make sure you're not in denial over it. I used to work with one woman who had to go on anti-anxiety meds after a co-worker & I informed her that her "perfect" son was probably playing pocket pool at least twice a day and lying to her about it when she questioned him on it. Heh. Like you're going to admit that to your mom...

Anyway, there we are, three freshly adolescent males in broad daylight on a summer afternoon, and there's two dozen all-growed-up & well-endowed wimmens getting ice-cold water poured over paper-thin cotton T-shirts. Now, I haven't seen many wet T-shirt contests, but I can say that there's a common theme among them where the skimpy T-shirts get pulled aside or up or even completely off in response to urging from the crowd.

I'm still not sure how they got away with holding that contest outside. No one said "Boo" to us as we stood there for over an hour in dropped-jaw mute amazement, only shifting position occasionally to rearrange our britches.

Eventually, the contest came to an end, and Heckle & Jeckle & I came to the unspoken agreement that it would be best if we parted ways in order to go home & 'meditate' about the amazing sights we'd seen that day.

You know, I can't recall if I ever actually went inside that bar. Maybe once on a whim in the early 90's. Still, I'm sad to see it go. You never forget your first helping of nekkid bouncing boobies, and we got 48 of 'em that day.

So, adios, Wild West/Midnight Rodeo/OK Corral! This song's for you!
(Not Even Remotely Safe For Work!!)

Dog Days Arriving Early This Year...

Is Everyone On Vacation This Month?

I quit obsessively checking my Sitemeter stats a long while back, but I still take a look 3 or 4 times a week.

I'm a bit amazed at the rapid decline over the last two weeks. My weekly average is down 25%, and it's looking like I'll have a lower monthly hit count than the previous month, for the 2nd month in a row.

Either I'm starting to really suck, or everyone's just quit reading my blog all at once. Hell, I haven't had a new inbound link show up through Technorati in almost two weeks.

Sigh, guess I ought to start blogwhoring and camping out in people's comments sections leaving snarky comments, just so no one think's I'm dead.

Anyone else seeing this trend?

We Have Baby Pics!!

All The Best Babies Have Chinese Eyes

Got-damn, but my sister can cook up some good lookin' chilluns!

Here's Sammy giving a kiss to Grace Ann who's being held by my sister:



Lookit them almond-shaped peepers! Where'd those come from??



I think Sammy likes being a brother!

Large LOLcats!

Even The King Of Beasts Has Grammar & Spelling Issues...

Saw this via Drudge, and had to jump on it before someone else did...

I'm An Uncle Again!

Nieces No Bigger Than Meeces!

Well, my sister's OB/GYN went fishing for a baby and reeled in a keeper this afternoon!

Grace Ann S. was born this afternoon, with a full head of light brown hair and a pair of lungs that can squall for three straight hours.

Final weigh-in at the judging dock had her at 7 lbs. 9 oz, and 19 inches long, which might be enough to win the Daily Baby Fishing Tournament. First prize is 10 cases of Huggies (to deal with the au naturel stink-bait) and an electric trolling motor.

Pictures will be posted ASAP!

Inefficiency In Action

Your Tax Dollars At Work, Pt. 243

Got a meeting this afternoon at another facility. At least 3 of us will go get in our cars or official vehicles and travel over there, meeting another 2-3 people coming from opposite locations. We'll occupy parking spaces needed by others, burn expensive gas, and take additional time before and after the meeting due to the need to shuttle back & forth to remote parking and/or the motor pool.

All this would be negated if we simply had usable teleconferencing capabilities. Alas, no, we're still on a phone system bought 15 years back from the lowest bidder. I'm surprised they don't have rotary dials on 'em. We don't even have the ability to use the "batphone" conference phones. All our POTS lines are taken up by fax machines that stay in pretty constant use.

There's companies that offer dial-in conferencing, but FSM forbid we ever give money to someone without the approval of the Council of Nazgül.

Ah, well. Might as well get back to doing what we gummint workers do best. I actually prefer Freecell, though...

Jessica's Heading West...

A Musical Conundrum

Talked to Rockhauler recently. As per usual, I heard 'Jessica' by the Allman Brothers on the car radio within 24 hours, and again, as per usual, I was heading in a westerly direction.

It's one of the great unsolved mysteries of my life. Ever since I've known Rockhauler, whenever we're going somewhere, we're probably going to hear that song, and when we do, we'll be driving west. Never fails. Not in 20 or so years. It's just flat-out freaky.

"But El Cap," you say. "What about if you're going east?" In that case, we won't hear the tune until we're heading home. Also, if we're listening to an Allmann Brothers CD, we just make sure that it's either Eat A Peach or At Fillmore East just so we don't jinx ourselves.

Now, there have been some close calls. Once we were heading up to Haskell, and the stretch of road up to Jacksboro was pointing almost north some of the time. Looking at a map though, overall that run of TX 199 is mostly west-northwest, so we were still in the groove.

The first time we took notice of this coincidence/musical conspiracy was when we were moving a friend of ours from Arlington out to the west side of Ft. Worth. We had most of an apartment's furniture precariously perched in the back of Rockhauler's red Chevy pickup, and in order to avoid any freeway mishaps, had rolled out Pioneer Parkway to link up with Lancaster Ave. heading through downtown Ft. Worth.

On the far side of downtown, we hit the Lancaster Bridge. It's this long-ass span of bridge that goes on for miles, it seems. Once you're on the bridge, you're on until you get to the other side. There's lots of traffic, and absolutely no way to turn around or get off, unless you bust through the wall and plunge 100 feet down into the Trinity river.

So, we're slidin' across the bridge, both of us in full head-nodding, air-guitaring jam mode listening to, of course, 'Jessica' by the Allman Brothers. Amazingly, traffic is light. No one oncoming, and a grey Porsche 911 maybe 100 yards behind us.

The thing about bridges over rivers, though, is that there's occasionally funky air currents that cause odd things to occur. Just after we pass the crest of the bridge and start heading downhill, Rockhauler and I feel an odd jerk to the truck's motion, and I flip around to see if the load shifted.

Boy, had it shifted. The love seat, which had ridden the last 15 miles upside down atop the couch without shifting position in the slightest, was no longer in the pickup bed, and I didn't see it laying in the road.

Rockhauler spots the loveseat in his driver's side mirror. To this day, he'll swear it was 200 feet up in the air, high enough to blip on DFW Airport's radar.

Coincidentally, this is also the moment that the Porsche driver decides to blow past us.

If that Porsche had been any other type of car other than a high-performance sports car, it would've been an ugly, ugly afternoon. That loveseat flipped in midair from its upside down orientation, and made a perfect four point landing about 10 yards in front of the Porsche. Not a cushion out of place. Somehow that krautburner managed to jink out of the way, avoid hitting the far wall, and then avoid hitting the truck as he slid back from the oversteer.

We had to get to the end of the bridge before we could turn around and go back for it. All we could think about was someone speeding over the crest and smacking that loveseat.

We managed to get everything loaded back up and made our destination without any further couch migrations, and as we discussed the event over many shots of Old Crow later that evening, we made the realization about Jessica Heading West.

Some things just defy explanation, and I'm not gonna try. So, point your chair towards the Pacific, and enjoy the tune! (No extra charge for the eye candy!)

Chained To The DVD Player

It's Official, I Have No Life

Posting's been kind of bleak the last few days. When I'm on a decent posting kick, I always try to tuck a few drafts away to be used when the creative juices run thin, and I'm almost out of 'em...

So, what's got me preoccupied? Trying to watch all the existing seasons of a TV show in a hurry before the 4th season arrives in about 8 weeks or so. Sleep's at a premium. I've been waking up in the wee hours of the morning and squeezing in one more episode almost every night this week. I'm gonna try and squeeze in 15 episodes this weekend, then download more episodes off of iTunes for future viewing. I've got enough credits banked in my iTunes account for 16 shows, if I download them individually. I think there's 23 episodes per season, but that number can vary, since they ran some clip shows during the network airings. I haven't counted how many I have left to watch, but I think it's 42. I better get an I.V. and some Depends...

So, what's the show? Ain't gonna say. Don't want the heffalumps and woozles to leave spoilers in my comments. I left you some clues, though. If you're smarter than the average polar bear, you'll figure it out.

UPDATE: I'm so disappointed no one's even made a guess at the series... Here's two more clues...

"Dude, you've got some Arzt on you..."

The makeup, wardrobe and special FX teams are top notch. In most of Michelle Rodriguez's scene's, you can barely see her nutsack bulge.

Infarct Like The King!

A Hunka Hunka Burnin' Ulcer!

This is just so wrong on SO many levels...



An Elvis Presley Special Edition Reese's Peanut Butter & Banana Creme Cup. King Size, of course. I wonder how they taste when fried up in butter?

Now all I need is a Col. Tom Parker Special Edition Dexedrine dispenser.

Inverted Pookie Cat

Upside Down Cat Is A Rare Treat!

"Hey, El Napitan... Wake up from your siesta and rub my tummy! Oh, and vacuum the rug, too."

Attack Of The Prez Hedz

I Can Tackle Coolidge, But Hoover's Gonna Take Two Of Us...

As long as we're on the subject of US Presidents...

There's a local sculptor that's got a whole mess of gigantimous President heads outside his studio. I have no idea what he intends to do with them, but they are a sight to behold.

Check it out...

Bush Sr. Wants Your Soul...


Big Ronnie... Bigger Silent Cal


The Death Glare Of Warren G. Harding


Looks Like $25 Bucks To Me!


We Are The PrezHedz... You Will Be Assimilated...


A Presidential Chorus Line!

"And-a One Two Three Four!
One singular sensation...
Every little step he takes!
One thrilling combination
Every move that he makes!"


Speak Softly & Carry A Huge Head


The Fab Four Showed Up!


The studio's just outside of downtown. Email me if you're passing through town and want to sacrifice a Communist or two under the Reagan head.

How's Your Presidential Memory?

My Last U.S. History Class Was A *Long* Time Ago...

I ran across a fun little test you can take.

How many U.S. Presidents can you name in 10 minutes?

The first 5 are easy, as are the most recent ones. Those single-term guys in the 1800's? Not so much...

I got 37 out of 43 before time ran out. I missed Presidents # 9, 15, 19-21 and 23.

It's a simple quiz format, just type in a President's name, and if it's correct, it'll pop up in the correct time slot. Presidents that share last names are linked and both pop up, so that works as a bonus in your favor.

Now, the timer starts as soon as you click the link, so be ready!

Go name some Presidents! Good Luck!

Will Rat Poison Work On Chipmunks?

I'm Pretty Sure This Is The First Sign Of The Apocalypse

THEN


NOW


Alvin & The Chipmunks were annoying back when they were just a 45rpm record sped up to 78.

Now that those soulless rat bastards in Hollywood have updated the trio into some kind of hiphop, thug-life, hoodie-wearing gangsta-wannabes, full of 'tude and spunk, they're gonna have the annoyance level you can really only reach by locking half a dozen smoke detectors and boat sirens set on "fucking loud" into American Tourister suitcases, then putting them (and yourself) into a cage with two Ritalin-soaked gorillas. Oh, and then having fire ants poured on you.

Got-damn, I can't think of a better idea than to take the worst part of American society and offer that up to our children as an acceptable form of behavior to emulate. No wonder we got 8 year olds stealing cars, and 10 year olds raping the 8 year olds in the back seat of the stolen cars, while the 9 year olds sell both of 'em drugs. Fuck you, Hollywood. Fuck you very much.

Oh, and Jason Lee? Loved you as Banky and Azrael in the Kevin Smith flicks, and 'My Name Is Earl' is sheer genius. But fuck you in the asshole for signing on to this craptastic piece of dogshit.

Soundtrack For A Deluge

I Think My Mildew Has Gotten Moldy From The Damp...

It's still quite moist hereabouts. More rain, and no sign of it stopping anytime soon.

Here's some rainy day tunes for a Friday, pulled from YouTube. Not quite the usual random Friday mix, but they're all pretty good. Pour yourself a fresh mug of Earl Grey, or my favorite, Lapsang Souchong, and sing along!


Creedence Clearwater Revival - Who'll Stop The Rain

BJ Thomas - Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head

Eurythmics-Here Comes The Rain Again

Gene Kelly - Singing in the Rain

Bob Dylan - A Hard Rain's A Gonna Fall

Peter, Paul and Mary - Early Morning Rain

Led Zeppelin - The Rain Song

Uriah Heep - Rain

Neil Sedaka - Laughter In The Rain

Eric Clapton - Let It Rain

This last one's not a song, it's a clip from last year's version of 'Pride and Prejudice' with Keira Knightley as Elizabeth Bennet. Yeah, she's so skinny she kinda looks like a bag of antlers, but she's an extremely attractive bag of antlers nonetheless, and this was IMHO the best scene in the film.

Pride and Prejudice - Rain

LOLNephew

Sammy Is Days Away From Losing His "Only Child" Status!

Well, the LOL meme seems to work OK with cats and Democrats.

How about with 2 year olds?




Yup, works just fine!

Happy Fourth Of July!

Feel Free To Toss A Brit In Boston Harbor!

It's Independence Day, y'all! Grill some weenies, sip some bourbon, and throw cherry bombs at the neighbor's kid! Get rowdy! Act the fool! Because YOU CAN! You're Americans! The best the world has to offer, and each and every one of us has got no reason to be ashamed or apologetic about that fact!

Now, I gotta run. There's a chilled watermelon begging to be eviscerated and consumed. I promise not to spit too many seeds at the cats.

Here's some music for the day, suitable for banjo or kazoo or what-have-you!

Dubuffet On The Move?

You Paid How Much For Painted Fiberglass??

Looks like the Jean Dubuffet scupture that's stood outside 1100 Louisiana for 23 years will be relocated to Boss White's new downtown bum repository city park.



Kinda sorry to see it relocated to an area where it's sure to pick up a permanent pong of Night Train-produced pee.

I can't count the times that Redwood and I & occasionally Zibig & Lunachick would wander downtown for an afternoon of quaffing black & tans at Birraporetti's, or beaujolais at La Carafe, then wander around downtown looking at all the sights. The Wortham Theater and courtyard was new at the time, and 611 Walker still belonged to HL&P. Hell, for that matter, Texas Commerce Tower was still Texas Commerce Tower... Dunno what it's called this month.

We'd splash water for a while at the two water walls at Louisiana & McKinney, then cross over to the sculpture. If it was late enough in the evening, and foot traffic had died down, many was the time we'd spark up a jay and have a little art appreciation session while climbing on the sculpture. I'm sure that's not quite what Dubuffet had in mind, but French artistes were generally full of absinthe anyway.

Hey, it shows up on the satellite view!

Gloom Despair & Agony On Me

If It Weren't For Bad Luck, I'd Have No Luck At All...

I just cannot seem to shake this creeping crud that's invaded my skull crevices.
My daily amusement is getting into a hot shower to loosen things up, and then blowing snot goblins onto the shower curtain. I gave myself an 8.9 for accuracy, 9.1 for texture & viscosity, and 9.3 for artistic merit this morning.

I barely squeezed out a day's work yesterday. I was getting cold chills and joint pains all day long. I got a bit better towards the end of the day, but I wasn't up to my usual dinner-in-a-bag from my usual haunts.

I finally decided to go to Subway. They had cold sandwiches, which was a gotta-have, since the thought of eating anything hot was working my gag reflex.

I pull up in my truck, and the place is packed. I sit & listen to the radio for a while to let it clear out, and then it takes me another 5 minutes to muster up the energy to actually go in. I'm two steps from the front door when I see the cheery sign taped to it.

"No Credit or Debit Transactions. Machine Broken."

Shit. I've got no cash at all...

So, I went home and crashed. Got up around midnight and scraped together a can of V8, some string cheese sticks, and two of those tropical fruit cup thingies. Is it just me, or did those taste better when they were in tin cans?

I've been somewhat lax in blog reading, posting and commenting. F'rinstance, I completely forgot about Christina's insertion into irrevocable adulthood. Happy 40th, Jingles! I'll see you there next year!

I'm sure I owe lots of people emails and comment responses. I'll do what I can, but tonight's got another Collapso-Capitan on the menu.

I did get some Blogroll rewrites done. I'll see if I can't get that finished and posted tomorrow.

More later, my little chickadees...

Truly, She Has No Shame...

That's Some Jet-Effin'-Black Pots & Kettles!

How the Hildebeest said this with a straight face, I'll never know.

MIAMI (AP) - "A clean sweep" is needed at the White House because President Bush has fostered "a culture of cronyism, corruption and incompetence," Hillary Rodham Clinton said Saturday.

The Democratic presidential candidate told nearly 1,000 women at a fundraiser that she would have much work to do at the White House if she won election in 2008.

"After eight years of the Bush administration, we are going to be shocked by what we find," the New York senator and former first lady said. "Somebody said to me the other day if there was ever a time for a woman president it's now because we're going to have to do a lot of cleaning."

The women, many of who brought their daughters to the $100 per plate "Women for Hillary" breakfast, applauded wildly.

"Grab your buckets, grab your brooms," Clinton said. "We're going to have to do a clean sweep because there has been a culture of cronyism, corruption and incompetence."

Time for another LOLdem...



Might be time to slip Obama a few bux...