This small town is in either Bladen or Robeson County. We pass it on the way to South Carolina. A great place to relieve oneself if you ask me. AHHHHHH!

If you didn't have the urge to "go" when you got to the previous sign, perhaps you will have to urinate when you get here. Maybe you can do it on both for a double treat! Do it on the left post-I've got nothing against Bladenboro!

Back to South Carolina!!! Woo-Hoo

It's off to SC this weekend for another great weekend of fishing, drinking and frivolity in our sister city of Beaufort, SC. The cobia are close to being in and Scott, Jeff and I will try to give them a major league ass-whipping on Saturday. Tonight will be a killer sunset over the Intracoastal, a booze cruise in the boat, dinner somewhere. There are new introductions to be made, new friends to meet and great friendships to cement. Saturday night we'll be back at Harold's (see post below) for another night of steak, beer and people watching. This time it will be captured on digital for photoblogging on Monday. We'll miss seeing Jason and Rachel-they'll be moving into their new home in Columbia. Good luck to them-we'll see them in two weeks at my 50th birthday bash.
Have a great weekend, ya'll-check out my sidebar links for some great stuff. Later, dudes.

Your "Ron Mexico" Name generator

Ron Mexico is the fake name quarterback Michael Vick gave to a woman he slept with and infected with herpes. Ron Mexico? Come on man- a Virginia Tech education should allow you to do better than that!

What's your signature weapon?

He's a Goner I'm Afraid

White Robe-$64.50
White Supremacist Patches and Logos-$21.45
Getting your racist ass shot up and having your life in the hands of 5 black emergency room professionals-PRICELESS

A Classic Rant from Hog on Ice

Steve at Hog on Ice is a lawyer/cookbook author/torturer of Nigerian spammers who lives in South Florida and has great insights. Here is a post of his from March of this year that deals with the subject of real friends vs. friends who are basically just "users." Lawyers especially take a well deserved bashing. Enjoy!


I Just Felt Like Saying It

"Pardon me while I pity myself publicly, but writing a cookbook really is a lot of work.

I cooked until after 8 p.m. on Saturday, and from 11:30 a.m. until after midnight last night. Of course, yesterday I was smoking a pork shoulder, so I didn't have to stand over the smoker for thirteen hours, but I was not able to leave the house for very long, and there was a two-hour period where it kept me so busy I got myself a book and a cigar and camped out next to it.

Some of my friends have absolutely no respect for what I do. Last week, one asked me to go to the university and be a moot court judge for a class she teaches. I told her I would not leave her hanging, but that I would appreciate it if she tried to find other victims first, because I write and cook all day and then practice the piano for at least three hours. I usually close the fallboard at eleven. I'm behind on the cookbook, and weekday nights are not good times to pull me away from home.

She sent me an email saying she would not trouble me, as I obviously did not want to help "a friend in need."

I was really offended. I've judged those brats two or three times already, and everyone who knows me knows I do what I can to help my friends. I don't ask other people for favors unless I can't avoid it, and if they turn me down, I assume they have good reason. I would never have sent her an email like that. Never in my wildest dreams would I consider calling a friend selfish over a trivial thing like that. And it is trivial. She and her husband have dozens of lawyer friends they can call on. And lawyers are generally not busy in the evening. Some firms are sweatshops where everyone works until nine, but try this experiment: pick ten law firms out of the firm book and call at five-thirty in the afternoon. I’ll bet you get voicemail seven times. The lawyers I’ve known and worked with were generally out of the office by six, and that includes associates.

Maybe this is the last time I'll be asked. That's fine with me. I have never understood people who graduate from a school and then go back and hang around. Once it's over, I'm gone. I feel awkward running into my old professors. I was never a brown nose who brought them cookies in their offices and pretended to enjoy hanging around with them; it wasn't until several years after I left that I realized other people had done that. That’s how foreign the concept is to me.

I liked some of my professors just fine. But I felt contempt for quite a few. There were a lot of disproportionate egos on the faculty. I didn't see these people as especially bright, after studying physics, and I was aware that many of them had failed as lawyers or had not had the nerve to practice at all, and it disturbed me when they put on displays of arrogance. My physics and math professors were about a thousand times as smart as my law professors, and I only remember one who had an ego problem. The rest were too humble, if anything.

Apart from that, I offended a lot of them by writing a humor column for the school paper, in which I regularly lampooned what I saw as their hypocrisy and high-handedness. I was not their favorite person.

I realize now that a lot of people I know went to parties with professors—my sister even slept with one—and pretended to be dazzled by their charm and wit. I realize that they made the professors their friends, in order to get good use out of them.

I actually liked my math and physics professors, but it never occurred to me to try to be their pal, or to to back to school and peek into their offices and say “Boo!” or to put them on my nonexistent Christmas card list.

I once coined a term to describe phony camaraderie. I call it “barroom warmth.” You’ve seen it in action. You go to a bar with your friends, you get a load on, you start talking to the folks around you, and suddenly you realize they’re the finest people you ever met. You exchange numbers (what a mistake), you promise you’ll call, you sing classic rock until they throw you out of the bar, and then you wake up at noon and pray you never see them again.

There is something similar among lawyers. Lawyers do not distinguish business from love from friendship. They seem like charming, friendly people when you meet them, but a funny thing happens. A day comes when they realize someone else can do more for them than you can, and suddenly, you don’t hear from your charming lawyer friends quite so often. You meet them at social events, and you assume their interest in you is social, but then you find out that to most lawyers, there is no such thing as a purely social event. Every event is an opportunity to network; to find people who can move you forward in life. And business ALWAYS trumps social. Always.

I’m not accusing my friend of being this way. That’s not what I’m getting at. What I’m getting at is this: the people who are most comfortable going back to campus are phony gladhanders who can identify their old professors blindfolded just by sniffing their asses. I’m a real person. I never palled around with the profs. Therefore I feel very out of place on campus.

I go every time my friend needs me, sure, but I don’t look forward to it. “Hi, Professor Smith. Remember me? The guy you and all your buddies hated? Nice to see you.”

Do you think I’m being too hard on lawyers? I suppose all ambitious, acquisitive people network and gladhand. I suppose even decent people do it to some extent. But I’ve really been shocked to see how empty my fellow attorneys are. I could probably list ten classmates who used me shamefully, or tried to. And there are very few classmates I keep in touch with.

So far, the only professions that seem to me to compare with law, when it comes to superficiality and selfishness, are sales and politics. Most salespeople I’ve known have been realtors. Talk about ruthless. A typical realtor has the ethics of a concentration camp inmate trying to live out the month. And car salesmen…the slime of humanity. They should all be gassed.

So to sum up, I actually work, and I am even more disappointed in the character of lawyers than you are.

While I’m rambling, let me talk about the difference between a law school gathering and a trip to ManCamp. As most of you know, I met Val Prieto over a year ago, and I spend a lot of time with him and his friends, in Val’s backyard barbecue haven.

When I go to ManCamp, no one asks me for my card. Everyone there knows I can do absolutely nothing for them, and that they can do absolutely nothing for me. We eat, we drink, we play dominoes, we curse at the TV, but no one talks about business. You know, when you’re at ManCamp, that if you weren’t liked for what you were, you’d be out on your ass in about two seconds.

How different from a mixer full of lawyers and law clericals. At a mixer, the women want to know what kind of law you practice. What firm you work for. They look at your clothes and your watch. If it all adds up to the right sum, you can end up with a new girlfriend, even if you have the good looks and charm of Larry Flynt. The men aren’t much better, but at least they won’t pretend to find you attractive. Everyone looks at you like you’re big cheesecake, and they all want a slice.

If you’re not a lawyer, let me warn you. Be very reluctant to get involved romantically with one. Some are okay, but there are a lot of users in the mix. There are some types of people you should always evaluate very carefully before agreeing to date them. Musicians. Actors. Cops. Stewardesses. Salespeople. Addicts. Add “lawyers” to the list, if you haven’t already.

I hope my friend won’t be mad at me forever."

Random Quotes

Congress is so strange. A man gets up to speak and says nothing. Nobody listens-and then everybody disagrees. Boris Marshalov

Women have their faults. Men have only two: Everything they say. Everything they do.
Anonynous

A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.
Gloria Steinem

On one issue at least, men and women agree-they both distrust women.
H.L. Mencken

He left his body to science, and science is contesting the will.
David Frost

I could eat alphabet soup and shit better lyrics.
Johnny Mercer

You can't find true affection in Hollywood because everyone does the fake affection so well.
Carrie Fisher

One of the first things schoolchildren in Texas learn is how to compose a simple declarative sentence without the word "shit" in it.
Anonymous

On Chinese food- You do not sew with a fork and I see no reason why you should eat with knitting needles.
Henry Beard

I did not say that this meat was tough. I just said I didn't see the horse that usually stands outside.
W.C. Fields

If the soup had been as hot as the wine. If the wine had been as old as the bird, and if the bird's breasts had been as full as the waitress's, it would have been a very good dinner.
Anonymous

France-The only country where the money falls apart and you can't tear the toilet paper.
Billy Wilder

Age and Meanness

I went through a situation about ten days ago that was unpleasant (the details are unnecessary) and I have been trying to put it in its proper perspective so I can close it out in my mind. As Jack at Random Fate observed, human connections are tenuous at best, a thin web that can tear even despite the best efforts at preservation. Whether the departure is from death or a parting of ways because of divergent paths or hard feelings, the loss is still there, and the emptiness left behind is still keenly felt. Harsh words were spoken by both sides-mine probably overly so. I found a post from Kelley at Suburban Blight that explains a lot of how my own thinking about things and people has evolved. If you change the gender references (for example "bitch" to "bastard," this is exactly how I feel:


Age and Meanness
In my younger days, I could have been accurately described as a "people person". You could have called me "eager to please", made me out as one of those people that is destroyed to find that someone - anyone, no matter how totally insignificant to the grand scheme of things - doesn't like her, and honestly pinned me down as something of a doormat. You'd have been right on any of those counts. Now? I don't know if it's the aging process, the requirements of motherhood, or the therapy, but I don't believe you'd find any of the phrases listed above to be all that helpful anymore.
I'm not an angry or vindictive person by any stretch of the imagination, but it seems like the older I get, the less time and patience I have for bullshit. People I have taken crap from for years and years have, in recent months, found themselves without their old trusty spittoon. Folks who were used to taking advantage of my generous and trusting disposition have discovered themselves high and dry, with nowhere to wipe their feet. Additionally, where I used to value relationships solely because of their length - excusing the bad behavior of someone I'd known for fifteen years simply because I'd known them for fifteen years - I now require proof positive that the relationship is worth continuing before falling all over myself to answer that e-mail, or return that telephone call. Is that so wrong? I don't think so. I'm a grown woman, with a lot of responsibilities and only a little spare time. Don't expect me to put up with nonsense in the few minutes of "me" time available to me each day.
I guess you could say that I've fallen into eye-for-an-eye mode. You treat me right, cover my six, our expectations for friendly behavior mesh - I'm the best friend you'll ever find. You trash talk me, take your personal problems out on my hide, start drama with the intention of throwing a monkey-wrench in either my life or my relationships with others, and I'm gone, leaving only the welts of a painful tongue-lashing behind. I used to be afraid to "make a scene". Now, though I don't relish confrontation, I'll not hesitate for a second to stand up for myself, for my family, for my beliefs, or for the duties of conscience that we all, in one way or another, bear.
Looking back, I have to say that I do regret the sheer waste of time, time that I spent trying to please people that had no intention of returning the favor, time that I spent worrying about why so-and-so said such-and-such. I also look back and see places in my past where, if I'd only stood up for myself, or done what I knew to be right for me at the possible expense of someone else's feelings, I'd be in a much better position today.
Does all of the above make me a bitch? Inconsiderate? Unlikely to suffer fools gladly? Maybe. But I can't say as I really care anymore.
During my last visit with my grandfather, just before he died, we talked about the visible shortening of my temper. As little as he saw me, he noted the difference, and I laughed it off, attributing my new-found aptitude for self-defense to my lack of sleep as the mother of a wildcat boy-child who was then still a toddler. Gramps, never one to mince words, looked me right in the eye, smiled, and said, "So how does it feel to finally be an adult?"

Right on, sister!!

Hat tip to Lobowalk.

Website update redux

All the pieces of the puzzle to get my rodbuilding website into cyberspace have been individually completed but have not come together as a finished product yet. Any day they tell me-keep checking.

Great Joke

Sperm Count
An 85-year-old man went to his doctor's office to get a sperm count. The doctor gave the man a jar and said, "Take this jar home and bring back a semen sample tomorrow."The next day the 85-year-old man reappeared at the doctor's office and gave him the jar, which was as clean and empty as on the previous day.The doctor asked what happened and the man explained: "Well, doc, it's like this - First I tried with my right hand, but nothing. Then I tried with my left hand but still nothing. Then I asked my wife for help. She tried with her right hand, then her left hand, but still nothing. She tried with her mouth, first with the teeth in, then with the teeth out, but still nothing. We even called up Arleen, the lady next door and she tried too-first with both hands, then an armpit and she even tried squeezin' it between her knees, but still nothing."
The doctor was shocked, "You asked your neighbor?" the old man replied, "Yep, and no matter how hard we tried, we still couldn't get the jar open."

A hat tip to Jules at Jules Wicked World-link on sidebar.

Website update

After much trial and error, I've got the website ready to publish to the web. I'll make the call at lunch to get the ISP numbers and stuff I need to send it out to the world. I'm quite pleased the way it looks and it's about time I got it up and running since I've got the web address on my business cards and on the back of my SUV. Check again tonight-hopefully no false alarm.

Bad Doctor Story

School Buses! (@#$%#%^)

I just made a short trip to the house from work, timing it just perfectly to fall in behind a freakin' school bus. I live off a two lane highway, most of it a no passing zone, so I'm trapped. I've just got one observation-when I was in school and rode a bus, there was a "bus stop" where all the riders would gather and get on the bus for the trip to school and where you were deposited on the trip home. Now it appears that the buses do "home delivery" for each kid. I swear the bus stopped 10 times in a one mile stretch and each time let out only one kid. When did this start?
Speaking of buses, it was rumored at our bus stop that there was a "30 minute rule"- that if the bus was 30 minutes late, you could walk back home and take the day off with no repercussions. I was such a slack-ass student that I would pray every day that the 30 minute rule could be invoked. In 6 plus years of bus riding, only once was the bus more than 30 minutes late and a few of us, (who probably made up the rumor), ran home as fast as possible. Needless to say the repercussions came not only from the school but also included a major league ass-whipping at home. The so called "30 minute rule" was never mentioned again.
I never did a homework assignment for about 10 years (which accounted for my horrid grades), so I never wanted to darken the doors of a classroom for fear of being called upon to read something I hadn't even attempted. I literally prayed that the school bus would crash on the way to school-nothing major involving injuries-just enough to either force the school to let us go home or maybe we could spend the day talking to the investigating officer. No luck on that either. I've heard people say they wish they could go back and be a kid again-Hell I'd sooner wish I was in a rest home with a tube snaked down my throat. Growing up was some painful shit I wouldn't ever want to repeat.

Random Quotes

Rogues are preferable to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
-Alexandre Dumas

Any event, once it has occurred, can be made to appear inevitable by a competent historian.
-Lee Simonson

Politics is perhaps the only profession for which no preparation is thought necessary.
-Robert Louis Stevenson

In great affairs men show themselves as they wish to be seen; in small things they show themselves as they are.
-Nicholas Chamfort

A Hat tip to Jack at Random Fate.

Rodbuilding Website Rises from the Ashes

As most of you who have visited here know, one of my hobbies (actually more like a part-time job) is building fishing rods. I've been doing it for quite a while now and a couple of years ago I decided that I needed a website. I had a friend put one up for me but I grew tired of it and decided I needed one that I could access and post photos of the new rods I've built. I found a program on the net that allows one with no HTML competence to build and operate (you could put all of my computer knowledge in a thimble). I got the damn thing to actually work this weekend and I'm quite pleased with it. The only problem is the place to post photos, which is the most important function for me, is giving me fits. Today I will tote the Dell 4600C unit to get a quick lesson to overcome this stumbling block. With a little luck, sometime tonight Cape Custom Rods will be back, new and better than ever. Check it out later on!

Which City is Best for You?

Mine came out Honolulu-75%. Sorry-You will never drag me away from the Carolina coast.

Blogging Thoughts

I'm relatively new to this blogging stuff, having started toward the end of January this year but I'm learning something everyday. My sitemeter monitors my visitors and the duration of their visits and it is clear that if you want site traffic, you've either got to crank this stuff out on a regular (daily) basis, or at the least throw up some pictures or shamelessly copy something from some other site (after giving the appropriate credit or as bloggers refer to it, "a tip of the hat)." That makes sense-no one in their right mind would want to read over something twice, even if was great literature. Another thing that is apparent is that weekends when the weather is good is "dead time"-site traffic in the single digits. That also makes perfect sense. Who in the hell wants a visitor who would rather read some horseshit off a computer screen than go out and enjoy sunshine and breathe fresh air. I'm actually tempted to track down and red-ass any springtime weekend visitors or see if Amazon can overnight them a set of priorities. Lastly, there are some damn talented people out there blogging and I don't mean to include myself. Go check out some of my links, especially Feisty Repartee, Hog on Ice, A Small Victory and all the others and check out their incredible links. The depth and breadth of talent that was untapped or unknown until the blogging phenomenon is stunning. Take the time to check out these sites and links and you will be amazed and entertained.

This Week's Carnival of the Recipes

Is hosted by The Countertop Chronicles.

Are You Cool? Take the test!

Rum and Coke and Porch Swings

The wind has been honking here for the last week. From the freakin' north also making it chilly as hell. It finally laid down a bit yesterday and the sun came out and for a brief time it was actually warm. One thing I always look forward to with the warmer weather is being able to sit outside on the porch swing. We have a great screened-in back porch that we added on to the house in October 2000-15 by 40 feet with a great view-at high tide you can see the waters of Russell's Creek if you look close enough. One of the first things I did when we moved into our house just over 5 years ago was to get a porch swing. I bought a Pawley's Island double rope swing from a local merchant and brought it home to hang. Before the porch was extended to its present size and I had room to hang it so I could look straight out into the yard, I was forced to hang it in a way that made you swing parallel to the house, if that makes any sense. The house has vinyl siding and of course, the under part of the roof is vinyl soffit, covering the roof structure. I poked and prodded the soffit to try and locate the 2 x 10 joists into which to drill a hole to insert the large screws that hold the swing securely. I had a hard time because I didn't know if the joists ran parallel or perpendicular to the house. After about 30 minutes of poking around with an awl, I hit a hard spot that I took to be the joist. I drilled 2 holes through the soffit into the wood, screwed in the swing hangers, hung the swing and started swinging. Sweet! I used it on a daily basis for about two weeks. One weekend, some of my former co-workers came to visit and I was so proud to show off our beautiful new home. We were hanging out on the porch and I was in the swing. One of my buddies sat down beside me and after about 10 seconds, the whole freakin' thing crashes to the ground, taking down with it all the soffit from the underside of the roof. About 10 pounds of insulation came spilling down on us and on the porch. It looked like Big Bird had exploded. Now the rear of my new, lovely home had all the glamour of a singlewide in disrepair-exposed beams, yellow shit everywhere and a rope swing laying upside down on the porch. At least now I knew which way the joists ran.
We just bought a new swing. The rope swing had started to show its age and the rope had some green mildew spots plus the swing was hard on the ass. The new one is made of that fake wicker and has a comfy cushion. Even with the sucky cold weather, I've been out on it-more than once with a parka and a toboggan (that's a piece of headgear for all you yankees, not a sled). A couple of years back I added some killer stereo speakers to the porch. Crank it up, pour a drink or grab a beer and swing.
For me the true harbinger of warm weather is when I get a craving for Cruzan rum and diet coke in a large glass of crushed ice. In the cooler months, my liquor of choice is bourbon whisky-either Maker's Mark if I'm feeling flush or Jack Daniels Green label if I'm not. I like to sip it, letting that smoky flavor roll around on my tongue. But when the days get warm, nothing is better than a big rum and coke, some great tunes cranked up and my ass on the swing. Today looks like it might be "opening day" of the rum and coke season.

Simply amazing

Click on this link-http://digicc.com/fido/
Follow all directions and click on the cartoon boy in the lower right hand corner to move to the next screen-Don't know how it works but it's amazing.

More actual blogging tomorrow

I've been recovering from my trip last weekend and trying to finish up some rods for David Abeyta and Cody Braun of the band, Reckless Kelly (pics below). I'll get something out tomorrow on my fantastic trip last weekend-drink, fishing, new great friend and a magical night at Harold's Country Club (actually an old gas station and tackle shop) in Yemassee, SC. Only four weeks till my 50th birthday bash and I'm excited to be able to have my great friends coming from all directions-we're gonna throw 'em down for 3 days and go in for a group liver transplant afterwards. See ya tomorrow!

Friend Jeff Purdy's monster 10 lb. sheepshead 

Rear Section-Wild "marble" look 

Holographic guide 

Holographic reel seat 

View of threadwork 

Name Decal 

Rod for Cody Braun 

Building rods for Cody Braun and David Abeyta of the world's greatest band, Reckless Kelly 

It's Tax Time Again!

Headline Hyperbole

Proud to be a lawyer!

Distance Illusions

Products that were never made

Rubbing Alcohol+Compressed Air+Fire+ Stupidity=Funny

Fishing and Sex

Twenty Differences between Fishing and Sex:

#20 - No matter how much beer you've had, you can still Fish.
#19 - A limp rod is still useful while Fishing.
#18 - You don't have to hide your Fishing magazines.
#17 - It is perfectly acceptable to pay a professional to Fish with
you once in a while.
#16 - The Ten Commandments don't say anything against Fishing.
#15 - If your partner takes pictures or videotapes of you Fishing, you
don't have to worry about them showing up on the Internet if you become
famous.
#14 - Your Fishing partner doesn't get upset about people you Fished
with long ago.
#13 - It's perfectly respectable to Fish with a total stranger.
#12 - When you see a really good Fishing person, you don't have to
feel guilty about imagining the two of you Fishing together.
#11 - If your regular Fishing partner isn't available, he/she won't
object if you Fish with someone else.
#10 - Nobody will ever tell you that you will go blind if you Fish by
yourself.
#9 - When dealing with a Fishing pro, you never have to wonder if they
are really an undercover cop.
#8 - You don't have to go to a sleazy shop in a seedy neighborhood to
buy Fishing stuff.
#7 - You can have a Fishing calendar on your wall at the office, tell
Fishing jokes, and invite coworkers to Fish with you without getting
sued for ''Fishing harassment''.
#6 - There are no Fishing-transmitted diseases.
#5 - If you want to watch Fishing on television, you don't have to
subscribe to the Playboy channel.
#4 - Nobody expects you to Fish with the same partner for the rest of
your life.
#3 - Nobody expects you to give up Fishing if your partner loses
interest in it.
#2 - You don't have to be a newlywed to plan a vacation primarily to
enjoy your favorite activity.
#1 - Your Fishing partner will never say, "Not again? We just Fished
last week! Is Fishing all you ever think about?!

Have a great Day,

Light blogging this weekend

Blogging will actually be non-existent until Monday. Heading down to our "sister" town, Beaufort, SC for a weekend of fishing, beer drinking, music and watching sunsets over the intracoastal waterway in some confy adirondack chairs. Hope to have plenty of stories and photos of the trip down by car and the beautiful scenery of the low country of South Carolina. See ya Monday-maybe some photos posted late Sunday night.

You can find anything on E-bay!

Block more metaphors!

* The situation had become topsy-turvy -- like Christmas in the summer, if you're in Australia.

* The information imbedded on the stolen computer chip was like an explosive so explosive it could explode, creating a massive explosion.

* The killer was a misplaced comma in the jaunty, happy sentence that made up the party crowd.

* His face looked like an ice sculpture. Not one of those pretty ones in the middle of a cruise ship buffet, but the kind they do in a contest with a chainsaw -- and it had been out in the heat too long.

* Like any family, this house had its secrets, secrets it grimly refused to reveal, and would continue to refuse to reveal even if it could speak, which unlike a family, or at least most members of most families, it couldn't.

* From his vantage point in the balcony, the would-be assassin looked down on the debating candidates like a webhead looking down on an AOL user.

* The sudden darkness made the Countess tense, like Bobby Jerome that time with the bicycle in 7th grade, remember?

* There was something funny about the kidnapping crime scene that Special Agent Frievald couldn't quite place, and the thought stuck with him throughout the rest of the day, like those tiny little bits of the circumferent skin from the bologna slices on a foot-long Subway Cold Cut Trio that get stuck in between the last two molars on the upper left, on the tongue side where you can't possibly reach them with a toothpick, your fingernails, or even a systematically straightened paper clip, they just sit there and make everything you eat at your next meal taste vaguely like vinegar and mayonnaise, and then somehow -- quietly but miraculously -- they disappear by themselves in the middle of the night while you're asleep, just like the visiting Countess appeared to have done.

* Her parting words lingered heavily inside me like last night's Taco Bell.

* A single drop of sweat slowly inched down Chad's brow -- a tiny, glistening Times Square New Year's Eve Ball of desperation.

* Her blazing eyes dance like Astaire and Rogers, but since they were crossed, it was an ocular tango, and my eyes had to foxtrot just to maintain eye contact.

* She had a voice so husky it could have pulled a dogsled, and the gun she was holding gave me a bad case of barrel envy.

* The neon sign reflected off his gun, like the moonlight reflects off my brother-in-law's bald head after a night of beer drinking and cow-tipping.

Ever Wonder?

1. Who was the first person to look at a cow and say, "I think I'll squeeze these dangly things here, and drink whatever comes out?"

2. Who was the first person to say, "See that chicken there... I'm gonna eat the next thing that comes outta its butt."

3. Why do toasters always have a setting that burns the toast to a horrible crisp, which no decent human being would eat?

4. Why is there a light in the fridge and not in the freezer?

5. If Jimmy cracks corn and no one cares, why is there a song about him?

6. Can a hearse carrying a corpse drive in the carpool lane?

7. If the professor on Gilligan's Island can make a radio out of coconut, why can't he fix a hole in a boat?

8. Why do people point to their wrist when asking for the time, but don't point to their crotch when they ask where the bathroom is?

9. Why does your OB-GYN leave the room when you get undressed if they are going to look up there anyway?

10. Why does Goofy stand erect while Pluto remains on all fours? They're both dogs!

11. If Wile E. Coyote had enough money to buy all that Acme crap, why didn't he just buy dinner?

12. If quizzes are quizzical, what are tests?

13. If corn oil is made from corn, and vegetable oil is made from vegetables, then what is baby oil made from?

14. If electricity comes from electrons, does morality come from morons?

15. Is Disney World the only people trap operated by a mouse?

16. Why do the Alphabet song and Twinkle,Twinkle Little Star have the same tune?

17 Stop singing and read on .....

18. Do illiterate people get the full effect of Alphabet Soup?

19. Why do they call it an asteroid when it's outside the hemisphere, but call it a hemorrhoid when it's inyour butt?

20. Did you ever notice that when you blow in a dog's face, he gets mad at you, but when you take him on a car ride, he sticks his head out the window?

21. Does pushing the elevator button more than once make it arrive faster?


Hat tip to Jules!

Block that Metaphor!

Actual Analogies and Metaphors Found in High School Essays

* Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two other sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master.
* It hurt the way your tongue hurts after you accidentally staple it to the wall.
* His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.
* He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a Guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one those boxes with a pinhole in it.
* She grew on him like she was a colony of E. coli and he was room-temperature Canadian beef.
* She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.
* Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.
* He was as tall as a six-foot-three-inch tree.
* The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife's infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM.
* The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't.
* McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.
* From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you're on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30.
* The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.
* Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.
* They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan's teeth.
* John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.
* He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant and she was the East River.
* Even in his last years, Grandpappy had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long, it had rusted shut.
* Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.
* The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.
* The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.
* He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame. Maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.
* The knife was as sharp as the tone used by Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Tex.) in her first several points of parliamentary procedure made to Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Ill.) in the House Judiciary Committee hearings on the impeachment of President William Jefferson Clinton.
* The ballerina rose gracefully en pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.
* It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools.
* He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.
* Her eyes were like limpid pools, only they had forgotten to put in any pH cleanser.
* She walked into my office like a centipede with 98 missing legs.
* Her voice had that tense, grating quality, like a generation thermal paper fax machine that needed a band tightened.

This Weeks Carnival of the Recipes

Hosted by Texas Best Grok-click on link. Great stuff this week.

The 25 word challenge

This week it's at Moogies World. Join in-it's fun!

Cool picture of water on Mars

Check out Jules Wicked World

Great blog by fellow North Carolinian-Le Paradis de Jules (a/k/a Jules Wicked World). check it out-there's some really good stuff. I'll provide a sidebar link after lunch when I have time to mess with the template.