Fun with license plates

I was driving across my hometown of scenic Benton, Ark., today when I saw a license plate that caught my attention.

It was one of those vanity plates and it read "EMBALMR." I suppose if you make your living as an embalmer, you might as well have a sense of humor about it, huh?

I've long thought about getting a vanity plate but I've never actually done it. I found a dandy tool at the Arkansas state Internet site that allows visitors to generate samples of their own vanity plates, see if the particular combination of letters and numbers they want is available and reserve their plates.

That site is located right here and it's more fun than a barrel full of monkeys. Go ahead and try it out. Play with it. Go nuts. I had minutes of fun, of course, and generated my own "The Hawg" license plate and was thrilled to find out it's available (I doubt I'll get it, but it's nice to know I could).

I generated some other license plates, too:

Some of these require additional comment. For example, my son is 12-years-old and he will be driving in a couple of years. I've called him "The Boy" for as long as I can remember, so a vanity plate with that nickname on it seems mighty appropriate.

Also, I've been entertaining the idea of having an active and up-to-date law license once again. In this economy, it's a good idea to have as many options available as possible, right? That's doubly true if you happen to be in public relations and are watching PR folks getting thrown out of work right and left as organizations are trying to save money in a rough economy.

Should I ever make the decision to practice law again, a license plate that says "WEASEL" on it seems appropriate, doesn't it? Here's the odd thing about that -- both "WEASEL" and "WEASEL1" are unavailable in this state, but "WEASEL2" is available.

It seems strange to me that there are at least two people running around Arkansas with "weasel" plates. If I see one of them, I ought to wave that person down and ask why on earth they chose that particular plate and whether they practice law.

The other plates are just ones that seem appropriate for a lot of drivers in this state. Those plates are available, too, and I was impressed that the state's license plate generator won't even produce a sample if your requesting something that's not available.

They've screened out obscene plates, too, I discovered. That goes for some obviously obscene words and phrases and more covert ones such as "FUQ." Bear in mind that even if a plate is available, the state must still approve it. I wonder, then, if the "HATEYOU" plate would make it through the approval process. I somehow doubt it.

Oh, so we'll rally behind THIS president, will we?

Since the 2008 presidential elections were decided in November, I've heard a lot of talk about how we all need to rally behind Barack Obama regardless of whether we voted for him or not.

That's good advice in the wake of any election, of course. However, it's just downright funny to hear people say that as they are, figuratively speaking, scraping the "Bush is not MY president" stickers off their bumpers.

Anyone who took up the "Bush is not my president" mantra needs to shut the hell up. They simply haven't earned the right to lecture anyone.

Enjoy the inauguration tomorrow.

Ah, if only...

A few days ago, I posted something about people getting "Rickrolled."

I used a newspaper clipping in that post and Matt over at Matt-Speak pointed out that item might have been faked over at The Newspaper Clipping Imager. After looking at that site, I concluded Matt might be right -- faking a newspaper article that looks convincing isn't that hard, seemingly.

I then put together a little article that would be true in a perfect world. Here it is:

I've always wanted to own a newspaper and be a king, see. Thanks to the site Matt pointed out, I was able to pretend I achieved both. That's a fun site. Y'all go nuts.

"Rickrolled?"

I, The Hawg, am often behind the times a bit.

I suppose that happens to those of us about to hit 40-years-old. Yes, pop culture changes on us and we just don't care anymore.

Regardless, there are some things I still find wildly amusing. For some reason, it's become common to get "Rickrolled" on the Internet. Perhaps you get e-mailed a link from a friend that cleverly steers you to a video of rick Rick Astley singing his classic Never Gonna Give You Up. Maybe you find a video you want to watch on the Internet and ole Rick pops up about halfway through it.

The whole "Rickrolling" thing has, evidently, taken a turn for the worse in at least one American city. Take a look at this article a friend of mine at work sent me:


Truth be told, I couldn't find a town on the map called "Shalton" or a newspaper called The Daily that might report news in such a city. Still, it's a fascinating story in that I could very well see this kind of thing happening somewhere.

And what the hell is it about Rick Astley these days, anyway? I thought his 15 minutes of fame was up in the 1980s. I don't understand why he's popping up now and I wish someone would explain it to me.

Furthermore, if people really are going around listening to Astley and beating up people, what the hell are they thinking? Astley banged out a rather sissy form of pop that would likely inspire all the violence of an Elton John concert. I mean, just take a look at this video:

Rick Astley - Never Gonna Give You Up
Uploaded by trashfan

Maybe when I blare Rick's big hit through the office tomorrow for the sheer hell of it all will be revealed to me. Will my fellow employees react with horror, get furious or dance around with gleeful abandon?

The laziest post of all time!

Work's been a chore lately, so I've been too worn out to dream up any worthless nonsense to post here.

I'll get back in the swing of things before long.

Meanwhile, enjoy "Bastards of Young" -- the greatest video to air on MTV. How I miss the Replacements...

Head on over to Wordless Wednesday to see some other entries (or enter something of your own).

Remembering The King

Today, Jan. 8, was Elvis Presley's birthday.

I well remember when Elvis died at the age of 42 way on back in 1977. If Elvis was alive today, he'd be 74-years-old and that, for some reason, is a staggering fact.

I almost let Elvis' birthday slip by as I've been very busy with work lately. However, I couldn't let the day slip past without acknowledging one of the finest entertainers in this great nation's history. So I've attached a YouTube video taken from Elvis' 1968 Comeback Special.

Yes, that's the way I prefer to remember Elvis -- vibrant, looking almost like a thug and belting out a rock n' roll classic. Enjoy the video!

How 'bout them Hogs?

It seems we have reason to rejoice here in Arkansas.

For one thing, that miserable football season is well behind us. Last season was the first one for head coach Bobby Petrino and the Razorbacks wound up with a miserable 5-7 record (2-6 in the SEC). We'll see what happens when Petrino has a chance to get some of his own recruits and the team has had a season to get used to his system.

The best news, of course, is that the basketball Razorbacks are off to a heck of a start. This is head coach John Pelphrey's second season and the Razorbacks are 12-1 thus far.

The Hogs have won their past 10 games, in fact, and we haven't seen that happen since 1995 -- a year in which the Razorbacks made it to the final round of the NCAA tournament and lost to UCLA. Of course, the Hogs won the NCAA championship in 1994 by beating Duke (it was fun to watch Duke lose, particularly since the "experts" predicted they'd slaughter Arkansas).

At any rate, Arkansas has also managed to knock off two top 10 teams in the past week. Last week, 4th ranked Oklahoma came to Fayetteville and the Hogs beat them 96-88. No. 7 Texas lost 67-61 in Fayetteville just the other night.

What was noteworthy about both of those games is that Arkansas is a young team (you can't swing a dead cat without hitting a freshman) and the Hogs went up against two teams that had more talent and experience. Regardless, the Hogs found a way to win both games and I haven't seen the Razorbacks scrap and fight that much since Nolan Richardson left in 2002.

The icing on the cake here is that Pelphrey showed up in a red sports coat the other night, thus showing off those school colors on national television. Good for him.

Hopefully, the Hogs will keep winning those games the team is supposed to lose and make it past the second round in the NCAA tournament this year. Pelphrey's turning out to be a heck of a coach and that's good news.

The Hawg's gift to the world

As I've mentioned here before, I turn 40-years-old in June and I'm mad about it.

I figure I'm angry for the reason most people about to enter middle age are irate. Yes, I haven't achieved much of anything in my 40 years on this earth in spite of having some potential and too much education.

Ah, but I vow to achieve greatness on my 40th birthday. How? I, The Hawg, hereby swear to either develop a new interjection or modify one that's fallen out of vogue and inflict it on the world!

I initially thought a new obscenity would be good and that might be just the thing for people who want to yell something while angry but are bored with the limitations of the English language. However, my new interjection doesn't have to be obscene -- it merely has to be something unique that angry people can yell when frustrated. One that sums up an emotional state in a scant few syllables and makes all who utter it feel a little better.

I figure on assembling a team of people who are given to getting angry and yelling things. That team will help me develop the perfect interjection. I've already enlisted the support of a foul-mouthed fellow at my office and my brother (a redhead, and we know how mad they get, right?) More team members are sure to follow in the weeks to come.

What kind of interjection will my crack team develop? Will it be something so foul that a kid can utter it in school and get thrown out for a year? Will it be an anglicized version of some particularly nasty German curse? Will it not be profane at all and merely be an old chestnut that has fallen out of favor and needs to be reintroduced?

The sky's the limit here, so who knows what we'll come up with over the next few months? The only rule my crack team of interjection experts will have to follow is that it can't be blasphemous. Hey, I'm a Methodist and blasphemy just isn't cool.

My birthday is June 16, so I figure on introducing my anger-relieving interjection at that time (I'll be so mad when that cursed 40th birthday arrives that I may use my new word all day long). Stay tuned. I'm sure we'll come up with something that will catch on quick and sweep the planet.

Putting pressure on IHOP

I recently got an e-mail from a lady by the name of Rachel Thompsen who has started a blog called Bring Back Boysenberry.

Yes, I've been irate at IHOP for some time because of the fact that company's restaurants don't carry wonderful, wonderful boysenberry syrup here in central Arkansas. I fired off an e-mail a few months ago griping about the lack of boysenberry syrup, and received a note from IHOP that local managers could choose whether or not to carry boysenberry syrup.

That fact didn't help me a bit, of course, so my brother sent me a gallon of boysenberry syrup for Christmas. I became complacent and, indeed, didn't care that the rest of the boysenberry fans in the world were having to choke down IHOP pancakes covered in syrup flavored with maple, blueberry, strawberry or something else that pales in comparison to the magical flavor of boysenberry.

So I'm glad to see that Ms. Thompsen has started her blog and I'd encourage all you disgruntled boysenberry fans in the world to go visit it. You can even sign a petition over there calling for the return of boysenberry. I had trouble getting my signature to take on the petition on the blog, but I had more luck going directly to the petition located right here. I'm not sure if there's something wrong on the blog or the fact that I'm using a computer equipped with junky Windows prevented the "blog based" petition from working.

Here's the thing about IHOP. That e-mail suggesting that local managers can determine whether boysenberry syrup is carried in restaurants is a bunch of bureaucratic nonsense. It's all buck passing and blame shifting, really.

IHOP corporate certainly has the authority to force local stores to carry boysenberry. An outraged public could make them do just that. Give them hell, folks.

Top Entrecard droppers for December

Yes, it's time once again to list the Top 10 Entrecard droppers.

I try to do this every month as I do appreciate consistent visits to The Natural State Hawg and it appears that a heck of a lot of folks have chosen to stop buy here daily. Thanks, folks!

So, without further ado, here are the Top 10 Entrecard droppers for the month of December:

1. Faris Fakri
2. The Junk Drawer
3. Mr Soleh’s Outburst
4. MJG's Rambling Thoughts
5. Programming Made Easy
6. Rants, Thoughts, and Other Things
7. Communication Exchange
8. Everything Under the Sun
9. My World in My Own Word
10. The Way I See It

Thanks, folks!

...and that's when I realized I am old

It's sad but true -- I, The Hawg, turn 40-years-old in June.

I've been mad about that since I turned 39-years-old, but the significance of being on the edge of middle age hit me right in the head earlier this week. Here's what happened.

We purchased a copy of Activision's Guitar Hero for our Nintendo Wii for Christmas. My 12-year-old son raves about it. Says it's a great game and a true classic. Yes, he was able to play along with "Rock n' Roll All Nite" by KISS and rock along to a ton of songs.

He said I just had to try it. I did. Guitar Hero sucks. I picked up that nasty copy of a Gibson Les Paul and had absolutely no fun with the game. I barely made it through the tutorial before I realized it was no fun and the actual game is worse.

There are three reasons for this, I think. For one thing, I actually play guitar and I can tell you that fooling around with Guitar Hero is a poor substitute for picking up my Fender Deluxe Stratocaster, plugging into an amplifier and actually banging out a song or two.

And, yes, that's my Strat in the picture. Ah, what a beauty. She originally came with three Fender Tex-Mex pickups, but the one on the bridge was replaced with one of those thin, humbucking pickups so the guitar sounds extra angry when needed.

That's another matter entirely, of course. The point is I might hate Guitar Hero because I almost sometimes kind of know what I'm doing when I have a real guitar in my hands.

Second, it could just be that I'm getting old and still miss the good old days when playing a video game meant hooking an Atari 2600 to a television set and controlling all the action with a joystick and one fire button. That blasted Guitar Hero controller is sophisticated by comparison and I hate the game too much to sit down and mess with it until I get good at it.

No, such things are for kids, I think. My parents really didn't "get" my Atari games and I suppose I don't get a lot of the games my kids enjoy. It's all come full circle, I think.

Third, it could be that Guitar Hero just feels too much like work. Do you know what you call putting out a lot of effort to do something you'd rather not be doing? You call that a job. I've got a job and I have absolutely no interest in doing something that feels like work but provides me with no income (keep those "why are you blogging, then?" comments to yourselves).

Perhaps I can illustrate my final point with a few games I've come up with that should appeal to people who think that Guitar Hero and labor-intensive games like it are actually fun.

1. Bailout! Harrr, matey! You be a pirate on the high seas and your ship has been attacked by those lily livered lackeys hired by the queen. They put a hole in your ship and it's your job to grab a bucket and bail, bail, bail in order to stay afloat. The game comes with an exclusive bucket controller and features a soundtrack full of sea shanties. Avast!

2. TaxStar. Yes, it's tax season once again and you work for H&M Circle, the largest tax accountant in the country. Find those loopholes, record those deductions and get the maximum rebate for your customers. Can you beat out other tax preparers in your office and receive the coveted Employee of the Month trophy? The game comes with a keyboard controller and the latest copy of the tax code.

3. Sisyphus! Remember Sisyphus from Greek mythology? He was the fellow who was condemned for all eternity to push a stone up a hill, only to have the stone roll down the hill so poor Sisyphus could begin his trek once again. In this game, you assume the role of Sisyphus. There's no way to win and the game never changes a bit. Comes with a special rock controller and an incline. Because of the special equipment involved, the game costs $500 but it's well worth it.

4. COBOL Programmer Plus. Yes indeed! Your task is to write COBOL programs of increasing in complexity. After you write a program, you get to compile your code, watch it fail, chase out the bugs, compile it again and hope it works. Yes, it's all program, compile, run, debug, recompile and repeat until you go insane. Comes with that keyboard controller that can also be used for TaxStar, the Let's Go Cobol programming manual, a carton of unfiltered cigarettes and plenty of things to throw to relieve frustration. It's fun for minutes!

I predict any of those games could be a big hit, given my experience with Guitar Hero. Look for them in a store near you in time for Christmas 2009.

The Hawg is a New Year's Scrooge

Yeah. That's right. I, The Hawg, don't care one whit for New Year's Eve, New Year's Day or any of that rot.

What did I do on that nothing of a holiday? I went to bed early on New Year's Eve, slept late the next morning, watched a little football and helped my wife put away Christmas ornaments.

I ended New Year's Day by watching my 140-pound monster of a dog wander over and drink half of my red cream soda (once he stuck his huge tongue in the glass, I figured there was no point in running him off -- I didn't want it, so why not let the dog have his fun?) There's some symbolism there, I'm sure.

I figure that New Year's is a holiday for people in their 20s, anyway, and one of those things that doesn't have much meaning for those of us pushing 40-years-old and raising kids.

Oh, there was a time when I'd go out on New Year's Eve and drag home sometime in mid-February or March. Yes, there was much revelry and carousing back then, but you can't run around like a moron when you've got a wife and kids, can you? No, those days are over and I'm left with a pitiful one day off from work and the sad task of taking down Christmas decorations.

They've even deprived me of my New Year's Day bowl games. Remember when the biggest college football game of the year was played on New Year's Day? They don't do that anymore -- the BCS knotheads decided to move the championship to some other day, thus depriving us Americans of yet another holiday tradition.

Phooey on them.

And phooey on New Year's, a day that marks the end of the holiday season and the beginning of things getting back to normal. After Christmas -- the super bowl of holidays and my favorite time of year -- New Year's is incredibly anticlimactic.

Bah, humbug!

Apparently, they've lost their minds in Denver

Well, read all about it right here -- the Denver Broncos have fired head coach Mike Shanahan.

Yes, that makes a lot of sense. After all, Shanahan hasn't achieved much -- just a couple of Super Bowl championships and a record of 130-78 over the past 14 years. That, by the way, is a winning percentage of .625, second in Broncos franchise history to Red Miller who was coach from 1977 to 1980 and compiled a winning percentage of .640.

And Shanahan's only installed one of the most potent running games in the country at a team that was notoriously inept at rushing prior to his arrival.

What did Shanahan do wrong? Apparently, missing the championships with an 8-8 record this season got him canned. Of course, it's a bit rare when the Broncos aren't in the playoffs these days and Shanahan had to deal with a slew of injuries throughout the season, but that doesn't matter much, seemingly.

Denver has canned the best coach the team has had. Period. They'll regret that decision, as will we longtime Broncos fans out there. God only knows who Denver will drag up to replace Shanahan. I shudder to think. Is there any available coach out there who will be an improvement over Shanahan? That's doubtful.

Now, I'm well aware that Broncos fans go nuts over football. Let's go back to the 1990 season for a minute. Of course, Denver got killed by San Francisco in the 1990 Super Bowl and the team simply struggled when the regular season began in the fall.

How did fans react? One lady at a home game in Mile High Stadium sprayed a bunch of opposing fans with Mace as Denver was losing. Another Denver resident, distraught after a home loss, went back to his house after the game, held his wife and kids at gunpoint and ranted for awhile until he surrendered to the police. A radio sports announcer in Denver swore he'd broadcast from on top of a billboard until Denver won a game. He was up there for a few weeks in the miserably cold Denver weather.

There's no doubt there was a lot of pressure on Denver's ownership to make a change, considering how hardcore Broncos fans tend to be. Still, firing Shanahan -- the only coach in the team's history to bring a Super Bowl title to Denver -- is a bonehead move and one team owner Pat Bowlen will regret. You're an idiot, Bowlen, and you're setting your team up to be the NFL's whipping boy next year.

If I hadn't been a Bronco's fan for over 30 years, I'd say Bowlen and his team are about to get what they deserve.

The Hawg makes a New Year's resolution!

Well, it's time to make some New Year's resolutions, isn't it?

I, The Hawg, have a great one this year -- I pledge to get back into the old Christmas shopping habits my wife and I had in the past. Let me explain.

Just a few years ago, my wife and I were perpetually struggling with finances and shopped for Christmas presents through the year out of necessity. We figured it was just too hard to come up with a huge chunk of cash right before Christmas, so we'd spread our shopping out through the year.

That made things easy. If, for example, I saw the perfect movie for my dad in the middle of July, we'd buy it and stick it in a drawer. By the time December rolled around, then, the overwhelming majority of our Christmas shopping was done so we had the luxury of kicking back, enjoying the holiday season and let other people go through the agony of shopping right before Christmas.

We've fallen out of that habit a bit and the result was that Christmas came and went very quickly, leaving us with little time to enjoy holiday movies, goof off and look at lights and etc. Money's not as much of an issue as it used to be, so we put off a lot of shopping until the last minute.

Oh, we did get about half of our shopping done before December, but it wasn't enough to avoid crowds, rushing around right before Christmas and all of the other stuff we used to be able to avoid.

Christmas is my favorite holiday and I feel more than a bit robbed. It's time to get back on track.

Oh, and I figure on buying that kick butt guitar amp I've always wanted in 2009, too. I can't figure out if that's a New Year's resolution or a selfish desire, however.

The Christmas wrench!

I hope everyone had a great Christmas (I did) and I'd like to share the story I'll remember from this year.

Well, there are two of them actually -- one involves a wrench and the other involves boysenberry syrup. I'll start with a little story I like to call The Christmas Wrench.

On Christmas Eve, my wife prepared sweet potatoes and ground up the peelings in our garbage disposal. The lines between the garbage disposal and the wall clogged because, as I learned from doing some research on the Internet, sweet potato peelings are hard on disposals.

So, I needed to get a plumber's wrench so I could pull the pipes apart and get rid of the clog. The problem, of course, was that it was Christmas Eve and all the stores were closed.

Fortunately, Wal-Mart was open when I headed out at about 5:55 p.m. I got to the store and was turned away by this fellow -- the store closed at 6 p.m. and I showed up right about that time.

I said, "But, the cash registers are still going!"

He said the registers would be open until 6:15 p.m. to check out everyone who was in the store. That's all I needed to know.

A lady showed up and distracted the fellow by going through some hysterical tale about how she just had to get in Wal-Mart to buy a last minute present. While he was dealing with her, I slipped into the store.

Heh, heh!

While I was running to the hardware section, I started to wonder if I was doing the right thing. I mean, I essentially sneaked into a Wal-Mart to go buy a wrench. No matter, however. I grabbed my wrench and checked out by 6:10 p.m.

I didn't make eye contact with the guy who tried to block me from coming in the store. I was able to use the wrench on the kitchen sink and get rid of the clog so my wife could keep making Christmas dinner. That was a very good thing as we had a lot of family members over for Christmas dinner.

Yes, that wrench saved Christmas. Sometimes, then, being sneaky is a good thing.

Finally, boysenberry syrup!

Last month, I posted a rant about the fact that boysenberry syrup wasn't available at the IHOP here in scenic Benton, Ark. You can't get any at the IHOPs in Little Rock, either, and I've been furious about it.

I dashed off an e-mail and got a reply from IHOP informing me that individual IHOPs could choose to carry the syrup, even though many of them don't. My little brother and his wife live in Greensboro, N.C., and the IHOP they go to does carry the wonderful syrup.

So, what did they do? They bought a gallon of the stuff and sent it to me with one of those plastic bears that usually contain honey. I got an IHOP gift card, too.

My brother and sister-in-law tell me that I'm all set up to go to IHOP and take my own syrup with me. That's a heck of a good gift, folks. I need to try harder when picking out presents for them next year. They know me well and got something that is so cool that my mind reels just thinking about it.

Thanks to my brother and his wife (Alev, you are now my favorite sister-in-law), my wife bought some pancake mix so I can enjoy my boysenberry syrup in the morning.

I hope everyone had a great Christmas. I came out pretty well but, more importantly, my wife was thrilled that I bought her a bunch of gifts that she absolutely wanted and adored (the sapphire and diamond ring was the top of the heap, seemingly) and the kids are ecstatic over their new Nintendo DS systems and the games that go with them. The best thing yet, however, is that we had the family over to our house for Christmas and didn't have to go anywhere this year. That, folks, was absolute bliss.

A keyless lock? Yeah, I'll be getting one of these!

My boy, God bless him, loses his house key on a regular basis.

Honestly, we buy about four of the things at a time when he's out of keys because we know he'll go through them rather fast. The problem, of course, is that he comes home from school in the afternoon and has to unlock our door to get in the house.

I've found a nifty gadget that I may well buy before long -- a keyless lock system from Axxis Biometrics. Those systems are set up so that keys are obsolete and the lock opens when it identifies a fingerprint that the system has been programed to recognize.

That's right -- just set up the keyless lock to open when select people run their fingers across the lock and the door opens. The keyless lock system can even be programmed to allow temporary access to people -- ideal for when our cleaning service drops by to visit.

The prices are low and the selection over at Axxis Biometrics is large. I may well be a customer before long. I can't make that son of mine keep up with his key, but I'm almost positive he won't lose his finger, right?

Wordless Wednesday -- Merry Christmas!

Well, Christmas is upon us and it's pretty clear that my little The Hawglets -- Michael Wesley and Brenda SueCarol -- are excited about the holiday.

Here's a photo of them pretending to like each other -- proof that Christmas brings out the best in us, seemingly. We'll all be heading up to the scenic Benton, Ark., square tonight to visit the Nativity scene at the First United Methodist Church and the wonderful light display on the Saline County Courthouse lawn.

I hope y'all have a great Christmas and expect a little something from the Hawg. Yes, I'll make extra sure to click a few ads on blogs I visit today as I've noticed some people have been hitting those Google ads of mine pretty hard lately. I appreciate that and plan on returning the favor.

I know you good folks want to visit the other Wordless Wednesday participants by clicking right here. Merry Christmas and God bless!

Blogging during the Christmas season is hard

I've just about decided I should have simply kept away from my blog during December and picked things up in January.

Why? I've been fulfilling familial obligations all month long and have neglected my blog to such an extent that I'm doing things like, well, posting a picture of a dog sleeping under a blanket and resting his head on a pillow. Who the hell, other than me, really cares about that kind of nonsense?

Sadly, that's about all I've had time for lately. Frankly, I like the photo because we've got a 140-pound Saint Boxer (Saint Bernard/Boxer) under a blanket because my 12-year-old son thought he might appreciate it (it turns out that Winston the Dog does appreciate the blanket -- probably because it's about 20 degrees outside and that's unusual here in Arkansas).

Apparently, I don't even have time to set the date stamp on my digital camera. Pitiful.

If there's a point here at all, I suppose it's that December is a horrible month for blogging. However, I'll be back up to speed as soon as the holidays have ended.

And merry Christmas to all!

Auto manufacturers get bailout, Bush convinces more people to hate his guts

Go ahead and read all about it right here -- George W. Bush and his band of idiots went against the will of the American people and the Senate by coming up with a plan under which $13.4 billion will be sent to those undeserving fools at Chrysler and General Motors.

I'm very proud, of course, to live in a country that rewards incompetence and failure. If I had my way, Chrysler and G.M. would both go bankrupt as that is what terrible companies that make garbage deserve.

I'll not dwell on the details of the plan as this is old news. It's disappointing, to say the least, and I'll leave it at that.

I'd like to focus, however, on what the government should have done to help out the American auto industry. It seems clear that the government is just itching to spend money, so why not benefit the American people with it?

I'm still of the opinion that the government has lost its collective mind and I'm amazed that an alleged Republican loves spending money like a Democrat. Still, if the government is spending money like frat boys on spring vacation, I want my cut and I'm sure you do, too.

What the feds should have done is adopted my plan -- the Everybody Gets A New Car plan. Under that plan, any household with an income under, say, $250,000 would get a voucher to be spent on a new car. The voucher would be a generous $25,000, plenty for either a new car or a hefty down payment on one.

Under my plan, see, Americans could choose for themselves whether to purchase American cars and bail out the industry. I figure, however, that companies such as Honda, Toyota and Kia would get the bulk of that money because those companies make vehicles that people actually want to buy -- that's the flaw in my plan.

No, the government was out to save some union jobs and pour money into companies that were stupid enough to keep making gas-guzzling SUVs instead of focusing on fuel economy when gas was over $3.50 a gallon. Our government, in other words, is now against competition and is for robbing consumers of one of the few powers we have -- determining what products and services we want to buy and which companies deserve to thrive.

I fully expect the feds to bring back tariffs next so as to almost force us to buy junk cars made by American companies. To avoid that unpleasantness, I figure on buying at least one Toyota -- maybe two -- next year and driving them until he insanity is over. American car companies make trash and they've been given absolutely no incentive to change.

Wordless Wednesday -- The Beatles' "Ticket to Ride"

Seemed appropriate, seeing how we've got ice all over the place here in scenic Arkansas.

Make sure to visit the other Wordless Wednesday participants (or submit something of your own!) by clicking right here.

If you have cats, avoid this shampoo

There's at least one good thing about going bald -- I, The Hawg, can buy the cheapest shampoo on the market and not feel the least bit bad about it.

Yes, I could probably get away with washing what little hair I have left with a bar of soap. However, I go ahead and spend that $1 to get a bottle of cheap old Suave. I don't care about silky, shiny, full body or any of that rot as I don't have enough hair to bother.

Suave has never let me down. Well, almost never.

I bought a bottle of Cucumber Melon Splash shampoo from Suave's Naturals line. Who wouldn't want to wander around all day with a head that smells like a melon?

That kind of reminds me of an old joke -- "That girl is melancholy. She's got a head like a melon and a face like a collie!"

I had a roommate in college with a fiance we called Ol' Melancholy. He didn't care much for that. She ran off on him with another man to New York a few years later, got pregnant by her new man and asked my roommate to be the godfather of the kid. She was insane.

Anyway, I've had trouble with that Cucumber Melon Splash stuff. We've got a kitten around here who loves it. I don't know what they put it the shampoo but it drives the kitten out of her mind.

This morning, the shampoo-induced kitten got her paw snarled up in my hair a few times and eventually bit my head.

I don't think I'll buy that shampoo anymore. Suave makes plenty of cheap shampoo, so I'll stay away from the kitten's favorite brand in the future.

It's fun to watch another dysfunctional bunch of sports fans for a change

I hope you good people took a look at that YouTube video -- that was Auburn Athletic Director Jay Jacobs being heckled by Auburn fans.

Why was Jacobs being given such a hard time? Because the school went and hired Gene Chizik as the head football coach. Frankly, I'm not sure why they got rid of Tommy Tuberville -- a coach who went 85-40 (52-30 in the SEC) -- and replaced him with a coach who went 5-19 (2-12 in the Big 12) at Iowa State.

As I've mentioned time and time again, I'm an Arkansas Razorbacks fan. Because of that, I can't throw any stones at Auburn because we've made our share of idiotic coaching moves here in the Natural State.

The one that still makes me mad, of course, has to do with that idiot Houston Nutt, a head coach who managed to achieve a sparkling 4-7 record at Boise State before he wound up as the coach of the Arkansas Razorbacks. It's fascinating to note that Tuberville was in the running for the job, but that sleazy Nutt wound up with the job somehow.

It's also worth mentioning that Boise State improved substantially after Nutt packed up his trailer, his insane wife and headed to Arkansas.

So, I feel your pain, Auburn. I just hope Chizik works out better than Nutt did here. If not, you're looking at several years of fans wearing black shirts to ball games and a coach who makes the state look bad every time he opens his mouth. Hopefully, Chizik won't be an embarrassment to Auburn.

A lot of us hated Nutt for the majority of his tenure here. Yes, he had a great first season and the program simply went to hell after that. In addition to his lack of coaching skill, his off-field shenanigans and delightfully odd behavior at press conferences during games and press conferences made fans simply loathe him. Here's hoping Chizik fares better at Auburn.

If he does turn out horribly, however, there's still hope -- Ole Miss will get sick of having Nutt around as head coach before too many more seasons and that school will apparently hire anyone.

By the way, some irate Auburn fan has already had some fun with Jacobs' entry at Wikipedia. I'll quote that here before it gets changed:

"Jay Jacobs is the current director of athletics for the Auburn Tigers athletic department.

He was named Auburn's 14th Director of Athletics on December 22, 2004, after working in almost every area of the Auburn Athletic Department for the previous 20 years. He has recently come under controversy for his hiring of Auburn's new football coach, Gene Chizik. Though Chizik had a 5-19 record as a head coach prior to the hiring, he is white and likes to drink whiskey with Pat Dye, making him the ideal candidate for continuing Auburn's historical approach of putting out marginally successful, probation-riddled football teams."

It's a nice of pace to see some SEC fans other than the ones here in Arkansas upset about a coaching hire. Still, good luck to Auburn.

Thanks, by the way, to fellow blogger Paul Eilers over at Paul's Health Blog for sending the YouTube video my way.

Unions and Republicans kill auto bailout?

Just when you think the country is going straight to hell, something happens to make me think maybe things will work out OK.

Tonight, that moronic $14 billion bailout plan for the inept U.S. auto manufacturers died in the Senate. Why? A few Republicans acted almost like conservatives for a change and officials from the United Auto Workers union (UAW) acted like the pigheaded, reality ignoring fools they are.

As we all know by now the U.S. auto industry is in trouble due to a combination of things. The Japanese are stomping Chrysler, Ford and General Motors into the ground by resorting to a remarkably unfair tactic -- building cars that people actually want to buy.

Of course, those technologically, gas guzzling piles of junk that are rolling out of Detroit are built by an incredibly overpaid labor force, thus making things even more difficult for American car makers. It seems the bailout was killed by Republicans who demanded that the UAW agree to cut salaries so they're in line with what American autoworkers working for Japanese companies make.

The union, of course, refused and the pro-bailout crowd couldn't find enough votes to ship $14 billion to an undeserving industry. That's pretty much the correct result. I do wish the bailout for the financial industry would have met with such opposition, but that's all water under the bridge (a bridge that was probably also paid for with money borrowed from China and Japan, by the way).

A few things about this whole episode bother the heck out of me. For one thing, the issue that killed this nonsense in the Senate came about because a bunch of Republicans wanted labor costs cut. It should have been killed out of the gate because governments simply don't go around bailing out rotten companies in a capitalist economy (assuming we still are capitalists, of course) and then nationalizing them. Without the stubbornness of the unions, it seems that bailout might have passed the Senate -- there simply aren't enough free market conservatives left to generate the support to block anything for purely economic reasons.

For another, we've still got George W. Bush and his filthy cronies to consider. Apparently, pushing for this bailout is part of Bush's master plan to completely piss on conservative ideals before he's sent back to Texas. A conservative president would have lobbied hard against any talk of bailouts, but Bush has proven time and time again that he has no problem with letting the government fool around in the free market.

I'd love to see this bailout die for good so that our incompetent auto manufacturers would be forced to reorganize under Chapter 11, renegotiate their ridiculous labor contracts and be under the gun to design some innovative vehicles in order to compete with the superior automobiles produced by the likes of Honda and Toyota.

However, I doubt anyone will be shocked if the Bush administration rides in to rescue a bailout that any Republican worth his salt ought to oppose.

Update -- Arkansas Senator has the right idea

According to this story from ArkansasBusiness.com, Arkansas Senator Blanche Lincoln said she voted against the auto bailout plan because the bill would have committed more taxpayer money to a failed business plan. Good for her. I'm glad I keep voting for Lincoln.

Lincoln, a Democrat, usually does a very good job of representing her constituents, and she's lived up to her reputation here as someone who considers her vote rather than just doing what her party tells her.

That's in direct opposition to our other senator, Mark Pryor. Pryor, of course, voted for the bailout. But who really cares what Pryor does? He's an idiot and I'm embarrassed that he is affiliated with my state.

Update -- Bush is a bastard!

Well, according to this story, Bush may well raid the $700 billion bailout fund set aside for the financial industry and give it to the crybabies in the auto industry. Why the hell is that alleged Republican going out of his way to reward failure?

Companies that can't compete deserve to die and make way for businesses that can manufacture products that consumers want to buy. That's called capitalism. That's called giving the consumers the power to determine what products and services they want and how much they are willing to pay for them. That is the way the things ought to be.

That blasted $700 billion bailout for the financial industry and this latest nonsense has set a nasty precedent. Any industry that can't hack it can turn to the government and ask for money. They may get it, too.

Thanks, Georgie! You made me regret my decision to vote against both Al Gore and John Kerry. You've almost made me look forward to four years of Barack Obama because he can't possibly hate the free market more than you do. You suck, Bush, and you're nothing more than the Republican version of Jimmy Carter.

Wordless Wednesday -- Happy Birthday, Brenda SueCarol!

My daughter, Brenda SueCarol, turns eight-years-old today (Dec. 10) at exactly 4:35 p.m. CST. My wife and I are amazed that she's growing up on us. Here are some "then and now" pictures of Brenda and me.



Be sure to visit the other Wordless Wednesday participants (or submit something of your own) by clicking right here.

The American auto industry won't get another dime from me

We all knew it would happen, but it's still depressing to read -- according to this Associate Press story, the idiots in Congress have agreed in principle to give $15 billion to the failures running the U.S. auto industry.

Imagine that. Who would have imagined that our fine members of the House and Senate wouldn't want the finger pointed at them when a lot of unionized workers were tossed out of work because they are employed by morons?

That's shocking stuff, huh? If you're surprised by that, you're probably amazed that alleged Republican George W. Bush is right in the middle of this nonsense. Rather than acknowledge that he's caused enough damage and sit at his desk with a stack of coloring books and a box of crayons, Bush is seeing just how much more he can screw up the country and annoy the five or six of us in the nation who are still conservatives.

Ah, how the mighty have fallen. A mere 50 years ago, America was home to an auto industry that manufactured the finest cars on the road. Now that industry is reduced to three companies that manufacture garbage and need help from the government to survive. It used to be that companies that couldn't compete died and were replaced by businesses that developed better products and services, but those days appear to have ended.

We officially prop up losers in the U.S. now. And, yes, Chrysler, GM and Ford are all run by losers who can't hack it in the 21st century. While those mean ol' Japanese were developing hybrid vehicles and boasting about fuel economy, the Big Three in Detroit were busily churning out vehicles that achieved the same gas mileage as fully loaded 18-wheelers and would barely fit in two car garages.

They all deserve to fail for their lack of foresight, inability to read market trends and failure to compete. They deserve to fail for not producing vehicles Americans actually want to buy, for using cheap materials for interiors and churning out garbage cars that squeak, rattle and break down like they've been on the road for a couple of decades when they're brand new. They deserve to fail for handing millions of dollars to incompetent managers and absolutely refusing to develop innovative products.

Oh, and the union leaders that helped inflate wages to ridiculous levels deserve to be smacked on their noses with a rolled up newspaper, too. Let's not forget that American auto manufacturers start off at a disadvantage due to labor that is both overpaid and unwilling to budge and inch when the companies they work for are struggling.

One of the worst things about this latest round of bailouts is that the government wants to establish a "car czar" to overhaul the car industry. That makes absolutely no sense. The government is good at two things -- wasting money and ruining things. What happens when you put the government in charge of a bunch of companies that already waste money and produce garbage? You'll get companies that are even more inefficient and produce vehicles that are even more scrapyard-ready than they are now.

The problem, of course, is that Americans will likely hate what the government-run car industry produces and won't buy the junk vehicles that barely move under their own power. I wouldn't be a bit surprised to see a bunch of tariffs put in place that will force us to buy the latest rust buckets coming out of Detroit.

Until the feds artificially inflate the cost of foreign cars (many of which are made in the U.S. by American labor, by the way), I'll stick with my Japanese cars. If I'm ever blessed with the income I want, I'll switch over to some German vehicles and ignore whatever the nationalized U.S. auto industry is doing.

During my lifetime, I've owned (or driven) two Oldsmobiles, two Chevrolets, a Saturn, a Subaru, a Mitsubishi and a Toyota. The Japanese cars lasted the longest and were refined and wonderful compared to their outdated, crude American counterparts. My wife wants a Toyota Highlander next year and I think she'll get one -- that vehicle just feels like it was made on another planet compared to the substandard competing vehicles slapped together in Detroit.

Besides, with the notion of tariffs lingering out there, it might be wise to grab something new next year and drive it until things return to normal.

Thank God some conservative Republicans (I didn't think there were any left) have raised a lot of hell about the $15 billion award for stupidity Congress wants to give the auto industry. I hope they manage to block this insanity, but I doubt that will happen. The government seems to have forgotten that competition and free trade made this nation an economic powerhouse once upon a time and I fear we're in for some rotten times, indeed.

Kim Komando is full of crap

Just yesterday I was reading this post on that dynamite Freaky Frugalite blog.

Rebecca over there was pointing out a column from Kim Komando in which the hack expressed her dislike for paid posting. I take exception to Komando's prattle for a number of reasons.

First of all, the post I mentioned is packed full of Google ads, a bunch of other ads and links inviting hapless visitors to advertise on her site. Apparently, in Komando's world, selling ad space to the highest bidder is just fine.

Well, it's fine as long as you're not taking money to write a bit of an advertorial for something, of course. Phooey on that.

Hey, I avoided paid posts for some time until I discovered they were a way to make some easy money. I signed up for an account at Blogvertise and have been happily making money since then. I don't feel a bit bad about it, either.

Why? Advertising is common as sin on blogs. I figure, then, there's nothing wrong with finding something that makes money for us. Some people sign up with, say, Google Ads and have found great success with that service.

More power to them. Google Ads haven't worked worth a damn for me as those targeted ads work out horribly for me. If I gripe about lawyers, I wind up with a bunch of ads for area shysters. If I call Barack Obama a goon, I get targeted ads selling commemorative coins with his likeness on them. If I mention the American car industry deserves to fail because they produce garbage, ads pop up sending visitors to the Hummer Internet site.

Komando seems to approve of Google Ads (God knows she uses enough of them on her site), but hates paid posts. Shut the hell up, Kim. Your site is swimming in ads so you've got absolutely no room to talk.

Besides, have you ever listened to Komando's radio show? It's full of advice that anyone with access to a search engine can find. She's all about marketing and her radio shows comes across as a blasted infomercial. At least people can scroll right through my paid posts, whereas anyone listening to Komando's show has to put up with plug after plug for whatever crap she's selling.

Enough of that.

Something that really does bother me about blogs

Of course, everyone has something that annoys the hell out of them about blogs. In my case, I'm sick to death of java script. A little java script is fine, but some folks out there obviously subscribe to the idea that there's nothing wrong with overkill.

The latest annoying thing out there is illustrated by the photo I posted in this section. You've got some dancing guy that seems to slow down both my Firefox and Google Chrome browsers whenever he appears. I don't know what it is about that particular animated GIF, but my system absolutely hates it (and I don't have a bad computer -- 64 bit with plenty of RAM under the hood).

Clicking on that dancing fool will lead you to yet another social networking site. I'm not going to mention the site because I don't want to give them any free publicity. You'll see that dancing idiot pop up regularly, however, so look around a bit if you want to see what he's selling.

My blog isn't the fastest loading thing in the world, of course, but I have tried to speed it up by getting rid of the stuff that makes my site load too slowly. I hope to attract visitors rather than drive them off because they're annoyed.

Again, there's nothing wrong with a script here and there, but I can't help but wonder whether people actually take the time to see how quickly their sites load. If they did, I have a feeling we'd see a lot fewer dancing goofs, widgets that tell us where visitors are coming from, revolving content clouds and other things that just slow browsers down to a crawl.

The Golden Boot

I was reading this post earlier today over at Paul's Health Blog.

Yes, it seems Paul was excited that his beloved East Carolina Pirates were playing in the Conference USA championship against the Tulsa Golden Hurricane (yes, we know how fierce those hurricanes are in landlocked states like Oklahoma, don't we?) Paul must really be excited because his team won, 27-24, and is headed for the Liberty Bowl.

Good for them. There's an East Carolina connection in that Skip Holtz is the head coach. He's the son of Lou Holtz, a man who had some success here in Arkansas as the head coach of the Razorbacks and even more success at Notre Dame. There's an Arkansas connection at Tulsa, too -- Gus Malzahn was the offensive coordinator for a season before Houston Nutt and his flunkies ran him out of the state.

Malzahn, of course, is in his second year as an offensive coordinator over at Tulsa and has been doing relatively well. Apparently, we didn't send Nutt and his sideshow packing to Ole Miss early enough.

At any rate, there's not a whole lot we Razorbacks fans can do these days but follow teams with Arkansas connections and hope they do well. The Razorbacks, after a miserable 5-7 season (2-6 in the SEC), are going nowhere. We're also hoping the rumors that our head coach, Bobby Petrino, won't be heading off to Auburn to take the open job over there.

I won't dwell on the whole Auburn rumor as we seem to get pounded with such talk at the end of every season.

At any rate, at least Arkansas won the Golden Boot this year. What's the Golden Boot? It's the trophy awarded every year to the winner of the Arkansas-LSU game. The trophy was first awarded in 1996 in an attempt to manufacture a rivalry for Arkansas (I'll talk about that in a bit).

Arkansas and LSU play the day after Thanksgiving every year and, for the second year in a row, Arkansas won that game. So, the Golden Boot is something, I suppose. It's also worth mentioning that the team improved consistently throughout the year, so it appears everything will be fine with Bobby Petrino at the helm. This was his first year and Nutt didn't leave him with much to work with, sadly.

Now, I mentioned something about manufacturing a rivalry. Let me explain. In 1991, Arkansas left the old Southwest Conference and joined the SEC. Regardless of what anyone says, the SEC has been a terrible fit for Arkansas since the day the Hogs joined.

The main problem, of course, is that Arkansas isn't exactly in the Southeastern part of the country. Go ahead and take a look at a map and you'll find something fascinating -- every team in the SEC is east of the Mississippi River with the glaring exception of Arkansas.

Actually, this is Big 12 Conference territory and I don't care what anyone says. We've got more in common with Oklahoma, Missouri and Texas than we've ever had with the likes of Alabama, Georgia and Florida and ought to be competing for recruits in our region of the country.

Besides, Arkansas had a rivalry with Texas for years and a lot of fans still nurse a lingering hatred for the Longhorns (I'm odd in that I've always respected that team -- I've got a lot of kin in Texas, so perhaps that explains it).

Arkansas hasn't had a good rivalry since leaving the Southwest Conference and losing that guaranteed, annual game with Texas. It looks like the Hogs are in the SEC for better or worse, of course. Besides, we may be revamping a long-dormant rivalry with Ole Miss.

That is an historical rivalry that both schools kind of put an end to after too many fights were breaking out during the annual game between the two teams. Ole Miss has our old coach now, so perhaps our statewide hatred of Nutt will transfer to the team.

Meanwhile, I figure we'll still be playing for that Golden Boot annually.

Two parades and a lawyer joke

Over the past week, I've been to two Christmas parades here in Saline County, Ark., and we didn't get any decent pictures of them at all.

The one I posted here is grainy but it's not half bad. I took it with the new cell phone I got after I smashed my old one. I'll mention more about my daughter's photo in a bit.

On Monday, we had the annual Christmas parade here in Benton. That was great fun and, like every year, I came close to freezing to death before it was over. Watching Santa Claus waving to the crowd from a fire engine is always a thrill, and the classic cars in the parade were fantastic (I can't figure out why a brand new Ford F-150 came right after a 1967 Pontiac Firebird, however).

Sadly, my daughter wasn't in that one, but she was in the parade in Bryant. Yes, this year marked the first for the Bryant parade and my daughter's Brownie troop was in that one. They were dressed up as cookies and young Brenda had the privilege of portraying the superior lemon cookie.

The girls rode in a trailer and spent all night chanting before launching into Christmas carols.

Are we proud to be Girl Scouts?
Yes we are!
Are you going to buy some cookies?
Yes you are!

Great stuff. Yes, cookie sales start next month and my daughter is excited. I didn't have much to do with cookie sales last time around and I probably won't this year, either. In fact, I do believe I've been pretty well prohibited from giving her any advice at all when it comes to selling anything.

Why? Young Brenda had to sell nuts and candy this fall and I had a brilliant marketing scheme worked out for her. I was going to have her knock on doors and say, "My daddy says if I don't sell more stuff, I won't get a Christmas."

Who could resist that pitch? My wife told me I was terrible.

So my wife forgot her camera for the Benton parade and the batteries went dead for the Bryant one. Thank goodness for the rotten little camera on my new (and equally rotten) cell phone, I suppose.

A lawyer joke

It appears that winter has finally reached Arkansas. I hate winter because I wind up doing things like freezing during parades. It it gets much below 50 degrees, I tend to want to just stay indoors. I'm Southern and, as such, hot and humid summers don't phase me but I can't stand cold weather.

I've got the perfect lawyer joke and I'll share that with you good folks right now. Here it goes:

The Hawg: It's cold out there.

You: How cold is it?

The Hawg: So cold that I went uptown and the lawyers had their hands in their own pockets!

Go tell that one to your friends. Tell it to a lawyer you love (or loathe), too.

Wordless Wednesday -- The Undertones

Here's one I loved as a teen. Enjoy!

Go ahead and visit the other Wordless Wednesday participants (or submit something of your own) by clicking right here.

They're up to something in Springdale

As I've griped about before, I turn 40-years-old next year and I'm not happy about it.

Oddly, I'd prefer to skip right over middle age and get right into being old. That's where the fun begins, folks. I'm convinced of it. Don't tell me I'm wrong.

I figure that when I do reach my golden years, I can be as cranky and unreasonable as I want and no one will say a thing.

I'm going to take advantage of that and spend a fair amount of time tormenting people with conspiracy theories. There are a lot of things in this world that annoy me, so why not come up with solid conspiracy theories about them?

One of my favorite targets will be corporate America. I've worked for a couple of them and I've hated almost every minute of it. Corporations have, after all, come up with such soul-sucking, degrading devices such as cubicles, time clocks those irritating, automated answering systems that require you to punch a bunch of numbers on your phone before you can talk to a real human being. Worse yet, corporations have inspired smaller companies to adopt some of their boneheaded ideas, all in the name of efficiency.

Now, of course, corporations are absolutely essential if you want to build an economy based on something other than hand-woven blankets, hemp grocery bags and other such nonsense. I tend to avoid them and hate their influence on small businesses, but I've got to cut them some slack -- without them around, we'd be living in the third world and existing as cheap labor sources for successful corporations (it's all circular, huh?)

One corporation that drives me up the wall is Tyson Foods in Springdale, Ark. That's the largest poultry producer in the U.S. and may become the largest one in the world if Pilgrim's Pride takes a nosedive in the wake of that Chapter 11 bankruptcy the company filed this week.

A huge problem with that, of course, is that Tyson Foods produces chicken that tastes terrible. When I was a kid, chicken wasn't so bland, dry and horrible as the stuff Tyson sells these days.

There's only one conclusion that can be drawn from this -- Tyson does something to that chicken. How's that for a conspiracy theory?

Ah, but there's more. Every good conspiracy theory has to be backed up with enough facts to make the tormented listener think, "You know? He might have a point!"

In Tyson's case, it is an absolute fact that the company has knocked two weeks off the maturation cycle of a chicken. They claim it's due to improved nutrition, but I know the truth! Tyson does something to that chicken. Something insidious and foul (pun intended), to be sure.

Knocking two weeks off the maturation cycle of a chicken just isn't natural. If I figured out a way to make my kids grow up a couple of years earlier, it's a safe bet that would be the result of some kind of unnatural tampering, right? The same has to be true of chicken.

How do they do it? Is it genetic engineering? Steroids? Some freaky antibiotics?

It would be great if Tyson pumped a lot of antibiotics in chickens, of course. Kid got strep throat? Why pay for a bottle of fancy antibiotics from a pharmacy when you could pick up a couple of Tyson chicken breasts?

At any rate, it's not the job of the conspiracy theorist to come up with any definite answers. It is the job of the theorist to merely raise enough questions to make people wonder. And that, folks, is exactly what I'll do for fun when I'm older and even more cynical than I am now.

By the way, Cornish game hens are for suckers. That's just a young chicken in spite of what the price tag might suggests. Those birds are cheaper to raise yet cost more than your average chicken. That's brilliant! It's evil, but brilliant.

Yes, I can't wait until I'm a cranky old coot hurling conspiracy theories at anyone within earshot. Heh, heh.

Take that, you bastard!

I hate cell phones. I've always hated cell phones and resent having to use them.

Now, there are times when they are very useful, but usually they're just annoying. I hate the way mine rings four times before slipping into voice mail, thus not giving me enough time to find the thing and answer it. I hate voice mail, too, and I rarely listen to it.

I hate how my voice mails stack up and I have to wade through 15 of the things to get to one that I want. I hate the fact that anyone can reach me at any time through my cell and I hate the fact that I can't bring myself to turn the cell phone off because I might miss an important call.

I hate the fact that 80 percent of the calls I get are ones I don't want and that more than one peaceful drive has been shattered by that blasted thing ringing while I'm trying to listen to KISS' Love Gun album or something equally inspirational.

So, my cell phone got the hell beaten out of it today. Yeah, look at it in that picture. The LCD screen is a mess because it's too flimsy to hold up to the shock of being thrown against a wall. The battery on that thing has been going out for some time, and the blasted thing cut off on me during the middle of an important conversation tonight. So I threw it. Three times. Kicked it at least twice and stomped it once, too. I put the pieces back together after I threw my fit and the damn thing still works.

Sadly, it appears I'll be getting a new one in the morning. I've had my phone for over three years and my office has a contract under which I can get a new cell every two years. I was warming up to the idea of living without a cell phone, but it looks like I'll have another one of the damned things to seethe at and despise. Alas!

I think I might actually miss my phone because it's pretty basic. It pretty much allows me to store phone numbers and make phone calls. That's about it. You can't take photos with it, there's no blue tooth connectivity so you can't grab annoying snippets of music out of the air and use them for ring tones and one of those obnoxious blue tooth headsets is out of the question, too.

I hate those blue tooth headsets, you know? There's nothing worse than someone who walks around talking in one of those things constantly. Are they on the phone? Talking to me? Crazy as hell and talking to no one? It's often hard to tell. I hate text messaging, too, primarily because of the idiotic "shorthand" that has become common with that junk. Messages like "C U l8er" and "What r u doing?" make me want to find the person sending that junk, put his phone through a wall and send him to a remedial English class. Here's one for you, text boy -- "U R A GD dick." Heh, heh.

I fear I'll get one of those awful flip phones like my wife has. Yes, they come in "custom" colors, take horrible little photos and allows her to customize ring tones for everyone. It does a lot of other junk I'm not interested in, too.

I really just want something I dial numbers with and will take being thrown against a wall. With all the crap they stuff in phones these days, you'd think they'd make at least one that was hate resistant and could take being stomped, thrown off a three-story building or kicked across a parking lot, wouldn't you? No, it seems the phone companies are more interested in catering to people who are too cheap to buy a laptop than building a phone that can take a good, honest beating.

Take the iPhone, for example. It just feels like it could be destroyed with one, weak blow from a baseball bat. A friend of mine at work got an iPhone and he can't stop talking about it. I'd destroy one of those in about five minutes. They are thin and flat, however -- perfect for skipping across a pond.

I once paid $400 for a phone that was pretty flimsy. It didn't survive being thrown out of my car window when I was driving down the interstate at 80 miles per hour. Piece of junk. Must have been made in China. Another one didn't survive a trip through a washing machine. Garbage.

I actually got away with not carrying a cell phone from about 1997 (the time I tossed one out of my car window) until around 2000. My wife decided I needed one and she made me carry a cell. My office requires me to carry one, too. Thank goodness they pay the bill. I might "forget" to do that.

Someone asked an idiotic question not long ago -- "What did we do without cell phones?" We talked to each other during lunch without being interrupted, could actually get away from the office and were generally happier. Those blasted cell phones are evil, even if they are convenient and useful about once every couple of months. The devil came up with those things. I'm convinced of it.

Now, that I've ranted and raved a bit, I'll reward you folks who have read through this mess with a soothing picture of The Kitten trying to figure out how to approach the train we've got running around the base of one of our Christmas trees. Enjoy!