Just got home from Indy, a real pleasure to finally put faces to blogs, and roughly 20 folks made it. More later, butt draggin…
This came from somebody that obviously DIDN’T grow up in the South, and sounds kinda like they weren’t real impressed with our flora and fauna…
(Y’all read this, heah?)
A possum is a flat animal that sleeps in the middle of the road.
There are 5,000 types of snakes and 4,998 of them live in the South.
There are 10,000 types of spiders. All 10,000 of them live in the South, plus a couple no-one’s seen before.
If it grows, it’ll stick ya. If it crawls, it’ll bite cha.
Onced and Twiced are words.
It is not a shopping cart, it is a buggy!
Jawl-P? means, Did y’all go to the bathroom?
People actually grow,eat and like okra (pronounced “okry”).
Fixinto is one word. It means: I’m going to do that.
There is no such thing as lunch. There is only dinner and then there’s supper.
Iced tea is appropriate for all meals and you start drinking it when you’re two. We do like a little tea with our sugar. It is referred to as the Wine of the South.
Backwards and forwards means: I know everything about you.
The word jeet is actually a question meaning, ‘Did you eat?’
You don’t have to wear a watch, because it doesn’t matter what time it is, you work until you’re done or it’s too dark to see.
You don’t PUSH buttons, you MASH em.
Ya’ll is singular. All ya’ll is plural.
All the festivals across the state are named after a fruit, vegetable, grain, insect, or animal.
You carry jumper cables in your car – for your OWN car.
You own only five spices: salt, pepper, mustard, Tabasco and ketchup.
The local papers cover national and international news on one page, but require 6 pages for local high school sports, the motor sports, and gossip.
You think that the first day of deer season is a national holiday.
You know what a hissy fit is..
Fried catfish is the other white meat.
We don’t need no dang Driver’s Ed. If mama says we can drive, we can drive!!!
And you wonder why ‘Hooked on Phonics’ doesn’t work so well in the South… 🙂
Well, here it comes, the second ‘disaster’ in a week for the DC Metro region…
Panic buying- Check (try finding toilet paper or bottled water, or bread)
Media Hype- Check (including dragging out the 1930-something Hurricane that hit NY and Conn)…
Traffic hosed- Check (including the obligatory beater packed to the gills, weaving in and out of traffic)
Obigatory sob-story interview- Check (“Me and my NINE chirruns don’t gots no power, no food, the gubbermint ain’t doin nuthin; as her cell phone rings in her Gucci handbag)
Rampant rumormongering- Check
TEOTWAWKI- Two ‘disasters’ we can’t take anymore…
They are gonna turn off power (Ocean City, MD)
They are gonna turn off water (Ocean City, MD)
The Washington Monument is gonna fall over/be blown over.
Washington is gonna flood… (not necessarily a BAD thing… Just sayin)
There gonna be BODIES in the streets (again)
The Republicans did this to hurt the Obamallama- I don’t EVEN get this one… All he’s going do is blame it on Bush.
They’re going to confiscate guns (DC)
I can’t get FILL IN THE BLANK…
Sigh…
The “actual” forcast is for 60% chance of rain Sat starting about noon, ‘possible’ flooding of low lying areas, 70% chance of rain Sun, with winds to 28kts…
We truly ARE idiots…
First and foremost, Ambulance Driver has a blog challenge post up to benefit Male cancer organizations, go HERE and read the post and sign up. There are some good prizes that have been donated, and they are ALL worth it. Please take the time to sign up and participate, it IS for a good cause (it’s all about keeping our ‘bits’ working as advertised)… Just sayin…
And I’ll play along on the book meme…
And I’ll play along on the book meme…
Via Mostly Cajun, and a WHOLE bunch of other folks, the NPR’s Top 100 Science Fiction and Fantasy novels with the ones I have read in bold:
1. The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy, by J.R.R. Tolkien
2. The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, by Douglas Adams
3. Ender’s Game, by Orson Scott Card- This SHOULD be required reading for everybody today! It is now on the required reading list for the Military!
4. The Dune Chronicles, by Frank Herbert Well, I read the original and that was it… Lost interest…
5. A Song Of Ice And Fire Series, by George R. R. Martin
6. 1984, by George Orwell
7. Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury
8. The Foundation Trilogy, by Isaac Asimov
9. Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
10. American Gods, by Neil Gaiman
11. The Princess Bride, by William Goldman
12. The Wheel Of Time Series, by Robert Jordan
13. Animal Farm, by George Orwell
14. Neuromancer, by William Gibson
15. Watchmen, by Alan Moore
16. I, Robot, by Isaac Asimov – THIS was one of Isaac’s best.
17. Stranger In A Strange Land, by Robert Heinlein
18. The Kingkiller Chronicles, by Patrick Rothfuss
19. Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut
20. Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley
21. Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?, by Philip K. Dick
22. The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood
23. The Dark Tower Series, by Stephen King
24. 2001: A Space Odyssey, by Arthur C. Clarke
25. The Stand, by Stephen King
26. Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson
27. The Martian Chronicles, by Ray Bradbury
28. Cat’s Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut- Another HARD read…
29. The Sandman Series, by Neil Gaiman
30. A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess
31. Starship Troopers, by Robert Heinlein
32. Watership Down, by Richard Adams
33. Dragonflight, by Anne McCaffrey
34. The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, by Robert Heinlein
35. A Canticle For Leibowitz, by Walter M. Miller
36. The Time Machine, by H.G. Wells
37. 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, by Jules Verne
38. Flowers For Algernon, by Daniel Keys
39. The War Of The Worlds, by H.G. Wells
40. The Chronicles Of Amber, by Roger Zelazny
41. The Belgariad, by David Eddings
42. The Mists Of Avalon, by Marion Zimmer Bradley
43. The Mistborn Series, by Brandon Sanderson
44. Ringworld, by Larry Niven
45. The Left Hand Of Darkness, by Ursula K. LeGuin
46. The Silmarillion, by J.R.R. Tolkien This one was HARD to get through…
47. The Once And Future King, by T.H. White
48. Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman
49. Childhood’s End, by Arthur C. Clarke
50. Contact, by Carl Sagan
51. The Hyperion Cantos, by Dan Simmons
52. Stardust, by Neil Gaiman
53. Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson
54. World War Z, by Max Brooks
55. The Last Unicorn, by Peter S. Beagle
56. The Forever War, by Joe Haldeman
57. Small Gods, by Terry Pratchett – I will be. I’ve actually read ALL his books…
58. The Chronicles Of Thomas Covenant, The Unbeliever, by Stephen R. Donaldson
59. The Vorkosigan Saga, by Lois McMaster Bujold
60. Going Postal, by Terry Pratchett
61. The Mote In God’s Eye, by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle
62. The Sword Of Truth, by Terry Goodkind
63. The Road, by Cormac McCarthy
64. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, by Susanna Clarke
65. I Am Legend, by Richard Matheson
66. The Riftwar Saga, by Raymond E. Feist
67. The Shannara Trilogy, by Terry Brooks
68. The Conan The Barbarian Series, by R.E. Howard
69. The Farseer Trilogy, by Robin Hobb
70. The Time Traveler’s Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger
71. The Way Of Kings, by Brandon Sanderson
72. A Journey To The Center Of The Earth, by Jules Verne
73. The Legend Of Drizzt Series, by R.A. Salvatore
74. Old Man’s War, by John Scalzi- Read all three of his…
75. The Diamond Age, by Neil Stephenson
76. Rendezvous With Rama, by Arthur C. Clarke
77. The Kushiel’s Legacy Series, by Jacqueline Carey
78. The Dispossessed, by Ursula K. LeGuin
79. Something Wicked This Way Comes, by Ray Bradbury
80. Wicked, by Gregory Maguire
81. The Malazan Book Of The Fallen Series, by Steven Erikson
82. The Eyre Affair, by Jasper Fforde
83. The Culture Series, by Iain M. Banks
84. The Crystal Cave, by Mary Stewart
85. Anathem, by Neal Stephenson
86. The Codex Alera Series, by Jim Butcher
87. The Book Of The New Sun, by Gene Wolfe
88. The Thrawn Trilogy, by Timothy Zahn
89. The Outlander Series, by Diana Gabaldan
90. The Elric Saga, by Michael Moorcock
91. The Illustrated Man, by Ray Bradbury
92. Sunshine, by Robin McKinley
93. A Fire Upon The Deep, by Vernor Vinge
94. The Caves Of Steel, by Isaac Asimov
95. The Mars Trilogy, by Kim Stanley Robinson – And after I was done, my reaction was “Meh.”
96. Lucifer’s Hammer, by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle
97. Doomsday Book, by Connie Willis
98. Perdido Street Station, by China Mieville
99. The Xanth Series, by Piers Anthony
100. The Space Trilogy, by C.S. Lewis
I’ve read over half of them, after all those LOOOOOONG flights are good for something, along with a bunch of nights in hotels…
I also recommend getting an e-reader, as they DO save money, space, and are convenient as hell 🙂
But some, like Gaiman, I just can’t get into… Others not on the list, Andre Norton, Spider Robinson, John Ringo, David Drake, and a bunch of others in the long past…
Sadly, if you gave this list to a teen today, I’d have doubts that they would have read 10 of them…
And if you go over to Kevin’s blog Smallest Minority, he’s starting his own Top 100 list!
Well, it’s pretty bad when we not only get California weather in DC, but we get the earthquakes too!!!
It was a little 5.9er felt like mostly S-waves, and probably lasted 15 seconds…
We were sitting in class (again, dammit), and about 60 miles from the epicenter when it let go. My coffee cup started dancing, I picked it up, looked across the table at one of the other folks (TAD here from California) who was doing the same thing, and we both said Earthquake at the same time!
The instructor didn’t know what to do, so we ‘suggested’ evacuating, since the building we were in was build in 1938…
We got outside and everyone was trying to figure out if ‘something’ big blew up (or got hit), or that was REALLY an earthquake… I sent a quick text to my daughters to let them know no problems, and then watched as everybody tried to use their cells at the same time (and about 1 in 30 actually got through).
As typically happens, the system was overloaded in about a minute, and everybody was getting more and more frustrated. About 15 minutes later, we go back to class, only to be booted out at 1500, since the powers that be weren’t ‘sure’ the building was safe, AND as we found out, they kicked EVERYFRIGGINBODY loose at the same time…
Roads were a @#&* mess, it took me 1 1/2 hours to go 16 miles home… sigh…
And the phones didn’t really come back up until about a hour after the quake happened… Initial reports, no serious injuries, no deaths, we were shaken but not stirred.
AND I got @#^% homework now… sigh
Mudbug made this comment over a Troublesome Times and as far as I’m concerned, he wins the Interwebz today!
I always wondered what would happen if all of the Founding Fathers rolled over in their graves at once… interesting.
Do we have to ‘relearn’ this???
“The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt.
People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance.”
– Cicero – 55 BC
And a bit of humor to start the week…
Why Some Men Have a Dog And No Wife:
|
1. The later you are, the more excited your
dogs are to see you.
2. Dogs don’t notice if you call them by
another dog’s name.
3. Dogs like it if you leave a lot of things on
the floor. 4. A dog’s parents never visit.
5. Dogs agree that you have to raise your
voice to get your point across.
6. Dogs find you amusing when you’re
drunk. 7. Dogs like to go hunting and fishing.
8. A dog will not wake you up at night to
ask, “If I died, would you get another dog?”
9. If a dog has babies, you can put an ad in
the paper and give them away.
10. If a dog smells another dog on you, they
don’t get mad. They just think it’s interesting.
And last but not least, If a dog leaves, it
won’t take half of your stuff. |
So I was working on my To Do list today…
I dropped by my favorite gun store today to buy ammo, and we got to discussing ‘pocket carry’, and I think 3/4 of the customers were carrying snubbies…
And there were THREE of us carrying old Colts 🙂 The rest, I think all but one were carrying S&W and one lady had a Taurus in her purse. The rest varied from LCR to P-3AT to one older gent with a Browning 1910!!!
So what is YOUR favorite pocket carry or carries as the case may be?
And leaving the gun store I saw a truck with the license plate RED N3K 🙂 And he had a bumper sticker on the back that said-
Paddle faster I hear BANJOS!!! 🙂
And on a more serious note, Ambulance Driver is posting a blog challenge for all of us to support Prostate Cancer and Testicular Cancer awareness in September. There will be significant prizes for the winner (trust me on this). You can check out his lead up post HERE. While “I” will not be wearing a kilt, I will be supporting the effort, and ask all of you to do the same when AD gets the details up.
For those who don’t read AD, he’s a good ol’ boy from Louisiana, career Paramedic, damn sarcastic, pretty decent shot, and one of the few I call a true friend (in other words, I WOULD put up bail $$)…
I hope each and everyone can take a break from the current insanity at least for a while, and enjoy time with family, at the range, flying, or what ever your ‘passion’ is… We ALL need a bit of downtime.
Looks like MORE cuts are coming for the Military…
At what point do we just turn off the lights, close the doors, and stop being America so that MORE $$ can go to entitlements???
At what point does the Eagle become a Buzzard, picking over the carcass of this once great nation?
So…
I’m wasting a couple of weeks attending ‘certification’ classes in stuff I’ve been doing for 20 + years, just so I can get a check in the box, since it’s now been mandated…
So, Monday morning I go into the ‘administration’ office and ask what are the requirements to have the classes waived? Previous qualifications, experience, recommendations???
I get the usual ‘form’ letter…
So I go back and dig out my original certification from the Navy, my last 8 years worth of job descriptions, etc.
There is a block for ‘professional associations’, ‘continuing education’, e.g. the usual BS…
So today I go in to talk to them on a break, and guess what; I cannot be ‘grandfathered’ because I don’t meet their ‘minimum’ requirements!!!
So naturally I ask what minimum requirements?
Well, no CE credits in the last 8 years, my certification is too ‘old’, and my job descriptions are not in the ‘proper format’ and don’t list my duties by primary and secondary requirements.
Say WHAT???
So I’m told with a straight face- Well, if I’d been a member of the ‘organization’ for the past 10 years and taken the CE credits, I’d be fine; as they would have accepted my previous designation. And if I had followed their ‘recommended’ format for job descriptions, it would all be fine.
Soooo… If I had VOLUNTARILY joined your ‘organization’ (e.g. paid you membership money for 10 years) AND paid your ‘organization’ (more money) for CE training it would be all good?
And managed to convince the people that I work for that my job descriptions HAD to be formatted in a specific way (that I had never seen and didn’t know existed), that would be okay?
So if I want to protest the lack of grandfathering?
Well, our ‘organization’ makes those determinations…
Soooo… Since I didn’t VOLUNTARILY join an ‘organization’ that was not required, and use a format that was not required, and the ‘organization’ has determined that my previous qualification is too old, and there is no protest allowed, and you have managed to weasel your way into this being a mandatory qualification…
I have NO OPTION but to now attend your classes (so you get paid BIG$$)…
Yep, you’ve created the perfect self-licking ice cream cone…
And she wondered why I walked out of there a tad pissed.
And I’ve gotta take ANOTHER @#&* class next week!
The inmates and bean counters have TRULY taken over the asylum…
Howinthehellhavewecometothis? What happened to actually being ‘qualified’ based on your initial training, ability to do the job, and follow the procedures you were required to use?
If you weren’t doing the job, the result was your ass was fired!
Sigh… I’m getting WAY too old for this BS…
One of however many I feel like driving my BP up with tonight…
Text:
Obama’s Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack: “Well, obviously, it’s putting people to work. Which is why we’re going to have some interesting things in the course of the forum this morning. Later this morning, we’re going have a press conference with Secretary Mavis and Secretary Chu to announce something that’s never happened in this country — something that we think is exciting in terms of job growth. I should point out, when you talk about the SNAP program or the food stamp program, you have to recognize that it’s also an economic stimulus. Every dollar of SNAP benefits generates $1.84 in the economy in terms of economic activity. If people are able to buy a little more in the grocery store, someone has to stock it, package it, shelve it, process it, ship it. All of those are jobs. It’s the most direct stimulus you can get in the economy during these tough times.”
Video HERE
Well, I guess he has the answer: Put more people out of work so they can go on Food Stamp and we’ll have a remarkable economic recovery. I’m in utter awe of his intellect!!! NOT…
And by now everybody has heard of the $1M bus for the Prez…
Except that one is none, so you know damn well they bought TWO (oh wait a minute, there are actually TWO buses in the caravan), make that FOUR buses!!!
And Marine One plus back-up are within a specific ‘range’ of the Prez at all times, and Air Force One plus at least one C-17 is sitting somewhere close, plus the advanced parties for each location (each team is 10 plus personnel), and, and, etc…
In other words, this little “poor man’s bus tour” is probably costing we the people about $10M… Bus video HERE
AND the Prez basically said the Republicans are ‘treasonous’ today, because they are ‘holding the US hostage, by playing politics’…
Say WHAT??? Aren’t the Democrats doing EXACTLY the same thing???
Sigh…
And now one to piss y’all off 🙂 Link HERE
I don’t understand, ‘5 years of supervised release’ for Mexican nationals (illegals)
Will it be here?… live on US teat for another 5 years for probation after release?…. or Mexico after deportation? (yea, that’s gonna work)
Luis Angel Cruz–Jimenez, 25, a Mexican national, was sentenced today to 37 months in prison for possession with intent to distribute 50 grams or more of methamphetamine. Cruz–Jimenez will also be required to serve three years of supervised release. He pled guilty on May 3.
Sentenced on July 8 on related drug charges were Mexican nationals
Julio Jimenez–Morales, 30, to 108 months in prison, and Jose Penaloza–Paramo, 30, to 240 months in prison. Both men will be required to serve five years of supervised release following their prison term. Jimenez–Morales was ordered to forfeit $10,000; Penaloza-Paramo, $39,000.
Collado–Rojas was sentenced on July 18 to 151 months in prison followed by five years of supervised release.
Vega–Corona will be required to serve three years of supervised release after his prison term.
And now that your BP is up about at level of mine, a great little three minute film that gives us hope…
HERE
Remember, tomorrow is hump day, so stay away from male dogs… 🙂