A worthy effort

The rumors are true -- The Hawg writes quite a few paid posts.

This isn't one of them.

No, there are just times when a company is so great that I feel compelled to brag on them for free. In this case, the company engaged in a worthy effort is OTRCat.com (Old Time Radio Catalog). I was thinking very highly of Jon over at OTRCat this weekend as my wife, family and I were on a trip to northwest Arkansas to see my nephew graduate from high school.

We took a bunch of Henry Aldrich MP3s with us on the trip and that just made the journey go that much quicker. For those not familiar with old time radio (or "OTR" as its rabid fans call it), those are the shows that emerged in the Golden Age of Radio. Before there was television, people used to gather around the radio for entertainment and, in fact, some of the most classic dramas (Dragnet, Gunsmoke, The Lone Ranger, etc.) and great comedies (Jack Benny Show, Burns & Allen, etc.) started out as radio programs and made the jump to television.

Sadly, we're rapidly losing the generation that grew up on those programs, and Jon is to be commended on his attempts to preserve a part of our history and pass it on to people like me who weren't even alive during the Golden Age of Radio. I got hooked on those shows years ago as my dad and I listened to Lum and Abner reruns on a radio station out of Hot Springs, Ark., in the 1970s and early '80s.

For those who weren't treated with such an introduction to OTR, Jon makes it easy. He offers free downloads on a daily basis, generally has themed programs up for downloads on holidays and regularly has special packages at amazingly low prices. Also, he's got guides over there that instruct people how to get started in the world of OTR. Regardless, the free samples are ideal for those who might have heard of a program but aren't sure they'll like it.

The programs are sold for dirt cheap, the quality is generally better than can be expected (we're talking about really old recordings here, folks) and Jon is a heck of a nice guy (yes, I've ordered programs from him before -- the shipping was quick and the communications with Jon are fantastic). Go pay that site a visit, folks, and you might just discover that collecting old time radio shows is an immensely entertaining and worthwhile hobby.

...worth a thousand words

This weekend, we went up to northwest Arkansas to see my nephew, Jeffery, graduate from Rogers High School with more honors than you can shake a stick at.

The photo here pretty well says it all. Young Jeffery was surprised by the appearance of his father, Jeff, who is currently training to go to Afghanistan. Jeff is a staff sergeant in the Air Force and Jeffery is going to West Point in the fall.

How's that for a military family?

So, congratulations, Jeffery! I'm sure you'll do us all proud.

Kriss Allen wins 'American Idol,' fake kiss still sucks

Another season of American Idol has ended and Arkansas' own Kris Allen is the winner.

Frankly, I've never been all that interested in American Idol, but I kept up with it a bit because a good, Arkansas boy from Conway won it all. So, congratulations to him.

Ah, but I'm not going to spend too much time writing about that as a lot of people more interested in the show than me have already covered it.

No, I'm going to do my usual thing and gripe about something that annoys me. Specifically, I'm good and mad about fake kiss (the lack of capitalization is intentional -- don't bug me about).

During the brief time I spent watching American Idol tonight, I saw Allen's competitor -- Adam Lambert -- on stage singing with fake kiss. What is fake kiss? Not real KISS, that's what.

Of course, KISS in its prime consisted of four members -- Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, Ace Frehley and Peter Criss. Yes, those lads dominated the 1970s with their pop metal stylings, but it all went bad one day. Yes, drummer Peter Criss didn't play a note on 1979's Dynasty album and was officially out of the band after 1980's Unmasked was released. Whiz-bang guitarist Ace Frehley, meanwhile, pretty much didn't give a damn what the band did as a result of the truly awful Music from "The Elder" was released in 1981, didn't play a note on 1982's Creatures of the Night and was on his way out the door soon after that album was released.

KISS staggered along for awhile and, in the mid 1990s, the original four members of the band united. Through the 80s and early 1990s, the band wore no makeup and thrilled fans by announcing the original members would put on their full costumes once again and hit the road. Yes, all seemed right with KISS.

Well, except for the fact that Criss and Frehley left the band again. Now, here's where the fake kiss part comes in -- they've been running around for the past few years with Eric Singer dressed up as Frehley and Tommy Thayer wearing the makeup that Criss made famous. Blasphemy! Blasted fake kiss.

The members of fake kiss have announced a new album and I'm already prepared to hate it. Running around with a couple of people pretending to be Frehley and Criss? That just drives me up the damned wall. Lambert deserved to fail just for being on the same stage with fake kiss.

Meanwhile, Frehley is still mixing his next album. I think I'll buy that one instead.

What the hell?

Well, well, well -- more bizarre news out of Washington.

What a surprise.

Of course, President Barack Obama announced some new mileage and emissions standards today that raise a ton of questions. Well, a lot of Americans will get around to pondering those questions after the fun of laughingly waving at SUV and pickup truck owners with Obama stickers on them wears off, at least.

Essentially, we're looking at some pretty stringent fuel economy requirements by 2016 -- 39 MPG on average for cars and 30 MPG on average for SUVs and pickup trucks. The thought, of course, is that car manufacturers will have to come up with vehicles that are smaller, lighter and more efficient.

What's the problem with that? Those of us who have been doing the "right" thing all along will be the ones getting penalized. Hey, my vehicle of choice -- a Toyota Matrix -- is classified as a small SUV and, as such, would meet that 30 MPG average requirement. Why do I drive a Matrix? Because I choose to do so and I've always gone for smaller, more efficient cars (they're cheap, reliable and I can run them to death without feeling any guilt). Obama's lackeys have predicted that cars will cost an average of $1,300 more due to the new regulations. So, I'll buy the kind of vehicle I was going to buy anyway and I'll get to pay more for it. What a bargain.

And let's not forget that we are undoubtedly looking a higher taxes due to the insane bailouts pushed for by both George W. Bush and Obama. Why on earth, then, would the government purposefully go out of its way to make vehicles more expensive, too?

Further, I can't help but think we're being set up in a way. If we look at the history of the American automotive industry, we'll see the big three tend to face major problems when big, gas-guzzling vehicles fall out of favor with the public. Yet, the Big 3 appear to be on board with Obama's latest plan.

Why? Why on earth would they be in support of a plan that seems to push them closer to extinction? A logical answer might be that we're cooking up some protectionism through which tariffs would be slapped on cars made by companies based outside of the U.S. in order to help American companies become more competitive.

That answer makes a lot of sense, really, when you consider the Japanese are far ahead of the Americans on Hybrid technology and GM seems intent on finding a market for its Volt. Let's see -- it will cost $35,000 to $40,000 whereas a base model Prius costs $22,000 and a fully loaded one sells for $27,000. The Prius is a proven vehicle whereas the highly experimental Volt is, well, not. Further, the Volt is one of those weird "plug it into a wall socket" vehicles manufactured by a company that tends to make garbage when out of its comfort zone (remember the Oldsmobile Omega, the Chevy Cavalier and the Chevy Vega?) How do you make the Volt viable in that atmosphere? How do you convince Americans to shell out up to $40,000 on a vehicle that might turn out to be yet another lemon? The answer is simple -- tax the living hell out of the Prius and artificially inflate the price of it. You'd better believe the same government that has spent billions of dollars bailing out GM would be more than willing to blatantly interfere in the free market and rip off consumers on that level.

Hey, a pimp will take some measures to protect his whores, right?

Music Monday -- KISS unplugged!

Here's an oldie but a goodie. Remember that MTV unplugged back in the mid-1990s when the original four members of KISS appeared on the same space for the first time in years? Here's whiz-kid guitarist Ace Frehley and the rest of the lads playing "2,000 Man." Enjoy, and remember that Ace has a new album coming out soon. Good times!

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South Bend cops too gentle

I was reading a story about President Barack Obama's stop at Notre Dame during his Hopes and Dreams '09 tour and couldn't help but feel a little let down by the light treatment the pesky protesters received.

According to an AP story, one of the people resisting Obama's odd appearance at a Catholic university is Norma McCorvey, the plaintiff identified as "Roe" in the Roe V. Wade Supreme Court decision that made abortion legal.

It seems that McCorvey is now one of those anti-abortion types and she went to protest Saint Obama with the intent of getting tossed in jail. However, she said the security hired to keep protesters in line in South Bend, Ind., were downright gentle with her. A cop, seemingly, allowed her to chance to walk away from the scene instead of whopping her upside the head and tossing her in a paddy wagon.

"I didn't know why he just kind of gently moved me away. So I'm like, maybe this isn't the right time," McCorvey said.

I'm downright shocked by all of this. Here in Arkansas, people who opposed Bill Clinton had to put up with some real threats.

We got hooted at by Clinton's "truth squads" when getting anywhere near a polling place when Bill was running against Sheffield Nelson during the 1990 gubernatorial election. The homeless in downtown Little Rock are gathered up and shipped off to God knows where (I think that's somewhere in south Little Rock) when the former president is in town visiting that double-wide trailer that serves as the Clinton presidential library.

And do you think University of Arkansas students were allowed to display the enemy's campaign propaganda when Clinton visted the college during the 1992 and 1996 presidential campaigns? Hell no! There's nothing like the threat of expulsion or the levying of some form of nonsense criminal charge to keep the pesky dissenters in line, is there?

Again, I'm disappointed that those South Bend cops simply refuse to be brutal to the protesters who dare show up and complain about that saintly Obama character. It seems certain that some protesters will get arrested, but where's the inhumane abuse in that? An arrest just lasts for a bit, but some scars inflicted by thugs wearing jackboots last forever.

Pittsburgh Pirates in good shape to set a record!

As I've whined about on this here blog before, I'm a Pittsburgh Pirates fan.

Generally, that is a cause for great shame. The Pirates are terrible and show absolutely no signs of improving one whit.

Ah, but the very source of that shame has turned into a reason for Pirates fans around the nation to feel great pride in that terrible team. Why? Pittsburgh is knocking on the door of destiny -- that little team is on the verge of officially being saddled with the honor of being the worst franchise in professional sports.

How? Pittsburgh has had 16 losing seasons in a row and, as such, is tied with the Philadelphia Phillies for having the worst record in baseball. That's right -- we've not seen a record that horrible since the Phillies piled up 16 losing seasons from 1933-1949. No team in the NBA, NFL or NHL has put up that many consecutive, losing seasons.

If Pittsburgh manages to turn in another losing season, the team will be the only one on professional sports to have 17 horrible seasons in a row. The record-setting Pirates are well on their way to earning the recognition for doing what they do best -- playing really, really terrible baseball.

How bad are they? The Pirates ought to get the word "suck" copyrighted as no one is as terrible as Pittsburgh. Think your team sucks? You're wrong -- Pittsburgh owns the word. If the team was an auto manufacturer it would be Chrysler. If the team was a presidential candidate it would be Mike Dukakis. If the team was a world power in World War II it would be France.

Ah, there were some that thought the Pirates wouldn't make it to that magical 17th season of suckitude. The team started off the year with an 11-7 record, causing some to express doubt that they'd fulfill their destiny of being the worst pro team in the country.

I always had faith in the Pirates, however, and they've silenced all the mean-spirited doubters by quickly dropping the past 12 of 13 games leading them to the current 12-19 record and their well deserved, last place position in the NL Central. Way to stink it up, Pirates! I knew you could do it.

Besides, Pittsburgh has started off hot in a few seasons over the past 17 years and it always end the same. That should come as a surprise to no one. Just have a look at the nobodies that dot the Pirates' roster and you'll understand why I'm certain the team won't disappoint all of us who believe the team will set a record this year. With a bunch of players like that, there's almost no way the team won't fail miserably and achieve immortality in the process.

I'm going to be so bold as to predict that the Pirates will not only blow this season but will tank next year and probably fail a few more times before actually stringing enough wins to finish up above .500. The Pirates have that losing formula down and I can't imagine they'll do a whole lot to change it.

That golden, losing formula works like this. Let's say Pittsburgh has an outstanding player. They will trade that player for, say, three prospects. Let's assume two of those prospects are terrible and one turns out to be spectacular. The terrible prospects will become franchise players while the spectacular one will be traded for more prospects.

The pattern repeats itself every year, thus insuring that Pittsburgh will remain inept almost every year. Such dedication to sucking is to be applauded -- most clubs merely want to win games and reach the World Series, but those lads in Pittsburgh have a different agenda.

No, the owners of that team obviously want to suck worse than any club in the history of professional sports in the United States. They set their goals way on back in 1992 after the team that almost reached the World Series disbanded through free agency. Thanks to those visionaries, the Pirates will -- without a doubt -- set a record that will stand for a long, long time.

Good luck, Pirates! You stink like no one else can or probably ever will. Good job, lads!

Plant theft?

Folks, just what the hell is this world coming to?

A few months ago, my office moved to a new location. There was plenty of landscaping done at the new building and a good chunk of that included a lot of those scrubby little shrubs that are so nondescript that they fade into the background.

Some people took notice of them, however. Last week, a thief ran off with 27 of the things and had to be replaced for $1,400. Who the hell runs around town stealing shrubs? I've learned over the past few days that a lot of shrubs are turning up missing around Little Rock. I wasn't aware there was a black market for shrubbery, but such a thing does apparently exist.

There are two things to learn from this. First of all, my office is in Little Rock and this theft is a great example of why I live in Benton and commute about 20 miles to work everyday. Those Little Rock folks will steal anything that's not tied down.

Second, we were robbed twice. The first time we were ripped off by the company that had the audacity to charge $51.85 per scrubby shrub and the second time was by the folks who loaded those shrubs up in the middle of the night and made off with them.

Actually, we got robbed three times -- we had to pay to have the shrubs replaced to the tune of $51.85 per bush.

As usual, the folks at my organization have overreacted by purchasing a security system that is to be installed soon. I'm not sure how much that system costs, but it's a safe bet it will be worth more than the shrubs it will monitor.

Furthermore, an external security system isn't that hard to thwart. What if the sneaky thieves decide to show up in ski masks and unmarked trucks? What if you capture a couple of people who can't be identified on video and show it to the cops? With the amount of crime in Little Rock, I can't imagine the police will dedicate a lot of resources to tracking down a bunch of shrub thieves.

Maybe the "security system" plan will work fine. Those cameras do come with big, intimidating signs that warn of electronic surveillance. Maybe that threat will be enough to convince the shrub thieves to move on down the road and hit an easier target. What would be a lot cooler, of course, would be a couple of angry dogs patrolling the perimeter. Yeah. That would be a lot cooler than a bunch of easily-tricked video cameras.

Regardless, the mind boggles. $51.85 for a shrub? No wonder people are stealing them all over Little Rock.

Oh, here's another odd thing. My office is located near the FBI building in Little Rock. The thought was the proximity to the feds would effectively cut down on crime in the area. Evidently, that assumption was very wrong.

I do hope our victimized shrubs found a good home after being put on the black market. We can only hope. Thinking otherwise is just too painful.

Music Monday -- New Duncan Imperials

These boys put on the best show I've seen -- I caught them in Fayetteville, Ark., at JR's Lightbulb Club around 1993. The members of the band, of course, are Pigtail Dick (guitar and lead vocals), Skipper Zwakinov (bass and backing vocals) and Mr. Goodtime Dammit (drums). Enjoy!

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Pepsi does something right

Here at Casa de Hawg, we've always hated Pepsi products with a passion.

Pepsi is generally regarded in these parts as "too northern" for us Coke-swilling folks and a lot of us tend to avoid it. Yes, Pepsi was originally developed in North Carolina and Coca-Cola was formulated in Atlanta, but the perception is what it is.

The folks at Pepsi, however, have finally done something absolutely right -- the company makes a cola that is flavored with real sugar instead of that dreadful corn syrup garbage. That's right -- Pepsi Throwback is sweetened with sugar instead of corn rot, and the stuff tastes great.

How great? I'd take this stuff over Coca-Cola and its dreadful corn sweetener any day of the week. It doesn't taste quite so chemical and sickening as the corn syrup stuff. Oddly, the stuff doesn't taste as "thick" as regular Pepsi and it's a bit fizzier. Besides, I get enough industrial-grade chemicals when I drink Diet Coke, so why would I want more of that slop in a regular glass of cola?

Still, I'd love it if Coca-Cola would follow suit and offer Coke sweetened with real sugar. Hopefully that will be the case and people will love the stuff, thus prompting more drinks filled with sugar instead of corn garbage. I hope we're seeing the beginning of a trend here.

Oh, Pepsi has also released Mountain Dew with real sugar, but who cares? Head on over to the Pepsi Throwback site for more information.

By the way, my wife tells me that pouring Pepsi into a Coca-Cola glass is sacrilege. I'll have to do that more often.

The Hawg considering a career change?

There are times when being a sports fan is just downright aggravating.

I'll give you an example -- I've been a fan of the Pittsburgh Pirates since about 1977. There's a team that hasn't had a winning season since 1992 and things aren't likely to change for that horrible club anytime soon.

Baseball season, then, isn't much fun.

It appears that football season isn't going to be much fun, either. I've rooted for the Denver Broncos for even longer than I've rooted for the Pirates. Watching the Broncos in the 1980s was difficult as the team made it to the Super Bowl three times at the end of that decade and got stomped into the ground each time.

Ah, but the team has been more competitive than not through the years and actually won a couple of Super Bowls in 1998 and 1999. Even when the team wasn't having a championship season, the Broncos have typically been in the running.

It appears all that has changed. What the hell is wrong with the folks running that club? Did they -- in a drunken haze -- decide it would be a good idea to fire coach Mike Shanahan? Were they hitting the Coors Light so hard that they figured hiring that kid, Josh McDaniels, to replace Shanahan was the right thing to do? How on earth did they wind up trading quarterback Jay Cutler to the Chicago Bears for Kyle Orton?

Kyle Orton? Seriously? Could they have found a bigger nobody of a quarterback than Kyle Orton? He wears #18 because that's how many people have heard of him. I hear Ryan Leaf is working at a parking garage somewhere in west Texas these days. Couldn't they have offered the job to him?

The thing that bugs me the most about all of the alcohol-fueled insanity that has possibly hit Denver was the decision to fire Shanahan then turn around and hire a punk kid to replace him. Now, don't go defending McDaniels. Hiring him was the wrong thing to do. Period. I'm right on this and anyone who disagrees is flat out wrong. That little 33-year-old nobody has done absolutely nothing to warrant being named head coach of a middle-tier college team, much less an NFL club.

Let's take a look at this little zit's resume, shall we? In 1999 and 2000 his daddy got him a job as a graduate assistant at Michigan State under Nick Saban. He spent 2001 getting coffee for people in the New England Patriots organization and was an assistant defensive coach in 2002 and 2003. From there he became the quarterbacks coach and was named offensive coordinator -- a position he kept for two whole years before being named the damned head coach of the damned Broncos.

Apparently, the Democrats ran all of the bums out of Denver when they had their convention there last year. With no bums available to take the job, McDaniels got it. As a bonus, he is also the recipient of the "Luckiest Undeserving Bastard on the Planet" award.

Well, by God, I'm not going to put up with this. I've watched the Pirates go to hell and I'm not going to sit still and watch zippy the wonder kid shove the Broncos down the same path. I'll take that coaching job at Denver and I'll be great at it, too. Here are my qualifications.

1. I like football, like, a lot. That's right. I'm 39-years-old and I've been watching football since before McDaniels was alive. I may not have spent a year running errands for the Patriots and my daddy might not have gotten me a job at Michigan State, but I do know the point of football is to (as John Madden once put it) to move the ball down the field while keeping the other team from doing the same thing. That ought to count for something, right?

2. My sister-in-law is from Denver. That's right -- The Hawg has ties to that fair city. What does Josh McDaniels have? Nothing, that's what. He's an Ohio boy and spent time in Michigan and the East Coast before giggling his way through a job interview in Denver. Compared to him, I'm practically a local. Who wouldn't want to see a local boy guide their team to victory?

3. I played a lot of that Tudor Electric Football as a kid. Oh, you go right ahead and laugh. Laugh, laugh, laugh it up, ace. I can do some strategy, man. Do you know how hard it is to win a game based solely on running plays because the "triple threat" quarterback doesn't work worth a damn? I do, kids. I was an innovator back in my Tudor Electric Football days, too. I developed the "pack two rows of linemen in front of the running back" play, the "move the little dial things so that everyone runs to the right (or left) to confuse the other team" play and the famed "arrange all those players in an unstoppable wedge and march down the field" play. I've got the ability to come up with solutions to difficult problems, see. Who wouldn't want that?

4. Institutional knowledge. While McDaniels was trying to figure out how not to pee his diaper, I was watching the Broncos face the Dallas Cowboys in the Super Bowl. I know full well the importance of that team to the fair city of Denver and will do my best to keep the fans happy. Those Denver fans go nuts, McDaniels. Remember the 1990 season (well, you probably don't, seeing how you were going through puberty and all)? Denver was having a terrible season and the fans took it badly. One radio disc jockey perched on a billboard and said he would broadcast from there until Denver won a game. He was up there in a freezing winter for weeks. One woman in Mile High stadium maced a bunch of fans for the other team and one wife and father was so distraught after a game that he came home from Mile High, held his wife and kids at gunpoint and was escorted away from his house by the cops.

Are you ready for that kind of pressure, McDaniels? I doubt it.

5. Denver couldn't do any worse. The Broncos would have been better off picking someone at random out of a phone book than choosing McDaniels. Why not give the job to a fellow who has been a loyal fan for about as long as McDaniels has been alive? Think about it, Broncos. Do the right thing.

Benton and Bryant getting along?

Folks, I've been a lazy blogger lately.

I've not been following my usual routine of checking up on blogs, making inane comments here and there, generally being a pest, etc. Why? I've been busy lately for reasons (work) that are just too tedious (my job) to go into (work) without boring you folks to tears (job, job, job).

Ah, but I've got a doozy of a post for you good people tonight (that's a "daisy" of a post for you people all wacky about Val Kilmer's portrayal of Doc Holliday in Tombstone). I don't know if it's exactly a doozy of a post, but it's at least not as bad as the junk I typically put up here for people to see and ask, "What the hell was the point of that?"

Take a look at the commercial at the top of the post. Uh-huh. Now, take a look at the one at the bottom.

I saw one of those ads on television last night. They are part of a project -- LiveInBentonBryant.com -- put together by the Benton and Bryant chambers of commerce.

"So what? Cities do stuff like this all the time," you might say.

Ah, here's what's significant about these ads -- Benton and Bryant have always been bitter rivals and most anyone who has lived here in Saline County or is familiar with our little corner of the world can tell you that the citizens of those towns have generally hated each other. I, a Benton boy, grew up not liking Bryant one damned bit.

So it's kind of a shock to see a commercial when the school mascots (a panther for Benton and a hornet for Bryant) are cavorting together in scene after scene. The Benton Panther comforts the Bryant Hornet at Saline Memorial Hospital? The Hornet pushes the Panther on a swing? The two play golf together? What the hell is going on here?

Regionalism, folks. That's what. The reality of the situation is that these two cities are located in a county (conveniently highlighted in red on the handy map here) with 100,000 people in it and have a lot more in common that we'd maybe like to admit. Both cities are interested in economic development in the county as we're sick of being viewed as mere bedroom communities of Little Rock. How do we attract those jobs to this county so that we can keep our folks here instead of shipping them off to Little Rock every morning?

The answer is simple -- we keep building the population of this county in hopes that the economic opportunities will follow the rooftops. Some wise souls decided that we are better able to concentrate on that task as a region instead of individual cities and there is a lot of merit to that idea.

This area, frankly, is in need of a unified, concerted effort to bring some jobs to Saline County. There was a time when the aluminum industry was huge here and the Alcoa and Reynolds plants provided all the jobs we needed. Those were high-paying jobs, too -- about $20 an hour back in 1981 until the plants shut down due to an increase in the cost of mining bauxite, squabbles between the union and management and a host of other things.

So I hope the cities are successful in their goals. Perhaps we can replace a lot of those jobs we lost over two decades ago.

Then we can all get down to the serious business of simply hating Little Rock instead of folks in our own county.

Could that Belgian influence actually help Anheuser-Busch?

As anyone who hasn't been living under a rock knows, Anheuser-Busch was bought out by Belgium's InBev.

It's always disturbing to hear about a radically profitable American company being bought out by some oddly-named bunch from Belgium, but that's what happened and I suppose all we can do is make the best of it.

Of course, I vowed to refuse to buy anything from the company again once news of the merger was announced. My wife, however, took no such vow and she brought home a Michelob Spring/Summer Sampler Pack the other day.

Now, I do hate the new, bastardized Anheuser-Busch, but Marci did bring home my favorite kind of beer -- cold and within reach. So I decided to give these things a whirl and see if the Belgians have ruined a company that was once both American and great.

The sampler pack has four types of wheat beer in it and here's what I thought of each of them:

* Hop Hound Amber Wheat -- this one wasn't bad at all. It's a pleasing amber color and is amazingly devoid of both complexity and after taste. This is a very straight-forward, light beer that is just made for guzzling. I liked it.

However, I didn't taste much in the way of hops. There's plenty of malt in this, but it's hard to tell if the "hops" flavor is provided by actual hops or just a lot of carbonation. Further, the beer loses a point or two for being rather bland overall. A "craft beer" is supposed to be distinct, but this stuff tastes like one of several wheat beers I've had over the years.

This one isn't bad, but it isn't great, either. Regardless, it's a pleasant beer that suggests that some of that Belgian influence might not be such a bad thing. It's a couple of notches above the domestic beers I generally drink, so I may purchase some more of this in the future.

* Michelob Honey Wheat -- This one was a disappointment. Think of any thin, generic American beer you've ever had, stir in some honey and you've got this stuff. One criticism I've always had about American beers is that they just taste too thin and lack character. This is the same as most of those cheap domestic beers I've had, with the exception of a bit of honey thrown in for good measure.

Where's the sharp tang that is associated with wheat beers? It's simply not here. There's too much honey thrown in here, too. It's not bad, but I'll never bother with buying more of this stuff.

* Shock Top Belgian White -- This one was so bad I actually got angry. That cloudy, gold color looks great, but this beer tastes like someone let a cheap sucker dissolve in it. InBev? What the hell is that? Short for "Belgians Like to Throw Weird Crap InBeverages?" The weird crap in this beer is orange, lemon and lime peel and coriander. That's right. It's full of citrus and cilantro. Who the hell wants that?

Do you find the folks at Guiness dumping fruit in their beer? What would Jack Daniels taste like if the folks around there thought, "Hey, let's dissolve a bunch of pears in our whiskey. That would be fun!" You just don't go around throwing components of a fruit salad and/or salsa in beer, for God's sake. It's just plain wrong and unnatural and that's doubly true when the weird crap overpowers the flavor of the beer.

This beer tastes like an experiment gone wrong. Blasted Belgians and their fruity damned beer. Could this sampler pack get any worse?

* Michelob Dunkel Weisse -- Yes, this sample pack can get worse. A lot worse, in fact. Give me back that Shock Top trash so I can wash the taste of this swill out of my mouth. Yes, it's that bad.

Now, it looked promising when I poured it in my glass in that it's nice and dark. Dark beers tend to be great, right? This stuff is far from great. The "weird crap" of choice this time around is cloves and banana. But mostly cloves. Go over to your spice rack and stuff your mouth full of cloves. Enjoy that taste? Do you, bucky? If you do, you'll love this stuff.

Honestly, cloves are about all you can taste in this beer. It is the definition of horrible. Shock Top may have tasted like a failed experiment, but this trash tastes like a dirty trick. About 20 years ago, I had a few bucks in my pocket and wanted some beer. The only thing I could afford was Hamm's. For years, I've said that was the worst beer I've tasted. You've been replaced, Hamm's. Michelob Dunkel Weisse now holds the crown. Sorry, Hamm's.

This beer made me hate what's become of Anheuser-Busch and question how the hell InBev got to be such a huge company. I can just imagine someone sitting around and trying to figure out how to "improve" the classic Budweiser formula by infusing it with such great tastes as strawberries and garlic; mango, kiwi and cat urine; fried squash and wet dog; or pearl onion, mushroom, apple and Wintergreen Skoal spit. God help us.

Conclusion

I've got a bad feeling about this...

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday -- swine flu

Head on over to Wordless Wednesday and submit something of your own, huh?

A great birthday party idea

On Sunday, I took my daughter to a birthday party at the Pulaski County Humane Society in Little Rock.

A birthday party? At an animal shelter?

Yes, indeed! Why? Because the birthday girl -- a student in my daughter's homeroom at school -- wanted it that way. It seems she's been learning about missions in church and wanted to do her part to help a worthy cause in her community. So, instead of presents, she requested that all in attendance donate $10 to the animal shelter.

That's a very unselfish request and it's all the more impressive when you consider it was made by an eight-year-old girl.

The kids had a great time playing with dogs, looking at cats and begging their parents for a new dog (Brenda is pictured at the top of this post with the dog she wanted). I'm certain more than a couple of parents left with a new pet in tow, but I refused as we've got three dogs and I figure that's more than enough.

Besides, we adopted a three-legged shelter dog a couple of years ago and have spoiled her rotten. I've done my part and I'm sure we'll probably stop by the local Humane Society the next time we need a dog.

Even if I had adopted a dog, I would have made my wife furious. The dog I would have brought home reminded me of Cobb, my rat terrier who is best described as a lovable rascal. Yes, there was a female rat terrier mix at the shelter who reminded me a lot of my Cobb in that she was hyperactive and managed to escape out the front door and avoid capture for at least a few minutes.

Rat terriers are pains in the ass. Mine escapes the yard when he can, has spent the night in the pound after animal control nabbed him one day and he once figured out to open the latch on our back gate (we've kept it padlocked since).

Rat terriers are great dogs, though. Cobb is as loyal as the day is long and he kills the snakes in my yard (we live near the Saline River here in Benton, Ark., so those slithering pests are common), so I'd say he's worth the trouble. I wouldn't mind another one of those things running around the house, but I'm sure my wife would throw a fit.

Slowing down a bit

I'll be happily editing and writing magazine copy for the next few days, so I doubt I'll get to update this blog as much as I'd like. After writing all day long at work, I have a feeling I won't be too keen on the idea of coming home and writing some more.

I'll be flinging my usual nonsense at this blog before long, of course.

Music Monday -- The Wedding Present

Come join Music Monday and share your songs with us. One simple rule, leave ONLY the actual post link here. You can grab this code at LJL Please note these links are STRICTLY for Music Monday participants only. All others will be deleted without prejudice.

This ain't no 'LOL cats' blog

So I went and posted a picture of one of our cats, The Kitten, for my Wordless Wednesday submission yesterday.

Don't worry, now. The Hawg hasn't gone soft. I still prefer dogs to cats and I'll not take to posting photos of cats with cute slogans on them such as "You will respekt me authoritah" or "Awl you birdz are be long to me" or "I will cill u in u sleep."

No, I just really like The Kitten. She's a fine animal. I just wonder what we'll call her in July when she's a full grown cat rather than just a kitten.

Is there a point to all this rambling? Is there ever? Does it matter?

Actually, I do have a point. For one thing, I'm out to promote one of my favorite ideas as of late, Tell Me Thursday (click, click, clickety, click that link, kids). The purpose of that site is to provide a spot for people to explain their Wordless Wednesday entries. Honestly, more people need to participate in that fine endeavor.

Second, that composite photo of The Kitten was made possible by a little program called The Gimp -- an open source program that's a lot like Photoshop. Unlike Photoshop, however, The Gimp is totally free.

I'm constantly amazed there are a lot of people out there who aren't aware of all the great, free programs that are available on the Internet. For example, one of my favorite programs is Evernote, a handy little program I use to take notes and access them from anywhere I have an Internet connection. As I've mentioned before, I'm a public relations guy and do some freelance reporting, so the ability to take notes at home or at work and access them later is invaluable.

Oh, and if there's a Web site with some great information on it, I can just clip it into Evernote. The same goes for emails, photos and -- heck -- just about anything. Since getting Evernote, I rarely use a notebook unless I'm going out of the office for an interview.

Meanwhile, my systems stay virus free thanks to Avira AntiVir, spyware is kept at bay with Spybot and I rather regret buying Microsoft Office when the very good OpenOffice is available.

I love cool, free stuff. Who doesn't?

Wordless Wednesday -- The Kitten

Head on over to Wordless Wednesday and submit something of your own!

How the hell does this happen?

You've got to give it to Iran -- when they go out and put a nut in charge, they don't mess around.

That President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (hereinafter referred to as "Jed" because I don't want to type "Ahmadinejad" again) is a piece of work, isn't he? I won't get too deep into the merits of the U.S. entering negotiations with a man who's crazier than a sack of rabid weasels too much because that topic has been beaten to death.

I can't help but point out, however, that he seems to be consulting a Magic 8-Ball when it comes to foreign policy, however. How else can you explain the actions of a fellow who's talking about conciliation with the U.S. when he's not tossing racist remarks out at a U.N. anti-racism conference or his government is tossing journalists in jail?

How conciliatory can this cat be? Is compromise even possible when you're dealing with a guy who's ape-shit crazy? Should the U.S. even trust this fellow when he says the sky is blue?

Again, Jed's sanity and trustworthiness has been questioned for years and I won't bother hashing through all of that again. Here's my question, however. Let's say you're the guy who gets to plan the U.N. anti-racism conference. You've got world leaders in Geneva for a week to talk about racism and (ideally) how to get rid of it.

At what point do you think, "Hey, let's let ol' Jed speak before any other government officials. That's a great idea!"

Wasn't it obvious that Jed would open his fat yap and ruin the whole event for everyone? Did someone think he'd back off the Jews this one time and play nice? Did Jed even understand that the conference wasn't designed to promote racism? So that one week conference ended pretty early as a bunch of ambassadors walked out of the thing in disgust before the event even got off the ground.

Honestly, how the hell does stuff like this happen? No wonder the world's a mess.

Entrecard

Raise your hand if you're completely confused by the stuff that Entrecard is up to these days. Yeah, that's what I thought.

Your old friend, The Hawg, is rather at a loss. My traffic has dropped quite a bit, my ad rates are low and a lot of Entrecard members just seem irate. Frankly, I'm starting to wonder if that whole site is worth the trouble anymore.

I'll recap the events of the past few weeks for those asking "huh?" and "what?" out there. Entrecard, once upon a time, was based on the simple idea that people would get credit for visiting members' sites and could purchase "ads" with those credits. People were happy and there was much rejoicing.

Ah, but sites can't function forever without money, seemingly, so the Enterecard folks got the idea to start selling paid ads. The only problem, of course, is that the paid ads knock out the ads purchased with Entrecard credits half the time. This has caused much grumbling and strife -- that healthy Entrecard traffic has slowed down and even blogs like this one that don't accept paid ads are watching their ad rates dwindle.

There's enough grumbling out there, in fact, to cause people to look for other sources of traffic. I've been doing a bit of that and have found some luck with BlogExplosion and I'm hoping to get a bit of traffic from Facebook.

I've run across some great blogs on Entrecard and will likely spend some days dropping cards, some days not giving a damn and some days just dropping cards on blogs I like. I'm having trouble staying too serious about the site, however, and the old days of dropping 300 cards have ended.

Frankly, that's probably for the best -- I'd rather linger around and read blogs than do a bunch of reciprocal dropping, anyway.

Music Monday -- Cameo

For extra triple fun, see if you can spot LeVar Burton (who played Geordi La Forge on Star Trek: The Next Generation) running around in this video. Long live the 1980s!

Come join Music Monday and share your songs with us. One simple rule, leave ONLY the actual post link here. You can grab this code at LJL Please note these links are STRICTLY for Music Monday participants only. All others will be deleted without prejudice.

Controversial Burger King commercial is nothing short of successful

Well, Burger King went and got a bunch of people mad by releasing a commercial featuring SpongeBob Squarepants about the chain's fantabulous kids meals.

Go ahead and give it a look. Go ahead and head to the bottom of this post to see the absolutely mind-numbingly bizarre extended version of the commercial. Is it appropriate for children? Absolutely not. Is it funny as hell? Definitely. Hey, Sir Mix-A-Lot's "Baby Got Back" was funny when it was released, and a slightly sanitized version of the original is also a hoot.

Of course, you've got groups all over the place riled up about that television commercial. Here in beautiful Arkansas, KTHV (a CBS affiliate in Little Rock) has asked viewers what they think of the commercial. The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood started a petition drive asking people to demand that the ads be pulled.

My wife tells me that the commercial has, in fact, been pulled. I can't find anything out there on these here Interwebs to confirm that, other than a story claiming Burger King has denied the television commercial is aimed at children and that the company is developing a different SpongeBob ad to air during kids' shows.

Here at Casa de Hawg we reacted with our usual "uh, OK" attitude when we saw the commercial, rewound it on our DVR and called out eight-year-old daughter to watch it. She has, after all, gotten a kick out of that "Baby Got Back" song since she originally heard it at the end of Shrek several years ago (remember the Donkey character singing it about his dragon girlfriend?)

Where, by the way, was the outrage when that song was used in Shrek? There was a show directly aimed at children and was roughly as controversial as the SpongeBob ad. Odd.

Still, I'd argue this commercial has been very successful. Why? People sure as heck have talked about it a lot and that just increases Burger King's visibility. There are times when bad publicity is better than no publicity at all. This may be one of those times.

Don't mess with Texas

Things seem to get odder every day in this great republic.

The latest bit of oddness involves a story I read on CNN in which Texas Gov. Rick Perry said secession is possible. That's right -- the governor of Texas, while addressing an angry "tea party crowd" in Austin on Wednesday -- said his state might one day get fed up and secede from the Union should the federal government not change its ways.

Of course, Perry didn't suggest such a possibility is likely, but he did say such a thing could come to pass. That's a hell of a notion folks.

When you add to that notion a tongue-in-cheek column in WorldNetDaily column in which none other than the great Chuck Norris suggested he may run for president of Texas, you've got a heck of a hypothetical scenario, don't you? Just imagine waking up one morning, opening up the newspaper and reading that Texas had seceded from the Union and had elected Walker, Texas Ranger as its president.

Incredible, huh? Would the newly-liberated country still be called Texas or would her people switch the name of the new republic to The Nation of Awesome (and insist that it always be printed in a bold font)? What impact would an independent Texas have on the rest of the nation? Would more states follow suit and declare their independence? Would other states join The Nation of Awesome and form a new confederacy or would some states declare independence and form their own sovereign countries (if so, my vote for the new name of Arkansas is Hawgland)? Would Norris and his military start attacking and annexing states on the Texas borders? The possibilities are endless.

If Texas secedes and elects Norris as president, I might have to abandon my beloved Arkansas and go help out The Nation of Awesome. Of course, any government led by Norris would have at least two cabinet positions dedicated to maintaining law and order in extreme and entertaining ways. I'm not sure who would be picked to be the Secretary of Kicking Ass, but I'd want the title of Secretary of Taking Names. Yes, we could run around The Nation of Awesome kicking ass and taking names and that activity would, no doubt, keep us very busy.

Seriously, however, I do love the state of Texas and regard it as second on only my native Arkansas as the best state in the union. My wife and I both have a lot of family down there and Texas is, well, different. How different? Back in 2001, the popular thing for states to do was to ban smoking in whatever areas were deemed "public." What were they arguing over in Texas at the time? Whether it should be against the law for passengers to drink alcohol in moving cars.

And, just go look at some businesses in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. I've often noticed that some of them will have both a Texas flag and a U.S. flag out front -- every now and again, you'll notice the Texas flag is just a little bit larger and is flown just a bit higher than the United States one.

Of course, I doubt Texas will secede from the Union. That was tried by a few states in the South once upon a time and things didn't turn out too well for the rebels. Of course, with the U.S. military out policing the world...

Still, news out of Texas is often fun. The little CNN item about secession is no exception.

A bit of an apology

You good folks may have noticed a lot of paid posts as of late. For some reason, I've been getting sent a lot of opportunities to take those and I'm not good about turning down money. I'm sure my good fortune won't last long, so please be patient.

Before you know it, I'll be back to the same old rotten posts that I've always written.

The Man gives The Hawg a speeding ticket

For those of you who haven't visited the beautiful South, let me warn y'all of something -- small towns love setting up speed traps so that outsiders are forced to shell out some revenue.

What's the definition of an outsider in a small town? Someone who grew up outside of a two-county area seems to be a rule of thumb.

Sadly, I forgot that rule as I was heading up to Batesville, Ark., today to give one of my awe-inspiring presentations (well, it wasn't exactly awe inspiring, but everyone seemed to have a good time and I was able to fill up about 40 minutes on my given topics with little problem). Now, Batesville is about two hours away from my beautiful city of Benton, and there's a little town called Pleasant Plains (population 267) tucked away on U.S. 167 just south of Batesville.

I found out today that there's a very good place in Pleasant Plains where state troopers like to hide and catch unwary speeders. Folks, I didn't notice the trooper until he roared up behind me, turned his lights on and started waving me over to the shoulder. Had I been on my home turf in Saline County rather than driving through Independence County, I would have known where the cops were hidden.

So I got clocked at 70 MPH in a 55 MPH zone and I've got a nice, fat ticket to show for it (the fine will run about $175, I'm told). Damn. I haven't had a speeding ticket since 1991, so perhaps it was just time for me to get one. The upsetting part about this is that my wife got a speeding ticket a few months ago and I teased her without mercy over that.

She's been exacting revenge today and I deserve it. However, I did point out to her that "speedy" is certainly not an appropriate nickname for a woman to give her husband. She told me to "get my mind out of the gutter," but she knows I'm right.

I also regret not using a couple of choice excuses on the State Trooper:

"Well, officer, a bee flew in my window and landed on my accelerator. I was trying to mash him with my foot."

"I was going so fast because I was trying to get away from you. My wife ran off with a state trooper last week and I thought he was trying to return her to me!"

Maybe next time.

By the way, "mash" is one of my favorite words that rural Arkansans tend to use. To pronounce it correctly, you got to throw a "y" in there so it sounds like "maysh." Give it a try. It's fun.

Update -- Bob is upset

Heh, heh, ho, heh and triple-heh. The other day, good old Bob -- proprietor of the painstakingly named Bob's Blog -- left some comments over here and got attacked. Evidently, he thought people were being too mean to him so now he's now sulking about it over on his blog.

Apparently, Bob doesn't want to come over here and play any more. He wants to rant on his own turf where he can control the content and not have to deal with people who disagree with him -- to ridicule posts he doesn't like in a forum where he can shut off all comments challenging his skewed view of the world. That's a shame as his poorly-constructed and personal attacks (all based on laughably false assumptions) in my comments section provided scads of amusement. Come on back, Bob. I thought we were friends now.

Why is Fox News hiding the truth?

One of the fellows in my office just loves to watch Fox News during lunch.

I was watching some news with him when Fox told us to stay tuned as the truth of Area 51 would finally be told! How could I resist sticking around to watch the fun? After all, we all know that the government has been hiding space aliens in Area 51 since the 1950s. That's common knowledge.

Yeah, I've seen the truth about Area 51 revealed in countless movies, including that fine bit of film that always seems to be on television somewhere -- Independence Day (in which the Fresh Prince and that guy from Jurassic Park fight off an alien invasion).

So we hung around waiting to learn the truth of Area 51 when the Fox types came back and started interviewing a former employee of the facility. Yes, we were excited. At long last, the truth would be told!

The former Area 51 employee said that all of the activity can be attributed to a top-secret aircraft. Go ahead and take a look. Take a look at the sad little report in which a former Area 51 employee shares his secrets.

What? Airplanes? Government airplanes based in the Nevada desert were causing all that commotion? We're supposed to believe that? Seriously?

It is well known that aliens have invaded the top levels of government and are out to conquer this planet for -- well, I don't know what they want from us earthlings. Those aliens are sneaky and they're certainly up to no good. That much is clear.

I'm disappointed in Fox for hiding the truth so shamelessly. Fox News has been shooting for credibility for years and I'm sad to say the network has missed the boat with this "alien UFOs are really airplanes" story.

Perhaps the folks over at Fox could learn a lesson or two from that pillar of journalism ethics, the Weekly World News. That fine publication has been revealing the truth for years. Just take a look at these photos of aliens -- courtesy of the Weekly World News -- that I've scattered throughout this post.

That's photographic proof, folks. What's more, the Weekly World News actually wrote and printed detailed accounts of how aliens were directing national and state elections all over the country. If someone bothers to write something down and sell it at every grocery store checkout stand in the nation, it must be true, right?

Aliens have been slowly moving against this great nation (and world, if you want to get technical about it) for decades. The fearless journalists at the Weekly World News get it, but the folks at Fox News do not. That's just a shame.

Want to know a bigger shame? Want to know more proof of this alien-run conspiracy? You'll notice that the Weekly World News -- once as common as sin -- has been reduced to a lowly Internet publication. Why? Why would that be?

The space aliens wanted it that way, that's why. Perhaps the good people at Fox News are afraid the aliens will shut them down, too. Perhaps they're afraid that Raygar (the one I'm told is the alien mastermind) will use his atomic-powered death disruptor® on them. Perhaps they've been promised control over a U.S. state (maybe Nevada or Oklahoma) if they play ball with the invading aliens.

I don't know why the Fox News team is perfectly willing to air the white-washed, government version of what really happened at Area 51 as the truth, frankly. But the fact remains that Fox News has let all of us earthlings down. When those moon men and Martians attack the planet, Fox will share part of the blame.

All of this reminds me of the brilliant rantings of one Reverend Dallas Masterson, a fellow who spread the truth around Fayetteville when I was in law school at the University of Arkansas. It wasn't uncommon to see his literature exposing the dastardly plans of those aliens posted near campus (particularly on telephone poles near bars on Dickson Street, oddly enough).

Masterson's warning were put tossed aside by people who will -- one day -- wish they had heeded his warning before it was too late. Masterson hasn't been heard from in years. Perhaps the aliens nabbed him before someone took him seriously.

Want to hear some of Masterson's fevered wisdom for yourself, do you? Back around 1991, he did howl away on this track by the famed rock n' roll combo, Before I Fall. He knew the truth. It's sad that Fox doesn't (or doesn't want to admit it, at least).

What about Bob?

Have a look at the comment section, folks! Apparently, some fellow named Bob has taken exception to the fact that I, The Hawg, have made light of Barack Obama with this humble little post.

Apparently, taking a couple of shots at a sitting U.S. president is verboten. Unless, of course, that president happens to be one that Bob doesn't like.

Well, phooey on that.

This one's for you, Bob. Enjoy it, ace!

Did everyone have a good Easter?

Well, another Easter has come and gone.

That makes 40 of them for me now and that seems like a pretty big number. Apparently, such thoughts occur to a man who is about to turn 40-years-old. A few friends of mine who have hit that magical age told me this would happen and they were right. It sucks.

I hope everyone had a great time with the holiday. An increasing number of people don't observe Easter, of course, but the holiday still holds quite a bit of meaning for a lot of us. It is, after all, the holiday that does define Christianity and ought to be played up a lot more than it is. Christmas is the dominant Christian holiday, to be sure, and that's somewhat of a shame.

I grew up Baptist, but my wife and I turned renegade years ago by joining the Methodist faith. While out driving today, I saw a sign in front of a Baptist church here in Benton, Ark., that pretty much pegged where we ought to be focusing our attention on Easter (that sign, of course, is pictured here).

I never much cared for the legalism that was common in Baptist churches I've attended over the years. There are times, however, when they'll sum something up perfectly in just a few words. Often, those bits of wisdom are posted on lighted signs near busy roads. There are times they are eye-rollingly bad, times when they're an absolute hoot and times when they are right on target.

You've got to give them credit -- the on target messages make the rest of them forgivable.

I tend to think of my Baptist roots on Easter as I learned what I know about religion at the First United Baptist Church of Benton. While my knowledge of Christianity was refined and sharpened through hours of comparative religions classes at Hendrix College (a Methodist institution, by the way) and I'm less worried about being right than trying to live well, my outlook was shaped by those Southern Baptists who used to holler at me on Sunday morning.

The Bible I carry with me to church is the same Army green one that was presented to me at the First Baptist Church back in 1977, in fact. The leather bound cover has more than a few tears in it and the edges of the pages are more than a bit faded. It's showing its age, to be sure, but I've lugged that Revised Standard Edition along with me through childhood, college and law school, two marriages, two children and more moves than I can remember easily. I think I'll keep it around for awhile.

That old Bible, see, is familiar and I do love the familiar. Easter has always been one of those holidays that celebrates the familiar. I spend it with my family, hear the same story of the Resurrection, deal with getting stubborn children who'd rather play with their new toys and eat candy than deal with church and dread the start of the week.

The only change, really, is that I used to be the stubborn kid who wanted to duck church on Easter and hated putting on dress clothes and heading to church. Now I'm the parent who has to deal with unruly kids. My mom and dad have more patience than I realized. Another change is that I now dread heading to work rather than going to school. I really should have enjoyed those school days a bit more. Perhaps my children will. I somehow doubt it.

This Easter was familiar, of course, but there were some unique things about it that are worth mentioning. The most significant thing is that our children managed to dye Easter eggs without fighting. That's right -- they were able to stay near each other for close to an hour without bickering. That's worth mentioning.

Speaking of the kids, they put a set of bunny ears on Winston, our 140-pound Boxer-Rottweiler mix. Once again, Winston proved that he's a good sport. He did look miserable until they were taken off, however.

Also, it rained all day long. I can't remember an Easter that wasn't sunny. Ideally, Easter should be sunny and warm, but we had no such luck here in central Arkansas this year.

Finally, my wife made the best lemon icebox pie on the planet. That woman can cook like nobody's business. I'm a fan of just about any citrus based pie, and that one she made to day blows everything else out of the water. We're going to buy a new refrigerator in a few weeks and I've about decided that we need to get one that's large enough to store plenty of those things.

See, I saw a refrigerator that is the greatest thing ever because it's got the ability to make shaved ice. Who wouldn't want such a refrigerator on a hot summer day? Just grab some syrup, put the shave ice thingie to work and you've got instant refreshment. So what if the refrigerator with the ability to crank out that treat costs $1,800 (a significant number when you never use credit to purchase anything, by the way)? If there's another refrigerator that gives my wife the space to store up plenty of those dandy pies, I can do without the shave ice making machine.

At any rate, I hope everyone had a great Easter. Hopefully I won't be mired in self reflection when Easter rolls around next year.