A Toast...

to the upcoming year.

The other projects I mentioned before are going all right, but slower than I expected.

Just thought I'd post this picture to keep a little bit active in this blog. And damn...I didn't realize that I hadn't posted here in 20 days.

I wish all of you a Happy New Year, along with a healthy and prosperous 2011.

Goodbye For Now

I'm sure you've heard of the old saying, "See you later, alligator!"

But I found recently that there are other ways to say goodbye and use animals in the salutations:

• Keep it real, spotted seal;
• Oh take care, gruff black bear;
• Lotsa luck, you silly duck;
• All best wishes to little fishes;
• Gotta go, buffalo;
• In a few, cockatoo;
• Bye bye, fruit fly;
• See you soon, you big baboon;
• Peace out, river trout;
• Good day, sting ray;
• Another time, porcupine;
• Ciao, brown cow;

And my favorite:

• I bid adieu, mon caribou.

A Happy Hanukkah...

which starts at sundown tonight, to all of my Jewish readers, and especially to Ben Grimm, also known as The Thing of the Fantastic Four.

You didn't know he was Jewish? I cite Wikipedia:

Born on Yancy Street in New York City's Lower East Side to a Jewish family, Benjamin Jacob Grimm had an early life that was one of poverty and hardship, shaping young Grimm into a tough, streetwise scrapper. His older brother Daniel, whom Ben idolized, was killed in a street gang fight when Ben was eight years old. This portion of his own life is modeled on that of Jack Kirby (co-creator and original artist of the Fantastic Four)...(Kirby) was born Jacob Kurtzberg, grew up on Delancy Street, his brother died when he was young and his father was named Benjamin.

If you want to read the rest of the article, please click here.

By the way, the drawing was done by Kirby.

As for the writing on Ben's collar, I don't know what it says. This gentile is no Hebrew scholar.

Happy Thanksgiving

I wish that everyone I know and for everyone who reads my blog.

I have one exception, though. His initials are H.S. He's from Cincinnati. And he's native American: Half Iroquois, if I remember correctly, and half another tribe whose name I forgot.

This day, for him, is like Adolf Hitler's birthday for a Jew, however orthodox.

Also, it's one month by the calendar and 31 days total until Christmas. If you aren't going out tomorrow to shop, be thankful for that.

The Taste ... And The Crave...

wolf: one time when i was masturbating...i tasted my own sperm!

c-zee: wolf, that's just fuckin' sick...but...i'm curious...how the hell did you do that...?

wolf: well...I hadn't jacked off for a while...and the pressure was so strong...it just shot up high on my chest...i just reached down and dipped a finger in the was...then put it up to my mouth...

c-zee: what did it taste like...?

wolf: well...there's one way to find out...

c-zee: fuck you...i'm not gay...!

wolf: nah man...i don't mean that...just do what i did and taste your own...then it's not gay...vain probably...narcissistic definitely...but it's not gay...

d-jon: don't do it c-zee...if you taste your own sperm it'll turn you...homosexual...!

wolf: fuck off d-jon...i've never had any desire to suck any cock...

d-jon: wait...it'll come... it's like eating at white castle...once you do you develop...

THE CRAVE...!

this is how it starts....so listen and listen well...

you eat at white castle and you don't eat there for a while...but all of a sudden out of nowhere you're craving a sack full of sliders...and you'll travel any time...between midnight and 4 a.m...and travel any distance and go through all types of bad weather...like heavy rain or heavy snowfall or heavy fog...to satisfy and fulfill your craving...but it's fulfilled for only a while...the crave returns...once you get it, it never goes away...never fully vanishes...

now...say you're lying in bed in the middle of the night...you wake and you're horny...so you jack off...you produce your man cream...and since you're half asleep and you've just jacked off your judgment is impaired...you wonder what it tastes like...so you dip your finger in it and bring it to your mouth...you taste it and DAMN if you don't want more...you gobble the rest of it down...but it's not enough...and you can't get hard so you can jack off for a while...so you find the places where men suck off other men to fulfill their perverted addictions...and the next time THE CRAVE hits you drive there...most of those men, believe it or not, were 100 percent heterosexual before they became addicted to sperm...it's an addiction that's as hard to break as an addiction to cigarettes or heroin...

wolf: well d-jon...if it comes to that...where are some of those places...?

c-zee: d-jon knows where they are because he goes to them all the time...probably has his favorites there...sends them birthday and christmas cards...

d-jon: you are mistaken c-zee...i know about those places because i have what you would call a...sociological interest...in this issue...and i read the police reports in the newspapers where the cops bust guys for sucking off each other in public places...

wolf: okay d-jon, but...man cream?...what the fuck?

Batman Versus...The Milkman?

Ace: I saw this on the net. Some guy said, "I want to watch a piece of cheese kill Batman." That might be an interesting fight.

Deuce: One piece of cheese wouldn't be enough to kill Batman.

Ace: I knew he was tougher than damn dairy product.

Deuce: Instead, it would have to be several thousand pieces of cheese. And if they killed Batman, it wouldn't be in a fight...at least not directly...

Ace: What?

Deuce: Say Batman, in his secret identify of Bruce Wayne, eats a lot of dairy products like milk that's not low in fat and rich cheeses and butter and not margerine and ice cream and so forth. His body and physiology might have a tendency to produce or retain cholesterol. The walls of his arteries and veins might get heavily coated with cholesterol, causing possible blockage. And he might have a heart attack or stroke...possibly fatal...because the blood doesn't flow properly through his body. An incident might be especially provoked during a vigorous fight against some villians or even one villian.

Ace: So... the cheese is a stealth killer!

Deuce: If he has one of those incidents, he could be crippled until he dies. It depends on the severity of the incident and the medical treatment he gets afterward. If that would happen, it would be more fiendish that anything the Joker or any of his enemies could do to him.

Ace: Dammmmmmmmmm! That's...interesting.

Deuce: And that's why I tell you to cut back on the dairy.

The NFL: A Few Notes...

Halfway through the 2010 season. I wanted to wait until every team has played at least eight games -- half of the regular 16-game schedule.

The hometown Indianapolis Colts are 5-3 and coming off a 26-24 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles. Coming up are the Cincinnati Bengals Sunday in Indianapolis.

Up to 23 Colts have missed a total of 63 games because of injuries. Four of them -- strong safeties Melvin Bullitt and Bob Sanders, tight end Dallas Clark, and wide receiver Anthony Gonzales -- are out for the season. Running back Joseph Addai, linebacker Clint Sessions and Gary Brackett, and cornerback Jarraud Powers have missed a total of eight games.

All of the above named are big contributors to the team.

Wide receiver and problem child Terrell Owens has found a home with the Bengals and could give the Colts' defense problems.

After the Bengals, the Colts play their biggest nemesis -- The New England Patriots -- a week from Sunday in Foxboro, Mass. After that come the San Diego Chargers and a resurgent Oakland Raiders along with a rematch with division rivals the Jacksonville Jaguars and two games against the Tennessee Titans.

With this before them, though, the Colts should -- I repeat, should -- qualify for the layoffs. But don't be surprised if they miss them.

Of course, if Peyton Manning is injured and out for the season, the whole thing is kaput.

At least the Colts don't have the soap opera-like problems of the Minnesota Vikings and the Dallas Cowboys.

The Vikings had to go to Mississippi to cajole quarterback Brett Favre to return. They are now 3-5 and he has not looked good at times. But last week he led the Vikings to a 27-24 comeback victory over the Arizona Cardinals. If they had lost the game, they would've been 2-6 and head coach Brad Childress might have been fired.

It's been said that the players have little respect for their head coach, especially Favre, who calls most of his own plays against Childress' advice.

And Randy Moss, another wide receiver and problem child, was with the team for only four games. He was traded from the Patriots in October but was traded two weeks ago to the Tennessee. This gives Titans Titans Vince Young a long threat, which is something the team has lacked and something for the Colts to be concerned with.

The Cowboys were favored by some before the start of the season to play in the Super Bowl. However they're 1-7 and lost last Sunday night 41-7 to the New York Giants on national television. Some said the team had quit during that game. This record and the lack of effort led to the dismissal of head coach Wade Phillips and the elevation of offensive co-ordinator Jason Garrett to lead the team.

I'm sure this pains Cowboys owner/chief narcissist Jerry Jones because the Super Bowl will be played in Dallas' new billion-dollar stadium.

Old Gold And Blue, Fading Away

Western Michigan? Tulsa?

Notre Dame football fans, I tell you this: You ought to be ashamed of yourselves. These two teams are NOT great tests on the gridiron.

You ought to face this fact: the Fighting Irish are no longer a national football powerhouse and hasn't been one for the last few years. I don't know exactly why that happened, but one reason, I believe, is that it can no longer get premier players because of its strict academic requirements.

(It's not because football players are by nature stupid. But if you had a choice of spending most of your time practicing and playing football, as the professionals do, or dividing your time between going to classes and studying or football, the ones focused on football will have the advantage.

( I'm looking at you, Southeastern Conference schools. All of you, except for Vanderbilt, are not know for your academics. You continue and perpetuate the idea that in the South, "book larnin'" is for sissies and faggots.)

Notre Dame's record so far this season is 4-5. It lost -- yes, lost -- to Tulsa 28-27 last Saturday. It lost to Navy for the second straight year after a decades-long record of beating the Middies and also to a Michigan team that is down this season.

The Irish will now rest and recuperate until their next game November 13 against...Utah. Good luck , Irish. And after I wrote that sentence, I was surprised that I wished them good luck against Utah.

But Notre Dame fans still continue and want to think the Irish are a national powerhouse, and run off/fire any coach who doesn't get them a national title, let alone a Top Ten standing.

Face it: Your team is like Army and Navy. They're in Division I, the big boy category in college football, because of tradition. They ought to be in Division I-A.

They have faded, just like Ivy League football faded when the Big Ten came to prominence, and the Big Ten faded (for a while, though) when the SEC and the Pac-8 (now Pac-10) came into prominence.

As for the whole scene around the team, I have mixed feelings. Notre Dame football is like Jesus; the two of them are good in and of and by themselves, but some of their fans are among the biggest assholes you will ever meet.

That's especially noticeable for some Irish fans in the Indianapolis area. They react to critics and criticisms of the football team as if they're anti-Catholic.

There was the South Bend radio fool who said God gave Michigan State coach Mark Dantonio a heart attack for cheating against Notre Dame. If you want more details, click here for the details.

This is the kind of ignorant foolishness that some Irish fans would've believed back in the 1950s and early 1960s. I think he was kidding, but some people might've thought he wasn't.

(Michigan State, by the way, defeated Notre Dame 34-31 in overtime on Sept. 18.)

That outlook has much to do with the provincial and inward mentality -- parochial, in other words -- of midwestern Catholics. Surrounded by Protestants/heretics/non believers, they turn inward in fear of persecution or corruption by these influences outside their church.

I remind you that 50 years ago, when John Kennedy ran against Richard Nixon for president, many people wondered if Kennedy's loyalties would to be toward the United States or the Vatican. And 90 years ago, when the Ku Klux Klan dominated state politics, the Klan was known to be anti-Catholic, besides being anti-semitic and anti-black.

Notre Dame, although you lost to Tulsa, you might -- might -- go to a bowl. It won't be one of the big bowls, though, and you probably won't be going to any big bowls in the future.

NOTE: This is a post updated from one I wrote October 26. A few additions were needed to make it more relevant.

Two Poems About Marriage

I didn't write these. I found them on the net.

In
her $667.16
satin wedding gear
she said,
"I do!"
and high heeled
it
to the champaign.

By the way, I believe $667 and change for a satin wedding dress and accessories is very cheap. The poem must've been written when that amount was a high price.

Marriage
is
two
people in love
standing
in
the same
bathroom.

Look At The Floor

Adamas was on the way to Florida for a vacation he deeply wanted because he had tolerated a hard winter in the Midwest.

Halfway through Georgia, he checked into a motel.

He was dozing off and his attention was halfway focused on whatever was on the television set when he heard from the room next to his a slap-slap-slap sound along with a man and a woman moaning.

After Adamas realized that they were fucking, he heard a man's voice say, "Don't look at me. Look at the floor."

He heard someone mumble, slightly. He couldn't tell if it was "Rye?" or "Why?"

Then he heard the man said, "Because you're guilty."

That definitely caught Adamas' attention.

After a brief silence, the slap-slap-slap of their bodies, along with their moans and groans, started up again. The man moaned loudly. Afterward, all was quiet.

Then Adamas thought, for the first time in decades, of a woman who lived in his dormitory when he was a freshman in college. Her name was McSomething -- McKenzie, McIntosh -- he didn't remember. She had reddish-yellow hair, a larger-than -average nose and a slightly chipped front tooth. She was a little overweight and also wore too much makeup because her cheeks were a prominently darker-than-usual pink.

He didn't see much of her after his freshman year and had not thought of her since he left college. But when he thought about her in the motel, his cock grew hard.

Adamas imagined McSomething kneeling on the bed with a white nightgown hiked up to her waist and covering her head. Her ass and thighs were big. They and her pussy were exposed to him.

He stroked his cock and came as he imagined the two of them fucking to a mutual climax.

Crazies Outside Of Smoke-Filled Rooms

I have this one thing to add. Strangely enough, I haven't seen or heard anyone write or say anything about it.

If it had been up to the old-fashioned nominating process, the crazies wouldn't have been on the ballot.

The Tea Party was behind nominating some Republican candidates with very extreme views. The two most prominent were Sharron Angle for the Senate in Nevada and Christine O'Donnell for the Senate in Delaware.

(If you want to read about some of their views, use your most favored search engine. I'm too lazy to post them here and I'd don't want such idiotic views taking up space in my blog.)

To get their nominations, Angle beat Sue Lowden, a former state Republican party chairman, while O'Donnell beat Mike Castle, a former U.S. Representatives.

It's no coincidence that they were nominated in a direct primary, because they wouldn't have gotten close if the decision had been left to a party-wide convention.

Sure, back in the past there were some shady deals done in back rooms far from public view and full of cigar smoke. But by God, the party bosses did not nominate any crazies for office.

Both ladies, thankfully, lost.

The Beauty In Life

I got a brief note last week from Frank. I'll post it here:

at times i wonder how it is that anything beautiful is ever said in this world... people are ranting about sex and politics and the like...always ranting...and then all of a sudden I hear people make beautiful comments on, say, on love...or the winter snow ...or the pancake breakfast they ate that morning...it seems those comments and others like them would shrivel under the weight of the ugly comments said around them. ..but then i guess that's life...you have to push through the senseless refuse of the human condition to find something worthy...

I replied:

Frank, I beg to differ. Not all of the things said around me lately are about sex or even politics. About two-thirds to three-fourths of them...too many for my taste...have been by people complaining about their lousy love affairs. They bore me.

As for me, it's been a long time since love was in my life, the winter snow hasn't fallen yet, and i don't eat pancakes for breakfast. That's why I don't write about those things.

And this, to me, is life: A bunch of diamonds scattered and hidden in a field of mud, sand, rocks and dung. You're lucky if you ever find more than a few during your life.

One Thing Done At Least...

I didn't post during the last two days because I had several things to do and I wanted to put some time and effort into them. I had put off doing many of them for too, too long. The weekend gave me a good start toward getting them done.

However, I only got a few things done. They were minor. The paralysis of my soul continues.

One thing I did was getting candy for the beggars/urchins who might've stopped by Sunday night for Halloween trick or treating. I usually get few to no visitors; but I was prepared, as the Boy Scouts suggested.

But I had no visitors, just as I thought would happen. I looked out my kitchen window and saw some of the kids who live in the apartment complex, along with their parents, walking away from the complex and toward neighboring streets.

Now I have a bowl full of 22 bite-sized Milky Way bars. I admit I ate a few of them before Sunday evening. I'll get them out of my reach and put them in my kitchen. That way if I want some, I must get up and move.

I hope you had a good Halloween. And I remind you that, as of today, it's only 25 days until Thanksgiving, 55 days until Christmas, and 61 days until New Year's Eve.

Fall Was Passing

With one month down and two more to go for the fall season, I present this to you. It's an excerpt of a novel I wrote 15-20 years ago. Most of its pages have been recycled, but this one I kept.

"He" is the protagonist of the novel. It was based somewhat on my life:

Fall was passing through time and was about to leave. The leaves turned brown, orange, red, or any combination of those colors before they fell. The cornstalks turned bone white before the farmers plowed them back into the ground. Coolness came with the evening and stayed until the morning, often leaving a dust of frost for the sunlight to brush away.

Some days, the sun shone brilliantly in a cloudless sky, illuminating everything without the harshness and heat of the summer. 'Then, usually between 5:30 and 6 p.m., it was gone.

As the weather got colder, the world prepared for winter's rest. Drowsiness came with Thanksgiving and sleep came with the first snow that stuck to the ground more than two days.

Although it already was November, he wasn't ready to admit until then, when he thought of it, that fall's reign was over and it was near the start of winter's reign, which wouldn't be dethroned until St. Patrick's Day at the earliest.

He sighed when he remembered that he always hated to remind himself of that.

Friends? Please

Recently I received a mailing that promoted the services of a local

It was addressed to Our Friends At...

I usually ignore these mailings and recycle them after a quick read. But this time I thought:

Friends? I don't think so.

First, there's only one person here. That's me. It's been that way for years now. If you were my friend, you would've known that.

Second, this friendship is a step below the friendships I have with some people on Facebook. I may not have directly seen or talked with many of them for decades, but at the least we know each other.

I would prefer being addressed as Resident on the instead of this false friendship.

Three Short Poems

Full Of ...
My shoes are full of feet
My head is full of fuck
My soul is full of lust
My cock is full of blood
My mind is full of ... want! ... now!

Sign of the Times ... and Lives
A sign on the sidewalk...
Please smoke, eat, drink, argue, fight, kiss, hug, fuck, stab, shoot, love, hate, piss, shit, puke, and bleed ...
more or less live ...
outside this store.

Envy
Envy wears a long trench coat
and hangs out in dimly lit
hallways, alleys, streets,
doorways, closets --
any place with shadows --
always ready to take over
and conquer thoroughly.

Someone's Dream

...or someone's nightmare, but not mine.

Unusual and striking, nevertheless.

When I first saw the picture, I thought of three references in literature, drama and film:

• The quote "Tell me about the rabbits, George," from John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men;
• The 6 foot, 3.5 inch tall pooka seen only by Elwood P. Dowd in the play and movie Harvey, by Mary Chase.
• Frank, the spirit seen only by Donnie Darko in the movie of the same name.
  

NOTE: Photograph from pictureisunrelated.com.

Keystone Towers

There's some good news for Keystone Towers: Or at the least, the land on which it sits.

The city of Indianapolis will take title to it after no one bid for it and its $1.3 million in unpaid property taxes.

I've been fascinated by these buildings ever since they were built. Back in the late 1970s, I drove by it at night. When it was lit up, it looked like a monolith in the middle of a field. And that impressed me.

It was at the corner of Keystone Avenue and Binford Boulevard, northwest of the Indiana State Fairgrounds. It was at the west end of a trail that ended on the east side of Indianapolis at a three-way crossing among East 38th Street, North Shadeland Avenue and Pendleton Pike.

Also during the late 1970s, a friend told me that he had been invited to a swingers party there, but declined. He might have heard of a rumored swingers party there, but I doubt he was invited. I knew his upbringing, and because of that, he would not have known of or associated with swingers.

Cell Division, Explained Pictorally

Someone on the net showed us one way to explain cell division:

o

0

8

oo
*
ADDENUM: With this posting, I've decided to add emoticons as a new label for my posts.

I've seen them...you can't help that if you're on the internet...and I like them, but I don't use them often because I find them juvenile. That's just me.

Two Types Of Hands

The hand that rocks the cradle...is oftentimes the mother of...the hand that aims the gun.
*
I have 300 feet of love! And all for you, baby!
*
My exwife, Monica, unfortunately, has become the demon bitch DeMonica.
*
When I wake in the middle of the night, I feel so 330ish.
*
My marriage is sacred...but my honeymoon was profane! Ask my wife...
*
Miller's College of Barbering and Bible College...next to the Motel Indiana...on Route 57 three miles north of town...its motto: Shaving Chins and Saving Souls...
*
3.14 = pi. Backwards, it's pI.E...
*
Racism is ego masturbation.
*
"Remember this. The Italians invented pizza, but the Americans invented pineapple pizza."
*
I am of cowboy
So pew-pew-pew
To you-you-you...
*
See those two jackasses? They're twin turds dropped from different assholes...
*
When someone said Mongol hordes, he heard it as mongrel whores.
*
I have a five-fingered love for you.

Naked? Or Nude?

Damn...it's emoticon porn...or should I call it pr0n?

And should I LOL it?

(Adapted from something I saw on the Internet.)

Some Short Subjects

I post these here as one post because they fit better this way than as separate entries.

One
These words have two things in common:

Snuff, sniff, snort, sneeze, snow, snark, snide, snap, snag, snafu, snake, snatch, sneak, snipe, snicker, snug, snub, sneer, snob, snoop, sneak and snap.

Two
When I surf the Internet, I often wonder which one is a bigger waste of time, money, effort and space:

• Sites full of half-naked women;
• Sites full of half-baked opinions.

Three
If the patterns in the wall paper start talking to you...instead of ignoring them...talk back to them...hey, they might be friendly...and you need all the friends , crazy or not, that you can get to make it through this world ...

It's Been A While...

About three and a half weeks, since the last post.

Here's one reason. I haven't given a shit about posting because I've been in a deep funk lately. I have my reasons and beliefs why, but I'm not willing to tell you, dear reader, and the rest of the internet..

Here's another reason. One of the biggest, if not the biggest, thing before me is the state of my apartment. It hasn't been cleaned thoroughly for at least five years. I'll admit to that..

Cleaning this place is like a combination of two of the twelve labors of Hercules: Cleaning the Augean stables, which seemed impossible to complete; and killing the Hydra, because when one of its heads was cut off, it grew two more to replace it.

And since this blog isn't a job or duty or obligation, but something I do for my own pleasure, I've done it when I felt like it.

I'm still in this funk, and the apartment just sits here untouched. But I decided, after I went through some of my notes, to start posting again. Or at the least, post this one thing.

As part of my return, I present this slice of cheesecake to mark the end of the summer:

A Different Letter From Frank

My friend Frank sends me his hallucinations and other mental storms in letters. Recently, though, he sent me what he called a different kind of letter:

I didn't know he had a sense of humor.

The Biggest

Dallas Hughes remembered, with a lot a pleasure, the old saw based on a verse in Psalm 23:

Yea, though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, I will fear no Evil, because I am the biggest Son of a Bitch in the Valley.

By the time he was a teenager, he stood somewhere between 6 feet 4 inches and 6 feet 5 inches. He weighed between 240 to 260 pounds. So he truly was the biggest son of a bitch in the high school, if not the valley.

Third And Long, Fear And Money

Nicks was born at Third and Long-- literally.

His family's house was at the corner of Third and Long streets on the east side of town. It used to be called "the other side of the tracks" when the railroads ran through town.

He was not born among the poorest of the poor, but he knew his family didn't have a lot of money. So he decided to get rich.

Nicks became rich not because he desired or loved the carrot of wealth, but because he was afraid of the stick of poverty.

After he became rich, his outlook was the same. He feared different things: Thieves, con artists, and taxation.

Happy Birthday

...to me; today is my 57th birthday.

So noted and marked on the calendar.

Now I must say that I'm in my late 50s. If I said I was in my middle 50s, I'd be lying.

The Nature Of Hell

In a physics class at a nearby college, the professor asked this question on the final for extra credit:

Is Hell endothermic or exothermic?

(NOTE: In layman's language, does Hell absorb heat and therefore get hotter? Or does it release heat and therefore get colder?)

One student wrote:

First, we postulate that if souls exist, then they must have some mass. If they do, then a mole of souls can also have a mass. So, at what rate are souls moving into Hell and at what rate are souls leaving? I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving.

As for souls entering Hell, let's look at the different religions that exist in the world today. Some of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell. Since, there are more than one of these religions and people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all people and all souls go to Hell.

With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially.

Now, we look at the rate of change in volume in Hell. Boyle's Law states that if the temperature and pressure in Hell is to stay the same, then the ratio of the mass of souls and volume needs to stay constant.

So, if Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter hell, then the temperature and pressure in hell will increase until all hell breaks loose: That is, Hell is exothermic.

Of course, if Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in hell, than the temperature and pressure will drop until hell freezes over: That is, Hell is endothermic.

So which is it?

If we accept the postulate given by Ms. Theresa Banyan during my freshman year, "That it will be a cold night in Hell before I go out with you," and take into account the fact that I still have not succeeded in having a date with her, the second case cannot be true.

Therefore, Hell is exothermic.

The student was the only one who got the extra credit.

Avant-Garde Emoticons (Or So I Thought)

Well, I'll be damned. I posted this on Sunday, Sept. 12, and I present it to you here:
*
I found this earlier this year while I was surfing the net.

You might say: Hey. Emoticons. No big deal. In fact, they annoy me. Why do you post them, anyway?

True. But look at the year it was printed.

Yes, your eyesight is right. It's 1972.

Damn! That was 38 years ago, when I was in high school.
*
But I checked the net today and found that this wasn't created in 1972. Instead, it was created in 2009 by Mitch Ansara, who has a blog entitled Spacesick. Please click here to see the original post.

9/11 Plus 9 Years And 1 Day

I didn't post anything yesterday about the ninth anniversary of 9/11 because I had nothing original to add to the conversation.

And the less said about it the better, because of these two controversies:

• The protests against a planned Islamic community center a few blocks from the World Trade Center;
• The threat by Terry Jones, a minister from Gainesville, Florida, who had urged people to burn copies of the Koran on Sept. 11. (He called off his efforts, thanks to the Powers That Be.)
  

But I thought this today: These things are signs of something roiling inside America's body politic. And it will come out in the fall elections as a strong reaction against President Obama.

A Side Job, Probably Unwanted

Since the National Football League is starting its full schedule -- Thursday's game between the Green Bay Packers and the New Orleans Saints was no more than an appetizer, compared to the full feast of games today -- many of the play-by-play announcers will be promoting their networks' shows.

Especially the bad ones.

I can imagine announcers like Joe Buck and Jim Nantz -- whose sense of selfimportance sprays right out of your televison set into your living room -- saying:

It's A. as Average Joe/Fat Schlub and and B. His Hot Wife and C as their Goofy/Annoying Neighbor in Generic Sitcom Title -- Tuesdays at 8, on CBS (or Fox).

As they say those words, I'm sure they think to themselves:

Oh God, take me now. It's bad enough that I have to waste time talking about a decent show during the broadcast. But promoting a bad one ... ?

And when I imagine them saying one thing about these shows and thinking a very different thing about them, I have a large case of schadenfreude.

Unwanted Dependency

Here's a joke I saw on the internet last week:

Last night, my wife and I were sitting in our living room. I said to her, "I never want to live in a vegetative state, dependent on some machine and fluids from a bottle. If that ever happens, just pull the plug."

She got up and unplugged the TV, then took the beer in my hands and poured it down the kitchen sink.

It's very relevant today, since the National Football League starts its schedule in full today.

A Strong Criminal Outlook

He has such a strong criminal outlook that he'd break the law of physics if he could.
*
Now 666 is the mark of the devil.
And 333 is half of 666.
Therefore, 333 is only half as evil.
*
"Hey -- Dave just got knifed!"
"That's forking terrible!"
"Hey -- that's too spoon!"
*
You can
Make a living
By successfully
Dying.
*
Penn State? How about Poon State?
*
Some like it hot.
Some like me hot.
*
"I didn't shoot him. He walked into the path of a bullet."
"Just one bullet? How about 20 of them?"
*
Play with fire? Pay with pain.
*
We don't see things as they are.
We see things as we are.
*
A humane humanitarianism.
The opposite is an inhumane inhumanitarianism.
*
Step aside and let me fail on my own.
*
Drinking vermouth
On the campus
Of Dartmouth ...
College, that is ...
*
"We're using the law to keep justice away."
*
Don't follow your dreams. Follow the drums.
*
Let me tell you a story
About my time in Purgatory ...
*
Step aside and watch me self destruct.
*
Your pride, your soul, your worth as your dinner -- it's a bitter food to eat.
*
A touch of gray.
Guess who has it?
Yep -- F.J.
*
Would you like a martini
As the whole world burns?
Or rather, instead,
A bullet through your head?
*
Fu -- fu -- fu --
FUDGE!
And lots of it, too!
*
Corn flakes and cognac is the true breakfast of champions.
*
"If you think you hate me, just think about the hatred I feel for myself -- and how strong that can be."
*
Is there any ketchup around here? I can't sell out without ketchup.
*
Morte de jour is French for death of the day.
*
It's part of the pornography that falls on our lives like dirty cold rain.
*
A circle jerk? Why, that's nothing more than a bunch of guys giving each other a helping hand.
*
A dry T-shirt contest? Is some church putting it on?
*
I put the stud in student. So holla for a schola'.
*
Music: What emotions sound like.
*
"Think of that when your roasting in the dungeon of fire!"
*
"Hey, B! At night, you used to come out of your closet like a bat coming out of a cave . Why haven't you done it lately? You got a new girlfriend to impress?"
*
There is a reckoning, in the future, for us all ...

Just Wondering ...

At the left is Commissar Leon Trotsky, a leader of the Bolshevik Revolution that established the Soviet Union. He also was renowned and important theorist of Marxism.

At the left is Colonel Harland Sanders, renowned founder of the Kentucky Fried Chicken chain of fast-food restaurants.

Twin sons of different mothers? You make the call.

Entertaining The Cows

Beau lived in a small town near the country. Many of his friends were farmers.

One Sunday, Sam, one of Beau's farmer friends, had an open house to show people their new barn and their repainted home.

Beau, Sam, and some other men were standing around and talking when Johnny, Sam's son, ran up to the group and exclaimed:

"Hey, Dad! The bull's out in the field and he's screwing all the cows!"

Johnny wasn't a bad kid. He just had a tendency to say things before he thought about them.

Sam took Johnny aside and told him gently but firmly:

"Son, around here we don't say the bull is .. er, uh ... screwing the cows. We say he's entertaining the cows."

Johnny said, "OK Dad." Then he went away.

Fifteen minutes later, Johnny ran up to the group of men and said:

"Hey Dad! The bull stopped entertaining the cows!"

Sam said, "That's nice to hear Johnny," glad and relieved that his son had used the word he had suggested.

Johnny then told the group:

"Yeah, the bull stopped entertaining the cows. And now he's screwing the horse!"

Nostalgia? No Sir

I have no nostalgia for the yoke, like the ones that farmers use on oxen or cattle.

There's no need to yoke sheep. Just get their leader under your control and they will follow the leader.

I have no nostalgia for oppressive organizations, like some forms of religion. At the least, they will yoke your mind and choke your mind.

Where's George? All Over The Place

There's a website entitled wheresgeorge.com. At it, you can enter the serial number of a dollar bill or other U.S. paper currency, then follow their travels.

It helps if you write wheresgeorge.com on the bill and the person who gets it enters its latest location.

I entered about ten bills. Four have been tracked and noted. One of them had a very interesting travel history.

I entered it into the wheresgeorge.com's tracking system on June 5, 2008. The next entry was made Sept. 6, 2009 in Reno, Nev. It had traveled about 1,800 miles during that time.

I also checked for bills that had been entered in the city of G., a nearby community where many of my friends and relatives live. One bill was entered into the system on June 30 of this year after it also had traveled about 1,800 miles.

It was first entered on July 3, 2007, in Corpus Cristi, Texas. The next entry was on May 14, 2009 in Myrtle Beach, S.C. It had traveled about 1,170 miles in a year and 10 months.

The next listed entry was on May 12, 2010, in Bloomington, Ind. the bill had traveled about 560 miles in a year.

Then it traveled the 60 miles from Bloomington to Greenfield in about a month and a half.

Time Travel

Recently there came to mind a want ad I saw on the net.

It was for time travel.

If I remember it correctly, it went like this:

WANTED
Someone to go back in time with me. This is not a joke. P.O. Box 322, Oakview, CA, 93022. You'll get paid after we get back. Must bring your own weapons. Safety not guaranteed. I've only done this once before.

I haven't heard or seen if things went well.

Then there was the man who would try to travel back in time and change history. He told his friends, "You'll know I've succeeded if Germany loses World War II and Wednesday comes after Tuesday."

He must've succeeded.

How Inappropriate!

Whenever I hear the word inappropriate, I often let myself get bent out of shape with annoyance.

If something is inappropriate, it's a truly awful thing that shouldn't be said or done. A good example is child molestation. Another is a marriage that's loveless and full of unfaithfulness.

But more often, people call something inappropriate if it's minor and probably just embarrassing. Two examples are getting a speeding ticket or farting in church.

It's used to keep people in line and another example of crippling middle-class respectability. And if you consider those things to be heinous and unmentionable, you can imagine the efforts to ignore and forget and repress the awful things and the resistance to dealing with them.

When I think of the whole appropriate/inappropriate thing, I'm like Winston Smith in 1984 when he said, "I hate purity and I hate goodness."

Some New Lingo

Sometime in August, I came across two new on the internet. I didn't know them before and I present them to you now.

The first is TL;DR. It's short for Too Long; Didn't Read.

I think it should be DR;TL. I'll explain why in this dialog:

Deuce: I didn't read it.

Ace: Why not?

Deuce: It was too long.

That gives the action -- or inaction -- and the reason behind it. And some people say you should give a reason for your actions or inactions only if someone asks you. TL;DR gives the reason first, as if apologizing for the action or inaction.

This examples shows that there is a difference in how you word things and the intent behind them.

The other is the abbrevation TITS OR GTFO. It means the poster in a thread (cyber talk for conversation, especially at a forum site) should show a picture of a woman's naked bosom or go away.

I found that expression a little too vulgar. I would reword it as:

My good sir (or good woman), please present a picture of a bare bosom (or your bare bosom) or vacate the premise immediately!

See how much more classy that is?

Patterns In The Universe

Behold.

On the left is a picture of three neurons of a mouse's brain.

On the right is a picture of a computer simulation of the present universe.

The resemblance is either a damn coincidence or ...

I don't believe in a personal God. But I believe there is some force or forces beyond our control; and these forces form and shape the universe. I call them The Divine or The Numinous.

It isn't God, but it's like God. And to quote the Psalm 14:1 -- the fool in heart says there is no God.

ADDENUM: If you want to see the picture in more details, then please click on it.

Petty Crimes And Teenage Years

I never committed any petty crimes: Not because I was afraid that I'd be punished if I had been caught, but tbecause hey never appealed to me.

Two petty crimes that appeal to teenagers and others going through adolescence are minor vandalism and shoplifting, also know as the five-finger discount.

The closest I came to committing minor vandalism came one Saturday evening during the spring of 1968, when I was in eighth grade. Three friends and I were out and about. We were walking because we didn't want to ride our bikes in the dark and because we didn't have our driver's licenses.

One of us -- not me -- threw a rock at a street light. As soon as he threw it , we all ran.

The street light didn't break.

As for shoplifting, I knew one man who did it at a five-and-dime store when he was in junior high school. I call him J., for that is his first initial. He not only did it; he bragged about it.

J. ended up a loud, obnoxious man and an alcoholic. He was puny in his youth; that might explain his attitude later in his life.

He was an accountant and then a day trader. He now says he's retired.

I haven't seen or talked with him in six years. To me, that's no great loss.

He also married one of the more popular and better-souled women in our high school class. That was when she had the reform/save this guy attitude toward her boyfriends and lovers.

Sometimes I think less of her because she had sexual intercourse with J. It happened when they were married, but ...

I still think well of her, but I let that one little thing about her bug me, however slightly.

My Gripes About Businessmen

Man, I have plenty of things to gripe about regarding businessmen and their collective mentality. I'll list some of them below.

If businessmen could put it into words, their definition of freedom is:

• To make as much money as possible, no matter the worth of the good or service you're providing;
  
• To pay as little of that money as possible in taxes;
• To use that money to buy the same things owned by everybody you know or the people you want to impress, no matter the worth of worthless the good or service is.

In short, it's the freedom to be like everybody else. And that's not freedom, truly; it's more like indentured servitude to an attitude.

Another thing I let bother me about business men is their crassness: Their scorn and mockery of paintings, novels, plays, and other forms of art, which are for women or effeminate homosexuals -- or as they call them, faggots.

Another form of their crassness is their arrogance and boasting, especially in the display of their possessions. They were low key about this until about 1979 or 1980, and I noticed the big change came after Ronald Reagan was elected president.

Before that, you didn't mention or show your wealth because it was in bad taste and a sign of insecurity. Also, come the revolution and when the Bolsheviks take over, they'll kill you with no remorse. Therefore, keep a low profile or hide.

I always thought that Marxism or class jealousy would keep people humble and modest, and not arrogant and boastful. It's just vulgar and disgusting. It's a sign of nouveau and parvenue wealth.

Some people - me, for example -- have very good reasons to call business organizations and associations the Chamberpot of Commerce.

A related thing, and just as disgusting, is the academics who praise capitalism and the free market in the abstract without criticizing specific and concrete business practices. It's as if they've never worked for a business or in a business or know anyone who did. The business mentality buys them to give a sheen of goodness and morality to their actions.

But ... but ...

You can always buy them off. They're ready to deal and negotiate. That's the one good thing about them.

You must worry about the people with strong and inflexible ideals: The fanatical hard-core Christians, Moslems, and Marxists You can't buy them off. You must fight them off. And the fight is to the death or one side or the other.

Insomnia

You might ask why I'm up at this time of day and posting in my blog.

The answer is insomnia. This poster explains it very well.

I woke up sometime between 2:30 and 3 a.m. I went online and started to surf the net. I stopped to look at familiar sites. Then I came here and decided to post a few things.

I'll sleep about six hours and that's it anymore. I'm a light sleeper; when I'm awake, I'm awake. I've tried throughout most of my life to go back to sleep after I wake in the middle of the night, but it's no go.

So now I'm up. And now I'll post.

Later today, I'm sure, I'll take a nap.

Batman And The Bagel

(The scene is the Batcave under stately Wayne Manor on the outskirts of Gotham City. BATMAN, the Caped Crusader, takes a break from his superhero work to have a snack. He sees a box on a nearby table. He picks out a baked good from it, bites into it, and chews it.)

BATMAN: Alfred?

ALFRED: Yes, sir?

BATMAN: Is this one of those Jewish doughnuts?

ALFRED: It is, sir. I believe they're called bagels.

BATMAN: Well, this is the first one that I've eaten ... and it's delicious!

ALFRED: They are rather tasty, sir ... if a bit dry at times. May I suggest you put some cream cheese on it? I happened to have put some by the box, along with a knife so you can spread it on the bagel.

(BATMAN applies the cream cheese to the bagel.)

BATMAN: So you have cream cheese on the outside of the Jewish doughnut instead of jelly inside like a gentile doughnut . Hmmm ...

ALFRED: Different cultures have different ways to baking and eating pastries, sir.

BATMAN: So ... different strokes for different folks then, eh?

ALFRED: You could say that, sir ... much like some say your friendship with Master Robin is a different stroke ... and a little more than just friendship.

BATMAN (Spits out bagel): Goddamn it, Alfred! What people saw was just a little friendly rough-housing between me and him! We were in a good mood because we had just captured the Joker AND the Penguin at the same time before they could commit their crimes! There is no way any one would ever have considered that to be homosexual!

ALFRED: If you insist, sir.

BATMAN: That goddamn Dr. Wertham! I'll sue his ass for libel! Insinuating that kind of bullshit goes on between Dick and me!

ALFRED: Sir, if I remember correctly, Batman is your secret identity. If you were to sue Dr. Wertham, and I'm no attorney, but I believe the court would require you to testify as Bruce Wayne. And that would expose your secret identity.

BATMAN: You're right, Alfred. That would definitely put me in a bind.

ALFRED: I believe the common term for that is up the creek without a paddle. And the creek isn't full of water. It's full of human waste, if you know what I mean ...

Thought And Reflexes

What some people call thought resembles reflexes and reactions. It's no more complicated and just as automatic as pulling back your hand after you put it on a hot stove.

To call it thought is to give it a dignity is doesn't deserve.

Thought and reflexes are two different things. I know that I think. Or I try to. You might think. But they don't think the way I think. Or if they do think, it isn't as strongly or deeply as you and me.

Those people usually aren't taught. They're trained. There's a big difference between the two. You train animals. You ought to teach people.

If you train people, it's because they must do actions where thought is second nature, like some habits. An example of that is military training.

Or maybe you train people because they can't think, and that's a scary thought.

I've thought about this for a long time. I find it bothersome. So I post it here and now to get it expressed and possibly less bothersome.

DeLillo And The Physical Act Of Writing

It's time for another entry in the department I call Common Place Post. Today, it will be about the writing of American writer Don DeLillo, the author of White Noise, Libra, and Underworld, among other novels. It isn't about the literary merits of his work, but the act of writing itself.

It ran in the June 11-18 issue of The New Yorker. Again, as I've done before, I forgot to note the author:

As DeLillo matured as a writer, his detritus increased, and not just because his books got longer. Beginning with the manuscript of The Names, written in the early 1980s, he began consistently to type each paragraph over and over, often on its own page, so that within a draft a paragraph may appear a dozen times on a dozen sheets, as he works it out to his satisfaction ... The process gives DeLillo's drafts a highly deliberate pace, like a blind man tapping his way forward. It also confirms his appraise of his own technique; in a 1997 letter to David Foster Wallace (NOTE: The author of the novel Infinite Jest), he wrote that his prose is characterized by "a sensitivity to the actual appearance of words on a page, to letter shapes and letter combinations." (DeLillo saved a copy of the letter.) He goes on, "at some point (in my writing life) I realized that precision can be a kind of poetry, and the more precise you try to be, or I try to be, the more simply and correctly responsive to what the world looks like -- then the better my changes of creating a deeper and more beautiful language."

ADDENUM: Seems as if I've forgotten the year is was published, too. My apologies for that.

The Heat ... The Humidity ...

As I write this, the sky is overcast. The ground is damp from rain that fell overnight. A light breeze blows from the west. The temperature is 75 degrees.

This a much, much better situation than much of the weather during the last two months: The most prominent event so far of this summer.

As I review notes that I took during the last two months, the temperature got up to 95 on July 7th, July 15th, and July 24th. The humidity was at 6o percent, which made it feel like it was 105 degrees outside.

105 degrees.

More of the same happened during the rest of July and August.; I heard on the radio on Aug. 5 that the temperature was 81 degrees. However, this was at 6:40 a.m.

6:40 a.m.

One morning, I was out doing errands. About 10 a.m., I left an air-conditioned drugstore. Just as I walked through its doors to the outside, I could feel the humidity. Now if walking through air has a density of 0 and waking through water has a density of 100, the density of that atmosphere was, by my guess, 20 to 25.

Central Indiana got a break from the bad weather on Aug. 7 and 8. But from Aug. 9 to Aug. 15 -- seven straight days -- the temperatures were above 95 and the heat index made it feel like it was 105. During those days, few to no clouds hung in the sky to block the heat of the sun's rays.

I took the precautions advised by the National Weather Service. I stayed out of the sun, especially during the afternoon and early evening. I stayed in an air-conditioned room. But my air conditioner wasn't strong enough to cool my apartment thoroughly; I might get a new one for next summer. And I drank plenty of fluids, especially water.

It didn't help that, during the days of heat advisories, no clouds were in the sky. Sunlight fell directly on the ground, and that helped make it worse.

I write just about the lowlights -- because there are no highlights -- of this heat wave because I don't want to think about it any damn more.

The forecast for the next few days has highs in the middle 80s and lows in the middle 60s to high 50s. It'll be tolerable. But the chances of strong heat and high humidity often last until late September.

ADDENUM, AUG. 22: Predictions for this week have highs in the middle to low 80s and lows in the low 60s to high 50s. But the heat is forecast to rise next weekend.

Ah, Cheesecake!

I know one thing that can take away your blues about life: a nice slice of cheesecake.

And before you is a second helping of Elizabeth Taylor.

Back in December 0f 2008, I posted a picture of her. If you want to see it, then please click here.

For your pleasure right now, I serve you another:

Please enjoy.

My Fellow Citizens

My fellow citizens ... my fellow citizens ...

Jesus! How stupid they must be!

One of five of them now believe that President Obama is a Moslem, despite the proof put before them. For more details, please click here and read the story.

Believe it or ... do something to show your despair ... like shake your head or throw up your arms.

It does not help Obama since he said he supported the Moslem worship center now being built near the former World Trade Center. If you want more details, please look for stories about it via your favorite search engine.

I won't wrote any more of this matter because I feel strongly disgusted when I think of it. And if I write of it, I'd have to think of it.

Damn!

The Killing Gridirons

Football season starts tonight. The high schools in central Indiana will have their first games of the season. College football will start in early September. Meanwhile the Colts have played two preseason games and will start the season in the middle of September.

I enjoy football the most of all spectator sports. But during the last few years, I began to have misgivings about it. And they have grown.

Football is the second most violent sport; boxing ranks below it. And with the speed and size and equipment used in the game, it's a miracle that no one has died during a game.

I repeat: During a game. But afterward, though ...

I read a story earlier this week in Deadspin.com, a sports website. It shows a connection between concussions that players have suffered during the game with ALS or ALS-like symptoms they suffer later in their lives. If you want to read the story, please click here.

After I read it, I began to have more than second or third or fourth thoughts about my love and support of football.

I also note this: Chris Henry was a wide receiver for Tennessee Titans. He died last year of injuries he suffered when he fell off a moving truck . His autopsy showed that he had suffered brain damage unrelated to the fall. And he was in his middle 20s.

I know that if I watch fewer games this season, that would stop such injuries; they injuries would come anyway. But still ... sometimes I don't want to give any kind of support or approval to a potentially deadly game.

A Trip, After Midnight

In the previous post, I had mentioned things that I either did or had happened around me. One thing, I thought, ought to have its own post.

It was about 2 a.m. one morning in mid-June. I was awake because of insomnia. And when I have it, I'm awake for at least two hours.

I had run out of cigarettes and orange juice because I didn't buy any the night before, so I went to a gas station/convenience store in town. It's open 24 hours a day.

I took the long way because ongoing construction work to one of the main streets had closed it. Instead of going south and turning west to get to the convenience store -- a trip of about a half mile -- I drove four blocks west from my apartment, then two blocks south, then three blocks west, then four blocks south and back east. The trip was about 2.5 miles long.

I bought some cigarettes but not orange juice, because the store didn't sell any brand that I liked. Instead, I bought a gallon of fruit punch drink. I thought it would taste like Hawaiian Punch, but it had a flat taste and was less sweet than orange juice.

I looked at the expiration date on the plastic jug and it said Nov. 10, 2010.

What the fuck? I thought. Is this the liquid equivalent of Twinkies?

However, I came to like its taste and I've bought more of it after that.

Recent Scenes In My Life

I've been taking notes about some things that I either did or were going on around me this summer. They were too short to separate posts. Therefore, I put them here as one place.

Call them small chapters from a memoir of a limited time.

One
In late June or early July, I was driving south on German Church Road on the northeast side of Indianapolis.

I was between East 38th and East 46th streets when I saw this very unusual site: Two black men riding horses on the side of the road.

That part of Indianapolis isn't as heavily developed as the areas south of it, and it's populated mostly by whites.

Neither of them were in uniform; if they were in a police department's horse patrol unit, they were off duty.

(If you don't know the location, then please use your favorite online map to find it.)

Two
I was taking a nap during a recent Saturday afternoon. I was dreaming that someone was coming up and going to grab me as I lay in bed.

I woke quickly and, in fear, threw a pillow.

No one was there.

Three
I was standing in the courtyard of my apartment complex during two separate Wednesdays evenings when I saw a bus from a local Nazarene church pick up some of the children of my fellow residents of the apartment complex.

No adults boarded the buses, however. And some of those adults need church more than their children do.

Four
I thought a lot about the real estate novelist who's mentioned in the Billy Joel song Piano Man. I can't figure out what the hell a real estate novelist is and how he would differ from, say, a novelist who wrote psychological thrillers.

Haters Gonna Hate

Haters gonna hate.
Gators gonna gate.
Waiters gonna wait.
Taters gonna tate.
Graters gonna grate.
Painters gonna paint.
Baiters gonna bait.
But skaters --
They gotta skate.

Liars On Both Sides

A man once told his grandson this:

"When I was in my 20s, I'd get together with my friends every so often for a nickel-and-dime poker game. We'd sit around, smoke cigars and drank whiskey as we played.

"We also talked a lot. The single men talked about the beautiful women they screwed. The married men talked about the size of the fish they caught.

"Two different subjects, two different sides -- but all of them were full of liars."

Black Thursday And The Long-Armed Bitch Slap

It's a sad fact of life that, after Monday and Tuesday, even the calendar says:

WTF.

And it's worse when Black Thursday hits.

Black Thursday is always worse than Black Friday.

On Black Friday, you know the troubles are coming. Therefore, you're prepared for them and you can get through the day before the weekend starts.

But Black Thursday has an extra day of troubles. And you aren't prepared for them.

The same thing applies for Black Monday, Black Tuesday or Black Wednesday.

On those days, life seems to be giving you a bitch slap in the face, like you see in the picture at the top of this post.

It could be 8 feet long -- maybe 10 feet long or 12 feet long -- hell even 15 feet long -- because the size of the bitch slap doesn't matter. It comes and it stings.

But on some days, you return that bitch slap and call it a draw.

No Freshness

To some, the world seemed brand new as they woke every day.

It wasn't so for Jonn. He suffered from insomnia. He would wake up in the middle of the night and stay away for at least two hours, if not more, before he went back to sleep.

He never got a solid block of sleep that lasted, at the least, for six hours.

O Brown Owl

O brown owl,
You wise fowl,
It annoys me when you say
LOWL!
*
Short answer: No.
Long answer: Hell no!
*
And 10 to 20 more,
Maybe 30 --
Jeez, I don't know how many.
I didn't count them.
I didn't know it was important to you.
But there were a lot of them.
*
Turn on ... tune in ... take over!
*
Is the revolution on your side?
*
There's a sequel coming out for the movie 2001. It's going to be titled 4002 -- because the producers promised it would be twice as good.
*
Cry.
Fly.
Die.
O my!
No pie?
No corned beef or ham and cheese
On rye?
Tell me differently, and I know
you lie!
When you lie, you sin,
and when you die
you'll go to Hell, where
you'll fry!
*
I feel a major fetish coming on ...
*
He hated his life, and his yearning for death was as strong as love.
*
What's up?
What's down?
What's going around?
*
"You're one sick, sad fuck, Frank. And you're fat, too."
*
Is that a requirement ... or just ... a suggestion?
*
Go big or go home.
*
Haikus are easy.
But sometimes they don't make sense.
Refrigerator.

What Other People Said

Here is the second installment of the section of my blog that I've entitled What Other People Said. If you want an explanation of the name and why I gave it that, please click here.

I apologize for not getting the names of the people who said these quotes, except for the two at the end of this post.
*
America is not at war. The Marine Corps is at war. America is at the wall.
*
The most expensive meal you'll ever eat is pussy.
*
Your karma is leaking.
*
Never take no for an answer. Never take yes for granted.
*
Merde! Because shit always sounds better in French.
*
You can't have both feet on the ground and kick ass at the same time.
*
Up all night; got demons to fight.
*
An oligarchy is easily overcome. The many lack a purpose or reason to fight for the few, and the few fear a purpose or reason with which to arm the many.
*
Absence is to love as wind is to fire. It extinguishes the little flame and fans the big flame.
-- Umberto Eco
*
When I see something on the net and think it's funny, I type LQTM. That stands for Laughed Quietly To Myself. It's a lot more honest than LOL.
--Demetri Martin.

This Is The Way ...

Recently, this old nursery rhyme came to mind:

This is the way we wash our clothes,
wash our clothes, wash our clothes.
This is the way we wash our clothes
So early in the morning.

Suddenly these riffs, based on the catch X-the-Y pattern, came to mind:

Brush the bat
Hang the fools
Shoot the moon
Shoot the fool
Fuck the girl
Burn the bridge
Beat the meat
Lick the whip

After those, no more came to mind.

The Life & Health Of Rockers

During my recently surfing of the internet, I found this cover of the February 1970 issue of Circus magazine, which was devoted to rock and roll/popular music in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

If you want to see a bigger picture of the cover, please click on it.

It wondered who of the above would survive the 1970s.

The performers are by row:

• First -- Johnny Cash, Pete Townsend, Jim Morrison, Paul McCartney, Grace Slick;
• Second -- Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, John Lennon, Jimi Hendrix, Johnny Winter;
• Third -- Alvin Lee, Ray Davies, John Mayall, Mick Jagger, Elvis Presley;
• Four -- George Harrison, Ringo Star, Charlie Watts, Jimmy Page, David Crosby.

The first one to die was Hendrix, who went in September 1970 by choking to death on his own vomit.

The second was Joplin, who died a month later of a heroin overdose.

Then came Morrison, who died in July 1971. Some thought the cause was a heart attack. Some thought it was a heroin overdose. Since no autopsy was made, no cause is known for certain.

Three in a row, and quickly, too.

But six years passed before the next death: Elvis Presley in August 1977 of a heart attack aggravated by drug abuse.

Next was John Lennon: Shot to death in December 1980.

But then 20 years passed until the next deaths: George Harrison in November 2001 of lung cancer; then Johnny Cash in September 2003 of complications from diabetes.

That's seven out of 20, or 35 percent.

Everyone else is still alive and playing, although their current careers aren't as big as they were back then.

Flip A Coin

Ace: Hommala hommala hommala BING!!!

Deuce: What the hell was that?

Ace: Hey. I was expressing myself!

Deuce: Use English, you tool. People might understand you for a change.

Ace: Hey, while you're here, I got something to ask you.

Deuce: What is it?

Ace: I have this thing to do and I have two choices to follow. But I don't know which one to do.

Deuce: Simple. Flip a coin.

Ace: Does that work?

Deuce: It does. It works not because it answers the questions before you, or settles the situation. When the coin's in the air, you know what you want to do.

Ace: Thanks.

Deuce: By the way, what was your big choice?

Ace: I was going to ask O.J. Simpson what was harder for him to do or what mean more to him: Rushing for 2,000 yards that one football season or killing two people that one night.

Deuce: I'm sure you'll get the answer you want.

Ace: Hey, do you think O.J. will flip a coin before he answers me?

Churchill And Pigs

And now, a few words and pictures about Winston Churchill and pigs.

The first picture is him as a child.

The second picture is a quote by him about pigs.

And please click here for a story I saw on web on why pigs are great animals.

ADDENUM: I've decided to go back to Georgia as the font that I'll use for my posts. I've tried Times and didn't like it.

For The Fourth

I know it's early, but I might as well post this now as the holiday starts.

I hope all of you have a happy -- and safe -- Fourth of July,
*
O! say can you see by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
O! say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?