been laying low...


not in the mood right now. A good friend's wife passed away late last week, after a horrific four years suffering from cancer everywhere in her body. Went to the service and mass last night. All I can say is that it's amazing what faith can do for some people in times like that.
I don't understand it. I gave up trying.
Maybe feel more like blogging tomorrow.


go ahead, make your day...

I had...


the most noble intentions of blogging about the rest of my day yesterday, but after my end of day experience, I was surely not in the mood. After I finished the great toilet seat repair job, I knocked around the house for a little while, then decided to run out to the local (3 miles away) booze shack for some beer and smokes. I made the mistake of taking the usual route, which dumped me right into the middle of a huge traffic jam caused by the invasion of our town by the fucking apple and pumpkin pickers that swarm here from the scary nether regions of North Jersey and New York Fucking City/Staten Fucking Island. Why these morons have to drive two hours in Saturday traffic to clog up the only short access route from my house to the next town is beyond me. Don't they have apple orchards in North Jersey? Don't pumpkins grow North of the great Raritan? Most of these people have never been West of the Garden State Parkway, they are the ones that befoul the shore towns every Summer to the point where I won't even go near any of them any more, I mean, what the hell, why should anyone from Central Jersey ever want to enjoy our own seaside, anyway? It wasn't put there for us, it was put the for them...
And judging by the clothes that these cretins wear for their "big country adventure", you'd think they were over at the shore or, better yet, shopping at Paramus Mall or maybe a night out at the Bada-Bing. Pointy toe black loafers, iridescent slacks, a black wife beater T and wrap around sunglasses are just the thing for for a guy spending his Saturday afternoon knocking around an apple orchard or pumpkin patch, I guess. The women are just as bad, in their pink and silver jogging outfits, designer sneakers and poufy hairdos. And don't get me started on their fucking kids. Or their vehicles... Lexus SUVs, Mercedes SUVs, Hummers, Infinities, Cadillac SUVs, Lincoln SUVs, even a fucking convertible Bentley... these people could afford their own apple orchards. So, it took me a half hour to get to a point where I could shoehorn my truck into a k-turn and head all the way round, through downtown Freehold (or little Tijuana as it's known these days), playing dodgem with the fucking wetbacks who can't seem to grasp the idea that sidewalks are there so you can walk on them and not get in the way of traffic, nor is every pickup truck being driven by someone looking to hire you to rake their fucking leaves. So, the entire trip cost me over an hour of my time and about 13 miles of out of my way driving to get a six pack of Post Road Pumpkin Ale, a four pack of Young's Double Chocolate Stout and a pack of Pall Malls. Should have taken me twenty minutes, max. Fuckers.
Today, I start emptying the closet under the center stairs so I can demolish the wall that backs up to the living room and start wiring in my radiant floor heating system. Or, I might bake a loaf of bread and some cookies. Don't know if I'm in the mood for screwing around with things electrical.
I'll let you know.



go ahead, make your day...

yay...


The toilet seat has been repaired...
Nice set of hinges, too. They have adjustable tension so the lid and seat don't flop around or fall if you lose your grip. You can actually have them suspended in mid air, in a fanned out effect, like the petals of some strange flower. Gave the lid and seat a nice coat of paste wax while I was at it, too, although I'm wondering about the sanity of that right now. Some slipping and sliding to happen, I'm sure.
There's something almost religious about toilet seats, which were, I'm quite sure, a great revelation in the day of their invention...
"They will beat their swords into toilet seats and their spears into toilet paper holders. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they feel the chill of cold, hard porcelain against their skin anymore."
Chic Sale 1:29
And on that note, I think I should get back to work.



go ahead, make your day...

raking is for light weights...


After surveying the grounds proper, I decided that manual labor of the leaf raking kind was not something I really wanted to undertake, so I changed the regular blade of the lawn mowing machine and installed the mulching blade from hell, The Gator Mulcher Blade. This thing is fucking medieval... I have a six and a half horse engine on my mowing machine and it takes all it can give to hurl that thing around, but the results are incredible. It slices, it dices, it pulverizes grass and leaves into a fine molecular powder and leaves none of those hayfield windrows that a regular mulching blade does. Has no mercy on small branches, either. Sounds wicked, too, sort of like an industrial sized branch mulching machine powered by a P-51 Mustang. It has lifting wings on the trailing edge that suck the grass and leaves up into it. Makes the mower run a bit hot, though, so I have to take breaks more often to let it cool down, not that I'm complaining, though. I dropped the mower height down a few notches and gave the grounds a real Marine buzz cut. Looks like the felt on a pool table. Now all I have to do is fire up the noisy, high carbon emitting 4-cycle leaf blower and clean off the walks and front porch and I think that's that for the outside today. I'll attack the back wood lot next weekend.
Later.



go ahead, make your day...

It's a WEEKEND WONDERLAND..!


The foul malady that has been suppressing my usually sunny demeanor is starting to wane, so that means no more languishing on the divan, holding the back of my hand against my forehead, moaning and groaning and generally looking pathetic, trying for some sympathy from my beloved, or at least the cat, and it's back to work this weekend... and such a fun-filled list awaits the attention my less than eager soul...

1. Replace the hinge on the damned toilet seat that broke two weeks ago. Although sitting on an unsecured toilet seat has its moments of high hilarity and adventure, the new hinge has arrived and it's time to say adieu to bowel and bladder emptying acrobatics. This, of course, could have been remedied almost immediately after the hinge broke, had we been in possession of a normal, good enough to plant your ass upon, Walmart $9.95 pink metal flake plastic squatter, by purchasing a new seat right away, but we have the most darling, solid cherry, espresso color, hand rubbed wax finish toilet seat that $84.00 can buy, so it is repair, not replace. It is, however, the perfect color to match the cabinet work in the bathroom and it is a round toilet seat, not one of those absurd elongated things, which would look ridiculous on our vintage porcelain behemoth of a commode. It was made sometime in the early part of the Twentieth Century, when water was cheap, getting rid of crap was cheaper and no one gave a second thought to using five or six gallons of water to get rid of last night's dinner. There is no fear of ever clogging that thing up, no matter how manly a deposit is left. No need for a courtesy flush here, friends. In fact, I would caution against it, as the venturi effect of that much water being released while your ass is sealing the opening would cause such a vacuum that you would probably suffer the prolapse of some important inner bit. The sound it makes when flushed is probably not unlike that massive sucking sound that occurred when the Titanic went down to it's last ever after... perhaps during the flush cycle, I could somehow arrange for the playing of 'Songe d'Automne', the old Episcopalian hymn supposedly played by the Titanic's band, as they stood braced against the tilted deck, until the cold and dark salt water muted their last, heroic strains... but enough of such talk.

2. Finish the tape and spackle work in the upstairs spare bedroom, so I can clean it up to make room so I can have a warm place to work on the built in bookcase and mantle for the living room.

3. Empty the closet under the center stairs so I can rip one of the walls out to install the electrical work and thermostat for the living room floor radiant heating.

4. Rake leaves and generally tidy up the grounds, they are a wreck.

I don't know if that is the order in which these chores will be at least attempted, as the weather prognosticators call for wet and dreary tonight and tomorrow, so I guess today will be the outside work and tomorrow will be the inside work. Such a gay and carefree life I lead...

So, it's another cup of coffee, then off to the Post Office and recycling place, then, I fear, to the tasks at hand. I'll chat with you later.




go ahead, make your day...

for what it's worth...


i think i might be over the hump with whatever demon bug has infected me. the cold sweat, hot chill thing is pretty much gone, and my appetite is returning for things other than coffee and ice water. i'm still spacey as hell, though. don't know where that's coming from, but after three days, i really wish it would go away. t'was the day when i'd pay good money to feel like that, but it's creepy as hell now. still having a hell of a time coordinating simple tasks, like typing or moving from room to room without bumping into things. i guess i'll drag my ass into the office tomorrow. luckily it's been sort of slow the past few weeks, so it was probably a good time to come down with something, but i hate asking my office mates to follow up on stuff that i can't access from home.
the worst part is that it has been a total waste of three whole days. i didn't even feel like reading, just sat in the recliner, half passed out, head cocked over to one side, drooling on myself. ugh.
i'll catch you later.




go ahead, make your day...

seriously...


although i haven't sought out professional medical help, i'm pretty sure i have some sort of influenza attacking my body. have all the classic symptoms, including my favorite, hallucinations... no full blown, acid type, total out of mind and body experiences*, but little, gentle, almost make you laugh when you realize that the pillow you've got your head burrowed into is not really asking you questions about why you keep leaving the erasers upside down on the chalk shelf under the blackboard. nice little weird interludes like that, that punctuate that gray area between awake and asleep... i'm not even taking any medication, save some tylenol to keep the headaches in check.
is any of this making any sense? fevers are fun, ain't they?

*not that i'd know what that's like...




go ahead, make your day...

uhhhhhhhhh...


i am sick. yeah, yeah, save the wisecracks, i'm really sick. i was fine until about 4 PM yesterday when i finally finished all the yard work and cleaning up the wooded back lot, when i sat down at one of the outside tables and had a stout. all of a sudden, my nose started dripping snot down the front of my face (bad, bad sign... i have a birth defect the prevents my nose from running unless my sinuses are full to the brim with ucky stuff), my sinuses, as explained, are full of gunk and they are steadily draining down the back of my throat. i've been coughing and hacking, and alternating between hot flashes and cold chills. i'm light headed and my body is starting to ache. my eyes burn and feel ike they're filled with sand... could be some sort of allergic reaction to something i kicked up in the yard while mowing, raking and trimming, but i doubt it. i think i've got a good one going here, which really, really sucks. i never get sick. the last time i had any sort of thing like this was a sinus infection about four or five years ago. this blows.
i'm going to spend the day in Dame Recliner, with coffee, ice water and remote at hand.
later.


go ahead, make your day...

avast, ye worthless curs...


t'day be that most fun day of the rolling year, Talk Like A Pirate Day!
yarrrrrrrrrrr!






go ahead, make your day...

it's saturday...


i wasn't all that confident that i would make it through the week past to today without quitting my job. or should i say, leaving my current place of employment, as i'm not really sure what my f'n job really is any more. that's another story for another time, i think, but it's frustrating as shit. however, i made it and it's saturday. doesn't have the same thrilling ring to it as when i was a kid, when it meant getting up in the morning and having a quiet, leisurely breakfast, followed, especially on those rainy days or winter mornings, a short spell in front of the tv watching science fiction movies or detective movies or sometimes even a western. if the weather was nice, it was out the door and adventure was afoot. i spent a lot time as a kid wandering around in the woods alone, whole days, sometimes. maybe just climb a tree and hang out and watch and see what came by. never worried, as my parents never worried, that something horrible was going to befall me. funny how things change. now i never wander through the woods out back, into the state park, without a sidearm or a stout staff, or at least a long blade strapped to my leg. too many f'n wetbacks have set up camp in the less traveled areas round here. scary. and now saturdays have become a day less intended for relaxation, but running around like mad, doing the stuff you couldn't get to during the week. mine won't be quite as bad as usual, though. i managed to get out of the office at 2:00 yesterday and was home before 3:30, so i managed to get three quarters of the property mowed. fun things still on my list to do, though, include the weekly trip to the recycling place and the post office, finishing the mowing, then doing the trimming and weeding and doing what i can to prep the various gardens for the coming colder weather, potting up some plants that are in the ground now so i can bring them in over the winter, replacing the hinge on the toilet seat, doing some more spackle work on the spare bedroom, listing more crap on craig's list, and myriad other things that will pop up. still have to do a crap load of work on the outside of the place before it gets cold, still have to build some new lumber racks in the little shed to store the piles of lumber i have in the spare bedroom, which now have to go someplace else, man, i could go on and on.
well, one more cup of coffee, then i have to start moving my ass.
see you later.



go ahead, make your day...

f'n earworm...


why? i have no idea. not even one of my favorite songs of his. furthest thing from my mind at 6:30 this morning while driving to work, then POW!, it suddenly came out of nowhere and drilled it's way into my defenseless brain and it's been there ALL FUCKING DAY LONG... and, because i am filled with love and giving, i'm sharing with you... enjoy.

sleep well tonight, if you can...


go ahead, make your day...

YAY..!


I made a funny..!



go ahead, make your day...

WOLVERINES !!!


Patrick Swayze is gone.



I can't think of anyone better to be our Minuteman...


go ahead, make your day...

why i stay home...


i drove up into the north of jersey this morning, to meet the fellow that bought the coal stove i had for sale, so we could off-load it from my truck and into his and what should have been a pleasant, hour and a half ride up, a cup of coffee with the fellow and a leisurely hour and a half ride home from Fort Lee, turned into sitting in major traffic jams on the NJ Turnpike, because of all the idiots who have to go sit in the parking lot of Giant's Stadium six hours before the game and drink themselves into the usual puke fest, then driving all over fucking Fort Fucking Lee because some asshole decided to remove the turn sign to get onto Route 4, including getting directions from some fat ass cop who told me "go past the second light and turn right", which deposited me on the Palisades Fucking Parkway for five miles until i could find one of those cop things in the median and made an illegal u-turn, i missed the turn back into Fort Fucking Lee and, low and behold, i found a sign for Route 4. East. not West, like I wanted, so I drove all over the fucking place until i found a u-turn, and headed back West, found the damned hotel where we decided to meet. what a fucking nightmare. we moved the stove from my truck to his, chatted for a few minutes, then we both left for home. i put on the radio to get a traffic report and heard that the NJ Turnpike South was a parking lot from the George Washington Bridge to Giants Stadium, both the Eastern and Western spurs, so I headed West on Route 4 to Hackysack (Hackenfuckingsack, YO!, to the unfamiliar) and took that blessed torrent of unbridled love filled humanity, the Garden State Parkway all the way South to Route 9 (another unpleasant alley way of seething, impatient humanity, only a few of which sport actual NJ plates on their cars...), until I could jump off and take some nice, slow, empty back roads to my home. this is why i despise, with only a few notable exceptions, driving out of my comfort zone... see map below -


click to embiggen for your viewing pleasure...

that red area enclosing the happy, shiny unicorn, is my comfort zone. to the north, certain horror and death... to the south, strange, scary people who speak in tongues, drive with their eyes shut and all have some common, not too distant ancestry...
also to fear is the Jersey Shore, usually over-run by horror and death from the North, or Jed and his wife/sister/cousin thing from the South... in the ocean are things that eat you... the zombies represent Philly. that's a whole 'nother story.

i am now happily home, trying to enjoy what's left of this day by sitting in a chair that is not moving, watching football and drinking vast amounts of beer.
it's going to take weeks to recover from this. believe me...



go ahead, make your day...

the incredible boredom of being...


my motivation seems to have taken a vacation. i have so much to do around this grim old pile of a house and i have absolutely no ambition or interest. today, i forced myself to do some more tape and spackle work in the spare bedroom we're now remodeling, but that was about it. oh, i did go the local mom and pop hardware store and order a replacement hinge assembly for our toilet seat, the current one broke the other day while i was catching up on my reading of the Old Farmer's Almanac. hilarity ensued... the toilet seat is only three years old and was ridiculously expensive for something of that nature, but it's a nice espresso color wood affair, very comfy and matches the cabinet work in the bathroom. i refuse to shell out the big bucks again for a new one. the replacement hinges are only eleven bucks.

i did spend some more time listing things for sale on Craigslist, though. we've come to the realization that have just too much stuff around here, the place is starting to look like Collyer's Mansion, so it's time to get rid of it. the extra cash will come in handy next year to help pay for new roof shingles, i can't put that off any longer, it needs to be done. i should be able to knock it off by myself in a week if i do it in sections. i guess while i'm at it, i'll rebuild the trough gutters on the front of the house, too. i tore them off last year and put up regular rain gutters and it looks like hell. completely destroyed the character of the house. and if this house has anything, it's character. like what the Addams Family summer vacation home might have...

it's been drizzling on and off all day, the sun tried to peek out a while ago, but it gave up and went back behind the clouds, which are a strange mixture of tropical rain clouds and those chunky, gray autumn type clouds that you would expect more around the end of october or so. halloween clouds. those clouds that look nice and spooky. the type of clouds that you would want overhead while mooching around on old, overgrown apple orchard, or watching the crows and redwing blackbirds pecking around the remnants of a corn field, looking for a snack. yeah, those kind of clouds. the ones that meander through the sky at a slow, steady clip, that have a hole here and there that allows the setting sun or the full moon to sneak through once in a while, like a kid peeking out through the curtains to look at the audience before the school play starts. clouds that are the harbinger of colder days to come...

well, i'm going to go rustle up some dinner, have a few beers and a smoke or two and watch some NASCAR. have a wonderful evening, my fellow wanderers... fare thee well.

oh, in case you're wondering about my current blog profile picture. that's me, circa 1972. haven't really changed that much, except there's a bit more of me and the hair's mostly gray. and about twice as long.
later...



go ahead, make your day...

pants on fire..!







Cost to every current living American citizen to cover the projected deficit of 9 trillion dollars -$27,000.00.
Cost of 2 ProLine StagePro Teleprompters - $7198.00.
Cost for taking your wife on a "date" to NYC, on the back of the American Taxpayers - $24,000.

Seeing Joe Biden awakened from his slumber, Nancy Pelosi's botox melt and the look on your face when someone called you out as the lying, rat bastard, Commie prick you are....
PRICELESS.

THANKS, JOE WILSON, FOR THAT "1776" MOMENT !!!



go ahead, make your day...

Right...



So the Mayor of London suggests that everyone should join in the festivities of Ramadan, to help promote understanding of England's new Muslim overlords... If Arthur is really asleep under a hill somewhere on that sceptered isle, someone better start trying to wake him up. The hour is growing late and even he might be challenged by this invasion...



go ahead, make your day...

go ahead, make your day...

Hitler...


now available as a half-breed mf'n cs'r from Kenya...



This is what was shown to children in an elementary school last week, in Utah.

Time to watch Dawn Of The Dead again...

h/t to Sondrak...


go ahead, make your day...

Let the riots begin...


in 3... 2... 1...


go ahead, make your day...

I await the sound of hob-nail boots on my front walk...


and the midnight kicking in of my front door...

Here's what I sent to my local school district administrator this morning...



click to enlarge

Here's the full text of the message...

"As a Manalapan Township resident and tax payer and, more so, as an American, I respectfully request that the Manalapan-Englishtown Regional School District refuse to allow the viewing of the thinly veiled message of statist propaganda due to be broadcast on September 8th through the school systems of our great Nation by the Obama administration. If any parents want their children to be exposed to such dreadful indoctrination, then they and their children should watch it in their home. The public school system is no place for anyone, of any political party, to try to further their agenda.
Thank you."

I hope you might do the same to stop the spread of those trying to infect the minds of the young with their leftist propaganda.


go ahead, make your day...