Harvesters Weekend At The Renaissance Festival

This weekend at The Renaissance Festival, September 13th and 14th, bring 5 non perishable food items for Harvester's and buy one ticket at the gate, get one free!

Do the math!

Two adult gate tickets at $17.50 each is $35.00

Two adult advance tickets at $15.50 each is $31.00

Two corporate partner discounted advance tickets at $12.50 each is still $25.00 just to get in the door. That's without turkey legs and scotch eggs.

Buy one adult gate ticket for $17.50 on Harvester's weekend and get another adult ticket for 5 cans of Aldi's store brand green beans, total $18.50!

It's the best weekend of the year to go to the Renaissance Festival. It's your best bargain and it is the greatest benefit to the community.

Me and my daughter, young Galadriel Tanqueray Onassis and I will be there.



You should be too.

McCain * Palin - “Original Mavericks”

I love the fact that McCain and Palin are campaigning as two "mavericks" who buck the system, upset the apple carts, and chart their own course! The Republican party has never been so enthused and energized!

What The Fucking Fuck?

Question: Why was the Right Wing so dead set against McCain in the first place?

Answer: BECAUSE HE WAS A FUCKING MAVERICK!

They couldn't count on McCain to tow the party line, to loyally salute the GOP flag and blindly support whatever wrong-headed agenda they happened to be shoving down America's craw.

He had voted against the President too many times! He couldn't be trusted! Because he committed The Cardinal Republican Sin...sometimes, he actually made up his own fucking mind about issues and voted accordingly.

BLASPHEMER! APOSTATE!

Republicans aren't supposed to think! They aren't supposed to analyse data or question authority!

That's for those gay, Birkenstock-wearing, wine-sipping, cheese-nibbling, wife-swapping, tree-hugging, French-speaking, Volvo-driving, intellectual-elitist, terrorist-coddling, Liberal DEMOCRATS (spit)!

NO! Republicans are supposed to start their day with a download of Karl Rove Approved Talking Points and regurgitate as necessary. Ya know, the same way ya learned The Bible!



The Republican Establishment has HATED John McCain for years because they didn't think he was "one of them". He wasn't "on board". Wasn't following "the program".

And he wasn't. Until this election campaign.

He realized that being his own man, being a "maverick" didn't work for him in 2000 for all of the reasons I just mentioned. He couldn't win the support of his own party. They went with the incredibly intellectually stunted and easily manipulated Shrub instead.



But now, in the most incredible but completely unsurprising display of hypocrisy the world has ever seen, the Republican Establishment is enthusiastically whipping up a frenzy of support for their very own "John McCain! Maverick! Agent of Change!"

Horse.



Shit.

They swallowed John McCain's primary win with all the enthusiasm of a ruffied bimbo at a porn booth glory hole going down on some smelly wino cock.
[graphic ommitted in deference to your delicate sensabilities]

Now they are proclaiming it's the best thing they've ever tasted and everyone else should gobble it up too! YUM!

Watching the Republicans rally around McCain and Palin because they are "mavericks" is one of the most intellectually and historically laughable circus side shows I've ever seen.

What a bunch of buffoons.

It's embarrassing.

Palin's Pentecostal Past

From CNN.

"For decades, Sarah Palin went to church with people who spoke in tongues and believed in faith healing and the "end times." Her former pastor says the Pentecostal past of the GOP vice presidential nominee may now be being downplayed to avoid misunderstanding. But the pastor, Tim McGraw, says he's sure religion influences Palin's policy-making"

Yeah. I want someone with THAT world view to be a heartbeat away from the most powerful position on earth.

Don't speak Russian? Try speaking "tongues". I'm sure that the United States issuing a mandate that all of the translators at the United Nations learn "tongues" will boost our standing in the world.

While we're at it, "goon-babble" might be a good language skill for them to acquire.

Jesus Fucking Christ!

This bitch is crazier than a shit-house rat!

This Cracked Me Up!

Do NOT Download XP SP3

Microsoft has a new Service Pack for Windows XP available.

Available to idiots stupid enough to download it.

If they had it debugged and fixed, you would just get it in the middle of the night and be none the wiser.

But it is still in that

"Psst! Hey buddy! C'mere. Look at dis! I got a new XP Service pack available. Wanna give it a try? Ah, c'mon! Ya big fuckin' pussy! Ya ain't got a hair on yer ass if ya don't download it!"

stage.

Here is proof of what I'm talking about.

Microsoft is offering FREE, 24/7, three channel (email, live chat and phone) technical support for XP SP3 problems until April, 2009!

Doesn't that seem a bit overly generous for Microsoft?

More proof.

I actually had a real, live, Microsoft tech working with me for about 6 hours today trying to fix my problem.

It's still not fixed, but I'm just sayin'. When was the last time you actually got that kind of attention from Microsoft?

I hope to have more to report when I'm no longer operating in SAFE MODE!

The Mighty Zippo...The Rest Of The Story

About the time I married my last wife, my dad gave me the Continental Can zippo that I had heard, smelled and lived with for my entire childhood.

It was the most awesome gift my father could have given me. This was HIM. This was his life. It was engraved with the logo of the company he had been working for when I was born. This was his approval. This was his acknowledgement that I was a responsible, full grown, adult male. It was his way of saying "Ya done good son, and I'm proud of ya."

I know it's just a fucking cigarette lighter. But it meant a lot to me. It was like he was giving me his life. His legacy.

So one day I make a trip to Independence Center. We're not talking Bannister Mall here, so I'm not as security conscious as I should have been. I leave my dad's lighter, a pack of Marlboro lights with maybe 3 cigarettes in the box sitting in the cup holder of my jeep. I didn't lock the jeep.

I come back out less than an hour later and my smokes and my dad's 50 year old zippo are gone.

My $700.00 Nikon 35mm camera is still in the jeep, but the 3 Marlboro lights in the flip top box next to the convenient silver zippo are history.

This wasn't some sophisticated shopping mall parking lot robbery ring at work.

This was just some broke-ass, lazy fucker with a nicotine fix that needed a smoke and saw an unguarded pack of cigs and a source of ignition.

I was fucking devastated! You have no idea how much that simple Zippo lighter meant to me. I knew I would never see it again.

Flash forward to Christmas, 1994.

My first Christmas as a father.

Galadriel Tanqueray Onassis was only 10 months old.

But in my Christmas stocking was a small, gift-wrapped box.

Inside the box was an engraved, silver, Zippo lighter.

The inscription said:



"My Dad's Zippo.
Love, Galadriel, 1995."


Yeah, I know. She was only 10 month's old.

But it's still a pretty fucking awesome gift, under the circumstances.

I'll cherish that Zippo for the rest of my life (despite the obvious provenance) and I will ensure that Galadriel inherits it when I pass on.

Although I hope she never, ever, uses it to light a cigarette.

And that, my friends, is the rest of the story.

The Mighty Zippo

I grew up around smokers. I was raised by smokers.

I was born in 1955. Everybody smoked. My grandparents smoked. Pregnant women smoked. Doctors smoked. My teachers smoked (the teachers lounge reeked and belched smoke like Cheech and Chongs VW mini-bus). Broadcast news legend Edward R. Murrow chain smoked like a chimney on TV, even as he introduced Public Television on my 7th birthday in 1962.



And the sound track that accompanied all that smoking was the unique sound of the opening, striking, and closing of the Zippo lighter.



It is easy to distinguish between the sound of a Zippo opening and closing and that of a lesser, cheaper lighter. It just doesn't sound the same. (go to the bottom of the page and click on "The sound of a Zippo:" and "The sound of a Rippo:")

Like the "potatopotatopotato" sound of a Harley Davidson...



or the unmistakeble War Bird Growl of a P-51 Mustang firing up it's pistons and taking flight,



it is a uniquely American sound and one that you can immediately recognize, no matter how faint.

I remember my dad's Zippo. It was a company branded lighter. He worked for the Continental Can Company in Coffeyville, Kansas.

His Zippo was engraved with the red-laquered filled logo of the three nested Cs.



Below that was engraved "Continental Can Co. Coffeyville Plant 17".

My dad smoked Camel straights - no filters.


Predictably, that was my first brand as well. I smoked them for years. My pussified frends accused me of smoking them so they couldn't bum from me. Truth was, they just tasted better than filtered cigarettes. But I digress.

I grew up listening to that lighter click open, flint wheel sparking the Ronson lighter-fluid-scented flame to life, and the distictive click of the lid snapping shut to snuff out the fire.

It was ubiquitous.

I quit smoking over two years ago, and that is the only thing I miss. The sound and feel of a Zippo. The ritual of removing it from it's case and unscreweing the spring to change the flint. Refilling the lighter fluid so it's full, but not so full it will leak in your pocket and give you a nasty chemical burn on your thigh.

Ah, good times!

I have another story about my dad's Zippo that I'll save for another time.

But for now, I will just leave you with this AWESOME video of cool Zippo Tricks and a link to this list of tutorial videos so you rebel smokers can learn your own mad Zippo skillz.