Month: July 2012

My Playlists are Awesome, and Planned Euthanasia Really Sounds Sucky- When You’re Old

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Some people (like me) absolutely adore it, the rest of the world (even some Journey fans) absolutely hates it, but Dream, After Dream isn’t your typical rock album.

I was thinking about it this morning, what an awesome collection I have of music that doesn’t suck on MP3.  Most music (with a few notable exceptions) written after 1985 sucks major ass.  That’s OK because most of the good stuff is readily available on MP3 if you know where to look (Amazon…), which means no farting about with vinyl records, cassette tapes or even CDs.

This morning started off with Don McLean’s “American Pie,” “A Girl Like You,” by the Smithereens, the amazing live version of Journey’s “Lovin’ Touchin’ Squeezin'” from the Greatest Hits Live album, and “Don’t Tell Me You Love Me” by Night Ranger.  I’ve got the good stuff.  I  have some choice rarities- all on MP3- such as Journey’s Dream, After Dream, Journey, Look Into the Future, and Next, and Gregg Rolie’s album simply titled Gregg Rolie, (these are sort of obscure) as well as some more recognizable 70’s and 80’s fare such as REO Speedwagon’s Hi InFidelity, Supertramp’s Breakfast in America, Meatloaf’s Bat out of Hell, and Rush’s 2112. 

The album art was a lot more interesting when record companies had all that surface area to work with and actual artists designing the covers.  I must say Journey’s Departure album is the greatest cover art ever:

Multi-colored motifs are not just for gay pride.  Remember that.

I have to say my favorite pic of Steve Perry on a Journey album cover is the one from Evolution:

It was 1979.  Steve Perry was wearing Spandex.  All  was pretty much right with the world.

It disturbs me at times just how archaic I am becoming.  It’s pretty bad when half the population can’t get most of my reference points.  I was thinking about the whole idea of how our society views older people.  I’m not a total fossil yet- at 43 I have not quite made it to the “ancient” category, but I’ve lived a year longer than Elvis.   (If you don’t know who Elvis was, click on the previous link.)  Elvis died in 1977.  I remember that.  A lot of my friends’ mothers were brought to tears over that one.  I wasn’t really much of an Elvis fan (I was only 8) so I wasn’t as devastated by his death as some other people were.  Of course, there are those who speculate that Elvis is still alive- but then Jimmy Hoffa might be alive somewhere too.

In 1975 there was a movie released called Logan’s Run.  I am generally not a fan of science fiction, (in fact, normally I rather loathe the genre) but I remember watching this movie back in the 80’s and thinking that it wouldn’t be so bad to be spared the indignity of living past age 30 and being “old.”  From today’s perspective (and having passed that milestone over a decade ago) that’s some scary shit.

Guess what?  Your time’s expired!

Humans have a little something called a self-preservation instinct, and it’s a pretty intense drive.  If not for this instinct, suicide would probably be so rampant that nobody would make it past puberty.  All those people who tell you that “man, if I had to live like that just shoot me,” have a totally different perspective after the open heart surgery or colonoscopy or course of chemo.  People hang on just as tenaciously- if not more so- to life at age 80 with a laundry list of catastrophic health issues than do healthy young people.  They have looked death in the face and it scares the hell out of them.

 Yeah, you’re old, but just not quite ready to die right now.

In Monty Python’s Quest for the Holy Grail, we get to see a wonderful example of the self-preservation instinct in action.   “I don’t want to go on the cart!”  No shit.  Nobody does, and I don’t care if you’re 8 or 80.

Steve-o is always telling me if he had to give himself shots he would rather die.  Yeah, right. He might say that now but if it’s a choice between shots or death, I’m pretty sure he will acclimate himself to the shots.  I’m diabetic and on insulin.  Believe me, I am the first one to go and fill that insulin script.  Needles?  Who gives a royal hang?  Once you get used to giving yourself the shots- which really doesn’t take long- it’s just something you do, like brushing your teeth or putting on shoes.

Get used to it, you wuss.  I can think of much worse things- like being subjected to bad country music at 11 PM.

Of course, because I’m diabetic and have a nice little list of chronic illnesses I’ll probably be targeted for Obama’s death list sooner or later.  I can see it now: This one is just too expensive to maintain.  What scares me about the whole idea of rationed health care is that necessarily some people are going to simply be denied the treatments and medications they need to live.  As the program costs more and more,  fewer people will be deemed “sustainable,”  and those with expensive chronic illnesses will be the first to be assigned to die- first by neglect (hell, just make sure the diabetics can’t afford their insulin!) and eventually by force.  Maybe I’m being paranoid, (and I should never watch science fiction anyway) but I see Logan’s Run as an eventuality should socialism be played out to its objectives.

On the bright side, the old people have all the money, at least right now.  As the population ages, perhaps we won’t have such a negative view of the elderly and/or infirm.  Hell, we are almost hip. Notice that Lawrence Welk is not included in my playlists.  I’m not that ancient- yet.

Lawrence Welk, not so much.

But Ozzy’s cool.

Protect Your Unit, A Midsummer’s Nostalgic Musing, and Radioactive Waste!

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Yes, the world is this effed up.  Have the welders come out and weld your AC unit to something- like brackets encased in concrete- to prevent it from being stolen.  Air-conditioners get stolen around here for two reasons: 1. (summer) people are hot, and 2. (winter) they contain copper.

I enjoy this sign, even though the thought of anything happening to my AC unit would provoke me to acts of extreme violence.  I am glad my AC is in a place in which it is bolted to its base, and you would necessarily encounter dogs to get to it. The girls do not approve of interlopers.  Even though I don’t even want to think of some stupid ass ripping off my AC,  I still love the double entendre.  At first, until I saw the line that said “Stop Air Conditioner Theft,”  I thought it was another entreaty from the county health department to encourage the sexually promiscuous to take steps to prevent the spread of venereal diseases.

Yeah, I think even if there were such a thing as Facebook in the 1930’s, you wouldn’t want these test results broadcast on your profile.

I mean, even if your test results indicate you’re syphilis-free, broadcasting that would indicate that you’ve recently put yourself in a position to contract all the other STDs.  What about the STDs that might not show up on a test?  Or maybe you’ve caught a strange new funky one that is currently unknown to medical science?

This is sort of a Nancy Reagan campaign for preventing VD:  Just Say NO!!!!!  Especially when you don’t know where she/he/it’s been.  Hell, that chick could be a dude- and vice versa.

That actually happened to one of Jerry’s friends.  Granted, this guy is the kind of guy who would look better if he shaved his ass and walked backwards, and he has a taste for hanging out in titty bars and swilling rotgut liquor.  He was asking for waking up next to something so hideous he’d want to gnaw off his own arm to escape, so such a scenario was just waiting to happen.  Even the biological females this guy dated were, shall we say, the kind of girls Freddie Mercury would sing about.  He didn’t realize he’d spent the night with a she-male until the next morning.  I wonder what the tip off was.  Maybe he went to cop a feel and ended up with a fistful of morning wood.  Or maybe “she” was taking a whiz standing up. That might have been his sign.

I guess it depends on your perspective.

I don’t have a problem with the transgendered.  If you’re a guy and you want to go through life dressed like Joan Crawford, or Oprah, or Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, I could really care less. That’s got to be a really confusing way to go through life, though I will say in defense of trannies, women’s clothes are a lot more interesting.

Tell me RuPaul’s outfit isn’t more festive than a wifebeater t-shirt, distressed jeans, tube socks and Velcro tennis shoes!

Men also have it easier with hair removal.  They can pull off the unibrow look, or even a ZZ Top beard, so in theory men don’t have to fart about with hair removal at all.  Women, on the other hand, if they are civilized, the only hair permitted to remain is the hair that grows from the scalp, a finely sculptured eyebrow, and eyelashes.  The rest of that nasty body hair has to go, at least in my world.  Women should not be hairy.  Unless they’re Italian. Or bull-dyke lesbians.

Men’s restrooms are a lot less crowded though, and all a guy really has to do in the morning is his 3 esses- shit, shower and shave, though I would fit some dental hygiene of some sort in there.

Dudes, you are lucky in one regard.  You can whip out your wang and let it fly anywhere (though I would not recommend the electric fence.) Women can’t do that, unless they like pissing all over their own pants.

I just thought I was riding along listening to Journey, Foreigner, Metallica, Billy Squier, REM, etc.  I had no idea.  I’ll need to check the car for Hitler before I leave.

Grandma avoided the carpool thing like the plague.  She worked at the ordnance factory during the war and it was several miles from where she lived.  She managed to get by on her gasoline ration by buying a motorcycle.  Since 1940’s cars got maybe- if you were lucky- 12 miles to the gallon, a motorcycle, even those nasty old Harley-Davidsons, would have been more fuel efficient.  There wasn’t any room on the back for Hitler, either.

 I bet this ride was cold as hell in winter, but Grandma was thrifty, and I’m sure she didn’t want to ride to work with Hitler either.

Grandma never did disclose what she did at the ordnance factory.   All she said about it was that they weren’t to discuss what they were doing there with anyone, ever.  She had the fear even 60 years later- when all the powers that were are long dead-and she took that knowledge to her grave.  I do know that whatever it is she did she was paid well for it, (the workers earned up to $50 per day, depending on where they were assigned, which was equivalent to $623.34 in today’s money) and she received a small pension from the US Army every month until she died.  I have to wonder if it was hush money, but she wasn’t telling.  The rumor mill- and at least one local author- says that the Scioto Ordnance Plant was involved with the Manhattan Project and with other experimentation with atomic energy.  It wouldn’t surprise me because the location was so remote, and at that time only easily accessed by rail.

The creepy part about the ordnance factory is that the county bought part of the land back- and built a school on it.  The school got closed down when the kids started getting leukemia and all other weird sorts of cancer.  People got paranoid and called in the EPA and they did find all sorts of fun chemicals including radioactive waste, on the school grounds.

Guess what, kids?  School is kind of cancelled today.  Betcha didn’t know it, but now we have something in common with Chernobyl.  We glow in the dark too!

Maybe it is better for me that I went to school with the poor kids in town, even though I got to have the Inner City Behemoth High School Experience without having to end up in Cleveland.  The high school I went to was built over an Indian graveyard, and my parents’ house (shit, the entire east side of Marion) is built on a poorly drained swamp,  but as far as I know neither place was built on top of radioactive waste.

Another one of those things to be thankful for.  I didn’t have to go to the cancer school.  I went to the random stabbing and beating school.  It works out.

Happy Birthday Great-Grandma, Fighting Over Used Shoes, and Other Pointless Endeavors

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Great-Grandma couldn’t stand Ted Kennedy, or any of the Kennedy family for that matter.

Happy birthday to my great-grandma, who would have been 114 today, if she hadn’t died in 1992 at the age of 94.  I miss Grandma.  She was cool.  I would give almost anything for just one more afternoon of coffee and conversation with her, but you get what you get.  I’m just glad that she lived close and I was able to spend as much time with her as I did. Besides having a taste for insanely strong coffee and for discussing conservative politics, she had a collection of tabloids that would boggle the mind.  She always claimed to read them for the entertainment value.  I read them for the entertainment value too, especially the Weekly World News.

The John Deere hat is a nice touch.

Grandma also had a framed, signed picture of President Reagan which I am sure one of the twins (my grandmother’s evil identical twin sisters) ended up with.  I can’t believe the twins (who were in their early 70s at the time) had an out and out knock-’em-down, yank each other’s  hair out, fist fight over her stuff. Besides some clothes and a few nice pairs of size 8 shoes, the Reagan picture was probably the only thing she owned that had any monetary value.  If I know my twin great-aunts (and one of them is still alive-though the one who had the stroke died about five years ago) they were fighting over the shoes.  They wore size 8s too.

I have a strong shoe fetish myself- but even should they be size 7s, I’m not fighting anyone for used shoes.

My twin great-aunts’ altercation over a few pairs of used shoes and a whole lot of worthless kitsch convinced me once and for all: I don’t need dead people’s stuff.  My sisters can have it all.  I am just curious when I die (they are slightly older than me, but they are much better preserved, and will most certainly outlive me) if they will brawl over my used underwear (the bras won’t fit either one of them- unless they add a little extra stuffins,) and not a few pairs of size 7 shoes that only one of them can wear.   The oldest, who was my sadistic childhood nemesis, does well to fit her behemoth meaty feet into an 8EEE.  The other sister also wears a 7B, and therefore, my shoes fit her.

I’ll cut out the middleman and just put my old skivvies on E-Bay now.

Or, better yet, I could E-Bay Jerry’s nasty old whitey-tighties, after he’s worn them for a night of gambling, drinking and the Hershey Squirts:

Of course, there’s a dude who’s already thought of using what appears to be a soiled set of whitey-tighties as a safe.  I can sort of understand the mentality, though I would struggle with the temptation to pick out the cash and then toss the skivvies.

The replacement fridge is up and running quite nicely as of this morning.  The ice is frozen and Jerry’s Natties are cold.  Spuds is in the G&R, and all is right with the world.

The G&R still has the most awesome fried bologna sandwiches.  And cream pies.  And an original late ’80’s Spuds McKenzie.

Things that Suck #501- The Fridge Took a Dump, and #502- Drunken Assholes Smoking in My Car

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No, as much as I like the pink fridge, I can’t afford it, and Jerry would crap himself should he have to retrieve his Natties from this.  However, I don’t even think a pink fridge would stand between him and Nattyvana.

The beautiful Central Ohio area just went through a week’s worth of apocalyptic storms followed by interminable stygian heat.  Yesterday wasn’t quite as intolerable as the rest of the week, so I decided I would go to the campground party knowing that if worse came to worse there is AC in our cabin as well as in my car.

It was hot- and I didn’t stay in it too long, but I stayed long enough to munch on some fresh perch (believe it or not, Lake Erie perch is quite nice) and to sit around and shoot the shit for a bit.

Perch is good eating.  Lightly breaded and deep fried.  Mmm, mmm.

By the time I left the campground it had been a nice afternoon, though rather subdued.  Jerry had gotten his drink on pretty good Saturday night, so he was more quiet than usual.  He wasn’t able to get shitfaced yesterday because he had to drive his truck home,  which was fine with me because that meant I didn’t have to deal with driving Tipsy McNumbNuts home.  I live for the small victories.  Attempting to drive 40 miles with a babbling drunken smoking idiot flopping about in the car is most unpleasant, trust me.  It was worse when he and his (now) estranged buddy Terry used to get shitfaced and then demand I take them home at 1 AM.

Joy and rapture.

Paarrtty!!!!!  YEAH, DUDE!

Two drunken idiots, running their mouths, flopping about, smoking, waving around their lit cigarettes (intentionally or not, threatening to burn holes in the upholstery, each other or me) in one car.  I’m surprised neither one of them managed to visit cousin Ralph in my car, though they both came close.  Puke smell does NOT ever come out of car upholstery.  Neither does cat piss, which is why my mother should learn to roll up the windows on her van, but that’s another story.  I would be happy to find an effective method to keep Jerry from thinking the first thing he needs to do when he sits down in my car is light up.

I used to smoke in the car when I smoked- a lot- but by the grace of God I’ve been 10 years without lighting up myself, and now I really despise my car smelling like his ashtray.  I get him back for it though.  Since I love strong scents- they have to be strong or I can’t smell them anyway- I try to find the absolute strongest air fresheners I can find.  One of my favorites is the Chanel #5 knock-off cologne from the Dollar Store.  It probably smells like insecticide to normal people, but with my very limited sense of smell it actually smells somewhat like Chanel.  Jerry hates it even though he knows that’s his punishment for smoking in my car and leaving that god-awful smell in it as well as ashing all over it.  Jerry is not a neat smoker.  Imagine someone with tremor disorder who’s drunker than a monkey with a lit cigarette.  My car actually becomes his ashtray.

I know I smoked for years, but it’s a nasty gross habit.

So I arrive home blissfully un-stressed from a peaceful drive home- just me, the AC on full blast, and Metallica on full blast.  I go take a shower and put on some lounge clothes.  Then I go to the fridge to get some iced tea (strong, no sweetener, and a bit of lemon) only to grab the ice tray and get another shower.  Everything in the fridge freezer had melted- ice cream, (there’s a bloody disaster for you) ice cubes, previously frozen vegetables, and so forth.  Damn, damn, damn.  The irony of this is that the power never went out, the AC unit is (knock on Formica or whatever the hell that stuff is) holding tough and the cable is on.  The chest freezer is plugging away quite nicely, as is Jerry’s small beer fridge out in the foyer.  But the main fridge- the side-by-side 30 year old behemoth fridge that takes up half my kitchen, took a major puke.

I had to move the beer to save the food. Sorry about your luck.

Guess who’s got some warm Natties.

So, because I’m poor and he’s cheap, Jerry gets on Craig’s List looking for a fridge.  There were crazy people wanting $1000 for used fridges- granted they were the high faluting stainless steel ones with the drinky fountains and the ice makers and wine chests and so forth but if I’m going to spend that kind of scratch I want a new one with a warranty.  So Jerry keeps looking and happens upon a nice simple used fridge for $100- about 45 miles away.  I call the guy and tell him I’ll be there in about an hour.  When I get there the fridge is still plugged in, nice and cold.  I gladly gave the dude the money- it’s older, but a nice, clean working fridge- and he and his buddy get the fridge loaded up in Jerry’s truck.

Jerry, of course stayed home in bed, because he’s helpful like that, while I drive off to see some strange people who could potentially be serial killers, who I never met before in my life, in the dead of night, to conduct business.  I knew the neighborhood (not terribly far from where I grew up) and it was in a nicer area than where I grew up, otherwise I would not have taken the risk, (the people turned out to be most personable and cordial also) but sometimes you never know.  I arrived home with the fridge around 11:30 last night, but I did not attempt to remove it from the back of the truck in the dark by myself.  He will regret not helping me unload it last night- tonight when he has no cold beer- but tough titty.  I could care less about beer, so I moved it out to save the milk and cheese.  It’s not as if Natty is going to taste any worse warm.

Does temperature really count for much when you’re drinking canned horse piss?

Today Jerry is supposed to accomplish two things.  One is to remove the old behemoth fridge from the kitchen.  I cleaned it out- at least the big pieces and anything that might rot and stink- so the scrap guy (who is always scrounging for used refrigerators, working or not) can do what he will with it.  The other is to get the fridge I acquired last night in the kitchen plugged in and running.   Let’s see how he does with his assignment.  I have a feeling I am going to be very sore in the morning after I drag these appliances where they need to go by myself.

I get to move this son-of-a-bitch all by myself!

Stygian Heat (Hope and Pray the Power Stays On) and Odds and Ends

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Might as well eliminate the middleman. Or at least find a reason for Americans to have bidets.  This porcelain fixture looks similar, but actually isn’t a toilet.

Power outages in the summer are both more frequent and more devastating than winter outages, at least in my world.  In winter, one can move the contents of the fridge and freezer out in the garage.  Problem solved.  In summer, if the power’s out for more than an hour or two you’re screwed- all the food you had in the fridge and freezer is no longer safe to eat, and you have a nasty ass mess to clean up.  In winter, one can always light a fire in the fireplace (yes, I actually know how to do this correctly, without using gasoline or other accelerants) and gain both heat and light.  In winter one can always put on more clothes, and even grab a nice warm dog.  In summer, you’re screwed again.  No A/C, no fans, and who in the hell wants to light a fire to get some light when it’s already 120° in the house?  One can only remove so many clothing items, and it is possible to be stark raving naked and still in the throes of heat stroke.

It can and occasionally does get extremely hot here in beautiful Central Ohio.  The humidity is the worst part of it.  Today it’s difficult to even draw a breath outside.  I’ve got the dogs on a strict outside time table of five minutes when it’s hotter than 85°.   The last thing I need is for one of the girls to get heat stroke, because dogs can die of it even more quickly than humans.  Dogs have no sweat glands, and panting isn’t a terribly efficient cooling method.  Add to the mix that my girls are large (therefore at higher risk for heat stroke due to body mass) and two of them have thick coats.  They have access to cool water at all times and are in the A/C almost constantly when the temperature is over 85°.  It’s not easy for them either, because they would rather be outside in the daytime.  Their excursions into the great outdoors right now are limited to potty breaks and an hour or so in the yard in the relative cool of the morning.  They don’t like it.

I hope and pray our power stays on.  Usually when we have had power outages they have been corrected rather quickly.  Being on the same grid as the airport has its advantages in some ways.  We did have about a day and a half of no power back in 2004 when there was a really bad ice storm on Christmas Eve and the transformer outside the house burned up, but at least we were able to use the fireplace and keep the perishables out in the garage, so it wasn’t terribly tragic.  It is tragic right now for people whose power has been out for the past week.  I don’t want to imagine how miserable they are.  The Red Cross set up a cooling shelter at my church so some people can at least come to get cooled down in the heat of the day.

Perhaps I shouldn’t be so paranoid, but I’ve gotten to go to the ER twice in my life for heat stroke.  I don’t wish for a third.  The first was when I was 7 years old and attempting to play softball in 100° weather while also sporting flaming blistering sunburn (second degree burns) on my face, neck and arms.  I don’t remember much about the ER visit other than after getting the obligatory IV bag of fluids in the hospital.  When I got home the “cure” for the wicked burns was that I was forced to take Aveeno baths three times a day, and then get slathered with zinc oxide in an attempt to dry up the oozing blisters from the sunburn for about two weeks.  This rather unpleasant treatment did prevent scarring.   Sunscreen was not commonly known or used back in the summer of 1976.

There are people in this world who Do Not Tan.  I am one of them.  I do freckle, blister and splotch though.

The second time I had heat stroke it was a lot worse, but I’d been out in the heat longer too.  The nurse found it necessary to actually cut into the veins in my wrist in order to start an IV line as I was badly dehydrated.  I’d come back from working a temporary job- outside all day in the hot sun holding up signs of all things- (the things a college kid will do for $8.50/hr, but in 1987 that was a small fortune) and then ended up stranded on a freeway bridge in my old ’77 Rabbit that had no A/C to begin with, then it stalled out with vaporlock.  Vaporlock was extremely common in VW’s with the old CIS injection systems, especially on the very early ones (’77 was the first year for that system) that had most inadequate fuel pressure accumulators.  I knew what it was, but the car wasn’t going to move under its own power until the fuel lines cooled down enough to allow the fuel to return to a liquid state.   It was 98° and 100% humidity, so all you do is sweat and drip and the water just pours out of your body to no avail. There is no evaporation and no cooling going on, just your blood boiling and the fluids escaping one’s body, so you stew and stink in a hot sticky paste of your own sweat.  By the time the cops got to me and convinced me to get out of the car, I had the most intense, blinding headache one can dare to imagine, and I was too weak to stand.  One thing interesting about heat stroke.  Right before you black out you get this sense that you’re going to die- and you’re cool with it- because then the headache will go away.

No one thinks about his/her fuel pump.  Until it stops working.

By the time Dad’s buddy had retrieved my car, the vaporlock in the fuel line had resolved itself.  The car fired up and ran perfectly after its 40 mile tow, which infuriated Dad even more- after driving 40 miles to retrieve me from the hospital (of course I was out of town) and then having to pay his buddy $75 to tow the car. Dad was pissed to the point that the top of his head was a hot tomato red.  (Dad has been pretty much bald except for a slight fringe on the sides and back of his head since he was about 30.)  I don’t know if he was more pissed at me for going out of town on such a hot day even though I had gone to do some temporary work to try to earn some extra money (I got a check for a whole $80- see how that backfired) or because he knew about the problem with the fuel accumulators on those cars and he hadn’t bothered to replace mine.  Why VW never got the idea to put the fuel pumps in the fuel tank like every other vehicle manufacturer is beyond me- it keeps the fuel cooler than an inline pump and avoids the hot fuel condition that leads to vaporlock in the first place- but VW has always been a bit weird.

Sometimes I wonder why I live in Ohio, but then I remember I can’t afford to leave.  Even so, the grass is always blacker somewhere else.  I can take some small comfort in my geographical location today. At least I don’t live in Detroit.

Independence Day, Historical Education and Various Curiosities

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I think this poster to be a fitting theme for Independence Day.  I don’t particularly want to be a subject of King Obama I any more. Neither should anyone else with a brain.  Wake the eff up people!!!!

Oh, and WTF has this post not been saving for some bizarre reason?   This is attempt #3 and it’s really pissing me off.

Yesterday, because it was too hot for me to spend more than a few seconds outside,  I spent most of the day watching the History Channel’s series on the American Revolution, and I learned many interesting facts that either I had forgotten or that were hastily glazed over back when I studied American History in 7th grade.  I have a new sense of admiration for George Washington and his perserverance after watching that series.

Ronald Reagan took office when I was in 7th grade, (January 20, 1981) which was probably the most memorable event of 7th grade for me, so suffice to say a lot of time has passed since then.  I doubt if I had paid as much attention as I should have to history when I was 12 (I was probably paying more attention to Steve Perry than anything else at that time) but I probably remember more than most.

Now I really have to wonder about something.  Why is it the three biggest holes that I have had the bad luck to visit- Cleveland, Chicago and Detroit- have the most corrupt, nut job politicians ever?  Dennis Kucinich, until very recently, represented the Congressional district that includes Cleveland and the surrounding area.  Granted, Cleveland is not the biggest hole on the planet – Chicago is worse, and Detroit is the worst by far- but why do they keep reelecting nut jobs that help ensure that their hole stays a hole?

The only explanation I have, at least in Ohio, is the fact that public employees are pretty much owned by their unions- the unions drove out almost all of the heavy industry years ago, and with the exception of the UAW and a few others in private industry, the bulk of forced unionism in Ohio involves public employees.  So the unions have this huge base of campaign funding for their nut job candidates from their forced membership.  Sadder yet, is that the large majority of public employees in Ohio buy all the garbage their union PACs try so hard to sell.  Right to Work would solve some of the problem of high taxation and government waste and graft in Ohio, but with the captive audience and deep pockets the public employees’ unions have here, I hate to say there will be snowball fights in hell before that happens.  I am sure that most public employees in Ohio would be delighted to know that they have funded (and are funding) the Obama campaign, and they paid for our friend, Dennis Kucinich’s long tenure in Congress as well.

Ok, Dennis, we know if we wear our foil hats the Visitors can’t read our brain waves.  But Karl Marx still can.  He seems to be communicating with you just fine.

I had to deal with bottle rockets in the Cougar Pool again.  Now I think there’s a slow leak in the retaining ring that has caused most of the water to spill out too.  Beauty.  Ohio’s fireworks laws are really weird.  You can buy almost any firework known to man in Ohio- and the rednecks in the Drunk and Domestics do- as long as you sign a form that says you’ll be setting them off out of state.  Right…. These rednecks are going to go 100 miles in any direction to go across the border to set off their Roman candles, bottle rockets, etc.  That’s not happening.

I like fireworks as much as the next redneck, but not in town, and not when it disturbs my dogs so deeply.  I spent most of last night with a 65#, 101.6° bunkie, which was rather hot considering that it’s 95° outside at 10PM and the air conditioner is struggling to keep up.

Even poor Clara, the proud Malinois, is reduced to cowering up in Mommy’s bed when all that loud noise kicks in.  Sheena, however, does not give a damn.  She got all the pork rinds Jerry was giving out last night.

I wish Obama would stay out of Ohio.  It might cool down a bit when he leaves.

I’ve heard enough, thanks.  Go home.

I Love My Flaming Type-A Personality, Deepening Sarcasm, and Welfare Day

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Ok, I’m not ripping on the genuinely needy.  As someone who knows all too well what it’s like to choose between food or scripts and/or worry about having essential services cut off, I feel for those who are just trying to get by.  Even so, I should know better than to go anywhere near a grocery store on the first three or four days of the month.  All I do is end up coming home with half of what I needed to get (should I be lucky enough to find that) and a huge screaming headache.

I know not everyone on public assistance is raping the system.  For those who are, I’m paying for you, and it pisses me off.  It pisses me off even more when you are jamming your grocery cart (full of things I can’t afford) up my ass all the way through Kroger’s- after you have picked the store clean of such necessities as the toilet paper that would have been on sale had it been there, the fat-free cottage cheese, the store-brand longhorn Colby cheese, the Pantene Shampoo for Color-Treated Hair (?) and the Absolutely Zero Monsters, which would also (had they been there) been on sale.  There used to be a day when being on public assistance was considered humiliating. It was a necessary evil for the genuinely needy, that kept one from destitution and starvation.  Public assistance is supposed to be a safety net for those who have no other choice.  Now it’s almost “trendy” to shove your governmentally dependent self-righteous way through the grocery store (right over the poor saps who are paying for your sorry ass) like a bloated feeder hog at slop time.  To this I say, WTF?

Perhaps it’s enjoyable to sit back and relax while other people work their asses off to pay for you.  I would be ashamed to behave in such a way, but maybe I’m the one who’s wrong.  Perhaps I’m the stupid one for not figuring out how to milk the system and pursue my Fanny Feline lifestyle, since I’m too old to breed and I just don’t like the idea of smoking and/or dealing crack. (In Fanny’s defense, she’s a cat, and she does what cats are supposed to do.)

The Fanny Feline Lifestyle- not bad, except I’m not into eating meat by-products and having to lick my own butt.

My one quandary in this: if you’re not working, why in the hell do you need the Absolutely Zero Monsters?  To stay awake whilst doing nothing?  If I didn’t have to stay awake at work, my need for caffeine would be virtually nil.  If I had nothing better to do, I could get myself on the feline sleep schedule really quickly.  I think Fanny sleeps 18 hours a day.  That would be awesome.  I wouldn’t mind being Fanny, except being a cat, she has to eat catfood (which smells nasty enough) and she has to lick her own butt.

I am just glad they weren’t out of bacon.  I don’t generally eat bacon, but I do have to buy it.  Occasionally I might like a few bacon crumbles (the bacon bits in the can are good enough) in potato soup, but that’s as far as it gets. Grease and salt are two things my body doesn’t need much of.   But for Jerry, bacon- full fat, greasy, lardy bacon- is essential to maintain his well-being.  Jerry will eat bacon when he will not eat anything else.  It’s bad enough that he didn’t get his longhorn Colby cheese.  I will buy the store brand for $4.79 for an 8 ounce roll when it’s available, (even though that’s outrageous) but I refuse to pay $6 for 1/2 lb. of cheese, which is what the name brand cheese costs.  Call me cheap, but it’s a different world for those of us out there who have to pay for food with real money.

No high faluting fromage for you, Jerry.  It is, shall we say, trés beaucoup.

I did, however score a sale on American cheese slices before all the First of the Month Zombies scarfed them up. Not the plastic imitation ones, real American cheese made with real cow’s milk.  So, eat your grilled cheese and like it. It might be all you get.

Maybe it shouldn’t piss me off.  Usually I don’t give a rat’s ass about what other people have versus what I have or don’t have.  I don’t care about designer clothes.  I don’t care if I have the latest and greatest cell phone.  In spite of being a motorhead, I drive a Toyota Yaris.  My last performance car was the 2000 Celica which I still regret trading in.  I’ve never been an extravagant person.  Maybe that’s what pisses me off- working my ass off so other people can have what I can’t afford, for free.  I’ve never really aspired to having extravagant things, perhaps with the exceptions that I’ve always wanted to have an indoor pool, and I’ve always wanted to go on a cruise.

I wouldn’t mind finding him in my pool.  If I were to have an indoor pool, I would need a pool boy.

Maybe I should start my own foundation to help me- a sort of Send a Cougar to Camp type concept- help the disadvantaged old bitty who’s tired of getting trampled in the grocery store.  People could feel sorry for me and donate $5, $10, $20 and more to my PayPal account until I get enough money to get that indoor pool and go on my cruise.  Only I’d have to say I was running for President or something outlandish like that.  It worked for John Edwards, didn’t it?  He got a free mistress and paid for his illegitimate child through the gratuities of others.  I think the only major problem with that is I’m too honest and straightforward to get away with it.  No one is going to throw money at a potential presidential candidate who would tell people how it is.  I am not a very good liar.

Yes, there are two Americas.  Either you are the poor sucker who gets mowed down by the feeder hogs in the store on Welfare day, or you are the feeder hog.

Nothing Sucks Like a Bureaucracy, Speak English, and Ineptitude is a Constant

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My son wasted almost an entire Saturday farting around with upgrading his stinking phone.  I know he does everything on that damned thing, so it’s important to him that it works, but I ended up waiting around for him and his buddy to come back and ended up not being able to get the oil changed on my car.  That sort of pissed me off.  I ask for so little, and get screwed over so much.  Shame on me for allowing it to happen.  I need to get tougher.  I understand dealing with the phone company is a pain in the ass (which is why I tend to just do as much as I can with them online,) but I can only take so much of the negotiatory dance in one day.  I hate bureaucracies.  The cable company is just as bad, because you have to talk to thirty different people who tell you thirty different things before they get you to someone who actually knows something.  Then you have to bitch- obnoxiously- and negotiate rates with them and threaten to have your shit turned off at least once a year to get the good ‘ol boy pricing.  Whatever happened to loyalty discounts and so forth?  Why do I have to demand to talk to the supervisor and spend hours on hold and then hours arguing with someone seven states away (or in some God-forsaken third world hole) to get what I should be getting automatically without having to threaten and bitch about it?

I can deal with the cable company and the phone company a lot easier than dealing with any governmental or healthcare bureaucracy though.  Insurance companies of any sort (but especially health insurance) are the absolute worst to deal with, except for Dell Customer Service, who I will name, simply because I am convinced that everyone who works for Dell Customer Service lives in a ghetto in Mumbai and learned what few English phrases they know from watching Pee Wee’s Playhouse reruns.  Believe me, if he tells you his name is “Tom” or “Robert,” you can bet his given name is something that white Midwestern Americans can’t pronounce.  What amazes me (even more than the abysmal language skills) with these sort of bureaucratic systems is that no one knows anything.  Just what I need when I just bought a computer and I’m getting the Blue Screen of Death.  That actually happened to me once.  I ended up having to uninstall and reinstall Windows- yay!- after about 12 hours straight of farting about with these guys.

This is actually a screen saver.  It would likely keep others from farting with your computer.

If you don’t know anything, then why in the flying bejezzus are you answering the flipping phone?  The same philosophy applies to anyone who is supposed to be speaking with people whose first language is English.  If you can’t understand me and I can’t understand you, then what the hell is the point of the conversation?  Why in the hell am I repeating my account number, birth date and social security number fifteen dozen times if none of you idiots (providing you can understand enough English to have a clue as to what I’m saying to begin with) is able to find the information you need even when I provide my information so many times and in so many ways it brings me to the point of nausea?

This dog is NOT Sheena.  It has normal canine teeth, which Sheena does not have.  Otherwise this dog is Sheena’s doppelganger. However, I agree, dogs- even those as dim as Sheena- understand the English language better than a good number of redneck men.

My flaming type-A personality can’t take this degree of ineptitude for long, so I avoid these sort of “customer service” options like the plague.  My son is of a different temperment.  He thrives on pulling people’s chains and he takes delight in demanding to talk to supervisors and so forth, but I just don’t have it in me to be that crass.  It doesn’t come naturally for me.

Because my son belongs to a younger and more technically adept generation (and he is a hopeless techno geek anyway) he knows how to work his way through a bureaucracy, especially his cellular provider, who (for their protection,) I will not name.  I am not at all surprised.  He not only had the determination but the patience (which I do NOT possess, because I’d just say screw it and keep the old phone as long as I could at least call out and text on it) to end up more than likely talking with the CEO of the joint before all was said and done and he came back from the cellular store with the particular Android phone he wanted.   I’m still waiting until September for an upgrade. Hopefully I’ll be able to get a phone that doesn’t randomly call people for no apparent reason.  I’d also like to be able to get on Facebook with my phone, which I can’t do anymore, either because I don’t know how to install the software upgrade, or because my phone’s too old.   I should have opted for one of the Android phones the last time.  That way I could at least play Angry Birds if I get bored.

Yes, I am easily amused.

I have commented on the principle of entropy, which comes to us from the science of physics (too bad I can’t get with the math to be really good at understanding physics, but such is.)  Entropy is a high faluting way of putting forth the timeless assertion that as time goes on everything eventually turns to shit.  Ineptitude is one of those conditions that adds to entropy.  If entropy is what’s happening to the hillside that is eroding away into the sea, ineptitude is the torrential rain causing the friction and wear.

If you want an idea of the volume of ineptitude I experience in the course of a day: Visualize Niagara Falls.