Miasmatic Review

I think I'm done.

Now Ogre of Ogre’s Politics and Views wants to be a member of the Bad Example Clan. Okay, I’m going to vouch for him; I kind of have to, I am a thrall of Ogre. (At least for another 3 months. Hey I’m fickle)

For Ogre, I think there should be a special rule, if a member of the Bad Example Clan tags him with a meme; he actually has to do it. Nah… that takes away the fun of watching him spend more time working on avoiding answering one.

I need a voucher book refill please.

CalTechGirl of Not Exactly Rocket Science wants to be in the Bad Example Clan as well. I was thinking of not vouching for her, I mean that’s less inheritance for me, right? Then I realized I wasn’t going to get anything anyway so sure, why the heck not.

I’ll vouch for her, she’s helped me with HTML, kept me occupied while drunk inebriated, and has entertained me with her humor.

I think I’m reaching the end of my vouchers. Harvey may end up revoking my rights and privileges (yes, there are some) of being a member of the Bad Example Family.

It is important, dammit!

When I was distributing work this morning, I noticed one of my minions had flowers on her desk and some congratulations cards. This is one of my minions that I get along really well with and talk to on a daily basis. I’ve even been to her house for a party and helped her husband assemble a wooden outside play tower. Trying to rummage through my dysfunctional memory to pull up what she was being congratulated for, I walked up to her.

Curiosity was getting the better of me, I asked her what the flowers and cards where for. She responded that her mother was just being overly emotional. Okay, I’m lost. I know her mother; she’s not that type. Pushing for more details, I was able to get the truth from her. She had finished her courses for an associate’s degree. She graduated just yesterday. I congratulated her and she just shrugged it off and said, “It’s no big deal”. If it had been someone else, I would say she just didn’t like the attention, but this minion does like the limelight.

My minion doesn’t feel that this is a big accomplishment because it took her four years. Four years in which she raised a child (currently 5 years old), maintained a home and worked full time (putting in as much OT as she could.). She could only take one to two classes a semester. And she finished in 4 years, yes about twice as long as normal, but with all that added responsibility. I tried to explain to her that yes it is, it is a very big deal.

When a kid right out of high school goes to college, they don’t have the other financial obligations an adult has (Mortgage, Childcare, etc). They don’t have to take care of a kid and they don’t have a house to maintain. Admittedly, there are some that do, but they are the exception, not the rule. I went to college on a full ride, I worked on breaks for drinking money (I’m not going to lie about what it was for.), but I had no responsibilities. I took 18 hours of classes each semester. During the summers, I took some classes at the local community college so I could graduate a semester early. I wanted to get into the workforce and be a productive member of society. Yet, I think what she did warrants more respect than what I did.

I’d love to go back to school to get my masters in law. Unfortunately, it’s just not financially realistic for me to do right now. Any reputable law school in the area would require me to be fulltime the first year and I can’t afford to not work and support my family. Knowing that, I look at her accomplishment and can’t help but to be proud of her. For fighting the odds to better herself, to make life better for her family, I respect her.

I told her all of this and she still doesn’t see what the big deal is. “It’s only an associate degree,” she says. No, it’s not. It is a college degree. It is more than a high school diploma and it’s her first step to a bachelor's degree. And yes, she is planning on continuing to get her bachelor’s.

Even though she doesn’t understand why others think this was an accomplishment, I still wanted to recognize her accomplishment. Today I took her to lunch and refused to let her pay for her meal. No, it’s not a lot, but it’s all the company will allow me to do. (We have a stringent gift giving policy.) She appreciated it, but still felt I was making an issue out of nothing. She is wrong.

I'll Vouch for them... if they want it.

I wonder how many vouchers I can give out before Harvey is going to suspend my right to vouch for people. Anyway, there are two more bloggers that want to get into the Bad Example Clan. Richmond of One for the Road and Laughing Wolf of The Laughing Wolf.

I’ve met both of these bloggers and I’m traveling in about three weeks down to the Wolf Park to visit again. I think both of them would fit just fine into the Bad Example Clan.

Now we just have to see if my vouching for someone is a help or a hindrance. I mean I see bloggers asking other BE Family members to vouch for them, butthe don't approach me. I know, it's because I'm shy and they don't want to scare me.

Everything you say can and will be used against you.

I’ve discovered the truth of what has happened to Graumagus of Frizzen Sparks. It appears that the Frizzen Spouse © has gone and made her own blog. So we welcome Maranda of Maranda Under Stress. As I have recently discovered, having to bloggers under one roof with one computer seriously cuts back on your blogging time.

Now in a little about her post she states that I called her Maranda as I thought it was her name. That isn’t correct. When I first met her I was gung-ho about going into Law Enforcement. So I started calling her Miranda as in Miranda Rights. (MIRANDA v. ARIZONA, 384 U.S. 436 (1966), You know: “You have the right to remain silent…”)

Now to be honest I did think that her name was Maranda, but that’s not why I called her that. I was just hoping she'd excercise her right. ;)

I Want to Join the Bad Example Clan Because

Why do I want to be in the Bad Example Clan? Because I am the one and only unwanted stump in the Bad Example Family. By joining all the online organizations I can find, I can fool myself into believing that people actually like me and want me around. My psychologically unstable personality dictates that I must join, especially since (in Harvey’s own words) I’m already a member of the Bad Example family they have to let me in.

This is a good thing, I would hate to have to beg people to vouch for me. I think I’d end up sitting in the corner all by myself smearing lipstick on my face while I wrote names on my list. Well okay I wouldn’t do that because A) I could never find a shade of lipstick I liked, er wait I mean I’d never wear lipstick. 2) Writing a list just sounds like work D) I’d probably be too drunk to write.

(It’s a joke people; I don’t wear lipstick nor make lists… Really, I don’t!)

Do I count?

Eric of Straight White Guy talks about his brother making a 30 mm cannon, at the end of it he asks “I mean, c’mon… how many friends do you have who own their own artillery?...” Reading that I instantly thought of three people, four counting myself.

I’m sure by now all of you are familiar with the Howling Jezebel, my half scale mortar that I use with the mortar maidens. Of course, this isn’t a cannon, but it is still artillery. It can launch a cement filled pop can over a half a mile. Someday I’m going to get to test that out; I just have to find someone that will let me launch cement filled pop cans on their property. I’m so used to having it around the house, that I don’t think twice about it. Nor do I find it unusual that I actually own a piece of artillery. Then again, I don’t find it unusual that I have more swords than firearms in my house, and I’m currently up to twelve firearms counting black powder.

Having items like that around really distorts your sense of “normal”. Once I upset some females at work because they where talking about people breaking into houses and I said, “I’m not worried about it, I sleep with a battle axe.” One of the females gasped and said, “You shouldn’t talk about Ktreva like that!” After I was finished laughing I explained that no, I really have a real battle-axe next to my bed (well I did at that time, I know have a Roman Gladius). I don’t think about it too often, but I have weapons all over the house. Guns, swords, knives, axes, daggers, flails, pole arms and artillery, now I’m wondering if people who come to my house get a little nervous with all the various accoutrements of violence around.

Anyway, I went off on a tangent there. The other three people I know that own artillery are all also re-enactors. I guess we are a “special” breed. Oh and all the artillery we own is from the French and Indian war to the Civil War. Nothing with modern shells, maybe that disqualifies us from Eric’s question.

She actually wants in?

Susie of Practical Penumbra wants to join the Bad Example Clan. She’s looking for people to vouch for her character. Yet again, she has over looked me as a regular reader. That’s fine, there is a reason I’m known as the unwanted stump.

I’ll vouch for Susie. I like her blog, and she’s good reading. Her tails from the workplace make me feel better that I’m not the only one that has management issues. However, I think she’s a lot nicer to her minions employees than I am

UPDATE: Apparently she didn't over look me, I must have over looked the link. If she had linked to me under Bad I probably would have found it. :)

What was I doing?

Have you ever been so pre-occupied with something you can’t think about anything else? What about if that something isn’t very important or even urgent?

That’s me today. My brain is so wrapped around re-enacting I cannot think clearly. All day I’ve been thinking of up coming trade shows and the schedule of events for this year. I’m also pre-occupied with all the small details, nothing big. Stuff like for the first time in 7 years changing my facial hair for my character, getting a different style of hat, figuring out what the cheapest/smelliest whisky I can find is to pass off as rot gut I’m distilling. The thing is that my normal re-enacting season doesn’t even start until the last weekend in April, and my first pre-season Trade Show February 25 and 26. I’d say this is part of the rondyflu, but I don’t think it is. There is no urge to be re-enacting, I'm just planing on re-enacting.

I’m just curious if I’m the only one that gets this way or is this something common with other people. Well, probably a different subject, but you know what I mean.

Jebus, The Musical!

A couple of weeks ago T1G told me he was thinking of going into the theater. I had thought he was just joking around. Then another friend sends me a link, a link that was most disturbing. Jebus… The Musical. HOLY CRAP! He did it! He made his dream of acting come true. We all know he has a Jebus complex. This might explain his mood right now.

Jebus will survive.

Okay, this clip starts pretty bad… goes to worse… and then towards the end it’s down right funny. Make sure to watch the whole thing, not just because I did, but also because if you don’t you’ll miss the best part. It’s not very long.

This will make you think.

This may be old, but I hadn’t seen it before this week. Since I haven’t seen it on any other blogs I thought I would share it with you all. The instructions are in Chinesse or something so here they are in Engrish er English.

River IQ Test

The object is to get everyone across the river.

Everybody has to cross the river, but there are rules:

A. Only 2 people on the raft at a time.
2. The father can not stay with any of the daughters without their mother’s presence (or he will beat the snot out of them).
D. The mother can not stay with any of the sons without their father’s presence (or she will beat the snot out of them).
4. The thief (striped shirt) can not stay with any family member if the Policeman is not there. (The thief will beat the snot out of a family member)
5. Only the Father, the Mother and the Policeman know how to operate the raft.
6. To start click on the big blue circle on the right.
7. To move the people click on them. To move the raft click on the handle. (Red circles)

It is possible, once you figure out a couple of small things it will get easier. It took me about 15 minutes to figure it out the first time and I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed. The above picture is shot from when I figured it out.

It's the final showdown!

Have you ever wondered what would happen if two heroes or super villains from different movies, TV shows or comics fought against each other? Well if you have, I then I have the video clip for you.

The ultimate showdown!

I will warn you the very catchy tune will ear worm you. Ktreva, Clone and I have been walking around for the past 24 hours humming it.

Friday Night Blues

Since I’ve been hogging the computer all week doing blog maintenance, working a super secret project, and looking for my fun Saturday video clips, I’m turning the computer over to Ktreva. I’m really wishing I could justify spending the money on a laptop right now.

Now I'm going to go play with clone and see how much damage I can do while drinking. Remember, when I drink and play with clone... history lessons are taught.

Playing dirty.

The best thing about having a beautiful wife is that you can look AND touch. There’s just something about admiring a beautiful woman that makes me smile. Throw in that when this woman walks by I can smack her on the arse and not be slapped it is even better. Well a smack, pinch or grab… I’m known to do any one of those actions at a given time. For the last seven years Ktreva never complained about it, well unless I was a little too rough. Now all of a sudden she must have decided that I’m no longer allowed to touch.

A couple of weeks ago she informed me she needed new jeans. Off she went and bought three pairs. I didn’t think anything of it. She had been wearing them around and they looked good on her. Between you and me, there is nothing sexier then a woman in a tight pair of jeans. The way it enhances her womanly figure just gets my motor running. The curve of the hips, the swell of bottom, and the roundness of the legs are all enough to drive me wild. I’d rather have a woman with a good behind in tight jeans then a big-breasted woman. I guess I’m weird that way. And no hip huggers… they destroy the natural beauty that is woman. Hip huggers through off the natural lines and curves of a female.

Sorry, got off track there, back to my point. Ktreva is walking around in her new jeans looking good. I couldn’t help myself, winding up and with the back of my hand; I let a playful slap to her bottom go. OUCH!!!!! I pull my hand back and it feels like something stung my finger. A white spot has formed on one of my fingernails where I hit. I look closer at her new jeans and realized something; she has beads all over the pockets of her jeans!

I thought they where just decorative little designs, nope these are metal studs sewn through out the back pockets in a design. She armored her arse!!! Her butt was firm before, but now it’s a tank! (Hard, not the size of!) It’s an impenetrable fortress against groping, pinching and smacking! UNFAIR!

Ktreva of course is laughing about the whole thing. I’m nursing my now bruised fingers and trying to shake the sting out. She’s laughing at me. Apparently, there is humor in my pain for her. All I can think is “Denied my husbandly right to play grab arse with my wife.”

So let this be a lesson to you guys, look before you smack. Apparently, they are marketing Armor Arse jeans to the women folk out there.

Wife Baiting?

In the post that Sarah of That’s Not Very Nice wrote welcoming Ktreva to the Blogosphere, I left the comment telling her to “Stop wife baiting”. She bugged me to tell her what wife baiting was. Since I am a surly arsehole I refused to tell her. She took it upon herself to try to figure out what it was and tried on three different posts to continue the wife baiting. Unfortunately she didn’t have it right.

Most of us know what a Troll is. Those nasty commenters that come to a blog for no other reason than to leave nasty and snarky comments trying to get a response from the blogger and their regular commenters.

Troll baiting is when you post something or make a comment that the whole purpose is to get a response from a Troll.

Wife Baiting, which is much duller than it sounds, is when someone does something to encourage a wife to continue doing something to the husbands chagrin.

Sarah had encouraged Ktreva to continue blogging, thus giving me less computer time. She was wife baiting. Unfortunately she took it to mean that Wife Baiting is when you do something to get the husband in trouble. Why would I care about that? I get myself in plenty of trouble on my own, why do you think I have to keep buying Ktreva jewelry.

Sarah, upset at her valiant attempts being flushed down the drain, finally resulted in the most loathsome of all activities. She posted a comment on her own blog under the guise of it coming from me. For shame Sarah, for shame…

I do have to be honest; it was fun egging her on. Especially when she was getting frustrated. I feel sorry for the next blogger she decides to be “not very nice” with.

I'm also starting to wonder if she doesn't have an unhealthy obsession with me. ;)

Another reason to hate phones.

This is a little story I’ve held off telling for two and a half weeks. It’s a valuable lesson to all of you drinkers out there. Some of you may recall there was a blogmeet here in northern Illinois on January 8. It was the much talked about Fritzfest. If you missed it, it was your loss. I had been drinking a little and we were talking about Bloggers that weren’t there.

Someone (I believe it was Tammi but I could be wrong) said we should call Army Wife Toddler Mom. In my alcohol soaked brain, this sounded like an excellent idea. Unfortunately we didn’t have a way to do it. Wait…. I have a cell phone, if I only had her number. At that point someone (I believe T1G, but I could be wrong) said “I have her number, it’s ###-###-####” (Except there where numbers and not the number symbol.)

I quickly call her up on the most hated of all electronic devices I own and precede to talk to her for a whole 5 minutes. Then we played pass the cell phone to all the bloggers. 45 minutes later and half a drained battery I get it back. It’s hot to the touch from all the bloggers that have been holding it to their head. (Yes when I got home I hit it with Clorox wipes) I put it away and didn’t think twice about, until the next day.

I’m at work, and my cell phone rings. The ringer on my phone is the MP3 of Foo Fighter’s Best of You, and it is loud. I’m fumbling through my coat trying to get to it. We’re not supposed to have cell phones on at work and I had forgotten to turn it off. I look at the caller ID and don’t recognize the number. I’m thinking someone has a wrong number, not just because I didn’t recognize the number, but also because no one calls me on my cell phone.

Upon answering the phone I have this conversation:

Contagion, “Hello”

Caller, “Hey, it’s me.”

Contagion, “uh… who’s me?”

Caller, “Army Wife Toddler Mom”

Contagion, “I’m at work, this isn’t a good time.”

AWTM, “T1G?”

Contagion, “No… This is Contagion.”

AWTM, “Oh, I thought this was T1G. I thought you called on his cell phone.”

Contagion, “No, I called you on my call phone.”

AWTM, “Well this is what you get for drunk dialing! I didn’t want to talk to you!”
And then she promptly hung up on me.

The moral of this story is: If you’re going to drunken dial, use someone else’s phone. If you don’t the people you called will hit redial at the most inopportune times.

No words.

SON OF A… All right, I think I’m going to be sent back to sensitivity class again. Not that I’ve done anything yet even remotely to get a talking to, let alone sent to sensitivity class. Nope, but by the end of the month I may just explode in a ball of anger that would rival Hiroshima.

Some of you may remember reading my post about how I suck am not good at my job, according to some people. They wanted me to use these other people’s reports to track data, because it was so much better then mine. Then last Friday I went off on how I was instructed to use these reports and I thought there might be a change.

I wasn’t wrong, but it wasn’t the change I was expecting.

I reverted to using my system for information on Monday; everything seemed to be going better. That was until today. As soon as our morning state of the office meeting started one of the Assistant Managers announced that my counterpart from the other office came up with a great new report. It’s so great it is going to change drastically how both offices are going to be able to track data.

I was skeptical. My counterpart hasn’t had a good, original idea since she got her position. Sitting back, I was waiting to see what she had created or at least what new method she was using to retrieve data. Sitting back in my chair, bracing myself, I waited for her to start. She was nervous and barely made eye contact with anyone. She wasn’t used to being in the spotlight in these meetings, so this wasn’t unusual. She started:

“This report will allow us to track volumes. We will be able to track over all volumes, aging, how many items we lost cycle on and how many we will lose if we don’t close it today. It will also show us how many inquiries we handled on the same day we received them.”

Okay, my interest is piqued. This is sounding good, I have a report that does all that, but it’s a little labor intensive. If she’s found a faster, better way to do it, YAY ME! Anything to make my job better or easier I will gladly embrace.

Imagine the surprise on my face when she unveils her “new” report and it is the report I created and have used for 3 years. Now imagine, if you will, not only a look of shock, but also my complete and utter inability to speak a word. My counterpart is getting praise and applause, FOR MY FARKING REPORT! Then the other offices assistant manager put match to fuse. She said, “Contagion, what do you think of this report? Will you start using it right away?”

Slowly and deliberately, I pushed my chair back from the table.

Slowly I stood up, head down looking at my stack of paper work, with this “new” report right on top. Leaning on the table with clenched fists, knuckles white and veins throbbing, I look up. Making eye contact with first my counterpart, who diverted her look, and then the assistant manger, I quietly, very quietly, say, “I think this is a great report, it has its issues, but it is better then anything else that is available. The person, who created this, in my opinion, should be congratulated on all the hard work and effort to create such a report…” The assistant manager is smiling. “Will I start using this report? No. No, I will not START using this report. I can’t, it’s not possible. To start using it would mean that I’d have to stop using it again. See, I’ve been using this report, in one form or another, for three years now. I created this report 3 years ago. I’ve been bringing it to this meeting every day, except when you told me to stop a couple of weeks ago because it wasn’t good enough.”

“Now, today, when you think someone else created it, it is a good report? I’m not saying that my counterpart stole this report; you can’t steal something that was given to you. I am not even saying she is taking false credit for creating it, I honestly think you just assumed she did. Now I will blame her for not saying she didn’t create it. Right now, I think it is in my best interest if I excuse myself from this meeting.”

At that point, I grabbed my reports and left the room. I was so pissed that I didn’t raise my voice once. There was no yelling, no screaming, no swearing, I was calm and collected. I went back to my desk and sat staring at my monitor for a while. My hands where shaking in a rage… yes, a rage… so badly I couldn’t type.

I’m curious what is going to become of this, because now all the management in the office knows exactly what’s going on.

Bet you didn't know that!

Now, put your mind in the gutter and re-read that. It's even more amusing

As blatently stolen from TIG.

Arise from your grave!

It looks like Graumagus of Miasmatic Review Annex Frizzen Sparks finally decided to get off his lazy arse and update my other his blog. Since he’s gone and proven he’s not dead, the judge ruled that I had to return the property.

Go over, welcome the guy back to the land of the living, oh, and watch out for trolls. Apparently, they multiplied while he was away.

Wolf Fest!

Laughing Wolf is putting on Wolf Fest (AKA Howl on the Prowl). Wolf Fest a blogmeet with a tour of the wolf park on February 18. (ie Wolf Fest... get it? Laughing WOLF, WOLF park... Wolf fest?!?! There you go!) All the details are in these three posts.

Ktreva and I where able to get a sitter for the boys, thus we are going to be there. I know I had said I wasn’t going to do any more blogmeets due to how uncomfortable I get around people. However, Ktreva really likes wolves. She thinks they are “pretty and cute”. Since she really wanted to go, and she had done all the nice stuff for me last weekend, I figured I would just push down my shyness one more time and go.

Therefore, if you want to see what I’ve heard is a really nice wolf park, you want to meet the woman that jumped on the grenade for the rest of you ladies, or if demented enough actually to want to meet me this is your chance. Because this is definitely, the last blogmeet I’m doing…

… until the next one.

Trend setting.

It looks like I started some kind of trend at work. All day yesterday I was talking about the Winchester and a couple of my minions went with to pick it up. When we returned to work the minions kept talking about getting Firearm Owners Identification (FOID) cards. You need a FOID card in order to legally purchase and own a firearm in the State of Illinois.

Ktreva needs to get hers just in case there is a problem and so I can get her a pistol of her own. Also, just in case something should happen to me, there would be no legal problems with the firearms we already own. Yesterday I told my minions I was taking Ktreva to go apply for a FOID card today on lunch. They decided that they all where going to go get theirs at the same time. So today at lunch I’m taking 3-4 minions and Ktreva to go apply for FOID cards.

Then they want to look at the pistols and rifles to see what they want to buy when they finally receive a FOID card. (It can take 3-4 months to be approved). All of them are novice firearm owners so I’m trying to talk them out of buying the hard to maintain and learn to operate style firearms. One of them wants to buy an AK-47 for home defense. For the first time in my life, I uttered the phrase “You’ll shoot your eye out” and meant it. I’m also trying to explain why .44 magnums and semi-autos are not good beginner weapons. I was taught and believe that you are better off buying a revolver in medium to small caliber for your first firearm. Others may disagree, but it’s my opinion and you probably won’t change my mind.

I recommend Revolvers because they are easier to clean and maintain. They are much more forgiving if you get a little neglectful than a semi-auto is. If a semi-auto isn’t cleaned properly, it is more likely to jam or malfunction. The worst I’ve seen a revolver do is have the cylinder not open because the release pin was gummed up. I’ve seen too many semi-autos end up needing serious repair work done because of improper cleaning and storage.

I don’t recommend large caliber just because when a person is first trying to learn to shoot, they need to work on control first. The kick of a large caliber gun may just be a little too intimidating and they may have issues developing control. Why not start with something smaller and working your way up to a larger caliber weapon. Plus if you are going to use it for home defense, as many claim, you don’t want something that is going to blow holes in the side of your house and into your neighbors.

Not that I’m a firearms expert, far from it. I just happen to be the one person they know that has a functioning knowledge of firearms. They trust me and value my opinion. No matter how funny I think it would be to watch one of them try to learn to shoot using the .450 (Yes, four five zero rifle round, not forty-five pistol round) revolver a local store has, I would strongly discourage them from buying it.

Today at work that has been what all the buzz is about. Going and getting FOID cards, looking at handguns and learning to shoot. Every time I turn around I hear someone talking about what kind of gun they want, what they’ve shot and how long before they can buy one. I’ve had some other minions start asking me questions about firearms. They all know I shoot black powder, but apparently they never thought I knew a thing about modern.

I wonder if I can use this on my next work evaluation to fulfill part of my mentoring criteria.

Buying History.

I picked up the Winchester Model 94 today. Boy was I in for a big surprise, of the good kind! First, I had checked the stores website on Sunday, they had it advertised on there for $50.00 less then they charged Ktreva. At first I thought it was a different rifle, but the medallion in the stock kind of gave it away. When I brought this to their attention they refunded her the $50.00 plus tax difference, and apologized for the mistake! How cool was that?

Here she is:

Click to Enlarge

Then I noticed something else about it that I hadn’t really paid attention to when I picked it out. It’s an Illinois Sesquicentennial Commemorative .30-30 carbine. It was made in 1968 to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Illinois’ statehood. It’s never been fired, until I today it doesn’t look like it’s even been cocked! There is not a blemish, scratch or mark on it. It’s in pristine condition. It came in the original box (The box has seen better days) and with the paper work! Check out this registration card!

Click to Enlarge

Again, how cool is that? Fortunately Winchester still has their website up so I was able to register it that way and keep the original warranty card. I don’t know if the gun shop had this thing sitting around for the last 38 years and wasn’t able to sell it or if they bought it off of a guy that had it in his own private collection. Either way I don’t care, it’s mine now!

Now some people might tell me to put this up and never use it. To me that is an insult to such a fine tool. It begs to be shot, to be used. Would you buy a car and never drive it? Would you buy jewelry and never wear it? Well I’m not buying a rifle and not shooting it! The next time I can get some people together to go shooting, it’s going with!

It's a powerful fever!

I’m not doing well, I’m pretty sick. Maybe it is stress that is causing my illness, I don’t know. Last night I barely slept, my illness kept me from being able to calm down and get comfortable. The flu sucks, but I have the worst kind of flu. I have the rondyflu. (Rondyflu: That sick feeling you get in the winter when there are no rendezvous/re-enactments to attend.) I’m sicker THAN (There you go Ragingmom, just for you ;)) a dog.

My last re-enactment was October 15, 16 and 17. That was over three months ago! My first real re-enactment isn’t until April 28, 29 30, that’s 94 days, 14 hours and 44 minutes away (at the time of this writing, No I didn’t calculate that, it’s on my side bar.) That my, fine contaminants, is over 3 months away! I have two trade shows I do coming up, one in February and the other in March. They take the edge off, but it won’t break the fever.

It’s gotten bad too. Just yesterday, when Ktreva was distracted by Clone, I snuck down to the basement. Finding my clothing box, I opened it up. The scent of campfire, black powder and leather came wafting out. A smile spread across my face as my eyes rolled back into my head. Memories came flooding back.

Memories of past re-enactments, of friends, of good times of good food and good spirits filled my brain. Burying my face in my clothes, I took a big whiff. The smells, the glorious and wonderful smells of campfire and grass, of pipe tobacco and bacon, of body odor and funk… Apparently, I had forgotten to wash my clothes after the last re-enactment. Even when you wash them, they will still smell of campfire, pipe tobacco and other woodland scents. Opening the box and smelling that isn’t unusual. Smell what I lovingly refer to as “Arse and funk” can be a very unpleasant surprise.

The sad part is that the rondyflu has sat in so firmly that it didn’t prevent me from going in for a second whiff

Friends, bullets and the dead.

On Sunday, I was able to get together with Wes of Bodrhan (drum) roll, please to go spend sometime at the range. After we had left the house, I received a call on my cell phone from the other world. A faint voice, barely audible spoke to me across the barriers between life and death. The voice said to me, “Contagion, It is I Graumagus.” At this point, it is important that you understand that Graumagus has been dead for the last 2 weeks.

The voice went on to say, “Contagion, how could you plan to go shooting with out inviting your old friend?”

Contagion: “But, Grau, you’re deader then a doornail. It’s not like I could just call you up in the otherworld and invite you.”

Grau: “You mean like I’m calling you now? We dead have phones too you know. We just choose not to use them, much like you.” (Remember Grau is dead so read his parts with a spooky ghost like voice in your head!)

Contagion: “Oh hadn’t thought of that. Anyways, if I had invited you, it’s not as if you could have gone. You’ve been mostly dead for two weeks. You can’t hold a gun in ghost form.”

Grau: “In order to burn powder and throw lead I would re-animate my body and come back as a zombie to shoot.”

Contagion: “You do remember I have an unnatural hatred of zombies? In fact, I have plans on what to do in case zombies rise from the ground. Plus you smelled bad enough before, I don’t want to think of what two weeks of rot on top of it would smell like.”

Grau: “Shite, I forgot about that zombie issue you have, AND I DIDN’T SMELL WHEN I WAS ALIVE! Well, just get over your hatred of zombies for one day… and I’ll wear something that doesn’t stink.” (It’s not remotely amusing if you’re not reading Grau’s parts in a spooky ghost voice!)

Contagion: “No promises, but okay as long as you bring the Colt 1991 .45. If you don’t have that, then all bets are off. I’ll turn your skull into a candy dish!”

Grau: “Deal! I’ll meet you there.”

When Wes and I arrived there was no signs of an uprising or the dead walking the earth so we sat down and started shooting. Shortly after, in walks Grau’s surprisingly well preserved corpse. He brought with him his .44 mag and the mandated .45.

During a shooting break, we all had a chance to talk. Grau said he had two choices; he could have fixed his blog or gone shooting. He deciding that shooting was more important, however he was going to blame me for him not updating his blog. Sure, blame me I didn’t force that gun into his hand!

Most of the time there I spent trying to get the sites adjust on my pistol. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the correct tools to do it. I think I’m just going to have to pay a gunsmith to site it in for me. I went through 500 rounds trying to site it and I was just not getting the sweet spot. My clusters weren’t horrible, just not in the right area.

After a couple of hours, the powers needed to re-animate his corpse took its toll on him. He had to leave; now this was at 2:30. After drive time and all he should have been home around 4:00, plenty of time to work on Frizzen Sparks… notice nothing new. Yea, my fault my arse. Lazy bastard! Wes and I stuck around to burn through the last of the ammo. It would be a sin to go home with perfectly good ammo.

I also was able to talk with some of the other shooters there, swap stories, and talk about our firearms and such. One guy was shooting a real nice replica .45 caliber Henry rifle. (This is the first lever action that was used in the Civil War) He was pretty darn good; he had bull’s eye clusters at 25 yards.

After shooting Wes and I hit “The Vaj” aka Vaj’s Garage. It’s a small bar just south of Bristol, WI. Great food, cold beer, wonderful atmosphere, and yet another bar that I like that is too far away from home. We watched part of the Steelers molesting beating the Broncos while eating our burgers. Yet another bar that has Michelob Amber bock on draft, nice and icy cold too. After we finished eating, we headed home to our families.

When I got home, I had to consol Boopie. He’s a Denver Bronco fan and was really hoping they would go to the Super Bowl this year. It wouldn’t have been so bad if it had been a close game, but at 34-17, he took an emotional whipping. He’ll get over it. Its part of following a sport, you’re team doesn’t always win.

Other then consoling Boopie, it was a good day. I had a lot of fun, no stress and was able to spend some time with good friends… even if one smelt of rot and decay.

My own cult... hmmm.

You Are 90% Weird

You're more than quirky, you're downright strange. But you're also strangely compelling, like a cult leader.

As found over at That's Not Very Nice.

I'm a lucky man

Have I mentioned how great my wife is lately? No, well she is. You want to know why? After reading my post about Winchester closing down, do you know what she did? She took me out today and bought me a Winchester model 94 .30-30. How can you not love a woman that trusts you enough to buy you a firearm? She definitely is the greatest!

Since I was out and about and obviously someplace I could buy ammo, I figured I should. Especially since I’m going to go shooting tomorrow.

I got all of that for under $100.00. For those of you trying to count, and I know at least a couple of you are, that is: 250 .357 rounds, 150 .38 special rounds and 150 .22LR rounds. That makes a grand total of 550 rounds. That should last about 2.5 hours at the rate I shoot.

Jealous, aren’t you? (of both the wife and the ammo.)

Force Farce

You always hear about those feuds where two neighbors don’t get along. Now imagine if you will if Obi-wan Kenobi and Jareth the Goblin King not only lived next door to each other, but also were feuding. To make it even more interesting, lets just pretend that Jareth has given up his Goblin king ways and has become a goat farmer. (Hey, it could happen!)

Jareth’s goats just won’t stay out of Obi-wan’s yard. This has been an on going feud for a while now. I bet your just wondering what that might look like. WELL I HAVE THE ANSWER FOR YOU!

Thanks to a blogless friend of mine that keeps sending me all these things.

Watch out for that cord!

A couple of weeks ago I saw a blog post regarding a kid at Northern Michigan University making the leaning tower of Pisa out of Jenga blocks. At the time I thought it was just another stupid stunt done by college students and blew it off. It hadn’t crossed my mind again… until today.

I can’t tell if that is a real event or staged. If it’s staged, the acting is horrible. If it’s real, that guy has to be the worse reporter I’ve ever scene and dumb as a box of rocks to boot.

Either way it was funny as all hell.

See... I are S-M-R-T smart.

Get Your Drunk Personality at LiquidGeneration.com!

I figured if T1G could handle this quiz, so could I.

And he was the violent drunk!

I guess I never learn.

JUST KIDDING! After last weeks shenanigans, I think I'm just going to enjoy my libations off line tonight. Henceforth I'm officially turning over the computer to my loverly wife Ktreva.

Another American Icon dead.

Talk about an end of an era. Winchester has gone Out with a Bang.

The worst part about the whole thing is that I can just see anti-gun fanatics dancing in the streets at the news of this. To me I feel sad. It makes me want to run out to the local gun shops and buy one right away, if I could afford it, just to make sure I could have one.

I love the Winchester model 94 .30-30 lever action. Graumagus of Frizzen Sparks (Deceased) had one that he let me fire. It was a great rifle, easy to shoot and damn accurate. For those of you that aren’t sure what that is, think the stereotypical cowboy rifle.

Thanks to Og of Neanderpundit for the news.

When the wrong button is pushed.

It happened finally. After weeks of crap being dumped upon me, I snapped. Don’t worry my fine contaminants; I still have a job. I said I snapped, not I went postal. I can’t go into too much detail on here for numerous reasons. It all started off with upper management questioning a decision I made. Fine, I don’t have a problem with that. They just wanted to know why I did what I did. I explained it’s because I didn’t have the resources/tools to do the job. They didn’t understand what I meant, so I gave this example: Sliding a piece of paper across the desk. “Your goal is to sign this piece of paper in under 30 seconds. It’s an easy enough goal. However, you can not use a pen or pencil, the signature has to be clear and legible.”

When I was told that isn’t possible. I explained yes it is, Just very difficulty with a bit of sacrifice and a lot of pain. They asked me then if I didn’t have the resources/tools to get do the job, then how did I meet the goal last year. I responded with, “I made them. Take a hammer away from a blacksmith and he can’t do his job. Now he may be able find a makeshift hammer that just barely works. Yet this hammer may be just good enough to make a better hammer. Then he may use that better hammer to make an even better hammer. Now he can do his job properly again. That is what I did, I found makeshift resources, used them to create better resources, and then even better resources. Finally I was able to do my job properly.” Fortunately they actually understood that analogy.

So the decision they where questioning is why I used resources outside the norm instead of the ones I was given this year. When I explained that instead of spending months starting over, I went to the reliable resources and tapped them. While they are getting the job done, I’m making new resources to take over. They understood that, and wanted me to send an e-mail going into detail the whole process. Which I sent out, to all management in my office, VP’s and Executive Directors explaining my actions, including hard data to support my decisions.

Then I was asked a question about our inventory. I told them that I didn’t know and I’ll have an answer for them as soon as possible. In the past when they asked I had always had the information for them with in minutes. When they asked me why it would take so long, it was then that my gasket blew.

Contagion: “Why? You want to know why? Do you really want to know why? Because you have me using the other offices reports and flows to do my job. It takes them two weeks to get this information; I can get it in a matter of minutes. But my way sucks, so I had to use their glorious system that was so much better. You want your data, I’ll start running it now and you can have it as soon as I get it, probably about a week.”

Upper Manager: “Why would you switch flows to something slower? If your system works better, why not use that?”

Contagion: “I’m not going to point fingers to the person sitting to my right or her counterpart, but they said how great this other system was and wanted me to use that. Since I report to those people, that is what I had to do.”

Now my Asst Manager is glaring at me. If looks could kill my head would have exploded like a watermelon being hit with a .50 cal rifle.

Asst. Manager: “When did I say that, and why didn’t you say your system was better.”

Contagion: “Last week, and I did. I said that I can get the same data faster, but everyone was all enthralled with my counterparts `success’ that they ignored me. I’m used to that. I could tell you that your chair is on fire and everyone would ignore me. When someone else points out the chair is on fire, then I get yelled at for not pointing out the fire.”

Asst Manager: “I don’t think we understood…”

Contagion: “Maybe if you guys weren’t busy telling me how everyone else is better at my job then I and listen to me, then you might have.”

Now both my Manager and Asst. Manager is looking at me as if I just physically assaulted my Asst. Manager. My Asst. Managers eyes where filled with the flames of anger. The conversation went on, but you get the idea. It was not pleasant for anyone else but me. Hell, I even made the comment in the middle of it, “Well there goes my raise for the year.”

The funny thing is that I had to do a self-evaluation today. I hate these things. If the person I report to/who supervises me, actually did their job, they would know how I’m doing. I’m not expecting a raise this year, not that I didn’t meet my goals or that I don’t think I deserve one. It’s because the person giving me the review thinks I suck. Then again I don’t think the above conversation helped any.

She also wasn’t amused when I turned in my self-evaluation. The last question on the form was, “What could I (Your supervisor) do to become a stronger leader for you?”

I answered with: “Nothing, you are practically perfect in every way.”

She sent it back with a note to change that. I don’t know why.

It's in my face, but I can't grab it.

For a long time now I’ve wanted to get a trailer for all of my re-enacting gear in. It would mean that we could go to an event in one vehicle instead of two, have plenty of room for ALL of our crap AND we could store our equipment in there between events. This is all very pleasing to us.

Today on lunch I decided to go check out a local RV center to see if they had any cargo trailers and to price them. We were greeted and introduced to a salesman that explained they don’t normally deal in cargo trailers, but they do occasionally get some used ones in on trade. The only trailer they had on the lot was one they just recently received on a trade in. It was a 22ft long by 8.6ft long by 8.6 ft high vehicle hauler.

This was much larger then I needed. Just for giggles I thought I would ask the guy how much he wanted for it. When he said $6,000.00 my jaw about bounced off the blacktop. This was a 2005 heavy-duty car hauler; it was in excellent condition except some logos on it. I know someone that bought a trailer very similar to this one new for around $12,000.00. I was sure I was mistaken; when I asked for clarification he told me the same number.

My head screamed at me, “BUY THIS NOW!!!!” Then logic set in. It was much larger then I needed. The thing was huge. It could fit all of my gear and Ktreva’s van in the back end! The salesman was good; he knew he had someone interested. He did his best hard sell. Almost biting on the bait we went back to the office. He even offered to knock an additional $500.00 off of the price.

Logic stepped in at this time, the logical part of my brain helped me to realize why this is NOT a good idea. First it’s more then I wanted to spend, yes it is a good deal, but I don’t really have the money for it. The salesman brought up financing. Second. Storage, I have no place at my house to store it. The Salesman offered up storage for a year. If I stored it someplace else it would defeat half the purpose of having a trailer. I wanted something that I could keep all my re-enacting stuff and work out of between events. I couldn’t do that if it was parked at a storage lot. I’d have to go get it, and bring it home every time I wanted to work on my gear. I’m not doing a good job of explaining this part, and I can’t think of a better way unless you are familiar with re-enacting. There is a lot of gear that takes maintenance, cleaning and repairing. Then I thought about my house. There is no way I would be able to back that thing into my driveway.

I have a narrow one-vehicle driveway. At the end of the driveway are a telephone pole on one side and a bush on the other. Then I live on a narrow city street. When people park on the street (which is all the time), two cars can’t pass. My neighbors park their cars on the street. They seem to think my driveway is a good central point to do this. I have problems pulling my truck out on some days because of how narrow the street is and how close to my driveway they park. Put an extra 22 feet of trailer onto that and it would take forever to get out. It was too big to park in the street.

All this weighed in and I opted to not purchase the trailer. I may regret it later, but for now I think it was the right decision. What really gets me is that after work the family and I went to a place that sells new cargo trailers and found out they want almost $3,000.00 for a brand new 12 ft long, 7ft wide and 6.5 tall trailer. Which is the size I ideally want.

I’m hoping to find a good used one that fits more of what I want. So far I’m not finding anything. From what I’ve discovered it seems that most of the good used trailers sell quickly.

Brought to you by the letter "F"

I tagged T1G of Drunken Wisdom with a meme back in December. Thus, I cannot be too upset that he has returned the favor to me. Thus with no grief to him, I will kindly respond.

Four Jobs I’ve had:

Inventory Manager

Law Enforcement

Security Guard

Welder’s Assistant

Four Movies I could watch over and over and have: (I have to limit this to four? Shite!)

Groundhog Day

Original Star Wars trilogy

Evil Dead series

Gettysburg (all four and a half hours of it)

Places I’ve lived:

Rockford, Illinois

Macomb, Illinois

That’s it! I’ve been to 48 of the 50 states, but I have only called two cities home.

Four TV Shows I love to watch: (I’m only listing shows that have new episodes this season.)

CSI

Lost

Invasion

Survivor (guilty pleasure. The only reality show I watch regularly)

Simpson’s

Four Places I’ve been on Vacation. (Only four? I could list over 400; I’m going to list four favorite historical sites)

Gettysburg, PA

Mackinac Island, MI

Independence, MO

Washington, DC

Colonial Williamsburg, VA

Four Websites I visit daily. (This is a loaded question, especially with bloggers. Thus, I’m not listing any blogs to prevent whining, complaining or hurt feelings)

My Yahoo Page

Green Bay Packer homepage

Green Bay Packer Message Boards

Sitemeter

NFL Home Page

Four favorite Foods!

Steak.

Sushi

Ballindalloch Chicken

Minnesota Eggs Benedict (As by Doc’s Wild Rice)

Hot Wings.

Four Places I’d rather be. (This question is too vague. Does this mean like at this moment, in my life, permanently or on vacation? Right now I’m in a good happy place with what I feel are now good/loyal friends. Hence, I’m going with vacation/weekend spots)

Scotland.

Norway

Any Re-enactment.

Disney World in Florida (I love Epcot)

Nova Scotia.

Four people to whom to inflict this upon.

Obviously, OddyBobo, I still owe her one. I still owe her one

Ktreva because I want to pop her cherry again.

Richmond because she’s been making me think too much with her brainteasers.

Leslie, maybe her pent up energy from quitting smoking can be focused on something else.

What good is all the violence in the world... Unless you have toys!

Back in the early 90’s I was a metal head. I know some of you find that hard to believe. Such a quiet, shy and well-reserved gentleman as myself being a disciple of that devil music. Well I was, you’ll just have to accept me for who I am. In fact I still listen to a lot of metal, both modern and from the 80’s and 90’s.

One of my favorite bands from back then was GWAR. I loved this band, their songs where a mix of punk and metal with lyrics that where just for shock factor. They dressed in some pretty unusual costumes and they even had interesting stage shows. The one time I saw them in Chicago they took people from the audience and fed them through a giant meat grinder on stage. The grinder then shot “blood” and ground meat into the audience. Yes, I tried to get into the grinder, no I didn’t make get to get turned into a stage effect. They gave themselves unusual names like Oderous Urungus, Flattus Maximus, Beefcake the Mighty, Jizmak Da Gusha and Balzak the Jaws of Death. They also had some support cast that would appear or do gust songs, one of my favorites guests was the Sexicutioner (hence the title of this post, it's a slaughtering of one of his songs. )

In college I had a poster for GWAR hanging on my wall it had Slymenstra Hymen on it. My blogless buddy Jay came down to visit me one weekend while I was in college, and while drunk decided she was the hottest chic he had ever laid his eyes on. Actually to this day I think he still fantasizes about her.

So why am I giving you all this information. Simply, my buddy Shadoglare of Refractional Darkness sent me an e-mail link. THEY ARE MAKING GWAR ACTION FIGURES!!!!!

Did I mention I loved this band? I have all of their albums, I had a t-shirt… stupid college washing machines, and I know the lyrics to most of their songs. I’m a full-blown Bohab! These guys rock! I need MUST get the entire collection! It is a moral imperative!

Not so shocking.

It has been a while since I've regailed you with a tale of my minions. Thinking you might be forgetting what it's like to work for me, I wanted to remind you. I was thinking of which incident to go with, when all of a sudden the following happened.

This morning one of my minions tells me her phone is dead, nothing works on it, not even the lights. When I get to her desk, sure enough the phone is completely dead. She says it was working the day before and when she left, but when she came in this morning it was dead. Before I called the help desk on this, I thought I’d look to see if it was unplugged.

It had been a while since I had “fun” with one of my minions and this was just the perfect time to do it. Thinking to myself why not, I started talking to my minion:

Contagion, “It looks like you yanked some wires out of the plug.”

Minion, “Okay, I’ll call the help desk.”

Contagion, “Now, just wait a second. This is just like phone wiring; I think I can repair this.” (I do some repairs around the building, it’s not part of my job duties or description, but I know how and it’s faster then the help desk. Then once I get it working, I call the help desk to let them know.)

Minion, “Okay, do you need me to do anything?”

Contagion, “Nah, just stand back and hand me stuff as I ask for it.”

Minion, “Have you done this before?”

Contagion, “Not on this type of phone, but electrical and phone wiring is all pretty similar, it shouldn’t be that different. It’s just a matter of conecttinngngngngngngngngngngngngngngngngngng” (Feet flailing kicking the ground, body gyrating like a drunk trying to do the centipede, head banging like a some one going through shock therapy, facial muscles tense as lips are peeled back in grimace of pain. This goes on for about 10 seconds)

Meanwhile, Minion, “OH GOD, OH GOD, OH GOD!” (Panicked look on face Blood drained from head, eyes as wide as saucers, doing the “I’m scared dance”)

Contagion: (Stops flailing and is laughing his arse off)

Minion, “I SO HATE YOU! YOU SCARED THE CRAP OUT OF ME! YOU ARE NOT A NICE PERSON!”

Contagion, “You’re eyes were huge and the color still hasn’t come back to your cheeks… that was funny as all heck!” (Yes, I said heck. At work, my language is as clean as the Pope’s is during mass. Unless, I’m really, really pissed and then I may use the occasional “damn”)

(Ktreva goes walking past. We work together, no she is not a minion… anywhere… sigh)

Minion to Ktreva, “I hate your husband. He’s a jerk.”

Ktreva ignores minion as she is in a bad mood and heading somewhere in a hurry

Contagion, “See, she doesn’t care either.”

Minion to me, “Someday, somebody will get back at you for doing stuff like that.”

Contagion, “Someday was six years ago and that somebody was Ktreva.” (Grins)

Minion, “I’m telling her you said that!”

Contagion, “Be my guest, it’s not like I haven’t said it to her.”

Minion, “I don’t know how she puts up with you.”

Contagion, “Neither do I. That reminds me, time to buy her more jewelry. Keep her happy and my life is easier. Now go sign on to another computer, I can’t fix this. I’ll get the help desk involved”

My minion is still glaring at me, and this happened five hours ago. Some people just don’t have a sense of humor.

Searches gone wrong.

I feel sorry for the poor schmuck that found me while searching for Sensitivity Class. Anyone want to bet that I wasn’t what that person was looking for?

C’mon, that’s just funny!

Wasted Day.

Last weekend was a long weekend for me. I had Monday off work because of Martin Luther King Day. Now I appreciate the day off, and this year it was timed just right to keep me from blowing a gasket. However, I would rather have worked yesterday. I just had Christmas and New Years off; did I really need another holiday two weeks later? What am I going to do with this day besides sit at home? It’s the middle of January. I do NOT do winter sports at all.

We also have Presidents day in February. Both of these holidays irritate me. Why can’t they give us the day after the Fourth of July off? How about the Monday after the Super Bowl? Maybe even the day after Halloween. I feel like I’ve wasted a vacation day when these holidays come around.

Staffing ways for work, it is also a nightmare. January is typically our busiest month of the year, surprisingly the Tuesday after MLK day is our busiest day of the year. The whole week is busy because we are making up for having Monday off. That means long hours/over time for everyone to help cover the increased activity. Logistically speaking it would be easier on the staff to work that day.

Looking at my approved vacation for 2006, I can see numerous one-day requests. It would be better for me to have two floating holidays or two extra vacation days then for them to give me MLK and Presidents day off. At least then, I know I would be doing something I enjoyed on those days. I can make sure that they are days off that actually help me.

Yesterday, I spent the whole day playing with Clone (the grouch) while watching the entire season of Firefly. What else was I going to do? The wife had commandeered the computer to blog and play the Sims 2 all day. Over all it wasn’t a bad day, but I could think of better things I would rather do.

There's no going back now.

Well, it looks my secret is out of the bag. It figures it was Tammi that spilled the beans first. She has a nasty habit of doing just that.

So there it is. Ktreva finally got off her butt and started a blog, The Reality Ranch. It’s about damn time. Her Royal Yappiness can finally have another outlet for her uncontrolled need to communicate other then talking to me. That means I can spend more quality time playing Madden and Blitz instead of having to pretend to listen to her.

On the downside, I think I’m going to have to buy a laptop with wireless. With only having one computer in the house, that could lead to a fight over who gets to use it.

Go over and give her a warm and friendly welcome. Just be nice to her, remember who she married. Hasn't the poor girl been put through enough?

So I'm not in touch with my feelings.

Stole this quiz from Richmond. Makes you wonder how I function in the world doesn't it?

OOOohhh, it's a bigger secret.

I know something you don't know, I know something you don't know. I know something you don't know.

...and I'm not telling!

Men of the world, UNITE!

Men, are you tired of your wives pushing you around? Do you think that maybe there is some conspiracy to control your life? If so, I've discovered the organization for you:

They also provided me with this helpful little list:

Top 5 Reasons You're Going to Sleep on the Couch Tonight, Jack:

1. Your wife says you snore too loud (we both know you don't snore).

2. Your wife thinks you sided with her mother in an argument.

3. You made a playful, completely harmless joke about "doing" the nanny.

4. The nanny wears that smoking hot bikini of hers to the pool and your wife catches you scoping her out. Damn it.

5. You decide to sleep on the couch just to teach your wife a lesson (tactical error moron, she'd rather sleep by herself).

I'd like to add number 6 to the list.

6. You got into an arguement with your wife while drinking and ended up there. IE last night.

It's a small world.

Some people like The Lord of the Rings Triligy. Some people like doll houses.

Some people combine those likes into a strange new hobby of making a miniature middle earth.

The Force is strong with this one.

(Pushing past empty bottles and glasses) Well it looks like I didn't do too much damage last night. Clone had me up nice and early this morning. Since I was up, I decided I should do my normal Saturday goof off posts.

Here's Darth Vader as you've never seen before. He's kickin' out the Imperial March on the turn table. DJ Vader has some mad skillz, yo!

That Keltech has some talent.

Here I am, the one that you love.

I know I promised drunk blogging, but I drank most of a bottle of whiskey, and finished off a bottle of Scotch, and I’m still relatively sober. I’ve roamed around the blogiverse reading stuff from people I’ve never met before, left some smart arse comments and even had an e-mail conversation with a blogger whom seems to think I do nothing but blog drunk. (Based on the comment left in my previous post.)

I’m sorry to have failed all of you, again, for the umpteenth time.

I blame it on the pizza I ate. I was getting pretty drunk socially lubricated, then sobriety hit. However, I did win three items on eBay. Even after shipping and handling I was able to pick up three wool Blankets for less then if I bought one from one of my re-enacting sources.

I’m supposed to make an appearance at work tomorrow. I don’t think I’m going in.

Update:
I wrote that two hours ago. I’m feeling much better now… oh, e-mail. BRB… eh, that was amusing. Anyways, I’m much more… uh… socially lubricated now then I was earlier. Don’t believe me? Just ask the couch where I’m sleeping tonight. The ol’ ball and chain young wife said made a comment that if I can’t come to bed a t a decen ttime I can sleep downstairs. I tried arguing what a decen ttime was, but she would have none of that. Somehting about waking up Clone. Eh, he seems fine to me, snoring like usual. I still have half of a 36 oz drink left. (Math geeks have at it.) After that I’m going to bed. I have my yahoo messanger up, so if you want me, and really need me (ladies only) just e-mail me and I’ll be here.

BTW,. those damn spam verificaction codes on blogger and yahoo are annyoing when you've had a drink or two.

Get over your bad self

You Have a Choleric Temperament

You are a person of great enthusiasm - easily excited by many things. Unsatisfied by the ordinary, you are reaching for an epic, extraordinary life. You want the best. The best life. The best love. The best reputation. You posses a sharp and keen intellect. Your mind is your primary weapon. Strong willed, nothing can keep you down. Your energy can break down any wall. You're an instantly passionate person - and this passion gives you an intoxicating power over others. At your worst, you are a narcissist. Full of yourself and even proud of your faults. Stubborn and opinionated, you know what you think is right. End of discussion. A bit of a misanthrope, you often see others as weak, ignorant, and inferior.

Stolen from CalTechGirl (CTG).

On a side note, does anyone else besides me notice she has an unhealthy addiction to quizes. I mean c'mon I gave Tammi crap over candles, but CTG will put up 20394203759348593487 quizes in a day. I love you CTG... not in that romantic way, but in that your husband will kick my arse kind of way.

UPDATE: I'm officially adopting CTG as a blog sister: Bou, Harvey, Grau (post mortem) I expect full acceptance. Who wants a family tree that forks anyways.

Secret

I have a secret, and I'm not telling!

WARNING!

End of message.

Work = Hell?

They have done a reorganization of the staff at my place of employment; they are also working on merging two offices (completely different lines of business) into one. This has made for quite a bit of excitement in the employees. By excitement, I mean rumors in the staff and meetings for me.

Today’s meeting schedule goes as follows:

8:30 -8:45: Morning assignments of work. (I lead this meeting and it was over with in 8 minutes.)

9:00 to 9:30 Daily state of the office meeting. This should only last 15 minutes, they schedule 30minutes just in case, it ran for 50 minutes in order to discuss the 10:00 meeting.

10:00 to 12:15 Standard operation meeting. I go because I’m told I have to, only to sit for 2 hours and 15 minutes doing nothing but staring at my note pad thinking to myself, “Someone please shoot me, please”. This is also, where I’m told by peers in the other office that is merging with us that I don’t know how to do my job. That I should do things they way they do it, and that my procedures are bad. The whole time when anyone asks me for data I can give them exact figures while the other offices inventory manager can only say, “I’ll have to look into that and get back with you in two weeks”. At that point, I’m told I’m going to be tracking the other offices inventory using my crappy procedures because they like the information. I actually only was needed for 30 minutes of this meeting, 25 of those minutes was being told I suck don’t know how to do my job.

12:30 to 1:15 Lunch. Sometimes I have a lunch meeting; those are rare. Today I had a lunch venting with my wife and a couple of trusted minions and a work friend. Which is good because I blew a gasket and was blurting out stuff I shouldn’t have out of anger.

1:30 to 2:00 Afternoon update: This is where we discuss what we talked about in the 10:00 meeting. I walked out of this meeting after 25 minutes of recapping how much I suck don’t know how to do my job, so I could go suck do my job.

2:30 to 3:30 Divisional Planning meeting: This is a teleconference I do to plan the next week’s inventory and coordinate assistance for other offices. This is where I do my mentoring to teach other people how to suck do their jobs as I do.

3:45 to 4:15 and 4:30 to 5:00: Unit Meetings. This is where each week they break out the minions into smaller groups to share vital information. This week I have to join these to explain why they have to take responsibility for their own actions follow new tracking guidelines for data.

5:00: Get the fark out of Dodge Leave for the day. I’ve only been at work since 6:30 AM. I guess I should have stayed longer, but then again I suck am not as good at my job as others are.

6:00: See how quickly I can drink a bottle of Jack Daniels

What gets me about this whole damn thing is that if I suck am not good at my job, why does every other office in other cities turn to me for answers to their problems? It’s just the other office in my building that wants me completely to change how everything is done, to their style. They do this by, and I’m not kidding saying things like, “Our methods are great we can get this data and information in weeks, and are making headway to actually meet our goals.” Meanwhile, I get data with in an hour, and am meeting two of my three goals and the third one I’m almost there.

I expect complete conformity

I received these in an e-mail today. My e-mail didn’t say whom they where credited to, but I thought they where amusing, and the one about flavored water hits home.

New Rule: Stop giving me that pop-up ad for Classmates.com! There's a reason you don't talk to people for 25 years. Because you don't particularly like them! Besides, I already know what the captain of the football team is doing these days: mowing my lawn.

New Rule: Don't eat anything that's served to you out a window unless you're a seagull. People are acting all shocked that a human finger was found in a bowl of Wendy's chili. Hey, it cost less than a dollar. What did you expect it to contain? Trout?

New Rule: Stop saying that teenage boys who have sex with their hot, blonde teachers are permanently damaged. I have a better description for these kids: lucky bastards.

New Rule: If you need to shave and you still collect baseball cards, you're gay. If you're a kid, the cards are keepsakes of your idols. If you're a grown man, they're pictures of men.

New Rule: Ladies, leave your eyebrows alone. Here's how much men care about your eyebrows: do you have two of them? Okay, we're done.

New Rule: There's no such thing as flavored water. There's a whole aisle of this crap at the supermarket — water, but without that watery taste. Sorry, but flavored water is called a soft drink. You want flavored water? Pour some scotch over ice and let it melt. That's your flavored water.

New Rule: Stop f***ing with old people. Target is introducing a redesigned pill bottle that's square, with a bigger label. And the top is now the bottom. And by the time grandpa figures out how to open it, his ass will be in the morgue. Congratulations, Target, you just solved the Social Security crisis.

New Rule: The more complicated the Starbucks order, the bigger the asshole. If you walk into a Starbucks and order a "decaf grande half-soy, half-low fat, iced vanilla, double-shot, gingerbread cappuccino, extra dry, light ice, with one Sweet-n'-Low and one NutraSweet," ooh, you're a huge asshole.

New Rule: I'm not the cashier! By the time I look up from sliding my card, entering my PIN number, pressing "Enter," verifying the amount, deciding, no, I don't want cash back, and pressing "Enter" again, the kid who is supposed to be ringing me up is standing there eating my Almond Joy.

New Rule: Just because your tattoo has Chinese characters in it doesn't make you spiritual. It's right above the crack of your ass. And it translates to "beef with broccoli." The last time you did anything spiritual, you were praying to God you weren't pregnant. You're not spiritual. You're just high.

New Rule: Competitive eating isn't a sport. It's one of the seven deadly sins. ESPN recently televised the US Open of Competitive Eating, because watching those athletes at the poker table was just too damned exciting. What's next, competitive farting? Oh wait. They're already doing that. It's called "The Howard Stern Show."

New Rule: I don't need a bigger mega M&M. If I'm extra hungry for M&Ms, I'll go nuts and eat two.

New Rule: If you're going to insist on making movies based on crappy, old television shows, then you have to give everyone in the Cineplex a remote so we can see what's playing on the other screens. Let's remember the reason something was a television show in the first place is that the idea wasn't good enough to be a movie.

New Rule: No more gift registries. You know, it used to be just for weddings. Now it's for babies and new homes and graduations from rehab. Picking out the stuff you want and having other people buy it for you isn't gift giving, it's the white people version of looting.

New Rule: and this one is long overdue: No more bathroom attendants. After I zip up, some guy is offering me a towel and a mint like I just had sex with George Michael. I can't even tell if he's supposed to be there, or just some freak with a fetish. don't want to be on your webcam, dude. I just want to wash my hands.

New Rule: When I ask how old your toddler is, I don't need to know in months. "27 Months." "He's two," will do just fine. He's not a cheese. And I didn't really care in the first place.

UPDATE: After a little research I've discovered these are part of a skit Bill Maher did on one of his shows.

At least it's not Opera.

Ever since Clone first discovered he had the ability to make sounds using his mouth, he’s had three volume settings: Loud, Deafening and Sleeping (Which is just below normal human speech). He snores in his sleep and sometimes talks. This has sparked many a great debate in my house as to which side of the family he gets such a trait. My wife insists he gets it from me. I, on the other hand, know it’s from her family. If you’ve ever met Ktreva then you know she’s loud and doesn’t shut up… ever! Hell, right now I can hear her talking non-stop. “Don’t you dare post anything like that about me! OoOOOoo, I’m gonna kick your arse!” It’s a good thing I learned to ignore her years ago.

Well, tonight she feels she’s won the war. According to her royal yappiness, she now has irrefutable proof that Clone’s loudness comes from my side of the family. I think she’s just exaggerating. Nope, to her she feels that there is no further proof required.

Tonight, Clone and I where in the Kitchen taking the clean dishes out of the dishwasher and putting them away. When I do various tasks, I tend to sing. Clone loves to sing along with me when he’s helping. We went through the classics of the Contagion household, “I’m H-A-P-P-Y!, Mares eat oats, Sponge Bob Square Pant’s theme, Ice Ice Baby”. Of course when I sing, I do it with gusto. Since Clone is my, well, clone, he also sings with much gusto. This turned into a contest to see who could show more gusto. (Wow, I think that’s the most I’ve ever used the word gusto).

Ktreva comes walking into the kitchen, smirk on her face as both Clone and I are singing as loudly as we can. Hell we’re yelling with a melody. Ktreva, smirking mind you, looks at me and says, “Loud!” We both stop singing and look at her standing there grinning back at us. “I told you he got his loudness from you.” She says self-righteously “You, don’t see me in here teaching him to yell songs.”

I tried to explain this was different. She just couldn’t grasp the concept that being loud and having a contest to see who can be louder is not the same thing. You must have to be male to understand that.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go replace some broken light bulbs.

Just plain loveable.

My blog daughter, Virtue of Ramblings Rantings of an Indentured Servant, must want some money for college. She hasn’t hit me up for any yet, but it sure seems like she’s trying to sweet talk me. You know she’s up to something; she has to be. College age kids aren’t that nice to their parents unless they want something.

It all stems from my making a very uncharacteristic compliment in the comments of this post. By the way, if you read that post with a dirty mind, it’s much more interesting. Not that I have to tell any of my readers that. In response she goes off and writes a post titled Why I love Contagion.

Now, it’s not as if any of you need reasons to love me, I mean lets face it. I’m quiet, shy, polite, demure, friendly, nice and above all else a philanthropist. Who wouldn’t love me? But just in case you need some reminders, go check her the post out.

Update: I'm such a bad dad, I can't even get her blog name correct.

There goes the bank account

Well, I finally joined the 90’s tonight. I opened an eBay account and actually bid on some items. eBay has been one of those things that I never could get a grasp on; even tonight I’m still having issues. Whenever I try to find something I like, I just don’t seem to be able to find what I am looking for. It’s not that I have a problem with search engines, it’s just that it throws back way too many items for me to sort through or it returns stuff that doesn’t even remotely match what I was looking for.

While looking for something completely off the wall, I wasn’t even looking to buy anything, I found a couple of items that where a steal at the price they are currently listed. Since, the bids where closing tonight, I thought I’d go for it.

So far I’ve won one of the items I was bidding on.

Hopefully I don’t get taken.

Just leave me alone!

Today is not a good day for me to have come to work. I should have stayed home today. The longer I’m here the more pissed off I’m getting. It all stems from three little things.

A) Why call a meeting to ask me information if you are not going to believe a damn thing I say and go around afterwards doing the research yourself? Don’t waste my time.

2) Don’t pitch a fit about no one supporting anyone’s plans when you don’t support theirs.

D) I am very busy; do not waste my time with meetings to discuss what is going to happen in a meeting. If the meeting your are discussing doesn’t involve me or I’m not invited to it, don’t invite me to the meeting that is going to discuss that meeting.

Another stump in the tree.

Well it looks like my blog Momma-sis can’t keep her hands off of my blog Dad-pa. I guess she decided I needed another blog sibling besides my Nie-sters VW and Sissy. Instead of actually letting the family tree fork, she decided to jump in the blogging sack with Harvey the wonder blogger again.

Let me welcome the next Genetic freak to the family, Blue Tige of, well, ummm… Blue Tige!.

He’s a military man, has a fetish for photos of military aircraft and blue tinted tigers. I think that has something to do with his handle and maybe even call sign.

Head over and say hello to the newest person to bump me down a notch my momma-sis’ importance list. Like I needed someone else for her to like more!

Lurking.

Multiple bloggers I read are touting the fact that it is National De-Lurking Week. Maybe it’s just me, but I find this annoying. I am probably one of the worst lurkers on the face of the earth. My standard operating procedure when I find a new blog is to read it for two to three months before I leave my first comment. Then I tend to lurk a while longer before I leave a second comment, and finally once I get comfortable, I will leave my comments all over your blog.

Since my sense of humor is a little off kilter, I like to get a feel for the author before I comment. All that lurking makes me more familiar with the blogger, thus I can better gage if they will appreciate my sense of humor or if it truly will be a comment bomb. (Comment Bomb: The blogging equivalent to having your dog leave a mess in your neighbor’s yard).

I read Harvey for 4 months before I left my first comment there. Tammi for five months, T1G for three months, Eric for 4 months, CalTechGirl for six months, Blackfive for just over a year now and counting. You get the idea; it can take me a long time to comment. Occasionally I violate that rule, IE if I meet someone or if I’m leaving a reciprocal comment, but in general I am a lurker.

Victory! Home Rule in Rockford not on the March Ballot.

Home Rule in Rockford, Illinois had its first real battle last night. The City Council voted on whether or not to place Home Rule on the March ballot.

” Rockford aldermen voted 9-5 against placing the question on the March 21 ballot.”

The war isn’t won, but this is a nice victory for anyone against Home Rule. Why? Because back in 1983 when Home Rule was voted out, the city council forced the proponents to collect the signatures of the citizens to get it on the ballot. When Empower Rockford and Mayor Larry Morrison decided they wanted to bring Home Rule back; instead of getting the signatures, they wanted just to have the city council add the referendum. This saved them from trying to get the signature of 10% of the registered voters in the city. Thanks to the city council, that is exactly what Empower Rockford will have to do, collect signatures.

In one of my earlier posts on Home Rule, I said that they would need to collect 15,012 signatures to have this added to the ballot. This was a huge miscalculation on my behalf. I will admit I did not double check that figure and just based it off the population of Rockford. That is something I should have known better then to do. Apparently, out of the 150,124 citizens in Rockford, only about 80,000 are registered voters. Thus, Empower Rockford only needs 8,000 signatures. That is still a daunting task. Personally, I’d like to see them not get the signatures, but if they do, at least it would be on the ballot in the same manner it was back in 1983.

There was another issue in the article that disturbed me, how the aldermen voted.

” The vote was almost entirely along party lines with the council’s eight Democrats voting against a referendum on home rule and five of the six Republican aldermen voting for it.”

This surprises me. Having Republicans and Democrats going against party lines would be like expecting a starving lion not to attack a wounded zebra. It’s not going to happen. What surprises me is what the party lines where. I always thought Republicans were anti-big government. Home Rule gives you big government. Why would the republicans want this then? Isn’t Home Rule almost the embodiment of taking the power away from the people so that the politicians can dictate to us with out a vote? I figured this would be the other way with possibly one or two democrats voting No.

Either way I’m glad the council voted no. I’ll take the victory. Now if we can only win the war.

For other posts on Home Rule see the Home Rule Archive.

Fritz Stop.

Before I start my post, I would like to take this time to that T1G of Drunken Wisdom for not only organizing, but also hosting Fritzfest ’06. He deserves special recognition for all of his efforts and hard work put into bringing this event together.

Fritzfest, what can I say, I’m still reeling from the fun and camaraderie of a 10 hour long party. We walked into the bar at about 11:30AM, other then T1G, my wife and I where the first bloggers to arrive. As I had promised, I wore a kilt and work boots. (Ladies, commence swooning now!) Instead of wearing a Packer jersey, I wore the Dr. Phat Tony shirt I won. I worked hard to win that; I wanted to show it off. (Ladies, you may stop swooning) After having a seat at the bar, I ordered some Jack Daniels. Hey, I figured just 45 minutes east of us it was already past noon! (Gotta love time zones)

I had met many of the people at least once before. Harvey and TNT where of course the normal blogging power couple that they are. Graumagus kept making excuses for not blogging (Tomorrow he’ll be declared dead). Blackfive was there entertaining all with stories. Tammi was the social butterfly. Talula who was trying to take my place as the shy one and of course there was T1G who was exhausted from all the work he had done. Teresa was her normal regal self; she even made me kiss her ring again upon entering the building to show my fealty.

Now for the Bloggers I had never met before.

Sarah of That’s Not Nice. Since she was from Minnesota I figured she would have the same accent as my relatives from up there, nope she was completely accentless. I don’t know what she doesn’t think is nice, but she seemed a very sweet lady that would charm the pants (or kilt) of anyone she spoke with.

Omnibus Driver and Buckaroo Bonsai of Leslie’s Omnibus. Talk about genuinely nice people. It was a pleasure to talk with them. Omnibus Driver is one of those types of people that when you meet them you are pleasantly surprised by how kind hearted they are. I could see myself spending hours talking to her.

Richmond of One For The Road. First off I must say she was a beautiful woman. I’ll admit I had only recently found her, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. What I got was worth it. She was witty, intelligent and liked to point out in wonderment that Ktreva actually married me. Every time I turned around, her and Ktreva seemed to be chatting. No good comes from that.

Laughing Wolf of The Laughing Wolf. This is one of the bloggers that I wanted to meet, and I just didn’t get a chance to talk to him enough. Unfortunately my shyness kept me from being able to start a conversation with him. Either that or he was scared of my kilt… okay me in a kilt. Actually I think it was just a matter of every time I changed groups of people, he coincidently did the same thing. He told us we should all go down to the Wolf Park some time and I’ll probably take him up on that. Especially since Ktreva likes wolves.

Og of Neanderpundit. This guy has stories that will make you laugh so hard that people look at you like your insane(er). He’s another blogger I just recently discovered, and damn I wish I had found his blog a long time ago. He was talking about having a blogmeet/camping/blow-stuff-up weekend. Grau and I decided we’re going to hold him to that.

Jakejacobsen and Thebaldchick of Freedom Folks. Again another blog I just recently discovered. Jake was a funny guy, lots of stories, good advice and just a generally great guy to talk to. Thebaldchic was quiet, when she spoke she always had something witty or poignant to add to the conversation. The next time I have a business trip into Chicago, I’m definitely looking these two up to go to dinner with.

There was an anonymous benefactor of drinks for the event. I would like to take this time to thank Eric of Straight White Guy for keeping me socially lubricated for the day. It was a shame he couldn't have made it there in person.

Since I knew Tammi was going to be at this event, I decided it was time to receive my ransom. She has been a very busy woman of late, and Ktreva said I was being too harsh with my demands. I decided to settle the ransom demands with her just fulfilling demand number 9. (That and Ktreva threatened to yank out more leg hair) She had to have a picture of her holding a sign that says, “I have an unhealthy addiction to candles”. Here’s part of my payment.

The other part was that she was supposed to have the same picture posted on her site sometime tonight. If she didn’t I was going to e-mail it to all the bloggers that were there and have them put it up on their blogs. I have given her a 24-hour extension, because I didn’t get the picture to her until late tonight. Since I left Fritz’s kind of late, and had to work late tonight, I didn’t get the picture to her in enough time to make her post.

See, I’m a nice guy.

Stop laughing.

I’d say I can’t wait until the next blogmeet, but I think this may be my last. I’m way too shy for these things. The pressure was getting to me.

He's dead.

Tomorrow I have to go to court. These will not be pleasant proceedings, not pleasant at all. For tomorrow, I will have to go to court over a death. It’s not the death of a family member, but of a close personal friend. A friend that I’ve known for years. Some of you know this friend and will be shocked to learn this. I guess its better coming from me then some stranger or by a surprise.

Tomorrow I’m having Graumagus legally declared dead.

Sure technically he may have a beating heart in his chest and what passes for a functioning brain in his head, but he’s no longer around. In addition, if I have him declared dead it will help another case of mine.

Under salvage laws, I’m trying to claim Frizzen Sparks as my own. He’s abandoned it since December 18, which is over 3 weeks ago, 22 days at this time to be precise. That means it is abandoned and the previous owner doesn’t want it anymore. Thus, I should be able to have it legally transferred to my name. Now, since Grau has been gone for over 3 weeks with nary a word or comment, which should be grounds to have him declared dead. Isn’t it blogging death to not post for more then two weeks? I believe so.

A chip off the ol' windshield.

Friday, Ktreva and I were driving home from work in my truck when a stone kicked up by another vehicle chipped my windshield. That didn’t piss me off, as much as it annoyed me. I’ve owned a vehicle for 16 years of my life and this was the first time I ever had a stone chip my windshield. I called a local repair place and had it Saturday morning to have it repaired. Since I was having a repair done, it was filed to my auto-insurance whom waived the deductible and paid for the whole thing. Yay comprehensive insurance!

Sunday on the way down to Fritzfest (A post with pictures will be coming later tonight); another car kicked up a stone and chipped my windshield again! Now I’m pissed off. I know it wasn’t intentional, but to go 16 years with out this happening and having it done twice in 3 days is enough to annoy and anger just about anyone.

I called the repair place again and set up another appointment. The receptionist recognized my name and vehicle and said, “Didn’t we just fix your truck on Saturday.” Informing her that they indeed had, I went on to explain what had happened. I’ll give the receptionist credit, she sounded genuinely sorry about the whole situation. I was expecting laughter and some jokes, that’s what I would have done. Not her, she was trying to comfort me and telling me how sorry she was about the whole situation. To say I was a little uncomfortable with her reaction would be an understatement.

Next, I called my insurance and explained what was happening to them. The representative at my agent’s office was having a hard time understanding what was happening. It took 20 minutes of explaining to get her to understand that there will be two claims for the same type of service. Those claims will be coming from the same shop, yet each claim will be a different day. Because the shop is repairing the windshield twice, once for the original nicked windshield and again for a second nicked windshield. I still don’t understand what part of, “A second stone chipped my windshield after I had it originally repaired. I’m going to have the same place fix this one too” was so hard to comprehend.

Hopefully this repair will go as smooth as the last one.

Not like that!

Those of us that live in the North have the problem of our vehicles getting stuck in the snow on occasion. When this happens sometimes you need some help digging it, or more to the point towing out your vehicle. You need to be very careful, if you don’t bad things can happen. Bad expensive things can happen. If you are curious as to what I’m talking about, watch this video of some idiots trying to tow a car out of the snow improperly. (Completely work safe, and not at all disgusting)

Yea, their dad’s would be proud.

Where's the beer?

Why? Why did this have to happen in Ontario? This is something that we need in Illinois. What is it? The Ontario Beer Hunter (Not to be confused with THE Beer Hunter). What is it? You put in the city or region that you want in Ontario Canada, and they show you where all the open stores where you can buy beer, wine and liquor. Only the stores or their liquor departments that are open at the time show up. They even have different flags to show you what kind of alcohol can be bought at each location.

Someone really needs to pick up the ball and do this in Illinois. Sometimes at 8:50 in the morning you just need to know where to go get a beer.

Wasting time.

It seems like the latest and greatest trendin blogging is to find some online game and link to it. Since I'm just another cog in the machine, I felt it wasn't my place to go against this trend. Thus, here for your amusement is a nice little time waster.

How can you not want to play a game called Robobug Blaster?

T-minus 2 days and counting.

Just a reminder to everyone that this weekend is Fritz Fest in good ol’ Stillman Valley, Illinois. T1G has been good enough to give directions on how to get there, even if you are coming from Galena, IL. It took some quick thinking on my behalf to get them, and one very unpleasant task that involved shards of glass and a certain orifice of T1G's. Hey, he asked for it! Harvey was even nice enough to provide the address for those of us that like to know exactly where we are going.

For those of you that don’t already know, this is the list of people that are going to be there:

Get over it.

Some people are just way too sensitive. How sensitive, how about this? We have a guy that is offended at the Bucs/Saints game. What offended him? I’ll give you a hint; it was part of the half time show. Still don’t know? It involves cheerleaders? Are you guessing costuming?

RRRRNNNNNNTTTTT!!!!! WRONG!

It’s not the costuming; it was the song that offended this man.

Bob Corry, Offended By Song: "The first song that I hear is 'Rock You Like a Hurricane' by The Scorpions and I thought to myself, 'Is it me, or is this just totally out of place and inappropriate?'"

During the halftime show, the Tampa Bay Buccaneer’s Cheerleaders (Yes gratuitous hotty link) did a routine to “Rock You Like a Hurricane” by The Scorpions. Why was this offensive? Duh, people, the Bucs were playing the New Orleans Saints. You know, New Orleans, they had that incident back in late August. You may have heard once or twice about it, Hurricane Katrina.

I’ve only been to a couple of hundred profession, semi-pro and college sporting events in my lifetime. Yet, I seem to have the impression that this is a fairly common song to be played. I’m not thinking any malice aforethought was meant. To me, this was just a common dance routine song. Hell, you may not like the song, but you have to admit that it does have a catchy beat for the cheerleaders to dance to.

Also, I know that Katrina didn’t devastate Tampa, but unless I’m mistaken and you Floridians can correct me, Tampa Bay has been affected by numerous hurricanes over the years. Okay, it wasn’t almost scoured off the face of the earth like God was using water vaporous Brillo pad to remove some caked on filth, but still it’s not like it’s hurricane immune.

If the Buc’s cheerleaders had intentionally based their routine around that song just to rub in the fact that the Saints lost their home to Katrina, fine. If they didn’t this guy has no basis to be offended. That would be like those of us being offended in the Midwest by some network showing Twister. That just doesn’t make sense to me.

Ya know what? Screw it, I’m going to be offended that this guy is offended.

That doesn't reduce stress.

A co-worker of Ktreva’s is having a problem. The doctor advised that it was all stress related and she should reduce the amount of stress in her life. She started doing various activities and life style changes to help her cope with stress. She was doing real well until a couple of days ago.

Her son is in Iraq with the army. He’s been overseas a lot, and has multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. She occasionally gets e-mails from him and the even rarer phone call. In the midst of her stress reduction plan, she was pleasantly surprised when her son called. He was just giving her an update on how he was doing and checking on her, his father and sister. They when all of a sudden her call is interrupted by three loud bangs in rapid succession.

Nervous she asked her son what was happening. His response: “Don’t worry about it mom. That’s just Bob on the .50 cal shooting back.” (BANG BANG BANG) “Bob, Say hi to my mom!”(BANG BANG BANG) Bob, “Hi Mom!” (BANG BANG BANG). Son, “I had my cell phone with and thought I’d give you a call while you where still awake.” He was on a rooftop in Baghdad when he called.

Apparently, the thought of talking to her son during a firefight didn’t help her stress any.

Her reactions while reciting the story made me laugh.

She's a cutie.

Over at the Spoon and Blade we have up our latest Mortar Maiden. Go check out Anice McPhie Ms. January 2006.

I was contemplating on doing a Mortar Maiden of the Year, but I don't know exactly how I could do that. Plus I'm worried their may be some favoritism as Ms. January 2005 is my wife.

UPDATE: Just for Tammi, I'm going to see if I can't get Ms. January and Tammi together for an Artistic photo shoot. Based soley on Tammi's comment.

Boys being boys?

It seems that Boopie is having a problem on the bus. He’s being picked on. Today some kids took his hat, that he just got for Christmas, and where playing keep away with it. He never got the hat back. I’m not exactly sure what else happened as Boopie changed his story six times in ten minutes. My wife is very upset about the whole thing.

What I do know for a fact is that Boopie did not tell the bus driver about what was happening. Now, when we got home, Ktreva contacted the transportation department regarding the incident. To me this is a perfectly acceptable course of action to take. It makes the district aware, as well as the bus driver by default. The school district does have a strict no bullying policy.

My thing is originally she wanted to me to get involved by confronting the kids. Personally, I obviously have no problem doing anything like that. My issue was that we don’t know which kids were involved. The information from our son is sketchy at best. Most importantly, I feel this would just bring on more harassment later on.

I remember when I was a kid, whenever another boy’s parents got involved in a schoolyard conflict, that just made life more miserable for the boy. Heck, the worse butt kickin’ I ever received was when my mother, unbeknownst to me, got involved in an altercation between me and another kid. A couple of weeks later the other kid and some of his friends used me as a punching bag.

What do you all think? Have we done enough in contacting the school or do I knock off work early tomorrow to intercept the bus and have a “talk” with everyone on it?

Just not my truck.

I am the most reviled man at work right now. Due to some changes in goals, I’ve had to implement some new procedures and policies that are very unpopular. Mainly because it makes the employees take accountability of their own items and doesn’t give them much of a time frame to get it done in. Unfortunately, the time frame issue is not something I can do anything about. New corporate guidelines dictate what the time frames have to be.

What really makes me laugh about the whole thing is that I’m being single-handedly blamed for these new procedures and policies. What isn’t realized is that I was just a part of the brain trust that came up with them. They are more stringent then I had originally thought they would be because of others that where in on the decision. Since it was “super happy fun” bad news that would get the troops up in arms, and it directly had to do with my job, it was decided I got to be the one to send out the notice. It seems to be that way with my job, if there is good news someone else gets to send it out, if it’s bad news I get to be the messenger.

This doesn’t bother me, except I drove my truck to work today. I’m afraid someone is going to key it, slash the tires or even worse… piss on the tailpipe! Maybe I should buy just a cheap POS to drive until things cool down. That way if anything is done to it, I won’t care.

Will no one take care of this problem?

The pack of free roaming Chihuahuas is back. This time they came up to my family and I as we were getting out of our vehicle and heading into the house. After the incident with the officer last week, I was taking no chance. These could be bloodthirsty man-eaters that would attack my family.

Deciding action was needed; I contacted Animal Control (AC) and had this conversation:

AC: Animal Control, how can I help you?

Me: I need to report a pack of Chihuahuas roaming through my neighborhood. I live at (address and street intersection given).

AC: Have they done anything to you?

Me: Well, they barked at my family and came into my yard. This isn’t my first run in with them, I believe these are the same ones that attacked me 3 months ago. After last week when that police office was attacked, I don’t want to take the risk. These may be vicious man-killers.

AC: …(silence)

Me: I have a two year old! The three of them, using the pack mentality, may entrap him and try to eat him while he’s outside.

AC: (long pause) Sir, are you joking?

Me: NO! There are three Chihuahuas right now standing in my front yard looking at me as I am speaking to you. My boys want to go outside and play, but I can’t. The last thing I need is for them to be attacked by these brutes.

AC: You did say “Chihuahuas” right? You’re talking about the tiny dogs that people carry around in their purses?

Me: EXACTLY! They carry them around as a weapon. All they have to do is throw the blood crazed little boogers at someone and they’ll rip out the victims jugular.

AC: (long pause) Sir, okay I have you’re information, I’ll send an officer as soon as possible.

Me: Please hurry, they are still sitting outside and I need to go someplace tonight. The last thing I need is for one of those little bastiches attacking me.

AC: Yes sir, right away. Is there anything else?

Me: No, I just want those things locked up. They are a menace to society, and a threat to the safety of the people in this neighborhood.
AC: Thank you for calling Animal Control.

(End of Call)

It’s been 20 minutes and that officer hasn’t shown up yet. I’m thinking I might have to go vigilante and take matters into my own hands. I wonder what a .347 magnum will do to a Chihuahua?

Move over Malkin, here I come!

I was just on the radio doing an interview regarding my opinions about Home Rule in Rockford, Illinois. There was even a plug for Miasmatic Review on there. Well, there goes my 15 minutes of fame.

Of course it was a local radio station that really isn’t known for it’s hard hitting news as much as for it’s music, but still, kind of cool.

For more information on Home Rule in Rockford, Illinois see the Home Rule Archive.

So close, yet still failed.

As a follow up to my earlier post, tonight when I emptied the remnants of the then warm keg I measured the amount of sweet golden nectar that I was pouring down the drain. It came out to be just over 6 pints. Six pints people! That’s about three quarters of a gallon. I could have finished that off!

I would have been able to shite through a strainer, but I could have finished that off. If I only hadn’t let it go warm! Why, why did I do that?

No more for the road.

After the last four days, I no longer doubt that I am indeed aging. When I was in college, I could drink for days on end with no side effects. My partying could go on until the sun came up; I’d go home sleep until noon, get up and do it again day after day. Apparently, I don’t have that ability anymore.

For my party I bought a quarter barrel of beer. Yes, it was overkill, but I really enjoy draft beer. Knowing I had more then enough to last, I tapped her Friday night and started drinking on it. Saturday during the party, I think I was the only one doing any kind of serious damage to the contents of that barrel. The reason I say that is because I was constantly drinking from it using a 36 oz mug and I remember filling it a dozen times. Sunday morning when I checked it, ¾ of that keg was still there. DAMN!

For those of you not in the know, a quarter barrel/keg of beer holds 7.75 gallons of beer. That is the equivalent of about 71 pints of beer (With a half-inch head) or 3.4 cases of 12 oz cans. It would be morally and ethically wrong of me to waste that much beer. Being the honorable man that I am, I moved the keg next to the couch. While watching football on Sunday with a friend that came over I kept filling my glass with out having to get up. Guys, if you’ve never done this, I highly recommend it.

I don’t know how much I had to drink on Sunday, but my friend (whom doesn’t drink beer) said I had 8 pints by half time of the Packer game. According to Ktreva, I pulled my last pint off it around 8:30 Sunday night. Monday morning when I checked it, I figure I must have drunk close to 25 pints on Sunday. There was still ice-cold beer just waiting for me Monday morning. It was my duty to make sure that beer was consumed.

Calling for re-enforcements, I had my buddy Shadoglare come over and give me a hand. I even pressed Ktreva (good for about 3 pints) into consumption service. Sure enough, I started pulling pint after pint out of that keg just before noon on Monday. I finally decided I could not drink another drop of beer around 7:30 PM. I believe there is about half a gallon left in there.

Not once over the last four days did I get a hang over from drinking all that beer. Nope, not even a hint of one. However, today I as I sat at work I could feel my stomach and bowels revolt against my mainly liquid diet of the last 4 days. My head feels like it’s in a thick fog, my hands are a little shaky and I can NOT get the taste of beer out of my mouth no matter what I do.

The part that gets me the most is my stomach and bowels. I sit here with ulcers flaring in a gastro-fireworks display. I can feel my stomach churn and cramp with every move I make. My bowels have decided that they don’t want to handle anything solid. I’d go into more detail, but I’m sure you get the picture. I’ve spent more time in the bathroom then doing anything else. Of course, Ktreva has no sympathy for me, not that I’m asking for it. She believes, rightly so, that it’s my own fault I’m in this condition. She’s right; I thought I could do something I hadn’t done in 9 years.

God I’m getting old.

More on Home Rule in Rockford, IL

A commentor, Marianne Garvens, left this comment in on this post. I felt her comment was so good it deserved it's own post. She did a wonderful job of posting the downsides of Home Rule.

Rockford’s Home-rule Debate began in 2003 Many of the following excerpts I wrote in mid-2003 Guest Column by Marianne L. Garvens

Local government spending/incentives is what drives the need for more
tax revenue - ultimately leading to higher fines, fees and property
taxes.

Control spending you control taxes. It’s that simple!

KNOW THIS - Home-rule communities have NO bond limits! That means
Rockford would have an ‘open line of credit’ and ‘no direct accountability’!
You see, the city won’t need your permission by referendum anymore;
granting home-rule powers is like giving officials a vault full of blank
checks!

‘Freeport is my home community. I believe in its potential, but I have
seen repeated abuse of home-rule authority and I believe that this
power needs to be repealed from the Illinois Constitution, especially since
the concept violates the Federal Constitution.

Based on my experience in Freeport, I can only see the re-establishment
of home rule in Rockford serving the interest of growing government and
enriching preferred developers/businesses while stripping citizens of
their basic rights and more of their hard earned money.’

Home-rule communities are supposed to adhere to a ‘stricter standard’
for more openness, not less. They are not supposed to use home-rule
powers, consultants and attorneys to find new ways to cut the citizens out
of the public’s business.

There is a reason Rockford citizens voted out home-rule – their
‘representatives’ were abusing their home-rule powers to tax and spend and
they weren’t asking the people’s permission.]

On May 17, 2003, Rockford Register Star guest opinionist, Jim Ryan, a
City employee, used ‘factoids’ (instead of citing facts) in his attempts
to sway public opinion to re-establish home rule.

Simply put - a factoid is “a half-truth, unproven theory, wild
exaggeration or flat lie posing as scientific fact ... structured to mislead
...

Factoids play on our fears or suspicions ... [when] repeated over and
over, even reasonable, well educated people tend to go along ... No
matter how preposterous, the factoid will almost always be accepted as true
if it is repeated often enough. ...

Many of us [believe] that the truth will always triumph over ignorance
and error. ... The battle can easily be lost, and often is, before the
truth has a chance to catch up. ..." The Citizen’s Guide to Fighting
Government, Senator Steve Symms & Larry Grupp, Jameson Books, Inc.

First, while Jim Ryan is a citizen, and is certainly entitled to
express his opinion, as an employ of the City of Rockford; Ryan wields
tremendous authority while overseeing a substantial portion of the city’s
budget. – home-rule would certainly make his job easier and him far less
accountable. Also, based on a conversation with the Illinois Attorney
General's Office and George Ryan and Mike Curran's conduct - I know it
is improper for public officials and full-time elected officials to
campaign with public resources (of which time is one) or use their
position to influence the results of an election.

QUESTION: What is Jim Ryan’s real interest in this debate and why did
he resort to using ‘factoids’ and belittling the character of Rockford’s
majority when he said:
"By voting out home rule, we basically said that we want to be more
dependent upon the state legislature and have less freedom from
legislative mandates." RRS 5/17/03

On what basis did he reach his conclusions? He said, "As I stated, we
as citizens threw away home rule powers in 1983 under the guise that it
would lower local property taxes. Tax cap legislation has now fixed
that problem." RRS 5/17/03

State tax caps DO NOT prevent home rule communities from raising taxes;
home rule units can do what they want, when they want, unless the
people challenge the policy IN COURT!

[In Freeport, under the leadership of then Library Director Frank Novak
(Rockford’s newest Library Director), officials used home-rule powers
to go around State library law and the Illinois’ Taxpayer’s Bill of
Rights to avoid a referendum officials knew they could not win.]

Another problem? The media often avails public officials with unlimited
commentary space, usually without requiring factual citations or
substantiation; simultaneously, the media often edits or limits public
comments to 250 words or less once per month. How is this equitable, just or
fair?

The public’s participation is also silenced/ obstructed at what are
supposed to be public meetings – usually the public gets little notice
and/or no access to agendas; the public must make their comments within
two minute time constraints at the end of public meetings - even on
agenda items. My experience is that each unit of government interprets and
implements open government laws very differently and so there is no
consistency for the public to know how they can participate in their
government.

Why does media allow/accept unsubstantiated claims and print conclusory
statements as fact? The people deserve ‘fair and balanced reporting’;
we depend on it in a 'healthy' representative democracy.

I suggest before entertaining discussions of re-establishing home rule
the public be fully educated.

KNOW THIS- a home rule government need only abide by the U.S and
Illinois Constitutions, and a hand-full of statutes that specifically limit
power. That means that policy challenges can only be heard by HIGH
courts.

District courts and administrative hearings have no jurisdiction for
constitutional opinions, they can only certify a constitutional question
to a higher court, or dismiss a case when a statute has been determined
unconstitutional on its face - like the ‘dangerous and unsafe building’
statute.

[Freeport, with its home rule, thinks they can ignore the higher courts
and deny real property rights without statutory authority and contrary
to the constitution and Bill of Rights.]

I do not believe the people of Rockford’s vote said: ‘ "take care of us
Springfield, because we’re too stupid, distrusting of each other, and
stubborn to get along and take care of ourselves. …" ’ Jim Ryan RRS
5/17/03

How arrogant! What is Mr. Ryan’s purpose of distorting the results of
the referendum, misrepresenting the facts, and speaking so poorly of the
public he was hired to serve?

Pretty good huh? Remember people, Home Rule is not going to ease our troubles, it's just going to make more in other places.

To read the rest of my posts regarding Home Rule in Rockford, Illinois see this archive.

No to Home Rule in Rockford, Illinois

It appears the City council is going to vote on Home Rule tomorrow night. The proponents of Home Rule have decided that instead of getting the petitions signed by the people of Rockford, they are just going to go to the City Council to get them to vote it onto the ballot. I sent the following letter to my alderman in hopes that maybe she’ll vote no.

Ms. Johnson,

I live in the eighth ward, as you are my alderman I would like you to be aware of my feelings on Home Rule. I am strongly against it. The way Illinois has legislated the guidelines behind Home Rule, tends to leave too much room for potential abuse. The people that are trying to reinstate it are well with in their right and authority to do so. However, in 1983 when the people of Rockford decided it was time to remove this abused tool of government they where forced to have the petition signed by enough citizens in order to get it on the ballot. Now the powers that be, including our own Mayer, are already demonstrating how they my possibly abuse Home Rule by bypassing the citizens themselves.

Instead of getting the people to sign the petition to have this referendum added to the March ballot, they want the city council to pass it for them. How is this fair or representative of the people in the city? If they are sure this is going to pass, why not have them collect the votes themselves? Unless they want to bypass the citizens right to vote, and take away our freedoms even prior to Home Rule being voted on.

Please, do what's right. Vote no to have Home Rule added to the referendum with out the signatures on the petition.

If you live in Rockford, you should understand the dangers of Home Rule as it is designed. Please contact your Alderman and tell them you don’t want it in our city. Remember these are your rights they are taking away.

See the rest of my Home Rule posts in this Archive.

Don't these kind of contrast?

How You Life Your Life

You tend to deprive yourself of things you crave, for your own good. You say whatever is on your mind. Other people's reactions don't phase you. You tend to have one best friend you hang with, as opposed to many aquaintences. Some of your past dreams have disappointed you, but you don't let it get you down.

AND

You're A Crazy Drunk

When you drink, you get wrecked - and it ain't pretty.

I'm not saying these are accurate, but my wife looked at them and wondered how detailed the questions where.

New Year, New Friends.

The New Year is here, and I’ve seen everyone making resolutions. The only New Years resolution I’ve ever lived up to was one I made 6 years ago. I resolved to never make any more New Years resolutions. Over the last six years, I haven’t made a resolution.

However, I do occasionally decide I need to make changes in my life, and the New Year seems to be a good time to do it. With some of the troubles I’ve had over the last year, I decided that it’s time for me to do something about it. Starting today I’ve been weeding out the “friends” I no longer want to associate with. The ones that have been either causing me problems, the ones that irritate me, or the ones that I’ve just decided I don’t want anything to do with anymore.

Yes, it’s kind of assholish, okay it’s very assholish, but I’m doing it for my own selfish reasons. These are people that have done nothing but given me grief, pissed me off, or just plain make me want to re-shape a frying pan over their heads. Technically I started doing this back in December, but I’m putting it into overdrive today. Some might want explanations, which I’m not about to give. I’ll just spout off my standard, “I’m making changes, and getting rid of the people I don’t want in my life anymore” when asked.

You might remember I was lamenting over whether or not Ktreva and I had a New Years party. Well we decided we were going to, and just not invite those people we don’t want to the party. Some people we did want to attend weren’t invited just to not put them in the middle of a bad situation, like a couple of my re-enacting friends. I feel bad for those friends as, I personally felt like I did wrong by them. When I get a chance to talk to them, I’ll explain.

When we sent out our invites, we included a slip of paper that stated not everyone who was invited in the past was going to be invited this time. We also included on there that if they decided not to attend because of this, we fully understood. We did have some guests that opted not to come so they weren’t in the middle of the unpleasantness.

The party went off with out a hitch, which was great. We invited some new friends of ours to join us. Harvey and TEE-n-t. At one point I found out a guest of mine wasn’t going to come because she had told me she wasn’t going to make it and her plans changed at the last minute. Normally I’m shy, but when I’ve been drinking I had no problem calling (yes, dear readers I actually used a phone) and telling her she had to come or I would come and get her. When Tammi finally showed up it was nice to have her. She always brightens up a party.

Our party was much smaller this year then it was in years past, but that was kind of nice. We weren’t as crowded and it was nice to be able to spend more time with each guest. Of course I did maintain my party tradition of being slightly inebriated before the guests started arriving. Harvey helped me drink down a bottle of Glenmorangie 12 year Port Wood Finish single malt Scotch. Not as good as their 18 year, but still a damn fine Scotch. TEE-n-t kept giving me crap because I couldn’t pronounce her name properly. I had one crasher at the party, but since he I was about to legally declare him dead, I felt it was okay. It wasn’t that he wasn’t invited; it was just that he didn’t RSVP.
I’d like to think that everyone that was showed up had a good time. I know that Ktreva, Boopie, Clone and Myself did.

We have a winner!

The regular football season is over, that means it’s time for me to award prizes to the winners of my Salary Cap and Pick’ems Football contests.

The winner for the Salary Cap League is:

First loser is:

For the Pick’ems, The Winner is:

First loser is:

The winners have been notified by e-mail of their victory. A nominal prize for the football team of their choice shall be sent to them. For the first losers… you get an honorable mention and the Nelson Muntz laugh. HA-ha!

I hope that everyone that participated enjoyed themselves. Of course I will be running both again next year, so sometime in August you can expect to seem me sending out invites. If you didn’t get to play, there is always next year!

2006 is here.

If you are reading this, then you survived whatever celebration you had last night. I was a little worried that my head wasn’t going to survive. This morning I woke up a little rough, mainly because Clone was awake bright and early and I got up with him. Why that boy won’t sleep is a mystery to me. He didn’t get to bed until well after midnight. Now he is running around all bright eyed and getting into mischief.

I used this time to get some dishes started and clean up around the house while Ktreva sleeps. Ktreva was so tired, and she looks so beautiful while she sleeps, I’m letting her sleep as long as possible.

Boopie is still sleeping as well, he fell asleep on the couch last night, I had to wake him up and send him to his bed. He’s at the age where he’d sleep 12 hours a day if it were up to him.

Me? I’d say I drank too much, but that depends on your definition of too much. No headache, no upset stomach, no nausea, nope I’m doing just fine. Actually I currently am heating some chili cheese dip to make nachos out of. I always found an extra greasy breakfast makes the stomach feel better.

No strange or incoherant posts were made lastnight. There was some concern that something might get posted that would be difficult to explain the next day.

What a good way to start off 2006.