A couple of my friends emailed me this picture this week. It just goes to show you how far we've come in 50 years. I remember watching the Back to the Future movies wondering if we would actually have flying cars and hover boards and a 80's retro cafe. Not here yet though. oh well.

Read the paragraph below the picture then keep in mind that I am writing this blog on a laptop.....wireless....in a coffee shop......I wonder if that old man ever dreamed this possible by the year 2004?!

Last week, during the 4 day holiday shopping hell I had to work at Bass Pro Shizzle. Instead of the normal "Muzak" (country music) they play over the PA system they were playing all the old christmas songs. When the 12 days of Christmas song came along I began to wonder how many gifts did my true love actually end up giving me? Well I did a google search and not only found the answer but I found a cute article someone wrote as a "letter" to the supposed true love.....thought I'd do some kleptoblogging today and share it with y'alls guys.

Having passed these twelve extraordinary Days of Christmas, I am frankly overwhelmed by your unbridled generosity, and by the chaos you have wrought upon my household. The pear tree and partridge that arrived on the first day of your astonishing onslaught was as fine a gift as ever I received, yet by the end of the twelfth day, my garden had become a veritable orchard of pear trees and partridges. And as you know, this was but one of your excessive inspirations.

At the dawn of each new day, I found myself the stunned recipient of both a single new, remarkable gift, as well as an ever-escalating string of duplicates. According to my wife – whose curiosity has given way to terrifying fits of wrath and jealousy – we are, at last, the sorry keepers of:

12 Partridges in Pear Trees
22 Turtle Doves
30 French Hens
36 Calling Birds
40 Golden Rings
42 Geese a-Laying
42 Swans a-Swimming
40 Maids a-Milking
36 Ladies Dancing
30 Lords a-Leaping
22 Pipers Piping
12 Drummers Drumming

The 184 birds, 12 trees, 40 rings, 40 head of cattle (which you thoughtfully included with the maids), and 140 men and women (bearing no fewer than 34 musical instruments) come to a grand total of 450 gifts. To say nothing of the eggs and milk.

Let me describe to you, as a clarifying example, what has now become an average day in our home. I woke today at dawn to the singing, chirping, and honking of the great flock, despite having shut and barred the doors, closed and insulated all the windows of my room, stuffed my ears with cotton balls and candle wax, and buried my head beneath a small mountain of blankets, counterpanes, and pillows.

Rising in despair, I opened the bedroom door to find the birds had also stirred the pipers and drummers, who, having little else to do at five in the morning, greeted me with sonorous proof that pipes and drums do not a pleasant music make. My wife was in the kitchen, marshalling the maids, who had entered the house with sloshing buckets of freshly uddered cream and dozens of newly minted eggs. Had not my wife decided on the morning of the eleventh day to press the idle maids into the critical business of egg collecting, I shudder to think of what horrendous, sulfurous doom awaited us. The maids were not, it must be said, pleased to work a second shift after the strenuous work of milking forty cows. They greet my wife as if she were a wicked queen: silently, their acquiescent tongues betrayed by cold, derisive eyes.

Which brings me to the ladies dancing…what were you thinking? From the moment they arrived upon the ninth day, dressed (if ‘dressed’ can be the proper word) in silken skirts and glittering spangles, they have selflessly provided entertainments of a most alarming kind, alarming for the constant presence of my wife, from whom my frequent glances at their shimmering, jewel-encrusted navels cannot be concealed. This very morning, the ladies dancing were relegated vi et armis to the guest cottage. You have, in short, given me a harem, though I am not at liberty to sup upon that table. They are tireless, dancing endlessly throughout my tortured mind. Even the swans – sailing silently across the pond – have failed to give me peace.

My wife has seized the golden rings: two for every toe and finger. Were it not for these, she might have sent the whole fantastic lot directly back, postage unpaid.

I write this letter from the confines of my bed, having earlier been knocked senseless by the leaping lords who leapt, as they are wont to do, out of nowhere. I can smell the sweetness of the rotting pears wafting from the garden. The songs of birds are faintly audible above the harsh, incessant pipes and drums. Glittering hips and bellies dance before my eyes. I plan, by cover of night, to steal toward the cottage for a visit, yet the barricade of maids and slumbering musicians, eggs and souring bucketfuls of milk, nests of intricate variety and size, the constant, unexpected peril of the leaping lords, and finally the fearsome, glowering eye of my embattled wife, will likely hinder my escape. Hope is dim.

Your love has devastated me. I think it wise that we refrain from meeting for a while. Please stop sending gifts.

:)

Well it's "Black Friday", the day after thanksgiving day. I had to come into the office this morning. They gave us the option of having either today off or the day before xmas eve. Since I have to work at bass pro shizzle this afternoon/evening I chose the xmas option. Not much to do today so I figured I do some BLOG work.

I was cleaning out my yahoo bulk(junk) mail this morning and came across an interesting subject title "Robo Sapien". I deleted it without opening however my curiosity got the better of me and I did a yahoo search for it.

THIS http://www.robosapienonline.com/" title="http://www.robosapienonline.com/" target="_blank"http://www.robosapienonline.c... is what I found. Supposedly Robo sapien is the future of technology and fun. Well, if that's true let me off this crazy train at the next stop!

If you have quicktime and would like to see the commercial click here

http://64.254.158.14/robosapien/robo1/robom ain.html" title="http://64.254.158.14/robosapien/robo1/robom ain.html" target="_blank"http://64.254.158.14/robosapi...#

Impressed? Me neither.

I went through some of the FAQ's and found some very funny tips and solutions to the occasional glitches you get with most new high tech technology thingies.

For instance:

"How can I make Robosapien quieter?

- Cover the speaker grill on his back with tape."

BRILLIANT! now THAT's ingenuity right there.

or..."Robosapien’s head has turned to the right; I have not been able to re-center it. Do you have any suggestions for repair?

- Lower his arms and twist his head all the way to the left, until you hear a "click".

Hmmm...chiropractic therapy for robots!

Why can't Robosapien pick up low objects from the floor?

-Robosapien will damage his fingers if he bends down too low. He can only pick up items that are greater than approximately 2” high, such as paper cups, socks in a ball, bent business cards, crumpled paper, etc.
- If you put Robosapien in a dimly lit environment, his palm lights will show you where his two pick-up “sweet spots” are located. When you do a pick-up command, he can very reliably pick things up which are placed in these spots located next to his ankles."

Hehe....evidently the future is expected to have a lot of paper cups, bent business cards, and sock balls roaming the streets and invading our homes.

and my favorite Q&A of all is: During wake-up, I hear Robosapien making strange humming sounds. Is this something to worry about?

- No, it is part of the normal wake-up protocol."

What a coincidence!.....that is very similar to MY wake up protocol too!

Oh, did I mention he can rap!!?? WERD up yo!

WOW-WEE! This thing really IS lifelike!.....but he's no ASIMO http://world.honda.com/ASIMO/" title="http://world.honda.com/ASIMO/" target="_blank"http://world.honda.com/ASIMO/...

Italian cream soda, a slice of carrot cake, rainy day, my laptop playing bluegrass on my headphones, and wireless internet....wait, what? wireless laptop? Yup that must mean one thing.....I'm back at Otherlands. Since I moved out to Cordiva back in October I have found it difficult to take the trip into midtown to this little blog conducive coffee shop. But now I have wireless capability and another reason to take off early from work and come goof off.

This is my wallpaper on my laptop. I got the photo in an email from an old friend. I wonder where this is?

Thanksgiving Day is tomorrow and this will be the first time in my life I will not be able to join my family.. I have to work both jobs this friday: full time job 8-10am and part time 1-11pm. I'm a little disappointed mainly because I will miss out on all that food I mentioned in one of my recent entries. But I'll be having dinner with my 2nd family (Jason and Sandra Smith) and Jason's family has extended the invite to come share their abundant feast...awww....But maw maw's cookin is what it is and I'll miss it for sure. Secondly I will not be able to participate in the annual holiday checker match against my cousin and best friend Brian. For years he would beat me soundly but for the last few years I have turned the tables on him. I guess we'll have to settle on an online checker game instead.

hang on, I need to eat some of this carrot cake.....

Man, that icing is awesome. So I was having lunch at a local sports bar today and they had several tv's on around the room. One nearest me had the Jerry Springer Show on, but the volume was muted and the closed captioning was scrolling across the bottom of the sceen. How does closed captioning work? Is their someone typing all of this out as itn happens?  If so how would you like to be a closed caption typer for THAT show! I laughed to myself as I read the dialogue and thought how can someone type this out and keep themselves from laughing hysterically? Quotes such as "Oh, I'm twice the woman you are!" "He's my man bitch!" "Oh, bring it on sweety I'll kick your *beep*"...."Beep beep!"

"Jerry!

"Jerry!"

"Jerry!"

"Jerry!"

"Jerry!"

and of course "If you'd kept your *beep* legs closed you wouldn't have got pregnant you *beep* Whore!"

Now, I'm not the most morally just and perfect guy in the world but I really feel sad that we have a culture that glamourizes this kind of drama. Unless you live under a rock you by now are aware of the controversy over a recent monday night football intro featuring Terrell Owens and Nicolette Sheridan. The scene was a bit racy for primetime monday night football standards and created a huge uproar from many fans and tv viewers. The intention of the intro was to promote ABC's new show "Desperate Housewives". A show which appears to be about a group of rich housewives who, while their husbands are at work, practice infidelity and simply put behave rather naughty. I guess this is a form of SYNERGY on behalf of ABC to cross promote 2 of its hottest shows. Or perhaps I should call it "SINERGY" hmmmm....but who am I to cast the first stone. Some people think the bit wasn't anymore tasteless than any normal beer commercial played during a football game or the featuring of a team's cheerleaders at halftime in their skimpy outfits. Hypocrisy? What do you think?

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. In the words of my high school geometry teacher Mr. Knight: "While you travel this holiday weekend pay close attention to the vehicle directly behind the one in front of you."

Be safe everyone!

It's about time that I come out and admit to the world and my blogging friends. It might not mean not mean much to most but perhaps to my friend Greg "foolish consistency" it might be fighting words. Greg has a great talent of evaluating music and bands, and movies. His recent blog entries supported the premise that U2 is the bestest band ever in history. Go check it out and see if you agree or not.

But not to just single out Greg, because I really don't know what his thoughts are on this.....but to the rest of you who might think differently than me...I thumb my nose at you when I say that the 80's movie "THE BREAKFAST CLUB" stinks. It sucks! I don't get it. I didn't back then, I didn't when it was replayed all the time on TBS in the 90's and I don' get it today. It's a bunch of punks in detention annoying the principal, and finding ways to get in trouble while poking fun at each other's quirky ways. Blah! I say BLAH! I've always disliked most 80's music and movies. Especially movies of that genre. They just never appealed to me.

There, I said it. I got it out and that's that.Have a good weekend.

Having a hard time coming up with anything good this week. So, I thought I'd search the net and see what kind of information I could find about my hometown. New Johnsonville, TN. Population about 2000. Right on the banks of the TN river/KY Lake. Highway 70, which once used to be as popular a road for travelers as I-40 is now passes through my fair city and across the river. We call it NEW Johnsonville because the OLD Johnsonville was covered with water during the creation of KY Lake and other Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) chain of lakes along the TN river back in the 30's/40's. I'm not sure it was quite as sudden and tragic a flood as you find in the end of O Brother Where Art Thou but I bet it was a site to see. Nathan Bedford Forrest once roamed the woods there and fought in some key battles of the Civil War. They even named a state park after him there.

Across the river is Benton county. The county seat is Camden. That's where Pasty Cline met her end in a tragic plane crash way back when i don't remember when but they've got a small sign commemorating it there.

Just a few miles to the east of J'ville is Loretta Lynn's dude ranch in Hurrican Mills, TN. She has a nice house out there I think. Not a bad upgrade for a coalminer's daughter.

OLD Johnsonville, according to legend, was only 1 vote away from becoming the state capitol of TN but Nashville won out and now the Titans play there instead.

I found a few pictures taken by some guy who travelled through the area in summer 2002 collecting photos of GPS Confluences. A confluence is a spot on the earth where the latitude and longitude lines are even. Such as 36.0N 88.0W.

See the powerline towers on the river levee? Those are part of the network coming from the TVA fossil fuel plant in J'ville(J'vegas if you will)

on the other side of that levee is the Wildlife management area where many local hunters duck hunt in the winter. Duck season will open on thanksgiving weekend there......you can hear them shooting from my parents' house....sounds like blackcat firecrackers going off....but not as loud.

Here's a view looking toward the Power Plant, notice the draw bridge raised up waiting for a coal barge to pass underneath.

TOOT! TOOT!....lookie, here comes that barge now!

And here's a view from the local marina, Pebble Isle. Ahhh...the end of a perfect summer day.

So that's where I'm from. There is also a DuPont plant there too. It produces Titanium Dioxide http://heritage.dupont.com/floater/fl_tipure/flo ater.shtml" title="http://heritage.dupont.com/floater/fl_tipure/flo ater.shtml" target="_blank"http://heritage.dupont.com/fl... they call it Ti-Pure. it's the largest TiO2 plant of its kind in the world! My mom works in the research and development lab there. I worked there back in summer of 96 for an internship they allow for employees' kids who attend college. All I did was sweep floors and assist the maintenance men. Ahhh....I could always smell the chlorine in the air....

So if you're ever in the area, stop by and check our town out. Just mind your speed. Our local police take pride in setting up speed traps!!

today's my bday! yup, 29 years ago. That morning my dad had gone deer hunting...and I was being born. It snowed that morning in Paris, TN.

Maybe that's why I love snow so much. Well I better get to bed. Got to work in 5 1/2 hours!!!!

"Sometimes the lonesome wind
Calls out just like it knows me
And on a night like this
When I don't know where to go, he shows me the way

He knows me, my brother wind
He's lonely too and he takes me away "

I've had that old Tim O'Brien song in my head all week now. So I guess this entry is going to go in a few different directions. First of all, on request per Jeanine I have taken her inactive blog link off my list. I also dropped Star's(my roommate) Blog link off as well as I have been told it's no longer active either. Floatyman has recently come to a hault as well...or perhaps a hiatus...or maybe just in semi-retirement; so I'll leave it up there for now.

This saturday will be my 29th birthday. And it will also be the birthday of Caryn Jonhson (AKA Whoopi Goldberg) Such a shame I only share a day with just her.  29.....the last of the 20's. Holy crap! 29! How is this going to affect me? I mean it took me about 2 years to just get used to writing "01,02,03,04" in the year date blank on my checks and other forms! I don't feel almost 30. I can already hear the aunts and grandmothers now...this thanksgiving and christmas they'll be saying..."you're 29 now; why aren't you dating anyone or married yet?" "you need children...blah blah blah"..."I need grandchildren"..blah blah blah...Yeah yeah maw-maw...just pass the sweet potato casserole!! i love that stuff. Especially when it has those mini-marshmellows on top. Nice and brown and crisp and sticky. I can never eat just one plate of thanksgiving dinner. My first plate is usually packed full of a bit of everything. With my dad's family we usually have the same spread each year and it seems to always be set out in the same order: Dressing, Gravy, Green Beans, Green Bean Casserole, Mac-n-Cheese, Sliced Smoked Turkey, Some Kind of Rice and Broccoli Dish, Cole Slaw(blegh), Canned Cranberry Sauce Sliced to Perfection, Deviled Eggs, Rolls, annnnndddd Sweet Potato Casserole.....Sweet Tea to drink. My next plate is sort of like the final round of a beauty queen contest. I only go back for what I liked the best. Usually it's the Sweet Potato Casserole, some more Turkey, and maybe some more Dressing. Ahh...but dessert....Chocolate Pie and/or Cherry Cheesecake Pie with a glass of Boiled Custard...it's like a cup full of melted French Vanilla Ice Cream!!...Brilliant!

It's been that way for at least 28 years now....going on 29. So yeah, 29 isn't going to be all that bad. Some things will never change. Just like the order of the thanksgiving spread; it's good to know some things you can always count on being there....in ample supplies....with antacids waiting just in case it doesn't go well.

Fall is FINALLY finally here this time. no false alrams. It's almost time to get scruffy facial hair, speak in low grunting tones, and go off into the wilderness for hours upon hours in pursuit after wild things fearing for their lives. Or just to go to sit and watch and take photos...much like this one.

I thought this would be a good picture to represent my waking, daydreaming thoughts in recent days. I live here. Not literally, but near here, just a few hundred yards away there's a place where I DO live for a few hours a day in the winter. I'm sure you'll see photos of that place next month. But this is where I exist. It's what I look forward to 10 months of the year. There's a place on the lake back home where I "exist" during the spring and summer months also but this time of year coming up is the most defining.

Even though I've gone to this place every wintrer since I was a small hypo-matt I still get the same feeling being there. There's sort of an emotional connection to the place. Not like some "american indian mystical mother earth and father eagle" connection. More like memories of the past years' events that amplify present anticipations. I'm speaking of duck hunting. We usually arrive early in the morning while it's still dark. That first step out of the truck is cold. Dark cold air feels colder than daytime cold air..it just does, don't argue with me. Then comes the sounds. 2 cycle outboard motors on the boats being launched sputter and putt-putt and burp. Most of the time they eventually start up and run making loud echos through the flooded timber. Then there's the smells. Boat motor exhaust, that dark bluish-white exhaust heavy with the smell of oil and gas...ahhhh...anticipatory emotion sequence begins....Then the cold dark ride in the boat to the duck blind.....barely can see even with the 2 million candle power spotlight. But we've made this 300 yard trip thousands fo times...it's instinct.

As the day breaks and the early ducks exit the timber you can hear their wings whistling in the crisp air. You can even hear them chuckle and chortle as they head on to safer places for breakfast.

I think I'll stop there for now. Gotta have something left to write when the time arrives right?  *thanks to floatyman tony for inspiring me to string this along like a TV series......tune in next time....blah blah....* :)

go here....the picture of the day made me snobbishly chortle as we rich, white, stuck-up greedy conservatists often  do when we hear a good joke.  *ahem...sarcasm*

also click the link for Project Longface below the picture.

http://www.glennbeck.com/page2/index.shtml" title="http://www.glennbeck.com/page2/index.shtml" target="_blank"http://www.glennbeck.com/page...

Ok, I corrected the problem in the Door From Hell link. It's working now. You can find a few more great pix on Gann's site too http://goodbadgann.com/photos...

Also here are a few pics of ME at the party. Sorry LP, I'm not in FULL costume but I think you can get the idea.

Here I am...yo yo..MC DEath in da house...Norm bellies up to the bar...

I'm ready for my close up....nigga! *notice the marshmellow about to explode in the microwave behind me...I was making Mexican Smores!

And here I am....making a cameo to the right notice my fly hat..what a wild bunch..strawberry shortcake and her man talk metaphysics and philosophy and whether trees make a noise in the woods when they fall.....at least that's what I think. ;)