Top Ten Reasons Why Texas is NOT Like California

10.The Alamo. Texas is home to the Alamo. A symbol of the fight for freedom at all costs. A rallying cry for people shaking off the bonds of persecution. Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie. Nobody ever charged into battle screaming, "Remember the Walk of Fame"
9.Income Tax. For my income level, State income tax in Texas is $0.00 in california it would be $9114.00
8.Property Rights. Texas is a Homestead State. That means that they can NEVER take your house if you are sued. Or your car for that matter. It gives new meaning to "a man's home is his castle"
7.Wage Garnishment. In Texas, it is illegal to garnish a man's wages for purposes of debt. Sorry. If I get behind on my payments, my paycheck is still all mine.
6.Land prices. I bought a three bedroom, two bath house with a yard in a nice neighborhood for $86,000. It took me one day to find it. There was a new roof, new carpet, new bathrooms, new ductwork, new AC, etc.
5.Natural disasters. In Texas, there is an occasional hurricane that hits the coast and makes it rain for about a week. That's about it. In California, there are frequent earthquakes, mudslides, wildfires, droughts, and even the danger of tsunamis.
4.Friendliness. The word "texas" comes from the indian word "tejas" which means "friend". The people in Texas are known for their hospitality. Even by people in California. Don't believe me? Check out the fat man walking journal.
3.Texas has Jackalopes. California has grackles.
2.In Texas, the Men look like Men, and the Women look like Women. And that's all I have to say about THAT.
1.And the number one reason that Texas is NOT like California...Bar-B-Que.

Cool Beans

I went to work over the weekend and while I was there, my employer announced that they felt that gas prices were too high and that they thought it was not good for their employees to have to pay so much for gas.
So they apparently went out and contracted with Chevron to help out.
So when I went to work on Friday, they handed me a prepaid gas card from Chevron good for two hundred and fifty smackaroos.

It takes me about fifty bucks to fill up my tank.
So the question is, do I use the card for the next five fillups, or do I pay half of each fillup with cash and half with the card in order to stretch it out all summer long while the prices are highest?

When you wake up

There is a certain point in your life when you realize that the Secret Decoder Ring unlocks a commercial. That special time in your life when the New And Improved Ultra Robot Destruction Unit turns out to be three inches tall. It's when you wake up and smell the coffee. It's when it's time to pay the piper. You come to realize that you will not hit the lottery. Elvis is dead. There is no Santa Clause. Love stinks. Your job is a deadend. Charlie Brown will never kick the football. One man's trash is another man's trash, too.
It's that Lucid Moment when you realize that the bad years WERE the good years.
It's an awakening.
It's when number six is number one.
The President nominates Harriet Miers.
The other shoe falls.
It is the day that you finally understand that you are, after all, only a number.
That you were only lying to yourself.
You are a dreamer.
Life sucks. Then you die.

That day has not yet arrived in my life.
There is a land called Honoly.
Transformers are real.
I love my wife.
We buy cereal for the toy.
Bugs Bunny Rules.
And my dad can kick your dad's ass.

Don't mess with Texas

Sorry there, buddy. You fell victim to one of the classic blunders. The most famous is Never get involved in a land war in Asia. But only slightly less well known is this: Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line. And of course, running a distant third is this: Don't ever challenge a Texan who's telling a tall tale, because he's probly got the proof in his pocket and waitin' to pull it out an' show ya.

The Jackalope

I've been having a discussion
with Black Dog lately about the Jackalope. He doesn't apparently believe me when I tell him that critters are digging in my trash. So here are the pics to prove it.
First I went and took the trash out to the curb. The way I figure it, critters and varmin don't know what day of the week it is. Then I waited behind a tree until I heard crashing noises of critters in the trash can. So I jumped out and looked and there were not one, but two jackalopes. I pulled out my camera and went to snap a picture, but the battery was out. Lucky thing though, I had my new RAZR with me. So as the Jackalope took to running, I ran after them and took some pictures.

They had a bit of a head start on me, but I'm half Indian, and we were in the woods, so I figured we were about even.
I followed them to what I thought was their burrow.

But as it turned out, this hole comes out the other side. So they got away from me. I had to go back and get some shoes on, because I didn't exptect to have to follow them. I was just going to take some pics and go back inside.
So anyway, I found some tracks in the dirt. I took a picture of them, but it didn't turn out too good.
But then I found their real burrow, with both the jackalope there, sitting and looking at me. Of course, they ran into the burrow, which was apparently pretty deep. But I got a picture of the second one in.

I wanted a picture of the other one, too, so I stayed out there and waited for a while and finally I got tired of waiting and stuck my arm, as far as I could reach it down into the burrow and snapped a bunch of pics, hoping I would get lucky.

So there ya go, Black Dog, that one's for you.

My wife about jumped out of her skin

titanic 2: jacks back!


KILLED!!!

What is a Jagular?

On May 24, at 9:38 PM, Black Dog asked, Where did the name Jagular come from? Its an interesting name.
So I shamelessly lifted this from one of the other Jagulars in the world. However, let it be known that I am the ORIGINAL Jagular.



"Look Pooh!" said Piglet suddenly. "There's something in one of the Pine Trees."

"So there is!" said Pooh, looking up wonderingly. "There's an Animal." Piglet took Pooh's arm, in case Pooh was frightened.

"Is it One of the Fiercer Animals?" he said, looking the other way. Pooh nodded.

"It's a Jagular," he said.

"What do Jagulars do?" asked Piglet, hoping that they wouldn't.

"They hide in the branches of trees, and drop on you as you go underneath," said Pooh. "Christopher Robin told me."

"Perhaps we better hadn't go underneath, Pooh. In case he dropped and hurt himself."

"They don't hurt themselves," said Pooh. "They're such very good droppers." Piglet still felt that to be underneath a Very Good Dropper would be a Mistake, and he was just going to hurry back for something which he had forgotten when the Jagular called out to them.

"Help! Help!" it called.

"That's what Jagulars always do," said Pooh, much interested. "They call 'Help! Help!' and then when you look up, they drop on you."

Who is there Pooh? "I'm looking down," cried Piglet loudly, so as the Jagular shouldn't do the wrong thing by accident. Something very excited next to the Jagular heard him, and squeaked:

"Pooh and Piglet! Pooh and Piglet!" All of a sudden Piglet felt that it was a much nicer day than he had thought it was. All warm and sunny---

"Pooh!" he cried. "I believe it's Tigger and Roo!"

"So it is," said Pooh. "I thought it was a Jagular and another Jagular."

We went out to eat

I took my wife out to eat last night.
We went to this little place I know that has country cooking at its best.

It's called the Potatoe Patch in honor of everyone's favorite Veep, Dan Quayle.
No, seriously.
The food there is just tremendously big.
They have fried mushrooms......

.......the size of golf balls. I don't really like golf because they make the hole too small, and it's too far away. Plus they make you wear stupid pants and the most aweful shoes. Driving those little cars is fun though, but if you don't be careful in them then you will get kicked out of the whole place, which they never showed on Happy Gilmore. But it was funny when he got into a fight with Bob Barker. I thought it was funny when he told Bob Barker that "the price is wrong, bitch". The other one I like is Bob Euker. I've seen him on lots of tv commercials and in guest spots in a lot of different shows, but come to think of it, I've never seen him throw a baseball. And if you go to the potatoe patch, they don't throw baseballs either, but they do throw food.
No, really. They throw food.
Ok, see, when you are eating your food, they have free sides. They make rounds and come by and say, would you like some...whatever it is that they have.
Their fried green tomatoes are really good.

But you can't really throw those.
But then they come around with fresh baked rolls. Hot rolls anybody?
And if you say yes, here it comes. They throw it across the room to you.

On the menu it says, "Dropped rolls ain't worth eating anyway."
I got the "all you can eat chicken fried steak" for nine bucks.
Now I don't know how much you can eat, but I can eat more. Especially if it's chicken fried steak.
But my wife got the "all you can eat steak and shrimp" which, she can't eat nearly as much as me, but shrimp are small you you can still eat a lot of them.
Before we went out to eat, we had gone to see a movie, which we saw "See No Evil"

Which on a scale of one to ten completely sucked ass.
I got nothing against Kane, mind you.

He sure can whip the snot out of Rey Mysterio, that's for sure.
But didn't do so good at killing people and plucking out their eyeballs, like he did in the movie.
Which, of course, we had a lot of the mushrooms left over after we ate.
But we took them home with us and the kids really liked them.
Dogs, on the other hand apparantly do not like mushrooms, but they will lick off the outer crust part if you batter dip and fry them.
By "them" of course, I mean the mushrooms. Not the dogs. You can't batter dip or fry a dog because you will go to jail. You could do hush puppies, but that's a whole other story.

So now I'm a freak

In the old days, a phreak was someone who would go onto the phone lines and hack the connection. Once upon a time, it was possible to play a certain tone into your phone and end up unattended on a trunk. Those were the days.
The word evolved to modern day where it refers more to someone who hacks a system for the sake of hacking it. For example, I hacked the code to the pneumatic tube system at work and reset the controls so that I could control the operation of my terminal. And then I returned the system to the way that I found it.
But now I am apparantly a freak.
Freak: NOUN: 1. A thing or occurrence that is markedly unusual or irregular.
With the alternate definition being: An eccentric or nonconformist person, especially a member of a counterculture.

Now, whereas most of the people I know around here would fit the second definition, I would say that I am a member of the first.

The difference with me, if I say so myself, is that I possess a unique blend of characteristics, which in and of themselves are quite conventional, but combined, that is to say, in their gestalt, form a personality which is, admittedly so, odd.

That happens sometimes. For example, being inquisitive could be seen as a good thing. Being social is also a beneficial trait. But together, they make you a pest.
Having a love of telling jokes is wonderful. Having a poor memory is ok. Combine them and you have someone who always forgets the punchline.

My own personality is somewhat of an anomaly.
(which, by the way, I love that word...anomaly...you know it's an anomaly when you look at it and say it anomaly like that.) (ok, sorry)

I have a unique mix of traits.
1. Exceptional intelligence. I don't want to get into this one right now. I will just say that I am very smart. I am not trying to brag. Just take it at face value. I will have to do another post on this subject one day, because it is a topic unto itself. So when I say exceptional, think Einstein. Again, let me reiterate that I do not mean this to be bragging.

2. Insight into people's thought processes. Genuinely.

3. A wonderful, although twisted, sense of humor.

4. A three day work week which always leaves me with one night out of the week when I am not at work, but am up in the middle of the night. This leaves me with a lot of free time, one night a week.

5. Impulsiveness.

When you combine all of these things, the end result is something like this:

Bird Flu Hits Florida

Well, we all knew it would happen one day. It was just a matter of time. After making its rounds in the developing world, the bird flu has finally made it to the United States. Southern Florida today reported that hundreds of the local birds have tested positive for the bird flu. The Fish And Wildlife Commission reported finding hundreds of local birds found dead in a field outside of Boca Raton.
"We knew right away that we were dealing with something out of the ordinary," reported Elijah Peterson, spokesman for the FWC. "Finding one or two dead birds is nothing unusual, but just the number of birds we found today, well, it was really something."



Local residents are organizing a cleanup effort, and schools were on lockdown for most of the day. Mayor Quimby announced that the city counsel is calling an emergency meeting to discuss strategies for insuring the food supply is safe.

Computer glitch

I found a piece of software from Motorola that lets you connect the RAZR to your USB port and move files, pics, and music around. So I customized my ringtone and moved some pictures around.
But then the program went and buggered all of my cd drivers. So now all of my cd's and dvd's are uninstalled from my computer and the drivers are corrupt. (OK, yes, I have MULTIPLE cd's and MULTIPLE dvd's installed in my computer. A pirates life for me, argh.)
So I have a lot of work to do to pull out new drivers and reinstall them all. But I have to work all weekend, so it's going to have to wait.
Thank you, Mr. Moto.

My New RAZR

I finally broke down and bought myself a new RAZR. My friends told me that it could do just about everything. And you know what? They are right. Check out what I figured out how to do with mine:

I Hate HTML

Ok, I hate HTML (pronounced Hot Tamale).
All I wanted to do was to add a few links onto the sidebar. That's all.
But no, There's no "click here to add links to the side bar" to be found.
So that means I need to go into the blogger template and play with the hot tamale.
There are some really good people out there who have linked to my blog.
There are some other people out there, too, who have linked to my blog.
So I wanted to return the favor.
I mean, how hard could it be, right?
But blogger uses templates, and the template I happened to use to make my blog has how many links available? Zero.
So I've been playing with the hot tamale to add these links to my side bar.
So I hope it all works. If you click a link and it takes you somewhere wierd, well, I tried.
If your name isn't listed in the "blogs I read" section on the right, then one of the following has happened:

1) I actually added your name, but it hasn't updated yet.
2) I added your name, but blogger ate it.
3) I tried to add your name, but screwed it up.
4) I forgot about you.
5) I don't read your blog.

Pick whichever one makes you feel better.

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words

Conversations at work

I was at work the other day and the talk was about the recent items in the news related to immigration. I was talking to an immigrant from Korea. We were only having a very slight technical disagreement...at first.
My point was that if you sneak into the country, no matter what your intentions, you are a criminal and should be, at the least, deported. At the most, arrested, sentenced, serve your time, and then deported.
His point was that the main problem was that the immigrants should focus more on bettering their community, and then Americans would not be apt to want to deport them.
So, while not entirely disagreeing with him, I countered with the arguement that if they focused on their community, Americans would be more apt to increase the number of immigrants who could come here each year legally, but the illegal ones should still be deported, just due to the fact that they are illegal.
It was a minor difference of opinion at that point. But then the redneck in me came out, and it degenerated quickly.
I said to him, "Look at the Oriental people. They come over here and set themselves up working. They take care of their family and community. They work hard and send their kids to college. By the second generation, they have it made. But if one of them came over here illegally, they should still be deported."
So how did he reply to that?
"Asian people. You said 'oriental'. There is oriental food. There are oriental rugs. People are Asian."
"Well," I countered, "What about people from Russia? Russia is part of Asia. Are Russians Asian people, too? What about Afghanistan? Are they Asian? I was referring to people from 'the orient', and hence the word 'oriental'."
"No, you would have to call them Russians, Afghanis, and then use Asian and not oriental. It's just that simple."

"Oh, hell," I said. "It don't matter anyway, because you are in Texas. You're Chinese."
"So Texans call every Asian person Chinese? Isn't that overly simplistic, having only one way to refer to many different people?"
"No," I said, "we don't just have one way. We have two. If your eyes slant downwards, you are Chinese, and if they go more up, then you are Japanese. See, we aren't simplistic. We have two kinds of everything."
"Everything?"
"Everything."
"So what if someone was from Argentina?"
"Spanish."
"Chile?"
"Spanish."
"Brazil?"
"Spanish."
"They speak Portugese."
"Still Spanish."
"So you said there are two kinds. What is the other kind?"
"You got two kinds of Spanish people. Legal, and illegal."
"Two kinds of Canadians?"
"French and English."
"Black people?"
"Black and Nigerian."
"What if they are from Kenya?"
"Nigerian."
"Rwanda?"
"Nigerian."
"What about people from England?"
"European."
"Two kinds of European?"
"French and English."
"Ok then. Two kinds of Americans?"
"That would depend on which side of the Mason-Dixon line you are from."
"What about people from Cambodia?"
"Do their eyes slant more up or down?"
"Damn, Ken, you suck."

-it ain't easy-

Been pretty busy around here.

Well, I've been working a lot of hours around here. Trying to pay for the rest of that little excursion I took with my better half last week.
So I've worked all but one day since last Friday, and still have two to go. I am working twelve hours a day, so I'm pretty tired. But I'll try to fire off a quick post here just so ya know I'm still alive.

Ok, Here we go.....Defending Kennedy.

But first things first. I hate all things Kennedy. I despise the lot of them.
The same way that Democrats hate G.W.

Does that mean that I'm a Republican? uh...sorry, no.
So what am I?

Well, none of the above. Consider me an independant.
But I'm an honest independant.
When the whole story broke about Kennedy's little accident and that there were some kind of drugs involved, my first reaction was to write a post about the dangers of "driving while Kennedy" but I just can't do it. I'm honest. And I'm a nurse.

I see things at work that most people never knew existed. And this whole incident makes perfect sense to me, and I find myself in the awkward position of having to defend Kennedy.

There is a mental state that happens very often in hospitals which nurses refer to as "being confused".
Now this isn't the same kind of confused that most people think of when they hear the word 'confused'.
That would be like, "I got confused when I got off the elevator, and I turned left instead of right."
That's the normal definition of confused...ie, a brain fart.
Nurses refer to a different kind of confusion. Think of it more as a temporary state of....senility....psychosis....almost like alzheimers.
Let me describe it for you.
It's the middle of the night. You are in a hospital. Mr. Jackson in room number ten wakes up and gets out of bed. He begins rearranging the furniture in his hospital room.
"now, Mr. Jackson, you can't be moving furniture. You've just had an operation."
"Get the hell out of my bedroom!"
"Do you know where you are?"
"Duh! I'm in my bedroom. Where do you think I am???"
"What year is it?"
"Well, last time I looked it was 1982"
So you get him back in bed, and go back out of his room and say "Mr. Jackson is confused."
It's a delerium. Caused by what? medication...stress...too much stimulation...the fact that there is no real 'night time' in a hospital.
Any number of things.
In the ICU it is so common that they call it "icu psychosis".
In other places, they call it "sundowning".
And 99% of the time, the person has no memory of it in the morning.

And that brings me to defending Kennedy.
Kennedy had taken the sleeping pill called Ambien.
If you go to www.drugs.com and look up ambien, you will find:

What are the possible side effects of Ambien?
If you experience any of the following serious side effects, stop taking Ambien and seek emergency medical attention:
·an allergic reaction (difficulty breathing; closing of your throat; swelling of your lips, face, or tongue; hives); or
·hallucinations, abnormal behavior, or severe confusion.

And there you have it. What happened to Kennedy is a known side effect of the sleeping pill that was prescribed by his doctor.
Now obviously he shouldn't take it any more.
And I believe, just as obviously, he is entering drug rehab just so that he can tell his constituents that he is doing everything he can to overcome his "problem" so that in his next election it will be hard to hold this whole mess against him. He could have handled it differently though. But that's his own business.

Perspective in the men's room

"Hey, Ken, you didn't flush the toilet."
"I know."
"Have you ever heard of being sanitary?"
"Yes."
"Well then what's up with that?"
"OK, think about the last guy that flushed the toilet. Picture him in your head."
"OK"
"Now tell me, what do you know about him."
"Nothing."
"Right. And what was the last thing he touched before he flushed the toilet?"
"Just shut up, Ken."