monkeywithabutcherknife

Easily the worst work week I’ve had since I got out of the military. Easily. But at least my personal life is in the shitter as well. How about a song? After all, why take life all seriously anyway?

On the way home from work there was this guy on Tchop in a big ol’ truck with a rebel flag taking up the entire back window. Additionally, he had several bumper stickers that really told a story about the driver. And if all that wasn’t bad enough he seemed to have trouble negotiating the curves at the walmart, which he was instinctively trying to get to like a bug to a porchlight. It was really quite a sight.

So I thought about it, and it really seems like if you’re going to run around like that, especially in New Orleans then your life is probably already pretty bad. No reason for me to try and make it any worse as if I even could. So rather than post something mean I thought maybe this little song might cheer the poor chap up, should he ever learn to read, find a computer in the dumpster on the ouskirts of the trailer park, and somehow manage to get online.

But, anyway, this song goes out to him and its not safe for work (just turn the sound down some) The video is pretty damn cool to boot.

Listen up!

I was up early this morning. At some point around 6am there was nothing on tv so I thought “I know, I’ll watch some music videos”. Around 5th grade My mom used to wake me up, what at the time seemed to me to be, very early. I remember we were living in this neighborhood in Northern Kentucky and I would sit up and watch Mtv after she went to work. This was back before VH1 and when Mtv had no commercials or “shows” just music videos. I had to be up becuase my dad would have already been to work and my mom was leaving for work; my younger brother would still be upstairs sleeping. I never really understood the point. Something about one of us being awake in case something happened, but really, an hour before that everyone in the house was asleep and that wasn’t a problem. Just one of those goofy mom things.

But I digress…

First I didn’t see one song or artist I liked. My favorite thing on VH1 is that blonde chick that does the back flip after a commercial break – but that’s been on there so long she has to be about  a hundred by now. So I got disgusted and started surfing around the channels and that’s when I saw something amazing.

The Shake Weight

There’s probably a website and various other things out there on the web but I just want you to watch this video very closely.

The Shake Weight is based on a completely new workout technology called Dynamic Inertia…

No its not. Its based on a particularly vigorous hand-job. I mean, I can save you $20 easy. Just jerk your boyfriend off for 6 minutes every day  and I think you’ll add a new dimension to your relationship as well as having more toned arms.

But what I really don’t get is why would someone, other than a Lesbian suffering from junk-pulling-muscle atrophy, would spend the money to buy such a thing. I mean sure, I guess if you were training for some sort of porn triathlon or something…but that’s just silly. They didn’t even put a timer in the thing so how do you know when your workout is done? Does it ejaculate in your face? At least if you’re going to design a big mechanical, spring-loaded penis it should do one of the two things an actual penis does and in this case ejaculate just seems more appropriate.

Well, this was one of my better weekends in recent memory. I felt like I was in the last few days of my little flu. I wasn’t back to 100% by any means but I was hanging in there. The meds kept the symptoms from really taking a toll on me so I figured I was doing alright by Friday afternoon. So I went home and ate, cuddled up with Scout on the couch, watched some tv and got to sleep early.

7am Saturday morning there’s a knock on the door. Right on time, Matt, Sylvia, and Dave are there ready to get to work. Shortly thereafter Kaveman shows up to help also. We got the back wall of the shanty stripped off, sprayed with some anti-termite chemicals (no offense to my ex) on the framing and then sheeted the whole thing with plywood – incidentally, plywood they gave me for free from a job site several months ago. Then put the bottom and top trim in place and wrapped it in tyvek. Looks great! I have to replace the bathroom window that’s on that wall this week, and I have to trade in the 36″ door I’d gotten to replace the back door with a 34″ door since I’m an idiot and can’t measure a door opening correctly. Dave is going to come out next weekend and help me up put the door in – more accurately, I’ll help him put the door in since that’s his thing. And I’m hoping he can bring the transom out with him so we can shoot the siding start line all around the house. After that, its just a matter of coming up with the money for siding.

We got done sometime around mid afternoon so we all went out so I could buy everyone some thank you drinks for coming out to help me. It was nice hanging out. Then I went home and got cleaned up and such. Kaveman came and picked me up and we went to Finn McCools to watch the LSU game…nothing too exciting there. Just hanging out shooting some pool and watching some football.

Sunday 8:30am I get a txt message from kaveman about breakfast. We eat at Buffa’s before hitting the road to Angola. The Giant Peach meets us there and we hit the road around 10am. Long drive, traffic, poo jokes, saw a fat woman fall down running from a port-o-let to a pick up truck etc. Around 2:00pm we get to the prison. Lots of crafts and such; the rodeo had just started so we walked around for a bit and got some chili Frito pie. then we went to watch the rodeo. I’ll be honest, not a fan of rodeos. this was my first one, and the rodeo part I really didn’t care for. Except for inmate poker: this is where four inmates sit around a plastic table on plastic chairs like they’re playing poker; then they let a bull out and the last one to stay in their seat wins. Apparently, though, bulls hate card tables. Good stuff.

But then came the reason I would sit for four hours in a car riding through Southern Louisiana to a rodeo I’m only vaguely interested in: Monkeys. To be exact three, Australian sheepdog riding, ram herding Monkeys. Now you aren’t allowed to bring camera or cell phones in to the prison so I don’t have any pictures I actually took but here’s a picture of exactly what it was.

It was amazing. They herded these rams around and then into a pen in the middle of the arena. then this pick up truck rolls out and they herd the rams into the back of the truck where they then hop onto a platform on the cab. Then the dogs, with the monkeys on their back hop into the back of the truck and they all ride out together. Just amazing.

Right after that we left the Rodeo part and went back to the crafts for a bit and tried to beat the rush out of there (didn’t work) But traffic coming back wasn’t nearly as bad for whatever reason. We were listening to the saints game the whole way. Then Kaveman suggested we stop at Middendorfs for dinner on the way back. We ate out on the deck near the boat dock and watched about the last half hour of what can only be described as a bizzarre game. Geaux Saints!!

With a belly full of thin, fried catfish and hushpuppies, after having dropped The Gieant Peach off at his place, Kaveman and Bex dropped me off at the shanty around 7:30 Sunday evening. It was a long blur of a weekend. Its nice to have friends you can count on. It was nice to have a weekend that was interesting and fun.

Go-Go-Gadget Immune System!! There seems to be some confusion on my outlook on this Flu-like-thing I have right now. Allow me to clarify. First of all, we’re at a peak for H1N1 and I’m sick right now. Secondly, the seasonal flu generally doesn’t get rolling until late November and peaks sometime around February. Again, I’m sick now. So what’s the confusion? Well, its that I actually hope its the H1N1 virus. Which is deemed ignorant by some. But think about it.

First of all, I’m not in a danger bracket. I’m not that old (yet) and I’m not a child (physically). I have no pre-existing conditions that make me at risk in any real way. I don’t work around at risk people or even just large groups of people. In fact, I work in a small office of a couple dozen people mostly men under 40. In fact there are only 2 people I know that are in the at risk category. One is a girl I work with who is pregnant and out of the office this week (and maybe next week). The other is my Ex-Girlfriend; and let’s be honest, I’m more likely to see Bigfoot than her. So I’m not really going to impact anyone negatively at the first degree of separation.

And you may be thinking, be that as it may, that still doesn’t explain the hopefulness, just the lack of staggering fear. Well, what makes H1N1, or at least this particular strain from what I can tell, so dangerous is that its new in the sense that our immune systems haven’t ever been exposed to it before. So if I get this little flu and I cough and feel bad for a couple of days and I’m over it, then I’ve been exposed and my immune system now knows how to deal with it. So the odds in me ever getting it again go down, and the odds in it actually doing me in are next to nothing.

Does that mean I’m not taking precautions? Of course I am. But only to a point. I’m washing my hands frequently and for a little longer in a little hotter water than usual. I’m washing the drinking glass that floats around my apartment for days at a time being constantly refilled with water a little more often. I’m keeping my hands away from my face as much as possible. I’m drinking a lot of Orange Juice. I’m covering my mouth when I cough. I’m avoiding large crowds, etc, etc, etc. What am I not doing? I’m not going to quarantine myself in the house. I’m not going to wear a fucking dust mask when I go out; mostly because Michael Jackson sort of ruined that look for Caucasian everywhere.

I guess my point is, if this is a mild version of H1N1 that I have right now, then its basically nature’s vaccine. And I’m cool with that.

I was watching some great skits over at Traveling Fat Guy.I couldn’t help but notice my own reccomendation didn’t make the cut. Perhaps because it isn’t, strictly speaking, a skit. But its still a really funny scene and worth posting here I think even if it does date me a little.

Well, maybe not Iron Man actually. Probably more like the Tin Man. So a little useless information about the photo. I took it this morning. See, my front door faces east so in the morning the sun is very much directly in front. There’s this bizzare-ass peep hole on the front door that catches the light all Indiana Jones style when he had that stick with the medalion on top.

So, I’d just gotten out of the shower and gotten dressed when I was walking through the bedroom heading off to work when I “walked into the light”. And I thought that was kinda funny. So I snapped a picture and had that Iron Man song in my head all morning. Another interesting thing about the light: At certain times of the year the light from the peephole in the morning shines all the way through the house to the back door. Then in the evening those same days it will shine through a similar peephole in the back door and shine on the front door. Its all very odd. But I should be replacing the back door this weekend so the fun will be short-lived. But has made me think that I’d like the transoms above the fornt doors to be stained glass. Well, at least after I get rid of those stupid metal aunings…blah blah blah…I’ve bored myself. This post is over.

So just watch this and pretend I said something cute or interesting or something.