Memorial Day Weekend 2008

First of all a note to my cousin.  Did you see where the Red Sox pitcher threw a no-hitter–He had survived lymphoma–So don’t let anyone tell you what you can and can’t do–we’ll be thinking of you this week, Carla.

By way of apology I’ve got a bad head cold this week, so who knows what or how I’ll relate anything.

I figured out what’s up with the fireworks and the Chinese.  They are just holding onto the gunpowder so they can shoot up the clouds.  That’s why there won’t be any fireworks for the fourth.  just so they can waste it on trying to control the weather.  I think this is bad, and that they could let us have a few rockets or something.  But these are the same guys who charge 100,000 a year to have a panda in our zoo’s and quit shipping chopsticks to Japan.  They don’t care about anyone else.  At least they’re not in charge of coffee or beer.  Speaking of beer, I see in the paper that InBev some European bunch wants to buy Anheiser-Busch.  These guys at InBev make Stella beer too.  So now I’m messed up, first of all Budweiser is an American institution and I don’t think some other guys should buy it.  But I’m not a big fan of Budweiser and they do make Stella so maybe they could fix the beer where it was better beer.  That would be good–but then some guy in Europe would get my money–but he already is because I drink Stella, but I thought a bunch of monk’s made Stella, but then I find out it’s some funny named company called InBev.  And what about the Cardinals?  Would they name them some goofy European name–St. Louis United??  I think this is too complicated for me–but I know this Budweiser should stay an American beer-even though I won’t drink it.

Now about this farm bill–Talk about something that smashes up everyone’s stereotypes–Whew.  Just a couple for key points

1. All levels of agribusiness will benifit.  The top 1% of growers will get subsidies despite the fact that across the board agribusiness is up 56% over two years
2. The New York Times (that conservitive think tank) calls it a “scam” and “disgraceful”
3. The provisions to protect wetlands and wildlife habitats were deleted or watered down
4. It is projected that this bill will lead to higher prices world wide and exacerbate famine in Africa

Who supported this–Obama, Who voted against it–McCain; now I’m really confused.  Adding to my confusion is the fact that lobbyists from the pharmacutical, military and financial sectors are contributing to the Democrats at a 60-40 rate.  I wish I didn’t have this cold maybe I could figure all this out.

But all that pales when you think about the new probe we sent to Mars.  We sent it there to dig a hole at one of the poles and to see if there’s water that once upon a time was running water.  W’re going to figure that out by digging it up and then putting it in the probe and seeing if it has sand in it.  All that actually makes a little sense but here’s what I don’t get.  Why do we care?  Let’s say for the sake of argument that we figure out that water was in a liquid state on Mars 5 quidrilyoubazziliontetragillion years ago.  Big whooop.  We spent 420 million dollars on this–why don’t we spend that money figuring out how to make that plastic covering stuff on CD’s and DVD’s easier to get off.  You know what I hate?  The way they package those pills you take for a cold.  It always says “Easy Opening” THAT is a big fat lie.  First of all it has this little diagram about “fold back and pull” except it also has a picture of scissors-When do you use those scissors? So after you stab your hand (and have to open another thing like a band-aid, on which the little stringy thing goes sideways and rips through the middle so you can’t get the band-aid out and you’re dripping blood everywhere so you have to get a mop, which is now sealed in an “easy opening pouch” so then you get a knife and you still haven’t gotten into the pill pack yet.  And then finally you get to the pills except because you have to pull so hard the thing flies around the room and the pills go everywhere and so you have to start all over again.  Why can’t we spend some money on that?  You know what else we could spend some money on?  Fixing the wheels on those carts at the grocery store.  Or you know those bottles you buy where you have to pump the trigger to get stuff to come out?  (Ever since we tried to fix the ozone hole-which NOW we find out needs to be bigger) you get these bottles and then you turn the blue thing at the end (why is it always blue?) that says “stream/off/spray” and you pump and pump and it goes fitz fitz fitz but no spray or stream comes out–how come we can’t fix that?  I think I don’t care about water on Mars so much.  We have bigger issues here.

Well just a few weeks before I go to Oklahoma to visit MS. BOB.  I was thinking about it the other day and started singing

Oklahoma, where the wind comes rustling down the range-where it sure is sweet to smell my feet after I have walked through something strange–Oklahoma where all kinds of stuff goes on (the stuff sounded like stu-u-u-ff-f) la dee da da da de dee de ladedadeeda- when guess what–my wife said ‘Those aren’t the words” and I said “They are now” to which she replied “Go to your room”  She sure is getting crotchety in her age.

 

I am LIVID with the Chinese 5-17-08

I couldn’t be madder at the Chinese no matter what.  They got NO quality control and they are messing things up and they need to STOP!!!!!!!  They have this big explosion in China and blow up all their fireworks factories (big surprise) and now they say they may not have enough for the 4th of July.  What good is the 4th of July if you can’t blow a bunch of stuff up?  The 4th of July is for explosions and beer.  Otherwise it’s no good.  And now it’s wrecked because those &^$#@**&% Chinese can’t get it right.  What am I to do if I can’t see fireworks?  I bet they have some fireworks for the Olympics.  This is true, I went to a Chinese restaurant for lunch and got some chop sticks (remember how I said the Chinese were limiting exports of chop sticks awhile back?) anyway here’s what it says on the little bag/paper thing they came in.

Directions

• Tuk under thurnb and held firmly
• Add second chcostick hold as you hold a pencil (sure they’d think of a lead thing)
• Hold first chopstick in originai position move the second one up and down Now you can pick up anything.

So I said to myself “I wonder if I can pick up the dryer” I tried and suddenly it started making these funny noises. So my wife (who has Alzheimers) came down and said “What do you think you’re doing?” and I said “Picking up the dryer with chopsticks”  She said “Are you craaaaazy?” (when her Alzheimer’s kicks in she says it like that) and I said “No this paper packaging doodad says I can pick up anything-see” and she said “Now the dryer is making funny noises–WHAT DID YOU DO?”  I said “I dunno, but in China they teach people to smile by putting chopsticks in their mouth and it looks like you could use one ’cause you’re face is all scrunched up”–SO SHE STOLE MY CHOPSTICKS. I sure wish she’s see a doctor about that Alzheimers stuff it’s making her crabby.

Up in Detroit (Home of the most disappointing baseball team ever) some girl sold 17,328 boxes of Girls Scout cookies.  She’s going to take her troop to Europe.  Well now I have a problem with this.  First of all since the Girl Scouts got the new baker the cookie stink.  So he probably cut out some stuff like butter so now they make more profit on stinky cookies so they can go to Europe.  I didn’t know they spent the money on themselves, I thought it went to some good cause like the Chinese-American Freindship Society.  I think this cookie scam needs an investigation so I’m going to write Michael Moore.  He can make a movie “Bakery Boondoogle”  Next year I won’t buy any cookies until they sign a note that they will use the proceeds to do a good deed.  And going to Europe isn’t it.

In Houston they have this new ant.  According the the Raleigh News and Observer (which has a new sorry Editor) and I’m not kidding here “The ants—formally known as “paratrenicha species near pubens” FORMERLY? so what are they called now–Ants?  They have cousins called “crazy ants” that are found in the Caribbean.  Fols in Houston call them “crazy raspberry ants”  They are a pest but according to the article there’s some good news too.  They eat the hatchling of the “Attwater Prairie Chicken”  I think someone in Houston should go to Sweden and help them think of more goofy names for things.  Speaking of bugs at Eastern Carolina University some bug proffesor discovered a new spider and named it Myrmekiaphila neilyoungi after Neil Young.  I like Neil Young, he writes some good music.  I like to sing his song “Keep on Rockin” in the Free World” It goes like this “..we gotta thousand points of light for the homeless man we got a kinder gentler machine gun in hand we got dum deedum dum and toilet paper we got dada dada da for the ozone layer Keep on rockin’ in the free world..” but every time I sing it-My wife with the Alzheimers says “Learn the words” well she listens to country music which only has about 15 words total.  Except for my one country song I like ‘I’m gonna hire a wino to decorate our home”  Anyway congratulation Neil you have a spider named after you–talk about flattery–guess when you own Lionel Trains the accolades just keep on coming

I see where MHB (John Edwards-Mr. Haircut Boy) is throwing his weight behind Obama.  Probably wants the VP spot, at least that’s the North Carolina speculation.  Obama has too many sylables-ain’t gonna happen.

Okay so I got upset with Advil last week.  My gout was acting up so I took some Advil.  Except how come they gotta have all that cotton in the bottle?  You can’t get the stupid pill out because there’s cotton in the way.  So you try and squish the cotton down so there’s this little bitty tiny hole for the pill to come out, but when you turn the bottle over THEN the cotton gets all puffy again and the pill gets stuck, so then, you try and pull the cotton out and it just comes out in teeny little strands and you have all this cotton stuff around but no pill.  So then you get some plyers to try and get a grip on the cotton but all you get is bigger pieces of cotton.  And your foot still hurts and you have this big mess.  My wife (who has Alzheimers) says it’s to keep the pills from getting all banged up and broke in shipping. But she doesn’t know what she’s talking about.  It’s to sell you this bottle that looks real big but is almost empty except for cotton.  like all that air they put in potato chips.  That’s why I like Pringles–no air (just a bunch of broken ones at the bottom that make a big mess when you try and shake out the last few)

Mac made me read this book called “Mistakes were made But not by Me”  The basic premise of the book is that we all make mistakes (the book explains why) but that we’re not very good at seeing our own goofs.  After finishing the book I could sure understand why everyone else acts the way they do.  Seriously, an interesting read.

Okay do me a favor check out the link to Romanian Trips–see my friend Chip’s web site and some of the stuff we saw on our last trip. One last thing the blog software spell check doesn’t work well—so no excuses but truthfully I don’t care (or about the polar bears)

Hey Carla–hope you’re doing good this week, and have a great one coming up!  We think of you every day.

Checking some stuff out——

I THINK I added a link to the Painted Churches Tour guy “Chip”  If you ever thought of visiting Romania or going to see these beauties this is the guy to see.  Now he’s got a great web site to help–so check it out-even if it’s just for the pictures.  I mentioned him in some detail in the post related to travel stories.  Anyway if I did this right you should see a link to www.mtour.ro, which I am calling trip to Romania

 

5-11-08 Just Stuff

Okay for fun I looked up Jimmy Carter’s speeches from 1976. http://jcl.gsu.edu/documents/speeches/acceptance_speech.pdf

You should read this–no Obama should read this then he won’t have to write a speech, just change a few words.  It really does feel like 1976 again.

 I am not making this up, Russian scientist are now theorizing that the ozone hole is actually reducing global warming in the southern hemisphere, for exactly the reasons I said a few months ago.  You can find this article in Pravda.  Deodorant, the key to climate change. 

Then there is the “super delegate” out west who says he’ll vote for whoever promises 10 million dollars to register hispanic voters in his district.  What’ll those crazy democrats think of next?

And then those Swedish scientists are all excited because they found a new worm.  Only this worm lives in the sea and eats whale bones.  They named it Osedox Mucofloris, which means “bone eating snot flower”  I think that’s a bad name for a worm.  First of all it’s a worm not a flower and if they’re eating the bones how come they have to put snot in the name?  Sometimes I think those Swedish guys are all worried about the wrong stuff.  Cow gas and snot, but they gave Al a prize so what does that mean?  Oh yeah, they also call them zombie worms.  I think it’s really cold in Sweden.

And finally, those goofy Chinese have started a major project to control the weather during the Olympics.  They have surrounded Beijing with rocket launches and cannons and are going to shoot all the clouds to keep it from raining.  This from the same country that though if they shot seeds into space and then brought them back they could grow big plants.  They have legions of workers who sit around all day and shoot up the clouds for practise.  They have noticed it doesn’t work BUT it’s just for pratice so who cares.  While they were announcing this plan they had a huge snowstorm that no one predicted-so maybe—hmmmmmmm.

You know no one did anything real stupid this week

CARLA-HAVE A WONDERFUL WEEK