Creative Endeavors

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: “In Oklahoma, it is illegal to hunt a whale.” … Is this a great state or what?

So I am reading the WordPress.com dashboard and I am looking at the “fastest growing blogs” on the net and I am wondering, “What do they have?” I mean some of them are just sites promoting vacuum cleaners or household items, what in the world is making them the fastest growing items on the net?

There are a few things that I do not understand.  Jay Leno writes one piece, ONE PIECE, and it floats around the blogo-sphere for years? I put up stuff almost every day for four months and it goes nowhere.

I don’t get it. I really don’t.

As I am a firm believer that “people want and need to be fed happy news and flat out unadulterated gossip” not war, death, and unrest, I continue to daily forge on.  But often it is not understandable for me as a hack to figure out this popularity and interest.  I just keep hammering them out, running it up the flagpole to see if someone will salute it on a day to day basis.  Hopefully it will lead to something productive one of these days and some possible good may come out of it.

Enuff on that …….

Congress today raises the age for licking the syrup off a plate to thirteen. High summer temperatures and ever-increasing levels of U.S. beverage consumption are causing ice cubes across the nation to melt at “an alarmingly unprecedented rate,” the U.S. Department of Consumer Affairs reported recently.

After months of tirelessly supporting his wife on the campaign trail, devoted spouse and former president Bill Clinton breathed a resigned sigh Monday and carefully folded the charcoal silk, fitted sheath dress he had hoped to wear as first lady during next January’s inauguration and placed it back in its beautiful box.

Ho-hum, everyone insert a well deserved “yawn” here. The Dollar Store is running a special on Fig Newton’s today.  Crazy Headlines: “SPRINGFIELD, MO …  This week’s Secret Society meeting will be held at the city hall in room 233B.” … Only in America.  Then if you have time, skip across the pond to the U.K. “A man has been arrested after 129 rabbits were stolen from a farm in Lincolnshire.” Damage costing up to £70,000 to rectify was also caused during the burglary at Highgate Farm, Norman by Spital, in January 2008.

I guess they caught him with DNA when he left a hare behind.

Wife is railing me for not taking out the trash.  Funny how things just slip your mind when your multinational energy corporation vows to make obsolete the very product that brought it an unstoppable cash flow for over a century.  Now, who wants to talk about how all school buses might someday run on vegetable oil?

Thought so.

Get ready cuz here it comes.  Declining gasoline purchases, due to higher prices, are hurting the federal fund that pays to maintain the nation’s highways, the director of the Congressional Budget Office said on Thursday.

The fund is built on an 18.4 cent tax levied on each gallon of gas. It had been forecast to run out by 2009, but the fund is now shrinking more quickly, Peter Orszag testified to a Senate panel.  “Our March baseline did suggest that it would be exhausted in 2009 and an imbalance of roughly a billion and a half  dollars would occur during that time period,” he said of the CBO’s projections on the fund’s future.”

“Since March, gas prices have caused gasoline consumption to decline. So the incoming revenue will be lower than what we projected in March and the imbalance in 2009 will be more significant,” Orszag added.  Average U.S. gasoline prices have risen some 80 cents per gallon since the end of March to a record $4.11, up $1.13 from a year ago.  The office, which audits the economic impact of congressional bills and programs, will release new projections by the end of summer, he noted.

Once again, I pick up the paper and it tells me what I already know. The gas tax has become an issue in the presidential election, with presumptive Republican nominee John McCain proposing to suspend the tax for a short period to speed economic recovery. Barack Obama, the expected Democratic nominee, has said suspending the tax would provide little relief.

And George W. Bush, looking up from Grand Theft Auto II and saying ………. “Huh? What’s zat?”  By the way, “no more emails on Obammer please, the bottom of the bird cage is full.”

From 1995 to 2000, the U.S. highway fund had a surplus of between $10 billion and $23 billion, according to the CBO, and in 1998 Congress cut $8.017 billion from it.   On Thursday, the Senate Appropriations Committee sent legislation to the full Senate to restore that amount in the coming year as part of a larger infrastructure funding bill.  The House Ways and Means committee is considering similar legislation.

The Congress will take up drafting a new transportation bill next session. Like I said, “Get Ready.” Here it comes. It is never enough, you cannot win. So apparently we must seek out the good in this, as my Grandmother used to say … “Look For The Rainbow, Every Cloud Has A Silver Lining.”

The wisdom of age.

So here it is ….. “For every 10 percent rise in gas prices, [traffic] fatalities are reduced by 2.3 percent”

Like I said … I don’t get it. I really don’t.

000

Related: Give Up - Surrender

Pope Benedict XVI has attacked popular culture and consumerism in a formal address to tens of thousands of young Roman Catholics. The pontiff also warned that natural resources were being squandered, in a speech in Sydney, Australia.

Which I guess is a lot better than talking about pedophiles in the pulpit. Back in the USA Jesse Jackson responded with “No Comment, damn sure, No comment.”

Astronomers analyzing the first images captured by the new Hubble Space Kaleidoscope, which went online Tuesday, announced that they’ve acquired the first concrete evidence that the universe is in a constant state of total weirdness.

The economic news yesterday was bad, bad, and more bad, and it is the lead story of all the newspapers. “A sense of economic gloom gripped Washington on Tuesday,” the New York Times writes. The Washington Post goes with a near-banner headline, “An Economy Thrown Into Turmoil.” USA Today’s front page also features several big arrows; the ones for good things are going down and those for bad things are going up. “So this is what a day of reckoning feels like. … If it wasn’t clear before Tuesday, it is now: This is no ordinary economic crisis, and it won’t be over anytime soon,” the paper writes.

And they wonder why the American consumer confidence is down?

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke testified in front of Congress that economic growth was “on a sluggish pace,” and that on top of that, inflation was a risk.  The Commerce Department reported that wholesale prices were up 1.8 percent, and retail sales rose just 0.1 percent in June over the previous month and were down 0.5 percent when gas-station sales were excluded. The stock market was down 93 points, and stocks in London, Paris, and Tokyo suffered as well.

The dollar fell to a new low against the Euro. Police in California had to be summoned to restore order at a run on a bank, where customers waited in line to withdraw their money. “It was a day of ugliness,” said one analyst quoted in the L.A. Times … “What else can you say?”

Exxon raised the price of a gallon of gas four cents, because they heard that Bob wasn’t coming in on Friday to the refinery in Stickitinyourrear Parrish Louisana.  The lone (sort of) optimistic voice of the day belonged to President Bush, who held a snap press conference at which, in the words of the New York Times “he felt compelled to remind Americans that their deposits were insured up to $100,000.“

Thatta boy Dubya, what a guy!  Off The Radar Again …. Houston we still have a problem.

If you act like a dick in Florida, you will be asked to pay for it.  A 19-year-old man must make an apology to the city of Saratoga Springs for dressing as an inflatable 6-foot penis and then parading across SPAC’s stage at the high school’s graduation last month.  While as an added touch, spraying the folks in the audience with silly string.

Who says you cannot get a quality education in this country anymore?

Calvin Morett of 337 Pyramid Pine Estates must also pay to have the open-apology letter published in the Saratogian newspaper as part of a City Court sentence that calls for him to pay $95 in court fees. He was also ordered to perform 24 hours of community service. Morett had previously pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct, a violation. Morett graduated from Saratoga Springs High School last year.

And they sent me to Mr. Moody’s office for less than this, a whole lot less.

Well, that are about it for another one boys & girls, time to get back to work on my upcoming novel for the fall debut on the Oprah Book Club.

Still struggling for that catchy book cover that draws people in.  And I have not come up with a bold title for it, but the basic storyline is as follows:  “Aliens come to earth in a miniature spaceship, who are far more advanced than earthlings.  Apparently they are a important mission, they are in search of carbon based forms of fuel (of which earthlings are one) and they are undergoing a life or death undertaking for their society and/or planet.  Something like our National Elections.”

Earth has something that they need, so they send a representative in the form of these little men (I have not decided on a color as of yet, just know it will not be green) to negotiate a better deal with the inhabitants, kind of like a Connie-do-Leesa type negotiator on a mission for more oil or whatever natural resource you happen to have.

It is kind of a “fish out of water” kind of read, some people are going to hate it and others are going to lap it up. Have not located a publisher at this time.  I am hoping for a let’s all rip this page out, pin it on the wall, and stick in nails, needles, and staples, read it every day kind of thing. Perhaps Oprah will help me to find it a home and make it a must read, this could very well be the new work environment manifest for America.

Realistically speaking, it will probably end up pinned to a refrigerator somewhere with a magnet in the shape of a small piece of fruit, and that is the best I can hope for in the end.  (Hey?  It got my total word count up for the day, works for me)

000

The wind is out of the south, like a blast furnace has suddenly fired up on the north side of Dallas and it has all blown an ill wind to my side of town. Hot here, and it is heating up as summer approaches. It was so hot here today, I saw a dog chasing a cat, and they both were walking.

Which just reminded me, only a few days and it will be July. The wheat is in, time to kick back, a holiday. Watermelon, potato salad, fried dead cluckers, and the Fourth of July, an American tradition.

Unfortunately it also brings another year of Oklahoma idiot news reports of dumb-bells blowing up tomato’s and assorted large items of fruit to point out the dangers of fireworks. Mini-documentary Videos of Okies buying the stuff, and then having the Oklahoma City Fire Marshall confiscate it when they cross the county line, happens every year. So you tell me, has there ever been documented proof of anyone “actually eating a sparkler?”

Give me a break.

A 21 year old tanning salon operator in Connecticut has been arrested and given two years probation for taking photo’s of teenagers in a tanning salon thru a ceiling tile in the roof. He did this with a cellphone (reach out, reach out, and bug somebody!), he told the judge that he was up there crawling in the overhead, using his cellphone as a light, to inspect wiring. (Yeah I know, and they walk amongst us, and they also procreate.)

Checking the wiring? Uh huh, sure. That is like, “in case of a water landing, your seat cushion will become a floatation device.” I believed that one too.

In case you’re interested, there is a way where you can figure out if you are living next to one of these perverts. You just go to Felonspy.com . After you type in your address, it pinpoints all the people close to your home that have been convicted of ANY felonies. Then you just click on the red pins/balloons on the map and it gives you the offenders name, age, and felony offense.

And don’t go typing my address in there that is not funny, and yes, the “pictures at the Post Office” have come down.

Trucking companies in Arizona are saying that thieves are stealing diesel fuel out of the trucks while the drivers are sleeping with “high volume pump devices.” This was formerly known as a garden hose back in the old days, now as we are in the 21^st Century this has been changed to “high volume devices.” Here is a novel idea, buy some locking gas caps. Yawn.

My Daddy used to say on the annual trek back to Oklahoma in the 50’s and 60’s. He said he could always tell when he was getting close to Oklahoma. The wife would get bitchy, the kids started fighting in the car, and he had the urge to siphon some gas.

Back in the good ol’ days, eh?

Truckers and fisherman in the E.U. are up in arms and protesting the rising costs of fuel oil, organizing protests and objecting vocally to rising inflation. American’s are doing what they are best at, which is sitting back and complaining, mostly to each other.

Obammers’ wife (Michelle) was on the view and she said that “our souls are broken and we have become a nation of struggling folks who are barely making it each day.” A pretty bleak, not very optimistic picture of the country. This is from a woman who has a successful career in law, hospital management, and along with her husbands’ income, pulls down roughly a cool half a million a year.

As Joey on Friends would say ……. “How U doin’?”

I would like to have a shot at a yearly income like that. Just one year. But she can still find time to complain about piano lessons, summer camp for her kids and paying off her student loans. Now that takes talent, being able to portray yourself as an elitist and a victim at the same time, but she pulled it off.

81.5% of the people you ask will tell you “We are on the wrong track, and things is bad man, really bad.” The public mood in this country is like a carton of eight day old milk left out on the kitchen counter, kind of sour right now. With the high price of gasoline, this debacle in Iraq, people are not all that upbeat. I believe the exact quote I heard last was something about “going to hell in a hand-basket?”

Unemployment isn’t all that bad, 5.5% that isn’t terrible, not good, but not terrible. Living standards from a historical viewpoint are the best they have been in recent years, things are, believe it or not, pretty good. But when you turn on the television, “the sky is falling … the sky is falling” and the mood is mostly somber.

I have been kind of concerned about it myself Michelle. (Some guy just the other day sent me an email that said, I sure wish you would stop whining about all this ______ .)

There is truly going to be a void in America (finally). With Bush departing, who am I going to blame for Global Warming (he pulled us out of the Kyoto Treaty) then there is the terrorism thing (that mostly did not happen), instability in the oil producing countries, oops, excuse me, “the middle east.” This invasion thing, supporting Israel, and/or pillaging the resources of the planet on an untold scale.

What I am going to do, with Bush gone, where will be my simplistic worldview of things and the good ol boy foolish smirk, who am I going to blame all of this on after he loads up and heads for Texas.

Luckily for me, the Obammer star is on the horizon and it is shining down on me.

000

Talk about squeezing every penny at the gas pump. Denver police say clerks at a gas station had a run-in with a man who insisted on using $10 worth of pennies to prepay for his fuel on Thursday…. More and more, I am seeing the clerks in the store taking the brunt of this, and it just isn’t fair.

They are not the problem, they do not set the prices, and they get all the ___ . Just isn’t right. People are wound a little tight here lately, so they take it out on the poor slob who is working the counter at the convenience store, and that should not be happening.

Sadly I am reading where more and more people are being arrested for shoplifting food. With the economic turn-down and the high price of motor fuel coming into play, people are getting desperate it seems. And then again, there is the ludicrous. Also read an article where people are actually giving up their “Starbucks” addiction and getting off their lazy A** and making their own coffee at home.

Now that is a sacrifice huh?

The “latte effect” of the go-go years had consumers spending $4 a day on coffee. Now the downturn is forcing them to rethink the wisdom of such habits. The makers of SPAM (not the email kind) are reporting near record profits this year, as American’s try and stretch their food dollars.

Meanwhile back at the ranch. Not long ago a 72 year old man was sentenced to 18 months in prison by an Oklahoma City Judge. He had robbed a bank of $560 in cash with a toy pistol. The man told the judge that he had just run out to the end of his string, and he had to do something. He had been taking care of his 90 year old mother, and the bills kept piling up and he didn’t have any money.

He was trying desperately to keep her out of a nursing home and had been taking care of her for over four years, while he himself, lived in a veteran’s home. He had applied to 29 jobs only to be rejected and he finally landed employment delivering pizza, only to be fired, when he failed to locate the address on one delivery. He told the judge, that was the last straw, and that is when he robbed the bank and got apprehended.

You know, it is a sad thing.

We can spend $100 billion dollars a year in Iraq to keep a bunch of vermin in the Middle East alive and basically unhappy. We can spend $3.2 billion to send a probe to Mars and beyond, to take fuzzy pictures and send them back. But an old man and an old lady in Oklahoma, we let them starve too death. Hard times have arrived and printing useless Federal money 24/7 isn’t going to make it go away.

There has to be something wrong here somewhere, y’know what I mean? There is your legacy Dubya, you were wondering, well it too has arrived.

000

Man, we need some leadership in this country, where is Collin Powell when you really need him. What was that guys’ name down in Texas, the one with the big ears, kind of looked like a Taxi Cab with the doors open?

Bush who just two years ago, told us that he was going to do something about our apparent “addiction to oil” so his solution is to go over there and beg for EVEN MORE of the stuff. Yeah, that sounds like an energy plan to me.

It’s almost comical in some respects; we are treating this national malaise like a drug dealer? You need some more, I will get you some more, that is what you need, you need more, you don’t need to get straight, here, let me ease your pain. I will lower the price of your addiction, and then my buddies will start drilling in Yellowstone.

Yeah, that will work.

Kind of like Getz, the New York City subway vigilante, he would look at his victims and say … “You don’t look like you are hurting all that bad to me, you can take another.” And then he would pump another round into them.

You ever heard of a “heat seeking missile?”

These items of High-Tech-military hardware were all over the news at one time; don’t hear much about them these days. Well, it got me to thinking … I am going to develop a “Bi-Partisan BS Seeking Missile.” It will seek out obvious sources of BS and then take them out with the efficiency of a Smart Bomb.

The New Rambo of the Prairie, The Chuck Norris of the Red Lands … Just flick the switch, to the on position, point it in an easterly direction and whoosh ……. What (or who) do you think it will take out first?

So listen up boys! Consider yo’self warned … We now have our own WMD’s in The Heart Land (Hey? They lied about it we can too) …

If you get on TV and say something stoopid like …. “My fellow Amerikuns, don’t go skinny dippin’ with Turtles.” ….

Well look out … Incoming!

000

Bushwhacked

Open the POD doors Hal … A Massachusetts court dismissed child-pornography charges against Michael Fiola, a state employee. It was alleged that the 53-year-old had accessed the illegal material at work, but an extensive forensic investigationof his computer revealed that viruses and other malicious programs—25 of them, to be exact—were the culprits.

Why would someone create a virus that downloads child pornography?

So other people could secretly view the porn. Fiola’s computer had been taken over remotely by “botnet” operators, who lowered its security protections and may have sold child-porn enthusiasts access to the machine. This enabled people to view illegal images and videos by storing them in Fiola’s temporary Internet Files cache, as opposed to their own computers. Fiola remained oblivious to the tampering because the bot operators made sure they didn’t slow down the computer too much by consuming lots of memory.

Have you checked your Temp. Files lately?

Man, I don’t know about you, but I am tiring of all this Email about Barrack Obama and McClain, it is reaching the point of outright “spammerizim” and I wish it would just go away. (BTW, that is a totally new word I just made up … As Elvis would say … Thank You Very Much!) 

Yeah, click your heels together three times Dorothy and say .. I wish the entire process would just go away. I wish the entire process would just go away. I wish the entire process would just go away.

As Ferris Bueller says at the end of the movie … Are you still here? ( Anyone know how to spell Bueller?)

The Barack Obama presidential campaign introduced a new site last week, FightTheSmears.com, that it hopes will debunk persistent myths about the senator: that he’s a Muslim, that he won’t say the Pledge of Allegiance, etc. The sad thing about people is this, “People are going to believe what it is that they believe,” no matter what. As it has been argued before, restating the myths often reinforces them, no matter how persuasively they’ve been refuted.

“We have a guy sitting in the highest office of the land right now that is a prime example of that.” One other thing, just because the Obammer camp puts up a website, that doesn’t mean the “content” of that website is going to be true or factual.

Mull that one over in your mind for awhile.

We have all these other pressing issues to worry about right now. Why are we so obsessed with Sara Jessica Parker? The lead hottie in Sex and the City, why are all her clothes looking like that, I mean really? Man, I am so glad that I am not a woman. I don’t want to sit around all day wondering if my nose is right, or my hips, rear end, conform to societal norms.

Why I hate my boobies. Why it is that I don’t like myself.

Much better being a guy, scratching parts of your body you haven’t seen in five years, pickin your nose and grunting like some kind of ancestral wild animal from the darkest parts of the Grand Canyon. We got the better deal, except for that facial hair, shaving thing, and that dying at an early age problem, that is a bummer I suppose.

I have another site that I post on, I would like to tell you where it is, but it is secret. I could tell you, but only after a serious session of Water Boarding at Guantanamo Bay because it is classified. (Okay YOU spell it!) The big issue over there was not Home-Land Insecurity but rather service. It appears that I missed the boat entirely.

It has been pointed out that I should have mentioned: Baggage surcharges, Late arrivals, Long ticket lines, re-ticketing penalties, soft drink charges, crowed gates, impersonal ticketing, stuffed overhead racks, tarmac sitting, late departures, surly, knuckle-draggin airline hostess people.

Some of the things I apparently missed.

And y’all want to know why I WRITE ABOUT FLYING and don’t actually DO any flying. These are just a few of the things that I apparently skipped over in my never ending constant crusade to reveal the truth about life and the Republican Party.

So, I missed the boat about flying this week, which is okay, because I am NOT flying anywhere, anytime, anyplace. For one thing, I have an aversion for people who use words like: “Terminal” or “Final Destination” that has a tendency to really bug me.

I did however manage to catch a few items thru the fog this week. It was an interesting week, quotes from our favorite three stooges:

• We can drill our way out of the gas crisis.
• No wait, change that.
• We can tax our way out of this mess (windfall tax)
  
• And I, unfortunately, have been to too many disasters as president.
• And finally …“Huh? What’s zat?”

000

Well there it is again. “Oil is cheaper than other liquids. How the price of a barrel of oil, $124.31 compares with a similar amount of other liquids.” I don’t know about you, but did you ever notice they always choose a liquid standard that is mostly useless.

Milk $147.00 per gallon — Tropicana Orange Juice $226.00 per gallon — Bud Lite $302.00 — Louisiana brand hot sauce $520.00 — Jack Daniels Whiskey $3,568.00 — Chanel #5 perfume $102,144.00

Realistically speaking about the only thing up there that you actually “need” would be milk. And that is it.

So it is basically useless information, drinking a gallon a day of beer, you are a hopeless alcoholic and you should not be driving anywhere, anytime. One gallon of Orange Juice has enough sugar, acid, vitamin C in it to put enough hives on you to make you look like the face of the moon.

All of this is misdirection. It is by design, going to make you think of something “other than the high price of fuel” and nothing more.

No one in their right mind, not even a gator wrestlin’ country bumpkin from the deep south, would drink a gallon of hot sauce, Jack Daniels the same (but on the other hand if you are inclined to wrestle gators on the weekend, a little Jack Daniels might be a good idea), and anyone that uses a gallon of perfume, should not even be out in public. If she does, she is probably a “Workin’ Gal” and that is another post altogether.

The point being, this is ludicrous, unrealistic, and just plain dumb.

Might as well be a gallon of Bat Guano from Carlsbad, New Mexico, a gallon of goats milk from Afghanistan, hot peppers from Central America, moonshine from the piney-woods outside Ft. Smith Arkansas, or Foo-Foo water from Cannes, France.

It would make about as much sense as that does.

Driving by the 7-11 today I notice the price of the stuff (gas) is UP again (big surprise there, no?) and although the numbers show a definite decrease and a positive change in the driving habits of American’s nationwide, we continue to be raped by Big Oil.

General Motors must have sold a bunch of Hummers this week, that is the only thing I could see that would be driving it up in price. Americans are not expecting any relief at the gas pump. Indeed, 86% say they expect it to exceed $4 a gallon and to eventually top out at over $5 that is up too, only 26% of them thought that last year. Americans are paying $1.6 billion a day for gasoline, that is three times what they paid for it 2002.

As I am in a generous mood this day, have not been attacked or mauled lately, my mailbox is no longer smoking. I will pass on to you, two things you can do to beat this.

First, you can make your own fuel at home, start up capital is a little steep, about $10 grand, but you can make your own ethanol.

Or solution #2 … You can buy a fuel efficient automobile made by the Japanese. Honda unveiled its latest big MPG product this week in Los Angeles. A hybrid that gets an estimated 74 mpg and runs on Hydrogen. Only one drawback … in all of California there are just a handful of hydrogen fuel stations, they have been slow to catch on in the Golden State.

No small wonder … Hydrogen is a byproduct of “water” and we all know there isn’t any PROFIT in that, don’t we.

Iceland, a small country at the top of the world, runs all of their cars, trucks and buses on hydrogen. The only oil that they import or use is for lubrication purposes (grease etc) and that is it. But I don’t suppose anyone in Washington, DC every noted this fact. You can write Mr. Bush about it, but I understand he isn’t all that big on reading, might put it inside a copy of the latest video game, better chance of him finding it there, something like Grand Theft Auto II or something like that.

Might as well run this one up the flagpole and see if I can find someone to salute it. And then I am outta here.

One thing I have noticed here of late is the word “Jihad” casually being tossed around by our elected morons. Correct me if I am wrong, but we are “supposed to be at war with Al Qaeda and other Islamic fanatics,” and we are constantly showering them with compliments?

When you refer to an Islamist extremist as a jihadi” or “Jihadist.” You are commenting on them in a positive fashion, you are portraying them in a positive light, not the terrorists thugs, bloody cowards that they are.

As I understand this, in Arabic, the word jihad has only positive connotations; it refers to either a quest to find one’s fate or an external fight for justice. So when we refer to Islamic suicide bombers as jihads, we essentially are calling our enemies “holy warriors.”

Someone needs to fix this or at least point it out to our resident MBA C average dudes.

The people who seem devoted to using this phrase in the wrong fashion are the very same people who told us that “mushroom clouds” over American Cities were a reality, that certain knowledge was indicative to this nuke-uleer holocaust on our shores. That was just before some 4,000 Americans were sent overseas to die, along with some 85,000 Iraqis, not to be confused as resident Jihads or political candidates.

I guess the bumper stickers were right after all.

Language is a funny thing, for example, “The president of Mexico, refers to “illegals” as National Hero’s. Certainly wrong, but that is the way it goes ….. First your money and then your clothes … Or … as Bo Diddley used to say, “Don’t trust anyone but your mama, and look at her real good.”

So that is it in a nutshell. The air in America isn’t the only thing that seems to be polluted these days, lot of television broadcasting is the same.

Now if you excuse me, I have a number three washtub of Craw Daddies and a gallon of Louisiana Hot Sauce to work thru … Should take me most of the weekend.

000

Nuts! There it is again. That naggin’ thought to get out an exercise. I hate it when that happens. A few years back I tried it and it was no fun at all. I basically felt like my body had gotten totally out of shape. So I got my doctor’s permission to join a fitness club and start exercising on a daily basis. I decided to take a aerobics class for seniors.

I bent, I twisted, gyrated, jumped up and down, and I perspired for the better part of thirty minutes … But by the time I got my sweat pants on … the class was over.

Bush has returned from visiting with the Queen Mummy and discussing how he will be viewed by history and flyin’ all over the world (in the end it doesn’t really matter, how is this going to affect the price of groceries … The price of rice in China).  I suppose even the Queen Mummy can learn something from our President.

He can teach her about Jihads, killing economies, homeland security in a nation who has lost most of their “homelands.” (homes) How to stretch the truth, country fences which oughta be horse high, pig tight and bull strong. Mostly importantly, how to stretch your oil lobby dollar and make it last.

Now let’s see, aviation fuel is $5.21 per gallon, Air Force One holds 47,200 gallons, $245,912.00 to fill it up. Now it burns how many gallons per hour … Talk about wasting fuel.  The media is calling it “The Farewell Tour” or something like that.

Couldn’t come too soon.  You get the picture, don’tcha?

Three guys in Spokane, Washington, evidently having a little too much of the grape, decided in their inebriated state to streak Denny’s Restaurant. Having decided to have a little fun by running thru the local Denny’s at dawn, they all stripped down to their birthday suits, wearing just their shoes and hats.

While this evidently was a bad plan from the very beginning, it did get worse.

They all tossed their clothes, ID and everything not necessary for the plan, into their car, which was left running with the keys in it. While they were streaking through the restaurant, someone stole their car and their clothes. The three naked pranksters had to hide behind parked cars until police arrived to take them to jail.

About 67-69 more days until the Democratic Melt-Down, uh, Countdown, in Denver. Speaking of Denver? I need to get on the horn and give my Aunt a call, see if she can get me some of those new “scratch and sniff” lottery tickets.

Ah, the sweet smell of success.

Yeah, I can just hear you, sitting back in your comfortable chair and saying to yourself, “Okay, this twisted Okie has gone too far today, I am not buying into that one at all.” In case you are not one of the regular daily readers and do not believe, here is the link. Scratch off.

Now if the post office should happen to comes out with a stamp on the Anniversary of the Pap Smear or something like that, you can bet I am not licking that!  Where will all this end? Have the inmates taken over the asylum in this country or what?

Al Gore has introduced Obammer this week and officially threw his “support” into the ring, only took him a couple of years, where you been Al? Sorry Hillary, “No Girls Allowed” it is the good ol’ boy network from here on out. Now is the time to get out and get that Latino vote, after all, they have the keys to all the buildings in America now, don’t they.

I am now going back to working on my plan. My very own personal “Exit Strategy” like the boys on the hill are fond of saying.

Still time left before the November elections to move away from the coasts, Big Cities, Drought Zones, Fault lines, Volcanoes, Tornado Alley and Flood plains. Disconnect from the power grid, move to Belize and live in a tree house and eat bananas!

Today I am lined out to locate rucksacks at China Mart for the trip.

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 Meanwhile back at the cave:

“Wait.  What did you say?…You’re predicting $4 a gallon gasoline?  … I hadn’t heard that.”

George W. Bush

‘My friends, we live in the greatest nation in the history of the world. I hope you’ll join with me as we try to change it.’
 Barack Obama

“Huh?  Whatzat?”

John McClain

Have not been sleeping all that good here lately, so I did a little research on sleep and the dream state, the human body and all that good stuff.  Just finished this article on dreams and what they mean to tell you in the quiet moments of the night. 

For instance, If your teeth fall out or crumble, you’re unhappy with your physical appearance and it may also mean you’re excessively concerned about how others perceive you. 

If you’re giving birth, great change is unfolding.  Dreaming about babies indicates a desire to behave more maturely.  If you can fly, you’ve just conquered a stressful situation.  If you dream that you’re able to control where you fly, it’s a sign of confidence.  Flying aimlessly suggests you’re cautiously optimistic about your success.  Last night I dreamed I was naked as the day is long and I was slowly backing into a greasy, cold brass door knob ….. No telling on that one huh?

Fish and chips with attitude.  Police arrested a longtime restaurant owner in Acworth, Georgia for selling more than seafood out of his establishment.  Investigators said they found a pound of marijuana, cocaine, methamphetamine, ecstasy, five guns and 10 mason jars of moonshine.  And you guys thought all them boys in Alabama had all the fun? 

Check please. 

Raining here today, a little moisture and that is good.  I am listening to the rain rattle on the carport and the sound gives me the urge to go to the bathroom.  I noticed that the sound of running water will frequently do that to me, asked my neighbor the same thing, “Does the sound of running water affect you?” and he said, “Nope, don’t do a thing for me, I am as regular as clockwork, go every morning at 7:30 a.m. on the dot.”  I said, “Well that is amazing, just like clockwork huh, 7:30 a.m. every morning, right on the money?” and he said, “Yeppers.  Only thing is I don’t get up until 8:15 am or so.”

Big surprise here. 

Efforts to tax oil companies dies in the Senate this week ….. Now there is a major yawner there boys & girls?  Who would have ever “thunk thet?”  Oil protests in other countries this week too.  Hong Kong, Nepal, India …  people got out and marched in the streets to protest (notice they were not driving anything, so much for the India is using more of the world’s oil rumor huh?) and the Spanish are now reported to be stockpiling the stuff.  Fearing shortages by striking truck drivers which have also got the Portuguese to join, people are starting to protest the high price of fuel worldwide now.

AAA Auto Association is now reporting more people are being towed under Emergency Situations.  Meanwhile in Detroit, GM and Ford are furiously designing a totally new gas gauge for the 2009 model year, with an additional “F” in it.  This will be located just below empty for the convenience of the American consumer who seems to be preoccupied on running on fumes.

Rock Hill, South Carolina has had enough of “displays of enthusiasm at high school graduations” and has asked the local police to arrest anyone who is applauding at ceremonies.  I am not making this up. 

If you clap, they are hauling you off to the slammer.  Seven people were arrested by police and charged with public disorderly conduct after being accused of cheering during a recent graduation ceremony. 

The nerve of these people, actually cheering a graduating senior, are they out of their minds.  Don’t they know that it is illegal to pray before a football game in Texas, what were they thinking.  I suppose these portable Co2 boat horns are out of the question huh?

So who is it gonna be? 

Everyone is trying to outguess each other on who the Vice Presidential candidates will be.  Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Lone Ranger and Tonto, Batman and Robin, Sonny & Cher no longer an option, Tony Orlando and Dawn, no wait that is a three-some. 

America is fresh out of hero’s.  I seriously wrack my brain, and I just cannot figure out a dynamic duo for this election that is apparently taking forever to get over with.  Locating suitable replacements for our current leadership is presenting a problem it seems  It is going to be hard to replace “Biggy Rat and Itchy Brother” they have endeared themselves to us so much over the years.

Taking into consideration how much faith the average voter has in the system, we don’t really search out the people with the ability to lead.  When you look back on the presidents of the past, it is kind of disappointing to see how many lack-luster, less than great, presidents we have had.  We have had in the past, good ones, bad ones, mediocre ones and the one we have now.

He makes me smile … Just this week he announced “I have done about all I can for the American Economy.”  Yup … sure have, that dog aint gonna hunt either Dubya.

So I had this dream, and I am up in the air, slowly circling the Washington monument in D.C., and I can see and hear God speaking to me, around and around this ancient monolith I soar, and it is as if I have been circling for a thousand years and I still do not know if I am a Falcon, a Hawk or just a plain old Oklahoma Rock Dove (Pigeon), and I hear the rain on the carport …  and …. Uh oh.

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Some things and I suppose, people, age well.  Some things I suppose, like people, just get old.  Get cantankerous, out of sorts, and hard to deal with.  I often fall into that second category.  I didn’t fare all that well last week in the smile department, but this week, I am going to do better.  I am going to make a “concentrated effort to smile more, amuse myself, cheer up even if it kills me.”

This past week I have been suffering thru irritable male syndrome.  My testosterone levels have been lower than a New Orleans levy at flood stage and my brain, the part of my brain that is in charge of basic’s such as functioning, emotions, behavior, have been strangely out to lunch for most of the week. 

The mere thought of me smiling about anything here lately, is as foreign to me as George Bush speaking in Farsi when he begs for more oil.  I desperately want to smile, just isn’t all that much of a humorous nature here lately.  But I am gonna do better. 

I have made up my mind that I AM GOING TO GO FOR IT!

Perhaps I need to get more sleep, that might be the problem.  I am finding out as I age, I need at least 8 hours of sleep a day, and 10 hours at night.  Sleep is the best thing, and the cheapest thing available to me these days.  I love to sleep, the best of two worlds, you get to be alive and unconscious at the same time.  And on some days, you can actually work in a nap. 

That makes me smile.

It is not easy to say exactly what makes one box of odds and ends a valuable antique, and what makes another box a piece of junk.   But the thought of tossing one (out of our garage, which is full of the trash of man) into a dumpster …. That makes me smile.  It might be that throwing stuff away that is cluttering up your home is a cathartic experience that just feels good.  That too, makes me smile. 

The mere thought of it upsetting the little woman’s applecart, that is just an added bonus … Hey, we are on a roll.

Not being able to yell out “Oh boy!” in Jonesboro, Georgia, or finding out that unrestrained giggling on the street is illegal in Helena, Montana; those insane laws make me smile.  It is illegal in the state of Oklahoma to tie your ass up within 50 ft of a courthouse, ass meaning donkey.  Which would be appropriate term for anyone drafting such legislation or allowing it to remain on the books.  Purchasing a new car for thousands of dollars in order to save hundreds on gas … that makes me smile.

When they announce on the news that they have busted some hooker and she has a black book that is full of politicians names …… that makes me smile.

Reading in the paper that the longest earthworm ever found in the world measured 22 ft. from head to toe, that makes me smile, I mean, where would one ever use stupid useless information like that?  Did you know that the word Mascara, a cosmetic applied to darken eyelashes comes from the Spanish word ma’scara, which in terms come from the Italian maschera, both of which mean, appropriately, “mask.”  The root of the words however come for Arabic maskharah, which means buffoon or clown. 

Which is what I would be if I lived in San Francisco and used the stuff, that makes me smile. 

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have all the answers, and ninety percent of the time, I completely forget the questions.  My family physician told me that I have something he called Attention Deficit Disorder.  He said, “A.D.D. is a complex disorder, blah, blah, blah.”  I didn’t pay much attention to the rest of it.

This friend of mine, who happens to be from California, is back here to visit with the family.  We went out to eat yesterday and he said during lunch, “If you were to go camping out in the woods, and someone, late at night, snuck into your tent and molested you would you tell anyone about it?”  And I thought about it a minute, and replied, “No way.  I don’t want no one to know something that terrible happened to me!”  He smiled and then said ……… “You wanna go fishin’ this weekend?” ….

That … Makes me smile. 

So as you can see, I am just about clueless.  Happy and stupid this morning, pour me another cup of that coffee and don’t worry about my road rage, I will take care of it.  I don’t have any idea what makes some people smile and others to frown.  I don’t know why some people consistently have a “nice day” and others never seem to see it materialize. 

This morning, at this very moment, I am smiling a great deal, because the computers’ ISP is down, the stoooopid computer doesn’t know this, and it keeps trying to update me, download me, and is getting frustrated as all get-out (Okie Expression) because it is not being allowed to function in a rational manner.  It has sent me numerous dialogue boxes and/or messages asking  that I re-establish the link.

Mid week, I get this letter from my “friendly State Farm Agent” and it says, rather tersely, “our records indicate that your present telephone number is no longer 405- **** and that number is no longer your number.  Please inform us of your new number immediately and any other cell phone numbers that you have.” 

Yeah right, I don’t “immediately” do anything for anyone, yet alone a stinking insurance company.  Tossing that into the trash bin … that makes me smile. 

And last but not least.  I think about all of my Amigo’s from down south.  The mere thought of knowing I have all these wonderful people coming to this country each and everyday and they are depending on me …. Now that … Believe it or not …  That makes me smile!

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