Blogmeet Circa 1655

They Used Pamphlets Instead Of BlogSpot, I'm Thinking...

Let's see here... We got lots of free-flowing booze, musical instruments, tobacco, tasty comestibles, silly hats, raucous laughter, a couple of kids and/or hounds underfoot, maybe some poetry or merely ribald verse...

Yup, the Dutch seemed to have the spirit of the blogmeet well in hand, 350 years early!

Wish I'd Said That!

It's All Fun & Games Until The Peons Burn You Alive...

Jim Addison from Wizbang posted a comment over on Vodkapundit that had me spewing iced tea on my monitor...

Regarding Venezuela's Junior Dictator-In-Training "Pugsley" Chavez:

"Fat, drunk & stupid is no way to go through life, son!"

I've Come to Realize...

Today, I'm As Bitter As A Bibulous Bittern That's Been Bathed In A Bucket Of Bitters.

A big "Thank You!" to Leslie at Leslie's Omnibus for today's blogpost material!!

The "I've Come to Realize" Meme:

1. I have come to realize that my butt:
... is either rejecting my underpants, or is slowly deflating. This is downright odd, given its enormous acreage. See, I keep having the back side of my skivvies slip down over my buttcheeks. New ones, old ones, loose ones, tight ones, doesn't matter. They all slide down over my tuckus, leaving me feeling the cool breeze through my trousers. I'm all the time sneaking off to the can to pull 'em back up. It's just effin' beee-zarre.

2. I have come to realize that when I talk:
... I still talk way too fast, and I'm not necessarily talking loud enough to be heard over the ambient chatter.

3. I have come to realize that, if I love someone:
... It usually makes no difference whatsoever. Not always, but mostly.

4. I have come to realize that, I need:
... more and more time to get up in the morning, & less and less time deciding what to wear.

5. I have come to realize that, I lost:
... many friends that would otherwise be around if I gave a smidgen of attention now & then & didn't act like a hermit most of the time.

6. I have come to realize that, I hate it when:
... people hold political and religious beliefs without ever holding them up to the light and examining them from all sides in an honest and objective manner.

7. I have come to realize that, if I'm drunk:
... I'm more likely to start singing either opera or showtunes, both badly.

8. I have come to realize that, marriage:
... will probably never happen for me.

9. I have come to realize that, work:
... is endurable, for the most part. Most people have it far worse than I do.

10. I have come to realize that, I will always be:
... really, really opposed to the Designated Hitter Rule. And Taxes. And Spiders.

11. I have come to realize that, I like:
... Hogue grips on pistols and fine Scottish liquor, Cycles that go fast and planes that go quicker, tight-bodied coeds that jiggle like springs, these are a few of my faaaavorite things!!

12. I have come to realize that, the last time I cried was:
... chopping onions. I'll get sniffly now & then watching certain things, but that's a blogpost for another day.

13. I have come to realize that, my cell phone is:
... the recipient of far more wrong numbers than people actually hoping to speak to me.

14. I have come to realize that, when I wake up in the morning:
... I've really got to go pee, and the damned cat's underfoot and yowling for attention the whole way to the can.

15. I have come to realize that, before I go to sleep at night:
... I need to have an electric fan blowing on me, an insulated mug of icy beverage on the nightstand, and something to read until I get drowsy.

16. I have come to realize that, right now I am thinking about:
... That I really ought to be sending out emails to various departments before it gets too late in the day.

17. I have come to realize that, babies:
... are best handed back to their mothers when they're odiferous and damp.

18. I have come to realize that, today I will:
... probably not get the truck back from the repair shop.

19. I have come to realize that, tonight I will:
... ride METRO, not my truck, when I go home. Dammit!

20. I have come to realize that, tomorrow I will:
... still not have any long-term plans for my life.

21. I have come to realize that, I really want to:
... have a Texas BlogFest that's a real blowout, maybe 50-100 bloggers sharing stories, music, laughter, and a $h!tload of booze.

22. I have come to realize that, working out:
... ranks right below genital mutilation and habanero juice eyewashes in terms of things I like to do on a regular basis.

23. I have come to realize that, friends:
... ultimately have their own lives that you're not privy to, or necessarily welcome to participate in.

24. I have come to realize that, the person who might repost this is:
... probably not as bummed-out and bitter as I am right now.

To Boldly Go...

Just When I Thought I Was Out, They Pull Me Back In!!

I've been burned so many, many times...

Inept directors, all-consuming egos, convoluted and just plain silly plots... You can't even rely on the old "odd/even" rule anymore to determine the film's relative worth beforehand.

Nevertheless, there I'll be next Xmas season, paying my money on opening weekend and hoping beyond hope that maybe this time my patience will be rewarded, and we'll see something worthwhile.

Maybe this time we'll get inspiration enough to look beyond our petty partisan squabbles and out into the void where simply being a human is enough to bind you to the common cause of outward expansion.

So help me, I still get goosebumps when I hear the opening notes of the theme...

O Great Bird Of The Galaxy, reach out from the grave and give guidance to those who would direct your grand & inspired Enterprise, I beseech thee!

TGI Friday's Continues To Suck

"Good Food At TGI Chili-Gans" Is An Oxymoron

I've had a couple of TGI Friday's waitrons take me to task recently about an old post where I expressed my displeasure at my Friday's dining experience. One of the commenters was barely polite, the other much less so, resulting in some judicious comment editing mostly for my amusement.

One commenter indicated that the Google search term 'TGI Friday's Sucks' was what led them to my post. I'm hoping they and others will return to perhaps understand why that post was less than complimentary to the TGI Friday's waitstaff.

First, you need to understand what type of restaurant patron I am. I'm about as low-maintenance as they come. Take my order, deliver it, refill my tea glass when it runs low (better yet, leave a carafe or pitcher and I'll do it for you!), and drop off the check when I'm almost finished, and I'll be happy.

I don't "run" waitstaff for amusement. I've seen people send their waiter trotting off for a fresh fork, or a cup of sauce, then as soon as they return, send them off again on another errand just to drive home the "master/servant" relationship. I find that attitude and behaviour appalling. OTOH, when I do ask for something, I really want it. The request won't be unreasonable, off-menu or illegal/immoral, I promise! What I don't want in response to my request are either excuses, arguments or whining.

Aside from the tea refills, I'm happiest when I DON'T have the waitron dropping by every 5 minutes asking if everything is OK. I hate not being able to answer their question properly because I've got a wad of food in my mouth.

I never berate or otherwise speak inappropriately to the waitstaff. You'll know you succeeded or failed in your job by the size of your tip. If you really screwed up, I'll calmly ask to speak to your manager. Coaching or disciplining you is his/her job, not mine.

As for tips, please believe me when I say that it sucks that waitrons only get paid a pittance per hour, and are expected to make up the rest through tips. You should at least make minimum wage, and the IRS can just go screw themselves regarding how much cash tips you receive. It's none of their gotdam business.

I believe that if you cannot afford to tip the waiter, you have no business eating out anywhere your food isn't served out of a paper bag. I never tip less than 15% for even standard service, and the few times I've tipped 10% or less, it's due to deliberate rudeness or complete incompetence. My standard tip for good service is 20%, and I've gone to 25% & 30% upon occasion for no other reason than the waiter having a nice smile and a pleasant attitude. Oh, and a nice rack is always a plus. I might as well be honest about that...

Out of the umpteen thousand restaurants in the Greater Houston area I could have given my business to, I chose yours to dine in this time. I don't particularly care what kind of day you're having, good, bad or middling. That's really none of my concern. If you can't manage to put on a happy face for a new customer, you need to find a career more suited to your demeanor. I've been either delivering/teaching/managing customer service since most of you Friday's waitrons were in diapers, I know a bit of what I speak.

Now, as to your choice of employer... TGI Fridays, Chili's, Bennigans, Applebee's, Red Robin, (Insert Random "Fun" Restaurant here) are not great eating establishments. Let's just get that straight right off the mark. Your food to a large degree is prepackaged, pre-portioned, boil-in-bag/heat & serve/Sysco Deep Fryer Fodder. It has been carefully selected by your Corporate Overlords via a rigorous series of focus groups and cost accounting methods to be universally appealing and cost-effective. What this really means is that it's bland, unexciting, and so simple in preparation and execution that a microcephalic monkey could cook it.

The reason people go to restaurants like yours is not for the cuisine. It's a place where they can expect the same type of meal, time after time. There's no guesswork or FUD Factor. They won't have to worry about whether the cook is making it "gringo hot" or "Jalisco Hot", 'cause the food never reaches a level where it can cause offense.

Plus, your clientele are usually deadening their tastebuds via your Happy Hour liquor specials anyway, so by the time the entree comes out, they're too blotto to care what they're eating.

Oh, and speaking of liquor, I'm not impressed by your 'Jack Daniels steak glaze' that gives a "thrill ride of flavor!". In fact, anyone who gets a little frisson of excitement and adventure from the fact that there's an ounce of whiskey in a gallon of glaze really needs to be strapped down naked to the hood of a car whilst being injected with a pint of moonshine rectally by crazed midgets wearing leather assless chaps to learn the real meaning of a "thrill ride".

So please, for your sake and mine, go apply at a small bistro, trattoria or cafe and learn about good food in a non-corporate "manufactured fun" environment. The clientele tend to be better customers, they're usually not inebriated, and I guarantee they tip better!

Pookie Paws

Guilty Of Excessive Feline Cuteness!!

Pookie Cat, in her catloaf-like lounging mode, does the curled-paw maneuver that forces me to flop on the floor and tickle her toes as I simultaneously use her tummy for a pillow.

Pookie Cat usually objects to this, proving once again that the use of domestic felines as decorative throw pillows still has some bugs to work out.

And Now... My Testicles!

I Oughta Get The NeoBall Prize For This!!

OK, y'all have been more than patient, so without further ado, here's a pirate & his parrot tenderly cupping my balls.



I suppose now would be a good time to mention that the pair on display are my Emergency Backup Testicles. The primary pair are still in use, and remain hooked up inside me via the usual ductwork, arteries & veins.

Also, you really didn't think I'd be so crass as to whip out the gnarly old scrote and commence to flashin' pictures, did you?? What, I should act like a DamnYankee?!?! Nevertheless, you haven't been bamboozled. The objects on display ARE testicles owned by ME, ergo, my testicles!

The balls were a gift from a college friend who went to work for a company that manufactures medical prosthetics. The pair pictured below were some of the last silicone-filled implants out of their testing lab before the whole industry almost collapsed under the weight of the breast implant lawsuits in the 1990's. Most ball implants nowadays are saline-filled, or solid plastic, though silicone is regaining market share.



These testicles are almost 15 years old now, which might account for their yellowish hue. They were water-clear when I acquired them. I'm thinking the silicone is partially cured, or the capsule is degrading due to exposure to the air. I had a 400cc silicone breast implant for a while via the same friend, (and may I just say that's a BIG titty!) but it didn't survive an impromptu game of touch football. It was OK during the passing, handoffs & catching, but the spiking the implant after a touchdown really wore it out.

So, what do you do with a pair of FrankenBalls? Friends, you have FUN with them! You drop them down people's shirts at parties. You shake hands with someone and leave a lovely parting gift! You press them into a sweet young thing's quivering palm, and let her gaze upon them in astonished wonderment, until comprehension comes crashing in and she inevitably freaks out and flings them back at you! You can drop them in a martini, you can use them to decorate a cake! You are really only limited by your own sense of taste & morality, which in my case means I've done all of the above, and even more unspeakable things.

See? You can squeeze my balls quite vigorously, and I'll just keep right on smiling!



So, there you have it! My testicles on public display! If you want to see the Primary Pair, I'm afraid that's gonna cost you at least a steak dinner and a bottle of Scotch. Plus, you gotta be female. I'll negotiate the first two stipulations, but that last one's pretty gotdamn firm... Kinda like my balls...

Mystery Movie

Wow, Man! Good Nyborg!

Quote:

Look, man, if there's one thing I know, it's how to drive while I'm stoned! You know your perception is completely fucked so you just let your hands work the controls as if you were straight!

Hadn't seen this flick in a while. Name the movie if you're able! Bonus points for naming the song/artist that was playing in the background during this scene.

Dress Rehearsal Before Balls Out!!

The Roar Of The Greasepaint, The Smell Of The Crowd!

Any showman worth his tophat knows you don't go straight to the main performance, you always warm up the audience with an opening act!

So, before the Great Testicle Unveiling commences, we'll set the stage with some dedicated exhibitions...

For those who know how well a high degree of manual dexterity helps when handling large balls!



For the sports fans!



For the homemakers!




A special dedication for the Brooklyn Jooette & Elisson!



Not much longer, y'all!

You Think I'm Kidding, Don't You?

O Ye Of Little Faith...

I hear your chuckles of disbelief... "Surely El Cap won't actually post testicle pictures, will he?"

Yes, he will. Just gotta work out the right lighting scheme. Positioning them on the bathroom counter and snapping photos from above and reversed in the mirror just didn't have the artistic effect I was looking for.

Maybe an outdoor shoot is needed, with some oblique angle shots, a few ferns & mossy brick walls in the background. Hope my neighbor, who actually owns the ferns & mossy brick walls doesn't get too upset...

Something's Missing Here...

A Vain Attempt To Drum Up Weekend Blog Traffic

Got a three day weekend approaching... We get MLK day off. Doesn't matter to me, I'm not planning on marching in either parade. I'm using the holiday to get my truck's transmission repaired. I will, however, choose my mechanic by the content of his character rather than the color of his skin. Also, he's the one that rebuilt it, so he's gonna honor that 1 year warranty.

Anyway, in honor of an extra day off, I think I'm going to do something I've never done before, and post something really personal.

See, over the Xmas holidays when I was really sick and all bloated up, some commenter said I ought to post pictures. I've been thinking about that a great deal, and have come to the conclusion that I really need to post some intimate photos for my regular readers.

My face is out of the question, obviously. I still maintain the illusion of anony-blogging.

Posting photos of your crank or your bunghole is really passe. Seen that too many times.

Which leaves me the taint, and the testicles.

Can't do the taint. One of my more weak-stomached readers got a case of the heebie-jeebies when I did a taint-talk a while back.

So, that leaves testicles.

Therefore, sometime after I get home from work, I'll fire up the digital camera and get some extra-fine testicle shots, then post them bad boys up for all to see.

I see you shiver with antici....(Say it! Say it!).....pation!

Son Of El Capitan's Mini-Reviews

Flog The Dead Horse Some More!

1) Pickle Juice Sport - Yup, there's a sports quencher drink based on the flavor of dill pickle juice... Saw it on the shelf at the convenience store, and just couldn't believe someone actually brought it to market. Naturally, I had to guinea pig myself and do a taste test. Reading their website is a bit like watching the movie 'Idiocracy'. Their main selling point seems to be "Pickle Juice Sport has got a sh!tload of electrolytes in it! Electrolytes are good!!!"

The taste? Horrible. Dill-flavored vinegar. Maybe if they based it on sweet pickle juice, they'd have a winner. As it is, it's barely tolerable ice-cold, and when it gets a few degrees warmer, the vinegar aroma fills the room you're in, and choking down a gulp is almost impossible.

I'll stick with Gatorade and a couple of salt pills, thanks very much...

2) Arby's - Man, I used to love Arby's. Now, they're almost as expensive as a sit-down cloth-napkin restaurant, and the people behind the counter at the one nearest to me are hoodlums & thugs. Seriously, the last time I saw that many gang tattoos, I was watching an episode of 'Oz'.

Arby's, please, drop your prices by about a dollar an item, and I might come by more often. As it is, a large-size combo costs about 8 bucks. Add a shake or a turnover, and I'm over a Hamilton into the deal. Just Too Much!

Also, enough with the gotdam tiny paper cups. Everyone else in creation has 32 oz. plastic or foam cups that don't soak the bottom out and leak on your cupholder. Look into it! BTW, enjoyed the turkey/bacon wrap.

3) Self-Stick "Forever" stamps - I'm thinking about a home-equity loan to buy a few thousand dollars worth of these, and 20 years from now when y'all are paying $50 to mail a first-class envelope, I'll be sitting pretty.

4) MytiBurger - This local burger shop has been around for longer than I have. In spite of it being a few minutes driving distance from the neighborhood I've lived in since high school, I'd never eaten there. I decided to remedy that fact, and found out I could have waited another decade without missing much.

The steak finger dinner was the typical freezer-to-fryer special. Fries just OK, cream gravy edible after adding mucho black pepper. Patty melt was a greasy mess inside, dry toast outside. Bonus points for 44 oz. foam cups and cubelet ice.

Do yourself a solid and go get a double-double with onion rings at Whatabuger instead.

5) Protein Bars - OK, I know eating healthy isn't always a culinary delight. In an effort to reduce my weekly intake of sausage, egg & cheese croissants & hash browns, I've been substituting the MET-Rx protein bars, which is cutting the calorie intake by more than half.

Look, I expect these bars to taste like ass, but do they have to be as heavy as a brick and just as easy to chew? Send the bars through that gizmo that puffs up Rice Krispies and Corn Pops. I don't care if it ends up being the size of my head, but I do need my teeth to still be usable in later years.

6) Lipton Brisk Diet Iced Tea - I'm not hip enough for my iced tea. I drink this stuff 'cause I can buy it at the local Quikee-Mart for a buck a liter, and it doesn't taste bad as long as it's cold.

I don't fit Lipton's target demographic, I fear. See, the labels got all these cool, hip people on it doing cool hip things. Well, it's some marketing weasels idea of cool & hip, but still...

You've got some black chick with an Angela Davis-style 'fro and huge Gucci shades, some vaguely Indo-Asian guy wearing a pukka-shell necklace and a wife beater t-shirt. There's some Samoan-looking dude looking to rock out with his cock out, and then there's the pimp-looking guy that's doing a rear-entry maneuver on his blond corn-rowed 'ho who's got her hands on his ass.

Nowhere on the label is a big pudgy guy schlepping a bag full of protein bars and science fiction novels... Oh well.

Just Say "NO" To Junkie Lemurs!

Lemurs Don't Let Lemurs Smoke Crack!

In honor of my fleeting involvement many years ago with the Usenet newsgroup alt.fan.lemurs, I bring you this Public Service Announcement by way of Madagascar:

THIS IS YOUR LEMUR




THIS IS YOUR LEMUR STRUNG OUT ON SMACK, CRYSTAL METH, VARIOUS SYNTHETIC OPIATES, KRYLON SPRAYPAINT, NYQUIL, JOHNSON'S FLOOR WAX, TY-D-BOL AND LISTERINE. PLUS, IT'S GOT A RAGING CASE OF THE CLAP.



ANY QUESTIONS?

Interesting...

I Was Sure I'd Get Fred!

Saw this interesting test over at Paw Paw's site... It polls you on your political positions, then matches your results up with the 2008 Presidential candidate's positions and lets you know which of their views most closely dovetails with yours.

In my case, the closest match was Duncan Hunter, the Repub congresscritter from California. I'm OK with that. Here's my results, with the % match for each candidate:

California Representative Duncan Hunter (R) 91.30% match

Former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson (R) - 88.04%
Colorado Representative Tom Tancredo (R) - 82.61%
Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee (R) - 80.43%

Middle of the Pack
Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney (R) - 79.35%
Businessman John Cox (R) - 76.09%
Kansas Senator Sam Brownback (R) - 73.91%
Arizona Senator John McCain (R) - 67.39%
Texas Representative Ron Paul (R) - 65.22%
Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) - 56.52%
Delaware Senator Joseph Biden (D) - 39.13%
Connecticut Senator Christopher Dodd (D) - 39.13%
New York Senator Shrillary Clinton (D) - 34.78%
Illinois Senator Barack Hussein Obama (D) - 34.78%

Bottom of the Barrel
New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson (D) - 34.78%
Former North Carolina Senator John "My Pretty Pony" Edwards (D) - 26.09%
Former Alaska Senator Mike Gravel (D) - 25.00%
Ohio Representative Dennis "Kookaburra" Kucinich (D) - 17.39%


Try it yourself!

More Of El Capitan's Mini-Reviews

All The Necessary Info, None Of The Fiddly Details

OK, here's a stack of short reviews of flicks, places & things.


1) Ratatouille - There hasn't been a Pixar film that hasn't been outstanding, and this one enters the realm of haute cuisine, albeit with buckets of rats, so you do tend to lose the snob factor...

I'd recommend it unreservedly, and it's appropriate for all ages. Kudos to the writers for adding a touch of Anthony Bourdain's philosophy to the chefs at 'Gusteau's', and be sure you swallow your drink when the rats take over the kitchen. When the platoon of rats comes out of the Hobart dishwasher all clean and fluffy, I was laughing so hard I had tears in my eyes!


2) The Kingdom - I'll probably never be a huge fan of Jamie Foxx's acting, but I liked this film. The last 30 minutes is about as hair-raising & edge-of-your-seat filmmaking as I've seen in a while. Plus, lots of exotic kung-fu... H&K MP5K-fu, RPG-fu, H&K G3-fu, Tokarev-fu (rarely see that!) and of course, grenade, knife and carbomb-fu.


3) Resident Evil: Extinction - If you haven't watched the first two films in the Resident Evil franchise, there's not much point to seeing this one. I've never played any of the Resident Evil console games, but I do occasionally think about playing with the film's protagonist, Milla Jovovich, which is why I bother to watch them.

As horror/action films go, I've seen better. There's quite a bit borrowed from every post-apocalyptic film ever made. However, I've also seen a hell of a lot worse, so you won't completely waste your time with this one.


4) Blackadder the Third - Found this collection of the 3rd season of Blackadder in the used DVD store. It reminded me why I much prefer the 2nd and 4th seasons. Still, it does include 'A Blackadder Xmas Carol', which is worth the price of the DVD by itself.


5) Rockfish Seafood Grill - I met the Wandering Hoosier for lunch at Rockfish on Sunday afternoon. He's in town letting a payroll program run him in circles, and getting him out of the ofice seemed a proper act of mercy!

Rockfish is inexpensive for a seafood place, and while I'm not sure how they charged such a low price for the enormous hunk of mahi-mahi Jerry had, they certainly made money on me. I ordered (I thought...) the halibut with a 'Ponchartrain' sauce which advertised shrimp & crawfish in a spicy cream sauce. When I buy halibut at the fishmongers at Central Market, I'm usually buying a slab of fish at least 6 inches square and 1-2 inches thick.

What I got at Rockfish was a piece of fish that closely resembled in size and thickness the rubber sole I pulled off my Adidas track shoe when I was 10 years old. It tasted good, but there was just very little substance. Oh, the sauce... It consisted of a tiny puddle barely covering 1/3 of the fish, with 2 small shrimp, one crawfish tail and a piece of another. See, I was reading "flounder" on the menu, and somehow equating that with the halibut I usually get. They're both flat fish, but there's a big size difference... Next time, I get the salmon!

Their bread pudding with a warm bourbon sauce was to die for, however. Jerry said it was the best bread pudding he'd had, and I could only think to improve it by adding a few golden raisins and crushed pecans.


6) Talisker 10 yr. old scotch - My friend Cisco Kid was kind enough to gift me with a Talisker scotch sampler at Xmas. It's got three small bottles, containing Talisker 10 yr old, Talisker 18 yr old, and Talisker Distiller's edition, aged in amoroso sherry casks.

Talisker is the only scotch produced on the Isle of Skye, and like all the "maritime" scotch brands, has a unique salty/peaty/smoky taste. The 10 year old is the only one I've opened so far, and it's a big bad-ass scotch. This makes my usual Glenmorangie taste like spring water in comparison. I'm going to have to think about this one... One could spend a lifetime analyzing a scotch this good. I'm hesitant about opening the other two, lest my head explode from sheer joy!

The Band Album Cover Meme

I'll Try Anything Twice...

Rules pulled from Squeaky Wheel Seeks Grease...

Here’s how it goes. You are about to have your own band’s CD cover. Follow these directions to the letter. It’s fun and requires no thought at all. Go to:

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The first article title on the page is the name of your band.

2. http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The last four words of the very last quote is the title of your album.

3. http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days/
The third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

4. Use your graphics program of choice to throw them together, and post the result in your own journal/blog because it’s more amusing that way.

Here's mine... Got lucky with the image, not so much with the other two.



No tags, but feel free to play along!

Feeding The Beast

The Unholy Feeding Habits Of The Hilldebeest Revealed!

A significant portion of the Hillary For President Campaign's travel budget is the payoffs to the local morgues and medical examiners whenever it's time to let her feed upon the blood of unwary Republicans...




(Note: I'm not particularly proficient in image manipulation, but I have to admit the fangs came out pretty well! The eyes? Not so much... Reduced down to fit the blog, the red pupils got too small to see...)

Felis Mortuus Est

Sic Transit Gloria Frisky...

I read with great dismay that Laurence Simon has lost another cat. When I started reading This Blog Is Full Of Crap sometime in 2004, he had four cats named Piper, Nardo, Frisky and Edloe.

Edloe passed on in June '05, followed unexpectedly by Piper in December '06, and now Frisky has gone to the Great Litterbox In The Sky.

This is heartbreaking for Laurence & his wife, and for all the cat folks who have followed the adventures of the Feline Four over the years.

Adios, Frisky! May you have all the butter & parmesan your heart desires!

Is That All?

I Bet I Could Take 40 Of The Little Kneebiters!

31

The Guv'mint Just Wants To Help You!

With Friends Like These, Who Needs Enemas?

Saw this story being circulated on a few blogs.

In a nutshell, kid gets a bump on the head, Dad thinks he's OK. Neighbor calls paramedics, they barge into the house uninvited, find kid medically OK. When Dad declines to take kid to ER on the woo-woo's recommendation, one of 'em gets a bug up his ass and starts calling Johnny Law and CPS.

Eventually, someone gets fed up with Dad's failure to comply (even though there's apparently no law requiring him to...) and the SWAT team makes their usual dynamic entry a day later, terrifies the family as they seize the kid and take him to the hospital. Where, of course, the doctors find nothing wrong.

It goes without saying that I'm completely appalled, but not very surprised. It seems that when a municipality issues SWAT gear to its law enforcement personnel, they also remove an ice cream scoop's worth of grey matter from the Rational Decision Making section of the brain of every one connected with the unit.

One of our biggest failings as human beings is the inability to let a conflict go. We hold grudges like nobody's business. Add to that the hubris and arrogance of a guvmint employee, and the institutional tendency of those in law enforcement to utterly crush under a jackboot anyone committing the slightest degree of "contempt of cop", and you've got a recipe for overreaction and abuse of civil rights.

I'm sure a mess o' lawsuits will result from this debacle, and if there's any justice left in this fair land, everyone of the guvmint employees that perpetrated this outrage will be able to heat their homes this winter from the rosy-red glow emanating from their tort-reamed bungholes.

Mutilated Monkey Meat

Where's Upton Sinclair When You Need Him?

Anybody own a dog back in the 70's & 80's? If so, you might remember a dog food called Gaines Burgers. They're no longer produced, which is probably for the best.

They were these little meat pattie-looking things that you would swear consisted of compressed roundworms. You would squeeze them out of the plastic wrapper into the dog's bowl, breaking them up into edible chunks. To me, they smelled like week-old scrambled eggs marinated in soy sauce and motor oil.

Gaines Burgers were the dog food of choice for my grandmother's poodle Pierre. In the 1970's, "Gigi" managed a retirement hotel in Hollywood, Florida. Pierre was her beloved miniature poodle. I don't know how it got classed as a miniature, it was easily 30 lbs. and as tall as my knee. A poodle-loving person would say it was cocoa-colored, with tiny black claws that you could hear clicking all over the hotel.

At the time, I was NOT a poodle-loving person. Man, I hated that shit-colored dog. It hated me right back. I couldn't set foot in her apartment without it growling and snapping at my pants legs. Considering that my pants in Florida consisted entirely of cutoffs and swim trunks, a snapping lunge at my pants leg put it entirely too near my crotch for comfort.

Since feeding the beast often fell to me when we visited, I'd have to creep into the kitchen and try to squeeze a couple of Gaines Burgers into his bowl and back out of attack range before he caught the scent of dinner. Every so often, I'd flub the food placement, and rattle the cellophane wrapper while squeezing out the "burger". Pierre would hear the wrapper crinkle, and make a mad dash from Gigi's bedroom to the kitchen. When it saw me standing there next to its foodbowl, the dinner dash turned instantly into a hell-for-leather death or glory charge aimed at my balls. I managed to smack him a couple of times with a rubber flipflop sandal, and he ate one of 'em in revenge, so I guess it evened out.

Even though I'm always looking for my next culinary adventure, I always resisted the urge to take a nibble off of a Gaines Burger, even when they introduced the new version with cheesy bits. I've read on the 'net where people have tried frying them up and eating them like burgers, but apparently it's even worse than trying to eat cat treats. I'll 'fess up to eating a fistful of Purina Dog Chow as a toddler, but that was the extent of my dogfood sampling.

So, why the reverie about an obsolete dog food? I was looking for a low-carb snack, and the Slim Jims at the convenience store looked like they had sat in the sun too long. So, I thought I'd try another brand. I went with the Jack Link's Teriyaki-flavored beef stick. After all, how bad could it be?

Pretty effin' bad. I was a couple of bites into it when that section of your brain that catalogues aromas and stores them in long-term memory was jolted into action. Suddenly, I was no longer chewing on a teriyaki beef stick, I was gnawing upon a giant Gaines Burger stick. The more I looked at the texture, the more I was convinced they had to have been extruded by the same machine. The aroma was eerily similar to the Gaines Burger of long ago. All I lacked was a psychotic poodle gnawing on an extremity.

Anyway, you might want to avoid that particular flavor...

Lead Balloon Time!

Scrappleface and IMAO We Ain't!

OK, judging by the overwhelming apathy, it appears my first venture into political satire (re: the 2008 Prez race, see previous post) fell into an ignominious fate with a resoundingly weighty thud. Could be that I need a bit more practice at it.

Well, November's a long time off. I'll get it right eventually...

Taxation: The Inside Scoop

Where We Dip Our Toe Into Election 2008

I was puttering around on the web today, and on Kevin Baker's always informative 'The Smallest Minority', I read a summary of the 2008 Presidential candidate's views on gun control. He pulled it from a CNN website, where among other things, you can find out the stances on a variety of topics, from health care to immigration to stem cell research!

I was really interested in the section on taxation, but felt the CNN summary didn't tell the whole story. So, I fixed it. Enjoy!

Dems first, then the GOP slate.

No Hangovers Here!

The Tijuana Trots? Got Them Mas Mucho! OLÉ!

I'm back once again in the indifferent embrace of The Man, after an 11 day "vacation" from his hallowed halls. I should be more diligent about my work habits, I suppose, this being the start of a new year.

The simple truth is, however, there ain't shit to do this week. All I really need to accomplish between now and 5 pm today is grunt out a December end-of-month report, and wait until Monday for the rest of the section to come back from their vacation to start the 2008 tasks.

OK, about that New Year's Eve party...

My buddy Cisco Kid called me up over the weekend to invite me up to his casa in order to grill some steaks, drink some booze, shoot some fireworks and usher in the New Year. Also in attendance would be some old friends from high school, and some of Cisco Kid's relatives.

So, off I went up towards Tomball, stopping to pick up an assortment of delicious drinking alcohol and about $50 worth of Chinese doohickery that emits smoke, sparks and eventually explodes in a shower of flaming chemicals. I hadn't bought fireworks in probably 6 or 7 years, and things have changed a bit. Not so many bottle rockets or roman candles available, but lots of mortars and "brick" rockets that shoot 25-200 tiny missiles.

I'm a complete sucker for those pre-mixed bottled cocktails, and when you display them by the cash register as an impulse buy, I'm heading down the express lane to inebriation. So, as I'm leaving the fireworks stand and heading to the Cisco Kid's house, the first two margaritas are getting poured down my throat. Normally, I don't recommend drinking and driving, but if you drive carefully, you can avoid those annoying bumps that slosh your booze around.

I tore into the beer and the steaks with equal gusto upon arrival. The Cisco Kid always lays out an impressive spread, and this time was no exception.

Two old friends were already there. One that I'll call 'Hoagie' I've seen numerous times since he's returned from 18 years spent in SE Asia. The other that I'll call 'Nash' I hadn't seen since 1988 or so. We were also joined by Cisco Kid's sister, his niece and her boyfriend, and, of course, the 22 year old hottie named Jessica tagging along with the niece.

It was an interesting evening. In the course of imbibing lots of booze, we managed a semi-serious poker game, experimentation with the Guitar Hero video game, and a cigar or two. Oh, and fireworks... lots of fireworks!

Cisco Kid's niece got potchkied way too early, and cratered. This left her friend at the mercy of 4 dirty old men. Heh. In truth, she was drinking us under the table for a while, at least in enthusiasm. Eventually, body weight and BAC capacity caught up. I don't know how this 110 lb. girl managed to put away at least half a 1.75 liter bottle of Grey Goose and remain upright, but she did it. She also felt the need to get cozy with each of us in turn, and though she remained fully clothed throughout the evening (damn the bad luck...) she managed to make sure we were familiar with what she was equipped with.

About the time she pulled out the can of whipped cream and was showing us how dextrous she was with a tongue, Cisco Kid's sister decided it was time to take her home. As a responsible adult, I had to agree with her rationale. As a horny old fart, I was quite distressed...

Eventually I sobered up enough to get home, where I intended to stay awake all day to reset my body clock to a normal work schedule. Ha! As if! I managed to stay awake long enough to scribble out the previous blogpost, then crashed until 3 pm, awakening only long enough to gorge on blackeyed peas, cornbread, turnip greens and a whole shitload of those little cocktail weenies in BBQ sauce.

So, there's the story. A good start to 2008, as far as I'm concerned! Hope yours is going just as well!

Happy New Year!!

2008 Is The Year I Turn 40... Blah...

OK, the good news... In spite of greatly reducing my alcohol consumption over the past decade, I apparently can still pack it in when the spirit moves me.

The bad news? I'm gonna feel this tomorrow, I'm afraid.

The menu, near as I can recall:

Start time - 7:30 pm

Strawberry Margarita
Strawberry Margarita
Bass Ale
Shiner Bavarian Amber
St. Arnolds Elissa India Pale Ale
Paulaner Salvator Double Bock
Double bourbon on the rocks

Break to go shoot fireworks at midnight

Strawberry Margarita
Strawberry Margarita
Shot of Grey Goose vodka
Shot of Agavero tequila liqueur
Shot of Anejo Tequila
Another Shot of Anejo Tequila

Break while extremely intoxicated 22 year old hottie uses me as a jungle gym
(More on this later...)

Shot of bourbon
Shiner Blonde
Shot of bourbon
Snifter of Hennessy VSOP cognac

End time - 4:30 am

And now, I'm off to bed. Prospero año nuevo, y'all!