Archive for the ‘Kill Me, I’m Begging You’ Category
I’m spending this rainy morning in bed for at least another hour because watching old reruns of Sports Night has become part of my morning routine. It was a show I enjoyed watching back in 2000 even though I’m really not a sports guy. The show still holds up pretty well and the inane patter between the characters still makes me smile.
Have any of you noticed just how many of the old shows seem to be resurfacing on such a large number of channels. It started two years ago for me when I stumbled upon reruns of Sgt. Preston of the Yukon. I never missed that show as a kid and thoroughly enjoyed watching all of the episodes once again. Is it a little lame? Absolutely! Is it an easy and relaxing half hour? Absolutely! Then followed Gunsmoke, Bonanza, Roy Rogers, The Lone Ranger, Dragnet, One Adam 12, and a host of others. I began to wonder why it was happening so frequently.
Can it be that the networks are beginning to see a change in viewing habits? Is it possible that the ratings for these old shows are higher than those of the half hour long commercials that seem to be on every channel? Is it more fun to spend a relaxing half hour watching a show where the good guys always win and the bad guys always lose? Can it be that people are sick to death of watching hour long shows about corrupt politicians, corrupt police officers, heroic serial killers like Dexter or pedophiles who aren’t responsible for their criminal behavior and blame everything on society? It’s a politically correct "No-No" watching those old shows where it’s celebrated to be patriotic, honest, religious, and a responsible citizen.
God forbid anyone should love their country and voice it out loud these days. We wouldn’t want to piss off the media elite who decide what we should be watching and how to think. How can the Mainstream Media possibly maintain control of the masses and continue to dictate our politics, morals, and outlook on life when we’d rather watch Joe Friday or the Lone Ranger doing the right thing no matter what. I think our kids would certainly benefit from a stream of positive role models, don’t you?
I find myself drawn to those simpler and more honest shows even though they aren’t up to speed with all of the politically correct crap we’re being fed these days. Maybe it’s time for the people of this country to once again hear some positive messages instead of the constant in-your-face drumbeat of commercials, reality shows, and just plain crap that’s filling the airways.
Find that cable channel that’s decided to step back and regain some simple and positive programming and support them. When their ratings begin to climb the advertising money will soon follow. More money begets more of the same type of programming and all of us and our kids are the winners.
I’m still in bed this morning because it’s raining, I’m all warm and cozy, and I don’t wanna get up. The Spring season is slowly moving towards Summer and most of my ridiculous yard and garden related chores have been completed. Except for one.
I have to say that I’m still a bit irritated that I haven’t been able to put an end to my night marauder who is haunting my garden. For some reason for the first time in years I have an effing skunk who has been undoing most of my good works in the garden almost every night. This fat bastard has been patrolling our property for some years without ever bothering the garden. He apparently discovered an abundant supply of worms and/or grubs in the soil and has been digging for them furiously. The fact that he has killed many of my plants in the process is the source of my current anger.
‘This isn’t him but it could be his twin brother.’
On top of it all this damn skunk is huge. If he grows just a little more I could probably put a saddle on him and take a ride. He also has a habit of spraying anything and everything in his immediate area if bothered. A year of so ago the neighbor’s cat had a midnight run-in with him which resulted in our backyard reeking of skunk for many days. I really don’t want that happening again.
My secret plan was to sit on my deck with a pistol in my lap and hopefully put a stop to all of the night time nonsense. I sat quietly the first night until 3 am reading my Kindle and maintaining a close surveillance of the garden. It was a quiet night with no activity. Then it began to rain which immediately chased me off to bed. I slept the sleep of angels knowing that the garden was safe for the night. What a moron I am. I awoke in the morning and walked out to the garden and the place was a mess. He’d been busy digging up tomatoes, cucumbers, and a number of pepper plants and did it all in a driving rainstorm. To say I was not happy would be a huge understatement.
I spent the next night on the deck armed, dangerous, and pissed off. I never heard or saw a thing and the next morning more plants had been destroyed. That SOB is making me a little crazy. I’ve since replanted all of the damaged plants and I’ll continue to monitor things as best I can and rid myself of this pest.
I have a bad history withy skunks and as a young guy was known to hunt them. My father paid me and a friend a bounty for each one eliminated from damaging his garden. The smell of skunk still makes me a little queasy since I was sprayed one hot summer evening in 1962. I was on my knees looking under a shed for an escaping skunk and BAM, he was right there and sprayed me across the side of my head. Be warned, that is not something you ever want to experience. I was forced to shave my head by my mother and wash it thoroughly numerous times with tomato juice. Nothing really worked very well and for more than a month every time my head got wet or sweaty you could smell skunk. A lost a few friends that summer.
With any luck at all before summer’s end I’ll soon be posting a photo of his corpse. He’s mocked me long enough and now it’s personal.
My Rule #6 – Don’t screw with my garden, or else.
Using all of my past years of people watching as reference material I’ve come to the conclusion there must be one helluva lot of people in this world who are neat-freaks and germaphobes. There must be hundreds of thousands of us out there because we seem to be mentioned in every TV show and movie there is. Someone’s always mentioned as being "so anal" or “too anal”. It irritates me only because I’m one of them. I’m a certifiable neat-freak and proud of it and have been for years. I’m also reasonably sure that we neat-freaks aren’t nearly as crazy as those damn germaphobes.
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If you aren’t either a neat-freak or germaphobe you may become one after reading the following tidbits of information. More useless and somewhat disgusting information you probably don’t really want to know. Enjoy it anyway.
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Bottled water is rarely tested for purity. An Environmental Working Group study found that ten popular brands were riddled with chemicals and pollutants, some as high as regular tap water.
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About 99% of imported food is never inspected by the FDA or USDA, the two agencies responsible for protecting Americans from tainted products.
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One pound of peanut butter can contain up to 150 bug fragments and five rodent hairs.
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One in five coffee mugs contains fecal bacteria and E.coli, which can cause diarrhea, food poisoning, and infections.
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Vegetarians beware: many low-fat and non-fat yogurts and sweets contain gelatin, which is made from animal tendons, ligaments, and bones.
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Peaches, apples, nectarines, and strawberries are among the top six "dirtiest" foods, according to investigations by the Environmental Working Group. More than 90 percent of samples of these fruits tested positive for detectable pesticides, even after being rinsed or peeled.
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Red-colored grocery items like fruit punch and strawberry yogurt are often dyed with carmine, which is made from ground up cochineal beetles. For some, carmine can cause severe allergic reactions and even lead to anaphylactic shock.
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A diet high in processed meats like sausage, hot dogs, and luncheon meats increases the risk of pancreatic cancer. Chemical reactions that occur during the preparation of these meats yield carcinogens, which could be responsible for the association.
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The well know poison arsenic is approved by the FDA as an additive to poultry feed and given to at least 70 percent of chickens raised for consumption in the United States.
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A medium fruit-and-yogurt smoothie at Dunkin’ Donuts contains four times as much sugar as a chocolate frosted cake donut.
In 2008, a Nebraska policeman was awarded $40,000.00 after he sued Taco Bell/KFC restaurant that served his family food containing an employee’s urine and spit.
That’s about enough information for me. Ugh………. Gag me with a spoon.
I’m suffering from a total lack of interest today. It rained through the night just a little and I’m not really in the mood to be playing in the garden mud this morning. I rolled out of bed a little later than usual and had an unappetizing breakfast of healthy cereal which tasted a lot like cardboard. I knew it was going to be one of those day when I left a kitchen cabinet door open and then proceeded to walk into it a few minutes later putting a small notch in my head. That’s what I mean when I say "One of those days."
The next thing was the damn alarm system. It’s nice to have technology in my life but when I have to put up with a smart ass alarm system telling me how stupid I am, it’s kind of embarrassing. After screwing around for ten minutes I finally set the alarm, got in the car, and left the garage. Five seconds after the garage door closed I realized I’d forgotten my camera and telephone. Back to the house, turn off the alarm, get my stuff, and then back to try and set the alarm once again. If the burglars have as much trouble getting in as I had getting out we should be completely safe.
I then headed to the first of six nurseries trying to find cayenne pepper seedlings. For some reason unknown to me or the nurserymen, there seems to be a shortage of cayenne peppers this spring. I normally can buy a six pack of the plants for a couple of dollars but not this year. My last stop was at a nursery well known for it’s impossibly high prices for just about everything. They had only three cayenne pepper plants, each planted in separate container, with a cost of $3.99 a plant.
BS I tell you!
As I was leaving empty handed I had an uninterested employee ask me in that awful politically correct tone, “Have you found everything you were looking for sir?”. I nicely told her no. I was looking for a few decent prices but couldn’t find even one.
Double BS!!
I’ve also been looking for a new garden bench for the last few weeks with no success. I stopped at Home Depot today after checking out their website which listed close to twenty different types. I searched for twenty minutes through that huge building and was beginning to get a little frustrated. Depot has never been known for it’s customer service and that hasn’t changed a bit. After tracking down a store employee who did his best to avoid me, I asked about the benches. He explained to me, the pain-in-the-ass customer, that they have no benches in inventory. He gave me one of those smarmy smiles and told me they were an online purchase only.
Triple BS!!!
Screw them, I left in a huff after wasting most of my morning. I revisited my reliable local nursery and purchased a few additional Ghost pepper plants and a six pack of orange bell peppers. Total cost, $5.20. I never did find a effing bench but I’ll sit my butt on the ground before paying $199.99 for one.
This day has sucked soooo bad. I guess it’s time for me and the cat to kick back and relax on the deck. I can sip a drink and relive the last few hours of this stupid day and try to smile. The cat could care less either way. He just lays there like he always does thinking about what cats think about. He’s not smiling either.
‘Owwwww, That Smell”
What do you consider as a day in your life you’d never forget? Is it the day you found a $10.00 bill in a parking lot or is that day you had the best sex of your life? I’m sure that all of us have a few of those memorable days we enjoy looking back on.
Early in my life I decided that the reports of an afterlife were just so much hokum and I needed to approach my life in a manner that reflected that thought. If this existence was all we’d ever have then I needed to aggressively pursue those things I really desired. If I didn’t obtain them and experience them now I’d never get another chance.
I left home for college, then quit college , joined the Army, went to Korea, fell in love, returned to the states, became a cop, got married, hang glided, sky dived, and bungee jumped. Moved to New England, became a businessman, joined Greenpeace, left Greenpeace, started a business, adopted a son and became a long distant cyclist. Stood on the summit of Mt. Washington in a thunder storm with my hands in the air and a prayer on my lips. Became a pretty decent racquetball player, got divorced, sold my home and moved to the coast. Bought a house on the water, bought two ferrets, and partied for two years. Lost my job, sold my house, and moved to Maine. Bought my first digital camera, got a job interviewing criminals, bought another house, met the love of my life, and settled down.
Sounds like a pretty strange and wonderful life so let me tell you what I did yesterday. On a damp and crappy day I spent an hour and a half standing in and shoveling compost. To misquote Robert Duval in the movie Apocalypse Now, "I just love the smell of compost in the morning." There’s nothing quite like the smell of rotting organic material wafting into your nostrils and making your eyes water. It’s sticks to your shoes and later in the day you may even find a few small chunks in the folds of your clothing as a further reminder.
I’m now officially adding that job, COMPOST SHOVELER, to my endless list of dumb-ass jobs and even dumber-ass accomplishments that continue to keep my life so interesting. I guarantee I won’t be looking fondly on today’s task in the future but my memories of that smell are permanent.
‘Live Your Life’
Are you as sick as I am about all of these computer companies who insist on convincing or coercing every person in this country to use "The Cloud"? You can’t seem to buy software of any kind without that gentle shove by the company to convince you to place all of your personal writings, business writings, financials or anything else you can a think of on their version of "The Cloud".
Is anyone on this earth unaware of the risks we take just by being on the Internet. Viruses appear without notice almost every day or so we’re told by McAfee. Hackers are constantly breaking into those so-called secure sites and making the lives of us poor morons miserable. They’re costing us a lot of money each year to try and protect ourselves and it seems no matter what big companies do, they can’t protect themselves and our most private information.
Three times in the last few years I’ve been forced to change my credit and debit cards because someone was buying music or other things with my card numbers in Paris, France, Cleveland, Ohio and Montreal, Canada. I have those expert security specialists at Home Depot, Hannaford Foods, and Anthem Blue Cross & Blue Shield for making my information available to every hacker and thief who has a computer. I’m easily paying more than $200.00 a year for virus protection of my home computers and even a monthly charge for my freaking telephone. Do you see where I’m going with this?
Yesterday I was taken by surprise when Microsoft notified me via Facebook that they were making the MS Word program available for free to users of the IPad. I was thrilled because I’ve been loyal to Microsoft for decades. It’s only within the last year or so that I’m becoming more and more disappointed with them. After the X-Box One fiasco that make the device incompatible with a couple of decades of game software I’d already purchased, that was Strike One. Strike Two was my purchase of a MS Surface tablet. It crashed within a week of the purchase and with no help from their Tech Support took me a month to figure out how to reset it. Of course I lost all of my information on it as well.
Strike Three is this App which might be free but has a lot of strings attached. If you create any documents of any kind you’re forced to save them on the MS “Cloud” called “OneDrive”. There is no option that will allow you to save them just to your tablet. In my opinion it’s those kind of strong-arm tactics that could get me to walk away from MS entirely. Oh and by the way, you can take your Office 365 program and stick it where the sun don’t shine.
Everyone knows and worries about Google becoming too intrusive when they save every piece of information about us they can get. I understand now they have access to and save information on virtually every website we visit on the web. People are concerned about Muslim terrorists but compared with Google they’re inconsequential.
I took steps this year to install my own “Cloud” in my home with no available access from the net. All of my information and backups are now stored safely out of reach of the online thieves and hackers and controlled only by me.
So here’s my final thought for Microsoft. It’s time to get your collective heads out of your collective asses and get back to being the company we’ve all come to know and trust over the years. Bring Bill Gates back if you must and maybe he can stop you from following down that road right behind Google.
Since you’ve used up your three strikes, I just deleted your free Word App from my IPad. I never thought I’d see the day when Microsoft wasn’t leading the technology revolution by taking it in new and exciting directions instead of following along behind others like a lap dog.
It’s 6 am and I’m barely awake and I don’t want to get up. I’m lying here looking out the bedroom window waiting to see if anything in the world is moving yet. It’s dead quiet with little or no observable breeze. There are no birds, no squirrels, and no fat ugly turkey running around the yard making a racket. It’s just too quiet for my liking. My better-half is still sleeping and that light snoring of hers (sarcasm) can’t be considered noise or so she constantly tells me.
I love the beginnings of Spring and the late days of Fall the most but these interim periods between seasons are the worst. The Spring transition is always slow in coming when we have nothing but gray skies, cold rain, intermittent sunshine, and a need to stay out of the shade. I can bask in those brief moments of warm sunshine on the deck but if I step into any shaded areas it’s like someone walking across my grave. A deep cold chill that hits you hard and stays with you way too long.
The Fall changeover is similar when you’re sitting on the deck enjoying a warm and sunny Indian Summer day where it’s nice and warm but you can just feel that little bit of Winter in the air. It comes slowly with those giant folds of gray clouds edged in black that slowly roll over the horizon. All of a sudden one morning you’re on the deck and you walk into a patch of shade and that same coldness you felt in the Spring grabs you just for a second. Then everyday you can see the plants slowly browning, the cold dew on everything in the mornings, with the full knowledge that snow is coming soon. After that you have nothing to look forward to but seven months of a cold and depressing Winter, snow shoveling, black ice, and the occasional slip and fall to bruise your butt and your ego.
Maybe in another few weeks I’ll be able to pull myself out of this winter/spring funk I’ve gotten into. I go through this every year and there’s really nothing I can do but deal with it. I’ll wait patiently for that first really sunny day when I can visit the beach and not feel the need to take my windbreaker "just in case". That may finally convince me that Winter is truly gone.
All that being said, the next few weeks will be hell. I have absolutely no patience for this never-ending waiting around for Mother Nature to stop screwing with us.
APRIL SHOWERS BRING MAY FLOWERS, I hope!
I decided to do that one big job I had scheduled for today before I blogged anything. That may have been a huge mistake. I’ve been putting off doing some repair work to my lawn tractor that still refuses to start. I knew it would be a frustration for me because I hate doing things mechanical. The only mechanical person in my entire family was my late father who maintained a large float-glass factory for PPG for more than forty years. He knew everything about machines and he taught me only enough to get me into trouble. He also over the years taught me how to really and truly cuss. I was never aware of how many cuss words could be strung together until I worked with him on a few of his projects.
Pop was a professional cusser and damn proud of it. I ‘m more like him than I care to admit and if today was any example I may be better now than he was then. This effing tractor is driving me insane. I was tempted today to just drive it out into the middle of the back yard, douse it with gasoline, and a have a freaking bonfire.
After I thought about it a while I decided that doing that would then turn into something else entirely. With my luck some A-Hole from the town might ride by, check to see if I had a burn permit, and then call the cops when they found out I didn’t. Then the cops would have appeared and issued me a citation which would have sent me right over the edge. That combined with my pissed off attitude over this tractor would have assured me of a ride to the county jail for some sort of disorderly conduct charge. I know for a fact I’d have used a lot of those good old cuss words my father taught me and then the cop would have cuffed me and dragged me away.
If all that had actually occurred it would have cost me a few hundred dollars in fines, a few hours in the jail, and a somewhat questionable relationship with the local police. Then I would have come home and the real punishment would have started. I’d have heard each and every one of my father’s favorite cuss words all over again from my petit but really loud better-half. Nothing on earth is worth sitting through that tirade.
With my common sense keeping me from a trip to the jail I ended up saving a few hundred dollars today. Now if I take that money and hire a real mechanic to fix this damn tractor I just might break even.
It’s funny how things just keep snowballing along whether we like it or not.
With a major warming trend gripping Maine I was swept away with a huge dose of Spring Fever this week. I moved my grill from storage, cleaned it up, and cooked my first feast for 2015. I spent some quality time on the deck reading one of my favorite books with my favorite lazy cat. Life was slowly improving and I began to throw off those Winter doldrums.
I decided that since a great deal of the snow had disappeared I’d take a trip to the coast to look around a little. I worked my way up the coast to the inlet where the great Scarborough Marsh empties into the Atlantic Ocean. This inlet is populated by a large number of lobster boats and their owners and is the area where you can buy the freshest lobsters in town. There was a lot of activity in the harbor with the boats being cleaned and readied for the warmer weather.
As you can see by these photos it was a gray day but slowly showing some signs of Spring. I should have known better than to get my hopes up because the weather in Maine is nothing if not fickle.
I awoke yesterday prepared to face the day and to begin the cleanup of my yard and garden. How stupid am I? I walked to my bedroom window, looked out, and saw an overnight deposit of four inches of snow. WTF!
Now I’m once again depressed and irritated. While listening to the radio today I heard about the Freezing Rain Alert for tomorrow where high winds, sleet, and power outages are expected. What did we ever do to deserve this I wonder?
I think it’s time for me to sit quietly, sip a glass of my favorite brandy, and relax so my head doesn’t explode.
Over the years I’ve read on a number of occasions about people with addictive personalities. These are people who are drawn to addictive behavior and activities for some unknown reason and can’t ever stop being addicted to something. I’ve finally decided to admit that I may be one of them.
My first major addiction started when I was just turning twelve years of age. Both of my parents were smokers and so were my grandparents. This was before anyone was aware of the dangers of smoking and we all thought it was pretty cool. Most of my friends smoked as well and we spent more time stealing cigarettes from our families than we did actually smoking them. I was so good at taking their cigarettes they never had a clue. It wasn’t until many years later that I told them about it and we all had a laugh or two. It was either steal from them or take a chance of being caught shoplifting in a store.
There was and still is a price to pay for such behavior and I soon found out what karma was all about. My best friend at the time was my partner in crime and karma reared it’s ugly head in the following incident we were involved in. It occurred at our elementary school where we accidentally started a fire in a nearby field while sneaking a cigarette that burned that field just prior to the annual Easter egg hunt. Lots of fried eggs, firemen, and police officers are all I remember about that day. Karma can be a real bitch.
Marijuana was next on my list and I did my best to smoke as much of it as possible over a five year period. I slowly weaned myself from both marijuana and cigarettes and finally kicked both nasty habits. I dabbled with alcohol as well a for a while but I could never get into the projectile vomiting thing.
After cleaning up my act I fell into two new addictions which I still have to this day. I’m John and I’m a chocoholic and caffeine addict. I just can’t stay away from these wonderful things and I promise I never will. Unfortunately it may require that I be buried with a bag of Hersey kisses and a hot cup of Hazelnut coffee. I won’t even get into my bacon issues which are even worse. It seems like every addiction I’ve ever had has been bad for me and that pisses me off. Why can’t I find a really healthy addiction?
My latest and possibly most boring addiction won’t kill me but it does irritate and annoy me. It’s called Words With Friends, a computerized take off of the old Scrabble game and is played on Smart Phones and Tablets.
I’ve tried on a number of occasions to quit but I keep getting pulled back into it by my friends and family members. It’s maddening at times because it requires that I respond in a reasonable fashion to their game play. There have been times that I’ve had as many as ten games going on at the same time and at that point it becomes more of a chore than fun. I want to stop but the ever present peer pressure to continue is there and plays heavily on my competitiveness. It becomes even more ridiculous when friends and family members become upset with me if I decline to play or if don’t do an immediate rematch.
I need to find a new addiction and fast. I’ve never been addicted to sex like some people but I could easily be pulled in that direction. Even that seems like too much work if you think about it. I want a lazier addiction that I can enjoy without it becoming strenuous.
I’m being forced to continue my never-ending search but in the meantime does anyone out there know a good four letter word that contains a "Q", an "X", and a "J"?
Where’s that twelve step program when you need one?
everyuselessthing.com 