My girl be settin' booby traps to catch me eatin' Scooby Snax

So yeah... here we are in 2010. The year we make contact. The year we get contacts... or buy contact paper... or something like that. I don't really keep up with all that, so I'll have to just assume that I've got it correctly.

Anyway, thanks to a commenter named after a Greek letter- incidentally, how cool is that. Anyone named after letters of any alphabet is sporting some Top Shelf nomenclature. Jay, Dee, Zed, Enyay - all great names. Multiple letters is also quite swell, e.g. CeCe, JayCee, VeeDee. OK, maybe not VD so much...
So yeah, I've been spurred to post more often. I think I can at least manage to post a handful of times this year, so let's get right on that, shall we?

My main point here is that I've got an entire case of pristine Girl Scout Cookies sitting in my kitchen. 12 delicious boxes of tasty tasty Thin Mints that are mine, all mine. I estimate they'll last through Tuesday.

So if you haven't yet acquired your personal share of Girl Scout Cookies, I highly recommend you do so promptly. I'll be on the prowl for another fix very soon.

Just a mirror for the sun

This week I spent an extended amount of time driving across the fruited plain, seeing America... and a bit of the People's Republic of Michigan. So lucky you, you get another lame blog post out of it!

In Rolla, MO, I happened to stop for food at what might possibly be the dirtiest Burger King in the world. There were flies everywhere, and some gigantic Starship Troopers looking bugs in the entryway. I don't even want to know what it was that made the floor feel sticky. To add to the ambiance, there were two California-looking guys sitting by the door talking very loudly about GPS devices and government conspiracies.
I happened to see the two tinfoil-hatters 100 miles down the road when I stopped for gas. I quickly and quietly went inside to escape their harrowing gaze.

That wasn't the worst part about my stopover in Rolla, though. It turns out that the University has apparently bought into some self-esteem crap or something, and changed its name from The University of Missouri-Rolla to The Missouri University of Science and Technology. As acronyms go, "MUST" is a really crappy one. Sure, UMR doesn't mean anything, but everyone knew where you were coming from.
In my book, it's not a good day for the one-time Missouri School of Mines.

With the recent surge of insane behavior from Mississippi, Springfield Missouri may have been slipping in its position as the most bizarre city in America. Fortunately, an incident I witnessed on my trip should firmly valut them back into the top spot.
Now, this didn't happen within the city limits, but I say it still counts... and as I am Judge, Judy, and Executioner for this contest, it counts. So, just outside of town I saw a truck broken down on the Interstate, missing a tire. No problem, the driver of this vehicle probably took it into town to have it repaired... only he wasn't using a standard-issue auto jack to hold up his truck. Oh no, he was showing off his redneck-engineering skills by propping up his crippled truck with the odds and ends he had on hand. Namely, a Bobcat.

Not this kind of Bobcat: (which, admittedly, would have been hella impressive)


But THIS kind:


Way to go, Springfield. Way. To. Go.

I got to stop in Indiana for burgers and Green River soda. As I've mentioned here before, I love Green River like a mother loves her children... maybe, if she were a cannibal mother... OK, so it's not a perfect metaphor. Regardless, I love to drink Green River soda. I managed to down about 6 of them before I felt my kidneys were in mortal danger. THAT was a good day.

I've taken down the link to Fred Thompson's Presidential Campaign... for now. Apparently, there was an election, though I can't quite recall who won. In its place, I've included a link to the site for Teh Fred's radio show. If you don't happen to live in an area that carries his show, then you're definitely missing out - check out his archives, which contain terabytes of full shows, and all sorts of other Fredaica.

I made another Stuckey's Stop!! Huzzah!
In McLean, IL, inside the Dixie Truck Stop, you can find a (pretty sad excuse for) Stuckey's. Well, there was one corner with some pecan logs, and small bit of merch. If there was more cool stuff hanging around there, I sure didn't see it. So, perhaps some signs are in order, guys.
Nevertheless, it counts. Stuckey's FTW!

We'll dance by the light of the moon

Looks like our friend Ozark Hill Woman, who incidentally, has an Oh So Political blog made the trek up to Cincinnati for the weekend's Tea Party protest. Though she may deny it, the astute folks at Virtuous Republic managed to snap a picture of the elusive Hill Woman. h/t Michelle Malkin.

My, you're awfully young to be so politically cynical, OHW. Good luck with the whole pony thing, though.

That's cinnamon, that's Hollywood

Random Thought February: GO!

Item: Great names for our new Chief Executive that are more accurate than Barack Hussein Obama.

"Teleprompter Jesus" is pretty good, and has been kicking around since the early days of the campaign. I've been partial to "Uh-Bama" myself, especially since his awful performance at the Saddleback forum. (Which seriously, should have been enough to derail his campaign - if the media was an honest broker. If Howard Dean's girlish yell was enough to end him, then "above my pay grade" is a no-brainer.)
But the best family-friendly nickname I've seen thus far has got to be the one used over at the Jawas' place: Hopey-One Kenobi. Sadly, there's no way in hell I can ever work it into a conversation with any of my friends - the lefty ones or the sane ones. If I'm really slick, I can sneak Uh-Bama by. More accurately, I could have slipped it by in the past, but because they occasionally read this blog, I've got about a month before they're on to me.


Item: Item.


Item: Corporate whores are cashing in on Uh-Bama's campaign logo. Missing: the staggering irony of the logo being designed by rampant Communist propagandists.

Jake Tapper was on Pepsi's case last month. There have been a few other conveniently-timed makeovers, but Pepsi's was the most blatant. I'm not going to go overboard with the histrionics about boycotting Pepsi forever, like some of the more dramatic of the commenters there. I'm reminded of the Pepsi ads Bob Dole did in the late 90s, spoofing his Viagra spots... they were pretty creepy, but more than willing to give a Republican some air time. Apparently they had some non-advertising ties with Richard Nixon as well, when he was Eisenhower's Vice-President, so this can cut both ways.

Most importantly, though, this gives me the chance to re-name the product in my home. And when I re-name something, I make it stick. For example, all chicken nuggets are now called "Danny's Moms." Hastings Video has been called "Baketown" since 10th grade. (you had to have been there, really. Just go with it)
Therefore, Pepsi shall now be known as "The Audacity of Coke."


Item: ITeM


Item: Redneck cars.

I've seen a shitty car along my drive home from work a couple times. Usually he's going the same way I am, so I've never been able to put a finger on why this car stands out. It's one of a good two dozen shitty cars I see coming to and from my job. Admittedly, it's easily in the Top 5, but still...
Anyway, I finally saw this car coming towards me and I was awestruck with a vision of Neckness. Like a heavens opening up, choirs of angels (singing "Git-er-dun," but all angelic-like) and a light shining down type of vision. The car is a rusted-out Chevy Cavalier looking P.O.S. with a fat yellow racing stripe on the hood. A hand-painted yellow racing stripe. Apparently, with house paint, because it's as matte a finish as I've ever seen.
As cool as that ad I linked makes the Chevy look, when you take it off the set of The Running Man, and the Ron Perlman lookalike with the weird remote control goes home, and you let it sit on cinder blocks for like 25 years... it's pretty much a piece of crap.

But still, that's one badass racing stripe... if you're drunk or something.


Item: I-TIM.


Item: Miz Ann's post today on re-purposing her blog.

I'm wit'cha, sista. The official blog of Hammistan here has seen some lean times. Seriously, you can see all the way back to July on the front page. I've been trying to get my blog-juice up and flowing again, but it doesn't really seem to be sparking. I don't know if I'm getting much more critical of myself as a "writer" or if I'm just running out of stuff to write. I've started to write a couple of posts now, only to scrap them after a half-hour or so.
Don't get me wrong, I've got plenty of things I'd like to say. I've got LOTS of wrong-headed shit I could rail against. I just don't see it being all that effective, especially as regards the apathy I mentioned in my post last month. Doubly so, given all the blog-generosity I've gotten in the last few months - thanks to all those folks, you know who you are.

On the other hand, maybe I'm subconsciously scrubbing my online presence in case I run for office myself. It's not like I need a future opponent finding this blog and running negative ads about my "dead" sister, orange snot, or voting for my penis. Hmmm... I'm not really helping my alternate-future candidate self with this, am I? Anyway, it's something I've thought about... after all, the next Presidential Election will see me finally over 35, and thus eligible. So I've got to get started on voting "Present" and doing nothing in the Senate for a couple years, right?

Maybe I'll start a little smaller. See about the School Board, or State House... maybe start networking with the Tea Party folks.


Item: I should stop with the "Item: Item" gag, no? Well, I'll think about it.

I wish I had a nickname like Crusher, Snake or Kenneth

Random Thought Thursday strikes again. This time, it's so random, it's not even on Thursday!

First off, I'm glad to see that "Mark's" legal troubles are... ahem... behind him.

More importantly, though, is that if I ever have a kid, I'm going to nickname him or her "Yard Dog." Or "Bush Ape." I'm not for sure which one I'll go with, but definitely one of those two.
Seriously, though, how cool would it be the only kid in second grade with a nickname like "Bush Ape?" All the TJ's and the JR's that were at the top of the nickname heap when we were kids can suck it, because my kid Yard Dog owns them!
You know, Yard Dog and Bush Ape are such awesome nicknames, that I'm going to stick with them even if I have a daughter. OK, sure, she'll have to toughen up a bit if she's gonna be called Yard Dog, but I think she'll find it useful later on in life. No quarterback's going to try getting grabby on a date with my daughter Bush Ape, that's for damn sure.
The one area where I foresee problems is if I adopt a baby from China or Korea. Every nerd in the herd will spooge all over himself if he got within the same zip code as a hot Asian girl named Yard Dog.

Hmmm. I need to balance this out so it's not so obvious that I just wanted to riff on a couple of sweet nicknames I thought up. So here's one for the road: Given the massive dye job that Osama's got in his new video, is it racist for me to wonder if he used "Just For Men?"