number 1

it was very difficult passing up the pogues' if i should fall from grace with god but my burgeoning african readership have expressed concerns over shane's dental hygiene so the pogues have been disqualified from this year's festivities.

abridged cracker factory tale. earlier this year i had to vacate yet another office to accommodate a new hotshot employee. after a few months it was discovered that the new guy had run up a lot of personal expenses on his corporate credit card and didn't have the funds to make the cracker factory whole. i learned that the expenses on his card were vet bills to have his cat's leg amputated and other repairs to the cat. i returned to the cracker factory a few weeks ago and asked him how his cat was doing. his answer: the cat was eaten by a coyote. maybe i'm an asshole but it was really hard suppressing my laughter when he told me a coyote ate the million dollar cat.

the winner of enjoy the moment's inaugural video of the year is:

take a deep breath, enjoy the moment and say good fucking riddance to 2013!

i love you sons of bitches

number 2

i heard this song on cbc radio and it really hit home about my depressed friend, plus it has a catching chorus. it's also an appropriate song for all you generous souls that spent your brains out buying presents for everyone. my friend is sounding very bad these days. the further down he sinks into the abyss, the harder it'll be for him to climb out and he's still sinking. merry fucking christmas.

i love you sons of bitches.

number 3

the big countdown continues with enjoy the moment's number 3 ranked video. i heard this song on cbc radio. of all the crap that happened to me in 2013, tuning into cbc internet radio might have been my luckiest accident. this song caught my attention with the first few lines that might be the story of my life. who gives a shit, right?

i'm planning on telling a stellar cracker factory story on the 31st. stay tuned.

i love you sons of bitches.

the test and the gimmick

i was sorely tested this morning and i'm delighted to say that i passed the test. while shopping i came upon 400 gram bags of red and green santa ju jubes marked down to 24 cents. i picked up a bag and pinched a few through the cellophane to test the freshness and stood frozen in time for what seemed like an eternity. when i snapped out of the trance i put the little bag of temptation down and continued on my merry way. instead, i opted for a jar of roasted almonds. eating healthy is certainly more expensive than eating junk. could this be a contributing factor to the skyrocketing obesity and diabetes rates?

as i was leaving the store i had one question; was it satan or my old buddy jesus that decided to test me with the ju jubes? i don't have a clue but if i ever find out one of them has a nephew who's a dentist, i'll know which one is culpable. but who gives a shit, i passed the test.

on with the gimmick. in order to boost my readership and put a little window dressing on my year end stats i decided to go through all the videos i've posted throughout the year and post my 4 favorites starting with number 4 today and then posting the winner on a new years eve extravaganza. i selected the following song in the number 4 slot because it lifts my spirits and it was to nice to reminisce over a few dead members of the band:

please take a deep breath and enjoy the moment.

rest in peace: rick danko, richard manuel and levon helm.

i love you sons of bitches.

xmas

Christmas is coming, the geese are getting fat, Please do put a penny in the old man's hat

today was my annual charity walk. being a self described anarchist i dislike organized charities and rarely contribute to the united way campaign at the cracker factory. in order to placate my conscience, i choose a more direct charitable approach preferring to eliminate the middle man and associated administrative costs. just before christmas i like to go for a walk downtown with a pocket full of money and make like santa. today i was handing out $5 bills. in the past my handouts have ranged from $1 coins to $20 bills. it was a decent but not great year for me so today it was $5 bills.

i went for a long walk to chinatown to get some tea and passed through the DOWNTOWN EASTSIDE. there are some really, really sad looking people on the streets around the downtown eastside. i had handed out about 10 bills when i came upon a man in a wheelchair with no legs. it was a fucked up old style wheelchair with no electrical motor and that really tugged at my heart strings so i walked up and gave him 5 bills ($25) even though he wasn't panhandling. it made me feel good but after i had walked a few blocks i thought; fuck, i should have given him more. then, after i had bought my tea i ran into another man in an old wheelchair holding out a baseball cap so reached into my pocket and gave him the remaining bills. probably about $100.

doing this really does give me a good feeling whereas giving a cheque to some big charity would not. i realize that most of the money i give out will be quickly squandered but who gives a fuck, i get a few moments of happiness and the recipients of my largess also get a few moments of happiness. so here's my advice, if you are in the habit of giving money to charity, why not give the money directly to the homeless and crack whores? the only downside to my method is you don't get a tax receipt. so it goes.

merry fucking christmas from the rosewater foundation. please take a deep breath and enjoy the moment.

once again, merry fucking christmas!

i love you sons of bitches!

lottery tickets

i love you sons of bitches so much i'm going to share the lottery ticket epiphany i experienced years ago. i'm a big believer in luck and realize that the two big movers and shakers in our universe are time and luck so i'm usually on the look out for something lucky. whats my email? luckyoldleo! need i say more. back to lottery tickets. there was a time when something happened to me that i recognized as being lucky, i would say to myself: "holy jumping, luck is with me, i better buy a lottery ticket." of course i didn't win the lottery but the next time i felt lucky, i'd buy a lottery ticket and of course i wouldn't win.

then one day the epiphany hit and i saw the light. jesus fuck me christ, these goddamn lottery tickets aren't capitalizing on my perceived luck, THEY'RE ENDING MY LUCKY STREAK!!!

so take a deep breath and imprint this on your brain: BUYING A LOTTERY TICKET AND NOT WINNING WILL KILL ANY RUN OF GOOD LUCK YOU'VE BEEN HAVING! i suggest scratching the back of a dog's ear or rubbing a dog's belly as excellent first steps on the road to good luck.

of course that fact that lottery tickets are basically a tax on the stupid also dissuades me from buying them.

i love you sons of bitches

only 10?

TEN THINGS CANADA DOES BETTER THAN ANYWHERE ELSE!

number 1 on the list is apologize. in case anyone hasn't been paying attention, i've been trying to teach the king to apologize for years.

number 4 is AIR! we have good clean air but if you listen to those fucknut anti oil sands people, you'd think the oil sands have turned alberta into a wasteland. fuck al gore, and to think i used to like that pompous, arrogant prick who was born with a silver spoon in his mouth.

number 8 is branding. the reason canadians sew maple leafs onto their backpacks when travelling is to let people know that we're not americans. most civilized countries like canadians more than americans but we look the same, talk almost the same and usually dress the same so some genius came up with the idea of plastering that maple leaf on everything. and of course most teenagers have canadian flags with a marijuana leaf replacing the maple leaf. i've still got several.

one thing we don't do very well is deliver the fucking mail. HOME DELIVERY BEING PHASED OUT, RATES INCREASING OVER 50% AND 8000 LAYOFFS. it would seem that our mail service is on a par with that sign language guy at mandela's funeral. i've been waiting for canada post to deliver the toy i bought on black friday for 2 weeks. the postal code was printed incorrectly on the label and i noticed it right away calling canada post with the tracking number but i was told they had to try and deliver it to the wrong area before they could fix the postal code. but since mail services all around the world are staffed by government workers i'm sure other countries have the same problem. so it goes.

on a more pleasant note, i was watching wrestlemania 3 last night. it was excellent, i was laughing like crazy at all the shenanigans. at one point there was a midget rasslin named little beaver and coincidentally, bob eucker had a girlfriend named little beaver. do i need to tell you what high level discussion ensued about bob and his little beaver? rasslin was excellent in the slapstick era.

i love you sons of bitches.

lucky me

neither rain nor snow nor skanks could stop the pilgrim from making a house call, and a long fucking house call at that. a not so lovely trip on the b.c. ferry system to vancouver island. i'm sad to say that the house trip was highly unsuccessful from a humanitarian point of view but highly successful from a new, used tire perspective. my new, used tires performed like real troopers. no problems in the light snow and generally shitty road conditions. of my friend i can only say this, he basically told me fuck off and i couldn't think of any reason to disagree with him. i now know how mrs frump feels.

of greater concern to me at the moment is that little son of a bitch donald.

i was bitterly disappointed in donald for not producing any flowers in the summer and it now appears certain that he's not a canadian arctic orchid that waits for the first frost and then produces the most beautiful flower in the world. i still haven't conceded that donald is a weed and my summer project was pure folly. i'm thinking of running out and buying a poinseitta to plant where donald has made his home for the past year. then i could run into the house and announce that donald has come through and saved xmas. years ago when the kids were little and i enjoyed the odd drink, this might have happened but now it seems highly unlikely. more likely is me picking up a similar looking plant in the spring and replacing donald with a more co-operative specimen.

so take a deep breath and enjoy the moment. remember, it can take a long time to become what you already are.

i love you sons of bitches.

the anniversary

tomorrow marks 8 years without a drink. i've mentioned this before but for the millions who haven't heard it before, here's the story. i stopped drinking on december 1 for one very good reason. i wanted to get in good shape and be ready for all the christmas parties and all the alcohol that goes along with xmas parties. but the best laid plans occasionally go astray. one thing led to another and i missed all the xmas fun. fuck me, i was tricked into sobriety. so here's my advice to any young reader who may drink a little too much from time to time. if some fucknut tells you to take a rest from drinking to get in good shape for future drinking, don't do it! it's a fucking trick and you may end up like me, a boring old teatotaler.

my mentally ill friend is falling back into despair and lunacy again. maybe it's the upcoming xmas season or the change in the weather but he's drowning in self pity and won't seek any professional medical help. notice i use the word "professional". he is getting amateur help, me. the state would classify me as an amateur but eliot and countless satisfied customers would dispute the amateur label. his problems are as plain as the nose on his face but like any mentally ill person he's living on that river in egypt, de nile. he's stuffed to the gills with the 3 poisons of the mind; greed, hatred and delusion. have you ever tried to tell a man that he has these three wonderful character flaws? at the rosewater foundation, confidentiality is paramount so i won't divulge any further details. and until i've achieved a little success with him or release another patient, i can't take on any new cases. it wouldn't be fair to give a patient less than the gold standard of care the foundation has spent decades establishing.

remember, the more power you have over someone, the greater your duty to use that power benevolently. if someone asked me to describe eliot in one word, it would be benevolent. eliot has been mentoring me in the benevolence racket for years. it is a long journey but as eliot often says, the longer the view, the wiser the intentions.

in case anyone has forgotten my mission statement: the first thing you see when visiting me, ENJOY THE MOMENT

the last thing you see, I LOVE YOU SONS OF BITCHES.

and don't forget, i love you sons of bitches.

rampant discrimination

is there any thing more verboten than racial profiling, hate crimes or good old discrimination these days? apparently this does not apply to pit bulls. last week in sunny vancouver an innocent PIT BULL WAS MURDERED. the interesting thing about this incident was the public reaction. initial media reports heralded the murderer as a hero, defending his little yapper from a blood thirsty pit bull. after the initial hysteria died down and the facts came out the pit bull was not quite the villain she had been portrayed as being. the 72 year old man who did the dirty deed now looks like a bloodthirsty lunatic, but the pit bull is still dead.

the pit bull was being walked by a young lady and was on a leash when the old man's little yapper approached off leash. judge judy wouldn't need any additional information before screaming, put your little yapper on a leash!!! the question i have to ask myself is, would the bloodthirsty old lunatic have attacked the pit bull with his knife if it was being walked by an adult male? or was he just crazy old fucking coward trying to be hero who would shit himself if an adult male stepped in? and of course i have to ask myself, what would i have done if the roo was stabbed by an old man. i suspect the old man would have been kicked in the head pretty fucking hard while he was murdering the innocent beast.

this actually happens to me quite frequently when walking the roo. i don't mean some nut trying to stab her but some fucking idiot letting his/her little yapper run free and get too close to ruby. a while back i almost came to blows with 2 men who were obviously in love and would not put their little yapper on a leash when it kept running at and barking at ruby who of course responded in kind but was on a leash so your's truly had to control a powerful dog. once again, my excellent command of f-bombs proved very useful and the two lovers were peeved. so it goes.

for poor old pandora.

i love you sons of bitches.

dog eaters

here's the condensed reader's digest version of the cracker factory dog eating controversy. when korea was hosting the world cup back in 2002 i came across an article on korean restaurants being told to remove dog from their menus whilst the world cup was being played so as not to offend the non dog eating visitors for the world cup. i clipped the article and posted it on one of the cracker factory bulletin boards. the next morning i noticed that someone had written a scathing attack on "the racist" who had the temerity to question korean culture and through sheer ignorance insult a noble and proud nation. i was both amused and angered at the response to the article i had anonymously posted. on the other hand, the person attacking me had done so in his own handwriting so it was a simple task to identify my critic.

once i had identified the offender, i approached his supervisor and after a little quid pro quo, he agreed to fire the offending young man after a few months. the optics would not have been good if we had dealt the miserable wretch the nine of hearts immediately after the incident. after the culprit was disposed of, the incident raised it's ugly head at the next budget meeting. the usual practice at our budget meetings is for the all us 2 bit managers to give a brief synopsis of events and come up with some lame excuse as to why we were over budget. it was my turn to speak, but just before i began, one of my buddies doing his best father dougal mcguire impression (father ted) said, "tell me leo, are you still a racist?". i started laughing along with several others but the big boss was not amused. even the hint of racism at the cracker factory puts senior management into full panic mode. so it goes, there went my chance at the big time! those dog eating motherfuckers ruined my career!

but i have no regrets, because.....

i love you sons of bitches.

two fucking pancakes

last week the front tire on the iron maiden was flatter than a pancake, you know the story. today the rear tire became flatter than a pancake at a far greater distance from home. i had a long walk and bus ride home. tomorrow i'll have to make the repairs and install the other new tire i purchased last week. yeah, i know i should have replaced both tires at the same time but my time was better spent on something else last week.

i started reading WHY NATIONS FAIL a few days ago and kept saying to myself, "i've heard all this before". then i realized, it's a punched up version of the thimscool manisfesto. it's going to be a tough read. not because of difficult subject matter but because i'm probably going to disagree with a lot the stuff being said. who knows, maybe next week i'll be able to tell you why nations fail. at this moment i'm pinning the blame on low income housing where the dumb fuck deadbeats break their empty wiskey bottles on the pathways and rather than clean up their mess, they complain that someone else isn't cleaning up their mess. so it goes.

ANYONE WANT TO GO HALFS ON A ROB FORD BOBBLE HEAD?

flat tires, failing nations; who give a shit. let's dance!

i love you sons of bitches

flat as a pancake

in the past i often said, somebody up there likes me. the way things are going with my bike tires i'm pretty sure that whoever is up there has decided to move along and find a more deserving person to like.

yes, i had another flat tire whilst riding the iron maiden. i had ridden to the grocery store and had two bags of crap when i got that dreadful feeling, something that was supposed to be hard, was quickly becoming flaccid. oh well, it happens to the best of us but it's happening to me a little too often. i had to walk several miles home with the 2 bags of groceries hanging from the handlebars. it was a long painful walk.

when i took the wheel off and inspected the tube i discovered that the puncture was real close to the seam. you can't repair a tube that has a puncture on the seam but what the hell, i gave it a try. it didn't work. woe was me.

fuck it, the experiment with slick road tires is over and i declare it to be an abysmal failure. the improved ride was certainly not worth the extra flats i was getting with those flimsy slicks so it was off to the bike shop and i picked up some knobby tires with kevlar flatguard. the clerk told me they would be less likely to puncture than the road tires. has a clerk ever lied to a customer??? behold the new beauties:

this morning i hopped on the iron maiden and rode to the library to pick up the cd's i was on my way to pick up when that flaccid feeling overtook me. i heard these guys on cbc radio and quite like them.

i love you sons of bitches/

poetic justice?

have i ever mentioned that i don't like cops?

i don't say that as much as i did in the past but the sentiment still rings true so when i read 4 COPS INJURED WHILE EATING AT FAT BURGER!!, i smiled. it's almost too comical to be true. 4 pigs at the fat burger trough, hit by renegade car. if this happened in toronto with rob ford driving, it would have been the event of the century. but this is one thing they can't blame on the fair rob ford.

does anyone have a sony dream machine? if not, do not buy one under any circumstances. i bought one a few years ago because the clock on my dvd recorder had smallish numbers that i couldn't read from across the room. it was hate a first sight with the so called dream machine. just plug in it? shit no, i had to enter the time zone and date and some other shit before it would work. after that is was supposed to be a fabulous machine but it wasn't. somehow the son of a bitch was 3 minutes fast and no matter what i did, i couldn't get the correct time. every time i reset the prick, i reverted back to being 3 minutes fast. this past weekend our time reverted back to standard time from daylight savings time and the clock was supposed make the adjustment itself. in the past it had done this, but not this time so i had to change the time manually. again, it was a fucking pain in the neck but i figured out how to change the time. BUT, every time i made the change, the son of bitch jumped ahead to daylight savings time. finally i figured out what to do, there was a DST button on the side to manually go back and forth from daylight savings time but there was nothing in the instructions to say this.

am i an idiot? maybe, but apparently i'm not the only one. i was talking to a friend with a sony dream machine and told her of my adventures. how did she reply?

WELCOME TO THE CLUB, MINE'S 18 MINUTES FAST AND I'VE LEARNED TO LIVE WITH IT!

one thing in the piece of shit's favor, it's a tough son of a bitch. at one point i called it a fucking piece of shit and threw it on the floor but the son of bitch took it like a man. it still worked.

rob ford on bikes

i love you sons of bitches

flick my bic

oh how i miss the good old days before the world became child and idiot proof. last night whilst watching deadwood i decided to enhance the viewing experience with a little fishing but my trusty old bic lighter was on the fritz. not to worry, i had planned ahead and bought a package of 5 new ones. a new bic lighter, if that isn't nice, what is?

well, it didn't turn out to be that fucking nice after all. first it took a while to find the package, i had already done a little fishing, and things were falling out off the shelf. i almost knocked a good pile of fish onto the floor. finally, i found the new lighters and the fucking things wouldn't work. after a few moments of being perplexed as only a seasoned fisherman can be, i figured out that there was a safety ring around the wheel. i looked at the package and there weren't any fucking instructions. woe was fucking me. luckily i knew my limitations and headed upstairs to the gas stove for fire. the lovely mrs myshkin was neither impressed nor sympathetic to my dilemma, situation normal. i decided to figure it out in the morning.

well, the morning came and even with needle nose pliers i still couldn't get that goddamned safety ring off. in the space of a few minutes i broke 2 lighters. on the third try, i had success but it came at the cost of 2 noble instruments of fire. i don't like child proof packaging almost as much as i don't like cops. well, it's not even close but you get the picture.

here's a little exercise on how and why we're fucked when it comes to cleaning up the environment, Why world can't agree over climate change. it's a nice little article that seems to perfectly state the human condition when it comes to making the tough choices.

i love you sons of bitches.

corruption or incompetence?

i imagine that most people are aware of obamacare's web site problems. it's a total clusterfuck. so it goes.

i was listening to a radio interview with john mcafee, the founder and ex president of mcafee anti virus software etc. he was CONTACTED BY THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION and asked for his help in fixing the malfunctioning web site. his thoughts on the whole clusterfuck were very eye-opening. he said the site was not fixable and to be fully functioning and secure it would have to be scrapped and rebuilt from scratch, a process that could take a few years if it is to be done right.

now here's the part that tickled my funny bone. the company hired to build the site is a canadian company, cgi, that has a history of cutting corners and producing less than stellar results. mr mcafee further stated that cgi contracted out a large part of the contract to second rate programmers in india. so the big question is, is the obama administration corrupt or incompetent to have done such a thing? this web site might be one of the most complicated and high profile sites in the world and it also contains some of the most sensitive data on the planet including the personal medical history and financial data of people potentially numbering in the hundreds of millions and lets not forget this site will be processing data with financial implications reaching into the trillions! there is room for a lot of shenanigans when money changing hands may be counted in the trillions over time. so why in the fuck would they cut corners? once again, corruption or incompetence?

the reason this brought a wee smile to my face is the friction between the canadian prime minister and obumble. prime minister harper has been kissing obumble's ass for a few years trying to get keystone approved without any success, only receiving threats over the level of our carbon emissions. could this be harper's revenge? i doubt it but it's fun to think about.

i love you sons of bitches

the be goods

i've been a be good tanya fan for years and consider them to be a successful band. they've put out several albums and i've even purchased a few of them. so it was a great surprise when i learned that one of the band members WAS INVOLVED IN AN ACCIDENT and was in financial hardship. maybe i just fell off the turnip truck but i thought that members of a successful band would be rolling in the dough. not so it would seem. justin beiber has $100,000,000.00 and one of the be good tanyas can't come up with $10,000. something isn't right.

you might have to live in vancouver to appreciate this song but it's still an excellent piece of music:

but what the fuck, who ever said the world made sense? there has been huge opposition to the keystone pipeline with protesters saying the world will end and the pipeline will ruin the enviroment. well guess what, if the pipeline isn't built the oil will be moved by rail and RAILWAY ACCIDENTS HAPPEN, 42 people confirmed dead, 5 missing and a town burned down to rat shit. and a few days ago it happened again, CN TRAIN STILL BURNING. that's right, the accident occurred on october 19 and the son of a bitch is still burning. yes, kill those pipelines and build more trains.

one further comment on keystone. obama is still farting and tap dancing over whether or not to issue his royal decree giving consent to complete the pipeline or whether to mothball the fucking thing. there is lots of arguing over economic or enviromental impact but that's got fuck all to do with the decision. any investor worth his or her salt knew a few years ago that nothing would happen until after the 2014 mid term elections.

but fuck the piplelines and railroads, let's celebrate the genius of the be good tanyas!

i love you sons of bitches and my tires are still inflated!

tires

does anyone remember my tire saga of several months ago? to recap, i had a flat tire and my other 3 tires were not in great shape. the tire store strongly recommended that i buy 4 new tires and told me they couldn't fix the flat. i said no and told them to put air in my leaky tire. they came back and told me that they had one mismatched tire that they could sell me for $70. it was a deal so i had 1 new tire and 3 crappy tires. the plan was to drive it for a while then look for 3 good quality used tires. well, today things happened.

there's a used tire store that advertises excellent deals on used tires but it's a fair distance away. i called, gave them the size i was looking for and was told they had some fucking beauties. after a frustrating drive in heavy traffic i arrived at the tire store only to find the tires were shit. not only were they heavily worn, i could see where one had been repaired on the sidewall. the manager had a very good sun tan. i gave him a dirty look and walked out.

back home and onto craigslist. i find several ads that look interesting and call them all deciding on a little hole in the wall shop which told me they had 2 used michelins with 90% tread. i hopped in the mighty hyundai and was off to the shop. sure enough the michelins were very nice so i decided to buy them at which point he told me he had 2 of the same and would give me a little discount if i took all four. i had to think long and hard because that would mean dumping my almost new yokohama. i finally said yes and went for a walk whilst they installed the tires. when i returned they were installing the tires and i went to have a look. the second pair of tires were not michelins and they were not in great shape. a very heated discussion ensued where my excellent f bomb skills were put to good use. after a good argument i insisted that he replace my good yokohama and only sell me the original 2 michelins. it took him a while to agree. then he suddenly realized that he might have one good michelin and we went to have a look. it was a fucking beauty and all was right with the world. i ended up with 3 almost new michelins at a very good price. if not for my combative nature i would have been thoroughly fucked by the shady automotive shops.

i heard this song on cbc radio and the opening few lines really hit home:

i love you sons of bitches.

the spending fight explained

fuck me, it worked. usually i have a tough time reproducing a graph. i guess somebody up there likes me today. i often see pro obama articles that show some sort of a graph depicting him as the most frugal president in modern times and of course there are anti obama articles that depict him as satan incarnate spending the country into oblivion. so what's the real story?

who the fuck knows what the real story is but the graph above defines the problem quite clearly in my eyes. in 1963 discretionary spending was 67.6% of total spending but now the figure has shrunk to 24.2% and mandatory spending (health and social security) has risen to 61.8% from 25.4%. discretionary spending is the money the politicians can spend on pet projects, reward supporters, feather their own nests etc and mandatory spending is the stuff they have very little control over, the money must be spent. one of my favorite quotes is, "when the watering hole gets smaller, the animals get meaner." can you see where i'm heading?

in this case discretionary spending is the watering hole and it is getting smaller every year with no end in sight as the demographics change with the ratio of workers to retirees shrinking and obesity skyrocketing. simply put, there isn't enough free money to go around these days. in the past politics was like pro rasslin, a good show when the cameras are on but when the cameras go off the politicians would retreat to their inner sanctums, light their cigars then divide the money. there was enough to go around. now there is not enough to go around so they no longer can play nicely. the gloves are off.

another very interesting point on the graph is the percent spent on interest. at the present time it is at 14%, a doubling of the figure from 1963. right now interest rates are almost at zero. they could easily double or triple in the next few years. it's not a question of IF rates rise, it's a question of WHEN rates rise. every increase in interest spending, means a corresponding decrease in discretionary spending. and one day, the watering hole may be completely dry.

here is a graph of historic 10 year rates for mr bananas, i think there is room for an increase.

"With regards to Quantitative Easing, unlike Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, I believe that the spending isn’t about creating new jobs. It’s about the fact that the Federal Government spends about 1.2 trillion dollars more than they take in per year. They appear able to ‘hoodwink’ bond-buyers into buying about 750 billion dollars’ worth of bonds… which leaves them about 450 billion shy."

bottom line, we will be living in interesting times very soon. but all the preceding analysis might be total bullshit and we are the brink of enlightenment.

i love you sons of bitches.

lost at sea

what started out as a simple exercise turned into 10 minutes of frustration. i previously mentioned an excellent movie that i was watching and the gimmick de jour was to reveal this movie at a later date. well today is the later date and my profile has been updated to include the excellent new movie. somehow i ended up on the template bullshit and after 10 minutes it was time to move on. a simple template is now applied and if i ever get the motivation it will be replaced. who gives a shit, right?

the new movie that definitely deserves to be included in my top ten films is.....REPO MAN!

sat chit ananda! repo man brought me that elusive moment of bliss. real moments of bliss are few and far between for me and of course they cannot be forced or pre planned, they just happen. any movie with harry dean stanton is always going to be good but throw in a host of other odd ball characters and the hint of otherworldly occurrences and let the magic begin. this might just lead me to a harry dean stanton marathon.

the new deadwood discs arrived:

i haven't played a disc yet but the packaging is light years better than the packaging that came with those motherfucking nine iron discs i bought from e-bay. i bought these from amazon and they were nice enough to give me a free 30 day prime membership. i later found out that the free trial automatically becomes a $79 per year charge. these internet vendors don't miss a trick.

so i fell in love with repo man and the deadwood on blu-ray arrived, can life get any better? fuck yeah!

i found these this morning and they sound excellent:

i found them whilst walking ruby. the packaging was partly open but they looked and smelled new so a little alcohol wipe and bobs your uncle.

i love you sons of bitches!

the shutdown

i have an observation on the shutdown. it's pretty tiresome watching obama and the republicans argue over who is responsible for the little dust up. yesterday whilst watching the news i heard one pundit comment that "tapering" may be off the table due to the damage being inflicted on the economy by the government shutdown. then it hit me! this is exactly what obama wants, an excuse to continue the fed's bond purchasing spending spree!

in order to grease the wheels of the economy obama and his crew turned to quantitative easing a few years back, QE for short. well QE didn't exactly set the world on fire so they did it again, QE2. once again, quantitative easing did not jump start the economy and critics of quantitative easing had a field day. so that was the end of the road for quantitative easing. the next rabbit to be pulled out of the hat was "the feds" bond buying program, $85,000,000,000.00 per month with no fixed end date. the bond buying program is nothing but FUCKING QUANTITATIVE EASING! so obama gets to keep greasing the wheels and creating the illusion of an economic recovery. yes there is a recovery, a JOBLESS RECOVERY!

so that's my great revelation. maybe this whole shutdown bullshit is just an excuse to keep quantitative easing afloat and maintain the illusion of economic recovery. what happens when tapering (the slow wind down of quantitative easing) begins? theoretically interest rates will rise and that will not be good for obama and all the debt he has piled onto the already large stack. a cynic would say that obama just wants to keep all the balls in the air until his term expires and then it's the next guy's problem. in this case, the next guy might be his old nemesis, hillary!. so keeping the fed bond buying program going kills two birds with one stone for the current war monger in the white house. it keeps the system awash with money thus creating the illusion of economic recovery and it keeps the fuse lit on the economic time bomb facing the next president, probably hillary.

i apologize if i've bored anyone with that wee rant on quantitative easing when i really meant to bask in the glory of my latest acquisition, deadwood on blu-ray! i ordered them from amazon this morning. i saw an advertisement for the complete breaking bad series with 55 hours of commentary all packaged in a small replica oil barrel and decided to check out the price just to satisfy my curiosity. as if by magic, amazon knew i liked deadwood and offered me a great deal. i took the bait, hook line and sinker. oh yeah, the breaking bad shit was about $200 but who gives a shit, i'll soon have deadwood on blu-ray and the fun will begin anew.

so i got that going for me too, which is nice.

i love you sons of bitches.

life is good

life is good, let me count the ways:

1.baseball playoffs begin.

2.hockey season begins.

3.soccer playoffs around the corner.

4.canadian football playoffs around the corner.

5. nfl has begun and the shithawks are undefeated.

6. this is the big one, THE NEW CROP OF APPLES HAVE HIT THE SHELVES!. crisp fresh apples at a good price, if that isn't nice, what is?

life is still not good for my depressed buddy. for as long as i can remember he has hosted baseball playoff parties with unlimited amounts of alcohol and fish. no parties this year and he doesn't seem the least bit interested in the playoffs or the world series. this is his 4th or 5th bout of major depression and he has yet to seek medical help so my compassion for his plight is on the wane big time. he has moved on from yelling at me for not understanding that his problems are bigger than any other human's problems then threatening to commit suicide to a subdued, drowning in self-pity persona. there's a frump joke in here somewhere but it would be very heartless to go down that road, maybe next post. so it goes.

am i my brother's keeper. who the fuck knows, i'm going to eat fresh apples and watch sports for a few weeks then i might turn my attention to my brothers in arms.

once again i have to thank cbc radio for introducing me to very nice band. can anyone suggest a good internet radio station similar to CBC MUSIC RADIO?

i love you sons of bitches.

one billion?

i'm happy the MICHAEL JACKSON WRONGFUL DEATH TRIAL is coming to an end. it's not that i find it tacky or a waste of public funds, i'm dying to hear the verdict. i haven't kept track of the proceedings, i've just read the headlines and maybe clicked on a few photo galleries. from what i've been able to glean the the case revolves around the doctor who would do anything for a buck and who (whom?) he took his marching orders from. of course it always comes down to suing the entity with the deepest pockets. the good doctor doesn't have deep pockets but the evil corporation AEG does have deep pockets so they are the target.

i think everyone agrees that michael was a talented but highly flawed person whether it be drugs, sexual attraction to children or his penchant for plastic surgery. he might have been flawed but i always admired his style. i loved the sergeant pepper outfit and the umbrellas he carried in the sun. i often use an umbrella in the sun, it's better than sweating like a pig and getting skin cancer. the man worked very hard and by all accounts had a shitty childhood being bullied by his father and exploited by his less talented siblings so what the fuck, why not build an amusement park and buy any crazy shit that caught his eye. need a wife? what the fuck, get me the daughter of elvis!

one more showbiz comment. the lovely mrs myshkin watches dancing with the stars and occasionally our paths briefly cross and i see what she's watching. i read that one of my favorite characters, bill nye, is a contestant at the moment and almost got kicked off last night. she gets real mad when i talk to her during dancing with the stars or any other show and son of a bitch, i forgot to pester her last night. i could have killed two birds with one stone, watched bill nye the science guy dance and annoyed my nemesis.

i love you sons of bitches.

the shooter

it seems everyone is pissed at the navy for not doing DUE DILIGENCE ON SECURITY CHECK ON SHOOTER. this is all fine and dandy but if the navy had done a thorough background check and denied a security clearance to mr alexis would the world have been a safer place? shit no, there still would have been a crazy man walking around with lots of guns. in fact, had he been denied a security clearance i suspect he would have been even more paranoid and heard even more voices. if he couldn't get into the naval base would he have said, "gosh i better don't shoot anyone since i haven't got a valid security clearance?" once again, shit no! i think he would have taken his guns to a school or shopping mall and potentially done greater damage.

there will now be a great hue and cry for better background checks for security clearance passes but will this make the world a safer place? will all people denied a security pass be sent to the funny farm to be drugged and cured of their lunacy? shit no, they'll fall between the cracks and the mass shootings will continue. at the present time me and the roo are preoccupied with restoring an equitable distribution of global wealth so we will not be able to contribute to a solution, but i do see a possible solution to this crisis on the horizon. the king, aka bbc, recently did a post on THE UPCOMING ENVIROMENTAL DISASTER. that's the only solution i see to the problem of crazy people, enviromental disaster decimating the human race.

i love you sons of bitches,

exceptional??

the period of atonement is over. it's not that i've finished atoning, it's that i never should have started atoning in the first place. i didn't sign up for that supersticion.

to be exceptional or not to be exceptional, that is the question. obama says america is exceptional whilst putin says nyet, america is not exceptional.

of course America is exceptional, any idiot should be able to figure this out. but is America exceptionally benevolent? is america exceptionally peace loving? is america exceptionally free of corruption? of course America is NOT exceptionally benevolent, peace loving or free from corruption. but in america's defense, i can't think of any countries that do possess these attributes.

this raises the question; in what area is america exceptional? i have no clue and furthermore have no interest in defining what makes america exceptional. i do have one observation to make about america:

america is exceptionally polarized. the right blames the left and the left blames the right. the poor blame the rich and rich blame the poor. in my travels through cyber space i stop by several left leaning blogs opining that obama walks on water and his shit don’t stink and of course the right leaning blogs are opining that obama is satan incarnate. these people bicker back and forth and there is absolutely no way that one side is going to change the views of the other side. they just become more entrenched in their views and also become more and more polarized in their views of the state of the union. the states are not united.

if an american was to call me exceptionally ignorant of what is transpiring in america, he or she may be absolutely correct. shit, i’m exceptionally ignorant of many things going on in canada. i don’t give a shit about most things over which canadians incessantly argue. i really couldn’t give a shit if we have a liberal or conservative government. they’ll both tax the shit out me then tell me that i shouldn't do most of the stuff i enjoy.

as far as the public relations skirmish between obama and putin goes, put me in putin’s camp. obama does not have the god given right to bomb a sovereign country.

i heard this song on cbc radio and it made me real verklempt. in the past i had an exceptionally ignorant view of the cbc, canadian broadcasting corporation. i still think don cherry and hockey night in Canada suck farts out of dead horses but i love cbc radio.

mazel tov, i love you sons of bitches.

ouch

38 years ago i was a proud member of the canadian coast guard serving in the arctic. one of things i was told had to do with dying, don't worry about the ship sinking, it's the helicopters that'll kill you. well, IT HAPPENED AGAIN. i always hated flying in those things, not because of the safety threat but because of the noise and smell. several years ago when sonny was working in a mining camp in the yukon he sent me this picture:

this was a supply helicopter for the camp and he occasionally flew in it. in this case the transmission gave out just after take off at an altitude of about 10 feet. no one was killed, just a few broken bones and concussions. mamas don't let your babies grow up to fly helicopters.

at this very moment sonny is in the yukon working on an abandoned mine with a leaky tailing pond. it seems like yesterday he was a kid, then a university student, then an e.i.t. (engineer in training), then an intermediate engineer and now he's the lead engineer cleaning up mines. he's getting up to 16 billable hours/day on this project and the best part is, no helicopter rides!

i was in the dentist chair getting my broken tooth pulverized this morning watching the news channel when the news broke about the helicopter. it took my mind off the tooth for a nano second. it was a 2 hour appointment and lucky me, i have another 1 hour appointment next week to put the fucking thing back together. 2013, the summer of fucked up teeth: 5 cavities and 1 broken tooth. the dentist is getting a lot of billable hours out of me. can anyone guess what i did after the dental appointment?

a little fishing followed by ice cream. breakfast of champions!

i love you sons of bitches.

syria

it’s taken a fair bit of restraint to keep my nose out of the situation in syria but i can no longer keep quiet. from my limited knowledge of the situation, figuring this out is a tough nut to crack but what the hell, not knowing all the facts has never stopped me in the past.

the death toll so far is estimated to be greater than 100,000 over the past year or two. there has been a fair bit of saber rattling amongst foreign countries whose criticism is basically along party lines as to who is to blame. the west and most of the affluent arab world seem to support the rebels while those nogoodnik commie bastards, their allies and iran along with the hardline enemies of israel appear to be backing the current administration of assad.

so over >100,000 people die and there is moral outrage but no rush to action. then 300 people are killed in what is rumored to be as a result of chemical weapons. it seems the west is perfectly fine with huge numbers of people being killed with conventional weapons. after all, conventional weapons are a product of the military industrial complex. but then 300 people are killed by weapons that were not produced or sold by the military industrial complex. black market weapons! well, jesus fuck me christ, it’s a crisis! we must take immediate action. lo and behold, the democrats and republicans appear able to make a deal in a few days whereas they have been unable to agree upon health care or budget items for at least 6 years!

so the way i see it, it’s ok to slaughter >100,000 people with internationally sanctioned weapons but you better don’t use weapons that we don’t produce or we will take action and our action will be supported by legitimate weapons clearly manufactured by the military industrial complex. by using these weapons, the united states will compensate the military industrial complex for the revenue lost by syria’s blatant use of black market weaponry.

so that’s it. if you’re gonna slaughter people, follow the fucking rules or you’ll pay the consequences. business is business and the rules are clear. a giant fucking bomb on a missile is not a weapon of mass destruction but a squirt of sarin is a weapon of mass destruction.

i love you sons of bitches.

drum roll please.......

the time has come for all good coins to come to the aid their cyclist. after one adventurous year of cycling in mostly good weather. (only fools and peasants cycle in the pouring rain) the fruits of my labor have been tallied:

and the grand total is: 120 coins or $240 canadian. lucky me. now the question is what to spend it on?

who fuck knew canada had 2 warships? i guess prime minister harper felt he needed 2 boats in order to call himself an admiral. unfortunately is looks like we only have 1 qualified captain; 2 CANADIAN WARSHIPS COLLIDE. i suspect the ship at fault was under the command of a nine iron. this is only a guess but those guys can't drive for sour apples.

oh well, summer is almost over and it's time for all the little hooligans to return to the classroom. ha, ha!

$240! if that isn't nice, what is?

3 more days

in 3 more days i will open the jar of toonies (2 dollar coins) and find out how many trips i took to the supermarket on the iron maiden. i've been staring at the jar for weeks and have resisted temptation. i'm dying to know how many coins are in the jar but therein lies the problem. once i open the jar and count the coins i won't have anything to look forward to. my raison de etre will have vanished.

i'm thoroughly enjoying the tomatoes and without further ado, i present little leo, the lemon tomato:

it doesn't really taste much different than a red tomato but who gives a shit, i can walk around saying, look at my beautiful lemon tomato. i gave the best one to my father and he didn't really seem to give a shit about it. i guess not giving a shit is hereditary but i'm not complaining. not giving a shit usually works out very well. the trick is making people think you really do give a shit. this is essential at the cracker factory.

in other news, mr google, sergey brin, has ditched his wife for a YOUNGER WOMAN. i find this very disturbing. all week i've heard about cars that will be able to drive themselves by 2020 and i'm pretty sure that google maps and satellite services will be front and center. the man responsible our safety should at least be able to resist the charms of a younger woman. i've thought google was a great company for years and if the world goes to self driving cars using google technology, there should be more than a few kopeks profit.

there is one thing i give a shit about:

i love you sons of bitches.

inequality?

a lot has been said about economic inequality and the ever increasing chasm between the haves and the have nots. this little deal is QUITE INTERESTING and kind of cool to play with even though it seems to be a little biased against white men. all is can say is, jesus fucking christ i apologize for being a white male. i'm just lucky to born on a white male friendly planet. there's a few planets where i wouldn't want to be a white male for all the tea in china.

i don't know who owns the outfit that produces the CRONUT BURGER, but a lot of people have puked their guts out after eating one. it's pretty easy to sit back and say any fool who eats that shit deserves to get sick but i must confess, in my younger days, after a few drinks, a cronut burger would have looked pretty good. same thing for wendy's baconator. the thought of eating one of those things makes me sick but once again, in my younger years, i would have ran to wendy's as soon as the first buy one, get one free coupon arrived in the mail.

so heres the question, would you eat a cronut burger?

and here's a little bit of news that made me smile. JUSTIN TRUDEAU SMOKED POT AFTER BECOMING A MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT! as i said, my first reaction was, right on justin, you're my man! but then i read where that fucknut prime minister of ours, fat bald harper, was grinning like the cheshire cat when he heard about this. just one more item for harper to base his attack ads on for the next election. the more whacky stuff trudeau does, the higher the odds of harper getting re-elected. it can be quite depressing.

in the spirit of canadiana, let me present a cool song that makes me proud to be a canadian:

i love you sons of bitches.

new gimmick?

last september i bit the bullet and had the drive train replaced in the iron maiden. i hemmed and hawed over that decision for a long time but decided what the hell, that old bike and i have a lot of memories, so i sunk a few hundred dollars into it. to have a little fun i decided to toss a toonie (2 bucks) into a jar every time i rode her to the supermarket since that's about how much money i would save on gas. well, september 1 will be d-day. i'll open the jar and count the coins. all i know right now is the jar feels heavy:

the decanter beside the jar contains about 5 pounds of pennies. remember when i had the brilliant idea to buy 25 pounds of pennies? well, i still have 20 pounds looking for a home. all i can say is it seemed like a good idea at the time.

the tomatoes are doing very well. the picture below shows a few ripe ones next to an almost ripe lemon tomato. they're from different plants that i failed to properly prune and have crossed over each other.

my buddy continues to deteriorate and refuses to seek medical help. he wouldn't get out of bed this morning saying he'd rather kill himself but lacked the guts. he is a very difficult man to deal with at the best of times. as they say, pride goeth before a fall.

i love you sons of bitches, any guesses on the number of coins?

vanity sizing

hands up if you know what VANITY SIZING is. i wasn't familiar with the term until i complained about pants not fitting. a few weeks ago i bought a pair of pants without trying them on, yes i know, dumb move. when i put them on i couldn't believe how fucking big they were. i take a size 32 waist and these things had to be at least 34's. in the past if i saw "relaxed fit" i knew they would be big but that little hint seems to be out the window. when i took the pants back i grabbed a 31 and a 30 to try on. the 31 was still way to big for me and the 30 was just a fucking big. i probably would have fit quite nicely into a 28 but said fuck it and asked for my money back.

i guess that's the new paradigm. make chubby people think they're thin by mislabeling clothes. oh yeah, my fucking feet seem to have grown a few sizes over the years. people want small waists and big feet. people will bitch and squawk if they buy a product that doesn't accurately state the ingredients or true weight but they don't say peep if the deceitful practice allows them to feel thin.

i was talking to my suicidal friend a few minutes ago and it occurred to me an explanation may be in order for my frequent childish remarks about jews and nine irons. my buddy is a first class racist. years ago he hated nine irons with an intensity that would put a pitbull on guard to shame. every thing that was wrong with the world was the fault of the nine irons. for the past few years his hatred has switched from nine irons to jews. no matter what conversation we have it will usually end up in an argument over jews. there are topics i won't touch because i know it's going to start an argument over jews or nine irons. so if i've had one of these conversations just before doing one of my childish posts, there's a good chance i'll toss in a few digs at my israeli or asian brothers out of frustration. truth be told, it's snooty eurotrash that really bug me.

on a more positive note, me and ruby are swimming in ripe tomatoes. when tomatoes are in season, the tomato slice should be at least as thick as the meat patty in a burger. at least that's how i see the world.

these guys are pretty good. i liked them on the "i'm not there" but just now got around to checking them out.

i love you sons of bitches.

one small step

a few weeks ago i mentioned there might be a few changes in pilgrimville. a change occurred today, not the big change i had in mind, but a change nevertheless. it had been my plan to retire this summer but a few unexpected things popped up and, well you know the story, the best laid plans......

rather than pulling the plug, i gave it a tug today and will be on leave until the next fiscal year. i'm so excited i could shit. this isn't how things were supposed to play out. when i was a young man, i dreamed of the day i could retire and party like it's 1999. i'd be out drinking, partying, playing poker and generally having the time of my life but i never factored in one very important detail, AGE! although i now have the time and resources to fulfill those wonderful dreams, my decaying old body will have none of it. good bye alcohol, hello vegetables. it's been the ruin of many a poor boy.

the other plan was to leave the rat race and join two friends on vancouver island. well, that plan was shot to shit too. one friend up and died and the other has gone stark raving mad. he is probably pacing back and forth at this very moment waiting for the roof to collapse on the new house he built two years ago. several years ago he had a really nice little house on the ocean but became convinced that the house was about to collapse and sold it real cheap. he then bought a really beautiful large on house on the ocean and within a few months he was convinced that house was going to slide into the ocean and he'd be ruined. the house didn't slip into the ocean but he was ruined. major depression, suicidal and desperate. he sold the house at a huge loss and bought a new house in a family oriented sub-division. after several months he decided that the new house was depreciating too much in value so he sold it at a loss and built his current house. it's a fucking beauty, not on the ocean but across the street from the ocean with an unobstructed view. things were going smoothly until his well ran dry and again he's convinced the house is fallilng apart and he's back to being suicidal. there's one big difference this time, he's flat broke. i won't go into how he lost a ton of money on the market, suffice to say that mental illness played a big part. through all this nonsense he's refused medical help, i'm his surrogate therapist. oh, the stories i could tell.

so plan a and plan b are both down the shitter. scotty, i need that third option!!

this kind of sums it up.

i love you sons of bitches.

sochi

so russia is CRACKING DOWN ON GAY PROLIFERATION at the sochi olympics. i'm surprised that russia is doing this as it surely is an impossible public relations battle to overcome. it has been my experience that engaging in a war of words with jews, indians or homosexuals is akin to pissing into the wind.

now george takei is jumping on the bandwagon and calling for the sochi games to be MOVED TO VANCOUVER., lucky us. i didn't really pay much attention to this bullshit until that little rat bastard weasel takei opened his pie hole. i have a two bit bullshit facebook account and somehow i'm always seeing takei's ugly mug on my wall as lots of people seem to enjoy sharing his shit. until that little rat bastard fudge packer issues a unequivocal and sincere apology to william shatner for all the cheap shots he's leveled at the man responsible for any success he's enjoyed, he is persona non grata in my books.

until this little gay dust up, the big news out of sochi was the CORRUPTION AND THEFT that was occurring on a grand scale. whenever there are large amounts of money at stake it doesn't matter if if there is a socialist government or a capitalist government, the human condition of greed will appear. anyone dreaming of a just society, an equitable distribution of wealth, racial harmony or global cooperation hasn't even managed to climb aboard the turnip truck, let alone fall off it. we are what we are and i get awfully tired of people trying to turn us into something we are not or trying to make us feel guilty for supposed character flaws that are hard wired into our collective psyches. so it goes.

i had planned a few big changes in pilgrimville but health issues have temporarily put things on hold.

i love you sons of bitches.

public service announcement

i hope to spare you the pain i endured whilst doing a few repairs on the utopian trek bike. after filling my tires with air at the gas station i noticed that the bike had a broken spoke. i stopped at the bike shop and was quite happy when they sold me a spoke for a buck. seemed like a great deal and the plan was to put on a new rear tire and change the spoke whilst the wheel was off the bike. after taking the wheel off i soon found out that changing a spoke as trickier than it looked, i couldn't get at the spoke because the rotor for the disc brake was in the way.

i grabbed my allen keys to remove the rotor and quickly discovered it was attached with some sort of a star shaped screw but as luck would have it i had a set of them so it was off with the rotor. after the rotor was off i soon discovered that in order to slide the spoke out i would have to remove the cassette of gears on the other side of the wheel. this was where i drew the line, a special tool is needed for that and probably a lot more skill than i have. i removed the old spoke by bending the shit our of it. now i had to get the new spoke in and the only way was to bend the shit out of it and hope i could straighten it out. i couldn't quite get it perfectly straight and these things are an exact length so the kinks in it made it too short to reach the nipple. fuck me, i spent about 30 minutes with pliers straightening the spoke but finally got it done.

next came the tire. this was the first time i changed a skinny 27 inch road tire and expected it to be easy but the son of bitch was very hard to get onto the rim. i almost snapped the tire levers getting it in but finally the job was done. next i had to put the wheel back into the frame which i did with relative ease but when i gave it a test ride the it was not shifting smoothly so i had to take it off and make a few adjustments. it shifted like a dream and all seemed to be right with the world.

later that evening i decided to take a look at it and bask in the glory of my handiwork but much to my chagrin i noticed that the bearings were lose. fuck me, i had to take the wheel off again to tighten the bearings. i tightened the bearings and finally the job was done. so here's my public service announcement, if you have a busted spoke, learn to live with it!

the whole ordeal was so stressful that ruby got a shit load of grey hair, poor old roo.

i love you sons of bitches, just don't ask me to fix your spokes.

my new favorite comedian:

satan

the tomatoes are doing exceptionally well this year. take a look at satan:

i've named the little guy satan because there's a horn growing out of it's head. today is the first time i noticed it's starting to turn a lovely shade of orange, soon to be red. i'm out checking on it several times a day so this color is new. the lemon tomato plant is finally starting to produce fruit. last year i got one very nice yellow tomato which is pretty pitiful for a tomato plant. this might be the last year for lemon tomatoes.

i wish that little son of bitch donald would start another growth spurt. as things look now, i won't be getting any flowers unless he's a real late bloomer. a few days ago i removed a big clump of "babies breath" that was encroaching on donald. the lovely mrs myshkin got rather upset when she noticed what i had done. she still isn't talking to me. (note to self: if she starts talking to me, remove more baby's breath)

so what's better than detroit going tits up? this is way the FUCK BETTER! how the hell can a business that pays no taxes and is able to issue tax deductible receipts get into financial trouble? easy, it can't. this is all a ruse to fleece its sheep out of more money and probably get a casino license or some other sort of license to print money. what bugs me more, cops or churches? tough call, i'll have to think on it for a few minutes.

i could use a few good lovelies in my life, big changes will soon be happening in pilgrimville.

oh yeah, some fat asshole threatened to beat the shit out me after i told him it wasn't nice to make his dog run in the heat while he rode a bike.

i love you sons of bitches

detroit be broke.

so detroit is in the throes of BANKRUPTCY and there might be a wee bit of pain. the bond holders and pensioners may take a bit of a haircut. i hope the rules of bankruptcy are respected this time unlike when obama and his crew stuck their noses into the automobile mess and unilaterally changed the rules. now i’m not a bankruptcy lawyer so this is just a layman’s opinion: the secured creditors have to be paid before the unsecured creditors get theirs. of course this is all negotiable.

why would i give a shit about this? simple, i don’t like cops and hope the cops take a hit on their pensions and health care. given the fact that everyone will take a haircut, it only stands to reason that the biggest pigs at the trough get a crew cut whilst those with the smallest pensions just get a wee trim. everyone keeps the first $10,000 then the rest of the haircut will be applied on a sliding scale.

have i ever mentioned that i don’t like cops? before loving you sons of bitches, that was my catch phrase and nothing has changed. i still don’t like cops. fuck me, the cops didn’t even want to give zimmerman a slap on the wrist until public furor took hold. how many young men have been euthanized by cops for simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time?

do you remember when the deaf indian was killed by the cops in seattle after not dropping his carving knife when ordered to do so by a cop. he was shot 5 times and what followed looked like a scene from the keystone cops:

that's right, 12 cops vs 1 dead indian. did the cops try to help him whilst he lay dying? fuck no, they finally flipped him over and handcuffed him without checking for a pulse or thinking about cpr.

like dylan said, the cops don't need you and man they expect the same.

i love you sons of bitches.

mental defectives

has my mental defective gimmick run its course and become stale? am i repeating myself over and over with no regard toward entertaining the reader? what kind of boring asshole would do such a thing?

last post i mentioned the broken tooth but didn't mention the other lovely details and this is true. i had a 9:45 appointment to get the tooth checked out and around 8:00 i experienced some violent diarrhea and had several trips to the commode before seeing the dentist. of course this made the unpleasant trip to the dentist about as unpleasant as you can get. that afternoon i also experienced a very upset stomach. i told myself that this was all due to the stress i was under. the following day i also had some violent diarrhea in the morning and again in the afternoon. ain't life grand.

wednesday evening i thought about all this and a light went on in my head, maybe it was the flax. twice a day, morning and early afternoon, i have a cup of boiling water with flax. flax must be refrigerated and has a limited shelf life. once before i experienced rancid flax and the result was violent diarrhea so i figured this might be the problem and tossed out the jar of ground flax in the fridge. thursday i used a new batch of flax and all was well with the world. my screwed up stomach was due to bad flax. now my question was, did i purchase rancid flax from the store or did some dumb cunt leave my jar of flax out in the sun??? who knows.

i'm a firm believer in the heath benefits of ground flax. i put a teaspoon of cinnamon in my morning cup of flax and a quarter teaspoon of tumeric in my afternoon cup of flax. both cinnamon and tumeric supposedly have health benefits and give the flax a little flavor.

so here's my question about zimmerman and trayvon. in order to be convicted of murder, the jury must find him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. if the jury is unable to arrive at a verdict after 2 days of deliberation, doesn't that indicate that there is a reasonable doubt?

leave it to townes van zandt for the last word on dental work

i love you sons of bitches.

i'll bet 2 bucks that the king wins the big hole fishing derby.

who be blue

who be blue?

i be blue, let me count the ways:

i just found out my best friend from high school died.

another good friend has a neurological muscular disease that has now fucked up his breathing.

my current best friend has been in a deep depression and every conversation turns into his wanting to commit suicide.

randy travis is in critical condition and i love that son of a bitch.

half a fucking tooth fell off today, major dental work.

so cry me a fucking river or tell me fuck off and quit complaining.

on the positive side an ORPHANED KILLER WHALE IS THRIVING IN THE WILD. i'd still like to go blow up a few nine iron whaling vessels.

and finally, this MADE ME LAUGH.

this song cheered me up a little and may have prevented me from going back to the nut house.

i love you sons of bitches. shit i feel better already!

and for reading all the way through my nauseating self pity, let me pass along something clever i heard on OZ last night:

television is a medium, rarely well done.

donald

i don't know what has happened to donald. he seems to have quit growing and his bottom leaves are getting a touch discolored. the missus misses no opportunity to tell me that donald is nothing but a weed. he might be a weed but he's my weed. or a jay would say to silent bob, that's not a weed, that's the holy fucking weed.

we are currently having a wee heat wave that is proving to be just what the doctor ordered for the tomato plants. i have never had tomatoes this early, it's usually mid august before things start to take shape. the only problem is a dearth of bees. there are a shitload of bees in our front yard where all the colorful flowers are but very few in the back yard so i've been trying to pollinate them myself. so far, so good.

after my short stay in the loony bin i've decided to watch one flew over the cuckoos nest for my 15 minutes of bliss before retiring to bed. i've always thought that it was one of the top 5 films ever produced. i can start laughing by just looking at danny devito and christopher lloyd. at times it can be painful watching billy grasp for words but i guess the mixture of humor and human frailty are what sets it apart from most other films.

time to trim a little fat.

i love you sons of bitches.

ouch

whilst reprogramming my brain at the foundation eliot suggested that i have my teeth checked. taking dental advice from a man with absolutely horrid dental hygiene could be construed as bordering on insanity but as i earlier stated, i’d do anything for eliot. a few days ago i showed up for some cleaning and scaling only to be informed that i had 3 teeth in need of repair, fucking fillings! today i showed up and endured 90 minutes of torture only to be told that there were 2 more teeth in need of repair. i didn’t book an appointment. i’ll ruminate on this for a while.

in the last post i posed the question, “can a person be cured of a condition he never had?” i’m disappointed that no one offered me any help on this stumper. of course i wasn’t asking this question for my own benefit and of course i didn’t check myself into the nut house for my own benefit either. there is a certain pipe smoker who will remain unnamed that i was trying to assist in overcoming a period of darkness. if this person could only swallow his pride and seek my help there might be a glimmer of hope for him. i am of the opinion that a person cannot be cured of a condition that they do not possess. it’s up to the person in question to realize that there’s nothing to cure. most trained medical professionals are loathe to admit this, after all they’re in the money making racket and there’s nothing better than a patient who cannot be cured. molly coddling is only good for the first 10 days, then hit the patient over the head with a wooden mallet and let the chips fall where they may. (that's why i checked out of the nut house on day 9)

so here is today’s big question:

is one year of enjoying candy worth the aggravation of 3 hours in the dentist’s chair? if i had to pay for the dental work the answer would be easy, fuck no. but since the dental work is free it’s a tough decision.

i love you sons of bitches,

back from the shadows

alright you sons of bitches i’m back after a grueling 10 day investigative reporting assignment in the nut house. the nut house can be a lot of fun for the first few days but the loonies begin to get on your nerves once the novelty wears off and you realize these goofballs really are nuts and some of them are downright dangerous. i’d like to thank sonny for passing along a few messages and not telling his mother where i was. she’s been trying to have me declared legally incompetent for years but it looks like i’ve dodged another bullet. the back yard is full of holes, almost as if some fool has been looking for buried treasure.

doctors greenberg, silverstein, cohen, abramson, applebaum, dershowitz, finklestein, goldberg, greenbaum,lipchitz, rosenberg, reichman, turtlebaum, silverman, shapiro, weinberger and zimmerman all agreed that they had done all that could be done for a man in my condition. then the doctor in charge, a mister troutberg, declared: "You were sick, but now you are well again. And there's work to be done." all these doctors seemed to have something in common but i just couldn’t put my finger on it. i’m hoping that one of these days i can pin point the common thread.

have i been truly cured?

was i truly ill?

can a person be cured of a condition he never had?

yes! i wasn’t nuts, i just thought i was nuts and doctor troutberg told me i was well and that’s good enough for me. but he’s the one who is truly nuts if he thinks i’m interested in any work that needs to be done. now that i’m an expert in mental illness, i’ll answer any and all questions that interest me.

i love you sons of bitches.

ps. there's a fortune to be made in the headcase racket.

update

I received a note from my father today. I'm pretty sure he would like me to share it with the sons of bitches he loves:

hello sonny, que pasa?

i was going to write sooner but eliot says i’m a wonderful person and i shouldn’t worry too much about how much other people are worrying about me. i don’t know if i can take the pressure of being a wonderful person, i’ve never faced this challenge before. it’s a lot easier being an asshole than being a wonderful person but i really don’t want to let eliot down. i’d do anything for eliot.

i don’t know how long i’ve been here because it’s hard to tell if i’m really here or just daydreaming again. this isn’t the best daydream i’ve ever had but i’m sure it’s not the worst daydream i’ve ever had either. so far your mother hasn’t shown up in any of my dreams and eliot says that’s a good thing and to call him tout de suite if she shows up. i always thought it was “toot sweet” but eliot’s right hand man, quite possibly the best writer on the planet, says tout de suite is way better because it makes people think you are real adroit. i don’t have the heart to tell him that being wonderful is pressure enough and i’m no where near ready to be adroit.

eliot has put me on fly patrol. his office has lots of flies and those little rat bastards are having the time of their lives feasting on the leftover pizza and hungry man meals. when i do my job correctly, the time of their lives is very short , very short indeed. eliot has taught me the two best ways to kill flies; the cleanest way to catch and kill a fly is to get a glass of soapy water and get the fly from below. wait for the fly to land on the ceiling and then place the glass of soapy water under the fly and watch it fly directly down into the soapy water. the second way is to use an elastic band as a weapon; pull the elastic band back, take aim and release. you have to sneak up on the fly and get real close but that's easier said than done. the down side of this method is it can leave a real mess on the walls. eliot’s walls need a real good scrubbing.

the bad news is i’ve almost ran out of fish and eliot becomes totally fixated on some guy named trout every time i say fish. the big rule around here is “god damn it, you’ve got to be kind” and i find it a lot easier to be kind after a little fishing trip. there’s another rule about not screwing around with the red phone but i can handle that one without any fish, my kingdom for a bag of fish.

the darkness was beginning to lift but suddenly i’m right back where i started. when you have a faulty electrical system things can turn on a dime. hello darkness my old friend.

say hi to ruby for me.

love, dad.

At first I thought this was just another one of my father's pranks, but I am now concerned.

toodle-loo

Today was a long time coming but it finally came. My dad called me at 4:00 this morning and announced that he was sick and tired of being sick and tired and had made the decision to seek professional help, I was tasked with chauffeuring him to a better place. My dad’s idea of professional help and my mother’s idea of professional help are polar opposites. My dad seeks a spiritual rebirth while my mother wants to pump him full of drugs. Dad has always loved drugs but he has never trusted his health to the medical industrial complex. I guess one man’s meat is another man’s poison.

It was a bitter sweet moment when dad emerged from the house with his tattered alligator suitcase that once belonged to his grandfather, my great grandfather. In contrast to the tattered suitcase he was wearing his best suit and had a brand new pair of adidas gazelle sneakers on his gnarly old feet. He just stood in the doorway like a cigar store Indian until mother gave him a good shove and slammed the door. As I approached him it became clear that he had been crying. Was this really my father?

I took the suitcase from his feeble hand and was surprised by the weight, it was a lot heavier than it looked. Dad noticed the look of surprise on my face and whispered in my ear, “pennies from heaven son.” I managed to stow the old suitcase in the trunk of my trusty corolla and we were on our way but there was only one problem, where were we going? Dad handed me a scrap of paper with an address and we were on our merry way. The address turned out to be the greyhound bus depot.

My poor old dad struggled to get out the car and retrieve his suitcase from the trunk of the old corolla and then we just stood staring at each other for what seemed an eternity. I noticed more tears streaming down from his once bright eyes. he gave me a very tender embrace and once more he whispered something in my ear: “If I don’t make it back alive, tell your mother that there’s fifty pounds of gold hidden in the basement and 3 tins of hundred dollar bills buried in back yard. That should drive the old cunt nuts.”

As I watched dad enter the bus depot, it was my turn to shed a few tears and I noticed a scrap of paper he had slipped into my shirt pocket. It was the address of this blog along with his password and a note saying he loved the sons of bitches who read his blog and a request for me to tell his story but that will have to wait for another day when my grief has abated.

I’m going to miss the old reprobate.