What's playing in your car?

The soundtrack of my life

Ich muss, weil ich ein 1.FCK verflechter bin...

Weezer: Beverly Hills
The Refreshments: Banditos
The Refreshments: Mekong
The Refreshments: Mexico
4 Non-blondes: What's up? (Schoboat and Hunt'll know)
Dos Gringos: Fighter Pilot song
Hoodoo Gurus: 1000 Miles away
Hoodoo Gurus: Come anytime
Huey Lewis & The News: Walking on a thin line
Hunters & Collectors: Throw Your Arms Around Me
Rich Hardesty: Never want to fuckin see you again
Violent Femmes: American Music

and the finale

Die Toten Hosen: Bayern

Scheiss Bayern!

Mental Pulp on Hump Day

More like Mental Mush...

...When you try to give your phone number to an uber-hot chick in the parking lot of Snookies, and you completely forget your own home phone number, you can chalk it up to being as nervous as a seventeen year old. When you carry around a sheet of note pad paper in order to jot down journal topics during the day, you're losing it...

Family Entertainment

Congress and the Presidential administration are trying to carry a bill to law enabling U.S. households to use a new software, presumably for DVR units, which filters live and recorded media for content. A good Idea for families, not for this cinemaphile. When the 175 minute epic "The Godfather" is viewed with all filters, such as "Sexual content", "Nudity", "Language", "Violence", "Mild reference to deity", and "Strong reference to deity" activated, the film would last exactly four minutes and fifty eight seconds...

Down with the Sickness

Our company specializes in Homopolymers, Laminates, Thermoplastics, and Thermosets for use in defense and aerospace applications; however, every couple of months we get a yokel off of the street in the place wanting to purchase 'commodities' plastics such as acrylic or polycarbonate for use as windows in his deer blind or whatever. One such gent, who comes in every couple of months is Lai Peng, an old guy who looks and speaks like Uncle Benny from Lethal Weapon 4. JW is making fun of his very, very thick accent to his face all through the facility:

JW: So you are looking for PETG in sheet, rod, or tube?

Peng: Yes, yes.

JW: Um, in sheet, rod, or tube?

Peng: Yes, yes. PETG.

JW: (using hand gestures now) In Sheet.....Rod......or Tube. (I had to point out later that JW looked like he was grasping a cock on the last one.)

Peng: Ahh Sheet.

JW: What sickness are you needing?

Peng: Very sin. Sickness must be .062 inch.

JW: Ok. We're getting somewhere. Here is our PETG. .062 sickness is the third bin up...

I had to leave the area before I lost it. I was waiting for him to ask Peng if he wanted flied lice with it...

WTF? Distinguished my ASS.

While washing my hands in MY bathroom at work, I became instantly horrified. You see, when you lean over to get your hands under the faucet, which is located over a basin attached directly to the wall, with the mirror directly above it, you come in very close contact to the mirror, say five or six inches. While washing I look up to see what? All these gray hairs at the temples. Colossal anxiety attack ensues.

Question.

How does, in a section of I-75 where it is two lanes each direction divided by a barrier of concrete and steel ten feet high, does a car wind up upside down and pointing the opposite direction of that lane's direction of travel?

A great shirt.

Imagine the symbols, because my keyboard doesn't have some of them.

Square Root symbol over 69 equals 8-something.

Random crap...

Right on! Err, I mean that's awful...

At a book signing in KC, MO. One Michael Dean Smith waited patiently in line to have his book signed by Ms. Jane Fonda, and when in front of her, spat on her. This is horribly uncouth. Now a 215 grain +P .45 is much more gentlemanly...

Say, What do you have lined up for today?

JT: What do you have lined up for today?

Clime: What do you think? It's Friday...

JT: Good. Your going south of Waco.

Clime: South of What?

We had a part to be shipped south that no freight company would touch. You see, the part was worth more than four and a half times the sticker price of my new car. We would have to have it independently insured for the transit. Boss-man, being the tight wad that he is, found a rather creative solution to this problem. Send this knuckle-dragging mouth-breather down there with it. Sooo after stopping by my place to go heavy with the H&K .45 and two spare magazines (I thought about interchanging the Berretta holster on the shoulder rig with the H&K one, but it is, after all, April in Texas, and there was no way I was putting an extra layer on over it, so Hip Holster it was.) I was on my way. It took up my entire day. If you live in a state with a conceled-carry law, I highly recommend Israeli Fobus Holsters, all touted as being combat proven.

I have only drawn the pistola once with intent, and that story isn't as good as Stodgy's roadside mugging story, but here goes...

On the freeway coming back from the bank some months ago, I was in the center lane when a woman in a Honda passed by me in the left lane. Behind her are two pickups filled with construction types inside and the same contractor company logo on each truck. The lead truck whips around her and slams on the brakes with the trailing truck forcing her onto the median. Oh, fuck a bunch of this. I reel over behind the three vehicles on the median, stop and step out of my car with the H&K at the ready. As the males are jumping out of the trailing truck, the driver looks back at me. They all scurry back into the cabs of their trucks and scream back into traffic and away they go. I don't know what that woman did to them(probably some stupid stunt on the highway) or what they were going to do to her, but they weren't going to do it that day...

Cue Monday Night Football music.

LBG and I had dinner tonight and witnessed a strange event. We were seated at a high table adjacent the bar and had full view of the counter. At the bar were your typical over-forty hardbodies (through genes, gyms, or augmentation) seated in clusters. Mingling were older males trying to work it. You could smell the quiet sense of desperation. This was particularly amusing to us. We were like Frank Gifford and Al Micheals calling the plays made by the poor schmoes...

Picture two females chatting, with an empty seat between them:

Uh, oh. JoeyBagoDonuts is making his move, stepping up between them to order from the bar.

What a finesse play by joey. See how he edges the chair back with the back of his leg as he orders to make it accessible to sit given the opportunity?

Yes. This man knows his playbook. Wait! He just turned to Ms. Bolt-ons and made a comment. Look, she laughed.

Wups, flushed out of the pocket. Ms. Make-up isn't amused. He stays standing.

Uh-oh, an end around play. He concentrates on just Ms. Bolt-ons. She laughs. He sits down! He Scores!

This was a true riot. LBG and I were amused the whole time by this crowd of wealthy divorce' s...

A unique Saturday evening

If I had nothing planned for tomorrow night, LBG's fiance' and her best friend wanted he and I to go with them to a belly dancing club. I guess I was a hit with the best friend the time we met over drinks, or should I say was ambushed? I don't hold it against LBG, she was a gorgeous creature. This get-together was attempted before, but was a bust as schedules didn't permit it, but I told Linus about these plans:

Linus: So, you're going to a belly dancing bar...

Clime: Yep. Supposed to be very provocative...

Linus: So, belly dancing is middle-eastern...

Clime: Yep.

Linus: So, you're going to a middle-eastern club...

Clime: Yep. She looks like Shannon Elizabeth, for fuck's sake. What? I say no?

Linus: So, you're going in heavy, right?

Of course Linus is the guy who stated that the whole ribbon thing on the back of cars to show troop support was trendy and that he chose to support them in his own way. What way is that?

Linus: ...By hating arabs...

Reason #482 to hate the NY Yankees:

Of the entire Yankee roster, only three players make less than the President of the United States.

Go Padres.

Hey, come check this out...

Cowboy: "Hey, come over here and check this out..."

Clime: "What you got?"

Cowboy: "Across the way."

Clime: ~looking at another building 150 or so meters away~ "It's a forklift."

Cowboy: "No. It a chick on a forklift. A hot chick."

Clime: "How can you tell?"

Cowboy produces not one but two sets of binos and one spotting scope.

Clime: "Why on earth do you keep all these here?"

Cowboy: "Just for this sort of eventuality."

Clime: "Oh. Wow. She is hot..."

Of course that doesn't beat having phone conversations with Stodgy, who at the time kept an apartment in Mission Valley with a window over looking an exercise trail. During mid-conversation, I would hear his roommate scream "Window!", hear a rush of feet, and Stodge and Ski would be over at the window checking out a nubile runner or walker...

A minute ago it was like a poolhall up in this motherfucker. Now it's as quiet as a church...

A Saturday night with all the guys camping in Oklahoma found me at the poolhall. Albeit a suburban one in Plano. I didn't run into a cash cow like I did last week, but maybe I ran into something better. I'm playing very well, dropping the nine on the break in no less than four games on the night, when I remove my tunnel-vision goggles and see a hot chick with her two pre-teen sons on the table next to me. The kids are shooting the lights out. Re-racking and placing the cue ball close to the right side rail for the next break puts me right next to the gal.

"Say. I've seen good shooters, but never a whole family of them."

"giggle"

Yep, didn't leave until they did and had a grand time...

Sunday morning and a .50 Cal

The Flying Leathernecks. Man. Nothing beats getting up and turning the tube on to John Wayne and Robert Ryan leading a Marine Fighter/Attack squadron to jump a ship convoy steaming down "The Slot". The unenlightened ones won't know that Robert Ryan played the head of the parachute school in "The Dirty Dozen". The really unenlightened won't know that he really was Airborne in real life. USMC. Snapped up by the OSS during WWII...

Sheesh...

You gotta be kidding me...

Against much, much, better judgement, I stayed up to catch the rebroadcast of the History Channel's airing of Band of Brothers during late night. After seeing these scenes of life altering and world altering events take place, I offer this...

I woke up yesterday, and went into my prep time in that morning with a 'respected morning news show' ~snicker~ airing on TV. You know. The kind that is supposed to arm you with information about your world, both immediate, national, and global? Here is what I had to endure, while tucking my shirt and undershirt into my trousers: A prominent talking head interviewing a pregnant woman, asking her for her insight as to what Brittney Spears will be experiencing as an expecting mother. Yep, that is the news topic for the top of the day.

My kingdom for O'Reilly to form his own cable news network. The O'Reilly World News Network. It would OWNN ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, and all their cable offshoots...

Wow, that's a wild connection of thought, huh? Capt. R. Speirs, 2/506 PIR, USA, who eventually became Commandant of Spandau Prison, bringing you back to the previous morning's news item involving a flash-in-the-entertainment-pan bimbo with the same phonetic last name...

Blue laws, ya gotta love 'em.

In Dallas, it is illegal to drive a motor vehicle on Commerce Street. There is still a horse trough at Commerce and Main.

In Tennessee, other than in the five major cities, it is illegal to possess alcohol. In Bristol, the TN-VA state line runs down the center of Main Street. Tennesseeans are notorious for making the trek back and fourth for liquor. Tennesseean cops are notorious for posting spotters at the liquor stores. Tennesseeans are paranoid enough to not throw their empties in their trash cans for weekly pickup.

On the other extreme, New Jersey bars sell take-out. Beer and wine by the bottle and six-pack. You can tie one on, then grab a sixer for the road home. Honest.

In South Carolina, if you walk into a bar, you will see hundreds upon hundreds of two ounce bottles on the shelves. If you order a mixed drink, the bartender is required to give you the glass, ice, and mixer with the appropriate single pour spirit on the side.

And my personal favorite:

In Conneticut, it is illegal for a woman to be within ten feet of a bar counter. Bars in CT have an inordinate amount of tables, and shorter bar counters than most states. This law has also spawned the 'men's bar', where the bar is made up of a series of island bars with very narrow sitting spaces between them, making it illegal for a woman to even be in the bar. Legal exclusion of females without discrimination. This could be a guy-haven, or a homosexual thing... dunno. Never been in one....

I'm Mad. Gotta get back. Need some getback. Payback.

Hey!!!!

Was what both Will and Rick yelled when I came in. You got to love a place like this. I came in for a full meal before meeting J. for pool. I sit down to this setting: Sinatra singing on the PA, IceHockey on one screen(NCAA final, Denver vs. UND), World Poker Tour on the one other screen, and two great guys on the other side of the counter. Heaven. Will and Rick are both cinemaphiles and gamers. More so even than LBG, because they are in the service industry and can do both all night long because they are not due back at work until any following evening. As soon as I sit down, I am met with a short stack of DVD's; one I loaned out, Poolhall Junkies, and a few of Rick's that I just must see. Next to that is a magazine turned to an article with screen shots from the game StarWars: Revenge of the Sith. These guys are great. Both are bantering and working each other when the following story comes out.

So I give my number to this one cute girl at blockbuster.
She wasn't that cute.
Yeah she was. Anyway, I give her my number.
The next night I hit the nudie bar.
And He hooks up with a stripper. We turn to find him macking on her in the corner.
So on Sunday I'm half in the bag when the phone rings and I pick it up.
A girl on the other end says "Hey, how are ya?"
I say "Hey, are you that chick from the strip club last night?"
"Um, no. I'm the girl from the Blockbuster you gave your number to."
"Wow, isn't this awkward?"
"Yes. It is, isn't it?"

I am crying I am laughing so hard.

One medium rare filet marsala later I ramble out of the place and head over to The Main Event to meet J. for pool.

Nope, not firing any air-barrels here.

J and I played 8ball for about an hour, but because he has the whole family and child thing, after an urgent phonecall he had to scoot at a time when I was rolling, so I kept the table and racked 9ball for myself.

You want a game?

It was inevitable. A guy playing alone on a table in a poolhall will have comers. I just knew this would happen, though since this particular billiard room was smack-dab in the middle of suburbia, I was hoping this would not happen. Oh, Well. Some well dressed black guy invited me to a game. We shook hands and I learned his name was Phil. I also told him I was playing 9ball. After his proposition, I got to use a great line:

Something cheap. I'm just learning.

I ran him on two races to five games. He was no hustler. He was more gracious than any of the heathens in the place. He commented on every nice shot, commented on every leave(on either of our shots, we would both eyeball it and we would give advice on shot possibilities to each other), and he always shook hands with genuine enthusiasm after every game. Halfway through the first set, during one of my shots, he walked over to another table where a woman and a teenaged girl were playing and conversed with them. This guy was a family man. His wife and daughter were on another table. He just wanted a good game and was willing to pay for it!

Forty What?!

The games concluded, I proceded to pay out. The Uber-hot register girl said my damage for the table and two beers was forty two dollars. I freaked out. There is no way a table occupied for two hours can be worth more than forty bucks. Then I remembered that I just picked up two hundred bucks off of the guy I played.

Ok.

I think I just hit on a supplementary source of income....

Nah......

In a Galaxy, far, far away...

Item of note:

Individuals outfitted with camping gear have already formed a line outside Grauman's Chinese. It is more than seven weeks until the premier of Episode Three. There is also a nasty rumor that LucasFilm is cutting a deal with another Hollywood theater complex to premier it's film there, making the campers look like asses, but they are not budging, as similar stories erupted for Episode One and the film eventually Did premier at the Chinese.

This actually was a topic of discussion around the CNC Router( We don't have a water cooler). I let it slip that I've been to the Chinese.

"No Shit?!"

"Yep. 1977. The opening for Star Wars. I was six."

"Wow. How was it?"

"I don't remember much but a huge black marquee with Star Wars on it.... and crying because the Stormtroopers scared the crap out of me..."

I don't know which would be more impressive; being there for the premier of Star Wars, or being there during the filming of the climax of Blazing Saddles.

On Douglas Fairbanks:

"How could he do such fantastic stunts, with such little feet?!"

Can you tell I racked out early and now am fucked?

Not to be rude, but what THE hell are you doing?!

The Mgmt Cadre, as seen through the eyes of one SAIA Freight driver:

PP has five docks. Number one has a cement ramp up to the bay. Numbers two through five are standard. The SAIA 53' backs up to number two to on-load a huge shipment of mechanicals headed for Mexico. The driver gets out in order to head up the ramp and into the facility. Standing on the ramp are four managers of various disciplines in business casual, and this one, in jeans, because I can get away with it. All five are in shirtsleaves and tie or polos, and all are donning welder's masks and looking up into the sky, looking like a really bad, low-budget, 80's new-wave video on MTV circa 1983.

Jerry the SAIA guy: Um, don't take this the wrong way, but what in THE hell are you guys doing?!

The Chuckleheads(muffled by masks): What, do you live in a cave?! There's a hybrid solar eclipse going on right now...

Jerry the SAIA guy: Oh.

Jerry the SAIA guy: You got another one of those masks?

Gotta love a workplace where the hustle and bustle can easily be interrupted by the wonders of the world, captivating the head honcho on down...

WOA!!!

This is without a doubt the most fantastically awesome Video on the planet...

There are good days, and then there are Good days...

"Hey"

That was what came from the phone when I answered it. I was up at eight in anticipation of the day. You see, LBG and I made plans to go and view Sin City this morning, while every one else was loving them some Jesus, so the theaters wouldn't be packed. Any time after noon they are a madhouse on Sundays. Soo at around ten the house phone rings:

LBG: Hey.
Clime: Hey. Where are you?!
LBG: In my bedroom. I'm on my cell. (fifteen feet and two closed doors away)
Clime: Jackass.
LBG: We still on?
Clime: Yep. First showing is at eleven. Get ready.
LBG: I'm on it.

A minute and fifteen seconds later, we are out the door. It is absolutely gorgeous out. I pity the folks who have to sit indoors for the next hour and do that 'praying' gig. Wait, we are about to sit indoors for the next three watching at least two of the ten commandments being regularly broken on screen. Better roll down the windows and get the max on fresh air and sunshine...

The theater is on one end of a huge parking lot, with four great restaurants on the other end. We drive by the kitchen entrance to one when LBG breaks into spontaneous laughter.

Clime: What gives?
LBG: ~pointing~ Look.
Clime: Yeah, the kitchen entrance to Razzou's.
LBG: Look what's next to it!
Clime: Only in Texas.... or Arizona... or California...

It was a bike rack. Most kitchens are staffed by Illegals around here... Their mode of transportation for their commute is usually a bicycle... The bicycle is usually a girl's bicycle... The girl's bicycle is usually stolen...

It's time to prove to your friends that you're worth a damn. Sometimes that's by dying. Sometimes that's by killing a whole lot of people.

Sin City. Where to start. Given the huge cast list of big name stars. I was thinking that it would be riddled with a bunch of cameos. Wrong. Every part was a substantial one. Well, they had three hours to fit them all in..

Visually, this film was amazing. It was stunning. It was sex for the eyes without the magazine subscription.

The story needs no criticism, as it was a Direct adaptation of Frank Miller's comic books. We were literally watching a comic book.

Editing had only one issue. This film was about as pulp as pulp can get, and that is a good thing. However, all the side stories and parallel main stories never really tied into one conclusion at the end. All story lines concluded themselves, mind you, but it was in a semi-automatic burst of endings in a row, leaving the last couple a little anti-climactic.

This is one delicious, uber-violent, stylish, and dark film. LBG and Clime give it two thumbs up.

Mmmmmmm lunch...

Graphic stylized violence brings out an appetite.

Clime: Where are we going for lunch?
LBG: Dunno.
Clime: Bonedaddy's?
LBG: Nope. I had too much red meat this week.
Clime: That leaves chicken and seafood. You know what that means...
LBG: Crab and wings at Hooters.
Clime: Crab and wings at Hooters.

"Renee", a little burner in orange short-shorts and tanktop, served us generous amounts of crablegs and chicken strips. Funny, she didn't have the best body in the world, but was very very cute and very very sharp. Enough to win me over...

Renee: Hey! You filled your own mugs! Don't ever do that again.
Clime: ~throwing LBG under the bus~ He did it!
LBG: Thanks...
Renee: ~stern look~


Perfect endings

Just the way I like them. A quick trip to big buy to purchase Equilibrium, then back to the house to view the best shows on television: Extreme Home Makeover, Desperate Housewives, Gray's anatomy, Family Guy, and Robot Chicken. That's a lot of home-time, so laundry gets thrown in, too.

Every once in a while, maybe once a year, a single day off feels like a multi-day vacation...

LBG and I are going to have to give Stodgy several of those when he comes back around...

Spring is here.

No. It's not because temperatures have risen into the delicious range, everything is uber-green, and any air movement at all can be classified as 'breezy'. It's because today is Baseball's Season Opener! First game of the season will be Yanks-Redsox, the rest to follow...

Go Padres!!!!!!!!!