Nyuk, Nyuk, Nyuk....

I'm finished!

noreply@blogger.com (Dazed and Bemused) — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 18:30:00 +0000

After some careful consideration, I've decided that three years of keeping this blog is enough. I thought I could make it to a fourth year, but that won't happen. There are other venues for writing that have been keeping me occupied of late, and that's where I'll be. So it's time to take out the proverbial bowling pin and beat this blog over the head. Thanks for reading.

That tickles!

noreply@blogger.com (Dazed and Bemused) — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 13:42:00 +0000

This should be enough to psychologically scar the average toddler.

A new year

noreply@blogger.com (Dazed and Bemused) — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 15:02:00 +0000

2009 has gotten off to a whiz-bang start. Just a few days into the new year my car began giving my trouble. Might I add at this point that a mini van makes an excellent traffic control device when it stalls in the middle of morning rush hour traffic in a school zone. Fortunately someone came along and helped me push my van into a nearby driveway and out of the traffic. Off to the shop with my car on a flatbed wrecker. The diagnostic computer said there was a bad crankshaft sensor, so that was replaced. I picked up my car the next day, and when I was about a mile from home, the van started doing the same thing it was doing the day before--stalling out, but cranking back up and then stalling again when put in drive. For the second time I had to call a wrecker to come pick up my car from the side of the road. And also for the second time the same guy who had been dispatched to get my car the first time showed up again. As he pulled my car up onto the flatbed wrecker, I told him, "Given the schedule my car is on, I guess I'll see you on Saturday."

The diagnosis for my van the second time in the shop was a bad power control unit, the computer that reads input from various engine sensors and keeps things running. It would've been an expensive fix were it not under warranty. The next day after work I head back to the shop and picked up my car. Even though they logged 20 miles in the post-repair test drive, once again at the same point the car started acting up after the first repair, it started stalling again. I did manage to keep it running long enough to make it the last mile home, me popping the car into neutral and restarting the car every time it cut off on me. It was almost like riding a bucking bronco.

Saturday morning and another call for a wrecker to come get my car, which this time sat in my driveway. And the same wrecker driver who had come pick my car up the first two times pulled up to my house. "See, I told you I'd see you Saturday," I told him as he got out of his wrecker.

By this time what I had been feeling as a nagging thought was screaming through my head: my van had been a very reliable vehicle for almost the past six years, but what if now we're entering that stage where we'll be slowly, and expensively, replacing the car piece by piece, one repair after another? That afternoon it was off to the dealership under the guise to look, though I knew in my heart I'd be leaving with a new car. I needed something I could trust when I drove it, and that wasn't the van anymore. But there was a new Jeep on the lot that not only could be trusted, but also fell well into the range of what I could afford.

Even though 2009 got off to a crappy start, things are starting to look up.

Feelin' refweshed

noreply@blogger.com (Dazed and Bemused) — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 22:51:00 +0000

If you've seen the film Blazing Saddles, then Madeline Kahn's faux-Dietrich accent in the title will make sense. Once again I've neglected my blog. I was giving thought of shutting it down come January, 2009. It seems that the shelf life of your typical blog is three years, so it seemed natural to pull the plug on this distraction at that point. But something wonderful happened to me this past weekend. Being off from work for two weeks has allowed me to go to bed much later than usual. And as luck would have it, I caught a few minutes of a truly awful movie called, "Blood Freak." To sum up the whole plot in a sentence, a guy is turned into a giant turkey who then goes after drug dealers. No clue why the major studios turned this script down. To see a guy wandering around wearing a giant turkey mask, well, makes me believe in mankind again and realize that there are things still out there that need to be brought to the publics attention.

Holy crap!

noreply@blogger.com (Dazed and Bemused) — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 15:48:00 +0000

The frequency at which I've been blogging has decreased quite a bit over the past year. This is due in large part because I've been focusing more time on my Flickr account and trying (trying is the key word here) to become a better photographer. I have a shotgun philosophy when it comes to taking pictures: point and shoot everything you see, then decide later on what's worth keeping. There are a few pictures in my collection that I'm genuinely pleased with; for the most part I think I could've taken most of my pictures better, either in composition or in exposure levels. But it seems the goofy shots are the ones people lock in on. At the moment there is one such goofy shot in the first page of my pictures. I posted it last Wednesday, and since then it has had, at last count, round 7,570 views. Consider that for the most part my pictures average between 20-40 views, with a couple in the 400-700 range. That I have a picture with over seven thousand views boggles my mind. But it's also pretty cool insofar that people are looking at my pictures. If you know me, then you know how to contact me for my Flickr account address.

Sarah Palin - Socialist

noreply@blogger.com (Dazed and Bemused) — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 12:35:00 +0000

Hypocrisy...it tastes just like chickenhawk.

Full court press

noreply@blogger.com (Dazed and Bemused) — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 14:40:00 +0000

With the Election Day less than a week away now, the frequency and negativity of political advertisements have picked up dramatically. That's really been the case in the senatorial race between incumbent Saxby Chambliss and Democratic challenger Jim Martin. Things have taken a turn for the ugly between the two campaigns, with allegations flying back and forth every 60 seconds. I'm assuming the Chambliss campaign didn't take Martin too seriously at first, as they originally aired advertisements that were weak and ineffective, to say the least. But Martin closed the gap and the polls show the race to be very close.

What's more interesting to me are not the commercials both candidates are running on television right now, but the increasing number of commercials being run that are sponsored by national organizations outside of Georgia. It would seem both parties have woken up and realized that Georgia may not be the red state that they thought it would be and are now fighting it out. In order for the Democrats to establish a veto-proof majority in the Senate, they have to win one of the seats up for grabs in the south, and Saxby's looking like a boxer who's been bloodied and bruised, but not beaten. We'll know this time next week whether Jim Martin can pull the upset or not, and whether the Democrats further secure Congress.

But until then, six more days of these damned political ads on television.

That long?

noreply@blogger.com (Dazed and Bemused) — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 20:29:00 +0000

You mean to say that it's been over a month since I last posted a blog entry? Geez. Not sure what I should write about. I could write about the U.S. presidential campaign, but I'm getting kind of tired of it. I've cast my vote already, so be done with it. I could write about the 10% budget cuts we're expecting at work for next year, and how unsuspecting students are about to get waylaid by a serious recession of approximately one-third in classes and seats in our schedule next year. I could write about the two toilets in our restrooms on this floor, one of which can barely flush water while the other one has such power that I think it actually creates a black hole around the seat; nothing escapes, not light, matter, or some poor unsuspecting dope who stands too close to the bowl.

As of this January I will have been blogging for three years. My goal is to make it that far at least before quitting this hobby.

Hypocracy...it's what's for dinner.

noreply@blogger.com (Dazed and Bemused) — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 12:37:00 +0000

Can you smell the hypocracy? Can you taste the double standard? This election is about issues, folks. Don't fall for manufactured circus sideshows.

Aim high

noreply@blogger.com (Dazed and Bemused) — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 18:13:00 +0000

I recently took my family out to dinner at a local restaurant. From a neighboring table I overheard one of the more ridiculous comments I've heard of late. A young man with his girlfriend and his mother dining with him said, "One of the things I really want to do before I die is go to Vegas and lose $1,000."

Such aspirations! Still, it doesn't top the comment made by a girl I worked with 15 years ago. She told me she wanted to be a Hooters girl (she definitely had the bust for it) because they got into NASCAR races for free. But she also used to abbreviate the word "associates" as "ass." Imagine receiving a letter addressed to "Emergency Medicine Ass." Now I'm wondering if I pissed away four years of my life and thousands of dollars to get a college education.

It ain't amazing

noreply@blogger.com (Dazed and Bemused) — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 17:20:00 +0000

Have you ever wanted to know what a garbage truck full of kittens sounds like when you drop the truck off the Empire State Building? Here ya go. Enjoy...or not.

Keeping watch

noreply@blogger.com (Dazed and Bemused) — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 17:36:00 +0000

With the remnants of Tropical Storm Fay loitering around the Southeast, dropping lots of rain on the region, they've issued a flash flood watch for a goodly portion of northeast Georgia. In response I say, it's about goddamn time we got some rain. Bring it on...six inches, eight, twelve...it's doesn't matter, we need it. The main river through town which is our primary source for drinking water is way, way, way, way down. It's more of a creek than a river at the moment.

Things don't always go as planned

noreply@blogger.com (Dazed and Bemused) — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 02:03:00 +0000

Recently I took a longer and more scenic route to work, as I needed to put gas in my car and the bank having just approved my small business loan, everything was a go to put half a tank in. Unfortunately on this particular day, I was frequently delayed in going from gas station to the deck where I park my car. On this morning the sororities on campus were starting their Panhellenic festivities, the process where girls visit different houses in hopes one will offer them a bid to pledge. I was about two car lengths behind a campus bus when it stopped in front of a sorority house. A long line of girls proceeded across the street, gathering on the walk leading up to the house. At the end of the line was a girl who stood out amongst the rest. I wouldn't say she was fat, but it this were a personal ad she'd fall into the "few extra pounds" category. Her physical frame was definitely larger than the rest of the bleached-blonde, sun-dress wearing preying mantis' who had gotten off the bus before her. She wasn't unattractive by no means, she just stood out from the rest, which isn't always a good thing in these types of circumstances. I hoped for the best for her, but it occurred to me that things don't always go as you plan them.

And that's been the case for me of late. For many months I had been looking forward to my trip to New York, my first visit back since 1978. I was concerned about a great many things leading up to the trip, such as trying to drive around an area that I really wasn't familiar with, the traffic, running out of money. For the past several years I've been thinking more and more of New York, my family there, and what my life would've been like if my family hadn't up and moved to Georgia many years ago. I was sure the trip would result in my thinking, it's a nice place to visit but I wouldn't want to live there.

We flew into LaGuardia on a Thursday morning, caught a shuttle to the Enterprise car rental facility just outside the airport, where we were pleased to find out that our reservation had been upgraded because they were out of compact cars. We'd be traveling around Long Island in a Toyota Rav4, which was nice because it had plenty of room inside. I told myself to avoid the Long Island Expressway at all costs because of some pretty horrible accidents I've read about on there, but before I knew it I found myself driving on the LIE. Uh, oh.

But I managed to navigate me and the family out to Uniondale, where I used to live. I got to show my daughter the house where my family used to live, and was able to introduce her to a former neighbor who still lives in the same house after all these years. The next week was spent visiting stores looking for NY Giants and Islanders apparel, visiting cemeteries to pay my respects to my grandparents and great-grandparents, traveling into Manhattan and seeing Ellis Island and Times Square. During our trip we stayed with my aunt and her family on the north shore of Long Island. For the first couple of days there my uncle and his wife traveled up from Virginia to see us. It was as close to a family reunion as I could hope for, and it was great. All the while, I never felt like a pilgrim setting foot in a new land. I felt like I was home. As much as I thought this would be the trip that made me glad I didn't live there, it didn't work out that way. It was a wonderful visit, and it won't be thirty years before I go back, that's for certain. When I got back home I started checking job listings for the area, but moving back isn't really an option; it's just too expensive to live there.

A few days after we got back from our New York trip, my wife and I headed out of town again to attend my 25th high school reunion. My observations from my 20th reunion comprise one of my first blog posts. I can't say the event was very enjoyable for me. The planners chose to include three graduating classes--82, 83, & 84--to help spread the costs, which is a good idea. A few people whom I was hoping would show up didn't. On the other hand, I got to see a friend of mine who I hadn't seen in twenty-six years. In addition to high school, we were also in Cub Scouts together and played rec league soccer as well. It was good seeing him again and meeting his wife. But other than that, I didn't enjoy myself at all. I don't do well in groups of people I don't know, so all I wanted was to get out of there, which we did about an hour and a half after arriving. My wife was disappointed that I didn't have fun, but she understood completely why I wanted to leave.

In five years our 30th reunion will be coming up, but I'm not planning on attending. I'm in touch with the people I want to be in touch with. As for the rest, I'm sure you're good people but there's nothing connecting us other than we went to the same school. I'm not looking back anymore, and I'm okay with that.

Losing Faith

noreply@blogger.com (Dazed and Bemused) — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 15:33:00 +0000

I'll admit to being a bit surprised and disappointed to read that my friend Todd Mitchell decided to close up shop at his Article of Faith blog. I really can't say I blame him, though. For three years he frequently posted his running commentary on the political issue of the day, and did so in a much more eloquent manner than I could. So that's one less blog I'll have to look forward to. Still, I'm sure I'll be seeing Todd again in the future. Actually, I know I will--he has monthly payments to make as I still have those incriminating photo negatives.

Sometimes it's not interesting

noreply@blogger.com (Dazed and Bemused) — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 21:31:00 +0000

I've blogged before about how, to drown out the background, I listen to the local police scanner while at work. It can be very interesting, especially listening to transmissions during foot chases. Right now is not one of those interesting times.

About an hour before I wrote this the police received a call from someone who claimed that he had hurt his wife and was threatening to hurt himself. To make matters worse, this was in relation to an ongoing divorce proceeding. Long story short, the police made entry to the house a short while ago and reported two people with fatal headshot wounds. They're now in the process of contacting the next of kin. It pains me to know that in a little while someone will have their life thrown into upheaval as they find out their son or daughter was a victim of a murder -suicide. And then it will be splashed all over the front page of tomorrow's newspaper.

You might be a Redneck if...

noreply@blogger.com (Dazed and Bemused) — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 03:12:00 +0000

...if you take your wife and kids to Chuck E. Cheese while wearing a shirt bearing a happy face and the caption, "Smile if you swallow." Yeah, I did see that this evening.

Shimajiro and the Toilets

noreply@blogger.com (Dazed and Bemused) — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 19:33:00 +0000

I don't know which is more disturbing: the Japanese penchant for violent, anime porn, or this video.

So wrong on so many levels

noreply@blogger.com (Dazed and Bemused) — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 16:09:00 +0000

Sometimes I'm dumbfounded at the toys that make it to market, though I'm not sure this one's legit. This one's just wrong, and dad looks a little too eager to get peed on.

Why DHL Sucks

noreply@blogger.com (Dazed and Bemused) — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 15:11:00 +0000

I've ordered a number of things online over the past several years, and generally have had good experiences with both vendors and shipping services. As a rule, I usually will have things delivered to me at my work address so that an unattended box is not sitting on my front porch during the day, just waiting for some little shit to come steal it. That's not very likely in the neighborhood where we live now, but when I first started ordering online back in 2001, having a box stolen off our porch was very likely where we were living at the time.

After the New York Giants won the Super Bowl this year, I waited a few days before going online to order up a t-shirt commemorating their victory. It's a tradition in this country to attach our egos to sporting teams by wearing shirts like that, and this was one of those occasions where I fully wanted to participate in that tradition. The Wednesday after the Super Bowl I went the Giants' online store and ordered a championship t-shirt. I chose the shipping option that should have it in my hands in about ten days, and I wanted it delivered to my work address. My online order done, I patiently waited for my order.

And waited.

And waited.

After 10 days I logged back on the Giants' store to check the status of my order. It had shipped a couple of days after I had placed my order. To my dismay, the shipper was DHL. The tracking link gave even more bad news. My order had been delivered two days prior.

Of all the shipping services I've been subjected to, DHL totally sucks. When my sister-in-law signed me up for a microbrew beer club a couple of Christmases ago, it was DHL who delivered the boxes of beer--or tried to at least. Because of the nature of the packages, my beer deliveries required an adult signature. Did DHL attempt to deliver after 5 pm when an adult would be home? Hell, no! They tried to deliver most of my boxes around 11:30 in the morning. Farktards!

So with no t-shirt delivered to me but with a status stating that it had, I called DHL to find out where the hell my package was. The customer service rep was marginally cordial, and but surprised when I countered her claim that the package had been delivered and signed for. I had done my homework. Prior to calling them I had contacted the unit on campus that receives deliveries from various shipping companies. They had not received anything for me, and not only did the person who allegedly signed for the package not work there, there's no such person at all employed on this campus.

The next step was being transferred to the local office and a conversation with the manager there. He would contact the driver who delivered it and get back with me. A week later, I get a call back with an explanation that he delivered it to the central receiving office--the same people who had already told me they never received it. Then comes the kicker: he tells me they have to deliver there because they're not allowed to deliver on campus.

In the spirit of football, I'm throwing a flag on that play, the call: Bullshit! Twenty minutes ago we received in our department a shipment of four boxes. The company that delivered it? DHL. So much for not being allowed on campus. Crappy service and they lie like a cheap, seven dollar WalMart rug.

Eventually I got my money back, but the moral of the story here is, if you're ordering something online, make sure they don't ship via DHL. I'll never order from anyone who uses them. Now I have to go to New York to get my damned Giants Super Bowl championship t-shirt.

It's not always intuitive

noreply@blogger.com (Dazed and Bemused) — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 03:43:00 +0000

Sometimes things are just not as they appear. Sometimes our intuition says that something must be so, but it just doesn't turn out as we expect. I was reminded about that recently in a story that a friend of mine told me. He and his wife are on a mission to get back in shape this year, and so have purchased all the accoutrement's necessary for exercising. One evening his wife was online and wanted to go to the website for Dicks Sporting Goods. Naturally her intuition told her that the web addy should, by all accounts, be www.dicks.com. Don't go to that address as it's not the URL for Dick's Sporting Goods. Rather than being greeted by a site full of listings for sporting goods, she was treated to a site displaying penises, nothing but penises and lots of them. Needless to say she was really embarrassed by what she saw and immediately went to another website. Clearly she wasn't looking for golf or badminton equipment, as I'm sure there were plenty of shafts and shuttlecocks ready for her perusal.

I'm an idiot

noreply@blogger.com (Dazed and Bemused) — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 15:05:00 +0000

Or so my boss apparently thinks I am. This morning I had to distribute info sheets to my fellow staffers with our raises for next year. To describe our raises as a pittance would be an understated insult to the word, "pittance." What we'll do with the extra $50 a month (after taxes) we'll never know...perhaps purchase half a tank of gas?

But what irked me was the cover memo my boss included with our info sheets. The raises for staff were a meek 3%, to which the memo reminded us that our higher paid faculty, including my boss, were also held to that 3% standard. Now, I didn't earn membership in five different academic honorary societies because I'm a complete and total farktard. A quick calculation of a 3% raise for my boss reveals that his salary increase in total is five times what mine is. The poor baby! He already makes plenty of money doing God knows what (I do a lot of his work for him), so I certainly hope he can make ends meet with his raise. But I'm an idiot...what do I know?

Democracy v. Communism

noreply@blogger.com (Dazed and Bemused) — Tue, 20 May 2008 21:02:00 +0000

Thank goodness the Cold War geo-political chessboard wasn't decided by breakdancing. Otherwise, we'd have received a serious smackdown by the Soviets.

Bad album covers

noreply@blogger.com (Dazed and Bemused) — Thu, 15 May 2008 14:05:00 +0000

They're all over the internet--digital images of bad album covers. The imagery runs from outright laughable to what-the-hell-were-they-thinking. I thought I had seen all of the bad covers out there, but I found a few recently that deserve commentary.

Buy my record or I will eat you. Little David Wilkins, king of all the taverns. At first glance I thought perhaps he was British, but the lack of bad teeth indicated that he wasn't. Turns out he's from Nashville, Tennessee (go figure). Despite the fact the he's clutching his chest as a pork roast tries to make its way through his ascending aorta, this guy is still alive. He has his own website here, though the music that plays when the site loads has him singing about food. Stay away from the ham sandwiches, David. You remember how that worked out for Mama Cass.

When he's not beating his girlfriend or playing chicken with trains, RayBob here is making records. This is a true WTF album cover if I've ever seen one. I don't think I've ever heard his smash hit, "I Seen Her First," but it's a safe guess it was quickly followed up with his next smash hit, "You Sure Got a Perty Mouth." And that mullet...holy shit! If you've got more hair on the back of your head than on the sides, you're doing it wrong. Fail!

Let's make a record, Mr. Hat. Not since Mr. Garrison on South Park has there been such a successful man-puppet tag team duo in the entertainment world. Kind of hard to play guitar with a puppet on your fret board hand, isn't it, Don? Or are you Seymour? Fuck, guys, wear nametags or something so we know who's who! It's distinctly possible that the puppet has a better agent and thus wound up with top billing in this act.

That special feeling

noreply@blogger.com (Dazed and Bemused) — Sun, 11 May 2008 00:55:00 +0000

One of the downsides of getting older is that some of your bad habits from your younger days begin to manifest themselves. In my case it has been my diet, or lack there of, which was made even worse during my college days when I had to eat what I could when I could, convenience over quality.

At my last doctor's appointment this past November he noted that my bad cholesterol was kind of high. Of course he recommended watching my diet (don't they all) and to start taking fish oil caplets for the Omega-3 compound that helps bring cholesterol and triglyceride levels down. The news worked out well, as I had braces put on my teeth just a few weeks before and my whole diet changed to accommodate them. In the time since the braces went on my teeth my weight is down about 10-15 pounds. On the down side of my doctor's recommendation were the caplets.

I've never been really good at taking pills, which bodes poorly for me if I ever become a celebrity. Fish oil caplets are horse pills, in my opinion. They're about three-quarters of an inch long, so the only way I'm going to be able to take a horse pill is by having one fired down my throat using a bolus gun. Compounding my problem swallowing pills is the brace-related wire that's on the roof of my mouth. Not being able to get my tongue to reach the roof of my mouth affects how I swallow not just pills, but food as well (pizza is an especially risky food for me).

An alternative to the fish oil caplets has been flaxseed oil, but I hadn't been able to find it in a form I could ingest. Until today, that is. The family and I traveled north to Commerce, Georgia, to get a gift certificate as a Mother's Day present for my mom at a store she loves to shop at. As we walked along the storefronts at an outlet mall, we passed one for a place called Vitamin World. On a whim I decided to go in and see what they had in the fish oil category. Once again, they had the caplets the size of horse pills. Damn! But wait...near the top shelf were bottles of flaxseed oil. At first glance all I saw were bottles of pills, but moving down one shelf there were bottles containing flaxseed oil in liquid and in ground form. Huzzah! Finally, flaxseed oil in a form I can take.

I grabbed a bottle of liquid off the shelf and made my way to the register. The Asian couple ahead of me in line seemed to be buying everything that caught their eye. Their final total was over $500. I can imagine that their breakfast each morning consists of a plate of pills and a cup of coffee; if they're hungry enough they'll chase the pills with perhaps some eggs or pancakes. Eventually I was able to shell out $13 for the bottle of flaxseed oil and leave the store.

I started reading the label once we got home and opened the bottle to see what the oil smelled like. No discernible smell, a positive sign as I was worried that it would smell awful. The label called for a teaspoon twice a day, preferable with a meal. I've already eaten, I rationalized, so I opened the bottle and grabbed a teaspoon from a kitchen drawer. No better time than the present, I thought. With some trepidation I poured the yellowish liquid into the spoon, put the spoon in my mouth, and....

Holy crap! For the record flaxseed oil really doesn't have much of a taste but the texture leaves much to be desired. It was like doing a shooter full of Wesson cooking oil. Blah! I grabbed for my water bottle to wash the residue out of my mouth. When they said flaxseed "oil" they weren't kidding. So now I'll be taking the stuff twice a day for a while. But why is it that everything that's good for you tastes like crap?

Breakin' & poppin'

noreply@blogger.com (Dazed and Bemused) — Fri, 09 May 2008 19:39:00 +0000

Listen my children and you shall hear, a nightmarish tale (or video in this case) from the 1980s: actor Alfonso Ribiero hawking his "Breakin' & Poppin'" video. Welcome to Hell, kids, and it's only $19.99 plus shipping and handling.