Oh, yeah, like I really needed to read this.

Handy for travelers and stay-at-homes both:  Weather Forecaster.

I'm flying to Boston next week.  Why do I always find stuff like  this right before I'm traveling?

I find this a little hard to believe.  I figure the only way somebody in Uganda can be that rich is drugs or corruption.  And BTW, put a military hat on that dude and he looks exactly like a young Idi Amin.

News of the Weird:  Kerosene-soaked man dies after lighting up in Japanese police station.

More NOTW:  From Nickelodeon merchandising has come a Spongebob Squarepants Musical Rectal Thermometer (which plays the Spongebob theme that the designer apparently imagines makes the temperature-taking process less unpleasant). [CartoonBrew.com, 2-19-08] 

Two passings lately of note.  First this is really amazing.  I had no idea that there were any World War I veterans alive.  Thank you for your service and rest in peace, sir.  And second, Letterman regular Calvin DeForest, aka Larry 'Bud' Melman, is dead at 85.  I loved this guy just because of his innocence.  No pretensions with Bud at all--what you saw was what you got.  But as great as he was on Letterman my favorite part was the one he played in Vince Gill's music video What the Cowgirls Do.  RIP, Bud.

How about this headline?  Egg grader crushed after wife's infidelity.  And note the name of the employer--Golden Lay Chicken Farms.  You just can't make stuff like this up.

Try this geography quiz--245 countries in 10 minutes.  I thought I would do well but I only got 70 countries in ten minutes.

Finally--this is really cool.  Watch live TV on your Google home page.  I've installed it on my Google home page.  I wonder what will happen to productivity in the workplace when people find out about this.  And Google has also added a tweak in which you can select a personal theme for your home page that changes it's appearance during the day.  At night it's dark and during the morning hours it shows the sun rising, etc.  Cool.

I took this political quiz and scored a 25.    That makes me slightly right of center (Colin Powell) and dead on with George Bush Sr.  It's a dated quiz but I think it's pretty accurate.  (hat tip to Right Minded.)

And a bit of political trivia:

Tennessee recently elected our first new Speaker of the Senate in 35 years.  That job also carries the title of Lt. Governor, next in succession to the Governor.  Ron Ramsey, an East Tennessean, won the job over John Wilder, age 85, Tennessee's version of Robert Byrd.  I actually met the new Lt. Governor about a year ago while he was attending some sort of community meeting in our building.  Strangely enough I met him at the urinal in the men's room.  Somehow I find that interesting.

And a sports note:

I haven't posted about Florida's victory over Ohio State in the national championship game.  I fell hook, line and sinker for the media's hype of the Buckeyes and picked against the Gators.  Now understand that I'm about as far from being a Gator fan as it gets.  It goes back to the Steve Superior days.  But I'm glad they spanked the Buckeyes.  It showed just how good SEC football is.  At the same time I'll point out once again that it's very hard for an SEC team to win the national championship because they kill each other off during the season.  Florida lost to Auburn and beat Tennessee by only a point.  Face it, sports fans, the SEC is the best in the nation.  And appropriate kudos to the Gators for getting the job done despite the hype.  And that reminds me--whatever happened to the Poulan Weedeater Bowl?

I tried to get a jump on my weekend work but got rained out Friday evening while mowing the yard.  Then most of Saturday was rain too but I was fine with that since we needed it badly.  I tried to finish the mowing and beat the heat yesterday morning but it was still miserably hot.  And that heat has done a number on my new grass that I sowed last fall.  For the most part the new fescue has gone dormant or actually died.  Fescue is a cool season grass and just can't tolerate heat with minimum moisture and Bermuda is just the opposite so I've brought out the Bermuda grass killer again.  That's right--my role as a serial killer has resumed.

I hit a milestone yesterday.  I spent 50 bucks to fill up my Tacoma with gasoline.  Well, 2 1/2 gallons of that was for lawnmower gas so it wasn't quite 50 bucks for just the truck.  The truck amount was more like $43.  Still that's a lot of money for one tank of gasoline.  I filled up with regular at $2.89 a gallon.  I can remember paying .28 cents a gallon in 1973 when I came home from the military.  So it's ten times higher than 33 years ago.  I wonder what that price is adjusted for inflation.

It's hard for me to believe but our local schools start back exactly one week from today.  When I was a kid I don't ever recall starting school before the last week of August.  I think we finished the school year in mid to late May.  I think the kids today finish the same.  So something is obviously different these days.

September means the Big Orange football season which starts on the 2nd, only 33 days away.  The first game is with California followed by Air Force followed by Florida.  Given the performance last year we could easily be 1-2 after the first games if we haven't gotten things fixed. 

And speaking of football I have tickets to the first Titans game on September 10 against the Jets.  I hope I'm going to see the Travis Henry of old and Lendale White running but I think Billy Volek's experience will keep Vince Young on the sideline for awhile.  The Titans didn't have a single game last year with a rusher making 100 yards and I don't think they will win without changing that.  I'm heard a few rumors of Jeff Fisher's job being in danger after going 9-23 the last two seasons but I hope that isn't true.  The last two seasons were more reflective of salary cap issues and injuries than coaching.  But now some with some key free agent signings and draftees hopefully it's time for the Titans to put things together again.  As far as I'm concerned Fisher is a proven coach and Titans ownership would have to be idiots to fire him this season if the team doesn't do better. They're still rebuilding and it may take at least another season to get back to winning form.

I always thought winglets were something KFC sold.  Wrong again.

The NBA Finals start Thursday night.  It's the only time of the year I watch the NBA. The Finals pit the Miami Heat vs the Dallas Mavericks.  The venues are the American Airlines Center and the American Airlines Arena.  The Center is in Dallas and Arena is in Miami.  Somewhere in the bowels of the American Airlines marketing department there's an executive pumping his fist and doing a Marv Albert "Yessss!".

Max Casella, who plays Benny Fazio on The Sopranos and does dirty work for Tony, played Vinnie Delpino, Doogie's buddy on Doogie Howser, M.D.  Steven Bochco, producer of Hill Street Blues and NYPD Blue, was the producer of that show as well.

I found this link at The Bleat.  It's black and white photographs of New York City scenes from the 30s and the same scenes shot in the 90s.  I know I'm sometimes a bit strange about what I like but I find these photographs fascinating.

It's been cold and windy for about a week.  Monday was about as gloomy looking as it gets with occasional snow flurries and dark overcast skies.  But it's been appropriate because the cold I woke up with last Wednesday has been kicking my butt every day and I've been having dark moods.  This particular virus seems to enjoy toying with me as I've had alternating periods of starting to feel better followed by a gotcha like solid nose congestion.  The damn stuff is traveling through my office buildng too.  I sat in a meeting yesterday and there was so much coughing and nose blowing that the healthy people finally starting covering their nose and mouth.

And speaking of work the 2006 medical insurance info packets have finally arrived.  It looks like our HR morons managers have held our increase in premiums to a mere 15%.  It's amazing what these guys can do with so few brains resources.  I would have guessed that between their golf outings with insurance vendors and their inability to read the contract fine print we would have been pasted with at least a 16% increase.  Why do the words Human Resource Department make me think of a sewer plant?

And on another work related subject if you're worried about your pension being frozen (and I'm not talking temperatures) go read this.  It's some decent advice about retirement for all workers but especially younger ones.  In a nutshell don't count on your employer for your retirement.  Count on yourself.

Finally I read this with interest--a patent fight scaring off Blackberry customers.  Geez--that's too bad.  I sure hope they can keep those Blackberrys coming.

I hate those little thin plastic grocery bags.  My groceries are always coming out of them whether they're in the grocery cart or in my car.  If you don't pick them up with both sides of the bag your groceries fall out.  I can't tell you how many times that has happened.   And they tear easily if you've got much heavy stuff in them.  Try putting those 2 liter bottles of soft drinks in one of them.  That's the worst of all.  They roll all over the place.  The only good use I've found for them is stuffing other plastic grocery bags into one of them so they can all be thrown away.  I want large paper grocery bags back.

I read where Jessica Simpson will make $35 million this year.  And I thought she was the dumb one.  Now I've figured out that it's Nick.

Here's what I want in entertainment for this Christmas season--another Vacation movie with Chevy Chase and Beverly D'Angelo.  And Randy Quaid.  In fact, I don't want to see it unless Quaid is in it.

And speaking of Christmas my vast years of experience tell me to avoid Wal-Mart like the black plague this time of year.

How does someone like Seal end up marrying someone like Heidi Klum?  No offense but his face looks like the moon.  Apparently he survived terminal acne.  That marriage is like Marilyn Manson marrying Halle Berry.

Am I the only one that thinks Martina McBride is hot?  Somebody told me the other day that she sings too.

The worst modern day business invention is the Blackberry.  Since my company got the damn things, I get more emails than I ever have gotten but with less substance than ever.  It must be an addictive thing like Pac-Man.

I don't understand how any father can not pay child support for his children.  I'm sorry but I just don't know of any reason that justifies that.

I think life is generally easier for men than it is for women.  Childbirth alone makes me right but there's lots of other things I could mention as well.   Maybe I'll post about that sometime.

Why does it seem that all the females on Fox News are hot?  Duh, I wonder if that's by design?

I'm on vacation this turkey week and have been busy.  On Saturday I replaced two fluorescent light ballasts in our overhead kitchen light--not as easy as one might expect because the entire time you're working over your head.  I also replaced the dead smoke detector in the hallway and wrapped up the day by trimming all the monkey grass in the landscaping.  I got all of that done just in time to watch Tennessee lose to Vanderbilt.  Geez, it was enough to make me puke.  It's very clear to me now that those 13 incidents with law enforcement were the handwriting on the wall for this football season. 

The wife and I skipped Sunday church to wax hardwood floors in preparation for the Thanksgiving visitors that are expected.  We finished that job just in time to watch Pac-Man Jones of the Titans fail to field a punt and thus lock up yet another loss.  I have to say that this is probably the worst year for football in the state's history.  You know it's a bad year when Vanderbilt is the best football team in the state.

I had no more taste for football in Tennessee so I headed out Monday to an indoor shooting range and shot my Ruger Single Six pistol.  It was the first time shooting for me in a long, long time.  I shot expert in the Army with an M16 but that was thirty plus years ago.  I surprised myself and did fairly well.  I deliberately bought a single action revolver to be as safe as I could given my firearms inactivity and it worked great.  I enjoyed it so much I'm going to consider joining a shooting range. And I've got my eye on a Sig Hammerli Trailside. 

Finally, the wife and I went to see Derailed with Clive Owen and Jennifer Anniston last night.  A review of that movie is coming up...

Pink license plates?  Sounds like a good idea to me.

No more photos?  Nerdy, geeky guys reel from the news and go into massive depression.

And two of the latest signs that George Orwell was 21 years late.

A very cool illusion and a man's moment of clarity--NSFAMM (not suitable for a married man).

A couple of days ago, I saw a blurb on NBC Nightly News about the top forty magazine covers of the last forty years according to this organization.  Note that the number one cover was John Lennon and Yoko Ono on the cover of Rolling Stone.  The interesting part?  According to NBC, this photograph was taken the day Lennon was killed.  Strange but apparently true.

There's no way. 

Let me repeat that again.  There's no way I would ever go to this doctor for anything related to urology.  And especially not a vasectomy. 

It's been light blogging and heavy working the last four days.  I've seen all I want to see of dead bermuda grass, rototillers, rakes, fertilizer and grass seed.  I had forgotten why I worked so hard to get an education but it's came back to me now.  I'm sure glad that I don't have to do work manual labor for a living.  I've probably got another two days of grass work but someone is going to have to drag me outside to do it.

I've also learned a whole new appreciation for a long, hot shower.  There isn't much that feels better after this kind of work.  And I found a new drink that I really like.  You take a bottle of cold water straight from the fridge and dump a Crystal Light Peach Tea packet into it.  Shake well and voila--liquid joy.  Mrs. Medlock turned me on to those packets.  They're sold in the grocery in a box of ten.  Wonderful.  I've had about 10 bottles in the last four days. 

I've also watched more TV than normal because by the time I clean up and settle down with my tea I'm so exhausted I'll fall asleep if I try to read.  I caught the Sunday night NFL game with Joe Theisman and Paul McGuire and as usual they drove me crazy with their non-stop talking.  Why is it they have to say something after every play?  It's like listening to Nancy Grace and Bill O'Reilly at the same time.  Awful.

I also caught an interesting show on the Travel Channel called No Reservations.  A chef named Anthony Bourdain travels to interesting places and samples food among other things.  Apparently he is pretty famous although I don't think I've heard of him.  For this week's show, he was in North Vietnam of all places where he had porcupine among other exotic foods.  I'll watch this show again.  Excellent.

I haven't kept up with the news this week but I had dinner with my father tonight and he told me that Ted Kennedy and minority leader Reid announced they were going to vote against John Roberts nomination.  Roberts is so obviously qualified for the job in every respect that it clearly says to me the two Senators are playing politics and nothing else.  And the Democrats wonder why they lose national elections...

Forwarded to me and I cannot vouch for accuracy...

2 TOUGH QUESTIONS 

Question 1:  If you knew a woman who was pregnant, who had 8 kids already, three who were deaf, two who were blind, one mentally retarded, and she had syphilis, would you recommend that she have an abortion?

Read the next question before looking at the response for this one.

Question 2:  It is time to elect a new world leader and only your vote counts. Here are the facts about the three candidates.

Candidate A.
Associates with crooked politicians, and consults with astrologist. He's had two mistresses. He also chain smokes and drinks 8 to 10 martinis a day.

Candidate B.
He was kicked out of office twice, sleeps until noon, used opium in college and drinks a quart of whiskey every evening.

Candidate C.
He is a decorated war hero. He's a vegetarian, doesn't smoke, drinks an occasional beer and never cheated on his wife. Which of these candidates would be your choice? 

Decide first... no peeking, and then scroll down for the response.

Candidate A is Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Candidate B is Winston Churchill.
Candidate C is Adolph Hitler.

And, by the way, on your answer to the abortion question: If you said yes, you just killed Beethoven.

Pretty interesting isn't it? Makes a person think...

I'm back from the California coast and the Nevada hinterlands.  Posting to resume shortly...

After two ER visits, a hospital stay and numerous other issues related to my elderly aunt,  I'm pretty stressed out.  Having her power of attorney puts demands on my time that isn't positive for my own life.  Unfortunately she hasn't anyone else to fall back on so it has to be done. 

The weekend I had planned for myself turned out to be cutting my lawn and that's about it.  I had a golf game planned for Saturday afternoon but that didn't happen either.  Even watching the U.S. Open on Sunday was interrupted by the drama.

The good news is that I've gotten some great support from my sister who has been in Tennessee since Friday.  She adds a feminine touch and an alternative view to the situation with my aunt that I simply cannot provide.  I'm grateful for that. 

It looks like my aunt is going to have to move from the independent living situation she's currently in to an assisted living situation.  She simply cannot continue to live alone and take care of herself.  We made moves today to make that happen.  That requires her cooperation and that isn't always an easy task.  It also takes reams of paper work both medical and legal.

Anyway, we're moving along that road.  That's good because the stress meter in my head is red lining right now.

I'm going to classify this as something I wish I didn't know now.

If Anna Nicole Smith had done this, could we call it a weapon of mass destruction?

A 2005 Political Typology Test.  I came out as an Upbeat.  That's interesting.

Forbes top ten list of most dangerous destinations for 2005.

Do you remember that scene in Crocodile Dundee where Mick says, "that's not a knife.  Now THAT's a knife!"?  In that same vein, I say "you want a Hercules?  I'll show you a Hercules."

It's a guess on my part, but the guy in the picture may be a former worker in one of Tennessee's meth labs.  Obviously he's moved on to something a little safer.  Either that or he's been partaking of the product a little too much.

--The March Madness games this weekend highlighted what makes college basketball so great. I can’t imagine getting that excited over an NBA game—ever.  If the NBA played with that enthusiasm or had referees who actually called fouls and traveling, maybe…but neither one will happen.  The most exciting thing in the NBA is the latest arrest.

--There were two interesting things about the final tying shot by Kentucky that were not discussed by the TV announcers. One was that the referee in the replay was clearly signaling a two point shot and the other was that a foul call could have been made on the Michigan State player as the Kentucky player shot the ball.  I think the refs made the right calls on both though.

--Iceland is a great fit for Bobby Fischer. Perfection is a country that no one cares to go to and an eccentric racist who nobody wants (except Iceland).

--Actor Tom Sizemore of Blackhawk Down fame was sentenced to 17 months in jail for failing drug tests while on probation. I guess you could call that Sizemore Down. 

--Paul Henning has died. He created The Beverly Hillbillies in the early 1960s and later a spin off called Petticoat Junction. My most memorable scene in TBH was Elly Mae’s double barreled slingshot—otherwise known as her bra (or brassiere as it was known back then--when did that name change occur?).  You notice slingshots like that when you’re 15 years old.