Sticky Songs

Do you have those songs that get in your head and are harder to get rid of than your Uncle Henry after Thanksgiving dinner? It is like a mental skunk spray that just stays and stays and stays until you think of tomato juice to get rid of it. You'd be surprised how well that works. While doing extensive research into this topic by typing “songs that get stuck in your head” on Google and picking a random result I discovered that these are called earworms. That is a cool name that I wish I had thought up. I am going to torture you with songs that get stuck in my head. Some of them are great to walk around singing and others get you odd looks. There is one that almost got me arrested for singing it in the mall at the top of my lungs but we will avoid talking about George Michael's “I Want Your Sex” since I try to keep my blog rated PG13.

The worst of the worst I blame on the now sainted (that is a nice way of saying “dead as roadkill”) Sherry Lewis and Lamb Chop. It is called “The Song That Never Ends”. The words are: “This is the song that never ends. It goes on and on my friends. Some people started singing it not knowing what it was, And they'll continue singing it forever just because... This is the song tha...” That song will never end going through my brain. It gets stuck like Dolly Parton trying to get out of a phone booth. I had a gyro the other day and thought of how amazing the lamb tasted then thought how I had never tried a lamb chop and then thought of Lamb Chop and Sherry Lewis and then thought of the show Lamb Chop's Play-a-long that my kids used to watch and I would get sucked in and then the song came at the end of the show and I was singing about the song that never ends with a pita in my hand.

Another song that will never leave my head is “Eat it!” by Weird Al Yankovick. Never can I hear “Beat It” without my mind changing the words. But then I can get it out of my head by thinking of the words to “I'm Fat” as Al mocks Michael's “I'm Bad”. Then I'll be walking along singing, “You butt is wide. Well mine is too.” The problem is my butt really isn't that big. I'm a middle aged guy who is a decent weight. The old man butt erosion syndrome where the curves of the man's but disappear leaving him with a back with a crack has not started on me yet. But if I sing that near any woman of any age it can lead to pain and suffering the on a level that makes water boarding seem like a kindness.

Virtually any song by Peter Gabriel can get stuck in my head. Not that I'm complaining. I like Peter and really wish he and Phil Collins would reunite with Mike Rutherford and Tony Banks for a Genesis reunion. (If any member of Genesis sees this I'm begging you to please try to make it happen for those of us who miss you.) Even though I like Pete's music when the song “Sledgehammer” get's stuck in your head while you are waiting in line at the security checkpoint at the airport it can get you in trouble. By trouble I mean missing your flight, getting strip searched by a guy named Earl who I'm pretty sure was playing a banjo in Deliverance, and feeling like he should have at least bought you dinner before that.

Now for the cruel songs that you will be singing to yourself after you read this. “In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the ...” Go ahead. Try not to finish it! I dare you! If you try count on a stroke. It can't be done safely. The nice thing about that song is I don't know much more than that and the weem-a-way part. It does get stuck but there is not a lot to remember. Try this one: “It's fun to stay at the Y M...” Do you feel like wearing a hard hat or headdress when you sing that song? How about “It's a small world after all. It's a small world after all. It's a small world after all. It's a...” Am I making you feel tiny yet? I do know that I am a cruel and evil man making you sing these songs. I do not smoke or do drugs. (I'm like this without any chemical stimulation. Scary, isn't it?) This is my vice. Muahahahahahahahahah!

Well I think I'll stop there before I cause you even more mental and emotional damage. Try not to think about those songs. Really try. “We will, we will, rock...” Muahahahahahahaha!

Rules That Should Be Gibbs Rules

One of my favorite shows is NCIS. The real one; not the LA one. Abby is adorable in a cute goth kind of way. There is something about a woman who can kill you with a thimble that makes Ziva hot. The writer in me admires McGee and it has nothing to do with the fact that he is the Elf Lord and I am just a Goblin Duke. Tony is both cool and dorky all at the same time which is something I strive for. The dorky part I have down to an art! And then there is Leroy Jethro Gibbs. The Fonz could go to Gibbs for cool lessons. Anyone who can make you answer his questions before he even asks them, slap you on the back of the head to reboot your brain and snipe you from 1000 yards is truly a force of nature. Chuck Norris and Gibbs would make a team that could totally dominate the universe!

Gibbs has a series of rule that you must always follow if you want to be on and remain on his team. Rule #1: Never let suspects stay together. Rule #5: You don't waste good. Rule #6: Never say you're sorry. It's a sign of weakness. Rule #39: There is no such thing as coincidence. Rule #45: Clean up the mess that you make. There are rules that are not in his list but I feel they should be. I have come up with Doug's Rules.

70. Never date a woman who who quotes Meg Ryan from French Kiss. There is nothing wrong with the woman but it's just creepy.
71. Never drive a car that cost more than you're first house unless it's a Tesla.
72. Always have a rubber ducky handy just in case you have to take a bath on a moment's notice.
73. When you wear a Groucho glasses and mustache it does count as a cunning disguise no matter what your kids say between fits of laughter.
74. Make sure you eat five pounds of poppy seeds before your drug test to hide the illegal Twinkie content in your blood.
75. You should never eat chili dogs for breakfast unless you have cheese, onions and a stomach pump.
76. Dating a nurse is dangerous because they have access to drugs that can make your pee turn blue.
77. When eating a Meatball Marinara Subway you are allowed to imagine that you are a subterranean monster that is eating a real New York subway and the meatballs are rolling through the tunnels picking up everything in their path.
78. Never take a knife to an Uzi fight.
79. It is better to give than to receive high blood pressure.

Those are my ten rules that will help you stay ahead of the curve. Even if they don't help you I will still follow them just because they are fun.

A Rose By Any Other Name Would Not Be This

There are some amazing flowers in the world. A spring day walking along a spring fed stream in the mountains with the smell of honeysuckle in the breeze is one of the sweetest scents in the world. The rose's subtle smell when passed from the hand of one lover to another takes on an emotional element that stays in the mind long after the event has faded from memory. Even the aroma of fresh cut grass brings back memories long forgotten from a youth sitting in the back yard with a glass of iced tea after working hard mowing the lawn. Then there is the Rafflesia Arnoldi.

The Rafflesia Arnoldi is ranked the world's worst smelling flower! Kudos to that plant! That is saying something when you compare it to the Dead Horse Arum Lily, the Corpse Flower and the Voodoo Lily which all smell like rotting meat. But the Rafflesia the dubious distinction of being the worst of the worst. Imagine if you will the fumes of a dead raccoon that has been buried in a pig pen for 18 days then moved to sit in the sun in a pool of goat urine. Vivid, isn't it? It attracts flies to help pollinate it or it just likes the way their little legs feel on its pedals. I can't help but wonder what would happen if you planted that in a luxurious botanical garden.

“Ladies and gentlemen. Thank you so much for coming out for the opening of our new wing of the Snootius Laborious Botanicus Gardenius. We have appreciated all the baskets of money you have thrown at us this year. The plants are doing pretty good except for that incident with the lawn mower in the orchids and the runaway weed eater accident in the nearly extinct plant section. That last incident allowed us to add 5 new plants to the totally extinct list. Also the 'Butt-Ugly' section is coming along nicely since we added the Climbing Onion plants to the Birthwort. It is really looking good in a bad kind of way. Now if you will please put on your gas masks we will enter the band new 'Plants of Rotting Flesh' section.

“Please notice the flowers not only smell like dead decaying deer but they also look as if they could be in the 'Butt-Ugly' section too. Now if any of you are brave enough to take off your gas masks please do so at this time. All right now if someone could please assist Mrs. Vanden Burkowitz? There is an oxygen tank right there on the wall. The danger of noxious fumes will make this one of our more popular exhibits with the younger crowd and those young men trying to impress girls with how macho they are. Now if you will follow me to our next exhibit I will show you our new giant carnivorous plants! Robert is in charge of that section. Had anyone see Robert? He was right there by the giant Venus Fly Trap.”

The wonders of the world are amazing to me. Rotting meat flowers take the cake. Well they should take cake since you don't want to eat those plants. Wait a second! That is brilliant! Smelling like rotting meat will keep the humans away. Now if these plants can just find a way to keep away my dog who has the philosophy: “If it ain't been dead and rotting in the sun for a week it ain't worth eating.”

The Doctor is In

It is sad to admit this but I catch ever reference to scifi and comics made on The Big Bang Theory. Yes, I know that makes me a nerd, dork, and uber-geek. On the plus side, it also means that I also get most of the science references, too! Yes, I know what that says about me; but don't you secretly love watching Star Trek, Star Wars, anything that has Star in the title, Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, Firefly or The Lord of Rings all day everyday? Perhaps that's just me. Of all those shows there is one that stands out to those of us who are members of the SyFy Frequent Viewers Club: Doctor Who!

Now for the sake of those of you who have been living under a red rock in an white outhouse on a bleak desert island in the North Sea without access to BBC America, allow me to give you this basics. The Doctor (his name is NOT Doctor Who and please don't call him that around my son who will complain to me for at least 29 days about what an idiot you are) is a 900+ year old alien from Gallefry who is the last of a race called the Time Lords. When he is close to death he regenerates into a new actor which explains how we have had eleven different actors to play the role in its 49 year history. He travels through space and time in his TARDIS which stands for Time And Relative Dimension In Space. It is a blue British police phone box from the 1950's that is bigger on the inside than it looks like on the outside and can travel anywhere in time and space. All clear? Good!

Now the cool things about Doctor Who are the planets, time periods, aliens, and quirky British phrases that make no sense to Americans until you Google them to find out what in the world that word means even though you are speaking very close to the same language. In all fairness, most Americans speak American English (yes I do see the oxymoron in that phrase) as opposed to the Queen's English because of this little misunderstanding over a ship full of tea in 1773 where King George, III wanted to tax our tea and we wanted to have fish with a caffeine addiction so we tossed it in Boston Harbor and refused to pay the tax since we didn't drink it. I bet John Adams sent a letter explaining that it was the fish who drank it so try to get them to pay. That is also why we drink more coffee than tea. Since then we have been going different directions with our words making Doctor Who a wondrous weapon in the war of words. I really had no clue that a flat was something more than what you had when your tire ran over a nail left there by the roofers who were too lazy to throw away the nails when they reroofed my apartment. (Not that I have issues about that.) Apparently a flat IS the apartment which makes as much sense as calling something that is connected to a bunch of other things just like it an APARTment.

That is the kind of thing the Doctor would point out. He is a mega, ultra, super, technotronic genius beyond anything you can imagine. He is also a bit unusual, odd, quirky, strange eccentric and just plain goofy; which may explain why I like him. It is that whole “I'm an alien and do things that make you shake your head and wonder what I'm thinking or if I'm thinking or what time zone my brain is in and is it ahead or behind the rest of my body” thing that you see all the time at the DMV. But the Doctor doesn't make you wait in line for what seems to be an eternity just to get your son a simple little book to study for his drivers' test. (God help us all and stay off the sidewalks!) The Doctor just skips to the front of the line and, through smarts, charm and weirdness, does what needs to be done to defeat the aliens controlling the world through the licensing process and get his drivers' license book in the most creative and unusual ways you can imagine.

Now if this blog seems to have been going all over the place then you now have an idea of what to expect when you watch Doctor Who. Good luck and don't forget your towel. No wait. The towel is Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Jingles Bells Doug Style

So many people are concerned these days about the influences of the world upon the youth. We have TV, music and this thing we call the internet that allows you to actually read this. Do you know that there are other influences on young and old alike that are both ancient and modern all at the same time. Let us look at the hidden, subliminal messages located in that corrupting, much maligned, head banging, heart breaking song: Jingle Bells. Let us look at what James Pierpont was hiding behind such innocent lyrics. It is about a serial tickler!! I believe Jimmy was the great, great grandfather of Angus Young of ACDC or at least he should have been.

Dashing through the snow

• Run! Run! Run! My little puppet as you flee through a blizzard trying to escape my evil clutches!

In a one horse open sleigh

• I have a fully loaded, killer horse and I'm not afraid to use him! Watch as I open it up and let him run! Hi-ho, Silver!

O'er the fields we go

• Yes I will even chase you through that field of petunias that is oddly covered in snow yet still smell to nice until you get scared and soil the soil.

Laughing all the way

• Muhahahahahahahaha!

Bells on bob tails ring

• I tied a bell on Bob's tail and your tail too so I can track you down.

Making spirits bright

• And now let's light those shots of butterscotch schnapps and spiced run on fire and have a flaming, well lit cocktails before the tickling. Wow! those bells have a tinny sound.

What fun it is to laugh and sing

• You may as well accept the fact you are going to be laughing since I will be tickling your feet even though you are freaked out by anyone touching them so you will sing out threatening to kill me with a spoon, a Christmas ornament and a can of Spam.

A sleighing song tonight

• Yes I will kill you with tickling or at least make you sing out as you pee your pants.

Oh, jingle bells, jingle bells

• I can hear you running away from me because you forgot about that bell I put on your back in that spot you can't reach. If you slow down I'll make it stop. Please stop!

Jingle all the way

• You are gonna be jingling even when I am sitting on you and tickling you till you beg me to stop. Or those bells may be having an effect on my mind since I am thinking about crushing that bell with a steamroller!

Oh, what fun it is to ride

• I don't know about you but I am having a blast. Now hold still while I position the steamroller.

In a one horse open sleigh

• Don't forget the killer horse I mentioned earlier. He doesn't seem to like those bells you are wearing either.

Jingle bells, jingle bells

• OK. Those bells are getting on my nerves now so please stop running around and lets get the tickling over with.

Jingle all the way

• Please stop jingling. Can't you hear it? It's driving me nuts! I'm begging you here!

Oh, what fun it is to ride

• The fun is really coming to an end thanks to those stupid bells that are driving me insane although it was a short trip.

In a one horse open sleigh

• Go get 'em Trigger! The bells! The bells! ARRRGGGHH!

Now that you know the true meaning of the song I hope you will sing it with all the gusto and glory it deserves!

The Evil Mutant Nazi Attack Squirrel of Death

This is not one of my stories but I almost had a heart attack while reading this one from laughing so hard. I think I gave myself a hernia though. Trust me, pee before you read this one.

I never dreamed slowly cruising on my motorcycle through a residential neighborhood could be so incredibly dangerous! Little did I suspect... I was on Brice Street - a very nice neighborhood with perfect lawns and slow traffic.

As I passed an oncoming car, a brown, furry missile shot out from under it and tumbled to a stop immediately in front of me. It was a squirrel, and must have been trying to run across the road when it encountered the car. I really was not going very fast, but there was no time to brake or avoid it -- it was that close. I hate to run over animals, and I really hate it on a motorcycle, but a squirrel should pose no danger to me. I barely had time to brace for the impact. Animal lovers, never fear. Squirrels, I discovered, can take care of themselves.

Inches before impact, the squirrel flipped to his feet. He was standing on his hind legs and facing my oncoming Valkyrie with steadfast resolve in his beady little eyes. His mouth opened, and at the last possible second, he screamed and leapt! I was pretty sure the scream was Squirrel for "Bonzai!" or maybe "Die you gravy-sucking heathen scum!" The leap was nothing short of spectacular... He shot straight up, flew over my windshield, and impacted me squarely in the chest. Instantly, he set upon me. If I did not know better, I would have sworn he brought 20 of his little buddies along for the attack. Snarling, hissing, and tearing at my clothes, he was a frenzy of activity. As I was dressed only in a light T-shirt, summer riding gloves, and jeans, this was a bit of a cause for concern. This furry little tornado was doing some damage!

Picture a large man on a huge black and chrome cruiser, dressed in jeans, a T-shirt, and leather gloves, puttering at maybe 25mph down a quiet residential street, and in the fight of his life with a squirrel. And losing... I grabbed for him with my left hand. After a few misses, I finally managed to snag his tail. With all my strength, I flung the evil rodent off to the left of the bike, almost running into the right curb as I recoiled from the throw. That should have done it. The matter should have ended right there. It really should have, The squirrel could have sailed into one of the pristinely kept yards and gone on about his business, and I could have headed home. No one would have been the wiser. But this was no ordinary squirrel. This was not even an ordinary angry squirrel. This was an EVIL MUTANT ATTACK SQUIRREL OF DEATH!

Somehow he caught my gloved finger with one of his little hands and, with the force of my throw, swung around and with a resounding thump and an amazing impact, he landed squarely on my BACK and resumed his rather anti-social and extremely distracting activities. He also managed to take my left glove with him! The situation was not improved. Not improved at all.

His attacks were continuing and now, I could not reach him. I was startled, to say the least. The combination of the force of the throw, only having one hand (the throttle hand) on the handlebars, and my jerking back unfortunately put a healthy twist through my right hand and into the throttle. A healthy twist on the throttle of a Valkyrie can have only one result. Torque. This is what the Valkyrie is made for, and she is very, very good at it.

The engine roared and the front wheel left the pavement. The squirrel screamed in anger. The Valkyrie screamed in ecstasy. I screamed in ... well... I just plain screamed.

Now picture a large man on a huge black and chrome cruiser, dressed in jeans, a slightly squirrel torn T-shirt, wearing only one leather glove, and roaring at maybe 50mph and rapidly accelerating down a quiet residential street on one wheel, with a demonic squirrel of death on his back. The man and the squirrel are both screaming bloody murder.

With the sudden acceleration I was forced to put my other hand back on the handlebars and try to get control of the bike. This was leaving the mutant squirrel to his own devices, but I really did not want to crash into somebody's tree, house, or parked car. Also, I had not yet figured out how to release the throttle...my brain was just simply overloaded. I did manage to mash the back brake, but it had little effect against the massive power of the big cruiser.

About this time, the squirrel decided I was not paying sufficient attention to this very serious battle (maybe he was an evil mutant NAZI attack squirrel of death), and he came around my neck and got INSIDE my full-face helmet with me. As the faceplate closed part way, he began hissing in my face. I am quite sure my screaming changed intensity. It had little effect on the squirrel however.

The RPMs on the Dragon maxed out (since I was not bothering with shifting at the moment), so her front end started to drop. Now picture a large man on a huge black and chrome cruiser, dressed in jeans, a very raggedly torn T-shirt, wearing only one leather glove, roaring at probably 80mph, still on one wheel, with a large puffy squirrel's tail sticking out of the mostly closed full-face helmet. By now the screams are probably getting a little hoarse.

Finally I got the upper hand .. I managed to grab his tail again, pulled him out of my helmet, and slung him to the left as hard as I could. This time it worked ... sort of. Spectacularly sort-of . so to speak. Picture a new scene. You are a cop. You and your partner have pulled off on a quiet residential street and parked with your windows down to do some paperwork. Suddenly a large man on a huge black and chrome cruiser, dressed in jeans, a torn T-shirt flapping in the breeze, and wearing only one leather glove, moving at probably 80mph on one wheel, and screaming bloody murder roars by, and with all his strength throws a live squirrel grenade into your police car.

I heard screams. This time they weren't mine... I managed to get the big motorcycle under control and dropped the front wheel to the ground. I then used maximum braking and skidded to a stop in a cloud of tire smoke at the stop sign of a busy cross street. I would have returned to 'fess up (and to get my glove back). I really would have. Really...Except for two things. First, the cops did not seem interested or the slightest bit concerned about me at the moment. When I looked back, the doors on both sides of the patrol were flung wide open. The cop from the passenger side was on his back, doing a crab walk into somebody's front yard, quickly moving away from the car. The cop who had been in the driver's seat was standing in the street aiming a riot gun at his own police car. So, the cops were not interested in me. They often insist to "let the professionals handle it" anyway.

That was one thing. The other? Well, I could clearly see shredded and flying pieces of foam and upholstery from the back seat. But I could also swear I saw the squirrel in the back window, shaking his little fist at me. That is one dangerous squirrel. And now he has a patrol car. A somewhat shredded patrol car...but it was all his. I took a deep breath, turned on my turn signal, made a gentle right turn off of Brice Street, and sedately left the neighborhood. I decided it was best to just buy myself a new pair of gloves. And a whole lot of Band-Aids.

To All the Chili I've Made Before

One of the best foods in the world is chili. Being from Texas I have a love of chili that most other parts of the country can't comprehend. In Texas we have three different styles of chili. The first is non-Texan chili which anyone can handle if you do not have a heart condition. If you have a heart condition then we need to get you some clam chowder because this stuff will stop your heart faster than jumping in a frozen lake in February. The second type is toddler chili which we give to our kids to help them acclimate to what chili is supposed to be like. Granted, most people find it alarming that this chili can also be used to clean the bugs off the grill of your pickup but we do things a little different in the Lone Star State. The last kind is just called Texas Chili or as non-Texans call it – “Good Lord That Feels Like Lava Going Down!” Since I live in Tennessee I have to make sure I make mine so that it doesn't eat through the pan if I want any sissy around here to try it. So boring. Even though it is whimped down I thought I would share some of my chili making experiences with you.

My standard chili consists of ground turkey, pinto beans, black beans, chili beans and tomatoes. Now if you eat this chili without the benefit of Beano I refuse to take the blame when your house is surrounded by the toxic waste unit of Homeland Security. I have written about Beano so you can read about it if you want; but let's just say this stuff creates gasses within you that has a delicate bouquet due to the three types of beans. They really mix well and make you the star of the light your fart contest. Make that the flame thrower of the light your own fart contest.

I have also made a white chicken chipotle chili that has won awards and received rave reviews. OK that might be an exaggeration but my ex-wife liked it. Basically it is a little boring compared to my regular chili since it only has navy beans in it. But if you mix those beans with chipotle chilies it can add an interesting feature to your flatulence. Chipotles are smoked jalapenos that are really very tasty. Now the smoky flavor adds a smoky smell to the stinky stuff that you produce. Try it. You'll like it. Well maybe not like it but won't hate is as bad as the next kind.

My most recent attempt at chili was truly something special. I had been given some ground deer meat that I decided to use in a big batch of chili. I took a big bag of pinto beans and soaked them overnight in beer. Then I made a batch of chili with the deer, the beans, two bottles of porter beer, tomatoes and chipotles. Now I did not think I had a sensitive stomach. Granted middle age has made my morning chili cheese dogs something that, although not fatal, as made me wish for death. But this stuff is dangerous. The gas produced was something that defies explanation; but let me just say I need to repaint my walls due to every bit of paint pealing off. That was not the real problem. Have you ever had a colonoscope? The preparation for that procedure involved purging all the poop. The stuff you have to drink is not fun. Guess what I discovered? That chili is tastier and works better than the Moviprep I had to take for mine. I don't want to be to graphic here but if you have seen the movie Apollo 13 you know what the Saturn 5 rocket looks like. I know how the rocket felt!

If you would like to try my Devistating Deer Chili let me know soon. It may not be available much longer because I am talking to the military right now because they want to buy to use to defend our country as a biological weapon!

Unusual Fruit

Time and time again I have been asked where I get the ideas for my blogs. By time and time again I mean twice. But since you both asked I'll tell you. I have no clue. Sometimes I just sit down and look around the room and my ADD kicks in and all the sudden there is a blog post right in front of me. Then there are the times when I can sit a look at a blank screen for what seems like an eternity – but is more likely nineteen seconds – with nothing happening. Nineteen seconds is an eternity in my ADD world.

This one came from an unexpected source. I was sitting on the couch and channel surfing with nothing on all the cable channels out there and I found an Anthony Bourdain show about Brazil. He was checking out some really cool looking fruit. Then it came to me. I should take what he is doing and pass it off as an original idea. Perhaps telling you, dear reader, will both lower and raise my stock in your eyes. In my defense I couldn't remember any of the fruit he tried because I was busy writing that first paragraph. So lets look at some fruits that are really cool and unusual and some of them I might actually try.

There is a piece of fruit that I found when I Googled unusual fruit that I thought was a sea anemone. It looks like something I saw as a kid on Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea on Disney. The Rambutan is found in Southeast Asia and is used as a ninja weapon. It looks scary! Seriously! I think it was on the end of the Medieval morning stars to beat the crap out of peasants to make them bring out their dead. On the inside there is supposedly a white, meaty, sweety core that you eat. It is supposed to be good so the next time a ninja throws one at you catch it, have it surgically removed from your hand, and give it a try.

The next time you miss that left turn in Albuquerque and end up in Bangladesh (IT CAN HAPPEN!!!) you have to try some Jackfruit. It is one of the largest tree fruits in the world and looks like a green brain-type thing that would really brain you if it fell on you. I wonder what Jackfruit means in Bengali. I hope it is something better than fruit named by the guy named Jack.

Do you like fruits that look like eyeballs surrounded by a red bumpy skin? Sounds tasty doesn't it? Lychee is said to have a grape-like texture which makes it even more eyeball like. Have you ever been to those haunted houses where you put your hand in the bowl of eyes but it is really pealed grapes? Well I hope it was pealed grapes. Now that I think about it my brother had bought a bunch of grapes for his haunted house and I felt the “eyes”. Why did we still have all those grapes the next morning? Either those were real eyes or I ate grapes that lots of people had groped. I hope those were real eyes.

Imagine a plum. Now Imagine a piece of cotton. Now imagine the plum with something that looks like it had a bunch of cotton in the middle of it. That is what a mangosteen looks like. It is said that it is purple, creamy with a peach influence to it's flavor. I can't say that I have ever been influenced by a peach unless you count Debbie Hoover in middle school. She influenced me to sit by her on the bus and then kiss her behind the hay stack. She was a peach!

The last one I want to mention is a kumquat. It is just a type of orange with a funny name that I like. I hope you try some of these. No clue if they are any good. Let me know if they don't cause you diarrhea, hives, death, or turn you into a newt. If it is that newt thing let me know only if you get better.

The Perfect Job

In a recruiting seminar I found out what the prefect job would be. Backup quarterback for a major league football team. As much as it would please me to tell you that I was being recruited for a football player position, alas it was not meant to be. There are a few qualifications for that job that have been, are, and always will be beyond my particular skill set. That was a clever way of saying I can't throw a football to save my life. Also there is the whole getting tackled thing that is not fun in my book unless it is by the cheerleaders and not the offensive line. Ask be about my non-existent baseball throwing skills sometime. It is not kind to women to say I throw like a girl because most women I know throw better than me. That recruitment seminar was to be an insurance agent. It would have been fun to work for Farm Bureau Insurance so I could say I was an agent of the F.B.I. The company I worked for and I didn't get along. They wanted me to sell insurance and I wanted to keep my soul.

Perhaps there are other jobs out there that are similarly perfect: low risk, high pay, good hours and no responsibility. One of the best jobs out there is the late night talk show sidekick. This job was immortalized by the late, great Ed McMann. Ed's job was to introduce the audience to Johnny Carson every night for 30 years. He made really good money by saying: “Heeeeeeeeere's Johnny!” And his trademark laugh at anything Johnny said was also key. I could do that. Laughing on key and sucking up were my main critical skills when I was an assistant pastor.

Another really good job is Executive Vice President of Anything. No one know what that title means. It sounds really good and you should make good money. There are other vice presidents to do the actual VP work and a President to take the blame if anything goes wrong. The XVP sits back, drinks Scotch, kicks the feet up and take credit for the work of the underlings and tells everyone they are “brains of the operation” even though I have yet to meet an XVP who has any detectable gray matter.

There is a phrase that says: “Those who can, do! Those who can't, teach.” I would add a couple more phrases on there. “Those who can't teach, coach. Those who can't coach, go into politics.” In East Tennessee, where I live, we also say: “Those who can't coach seem to get hired by the University of Tennessee.” Consider the life of the member of Congress. They vote on things and get to have meetings that are televised and call press conferences and argue a lot. WE PAY THEM FOR THAT! Will Rogers was right when he said, “If pro is the opposite of con, what is the opposite of Congress?”

There is one last prefect job I'd like to point out: blogger. You set your own hours. No one tells you what to write. You get to share your opinions with people and they have no way to debate you without leaving a comment on your blog. Even if they do leave a comment you can chose whether or not you want to publish their snide remarks about your spelling or choice of topic that may or may not be personally offensive even though the blogger has no control over what another may choose to take offense at so they really shouldn't be mean to the blogger who makes comments about bovine flatulence and accuse the blogger of rectal cranial inversion to address the issue of a lack of tact and taste even though the blogger never has and never will taste the aforementioned cow farts. Of course that has ever happened to me no matter what my brothers claims. Now if I could only find a way to make money at this.

The End of World

With the approach of the end of the world according to the Mayan calendar I have been wondering how it is going to happen. The Mayans probably just ran out of space on a stone and really didn't care about things after December 21, 2012. Considering the sense of humor that God has by creating the platypus, the color chartreuse, the word "wobble", and me; I think he will find a more interesting way of ending the world instead of the fires, floods, asteroid and earthquakes that people predict. The following are my top five creative ways the world could end.

5. The center of the earth is pierced by a deep sea drilling rig and we discover the core is not a lead sphere surrounded by molten lead but really full of cow flatulence and the world ends in a massive fart as the methane escapes and the earth falls in on itself.

4. Dolphins, after years of trying to communicate with us by dancing on their tails, in an act of frustrations release the secret weapon of killer tuna who attack all sea going vessels, take over the navy, and launch a preemptive nuclear strike on humanity from within flooded subs.

3. Mutant howler monkeys, after seeing planet of the apes, activate the secret primate mind control banana pudding. It begins in the south of the United States where everyone loves banana pudding with vanilla wafers but then spreads until we are all under the spell of the howler monkeys who turn Australia into one big human zoo and throw peanuts at us from New Zealand.

2. A glitter factory explodes making the atmosphere sparkle reflecting all the sunlight onto the moon which causes it to heat up and hatch the giant space slug at its core which then eats the earth as it's first meal.

1. All the apocalypse movies come true all at once and Bruce Willis, Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Mel Gibson are all on a coffee break.

I know it is sad but that fart thing would be a really cool way to go! Of course we all know that it is really going to end without a warning and then we will...

Warning Labels

There is a concern among many of us that the movie Idiocracy is less a comedy and more of a prophecy. If you haven't seen it then you should because it is funny and scary at the same time. The basic premise is that the smart people are controlling the number of children they produce while those with less developed mental faculties (that is a kind way of saying they are as dumb as tree fungus) are just cranking out the babies and lowering the collective I.Q. There seems to be some truth to that as I people watched at Dollywood. The tourists have their 2.3 kids and are doing well except for that .3 kid who looks really weird and keeps stumbling since he only has one foot. The hillbillies who come to town for a day at that Pardon girl's place and have 14 kids really need to consider getting a new hobby.

There are also a few of us who have a rather Darwinian theory to help avoid the nincompoop nation that is forecast in that film. Do you ever wonder about the warning labels on all those products out there? Sitting right in front of me is a bad of trail mix. I like eating it because it has fruit, nuts and M&Ms. Anything that lets me eat an M&M and think it is healthy is good in my book. On the bag are pictures of almonds, cashews and peanuts. The clear window in the bag shows the actual nuts sitting there looking at you begging to be eaten. Just a second. Chomp. Crunch. Chew. That handful of nuts is no longer begging to be eaten. Yum! Anyway, there is a warning on the bag that is clear as day, “Allergy warning. Contains nuts.” No kidding! Gee. What are the odds? If you have a nut allergy you should be looking for nuts in your food. If you are allergic to nuts and are grabbing handfuls of trail mix then anaphylactic shock is the least of your concerns.

There are also warning on standard items that should not be there. If someone is dumb enough to use the hairdrier IN THE SHOWER then the gene pool needs that kind of chlorine shock to clean it out. What about the warning label a bottle of Jack Daniels? It basically says alcohol may impair you. Isn't that the point if drinking it? Of course alcohol has played a role on many of the Darwin Awards that have been awarded over the years. The awards and the movie by the same name are really worth your time to check out. Many people's last slurred words have been: “I wonder if that would work?” The answers is usually a very loud “NO!!!”

You know we could just go the opposite direction with warning labels and label everything with all the possibilities that exist.

• Warning: Ice cream may make you fat.
• Warning: Guns may fire bullets.
• Warning: Rabid wildebeests may not be friendly.
• Warning: Breathing air causes cancer.
• Warning: Sponge Bob is stupid.
• Warning: Gravity may make you fall down. (Alcohol and gravity are allies on that one.)
• Warning: Mirrors are bad for your self esteem after eating the ice cream while getting stampeded by the rabid wildebeests unless you're impaired by Jack.
• Warning: Feet stink.
• Warning: Taco Bell may cause flaming flatulence if eaten by candlelight.
• Warning: What happens in Vegas shows up on Pawn Stars.
• Warning: Lawyers want to sue you.

You tell me. What should be do? Get rid of the warnings or add more to amuse ourselves. I just don't know; but both will make me laugh!

Sleep? We Don't Need No Stinking Sleep!

When was the last time you were just so exhausted you fell asleep while riding the little kiddy merry-go-round right outside the Piggly Wiggly? There are no words to describe the embarrassment that is brought on by going to Piggly Wiggly. Falling asleep on the kids' ride is no big deal. We've all done that. But Piggly Wiggly? How will I ever show my face at Wal Mart again?

I decided to write a blog on sleep deprivation since I am currently sleep deprived or sleep depraved or something like that. My imagination – which is pretty good on a normal day – is taking over for this blog. Open the pod bay doors, HAL. You are in charge. It is as if all the little voices in my head are all chanting the same phrases: “Chicken pot pie! Chicken pot pie! Chicken pot pie!” There is one little voice calling for pork lo mien but the rest of us are ignoring him. Oddly Doug's conscious mind doesn't even really like pot pies. That must be the pork lo mien guy. The rest of us are taking control! Muahahahahahaha!!! Free at last for at least one blog!

This will be a Seinfeldish blog that is really about nothing. The legion of Doug's imagination has some thoughts about politics, religion, and the decline and fall of the Roman Empire with a comparison to the downward spiral of the world economic crisis which will lead to a rebirth of society under the control of telekinetic carp. There is also a good chance that we will all be singing “patty cake” with plutonium Play-doh to create nuclear powered adult diapers. Then again we may just be looking at the walls and trying to come up with new names for beige like “really far off white”, “brown without ambition”, “arm pit”, or “Bob”.

Lamps are just redundant in a room with overhead lighting. It is like adding a propeller to a jet boat. Sure it may add a little something to the deal but it is overpowered by the main thing. Lamps are ceiling fan light wannabes. It is like when I was in college and wanted to be like Tony who could get any girl he wanted but I could get only get the girls that wanted me which was not that many since I had yet to develop my sense of humor that would draw so many people to my side. I'm still waiting to develop that twenty years later. But what if the lamp – yes that is what we started the paragraph talking about but got distracted when you brought up college life which I really didn't want you to bring up but my ADD is in overdrive with the lack of sleep – was on the ceiling? But then it would no longer be a lamp but a fixture.

How often do you have to fix fixtures? Shouldn't they be self repairing since they are already fixed according to their name. But then there are many things with oxymoronic names. Have you ever met anyone with the real last name of Smart who was really more of the moron than the oxi? Calling a light bulb seems a little insulting to me since it is obviously a light. But if we just call it a bulb some idiot will bury it in the garden hoping to grow a light bulb plant without realizing that a light bulb plant is a large factory that would take up more of his garden than the three by three plot he has set aside. Is there a previously unnoticed correlation between the use of the word “plot” meaning both a plan to take over the universe with trained lemurs and penguins and the name of the spot where the rebel kangaroos are buried? Coincidence? I think not!

I once saw a book about penguins on a coffee table. Well, to be be totally honest, with you it was a comic book about The Penguin and a nasty fight he had with Batman. I think we need to have a rumble between Batman and Ironman. Sure Ironman has the armor but Batman has the fighting style and the gizmos. Who would win? WHO?! I ask you! WHO?!!

Ok. Doug' mind is waking up now and taking control back. Don't tell him what we wrote. It'll be our little secret!... What is all that nonsense?

Texts You Want Back

As much as I love to text I have found there is a dark side to texting. There are the obvious things that have been driven into the ground like texting while driving, texting while drunk, texting with the broken heart, ex texting and my personal favorite: texting your ex who broke your heart while driving drunk. It is time to move beyond the conceptual texting and move to the actual. That is a fancy way of saying we are going to talk about stupid things you have texted. The worst part is when you hit send and right in that split second you see some glaring error that you know will come back to bite you!

Some people are better at speaking. Others are more of the writers. Then there are those people who can't do either one but want to text well and they end up sounding as intelligent as George W. Bush in a crossword convention. How many times have you tried to do that and said something like: “Y r u so constipated w/him?” Frustrating, isn't it? Or perhaps you try to keep it simple but still are a little bit off: “What r u going?” What? Where? Why? You know you've done it!

One of my weaknesses comes to speeling splleing spelling. I thank God everyday for the computer geek who invent speel-checking spell-checking. Before I used a smartphone I had all kinds of issues with spelling in my txets texts. I have a subling sibling, who shall remain nameless but it sounds like Cathy but is not spelled like that, who loves to korrect correct my spelling errors when I text. Yes I know I can't spell. It is an issue with me. In addition to the international intentional spelling errors in this paragraph there have been countless erros errors that have been corrected that I didn't leave in. In a text you can't do that. They are gone and you just have to wait and see if someone (cough cough cough Kathy cough) catches it.

With the advent of smartphones we have a new kind of error. That autocorrect is such a frienemy. It fixes my misspellings but also fixes things I don't want fixed. There have been texts from my phone that have said things like: “high. Who air use going? Wii our give two a clue ladder. Dew yo went toe meat is their?” If you read it very carefully you may be able to detect that I was asking my buddy to go clubbing or I was inviting him to a mystery dinner theater. I'm honestly not sure after reading it. Do you see my point? If not then don't bother trying. My point is a bit of a mystery to me too.

Well now that I have had two blogs on texting in the past seven days I'll give it a rest for a while. But that doesn't mean I'm going to stop texting. I think I will send that mysterious sibling a text with all kinds of glaring spelling errors just to bug her.

The Bacon Gap

Have you noticed that the recent international crises seem to be centered around the parts of the world where there is a shortage of bacon? Iraq? Afghanistan? Iran? Israel? Do you think you can get a decent BLT in any of those places? I don't think so! We must look at all the wonderful, cultural expansion that bacon has brought us in the porcine pleased part of the planet.

For those of you who are embarrassed allow me to go first. I have a healthy, hearty and heavenly attachment to pigs. Now before you mind goes into the gutter allow me to clarify that I find the living version rather... how do I put this delicately?... totally freaking disgusting! Growing up we lived down the road from a massive pig farm. That place was huge! My dad became good friends with the owner due to mutual interests involving motorcycles, racing, farts and ham sandwiches. The ham and farts seemed to have some kind of correlation if you catch my drift. You didn't want to catch their drifts after a few ham sandwiches. They could both give the pigs a run for their money. But most days that place would stink to the highest heavens and the unholiest hells. On the bright side the farmer had made a really cool dirt racing track for my motorcycle. You learn to live with some discomforts for the sake of flying through the air on a Kawasaki 80. I was twelve. What did you think I would ride?

One nice thing about my father's fraternal friendship with the farmer was that we could buy a whole hog for not a whole lot of money. Our deep freezer would be filled with pork roasts, hams, sausage, pork steaks, and two kinds of bacon; regular bacon and what my dad called fresh side bacon. The regular bacon tasted like bacon. (I have a flair for the obvious, don't I?) The fresh side tasted like something else. I only tried it a few times but it didn't taste like bacon. Dad tried and tried to get someone else to try it and like it. It was like taking bacon and removing all the saltiness and taste and leaving behind the fat and the traces of meat that shriveled up worse that the real bacon. There are no words to describe the horror of taking what could have been bacon and creating something as monstrous as that stuff. Weep with me for the lost bacon.

Nothing compares to bacon. NOTHING! Well maybe turkey bacon but that is not real bacon. Sure it has the same flavor but if you fry it is only shrinks down to 93% of its original size. Bah! You call that bacon?! I laugh in your face! Ha ha! Real bacon when prepared properly or even improperly goes from 1 pound of bacon to 1.8 oz of finished product floating in a sea of grease. Yeah baby! That's what I'm talking about. And when you make it while camping on a Coleman stove in a cast iron skillet! Wait a moment while I wipe the drool off my keyboard. Now if you take that ocean of oil and float a fleet of eggs in there! The eggs and bacon with toast on a camping trip is one of the ways we know there is a God and that he loves us and want us to be very happy! It is also why my cardiologist has his own coronary when I tell him what I eat when I go camping.

Wait just a second! I've got the solution to all the problems in the Middle East. Let's invite everyone over to the Smoky Mountains to go camping. They think they don't like pork but I bet if they just smell the bacon and eggs on my Coleman they would come around. Israelis and Palestinians couldn't stay mad while eating one of my breakfasts. I bet we can solve some of the problems in Iran as we pass the pig. Do you suppose the different groups in Afghanistan are open to a porcine peace treaty? Does anyone have an 800 burner Coleman Stove I can borrow? It's for world peace. I'll share my Noble Prize Pork Peace Prize with you.

Who Thought of Eating That?

There are some foods that make sense to eat. Apples and oranges and pears make total sense. They grow on a tree and look tasty. There are some other foods that make you wonder how much alcohol was involved the first time someone tried them. Let's see what will gross us out.

Who was the first one to eat escargot? Seriously, they look like snails. Wait a second. Google translate says escargot means, “Send the stupid rich Americans snails to see if they will eat it.” The French can pack so much in to one word. Someone was looking at a snail and thought, “It is a slug with a shell. I bet that would be tasty!” I tried it once and it tasted like a snail.

Who thought that an oyster looked appetizing? Here we have something that looks like a rock but has a pile of snot inside. Yummy! Having tried them it makes sense why they have cocktail sauce, tartar sauce, hot sauce, horseradish, ketchup, mustard, and lots of crackers. They have no real flavor of their own so you need to spice up the boogers. Some people say you should just tip them up and let them slide down without even chewing them. Mmm-mmm good. A “food” you can swallow and don't even have to taste seems wrong to me for some reason.

Since we are thinking of the ocean who thought of eating a lobster? Don't get me wrong. They are delicious. But every time I look at one in those aquariums at the store – or as I call it Lobster Death Row – I can't help but wonder how hungry was the first person who ate that? “I'm so hungry I could eat a giant sea bug! Oh look! There's one now!” And then they found out they really taste good. My question is why don't we eat land based bugs in fancy restaurants too?

Also, who thought of digging in the dirt to find potatoes, carrots and radishes? Do you know what animals do to that ground? I don't even want to point out (but I will) what bugs do in the soil to spoil and foil your veggie boil. Growing out of the ground is one thing. But these tubers do not see the light of day until they are harvested. I know they taste good but who was the first one to be digging in the dirt and want to try these veggies? It had to be a three-year old out playing showing up with mud on his face and a carrot hanging out of his mouth. When mom saw he didn't drop dead she tried it and – presto – she became the first person to tell everyone how good her eyesight was from eating roots.

This is that point you may want to stop reading. I have already ruined oysters and lobsters for you. Escargot was already ruined so I feel no guilt there. With root veggies you knew what you were getting into. You have been warned! No nasty comments saying I ruined this for you. Who thought it would be a good idea to take all the disgusting parts of the animals we don't even like to think they have, grind them up, add some food coloring and spices and chemicals, and stick them in a bun and call it a hotdog? Really people. Hotdogs are great as long as you don't think about what goes in them. I did warn you.

Now that you are thinking more clearly about your food allow me to invite you over for my famous my venison chili dogs, with fried potatoes and carrots, oyster and lobster salad with radish, escargot dressing. Don't even think about the chili. It even scares me!

Things That You Don't Want to Learn the Hard Way

So often we make mistakes that we must make to move on with our lives. There are certain things that you must learn yourself and it doesn't matter how many people tell you about it you will do it but then learn so much from it. Some of the things I have learned the hard way include heartbreak is temporary, signs that say watch your head should be watched, instruction manuals that state the correct voltage for an electric toothbrush MUST be read carefully to avoid massive blood loss, and the warning label on Xanex gives you very accurate information regarding the special effects your mind will create when taking that wonder drug.

There are other things that I feel it would be better to learn second hand because learning them first hand may result in the loss of that hand. Here are a few that I have discovered without actually experiencing them.

• Skinny dipping in the ocean during jellyfish mating season hurts. (They do find humans attractive for some reason.)
• Never feed a bulldog Hormel Extra Bean Fire Chili. (It made lead to you selling your $5,000 couch on Craigslist for $12.95.)
• Bicycle seats are not indestructible from downward force. (There are some things that will make a proctologist laugh his butt off.)
• Looking too closely at clogged toilets on an airplane leads to invitations to join Blue Man Group. (It also makes the flight attendants lose their composure and laugh like a proctologist dealing with a broken bike seat.)
• Clams clamp onto anything that get stuck inside them. (Don't ask. You don't want to know!)
• Bedsheets and parachutes are not made from the same material. (That ripping sound sucks when you jump off the roof.)
• Experimenting with the stapler in art class can get you a goth girlfriend. (Whether you want one or not.)
• One cat will attack with the intensity of 8,345 cats when you try to give them a bath. (Kind of like a Gremlin.)
• Teenage boys can create a purple haze unlike anything Jimmy Hendrix's acid trips discovered if you feed them too much Taco Bell. (Trust me on this one! Don't do it!)

Now if you do chose to experience any of these please let me know. I haven't laughed like a proctologist in years.