Miasmatic Review

What the....

Okay, many, many, many years ago. (June of 2009 to be exact) I left a cryptic message stating that I was going to go on Hiatus. I kept posting beer reviews for a while, then I had some medical issues that I blogged about but then things tapered off to almost nothing. Not a thing. I received e-mails and questions from people asking about me and I would respond very vaguely. Well, I�m not going to go over the last three years, it�s best to leave that in the past and move on. It�s time for a fresh start. I think I�m going to start blogging again. Now, with that being said, it may not be here. I�ve let this blog fall apart so badly that I don�t know that I want to spend the time to save it. Maybe, we�ll have to see.

I�m amazed at the number of bloggers I used to read that are still around� even more at the number of bloggers that don�t exist anymore. So if you see me popping in and out, don�t be afraid! I�m not a zombie; I�m just getting my blog legs going again.

Happy 2010 St. Patricks Day

I hope you all have a Happy St. Patrick's Day! May you all do plenty of Car Bombs, good Irish Stouts and eat a lot of Corned Beef and Cabbage!

That's a big sixer!

Well I�m off for a couple of days of fun with some friends in Western Illinois. First I�m going to hook up with T1G for lunch, and then I�m heading to the Galesburg area to hang with a bunch of the guys there, including blogspawn Petey. I have a six pack of Carlyle Scottish Ale, and when I say six-pack I mean six growlers (3 gallons) because Carlyle�s doesn�t sell it in any other take home variety.

So while I�m away I�m leaving you a question to ponder and discuss.

You receive the following text message, �I�m guna rape ur gurl!� from 815-555-5555. Now, in this situation you do not have a daughter. What would you do?

This did not happen to me, but to one of my minions. I know what I would do; I just want to see if my reaction was par for the course.

I expect good answers come Monday.

St. Pats Eve

All right folks, I know tomorrow is the big day. So to help you all get into the mood I'm leaving you a couple of video's from the Dropkick Murphys. Over the last couple of days I've gotten quite a few people singing these songs. I will warn you that the lyrics are pretty much NSFW..

Yea, it's not traditional Irish music, but dammit, sometimes I like the new stuff!

There, that's a more traditional Irish song...

Day four of St. Pats celebration!

Yesterday I hooked up with Bruce and Wes for a day of drinking fun. We started at Fritz's for lunch and some beer. While down there we were talked into doing a shot that was called an Irish Trash Can... It was a shot of Blue Curacao dropped into a glass of Red Bull. The glasses in each other made the drink green in color. It was way too sweet for my taste, in fact none of us liked it very much. Of course I gave out beads to all the ladies and children! No, there was no showing of breasts for beads!

After there we went to Carlyle to have a couple of drinks. I had their new one called Creme Brewlee (get it?). It was way too sweet for my taste and at 9.9% ABV, you could taste teh alcohol in it. Carlyle was right along the route for the St. Pat's parade in town. There were a lot of people in there with their kids waiting for the parade to start. I couldn't help but to give beads to all the kids and ladies. Again, there was no showing of breasts for beads!

After there we went to Muligan's in Rockford. This is were our behavior started to go down hill. That probably had something to do with the Irish car bombs we started doing. Others started showing up to join us. Not going into details, but that's when glassware and bar signs started to "disappear". This is also were the good beads started to come out and the we started giving out beads for breasts. Yes, there was showing of breasts for beads!

All in all it was a good time. Now I'm just taking a break before going out and starting today's celebration!

Liver Don't fail me now!

PS. Barry O'Bama did not get his arse kicked

St. Pats kick off

I know I've been gone for a couple of days, and not posted. I promise to tell you about IGOLD when I get some time.

Right now however, I'm going to be taking the next couple of days to celebrate St. Pats day. Yea, I know, it's early.

Yesterday I started at Old Chicago doing a mini-tour. Today I'm doing a bar crawl across the Rockford Area, I know we are hitting Fritz's and Mulligan's, maybe some others.

And for the next couple of days my alter leprechaun ego will be coming out. I put a picture of him in the extended entry.

Yep, that's him!

Yep, that's my alter leprechaun ego!

Now Ktreva thinks I'm going to get my arse kicked! Because I'm walking up to poeple saying things like, "Hey, I'm a friendly leprechaun. I promise you things like riches and rewards such as pots of gold at the end of the rainbow, which I have no plan on delivering! My name is Barry O'bama!"

Yea, it's drunk out! lol

MLK day

It's Martin Luther King Day. This is one of the holidays we are given off at work. I still haven't figured why this is a day off of work holiday for us. Especially since most other companies work today. Since most of my friends are working today or in in Florida, I decided I'm going to go spend the afternoon down at Fritz's.

If you have the day off, you are all more than welcome to join me.

Heaven or Hell?

We've all joked about "I'm going to hell" at some point or the other. Now The Path of The Savior has a quick online quiz to let you know if you indeed are going to go to hell.

It's based on the ten commandments, so there are only ten questions.

And yes, I am going to hell.

Celebrity Midgets

I know that some people like midgets. Okay, I find them fascinating. So when I found a post at Celebrity Fun Pictures that photoshopped celebrity pictures to give you an idea what some celebrities would look like if they were midgets.

Jennifer Anniston as a Midget

If you want to see more, go over and check out the whole post.

A Day Most Foul

Okay, this isn't something that I normally post about, but this story was just too damn funny not to share.

For those of you with delicate sensibilities, I put the story in the extended entry. If you came to this post directly, I'm sorry.

I really haven't posted much about work due to some advice given to me. Lets just say things have gotten really interesting. That also means my stress levels are up some. Throw in everything going on with KTreva, the holidays and some other family issues going on, my health has taken a slight dip. Now before anyone starts to give me grief or worry. What I mean is that I haven't been to the doctors like I should have and I'm not eating properly and I'm eating and drinking stuff I really shouldn't.

Because of all of that I've had some interesting bowel issues.

This morning while at work I felt a grumble low in my bowel. I knew that something wicked this way comes and made for the restroom post haste. I walk into the largest men's room in the building, it has five stalls. Two of those stalls are already occupied. Normally I'm a bit shy when it comes to doing my business and I would have come back later, but I didn't think it could wait this time. I head into a stall, dropped trow and prepared to have an un-constitutional. Trust, me what was coming was in no way good for the body or soul.

The first thing that came out was a foul, toxic, noxious gas. A gas most foul. This had to be the most disgusting scent my body has ever produced. It smelled like mix of death, rotten eggs, decaying meat and burning motor oil. Yes, burning motor oil... I'm not sure what I ate to make that burning motor oil stench, but it was there. Then my colon released something that resembled air puffed cotton fecal cable.

The next thing I know, one of the guys in the stall next to me starts coughing. I hear him mutter, "Oh my god." Then a couple of seconds later the other guy in the stall lets out a series of gags and yelps, "That's foul".

I can hear them trying to finish up their business so they can get out. While they are doing that my colon is pushing out what can only be described as, and felt like, 25 cubic feat of concentrated vile darkness into the world. A darkness that can only be described as part solid, part gas and part sludge beast, Hexxus, from Fern Gully.

My two unintentional victim's eyes must have started watering, because I could hear them start to sniffle between coughs and gags. Then one of them must have had a problem operating the door because I could hear him say, "C'mon, open up!" and rattle the door.

At this point I'm trying to hold back laughter between gags and grunts.

Finally my two companions run out of the bathroom, after emptying a can of air freshener into the air while washing their hands. Of course I still had another 10 minutes. In that time at least three other people walked into the room and then almost immediately walked out again. Including one person that made the commentary, "That's just wrong."

After I finished, I scrubbed my my hands and made my way out of the restroom. I was kind of in fear that the vile stench would follow me out and terrorize the innocents that are unfortunate enough to have desks right outside the men's room. As far as I could tell, it either didn't follow me out or they did an excellent job of hiding it.

A death plot against me!

Based on this list, I do believe my cat is trying to kill me!

Now that I know... I'll be more careful!

Plays and Haircuts

Saturday afternoon, after the in-laws left, the family and I headed to Fort Atkinson, WI to see A Fireside Christmas at the Fireside Dinner Theater. I had heard advertisements for the Fireside Dinner Theater, but I had never been there. We were going with my parents and sister to celebrate my mother's birthday.

When I think of Dinner Theater, I think of a show that is going on incidental to the meal. IE, you are eating and the show is going on. This was not the case with Fireside. You eat in one section and then go into the theater for the show. I felt a little disappointed when I discovered that. It has been many years, 20 years to be exact, since I had been to a dinner theater and was kind of looking forward to it.

The food was pretty good, and the show was entertaining. Clone liked it, at least for the first act. The second one he was a little bit restless through out the entirety.

After we returned home, 7 hours later (travel time, shopping, eating and a show), I left to head down to Fritz's to hook up with T1G one more time. He had called earlier in the day and asked if I wanted to get together, but it was right after we left the house for the show. I told him that if I got home at a decent time I'd head down.

We spent a lot of time talking, joking about Thanksgiving morning, and making fun of the fact that I can't keep getting the two oldest Fritz girls confused in my head. I keep calling them the wrong names and forgetting which one I'm talking to at which day. I used to never have this problem, not until the last month.

Now if anyone has seen T1G over the last year, you know he has long hair, that he keeps in a ponytail. Well Saturday night I scalped him. He turned his back to me, I pulled out my pocket knife and cut the damn hippie lock off. As much as the story would go better if I could say I was drunk and I did it with out his permission.

The truth be told, he was leaving to have his haircut (by one of the Fritz girls, don't ask me which one because I'll get it wrong) and told me I could cut it off. The best part was the reaction of people in the bar as I took my knife (it's a Boy Scout knife and had mini-scissors on it) and cut it off. People gawked and stared and whispered to each other in shock.

After taking it off, I took a picture of it with my camera phone and sent the picture of my trophy to every blogger for which I had a cell number. Shortly after sending that message I started getting responses from people. Some in disbelief, some in shock.... and one from Graumagus calling me a liar and saying that I pulled it off of T1G while riding like a horse. (Yea, there's a mental image for you!) Next thing I know there are text messages flying back and forth and everywhere.

It was hilarious. It was almost like a blogmeet... only even more geeky!

T1G ended up coming back to the bar after finishing his haircut. We ended up closing the place down. It had been a while since I've done that. I usually end up leaving earlier.

For those that are wondering about the Ponytail, yea, I still have it. I'm thinking of turning it into a scalp lock. Either that or mounting it on my wall as a trophy!

I'm not sure yet.

Halloween!

It's the morning of Halloween! I've got a couple of hours of work then I finish the transformation of the house into a haunted house for the kids. I'll keep you posted as the day goes on.

So what are you doing for Halloween?

Rock has a future

Now for the cute content of the day. The future of Rock is alive, check out this little kid lipsync Jukebox Hero by Foreigner.

The answer has finally arrived.

After two months of being up in the air about my job and work status I finally got an answer to my situation. At 9:00 this morning I was called to an important meeting. During this meeting there was the director of my office, the director of the Tulsa office, my manager and the Tulsa manager. We discussed how the transition was going and what support was needed, and the need for experience management in Tulsa.

We went over a lot of details as well as the logistics and cost benefit analysis of continuing long term support. It was determined that in order for this project to work they need to have staff permanently located in Tulsa that has a thorough knowledge of the products. Finally it came down to my assignment, or re-assignment. It looks like I will be permanently relocated.

I will be returning to Rockford on the 13th and 14th, then after that I return to Rockford for the last time on the 26th. After that there will be no more taking time off to fly home. It's a done deal and I really don't have a say in the matter.

On September 26th, I'm going back to Rockford permanently!

That's right, on September 26th I wash my hands of this project. Thank the powers that be that I'm finally coming home. I've had enough of this place, this project and this job. I'm pretty much thinking that come October I'm going to start looking for a new job outside of this company.

It could happen.

What IF Google ruled the World? Would it look like this? Make sure to look at all of the pictures.

Party Time!

Bruce is coming to pick me up in a couple of hours to head down to Fritz's before I leave for Tulsa. After we get a good base going on at Fritz's we're going to head back to my house where some other friends are going to join us. The plan is that if this is a permanent move for me, one last drunken huzzah in Northern Illinois.

I'm thinking that with the new lap top and web cam, I might run a cord out to the back yard and set up a live video channel later so any of you that want to stop by and see what's going on can. Then again, I may just be a little too "socially lubricated" to get it set up.

UPDATE: Forget the live webcam, I tried to figure out how to set it up and folks, it's just beyond me.

What's it called?

Ever wonder what the actual style of facial hair is on someone? Ever wonder what exactly is meant when someone was described as wearing an "old dutch" beard? Well now over at Dyers.Org he has a quest going, A Quest For Every Beard Type.

There's only one beard type missing, The Harvey. The man has the most well groomed beard I've ever seen.

Pimp my Mixer!

I know there is a fascination for everything. People focus on and obsess about just everything. I just didn't realize that people would be obsessed with mixers, especially ones that are "pimped" out.

Head over to FlameKA.com and you can start the process to pimp out your Kitchen Aid mixer. And it's not just flames, like the above fighter style, there are many more. Check out their picture page.

Unpopular decisions.

Wes of Bodhran Roll, Please! has a post of were he�s been and what�s been going on in his life. It ends with some comments about changes he�s made regarding re-enacting. These include, unfortunately due to some research of my own, to him deciding not to bring his Bodrhan to the events anymore and to shave his facial hair. Of course good friend and blogspawn Petey is not pleased with this decision to stop bringing the bodrhan. (As well as our friend Wil, but he hasn�t commented yet).

I know that when I shaved my facial hair and decided to get rid of some of the items in my camp that are not period correct, I took some, okay a LOT of ridicule. The thing is that I think some people are missing the point. Now, I can only really speak for me, but after conversations with Wes, I think he�ll agree with me on this. I didn�t make these changes because someone else forced me to or because I didn�t want. I made these decisions because they are what I wanted.

When I was younger I was brought up that if you are going to do something, do it right and take pride in your work. History has been a passion of mine for years. When I was younger I loved going to museums and ready about history. I loved going on vacations and taking tours of various historical locations. When we went on these tours I was always the kid fighting his way to the front so I wouldn�t miss anything the tour guide said.

In 1997 when I had an opportunity to start doing some re-enacting, I jumped on it. I joined Clan Chattan and we did more of the Scottish Highland Game/Ren Faire style re-enacting. We had two events that were early American events, and those quickly became my favorites. In fact after a couple of years I started hating the Ren Faire and Highland Games gigs. There wasn�t much history to them and the people that attended really didn�t want to know about history, unless I was talking about the history of the sword. Occasionally I would find someone that wanted to talk Scottish history with me, but mainly they just wanted to see the sharp shiny objects. After leaving Clan Chattan, I haven�t worked a Ren Faire or Highland game.

Now I�m on my own doing what I want to do. Over the years I�ve been slowly weeding out what is wrong in my camp and gear. I was reading more books and brushing up on more history. Becoming more and more knowledgeable about the history of the period and location I�m portraying. I know what is wrong in my camp and what needs to be improved.

At the end of last season something finally snapped into place for me. I shook off the last of my Ren Faire mentality of �if they had it, they would have used it� and �If it looks period correct, that�s all that matters.� Now, I�m striving to get as historically accurate of a camp that I can get and still have my family with. (There is absolutely NO chance of my having a White wife and kid with me in 1756 in Northern Illinois/Southern Wisconsin) So I make exceptions, because this is first and foremost a FAMILY hobby for us, and its damn well going to stay that way. Yet I am going to make the changes I need to make for me, and my costuming and my equipment. Not the family�s stuff, but mine. Ktreva is behind me on this.

Things really didn�t hit the fan until last month when I made the decision to shave my facial hair off, replace me capote and update the camp chairs. All of a sudden everyone was going nuts about my decision. Here�s the thing. I�m not doing this because someone told me to. Its not because I feel I have to. It isn�t even something I didn�t want to do. This was a decision I made in order to get it right. I did it because I knew these things are wrong for my persona and my camp.

I did this because I want to do my best to do it right. I am taking pride in what I�m doing. This is something that I know is right and I want to do it. It doesn�t bother me that people are making fun of my cleanly shaven face. When they laugh and tease me about my decisions, it rolls off of me. The fact is simple, it was a decision I made, it is something I�m standing by and none of them can tell me that I�m wrong.

I�m not mad, irritated or even annoyed at any of them. Because I�m doing what is right for me, and they are doing what is right for them. And that is what is most important.

That is what they don�t understand.

Now of course if Wes wants to bring his Bodhran and play, I'd be all for that. The nights are going to get quiet.

1.21 gigawatts!

Everybody is modifying their cars today. Be it rims, spoilers, artwork or what not, they are doing it. Well I finally found something I need to get for my truck... because I don't own a De Lorean. I can get a Flux Capacitor!

Yes, it's kinda geeky... but it's still cool. Right?

April Fools jokes.

I love April Fools day. I just love pulling pranks on people. Unfortunately, due to past, uh, "incidents" I've been forced to promise that I wouldn't play jokes on certain people anymore. Or because of my position at work, I can't pull anymore on the job pranks. Something about lawsuits and stuff. That being said, I want to give credit to some really good pranks pulled today.

First: The IT department at work. When we all showed up this morning, none of our phones worked except in the customer service arena. We couldn't make or take any calls. This caused people to panic for about an hour. I on the other hand just sat back and laughed. ITG, you guys rock!

Second: Ken DeCoster of Rockford's WNTA 1330 talk radio pulled one on the city. On his talk show, separate of the news portion, he asked people what they thought of the City of Rockford spending Millions of dollars to replace the street signs around the city. They are going to do all of them so they are in English on top and the Spanish equivalent on the bottom. IE if it was Cat Street it would say Calle Del Gato underneath it. He kept this going for hours. I didn't hear the whole thing, only part of it when I went to lunch. I did get to hear him tell everyone it was an April Fools joke however. Ken, I applaud you! At five o'clock tonight they were still talking about it!

Yea, some people are mad over the whole thing, even after it was brought out that it was a joke. To those people, get a life. It was a joke, and funny. Sure my blood boiled, but once he said "April Fools" I cooled off quickly and admitted he got me. It's for fun.

Third: The guy that thought it would be fun to chase his friend way too close. It was hilarious when he slammed on his brakes and you rammed him so hard you both slid into a ditch. Nothing is funnier than two teenage morons playing bumper tag at 70+ miles per hour. Wait, that wasn't an April Fool's joke. Those were just April Fools.

Become invisible?

I know people can sell anything on EBay, but seriously folks. Who the hell is going to buy the ability to become invisible?

Well, actually, probably the same guys that bought the x-ray vision glasses from the back of comic books.

Maybe it's a Leprechaun?

Just in time for St. Patrick's day we get a clip from Argentina of some gnome-like creature wearing a pointed hat.

According to the article in The Sun:

The midget - which wears a pointy hat and has a distinctive sideways walk - was caught on video last week by a terrified group of youngsters.

Teenager Jose Alvarez - who filmed the gnome - yesterday told national newspaper El Tribuno that they caught the creature while larking about in their hometown of General Guemes, in the province of Salta, Argentina.

He said: �We were chatting about our last fishing trip. It was one in the morning.

�I began to film a bit with my mobile phone while the others were chatting and joking.

"Suddenly we heard something - a weird noise as if someone was throwing stones.

"We looked to one side and saw that the grass was moving. To begin with we thought it was a dog but when we saw this gnome-like figure begin to emerge we were really afraid."

Jose added that other locals had come forward to say they had spotted the gnome.

He said: �This is no joke. We are still afraid to go out - just like everyone else in the neighbourhood now.

"One of my friends was so scared after seeing that thing that we had to take him to the hospital.�

He's right, this isn't a joke. This would classify as a prank. Jeez! Not that I have any proof that it's a prank, but seriously am I really going to trust a group of teenagers hanging out on a street corner at 1:00AM?

Miller Time

This week started off really good. I had just spent the weekend with a group of the greatest guys I've had the pleasure hanging out with. Then I had a day off to "recover" from the fun.

Then I went to work. I walked into a maelstrom of laziness, incompetence and bullshite. On Wednesday I was given the shaft. I�m not going to go into a lot of details, but my company basically told me that I�m not a valuable employee, I�m not appreciated and that what I do is unnecessary to the benefit of the company. When I confronted them on this, they claimed �That is not the situation.� Yet actions speak louder than words and their actions spoke volumes. I caught them in some �untruths� or misinformation. I�m not saying I was directly lied to, but either the powers that be were lied to, are misinformed or misunderstood information given to them.

Then they knew they pissed me off and instead of confronting the situation they avoided it. Pissing me off more. There is nothing that annoys me more than milquetoast management. I had more meetings canceled today; in fact all of my meetings with upper management were canceled. After the last one was canceled, I forced a confrontation by stating I wanted to follow up on our conversation from Wednesday.

We sat down, discussed it and they wanted me to put my feelings and issues in writing for a formal request. After that they questioned my ability to manage my employees and they questioned my ability to continue functioning in the position I�m currently in. Because of that I told them I refused to put it in writing in fear that they were going to use it against me at a later time. That set them on the defense. Denials of retaliation were flying left and right until I pulled out the examples of were they retaliated against me in the past.

I really think my time with this company is coming to an end rapidly. Either voluntarily or involuntarily. I am proud of the fact that in one of the meetings with my peers, after they pushed some of my buttons, I didn�t utter the phrase, �Don�t piss me off or I�ll rain fiery death down upon you like the gods of yore.� Especially since they have all heard me talk about my mortar and how I could shell the building from a half-mile away. Not that I would actually ever do that or anything else remotely that stupid. Just that I don�t know if they would take it as the joke it was meant as right now.

Anyway, I�m getting ready to tear into a couple of cases of beer soon.

That makes three!

It seems that for reasons unexplainable to man, I have again spawned. Long time reader Petey has started his own blog, Petey�s Powderhorn.

I�ve known Petey for four years and consider him a good friend. He�s one of my many re-enacting and drinking buddies. Well I guess technically re-enacting buddies are drinking buddies, but hey does it really matter? He�s a nice guy with a good heart and a good head on his shoulders. It�s only taken me 2 years to get him to actually start one.

So go over and give him a chance. Just a warning, he is promising to be like Graumagus in the earlier days with fire and venom� after he get�s his blog legs.

New Years Confusion.

Later tonight when you have had a couple drinks or 12 in your system, watch the following clip.

I'm not sure what it's about, but it has some kind of creepy kid, a goofy bird and some hot German girls wearing lederhosen, or whatever the female equivalent is. Anyway it has to be hilarious when you are drunk.

Thanks to Jabbah at I Hate My Cubicle (NSFW) for finding this.

Hangin' with the in-crowd.

Last night Ktreva and I were able to meet up with some mighty fine bloggers at Klas in Cicero. We had Blackfive, Tammi and T1G. Unfortunately others couldn't join us for work or family obligations. Not that this wasn't a perfectly fine group to begin with, it's just sometimes it's fun to meet other bloggers and talk to them face to face, not via e-mail or comments.

The food was excellent, there were plenty of great stories, and a great time was had by everyone. The highlight of the night was some sweater wearing Czech guy kept hitting up on T1G. I'm not sure it was for friendship or date, but the guy was persistent. At one point Tammie and Ktreva asked me to run interference. After looking at Blackfive, I told them all the only kind of interference I know how to run is as a Wingman, and I don't think T1G wants that kind of help.

It was a lot of fun, and a perfect way to have fun this time of year.

Bad movies gone good?

Yesterday I went over to Shadoglare�s dwelling for what we dub Cheesy Movie day. Basically people bring over a slew of B-movies or ones that are so bad they are good. We watch them to find the rare gem that is the truly great B-movie. We had a slew of movies to choose from, but here are the ones we ended up watching.

Cannibal: The Musical (AKA Alferd Packer: The Musical). It�s almost too bad we started out the day with this movie as it was the best cheesy movie of the day. It was made by Trey Parker and Matt Stone while they were in college. So this was before their South Park days. It�s not out on video apparently, but somehow Shadoglare obtained a copy of it. This was absolutely hilarious! If you get a chance to see, it�s one shpadoinkle of a movie!

The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires. Okay, it�s a cheesy kung-fu movie with vampires and zombies. It really made no sense and to be honest I was pretty bored with it. I ended up dozing off a couple of times. I like cheesy kung-fun movies, but this one didn�t do anything for me.

Dorm of the Dead. This is a movie I brought. It was bad. Before the opening credits we had zombie kills, and up skirt shot and boobies. I, uh, well we all did, thought I had gotten zombie pr0n. The acting was horrible, the cinematography was awful and the writing was horrendous.

Flight of the Living Dead. Okay, when I first heard about this movie I figured it couldn�t be more than 15-20 minutes long. Zombies on a plane, there�s not much more that can happen. You have an outbreak and with in 15 minutes the flight is overrun with the undead. To be honest, this was the second best movie of the day. It was done really well and the way they did it, they filled an hour and a half with zombie goodness. I will say that when the outbreak finally happened, the plane was overrun in 15 minutes. (we timed it). It may not be a top 20 zombie movie, but if you like that genre it�s worth watching.

Space Truckers. Okay, we debated if this was really a b-movie with such actors as Dennis Hopper and Stephen Dorf as main characters. It�s cheesy, but I don�t think it was a b-movie. I enjoyed watching it, but it really is stupid, especially the square pigs. I think they could have done this better, but hey it was made 10 years ago and it didn�t last in the theaters very long.

Overall we had some good movies and we had some bad ones, but they were all enjoyable. Half the fun was making fun of the movies while watching them.

Tennessee

I made it to Knoxville in plenty of time to have some fun tonight. That is after the first two rentalcars that had check engine lights came on, a stand still accident in Chicago, and having a stand still in Kentucky while the used explosvies to contruct the road. Yea, that's right, they were blasting the road.

Of course I get here to find out that Bloodspite requested a room with one bed. He then advises me he grew up 15 minutes away from where the filmed Deliverence. I'm really glad I brought my .45 with me.

So far we've sampled a lot of the local brew and have started drinking on some of the stuff we brought from home. However he did take me to a hippy joint called "The Mellow Mushroom" for beer and pizza. The pizza was damn good, the beer was hit and miss. Tomorrow we plan on drinking more beer and then on Saturday we are hitting the game. Depending on how things go I plan on blogging interesting things as soon as I can. Unfortunately sobriety and time dictate what I can do.

More proof!

As we all know that I'm a big fan of zombies and I even have a zombie contingency plan. Of course many of you think I'm insane for this, but I hate to break it to you, it can happen. Don't believe me? How about 5 scientific reasons a zombie apocalypse could actually happen.

You have Brain parasites, neurotoxins, the real rage virus, neurogensis, and nanobots. So see, having those plans is a good thing.

Thanks to Shadoglare for the link!

Beer surplus?

Today at lunch I headed to a local grocery store to pick up some munchies for the weekend. While I was there I decided to take a walk through their liquor department to see if they had any new beers to review. As I went down the aisles, Ktreva pointed out that the Great Lakes Brewery beers were on clearance for $2.99 a Six-Pack. Folks, the price on this beer is normally $7.99 per sixer. Now Great Lakes makes the Edmund Fitzgerald Porter that I reviewed back in June, and received a damn good rating. Of course I picked up a six pack of two of their other beers, the Elliot Ness and Dortmunder Gold to review at a later time.

As I stood there I did the math in my head. $2.99 a six pack. That comes out to $11.96 for a case. That's a damn good price. And even though I'm not supposed to drink beer, I do entertain. Ktreva suggested I buy as much as I can at that price. So I did, I ended up buying a total of 10 six packs for $29.90. And as my wife put it, "That's premium beer for Keystone Light prices."

This morning I was thinking there was a large surplus of beer in this house that wasn't getting drunk. Those weekly beer reviews I generally only drink one and give away the rest. But I haven't had a gathering or re-enactment in a while so I have a lot of sixers sitting around waiting to be drunk. After today, I have a ton more.

Yes some of those six packs only have 5 beers in them, but that's 86 beers (15 six packs X 6 beers - 4 missing). That's over three and a half cases of beer. And that isn't counting the growlers I have in the fridge.... and I don't drink beer... as much... anymore.

So which one of you drunks is going to be knocking on my door tomorrow?

100,000 visits.

Well hell it looks like I just passed the 100,000k visitor mark. The lucky(?) person was refered over from Quality Weenie with the Internet provider being Wide Open West.

Huh... I wonder if I should have offered a prize for that... but what the hell would I give?

For Harvey...

...because it's what he wanted.

It's Harvey of Bad Example Birthday today. He had one wish for his birthday.

This year's theme... Boobs.

Specifically adult human female breasts.

Since he is one of my blogging mentors and just an all around good guy I decided to get him exactly what he wanted. The problem is that I just couldn't pick out one pair. I spent most of the day shopping. It was really hard to find the perfect set of Golden Bozos for him. I obsessed all day over the gift. Searching everywhere I just could not make up my mind.

Finally I found the perfect gift. I'll warn you now this is NSFW I hope you enjoy Harvey!

As a bonus gift since it is football season, I also added in this football fascinated well endowed girl.

Happy Birthday Harvey!

Who would have thought?

I discovered something new last night about my wife. Apparently gently slapping the sides of her breasts in a playful manner is not something she enjoys.

Ktreva also didn�t seem pleased when I referred to them as �fun bags�.

My head is still sore this morning.

Happy Labor Day.

It's labor day, a time for people to get together, grill some meat, drink beer and celebrate the American worker and women that have given birth. Well, maybe not that second half.

To me it also symbolizes the end of the summer. Technically it's not over until September 21st, but you know what. It doesn't technically start on Memorial day either. And guys if you are lucky enough to have a beautiful lady doing the grilling for you, let me give you all some tips.

Make sure that you give her the meat she needs. It has to be thick and juicy.

Then make sure she fans the flames so it's nice and hot. She can do what ever she needs to warm it up for you.

Happy Labor Day!

Must see movie.

For years they've made movies based on video games. Now they've finally made a movie based on a classic video game that looks like it's worth watching.

GAH!

BALLS!

Building Tetris

I like Tetris, it�s a fun little time waster, but I don�t know if I would want to stand outside and watch it played with the lights of a building.

Ogfest in review.

All right, I�m a little behind in posting this, but dammit, I�ve been busy. Ogfest was just about the most damn fun I�ve had in a long time. Ktreva and I left right after work to head down. When we arrived at the hotel, the bellhop guy kept wanting to help me carry my bags, I really didn�t feel comfortable letting him carry my side arms, I don�t think he understood. Especially since I didn�t tell him the innocent looking black bag was filled with handguns and ammo.

As soon as I walked up to the desk to check in, I swore I heard Tammi talking. I just couldn�t see her, and I was more interested in checking in and getting the bag of firearms out of the lobby. Sure enough after dumping off the luggage in the room we found Tammi in the bar with T1G, Og and Jon. We had time to grab a beer when Oddybobo and Zonker arrived. While we were sitting there talking Bloodspite arrived. He was all frazzled and worried looking, something about traffic, driving 8 hours and no air conditioning. Fortunately he shut up and put his beer hole to good use.

We all went to this microbrewery in Naperville. They told us for the size of party we had it would be an hour and a half wait, or we could go up stairs and just grab some tables first come first serve or wait until ours were ready. Harvey and TNT arrived just as we stole some tables from the locals. I�d review the beer, but honestly I know they had some that sucked and some that were decent. It didn�t matter; most of us were swilling beer like there was no tomorrow. After dinner we went back to the hotel to drink some more. (Don�t you judge us!) Redneck, Leslie and Shou joined in the fun.

Saturday Harvey, Bloodspite and I headed to Buffalo Range to hook up with Graumagus, Og and Curious for some shooting. We had a lot of fun at this range. We did learn two things though. First, Harvey and Bloodspite underestimate the amount of ammo that can be burnt in two hours shooting. Secondly, Bloodspite's �twins� are inconsistent as all hell. The safest place to be is directly in front of them when shooting. EVERYONE that shot them was all over the place. They felt nice and handled well, but I guess when you store them in a chaw can the rifling gets mess up! (Sorry buddy, their dogs!)

Saturday night we went to Klas in Cicero for dinner. Teresa was there waiting for us. She even made me kiss her ring again. How cool is that? Biloxi also joined us at the restaurant. After dinner some presents were given to T1G and Og made speech. Any rumors about me drinking straight from pitchers are unsubstantiated at best. Such things would be highly uncouth.

I also brought my camera with. At one point in the night I turned on the motor drive and was taking paparazzi style pictures. My memory card holds over 1,000 pictures, I had 638 left Sunday morning. Looking at these pictures there are some really good ones. Unfortunately many people there did not want their pictures taken for fear of photoshopping reasons. Apparently one or four of the bloggers in the room have a history of such things. Thus in order to get them to cooperate I promised that I would not post any of the pictures on the internet, supply them to someone else who might or knowingly provide them to anyone that may photoshop them in any way. Thus if you want to see the pictures, tough. I�ve burned them onto a disk for my own keeping.
Saturday night after the restaurant we went back to the hotel for even more drinking. (Don�t you judge us!) I never realized how much beer a group of bloggers can consume. Fortunately I�m a lightweight so I only had a couple Saturday night. Again much fun ensued. There were stories and jokes. People having a great time, and some NASCAR fan that wanted to us to all blog about NASCAR.

Sunday went well, we crawled out of bed around 10:30 AM. As I was passing through the lobby there were a group of bloggers there. At this point I would like to say to all of you, I�m sorry. I don�t remember who was all there, I was feeling a might out of it. I believe it was Tammi, T1G, Jon and Zonker�. But I could be seriously wrong. Especially after stepping outside into the daylight. For the first time this month I cursed the sun for being that bright life-giving star in the sky.

Some people had left long before I had, especially those that had flights or long drives ahead of them. About 2 in the afternoon while Ktreva and I were eating lunch, Bloodspite calls and leaves some kind of garbled voicemail for me. Folks, I�ve heard of drunk dialing, but he was driving dialing� then again he may have been drunk driving dialing from the sounds of the message. Between the cell-phone static and that thick Missouri drawl of his, I could barely make out what he was saying. Well except that he was about 130 miles from the Possum Roundup. It must be a Missouri thing.

Speaking of roundups, here�s the best part of a blogmeet post. Who all was there. This is done in no particular order what so ever. Just the order in which I found the link to their blogs.

Ktreva: Well hell, I married this one. She threw herself on that grenade. But she did look dead sexy in that dress Saturday night. Yea, I don�t know how I landed her either.

Oddybobo: This is my second time meeting her in person, and she is just as sweet, beautiful and wonderful as I remember her being. Even if she did try to tackle me and put me through a wall in the hotel.

Zonker: This is the first time I met him, unfortunately I didn�t get much time talking with him. He seems like a nice guy, I�m just going to have to force myself to not be so shy next time and actually strike up a conversation.

T1G: The birthday boy himself. As I said in his birthday comment, he�s like the older brother I never had. Only drunker, less articulate and with a worse haircut. Farking hippy!

Tammi: Smart, funny, beautiful. And contrary to some rumor, she is not monstrously tall. I don�t know where that came from, but it�s just wrong!

Og: Great guy and fun to talk to. I just really wish he would stop trying to take his clothes off around me. It seems every time I turned around he was picking up his shirt, unbuckling his belt or licking his nipples. Hey, if I�m going to be traumatized, so are you.

Jon: This was my first time meeting him; I�m glad he resurrected himself from the blogging grave. Great guy to talk to and he�s the perfect designated driver. Plus I have some GPS navigation system envy. The next time I�m in his part of the hand I�m going to have to look him up.

Bloodspite: I�m damn glad he talked the Bloodspouse into letting him go, even if it was with a promise from me to keep him out of trouble. Don�t you all laugh at once. Good guy to joke around with, especially since he likes to advertise that he grew up where they filmed Deliverance. Plus he brought me a six-pack to do a review on. Looking forward to being able to kick back a couple of dozen more beers with you at some time.

Harvey: The Blog father himself. Some of you might not believe this, but Harvey has some skills. He picked up my Colt 1991 Model 80 .45 and was getting �kill shots� at 50 yards with it. I�m re-thinking my position on pissing him off. But I'm definitely getting him back to the range sooner or later.

TNT: Short, Sassy, Sexy� and looks like a pirate with underwear on her head. Yet, she pulls it off with a certain flair. However I need to make sure that she and Ktreva never go shopping at an outlet mall together again. They cut into my beer money.

Redneck: This is another blogger I met for the first time. I actually spent some time talking with him; he seems almost as shy as I am. However, by the end of the night I couldn�t understand a damn word he was saying� but I think he was talking about fishing.

Leslie: This is a second meeting for us; unfortunately we did not get much quality time together. Actually I think my shyness and her sense of self-preservation kept it that way. One of these days I�m gonna finish that conversation we tried to start at Fritz�s a couple of years ago.

Teresa: The lovely and regal Teresa. It was just an honor that you let me kiss your ring again, and this time you didn�t even slap me. Thank you for gracing us with your presence. I�m looking forward to our next meeting.

Graumagus: I�ve known Grau for years, but damn I didn�t realized how much he likes to drive. I think he spent more on gas then beer. He also needs to get a rifle that is Contagion proof. Damn cheap Russian ammo jamming up the bolt!

Shoe: This is the first time I met her, I didn�t really get a chance to talk to her. In fact I�m trying to remember if we ever exchanged words outside of and introduction and salutation. She seems really nice. Damn my shyness!

Biloxi: Another first time meeting for me. He sat at the same end of the table that I did at dinner. So we actually were able to talk and have some conversation. He was nice, polite and just fun to talk with.

Curious: Okay, I really only spoke to him briefly at the range. In fact I didn�t even realize he was a blogger until that night at dinner. But it was nice meeting him anyway.

I think that�s everyone. If I missed someone I�m sorry.

Return from Ogfest

We�re back from Ogfest. It was a great time. We were able to see some friends we hadn�t seen in a long time and make some new ones. I�d really love to go into details, but right now I�m just so damn tired, I can barely keep my eyes open. I promise there will be more details later.

But until then, I will leave you with this question, �What is a possum roundup?�

Off to Ogfest!

We are heading to Naperville now for Ogfest. I think I grabbed everything I need.

A couple of growlers of beer from Carlyle. CHECK!

1,000 rounds of ammo. CHECK!

Shooting bag full o� firearms and firearms accessories. CHECK!

My good camera. CHECK!

Suitcases packed, CHECK!

My beautiful wife. CHECK!

Contents of the nightstand. CHECK!

No kids, CHECK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yea, it�s going to be a good time.

I hope to see a lot of you there. If you�re not going, you�re going to miss out on a good time, good people and some good beer.

Someone likes me.

To the individual that bought me the two growlers of Scottish Ale from Carlyle Brewing Company. You are a great person and I thank you. Of course I�m thanking you in the only way that is appropriate, I�m finishing off the first growler as I type this.

Your kindness over the last three months has not gone unnoticed and it was a complete surprise.

Thank you.

I know one of these girls.

As many of you know I�m an avid Hooters fan. T1G and I tend to hit the local one on a regular basis, when he�s in town. Now, before I start hearing I go for the girls. Honestly, we don�t. I really like their wings, T1G is more of a buffalo shrimp fan. If I wanted to go see scantily clad pretty girls, I could go to other places that tend to have better looking girls wearing a hell of a lot less. With that being said, here�s a montage of Hooter�s girls done to the Bob River�s Song �Little hooters Girl�, a spoof of �Little Drummer Boy�

Jabbah over at I Hate My Cubicle (NSFW) found this little treasure.

Even funnier is that at 41 seconds, I believe that girl works/worked at the local Hooters.

Disaster averted

That was a close one. While on my way to work Monday, we heard news of a drought in Tennessee and the effect it was having on the state. But the blurb in the story that literally scared me speechless was when the announcer says, �This is also impacting the Jack Daniel�s Distillery. All of their water comes from one spring and it is starting to dry up.� According to Ktreva I actually gasped in horror.

When we took the tour of the distillery last summer the guide told us that all of their water comes from the spring on the property. It�s naturally filtered and has no iron in it at all. Then he explained that if the spring ever dried up, they would quit making Jack Daniel�s because they haven�t been able to find another water source that meets their standards. It was at this time that myself and three other gentlemen in the crowd made the comment, �God help us if that ever happens�.

On that morning when the news came across saying that the spring is drying up, I was sure that was a sign of the apocalypse. But leave it to good ol� Jimmy Bedford (Master Distiller for Jack Daniel�s) and crew, they sent out an e-mail to all of us loyal drinkers (Please don�t ask why they sent me one, the story is kind of embarrassing)

Dear Friend of Jack Daniel's, You may have seen or heard reports about how the drought in Tennessee is affecting production at the Jack Daniel Distillery. Well, we wanted to take time to write and remind you of the old adage, "Don't believe everything you read or hear!"

While it's true Tennessee and other Southeastern states are experiencing a pretty severe drought this spring and summer, we can assure you that we have plenty of water from our Distillery's cave spring to make our Tennessee Whiskey. The water level may be down somewhat, as it typically is during the summer months, but it's currently flowing above what we need for whiskey-making.

We have been making Jack Daniel's with water from this cave spring for more than 140 years and have never had a water shortage. That's not to say we're not taking conservation measures. We are using the cave spring water to make Jack Daniel's, as we always have, but we've cut back on using it for any other secondary purposes, such as cooling or cleaning. That's just being responsible and respectful of the resources that make Jack Daniel's so unique � the cave spring water, charcoal-mellowing, charred white oak barrels, fine grains, and the seasonal changes that Mother Nature offers us in the Tennessee hills.

In addition, our warehouses are filled with barrels upon barrels of Jack Daniel's going through the maturation process. When the whiskey from these barrels reaches full maturity, we'll pull those barrels and bottle the whiskey the same as we always do. In other words, your favorite retailers and bars will continue to have plenty of our Tennessee Whiskey on hand.

If you've been concerned about the various media reports, we hope we've put your mind at ease. And if you hear your friends talking about this, please let them know we're continuing to make Jack Daniel's Tennessee Whiskey and, as Mr. Jack said many years ago, "Every day we make it, we'll make it the best we can."

Your friends at Jack Daniel's

Emphasis mine

Thank you my friends at Jack Daniel�s for updating me on the situation. We are all going to rest easy now knowing this. Trust me, I am going to sleep a lot better now knowing I don�t have to horde those 4 bottles I have stashed in the basement.

So this is love...

More proof that my wife loves me. My wife bought me a six-pack of Dirty Bastard Scotch Style Ale. There was no special occasion. I didn�t do anything to deserve it, in fact quite the opposite. She just did it because she wanted to. Knowing that I really like this beer, she saw a six-pack of it and bought it� for me.

Now if you�ll excuse me. I�m getting a little emotional over the gift.

It's the end of the world as we know it.

Why didn�t any one tell me? I mean I�m on all the mailers, the distribution lists and all the alert services. In fact I�m part of The Federal Vampire and Zombie Agency (FVZA). Yet, it took the diligence of CalTechGirl to advise me that today is Zombie Uprising day.

Well, since I found out late in the day I can�t post like the whole world is being over run by zombies, but I can share this video that Ktreva showed me. Yes, Ktreva showed me this one.

Folks, I think this again is a warning about what happens if you try to domesticate the zombie. It�s just not a good idea.

Bomchickawahwah

We�ve all seen the Axe commercials were girls in every ordinary situations all of sudden go a little Pr0n star and start singing Bomchickawahwah. Well here�s one that I haven�t seen, and I doubt you will on TV. Guys, this commercial almost makes me want to go out and buy some just to see what happens. Actually this looks to be a music video by an Axe inspired "band" called the Bom Chicka Wah Wahs. Apparently they are going to start touring soon.

It�d be interesting to see if Ktreva would start doing a �pole� dance on the way to work.

Oh and yea� NSFW.

Strange Museums

Harvey of Bad Example has a post up regarding the Creation Museum and his take on it. Even though he might think it�s unusual, but it�s not as unusual as this list of the 10 Most Bizarre Museums.

I�m thinking as weird as the Creation Museum may be, it�s not going to trump the Penis Museum.

We need your input.

I need your input on a disagreement Ktreva and I had last night. We both agreed that we would pose the question to everyone and then abide by the decision. As you all know I have a fascination with Zombies. I love zombie movies, I�ve studied the biology (Maybe that should be Dieology) of them, and I even have contingency plans for when (yes when, it�s going to happen) the next zombie rising happens. There isn�t a day that goes by that I don�t think about, talk about or watch something on zombies.

Last night Ktreva and I were discussing a show on TV where there was some role playing in the bedroom. We talked about all the standards, Doctor, naughty nurse, cop and prostitute, thief and harem girl, etc. Then we started talking about unusual ones� and that is when I came up with Sole survivor and Zombie Girl. Yea, I�m sure with the opening paragraph you all saw that one coming. I made the suggestion she dress up, with the make up, as the sexy zombie from Land of the Dead.

I thought Ktreva was going to burst a gasket.

She likened it to necrophilia and the like and stated that in no way under the sun would she ever participate in anything like that. Our conversation went from light and joking to her seriously being mad at me. I tried to explain that it seriously was a joke; I was just trying to think up different situations. However, because I�m enthralled with zombies she isn�t convinced I am. Then I started thinking about it, is it so weird? Well, okay sleeping with the dead is weird, but this isn�t the dead, it�s undead. And actually you�re not really sleeping with the dead or undead, just someone dressed up as a zombie.

What we want to know is: Is a bedroom role playing game involving zombies wrong?

My not so aching head.

Okay, This morning I have a Three Star hangover according to this scale my wife has listed. Which is a lot better then I thought I was going to be. I started working on the Keg yesterday at 11:30 AM, and finished late into the evening. We had a Virtual who�s who of Northern Illinois Bloggers in the house last night. Well it�s a who�s who list to me!

Graumagus of Frizzen Sparks decided that there was a surplus of alcohol in my house and as a definition of a Graumagus states, he must come to alleviate the situation. He also took it upon himself to try to make my guests sick by busting out the ol� 27 and forcing it upon others. I allowed this to happen since his beloved Bears took a smack down from the Packers.

Harvey of Bad Example graced me with his presence. Harvey was very grateful for being reunited with his hetero life-mate and partner in spawning half of the bloggers in the blogosphere. I did discover that no matter how much you tell him not to do something, he�d still do it. I.e., Don�t watch this video, don�t drink what�s in the bottle, and don�t let LittleJoe get his hands on your wife.

TNT of Smiling Dynamite took some time away from all of her blogging to visit. Apparently she has a selective memory. She swears that I never invited her to join my Sal-Cap football league. I know I did, I checked the invite list and her e-mail is on it. I�m thinking that since I�m close to perfect, she needed to make something up to give me a hard time about. That and she had an obsession about how I know Barry Williams.

Shadoglare of Refractional Darkness, his lovely girlfriend and his girlfriend�s daughter showed up. It was nice to be able to see Candy and Skittle again. The last time I saw them was when I was helping Shadoglare move into his new apartment. However, Clone did take a shining to Skittle, he kept referring to her as �My girl�, i.e. �Where is My Girl?�

Wes of Bodhran (Drum) Roll, Please and his beautiful spouse showed up and entertained all with his excellent skills on the Bodhran. I was a little disappointed because he didn�t uphold his New Years Tradition of puking in my house. Apparently I�ll need to work on the alcohol combination more next year.

Little Joe of Little Joe�s Soap Box (soon to be Miasmatic Review Annexed Soap Box) was here. He spent a lot of time being charming, and trying to pick up chicks (literally) and putting things in their mouths just to hear them moan. Hey, it was some kind of dark chocolate; get your mind out of the gutter!

We did some serious damage to the keg; it�s mostly gone this morning. Also this brood drank a gallon of glogg. My lord people, they where hammering this stuff down like they wouldn�t get anymore. Oh yea, that was the last of it. I think a brief fight broke out over who got to drink the last couple ounces of it.

It was a great night, with a lot of good people. Of course there were some missing, ones that happen to be out of state. I won�t mention any names, but you all know who you are.

Another second gone.

Ever wanted to know how long you have left to live? No, well then you�re just weird because everyone wonders that. Over at The Death Clock they can tell you what day you are going to die and how many seconds you have left to live.

Me? Yea, I always knew I was going to die young.

Yes, I answered honestly.

I made the b-list!

Harvey of Bad Example was unhappy with his rating in the blogosphere over at the The Blogebrity Widget. I headed over to see how I ranked.

Hey, I'll take the B-list. I thought I was going to end up on the D-List.

This is going to be great!

It's supposed to be beautiful this weekend. Temps in the 70's during the day, no rain, gentle breeze, it's almost too good to be true. If I were going re-enacting I would say it's a lie, but I'm taking Ktreva to Green Bay for the St. Louis Rams/Green Bay Packer game. Remember, I have tickets!

To make it even better, I'm making a weekend out of it. It's our 7-year anniversary on Monday. We're heading Saturday morning and not returning until late on Monday. I've got reservations at a nice Hotel minutes from the stadium, and the whole weekend planned.

First we hit all the Packer memorabilia shops, and then we hit the Packer Pro Shop. Then we take another tour of the stadium and the Packer Hall of Fame. For Dinner on Saturday I'm going to take her to the Brett Favre Steak House. Then we're going to hit Fuzzy Thurston's pub for drinks afterwards.

Sunday we get up early and tailgate before the game. Of course we watch the game. After the game we go to Curly's Pub (Part of Lambeau Field) to watch the 3:00 PM games and the Sunday night game. Monday we hit all the Packer Antique shops in the area. Making sure to look for those hard to find Packer items. Then we head home so we can get there in time for Monday Night Football.

Yea, it's going to be romantic.

Beer, denied.

It doesn’t look like there is going to be a beer review this week. Tomorrow I go in for my next procedure; I highly doubt I will be in the mood to drink a beer for the next couple of days. I was going to sneak one in tonight. According to the sheet I’m not supposed to eat anything for 12 hours and not supposed to drink anything but clear liquids. Well, certain beers are clear! I could just get one of those!

Then Ktreva started guarding the fridge with a marble rolling pin. I figured that maybe she’s not wanting me to drink a beer tonight. Sorry to disappoint everyone.

However, in the meantime, I have a question for everyone. While driving around the last couple of weeks I’ve actually started paying attention to the people driving the vehicles around me. Normally I just pay attention to the vehicle itself. In that time I’ve noticed that small females drive at least 66% of the large SUVs on the road. Is this something unique to my area or is this happening all over the place?

T1G answered.

Basil’s Interview of T1G is up and ready to read.

He did a good job answering all the questions. What I found amusing is how many times he was asked what his favorite beer was.

Man Laws

We’ve all heard of them, Man Laws. The Man Laws are so important to the Male culture, that Miller Lite based a whole add campaign around them. Now Miller Lite has even put up a website that details the Man Laws and video clips of their various sessions. There is even a bio section where you can look up the members of the council aka Square Table.

You can even submit your own laws for review by the council. They have a ticker to give you updates of various man law violations and examples of man upholding the man law in exemplary ways.

Personally I like the “You poke it, you own it” law. This can be applied in so many ways besides retrieving beers, like claiming women.

Home on the Range.

Yesterday I finally had a chance to take Ktreva to the range. We hadn’t had a chance to go since buying her Walther PPK .380 or my Colt 1991 Model 80 .45. Graumagus(Who is not dead) and a friend of mine from work, J, came with. I had helped J find a handgun a couple of months back and he also had never fired it. Combined we had a nice little collection of firearms. 2 Colt 1991 Model 80 .45’s, a Walther PPK. 380, a Taurus .357 6-inch barrel, a Taurus .357 4-inch barrel, a Smith and Wesson .44 Magnum with an 8 and ¾ inch barrel. (I think that was the length Grau said it was) and a .22 revolver.

On the way to the range, Grau told me he found a new way to get to the range, and took us this convoluted way through southern Wisconsin. I will be honest, depending on the traffic through one of the towns we travel through in our normal route, this could have been faster, but if there is no traffic it adds about 30 minutes onto the trip. Then again if we hadn’t gone that way, we wouldn’t have seen the warning sign on the 4 lane limited access highway that read, “Watch for low flying aircraft”. We were making fun of it when we saw that there was a runway that ran perpendicular to the highway and started about 200 feet from the edge of the road. That got us to wondering how you would explain that to your insurance. “Yea, I was traveling down the highway when I was t-boned by a Cessna.”

Ktreva had wanted a handgun, but she had always been afraid of them. She admitted it was an irrational fear, and she did want to go shooting to help get over it. At the range she quickly overcame that fear. I did learn a valuable lesson, if you are going to take your beautiful wife to the prominently male shooting range; she’s going to get attention from other shooters. Ktreva ended up getting special shooting lessons from one of the range officers. It’s about damn time guys flirted with her in front of me. For once I can give her crap instead of having to take it from her. Normally some scary girl flirts with me, and Ktreva makes fun of me for it.

That Aguila Ammunition I was to try out was pretty good. It fired nice; it wasn’t anywhere near as dirty as I thought it was going to be. Hell it shot cleaner then the WinClean ammo. I’m going to go see if he can get some more of it in for me. It’s a nice shooting ammo that gave me no problems what so ever. Now I had a box of the .357 American ammo that my revolver just did not like. I don’t know if the lip on the bullet was too thick or what, but it kept jamming the revolver so the cylinder wouldn’t turn. When I switched to another brand of ammo, the problem went away.

Ktreva really got into shooting. On the way out to the range she was saying how she only wanted to shoot her .380 and the .22, she didn’t think she could handle the larger caliber firearms. I had wanted to try hers out so at one point I offered to let her shoot my .45 while I put ten rounds through her .380. She let me shoot hers, but didn’t want to shoot the .45. Grau also put some rounds through it. During one of the breaks, we were all talking and Grau and I had the same experience with the .380. Not only do you have to be careful holding it, we all had been bitten by the slide at least once, but also it had more kick then my .45. After telling Ktreva that she decided to try the .45 and then the .357 (with a .38 special round in it), both had less kick then her .380. Even funnier is that she was most accurate using the revolver with the .38 special rounds.
When my .357 was acting up I thought maybe it had to do with fowling. Unfortunately my wipe down rag was accidentally left at home. Wanting to see if I could fix it, I used the only thing I could find, my shirt. Now I was wearing one of my standard shooting shirts. My Dr. Phat Tony t-shirt is one of the standard shirts I wear shooting. During a break, Grau tells me I got something on my shirt. So I explained what happened. Grau spouts off that Dr. Phat Tony probably will be proud of the fact that I used his shirt as makeshift cleaning patch. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s right.

My buddy J hadn’t done much shooting, but says he had a lot of fun. We tried to get him to try shooting some of the other firearms, but he was only interested in shooting his. I don’t know if he just wasn’t comfortable or what, but we tried. I’m trying to get him to go black powder shooting with me in 3 weeks.

After the range we hit The Vaj (actually Vaj’s Garage), for food and beer. We compared notes and talked about how good/bad we were. Where we needed improvement and what all we had to work on. While we were there some strange intoxicated bar fly comes up and says to me, “Excuse me, you just walked past me. I just wanted to say you smell good.” She turns and walks away. Grau, J and Ktreva are all looking at me with a smirk. DAMMIT! That was ten times creepier then the ranger officer flirting with Ktreva! At least it’s nice to know that there are women that enjoy the smell of BO and cordite.

We all had a good time, lots of fun. Ktreva can’t wait to go again, and to be honest I can’t wait to take her again. There’s just something sexy about watching her handle a firearm.

.45 or .357? BOTH!

We’re getting ready to make our pilgrimage to the holy land, the Jack Daniels Distillery, in just over a week. I’ve been working on this family vacation for a while now. We’re taking a whirlwind tour of Kentucky and Tennessee. We were all set to go. Then last weekend I did something that made me rethink this trip. What did I do? I watched five movies.

But not just any movies, five movies one should not watch before going on the family vacation. The Hills Have Eyes, Wrong Turn, House of Wax, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and the granddaddy, worst nightmare of trips gone wrong movies… Deliverance. Watching these movies I made some rules for our upcoming trip.

1) Always stop to get gas before you get below a quarter of a tank. You never know what “helpful” attendant you’ll find when you’re forced to stop and the run down gas station that time and proper repairs has forgot.

2) If you have no choice but to stop at the “Not so friendly” gas station. Don’t take directions or short cut tips from the attendant. No good comes from that.

3) When traveling, stick to roads that are on the official Rand McNally map you own. If you don’t have a map with you, never mind, you should die. What the hell kind of moron goes on a road trip with out a map? Wait… I think we have the answers in the movies listed above.

4) If you are forced to take a road that is not on the map (I can’t figure out why this would happen) and your vehicle breaks down. Walk BACK the way you came. Do not walk in the direction you were heading. Sure the gas station might be a mile ahead, over the hill and around the curve, but then again so could a dead end, flesh eating mutants, psychopaths or homosexual hillbillies. At least going back the way you came you know how far you have to go and that there is something there.

5) Try not to split up from your family and/or friends. Remember there is strength in numbers. Or if you don’t like the people you are traveling with very much, you have distractions. All you have to do is hamstring one of them so you can get away.

6) If you do split up, don’t send your strongest off in one party and leave the weakest by themselves. Think about it, your separating out the weakest, easiest pickings for them. This is exactly what predators want you to do. Darwin has taught us plenty about this practice.

7) If something goes wrong, it’s best to not stop and watch as your now x-friend is being eaten. They died for a reason; so you could escape. Don’t let them die in vain!

8) Panic is your enemy. Screaming, yelling, shouting, crying and overall catatonic states are not going to save your arse from being lunch… or other unpleasant uses.

9) Firearms have limited ammunition. Shooting blindly into the dark or into the air is doing nothing more then wasting ammunition. You’ll be sorry you did that when you go to shoot something right before it gets you and the gun dry fires.

10) If you have a firearm or bow, shoot when you have the best chance of hitting something. IE if you are watching your now x-friend being eaten, shoot then! Don’t watch, then scream, then start to run, then shoot while being chased. You’re chances of hitting are much better if you shoot while you and your target are stationary.

There we go. I think if for some reason you’re traveling and are forced to take a detour on Missing Tourist Highway, you will at least have a fighting chance in hell of getting out of there unmolested if you follow these tips. If you don’t follow them, then I hope they make a movie about your sorry arse. The only thing better then a good zombie movie is tourist-killing movies.

And when you are packing for your trip, the question shouldn’t be, “Do we take the gun or leave it at home.” No, it should be, “How much ammo and spare magazines should I bring.”

Damn those mirrors!

I hate days like this. After a weekend of fun and relaxing, minus Friday where I stayed home to deal with contractors, I hate walking into work to find a mess. It figures I take a day off and everything goes to hell. The first thing that I noticed is…

SPECIAL BULLETIN!!!! We interrupt this normally scheduled blog post for the following message.

Earlier this afternoon at approximately 4:15 PM Central Standard Time an invasion force was detected with in the realm of the Household. An innocent civilian (Mild, peace loving Contagion) was maliciously attacked while performing yard grooming. Fortunately the civilian was able to escape with no noticeable injuries. One eyewitness to the incident is quoted as saying; “He was just mowing the lawn when a swarm of the hostiles (Yellow Jackets) engulfed him. We thought he was going to be killed… or even worse.”

The civilian was able to escape and warn the authorities of the impending danger. An emergency session of the Household Security Council (Ktreva) was called. In a lighting decision it was decided that General Contagion was going to be called forth to deal with the insurgents. General Contagion, the highly decorated veteran and leader of such battles as the Great Wasp Invasion of ’05 and Operation Floracide, quickly and enthusiastically responded.

After reconnoitering the enemy’s base of operations (Located securely under the backyard shed), General Contagion decided to forgo normal tactics and go straight for biochemical saturation of the surrounding area. Specialist first class Boopie of the bio chemical transport unit brought out the new Bio-Toxin agent that the household had been developing (Gordon’s Hornet and Wasp killer from Farm and Fleet).

In his typical scorched earth policy, General Contagion unleashed a toxic spray of death upon the enemy. Those that came into direct contact with the toxin died in mere seconds. Those that made secondary contact died in less then 20 seconds. Then folly struck. Thinking that they had won the war, General Contagion halted his attack to survey the damage. At that time, the enemy base called in a squadron of seven fighters that had been out on maneuvers. General Contagion was forced to sound a general retreat.

Once General Contagion was able to gather his troops he went in for a second attack. This time screaming, “Kill ‘em all! Kill all the bastiches and let god sort them out!” Neighboring households looked on in shocked horror as they covered their children’s ears from the sounds of battle and their eyes for the horror they where witness to. By 4:30 PM Central Standard Time, the battle was over. Nothing living was left in the battle area by the time he was finished. Plant, animal and insect all lay dead or dying. Neighboring households rallied in protest at what they perceived as an unethical and unnecessary assault that ended in collateral damage in the thousands. General Contagion in his now legendary diplomatic stance wiped the sweat from his brow, and is reported as saying, “If you don’t like the way I dealt with the little bastiches then I suggest you tell you’re little friends to find someplace else to colonize. Oh, and sorry about your flowers.”
After confirmation of the entire colony being destroyed, General Contagion made the following announcement. “It is my pleasure to advise all of you that the household is once again secured from foreign invasion. Once again the neighboring households have complained regarding our tactics. They have nothing to complain about. It was not their sovereignty that was assaulted; it was not their lives that were in jeopardy. It was not their property being destroyed, it was ours! If it was their household being invaded, they can handle the problem any way they want. I did not ask their opinion and I don’t need their approval. If I wanted any lip from them, I’d jiggle my zipper.”

We now return you to your regularly scheduled blog post already in process.

…By the time the day was ended, I had enough. I couldn’t get out of the parking lot fast enough. So trust me people, if you learn anything from this lesson it’s this, make sure your pants are zipped up before going into the videoconference.

Twitch

Still… Alive. Sanity… holding.

Please.

Send.

Beer.

FAST!

Oh the possibilities.

Originally I had this video sent to me way back in December. I thought it was pretty neat, but I had forgotten about.

Click to watch video

Flash forward 4 months and now we have yet another video of the same thing, except this time it’s done in someone’s bathroom.

Click to view video

All I have to say about the whole thing is that, I wonder what would happen if you where able to get the cap screwed onto the bottle quick enough to keep it from exploding. I’m picturing great practical joke possibilities here people. Yes, they would be messy for everyone around, but funny as hell.

Another reason to not use Phones

It’s another spread the urban legends Saturday. Again, I don’t know what if any of this is true; I’m assuming the text is mostly fake. But the video is kind of neat, in that “It’s kind of scary” sort of way. Here is the text that accompanied the video.

If you get asked to test your cell phone at the airport, this is the reason. Because cell phone guns have been discovered. The attached video clip shows how cell phone guns operate. These phones are not in the U.S. yet, but they are in use overseas. Beneath the digital phone face is a 22 caliber handgun capable of firing four rounds in rapid succession using the standard telephone keypad. European law enforcement officials are stunned by the discovery of these deadly decoys. They say phone guns are changing the rules of engagement in Europe . "We find it very alarming," says Wolfgang Dicke ! of the German Police Union . "It means police will have to draw their weapons whenever a person being checked reaches for their cell phone." Although cell phone guns have not reached the U.S. yet, the FBI, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and the U.S. Customs Service say they have been briefed on the new weapons. All U.S. ports of entry have been alerted. These covert weapons were first discovered in October of 2000 when Dutch police came upon a cache during a dr ug raid in Amsterdam. In another recent incident, a Croatian gun dealer was caught attempting to smuggle a shipment through Slovenia into Western Europe. Police say both shipm! ents are believed to have originated in Yugoslavia! .. Interpol sent a warning to law enforcement agencies around the world. "If you didn't know they were guns, you would think they were cell phones," said Ari Zandbergen, a spokesperson for the Amsterdam police. "Only when you have one in your hand do you realize that they are heavier than a regular cell phone." Be patient if security asks to look at your cell phone or turn it on to show that it works. They have a good reason!

Tell me that isn’t the fakest looking cell phone you’ve seen since the 90’s?

Lazy Saturday post.

It has been a busy week, and even my weekends are filled with work or chores or just being busy. That’s okay, in 4 weeks from today I will be re-enacting and everything will be good. Since I’m about to head out the door I thought you would all like to know that Basil’s interview of me is up. See what kind of person I really am.

Normally I don't believe in this, but in this case...

For all of you conspiracy theorists and fans out there I found a conspiracy so dark, so foul, so immoral that it’s hard to explain. Here’s a brief description of how wrong this is:

“I first discovered their dastardly plot back in high school, but just like when you accidentally walked in on your grandparents having sex -- ugly, sweaty, disgusting sex -- I haven't had the courage to talk about it. Until now.”

I could go more into this conspiracy, but I don’t think I could do the justice of the original post. After reading this, I will tell you, I don’t care if they do have adds like this:

I'll quench her thirst

I’m never drinking from a Gatoraid bottle again!

"The bottle that contains the most popular sports drink on the planet looks like a big, thick, throbbing penis, from the clearly defined and strangely textured head to the perfectly tapered shaft. The only thing missing are a few well-placed veins."

Go over to Basketbawful and check out The Gatorade Conspiracy to see what I’m talking about.

SHOTGUN!

The other day I had a discussion with some people regarding the rules and regulations behind calling shotgun. We ended up in huge debate over it. (Yes, we have issues because THIS of all things is what we decided to debate) After all was said and done I came home and decided to see if there were rules for calling shotgun. (Those of you that are unfamiliar with this term, it is when someone other then the driver calls out “Shotgun” in order to get the prime front passenger seat in a vehicle.) I was able to locate the following rules at Shotgun Guide.com.

1) The first person to yell "SHOTGUN" gets to ride in the front seat.

2) The remaining back seats may be divvied up in the same manner by being the first to call "back right seat", etc..

3) The word "shotgun" must be loud enough to be heard by at least one witness. If no witness is to be found, or in case of a tie, the driver has the final word. after all, it is most likely his car. (note: if it isn't his car, and the owner is present, the owner's decision is final. Owner must be sober, however, or he will defer his judgment to the driver.)

4) Early calls are strictly prohibited. All occupants of the vehicle (including the driver) must be outside of the building and directly on the way to the vehicle before shotgun may be called. Under no circumstances may a person call shotgun inside a building. For sake of simplicity, a garage is considered to be outside. Parking structures and detached garages are always considered as being outdoors, even if they are underground.

5) A person may only call shotgun for one way of a trip. Shotgun can never be called while inside a vehicle or still technically on the way to the first location. For example, one can not get out of a vehicle and call Shotgun for the return journey.

6) Being as how everyone is created equal, men have the same right as women to the front seat of the car. i.e. women don't own the front seat.

7) One is allowed to ride shotgun as many times as he can call it, but for himself only. No one can call shotgun for their slower friend, unless the friend has a speech or mental handicap that prevents them from calling it for themselves.

8) The driver has final say in all ties and disputes. The driver has the right to suspend or remove all shotgun privileges from one or more persons.

They even go into special rules and amendments. One of my favorites is; In the instance the driver's spouse, lover, partner, or hired prostitute for the evening is going to accompany the group, he/she is automatically given Shotgun, unless they decline. (Emphasis mine). It just goes to show you that either the people that thought this up have a good sense of humor, or really need lives.

I think this should settle all problems I have in the future with calling shotgun. Maybe I’ll print these out, laminate them and post them in my truck.

Ask a question, any question.

Just a reminder that Basil is taking questions for his interview of me. By now some of you have to have some pretty good questions about me, either why I blog or why the hell I am the way I am. Either way you need to get those burdening questions off your back.

That's why I signed up for the interviews at Basil’s Blog. The deadline for my questions is 04/02/06. That just under two weeks away. If you have any, you can send them to Basil at basil dot interviews AT gmail.com Subject: Questions for Contagion of Miasmatic review. Or you could just click the link.

Remember, I have no shame so anything is a go. However, my wife has reserved the right to edit any answers I may give. She's afraid of another nightstand incident.

Forgive the Irish!

Today is the day that we all forgive the Irish and celebrate… something, I’m not really sure… by encouraging the standard Irish stereotypes; Loud, drunk, brawling men drinking green beer and wearing a lot of green making trouble and eating potatoes.

I mean c’mon how insulting is this? We all know that the Irish don’t wear that much green!

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go to work, put in a couple of hours and then head to a quaint little Irish pub in Michigan for some of the best Corned Beef and Cabbage I’ve ever had.

Oh, btw, we only received about 2 inches of snow yesterday.

Big Farking Guns!

A friend of mine sent me this clip. He knew I was into shooting and thought I’d appreciate it. The much forwarded e-mail came with the below information. I’m not sure if it’s true or not, and to be honest I’m not about to do the research to find out. Either way, watching the guy about give himself a concussion with the handgun is hilarious.

The gun in the video is basically a "show and tell" custom built on a
Thompson Encore (fancy version of the Thompson Contender).

The Caliber... 600 Nitro Express. That's right...an elephant gun round in a
handgun.

The story goes that the guy that built it is some kind of custom gun maker,
and built this as an exhibition piece. He takes it to the range with him
just to show it off, and the big guy that shot it (in the
video) had been bugging the builder to let him shoot it. Now think about
this...only until fairly recently (early-mid '80's IIRC) the 600 Nitro
Express was hands down the biggest, nastiest, hardest hitting, and heaviest
recoiling weapon you could buy. It was designed for one simple purpose...to
knock an elephant flat on his a$$. IMO, it was really built as an exhibition
piece for guys "compensating"...this cartridge is known for breaking
collarbones, arms, shoulders...of the shooter! Think about this...in the gun
world they use what is termed as a "recoil index" to kind of give
prospective buyers an idea of what a gun kicks like. A
30-06 gets a rating of a 1.0, which for many people is about the limit of
what they can shoot multiple rounds thru comfortably. A .243 is rated at
like a .4, a .270 was like a 8, etc.

The .600 Nitro Express is rated at a 9.4...9.4 times more punishing than a
30-06.

See what I mean?

I was kidding!

Here we have yet another reason one should never trust strange callers, especially if you're cheating on someone.

This girl tries to win a radio contest in Minnesota and ends up finding out that her loving boyfriend has a secret. I guess the answer to the question is that he loves everybody!

Interrogate me!

Has there every been anything you wanted to know about me? A question you’ve wanted to ask that you just never found the proper medium to do so. Maybe you’ve been too shy to ask. Is there something you just want to ask to see how I would answer? If any of those apply to you, I have exactly what you need.

For reasons I’m not sure even I can comprehend, I signed up for the interviews at Basil’s Blog. He has decided that my time is rapidly approaching, and he is going to be in need of questions. If you have any, you can send them to Basil at basil dot interviews AT gmail.com Subject: Questions for Contagion of Miasmatic review. Or you could just click the link. The deadline is 04/02/2006, that gives you plenty of time to think of something to ask. Ask me what ever you'd like, I'll be more then happy to lie to you.

Or if you want to see how few questions I get, don’t send anything. Then you can see what kind of loser I really am!

Guns, Guinness and the Gang.

Yesterday Graumagus, our blogless buddy Jay and I went to a local gun show. Each of us was looking for something different and we were hoping to find those items there. Unfortunately for us, this show was rather less than impressive. Everywhere we turned there were AR-15’s (Civilian model of the M-16), .22 long rifles and Glocks. There were some other items mixed in, but they where rare. None of us left with what we went looking for.

Two of the local politicians running in the primary for governor had booths there trying to make a push. After reading their literature, I don’t know which one is going to be less incompetent. A couple of booths where selling crappy knives and swords. It was hard for me to not openly laugh at those merchants. When I say crappy knives and swords, I mean really cheap blades that probably won’t hold an edge and would break if ever actually used. Not too long ago I was a sword dealer, I know what these items are made out of and what the dealer prices are. There was also the occasional booth that was selling parts, accessories, cleaning supplies and tools.

I ended up spending less then $20.00 bucks there. $5.00 to get in, $5.00 worth of raffle tickets with one of the prizes being an AR-15 (of course). $4.00 for cleaning brushes and $3.50 for an ammo can. My blogless buddy Jay purchased a little .38 special Derringer. He had been talking about getting one for years. One of the booths had two brand new ones for $120.00. Of course he was kind of hesitant to purchase it. Thankfully Grau and I where there to help convince him that it was the right thing to do.

As Grau stated, “It’s like have the angel and devil on each shoulder, except it’s the devil and a demon. One is telling you to buy it, the other is telling you to buy it AND get an AR-15.” After much hemming and hawing, Jay finally bit the bullet and bought the little gun. Since we are in Illinois he can pick it up sometime later this week. We have a 72 hour waiting period to purchase a handgun and 24 hours for a rifle. That kind of makes the point of gun shows in Illinois pointless. If you do see a gun you want to purchase you have to go pick it up from the dealer. Some of these dealers traveled some distance to come to this show.

The show was so small; we walked through the entire place 5 times in an hour and half. Grau had to take off, and ditched Jay and I. After Jay was finished filling out the paperwork for the derringer we left and decided to get something to eat. Hooters was the destination of choice. Jay doesn’t drink, but I do. Hot wings and Guinness on tap sounded good. Of course once we sat down and I started pulling on those 25oz mugs, life got a lot more fun. Although drinking two on an empty stomach may not have been a good idea. Because I’m a prick, I called up Grau to rub in that we were drinking Guinness at Hooters. He ended up ditching the spawn once his wife came home to join me in depleting the supply of Guinness in Rockford.

Jay had to take off, so Grau and I headed to a little bar that is three blocks from my house. I had never been in there before, and decided it was time. Nice atmosphere, decently priced drafts and it was filled with like minded individuals. I’m probably going to be hitting that bar more often now, especially since I can walk there and back.

False accusations.

Oh, don't forget to sign my map if you haven't already. If you have, thanks.

I wasn't going to respond to a certain individuals whiney complaining that you all like me more then him. (We all know that's not true, I just don't call you drunks!) But he did accuse me of exiling poor Tammi off the African coast. Just for the record I would never exile anyone anywhere*. Tammi’s self imposed trip off the coast of Africa was due to her desperate need to get away from the cold weather here in Northern Illinois.

Now you all know the truth, Not only is Mr. Whiney rude but the only time you can get an honest word out of him is when he's sober. Considering he's only sober between 7 AM and 9 AM there's not a lot of truth to be had there! Now don't get me wrong, I like T1G. He's a good drinking buddy and tells great stories (mostly BS). But seriously, who believes I have the power to exile anyone?

Thus please: Sign My Map

*Unless, of course, they really pissed me off. Even then I’m more likely to have them decapitated and have their heads mounted on pikes in front of my house as warnings to others.

General Contagion Returns

There may be a slight decrease in my commenting and posting over the next couple of months. Ktreva decided that I needed to have Age of Empires 3, so she bought it for me. I love strategy games, absolutely love them. There is nothing better then massing up armies to crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of the women. Many an innocent villager has fallen to my desire to conquer in similar games. Some of them even have a life-like scream as the citizens die.

The best thing about Age of Empires 3 is that it revolves around the exploration and colonization of the Americas. A lot of the units appear to be ones from the French and Indian war era. In case you don’t remember, that is the time period I re-enact. Of course there is little to no historical accuracy in the game, but it’s still interesting. I love the sound of musket lines firing into enemies and artillery barrages hitting the houses. They did a good job with the sound effects. The musket fire actually sounds like musket fire, albeit at a distance. It’s nowhere near as loud as actual musket fire.

Monday I loaded up the game and was just going to play with it a little to see what it was like. Ktreva asked to use the computer later so she could make a post and I told her as soon as my skirmish game was over she could. The next thing I know she is saying goodnight. She decided to go to bed early and wasn’t going to wait the 10 minutes for the game to be over (I was pummeling the heck out of the Portuguese, the game was almost finished.) Since it was only a little after 8:00 I decided I could get another quick skirmish game in. When I looked at the clock next it was almost 11:00 PM! Damn, I have to work in the morning!

When I finally fell asleep I spent the night dreaming of raising armies and crushing other Empires. There where dreams of tactics, battle plans, troop movements and ratios. Do I want to go as heavy on the Dragoons or get more musketeers? Is it worth it to have as many falconets as I did? Would six mortars be that much more useful than five? (They are expensive and take up a lot of resources) Oh, that gives me an idea!

You’ll have to excuse me; I need to go destroy some Spaniards.
.

My weekend.

This last weekend Ktreva and I went to Lafayette Indiana for a Blogmeet. We didn’t bring the boys with as we decided we needed a weekend with out them. The trip started out well enough. We were making great time. I had told Machelle and Oddybobo that we would arrive between 5:00 PM and 6:00 PM. We were going to cut it close, but we’d be on time. Not shortly after we arrived in our Room Oddy called me and says she’s in the hotel. Originally she had said she wouldn’t get there until 7:00 PM. When I asked her how she got there so early, she said she drove really fast from Indianapolis. How fast she was going is beyond me, but it must have been fast enough to bend the space-time continuum. Then it dawned on me, people in Indiana live in a different time zone. They are an hour ahead of us; I was actually late!

Machelle, Oddy, Ktreva and I went to a restaurant next to the hotel to eat, drink and talk. Laughing Wolf showed up to join in the fun. Having never met Machelle or Oddy before, it was nice. Oddy made us jealous describing the palatial house on 476,857 acres of land. While Machelle kept trying to convince Ktreva that one should not buy a foreign car, to which Ktreva stubbornly refused to listen. LW kept teasing me about the fine Scotch Collection of his. Meanwhile, I sat back and just listened to everyone else talk. Machelle and Oddy were just too intimidating for me to break out of my shell.

After dinner we headed to LW’s. Tammi, T1G, Bloodspite and Bloodspouse where supposed to arrive around 9:00PM. LW wanted to make sure he was there for them when they arrived. He invited all of us back to his house. He gave us a crudely drawn map with directions on how to get there. Everyone decided to go, and Machelle offered to drive. We all piled into her vehicle, I had the directions and off we went. Okay, at this point let me warn all of you about a couple of things. Machelle’s maiden name had to be Duke. I swear she is the love child of Bo Duke and Danica Patrick.

We were able to follow the crudely drawn map relatively easily enough until we got to the end. There we were, looking around and none of us had an address. CRAP! Well fortunately I had programmed LW’s phone number into my cell phone. I call him up and say, “Yep, we’re lost!” He asks were we are, and I tell him that we are at the intersection of Oak and Harvard. He tells us that he doesn’t know where that is and to go back to the main highway. The highway is about a block behind us. Machelle’s trying to get us turned around when LW says, “I’m going to go stand on my front porch”. I’m looking out the window of the vehicle and I see a front porch light come on and LW walk out. The intersection we were at was right in front of his house! No joking people, I have three witnesses that will testify to this. The man doesn’t know where he lives!

We received a tour of the lair while waiting for the others. LW has a very nice house, and a very impressive collection of alcohol, which for some reason everyone kept running interference between it and I. Now remember, the others were to arrive around 9. They finally decided to show up around 11:30 local time. Part of it was they also forgot about that stupid time zone thing, the other part was that apparently T1G and Bloodspite had to stop every hour to work out the details of a new photoshop project they are working on.

Saturday it was a balmy 5 degrees when we left the hotel, and the high was around 17 degrees. There was a good wind too; I’d say the wind chill was probably around 2 degrees. The average high for Lafayette for this time of year is 19 degrees. It was cold!

We were all supposed to meet at the Tippecanoe battlefield at 11:00 AM. When Ktreva and I arrived, Machelle and Oddy were waiting. Shortly after Wes and his wife showed up. We started to worry that we were at the wrong place, so I called LW. Nope, they are running late. Apparently the boys got into a heated discussion on their next photoshop project and couldn’t proceed until it was done and Tammi was having trouble getting on her winter survival gear. The rest of us got to stand around for 45 minutes in the cold waiting for them.

The Battleground was neat; Ktreva and I even went through the museum. The museum had some interesting items in it. Even though it was about 55 years after the period we portray, a lot of the items they had where ones we use in our re-enacting. Fashion and technology didn’t change as fast back then. Harvey and TNT caught up with us there as well. TNT apologized for running late, they forgot about the time change as well. Harvey also spent extra time grooming his beard this morning. He wanted to make sure it was just perfect!

After that we headed to the Wolf Park. LW gave us a guided tour of all the wolves and the park. It was interesting to learn about them and to see how they interacted. The wolves didn’t seem to mind the cold unlike the majority of the bloggers. The bloggers, especially those of the farer gender, seemed to be rather painfully cold. I’ll give Tammi credit, she didn’t complain. Then again she looked like an over stuffed tick with all the layers she had on.

Some of the wolves where very curious about us and would come right up to the fence. They wanted to see what kind of hairless idiots would come out on that cold of a day just to look at them. Either that or they where wondering what kind of tasty treat we were. It was really neat to see how they interacted with each other and to hear stories about each wolf. Part of me wished I had the boys with so they could see all of the wolves. I’ll have to head back that way with the boys when it is warmer. Trust me, if you’re in the area it’s worth stopping by to see. At night we saw the Howl Night program. Most of the information that was presented sounded familiar. It was the same information that LW told us while we took the tour earlier. Just for the record, this is not a bad thing. It just impressed me a lot more about LW’s knowledge of the wolves and his work at the park.

After Howl Night we went to the Lafayette Brewing Company. I consumed many of their different beers. Quick review. Oatmeal Stout: Decent, I’ve had much better. Scottish Ale/Pipers Pride: One of the better Scottish Ales I’ve had. Prophet’s Rock Pale Ale: Horrible taste that sticks with you for hours. Doppelbock: Excellent beer, too bad they only sell it in the half-pint.

A lot of time was spent getting to know the various bloggers. I would have liked to talk to Bloodspite more, but he’s even shier then I am. Through out the evening he would just sit there and not say a word. Thankfully T1G and Machelle kept the conversations going. At one point Tammi and Bloodspite got into an argument. I don’t know what started it, but it was so heated that no sounds came out of their mouths. It looked like two beavers fighting trying to gnaw on each other.

Now for the part you’ve all been waiting for, my view of the bloggers: (In the order I encountered them)

Ktreva: I’m married to her. Been there, done that.

Machelle: Intelligent woman that likes to dominate a conversation. She still holds a grudge that I bought a Chevy instead of a Ford. She does heart my meat stick.

Oddybobo: What can I say about a woman that can’t keep her hands off of me? Every time I turned around she was touching me. Don’t get me wrong, that’s not a bad thing! She even brought me some crack strips. However, she did forget to bring a bottle of Scotch for me. My favorite Scotch too!

Laughing Wolf: If this man gives you directions anywhere, get a second opinion. C’mon he didn’t even know the intersection in front of his house! He also has good taste in Scotch.

T1G: He’s fun to talk to, if you can get a word in edgeways. Saturday night he kept trying to hug me, which really creeped me out. He really needs to learn to hold is alcohol. That and he has some Jebus complex. He has the manners of a 2 year old if you feed him something he doesn’t like.

Tammi: This girl will hug you for any reason. She meets you; she needs a hug. You talk to her; she needs a hug. She successfully put on a coat; she needs a hug. It’s cold out; she needs a hug.

Bloodspite: This boy is just too damn shy for his own good. I thought I was shy; I have nothing on him. I think he said two sentences all weekend. One of them was, “No thank you, I don’t like beer.” The other was, “That’s it, I’m photoshopping your head onto the body of a geriatric pr0n star.”

Bloodspouse: Very nice and sweet. She needs to keep better control over Bloodspite. She also needs to stop letting him get away with stuff and not expecting him to buy her jewelry. She’s going to get his butt kicked by other married men.

Wes: I’ve known him for years. Hell he lives two houses away from me. Every time I turned around he kept trying to pick up round objects and play it like a drum. The boy has issues.

Spouse o’ Wes: I’ve known her for years as well, obviously. She’s way too well behaved for this group.

TNT: Discovered she wants to go camping, unfortunately her husband has a fear of nature. She made a deal with me that she’d let him go out drinking with us one night if I drag him along camping with her one weekend. Forcible kidnapping, consuming alcohol, hearing Harvey scream like a girl… Yea, it’s a deal.

Harvey: Good guy, will take a lot of abuse, but if you question his blogging authority he gets damn huffy. I’ve never seen a grown man cross his arms and pout before this weekend.

I think that’s everyone, if I missed someone I’m sorry, you just weren’t memorable! Kidding, I just have a bad memory. If you missed it, you suck! Next time try getting a life and being a bit more sociable. Everyone seemed to have a great time, I just wish it would have lasted longer, oh and maybe that the temps where a little warmer for those that don’t like the cold.

Sign my Map!

Some of you have signed up already, others of you haven't. I'm sure it's just because you, like me, are procrastinating. Well, get off your but, go over and sign it! It doesn't take long, hell even I can do it!

What are we teaching our kids?

Since I’ve been home, I’ve been spending sometime with the boys. During the day Boopie is at school, however Clone is home with me. He’s pretty easily entertained; we’ve colored, put together puzzles, and watched some movies and TV. Sometimes, he just wants to watch some of his shows on his own, other times he wants me to watch with him.

Yesterday he wanted to watch on his own, so I came in here to do some blogging. In the background I hear Jimmy Neutron on the TV. Okay, this is a fairly decent cartoon for kids, not as good as the stuff I had growing up, but better then a lot of the crap they have on TV today. As I was reading away on a blog, part of the episode catches my ear. Apparently Jimmy has invented some kind of candy that everyone loves and is instantly addicted to. Jimmy made crack candy, people.

Then I hear Jimmy say something along the lines of, “With their over whelming desire for my candy, I can bend peoples wills to fulfill my every need.” People, Jimmy Neutron, boy genius, is a crack dealer! Well, maybe crystal meth, but still he’s a drug-dealing bastard! They showed kids, and some adults, doing his every command so they could get a fix. Instantly, I had a lot of respect for Jimmy. The kid really is a boy genius! He created a candy that is addictive and only side effect is that it tastes good, thus it’s not truly a drug. Then Jimmy, boy dumb arse, grows a conscience and decides to not may anymore because people were getting out of control. If Jimmy truly were a genius he would have started charging money for the crackandy and hired bodyguards to protect him.

Then this morning I made a startling observation. Now, I don’t watch a lot of cartoons, I pretty much hate the damn things. Clone loves them, so they are on all the time. In fact right now he is watching Dora, international drug smuggler. Hey, maybe she works for Jimmy? His favorite cartoon is Spongebob Squarepants. This has to be one of the most idiotic cartoons I’ve seen. Ever since he first started watching Spongebob, one of the voices always sounded familiar and struck a cord of fear in me.

Now everybody and their mother knows that Patrick is voiced by Dauber from Coach. The voice I’m talking about is for Mr. Krabs. This morning, I’m sitting here typing up my eye post when I hear Mr. Krabs speak. Like a thousand bolts of lightening striking me at the same time, I instantly recognized the voice. Krabs says, “There’s only one.” The phrase was close enough, because what I heard was the Kurgan from Highlander say, “There can be only one!” Some of you may know the Kurgan better as Drill Sgt. Zim. Either way, this is the guy we have talking to our kids daily. Suddenly I have more respect for Spongebob Squarepants. I wouldn't want to work for Drill Sgt. Kurgan.

Mr. Krabs is the Kurgan! Great, we have an immortal crab running around selling crabby patties on the bottom of the ocean to all the animals down there. Hey, wait. All the sea creatures love crabby patties, they have to have them and plankton is trying to steal the formula… Mr. Kurgan is a drug dealer like Jimmy!

Trackers.

On my way home from tonight I got to thinking about some friends of mine from college. One of them owned a white Geo Tracker. We used to make fun of him something fierce because of it. Yet every time we wanted to go someplace he would be the one to drive us. Hey, he had a car after all. Beggars can’t be choosers. As I was thinking of my friend and his Tracker, just kind of chuckling to myself I notice there happens to be a Tracker in the lane next to me. I didn’t think anything about it, coincidences happen.

As I continued to drive home I saw yet another Tracker, this time pink. I haven’t seen two Trackers on the road on the same day in ages, or at least not that I’ve noticed. It was strange, but I figured they got my attention because I had been thinking of my friends Tracker.

After picking up the boys I continued my journey home and thought nothing of it. That is until I came to a stoplight. Right in front of me was a black Geo Tracker, Then a white one pulled up along side me, and a red one stopped right behind me. All of them where the convertible models 2-door model, not the even more rare 4-door hard top variety. Okay, I’ll admit I was a little weirded out by the whole thing. I mean, here I am being swarmed by Geo Trackers!

Then a thought crossed my mind. Something so off the wall I couldn’t help but laugh out loud, which made Boopie look at me like I was insane. In fact just thinking of it now makes me laugh.

Imagine if you will a group of guys all going out and buying trackers. Painting each of them in a different color or putting different logos on them. Then they add those exhaust systems that you see idiots put on 4 banger cars like Neons, Civics, Accords, etc that make them sound like sewing machines on crystal meth. After customizing their Geo Trackers, these guys hit the road like a pack of bikers.

Imagine them swarming around cars as they go down the road. Pulling into gas stations in a pack, parking in a line at the local bar or even pulling into one of the few remaining drive-in restaurants to get something to eat. That’s kind of funny, but now imagine people like say Me, T1G, Graumagus, Eric, Blackfive, Johnny-Oh and Dr. Phat Tony doing that. C’mon, admit it; the mental picture of that made you smile! I'd bet T1G wants the pink Tracker!

They always get the girls!

Since Valentines Day is coming, I thought I would help everyone out. Do you have someone special in your life? Are they a Law and Order fan? Are you having a problem finding the perfect Valentine for them? As the self proclaimed Doctor of Romance. I have the answer for you.

Check out this fine collection of SVU (Special Valentines Unit) Valentines Day cards.

I'll vouch for these two as well.

Ah, what the hell! I guess the Voucher police aren’t going to come and yank my still pending BE Clan status from me. Thus, I will go ahead and vouch for Basil of Basil’s blog. He’s were I go when I’m looking to find a new blog to read or to see what others are blogging about.

The other is Shadoglare of Refractional Darkness. We’ve decided that we are forcibly adopting him into the Clan since he has the balls openly to state he doesn’t want to be.

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.

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.

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!)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

WARNING!

End of message.

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.

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.

Contagionettes? (snicker)

There are different blogging styles, some like to be formal, some journalistic, some are informational and others (like myself) tend to keep it more conversational. I’ve noticed those of us that do the conversational style of posting like to address their readers.

To this point, I’ve always addressed all of you as “readers”. I don’t think this is incorrect, but it feels too formal for me. There are other bloggers that have nicknames for their readers, I kind of like the idea of coming up with a nickname for all of you. I’ve been putting some thoughts into it. Yet I can’t come up with one that not only sounds like something I would say or I like the way it sounds.

I can’t call you minions, because that’s what I call my employees. For a while, I was kicking around calling you the Contagionettes, but I keep laughing every time I typed it. Then I thought of calling all of you sunshine. After a thorough arse kicking I administered to myself, my bruised and battered self decided it was a bad idea.

What do you all think? Do I continue to call you “readers” (which a couple of times I had people think I was calling you breeders) or do you think I should come up with something else to call you? Now, if you say I should come up with something, suggestions would be appreciated. I really don’t want to have to relive that unpleasant experience of trying to shove my foot up my own arse.

Hurry, There's no time to waste!

If you plan on getting your loved ones the custom printed M&M's for the holidays and haven't yet. You had better do it soon. Orders made today won't be received until 12/23/05!

I would hate to see your loved ones upset they can't have M&M's that spell out "B-L-O-W M-E" or "I-M H-O-R-N-E-Y".

In search of...

Wanted, drinking buddies.

Must be available on Sundays and likes football, shooting and camping.

The ability to cook hot wings, bratwurst and steaks is a bonus.
Owning a 47-inch TV with surround sound and NFL Sunday Ticket will warrant free beer.

Does not necessarily have to be a Packer fan.

Funny or tactless... you decide.

A friend of mine’s roommate shared with me an idea he came up with a couple weeks ago. He wants to get a customized New Orleans Saints jersey. He doesn’t want to have his name put on it; in fact, he isn’t even a Saints fan. What he wants to do is have the name on the back be “Katrina” and the number to be “5”. The five is for category 5.

I’ll be honest and admit it does make me chuckle; there is something darkly amusing about that. Maybe it’s because one of my ways of dealing with things is to make jokes out of it, or maybe it’s just because I’m an asshole. Either way it did amuse me some.

So far I’ve shared this with about a dozen people getting a mixed reaction, I’m just curious what everyone else thinks. Is this funny or is it tactless? Or possibly tactlessly funny.

Sausage fest... ewww.

Oddybobo, of Bobo Blogger, is out of town and has left us a nice little comment party going on. There is only one problem, no women are participating yet. What is up with that ladies? I'm ready with artillary filled with chocolate pudding AND a super soaker filled with massage oil. Get over there and show us what you've got!

(... uh I mean comment ways, really I did... I wouldn't lie to you. Not you baby, I would never lie to you. *looking innocent*)

P.S. The firemen are already there ladies!

No wonder my liver is a rock.

Friday while at work, I had one of my minions tell me that they are having a little get together at a local bar for all the newbies. They invited me along since, even though I don’t really deal with the newbies until after probation, I was a part of the unit. It figures that they wait until the last minute to tell me this is happening. After advising my lovely and understanding wife that I was going to ditch her with the boys for the night and making dinner, I headed out to the bar. Originally, I was only going to show up for an hour and head out… Make an appearance type thing. Understanding my nature I realized that I probably wouldn’t get out in only an hour. When I was talking to my wife about this, I told her I’d be there an hour, or home by 10 (I arrived at the bar at 7pm). To ensure that I didn’t stay too long, I only brought $20.00 with me. Figuring that would only buy me 4-5 drinks, I knew I wouldn’t stay long if I ran out of money. If only that logic had worked.

Upon arriving there was only four other people at the bar. The two guys, and only other males to show up, where playing pool while the other two were sitting at a table drinking. Shortly after more people arrived. Around 8:00, I realized that I was going to be only one of three males at this little gathering. The reason they went to this particular bar was so they could sing karaoke. My singing voice is horrible, but I loves to sing the karaoke! Watching people cringe in pain from the sound of my voice amuses me. The karaoke didn’t start until after 9:00. By this time I was feeling pretty socially lubricated. My plans failed miserably. This was only the second work-sponsored function I’ve attended. The last one was a Christmas party last year. People where buying drinks for me, to be more precise they were buying me shots. There was still $12.00 in my wallet at 9:00 PM. When the singing started, I couldn’t help but to get into the mood. Picking a song I’ve sung many times before I entered my name into the list. Now some of you may have heard about my legendary performance of Bette Midlar’s Wind Beneath my Wings. That is not the song I performed; I performed Vanilla Ice’s Ice Ice Baby as sung by Sean Connery. I do a passable Sean Connery impersonation. Now I had the bar laughing at me, which is what I was wanting. It was meant to be amusing. I started really getting into my performance. In the heat of the moment, I started dancing… like Vanilla Ice. No good comes from that. Let’s just say there is a table and chair that will never be the same again. As for the rest of the singers, they where all pretty damn good, one of the trainers from my office that was there sang “Son of a Preacher Man”. Her voice was really good; I think she may have missed her calling.

Not long after that, the only other guys left to go to a different bar. They said they wanted to go check out some of the meat markets to find girls they didn’t work with. Personally, I think I embarrassed the hell out of them! Then most of the people from work that I actually knew left. That left me as the only guy with a bunch of females that not only worked with me, but where minions in training. Deciding I needed to get the hell out of there, I did the ultra-fast sobering technique. AKA I drank lots and lots of water, swallowing the ice cubes whole. You sober up real fast doing that. Around 11:15, I tore out of there to head home. Fortunately, I drive a big truck with four-wheel drive; cops don’t patrol people’s back yards! I’m kidding; I probably would have blown over a .08 blood alcohol level. But I was fine to drive the ten blocks to get home. Hell I could probably blow over a .08 right now. Of course, I tried my hand at not-quite sober posting in practice for the Blogcrawl. I’m going to have to get much more inebriated for that little shindig.

Saturday my wife and I were invited to a party at a co-workers house in Janesville, WI. It was my wife’s turn to drink. That made me the driver. Before we left, we had to stop at the store to pick up some foodstuffs to bring with to the party. When we got home from the store, there was a message on our answering machine. It was a desperate plea for help. Apparently, the host and hostess picked up a half barrel of beer. They had a tapper and didn't rent one. They hadn’t checked theirs and it wasn’t working properly. There was a leak in it and it made lots and lots of foam. What I found amusing was the fact that they called me for a tapper. They had a drinking emergency and the first thought that popped into their heads was, “Call Contagion, he’ll have what we need.” Even before checking with the store that they bought the keg from, they called me. Not that I blame them, I do own quite an impressive collection of drinking supplies, including a pub grade tapper. After getting my machine, and fearing I had left already, they called the liquor store only to find out they where out anyway. Being the exemplar asshole that I am, I let them stew for a couple of hours prior to my telling them I would bring it. . In fact, we told them we were going to be late arriving because of Clone. When we arrived about an hour and a half after the party started, I was about mugged by guys wanting a beer. Pulling the taper out of the truck and holding it over my head, the sun glinting off the chrome spigot, they all stopped in the tracks. A collective “AH!” was issued by the mass and I was treated like a messenger of god. Walking briskly to the keg, with a one handed move that most only get to witness in movies, I taped the keg and started pouring liquid gold to all my new disciples.

For the first time ever, I played Texas Hold’em against live people. I’ve only played in the past online or against a computer. Figuring I was just going to have some fun and be the first one out, I bought my way in. After 54 hands, I ended up winning the entire competition. Feeling obligated to play in the second round since I won, I invested part of my winnings back in. Now I was the first one out. However, I was sure I had the best hand. When it came down to showing cards, I was beaten by my opponent’s kicker card. I had a Jack, he had a Queen. It’s okay, I was still up on my winnings and I was able to drink more.

It was a fun party. The details get a little fuzzy because of the alcohol. I know there were shots again, even though these were nasty fruity shots, but I remember doing one or twenty. At one point, I know women where flashing people; my wife was included in participating in the flashing. The host was walking around showing any female that asked his sloppyrod. It was the hostess’ birthday on Sunday; her husband rented her a stripper. I don’t know if he was good or not, I stayed out on the garage drinking beer and playing cards. My wife seemed to enjoy it though. Which is fine by me, he did all the work and later I got to have the fun. I don’t care if she was fantasizing I was some stripper dressed up as a soldier, I was fantasizing she was Adriana Lima.

Not an average Wednesday night

Yesterday evening I attended a blogmeet held here in Rockford. I wasn’t invited to it, but I went anyway. In fact, LittleJoe and I were both left off the invite list. If we hadn’t over heard one of my very own Blog Fathers telling Anathematized about it, we would have never known. When we confronted Graumagus about it, he responded with, “Yea… I mean to tell you guys about that… really.” He then went on to advise that it was Tuesday night at Don Pablo’s here in town. LittleJoe and I both decided we were going to go. Unbeknownst to us deceit was a foot! We had both made arrangements to attend on Tuesday night. When I returned home there was a message from one of my unctuous Blog Father’s that said, “Hey Aneth, I just wanted to make sure you knew that the blogmeet was really WEDNESDAY at DOS REALES, not Tuesday at Don Pablo’s. Remember; don’t tell Contagion or LittleJoe, we don’t want them to come… (Long Pause) Wait, Aneth’s answering machine is broken…. Oh crap I called the wrong number… uhhh… delete this message and pay no mind to it. There is no need to remember this message; it’s a prank. Yea, that’s the ticket.” You could almost see Grau trying to use the Jedi mind trick on me over the phone.

LittleJoe and I talked it over and decided we were going to crash the party anyways. Bully on them! We arrived separately, LittleJoe about 45 minutes before me; we were the only ones there. At first we thought we had fallen for a clever decoy and after waiting for 30 minutes past the scheduled time we were getting ready to go home when there was a loud noise, a bright flash and smoke filled the entrance way. Over the bodies, blocking the front door, in steps BlackFive wearing full tactical gear and a gas mask. Not knowing who we were he ignored us and went to the far side of the bar to wait. We just kept our eye on him trying to figure out if that really was BlackFive or if someone else, who dresses like that, would show up here at that time.

As soon as the employees had the mess cleaned up from BlackFive’s entrance, in walked Teresa. It’s hard not to recognize her. Her regal presence upon entering was unmistakable. She glanced around with that cheery, “I’m slumming it with the commoners” look. We could tell from the pained look in her eye she recognized us from the last blogmeet we did two months ago. She greeted us with a fake smile and, “Oh, you two are here. How quant.” It was at that point BlackFive used an asp to move me out of the way so he could talk with Teresa.

I don’t remember who arrived next, Aneth or Harvey and TNT, but they arrived at about the same time. When Harvey entered, he immediately tried to get the staff to start a blog. I can’t count how many times in the first five minutes I heard, “So if you started a blog, what would the name be?” TNT immediately went into “looking for prey” mode. I swear that if it weren’t for LittleJoe as my back up, she would have added my head to her duffle bag full of “trophies”. When Harvey saw LittleJoe and me, he said, “How the hell did you two…. DAMN THAT GRAUMAGUS! I should have known better then to entrust him with a secret.” Upon Aneth’s arrival she attempted to pull me out of my bar stool so she could use me as a stepping stool to rest her feet on. Fortunately, my ample mass prevented that from happening. She did start hollering for Pina Colada’s as soon as she sat down in compensation.

Grau arrived next. He saw me, came over and said, “Uh, I see you got my message about the change in date and time. Yea, that’s what happened.” Harvey walked over and backhanded Grau. Growling, Harvey said, “I thought I specifically told you not to mention this gathering to the unwanted stump. We did not want the spawn of the GrauHarveBou here!” Grau, whipping some spittle off his face grabbed Harvey by the shirt. Hoisting him about a foot off the ground, Grau calmly warned Harvey, “I am not one of your blog children, if you ever do that again I will knock your Michael Gross looking arse back into the 80’s!” At that point, Grau and Harvey started laughing and hugging. It made me wonder even more about Bou’s, TIG’s and my blog-procreation.

Finally, Tammi and TIG arrived. Tammi came waltzing in all dressed up and looking as if she were heading to a formal event. While twirling she yelled out, “I’m the prettiest girl at the ball!” She went on to explain how she had spent most of the day in a salon having her hair and nails done just so she could look her best. I thought we were going to have a problem when BlackFive used his model 1911 Colt to shoot the cap off a bottle. The cap almost landed in Tammy’s hair. Fortunately, his aim was very good and instead it missed her by a quarter of an inch and landed in a trashcan.

TIG just pushed his way to the bar, slapped his hand down and yelled, “Bartender… Burrito, Beer… NOW!” I tried to say hello to him, but all I could understand from his low mumble was, “….. need beer…” and “…no beer yet…” However once he was able to drink his first couple of bottles he started coming to. This time when I attempted to say hello he responded with, “Umm, have we met before?” I explained that we had indeed met twice before. Scratching his head as he walked away, I heard him ask Tammy, “Is he the asshole I spent all that time talking to at the April Blogmeet?”

We were shown to a table; LittleJoe and I were relinquished to one end away from the more civilized and larger bloggers. Aneth decided to take pity on us and sat at the end to. It was either pity or the fact she was sucking down Pina Coladas. I had been drinking diet coke up to this point, but I needed something to help me overcome my shyness. I started ordering Jack and Diet cokes. The food was good, but after the meal, they seemed in a hurry to get us out of the place. I think some of it had to do with topics of conversation. Such as BlackFive telling stories of how he has a blister on his hand from knife fighting, TNT talking about the proper way to sever a human head, Harvey explaining about dogs eating cat poop, Aneth talking about putting cats into dryers, my going into details about the sewage explosion in my basement and TIG’s constant screaming for beer.

After we left the restaurant, we went to a bar nearby for drinks. It was pretty much more of the same; we all were sitting and talking about various topics. Then a vile plot was hatched by my BlogFathers to do a 7 month after birth abortion. They decided that we should all do prairie fire shots. For those of you that don’t know, a prairie fire is half Tequila and half Tabasco sauce. The Tabasco doesn’t bother me, its’ the tequila. I don’t really like the taste of tequila to begin with; it’s the fact that it causes me intense bodily pain that I hate it. Tequila tends to interact with my ulcers and causes me pain for days. In fact, as I’m writing this I’m drinking a pepto/prevacid milkshake. I can still taste the Tequila. Grau, knowing me for years, knew this was going to cause me much pain and discomfort. What he didn’t count on was my buddy Jack Daniels being able to subdue Jose from killing me.

It was a good evening, BlackFive only really tried to kill me once when he found out I don’t read his blog on a regular basis. I explained his blog scares me… not because of content but because too many people read it. He seemed to be appeased by that answer and let me live. It was easy to distract him however, all I had to do was get him to start telling stories and he seemed happy enough to tell him.

In all honesty I did have a good time, I was glad I went and it was nice to see everyone.

Lesson learned?

I am but a creature of habit. My actions and thoughts are strongly influenced by my routines. When my routine is thrown off, then I have to improvise. This is where I get into trouble. Routine and structure is what keeps me from displaying all the impulsive behavior that gets me into trouble. Let me give you an example.

Routine: I set off fireworks in my back yard after watching the professional display every Fourth of July.

Routine Failure: Due to Clone being sick all weekend, my wife and I being tired, and having to work on the Fifth; we did not set off fireworks after the show.

Now I know this seems like a harmless little break in routine. This example however makes for the incident that occurred last night. It was this break in my routine that caused my brain to override the “Good better” judgment controls. To tell this story properly I am going to start at the beginning.

Last Fourth of July I traveled by myself to Wisconsin to buy fireworks. Every year I go to the same place, I’ve gone there since I was 10 years old and I will continue to go every year, it is part of my routine. When I walked last year I was like a kid in a candy store, I went nuts buying many different items. What I hadn’t realized was the fact they where having a two for one sale. I ended up buying twice as much as I reasonably needed. (Notice I didn’t say wanted… I can never have too many fireworks). When I returned home with a Ford Ranger full of rockets and fountains, my wife told me I was no longer allowed to go firework shopping on my own again. That brings us to this year. The whole family comes with while I buy fireworks and again there is a two for one sale. Now this year I remembered it was a two for one sale and was going to curb my spending. However, my wife was with me to keep me in check. (Break in routine) I just kept buying waiting for her to say “DEAR GOD NO! YOU DO NOT NEED ANOTHER FIREWORK!” Instead she asked me to pick up a couple of fountains she liked thus encouraging my impulsive behavior. I ended up coming home with more fireworks this year then last year. (Consequence)

In 2004 when we were setting off fireworks in our back yard, Grau brought over this one called the weeping willow or something like that. It looked just like a bunch of fountains I had. Unfortunately, this was actually a bundle of mini-mortars that shot exploding balls into the air one right after the other. It was like a homing beacon for the cops to come and arrest us. The cops never came and we vowed not to do that again. So when we where buying fireworks I made sure that I only bought ones from the “Fountain” section for lighting off in the back yard. I know this is a little off topic, but keep this in mind for later, it is a VERY important detail.

Every Fourth of July we leave early to set off rockets in the field we sit in. This year we were shut down by the man. (Break in routine.) My need to set things on fire or blow them up was not satisfied. Normally this wouldn’t have been that big of a deal, however mix that with my original example and we have the formula for disaster.

Yesterday, upon arriving home, I saw the stack of fireworks sitting in my office. I turn to the oldest boy and say, “We are setting those off tonight.” After I finish cleaning up from the previous day’s party, making dinner and updating the Spoon and Blade, I grabbed the fireworks and the family. We went into the back yard for big explosion fun.

I had two different types of giant fountains among all the other assorted fountains I bought. I thought I would start the show with one of the big ones. I’m anxious to get my firework fix; I didn’t get to set many off the previous day. I was hurting bad. I didn’t read the label on this “Fountain” before I lit it as I normally do. Setting down on the ground a safe distance from the house and garage, I lit it and ran. The next thing I know there is a muffled explosion quickly followed by a much louder one and a shower of sparks about 100 feet over my head. I’m having flashbacks to last year. Only this time it was worse. Last year there were maybe 12-15 mini-mortars. This bundle of joy I set off had 36. It would set one off every 5 seconds. For three minutes, this “fountain” was shooting exploding flairs into the evening sky. That was a long three minutes. After it was finished, I waited to see if there where any sirens… Nope, not a one. Back to the fun at hand.

We are lighting all the other fountains when I have a break in routing failure. I have this other large “fountain” that was on the shelf right next to the big one I had let off earlier. Ironically, it was named “Big Trouble”. The label said, “Shoots flaming balls into the air with report.” My brain not having the fun that was so badly needed in setting off skyrockets and fireworks the night before starts justifying lighting this. I swear by all that is right and good in the world that my brain convinces me “That’s just the flaming balls that come out of regular fountains that crackle really loudly. It’s okay to set this one off.” My “better” judgment center screamed “NO, FOR THE LOVE OF LIFE, DO. NOT. DO. THIS!” The mischievous part of my brain says, “C’mon it’s just a fountain. We bought it in the “Fountain” section. The last one was a fluke. What are the chances of anyone making that mistake twice? Just set it off.” The rest of my brain then says in the dopey sounding rube voice, “Oh… all right, you’ve never gotten me into trouble before!”

I set the fountain on top of the cooled off remnants of the previous large fountain. I light it and run back. My wife notices what I did right as the fuse ignited. She screams, “NO, DON’T DO THAT!” Too late, the fuse was lit. The fuse was quick to get into the tube, but then there was nothing. I thought I had a dud. That was when it happened. A louder muffled explosion, then a high-pitch scream as (to quote my wife) “A screaming sperm of sparks heads into the night sky”. It explodes loudly about 150 feet up in a large star. This is followed about 15 seconds later by another. Every 15 seconds it would send up another one. Did I mention they exploded loudly? I did, good because when I say loud I’m talking really damn LOUD! Its bad enough they screamed in a high pitch whistle from the time they leave the tube until they reached their peak, but the explosion was enough to rattle my molars. I have neighbors climbing out of their houses convinced my house had finally caught fire and the cans of black powder where exploding. This inch and half diameter, ¼ inch- thick tubes that held the charges come falling back to the ground. They pelted everything around them with enough force to cause a noticeable noise on impact. It took one of these tubes hitting me in the head to make my brain admit, “This was a mistake.”

After the fifth one went off, I could hear sirens. They are getting closer and closer. People are gathering around the street to watch. I’m standing there just chanting, “Please stop, please stop, please stop” If finally quits after 20 of the flaming sperms have exploded. I can see the reflection of the emergency lights off trees. I’m sure I’m going to jail or one of the falling tubes hurt someone.

The sirens are about a block away and they keep going… it was an ambulance on its way to the hospital. There were no other emergency vehicles responding to my neighborhood. My wife looks at me with her arms across her chest. I say, “I guess that was a bad idea.” She makes a tsking noise and says, “Ya think?” I sent the older boy to go around and pick up as many of the fallen tubes as possible. There where tubes five houses in every direction. After the quick clean up we finish setting off all the ground fireworks. We had some pretty impressive fountains. I’m sure that if I had been able to set off the fireworks the night before this wouldn’t have happened. I would have not been so desperate to blow something up that I almost took out my neighborhood.

Bottle Rockets are EVIL!

I hope everyone had a fun time on the Fourth of July. I know I did. We had some friends over to the house for a little party. Everyone ended up spending most of the time on our front porch or in the house due to the weather. The rain didn’t irritate me as much as I thought it would. Yes, it ruined my plans, but we are in such a bad drought that we need it. Honestly we could use about another 7 inches over the rest of the month to be caught up.

Most of the people there were from Clan Chattan. Honestly after I left the group, I thought there was going to be a lot of bad blood. Fortunately, I was wrong, as everyone seems to have overcome their issues. We all sat and talked, swapped stories, reminisced about past activities and shared our hopes for the future. It was nice. I wasn’t involved in any gossip or politics. It made me start to rethink leaving. Then I realized the reason I didn’t catch any of that was that I was no longer a member. It still was good to see everyone together again… and happy.

Both Chastity and Virtue brought their boyfriends with to the party. You would think that after being members of this group for as long as they have been, they would know better. All the guys in the group are like over protective uncles. We were relentlessly ruthless to the boys, especially Maelduin and I. It was great fun making these boys squirm.

We had a lot of good food. One of the guests brought this cheese bread recipe. It was excellent. It tasted like cheesecake, only better. I braved the rain to grill burgers and hot dogs for everyone. Cooking in the rain doesn’t bother me, especially on the Fourth of July. If you don’t grill on the Fourth then there is something seriously wrong with you. I don’t care if it’s a vegetarian Kabob or the best steak money can buy, you grill on the Fourth of July!

We left the house around 7:30PM to go watch the Fireworks in Neighboring Cherry Valley. They have a nice display and it’s much easier to get in and out of with all the traffic. I have a spot that I’ve gone to for many years now. There is usually not a lot of other people there so we can play around. It’s on the backside of the display, therefore we don’t get to see any of the ground fireworks, but who wants those anyway? The other attraction of this spot is we would light off our own fireworks waiting for the show. There are usually some kinds of rockets of various sizes. This year I had a couple gross of bottle rockets and four packets of larger rockets.

We had just finished setting out the blankets and spraying the kids down when I drove the pipes into the ground. I tested them with some bottle rockets. As I did, one of the people that owns the property adjacent to where we were warned us that the cops where there. Not wanting to have our fun ruined, I quickly hid the big rockets under the blanket and left a bunch of the bottle rockets out in plain site. Why? Because if he knows we were lighting off fireworks and comes down they will only confiscate what they see, they won’t search. If you hide everything, they will do a quick probable cause search. The cop ended up driving off and after about 10 minutes, I started firing them off. Being in the Fourth of July spirit, I started tossing packets of bottle rockets to my friends so they could have some fun. We were all having a great time playing with bottle rockets, which apparently are the most dangerous of all fireworks. How are they dangerous? Just read on.

After setting them off for about a total of 15 minutes I turned around to grab another packet of bottle rockets and I see a cop walking down to us. He tells us that he is shutting us down and confiscating the fireworks. He goes on to explain that the property we are on is owned by ComEd, the power company, and they didn’t want people shooting off fireworks by their power lines. Then he states, “They want us to make an arrest, who shall it be.” Everyone was quiet, I was thinking I should take the blame since it was my party and my fireworks, but then the cop points to LittleJoe and says, “I saw you shooting them off, I need to see your ID and information.”

LittleJoe in a rage that “The Man” has shut down our fun says, “Fuck you copper! Why aren’t you out taking guns from little kids or confiscating fireworks that are a bit more dangerous then bottle rockets?” The cop responded by pulling out his asp and saying “Don’t get my face boy I’ll beat you like an unwanted step child. Besides there are no fireworks more deadly then the whistling bottle rocket! Per shot fired, more people are injured with the `Harmless’ bottle rocket. Anyway no one else is shooting them off” He says this as sub-professional grade mortars and large skyrockets are going off around us.
LittleJoe is in such a rage that his pants have turned purple; he moves to take the cop. In his blinding rage, he forgets that we are on a hillside filled with holes. He steps in one, loosing his balance and falls to the ground hitting his head. The cop jumps on his back and handcuffs him before he can come to. Putting away his asp, he pulls his side arm to make sure the rest of us don’t decide to assist our friend. Using his radio, he attempts to call for back up. The power lines and towers prevent a signal from being transponded.

The rest of us just sit back and watch. Since children were present we didn’t want them to get hurt incase Barney Fife gets scared. After about 5 minutes of trying to raise backup he finally gets through to a dispatcher. She advises the cop that there is no back up. All the other Cherry Valley Units are out setting off bottle Rockets they had confiscated from the public. Realizing that he was missing the fun, he gently wakes LittleJoe up and says, “If you promise not to fight I’ll just take your information and the bottle rockets and be on my way.” LittleJoe told the cop he wouldn’t fight. He gave him his name and information. I gave the cop all the bottle rockets that where left in plain sight. He asked me, “Is this all of them?” I responded with, “Of course officer.” He takes a quick look over the area spies some fountains that where sitting out. He walks over toward them.

Grau’s eldest spawn is freaking out that the cop is going to take his fireworks. Grau assures the cop that those are legal fireworks bought here in Illinois. They where just smoke bombs and fountains. The cop looks them over and decides he doesn’t want to light those off and leaves them as he departs the area. After the cop leaves, we are all joking about the entire incident and I pointed out to my friends that laughed at me about not hiding all the fireworks that it worked. He took about $5.00 worth of bottle rockets and left the $70.00 worth of skyrockets, and he still did a quick search.

This all happened by 8:50. They didn’t start the main display until almost 9:45. For the first time in many years, I wasn’t too impressed with the display. They seemed to do all of the same style of fireworks together instead of spreading them out. I thought it would look better if they broke them up more. Clone really enjoyed the fireworks. This is his first year that he actually cared to pay attention to them. I’m glad he enjoyed it, because he had spent most of the weekend being sick. He had been puking Saturday, Sunday and Monday. (No, it had nothing to do with this incident! He didn’t drink any alcohol! People please!) He finally snapped out of his funk around 6:00 and was really into playing and having fun by the time we left for the show.

*Some of the details regarding the cop have been exaggerated and may not be 100% accurate.

WAR!

When a foreign power not only invades your lands, but also starts to set up base. It is your right, no, it is your duty to defend yourself and eradicate them. I was in this situation recently. My front porch has been not only invaded but also settled by wasps. Wasps do not bother me in general. I have a very laissez-faire attitude toward them; if they leave me alone, I will leave them alone. This attitude tends to change once they start colonizing on my property. Especially since, I have two children that probably would throw rocks at them.

Upon discovery of the invaders, the normal peace-loving, quiet and friendly version of Contagion was replaced with General Contagion of the Supreme Armies of the House. General Contagion, with his scorched earth policies, unequaled temper and open hostility, raised a giant middle finger to the Geneva Convention. He obtained through the local black market (AKA Local Hardware Store) various chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction (AKA many cans of Raid and Black Flag Hornet and Wasp killer) along with various incendiary weapons (AKA gasoline soaked rags shoved in the end of a metal pipe). Wearing his body armor and biohazard suit (AKA shorts, sleeveless T-shirt with skulls on it, eyeglasses and Green Bay Packer hat) he armed himself to do battle.

During the evening hours, General Contagion launched an exploratory skirmish against the foe. After his recon was able to get the general location of the base, he took up position to try to observe and count the enemy. The base was heavily fortified. They had built it in a dead space in the roof of the front porch. Cursing the fates for this bit of bad luck, General Contagion grabbed his side arm (AKA Flyswatter) and a smoking rag in a pipe and tried to draw the enemy forth. This had the desired effect he was looking for, an estimated count of enemy forces. It was determined that this base was not fully operational and lightly manned. General Contagion pulled his forces back to regroup and ready for the main attack.

An Artillery barrage of Chemical weapons of mass destruction was unleashed upon the enemy’s fortification. The RAID was not as successful as planned. It seemed that the toxins used were at best 50% effective on the populous. The chemical seemed to have a better effect on the civilian population in the area then on the hostiles. The collateral damage amongst fireflies was catastrophic. We stopped counting after 20. General Contagion, sticking to his Scorched Earth policy, felt that the civilian population was more of a hindrance to his plans then an asset and the loss of them was crucial to the success of his campaign.

Finally it was time for operation BLACK FLAG. General Contagion, upon observance of the enemy attempting to recover from the first two attacks, ordered another round of artillery. The chemical weapon in this round had a much more devastating effect. A thick foam of bio-toxins and what can only be best described as an acid versus chitinous creatures. The weapon worked with a deadly and whirlwind speed. Most of the enemy troops fell with in the first 30 seconds of the attack. As soon as this sticky foam attached to them, their wings would shrivel, their little bodies would start to convulse and pulse on the ground until movement finally stopped w/in a minute of contact. Unlike the chemical agent from the RAID which seemed to dissipate and lose potency after a couple of minutes. Operation BLACK FLAG’s weapon stuck to the structure for in excess of 20 minutes with out loosing any potency. Soldier after soldier would stumble into the foam and fall to the ground in a sure death. After 30 minutes, a general victory was declared. Collateral damage included many more fireflies, some spiders, and about 50 box elder bugs. There is a rumor circulating that General Contagion in his boredom between attacks specifically ordered the attack on the box elder bugs. We have been unable to confirm the rumors. Upon questioning General Contagion, the only response we received was a boot to the arse and a “No Comment”

General Contagion observed the now ruined base for any signs of life. Upon confirmation of three hours that there has been no new activity, General Contagion held a press conference to announce his victory. With a cigar in his mouth and whisky tumbler of Jack Daniels General Contagion addressed the assembled press, “My fellow Householdians, it is my honor to announce the utter destruction of an enemy base on our soil. At approximately 5:30 PM CST, I launched an attack against a lightly manned, yet heavily fortified enemy base. By 6:30 PM, we had received confirmation that the base was in ruins and all soldiers dead. I know that not everyone agrees with the tactics used and the loss of life. I say that they were not innocent, they could have chosen a side and they did not. They wanted others to fight their battle for them. If they did not like the way the battle was fought, then they should have stepped up and done it themselves, not waited until we had to step in and take control. I will NOT muzzle my army, I will NOT be more worried about the “innocents” hiding and aiding the enemy. The neighboring households that are worried about the effects of my biochemical warfare on the environment can gum nudge my left testicle. It was not their homes or families under attack; it was ours! And we were victorious.”

The enemy fell victim to one of the classic blunders, the most famous of which is “Never get involved in a land war in Asia”, but only slightly less well known is this: “Never go against General Contagion when his family’s safety is on the line.” Thank you, now go away while I finish this victory drink!

Rejected again.

I don’t know how to take this. I know I’m not the most sociable person. I’m lacking in some of the social graces one tries to attain in order to be a member of polite society. I am however trying to find my spot in society, especially in the blogosphere. I have no desires to become on of the great and immortal bloggers that everyone refers to and reads. I’m happy just to have a place to put my random and stray thoughts, talk about things that concern me and attempt to entertain the unfortunate few that stumble across me. However, I’ve ended up belonging to different blog “organizations” either inadvertently or intentionally. There is no denying that I take some pride in this and enjoy the benefits. To be completely excluded from one is baffling.

First, as spawn of the GrauHarveBou I am the unwanted stump in the blogenetics that makes up the Bad Example Family. Which, in all honesty, the genetics there where kind of suspect to begin with before I ever came along. I’ve come to take my blogenetics as a point of pride, just for the fact that the mental image it gives people usually makes them shudder in horror. You will see the Bad Example family logo and blogroll in my sidebar. Miasmatic Review is included in the blogroll. I am proud. I also have the Frizzen Family on the sidebar; Grau does not have a blogroll for his blogspawn. Therefore, I manually entered that code and I did not link to myself, that was my choice.

Second is the Gathering of the Blogs. I stumbled across Absinthe and Cookies. While there, I saw, she had a post regarding “Gathering of the Blogs”. As I am of Scottish decent and portray a Scot as a re-enactor, I felt the desire to heed her call and participate in the festivities. You will see in my sidebar the logo and blogroll for Gathering of the Blogs. Miasmatic Review is listed on the blogroll.

Third is the Alliance. I joined the Alliance for many different reasons. I’m still trying to figure out how I fit into it as I’m having a hard time getting into the filthy lies that go along with membership. Yet I want to support my fellow bloggers that were members before me and ones that join after me. I proudly display the logo in my sidebar and the extremely long blogroll down at the bottom. If you look, you will see Miasmatic Review listed on that blogroll.

Finally is being part of the Munuvian Empire. As being part of the Bad Example Family, I was nominated to get a site on .mu.nu. I was happy. No, ecstatic. Nay! I was exalted at the prospect of getting away from blogger and into something that is a lot more flexible and reliable. I have yet to find a logo for the Munuvian Empire so I don’t have one, however I have their blogroll in the drop down menu in my sidebar. If you look, you will see that Miasmatic Review is excluded from that list. I have been accepted, yet rejected. Is it because I am a blogentic-unwanted stump? Is it because my writing is often scattered with grammatical and spelling errors and it’s an embarrassment to the powers that be? Maybe it’s due to an oversight and the fact that the powers that be are really busy. Any way, it has excluded me from the blogroll. If I had any feelings, I think I might be hurt. However, since I don’t I’m just going to make fun of the situation.

Am I mad about this? No. Am I using this as an excuse to rant? Sorta. Am I having a problem with creativity and using this as something to post... YES I AM!