I don’t think I’ve ever worked as hard as I did yesterday. I wish I’d kept track, but I must have mowed about a hundred acres… Oh wait, I don’t own a hundred acres. Well I just went to grab a link to the equipment I was using, and they say 2/3 ac per hour. I did a two hour section, and then took a break, and then did another two hour section, and then took another break. Then I mowed the lawn with a regular old 22″ mower, and after that I worked some on my daughter’s laptop that was so full of spyware/malware/popup you could barely get a click in edgewise. Fucking Microsoft!

And then Wifey and I deployed the new mobile chicken house I built so the broilers we’re raising can have a steady diet of grass and bugs and worms in addition to their grain. The idea is that you drag it along ever day so the chickens don’t over-fertilize the grass. It’s quite nice, if I do say so myself!

And then I went back out with the brush cutter and took down another half acre of purple loosestrife. Man, that stuff grows like weeds! OK, so adding up all of the mowing… hmm… plus that… carry the one… I think I mowed about a hundred acres yesterday!

Oh, and the wildlife… I almost forgot! There were lots of frogs, or were they toads? Grasshoppers or crickets — honestly, what is the difference? There were a few shrews or mice, but it was hard to tell which. And beetles and butterflies everywhere! Didn’t see any snakes, though, which was a bit of a surprise.

Saturday night we started watching Syriana, but we gave up after an hour and a half. We finished it last night and let me tell you, I think it’s the worse movie I’ve ever seen. The plot is so scattered and disjointed that it’s nearly impossible to keep track of who’s who, what’s where and why, why, why?! Now I really like a movie that breaks the mold — and I love independent film — but you have to have a story and you have to tell the story and you have to take the viewer from start to finish. And I’m a pretty intelligent guy and I understand the Middle East pretty well, and I still don’t understand why, at the end of the movie, everyone was eaten by pirates. I just don’t. I really, really think that everyone who gave this movie a good review was just afraid to say they didn’t get it, lest they be considered some kind of maroon. I ain’t, and I didn’t. Reminds me a bit of The Emperor’s New Clothes… But he hasn’t got anything on! No, he really hasn’t.

Everybody^* has been asking… How’s that Podcast coming along? Well… since you asked…! :)

I am getting ready to launch the Whiskey Actually Talking Podcast, which is bound to be a terribly exciting — or at least terrible — bit of technological mayhem.

OK, the whole studio audience thing didn’t pan out. But here’s something that really can work if you all are up for it…

If your message is a question, I’ll answer it. If it’s a knock-knock joke, I’ll say “who’s there”. And if it’s a comment, I’ll include it in the show unless you ask me not to. How’s that for giving the people what they want?! :)

So allright, then… let’s get talking!!

^*By which, of course, I mean: nobody but me.

I had the weirdest dream the other night. I was driving around in my car, smoking a cigarette… Hey, wait a minute, I thought. Do I smoke? Well of course I do, I thought next. And I continued on smoking away in my dream.

But no, I don’t smoke, never have. And how weird is it that I would have this interruption of consciousness, or so I thought, in the middle of this dream! Weird shit, this is!

And this morning… I’ll call it morning even though it was 3 A.M. when the dream woke me up… and it was one of those thank god this wasn’t real kind of dreams. Wifey had decided to leave me, and there was some reason, but even as I was waking up I couldn’t remember what the reason was. It was just some disagreement and “this isn’t working” and that was that.

It was devastating and as often happens with dreams, I find, I still had those feelings once I’d woken up.

And there was also this weird sex thing in the dream that I don’t even understand. It was as if holographic images were being projected onto Wifey’s body and I was supposed to follow their instructions somehow. Like I said, weird shit.

Oh and that’s not even the weirdest of it! There was some kind of plot going on and we were part of this evil revolutionary conspiracy! That would never happen, I would only be involved in a revolutionary plot if it were totally non-evil!

Yeah, it was some weird bunch of dreams. I’m just really glad I’m awake now. OR AM I??? ::cue eerie music::

Ahh, the slippery slope of censorship. How fresh and clean is the fragrance of the morning dew on the grass. And then BAM you find your ass lying on the ground.

I left a comment on somebody’s blog this morning. I’m not going to name names. This person knows who he or she is. And I doubt very much s/he reads this blog because of its vile content.

Anyway, this person had written a post in support of the troops. I find such a thing quite admirable. Especially in times like these when so many Americans are at odds over the reasons for deployment, it’s important that the troops know that we are all behind them.

And I told this person, the blogger, something like, you have such a good heart. And I continued, quite frankly and honestly, that if the President cared as much for the troops as the blogger did, the troops would all be home by now.

I think it’s the truth. Apparently this blogger doesn’t. And that’s fine. But my comment — it’s gone now.

There are issues too numerous to count where we don’t all agree. But is disagreement enough to censor comments on one’s blog? Maybe it is for some, but that will never happen here.

Is it me or is Blogger totally sucking today?

Well today let’s welcome a guest poster…

I should have known it would be a bad idea to let my electric shaver post on my blog. Damn!

It’s been quite a Saturday… I went to the dump and I vacuumed. Oh yeah, and I went to Giant Orange Home Center Land. I’d been thinking I’d like to give Lowe’s a chance, but I don’t know that I’m up to learning a new store! There was one thing I forgot to get and happily picked that up at my local overpriced hardware store — need to keep them in business, too! I’d have gotten more there but this is a mostly-lumber project, and them’s the breaks!

Almost forgot, a miracle has occurred and Mr Built-In Microwave is back among the living! I appreciate everyone’s kind thoughts more than I know how to say.

When we bought our house, it was about twenty years old. It had forty years worth of character, we used to say.

Roof, windows, doors, basement — they say that water is the most destructive force in nature, and this house was proof of that. But that was four years ago, and we’ve done a lot to repair the damage character.

But not every little thing. The kitchen is outfitted with late-70’s vintage Jenn-Air appliances. I remember when I was a kid and my parents redid their kitchen with the stuff — it was quite the thing! Well that was a long time ago, wasn’t it? In this house, they’re still here and they’ve just steadily deteriorated grown in character.

Especially the built-in microwave oven. Loaded with character, it is. When we first arrived we noticed its lights would blink somewhat randomly. How quaint! We’d known the microwave was out of commission, but that was no big deal because we were bringing a counter-top model with us. Perfect — “Cookie” would take care of our quick-heating needs and the built-in would just blink at it and we’d blink right back.

And then one day the strangest thing happened. The power had gone out, as it does here in the country from time to time, and when it came back, the built-in microwave wasn’t blinking. It had more of a 00:00 look to its display. Well that’s strange, we thought. What happens if you press… and suddenly it sprung to life — ready, willing, able to prepare a variety of delicious foods!

So now we had two microwave ovens, except that “Cookie” stopped working one day. Sure we were sad, but we had our flaky built-in. It’s been about two years now. He has his good days and his bad days. Can you guess what kind of day today is?

I threw some leftovers into him and press and press… a couple minutes later I could smell the delicious chicken and rice, just about ready to eat. Thirty seconds left… don’t want to overcook it. I guess I’d better hit Cancel… nothing. Press press press… nothing. Open the door, the oven goes off. Cancel button still does nothing.

It’s not looking good. He’s never acted quite like this since he came back to life. Oh, if only he’d just go back to blinking the way he used to. I hate to say this, but I think I may be out shopping for one of these… or maybe one of these.

And no, I’m not talking about the “s” word. Anybody who thinks that President Bush is above profanity just doesn’t know anything about the man.

Besides, is there anything he doesn’t do like a drunken sailor??

No, it’s the “v” word — “veto” — that has me reaching for the soap.

The House and Senate overwhelmingly passed H.R. 810, The Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act, a measure that would allow expansion of Federally-funded embryonic stem cell research to include discarded frozen embryos left over from in vitro fertilization at fertility clinics. This is supported by some 70 percent of Americans.

We’re not talking about embryo farms, and we’re not talking about embryos-for-cash. We’re talking voluntarily donated leftover embryos.

But what about the “snowflake babies”, those embryos adopted and given life and loving families? There will be more of them, to be sure, but not so many that the cryogenic storage will ever be depleted.

And what is a donor to do but hope that her contribution to medical science might alleviate the suffering of others, might benefit generations yet unconceived!

Supporters of the President’s position are the very picture of hypocrisy. What moral outrage bans only public funding but permits private embryonic stem cell research? Why should we, the argument goes, have our taxes going to support research we deem immoral? And would somebody please explain why my taxes are funding the war in Iraq?

Fertility clinics are contradictory to God’s Will, if you really think about it. And so are hospitals and medicine itself. That is, unless you believe, as I do, in a God who has given us the tools and abilities to take care of ourselves and each other, to alleviate pain and suffering, to cure diseases that were created by neither man nor God.

To quote my good friend Killired, “shut the @#$% up!!”

Junior’s baseball team had a really tough game last night and to make a long story short, they lost and they’re out of the tournament. But that’s not what this post is about.

I’ve had it with the parents. The @#$% parents. Not all of them. Just some of them. The @#$% parents. I’ve had it with the @#$% parents. And one @#$% parent in particular.

The other team — let’s call them the “opponents” — they got off to a hot start and a couple of the parents started getting nervous.

“Where’s your spirit?” said the @#$%-est of them all. “I’m not going to cheer by myself,” she said… or something like that. I hope that meant that she was going to stop with the insanity. I thought that she might stop waving the pom-poms and baloons while the opponent-pitcher was winding up and even delivering the pitch. Oh yes, it was so obvious she was trying to distract him.

And it wasn’t as if we weren’t cheering. It’s just that we weren’t screaming at the top of our lungs, It’s just that we weren’t pounding giant noisemakers together. It’s just that we weren’t making total asses of ourselves.

She totally @#$% was.

Most of these kids have been playing organized ball for eight years. This team has been together for the past four. They’ve been practicing and practicing and working really hard at honing their skills. How selfish to diminish their achievements by acting as if the game was taking place off of the field!

When the game was over, the opponent-fans headed for the parking lot and most of them called over to our guys: “hold your heads high” and “you’ve got a great team” — which was appreciated by our side.

And then there was the one opponent-parent saying what the rest of us wished we could say: “tell your fans to shut up.”

I couldn’t agree more.

finally getting around to my cafe press to-do’s…

“hang up and drive” — bumper sticker

It’s been pretty busy around here, as you can probably tell.

Baseball baseball baseball. There’s a tournament going on, you see. And if all goes well, another one after that! I’m not complaining, I love it. Not so crazy about the idiot parents telling their kid “nice cut” when they miss the ball and “it’s OK” when they strike out… but hey, it’s a free country. And by the way, Timmy knows he struck out, and he’s pretty sure it’s not OK.

I’ve got a to-do list a mile long. I think it’s mostly t-shirt and bumper sticker slogans I need to design and put up on Café Press.

The podcast project is coming along nicely. Theme song, check. OK, that’s pretty much all I’ve done, but I did figure out how to get the podcast up on the ‘net. All I need now is to figure out what I want to say and say it! I was going to do a little yesterday — you know, with the live audience — but there was nobody in the audience, and I had something come up.

Well have a good weekend, everybody! It’s a scorcher here, so maybe I’ll get some of my indoor to-do things crossed off of my list. HA, that’s a good one! :)

If you’d like to be interviewed for a future edition of my podcast, please visit this post…

And if you’re interested in being part of the first ever live podcast audience*, I think I’ll be using the conference feature of Yahoo! Messenger, so you’ll have to tell me your Yahoo screen name. And then if you’re signed into Yahoo! Messenger on any Friday at noon — that’s when I’ll be “taping” the live podcast audience participation thing — I’ll invite you to the conference. Unless there’s a way for people to just show up… anyone know how that works?

*I have no idea if this is actually true, but… what the hell do I care? :)