Of Hogs, cats and weasels

I got an e-mail earlier today from Jon over at OTRCat.com about a post I wrote not long ago about my love of Old Time Radio (OTR).

Jon asked me to mention his site, through which you can get a ton of old time radio shows through either audio or MP3 compact discs. Because SEO stuff is important as far as searh engines are concerned, I should probably mention that OTRCat is short for Old Time Radio Catalog.

Well, The Hawg doesn't plug any junk sites and I'm here to tell you that Jon has a great one that should be visited by anyone looking to satisfy that OTR fix. He's got everything from the Aldrich Family through Sam Spade over there and the prices are ridiculously low (a CD stuffed with MP3 files will cost you about $5).

The selection of shows over there is impressive and you even get a comprehensive description of the history and significance of each show. Jon's even gone so far as to put together some "best of" collections so you can grab the greatest Dragnet episodes ever made, find a dynamite selection of great Christmas shows, etc. Truth be told, I spent quite some time combing through shows I've never heard of and reading up on some old favorites.

Not sure about a show? You can listen to samples of what's available at the site, too. Download an episode or two while you're at it. The site is well organized and is a joy to simply browse and read. Jon, clearly, loves old time radio and has invested a lot of time and effort in making a top notch site.

Jon mentioned he put this project together in an attempt to preserve old time radio shows. I honestly believe that's his primary motivation as there's no way he's getting rich by selling such quality stuff for about $5 a disc. As I've mentioned before, I respect anyone who goes out of his way to preserve OTR as the Golden Age of Radio represents a fantastic period in American history that we are rapidly forgetting.

For those not familiar with old time radio, that's the medium where great shows like Dragnet and Gunsmoke started. That medium made stars of Jack Benny, George Burns, Gracie Allen and a host of other people. Even greats like Bing Crosby and Bob Hope were stars on radio and you can find some of their material over at OTRCat.com.

Get over there, OK? And thanks, Jon, for telling me about your great site!

Jon, by the way, has inspired me to do something I've thought about for some time -- creating a blog roll and list of sites I like. Look for that soon.

Calm down, Razorbacks fans

I've heard a lot of grumbling throughout the Natural State over the past couple of days. Why? Arkansas barely scraped by another cream puff team on Saturday by beating Louisiana-Monroe by one rotten point.

Yes, Arkansas has spent the past two weeks squeaking by teams we're used to watching the Hogs whip the socks off on a regular basis. The complaints, of course, have to do with the notion that Arkansas isn't whipping those teams badly enough -- there's a team the Hogs will get killed by the Texas Longhorns next week and will get crushed during the SEC regular season.

Anyone who expected the Razorbacks to have a stellar season is living in a fool's paradise. This is Bobby Petrino's first year as the coach and he inherited a mess from the Houston Nutt years. This season will probably be a long one, but anyone who watched the Houston Nutt saga unfold last year should know that Petrino has his work cut out for him. The man's got a young team, after all, and they've got a lot to learn.

Meanwhile, thank God Houston Nutt is out of this state. It seems Ole Miss dropped a game against Wake Forest yesterday.

It appeared, early on, that Ole Miss was going to win that one, but the famed Nutt factor struck and Wake Forest was able to capitalize on some bonehead mistakes. What's this? A Nutt team blowing a game because of some sloppy, undisciplined play? Who would have guessed that?

I feel sorry for Ole Miss fans. They'll learn before long why we got to the point where we absolutely hated Nutt here in Arkansas. At least it's better to have him frustrating fans in Mississippi rather than breaking hearts in Arkansas, I suppose. Still, it's incredible that Nutt -- a complete moron -- ever managed to wind up coaching a team in the SEC is beyond me.

Rumor has it the Benton Panthers were looking for a new coach not long ago and Nutt's name came up. Any discussion of hiring him was quickly killed, however -- we take our high school football seriously down here and look for coaches that are more qualified than Nutt. Heh, heh.

Super Weasel Lawyer Team update

Tim Swift sent me the rough draft of the soon to be famous Super Weasel Lawyer Team comic strip. It's awesome, folks. Tim's sitting in Nashville working on the final draft of the first strip as we speak and I'm very excited about this little project.

Tim and I have decided to create a whole new blog for the strip and I'll provide the details as soon as I have them. I hope everyone enjoys the strip and, as I've said, the project becomes the longest-running lawyer joke in history.

Hopefully, you folks will enjoy watching a couple of Southern boys tear into the legal system. Being a recovering lawyer, I'll enjoy it at least. Stay tuned!

A reminder

I doubt I'll be able to update my blog until Thursday, Sept. 11 (there's a creepy date, huh?) as I'll be dealing with the Arkansas Realtors Association convention from Monday through Wednesday. I'll be going through a bunch of 14 and 15-hour days and will probably be so irate that nothing I'd post would be worth reading anyway.

The Super Weasel Lawyer Team and other things

I've collected a lot of stuff to blog about over the past week, so I thought I'd put them in one post.

Yes, there's a lot of business to tend to, so I'll get right to it.

First of all, I'm very excited to announce that I'll soon release a new Web comic into the wild -- The Super Weasel Lawyer Team. Some of you may recall that I sent out a request for help about a week ago. One intrepid soul, Tim Swift, answered the call.

I've put the scripts together for the first couple of strips so far and Tim has finished some preliminary drafts of the characters. Folks, I'm excited about this one -- Tim has some great ideas and I'm sure y'all will love the artwork.

Whether the stories are any good is another matter, entirely. I'm a recovering lawyer, see, so I'll draw on my experiences as a practicing attorney and law student to essentially make fun of lawyers, the legal profession, law students, law professors, judges, criminals and other folks.

In this era of political correctness, there are still some groups we can make fun of without fear of ramifications. For example, we can take swipes at Nazis, the Ku Klux Klan, lawyers and other groups that are largely harmful to society. If I'm really lucky, I'll get some hate mail from a lawyer or two and make fun of that, too.

I was very tempted to post some of Tim's preliminary sketches, but I decided against it. So, everyone will just have to wait and be surprised.

When will the first installment of The Super Weasel Lawyer Team be released? I'm not real sure, but it should be fairly soon. We've got some work to do and have to decide whether to release it on this blog, build a new one, do both or whatever. So, stay tuned and get for regular updates on what I hope becomes the longest lawyer joke on record.

Look what Theresa Komor went and did!

Theresa, a good ol' Arkie girl and one of my favorite bloggers, has done some work in journalism and had a story published on Saturday morning in The Daily Citizen in Searcy, Ark. I'm more than a bit envious as I, too, used to be a reporter and I loved every minute of it. I've transitioned to the public relations field over the years and that job does have it's rewards, but there's nothing like the fun of meeting deadlines and doing something different every day.

Yes, I miss those days like hell, but I'm thrilled to see that Theresa gets to enjoy the great profession of journalism. I hope to see some more articles from Theresa and I wish her well in her decision to freelance some articles for The Daily Citizen and (I hope!) some more newspapers around Arkansas.

She's a very good writer, so make sure to click the link above and read her latest newspaper article and certainly check out her blogs -- A Bumpy Path and Eyebald.

The Crotchety Old Man is a phenomenon

If you haven't visited Crotchety Old Man Yells at Cars yet, you really need to head over there. Crotchety has gotten a lot of attention lately because of both his sharp wit and his weekly photo caption contest. If you haven't participated in that contest you really need to do that.

Why? You get some damned strange photos and prizes for the winners (yours truly won some Entrecard credits through that contest just a couple of days ago).

If you stop in there once, you'll keep coming back on a regular basis. Trust me on this.

The Hawg for President?

Go ahead and check out this video for the full story. Yes, as president I promise to be for stuff that's cool and solidly against stuff that's not.

Additionally, I'll make sure to cash in on my four years in office and reestablish something that's been sadly lacking from our nation for the past 20 years -- red baiting. Yes, turn in a commie and get a reward from a grateful nation!

An absent The Hawg?

Sadly, I will be busy from Monday through about Wednesday. So I won't be messing with my blog and hitting Entrecard as much as I'd like.

What will I be doing? Well, I'm the director of media relations for the Arkansas Realtors Association and we've got our convention from Monday through Wednesday in Little Rock.

So it'll be a bunch of 15-hour days through Wednesday and, hopefully, some time to sleep.

I'll be back in fine form come Thursday, but duty calls, you know?