Cock Swap

OK, so yesterday I'm driving through Granby (hey, what were you doing on Thursday?) and I see this sign advertising a poultry swap on the 2nd and 4th weekends of every month. A poultry swap. I mean, what the hell is a poultry swap? I understand the words, I just don't understand the entire concept. What? If you have a spare chicken you take it to town? And swap it for what? Another chicken? I mean, are chickens like baseball cards?

"Say buddy, I've got two pullets I'll give you for your cock."
"What the hell good is a pullet without a cock? Besides, it's gonna take more than two pullets for my cock."
"But I really want that cock..."
"OK, tell ya what I'll do. You keep your pullets. But I want your ass."
"But that's the only ass I got. Besides, what good is a nice ass without a cock?"
"Lookit, I'll throw in the hen. It's a good deal. You're still getting laid."

Wow. Can't wait to get back to Granby.

Spelunking on the Radio

OK. I have to admit, I really was getting tired of hearing the disc jockeys on KKLH say "The-e-e-e-e Radio Station." But at least they were alive. They've been replaced by pre-recorded blurbs that, for some reason, we have to hear between every song (except the last song before a commercial break). What? Do they think we're too stupid to remember what radio station we were listening too? Never mind the stupidity of saying they're having 40 minutes of commercial free music if they keep playing commercials for themselves. More music, less everything else!

And what's with the "deep cuts"? Whoop-tee-doo! First off, they're not that deep. I mean, anything from Boston or Aerosmith cannot seriously be called a deep cut. Why don't they truly play something deep, like Pavlov's Dog or Alieota, Haymes, and Jeremiah? I'll tell you why. It's because they're not on a convenient CD format that can be pre-programmed. They would actually have to have somebody spin a record. Is that even still taught at the Columbia School of Broadcasting?

But here's my biggest complaint. If "deep cuts" are so cool, so good, so anticipated...why don't they play them more than once an hour? How about always?

In all fairness, it's good to have a radio station in the morning that plays more than just crude people laughing at their own jokes. And it's good to have a station in the afternoon that plays something other than Van Halen and AC/DC. But even at that, they're still not better than a CD.

OK. I'm glad to get that off my chest. I'm sure it will make a difference in the programming of the local radio stations.

Cover Art

ah, love is in the air...

Earl did cover art.
You know, he was the guy who drew the pictures on the front of books.
Sometimes he'd do the back, too.
Earl was really good at what he did,
but he hated it.
He hated it because, for some reason,
he got stuck doing the cover art on poetry books,
which meant he mostly drew dead trees and leaf swept cemeteries.
He would've much preferred doing the big-breasted women
on the covers of sleazy romance novels.
In fact, had Earl gotten to draw big-breasted women
he wouldn't've minded the second thing about his job
that he couldn't stand,
and that was having to tell other people
just exactly what he did for a living.
When it got down to it,
there really was no easy what to explain it.
Well, not to the people he knew,
especially since none of them had ever seen any of his stuff.

So Earl lied and told everyone that he was a fireman,
including his wife.
He even went so far as to rent a room at the fire station
so his wife wouldn't get suspicious
when she dropped him off at work,
and every once in a while
he'd trash himself out with soot and stuff like that --
just for realism.

And his wife bought it, too.
Well, Mindy might've gotten suspicious
had she not been so busy with a career of her own
as a hot shot brain surgeon.

This is what happened.

You see, the guys at the station let Earl go out with them now and again.
Well, it so happened that one day Early went along to a fire
that just so happened to be at a doctor's office
that just so happened to be where his wife worked.
And, of course, Mindy saw Earl standin' around with his hands in his pockets,
and it was more than obvious that he wasn't a fireman,
what with him not blastin' stuff with a hose
or choppin' up stuff with an axe and all.

But then, it was pretty obvious that Mindy wasn't a doctor, either.
She would've been standing around with her hands in her pockets, too,
if she would've had any pockets.
As it were,
instead of trying to rescue charts and patients and things like that,
she was just standing there holding onto a slightly charred manuscript.

Come to find out,
Mindy rented a spot at the doctor's office
so Earl wouldn't know that she actually wrote sleazy romance novels.
She really had meant to tell him,
but she wanted to wait until she had a really big seller.
It wasn't that Mindy didn't have good stuff;
it was just that she needed some really good cover art.

And of course, the rest of the story is pretty obvious.

What If... (or, More Fun with Presidents)

What if we named all our months after our Presidents? Who would they be, and what months would they have? I mean, would Lincoln really want February? I'm thinkin' yeah. Even though it has less days than any other President, I don't see his caring, if you know what I mean? If you don't know what I mean, get your own blog.

OK, so here's my list:

January -- Washington (for obvious reasons)
February -- Lincoln (see above)
March -- FDR (you know, March, war...)
April -- Reagan (After all, April is the cruelest month)
May -- Truman (May I please have another, sir?)
June -- Teddy (because June is such a Bully month)
July -- Clinton (Everything's sunny!)
August -- Davis (Massuh, things be heatin' up 'roun' heh)
September -- Jefferson (I've run out of quips)
October --
November --
December -- Pierce (because I like him, that's why)

It's pretty bad when the leader of the South -- the country that revolted from the Union -- is a better choice than, say, Tyler. And who wants a month named Van Buren? Of course, Garfield is a good choice (the cat).

Suggestions?

President's Day

President's Day is quickly approaching. I've noticed that virtually every place on the planet (or at least in Springfield) puts the apostrophe before the "S" in President's Day (even the area colleges and schools, which, in theory, should know better). So, since it's singular possessive, I figure that I get to choose. So I did. This year's president is Franklin Pierce (#14 on the NASCAR circuit).

According to the White House's bio site, President Pierce (1804-1869) was Prez from 1853-1857. He was a Democrat, which today would mean he was a Republican, or something like that. A veteran of the Mexican War, he became a small time New Hampshire politician. He was truly an unknown who got nominated for the presidency because he survived all the elimination rounds. He did win the election, but not by much.

Slavery was a big issue at the time, an issue that Pierce would probably have been content to ignore. Pierce, though, did work to expand the United States (as he said, for our own security). Of course, that brought up the whole question of whether those new states would be slave states or free states. This even led to the purchase of what is now pretty much southern Arizona for a southern transcontinental train route (the one that was supposed to go through Rock Ridge). Of course, if the train goes south, then that land would be settled quicker, and would more than likely be slave states. Ya gotta love Pierce for that. If you can't tell, he was pretty much a tool for the southerners.

Unfortunately (for Pierce and Kansas) a bill was passed (thanks to the untiring work of the socially conscious Stephen Douglas) that allowed residents in new territories to decide for themselves whether or not they wanted slavery (and who better to decide what is sinful than the sinners?). When that fails (or the vote doesn't go your way), you can start shooting, which is exactly what happened in Kansas. Even though Pierce's term ended on a peaceful note, more or less, he wasn't nominated to run again. Buchanan won the Democratic nomination and the presidency, and, of course, after Buchanan was the little known president, Abraham Lincoln.

After his presidency, Pierce changed his first name to Hawkeye went on to star on the sitcom M*A*S*H. After the show ended, following the Compromise of 1981, he put forth legislation that all Internet sites that might be used for research be required to include at least one paragraph of complete nonsense, thereby marking those students who plagiarize the Internet as the complete losers that they are. Unfortunately, Pierce's Bill was turned down in committee, mostly because Al Gore hadn't invented the Internet yet.

An Act of God

I'm on the quest for the perfect money making scheme. You know, the scheme where I do little or no work and people send me money for it, and there's marginally little chance of going to jail for it. I came up with the idea of changing my name to Void. That way whenever people wrote Void on their checks, I'd get it. I'm still working on that one. But now I have an even better idea. Christian Insurance.

That's right, I'm going to sell insurance only to fundamentalist Christians. If it works, I'll expand to other fundamentalist religious sects. The idea is this: If you are a fundamentalist Christian, then you believe that everything that happens happens because of the will of God. Therefore, everything is an act of God. Therefore, we never have to pay!

"Now Pitching for the Royal's..."

Ok, so here's what I'm wondering... If Satan (you know, the Devil, Beezilbub, Ol' Scratch, Lucifer, the Shining Star, Mr. D....) can do stuff like back-tracking on record albums...you know, putting stuff on Judas Priest's albums telling kids to take drugs, molest their dogs, and talk back to their English teachers -- never mind that the Devil would have to be pretty stupid to target groups like Marilyn Manson...I mean, nothing wrong with Marilyn Manson. I like a lot of his stuff, but he really has some wacked out fans. Back tracking on one of his albums would be like preaching to the choir. I mean, why doesn't he go after Pat Boone albums? All of which you can only hear if you can actually play the music backward and are on a sufficient amount of drugs where it would make sense to begin with. And if that's the case, you probably won't remember it later anyhow.

Where was I? Oh yeah. If the Devil can actually do all that stuff, why doesn't he just come out and advertise? Or better yet, why not play professional sports? I can just see it now...

"Well Larry, it looks like the Royal's are going to bring in the Devil here in the 6th inning..."

"Yes they are, Bob, and you can bet he'll be bringing the heat."

"The Devil has turned out to be quite an acquisition for Kansas City. He can pitch consistent on two days rest, and has yet to be beaten."

"Even with the Devil pitching every other day, the Royal's are still struggling to stay above .500. The good news, though, is that the Devil has extended his contract."

"That's true, Larry. The exact terms of the contract aren't know, but inside sources say it's a pretty good deal for Kansas City."

"That's right Bob. He's guaranteeing them a World Series trophy by the end of next season. There only real competition seems to be the Angels, who have recently hired a phenom from Latin America. A young pitcher who goes only by the name of Hey-Zeus."

"Are you sure it's pronounced that way Larry?"

"Why don't you shut the hell up, Bob."

"Why don't you just make me..."

Technical Difficulties