Rambling Thoughts Better Unremembered

How To In a Nutshell.

2008-12-27T21:24:00.000-08:00

Before we get started tonight, I'd like to ask a question. How many of you have seen that goofball Vince advertising the ShamWow on TV? You know him, he's got the Bounty on methamphetamine towel made in Germany, you know the Germans always make good stuff. Is it just me, or does anyone else want to reach through the screen, poke him in the eye and do the Curly Shuffle? He says in the add "for the next twenty minutes, we can't do this all day blah blah blah". The commercials on 48 times per day. By my math that means the special sale ole' Vince is talking you into is invalid only two hours out of each day. Not that it's a bad product, it may be. But I'm not buying any of them until he stops going to Donald Ducks hairdresser. Check out the dew next time he comes on the TV. Maybe if I'd quit watching so much Weather Channel I'd have better commercials to watch.
Okay, I'm glad I got that off my chest. Let's discuss something really important. Okay, that'll never work. Let me just tell you what I found on the internet today. And, the answer is no, I didn't have to certify I was over the age of 18 to enter.
I was doing some research for some adcopy I was writing when my brother in law decided to step in for a chat. I was in the middle of doing a Google search and had only gotten "how to" typed into the search window. What's at the top of the suggestions list, you're asking? How to shoplift. That's right, ladies and gentlemen. Not only can Junior learn how to make a bomb on the internet, now he can learn how to steal all of the ingredients. It was actually a well written and informative article. And it made sense. This guys theory is that the prices of goods sold in stores are actually marked up to cover the cost of shoplifting therefore, what you are stealing is already paid for. Kinda makes you want go jack a liquor store, doesn't it.
Well, I thought I'd do some searching and see what else I can come up with. I'll start with "How to not kill your brother in law when you're doing research".
"How to Light a Fart on Fire" eHow.com
"How to Juggle Bowling Balls" youtube.com
"How to Throw Yourself in Front of a Train" this one was there but Yahoo Answers deleted it for some reason.
"How to Ask a Girl Out" I'll be right back. There's 194,000,000 ways of doing that and apparently my asking if they have a job just isn't working out too well.
"How to Commit Suicide" Hmmmmm, must be Yahoo Answers hasn't seen that one yet.
"How to Fly a 747" Google results: 4,000,000. That should be some interesting reading for terrorists.
"How to Throw a Cat Out a Window" Didn't get the same phrasing on this one but somebody has an article titled "If You Throw a Cat Out a Car Window, Does It Become Kitty Litter?"
Isn't this fun?
And finally, "How to Keep Your Ex-wife From Getting Your Telephone Number" Google's falling down on the job. No returns for exact phrasing. There was a site, though, that advertised "How to Trick Your Spouse Into Loving You Again in Two Weeks" Before I do that, I'm gonna get ahold of somebody at Yahoo Answers and get an Amtrack schedule.
Have a lovely weekend everybody.

Oh, I forgot one. How to get an affordable domain name and web-hosting.
Click here.

2008-12-17T00:06:00.000-08:00

Let me ask you a serious question. What sense does that make? Has anyone heard an unserious question? Come to think of it, I have heard an unserious question. It came from my ex-wife about a week after the divorce was finalized. It went something like this. "Can you do me a favor?"

Anyway, my question, serious or not, is this. Why do multi-vitamins have to be the size of baby chinchillas? I got some one time because they were advertised to increase energy. They weren't far off the mark with their advertisement. When that matchbox car sized pill got stuck in my throat and I realized I was the only help I had of a self-Heimlich maneuver, I started jumping around like I had a dozen fire ants chewing on my butt cheeks. Pills that size need to be administered as a suppository. They smell like crap to begin with.

On that note, let me personally wish all 3 of my faithful readers to have a very merry Christ-mas and a blessed new year. I'm gonna take a break from posting until after Christ-mas. Call it a time to collect my thoughts. Then again, you could take all of my thoughts, put them in the cap from a two liter Pepsi bottle and still have room for a fifteen pound bowling ball.

Happy holidays everyone.

Stupid ads and such.

2008-12-13T23:20:00.000-08:00

I have to admit, I'm the subject of my rambling thought this evening. You see, I do a little writing for an ad copy website and think when I finish an article it's beautiful beyond words. Or, as my twelve year old said describing the mountains on a trip a couple of weeks ago, breathtaking. This is the same kid that can "break wind" upon command, now that's breathtaking. Anyway, my sister read an article I'd finished and she discovered I'd spelled a word wrong. She then sent me an email pointing out my mistake. Which makes no sense at all since I live in her garage. You might be wondering why I live in her garage, it's because that's where my computer is. The article, though, was about firearms as a use of home protection and the word I spelled wrong was weapon, I spelled it weopon. Now, I know you're saying "Scott, that ain't so bad." Well, it is. I must have used that word about forty times in the article. And one thing that really wads my leaderhosen is seeing typos in print. That'll teach me to use the spell check, now won't it. But while we're on the subject of stupidity, let me share a couple of things with you. I once read, in large print, on the front page of a newspaper "Headless corpse found tied up in trash bag. Police suspect foul play." Do you think? Say it ain't so! Now there's some great detective work right there! What'a we got here, Barney? Andy, this man cut off his head and climbed into this here trash bag. Worse case of suicide Mayberry's ever seen! Stupid ads on TV kind rub me the wrong way as well. There is a sleep aid commercial on regularly that has a list of side effects a mile long and the last one is that it may cause drowsiness. Drowsiness?! Isn't that the intended effect of a sleep aid? I can't remember what the medication is for for this last one as I'm always laughing too hard when the ad comes on. But it says that the side effects include dizziness, bloody nose and a decrease in semen. Hmmm, those are the same side effects of giving your wife a vacuum cleaner for mothers day. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to write weapon 100 times on the blackboard. Have a great weekend all.

Friends and the lack thereof.

2008-12-07T21:26:00.000-08:00

I picked up my nephew from work tonight from his first job as a bagger at the local grocery store. On the way out of the parking lot, he told me that he'd be done at 9:00 tomorrow night. To which I responded that he was messing up my social life. He shot back that I have no social life and after giving a little thought, I agreed with him. I don't seem to have as many friends as I used to.
Anyway, I sat and pondered for awhile and realized I missed one of the best friends I ever had. His name was John Boy and was one of the dumbest cats you'd ever see. His claim to fame was the fact he had an overbite and when he laid in your lap purring, he'd drool all over you. Which can be somewhat embarrassing when guests arrive for dinner and your holding the cat. So you brush him off and answer the door with the crotch of your pants soaked in drool.
He was a pretty cool cat though, full of personality that almost overruled his stupidity. I got home from work one day and had barely enough time to eat, load my karaoke equipment, take a shower and get to my second job. Approaching my car, I see John Boy sitting on the roof with a puddle of drool under his chin. I yelled for him to get off the car as I climbed inside. Starting the car did nothing to get him off the roof. So, I put the car in reverse figuring that would scare him off. Nope, he's still there. So I hit the breaks. Well that scared him, a little. He put his paws off the roof onto the windshield but was determined I was finding a different mode of transportation to the karaoke show. So, I turned on the windshield wipers which promptly hit his feet which scared him senseless enough to jump from the roof to the middle of the hood and puke. I did find a way to get him off the car though. Cats don't like water and I had to wash my hood.
Then there was the morning, actually about 2AM, I was headed out the door to work and heard him meowing in one of the trees in the front yard. It wasn't until I got home that afternoon to find him way up in a hickory tree. Food wouldn't coax him down so my wife called the fire department. They don't do that kind of rescue anymore as the same thing happened right across the street. Firefighters show up with a ladder truck, as well as a local news crew with a camera, and heroically rescue the stranded feline to the cheers of everyone watching from below. They put the cat on the ground and it ran across the street and up another tree. So we called a tree surgeon to see what they would charge to bring a truck and get him down. $125. I didn't want the tree cut down! A friend called and said he'd help. His plan was to bring over a shotgun and shoot the branch he was sitting on, thus making the cat fall out of the tree. Now there's a brainstorm. Of course this the same guy that reads the obituaries in the local paper so he can find a job. My brother in law finally came over, after my rocket surgeon cat had been in the tree for five days, and scaled straight up twenty five feet, grabbed John Boy and dropped him in a sheet we held out for him. After a quick bite to eat, safe and sound back in the house, he came to me, laid in my lap and drooled all over me.
Sadly, John Boy was hit by a car and I lost one of my best friends. And now that I think about it, I know what happened to the rest of my friends. I owe them money.

Have A Good Day.

2008-12-06T21:27:00.000-08:00

What kind of day you're going to have, I believe, is determined by the first fifteen minutes you're awake. Did you wake up with a pulse? Okay, you've got the most important part beat. Now comes the hard part, putting your feet on the floor. I suggest taking this step slowly as it can be the most dangerous part of the day. With the sleep still in your eyes, you never know what can happen. And it usually does. You put your feet to the floor and step in a land mine your wife's poodle left for you. Now your left with a choice to make. If you don't go into the kitchen and turn on the coffee maker, you're not going to have coffee when you get out of the shower. On the other hand, you need to get in the shower because Poopsy the poodle lived up to her name sometime during the night. Okay, take a deep breath and tell yourself you can walk on your toes to the kitchen, start the coffee and make it to the bathroom for your shower. Have you ever stubbed your big toe while attempting to walk on your toes? You have now. Unfortunately, the throbbing toe is on the "clean" foot. So you're hopping around on the carpeted dining room floor leaving little Poopsy poop footprints all the way to the coffee maker. A quick click of the on button and you limp your way back towards the bathroom. A quick glance in the mirror shows the aggravation of the morning so far and you've only been awake some five minutes. After a refreshing shower you start feeling better and you grab the old toothbrush for a good teeth swabbing. Pay close attention to what you're doing. Nope, that's not going to happen. You're brushing your teeth with Preparation H. There are two sides to this dilemma. On one side, well, you're brushing your teeth with something that's not supposed to go in the talking end. On the plus side, your teeth don't itch anymore. Okay, you've played around enough for one morning. You need to get dressed, drink some coffee and get started off to work. Here's the perfect part of any one's morning. That first taste of coffee, a hot cup of joe, some caffeine to stimulate the brain cells for a pleasant day at the office. That's when you hear your wifes voice coming from the bedroom. "Well, good morning my little Poopsy Woopsy Oopsy. How's my little puppy wuppy uppy? Jump up here and give Mommy a little kissy wissy issy on this beautiful Saturday morning. You resist the urge to slash your wrists with a butter knife for two reasons. You hate that doggy talk and you don't work on Saturdays.
And you accomplished all of that in fifteen minutes. Now, have a good day.

Reality TV

2008-12-05T21:18:00.000-08:00

Let me begin by saying that reality is overrated. If you want a good dose of what I'm talking about park close to the front entrance of a Wal-Mart and just observe. When I'm low on cash and can't afford the movie theater or the comedy club that's what I do. You'll see every color of the rainbow. Unfortunately it's knitted into the spandex of a large woman that shouldn't be wearing spandex. Brings a whole new meaning to Lucky Charms doesn't it.
The reality I really want to discuss is reality shows on television. For some reason I just can't come down to the level programmers have dropped to. It all started with Regis Philbin and "Who Wants to be a Millionaire". I used to love the hundred dollar question. There's ole' Regis, "For one hundred dollahs, what coloh is an orange.
A: red
B: green
C: brown or
D: orange".
Long pause as the contestant chews on his fingernail. "You know you can poll the audience if you want" says Philbin. "No" says the contestant, "I think I know this one. I'm gonna go with D, orange". Regis gives him that your an idiot and you got it wrong look and says "Is that your final answah?"
It's at that point I would love to be sitting in the audience holding a fart cannon with a scope. How stupid do you have to be to find that entertaining? Watching a four month old chimpanzee scratch his but is better programming.
Maybe it's not necessarily the idea for the show that makes it suck so bad. It might have something to do with how the networks choose the contestents. That can be blamed on Bob Barker and the price is right. Most folks don't know it but the contestents for that show are chosen before the crowd is even let into the studio. After all, they're taping a television show and want entertaining people on the stage. It was kind of entertaining in Barkers later years as he was flung around the stage with a microphone the length of a fishing pole by a sumo wrestler that just won an armoire. He doesn't have a clue what the piece of crap is but he won it and can take it home. Just as soon as he pays the taxes on it. And to make the show more interesting when Bob retired they hired a sumo wrestler to replace him. Only, they give Drew a wireless microphone. After he got his arm almost half ripped off during a rehearsal show the last thing they needed was for him to get a mic cord wrapped up in the big wheel.
It seems, though, that all of the networks are in some sort of competition to outdumb each other with these reality shows. So, I'm gonna tie some fish line around my neck to cut the circulation of blood off to my brain and just before passing out, I'm gonna come up with my own idea. Okay, here we go. (Can you hear the theme song from jeopardy playing in the backround?)
Crap, that was close. I only learned one knot in the boy scouts and that's a square knot. Unfortunately, I wasn't in the boy scouts long enough to learn how to untie one and almost killed myself.
Anyway here's my reality show. It stars Martha Stewert, Larry the Cable Guy, Pee Wee Herman and Paris Hilton. They will each be paired with a contestent that has made a video of themselves proving they are dumb enough for a reality tv show. The celebrity guests get to choose one item to bring with them and their contestent partner. They are then dropped off in the middle of Atlanta Georgia, the object being to survive twenty four hours without begging food from the Weather Channel Studios.
Okay, after further review this just won't work. I can see the whole episode playing out in my head. Paris Hilton chose to bring her dog and a homeless man has him on a spit over a fire in Olympic park. Martha Stewert was mugged and beaten for that "lovely" quilt she knitted while in prison. Pee Wee Herman found a squirt gun full of gergens lotion and we all know where he went. And Larry the Cable Guy is having a beer at Foxworthy's place.
As for the four contestents? They're at the Georgia Dome waiting in line to try out for American Idol. See I told you reality was overrated. So was tonights blog.
Ain't reality wonderful?

Old Age or Getting My Just Desserts

2008-12-04T22:57:00.000-08:00

They say the second thing to go is your memory and I can't remember what the first thing was. Might be a good time for me to admit, I'm getting old. When my two boys turned ten they were so excited about hitting double digits. My oldest, who will hit 13 just over a year from now, will surely be overjoyed by diving headfirst into the teen years. These are milestones in their lives, the next to be old enough to drive a car and so on.
As an adult, I think I've run out of milestones but not ready for a headstone. I've already moved past my midlife crisis and would like to thank my ex-wifes lawyer for his timely processing of the paperwork.
Now I'm feeling the years of neglect I've subjected my body to. As a preteen my brothers and I had aspirations of being stuntmen. We'd jump off of anything, most notably the top of the slide at the local park. Who wants to slide down like normal kids when you can jump off and tuck and roll when gravity finally finishes it's work. They made a TV show about us in the 80's starring Lee Majors as a stuntman but the title of the show was one of the second things to go. I do remember it was a better show than when Lee Majors crashed his plane and they rebuilt him, but I can't remember the name of that show either.
On my recent birthday I woke in the morning thinking "Hey, it's my birthday". What a joyful day. Then I remembered how old I just turned and wondered how soon it would be before I just forgot to remember it was my birthday. Is anyone else confused?
The point of this whole conversation is my brother in laws fault. He recently bought a 1988 Cadillac. The car is beautiful. I've taken it on two trips and it's only broken down on me once. Not bad for a car it's age. I was riding in the old Caddie recently and noticed some looks from other people in traffic looking at the ole' girl. Ain't she a beauty. Not a scratch nor dent, smooth running engine, imaculate interior, original hubcaps and is a classic. Yes, that's right she's a classic, ladies and gentlemen. She is officially an antique automobile. She is eligible for one of those really cool classic license plates. I'm driving a chick magnet! That's when it hit me like a freight train plowing head on into a herd of migrating manatee's.
I'm more than twice as old as this car. And to make matters worse, I've forgotten where I was going.
Now if you'll excuse me, I need to take my arthritis medication and consider finding my bedroom. Ain't life grand?

Divorce and Such.

2008-12-03T20:03:00.000-08:00

I find it humorous how some things in life remind me of others. Let's take for instance the chili I had for supper and reflecting on my divorce. I guess I came to this comparison as the chili has given me hearburn which is a pain in my chest. My marriage, on the other hand, lasted a good bit longer than this heartburn is going to and it was a pain as well but a little lower in the human anatomy. I can get away with saying something like this as I know my ex-wife will not be reading this. She thinks a blog is a dismal swamp with noisy frogs.
I would like some answers to a couple of burning questions though concerning marriage.
First of all, why do couples need a license to get married? And even better, why wasn't my license suspended or revoked somewhere between my saying "I do" and "Shut up stupid"? Maybe I should have payed more attention when we went to get this marriage license and applied for a learners permit instead. And how come you can buy a fishing license at Wal-Mart but you have to go to the courthouse to get the marriage license? Hang on, I figured that one out on my own. It's because, technically, that's where all marriages begin and end.
I'm also confused on this divorce thing. Why is it my ex-wife got to be the plaintiff and I had to be the defendent? She got everything, what did I have to defend? Hang on, I figured that one out too. I still had a shred of dignity but I lost that the first time the well pump at what used to be my house lost it's prime and I was the only one that knew how to fix it and laughed hysterically as I was hanging up on her.
I do have one thing figured out and that is marriage is the leading cause of divorce in this country. Seems it would be a better idea to have to hire a lawyer to get married and a priest to bless the divorce. Would have worked out better for me operating that way. It took us a long time to save up the money to get a divorce. Had we had to wait that long to get married, we'd have killed each other way before the blessed event.
Ain't love grand?

Blog Title Explanation.

2008-12-02T21:03:00.000-08:00

Having too much time on one's hands can sometimes be a bad thing. Let's take, for example, staring at a computer monitor trying to decide a title for a blog page. My first thought was "Free Beer". Well crap, that one's already been taken. Suprisingly, that one came to me quite quickly. I guess it's a leftover from my music playing days when saying that in a live microphone on a stage seems to get everyones attention. Noone seemed to care that our steel guitar player got the hic-cups, held his breath too long and fell off his stool during the previous song but yell "free beer" and see what happens. Wasn't really Haps fault he held his breath that long, someone just forgot to explain the whole procedure to him. Was quite a memorable moment though.
Which brings me to my point. And that is memory. Everyone's got one, some better than others. Then there are others that try to describe one and end up rambling. I seem to fall into that category so I decided to name my blog as such. I, at one time, bought a multi-vitamin that was supposed to improve my memory but I forgot to take it almost every morning and I still couldn't tell you what I had for breakfast on a given day. There you go, case in point. It's funny how the human mind can take the wrong sidetrack in it's train of thought.
Speaking of playing music, seems every little bar or honky tonk with whatever band I was working with there was always that guy. I had gotten to the point I could spot him early on in the evening. He'd usually sit towards the end of the bar and would be almost invisible to the rest of the crowd until about the third set. By then he'd had enough to drink and he thought he actually could dance. What you'd get is what I like to call "The Drunk Redneck Dance". His feet move in very small semi-circles on the dance floor, his arms mostly just hanging limply being flung from side to side by the motion of his hips appearing to have come disjointed. He's dancing by himself as, once again, someone forgot to explain the whole procedure to him. He's enjoying himself and that's what we're there for, to entertain the patrons. Then he does what I knew he'd do all along. Halfway through the last set with one hand over one eye to keep his balance, he holds his other hand high in the air clicking an empty bic lighter yelling "Free Bird!" then gets mad when our little five piece country band can't pull off a twelve minute Lynard Synard classic.
Now, if he'd have yelled "Free Beer" he might have gained a new friend or two. We really do appreciate the guy though as he was one of the few to dance with the band while the rest of the crowd was waiting for another chance to do the electric slide. If I had a dollar for every time I've heard that song in a nightclub I'd be too rich to share "Rambling Thoughts Better Unremembered".