It’s office photo time…

The folks in charge at my office went and decided that we should post bios and photos of all the folks in the business to our blog.

I established and maintain that particular blog. That being the case, I figure my photo should be extra special.

Now, I’m a former reporter, recovering lawyer and current public relations guy. In other words, I tend to only consent to my photo being taking when it’s necessary – like when I’m being interviewed by a local television station or something along those lines.

So my first choice for a photo of me is the one at the top of this post. That’s right – it’s Johnny Ramone. Not only was the man one of the founders of the Ramones, he was instrumental in defining what punk rock sounded like and he was a diehard Reaganite, to boot.

There’s a lot to respect there.

It seems my idea was rejected, sadly. The photo must actually be of me rather than just someone who is undeniably great. Fair enough. I’ll play ball.

So I came up with two more photos to post. Here they are:

Now, the first one shows my unwavering dedication to organizations as a whole. I figure that any company would be thrilled to have an employee who acknowledges the delights associated with slavish obedience to the selfish whims of the powerful.

Should someone be offended by the Hitler photo, I’ve put the second one together. Why? Because KISS is cool.

I wonder if either photo will be accepted. I doubt it.

Now, just for fun, here are the mighty, mighty Ramones in action:

Tell Me Thursday – hair cut and a rifle

For my fantabulous Wordless Wednesday entry this week, I posted the photo over there on the left.

Yes, I know exactly what you’re thinking – this photo was taken in my beloved Arkansas, right? No, no it wasn’t. Not as far as I know, anyway.

The thing about this barber/gun shop is that it kind of reminds me of the type of thing one might see around here. Arkansans, it seems, just love to blend businesses that – on paper – just don’t look like they should be paired.

A great example of what I mean can be found in Fayetteville at this place called Soap-N-Suds. It was a laundromat and bar all rolled into one. Yes, when I was a student at the University of Arkansas, I enjoyed heading down there, doing some laundry, knocking back a few brews, shooting pool, playing video games and just generally being distracted from the drudgery that comes with washing clothes.

Now, a laundromat/bar might look odd on paper, but it worked well. Perhaps the same is true of a barber who also sells guns.

On a somewhat related subject, there was this place here in Benton called Popplo’s Pizza (or something like that) that went out of business years ago. It then became kind of a tamale and cheese dip restaurant and that didn’t last long.

Once the tamale place failed, it became a taxidermy shop. That closed a few months ago and the place is now a barbecue joint.

Yeah. That’s right. A former taxidermy shop is now a restaurant. Ick.

I don’t think I’ll be eating there. It would be as bad as ordering up a meal in a restaurant that was once a funeral home. It might actually be worse, in fact.

This post is part of the grand Tell Me Thursday event – a chance for Tell Me Wednesday participants to tell the story behind their posts. Click here to see the other entries or (better yet) submit something of your own.

Are they on hard drugs in Philadelphia?

Well, it’s official – the Philadelphia Phillies rewarded ace pitcher Cliff Lee by trading him to the Seattle as part of a complicated deal involving four MLB teams.

“Dude, this deal is like way, way complicated,” said Phillies General Manager Ruben “Shaggy” Amaro Jr. at a press conference after the deal was finalized." I mean, whoa! You know? Hey – did you ever think when they mean space was infinite they meant, like, a whole universe could be in my fingernail? The Solar system looks a lot like an atom, you know? Man, we could all be living in someone’s toenail! Dude!”

Lee – a good Benton, Ark., boy – headed to Philadelphia after a trade with Cleveland in July. He won four games in the postseason for Philadelphia and was credited with the team’s only two wins in the World Series against the Yankees.

Philadelphia rewarded Lee by trading him to Seattle for three minor league prospects and a case of Milwaukee’s Best. By the end of the day, the Phillies still had the three prospects, the case of cheap, swillworthy beer and ace pitcher Roy Halladay after a trade with Toronto.

Yeah, there’s some reward, huh? You work hard to get your team to  the World Series, win a couple of games for them when they get their and then you get traded for three scrubs and a case of cheap beer. Yes, they’re either ungrateful bastards in Philadelphia or they’re smoking hard drugs.

I prefer to blame drug use for the rotten treatment Lee received. Why? Because that’s funnier.

At least Philadelphia got something out of the deal. The real loser in the trade was Toronto. That team got three minor leaguers from Philadelphia, lost one heck of a pitcher and – to add insult to injury – sent $6 million to the Phillies.

Oh, Toronto sent one of those prospects – Michael “Who?” Taylor – to the Athletics for Brett “King of the Minor Leagues” Wallace.

Toronto, in this instance, played the part of the Pittsburgh Pirates – a team known for trading great players in exchange for some prospects. The hope, of course, is those prospects will amount to something. In Pittsburgh’s case, the prospects that don’t pan out become franchise players while the ones that turn out to be pretty good get traded off for more prospects. Hopefully, Toronto isn’t wandering down that sad path.

The team that is in great shape here is Seattle. They get a heck of a great pitcher in Lee and get to team him with Felix Hernandez, another outstanding pitcher.

Sadly, all the talent in the world won’t send the Mariners to the World Series. There’s a club that seems to figure out creative ways of dashing any hope of heading to the World Series in spite of the number of great players who have played there.

It’s all just too bad for Lee.

Wordless Wednesday -- hair cut and a rifle...

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"Because you suck..."

My wife is a wacky, wacky woman.

We've got this office Christmas party planned for this week at work. I called my wife today and told her about it.

"I need to get a gift," I said. "Our limit is $10."

"OK. I'll pick something up for you," she replied.

"Why don't I just go buy something?"

"Because you suck."

Yeah. You read that right. Mean!

However, she explained what she meant. Bear in mind that my idea for a gift was to frame a photo of a former coworker who "retired" last year and throw it in the gift pile. Last year I got lazy and brought in a six pack of Woodchuck Cider (I think I just left it in that black, plastic bag the liquor store put it in and stuck it under the Christmas tree -- can't remember).

My wife, then, said she would buy an "office appropriate" gift because most of the ones I've purchased in the past have been horrible, inappropriate or downright mean. This year she's assumed responsibility for sending me off to work with a gift that (I suppose) doesn't suck.

Perhaps this is why she makes sure to drop hints about Christmas presents she'd like throughout the year.

Music Monday – Peanuts Christmas

Relax and enjoy…

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Christmas shopping like a champion

Back when my wife and I first got married, we were poor.

We were so poor we couldn’t afford to pay attention. We were so poor we should have described ourselves as “po” because that “r” and additional “o” were just too darned expensive.

In short, we were broke. As such, we had to plan our budgets carefully. We adopted the habit of shopping throughout the year so tackling buying Christmas presents wasn’t such an ordeal – it was spread out rather than concentrated in the space of a couple of weeks.

Thankfully, things have improved financially for the two of us. Still, we have hung onto that tradition of shopping throughout the year. If we see something in March or July that we know someone would love for Christmas, why not just pick it up then and store it somewhere until December?

So, here it is Dec. 14 and our shopping is all but finished. Oh, sure, there are a few odds and ends to pick up here and there, but we’re not going to be rushing out right before Christmas and fight crowds to get everything at the last minute.

We have the luxury of sitting back and enjoying the season.

That shopping early bit is highly recommended. It really does take the stress out of the holiday and let’s us concentrate on what’s important – making plans with family, getting involved with our church’s observation of Christmas and that kind of thing.

Ah, a relaxing Christmas season. There’s a lot to be said for it.

Hey! Where’d my banner go?

Way on back in July 2008, I started this here blog and my friend, Dave, went and designed a banner for it.

Ah, it was a thing of beauty, that banner. You could throw hyperboles at it all day long – great, nifty, dandy and dope stupid, to name a few.

Now it’s gone. Why? I’m not really sure – I just noticed it wasn’t gracing my blog as usual for some reason. According to my control panel in Blogger, the thing never existed at all.

So I put together a new banner – one that certainly conveys the fun and frolic that have become synonymous with this blog. I rather like the new banner, in fact.

But that’s not the point, is it? Where the heck did my old banner go?

All I can figure is that Blogger is owned by Google – a company that just seems to go out of its way to hate me from time to time. A few months ago, my Google PageRank dropped from a healthy “3” to the pitiful “0” it’s at right now.

I shouldn’t be surprised, then, that the Google reached at and took a swipe at me – friendly ole The Hawg – once again. It might have something to do with the fact that I revealed the truth about evil cell phones yesterday (they’re of the devil, you know).

Google, of course, has lately been working on dominating the cell phone market with various applications. You can’t escape Google on the Internet, so why shouldn’t the same be true of cell phones, right?

Clearly, Google doesn’t need smart-aleck folks running around suggesting that people should smash their cell phones and live simpler, happier lives.

Of course, maybe I should have just backed up the old banner.

It’s more fun to blame Google for my mistake, however.

At any rate, enjoy the new banner. Who can resist wacky stick figures and a line drawing of a Russian boar? The Russian boar, by the way, is the critter that the University of Arkansas actually uses as a mascot – Razorbacks are rather hard to come by in these parts, so the live pig that sits in its cage at games is the more common boar.

Useless trivia – I know tons of it.

Stop the evil! Smash your cell phone today!

Believe it or not, I’m annoyed over something.

What’s got me worked up today? Cell phones. Hate the things. The world would be better off without them. I figure that Satan developed them to torment us poor humans, anyway. That’s just the kind of thing that devil would do. Damned pest.

Actually, I wouldn’t be too worried about lobbying against all cell phones if I could just be rid of mine. Since my wife and employer won’t let me get away with refusing to carry one, I figure I’m stuck until I complete a successful campaign to get rid of all of the nasty things.

In other words, I’m irritated and intent on making everyone suffer. So there.

Anyway, I started thinking along these lines around 1997 when I was driving back from a friend’s funeral. I was practicing law at the time and my cell phone rang – it was an angry client who figured I ought to be in my office working on his something-or-other instead of wasting my time at a funeral.

I responded by pitching my cell phone out of my car window when I was driving about 75 MPH. I immediately got angry for two reasons. First of all, that phone cost around $400 and I reduced it to a pile of garbage that was scattered down the Interstate. Second, I wanted to call my secretary and yell at her for giving some lunatic my cell number.

I couldn’t call her, of course. I had just pitched my phone out the window of a speeding car.

So I didn’t carry a cell phone for years. Oh, I was a happy, happy The Hawg! People could reach me at work only when I was actually at work. I could be alone from time to time and not have to worry about a nasty ringtone shattering my solitude.

Ah, but then I got married and my wife made me carry a cell phone. Sure, that one got destroyed after it went through the washing machine and my wife got me a new one. I gave that one to her after I started my current job and my office bought me yet another phone.

I got rid of the phone my office bought me when I threw it up against a wall a few times, kicked it for good measure and stomped on it for the sheer hell of it. My employer rewarded me with yet another cell phone.

I can’t get rid of the things, seemingly -- I'll destroy one and wind up with a new phone. Furthermore, I’ve got to leave it on in case there’s an “emergency” and someone needs to get in touch with me. Emergency? There are some other things I could carry in case of an emergency – a shotgun, a life preserver, road flares, rope, a canteen, SCUBA gear, etc. I don’t carry any of that junk around with me constantly, but I am required to carry my cell phone in case some phantom emergency pops up and I have to deal with it.

Do I get any emergency calls? Hell no. What I get are work-related calls when I’m at home or on vacation from people who always ask me if “it’s a bad time to talk.”

Well, yeah it’s a bad time to talk. A good time to talk is when I’m in my office during working hours – not when I’m at my mother-in-law’s house on a Thanksgiving vacation.

I also get calls from my wife while I’m weaving through rush-hour traffic because she wants to know if I've left the office yet. You know, one of those calls could cause an emergency...

You’d think mankind hadn’t managed for centuries before the advent of the cell phone. How could people get in touch with each other if an emergency popped up? What on earth did they do?

Oh, yeah. They managed just fine.

I’m convinced there are few of those “cell phone” emergencies to which people like to refer. That fellow surfing the Internet on his iPhone in the middle of a movie theater I was at a few weeks ago didn’t have an emergency. That freaky chick I saw texting away while driving down the road a few weeks ago wasn’t dealing with an emergency. Those cell phone gabbing maniacs who lollygag around while getting in my way on the freeway during my morning commute aren’t in the middle of emergencies.

No, we’d all be better off by simply taking up our cell phones and running them over with our cars a few times, thus freeing ourselves of that demonic evil. Just imagine a world where lunches with friends aren’t ruined by cell phone calls, people actually pay attention to the road while driving, obnoxious ringtones are unheard of and crumbs don’t wander around in a haze while checking their Facebook accounts on their phones.

I do believe my dad has the right idea about how to carry a cell phone. He resisted one until my mother finally convinced him he needed one with him. What’s my dad’s cell number? I have no idea.

Why? He doesn’t want to be bothered and he’d rather talk to me in person, anyway.

Redneck Christmas float -- my 'Wordless Wednesday' entry explained

For my Wordless Wednesday submission yesterday, I posted the charming photo on the left.

Since then I've got a decent story about the origin of this photo -- perfect since I figured on writing something about it for Tell Me Thursday, anyway.

My wife sent me that photo the other day and I figured I had to use it. I figured it just came from somewhere on the Internet (the source for all things random) and got sent to her because, well, we're Arkansans.

I asked my wife where the photo came from and she said it came from a lady she works with. The photo, apparently, was taken at the Grant County Christmas parade in Sheridan, Ark. Yeah, that's right -- this is the kind of thing that goes on here in Arkansas.

Frankly, that's absolutely fine with me. Here we've got a fellow with a fantastic sense of humor who went and made a float that is as hilarious as it is grim. I mean, think about it -- gathering up the deer for that thing took a lot of hours in the deer woods and (I'll assume) a decent amount of cash (taxidermists don't work for free the last time I checked). Building a "sleigh" and mounting in on a four-wheeler was a bit of an exercise, too. And how much time does it take to secure a spot in a parade?

This guy went all out with his idea. Notice how the deer representing Rudolph even has a red nose. I appreciate the heck out of that.

Really, I do. I'm not even a hunter (that takes too much effort and I've got a butcher's shop not too far from my house) and I appreciate that photo. Why? It's an absolute hoot and that's good enough.

At any rate, I hope everyone has a great Christmas. I bet dude in the photo is going to wind up with something hunting-related and I hope you fine folks get what you want this year, too.

By the way, if you're a Wordless Wednesday participant, I strongly urge you to check out Tell Me Thursday. That gives you the chance to tell the world the story behind your Wordless Wednesday submission. That's a heck of an idea.

Wordless Wednesday -- could be from Arkansas...

This entry is part of the Wordless Wednesday wackiness. Click that link to see the other entries or submit something of your own.

White lights or something more colorful?

Being from the South, I sometimes find it hard to talk about Christmas lights.

Why? Well, talking about “colored lights” here in the South just sounds somehow wrong, doesn’t it? Brings up memories of the rants that Ku Klux Klan member in town used to engage in from time to time. Ugh. Distasteful.

At any rate, I’ve noticed that a lot of folks around here are going for white lights this year. White lights all over their trees, outdoor decorations and everything else.

We’re more confused around my house, really. We’ve got two Christmas trees here that have all white lights while our largest one – the centerpiece of the entire living room – is brimming with red, blue, orange, green and even pink lights. The lights on our roof are of the multi-colored type (and they’re of the beautiful, ceramic 1970s era, too). We’ve got a wireframe, animated grazing deer in the yard that covered with white lights and three miniature trees that are very colorful flank it.

So, we rather like both that stark white color scheme and something with a bit more whimsical zing to it. The only thing I hate are those horrible flashing things on which half of a tree just goes dark all the sudden. Yuck. The lights here have to be solid – no horrendous and confusing flashing here.

What’s the point to all this rambling? I’m curious – is everyone out there using colorful or all white lights this year? A mixture of the two? Yes, Christmas decorations fascinate me…

Tell me Thursday – hearing aid

For my Wordless Wednesday submission yesterday, I posted a photo of my nephew, Willie, wielding a decorative paddle that his parents own.

What’s it all about? I’ll explain it all for Tell Me Thursday.

My wife snapped that photo of 16-year-old Willie and it pretty well sums up the lad. He’s a hoot, that one, and just tends to do stuff like that, you know?

I’m actually a bit envious of young Willie. He seems to be making plans to head off to the Coast Guard Academy after high school and is obsessed with one day owning a classic muscle car from the 1960s. I hope he succeeds on both counts. He’s at an age that’s perfect for coming up with obtainable goals and figuring out how to achieve them.

My wife took that photo last week when we were visiting her family in northwest Arkansas for Thanksgiving. It turns out that’s about her favorite holiday as she has a large family and they all get together for Thanksgiving. There are no gifts to buy, no real pressure and we all set a day aside to catch up with each other. Fun stuff.

I prefer Christmas to Thanksgiving, but I do see Marci’s point. Christmas is expensive and requires a ton of work – shopping, putting up decorations and everything else. Fortunately, my wife generally shops through the year for gifts and trimmed down our list further by hitting the “black Friday” sales after Thanksgiving. So we can just sit back, relax and enjoy the season (I’ll get my shopping done for her this weekend, but that’s not big deal – I know what I’m getting her and know which stores to visit, so it shouldn’t take long).

I wonder if that “hearing aid” paddle is something that will be passed down from generation to generation…

Wordless Wednesday -- hearing aid

This post is part of the Wordless Wednesday fun.

Music Monday -- A Flock of Seagulls

An almost perfect pop single. Man, I do miss 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.





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The Hummer is back?

During our Thanksgiving break in scenic northwest Arkansas, I noticed something odd going on up there -- a lot of ads for the Hummer.

"The Hummer is back," declared an ad from some car lot in the part of the world as some announcer spoke excitedly about the virtues of owning one of those nasty things.

Wait a minute. I thought the Hummer had become as outdated as the pet rock and the AMC Gremlin. I figured the Hummer had one foot in the grave and the brand's vehicles had been relegated to used car lots around the country.

Here in Benton, Ark., the Hummer lot in town is little more than a parking lot for econo-boxes offered up by Chevrolet.

The Hummer is back? The symbol of everything that was wrong with the U.S. auto industry is making a comeback? People feel confident enough in the economy to blow thousands on vehicles that burn gas like it's still $1 a gallon? Really?

I'm not sure if that's true or not, but here's the truly ironic thing -- GM is in the process of selling Hummer to Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery, a Chinese company (of course).

Actually, that makes sense. China is in the process of buying everything else (and holds more U.S. government debt than will ever be repaid in my lifetime (if at all)), so why shouldn't it own Hummer, too?

The Christmas season kicks off in earnest at Casa de Hawg

Go ahead and take a close look at that photo.

Well, it's not a very good photo. Take a look at it anyway. And I know there's a gap in the string of lights on the roof -- a bulb went out and I've replaced it. So there.

Anyway, that's my 13-year-old son and me celebrating our hard work.

"Look! Look what the men have done," we're boasting. "We've hung up Christmas lights."

That's right -- The Boy and I strung up 125 lights around about half of our roof. We've hung up those mini-light, blue icicle things for the past couple of years but went with those big, ceramic colored bulbs this time. I think we'll stick with the big lights.

Ah, yeah! C-9 bulbs all the way. It's like Christmas in 1975 with all those huge, bright bulbs on our house. It took us a couple of hours but The Boy and I did the hustle and got it done.

Yeah, let the games begin. We love Christmas around here and my wife goes absolutely crazy right after Thanksgiving. We've got three Christmas trees in our house (two in the living room and one in the dining room), a lighted garland for the fireplace mantle, a four-piece ceramic tree that my wife painted, a slew of Christmas candles, a train running around the base of one of the trees and assorted odds and ends. All we're missing, really, is some of those animated yard decorations and a lighted runway for Santa on the roof.

Some people might claim Christmas has become too commercial, but I say phooey on that. In my house, we view setting aside a day to recognize Christ's birth as something to celebrate with gusto. If Christians can't be joyful, then what's the point?

Besides, most of the shopping is done so we can relax, look at our decorations and enjoy the season.

Those Black Friday folks are crazy

Let me start off by saying that not all of those Black Friday fans are nuts.

In fact, my wife gets up bright and early every Friday after Thanksgiving and hits the stores. And who can blame her? Some of the prices are incredibly low and everyone wants to save money, right?

No, the Black Friday shoppers I'm talking about are of a special breed. A crazy breed. A perhaps dangerously insane breed.

Who are the insane Black Friday shoppers? I saw a report on the news the other night about people who started camping out in store parking lots on Tuesday. That's right -- Tuesday.

So, some people went and missed out on Thanksgiving entirely so they could sit in a parking lot and save a few bucks when all hell broke loose on Friday morning. What would drive someone to do that? I honestly don't know. Well, perhaps I do know -- it's insanity that drives some people to such lengths.

My wife, I think, did it the right way. She enjoyed Thanksgiving and made a list of items she wanted in advance. She got up at around 3:30 a.m. (far too early for me, I'm afraid) and hit the stores. While she didn't camp out overnight, she did manage to grab everything she wanted except for one item -- a new HDTV set for our bedroom.

That's not a bad deal. She got to enjoy Thanksgiving with family and will have to make do with the 20" tube television set in our bedroom until we get around to replacing it. Meanwhile, our Christmas shopping is now all but finished. Not a bad day's work.

By the way, we spent the Thanksgiving holiday in northwest Arkansas with my wife's family. The news outlets were all covering Black Friday shopping. My brother-in-law was out with the Black Friday shoppers and he got interviewed by two different television stations. My mother in law recorded the broadcasts on her DVR and, sure enough, he was all over television today.

How cool is that?

Cornpone and Mud Flap revisited (Tell Me Thursday submission)

For my Wordless Wednesday submission yesterday, I posted a photo of my two nieces.

Yes, Cornpone and Mud Flap (nicknames made up at random by me) are 13-month-old twins. Thanks to the inspired folks over at Tell Me Thursday, I feel compelled to mention a little bit about my nieces.

My family and I are spending the Thanksgiving holiday in northwest Arkansas with my wife's family. Young Cornpone and Mud Flap (yes, I'm sticking with those nicknames because I think they're funny) are the daughters of my wife's youngest sister. My sister-in-law and her husband have five children to raise and, as such, they have my sympathy.

While my sister-in-law was at work the other day, my wife, mother-in-law and I got to take care of Cornpone and Mud Flap. It seems they like their Uncle The Hawg, but it is obvious to me that Mud Flap likes me better than her sister does. Regardless, they're fun kids.

Now, we took the twins to the store the other day. My mother-in-law was carrying Mud Flap while I was toting Cornpone. A clerk came up and made a big fuss over Cornpone and got to the point where she asked the question I dreaded -- "What is her name?"

"I'm not really sure," I replied.

The clerk just looked at me.

"Look, they're twins," I explained. "I'm just the uncle. I can't really tell them apart yet, you know?"

She gave me a look that said "you're terrible" all over it. Fine with me. I'll learn to tell them apart one day, I'm sure.

Still, we had a good time with young Cornpone and Mud Flap. It'll be a hoot when they're young enough to come stay with my wife and me down in central Arkansas one of these days. We can spoil the heck out of them and send them back home to their parents so they can raise five kinds of hell.

We've had that happen to us enough when our kids stay in northwest Arkansas for awhile. Turnabout is fair play, right?

Wordless Wednesday -- Cornpone and Mud Flap

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