Baby, you can drive my car...

Today is Mrs. Wiggy's super-fantastic birfday. I am about as happy as I can possibly be! Birfdays are nice, and even better - someone else's birfday.

So today at work is the once-a-month potluck lunch. Ever buddy brings in something to eat, and at about noon, we all go over and stuff ourselves on strange food that we hardly recognize. The potential for abuse is enormous.

Mrs. Wiggy, bless her, decided to assist me when I announced to all and sundry that I would bring in 'Boiled Weasel' and 'Some Kind of Brown Stuff.' She made a couple of enormous crockpots full of Taco Soup, a most wonderous concoction that makes ol' Wiggy holler with joy. But it looks like something found in a vat in a ditch near a mad scientist's lair. Perfect.

I brought it in this morning and proudly labeled it - Boiled Weasel & Some Kind of Brown Stuff and set it up on the back table.

So far, not one laugh. Apparently, people around here just take their Boiled Weasel too seriously.

Best,

Wiggy

PS - And wish Mrs. Wiggy a Happy Birfday, dad nab it!

The 'Win a New Head' Contest from Dr Pepper!!!

OK, so it's not what I thought it was. I bought a bottle of Dr Pepper the other day - not my normal tipple (see blog on lying, cheating, soda machines below) and I noticed this morning - because I will drink the stuff warm, my little droogies - that they are running some sort of contest. Well, when don't they? It's the default state, eh? It all becomes background noise - nobody notices anymore.

This one caught my eye, though. They are calling it "Win a $25,000 New Look Instantly!" Apparently, you look at a code under the bottle cap, go to www.drpepper.com and type the code in, and if you win, you win...What?

My first thought was, 'My God, they're giving away plastic freaking surgery now!' I thought we had finally hit The End. I knew that if this were true, it would immediately usher in TEOTWAWKI (The End Of The World As We Know It).

So I went to the website and I typed in the code. OK, my little malchicks, it wasn't quite that simple. First, I had to surrender a great deal of personal information and answer a few survey questions. But I took one for the team, my babies. Anyway, I lied my butt off. Some poor retired woman whose name I found in the local Rest Home directory is about to start getting all kinds of junk mail for TiVo's and MP3 players and Kicking it with her honeys. I'm evil, you know.

Anyway, as to the contest. If you win, you get $25,000 in gift certificates or some such thing to buy what you want - your 'new look' consists of how the rubbish you buy will make you a different person. Ah.

Well, I have to admit it - I'm somewhat disappointed here. I was hoping to get a new head, and God knows I didn't want to pay for it. This one I have now is all worn out - there's no hair left on it and it is getting wrinkles and to be honest, it's kind of stupid at times.

You can talk to Dr Pepper about this contest at: consumer.relations@brandspeoplelove.com - They'd love to hear from you!

Keep yer stick on the ice,

Wigwam Jones

A Thought About Abortion

Touchy subject, I know. And I am not hear to stir things up and get ever buddy all ticked off. But I saw this story and wanted to comment:

World's Smallest Baby Goes Home

Seems that a baby was recently born weighing 8.6 ounces and she delivered by c-section at 26 weeks of pregnancy. I guess she's doing fine and that's great.

Now, it is my understanding that in most places in the USA, abortions are performed on demand at up to the 24th week of pregnancy - in some rare cases even after that. This is well into the 2nd trimester of pregnancy.

I am not making judgments here - but I note that it would appear that only 14 days separate what many of us would call an abortion and a live child being delivered - although of course this situation is rare and much medical attention was required for the baby to survive. Still, this baby is alive, and apparently well enough to go home. She is not a fetus, she is a human being. Ending her life now would be what we commonly call murder.

14 days, people.

In 14 days, a thing becomes a person, apparently. Somewhere in that time frame, a threshold is passed, and what would otherwise be a woman exercising her right to choose what is contained in her body becomes...what?

My conclusions is simple and hopefully non-political. I note only that with future advances in medical technology, it seems inevitable that the 'earliest date' of survival will be pushed back further and further. I ask if the commonly-accepted dates of abortion-on-demand will be pushed back to match these new borders? If not, then what?

Keep Smiling,

Wiggy

Those Crooked, Crooked, Soda Vending Machines

Who knew I'd have another rant ready to go in such short order? Normally, I exhaust myself on a good rant and I'm unable to continue for a few days, maybe a week. I wear myself out on my rant, I break myself against it, and when I'm done, there's nothing left. I have to recharge.

But here we go again. I no sooner vent my spleen on the vicious, horrible, coffeemakers from hell, than I find myself up against those obeliskoid plunderers that we call Soda Vending Machines.

Now, I should say straight away that I am in favor of soda vending machines. I am a soda vending machine fan! And unlike coffeemakers, soda vending machines have not reached the pinnacle of mechanical perfection as yet. They still must be made more reliable, more unjammable, more capable of rejecting Canadian coins (I don't care what anybody says, that stuff is not money!). They must be made to resist efforts to steal them or the products inside them, and these challenges are continually being met by engineers of great intellect and capacity. All good.

However, there is a problem, and upon this problem I hang today's rant...

When I was a kid, there was a soda vending machine (I still don't call it 'pop') outside of the gas station next door to my house in San Jose, Illinois (population: 400). Soda was a dime, and it was dispensed in returnable bottles with non-twist-off caps. You were supposed to hang around long enough to drink the soda and place the bottle in a wooden crate placed next to the machine. And soda came in 10 or 12-ounce glass bottles, not 18, 24, or 44 ounce bladder busters.

These machines were unreliable. They did not take paper money. They often jammed, especially when fed Canadian coins (that stuff is not money). Sometimes you'd press the button for your choice of soda and the machine would grunt and grind and nothing would come out - argh!

But they did have one good feature. It was called an 'Sold Out' light.

Here's how it worked: if a particular soda choice was not available, a light would come on next to the button for that soda. Huh. Seems simple enough. And you knew before you deposited your money that your selection would not be available. You could decide to select another choice, or you could put your money back in your pocket. But at least you knew.

This system was not without problems! Sometimes the 'Sold Out' light would be burned out - you would not know until you had already deposited your coins that you could not get your selection. You pressed the button and nothing happened, or a small backlit message would come on saying something like "Try Another Selection." Worse, sometimes the machine would try to give you your selection - you could hear the gears and wheels turning inside the machine - but there was nothing to deliver, and that's what you would receive - nothing. But by and large, the system worked. It needed improvement, but it worked.

Which brings us to today.

Soda Vending machines are very sophisticated today. They do a much better job of handling money - even paper money! They don't just jam when presented with Canadian coins (that stuff is not money). They are seldom confused about which selections they have and which they are out of. Some of them even play music or talk. I'm surprised they don't have one yet that gets up and follows you around, playing the company jingle. Or one that kicks the crap out of competing-brand soda vending machines, Battle-Bot style (by the way, that would be cool).

But do they have a 'Sold Out' light? They do not! Where did it go? Why did it get excised instead of upgraded? How come we can't know if there is a soda of our choice lurking inside the opaque innards of the machine?

The answer, my friends, is marketing. The bean counters have gotten ahold of the engineers, and greed has triumphed over ingenuity yet again.

Sure, it would be child's play for soda machine engineers to design and build a modern soda machine that indicated BEFORE YOU PUT YOUR MONEY IN which selections are available and which are not. Folks, this is not rocket science!

Instead, what happens? You know what happens.

You approach the machine. It merrily advertises things it may or may not have lurking inside. You put in your money. When the proper amount is deposited, you can make your selection. You push the button for your favorite brand of soda.

Sometimes, you get your soda. The promise is fulfilled. Refreshment is achieved. Ever buddy is happy. Life is good. You hear the rush of angel wings overhead. Oh, wait, that's the 'Cream Cheese Lite' TV commercial. Never mind that last bit.

But sometimes, the selection you want is sold out. Not available. Missing in action. You mash the button - nothing happens. You mash it harder - still nothing. Then you notice the small LCD screen next to the coin slot. It commands you to "Make Another Selection" in the computer equivalent of stentorian tones. It is not a question, it is not a suggestion, it is an order! You make another selection, you stupid human! Make it now! Now, now, now! Buy something! Do it now!

Those of you who know me...know that this pisses me off. And for a multitude of reasons. Which I'll enumerate, in excrutiating detail. Sad is the world.

First, I don't like being told what to do. Especially not by a machine. It incites me to riot.

Second, I don't WANT another selection. I want MY friggin' selection, that's why I friggin' selected it! MORONS!

Once upon a time, I was a smoker. Yes, I was addicted to a particular brand and type of cigarette. No other type or brand of cigarette would do. If I went into a gas station to buy a pack of smokes, and they were out of mine, I'd walk out and go somewhere else. I would not purchase a different brand - not even a different SIZE for crap's sake. I want what I want - nothing else. You're probably that way, too.

Imagine if I walked into a convenience store and asked for a pack of XYZ smokes. First of all, the clerk rings me up and takes my cash BEFORE he will tell me if they have my brand in stock. Then, the clerk tells me that they're out of XYZ and tells me to buy ABC smokes instead. "Make another selection!" he shouts at me. "Do it now! Now, now, now!" I can pretty much promise you that clerk would never have to worry about offspring. Or having eyeballs. Or teeth. Get me? That's how much I like being ordered around.

Third, the soda vending machines don't give you your money back if you press the 'Coin Return' button. Oh, it will give you your money back eventually. If you mash the button several times and then wait, arms crossed and angry as hell, until it s.l.o.w.l.y. craps out each little quarter, as if it were checking them for silver content before regurgitating them. Like it hurt to give them up. And then, finally, you get your money back.

And you know what really hurts? This is programmed behavior, my little malchicks. These machines do not have to do this - every aspect of it is programmed. The requirement for you to mash the 'Coin Return' button over and over again - that's in the firmware for the machine. I tried it - mash the button once, wait, and nothing happens. Mash it a second time, and wait about thirty seconds, and it spits out a quarter. Ten seconds later, it drops another. Then the rest. But you have to hit the 'Coin Return' button TWICE or it will not work at all!

And this is crookery. Theft by deception. Outright highway robbery. The vending machine company has grabbed your money by enticing you with a product it DOES NOT HAVE, then it demands that you take something else instead. If you insist that it return your money, it does not do so, until you get impatient and mash the button a second or third time.

And it gets worse! If you walk away after mashing the 'coin return' button only once, it waits a few minutes, and then it devours the money AND the credit for the soda it had previously displayed on the screen. It keeps your money and the product. You've been Nixoned!

So, here are my demands:

1) I want a frickin' 'SOLD OUT' light, dammit! If your soda vending machine is out of a particular brand, TELL US ABOUT IT!

2) If I happen to change my mind, I WANT A FRICKIN' REFUND the FIRST time I mash the 'Coin Return' button! To do elsewise is dishonest at best, illegal at worst.

Now, how hard is that? Simple, right? But I'll bet the soda machine vending machine companies won't do it. Why? Because they are crooks. My opinion.

Best,

Wigwam Jones

Coffeemaker Rant

I want to tell you about coffeemakers. The coffeemaker is not a technically complex device. Back in the days of the Old West, the coffeemaker consisted of a pan of hot water and a bunch of coffee beans. Simple. You got some crunchy coffee, but what the hell. It was strong, and that's an important fact about coffee - it should be strong.

Then we went to the percolator, and this worked fine for decades. My parents used a percolator back in the ancient days before MTV and microwave ovens (don't watch the food cook). I used a percolator that I bought in a Goodwill shop for a dollar when I got out of the Marines. Worked great.

Finally, in about 1972, we reached the apex, the absolute pinnacle, the very top of coffeemaker design. It was a process called 'automatic drip' and the coffeemaker was called, appropriately, "Mr. Coffee." It was simple, it worked well, and the coffee tasted good. It may well have been the only thing that came out of the 1970's that we baby-boomers should be proud to claim for our generation. I mean, Tang and bell-bottom pants? Platform shoes? The AMC Matador? Get real.

The Mr. Coffee did one thing, and it did it well - it made coffee. That's all I require of a coffeemaker, and that's all it should do. In fact, I loathe a coffeemaker that does anything except make coffee. No singing, no dancing, just coffee, thank you.

And that brings me to another thing. My list of requirements for a good coffeemaker. It's a short list, very simple:

1) Have a large gaping maw into which the water can be poured. You see, I despise a coffeemaker that has a tricky little opening that you have be a contortionist to pour water into - or one that you have to trickle the water into a little at a time. No. I want a big frickin' hole - gigantic - so you can pour in water as fast as you can overturn a bucket of water. Simple.

2) Must have at least 12-cup capacity. This is all nonsense anyway. You see, if I make a full 12-cup pot of coffee and fill my coffee cup, now it says there are 8 cups left. Get the idea? So I need 12 cup capacity - if my wife and I are going to have two cups each. Which we do.

3) Mrs. Wiggy wants an automatic two-hour shut-off, to keep me from burning the house down. OK, I can deal with that. I hate the smell of burning coffee as much as anyone.

That's it - that's it! Nothing else. I don't want anything else, I don't need anything else. See how simple that is? Why can't I have that? Huh? Why?

Recently, Mrs. Wiggy and I had occasion to purchase a new coffeemaker. We got a relatively innocent-looking model - a Black & Decker:

This is not the precise thing, since they have to change them every year, even if they just change the shape of a button or two. But it is pretty damned close.

Looks pretty innocent, doesn't it? Yes, it does. Basic. Cheap. Reliable. Even the name, "Black and Decker", makes one feel good. Yes, this coffeemaker can probably make coffee.

But looks can be deceiving. You see, this is not a coffeemaker, though it may resemble one. No, this is an infernal machine straight from Satan's Bottom, a device that would make the Marquis de Sade chortle with glee. It could have steel rods that shoot out and impale my eyeballs, and I would not hate it more than I currently do. I hate it so much that it is not possible for me to hate it any more than this. It has earned my maximum enmity ~ and that's a lot.

For it has flaws. Yes, and like the hero in many a classic novel, the flaws are tragic and some of them are hidden. Unlike the hero in many a classic novel, I do not forgive it at the end of the book and want to keep it forever. No, this coffeemaker makes me want to run it over with a train. A herd of trains. All the trains.

The first flaw is the least understandable. You see, it violates RULE 1 (see above) in my coffeemaker requirement list. It is hard to pour water into it. Yes, the water reservoir is in the back of the unit, but it has a weird half-moon shape and it is partially covered by a bizarre flip-up arm that holds some plastic device that filters and keeps the coffee grounds covered when the lid is down. Hard to explain, but trust me, it is in the way of the water flow. Very hard to fill without pouring it all over the counter.

And you have to understand something. I know this is true of me, and it is probably true of pretty much the rest of the world. When I make coffee, it is in the morning. When I have just woken up. I have done nothing more complicated than pee and wash my hands so far, and am not capable of much more complexity than that. I could not, for example, do any sort of math at this moment in time. I can stare at a TV remote control in gross and complete incomprehension. I am stuck in that twilight world of horror - where I both NEED coffee and am trying to MAKE coffee that I truly need to have already had my coffee to do properly.

In other words, I'm very stupid in the morning. I need simple things. Even water has to be easy to pour. Put things in the path of the water, and I am pretty much guaranteed to pour it down the front of my bathrobe. This makes me angry. OK?

I want a lid. Flip up the lid, pour in the water. THAT IS ALL. God, how hard is that? The original Mr. Coffee had it. A big rectangular opening, about the size of a manhole cover. If it did not have that bizarre plastic screen over it, you could easily put your whole hand in there. GOOD DESIGN!!!

That was just the known flaw. The one that I could sort of semi-deal with. At least it didn't catch me by surprise. I didn't like it, but...oh well.

But there was another flaw. A hidden flaw. One that caught me not once, but twice. And it was intolerable.

The flaw? Simple. And based on technology, of course. Trying to be clever. Yeah, I appreciate that first thing in the morning. Clever engineers who never have to USE their own products.

Here's the deal. Black & Decker, in their sickness, had rigged some sort of switch in this coffeemaker. It was designed to cut off the flow of coffee into the pot if you removed the pot. Ah. The idea being, if you decided you could not wait for the entire pot to brew, you could remove the pot, pour yourself a cuppa, and then replace the pot - which would stop flowing while the pot was absent and begin flowing once the pot was replaced. Notice - I did not say it stopped making the coffee. No. It just stops flowing coffee. The coffee is still being made. It has to go somewhere. Follow me? Know where this is leading? Oh yeah.

You see, if you do not place the pot in the exact, geometric center of the pad where the pot goes, it considers that you have removed it for pouring purposes. And the excess begins to build up in the coffee ground basket. And then it overflows. And then it keeps overflowing until your kitchen counter is covered in coffee and grounds, and the pot and the coffeemaker are all gritty and nearly uncleanable. Even the power switch no longer wants to work when it is jammed with coffee grounds.

And this is not something that a man who has not yet had his coffee wants to contemplate. Ever. And twice?

When it happened the second time, restrained my righteous fury until I checked something. Ah, the pot. It was NOT misplaced by me this time. Dumb as I am, I still had managed to get the pot placed correctly in the holder. In fact, it was placed just precisely where it was supposed to be. In fact, this stupid damned thing had just DECIDED ALL ON ITS OWN that there was no pot present, and it had stupidly begun to drench my kitchen counter in boiling coffee and grounds again.

No, my child. I must kill something now. Big violent screaming fit of indignation and fury. Dogs running and hiding, cats making themselves scarce. Neighbors peering in the windows to see who is being murdered in the kitchen.

...

The coffeemaker is dead. Yes. It was a violent death, and I am only glad that I was awake enough to remove it to the back yard and smash it upon the driveway instead of the kitchen floor. The dogs and neighbors must have thought I made a pretty sight, swinging the Black & Decker around by the power cord, cursing at the top of my lungs, covered in hot coffee and cold water from head to toe. Oh, it was an ugly, ugly, event.

When I finished swinging it in a circle and smashing it against the cement, I trod upon its lifeless carcass, but this was not as satisfying, because it kept springing back into some sort of shape resembling the way it originally looked. It was then that the sledge hammer saw was first raised in anger. When I was so winded that I was seeing spots, mercy was given. At this point, decency prohibits me from continuing the description of events.

OK.

Let me take a deep breath - my blood pressure is making my head ring even now as I think of how angry I was.

We had to purchase a new coffeemaker. I told my wife that I wanted a "Mr. Coffee." And I told her about the TWO REQUIREMENTS I had. She reminded me of the third - the two-hour shutoff timer. OK. Off she went to purchase same - I had to calm down and change clothes.

She returned with a Mr. Coffee. However, it has gadgets. It has a clock and a timer and it can start making coffee at some pre-determined time and so on. I don't want any of that stuff. But I don't care all that much. It holds 12 cups (four real cups) and it has a huge opening for pouring in water. And it shuts off after two hours, which makes Mrs. Wiggy happy.

We are using it now.

Seems to work ok. Coffee tastes fine, hole is big enough and unblocked enough that I can pour in a pot of water at max velocity without floating my loafers. Mr. Coffee, I am happy.

Now, this message is for the coffeemakers of the world. I want you to listen and get this straight, because I am not planning to say this again.

1) Coffeemakers are all the same in how they make the coffee taste.
2) We don't WANT our coffeemakers to do anything but make coffee.
3) You don't have to change it every year. We don't care. Make it the same way forever, that's fine with us.
4) Coffee is a drug. We are addicted. Do not screw with us.

When I looked online just now, I saw coffeemakers that also make toast. Have a waffle iron (NOT KIDDING). Grind coffee. And there's all the espresso stuff, steamed and frothed and whatever the hell else. I'm surprised that there is not a coffeemaker that lets me surf the web. LISTEN UP, BONEHEADS. CUT IT OUT!

Make a plain white boxy ugly coffeemaker that makes freaking coffee. I will take care of my own waffles and espresso and I'll grind my own coffee beans. All I want you to do it take my water, give me a place to toss my coffee grounds, and make some freaking coffee in a hurry without pouring it all over my counter. THAT IS ALL I WANT.

If you want, you can make it so it breaks every other year. I'll buy a new one - as long as it is EXACTLY THE SAME as the last one.

I find a coffeemaker at Walmart with an MP3 player built into it, and I'm going to do something horrible. Really horrible. You don't want that, really.

Keep Smiling,

Wigwam Jones

PS - OK, I got this email from Black & Decker:

Dear customer,

Thank you for your e-mail.
We are sorry to hear of your disatisfation with the
the black and decker coffee maker product line.
Hopefully you will find one to your satisfaction in the
future.

Thank you
Armando
Applica consumer service

Hmmm. I'm "Dear customer" now, am I? Shall I address Armando as "Dear employee?" Let me know your thoughts. And let Black & Decker know, too. Here's the email address: customerservice@blackanddeckerappliances.com

OK, Here's a Flower

Just thought you'd like this, the first Daffodil of spring here in Wilson.

Kiss kiss, Bang bang,

Wiggy

Hunter Thompson - Gone but not Forgotten

I'm sorry that Thompson choose to go out that way. I feel that my life was deeply affected by 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas' and 'Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72'. I was able to see that there might be a place for me in a society that tolerated such wierdos as he - surely someone with my own brand of insanity could get by.

He ceased to matter as a journalist some time ago, becoming in my mind a charactature of himself, a reflection of the way people perceived him and the way he'd like to see himself. I recall the time in Woody Creek, Colorado when he was golfing with Dan Rather and alledgedly pulled a twelve-gauge shotgun out of his golf bag and proceeded to blast away at an invisible armadillo that nobody saw but him - shades of the 'Uncle Duke' character that Doonesbury had made of him. He made the news, but no charges were pressed.

Two movies were made about his life, neither one of which really satisfied - because like a comic book hero come to the big screen, the only people who wanted to understand the man were his fans, and they were already experts in the field of Thompsonology - so they were disappointed and nobody else cared.

Thompson represented the edge of society - the LumpenProletariate - the 1%'ers who don't fit in and don't care. He ran an edge just as G.G. Allin did, or Syd Barrett or Salvadore Dali, that freak; or Wendy O. Williams. It is, I suppose, not surprising that he choose the moment and method of his exit from this stage - but I do regret it. He may have had little or nothing left to give as a writer - but his continued existance seemed to make the world a better place. 99 rings of the bell for normalcy and all that that implies, and 1 tug on the rope for all the shit-wierd madmen with piercing eyes and brains full of fire that refuse, despite society's best efforts, to quiet down and go away.

Sorry, Hunter. I'll miss you. Shine on, you crazy diamond.

Best,

Wiggy

Carolina Calm -or - The Joy of Getting Cheetos in Your Skivvies

Here's the situation:

I'm at work. It is lunchtime, or thereabouts. I have been packing my lunch for awhile now, due to an unforeseen financial situation. I call it 'being broke'. Oh, and to be honest, I have not been packing my own lunch. Mrs. Wiggy has been packing my lunch for me. This is because my inability to cook has extended to become an inability to perform any function in the kitchen whatsoever, with the sole exception of putting dog food in the dog food bowl, and making coffee. These two things I can do in a kitchen - nothing else.

So, we've established that my wife, bless her, packs my lunch for me. And she usually puts a small bag of some sort of snack chips in my lunch box. Today it was Cheetos. You know what Cheetos are, don't you? If you don't, you're probably Osama bin Laden. So here's a link, Osama:

Cheetos Home Page

Now, Cheetos have one attribute that sets them apart from most other lunch treats. They are cheese-colored. Or bright day-glow orange, take yer pick. And the color that they are, whatever you call that, comes off. If you touch them, you wear the cheese color on your fingertips, and then you transfer that color to your face, your shirt, your trousers, and so on. Within minutes, ever buddy will know where you touch yourself - and no one really wants to know that, trust me.

I don't really want the world (or at least my office) to know where I might or might not touch myself. So I do not wish to leave any evidence of my having consumed Cheetos. There are really only two ways to do this.

One is to not consume the Cheetos. Right. Any buddy who knows me, knows that I am going to eat those Cheetos. The Cheeto has not lived who can avoid being eaten by me. I need a sign near my gaping maw that reads:

"Warning: Jet Intake - Keep Arms and Feet Away!".

So we've established that I'm gonna eat the hell out of those Cheetos, right?
The only other way to avoid getting incriminating orange Cheetos stains on your goolies, uh, I mean your shirt and trousers, is to avoid touching them. Can this be done? Well, I write software part-time, I should be able to figure out the logic involved with this, right? How hard can it be?

A brief moment was all that was required to determine that if I opened the bag and then simply tilted it over on one side, the Cheesy Goodness contained within should simply slide right down into my mouth. By controlling the angle of the bag's inclination, I could control the rate of escape, and thus feed my hopper in a most satisfactory way. And this, I proceeded to do.

Well, that was the plan, anyway.

The first thing I noticed was that my mouth, although large, was insufficiently deployed to contain all the Cheetos that came leaping out to freedom. The second thing that I noticed was that my shirt pocket was a remarkably efficient container of Cheetos. Unfortunately, I also keep my Rosary Beads in my shirt pocket. You knew I was Catholic, right? Oh well.

"Have some Cheetos, Jesus!"

I lowered the now-empty bag, finished crunching happily through the portion of the Cheesy Goodness that had actually made it into my mouth, and removed the Cheetos that Jesus apparently didn't want from my shirt pocket.

Note to self: wash beads later. That should make an interesting sight at the water cooler.

Ring, ring.
"Hello, HR Department? There's this guy in my department, he's making Holy Water in the hallway. Yeah. In the drinking fountain. Hey, I drink out of that thing! I'm offended, can you fire him and give me a butt load of money for the trauma I've suffered? OK, then!"

Wait, I'm getting off on a tangent here. Never mind that last part.

So, I'm sitting at my desk, I'm all done with lunch, and I have to make a little visit to the restroom. You know the drill when you get older. Drink the soda, run to the can. About 10 minutes is all that separates the two. So I get up to take that little stroll. And I feel something unusual. Yep. Very strange indeed.

It seems that my shirt pocket is not the only place where the liberated Cheetos escaped to. They also seem to have gone down my open shirt collar. This went unnoticed, it appears. Until I stood up. By they they had meandered down overy my saggy chest and my bulging belly. And that's a lot of ground to cover, so they were tired out. They decided to retire to Florida, meaning that they crossed the dreaded beltline and discovered the warmth and humidity that can be found in my Y-fronts. Oh. My. This is Not Good. This is so Not Good.

So, I get up and walking stiff-legged, I crunch my way to the restroom, trailing crumbled tiny Cheeto bits out my pants legs like Tom Sawyer trying to leave a bread-crumb trail out of Injun Joe's Cave, and I am not enjoying the feeling. This is not the highlight of my day, y'know.

I managed to find a quiet spot and clean myself up to some extent. This is a Good Thing.

I then make my way back to my desk. A coworker, a North Carolina Native, has witnessed this exhibition, and has apparently sussed the entire thing.

"Hey, Wiggy."

"Hey, Doug."

"Cheetos down your shorts?"

"Yeah."

"That sucks."

"Yeah."

"Well, I just wanted to say that you might want to practice a bit of self-control in the future. Screaming and clawing at yourself like that as you ran like a guy with no knee-joints to the can is bound to attract attention. Just thought you'd like to know."

"Yeah, I'm sure you're right."

"You need to learn 'Carolina Calm'."

"'Carolina Calm,' what's that?"

"That's when you learn that life is nothing but Cheetos down your shorts from the day you're born until the day you die and you just learn to enjoy that dripping feeling as the orange goo they call 'cheese' reaches melting point as it is exposed to your body temperature and begins to make you want to Rock the Casbah."

"Is that what I did, Doug? Rocked the Casbah?"

"That's what I call that little dance I do when it happens to me. Ever buddy gets a little Cheetos down their pants from time to time. But you over-reacted. You Rocked the Casbah, but you needed to be Carolina Calm, instead."

"Carolina Calm. Gotcha. Thanks."

"No problem. One question, though."

"What's that, Doug?"

"Got any more Cheetos?"

"Not in any condition you'd appreciate, Doug."

"OK, then. Well, enjoy the rest of your lunch hour. I'm off home."

"Bye, Doug."

And that, my droogies, is how I spent my day. And it is only lunchtime!

Keep Crunchin',

Wiggy

Open Letter to Senators Wyden & Dorgan

Dear Senators:

With reference to the ban you sponsored and which passed Congress and became law, banning cigarette lighters and matches on airliners in the USA, I would like to say one thing; you're a pair of prize idiots. Why don't you rearrange the deck chairs on the food courts of the airports while you're at it? This has nothing to do with security, this is harrassment of smokers and getting your name in front of voters by managing to LOOK like you're actually doing something. And I'm not even a smoker.

If Richard Reid had placed his destructive device in his underwear instead of his shoes, would you now be banning Fruit-of-the-Looms on domestic airline flights? I think not. This is not about terrorism or security, this is just you being fools.

By passing a law which the TSA admits it does not know how it can enforce, what you do is make 'status criminals' out of the 25% of the adult population in the USA who smoke and who will now 'sneak' matches onto planes so that they can light up when they get to their destinations. When you create status criminals by encouraging such behavior, you tear down the culture of law-abiding citizens - it becomes foolish to COMPLY with the law instead of foolish to NOT comply. You do our nation a great disservice in this manner - it's worse than the equallly ill-advised and totally ignored national 55mph speed limit of decades past.

You're a pair of lunatics and you're both completely out of touch with reality. Do the citizens of your respective home states know how stupid the pair of you are? Roughly 25% of the adult population of your respective states are smokers - that's 25% of the population who won't be voting for YOU anymore.

Warmest Regards,

Wigwam Jones, famous country-music songwriter

On why the bloggers are never wrong

So, I'm looking at "Day by Day" comic strip on the web yesterday (click on the title above to see it) and I notice that Chris has made a comment on the fact that so-called real journalists seem to hate bloggers.

Well, I think I understand this. As Chris Muir so aptly points out, journalists are not used to being held accountable for their statements and their actions. Criticized, yes - in the same general 'gee, the media sucks' way that politicians are criticized. But they are not used to dealing with a pack of ravening wolves who have access to information and know how to dig them out. In many ways, it is a pack mentality - and an ugly mob. In other ways, it is a group or hive mind that is capable of bringing together information resources in ways that don't really allow the media to spin, dissemble, or prevaricate quite so blatantly anymore. In other words, they're being subjected to some of the same pressures that they used to bring to bear on politicians. Hurts, don't it?

So now, journalists are going to be held to standards of accountability. Boo-frickin'-hoo. Ya know, I have a day job. If I don't do it, my shaggy ass is fired. And I can't tell my boss that he dare not hold me to standards that he created - that was the deal when I became employed. Guess what? We're your bosses, newsies. We're your public. We get to say if you suck or not, we get to detect your leanings and interpret your statements and fact-check your drivel. My heart just bleeds for all the professional muck-rakers and pounce-trifles out there in TV and newspaper land. Gabba-gabba-hey!

My advice? Get used to it, Boy-os. Bloggers ain't going away, and in fact, the trend towards amateur news-reporting and part-time kibbutzing is only going to accelerate and become more pointed and direct. Newer technologies will make it even easier for anyone with a yen to be a gadfly to do so. Think of 10,000 evil little copies of Socrates, all carping merrily away and Plato-izing it for posterity, yet.

But I haven't come to the point. And that point is this:

The bloggers can't be wrong, my cupcakes. Oh yes, in the individual sense, they can be morons, thick-witted, prejudiced, and have political axes to grind (just like journalists). But in the aggregate, my little droogs, they are correct, clear, concise, and ready to rip your guts out online if you don't speak the truth. Think Diogenes with a chain saw and a leather face-mask. We're the angry lumpenproletariat and we're not going away. What's a 'lumpenproletariat'? Look it up here, droogies:

Wikipedia: Lumpenproletariat"

Why can't the bloggers be wrong? Because they're us, my little malchicks. The 'LumpenVolk' Bloggers are the actual face of the people. You know - the ones the journalists and writers and editors and TV talking heads purport to serve. If the bloggers - the lumpenproletariat- say that you newsies (or politicos) suck; you suck. Get over it. Get over yourselves. And start doing your jobs - hold the opinion-pieces, please. Nicht on the 'Sturm und Drang'.

Lumpen and Proud, Baby! Lumpen and Proud!

Keep Lumpin',

Wiggy

Japanese Rock...

Totally amazed.  That's how I feel now that my friend Milcom Miasma has turned the Wigster on to the Yoshida Brothers music.  You need to check this out.

Best,

Wiggy