An Interview With Me!

Blog Times: "So, John, what's been going on? You haven't posted much lately."

Me: "Well, not much going on, and I can't tell interesting stories if nothing interesting is going on."

Blog Times: "You're telling me there's not even ONE interesting thing going on in your life? I find that difficult to believe." (interviewer looks at me skeptically)

Me: "You are trying to tell me you think that a person can't possibly be as boring as I am?"

Blog Times: "Well, I wouldn't have put it so bluntly, but yes."

Me: "Ha, ha. I come from a family that LIKES being in a rut. At least nothing bad is happening if you're travelling along in the same old ruts. I must have heard Sainted Mother say that a million times while I was growing up."

Blog Times: "Do you believe that yourself, that it's ok to live life in a rut?"

Me: "Not necessarily, but sometimes in life when things aren't going great, but they aren't really going bad either, my definition of being in a rut, it can be a good thing."

Blog Times: "You're going to have to explain that to me a little more."

Me: "Say you have some bad things going on in your life, for example heavy financial pressures and chronic back pain, but you still have to work every day to bring in that pay check. You take the medicines the doctor gives you for the chronic pain, and while that lowers the pain level somewhat and you're grateful for that, the price for lower pain is that you need more sleep and the pain that you're left with causes you to take longer to do everything. Everything as in it takes you longer to shower and get ready for work. It takes you longer to gather up your stuff and get to and get situated for the day at work. Things of that nature. All the lost time costs you in the ability to go out to eat or see a movie with your wife and so forth, at least during the week, see what I mean?

Blog Times: (Nods head)

Me: "Then at home in the evening, eating supper and spending a little time doing something that I would like to do more of like practice my guitar or work on my new FPGA (robotics brains type thingy) electronics card, and all of a sudden it's time for me to get ready for bed. Remember, I need more sleep now."

Blog Times: "So the net result is eat, sleep, work, with a dash of fun things thrown in, resulting in a pretty boring life."

Me: "Just a dash of fun, yes. I'm living proof that all work and no play makes John a dull blogger."

Blog Times: "I'm beginning to see what you are up against. Have you no more funny stories from your childhood or anything like that that you could write up an put on your blog?"

Me: "I guess that I could have a brainstorming session to try to do just that, I'm a big fan of and believer in brainstorming by the way, but the math just doesn't add up for me on that right now."

Blog Times: "I'm sorry John, you just completely lost me. What do you mean by 'the math just doesn't add up for me on that right now' exactly?"

Me: "Sorry, sometimes I say things that are three steps ahead like that. For me, it's like this, in math form, Oxycontin + chronic pain = blog apathy. And to explain that, I just mean that I'm doing my best to deal with 24 hour pain, by the way I never set an alarm clock any more, my back pain wakes me up every day whether it's a week day or weekend, and the medicine that gives me a bit of relief and the sleep I need right now to function, all pretty much robs me of even the desire to blog. I occasionally have a great blog idea but simply don't care enough any more to write the idea down. Then when I do feel like writing, the idea is gone, or I simply am faced with trying to dredge up something from my boring life and make it interesting enough to blog about."

Blog Times: (Gently snoring)

Me: "Hey!"

Blog Times: (Startled awake, smooths the hair on his oversprayed helmet head.) "Hump-hmm! My hair!"

Me: "No problem. See, if I can bore you to sleep when we are face to face in an interview, how boring do you think if would be to try to explain all of this on a blog where I would want victims readers to read through it all?"

Blog Times: "But I've NEVER done that before. EVER! I'm so sorry."

Me: "Just glad that I could be such an integral part of such a big moment in your life. It's my pleasure."

Blog Times: "We're about out of time. Is there anything else you would like to say."

Me: "I haven't even had the desire to get out and roam around with my camera and take my usual assortmen of rocks, trees, and ocean pictures the past few weeks. And I LOVE doing that. But just don't care enough right now to get out there and do it. I'm going to have to change the name of my photography blog from 'John's Daily Digital Images' to something like 'A Picture Now and Then'."

Blog Times: "That's sad and funny, I hope you get a burst of energy and inspiration soon." (looking at watch. Rolex Submariner)

Me: "Yeah, me too." (making ultra-sharp creases with my thumbnail in a post-it note to pick my teeth with)

Blog Times: "I thought for sure something would come to mind while we talked, but I guess not. Thank you for your time"

Me: "You're welcome. (light bult appears above my massive cranium) Hey! Big Sis just bought a BRAND NEW car, does that count as interesting?"

Blog Times: (looking interested) "What kind of car?"

Me: (with lots of enthusiasm) "A Kia."

Blog Times: "Nope. Not even close to interesting, though I'm sure it IS interesting to her. Does she have a blog? (looks pathetically hopeful)

Me: "Nope. She doesn't blog. She just talks about Keith Urban all the time."

Blog Times: (gets that look on his face like he's glad he didn't step in that pile of stuff) "Never mind. Gotta go."

Me: "Who is next on your agenda? A blogger with a huge following, like a political blog or something?" (while interviewer stands and opens door)

Blog Times: "No such luck. Someone with a blog titled "The Cutest Mommy Blog EVAR! Adventures In Breastfeeding" (interviewer winces like you do when you bite the inside of your mouth really hard)

Me: (interviewee winces like you do when you bite the inside of your mouth really hard) "Yeah. Good luck with that one."

Then I wave as he drives off in his Lexus.

I immediately go to my computer to write out the fact that I was interviewed. It might stink as interviews go, but it was exciting while it lasted.

(Dangit! I forgot to ask him the web address of the mommy blog.)

A Trip to the Beach

It's spring, and you want to go to the beach to sit for a while.

Look north along the coast.


Look south along the coast.


Look out over the Atlantic itself, and imagine Africa over there somewhere.

Go ahead an let that cold Atlantic water wash up around your feet and ankles. It's still cold yet, but it'll be warm enough to swim in without hypothermia soon.

But for now, get the feel of it rushing around your ankles as it sweeps back into the ocean.

More On My Stolen Cell Phone / The Cuss-O-Meter

I wrote a post the other day explaining how I had my cell phone stolen out of our van, and how Cell Phone Thief had free use of it for, like, three or four days.

Well, what I didn't talk about was that apparently Cell Phone Thief quickly told every friend of his all over the country about his new phone number.

But then AT&T killed the stolen phone and SIM card for me, and let me keep my number and reprogram my new phone and SIM card with the number.

The penalty that I've personally had to pay for keeping the same number is that I've been getting messages for days now from Cell Phone Thief's friends from all over America. No lie. I've been getting calls from all manner of strange area codes. I'm just thankful his friends are in America and didn't use all my minutes.

Cell Phone Thief's friends look to their rap stars of choice and Randy Jackson of American Idol fame for their lingo in the cell phone messages.

Consequently when I listen to the voice messages to see if by chance there might actually be a message for me in there (rare, I have few friends), about the only words I can make out most of the time are "Yo", "Dog", "Up in here" "mumblemumblemumble" and the like.

But yesterday I had two messages that, when heard back to back, made me laugh.

I now regret having deleted them immediately after listening to them, so I could transcribe them here, but the gist of the first one was: "Yo Dog, this is (unintelligible) and I've run out of Mo-F-in gas. I'm in Orlando, and need you to call me back RIGHT NOW! And come bring me some Mo-F-in gas, mayn! Call me back, mayn, NOW!" (Of course, he said Mo-F-in in unabbreviated form).

Since his "mayn" ain't got that number any more, it's MINE again, the dear caller didn't hear back from his target. He left a second message, which simply consisted of a string of muffled cuss words and shouted Yo!s and Gas! and generally cussing out his "mayn" for not calling him back and bringing him some gas.

I must say it was quite amusing to me.

Too bad Cell Phone Thief was unable to hear his friend in need.

Nah, not really. I'm hoping he gives Cell Phone Thief a good cussin' when he sees him next.

---

Speaking of cussin', I'm about as far from wanting to be "cool" or even knowing what things are cool when I see them, but the other day, I saw the Cuss-O-Meter on Miss Norma's Collecting My Thoughts blog and just had to go there and get one for my blog. The Cuss-O-Meter is down there on the right side, and shows what percentage of my blog is cuss words.

This is something that very much ranks as Way Cool in this decidedly un-cool man's world.

But then again, I'm still known to use the phrase, "All that AND a bag of chips," so what do I know about cool?

Notice, my Cuss-O-Meter is registering down in the "darnit" range (though I much prefer "dangit" to "darnit"). What a hoot.

Created by OnePlusYou

If You Think Politics Ain't Funny...

You ain't never been to the IMAO web site.

The head muckety-muck and main funny man there, Frank J., used to work as an engineer at the same company I work for, but he got out. He moved to Idaho or some other place far, far away from Florida.

I haven't figgered out how to do that yet.

Here's a snippet of something Frank posted over there today, and gave me a much needed laugh on an otherwise bummer of a day:

Barack Obama Rumors
Posted by Frank J. at 12:53 PM | View blog reactions | Comments (2)

There have been many rumors about Senator Barack Obama, so I thought I'd check on how which ones are true if any:

RUMOR: Obama is a Muslim.
STATUS: False
Obama is not currently a Muslim. He's a Christian of some sort in the "hate Whitey" sect.

RUMOR: Obama is an enlightened space alien sent to save humanity.
STATUS: False
All evidence points towards Obama being a below average man who his wife stopped asking to do chores around the house because he was always getting his head stuck in the mop bucket.

RUMOR: Obama tried to bomb the Pentagon.
STATUS: False
That was his friend.

RUMOR: Obama felt we got what we deserved on 9/11.
STATUS: False
That was his other friend.

RUMOR: Obama was once a hired goon for the Aquaman villain Black Manta.
STATUS: False
While Obama has served on a number of committees and attended a fundraiser hosted by Black Manta, Obama has never worked for him. His campaign has on numerous occasions called it out of bounds to draw connections between Obama and the terrorists, hatemongers, and supervillians he happens to hang around with in his spare time.

And those are just a part of the Obama rumor analysis.

Go visit them for the humor, but stay for the, well, um, whatever. Go visit them.

You'll find yourself bookmarking the site for future use. Frank's wife Sarah, has a cool blog of her own. Well, it WAS cool until she started putting pictures of home made sushi on there.

I have been really spotty in my blog looking and lurking lately, but these are two good places for a champ-een lurker like myself.

---

Earth Day went out with a wimper for me yesterday, I didn't see, and therefore didn't get to yell at any yuppie Prius owning snobs.

Have to wait 'til next year I reckon.

I Didn't Miss It! It's Earth Day!

I live entire lifetimes in my head. I spend many hours in thought about most everything.

But I really spend a lot of time thinking about old friends.

Anyhoo, this being Earth Day, I always think of W.B., a friend I used to work with for Delta Airlines in Atlanta, Georgia.

Knowing that W.B. was much like myself, a conservative in most political matters, I asked him one day at work what he had done to celebrate Earth Day. I thought it might get him fired up about the whole environmental movement, you know?

W.B. looked at me with a mischievous smile and said 'I burned my trash today. I heard earth day was coming up so I've been saving our trash and burned it all this morning. Took me all morning too.'

Ah, good times, good times.

Naturally, I think of him every Earth Day. A good ol' country boy from Georgia who lives so far out there is no garbage service and burns his family's trash.

I always wonder if he saved up a good batch of trash and spent his morning of April 22 burning it all.

Knowing W.B., he probably did.

Here's to ya, buddy!

I celebrated today by driving a few miles per hour over the speed limit and used extra toilet paper, way more than Cheryl "One Square" Crow I'm sure. I also turned on lots of incandescent bulbs in the house this morning while getting ready for work.

Also, I plan on yelling at anybody driving a Prius, but alas, I haven't seen any today. Maybe I'll get lucky on the way home this evening.

How have you been celebrating Earth Day?

---

How's this for an Earth Day celebration? The Edmonton Sun, a Canadian newspaper has an article about how the local Earth Day celebration was moved into a tent because of a BLIZZARD.

So much for global warming. Earth Day festivities went ahead despite the blast of frigid weather yesterday.

Vendors and presenters from various eco-friendly groups, including Bullfrog Power, CO2 Reduction Edmonton and the local solar energy society, crammed into a lone tent in Hawrelak Park after a blizzard forced them to abandon their original locations.

Organizers crammed over 40 groups in a space that would normally be occupied by half that number. Presenters' booths were initially planned to have been spread out between at least five tents, with far larger displays.

"We're normally here with a lineup of cyclists for our free bike repair service. No bikers came today. Big surprise," said Chris Field of Mountain Equipment Co-O...

I love it!

Many Young Liberals / Progressives / Socialists Are Stupid

The Democrat's newest attacks on John McCain are that they are starting to say that John McCain is too old to be President.

Wow. Talk about already being out of things to complain about with a candidate, they are already down to calling him too old? And the Democratic nominee hasn't even been chosen yet?

Man, the Democrats must really be in trouble to already be in this situation.

You know when you get into an argument and before you can even get up a good head of steam, your opponent starts calling you names? You know that they HAVE NO argument when they quickly start calling you names, right?

So here we have the Democrats already calling John McCain too old.

It's actually kind of reassuring in a way, because if they are already down to such weak attacks, then John McCain's chances to win the Presidential election are really looking pretty good aren't they?

But just the audacity for young morons to attack a true American war hero as being too old is pretty astounding to me.

First off, morons, the man is 72, but HIS MOTHER IS STILL ALIVE AND SPRIGH AND OFTEN ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL WITH HIM.

In case you're too dumb to understand the implications there, dummy, this energetic 72 year old OR his mother can still kick your butt. Comprende?

I read where one (of the many) liberal groups even put together a 90 second TV ad where a bunch of young Democrats talk about how John McCain is too old to be President.

I'm only 45, but that makes me want to find a good stick and find those punks and work them over a bit for their stupidity.

Don't these stupid young liberals / progressives / socialists realize that way LESS than half of eligible voters under 40 bother to vote?

Don't these stupid young liberals / progressives / socialists realize that way MORE than half of eligible voters over 50 DO bother to vote?

Don't these stupid young liberals / progressives / socialists realize that they are being discriminatory to people who are older than them, and that their silly antics will help get the mature voters out to vote for John McCain in even bigger numbers?

Nope, I guess not.

These stupid young liberals / progressives / socialists are simply to idiotic to see how foolish their claims are and that by being so stupid, they are HELPING John McCain get an even larger share of the more likely to vote than them older voters?

They are insulting the very voter group that can put John McCain into the Oval Office.

So much for the Democrats being the party of the tolerant and the party of inclusion for all.

This "John McCain is too old" attack scheme is going to backfire on the Democrats, big time.

You just watch.

"Youth is wasted on the young." -- George B. Shaw

What's Up With That?

In the middle of last week, I had my cell phone stolen.

The van I've been driving has the front passenger window stuck in the down position and I haven't taken it in to be repaired. I have a really classy piece of thick, clear plastic and duct tape over the window to keep out the elements.

So working late one evening, I went out to leave, and noticed that my cell phone was missing. Like a bone head I left it in the van. By the time I was leaving, there were only two other cars in the parking lot, and neither was anywhere close to mine.

The place where I work is very sedate and there is almost no theft or anything like that. But the empty lots next to where I work attract evening batches of off road motorycyclists as a place "in town" to ride their motorcycles.

I was actually kind of stunned that the phone went missing and a few days went by before I reported it to AT&T as stolen.

We tried calling the number just to see if we could hear the phone in the house or the van in the case that I was mistaken about my having had the phone with me that day, or that it might be rolling around in the van somewhere. But when we called the number to see if it rang within our hearing, there was a new answer tone on the phone.

I personally detest rap music, and when a rap song by none other than $0.50 (Fiddy Cent, whom I prefer to refer to as "Four Bits") started playing when we called my number, I knew the phone had been stolen, and was in fact being used. (How dare they change my The Count from Sesame Street counting rings answer tone!)

AT&T immediately killed my cell phone number and sent me a new phone. When I went through the process of bringing the new phone and SIMM card to life, I have gotten a few calls from some strange people, whom, I can only assume, thought they were calling the guy who stole my other phone.

I was able to look up and see that they hadn't made any three hour calls to Tokyo or any internet usage on the phone for the few days that they got to use it for free, so there's no big deal.

But it has been a lot of years since someone has stolen anything out of any of our vehicles.

I have an appointment to have the window fixed, and hopefully, that will be the end of the temptation for easy riches to the morons who steal stuff out of lonely cars.

I was also able to get rid of the Four Bits answer tone and reinstate my The Count from Sesame Street counting rings answer tone.

Interesting note, it's funny to hear how it stymies the cell phone people when I tell them I want a simple bar phone WITHOUT a camera. I guess flip phones with cameras are becoming such a normal thing that the lady had to put me on hold and go speak with her supervisor about finding an acceptable phone.

I guess I'm almost too low tech when it comes to cell phones, but I can't take a cell phone with a camera to work, or one that connects to a computer, because of security issues. It's easier to get the most basic phone I can get, so that I'm not violating any rules at work by just walking in with the phone in my pocket.

I can't believe the thief only stole the cell phone I had in a recessed pocket in our van and didn't take the stock, 1998 Dodge Grand Caravan AM/FM Stereo Cassette player from the dash. He probably wanted it really bad, but didn't think he had time to get that prize out of the dash.

Not Much to Say...Here Are Some Photos

There's a public park in the city of Palm Bay called Castaway Point Park. The park is along the Indian River Lagoon, our local section of the Intracoastal Waterway running up the full length of the eastern seaboard.

Within the park is a bay in the Lagoon called Palm Bay, which the city is named after. Lots of people who live here don't know that there is an actual body of water here called Palm Bay. The newest high school in the area, Bayside High School, is nowhere near the body of water called Palm Bay. Bayside High School is all the way across town, a good 10-15 miles from the bay. The name Bayside is kind of silly, seeing as how it's nowhere near ANY bay. (Interesting note, Bayside High School is in the news today because it was in total lock down this morning due to a bomb threat. Those silly kids.)

Back to Castaway Point Park; the park has been there for years, and the city of Palm Bay has threatened to work on it and create a nice walkway along the water, but in our 11 years here, we saw little action in the park. But on this day recently when Lovely Wife and I were out for a drive, she mentioned that they had finished the walkway, so we went to the park and walked on the walkway.

They did a really nice job of it too; it's very pretty and peaceful with a number of nice benches along the way for sittin', ponderin' and generally enjoying the view.

This first photo is looking along the new walkway in this park.

This second photo is nothing special, just a view of the north end of Castaway Point Park. There on the right were you see the big chunks of concrete, there used to stand an old restaurant that was here for many, many years but was more or less beat up beyond repair in the one-two punches that were hurricanes Frances and Jeanne in 2004. They ended up demolishing what was left of the restaurant.

Palm Bay and Sebastian, just to the south of us, were the recipients of the north side of the hurricane's eyes (where the worst winds are). Frances and Jeanne were one month apart and came on shore a mere five miles from one another; the hurricane equivalent of the same exact spot getting struck twice by lightning.

We KNEW we were doomed when The Weather Channel's Jim Cantore stayed in a Palm Bay hotel when the hurricanes were coming. When Jim Cantore comes to your town to cover a storm, believe me when I tell you it's time then to batten the hatches, folks!

Can't throw any purdy pictures at ya without at least one of them being of the Atlantic. This is looking south along the Atlantic coast on a windy day, from Ocean Park in Melbourne Beach, Florida.

Later, folks.

George Clooney Is A Scumbag

With the death of Charlton Heston the other day, I started looking up some things about the man. I wanted to write something about him and ended up with my post about Mr. Heston last week.

But when you are looking up information on Charlton Heston, you run into some problems. Well, much of what is reported in the news is reported by individuals that tend to be very liberal themselves.

So, Charlton Heston having long fought to defend Americans' gun rights from Americans determined to destroy the 2nd Amendment to the US Constitution without using the due process of law, naturally raised the ire of liberal/progressive people who think that guns are inherently evil.

I came across many articles quoting none other than the much-loved George Clooney in comments he made about Charlton Heston.

See, Mr. Heston spent the last years of his life fighting Alzheimer's disease.

That's sad, but it is common.

What isn't common is the way Scumbag George Clooney made fun of Charlton Heston's Alzheimer's when George was accepting an award.

As reported at World New Daily from January of 2003:

In receiving a special film making achievement award from the National Board of Reviews, actor George Clooney joked that "Charlton Heston announced again today that he is suffering from Alzheimer's."

Clooney still had a chance to apologize for the bad humor day. When questioned about the remark by New York Newsday, Clooney sputtered: "I don't care. Charlton Heston is the head of the National Rifle Association. He deserves whatever anyone says about him."

I have always kinda liked George Clooney even though I knew he was really way out there liberal. He always seemed rather soft-spoken and respectful, despite his way left story telling in his movies.

Plus, even for a man, it's hard to dislike someone as handsome as George Clooney. Even us guys understand that George Clooney is a really good looking man.

But Mr. Clooney lost me with that quote. That's just stinkin' evil, to make fun of a man's Alzheimer's and then when questioned on the statement, defend himself by saying Mr. Heston deserved it because he worked with the National Rifle Association.

For me, George Clooney will be henceforth and evermore spoken of as Scumbag George Clooney.

I'm sure Scumbag George Clooney will be severely upset when he finds out about my views on him, but that's ok. I'm bigger than him, and despite my bad back, I'm sure I could take him in a fight.

There is a legal way to amend the US Constitution, but liberals know that they would never be able to pass an amendment to the Constitution banning privately owned guns, so they try to chip away at it here and there through the actions of activist judges like the cowards they are.

Scumbag George Clooney has also publicly endorsed Barack Obama for President of the US. That is yet another good reason in the growing list of reasons that Barack Obama should not be elected President.

When evil famous horse's behinds like Scumbag George Clooney want you to be President, that cannot be a good thing. (I know it's not Obama's fault that Scumbag George Clooney endorses him.)

And Scumbag George? You and me, buddy. Any time. Any place. Messing up your hair is the least I could do for Mr. Heston. (Though weekends are better for me since I have to work for a living.)

Out Of Touch

Sorry, life keeps messing with my blogging.

BR 549 was the telephone number on Hee-Haw to call Junior Sample's used cars.

I watched a show called The 20 Most Redneck Moments, and they talked about Hee-Haw.

I loved that show, but then again, I'm from Louisiana and I'm male. A TV show with gorgeous, scantily clad women and lots of corny jokes. The show was perfectly aimed at knuckleheads like me.

They didn't specifically mention Junior's Used Cars, but that was always one of my favorite skits.

Guess you had to be there, but that show was WAY funnier than Obama putting his foot in his mouth again this week.

I guess I'm just a bitter man, therefore I cling to my religion and my guns 'cause the gov'ment ain't doing nothing for me.

Back in the days when I worked for Delta Air Lines, we used to joke about the lack of "pats on the back" or pretty much no acknowledgement for a job well done, so we would always joke that THIS would be the year Delta would give us a bonus. This bonus would be given by our supervisor and would consist entirely of Three "Attaboys."

So, in the spirit of the company bonus that never seemed to arrive, to Olga, Attagirl!, Attagirl!, Attagirl!

It's more than we ever got.

The Future Is Now (And a trivia question at the end)

Even engineers need to move forward and learn new stuff.

Though I'm an electrical engineer and I have an almost uncontrollable compulsion to want to know how things work, believe me when I tell you that if it's not something I'm interested in, I couldn't care less how it works or how to work it.

Example: cell phones. I HATE talking on telephones. I always have. I have a cell phone because they come in handy if I break down somewhere. But don't ask me how to send a text message, ok? Why should I sit there fiddling with typing in words on a number keypad when I could simply dial your number and talk in real time? Duh.

Another example: iPods. Don't get me wrong, I love music as much as anyone I have ever known, but I was doing fine with my portable CD player until Lovely Wife bought me a REAL iPod last year. I still have trouble fiddling with that little gizmo, despite loving the convenience of having every song from every CD I own on it. (Actually my trouble is with iTunes, not the iPod itself. iTunes seems very, very counter-intuitive to me, whereas operating the iPod itself is easy.)

The other night, though, I was dragged kicking and screaming a few steps closer to the 21st century when I decided to try to put some pieces of video onto my ipod.

Should be simple, right?

Wrong.

I found some videos on YouTube from Gibson, the good folks who made my Les Paul gee-tar, and wanted to download a couple of these nifty videos of the Gibson factory and a new guitar they released last year. (Here's a link to the Gibson web site and one of the videos online that will play on your computer, if you have a decently fast connection. This was the type of thing I wanted on my iPod, because I'm a dweeb like that.)

To make a long story short, I FINALLY found how to download video like this from YouTube to my computer, and then convert it into a format that my iPod can understand and play, and then be able to actually find these videos on the ipod and play them.

So, several hours after beginning what I thought would be a simple quest, I was up way past my bed time ('cause I'm like a dog with a bone once I get started) and have some nifty videos of the Gibson and Fender guitar factories and some selected videos of people playing this new Les Paul guitar I'd like to buy some day.

Moral of the Story: Even electrical engineers have to beat their heads against the wall when trying to learn new things about technical devices.

But by-golly, the lesson on videos to my iPod is learned, and learned well.

I think it's funny to see people do the two-thumbed typing on their phones to send text messages. In engineering school, we all developed a similar skill using our Hewlett Packard RPN calculators, to enter numbers and do the funtions on the calculator. Me and my fellow geeks at work still have this skill - when used on a scientific calculator.

At least that skill is useful, and should translate to me being able to email if someone puts a gun to my head and demands, on point of death, that I send a text message. That's the only possible way I see myself ever sending a text message, but who knows, last week I didn't see myself wanting to put YouTube videos on my iPod either.

But seriously, if you want to text message me, just dial my dang number (my number is BR 549) and let's talk, OK? Saves us both time, effort, and annoyance.


















(I'll give three "atta boy!"s or "atta girl!"s to the first commenter to tell me whose phone number really was BR 549. Lovely Wife and Lovely Daughtgers are not allowed to play as this will seem to be cheating, though I know that Lovely Wife does actually know the answer to this.)

OK, ACLU, You Can Start Prying Now, or, Charlton Heston Has Died

What can one really say about a man as great as Charlton Heston? The man has done almost everything.

Heck, he's even way cooler 'n Chuck Norris, and that's cool baby.

Let's review for our younger readers, some of Mr. Heston's escapades (with pictures!):

As a young man, Charlton Heson was quite the looker; and this photo is from WAY before he had to start wearing toupees.

Charlton Heson made an entire sea part to save a whole race of people, the Jews, from being annihilated by the evil Egyptians. (While I still have trouble making a straight part in my hair every morning.)

Charlton Heston spoke to God face to face.

Then, after Charlton Heston and God whittled the commandments down to a mere ten, he had to open up a can of you-know-what on the sinners who started worshiping a golden calf in his absense.

Charlton Heston single-handedly destroyed the Roman Empire when he won the first ever drag race for pink slips and won. Of course, this was 2000 years before cars were invented, but he had THE baddest chopped chariot in the whole Roman Empire. (Side note, he also proved the truism that white horses are faster than black ones.)

Charlton Heston also destroyed the world's belief in evolution by outsmarting an entire race of apes. His greatest quote regarding all of this was when he growled, "Take your hands off me, you damned dirty ape!" This saying still has great power against any snotty apes 'til this day, and can cause heart attacks in them when repeated. Especially sensitive are apes that look strangely like Roddy McDowell.

Charlton Heston single-handedly saved the entire population of California during and after a horrific Earthquake in the 1970s. He regretted this action until the day he died.

Charlton Heston also, with the help of the National Rifle Association, fought valiantly against the forces of communism, liberalism, the ACLU, and various other evil-doers in trying to take away our Second Amendment to the US Constitution gun rights which promised that "...the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed,"
Apparently the forces of communism, liberalism, the ACLU, and various other evil-doers are dumb as rocks and wilfully try to ignore the simple statement "...the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed," and are consequently infringing all over the place, the rights of law abiding Americans to own guns.

So, now that Charlton Heston has died, this is the ACLU's best and final chance to take the gun out of Mr. Heston's cold, dead fingers.

But I doubt the pansies and wimps at the ACLU could find the strength to even take a gun from a dead man as great as Charlton Heston.

Sorry to see you go, Charlton. We'll miss you and your stalwart belief in America as it was meant to be.

Barbarella, aka Hanoi Jane, Endorses Obama for President

The other night, Jane Fonda was leaving a restaurant in New York, and was questioned by several waiting reporters as she made her way on the sidewalk to her limo:

REPORTER 1: "Jane, who are you voting for?"

REPORTER 2: "Who gets your vote?"

FONDA: "Obama."

REPORTER 2: "Oh, my God. Heaven help us all."

Obviously the second reporter was an Obama supporter who instantly realized that having the endorsement of a notorious American traitor is not good for the home team.

This story was first reported by the New York gossip web site TMZ.

Well, I thought that was funny anyway. Reporters have hastened to perform damage control to the Obama campaign after it came out that Mr. Obama and his family have attended the church of a long-time racist and anti-Semite for twenty years, and after the man retires, becomes an advisor to the Obama campaign. But having Jane Fonda declare her support for the man is unconscionable in their eyes.

Even Obama supporters know that Jane Fonda has cooties.

Sweet.

I Have G.A.S.

Guitar Acquisition Syndrome

I "borrowed" this photo of the actual guitar for sale at Sweetwater Music.

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I have several problems in wanting this guitar:
1. I don't have a spare $1400 to buy it.
2. It's a limited edition, so this spiffy blue one won't be around but a couple of months.
3. I want it really, really bad. (So bad that I'm willing to butcher the Queen's English even more than usual.)
4. This limited production blue model will be gone before I can save up $1400 to buy it, and this bothers me.

I know it's sinful to have lust in my heart.

I'm so ashamed.

Anybody got $1400 I can borrow?

I had a blue guitar once, and blue guitars simply sound better than other colors.