A farm down in Peru (REDUX)

9.5.2016 (first posted this week 2001 - from back when the robot could WRITE!!)

Mysteries. I sure like reading mysteries. Or seein' them on the big screen. Little screen, laptop screen ... doesn't matter. I like watching mystery movies. Based-on-real-life mysteries are cool too. Hard to believe some of that shit happens. Justice files, Law and Order, anything with Bill Curtis on the Discovery Channel counts. Interesting stuff. I like when the bad guy gets caught and gets the chair. There's a show on the Home BO called Autopsy. If you haven’t seen it, you might be right to guess that it’s about autopsies. These ain’t yer average autopsies, though, these are case studies about how the Medical Examiner done solved the crime with the bag of bones and his or her forensic skills. Normally this kind of stuff – (real) blood and guts and slicing and dicing and bone saws and maggots and such – really turns my stomach. I mean I want to puke. Really. However, I don’t really feel so much like reverse-eating when I watch this show because it’s so frikkin’ cool that some scientist can figger out whodoneit just by analyzing a bathtub full of goo. The bastard doesn’t get away with it. All this fascinates me and I still sorta hate the low-level "real-life" mysteries. For example: The Disappearing Brownie.

Well I was working on my farm ‘round 1982 – or rather – I was on my way to school one day in ’85 or ‘6. My friend Phil (not my best friend Phil … my other friend Phil) had him a car and he was kind enough to slow down on his way past my house so I could jump in. We’re high-tailing it to school because, like usual, we were running late. Knowing that we are usually running late, I took to skipping breakfast but for coffee and some portable something – Pop Tart, toast, cereal bar or on this day, Brownie!

This was the last brownie from the batch. Fresh from the oven, the thing was half-devoured in record time by my brother and sister. I protested the feeding-frenzy but, as she pointed out, my sister did in fact make them. She preheated the oven, opened the box, tore the plastic sac, dumped the mix in the bowl, added the eggs, oil and water, mixed the proto-brownie, greased the pan, dumped the mix in the pan, threw the pan in the oven then sat on her hands for 35 minutes. I guess they were rightly hers.
The gracious person she was then, despite being honked off at me for something, she saw fit to let me have a brownie. I was about to chow down when I thought of what a wonderful breakfast treat it would make. So I wrapped the fucker in foil and hid it.

I dig it out the next morning just before Phil shows up. He honk-honks at me and I haul ass to meet him. Soon enough we're on the way down the street toward school. Our route takes us through this elementary school zone where the speed limit is 15 mph. The cops threw the book at you if you sped through, so everyone took it at 15. Once folks got beyond the zone, however, it was Daytona Speedway. Phil punched it, as did everyone else, and we were making tracks toward our right turn onto Bethany Home Road. Phil slows to make the turn and WHAM! We get popped from behind. All I know is my brownie went flying just as I was about to chomp it. Phil looks at me and says, "What do I do?" I told him to pull over, stupid. Perfect excuse to lay out and smoke cigarettes for an hour before going in. We pull over and the person who hit us is getting out of her car. She is stacked. We just got run over by Famke Janssen. (Well, not quite FJ, but still pretty.)

Phil looks at his car - no damage. Her car - no damage. The girl is saying, "Oh, I'm so sorry. Are you okay?" Phil is in Hound Dog mode: "Oh we're okay, are youuuu okay?" I'm disgusted and figure now's the time for a smoke.

Phil gets the girl's number and we're off. I suddenly realise that my brownie went flying. As the windows were all closed and a search of the car was fruitless (and it didn't fall out of my lap onto the street as I got out of the car or I would have certainly noticed goddamn it), the mystery of the Disappearing Brownie was born. I'm sure stranger things have happened, but where that brownie went ... nobody knows. Haunts me to this day. (Oh, and Phil got an STD from that girl and I've since quit smoking.)

Tonight - The Homestead

Re: Last week: I ain't gonna try to trick anyone ever again. Promise.

Tonight's Contest: Finger the Reference!

Tonight's Singled Out List Member: How 'bout Dee? No Sho Ho.

Porn Title of the Week: Beetlejizum

Tired now. See you at the bar


bye-ee!
whrr ... clik!

Too Much Choice (REDUX)

9.4.2016  (first posted this week 2007)


I think we as a society have gotten carried away making rules about damn-near everything. There's a rule about where you can walk yr dog, when he has to be leashed; there's a rule for who can buy smokes and where you can smoke 'em; there's a rule that ya have to be this tall to ride this 'coaster. No parking. Tow away. No spitting. Be kind to our neighbors. Keep off the grass. Fok! What happened to freedom???

I seen this sign this morning on the entrance to the garage next to work:



My god. No standing on yr motorcycle in this garage. They're taking away our rights!!


Tonight - Orbit Room
Since it's the Autumnal Equinox, what better place to be?



bye-ee!

whrr ... clik!

Two-fer

9.3.2016

That's all.

Tonight
(early stop) - The Lark Bar   (Formerly Dave's.  Kinda still is.)

(11pm on) - House of Shelds

Double your fun.

bye-ee!
whrr ... clik!

Titliest (REDUX)

9.2.2016 (originally posted this week 2006)

The following is a partial transcript from a telephone conversation I had with my brother on September 7, 2001. (Thanks to Mrs. Pepper Sweetchunks for the transcription service.)

"Do you remember when we were children and we sponsored those neighborhood races?"

"We did a lot of races. We had the kids racing kids; the dogs racing dogs; the dogs racing kids; bikes against cars; bikes against skateboards; OH! and the swimming races. And remember the "Little People" races? Where we would take the Fisher Price wooden "Little People" down to the bottom of the deep end and let'm go and race to the surface?"

"Yeh but this one was between the snake and the spider?"

"I do remember that. What kinda spider was that?"

"I don't know."

"That was a good one. Why do you ask?"

"Something I never told anyone, and I'd forgotten about it until the other day. I spotted a small, cloth, draw-string bag washing down the gutter during a monster thunderstorm soon after the race. I picked it out of the gutter just before it washed into the sewer. I untied its strings and the snake and the spider fell out, dead. I'm sure it was the same ones we had raced."


Tonight - Wooden Nickel  (by request)


bye-ee!
whrr ... clik!

One-half back!! (REDUX)

9.1.2016  (first posted this week 2004)

**Editor's Note - What a difference 12 years make for both teams vying for playoff spots**

I know all you Giants fans out there are very familiar with dumping them when they're losing. You understand the feeling that, hey, they suck, why should I like them? You understand for two reasons: 1. You'll like them again when they're better, and, 2. They're not often bad in the first place.

I've had the band-wagon and the on-again, off-again of such a vehicle on my mind for a few days because it's that magic time of the year when we who are REAL fans - read: Cubs fans - can turn our attention from the dismal, embarassing and otherwise shitty play of our Professional Losers for a moment and in the very same breath, hope for a better year next year for the Cubbies and root this Sunday and for the next 16 Sundays for the BEARS!

I should stress that we're not giving up on the Cubs, but after getting our asses kicked by the bottom-feeding Expos while clinging tenuously to a Wild-Card Berth, Cubs/Bears fans will have more on their mind than "Cubs lose-Giants/Marlins/Padres/Astros win." We'll have "Goddamn the Bears play like Grrrrrl Scouts." Such is the life.

Tonight - Kickin' it Mission w/ Jesus:  Phone Booth

Enter like a human.  Exit like a superhero.

bye-ee! whrr ... clik!