Saturday, April 29, 2006

Nectar of the Frauds

To me, water is water is water.
A friend forwarded me this link the other day and it made me laugh. I don't buy bottled water. I take mine right out of the tap because there's no damn difference in it, only the price.
Water is very simple. Two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom.
End of list.
Hydrogen hydroxide.
And it never expires.
Go here:
It'll make you think twice when plopping down a few bucks for that next bottle of Evian.
Have a swell weekend and I'll see you back here Monday!

Friday, April 28, 2006

Evidence!

I said we had photographic evidence that Baby Bear really does shit in the woods, and here it is!


Go here for the full story of this picture:

http://rangertomsrants.blogspot.com/2006/03/does-bear.html




Happy Funny Foto Friday!

Thursday, April 27, 2006

Maybe...

"Ask RT" will be back next week, I had a very important interview to go yesterday. I had been keeping this kind of quiet for one reason I wasn't really sure about it, and to tell you the truth I'm still not too sure, and second I really didn't talk about it much because I didn't want to get my hopes up.
I think I've mentioned before I've been trying to get on full-time with a railroad as a conductor but I'd take any job connected with the railroad at this point. It's a childhood dream of mine to eventually become a railroad engineer.
So in December I sent my resume to the Durbin & Greenbrier railroad up in Pocahontas County, West Virginia for a conductor job. For a while I never heard anything from them until a few weeks ago when the president of the railroad called me personally. For two weeks we played phone tag and we finally set up a tentative date for an interview, yesterday.
Since it's about 150 miles from where I live and the schedule I've been working isn't the best, I decided to drive up Tuesday evening, get a motel room and see him Wednesday morning.
I got to the motel around 6 PM Tuesday and realized that that part of West Virginia is a cell phone black hole because of the close proximity to the Green Bank Radiotelescope, 11 miles south so I call the president's voicemail from the motel. It was late and I really didn't think I'd hear from him that night so I settled in with a coffee from the motel's restaurant and the TV.
Around 9 PM the phone rings and it's him...
"Hey Tom, are you doing anything right now?"
"Nope, just sitting her watching the History Channel."
"Can you come over to the office?"
"Sure! I can be there in about 10 minutes!"
So I get to the railroad office, only a few miles up the road from the motel and meet the president, his wife and another conductor. We talk for about an hour and I'm getting really good vibes, because at one point he's telling me about the expansion they're doing, hiring several more crews not only to work on the tourist side of the railroad, but the expanding freight and coal service they're doing. And one point, while he's telling me this he let's slip "That's why I'm hiring you..."
So I'm feeling pretty good about this at this point. He then asks me if I'm doing anything on Wednesday and I tell him no, not really. He invites me to meet with him the next morning to take a ride over to the Beverly, WV train yard to see what I'll be doing. We meet the next morning at 6AM, and as usually it's a hurry up and wait. We finally get over to the yard at 10 AM and get the diesel yard engine fired up, an old work horse built in 1946 but still running strong. We spend most of the day switching hopper cars around and taking them 8 miles down the line to a coal mine's tipple to load, and taking the loaded cars back the the yard for CSX to pick up.
He tells me he'll be training me to be the conductor on this run, twice a week, and general track maintenance the other days. To be an engineer, you must first be a conductor, and in all reality is the more important position on a train. He's the one responsible for putting the cars together into a consist, coupling and uncoupling the cars and movements of the train itself. I do that for a few years and get certified as an engineer later, I can go to any railroad in the country and get a job.
Sweet!
Anyway, along the way yesterday he told me about the company, the railroad retirement plan (best in the country) and the pay (double what I'm getting paid now) and I let him know I'm seriously interested in the job. When we parted ways yesterday afternoon he let me know he'd make the final decision later that week and let me know by the beginning of next week if I've got the job...
I'm still not 100% positive I've got the job, but I'm looking at it with a positive outlook.
He did say in passing he had gotten a lot of resumes from CSX and Norfolk~Southern guys with 30 and 40 years experience who he didn't call for interviews... And I'm taking that as a very good sign.
Wish me luck!
Copyright 2006 Thomas J Wolfenden

Tuesday, April 25, 2006

Ah, spring!

Another reason I hate snow...
And I'm sooooo glad spring is finally here for good now it seems. But don't worry, give it another month or so and I'll be bitching about the heat and humidity. Right now it's partly cloudy, 72 degrees F. and 52% humidity. Perfect spring day in West Virginia.
And the dashingly handsome guy on the left is me...
Copyright 2006 Thomas J Wolfenden

Monday, April 24, 2006

A (un)scientific experiment

I had written before on how I was giving up on the whole internet dating thing, and I have. I don't need any help meeting nutty women. Besides I have better things to do with my time. I had deleted all of my profiles on several dating sites months ago but I had forgotten one site that my profile was till up and active on. The above picture is the one I used, because it's the best one of me I have, because I'm not all that photogenic, and two, it shows the warm, sensitive side of Ranger Tom... Cute, warm puppies and a nice smile.
In the profile I listed the normal stuff, like height and weight, age and likes, desires, hopes and dreams. All that bullshit because I thought maybe, just maybe there was one woman out there who'd take the time and read my profile, see something she likes and drop me a line.
After months, do you think I'd get one reply? Nope. I did send some 'winks' to some women and did meet a few and only one I met was really compatible with me, and we didn't last long because we met at the wrong time, for both of us. That was about two years ago and I still think about her and wonder if things could have been different.
Anyway, back to my experiment. So I had this profile up. Listing everything about me. Educated, employed, sensitive, funny, likes to cook, outdoorsy...
No responses and only rejections... So this got me thinking. I looked at my profile and didn't see a thing wrong with it. Where did I go wrong?
It's got to be the way I look.
I'm not THAT ugly. Granted, I'm wearing a ball cap. But EVERYBODY wears ball caps now. I've got a full head of hair, not going bald. I shave daily and have good personal hygiene. I'm not a porker, I'm 6' 2" and 195 pounds. Definitely weight-proportioned to my height.
So last week I changed my picture to the one below just to see what would happen. And guess what? Over the last week I've had over 75 replies to my ad. Some from women who've rejected me before... Remember, I didn't change ONE thing in my profile, just the photograph.

If you don't know who the other guy is yet, it's none other than Russell Crowe...

And I STILL keep hearing that guys are assholes and shallow.

Copyright 2006 Thomas J Wolfenden

Sunday, April 23, 2006

BOHICA

For those of you who were never in the military, this is one of thousands of Army acronyms, and those of you who were in the military know exactly what it stands for. It was uttered several times a day by several soldiers in my platoon, me included. It means:
Bend Overy, Here It Comes Again
So I get to the mine at 2 AM this morning for my final sixteen hour shift there. I'm to train two new guys on the ins and outs of the place and let them have it.
No more Purgatory.
So 2 AM, and no guys show up. 2:30 and still nobody. I wait until 3 and wake my boss up. (Serves him right, his fat ass should be down there training these fucks instead of me in the first place)
He calls me back and tells me they're both no-shows.
Fucking wonderful. Now I'm still stuck in purgatory. I really should have known better, but I thought this time was going to be different. So much for thinking.
So now I'm finally home, it's 8:15 PM and I've been awake for well over 24 hours. And I'm still in Purgatory.
But not for long, maybe. I'm taking a little overnight trip up to Pocahontas County on Tuesday night for something I'll write about after Wednesday if all goes well.
Right now I'm going to crawl into bed and slip into a coma.
BOHICA...
And not even the goddamn common courtesy of a reach-around!
Copyright 2006 Thomas J Wolfenden

Saturday, April 22, 2006

A little family history


For a long time I always wondered what my father did in WWII because he never really talked about it much. I knew he was a tanker in Europe, but that's about it. I didn't understand until later, when I myself became a veteran, that most soldiers who've seen combat don't really want to talk about it much. There's a lot of things I still don't like talking about and probably never will.
In the words of an unknown Civil War soldier coming home said; "I have seen the elephant, and I am forever changed..."
So I do understand why my dad never talked about it. I have seen the elephant too and it has changed me also. I'm not the same person who left his neighborhood in Philadelphia in 1983 and I'm sure my father was never the same kid who left Philly in 1943...
But me being a ardent history buff, especially the World War Two era I was curious. Since my father died in 1992 it was a little hard finding out certain information, but dug I did for he raised (and the Rangers tempered) this guy into one tenacious fuck. I don't give up when I set my sights on something. Using his discharge paperwork I found what unit he was in and then pieces began to slowly fall into place.
The top photo is a M-10 Wolverine Tank Destroyer like the one my father was a gunner on. The lower photo is of his unit patch, a leopard with a German Panzer in it's teeth with the motto "Seek, Strike, Destroy".
My father served from 1943 to 1945 in Texas, Oklahoma, England, France and Germany. I'm very proud of what my father did, for he was a true example of what Tom Brokaw called "The Greatest Generation".
If you care to, please feel free to read the complete combat after-action history of my father's unit, "C" Company, 824th Tank Destroyer Battalion.
Go here:
Even though you've been gone these long years dad, I'm proud of you.
Copyright 2006 Thomas J Wolfenden

Friday, April 21, 2006

Y'all come back now, y'hear?



Genius that he is, Billy Jo Jim Bob, of Gofuckyerself, Virginia (pictured above, ain't he just the sexiest thing girls?) has opened up a new park....

All the Budweiser, pork rinds, Possum and squirrel you can eat for only $3.25... Kids git in free! (Yer Ol' Lady is always half price if she shows us her tits)

Wear a Dale Earnhardt T-shirt and get in half-price on Sundays! (Spit-cups provided free at the gate!)

Happy Funny Foto Friday!

Thursday, April 20, 2006

An apology

Maybe it's my wayward Catholic upbringing but somehow, no matter how hard I try to do the right thing, I wind up having to apologize for something. No matter how trivial or inconsequential, I'm left feeling like everything is my fault.
So yet again I have to apologize.
I'm so sorry that the last two weeks I've worked well over 140 hours and can't spend my every waking moment when I'm not at work with you. I have other things to do like laundry, dishes and grocery shopping. The last four weeks the wash and dishes have piled up and if I don't do it, it's not going to get done. And I'm also sorry that I didn't ask you to do it like you suggested. I'm a big boy and can do that stuff myself. In fact I prefer to do those things myself and I'm sorry that I'd feel really odd having you do it for me.
I'm also sorry that I can't call you several times a day, every day and that I don't get cell phone service at the mine in Raven. I'm sorry I sleep during the day. I can't sit and chat for hours when I need to be sleeping and I'm sorry I can't have lunch with you six days a week. That's the middle of the night for me and it really screws up my circadian rhythm when I'm up that late and have to work that night.
I'm sorry I spend a lot of time with the Fire Department. You knew I did that and it was a very important part of my life when we met. I'm sorry, but I'm not going to skip meetings or trainings to be with you. That's right, I did give up my firefighter lever 1 course for work, but you aren't giving me a pay check every-other week and keeping a roof over my head and food on my table.
I'm sorry also that you feel a personal affront that I might even consider moving away form you, even if it is only 70 miles, to take a job with the railroad. You knew when you met me that was the biggest reason for moving here in the first place and takes priority over everything.
I'm also very sorry for not inviting you on my UK trip, but when I told you about it, it was my trip and I'm sorry I resented you for trying to worm your way into it somehow. I'm sorry, but that just wasn't going to happen.
Maybe there was a time in my life, about a year and a half, two years ago when after my marriage fell apart and I wasn't so secure in myself I needed that extra support but I'm sorry, I don't need that any more. I'm sorry I don't need a mother, wife, housekeeper or anyone else to take care of me. I'm not an invalid.
For all that, I'm truly sorry. For the past five weeks I'm sorry.
Can I get down off this cross now? These nails are really starting to hurt.
Copyright 2006 Thomas J Wolfenden

Wednesday, April 19, 2006

Ask RT, Week III

Dear RT:
I have a sister-in-law, "Mary." We have known each other for years. Mary lives in California, but she often sends us email, and each time she does she always misspells my name as "Ritha." (My name is Rita!) I have tried pointing this out, but she continues to do it. How can I make it clear that my name is spelt Rita without appearing too rude?

RITA IN NY
Dear Ritha,
Have you ever stopped and thought that maybe, just maybe Mary knows how to spell your name and is quite aware that this annoys the shit living out of you and does it anyway just to piss you off? Myself, I think you're being far too Anal-Retentive about it. In fact Ritha, I think you're Anal-Retentive enough to be one of those people who keeps their house spotless, won't allow in cats or dogs, makes guests take off their shoes before crossing the threshold, has plastic see-through covers on the furnature, that sort of thing. You call all your friends by their full names, ie; Thomas, Douglass or James instead of Tom, Doug or Jim... Lighten up Ritha or all this worrying over nothing and all your little OCD hysterics will give you and early stroke or heart attack, and if you die before Mary, she'll probably have "Ritha" on your headstone, and we couldn't have that now could we?
Copyright 2006 Thomas J Wolfenden

Tuesday, April 18, 2006

Conspiracy theories

I've heard more than my fair share of conspiracy theories in my life, especially from my brother, who sees one behind everything. I've heard them all, from fluoridation of water, "Chem-trails" (where airliners are secretly spraying unknown chemicals all over the US in a secret Government project) Black helicopters, wiretaps, a "Shadow Government" secretly planning the takeover of the world, Freemasonry, the Illuminati. Hell, to listen to my brother the Knights of Columbus, Shriners and the Boy Scouts of America are all a part of this secret conspiracy to sap and impurify our precious bodily fluids...
To this day, if you call my brother from a cordless phone or a cell phone, he'll hang up on you. Says the FBI, CIA, NSA, DIA and the rest of the Alphabet agencies are listening to everything we say on them compiling a dossier on ever person in the US...
Ok.
That being said, I've heard these nutty theories almost my entire life so I don't take them too seriously. The Apollo program was a hoax, Elvis isn't dead, he was a secret spy for the CIA and they had to relocate him. He's now running a 7-11 in Moosejaw, Saskatchewan and his name is now Myron Goldblatt.
I think the Mothership has my real brother and this one is just a android replacement...
So last night I'm listening to Coast to Coast AM again, and again, I must reiterate, for entertainment purposes only, and the first hour's guest is talking about the Titanic, being this past Saturday was the 95th anniversary of the sinking of that great ship. I'm sort of a Titanic buff, so it sounded interesting. That is until the host, George Nory, opened the lines for callers.
Up until that point the guest, who I've forgotten his name, was talking about new theories on why the Titanic sank, nothing Kafkaesque or Machiavellian, just different ways the ship broke apart and sank. Then this one caller posed this theory, and I had to listen really hard to make sure it wasn't my brother because it sounded exactly like what my bro would come up with...
Here's the theory, and it has nothing to do with the mechanics of a ship sinking:
Because John Jacob Astor, Benjamin Guggenheim and Isador Straus, all multi-millionaires and were strongly opposed to the formation of the Federal Reserve were on the ship, that the Illuminati sank the ship to kill these three men... Because shortly after the sinking, in 1913, the Federal Reserve was formed...
Ok, let's sink a multi-million dollar vessel and kill over 1,500 innocent people just to get three men?
Puleeze!
Just to give you an idea of the type of caller this show gets at 3 AM, the caller right before this guy suggested that "Some really rich guy, like Howard Hughes, spend the money to build an exact replica of the Titanic from the original blueprints, run it into an iceburg at full speed and see what really sank it."
I'll break out my checkbook right now for that little brain fart.
I have a few conspiracy theories of my own:
George W. Bush allowed 9/11 to happen so that the Christian Coalition, Ann Coulter, and Rush Limbaugh could invade The French.
George W. Bush rigged the 2000 election so that white men, gun owners, Rush Limbaugh, SUV owners, and Ann Coulter could upset Michael Moore. (Actually, anything that would piss off Michael Moore is ok in my book...)
Scotland Yard is trying to figure out whether or not a child of Fred Phelps on a northbound train headed for Newport wants to extract a DNA sample from The United States Supreme Court.
The FBI was told by visitors from the future that an illegitimate child of Elvis who escaped alive from the Bermuda Triangle is pregnant with the love child of a gigantic killer moth.
The Pentagon plans to impeach a woman who saw a vision of the Virgin Mary near a nuclear power plant is using earthquakes to destabilize George Clooney.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to wallpaper my apartment in tinfoil to keep the laser beams from Venus from taking over my mind.
Copyright 2006 Thomas J Wolfenden

Monday, April 17, 2006

Out of purgatory

Of course all weekend when I have no access to a computer or the internet my mind was swimming with ideas of stuff to write about. I get home this morning at 2 AM, get a shower and into bed and quickly fall asleep. I get up around 11 AM to a really fantastic thunderstorm and do you think I could remember just one of the ideas I had over the weekend?
I should start writing them down.
I do have some good news though, my boss finally hired not one but two people for the mine, so after I train them next weekend I won't have to go down there again for a while so I'm freed from purgatory.
And speaking of coal mines, there's talk going around here that coal is so hot right now that a few of the companies are thinking of re-opening several of the closed mines here in Mercer county and up in Raleigh county, which would be really good for the area, bringing in several hundred new jobs.
One final note. One of the officers of my fire department and webmaster of the FD website likes my writing so much he's given me my own place to write a monthly article on the website. Go here:
Have a swell day!
Copyright 2006 Thomas J Wolfenden

Friday, April 14, 2006

The pure genius...

...was lost in translation.

Maybe it's just that the phrase "Shitting on women" means something completely different in Arabic?

Happy Funny Foto Friday!

Copyright 2006 Thomas J Wolfenden

Thursday, April 13, 2006

Disturbing

I don't know about any of you, but I find this just a little disturbing.
Several months ago I put a webtracker on the blog and it was an eye-opener to what people search for on the web and what brings them to my little place here.
The main phrases and key words that bring people to my blog are as follows:
Shitting on women
Pissing on women
Shitting and pissing on women
Scatology
Women being shit on
Ok, if that wasn't sick enough, my webtracker also tells me what country the surfer is from, and the majority of these searches are from these countries:
India
Pakistan
Iran
Saudi Arabia
United Arab Emerates
It wouldn't be so bad if it weren't so often, and every day. It seems (as if we all didn't know already) that the men in the middle east not only treat the women there like shit, they also want to defecate on them...
It must be the desert and all that sand making them just slightly unhinged.
Sick fucks.
Copyright 2006 Thomas J Wolfenden

Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Ask RT, week II

Dear RT,
I am 18 years old and I have a 6 month old child. Recently, rumors of my ex-girlfriend cheating on me reached my ears. By the time I heard, we had been broken up for nearly three months. Rumors of the child not being mine have also gotten back to me. I am taking one of those maternity (not a misprint...) tests in May, and if the results come out negative, the child might not be mine. How should I talk to my ex if the child isn't mine? I'm worried about confronting her.

WORRIED IN MONTANA
Dear Montana,
Here's a little bit more news to reach your ears. You're a fucking moron. You're 18, too young to be having sex in the first place, especially if you can't tell the difference between the words 'maternity' and 'paternity'. From what you've told me, the child most probably isn't yours anyway and you already suspected that because if you didn't you wouldn't be taking 'one of those maternity tests' to begin with. The kid is most probably the school football team's quaterback because you're just a pussy and chicks dig that kind of guy in the first place. Let's face it. You're probably one of those "Nice Guys" and women don't really want one of those. They want the big, stupid musclebound jocks. Nice guys always finish last. Here's my advice. Take the test to see if the brat is yours, and while you're at the doctor's office, have him sterilize you too, because someone as stupid as you shouldn't be breeding in the first place. As for talking to your ex about it, I wouldn't. Especially if the kid isn't yours, and it probably isn't.
Copyright 2006 Thomas J Wolfenden

Tuesday, April 11, 2006

Plans, plans and more plans

Even though my trip to the UK is still in the planning stages, things are humming along quite nicely. Airfares are still relatively low, and since you can go almost anywhere in Britain, Scotland and Wales on a train, BritRail has a smoking great deal on a 15-day railpass. Ride anywhere in the UK, get on and off as many trains at as many stops as you want for one low price. The First Class pass is just slightly higher, so I might just splurge on that.
So that's what I'm planning to do. Fly into London, buy a railway map and just head off and explore. Stop someplace, find a room overnight and head out again.
Seeing the English countryside by rail is something I've always wanted to do. There are some other things that are on my Must See list, like Stonehenge:
Stops at the several sites of the Imperial War Museum:
And this is a definite Must See, the Nene Valley Railway:
Of course I'll do the other things like see and ride the London Tube, Piccadilly Circus, Soho... I'll be taking two weeks so who knows what I'll get into?
Anyway, that's the plans as of now and now I've got some other pressing matters taken care of and the overtime pay keeps coming in, I' might be able to do this the first two weeks in September of this year. That's what I'm hoping for at least.
Finally, doing something for Me for a change... Doing what I want.
Of course I'll have the camera with me and will be taking shitloads of photographs...
Anyone else have any ideas on what else I should do? I was thinking of heading across the English Channel for a day to see the Normandy beaches, and trying to find the town in Scotland where my father's army unit was billeted before the Normandy invasion in 1944... But we'll see.
Copyright 2006 Thomas J Wolfenden

Monday, April 10, 2006

Not worth it

So I've be exiled to the coal mine every weekend for the last several weeks, and I really don't see an end to it just yet. Talked to my boss last night and he says he might have someone hired... But I'll still have to work next weekend too because I'm the one who'll be training him.
Frankly, I don't see how it's worth it to the company I work for. It's only a weekend contract, the mine has their own people during the week... And considering the company is paying me double what the contract pays in the first place, not including the overtime... From Friday afternoon until 2 AM this morning I worked thirty four hours... Half of that was overtime. They've also been paying for my motel room every weekend, and the use of the company vehicle and fuel costs.
It's not worth it.
They've lost a shitload of money every time I work down there... But who am I to argue. I like the overtime pay. Especially now I've missed my firefighter level 1 class I've got to make it worth it to me.
But if I was running this company I'd have dropped this contract like a hot potato months ago. It's so far removed from every other contract the company has, pays the least and because of it's location and the hours required it's hard to keep filled.
The one redeeming quality of the place is the few people I do come into contact with there are really great, and the scenery is really pretty.
But for the time being, I'm still exiled...
Copyright 2006 Thomas J Wolfenden

Friday, April 07, 2006

Finally...


...some truth in advertising!

Is it cold in here or are you just happy to see me?

Happy Funny Foto Friday!

Thursday, April 06, 2006

I'm beside myself

With disbelief...

Remember how I've been talking about starting the Firefighter Level 1 course this weekend? How I've been telling my supervisor I need the next five weekends off? How I've been telling him also for the last three months?
Well...
I get to work last night and there's a note for me in my patrol vehicle...
"Tom, I need you at the mine in Raven this weekend, and indefinitely because I still haven't hired someone."
I wouldn't be so upset right now if it was a spur-of-the-moment emergency. Those things do happen in my line of work and I've come to expect them. But I've been telling this man for Three fucking months that I'd be needing this time off.
Sure, the overtime pay will be great, and I might even be able to take my United Kingdom vacation this year if I get much more. But that's not the point.
The point is that he's been too fucking lazy to hire anyone else, or even have someone lined up after he fired Barney when he's known for three months I'd be starting the fire school this week. It's bad enough I missed a Vehicle Extracation class last weekend given by the Princeton Fire Department that I really wanted to take. (That's where I would have gotten to cut up a car with the Jaws Of Life... Gotten out a lot of pent-up frustrations)
Anyway, now I'm not going to be taking the Level 1 class.
Why do I always have to suffer fools like this?
The "Peter Principle" is alive and well where I work.
Copyright 2006 Thomas J Wolfenden

Wednesday, April 05, 2006

Ask RT!

Thanks to Cantellya & Tsduff, I have few "Dear Abby" letters to answer... So without further ado, here I go!

DEAR RT:
I have a friend who is incredibly self-conscious about her appearance. She is only 30 years old, petite, beautiful (both inside and out), but RT, she wears so much makeup she looks like a hooker.

Friends have hinted that she doesn't need so much makeup. I have also tried to suggest tactfully that she would look much better if she toned down the cosmetics, but she insists she "needs" it to hide her wrinkles. RT, she should not worry about the wrinkles -- it's her makeup that ages her by at least 10 years.

Because she is my friend, the comments people make about her bother me. Telling her again is useless, but maybe if she reads this letter in your column she will recognize herself and take the hint. -- A TRUE FRIEND
Dear True Friend,
I didn't realize you were elected to the Fashion & Style Police. If this so-called friend of yours is so beautiful on the inside as you put it, what difference does it make what kind and how much makeup she wears? It's all about what feels right for her and how she feels about herself, not what other people think of her. There's too many whiny people in this world trying to change others into what they think they should be. If she wanted to dye her hair lime green, get a parrot and wear an eye patch like a pirate, what business is it of yours? Maybe your friend likes looking like a $20 an-hour prostitute, ever think of that? As for her wrinkles, maybe she does look like a Chinese pug without all the caked foundation filling in the fissures. She might have had a really rough paper route. My canny intuition is telling me you are the one put off by her and are embarrassed to be seen with her. So stop worrying about her you suffering, intolerant little prig. Take a good hard look at yourself next time before you point your greasy little fingers at other people. Go fuck yourself and mind your own damn business! With friends like you, who needs enemies? You seem like the type of friend who after they wrote this asking for advice, would neatly clip it out of your local newspaper and place it on her desk at work to mortify her even more. But the more I think about it, it's not really your friend this letter is about. You want her to look better around you so people don't think you're the whore, right? Guilt through association. You couldn't really care less about your friend, could you? Piss off!
See, I can be sensitive!
Copyright 2006 Thomas J Wolfenden

Tuesday, April 04, 2006

Weather gone mad

What the fuck is up with this damn weather?
Last weekend it snowed almost constantly. It's been cold since the first day of spring. Then Friday last week it started to warm up some and by Sunday afternoon it was up to 80 F. I even got a sunburn working down at the mine...
Yesterday afternoon a nasty string of thunderstorms moved through, the same system that caused all the havoc and deaths in the Midwest...
It was little chilly after the front moved through so I wore my heavier work jacket to work last night. It was also still drizzling some too. I didn't think too much more about it. April showers and all that garbage. But what do you think it started to do come around 1 AM this morning?
Snow.
Again.
What the fuck.
I am so totally sick and tired of snow at this point.
I really wish spring would get here and stay for a while. Oh, and don't worry, I'll most probably be bitching about the heat and high humidity in about eight weeks...
Have a swell day!
Copyright 2006 Thomas J Wolfenden

Monday, April 03, 2006

Prehistoric rednecks

So this past weekend was another 32-hour work at the mine and get absolutely no sleep in a shitty motel weekends... Good thing a friend gave me a shitload of new books to read. Well they're not new books really. But you know what I mean.
So I'm at the mine and I'm reading James A Michener's 'Alaska' and I have to chuckle...
Apparently there was rednecks 35,000 years ago, before the last Ice Age when wooly mammoths and saber-toothed tigers roamed North America. Michener, in his grand style, was describing the daily life of a herd of mastodons, or wooly mammoths. In the lead of this fictional herd was 'Matriarch'...
"She had in her herd two daughters, each of whom had two offspring, heifer and bull to the elder, bull and heifer to the younger. Sever discipline on these six was enforced by Matriarch, for the mammoths had learned that survival of their species did not depend very much on the great males with their tremendous showy tusks; the males appeared only in the midsummer for the mating period; the rest of the year they were nowhere to be seen, so they took no responsibility for rearing and educating the young..."
See! Rednecks were around even then!
I can picture it now. A male wooly mammoth, Dale Jr. ballcap pulled low, pulls into a prehistoric version of the Deli Mart...
"Yeah, Gimmie a case a' Bud and a can of Copenhagen... Got some matin' to do tonight!"
It never ends...
Quote Copyright 1950 James A Michener
Copyright 2006 Thomas J Wolfenden