Bumper sticker

There is no such thing as an original bumper sticker so I am guessing many of you have seen this already but it really got to me when I saw it.

I was pulling up behind a car at a red light and from a distance I can see the bumper sticker in bold black type on a yellow back ground says:

JESUS LOVES YOU

I admit it, I fell into stereotypical thinking and was thinking, "Yep, I *know* this person." Then as I got closer though I could see the fine print under the main message:

JESUS LOVES YOU
but everyone else thinks your an asshole!

and I realised just how wrong my stereotypical thoughts were! I almost missed the green light for laughing so hard.

Lesson reinforced! Don't judge too quickly!

Don't Tase me Bro!

Today I saw someone get tazed.

Here in the sprawling metropolis that is Springfield I witnessed a little "law and order" today.

I was coming around a curve that has a convenience store on it. I saw a cop car in the parking lot from a distance so I checked my speed. As I looked up two people ran out in the road in front of me so I got on the brakes pretty hard.

As I was coming to stop more details emerged. A cop was chasing someone and the cop caught up to the perp (dig that street lingo huh?) right in front of me and grabbed her arm. The perp turned and swung a grocery bag at the cops head. The cop deftly ducked the swing but she let go to do it, the perp turned to run again but the cop grabbed her again and she swung at the cop's head again. Again the cop ducked the swing.

This time the cop did not grab for her again. It happened so fast I did not see it even though I was less than 10 feet away. The cop shot her with the tazer. I did not even notice until I saw the wires dangling.

Ever see anyone do an impersonation of a Tyrannosaurus Rex? Maybe a praying mantis? That is what the perp looked like when the juice hit. Those arms curled up and came up to her chin then someone must have shouted "tiiiiiiiimber" because ever so slowly at first but gaining the inevitable speed she just fell right over on the pavement and her body remained arrow straight until the impact.

It was really weird to see because anytime you see someone fall down they are trying to catch themselves or break their fall. She really did look just like a tree falling over rod straight and stiff. I mean you don't really think about how people fall until you see this and then you just know its all wrong, that is NOT how people fall down.

After a few seconds the perp tried to get up and she gave her another jolt. I guess she decided laying on that hot asphalt was actually pretty comfy after all because she did not try to get up anymore.

Since the cop and the perp were both women I had this powerful reflex left over from high school to scream "CHIC FIIIIIGHT!"- somehow I resisted it though.

I found it!

After reading Ohmommy's comment to yesterday's post (if you have not read that post read it now or this one won't make sense.) I decided to go look and see if I could find the video store girl's blog. I think this is it...

Terror!

So I was working at the video store Sunday morning. Sunday morning is my favorite shift because no one ever comes in. So I can just basically stare off into space or listen to the radio or even watch movie trailers all morning and get paid for it. Sweet!

However, for the first time this last Sunday I was really regretting how empty the store is on Sunday mornings! You see, right then Nick Nolte walked in.

Ladies, I do not mean hot, young "The Deep" Nick Nolte. Nope, not even scruffier but still reasonably hot "48 hours" Nick Nolte. Nope, I mean 4 AM mugshot after shooting Yeager bombs and riding in what he calls his time machine but the rest of us call a clothes dryer all night long Nike Nolte!

He was scruffy and dirty and he just looked wild and he was walking right towards me! Then horror of horrors I realized it was NOT Nick Nolte after shooting Yeager bombs and riding in his clothes dryer! It must be some crazy homeless dude wondering in! I was totaly freaked out as he came walking straight towards me! Oh my god! What do I do? Where can I hide?

He walks right up to the counter and sets down a DVD, The Other Boleyn Girl. I am thinking "What the hell is a crazy homeless dude doing with the The Other Boleyn Girl?" Did he find it and want a reward? Then he said he owes late charges on it. What? Why in the hell would a crazy homeless dude rent The Other Boleyn Girl.? He must really be out there so now I am really scared!

With shaking hands I scan the movie, it is legit and it is one day late. Trying to hide the fear in my voice I say "That will be $2.60 sir" while brutally suppressing the urge to say "tree-fiddy" (only South Park fans will get that one)

Have you ever tried to count out change with one hand? I did because I had the other hand on the silent alarm the whole time! Through the fog of terror I realize he is speaking while I am trying to count with one hand. Is that a joke? Oh my God is this insane man-monster actually flirting with me!? OOOoooooo, don't make eye contact- don't make eye contact- what ever you do NOT make eye contact! Should I smile at this flirty joke? I don't know, that might encourage him, but if I ignore him he might become enraged and kill me right here! Oh dear god what ever you do DO NOT give this psycho the eye roll he so richly deserves! I am so petrified I can't do anything!

Oh thank the Lord he is leaving without killing me. Doing nothing seemed to have worked. Oh man, that was a close one! For the first time in a minute I remember to breath. BUT right as he was at the door he stopped, turned towards me again and it was at that point I KNEW he was a total pyshco! He asked me, "Oh, I am doing a survey for a federal grant, are you by any chance coo coo for Cocoa Puffs?"

OMG! What kind of trick question is this? Is he going to flip a coin and kill me depending on my answer? I really tried to say, "No." but I was too terrified to speak. I just stared at him while trying to make my mouth say the word "No". After a few seconds he smiled, shrugged and walked out.

For the second time in as many minutes I remembered to breath

For the first time I am totally jealous of my friend Brittany who works at Wal-Mart. They have security guards there!

Smooooth!

I get serious bed head. I never leave the house without taking a shower and getting my hair under control. Sunday Morning I knew I was going to do yard work first thing so I did not bother to take a shower. I went out and pulled some weeds for a while, moved some stuff around then went to mow. The lawn mower was low on oil and I did not have any so I went to get some. The video store is right across the street from the auto parts store so I figured 'kill two birds' and grabbed an overdue movie on the way out the door.

While I was paying the extra charge on the movie I humorously flirted with the counter girl just a *little*. Usually I get a grin or if nothing else I get a condescending smile or even a "come hither" eye roll. ;) This lady would not even make eye contact though. Odd.

As I climbed back in the truck I caught a look at myself in the mirror, wild hair, unshaven, dirty clothes suitable for yard work and I had already worked up a good sweat that morning. Well Efffing DUH! No wonder she was terrified of what surely appeared to be a Nick Nolte or Gary Busey flirting with her!

I'd be scared too!

Hanging my head in shame here

Normally I am pretty proud of living in Dallas. It's a very high tech town and it has been for a long time. Many of the greatest technological advances of the last century occurred in the Dallas laboratories of Bell Labs and Texas Instruments. It is very fair to say that without the Nobel Prize winning research and development done in Dallas that you would not be reading this right now.

Plus Dallas area aviation firms have set the standard many times over.

Yet the following proves once again (as if it needed proving) that smart people simply can not get elected to government office. {sigh} Click the link- it is a short but sad story...

Dallas Morning News Blog - "Black Hole" racially offensive!

I have a manager whose office I always refer to as a black hole. Man I sure am glad she is white!

In the future I think I will use the term "African-American Quantum Singularity" just to make sure I stay on the PC side of things!

I wonder if the one moron knows that a "white hole" is a Quasar? I wonder if he knows that a Quasar is not just a defunct television brand?

So which is worse to have in a city office? A black hole sucking in all matter that goes beyond the event horizon OR a white hole spewing intense radiation out? Hmmmm, either way you are gonna be real dead. Compressed or irradiated- some choice eh?

No seriously, sorry, I really should be more racially sensitive. I really should. In fact, I am turning over a new leaf right now!

I demand to know RIGHT NOW why- WHY MUST we go coo coo for Cocoa Puffs? Hmmmmm? Have you ever thought about this?

WHY is it that the white cereal has a huge and powerful, barrel chested, deep voiced tiger proclaiming “It’s GRRRRRRRREAT!!!” but the black cereal has a screwed up, scrawny, neurotic little bird that goes clinically insane when it eats the black cereal?

Hmmm, what about that huh? HUH? WHY?! You just KNOW that is no accident!

Michelle, feel free to borrow this for your cereal based philosophy of doom!

(Hmmmm, I'll bet I can get a federal grant to study this entrenched societal racism expressed via children’s cereal!)

Slow Learner.

So last night my buddy calls me and says, "Hey, are you taking the boat out tonight."
"Dude, I am too zonked, I am stiff and sore and tired. I just want to take it easy tonight but don't let me stop you, keys are in it, have fun"
Hesitantly he says, "Oh, ok I'll be over in a few."

When he gets there he says, "Sorry your tired man, I bought a tube and I was hoping we could ride it; can't do that with one person though."
"A tube? Well, why didn't you say so, let’s go!"
"I thought you were too sore"
"I said lets go!"

So what does dumb ass Rob do? I can barely walk and I refuse to bend over but I went tubing last night. I caught some air too. When you go over another boats wake it is just like a take off ramp and up you go! Catching air is FUN!

The landing is a bitch though. You would think a nice soft inner tube would be fine to land on but it’s not. It gets real hard when you drop a couple of feet onto it. Weird. Oh, yeah and note to self, when catching air and you unleash a rebel yell, make sure your tongue is back in your mouth before you land. Less blood that way. I have a firm policy about keeping blood on the inside.

For some reason I don’t feel any better today than I did yesterday but I’m still smiling.

Thank God it's Monday!

I am not sure how much more rest and recreation I can take!

This weekend I installed a new stereo on the boat then I got some heavier than normal yard work done. Then I partied it up at fireworks shows two nights in a row. Finally I got much closer to someone I have been seeing for a few weeks. So it was one hell of a long weekend! Weeeeee!

Right now I am so stiff and sore I can hardly walk and if I drop any money its gone, it's not worth the pain to pick it up again! :) I am so totally exhausted that it feels good to be back at "work" in the air conditioned great indoors sitting on my hienie with nothing harder to do than type and hit send on e-mails!

Man what a weekend! I slept 2 hours Sunday afternoon then slept 10 hours Sunday night into Monday and I am still tired.

How can I be so happy when I hurt so bad? :)

Wow

I tell ya, there are a lot of things I really like about spending so much time in Springfield Illinois but now to top off that list I have to tell you these guys know how to do the 4th of July!

They have a thing every year called "Rock the Dock" here. This is the first time I have been able to go.

Holy tamoly- they had the best fireworks show I have ever seen! Here is part of the press release;

"The biggest… (baddest, most unbelievable) Fireworks & Light Show display you'll find anywhere in Central Illinois! ….Over thirty minutes of choreographed fireworks set to a soundtrack at concert sound over Lake Springfield"

So I am reading that before hand with a little bit "Yeah, whatever, marketing hoopla" attitude but man did the show ever live up to the marketing! The choreography was excellent with lots of classic and more contemporary rock and it just kept going and going and getting bigger and better as it went!

I mean 15 minutes in you are thinking you have seen some really cool stuff so far. Then they slow it down and do some low level stuff and let your pupuils dialate again and then a crescendo will hit in the music and BOOOOM they will set off a honker so big you can feel the vibrations deep down in your insides. Then at the very end they had a crescendo with dozens of those huge honkers going off rapidly. It was unreal!

Plus the sound track was simulcast on a local radio station so me and about a thousand other people had the their boats parked out all over the cove drinking it all in.

Quite a night!

Afterwards though I encountered my first traffic jam involving boats! Its ironic, one of the things I like best about Springfield is there is no traffic to speak of. So it was interesting to get snarled up in a huge BOAT traffic jam. :)

Still worth it though!

STFU!

It’s pouring down rain here in Utopia this morning.

It’s July third and I am already feeling the holiday spirit of the coming long weekend and frankly, my usual breakfast of Slim Fast is just not getting my motor revved up this morning. I had the distinct urge to actually chew something this morning!

Now I am NOT a morning person so no way in hell am I breaking out a skillet and COOKING something before work so I decide to hit a fast food joint on the way to work.

Hardees has a Low Carb Breakfast Bowl so I decide on that so I don’t feel *too* guilty for blowing off the Slim Fast! :)

Now, seriously, I don’t mind at all how fast food joints always do the ‘upsell’ on the drive through. I mean hell, sometimes it even works on me, “Would you like fries with that?”
“Why yes I would! Super size ‘em too!”, nom nom nom nom nom!

However, really, can we skip that and the all the marketing material when it’s pouring down rain? I mean you drive up, put the window down and the nomination acceptance speech begins;
“Good morning welcome to Hardee’s where we make our country biscuits fresh from scratch every morning. Fresh never fozen! Would you like to try our new Strawberry Country Biscuit this morning?”
By now my shirt sleeve is soaked, rivulets of water are running down the inside of my door and water is puddling in the carpet.
“Low Carb Breakfast Bowl and a medium tea please.”
“Would you like hash browns with that?”
“No thanks” and since I feel the water starting to rise up between my toes I repress my sarcastic urge to point out that hash browns would defeat the entire point of ordering a Low Carb Beakfast bowl!
“Would you like to upsize that?”
“No thanks”, again suppressing an urge to be rude- Basic logic says never be rude to people who handle what you are about to put in your mouth! Still, now the rising flood waters are up to my ankles, can we get on with this?
“Ok, we at Hardee’s want to make sure we get your order right so that was a Low Carb Breakfast Bowl and a medium iced tea, right?”
“Yes” with just a little tinge of desperation in my voice as the flood waters are now flushing crap out from under my seats that I have not seen in years! OH! So that is where that disappeared to huh?
“That will be $4.93 please pull around to the second window.”
AS I am going around the corner to the second window the flood waters are sloshing around my interiour banging all the floating crap into the console. The ice scrapper gets tangled up between my knees and I almost did not hit the brakes in time.

Since the drive through window is under a covering I go ahead and open my door and let most of the flood waters wash out. The hardee’s people can pick up all the trash, gum wrappers etc., that the waters flushed out of their hiding places in that bizarre 6th dimension that seems to exist under the seats of every car and are now pouring out my door with the water. I snag my ice scrapper as it floats by though since I might need it again someday.

Hey there corporate mega-food people. How about putting an awning or something over the ordering area so we get a little protection from the elements when we come spend money with you? Yeah, your right, that would cost a little money so here is an other idea…

How about just shutting the hell up and taking my order with minimal bullshit when the weather sucks?

So, how many MBA’s does it take to figure that one out?

Poor MS Thing!

At lunch today I pulled up behind a Mustang at a traffic light. It had a vanity plate- MSTHNG. At first glance I thought ah MSTHNG on a Mustang. Not too bad as far as vanity plates go.

Then I realized there is no "H" in "Mustang" so that can't be it!

Then I became really sad. I mean it is bad enough to be sick but to think of your self as a thing just becasue you are sick? That poor driver!

Just because you have Multiple Sclerosis does not make you a "THING"!

Jerry Lewis must be beside himself. I know I am.