Save My Stock!

A long time ago, I enrolled in my company's stock purchase plan and wound up with a few shares of American General stock at a pretty good price. After I sold a few to pay for Christmas, AG sold out to AIG. I get a check every few months for about $0.52. As you know, AIG has been making headlines lately. I am, like most Americans, very concerned about my underfunded, and now underperforming, retirement plan. That is why I support this $700- excuse me $815 BILLION bailout plan. Because, see, 52 cents every few months is just inexcusable. I remember the good old days when I saw 54 cent paychecks. If these things get any lower, I am afraid it will start costing me more in food to replenish the energy exhausted in walking across the street to deposit these in the bank than the check is even worth. So, I say to my congressmen and woman, if funding the effect of 1/2 degree climate change on the reproduction habits of dust mites is what it takes to get this thing thru the House, then let's do it. For the good of the country, er, economy, er, Wall Street, er... aw heck, just save my fledgling little nest egg!

America's New Top...Smurfette?

I was just cruisin' thru the wwweb when I spotted this (highlighted for your convenience):


Out of the millions of searches being done... Smurfs?!!

Well, OK...

I must admit, its been a while, but I really enjoyed them, even though they were subliminal pawns of Communism infiltrating Saturday morning cartoons to indoctrinate young minds to overthrow the establishment in violent revolution and become all equals in the glorious new Order of the All Things Red. I figured I was safe since the Smurfs were blue, and they were all in love with Smurfette (who was pretty sexy, even for a Smurf). I didn't think Communists were allowed to love.

I think the real story turned out to be that the Smurfs were the subliminal pawns of commune hippies, man, like infiltrating "Saturday. Morning. Cartoons." (wink, wink), man, so, like young minds can be, like, be free, y'know, and all individual, like, so they can, like, all grow their hair long and moppy and wear round sunglasses and play folk music on guitars and citars, thus frustrating the whole "establishment", man, thereby stickin' it to "The Man", man, and fight the whole oncoming ice age thing by then getting "jobs" and "careers" and buying SUV's so they can, like, warm the planet and save us all from total extinction and annihilation, man.

Whichever story was true, I guess it worked.

AlGore the Magnificent

So, flipping thru the channels Sunday night (yes, I am a sinner who occasionally watches tv on Sunday, but in this case, it turned out to be appropriate) and hit on C-Span. When who to my wondering eyes should appear, but jolly Father AlGore and his faithful minions preaching the gosthpel of global dethstruction. So I watched. I have often wondered what it would be like to go mindless for a while. Not mindless as in sitting around watching reruns of Hawaii Five-o, but mindless as in lead me oh great and powerful Al, in the path of lefteousness, that I may put my environment and my job and my hemp-woven tie dye before my family and my God.

So, he drivels. And he dravels. And now and then, he drovels. Finally, he announces that here with him, to support him in this great mission to which the mothership has called him, are two great performers... ready?... Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood?!! HOLD ON, I say. Man, that sucks (that they have embraced the gosthpel of Father AlGore), but, hey... free concert... man.

Then, just as they enter the stage...


"We now will take you to the conference on the soft dissolution of Iraq study group, pre-recorded from Thursday. This will last approximately an hour and a half."

Gee, C-Span, its no wonder your ratings suck.

Oops. Gotta run... America's Got Talent (Deficit) is just finishing up and I want to see if it's going to be the gay Russian, or the cross-dressing curly haired lez who acts like a man acting like a girl.

Another Awesome Samoke

No pics this time. Forgot to charge the camera. Which is too bad, because these were a sight to behold! I'm still excited about it.

I was chosen to cook the meat for our J. Reuben Clark Law Society End Of The Year Picnic And Swim Party Get Together (Can I Come Up With Any More Words To Make This Any Longer Of A Title) Thingy. We were expecting about thirty people, so I fixed an ample supply of ribs. I cooked them in two shifts at six hours per shift, so it was a thoroughly enjoyable two days of samokin' ribs! My most satisfying moment came when it was time to cut them up. The knife went very smoothly in between the bones, slicing the meat as though it were butter. That's when I knew they were good. I made enough to fill a large, deep turkey roaster pan to overflowing! Of course, my taste testers were right there to perform their duties. I got the six thumbs up (they claimed they had to try an ample sampling before they would give the OK).

I did struggle a little with the pork roast, though. The first was a little on the tough side. The roasts heated up faster than normal, which I didn't expect with so much meat. But I got it done, shredded, and mixed in with a nameless-to-avoid-self-incrimination sauce. I then added five fatties, and about 15 roasted mice (see previous entry). The mice were extremely spicy, and only cooled down after four days in the fridge. But they were good, nonetheless.

The JRCLSEOYPASPGT(CICUWAMWTMTALOAT)T participants loooooved them. What they didn't eat there (about half, since only about 15 adults actually showed up), we split up and took home. Later reports indicated that they were even better several days hence.

That was, so far, the largest smoke I have done. It was also extremely enjoyable. My special rub added that sweet spice to the natural flavors of smoke and pork (although there were a few reports of some of the ribs being just a little too spicy - I'll work on that). Can't wait to do it again!

Y'know, if I were to get some out of town visitors for the upcoming Memorial Day Weekend, I might could be convinced to stoke it up. I'm just sayin'.

Sheryl Crow Makes Sense

Sheryl Crow is urging the use of only one sheet of toilet paper per visit. Personally, I think this is a grand and practical idea. In addition to saving our planet from global warming by overheated used toilet paper (the friction caused by the wipe generates a significant amount of heat that gets trapped in the fibers), we would also be promoting a healthier and more sanitary environment, as we would be forced to wash our hands and clothes more frequently. We would also avoid social and public congregations, for obvious reasons, further alleviating the environment of the cumulative build up of hot air.

Crow further proposes the removable sleeve, for wiping your mouth during dinner, or your nose during a cold, or your eye after a melee in the mosh pit at a Crow concert. This will alleviate the overuse of throw-away napkins and kleenex. The preservation of germs and viruses will keep people home more often, resulting in decreased productivity, resulting in fewer vehicle and factory emissions, and more time watching indoctrinational daytime talk-shows. (I just wonder what we will use to dab our eyes during the soaps.)

There is an economic advantage behind this innovative toilet paper idea. In a house full of girls, 32.6% of our annual budget goes toward the purchase of this household necessity. No longer would I be interrupted in the middle of Lost by the all-too-familiar phrase "Can someone bring me some toilet paper?!!!"

I heart Algore!

I have a lot of short-sleeved shirts, and a few shorts. My wife put away the kids winter clothes a few weeks ago. I get up in the morning, and think about wearing shorts. But I can't. We had to pull the kids clothes out of storage. I found myself running late because I had to scrape the windshield. My car doesn't like to start in the cold. We have to run the heater at night to keep the girls healthy. There is talk of snow coming in this weekend. It didn't happen last weekend, but it was possible, then, too.

Why the sudden and strange cold weather? I guess Algore and his minions have done too good of a job. It turns out that Algore's jet, which we all (me included) mocked as being a little counter-productive to his message, actually had been modified to "de-burn" jet fuel, thus expelling cold gases. By zipping all over the world to promote his Nobel candidacy along with a little video about massive world destruction, he has actually been offsetting the exorbitant amounts of heat being generated by cattle ranchers, oil drillers, and Imus in the Morning. And his mansion, by burning more natural gas than a small country, like, say, India, has actually been ridding the world of this natural gas.

Apparently, though, this compacted burn has inadvertently created a vacuum in Central Tennessee, which has resulted in a suction of Arctic air pulling snow into New England, and, well, nobody really knows about the rest of the country that is not New England, so we can only speculate that it has gotten spread across the red states, as well.Personally, I like the cold weather, so I am now a big fan of Mr. gore, and I think we can all breath a sigh of relief. Just not all at once, since that would put too much hot air into the atmosphere, causing the global warming phenomenon that used to be called "summer".

Rember the joke about...

Air conditioner salesmen in Alaska?

No, really.

The Inuit (Eskimos, as we called them in my day) are buying air conditioners! I'd like to shake that guys hand (except that it was probably Gore, so can I just pass on the hand shaking?).

According to Mr. Alister Doyle of Reuters, Monday, Aug 7, it is apparently so warm in Alaska that the Eskimos need an air conditioner. Reaching highs of 88, those fellows just can't stand it any longer. Check it out at this address:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060807/sc_nm/environment_warming_dc

In case it doesn't work, let me quote a little here:

"Better known for building igloos during hunts on the polar ice, Inuit in the village of Kuujjuaq in Quebec, Canada, are installing 10 air conditioners for about 25 office workers.
"These are the times when the far north has to have air conditioners now to function," said Sheila Watt-Cloutier, a leading campaigner for the rights of 155,000 Inuit in Canada, Alaska, Russia and Greenland.
"Our Arctic homes are made to be airtight for the cold and do not 'breathe' well in the heat with this warming trend," she said. Temperatures in Kuujjuaq, home to 2,000 people, hit 31 Celsius (88 Fahrenheit) in late July."

Mr. Alyster Doyle uses this as an example of the impending doom that is global warming. Also, there is some reference to my dear mission country of Norway, where some poor vendor is complaining about selling ice cream... or not selling ice cream today because... it is raining.

"Today we've sold almost nothing," said Miriam Eid Bergan, 20, working at an ice cream parlor in Oslo's main street and looking out the window as people hurried past in the rain. "When it's sunny the queue can stretch down the street."

Uh, am I missing something here? Who buys ice cream in the rain, anyway? So, is the fact that it is raining in Oslo the oh-so-sought-after hard evidence that SUV drivers in Texas are causing global warming? It seems I saw a few showers myself when I was there, and that was before the day of the SUV.

Well, not to spoil the ending to this story, but...

maybe the Eskimos didn't necessarily buy the a/c's for the cool air. Mr. Eskimo-Inuit-American-Canadian admits, down there at the bottom of the page, that they bought them more to keep the dust from coming in the open windows and getting all over their nice, new computers.

"Larry Watt, mayor of Kuujjuaq, said one reason for ordering air conditioners was to stop dust from outside blowing into computers. Before the municipality owned computers, the windows could be kept open in hot weather."

And as for Mr. Oslonian and his ice cream stand, it appears he purgered himself when he claimed to have such a long line on sunny days.

"And Bergan in the ice cream shop in Oslo said: "People are buying fewer ice creams here than five years ago ... Maybe they're buying somewhere else or they worry about eating so much sugar."

See, he, too, admits that maybe he overstated his position a little bit, and in the interest of full disclosure, people are really not buying his ice cream, because they don't like the sugar? or maybe they are buying it elsewhere? Or maybe they don't think it's quite hot enough to buy ice cream. Or maybe they don't buy from you because maybe you're a liar? Or maybe they have finally up and moved to America where we can still buy SUV's (if we want).

Or perhaps, they are on business trips... to sell air conditioners to the Eskimos.