Baboon Pirates

Scribbles and Scrawls from an unrepentant swashbuckling primate.

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Location: Texas, United States

Saturday, May 30, 2009

Scrotal Prolapse Of The Fart

If I Was Halfway Creative, I'd Be Making Videos Like These...


I can't decide which version I like better. The "literal video" version is laugh out loud funny, but on the Hurra Torpedo version, that guy playing the freezer & stovetop is pretty good!

Decide for yourselves...






Friday, May 29, 2009

Increasing Intolerance

Yo, Ho, Blow The Man Down!

I've been fairly lucky in the operation, care & maintenance of my digestive tract. It's largely trouble-free, and has been for as long as I can recall. Regular as clockwork, and the only time things got backed up were years ago after an an upper-GI Xray test, where they made me drink what seemed to be liquid concrete. Oh, then there was the day I had a big bowl of ranch dressing, and ended up eating most of a head of cauliflower and all of a big broccoli stalk. I regretted that the next day.

Everyone gets the Tijuana Trots every so often, but for me, it usually takes just one dose of Imodium or a couple of swigs of Pepto to set things in order.

My friends have not been so lucky. One buddy of mine was stricken with Crohn's Disease, which causes your entire GI tract to get imflamed and evacuate the contents under pressure.

Another was severely lactose-intolerant, so much so that all I had to do was wave a slice of cheese around and he'd be shittin' kittens. One guy I went to college with had a zero-sum GI tract. If something went in one hole, something HAD to exit at the other end. I can't count how many times we'd be out for dinner, and he'd have to leave his meal cooling on the table while he went to drop a deuce.

I've got a relative that's pretty much addicted to laxatives. Not in a anorexic way, more of a "scour the pipes weekly" kind of way.

As I age, though, I'm noticing some of these maladies creeping up on me. I think I'm seeing the beginning stages of lactose intolerance. I can still eat ice cream and cheese, and every month or so I'll get the urge for a pint of whole milk, and suffer no real ill effects from drinking it. I'm a-feered my days of drinking a quart at a time are gone forever...

Monday was a holiday, and I was determined to do nothing other than watch movies and eat ice cream. I very rarely buy ice cream, since it tends to get eaten all at once, no matter the size of the container. Since it was a holiday weekend, though, and I was already in a pissy mood from missing a trip out to the Hill Country, I went into full-comfort-food mode.

So six pints of Blue Bell in assorted flavors were purchased and put in the freezer, and then after a bit of errand-running, I stopped at Taco Bell for some take-out burritos to eat while watching some flicks.

You can see where this is going, can't you?

OK, when you eat 4 beef & bean burritos and 3 soft tacos with sour cream, then over the course of an afternoon & evening, scarf down 3 pints of ice cream, the calamity in your GI tract will become the stuff of legend.

Tuesday, I'm back at work, and feeling decidedly out of sorts. No matter how I managed to sit, I was uncomfortable, and I had sharp pains bouncing through my gut. About 3 pm, the first eruptions began.

Lords and Ladies, there are farts, and then there are Taco Bell/Blue Bell milky-beany-cheesy-creamy farts. The kind of farts that don't peel paint off the walls, but will blow ragged holes in the seat of your britches. The kind of farts that cause you to levitate 3" over your chair seat.

Just out of courtesy's sake, I made a beeline for the bathroom, just in case there was a special delivery to go along with the methane expolosion.

No such luck, and when you expel that much cubic footage of gas into a porcelain bowl whilst locked in a 6x6 tiled room, well, there's a reason they call it a Thunder Mug. I had to get back in my fabric office chair just to muffle the sound...

Comedian Ron White has a bit about taking such a huge dump your pants fit better. In this case, after the storm has passed, not only did my pants fit better, I think I went down a full shoe size and hat size!

Quick product plug: Ozium 3.5 oz. air freshener aerosol spray - $3.99 at Walgreen's.

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Even More LOLCats!

It's An Addiction...

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Toad Abode

There's Amphibians In Our Midst...

For some reason, a common weekend activity around Casa Capitan involves moving boxes, bins, bags and bushel baskets from one room to another in a vain attempt to create an extra 200 sq. feet of floor space. It never quite works out.

I've got to be more judicious in what ends up in the garbage bin, and what ends up back in a box. There's really no reason for me to continue hanging on to 45 lbs. of assorted Student Congress paraphernalia from college, yet I am just unable to send all that paper to the rubbish bin. Same for boxes of old magazines. Oh, I'll gleefully pitch most of the National Geographics, but the National Lampoons? Not on your life...

Then, there's all the videotapes. Obsolescent as a rotary telephone, but I haven't yet replaced at least 70% of the collection with DVDs, just due to the cost involved.

I never did find that toad that snuck into the house last month. I keep thinking I'll open a closet door, and find his dried-out carcass wedged inside. I'm fairly certain the cats didn't eat him. It's possible he's eating the kitty kibble, and bathing in their water dish. I'll have to stake out the cat bowls some evening with my blowgun. It proved quite effective at nailing cockroaches to the walls in that verminous old house up in Arlington. It should tack a toad pretty efficiently.

Sunday, May 24, 2009

Brazilians Driving In Circles

How Many Zeros In A Brazilian?

Another year, another Indy 500. Helio Castroneves won for the third time, and it was a great race. The track demanded its usual sacrifice, and many cars kissed the wall and exploded into little bitty pieces, but no serious injuries.

Danica Patrick took third place, her best finish yet at Indy. She's determined to win this one, so don't expect her to jump to NASCAR anytime soon.

Ouch. I'm gonna go walk around for a while. I've been sitting in one place for 4 hours, and my sitter's kinda numb!

Saturday, May 23, 2009

The Little Crabby One Speaks

Comments Are Completely Optional

Some bloggers love to hold conversations in their comments. Others, not so much.

When I started this blog, I made a conscious decision to not encourage running conversations in my Comments section. I say what I need to say, and you have the option to give me a thumbs-up or thumbs-down. I deposit the occasional helping of snark on other blogs when the spirit moves me. Otherwise, I'll email you if I have a question needing an answer.

For a lot of bloggers like Denny, Hammer, Eric, & most of the gunbloggers, the comments section are a fun free-for-all, with a lot of regulars chiming in and getting responses. I don't know if I want to work that hard. This is supposed to be a stress-relieving activity, after all.

I dunno, maybe I've erred in this, and that's why my traffic barely rates higher than the Greater Ottumwa Left-Handed Knitting Society Blog.

Still... it is what it is, and carping about me somewhere else & my blogging habits that fail to meet your approval is a good way to get the cold shoulder.

Just sayin', is all.

This Fits My Mood...

If I Was Any Happier, I'd Shit Myself!


(Clicky to embiggify)

Friday, May 22, 2009

Mini Movie Reviews

Like Real Movie Reviews, Only Smaller!

For some reason, I felt the pull of the video rental store last Sunday evening, and stopped in to rent a few flix. It's probably been a couple of months since I was last in there, and they've STILL got Sin City in the New Releases section...

OK, here we go...

#1 'Quantum of Solace': I didn't see this one when it came out in the theaters. The new Bond, Daniel Craig, was OK in 'Casino Royale', but there's something about the tone of these new Bond films that just doesn't sit well. It's probably the overwhelming paranoia of British Intelligence. It can't give you the warm fuzzies about your employers when every other minute, they're convinced you've been turned, and therefore must die. Have a little faith, M-baby! Have a little faith!

Not a bad movie, but the main baddie was a bit of a pantywaist, and shouldn't have been able to give Bond that much of a fight. Hot babes, fast cars, lots of guns. The fight in the belltower was a lot of fun to watch. Typical Bond film!


#2 - 'Miracle at St. Anna': Spike Lee will never be accused of being too subtle... This film is about a squad of black soldiers separated from their unit in Northern Italy in the last days of WWII. It's a bit of a character study, a bit of a war film, and a bit of a murder mystery. I enjoyed it, but I'll warn you going in that the main Nazi baddie is VERY VERY EVIL! The redneck Army captain is VERY VERY RACIST! The Army General is VERY VERY RACIST TOO! See, we know this, 'cause the characters are almost caricatures of themselves. Spike likes to hit you with the Message Hammer so you'll get the point he's driving at...

Good battle scenes, great characters, and an unexpected but very welcome inclusion of large nekkid Italian breasts.


#3 - 'Righteous Kill': Cop film starring Robert De Niro and Al Pacino. It's fun to watch these two ham it up with each other, but the Pacino character is too close to the one he played in 'Heat', and the De Niro character? It's De Niro playing De Niro.

It was fun watching them beat up Fiddy Cent, or whatever his name is. The plot? Oh, please. Paper thin. Anyone who reads mysteries has this thing figured out before the opening credits finish.

#4 - 'Underworld 3 - Rise of the Lycans': This makes the second movie starring Rhona Mitra I've seen where she ends up chained up and not wearing a lot of clothing. You know, I'm kinda OK with that! Maybe it's a latent bondage thing. I dunno. Maybe if she'd gotten mostly nekkid and chained up a few times on 'Boston Legal', she'd still be on that show...

Lots of silly vampire/werewolf fun with Bill Nighy as the HVMFIC, and Michael Sheen as the wolfyboy Lucian, and of course, Rhona Mitra as the Kingsford Charcoal Briquette. I kept waiting for Nighy's character to say "Now let's go get pissed and watch porn!" a la Billy Mack after he combusted his offspring, but alas, that didn't happen.


I'm El Capitan, and the balcony is now closed...

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Completely Effed In The Ay.

If I Bought A Horse, Lions Would Magically Appear And Eat It.

Wow. That was fun. 8 hours spent in an uncomfortable metal chair in the waiting room of the tire & brake shop.

Sat for 4 hours and had $800 worth of tires mounted, balanced & installed, along with an extra $300 of parts & labor to replace all the worn-out bits in the steering linkages in order to do the front-end alignment. I was informed that I needed new shocks and tie rod ends, but those could wait a bit longer.

What couldn't wait was the front brakes. There's maybe a crotch hair of composite left on the brake pad, and the rotors are .002" away from needing replacement. Probably $300 total. Nevertheless, I was out of cash, so it would have to wait.

It did wait. About 30 minutes and 12 miles. As I was exiting to head downtown, the brakes went mushy and hit the floor. Pumping the brakes either got you slightly less mushy brakes, or a sudden hammer-like blow as the ABS braked too hard & too soon. Something was clearly awry.

Back out to NTB, in a high dudgeon. After all, I had brakes when I drove in there this morning.

The front brakes were as I'd seen them before. The rear brakes? When they pulled the passenger-side drum, a cascade of burnt & deformed parts poured out onto the pavement.
The driver's-side drum wasn't in much better shape. As much as I'd like to accuse the tire shop of evil shenanigans, I'm all too aware that the previous owner of the truck considered regular maintenance a sucker's game.

So, I'm out of cash, and they can't put it back together with the old effed-up parts. I don't even have the cash to call a tow truck or a cab.

(Pause for 15 minutes of incredibly high-volume swearing, from an amazing variety of languages and dialects)

You know anyone you can call for a quick $500? Me neither.

So, an 4 hour wait until my parents get back from some senior citizen function, and can come get me & give me a lift back home.

I get paid Friday. I'll pick it up then, with a nice shiny $550 rear brake job on it.

This pretty much befucts me for the Memorial Day weekend, since now I'm too effin' broke to rent a car or even ride the Dog out to the Hill Country.

Someone out there really has it in for me. If they don't knock it off, I'm gonna go stomp on some baby ducks to even out the karma situation.

Monday, May 18, 2009

Bits & Pieces

I Really Need To Go Home & Sleep Some More.

I'm now the owner of 1000 large pistol primers, thanks to the sharp eyes and capacious wallet of the Cisco Kid, who attended the local Gun Show on Sunday while I lay abed like a narcoleptic tortoise. With the purchase of a bucket of some suitable propellant, I will have the final ingredient to start churning out some handloaded ammo for my sixgun. I'm told there's a nice bulky powder called "Trail Boss" that should give sufficient velocity and fill up the cavernous .45 Long Colt case, negating the need for any filler material. It's more efficient loading without it, but I was kinda looking forward to a wee pinch of Blue Dot and 40cc's of dry Cream of Wheat...


I'm still waiting to hear from NTB, who are supposed to have called me by now to let me know my tires were shipped and are waiting to be installed. They'd better not screw this up. The only thing standing in the way of me making a long-awaited out-of-town trip this Saturday are those shaky old tires on the truck.


My friend Rockhauler has a new mailing address and a new blog, and I'll have to think of a new moniker for him, since he's quit the heavy-hauling trade and has become an expatriate down in Costa Rica. Well, until I think of something suitably snarky, just call him the Banana Republican. I was sure he'd be overrun with wild monkeys and sloths and fruit bats, kinda like we have squirrels and possums, but mostly he's just getting daily rainfall and the occasional junta.


It's Mom's birthday today. Those who know the path via Facebook are more than welcome to go let her know that she's WAAAAYYYY past due her entry into the local geriatric rest home. Just kidding, Mom! You know I won't have you institutionalized until your pension runs out!!


OK, for those completely scandalized by that last bit, you ought to know that it's been a running joke between Mom & I for the last 20 years about throwing her into Incontinence Acres once she hit a certain age...

Sunday, May 17, 2009

Sugar Rush

Beware The Beaver!

I have seen the face of the coming Apocalypse... and it has buckteeth...

My sister's family visited this weekend, and left behind a treasure trove of the multi-colored and weirdly sized foodstuffs that small children eat nowadays. All manner of squeezable yogurts, juice boxes and fruity gummy things.

And, of course, the Beaver Nuggets.

Buc-ee's is a local truckstop/watering hole/gas station/redneck resupply in these parts. You won't find them near the city, usually. You'll be out on the highway on the middle of nowhere, and start seeing these billboards with a cartoon beaver advertising beef jerky, clean restrooms and cheap gas 50 miles down the road.

Once you crest the hill and see the Beaveral City, it's quite the attraction. 24 gas pumps in front of a huge store that sells all manner of roadfood and hillbilly tchotchkies. A cold drink fountain 30 feet long. Three cows worth of beef jerky. You can buy just about anything, including BBQ smokers and 10,000 pounds of ice, if you're so inclined.

And, of course, the aforementioned Beaver Nuggets.

Do you remember the breakfast cereal called Kellogg's Sugar Corn Pops? They probably call it Super Golden Pops now, following the great Cereal Sugar Label purge of the 80's. OK, Beaver Nuggets are a lot like those Corn Pops, only sugarier. And tastier. Probably not so good in milk, though.

List of ingredients starts as follows: Sugar, Corn Meal, Corn Syrup, Canola Oil, Molasses, etc.

My sister left a bag behind. I made the mistake of tasting just one.

Now, the bag has mysteriously emptied, and I'm pretty certain that with the raw amount of sugar energizing my system, I can change TV channels without the remote, and bend spoons with my brain. I'm afraid to look outside lest I cause a passing squirrel to combust under my sugar-hyped gaze.

Damn, you beaver! Your nuggets should be regulated by the Atomic Energy Commission!

If you'll excuse me, I need to go hide in a closet and twitch randomly for a while...

Friday, May 15, 2009

Random Observations

Strange Oddities And Scurrilous Behaviors

Ate dinner at my favorite hole-in-the-wall taco shack last night. My cholesterol levels were too near normal levels, so a plate of chicken nachos and a brace of carnitas tacos seemed in order.

A couple of spoonfuls of queso served to glue the carnitas, (crispy grilled pork nuggets) to the tortilla, and kept them from falling out the opposite end of the taco. To be denied carnitas is a fate worse than death, which is why I will resist the encroachment of Dar Al Islam with every fiber of my being.

This is not to say that carnitas are completely without peril. In my haste to overload my tastebuds with grilled piggy goodness, I stuffed about a third of a taco in my gob, and within a bite discovered that the chef hadn't trimmed the pork as well as he might have...

You know those jumbo-sized marshmallows? Imagine biting into one that's lukewarm and composed entirely of pig fat. I can only imagine what the look on my face was at that moment, distorted as it was by a mouthful of semi-rendered lard and tortilla. Since the only napkins available were these Kleenex-sized tissue papers, there was no suitable receptacle for spitting out the offending bite.

So, I powered through it on sheer willpower, each reluctant mastication sending jets of warm lard to the far corners of my pie-hole. Fortunately, there was sufficient fiery salsa to cut through the grease layer afterwards and get me back on the path to normalcy.



I witnessed a pigeon menage a trois yesterday. While waiting for the shuttle to take me in to work, I noticed a couple of pigeons doing some sort of mating dance up in the rafters of the bus shelter. While they did their Mambo of Mating, another male pigeon was mimicking their maneuvers on a higher rafter.

Eventually, Bachelor Pigeon #1 sealed the deal, and the mating pair quit doing the kissy-beak dance and the male clambered up on the back of the female. Oh, joy. Pigeon P()rn before work. I'm puzzling how the male pigeon is actually accomplishing the mechanics of the maneuver, given that he's on top, and birds have just the one hole on the bottom, and there's about a pound of feathers 'twixt the power & the glory.

Watching from above, Bachelor Pigeon #2 is overcome with lust, and swoops down to land atop Bachelor Pigeon #1, and commences to thrust away like a coke-crazed chipmunk. Bachelor Pigeon #1 seemed strangely OK with the deal, but the scene weirded out the female, and she departed in a flurry of pinfeathers for parts unknown. The two males sat there, heads bobbing to & fro, and I could swear I could hear the faint sounds of Haddaway's 'What Is Love' playing in the distance...



One of the reasons I drive a full-sized extended-cab pickup is simply to have enough room to safely & comfortably drive. This morning I saw a guy with a forearm the size of a Smithfield ham hanging out a truck window. He had to be about as large as I am, yet somehow he's stuffed into a Chevy Silverado standard-cab pickup. Wondering how this beefalo was managing to drive, I pulled up alongside to take a look-see.

The problem with the equation (Standard Cab + Big Gut)/Pudgy Arms is that there's just not enough room between belly & steering wheel to operate the vehicle. Sure enough, this guy was mashed in between the wheel and the bench seat, and each motion of the wheel required him to force the wheel past the friction caused by it sliding against his Buddha-like gut. Ever had your power steering go out, and you get to re-learn how much effort it really takes to steer a big car at low speeds? That's the kind of force this guy had to use just to change lanes.

There's just no way that's safe. I really felt the need to force him off the road, and make him apply a fistful of axle grease to his gut, just to make the wheel turn easier.

Personally, I can't wait for joystick controls. How much nicer will it be to drive a car when all the controls are on one stick, and you just rest your hand in a natural position to your side? It'll also mean the end of your girlfriend's head ever getting stuck underneath the steering wheel, but that's a story best told at a blogmeet...

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Cool Food For Hot Weather

I'm Pretty Sure I Could Eat Grapes Until I Exploded.

I ran across this concoction at Central Market, and it is some tasty, tasty salad!

I'm going to take a stab at the recipe. I know what's in it, since the deli label has the ingredients, but it doesn't list the exact proportions.

Get the biggest, plumpest grapes you can for this salad, and discard any that are soft & mooshy.

Ingredients:

1 lb Seedless Red Grapes
1 lb Seedless Green Grapes
3 ounces Maytag Bleu cheese, crumbled
3 ounces chopped walnuts
2 tablespoons Canola oil
2 tablespoons White Balsamic Vinegar
1 tablespoon honey
Fresh ground black pepper
Kosher salt

Put grapes in a large bowl, & set aside. Combine the liquid ingredients in a smaller bowl, and gently stir until smooth. Add in cheese & nuts and stir until they are well coated. Salt & pepper to taste. Pour over grapes, gently toss. Serve immediately!
Mucho Gusto!

Monday, May 11, 2009

Time Lapse Tanker

Three And 1/2 Hours Condensed Down To Three Minutes!

Here's an interesting video. A tanker captain set up his digital camera on the ship's rail, and had it take a shot every 6 seconds. It documents the tanker's trip down the Houston Ship Channel from near the Port of Houston's turning basin (4 miles from downtown) all the way down to down to Morgan’s Point at the upper end of Galveston Bay. Ship speed was between 5-10 knots.

It kinda reminds me of that old video game Night Driver, where you had to keep your car inside the lanes, and all you had to guide you were the reflective road markers. This is similar, only you have the blinky navigation buoys to go by, and making a mistake probably means plowing into a petrochemical refinery, and a fiery death for thousands!

Ain't no anti-lock brakes on a tanker, either...




Found at Swamplot.

Truckus Suckus Yuckus

I Need A VW Dune Buggy. No AC, & Fix It With Pliers & Bondo.

Got the truck back today, and it's still not running right. I still get that nasty vibration around 45 mph, and while it smooths out between 50-55, it starts to get rough again over 55, making highway travel an iffy thing.

It may well be that a new set of tires fixes everything. The skids on it right now are almost worn out, and they're those big offroad mud-flingers, so you know when the big lug treads wear down, it's gotta throw things off.

That's my hope, anyway...

So, this weekend should see me in a new set of highway tires, balanced and aligned. I didn't want to buy them until I got the OK on the engine. No use putting new shoes on a junkyard rig.

The A/C is nice & cold, so while I'm puttering along at 45 mph, at least I'm cool & comfortable...

Sunday, May 10, 2009

Stuck At The House

My, Those Cats Look Tasty...

I miss my truck.

I can order a pizza for the umpteenth time, I can hike a mile & back to the nearest food establishment, or I can root through the cupboards and make a meal out of canned whatever.

I sure hope the truck gets fixed by tomorrow. Or a Chinese food delivery opens nearby. One or the other would be OK...

Friday, May 08, 2009

A Little Up, A Little Down

I Could Kill For A Chocolate Chip Cookie...

Attention: Dick & Fart jokes will resume at the conclusion of this current crisis...

Good news for Uncle Robert, bad news for me.

He's out of surgery. A planned triple-bypass turned into a quadruple bypass on the operating table, but he's much improved. They have him breathing on his own, and now that his heart is receiving an improved blood supply, his color is better, and some of the edema in his legs has gone down. A long road to recovery, but he seems to be out of immediate danger.

Thanks for all the prayers and support. It's very much appreciated.

As for me? I'm stuck here at the house. The mechanic split for the weekend about noon today, and my truck is still up on the lift. He's finding more & more things wrong the deeper he peels the onion, and the costs are going up. The only plus side is that the things needing fixing are $60-100 issues, not $1200 issues. I ought to sell chances on how much the bill's going to be. I'm guessing over a grand, but we shall see.

Anyway, the truck won't be ready until Monday afternoon at the soonest. I begged a ride up to the Walgreen's to get Mom a Mother's Day card and enough food to last the weekend. Like the commercial says "Thank goodness for Chef Boy-Ar-Dee!"

I forgot to get ice cream. Damn. I always forget the ice cream...

Wednesday, May 06, 2009

No Good News Yet

The Waiting Is The Hardest Part

No improvement yet for Uncle Robert. It's one of those deals where if you make it past the next 36-48 hours, your chances improve. Unfortunately, they've found almost 100% blockage in the main arteries, and they've got to run stents to give him a chance to survive. The problem is, the stress of that might kill him...

So, fingers crossed, if you're so inclined.

Got the call from the shop on my truck just now. $400 tab and climbing, but the AC is blowing cold air, and the turn signals work, so I can finally get it inspected. I'm desperate to get the thing done before Memorial Day. I'm sick of being trapped here in town.

I can't help thinking that maybe the Prozac was the trigger that helped me to quit dithering, demand three days off work, and get the stupid thing into the mechanic's. I've had the cash for a couple of months, but my constant stress about taking time off work and the PITA factor of not having transport was keeping me bumbling along at 45 mph. The new coil on the missing cylinder, new plugs & cables all around and a tune-up ought to get me back on the freeway. I've already decided if I get out of the mechanic's for under $1000, I'll go put new shoes on the truck this weekend and be 100% mobile.

Tuesday, May 05, 2009

Pain Of A Different Sort

I Wanted A Sitcom, I Got A Hallmark 'Very Special' Movie...

Tough times, the last couple of days.

If you didn't catch it on Facebook, I'm short an uncle, and another is not doing so hot.

Uncle Roy died yesterday in Dallas. He was Mom's uncle, and the next-to-last member of my grandparent's generation. He was in hospice care on a morphine drip, so his passing wasn't unexpected, but sad nonetheless. He leaves behind his wife of 60+ years, three kids and a boatload of grandkids.

Uncle Robert is Mom's brother, and he's been fighting with COPD the last couple of years. Both he and Roy are/were lifelong smokers. This is really aggravating to me in Robert's case, because not 7 years ago we watched his mother, my grandmother, die of smoking-related causes, and he still keeps sucking those coffin nails.

Uncle Robert collapsed at work yesterday, and wasn't found until he was already in cardiac arrest and turning blue. CPR was performed until the medtechs arrived, and he was transported to an area hospital where he's currently on life support. Mom & Dad are on their way down today. I'd be down there too, but the power steering gizmo on my truck took a dump on the way in to work this morning, so I've got to get that fixed tomorrow.

Uncle Robert shouldn't have been working. He should have retired 3 years ago, but that damn hoodlum kid he's got has kept them three steps from the poorhouse with all his legal bills and court costs.

Well, I'm gonna shut up before my mouth gets me in trouble.

Think some happy thoughts, y'all. We could use a few aimed this way.

Sunday, May 03, 2009

The Bigger They Are...

Help! I've Fallen & I Can't Get Up!

Well, that sucked.

In the process of hauling a gigantimous trash bag full of torn-up drywall & old carpet out to the street for heavy trash pickup, I managed to get my feets tangled up in a combination of drooping pant leg, yew bush, and the sidewalk edge.

The result? El Cap floundering around horizontally on the front porch, halfway in the shrubbery, and looking for all the world like a manatee washed ashore in a mangrove swamp.

I'd be a lot more bruised up, but there was a small wooden table next to the front door that delayed my final impact. I fear it'll never be the same again.

As I'm trying to pull my carcass upright, I was struck by the thought that maybe I ought to fall over more often. The extra practice at getting up off the ground might come in handy. It occurs to me that I'm either sitting, standing or on a bed or couch virtually 100% of the time. I hardly ever get down on my knees unless something really expensive and/or irreplaceable has rolled underneath something.

I fear this will leave a sizeable bruise...

Friday, May 01, 2009

There's A Party In My Pants!

Panther What You Wear On Your Legth

I am the worst clothes shopper ever. Not that I can't buy clothes, I just do it so rarely I fall completely out of practice.

Not having a wife around to nag me about frayed cuffs and ragged seams, I tend to wear my trousers until they self-destruct. My Primary Pants and my Emergency Pants were just about at the end of their tether, and overdose of Oxy-Clean combined with a bright red shirt spelled the end of my Weekend Pants, at least for anything other than yardwork or a task not requiring public display.

So, I bit the bullet and ordered 4 more pair of casual pants from the mail-order Big & Tall & Round clothing outlet.

When you're a Corpulent-American and you buy pants once a year, you often have to order the pants, wait for 'em to arrive, try them on and promptly send them back for the next larger size. I guess all those salads I've eaten in the last few months haven't been in vain, I didn't go up a size. While these new pants aren't exactly loose-fitting, there's the capacity for looseness. That's encouraging, somewhat.

Of course, they won't be fully integrated into the wardrobe until one or both of the cats rolls on them for an afternoon, embedding thousands of cat hairs that will resist all efforts at washing and tape-rolling to eradicate. I'm sure they'll barf on a pair just for good measure. That's how they roll...