adios 2015

it seems like yesterday that we were welcoming 2015 and now we're saying goodbye. 2015 was one of the worst years of my life. i was prepared to say it was the worst but upon reflection, i had no interaction with the police and didn't die, so things could have been worse.

i'm big on new year's resolutions and 2015 was a spectacular success. on january 1 2014 my resolution was to regain a little of my youth through push ups. i started at ten and it hurt like crazy but i had this insane idea that if i kept pushing myself, the body would heal itself and life would be good. well, somewhere in the low twenties my shoulder blew up and that was the end of the push ups but i really, really hate to lose and i wasn't about to let some fucking push ups get the best of me. i resolved to win the battle in 2015.

around mid november 2014 i did one push up and continued to do one push up per day for a few weeks and then graduated to two push ups per day. i kept adding one push up every few weeks until i hit twenty in august. twenty was a struggle so i slowed down the rate of increase and now sit at twenty four. on a good day the first ten are like floating on air. the best part is there were no set backs with the slow increase and that made every day a success! it took me sixty years to learn this lesson; a series of small victories is better than a few large victories intermingled with a few failures. i can say with 100% certainty that a sixty year old body is seriously lacking regenerative powers. somewhere around fifty five it went to shit.

now it's time to settle on a resolution for 2016. i've been retired for 4 months and haven't straightened out the pension and finances so that might be a resolution. i could write a book on my pension fuck ups over the past few months but i don't like to dwell on failure and the pension has been a giant failure so far. maybe i'll teach rip some basic mathematics.

yesterday marked six months since my buddy committed suicide. most suicidal people are lonely and commonly believe "they'll miss me when i'm gone." i had the task of calling his former co-workers and friends to break the sad news and almost no one said, "what a shame, he was such a nice guy." the common reaction was, "what a selfish prick." maybe not those exact words but almost everyone was angry at him for taking the easy way out and most people said "this must be hard on you." fuck, it wasn't hard on me. one fucking idiot even suggested that i see a grief counselor.

i hope everyone has an excellent and prosperous 2016. i'm looking forward to the world cup.

i love you sons of bitches.

xmas

xmas is coming, the goose is getting fat. please put a penny in the old man's hat.

in the past, before i retired and ceased my daily pilgrimage to the downtown core, i would go for a lunch time stroll and hand out money to the panhandlers. i'm thinking about doing it this year but it depends on the weather. yes, i'm a fair weather philanthropist. a few days ago i gave 5 bucks to a panhandler outside the mall. big deal.

more importantly than xmas being around the corner, the days will start getting longer and as they say, the trend is your friend. it's always a good thing when you know that tomorrow will be a better day. christmas is basically a pain in the ass to me. in dr suess' how the grinch stole christmas it was said that his heart grew three sizes that day, but in my pessimistic view of christmas, many people's carbon footprint grow three sizes as they purchase massive amounts of decorations and gifts that aren't needed. seeing new growth on a cedar tree is a much more spiritual event than sitting around and listening to people either boast or belly ache or looking at 3 dudes in robes bring unneeded junk to a baby.

on the 26th i'll sincerely say, merry thank christ it's over day.

now to the fun. last year i said that the pouges' fairy tale of new york was my favorite xmas carol but this year it's the 12 days of xmas. rowdy roddy passed away this year but his spirit lives on:

on trafalmadore, this is our national anthem. we play this version for all holidays and every sentient being from every galaxy that i have encountered both in the future and the past cannot suppress a smile upon hearing it. so enjoy the moment, they call it the present because it's a gift!

i love you sons of bitches.

god's kid

i have thoughts and that can really fuck the faith thing, just ask any catholic priest.(lewis black)

need i say more? shall i pen a position which i would be obligated to defend?

no and no but what the fuck, it's xmas so i'll toss in my two bits worth.

what brought this to my attention was reading the figures on % OF AMERICANS SELF IDENTIFYING AS AETHEISTS. i was astounded by the fact that only 3.1% of respondents self identified as aethiests. upon further reading, the figure of non believers or skeptics is probably over 20% based on figure of 22.8% of respondents classifying themselves as "unaffiliated." i would also guess that the figures are skewed by the wording of the question but only 3.1% identifying themselves as aetheists was still a head scratcher.

as a 60 year old man i had to go through an elementary school system where we had to say the "lords prayer" every morning and at assemblies etc. for a few years they succeeded in instilling the fear of god into me. a six year old is conditioned to believe that adult authority figures speak the truth and i didn't want to be responsible for my parents rotting in hell. basically the pricks scared the shit out of me which i consider to be their basic modus operandi when dealing with children.

here's what set me on the path to enlightenment. it had been drummed into my head that god was some dude up in sky perched upon some beautiful nimbus cumulus cloud keeping track of everything we kids do and and the son of bitch had a memory that would put an elephant to shame. that might be the common thread to all religions, you can't see the diety but he/she will occasionally communicate with our priests etc so you better listen to those pricks on sunday.

then one day us puny humans sent men into space and fuck me, there was no god or heaven on those beautiful clouds. zip, dick, nada! it was a scam. the guys running the planet saw those pictures back in the 1940's but they weren't broadcast on television to us common folks until the 1960's. when i saw those pictures, i was no longer susceptible to the fear mongering.

there are times when i'm envious of people who truly believe. it might be a nice crutch to lean on from time to time but an honest cost/benefit analysis puts religion into a negative proposition for those rubes choosing to kick back 10% to their spiritual godfather. and the asshole demands 10% of your gross, not 10% of your net. the son of a bitch understands accounting and cash flow.

so that's it, merry bloody xmas.

i love you sons of bitches.

the enemy

we have met the enemy and he is us

it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that we in the west are indeed our own worst enemies. we don't have to look in mosques or synagogues, we merely have to look in the mirror. that son of a bitch looking back at me in the mirror is getting pretty old and wrinkled. i winked at the prick and he was kind enough to whisper his plan into my ear:

Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. We will strangle your cities with traffic. We'll draw you into fighting useless wars. We'll send in developers to ravage your land and replace your individual farms with corporations. We will force your citizens into the slavery of credit card debt. We'll send gangsters into your schools to sell your children drugs. We'll replace each of your meals with empty junk food. One way or another, you'll see who comes out on top.

i suspect he borrowed a lot of ideas from the nixon-khrushchev kitchen debate but regardless of where the idea originated, you gotta admit it's been very successful so far. our great leaders have been onto this plan for many years but rather than bring an end to the cunning plot, they decided to spread this man made disease to the rest of the planet. our leaders have been so successful at spreading this disease that the dumb sons of bitches in the developing world are not fighting back, in fact they're paying us for the privilege of being poisoned by junk food and industrial by-products.

now someone just has to tell those nogoodnik muslims to relax, they don't have to shoot us or blow us to smithereens, we'll take of it ourselves.

or maybe we should just apologize to the muslims and call the whole thing off.

i love you sons of bitches.

if

if i had something intelligent to say, i'd probably say it. but there's a good chance i'd be so enamored with it that i'd put it away for safe keeping.

the climate change talks drag on in paris with most world leaders patting each other on the back and saying what a great job they're doing. yeah right.

whilst we in the west are facing carbon taxes those lovely folks in china are CONSTRUCTING 155 NEW COAL FIRED POWER STATIONS. and india is trying her darnedest to catch up. we in north america pat ourselves on the back for stopping new construction of coal fired power plants but we continue to sell coal to china! so it goes.

we hear a lot about climate change but not enough about our dying oceans:

The Earth's dying oceans threatened with mass extinction

but what the fuck, it's almost xmas so let's have some fun and resolve to fix all this shit in the new year.

i love you sons of bitches.

one long year

one year ago today, ruby left the building.

a common remark for the passing of a beast is "she did her best." well ruby did more than her best, she kicked ass and took names. our home was burglarized shortly before ruby joined the family. at the time we had a gentle old lab/shepherd cross. she was a fabulous beast, i am incapable of adequately describing the beauty of her soul and purity of her spirit. when the house was burglarized, she was locked in the basement due to her incontinence. several months later, her time was up and the ruby era began.

after your home has been violated, there's always a strange feeling in your gut when entering the house. you lose that feeling of confidence and security because in the back of your mind, there might be some asshole hiding behind the door with evil intentions. ruby was a 35 pound orphan described as a lab cross. i was drawn to her due to her size. after having a few large beasts who had a difficult time climbing stairs in their old age, a 35 pound dog seemed to be the perfect size. i would be able to carry her up and down the stairs in her old age. but the 35 pound orphan, advertised as being full grown, blossomed into a 90 pound pitbull with a nasty disposition.

it didn't take long for the feeling of fear and uneasiness to disappear when entering the empty house. it turned into, i wonder what ruby has destroyed. ruby had a very bad case of separation anxiety. she chewed everything with electrical cords being one of her specialties. i don't know how in the hell she escaped being electrocuted. one day she ate a box of chocolate brownie mix and it quickly passed through her digestive tract resulting in ample dark diarrhea. i'll never forget that day because it didn't smell like feces. it went through her so fast that it just smelled like chocolate soup. on another day she ate a bag of grass seed. later that day i took her for a walk and she left a steaming pile of grass seed filled crap at the edge of a park. it was just too soup-like to pick up so i left it. after a few days the seed began sprout and it turned into a lovely chia pet. it lasted all summer and it brought a smile to my face every time i saw it. god bless ruby.

ruby protected us very well for 12 years. she was no angel and frequently threatened to bite me when we had a difference of opinion. but so it goes, i'd rather have a beast with a backbone than some sweet cuddly cute decorator dog. ruby was a working dog and she did her job well. there were no security breaches on her watch.

god bless you ruby, i'm pretty sure you're kicking ass in valhalla. i miss you a great deal and i'm very close to shedding water for you at this moment. for a would-be fremen of dune, shedding water is a rare occurrence.

i love you sons of bitches.

art

gene gene built a machine

joe joe made it go

art art cut a fart

and blew the fucking thing apart

that would be my first thought when thinking about art but apparently there's a whole world of genuine art out there that some people put a higher value on than gene's machine:

the little beauty above sold for north of $20,000,000.00. and that's american dollars not the cheap canadian shit.

for the more budget minded, the above beauty can be had for south of $14,000,000.00

if these pieces of art tickle your fancy, here's the collection of 10 paintings that SOLD FOR $420,000,000.00

i suppose that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, value is in the eye of the investor or most probable, ego is in the soul of the acquisitor. it's easy for us rubes to sit back and be scornful of the wealthy for paying these prices but on the other hand, blowing your money on art leaves a minuscule carbon foot print compared to buying a $100,000,000.00 yacht. plus, art tends to increase in value whereas the value of yacht probably drops 25% when you drive it off the lot.

in case you missed the speech obama read from a teleprompter a few days before the fun in paris when he announced that ISIS had been contained, here is the gist of his message to the muslim peaceniks:

i love you sons of bitches

remedy

"there is a remedy for everything except death."

these wise words came from the greatest knight errant the world has ever known, none other than the esteemed don quixote.

it was a long hard read but i finally finished don quixote. this was the third time i've read don quixote and it didn't lose any of its magic. the things that made it such a long hard read were the very small fonts and the longest paragraphs known to mankind. I originally started reading it on the e-reader but after a few pages i decided that the greatest novel ever written should be read in its original form, a book comprised of paper and ink rather than plastic and electronics. Not only were the fonts small, the paragraphs were set up in such a way that there were several conversations and plot twists within the same paragraph, making it difficult to follow because you lose the points of reference that you normally rely upon when a new paragraph starts and when a different character speaks. it often became very difficult to remember who was speaking to whom.

in the course of reading don quixote, i asked several friends if they had read it, and shockingly almost everyone said no! i find it hard to believe that anyone professing to be an avid reader has not read don quixote. so if anyone reading this wee epistle hasn't read it, turn your fucking tv off and start reading. if you're old and have lost a little vision, do yourself a favor and get the biggest hardcover with the largest fonts you can find.

i had started reading it in february but fell victim to the small fonts and the enormity of the task, then much to my shame, i gave up. a trip to the optometrist for new reading glasses soon put things in order but something held me back until i was picking up rip's easter eggs in the park and a light turned on in my rapidly declining mind, read the son a bitch whilst soaking my poor aching back in a steaming hot bath tub. a few times each day i drew a hot bath and drifted away into the world of knight errants and chivalry. the only problem was when i closed the glass doors on the tub, my glasses fogged up but i suppose there are people out there with bigger problems than foggy glasses.

if i walked into a store and stumbled upon another don quixote character jug, do you think i'd be able to resist temptation?

absolutely not! (as long as it was reasonable priced)

i love you sons of bitches.

the dream machine

a more fitting title might be the not so dreamy machine.

i bought a sony dream machine clock radio several years ago to keep next to the tv so i could easily keep track of time and hopefully not miss any program i was planning to watch. it was kind of hate at first sight with the dream machine, i had to enter the time zone, year, date etc before i could get the son of bitch to operate. apparently this was so the infernal machine could adjust the time automatically in the spring and in the fall for daylight savings time. it seemed like a waste of time.

right off the bat it drove me nuts. it had a back up battery and the time was already set, but the clock was a few minutes off and no matter what i did the son of bitch bounced back to being a few minutes off. i decided to live with it and mentally subtract a few minutes. the first few times it did make the adjustment for daylight savings time but for the last few years nothing happened and i fritzed around with it to manually adjust the time. it was a massive exercise in frustration. then i gave up and lived with being an hour out of sync for 6 months of the year. ain't life wonderful

yesterday i said fuck it and decided to buy a new clock radio. there were a few at the store but they were in the box and i wasn't able to play around and see how easy it was to change the time so i made a mental note of the models and decided to look on line and see how easy they were to operate. as luck would have it i stumbled upon a you tube video that explained how to set the time on a dream machine and son of a bitch it worked! i had read all sorts of other shit on line telling me what to do but the video did the trick:

the trick is you have to set the fucking year, month and day before going to the clock setting. i guess things get lost translating the instructions from chinese to english. god bless google and you tube. have i ever mentioned how much i love google?

i love you sons of bitches.

deadwood

how do you like these new larger fonts! after several requests from international readers who did not enjoy the luxury of having english as a first language in their youth, i have increased the font size in order ensure that my pearls of wisdom don't wash over the sluice box. a gold mine with a recovery rate of under 90% would not be tolerated so in the same vein, an international blog with a comprehension rate of under 54% must be corrected. additionally, proof reading might be in order now that the source of these pearls of wisdom is able to review the material and engage in somber second thought. lucky you.

it was overdue but last night the annual DEADWOOD marathon began its 8th (or maybe 9th, i've lost track) voyage into and around my mind. a mind is a terrible thing to waste and i can think of no greater waste than having 4 sets of DEADWOOD discs sitting idle. idle no more, westerns matter, occupy the black hills...... you get the point.

i lacked the usual enthusiasm this year after the loss of my faithful pitbull, my saintly father and my mentally defective best friend but as they say, the show must go on. once the lights were turned down and the sound system was calibrated it was time to push the play button. it took less than 60 seconds for the magic to return. many people truly think i'm nuts to watch the same series over and over again but i ask them, when you purchase a cd by your favorite artist, do only listen to it once or twice? fuck no, they listen to many, many times.

i can't over emphasize the importance of a good sound system to truly experience the genius of david milch. his dialogue is enthralling and the music is downright hypnotic. one of my motivations to begin the marathon was to test the new receiver and i'm pleased to say that it was fabulous. (probably the 2nd best $200 i've ever spent) the previous receiver was also a pioneer elite and it could rattle the windows with ease but the new receiver puts it to shame. what it does, is bring the surround and rear channels to life. the sound is completely different and i am going to enjoy every moment of the DEADWOOD experience.

and on the eighth day, god created DEADWOOD. so take a deep breath, enjoy the moment and prepare to bask in the genius of al swearengen.

this is possibly the best advice advice i've ever heard and consider it to be my guiding light when facing a wee bit of adversity. unfortunately the nogoodnik who uploaded the video disabled embedding so you'll have to

CLICK ON THIS AND BE PREPARED FOR ECSTASY.

if the above video tickles your fancy, you'll want to take the next step in worshiping at the altar of al swearengen.

i love you sons of bitches.

good bye steve

the election is over and stephen harper is no longer prime minister. what a shame

harper was an egotistical prick. back when he first became prime minister i remember reading that he was re-branding the party. it was no longer to be called the conservative government, it was to be called "the harper government." i often remarked that harper wasn't so much of a right wing ideologue as he was a complete ego maniac. his ego and arrogance wore thin with the voters and he was turfed as prime minister but retained his seat in the parliament. he resigned his leadership but so far has indicated that he will continue as an mp. so it goes.

the poor old green party continues to slip in terms of popular vote:

2004 - 4.32% popular vote

2006 - 4.48% popular vote

2008 - 6.8% popular vote

2011 - 3.91% popular vote

2015 - 3.5% popular vote

don't blame me, i continue to vote green. our stock market was up today which goes against popular thinking that a conservative government is more business friendly than a liberal government. in truth, there is little difference between the liberals and conservatives other than style. i remember how disillusioned i was as a teenager when i read the list of major political contributions and saw that the large corporations donated money to both parties. the first step in becoming a lifelong cynic.

there will be some tinkering in taxation. young justin plans on raising income tax on the rich and giving a reduction to the middle income earners and also fine tuning some social programs but overall i don't think there will be much change. the quality of rip's bowel movements will continue to have a greater impact on my life than any tinkering with taxation and social programs.

more importantly, i watched star trek "nemesis" the other night and thoroughly enjoyed it. i think "shinzon" was a better villain than khan and that it was a huge mistake to kill him off. there was no genesis planet nearby to regenerate his body so it looks like he's really gone. the main reason i watched nemesis was to give the new pioneer receiver a test and it really delivered. the room was brought to life and there's a good chance that the neighbors overheard a lot of the dialog between picard and shinzon.

i wonder how much noise i would have made as a teenager if i possessed the electronics then that i possess today. the good old days are a myth, i paid less for the equipment i have today than the stuff i bought over 40 years ago. god bless asian slave labor.

shinzon; a villain for all seasons.

i love you sons of bitches.

the battery

last week panic set in over a dead battery in the mighty hyundai. i had to get my mother to the doctor which involved driving 40 km to pick her up and another 37 km to the doctor and i didn't have much time to spare. luckily i found a neighbor kind enough to give me a quick jump start. i was on the freeway for about 90 minutes so the battery got a good charge but fear had set in and it was time to get a new battery. i'm pretty sure that it would have been deader than a door nail on the first frosty morning.

of course i couldn't find the receipt for the dead battery to figure out the purchase date and whether or not it was still under warranty so the hunt for a new battery was on. for as long as i can remember all the replacement batteries i've purchased have been sears diehard but checking on-line there were several sites that said diehard batteries had gone down in quality so i turned to the expert, BILLY C COOK. AKA, THE KING bbc is the smartest guy i know when it comes to all things mechanical and he recommended a battery made by "johnson controls" so the search was on for a battery made by johnson controls. well it's small world, it turned out that johnson controls makes some diehard batteries so i was back to diehard.

i called the shop where i had bought the battery and told them i had lost the receipt. surprise, surprise, they told me i didn't need the receipt because they had a record on the computer and the battery still had a pro rated warranty. there was a 3 year replacement deal and after that there was a 100 month pro rated warranty so i basically got the new battery for half price. this morning the battery was replaced, i be happy and the mighty hyundai has her groove back.

my buddy is a big moorcroft collector and has been telling me how beautiful they are so i dipped my toe into the water and picked up an ashtray.

in other news, our election is less than a week away so here is an inspirational message from jim lahey, supervisor of the sunny vale trailer park, a true patriotic canadian:

me, rip and new battery love you sons of bitches.

the election

we lucky canandians are having a federal election in about 2 weeks. here's the sanitized WIKIPEDIA SUMMARY OF THE CANADIAN ELECTION.

and here is my take on it:

current prime minister: steven harper-conservative party. the bad news about steve is he's basically an asshole. the good news about steve is you pretty much know what you're going to get if he wins, an asshole prime minister with a right wing agenda. i don't think he's terribly right wing, in fact i think he's been drifting towards the center over the past few years as he has been tossing goodies at the rubes to try and boost his popularity. there are a lot of canadians who think steve is the devil himself and blame him for all the problems in the world. like i said, he's an asshole but i don't consider him to be satan. one interesting thing about steve is his love of israel. he's always 100% supportive of israel. in fact some people say he's the most popular politician in israel. of course this pisses off our left wing idealists who blame israel for the world's problems.

current leader of the opposition: thomas mulcair - new democrat party. the last election was the first time that the ndp won enough seats in parliament to become the official opposition. for some funny reason the province of quebec threw most of their votes at the ndp. tom mulcair is an interesting dude. he's drifted from the left to the center left in an attempt to get the centrist votes. he also has dual citizenship, canadian and french. for a while he was leading in the polls but now some pollsters are saying he's past his expiry date and this popularity is fading. i can't understand why his dual citizenship isn't more of an issue. i guess the other 2 parties are worried about losing votes in quebec.

current leader of the liberals: JUSTIN TRUDEAU! - he's the son of one our most famous and polarizing prime ministers, pierre elliot trudeau. pierre was to canada what jfk was to the united states, a sexy playboy. young justin has taken the liberals further to the left. in fact, i think the liberals are now a wee bit further to the left than the ndp. it's quite the shocker. of 3 main party leaders, i tend to favor justin. it might be a case of me disliking him the least out of the 3 main candidates for the prime minister's job.

current leader of the green party: elizabeth may - elizabeth is the leader of the greens and actually has a seat in parliament. elizabeth is the first person to be elected as green member of parliament. there was some other guy who defected to the greens after being an independent but he wasn't elected as a green. i like dear old liz but she has a smaller chance of being prime minister than i do of winning an olympic gold medal for men's gymnastics. well, maybe not that small but it's an incredibly small chance.

the interesting thing is how the liberals have drifted to the left and the ndp have drifted to the right. i doubt there's any real philosophical reasons behind their moves, they just think it's the best way to get more votes.

it's a real close race right now with the 3 main parties pretty much tied for popular support but the headlines claim the ndp are slipping and the conservatives might be slightly ahead. of course all this can change tomorrow and it will probably bounce around until the election.

so, how is billy pilgrim going to vote?

ask yourself, how would a sea turtle, an elephant or a whale vote? yes, billy will be voting green. the greens won't get elected but i'm almost 100% certain that i've never voted for the party that won the election. for as long as i can remember i've voted green or communist. in this election we don't have a communist candidate in my riding so i'll be going green. i'm not a communist but i consider voting communist to be the ultimate protest vote. although i always vote some fringe lunatic, i can't remember ever not voting.

i love you sons of bitches.

ouch

my little papal snit is over. i can't decide what irks me more; the pope himself, or the gullible rubes fawning over his eminence.

the love affair with the new pioneer receiver is fading. i have no problem with its performance but moving the son of bitch hurt my back big time. i'm not sure if it was lugging the new receiver around or putting the old receiver in the closet, but my poor back is aching. the old spinal column ran into trouble about 6 months ago moving furniture and carrying soil to repair a lawn. not only does it hurt, i've lost a lot of strength in my legs. riding the bike is very difficult these days.

just to prove that i don't hold a grudge, i pedaled up to the library in a reasonable amount of pain and picked up 11 cd's to feed the beast. the holly cole trio has caught my ear these days and since they're free, i grabbed several others. there was a time when i'd shell out 20 bucks for a cd only to discover that other than the song that interested me, the cd was basically crap. the cd section in our library seems to be shrinking but the dvd section is growing like a weed. the library, cable, streaming, downloading...... somebody up there likes me, which is nice.

i was going to reconfigure the new receiver and add a few more speakers but that thought lasted mere nanoseconds once i looked at all the wires in the back and realized i'd have to slide the son of bitch out to connect the new speakers. it's a daunting task for my 60 year old eyes to see through a maze of wires, select the correct terminal and insert a frayed wire into a small hole while all the time being careful not to dislodge some other wires. adding speakers is easy with banana plugs but i couldn't find any laying around so now i'll have to wait a month or so until a new supply arrives from china. 8 pairs are on the way and i'm thinking of ordering more. just-in-time delivery may be cost effective for manufacturing but i like to keep a reasonable inventory of trinkets and gadgets.

the new receiver sounds good and it looks good but it also provides piece of mind. i have a back-up receiver again. a few months ago i disposed of my old receivers in an attempt to rid myself of some clutter and since nature abhors a vacuum, the area i freed up by getting rid of the receivers was soon filled with stuff that had less value and less potential utility than the old receivers and worst of all, i lost the peace of mind in knowing that i had a back-up ready just in case something went wrong. now i can turn the son of bitch on and off ad infinitum and not worry about breaking it, because i have a back-up. (note to self, future back-up equipment must weigh less than twenty pounds.)

a man always needs a plan b and back-up toys in case things go askew. lucky me.

i love you sons of bitches.

the pope

the figure head of the catholic church is on a recruiting drive in the united states and LECTURING US ON ECONOMIC POLICY AND HUMAN RIGHTS.

if there's one thing that makes it impossible for me to enjoy the moment it's religious bullshit. i am 100% certain that i will never feel any remorse for the following statement:

FUCK THE POPE AND FUCK THE BULLET PROOF CAR HE RODE IN ON!

it is the height of hypocrisy for some asshole representing one of the most evil and profit driven organizations in history to lecture us on morals.

in case anyone forgot: Catholic mass grave sites of 350,800 missing children found in Ireland, Spain, Canada, we in canada are paying a fortune to the indian kids fucked over by catholic priests.

i would also encourage anyone to read about the spanish and portuguese adventures in their conquest of south america which were directed by and blessed by the catholic church. it ain't pretty.

i love you sons of bitches.

risk

behold the turtle, he only makes progress when he sticks his neck out.

this morning i stuck my neck out and wrote a post on syrian refugees. after an hour or so i decided progress was over rated so i deleted my thoughts on syria and pulled my head back into my shell. so it goes. as for syria and the european dilemma, i'm just glad that i live on the other side of the planet. it seems like a very difficult situation with no obvious solution. and i just can't figure out why germany is taking in 800,000 mostly muslim syrians. but those fucking germans aren't stupid so they must have a plan.

my current adventure is a new receiver. well it's not new, i bought it used but it's a new toy for me to play with once i find a good samaritan to hook it up. it's an older 7.1 pioneer elite with an honest 140 watts per channel. all the newer receivers are now "network" and 9.2 or 11.2 channels and don't even get me started about atmos. far too complicated for me. i just want something good and powerful so i can listen to music at a very low level and "feel" the music. it's quite ironic that in order to appreciate music at a low volume you need lots of power. as a younger man i always associated powerful amps with loud music. live and learn.

if and when i find a good samaritan to hook it up for me, this is the song i want to hear first:

i love you sons of bitches.

bliss

we all need a little bliss in our lives. bliss is not like pizza, you can't pick up the phone and order the nightly special with a side of bliss, then eagerly await some young man in a beat up old japanese car to knock on your door with a box of bliss under his arm enclosed in a bacteria infested insulated shoulder purse. no, bliss takes a little work. and of course there a lot of negative nellies out there who make a career out of avoiding bliss, preferring instead to become perpetual and professional wet blankets. so don't let some asshole wet blanket infringe upon your bliss.

at the moment i am not immersed in bliss but i have the next best thing, the promise of bliss this evening. i experience a dollop of bliss most evenings with the aid of music and television but tonight will probably be the last night of a seasonal immersion into bliss that can only be experienced in the summer weather. at this very moment my bed sheets and pillow cases are baking in the mid day sun. there are very few things that can match the feeling of bliss i experience when sliding into bed with fresh sheets that have dried in the sun. this will certainly be a blissful experience worthy of being imprinted upon my mind. perhaps with enough blissful events imprinted upon my mind, the magic of neuroplasticity will create some permanent pathways to bliss in my rapidly aging mind.

as my old buddy deepak is so fond of saying and it bears repeating; sat chit ananda, sat chit ananda, sat chit ananda..........

gutters clean, furnace replaced, mighty sonata serviced, adios cracker factory. yes, it is time to count my blessings and enjoy the moment. my pension is a little fucked up at the moment but as i am also so fond of saying, who gives a shit? i have clean fresh sheets.

this song has given me many moments of bliss since i stumbled upon a review that tied it to don quixote. did dylan have the knight errant in mind whilst writing it? i doubt it, but old bob is a mysterious guy so it might just be possible. turn down the volume on your sound system, enjoy the magical understated musical introduction and dream of dulcinea del toboso.

i love you sons of bitches, so you got that going for you too.

cold

i have an embarrassment of riches in the topic department; lawnmowers, suicide, refugees, drought, turtles..... but with the weather changing, heating the home is at the forefront.

we moved into the current house in the spring of 2014 so last winter was our first brush with cold weather and the furnace was not up to snuff. the fuel bills were sky high and the old furnace sounded like it was really laboring to maintain a comfortable temperature. i quickly decided we needed a new furnace but replacing the furnace in the winter meant being without heat while the change was being made so i decided to wait until warmer weather arrived. well the warm weather arrived, it was time to pull the trigger but i procrastinated until last week.

i soon learned that furnaces had changed since the last time i replaced one and "high efficiency" was the only option. no shit, i couldn't get a good old fashioned furnace so i was forced join the 21 century and go high efficiency. these new furnaces require different venting, rather than the exhaust going up the chimney it circulates via 2 almost horizontal pipes. almost horizontal because they're like plumbing, they have to rise 1/4 inch per foot whereas plumbing drainage pipes have to decline 1/4 inch per foot. i called 5 different companies for an estimate and 5 different guys spoke down to me explaining the ins and outs of these new furnaces. and since the furnace no longer sends its exhaust up the chimney i had to get a chimney liner for the hot water tank exhaust because it didn't provide sufficient hot air to "efficiently" rise in a large chimney.

the old furnace:

and of course my shadow followed me everywhere during the process:

the new furnace:

the new venting:

rather than hiding the pipes in the ceiling i had them left in open view. it reminded me of my old days in the coast guard when there were pipes and wires running under the ceiling on the bridge, plus they didn't have rip the ceiling tiles out. you'll notice my spare jugs of don quixote, sancho panza and the viking. a guy always needs back up jugs in case of accident.

so the new furnace has been installed and now i just have to wait for some cold weather. lucky me.

***CARBON TAX***

the price of our natural gas = $2.486 per gigajoule

the carbon tax on nat gas = $1.4898 per gigajoule

so it's a 59.9% tax! kinda high eh?

this is the song that kept playing in my head as i prepared for retirement:

i love you sons of bitches.

the end

today is the day i dreamed of and looked forward to for many, many years. today is the day that i planned on attaining or reaching nirvana.

it didn't happen. if i had a nickel for every time that little son of bitch buddha let me down, i could probably buy a pair of cheap sneakers. but i don't have a pocketful of nickels and nirvana is right up there with self-actualization as far as possibilities and probabilities go. it's like the proverbial carrot at the end of the stick. i need a shorter stick and a longer carrot.

yes, today is the day i am officially RETIRED! if that isn't nice, what is?

i dreamed of this day in my youth because i thought it would be party time. not having to get up in the morning and drag myself to the cracker factory meant i could party like it was 1999 every goddamned night. but a funny thing happened on my way to the forum, i got old and partying lost it's luster. partying actually lost it's luster years and years ago but so it goes. live and learn. i don't play golf, i don't play bridge, i don't fish.... what in the hell am i supposed to do? note to self; you're retired, you don't have to do anything! i've been practicing doing nothing for years so i'm very well prepared for retirement.

i'll mark the first day of my retirement by declaring my woeful countenance has been returned to the bottom right drawer of the old oak principal's desk where i waste too much time. the pilgrim is free to visit tralfamadore at a moment's notice. montana wildhack, here i come.

the moral to this story? enjoy yourself, it's later than you think. or how about just plain old enjoy the moment.

my swan song to the cracker factory:

i love you sons of bitches

adios summer

we've been in a drought all summer and if the weatherman is correct it's all going to come to an end tomorrow, heavy rain! last night panic set in, i hadn't cleaned the gutters all summer waiting for some cool weather because i didn't want to climb up on the roof in the hot sun. there was a tremendous amount of shit on the roof that i'm sure would have plugged the down pipes resulting in watering backing up the roof and spilling over the gutters. i took 3 plastic grocery bags with me but quickly realized that i'd need at least 5 bags. i was in a quandary since about the hardest part of the job is climbing down from the roof when the ladder is fully extended and very shaky. i decided to fill my 3 bags and toss the rest over the edge. adding to my stress was a certain dog whining and wanting to aid in the fun. she likes to follow me everywhere but she can't climb ladders for sour apples. i'm happy to report the dirty job is done.

in my drinking days the job would have been done long ago. how so you say? way back when i had this crazy sense of justice. if i did some chores, i could go out and get loaded with a clear conscience. i ended up getting a lot of stuff accomplished because being heavily into alcohol, i'd do almost anything to justify my evil ways. the good news was i got a lot of stuff done, the bad news is i usually had a hangover and of course spending time in bars costs a pretty penny.

here's the crazy part of my drinking, i always had a plan B in case things went wrong. it didn't matter how fucked up things got in my life i always had plan B to fall back on. my plan B was to quit drinking. quit drinking and the world would be my oyster. when i quit drinking, losing plan B was a problem. it was my crutch, how the fuck could i get depressed when there was always plan B to straighten things out. when i quit drinking plan B didn't really live up to my expectations. the problems didn't go away and i had no fucking plan B to fall back on. but at least the hangovers were gone and it's funny how much money you end up with in your wallet when alcohol is removed from the equation.

then one day i got a new plan B. fuck it, i could start drinking again. i still have a cupboard full of jack daniels and single malt. so plan B is within reach in case of emergency. so i got that going for me too, which is real nice.

i love you sons of bitches.

2 months

the rip has been my partner in crime for 2 months now and she's exceeded my expectations by a country mile. the first day she drove everyone nuts by pacing the perimeter of the fence in the back yard, she just wouldn't stop. she was like that energizer bunny. since she was a stray and lived on the streets for a while she's hyper alert, nothing gets by her. in 2 months i've been unable to get any good pictures because she just won't sit still unless she's sitting by my side. i tried to take a good picture this morning and this is the best i could get:

best of all, she's a totally excellent security system for the house. we were without a beast for 7 months after ruby ascended to the next level and that was the first time in my life i had been without a beast. i really missed the feeling of security knowing someone had my back. a guy always needs someone or something to have his back. fathers and dogs are the 2 things that never let you down and i lost both but now i have the rip and everything's coming up roses!

each night before crawling into bed i have a little chat with the rip and tell her what an excellent job she's doing. i spare no platitudes and i offer no suggestions on how she could improve her performance. ruby was bigger and much more powerful than the rip but good old rip makes up for it with speed and alertness.

and she caught a rat in the backyard! if that isn't nice, what is?

i love you sons of bitches.

fuck!

son of a bitch, i wrote a truly magnificent and inspiring epistle on the aging process and then i clicked on the wrong x and the goddamned son of a whore got deleted! perhaps it was a sign that the aging process is accelerating at a far greater pace than i had imagined. so it goes.

all the flowery prose and descriptions are down the crapper with the deleted post so here's the song i've selected to be played as i ascend to valhalla. anyone with half a fucking brain probably figured out what song i would select at the onset of this award winning series on the aging process of a man whom a few morons think is the product of white privilege.

now as an added bonus, here's how my main man shane has aged over the years. 30 years hence he is a free man in paris.

yes, i watched the whole concert and in the spirit of a true celtic warrior, shane appeared to be gaining strength as the concert went on.

i love you sons of bitches and i'm truly sorry that you were unable to read the original masterpiece that i mistakenly deleted.

the penultimate song

almost there. for the penultimate song in the aging series gimmick i'll focus on old men and memories. as we age, we tend to forget and there's a whole fucking industry out there only too willing to sell us supplements and brain exercise games designed to help us with our "perceived" memory loss. the only racket better than health supplements is probably religion but they both operate on the same principle, pay now and expect good things down the road. like i said, great racket.

back to memory loss and here's where you better pay attention. as i was sitting in the doctors office getting ready for some cognitive tests i was hit by a thought that everyone should consider when worrying about memory loss.

news flash, you're fucking delusional if you think you had a photographic memory in your youth. fuck me, i've been forgetting shit all my life so why beat myself up if i forget a few things in my old age. and here's the bonus, when you grasp this fact your memory actually improves because your stress level decreases and very few things fuck you up more than stress. so in case you forgot:

YOUR MEMORY WAS NEVER PERFECT, IT'S HEALTHY TO FORGET USELESS SHIT. IT FREES UP SPACE FOR GOOD STUFF.

now here's the song that reflects my current state of mind, old but still kicking.

i love you sons of bitches.

bonus

i have a confession. when i started this epic odyssey to document the aging process, the gimmick was front and center in my old mind. i didn't even know what 5 songs would be highlighted but such is life. to make amends for this transgression, allow me to share the most poignant poem of our generation:

There once was thug named Brown

Who bum-rushed a cop with a frown

Six bullets later

He met his creator

Then his homies burnt the town down

i wanted to share this epic poem on facebook but it might cost me a few friends and i can't afford to lose any more friends since they're dropping like flies these days.

i love you sons of bitches.

good riddance 59

my 59th year on this cursed ball of mud (harry turtledove reference) was undoubtedly my worst. in the space of 6 months i lost my dog, my father and my best friend. of course there were some good things but the scales of happiness were light years away from being balanced. of my losses, only my father is irreplaceable. i now have a new dog who is oozing with potential and i'm prepared to be my own best friend until the stars come into alignment and a new partner in crime emerges. yes, i am cautiously optimistic for the coming year.

i can't decide if falling in love with royal doulton character jugs was a positive or negative development. on the positive side, they're pretty cool to look at and under the right circumstances, they can speak to me. on the negative side, collecting china figurines isn't exactly what every young man dreams of doing. i'll never tire of don quixote, sancho panza or the viking but those other sons of bitches will probably end up in storage sooner or later.

this is a bit of a sappy song but i'm a sucker for rockin' ronnie.

i love you sons of bitches and remember these days are solid gold so you might as well enjoy the moment.

the 5 days of grey..................

some men would bemoan turning 60 while others would celebrate the great accomplishment. i see opportunity. a fabulous opportunity to boost my international readership with a top notch gimmick.

enjoy the moment is pleased as punch to announce the 5 days of music to commemorate the pilgrim turning 60. the previous gimmick involving the character jugs was too long for my easily distracted domestic readership. careful analysis of that gimmick revealed interest and readership peaked on the 6th day. my aging readership is clearly showing signs of cognitive impairment so this time it'll wrap up on day 5.

i plan to commemorate the blessed event with one song about aging each day until the winning song is revealed on day 5. (the days may or may not run consecutively as i, like the domestic readership, am easily distracted.)

i'll get things started with good old dino:

i love you sons of bitches.

i forgot to mention that ripper generously gave me a freshly killed rat for my birthday. for the first time since ruby ascended to the next level, full security has been restored at prilgrimville.

2 for $99

my old eyes are showing their age and as a result, i can't read for sour apples without reading glasses. i saw an ad for glasses priced at 2 pairs for $99 so i walked in and said i want 4 pairs of glasses. surprise, surprise the bill came to over $400. i was told that anti scratch, anti glare etc were essential and of course these were added costs. and of course i said, i want the 2 pairs for $99 deal at which point the owner, a fat old european with several ounces of gold hanging around his hairy old chest, came to set me straight. things got heated as the owner and i had a different ideas of what 2 pairs for $99 really means. can you guess how much i ended up paying for my 4 pairs of glasses? $198.

only an idiot pays for scratch resistant and anti glare lenses. and of course he told me that since he liked me so much he'd toss in these features for free. rather than telling him i knew that almost all lenses come with those features, i thanked him profusely so he could save face with his employees.

around the middle of next week the new specs will be ready, lucky me. our health care system gives free glasses to children and deadbeats. maybe next time i can find some 5 year old to take my prescription into the optician and pretend the glasses are for him/her. i wouldn't trust a deadbeat to pull it off.

i love you sons of bitches.

time to cook a rip roast

i've been waiting for a cool day to cook rip her first roast and that day has finally arrived. it pissed down rain last night and the scorching hot weather is gone for a day or two so it's time to pop one in the oven. the rip and i will be pigging out tonight.

hanged vs hung?

my buddy hanged himself but he was hung like a horse. i need the aqaurian to tell me if my use of verbs is correct.

yes, my best friend hanged himself from his sundeck overlooking the pacific ocean. although he was delusional and suffering from major mental illness he didn't want his body to decay and stink up his house in the hot summer weather. as the details of his situation emerge it is clear to me that his situation was nowhere near as dire as he claimed. he was constantly worried about his future and the possibility of becoming homeless but in fact he was financially secure and most of his ducks were indeed in a row.

i had a front row seat to his descent into madness and escape from reality. there are many different ways to describe his situation but i think his state of mind can best be described as; he was frightened. he was constantly worried that his finances were going down the shitter and that he lacked a social safety net. this can also explain why he didn't seek medical help, he was frightened of facing the future, he just wanted to escape the pain. i often thought of making the journey to his home and straightening things out but i was also frightened. i was frightened that he might kill me whilst i slept. he had a dark side that scared the shit out of many people, myself included. so it goes and so he went.

as paul atriedes often said, fear is the mind killer.

i love you sons of bitches.

drought

it's official, VANCOUVER IS IN A DROUGHT!

it seems like just yesterday that the most common comment about the weather in july was "when in the hell is summer gonna start?". it would be cold and damp until august then we'd get some sunny weather and all would be right with the world. but now there's a drought and it's only july! i think it's been about 2 months since we've had a good rain. oh lord, how i miss the rain!

also in years past i wouldn't get any ripe tomatoes until the end of august at the earliest. there were summers when i didn't get to eat any homegrown tomatoes because the weather would turn and the blight would set in before the little darlings ripened. but now the sons of bitches are ready in mid july! yes, i ate my first homegrown tomato a few days ago and i'm going to pick one in a few minutes to have with my dinner.

speaking of dinner, i've finally found a dinner that works for me and rip. the ripper loves hash browns. i fry 2 extra lean ground beef patties, one for me and one for rip. after sticking my patty in a bun i cut the rip's patty into small pieces and toss some refrigerated mashed potatoes into the cast iron frying pan letting them sit for about 5 minutes to absorb the beef flavor and get to a nice warm temperature. i get a burger and the rip gets some meat and potatoes. the rip is a very picky eater.

i love you sons of bitches.

the end

in the past i've mentioned my deeply depressed friend. he was in and out of deep depression several times over the past 10 years. the suffering finally became too much for him to bear and he decided his life was more trouble than it was worth. yes, he euthanized himself.

we knew each other for over 40 years. i thought he was coolest guy in the world when i first met him. he knew the lyrics to almost every bob dylan song and lived the party lifestyle. in fact it might be accurate to say that i idolized him for a period of time. in his last years he was in a very dark place and i called him almost every day. they were not easy telephone calls. some days he would be very angry with me and tell me not to call anymore and other days he be on the verge of tears and thank me profusely for not giving up on him. he died isolated and lonely, estranged from his two children and refusing to seek medical treatment. as they say, pride goeth before the fall.

i love you sons of bitches. and for christ's sake, be kind to yourselves.

two heads..................

a wiser man than i once remarked, two heads are better than one.

keeping that in mind i headed to the shop where i had recently purchased 12 jugs. when i purchased the 12 jugs i asked the man to call me if he received a large viking character jug. sure enough, he called and told me that i was the luckiest man in the world because he was able to track down and acquire a large viking. lucky me.

of course it turned out to be like eating lays potato chips; betcha can't buy just one. what sane and rational man could pass up the opportunity to acquire a matched set of don quixote and sancho panza? not me.

yes, i now have 3 don quixotes (2 large and 1 small), 2 vikings and 2 sancho panzas. the custer jug is actually a double header. on the other side of the jug is a stunningly beautiful face of that famous dirt worshipper, sitting bull. another jug to keep me company whilst watching deadwood. it's difficult to accurately describe how much the lovely mrs myshkin's respect for me has soared since i began collecting jugs.

i love you sons of bitches.

bye bye

double headache

my favorite pair of sneakers are gone. a pair of blue suede adidas gazelles are history. the rip lived up to her name ripping out the tongue and the inner sole. they were, old comfortable and fashionably worn. i'll miss those old friends. of the course the rip was too busy flying around the yard and playing keep away with a few tennis balls to accept her verbal reprimand.

losing the shoes isn't the worst part of the incident. the worst part is being reminded every hour what an idiot i am and how many times i've been told not to leave my sneakers lying around. a more petty man would stick a few meatballs into her shoes and let the rip take it from there. this is day 10 in our relationship and i'm beginning to feel a little ripper fatigue. ripper goes insane when i leave the house and i've also had to cut back on my sweets. every time i grab a bag of candy or piece of cake you know who is demanding her share. she's sworn off dog food, instead preferring meat and potatoes. so far she's won the battle of wills. so it goes.

i love you sons of bitches.

a rip in the fabric of time

the time line is unstable at casa myshkin. to be more precise there is a rip in the fabric of time.....

meet the ripper, her friends call her rip.

we adopted rip from a shelter and she has no history. she is in the 1 - 2 year old range and is very probably a recent mother who was abandoned after the pups were born.

me and rip are totally outraged at these GODDAMNED MOTHERFUCKING ASSHOLE SHITHEAD NINE IRONS!!!

at the shelter i looked at rip then i looked at my daughter and as if possessed, said the following: "i think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."

the following morning i hopped into the sonata to run an errand and noticed a few windows covered in dog snot. all is right with the world. i love dog snot on the the windows.

and i love you sons of bitches almost as much as i love dog snot on a window.

what could go wrong?

yes, i admit to listening to coast to coast radio. i'm a big fan of GEORGE NOORY. old george is the perfect straight man for all his loony guests. he can keep a straight face and react like some sort of rube who truly believes that crazy guests are wonderfully sane people and their stories are of vital importance to the global community. i don't want to rag on all of his guests, i would imagine that there are many serious guests with legitimate stories to tell and credible unexplained phenomena to expose.

now good old george has introduced the PARANORMAL DATING SITE. what could go wrong? if you want to breed true lunatics you have to have a pure gene pool, no normal genes allowed. so it makes perfect sense to create a vehicle that will match up lunatics on a global scale. coast to coast has over 500 radio stations promoting the gospel of alien conspiracies and all things super natural so there is a large sample of humanity just waiting to get hooked up with like minded crack pots. who knows, maybe one of these days i'll start wearing a tin foil hat and dip my toe into the paranormal dating pool. like i said, what could go wrong?

i love you sons of bitches.

******CLIFFHANGER!

I WAS DOING SOME GARDENING AT MY MOM'S HOUSE AND FOUND A TREASURE! A LESS TRAINED EYE WOULD NOT HAVE RECOGNIZED IT BUT OLD EAGLE EYES PILGRIM IMMEDIATELY FIGURED IT OUT. I HAD TO ABANDON MY GROUCHY OLD BAG OF SISTER AND FLY HOME TO UNRAVEL THE MYSTERY AND SURE ENOUGH, GOD FUCKING LOVES ME!*******

*****IN THE TRUE SPIRIT OF GIMMICKS, YOU'LL HAVE TO AWAIT MY NEXT POST FOR THE DETAILS.*****

final resting place

dear old dad was a 100% pure icelander. a true viking. he had my back for 60 years and the thought of not having him watch my back was truly distressing so i took action. once again, he has my back. he is watching my back at this very moment:

i sealed a portion of his ashes into the regal viking. his is the first face i see each morning and the last face i see before retiring for the evening. my sister is not amused. she was upset when i sent her a photo journal of the entombment and ceremony i performed. she and i are polar opposites. so it goes.

i love you sons of bitches.

jug # 12

this is the little beauty that got it all started. i had only planned to buy this jug but before i realized what was happening i was loading 12 fucking jugs into the mighty hyundai.

regular readers know that i can never get enough of deadwood but things might have been getting a little stale so it was time to bring in the fucking indian. so far the indian has been excellent, offering me more unconditional positive regard than a $500/hour jew psychiatrist. the chief has already paid for himself many times over.

the dirty son of a bitch who uploaded the deadwood clip with the chief disabled embedding etc so please:

CLICK RIGHT HERE TO EXPERIENCE THE JOY OF AL AND THE CHIEF!

this wraps up my 12 days of jugs gimmick. it has been an outstanding success. readership has not greatly increased in quantity buy it's been a home run in terms of quality. it seems that everyone's favorite aquarian was captivated by the jugs. so i got that going for me too.

i love you sons of bitches.

jug 11

jug # 11 could be my self portrait in a few years. it's called auld mac and there really isn't anything special about it. just an old man. nothing wrong with being just an old man in my books.

i measured the young cedar trees yesterday and was truly amazed at their growth. the small tree grew two inches in the month of may and the larger tree grew 3 inches in the month of may. i've been watering them like crazy and giving them a bit of fertilizer. the trees hold a special place in my heart because just after we moved to this house dear old dad and i planted them. i was planning on buying a few alaskan weeping cedars but the nursery didn't have any so i picked up the giant cedars. i've planted a lot of trees over the years and often think how much nicer the city would be if everyone shared my love of trees. we have a few huge trees beside our house and the real estate agent told us that they actually reduced the value of of the house. nine irons don't like climbing on the roof and cleaning out the gutters.

new growth!

i love you sons of bitches

jug # 10

jug # 10 was purchased as an afterthought. i wasn't too interested in it but at the last minute i said; what the hell, he looks like an honest and honorable man and pulled the trigger. a few days after sticking him on a shelf i happened to look into his eyes and thought to myself, good purchase. i don't know if you can see from the picture but the old beefeater has a mischievous look in eyes. there's something going on behind those eyes and i intend to keep talking to him until i decipher the riddle.

connect the dots......

i love you sons of bitches.

jug # 9

i'm not too crazy about jug # 9 but it was dirt cheap so the buyer's remorse is minimal. it's another one of those "it seemed like a good idea at the time" deals. i can say the same thing about my marriage. so it goes.

it's called the falconer for obvious reasons. maybe if i keep staring into his eyes i'll make a connection.

the lovely mrs myshkin has returned from her odyssey and predictably doesn't share my love of character jugs. last night i mentioned that i might buy a few more and predictably i was given a wee lecture on common sense at which point i said, come and have a look a this. when she arrived at the computer screen i clicked on "buy it now" but a message came up stating, "transaction blocked. seller unable to receive funds" but i'm not worried, there's plenty more jugs out there.

i told her not to bother with the champagne but she still said no.

i love you sons of bitches.

jug # 8

i have a wee bit of buyer's remorse over jug # 8, the trapper. of the 12 jugs i purchased from the shop this was most expensive and all i can say is; "it seemed like a good idea at the time." in my misspent youth i spent time in the north and remember visiting the grave site of ALBERT JOHNSON, the mad trapper of rat river. he's a fascinating guy who really gave the cops a run for their money. i love the memory of albert johnson but staring into the eyes of trapper jug i just don't make a spiritual connection. so it goes.

this whole gimmick is leading up to jug #12 which i still hold in high esteem but on friday the mother of all jugs arrived and all other jugs on the planet pale in comparison this fucking beauty. it's so fucking beautiful and mesmerizing that i severely injured my back on saturday moving stuff around to create a suitable place of honor. this jug is no fucking gimmick!

no shit, my back is really fucked up. i can hardly walk and my right leg is numb. lower back injury compounded by sciatic nerve damage. i saw the doctor this morning and was given the the standard speech about being careful and told to get some physio. ain't life fucking grand.

albert flasher, albert johnson, close enough for me.

i love you sons of bitches.

jug # 7

without further ado, may i present jug #7

yup, it's the guy with the fish in his ear. not to be confused with the guy with the snake on his face:

tomorrow is d day for poor old sad king billy.

Whoo-ee! Ride me high Tomorrow’s the day My bride’s gonna come Oh, oh, are we gonna fly Down in the easy chair....

yes, the lovely mrs myshkin is scheduled to return and i'm so happy i could shit. so it goes.

i love you sons of bitches.

number 6

jug number 6 dovetails with jug number 7. i don't know if there's an official connection at royal doulton but when i bought number 6 i decided to pick up number 7 even though it wasn't on my radar screen. so far i have no buyer's remorse for either jug.

this old dude is IZZAK WALTON and he is the author of the compleat angler published in 1653. of course the book is about fishing. have i ever mentioned that i enjoy fishing from time to time?

i'll bet the king is catching lots of fish in texas, great big fucking texas sized fish!

i love you sons of bitches.

jug number 5

this gimmick is not producing the results i had hoped for but it's the only thing i could come up with that didn't involve the expense of handing out expensive gifts for quality comments. so it goes.

here's jug number 5; old charlie. i liked the way he winked at me.

currently playing on songza contemporary blues chanel:

i love you sons of bitches.

jug number 4

in past year i've been watching lots of world war 1 and world war 2 documentaries and movies so jug number 4 was a natural. i do not know a great deal about him and don't plan on reading a biography on him but i liked the jug and expression on his face. let me introduce Bernard Montgomery, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein. like most british military big shots, he did not have humble beginnings.

i'm still listening to SONGZA and hearing great artists that i missed the first time around. i spend 90% of my time there on the blues channel. gary primich can really get down and boogie for a pudgy white guy:

i love you sons of bitches.

jug number 3

when i looked at my collection of jugs i thought to myself; holy shit these guys are all white! if i don't quickly find an asian or a negro people might think i lack racial understanding so the hunt was on and i had to increase my budget. supply and demand, there are a lot more white guys for sale than black guys but as they say, someone up there likes me and i found this beauty:

in memory of bb king. it might be the only bono song i really like.

i love you sons of bitches.

jug number 2

i bought a small rip van winkle jug and immediately fell in love with it so the hunt was on for a large jug. as luck would have it the shop happened to have one in stock but i ran out of luck when i tried to haggle. it's easy to haggle over unpopular jugs but the shop keeper wasn't willing to haggle over rip. meet the ripper, he kinda makes me thing of gandalf.

beauty eh!

i love you sons of bitches.

the 12 days of jugs

readership in enjoy the moment has gone down the shitter lately so the editorial board (me and the ghost of ruby) called an emergency meeting and ruby reminded me that every successful enterprise needs a good gimmick so it is with great pleasure that i announce the 12 days of jugs. yesterday i went to an antique shop to buy one royal doulton character jug and before i knew it the sly son of bitch had sold me 12 bloody jugs. regular readers know that i've been buying these things for a while now and have had a few adventures with ebay so i jumped at the chance to buy some in person and avoid the hassles of shipping fragile items. but i sure as hell didn't plan on buying 12.

on the 12th day i will unveil the jug of my dreams. over the next few decades i'll be having many important conversations with this jug. there is an incredibly valuable prize for anyone able to guess the identity of the illustrious 12th jug! (one guess per person)

without further adieu here is number 1. it's the only small jug i purchased and upon reflection i'm regretting not buying more small jugs and fewer large jugs. the large sons of bitches take up more space and space is at a premium now that i'm overstocked on jugs etc. please allow me to introduce the pied piper. (that fucking rat falling on me was the inspiration for this guy)

i love you sons of bitches.

things are looking up.

the knight errant had a growth spurt the other night and is now an equal to his sidekick sancho and harmony has been restored to my little universe.

there are a few more in the mail and i plan to go on a shopping spree tomorrow. the lovely mrs myshkin will be in for a surprise when she returns and finds so many of my new friends. the question is how long will this interest in figurines last? i'll probably get tired of several and pack them up but i'm pretty sure i'll never tire of good old sancho. he gives me more unconditional positive support than any high priced psychiatrist.

now here's my excellent experience. when returning home from a ride and opening the noisy aluminum gate to the back yard i heard a little kerfuffle from above and a few seconds later a half-eaten rat fell from the sky landing about a foot away from me. it seems that the noise of opening the gate startled a crow who was feasting on the rat while resting on the edge of our roof. i had an old pair of leather work gloves on for the ride so i was able to immediately pick up the rat and bask in the glory of nature in all her splendor. so far everyone i've told this story to have reacted with disgust rather the rapture i experienced. fuck me, if i live to be 100 this will probably never happen again so it was essential that i enjoyed the moment! and that i certainly did.

for don and sancho!

i love you sons of bitches.