"Um, no; I sure don't officer."
"Well, it appears that last week you rolled through two stop signs, exceeded the speedlimit by 10 miles an hour on at least five occasions, and drove recklessly around corners. Here are your preprinted tickets, have a nice day."
Don't know how far we are from this type of scenario, but I can't imagine it's more than say...two years?
From John Peterson's (R-PA) website, via PJMedia:
And I think to myself, what a wonderful world.
Completely unrelated, but still awesome? Cars. Namely this one, this one, this one and this one. You mileage may vary. Oho!
Alright people, get out there and have a great weekend. Try not to think about collapsing global economies, LHC-triggered world-imploding black holes, nuclear brinkmanship, or Britney Spears' new album.
Everything's gonna be juuuuuust fiiiiiiiine. Inhale. Exhale.
My (great)Uncle Johnny used to have this expression that he used, assumedly, as a catch all. Johnny new just about everything about everything. Growing vegetables, cleaning your sidearm, rebuilding a carbureator; all of it. He was an airplance mechanic in DubDub Two before there ever was an Air Force. I guess back then they were just known as The Badasses With A Set Of Sparkplug Sockets.
Anyways, whenever you would say something like "I planted grapes last year and I've still got nothin'."
Uncle Johnny used to go "mm-HM", and then fold his arms sort of thoughtfully. See, he knew that only those scrapply old Muscodines grow in the southeast. It would've been impolite for him to tell you that you're a dumbass. So he'd say "mm-HM" and after briefly scratching his stubbly chin with his thick calloused fingers, he'd steer you off to where you ought to be.
When Jen said that Bane had gone, I felt like saying "mm-HM." Bane used to comment a lot around here, and I could've sworn we did a "How Many Beers" with him, but I googled with no success. Add it to the list of things I should've done while I could've. Goddammit. "mm-HM" was where Bane existed on the spectrum of human emotion. While we were all chewing pseudointellectual cud and choking on diplomacy, he was spitting bullets and breathing fire. He actually said (blogged, wrote, whatever) aloud what we were all thinking while we were going "mm-HM."
Passion without a filter. A 527 in a Gremlin running with an open header. He was caustic, but you couldn't deny his drawing power.
Well Bane, if you're in Heaven - I hope they've got a shooting range. On the off chance you end up in Hell, call up one or two of your old favorites and shoot your way out. But try not to crack a smile while you do it. That might piss 'em off.
Here's to hoping you're looking out for us all. We could definitely use a gaurdian angel rocking a bandalero.
So where I work, we have an set of ATM's in the food court. We're having this surprise lunch for one of the people in my office suite, so I went down there to get $20 to throw in for the take-out tab.
As I'm waiting for the machine to spit out my crisply-minted fiat currency, I realize that someone is approaching me. Maybe it's just me, but having someone walk up to you at the ATM is awkward. Is it just me? I mean, if it's a friend or something, then it doesn't; but this was an obscure acquaintance. I say 'obscure' because it's someone with whom I've had a, and I mean a single, brief, conversation; but we don't know each other by name.
Anyways, this person is mumbling, and I'm looking back and forth between them and the machine as I go about my business. I can't quite make out what they're saying, but they're definitely trying to communicate specifically to me:
"sdfa, sthsg ugurowelo, kljh?"
Hmm. What is it Lassie? What is it girl?
"weui, rtr wertllyurt a dollar..."
Oh. A twinge of sympathy. We wade deeper into awkwardness.
"...sdpog ritiwe bakesale?"
Oh you've got to be kidding me.
I finally figure out that this person is asking me for a dollar, so she can buy something at the charity bakesale that's set up on a table adjacent to the ATM.
Don't get me wrong, I do have feelings. And at first I felt bad for this person who had to beg people for money while they went to the ATM. At least it was a good tactic, hit 'em when they're going to the source. But the act stumbles in the prestige, right where it should be hitting me full force. A dollar? Motherfucker, I'm at the ATM. I have no money, and in a few moments when I do have money, I am not going to have any dollar bills.
So you want a dollar (first nail in the coffin) and you want it for...the bakesale? You want my money so you can spend it on something nonessential. Yeeaah.
No.
I'm sitting here at the kitchen table. It's a perfectly breezy evening. Around here, we get this 4 or 6 week window of time sandwiched between the sweltering humidity of summer and the crisp dryness of winter. The windows are open, and the slight evening sun does it's best to glaze through the puffy cloud cover; but after 3:30 or so it's ambient lighting at best. It's probably in the mid or high seventies during the day, and low sixties at night. The breeze blows almost all day long, and if you can stand the noise of the crickets, frogs, and birds; you can sleep with the windows open. Nature's air conditioning.
I'm thinking of all that's happened in the recent past, and how it belies the place I find myself in, here at the kitchen table. There was Ike, who kicked the shit out of Texas. Towns absolutely wiped off the map, people without power and water for what may be weeks; and worse. But where is that on my local nightly newscast? The talking heads are going on about our problem with rabid cats, or that a cement company wants to build a plant. WTF.
And then there's the economic news. It seems to me that the gloom-and-doomers have been heralding this day for at least a year. Stock markets climb a wall of worry. Americans are sitting on a sinkhole of debt. It's time to pay the piper. Well, believe it or not, somehow this bit of new became blurbworthy on my local innocuous newscast. Crammed for a few seconds between a peice on a reopened murder case and some guy who builds shrimping trawlers by hand.
And there's also the election. I won't go into specifics, but suffice to say I hope everyone's doing their homework; and I mean real digging. Read the sites you don't usually read, ferret out the partisan shit, and read the factual stuff. You'd be amazed what's lying under the facade of these candidates; and it seems we do really have to pick the lesser of two evils. I've decided not to talk politics with friends anymore, because there's one candidate I simply can't stand. The sad part is that the other one just makes me feel 'sort of' like I won't have to fear my government. This is making the local newscast. We're just enjoying the weather, I guess. Shit, the weather makes the news a couple times a day.
Where's all the in depth analysis? Report on the issues. Then report on the people and events driving the issues. Where are they why's? I don't give a fuck that the weather's going to be awesome tomorrow; I give a fuck about the stuff that really matters. How come I have to look that shit up, and you; as a news agency, the informers; only have to bring me rabid cats, cement plants, and the fucking weather?
So there's this club of uber-nerds called CERN. I'm not sure why it's called CERN, because such an acronym cannot be derived from its full name; which is the European Organization for Nuclear Research, or Organisation Européenne pour la Recherche Nucléaire in pig latin. But I digress.
Anyways. This Coalition of European Research Nerds has built this thing called a Large Hadron Collider. If particle acceleration was NASCAR, the LHC would be the Texas Motor Speedway. A pretty good metaphor, since the LHC's main purpose is to act as a track around which nerds can watch subatomic particles smash into each other.
Well, they powered it up last night; and that was supposed to be the beginning of the end. The whole deal with this thing, according to the Chicken Littles, is that the experiments performed at the LHC will create black holes. Think of a black hole as the Michael Moore of gravitational pulls; it consumes matter at such a high rate that the vaccuum it creates as it gets larger and larger becomes inescapable. So you can see how the idea of such a thing being created at CERN would be cause for the Chicken Littles to worry.
However, the good news is two fold:
1) They won't start actually running the LHC until this weekend, so we have plenty of time to run up huge debts on Ferraris and mansions that we'll never have to pay for once the rift between matter and anti-matter is breached. Or something.
2) Since the LHC is located in Europe, we'll enjoy the sight of watching all of them get sucked in first. Hell, it should be televised. Maybe we can get ESPN to drop one of the college games and carry The LHC's Black Hole vs. The Known Universe.
Yes, yes. You see, here in the shank household, we are patrons of the arts; and we believe that the modern person should make every effort to expose oneself to all things cultural. We place the utmost value on taking in theatrical presentations, the opera, and orchestral concerts.
Which is why The Wife and I are heading to Charleston, SC this weekend to catch Ron White's show. Yep. Should be a real cultural event.
We've got a hotel near the convention center for Friday night, and then Saturday we're staying with an old friend who lives in the area.
I've never been to a big comedy show like this. Do they serve drinks? Are the drinks a ripoff? What about food? If I go to the bathroom, will the show be playing over a loudspeaker or anything? How awesome would it be if I could get a picture with him? Would it be as awesome as a post that consisted entirely of questions? Hmm? Would it?