This is an audience participation post. In this picture (thanks to Mom for the pic!), I have just received a gift for Father’s Day from my Mother In Law. I look a little surprised don’t I?

Any guesses as to what could be in the bag?

Thanks for stopping by and remember: Every solution breeds new problems.

It is a rare dog that will sit around shooting the breeze with you, knocking back a cold one or two. Mango, my stepdaughter’s Pomeranian will not sit around shooting the breeze, but I get the distinct impression that he will knock back a few with you.

The most important aspect of getting your dog drunk, or even your step-daughter’s dog drunk (or perhaps even your neighbors dog drunk, were you so inclined), is to discover their poison of choice.

As a bonus, Mango is apparently a bit of slosh and not too fussy about his alcoholic beverages.

Once you are good to go with your alcohol, apply it liberally to the dog in question.

My thanks to my Mom (who takes very cool pictures), for passing along these photos of me, getting Mango all liquored up!

Thanks for stopping by and remember: There is a fine line between fishing and just standing on the shore like an idiot.

Odd stuff.

It is what makes life, well… odd. That is a good thing. The Martians’ Heaven definitely falls into this category.

Heaven is an acoustic mix of pop music, history, life advice, religion, Gladiator, Doctor Who, and Star Trek.

Its geeky yes, but its catchy as hell.

The video is bad eye candy (although in its own way weirdly amusing), but the tune is Scottish gold.

Thanks to both Psycho-Momia and Boutell for the link hookup: It is amazing what you find when you go down some previously un-traveled paths.

Also check out these other The Martians tunes:

Days Like These: An very 70’s observation about events of some day when something might have happened maybe.
geoff Killed a Pigeon: A theatrical of exploration of death by bicycle.
Cheesy: Christmas gone oh so wrong.

Thanks for stopping by and remember: There’s too much blood in your alcohol system.

My first meeting with Yvaine took place in the seedy cantina in Mos Eisley on Tatooine. This was appropriate considering that the player behind Yvaine was role-playing a fallen star in a galaxy far far away. That is part of the beauty of Star Wars Galaxies.

We became friends and this player promoted Stardust by Neil Gaiman (in which the tale of Yvaine is told), as if it were their own writing (and were very proud of it).

I went out, bought it, and devoured it.

Stardust was not my introduction to Gaiman. My wife Amy had shown me the humorously delightful joys of Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch, some time earlier (admittedly, her bedtime readings initially got me hooked, but when time and circumstance did not permit that any longer, I devoured it myself as well).

Still Stardust was one of the first Gaiman books that I read and came to love.

It is classic Gaiman. Wild fantasy with dark overtones: wonderful for kids, but as enthralling to adults.

When I discover friends that have an interest in reading, I will eventually recommend this to them, depending where their tastes lay. If you are a friend, and I have not recommended this to you yet, take this as your gentle push: go read it. I would be astonished if you did not enjoy it.

It was with trepidation that I learnt that Stardust will imminently be a movie, as I often am when I discover that a tale that I love is going to be fleshed out in that visual medium. It is often a mixture of excitement and nervousness.

Yet from experience with his work being movietised (Neverwhere became a BBC television series which turned out quite good, and Mirrormask is brilliantly beyond its time), and the obvious heavy involvement from the author himself in the project (as detailed often in Neil Gaiman’s blog), I am a little more comfortable that this project may actually end up being a crowd pleaser.

Having recently seen a preview of Stardust, I must admit that I am keener than ever to sit down in those seats in front of a huge projector screen and have a look at this novel that I thoroughly enjoy.

Yvaine was a friend for a brief time, but went away to sparkle in another galaxy far far away, however the story lives on as a source of joy for me and hopefully the movie will too.

Fingers crossed.

Thanks for stopping by and remember: If a camel flies, no one laughs if it doesn’t get very far.

I enjoyed watching Rachel Ray at one point. Then after a while, not so much. She got a little repetitive and that just made it all the harder to ignore just how annoying she can be.

This video clip is mighty amusing, and I imagine that if you have even the slightest familiarity with Rachel Ray, you’ll get a kick out of it as well.

Thanks go out to Slashfood where I found the original link to the video.

Thanks for stopping by and remember: Never tell a lie unless it is absolutely convenient.

The last storm that came through appears to have wiped the smile off my tree-ent’s face. He’s definitely not as smug as he has been previously.

Thanks for stopping by and remember: Eagles may soar, but weasels don’t get sucked into jet engines.

• It seems to me that perhaps this gentleman was not properly equipped to go river tubing. Or perhaps he was over equipped.
• Why did they have to put me next to this guy: Look at the size of his package! Doh!
• Wow, this is going to keep the housewives in Phoenix busy with their feather dusters for quite some days to come! (After the annoying ad)
• If I received a bill like this in the mail, it would be enough to send me right back into the hospital.
• Oh come on! “He” probably just wants to be able to read the morning paper!
• Luminara: a pretty damn cool twist on that old Asteroids game that used to drive me batty
• Rowan Atkinson in Hell, which is the epitome of Classic Good Atkinson, not that crappy movie stuff.
• Bloxorz: Now that Asteroids no longer drives me batty (because I can play Luminara), Bloxorz can take its place. Puzzle game that quickly had my head a hurtin’.

Thanks for stopping by and remember, man invented language to satisfy his deep need to complain.

My step-daughter’s dog is Mango. Mango is a pomeranian. He’s also hyperactive and an attention whore. Which is everything that I find annoying in a pet.

But when you actually get past the hyperness and get to know Mango, he is not a bad dog. He’s actually very sweet, and I like him a lot. Despite his negative qualities. Hell, we all have those.

Besides, Mango likes beer:

That’s Mango finishing up my Miller Chill. I gave him a couple more beers after this picture. I think I got him a little tipsy. A dog that drinks beer ain’t that bad after all.

Thanks for stopping by and remember, beauty is in the eye of the beer holder.

On Monday night, Amy hankered for some wings. I have never been a big fan of wings myself. I dislike dark meat, tendons, skin, and bones. I had only had Amy’s homemade wings before and while I loved her sauce, I disliked the vehicle for it. Besides, I find it objectionable to be maiming those poor animals for my (not even) eating pleasure.

It seems like my good friend Crickie is eating them every other day and Amy had recently been raving to me about the wings at Wing Stop since she had started eating them during occasional evening get togethers with a co-worker couple.

Boneless chicken wings (that is, chicken nuggets) are commonplace at wing joints, so I figured I could try some, and Amy would be able to get her wing fix.

Unfortunately, we weren’t so into them that we were willing to actually go out and get them, so we decided to try Wing Street, and have them conveniently delivered. My part of the order was twenty pieces of boneless Buffalo Burnin’ Hot wings. I figured that if I was going to try these wing things, I might as well dive into the deep end of the lava pit.

They were extremely good with an excellent flavor (a sweet fruity habanero middle flavor, followed by delicious cumulative burn to finish off), and quite filling (much more so than bone-in wings). I got through ten wings and consigned the rest to leftovers for dinner the next evening.

On the drive home from work on Tuesday, I was looking forward to my left over wings. Unfortunately our house was embroiled in a black out that evening (see The Dickhead Chevrolet Blazer Of Household Air Conditioning), and had no way of heating up the left over chicken wings.

However, we did not want to be disappointed by an absence of wings in our evening meal, and with the house being unpleasantly absent of electrical power, we decided to go and find the nearest Wing Stop.

My order this time consisted of seven pieces of their boneless Atomic wings (again jumping straight into the deep end). These wings were incredible. They taste very peppery, and their heat level starts at “over the top” and gets even hotter with each successive wing, until you bow down to the pleadings of your mouth, lips, and upper throat.

I got through four.

I was also impressed with the size of these wings: they were more often than not like chicken tenders than nuggets.

They did however F me the hell up the next morning This really, if you are a hot and spicy food fan, you realize is just part of the price you pay when you eat this food. Sort of like a hidden tax. In the morning I woke up and felt a steam train of pain rushing through my lowerins (lower intestines), and I correctly guessed that I would not experience “re-entry” until I was on the way to work.

Luckily, the bathroom of a handy Jack-in-the-Box was unoccupied.

For those of you keeping up with the math, I still had ten Buffalo Burnin’ Hot wings and three (actually turned out to be four) Atomic wings left over.

That is where dinner for Wednesday came in. I still did not make it through them all. However, I refused to leave the house for work on Thursday morning until I knew that it was safe to do so.

Now it is Friday evening, and as I write this, I find myself faced with four Buffalo Burnin’ Hots and two Atomics.

I am digging in with glee.

I highly recommend that you try either Wing Street’s Buffalo Burnin’ Hot wings or Wing Stop’s Atomic wings. Go boneless. They are more filling and the do not leave a poor chicken disabled and unable to provide for its little chicken family.

Now if you will excuse me, I have got to go finish breaking apart my insides.

Thanks for stopping by and remember, its no fun getting screwed while everyone else is getting laid.

The intention last night was to write a post about the beauty of having a car (see New Wheels) with actual functioning air conditioning.

Ironically, Amy called while the new car was on the way to delivering (after a long day at work) the frazzled frame of a man they call Scott to his home, advising that the power at the house had gone and left for greener pastures.

That is there was a blackout.

Shite posting capabilities and the air conditioning in my home was severely lacking for the entire evening (or anything else electrical for that matter).

However, I am getting ahead of myself.

The Dickhead Chevrolet Blazer

Since totaling my BMW 7 series in a stupid accident, I have been driving our backup car: an old Chevrolet Blazer, while we dealt with insurance and arranged to buy a new car which almost literally fell into our laps.

The problems with the Blazer are many and sundry (my nickname for this vehicle has for a long time been “Dickhead,” and for good reason).

Being a commuter in Texas, especially with the summer that we Texans have been experiencing this year: the largest complaint I had was the non-functioning air conditioning.

When it is in the high nineties outside and you are driving home in a car that a) has no air conditioning, and b) has been sitting out in that heat all day, I think there is a justifiable reason to start hating its metallic guts.

Not to mention that I would come home every evening one stroppy Scott English.

Oh and do not let me forget the rain. The hot, humid, downpours of “I can’t see ten feet in front of me” rain that seemed to time it exactly to when I was on the road again. No way to stop the interior of the windshield from fogging up other than to wind down the windows resulted in not only a stroppy Scott English, but a sopping one as well.

Moreover, boy was it a pleasure to drive its damp ass the next day.

The Angelic BMW 528i

I hope now that you can imagine the glory of driving home, not only a car with air conditioning, but one without the other many and sundry problems.

It is pure and utter bliss.

Whereas the Blazer may have taken off a couple of years of my life, I feel like the BMW 528 is giving them back to me. I may even live a tad longer now. The ride is smooth, calm, relaxing, and most importantly: pleasantly cool.

I love love love it! It is like driving on a cloud of air-conditioned bliss.

The Dickhead Chevrolet Blazer Of Household Air Conditioning

I arrive last night. There is indeed no power. According to my wife’s note and her conversation, the ETA for restoring of power is thirty minutes away.
I putter around waiting.

I putter some more.

And some more.

Amy gets home: no power. I am thinking that it is starting to get hot in the house but its hot and humid outside so opening the windows is not going to do anything other than aggravate the situation.

I have grabbed my stock of three coldish beers out of the fridge. Soon they are gone.

Out of habit, we walk around the house trying to turn on lights as we go into rooms and start making a joke out of it: “The light in the closet isn’t working,” one of us hollers. “The bathroom light is not working either,” the other yells in confirmation some time later. “Yep, seems like it’s not working,” shouts the first later still.

Its amazing how ingrained turning the light switch on is when we walk into a dark room, even though we know full well that the little click is going to do nothing but that little click.

We called the power company for an update on the ETA, and found it was conveniently now 11 freaking pm that evening. We are both getting hungry, and even if we were to risk opening the fridge (letting out whatever cold air might still be trapped in there) to get out the leftovers for something to eat, there would be no way of heating them up. I contemplated creating a fire in the back yard, but everything was soaking wet from the storm that caused the blackout in the first place.

We go out for dinner. When we return there is still now damn electricity. So we buck up, go to the gas station and get some cold beer and some ice (ok, that was mainly my doing), and then we settle in for what is probably going to be a long and uncomfortable and getting-hotter-but-still-not-as-hot-as-outside night trying to get to sleep.

I stubbed my toe.

It hurt like a mofo.

While I was laying on the futon trying to read (first with the illumination of nightlight with a battery on its last legs, and then (briefly), with the nauseating flickering of a candle), I pondered how dependant we had become on the presence of electricity in our lives in order for us to function even at a basic level. It was quite an uncomfortable line of inquiry, so I promptly discarded it and went to sleep.

This is after all, the 21st century.

Thanks for stopping by, and remember that the Earth is a great, big funhouse without the fun.

PS: For all those of you concerned, the power was restored at 5am the next morning, a mere 10 hours or so later, and only 9 hours later than the original estimate. I wish I could upgrade to the BMW of power companies