Excuse me while I go puke............

All hail the "Hip-Hop Culture"! Yes, that glorious, hip, cool, fly, whatever the hell you want to call it, lifestyle that certain people like to promote, mostly people who make money off of it. It usually has something to do with rap music, which isn't (music, that is) and being gangsters....oh, I'm sorry, that's "gangSTA's", which is the same as saying it's cool to commit crime with rhyme.


It is bad enough that one of the favorite pastimes these upstanding citizens seem to enjoy, the drive-by shooting (why, because they are too cool to get the fuck out of the car to murder someone?), tends to result in the deaths of 7 year old girls out skipping rope, but now we have a whole new low in depravity to lump in with this mindset. Dog fighting. Yep. Dog fighting. Once the purview of the redneck elite, that bloody, cruel sport that pits cruelly manipulated pit bull terriers (or any large, ferocious canine that can inflict alot of damage before it bleeds to death from it's wounds) against each other for fun and profit, this "sport" has been embraced by "the brothers" who thinks it's "fly" to let animals torture each other while they rest up from trying to off each other.

Now let's segway this sick cultural FUBAR into the NFL, the bastion of college educated, primo athletic young men who represent the best in sports in this country. Really? Well, I'm sorry, but if this is the best WE have to offer, perhaps we need to stop offering it!

We recruit these young "warriors" out of the "hood", and the culture of the hood has migrated into the culture of the NFL, and this is what we get. More and more players being arrested for various crimes you'd normally attribute to violent criminals who never had anything to do with higher education, unless that higher education happens to be in pharmaceuticals. Ever listen to your average NBA or NFL player being interviewed? Ever understand much of what they say? Yes, believe it or not, it's English, or some really terrible version of it. I don't think any of these guys have been tested for IQ because frankly I don't think they can fashion a test that can detect a negative number. It's not their fault, however, because they are NOT there because of their mental acuity. It takes braun, not brains, to get that pigskin down that field, past other hunks of hardened flesh. This idea of them being in college is simply a scam and always has been. These schools need the television money more than they need to educate these guys, which they don't. The only players that come out of this mess with genuine college degrees got them because of their mothers, not the school or their coaches.

So now we have have achieved a new low in the chase for athletic glory and lots of green. Unless the NFL or NBA chooses to or is made to clean up their act, I think sports as an institution belongs in the same category as the Jerry Springer show, and about as entertaining.

Bitch and Moan, Bitch and Moan.........

The Catholics made up this place they called purgatory, a sort of half-way house to hell where sinners who really fucked up but could be judged as salvageable could do their time and perhaps make it into heaven after all. I've forgotten exactly what sins would qualify you for this place, probably something like masturbation in front of a nun or spiking a priest's sacramental wine with LSD or something fun but disrespectful like that. Or maybe a wife who killed her abusive husband.......naw.....Catholics were never THAT charitable. ANYway........have you ever felt you were already doing your time in purgatory? I know that so many totally unfortunate people have already spent time in hell right here on Earth; Africa, the Balkans, Iraq, and other fun vacation destinations, and to think THAT didn't pay their way right into this mythical nirvana the religious types call heaven.....well, that would just suck, on a cosmic scale. Since I don't believe in heaven OR hell, I feel kinda bad there's no payback for these poor souls, but if we are all really lucky and reincarnation happens to be real, THEN perhaps they earn bonus points towards a really nice life next time around. I wouldn't hold my breath, though. The universe doesn't create fairy tales just for our benefit. I'd be surprised if "the" universe even notices us.

Anyway, speaking of purgatory, I think I might be experiencing a mild version of it. Things have really gotten dicey on the financial front here at Pendragon Hold and although I am valiantly rallying the troops and flooding the moat and all that good rot in an effort to confront our demons, so far the demons are advancing steadily and our remaining defenses are weakening fast. I'd call on reinforcements from my allies or institute a draft, but the only citizens living here other than THE Wife and I are three goats, one dog, and two cats, and I don't think they are draft material. I know the cats aren't. Cat's by their very nature don't give a shit.

I wish I could be more specific, but we are already approaching the TMI area of blogging and I do not ever want to be accused of gathering sympathy for my plights when there are people who would die to have my plights. Bob, I hate plights!

So, if you happened to notice (yes, I realize that one must have had to have been motivated to even show up at this blog to ever have noticed) that my posting frequency has become somewhat infrequent, well, now you have some idea why. So if any of you were holding your breath, you can safely let it out. No one is dying of cancer, we haven't lost another animal (so far) OR relative, nor has anything combustible combusted. The hurricane season is taunting us by not having any storms show up when we most expect them, we are not in an earthquake zone, and tornadoes seem not to notice us. We ARE getting alot of rain, but not enough to flood us out, and that's only because we pissed Mother nature off by complaining about the drought we were suffering from. I know damn well that things could be worse; my only worry is that they might.

So, that's my rant. I know, I was supposed to expose the outrageous treachery of Walmart's funding of Red China's takeover of our country with our own money, wondering why republicans are even bothering running for office this time around, and predicting the end of an affordable way to get to work in this country, but believe me, I am fully aware of all these piddling, unimportant things going on all around me, so if you want me to worry about those things right now, send me lots of money to get me out of MY personal purgatory and I'l get right onto it, I promise.

Other than that, I think life is like a box of chocolates.........sweet!

P.S. I haven't had a ciggarette in over two months!

P.S.S. I've gained almost ten pounds.

Wow!

Generally, I really don't care much for "classical" music, but sooooooooometimes..............

Blue Man Group Stop Global Warming

I know, if you just happen to be deaf, dumb, and blind, and don't believe we have anything to worry about as far as global warming is concerned, this cute video won't change your mind.......but it sure does get the message across!

The Prodigal Blogger returns.......

I know what you are thinking. "Where have you BEEN, THE Michael? Did you fall off the face of the Earth?"

Of course not.

I'm getting to heavy.

Anyway, here I am, back to grace your retina with another exciting episode of "THE Life of THE Michael, his Loving Wife, his sidekick canine Shiloh, and various other terrestrial life forms sharing their little acre of sand on the outskirts of the largest metropolitan area unknown to most people." It's called Jacksonville, Florida, in case your interested. The area, that is.

I'm listening to RAM, that old classic album by Paul McCartney and Wings while I type this post. Anybody remember that one? Anybody willing to admit to it? He he........

All kinds of weird and not-so-wonderful things have been happening since I last reported. The conveyance was making all kinds of strange, buzzing, grinding, "something just might fly out the side of this car at any moment" type noises for the last several weeks, getting progressively worse with each passing day, while I'm wondering what the hell I'm going to do for a way to work if our baby craps out on us (a baby we are still making payments on, I might add). Then, here I am perusing thru my wallet for no particular reason I can think of and guess what I come across? The super-premium extended drive-train warranty we payed for when we bought our Focus used back in 2004. With only about 4 thousand miles left before it expired! For only a deductible of $50, all the engine and transmission mounts were replaced and now our baby is quiet and not about to explode on us. As my buddy Buffalo likes to say, "Life is sweet.......".

One of our twins, the one I have referred to as being the "Evil" one, decided to move herself lock, stock, and barrel out to Arizona to be with a gentleman she met on the internet. I say "gentleman", because if any harm comes to her through no fault of her own, he will cease to be one and will suffer the consequences accordingly. Like parents anywhere, we do worry about our offspring, no matter how old they happen to get. We HAVE met him, once, and he didn't APPEAR to be a serial killer, but first impressions can sometimes be so off..........just ask my mother-in-law. Grin.

In order to make this as epic an episode as possible, I have included several photos of various things having to do with life here at Pendragon Hold. This here is our idea of what a bar should look like.





This one is a pic of my shrine to The Beatles. No, I don't worship them. Well, maybe a little.........








these are things we grew in our garden.





















This is a picture of THE Wife getting a gander at that one veggie. The long one with the bumps on it. Did I mention what a perv my wife can be sometimes?


This is the all-time favorite place in our household.


























Anyway, if you didn't already know, the wife has a new job and although she is having to learn new things, she really is enjoying herself, and is doing very well. She even gets to wear scrubs, just like me!

Somehow I volunteered myself to be a guest author on a blog called "The Gun-Toting Liberal", a slightly left-of-center political blog with many talented commentators participating. I am humbled to be amongst them. These guys are talented, to say the least.

I'm sorry I made you wait so long for a post, but I DO have a life, a life so boring it hardly ever rates a post in a blog. However, feel free to stop in on occasion in case some sort of inspiration smacks me upside the head and I actually post something worth reading. Ya never know!