This evening we found the humidity we’d been missing in the perfect climate in Southern Calistupida: it’s in Weatherford, Oklahoma. Something else we found in Weatherford: the proceeds from the sale of the house! Well, the money isn’t actually in Weatherford, but we are and that’s where we looked online to see if the money had been deposited into our account. And hoo-Lawdy there it was. We’ve got our money! Life is good. High-fives all around, my fellow babies!

*****

I may have to rethink my position on Amarillo, Texas. In this post, which I wrote as we crossed the country last June (2008), I described the Texas panhandle as the place “where God ran out of ideas.” That thread evoked an impassioned response from a native of Amarillo who staunchly defended the city. (Check it out - it’s definitely worth reading.) Today, we passed through the area again and to be quite honest it was nowhere near as bad as I recalled it from last year. The weather was nice today - perhaps that was the difference maker. Both Debra and I remember the weather last year as we crossed the Texas panhandle as horizon-to-horizon iron-grey clouds with a fierce, blinding glare from reflected sunlight and high winds that blew crap all over the roads and buffeted the Jeep every which way. Today we had blue skies, 104 degree temperatures and some wind, but nothing insane like it was last year. And as we drove through Amarillo we both commented about it not being such a bad place after all. So, Mr. Amarillo Dude, please accept my apologies.

I do think, though, that it’s possible Amarillo may have more roadside signs per square inch than anywhere else on earth. Except maybe Vegas.

*****

To the guy we met at the filling station in Tecumcari who lost his wallet in Oklahoma - I hope you made it to Phoenix ok. If we had to do it over again we would have just filled the tank all the way. But I hope we were able to help some and that the nectarine was tasty.

*****

The landscape changes in a hurry once you turn south off I-25 east of Santa Fe and head toward I-40 (assuming you get past the road construction that was underway on every road in New Mexico). The rolling green mountains (not the craggy, granite-y stuff of the Rockies farther north) quickly gave way to scrub lands just north of Santa Rosa, which then flattened out as we turned east and stayed pretty much flat and sagebrush-y until we got to the easternmost part of the Texas panhandle, where the land broke into gently folded canyons cloaked in green. That part was quite pretty. Once we hit Oklahoma the greenery broke into patches of the red clay which Oklahoma is famous for. And somewhere along the line we picked up the humidity. Training sessions for Virginia, I guess.

*****

The enchiladas at Johnny’s Comet II New Mexican restaurant were just as fantastic this time around as they were last year. We both ordered one red, one green. If you’re ever passing through New Mexico on I-40 and hit Santa Rosa, you owe it to yourself to try the enchiladas at Comet II. The restaurant is just off the interstate on Historic Route 66 and the food is affordable and simply out of this world. Service is friendly and fast, too. Sandy, thanks again for the tip!

*****

There is an indelicate joke which goes like this:

Q: What’s the last thing to go through a fly’s mind when it hits your windshield?

A: It’s asshole.

Judging from the looks of the Jeep’s grill and the constant squeegeeing of the windshield I’ve had to do over the last three days, there is a veritable galaxy of sphincters stuck to my vehicle.

*****

Last but not least, Soly and Jovan, thank you sooooo much for your hospitality! It was great to see you both and thank you for putting us up and taking us out downtown and for sharing the fig bodywash. Best I’ve smelled in years.

I put the top up on the Jeep last week when I had my interview at The Pope’s Hat. I’ve kept it on since - although I was tempted to take it down so I could drive around while the snow fell. The great thing is that driving with the top up is almost as much fun as with it down. Since it’s a canvas top it’s like being inside a tent, but a tent that I can drive around.

***** ***** *****

Shockingly, The Purple, who were 3-6 four weeks ago, is now the team to beat for the final wildcard spot in the NFC. Despite our all-universe rookie running back only gaining three yards on fourteen carries yesterday, we still beat the 49ers 27-7 to win our fourth straight and improved our record to 7-6.

Miami continues its Bataan Death March toward ignominy. They lost to Buffalo 38-17 and are now 13-0. As an added bonus, they’ve moved past the 2001 Lions and the 1977 Buccaneers on the list of All Time Futility.

The worst starts ever:

0-14 1976 Buccaneers (never won)
0-14 1980 Saints
0-13 2007 Dolphins
0-13 1986 Colts
0-12 2001 Lions
0-12 1977 Buccaneers
0-11 2000 Chargers
0-11 1984 Bills
0-11 1975 Chargers

It doesn’t get any better, either. The Dolphins still have to play Baltimore, New England and Cincinnati. Ouch.

And I know Craig M is down there in central Florida, rabid Bucs fan that he is, just drooling  over the possibility of the Dolphins knocking his team off the top of this particular list.

***** ***** *****

I am a regular poster on a football web forum. Today, a fellow member sent me this video, which anyone who has ever hung out in forums will appreciate.

Warning: Contains strong language and Nazis.

My favorite line: “I demand that they yiff in Hell!”

I spend a fair amount of time posting to an online NFL forum, usually in the Minnesota Vikings area. Recently, we engaged in a discussion about Kenechi Udeze, one of the team’s defensive ends, and the news that he recently became a father for the first time.

Moi: However, it doesn’t do anyone a damn bit of good to come into a thread written to congratulate a man about the birth of his newborn son…

Vike Daddy: girl.

Moi: Well, they say it’s a game of inches.

Purple-Pride07: Common mistake

Moi: You are so right. Once, I was in this bar in Juarez, and this girl that I thought was…oh, hang on, game’s about to start…

Then the discussion turned to who was the best punter in the team’s history.

mnfreak12786: I’d give an edge to Berger because of his kickoff abilities

Enrage: Berger mostly didn’t have the kicking distraction of K-balls. [K-Balls are footballs reserved only for kicking.]

Moi: I’m going to write a letter to both Kevin and Pat Williams and ask them to change their last names to Balls. Then we can call them K-Balls and Phat Balls. Maybe one of them has a cousin named Orlando that we can sign as a defensive end. Then we’ll have O-Balls to go along with our two Balls. If they all hit the QB at the same time it would be a rare three-Balls sack. Find just one more Balls and we could have an All Balls defensive line. Imagine the goal line stand: “The Vikings defense is backed up to their own goal line. They have their Balls to the wall now.”

Damn I’m brilliant, lucid and articulate…and astonishingly good looking…when I’m drinking.

Jeff Watson AI Threat Level: Green - The reader may proceed without danger of reading anything related to American Idol.

- - - - -

Just eight days ago I posted an old joke about the dirtiest line ever uttered on television:

Q: What’s the dirtiest line ever uttered on television?

A: “Ward, I think you were a little hard on the Beaver last night.”

Well I’m here to tell you, ladies and gentlemen, that we have a new champion for the dirtiest line ever uttered on television (not counting cable, of course, or pay-per-view or adult programming or Fox News). Our winner comes to us courtesy of Quizno’s and their recent commercial for their new prime rib sandwich.

To set the stage, the commercial shows several actors typical sub-sandwich consumers comparing hefty, beefy Quizno’s prime rib sandwiches to flat, dessicated Subway sandwiches. It’s Armageddon all over the place for Subway; they’re just getting killed in the comparisons.

The final salvo of the commercial is fired by one of two attractive young women. One woman eats a Quizno’s prime rib sammich while the second woman holds one in her hands. The woman holding the sandwich exclaims to the off-camera host, wide-eyed and flirtatiously, before giggling to wrap the shot:

“It’s not lackin’ any meat…and that’s what real women need!”

Folks, we have a new winner. Mothers, hide your children.

Jeff Watson AI Threat Level: Orange - There is a small amount of American Idol content present in this post. Proceed with caution.

- - - - -

La Raymunda called me at the Place of Toil and Labor just after our weekly project status meeting broke up at 10:00.

“Do you have any idea why…”

(and right here I’m already thinking, “Uh oh…what did I do?”)

“…there is a chipped ceramic deer in our front yard?”

(Whew. She didn’t see the hookers and the crack pipes I hid in the closet. Home free!)

We have a guest living among our daffodils - a ceramic deer named Mystery Fawn. (You can see a photo of Mystery Fawn here.) I opened the garage door yesterday to go to work and as I walked around the back of La Raymunda’s car I spotted a deer sitting in the flower bed. I stopped, looked again and, realizing Mystery Fawn was ceramic, stood a while longer trying to figure out where, exactly, Mystery Fawn came from.

There is a house down the street that has been for sale for nine months or so. They have weird red bricks piled up around their trees and flower beds and fake deer standing in the backyard. No one will buy the house, even though the asking price has come down about $75,000. Apparently weird red bricks and fake deer in the backyard are the kiss of death in real estate.

But I digress.

So the only thing I could think of was that some teenage kid stole Mystery Fawn and deposited him amongst our daffodils. Why us in all of suburbia? Well, why not? “Totally random,” I told La Raymunda. She, with her extensive experience with vandalism, believed that vandals actually thought things through before they ran around smashing mailboxes and pumpkins and riding their bikes across other peoples’ lawns.

La Raymunda guesses our next door neighbor, Chris, dropped Mystery Fawn off for an unannounced visit. We had sushi with Chris and Cindy a couple of nights ago and we talked about the fake deer in the backyard down the street - and it wouldn’t be a stretch to imagine Chris digging out some old garden-fawn from out of his basement and plopping it down next to our driveway in the middle of the night. This is the same man who dressed as a vampire and then harnessed himself to the ceiling of his two-story foyer with bungee cords so he could swoop down on trick-or-treaters on Halloween. A ceramic deer prank is kid’s play for Chris.

I’m coming around on the Chris O’Neill’s Wild Kingdom story myself. Chris is a perfectionist and Mystery Fawn wasn’t just cast ashore on our lawn. It’s obvious that Mystery Fawn was arranged with care, so as not to trample any flowers, aligned nicely with the sidewalk in a narrowing pinch of the flower bed with soft, chipped little eyes gazing longingly toward the northwest.

- - - - -

On the marathon front, I ran ten miles on Saturday - my first day in double-digits. I learned a lot about nature’s best ambush hunters and the founding of Athens and the building of the Parthenon in the process. Did you know that mantids are nature’s best ambush hunters? They combine all four critical characteristics of an ambush hunter: skill, speed, strength and stealth. Mantids stalk the insect world as nature’s Number One ambush killing machine. True story!

My current running pace is five miles per hour, which I am trying to raise to six miles per hour this week. Also, I may have to push Marathon Day back a week or two since it looks like La Raymunda and I will be going to Mesa Verde for a week in May to celebrate our five-year anniversary.

Total mileage thus far: 86 miles.
Weight lost: 8.2 pounds (I think I’ve turned the corner on the I’m-not-losing-weight-because-I’m-gaining-muscle-and-muscle-weighs-more-than-fat theory. I’ve dropped a couple of pounds the last three days and that usually doesn’t happen except after the long Saturday runs when I lose thirty-five pounds in water weight and then gain it all back when I drink a Diet Coke. So I’m keeping my fingers crossed.)

- - - - -

It’s time to torpedo the debacle that is Sanjina Malakar. I won’t even comment on the horror that was his mohawk.

~Thanks to Missus Fayne for the Sanjina album cover!~

Q: What’s the dirtiest line ever uttered on television?

A: “Ward, I think you were a little hard on the Beaver last night.”

- - - - -

Ran five miles today, surprisingly easily. Learned a lot about castles on the History Channel in the process. Also set June 24 as Marathon Day.

Total mileage thus far: 70 miles.
Weight lost: 7 pounds (A colleague of mine at the Place of Toil and Labor said, along with my eating more, that my body could be storing any extra calories as reserve energy due to the higher demands I’m putting on said traitorous body, and that once my fat backstabbing uncooperative self figures out that this running-business is normal activity that it will release those calories and the weight loss will resume. Or begin. Or not. I’m holding out hope that a crash diet of scotch whisky & heroin cocktails does the trick.)

- - - - -

Started a new book last night - The River at the Center of the World, by Simon Winchester. Interesting premise: that the existence of China, the history of the Far East and even the world would have been different had the Yangtze River, which rushes south from northern China for several hundred miles, not “slammed head-on into a massif of limestone, ricocheted and cannonaded off it and then promptly thundered headlong back up to the north.”

Winchester speculates that, had the river not made that hairpin reversal of course at Cloud Mountain, a hairpin turn which apparently doesn’t occur to any other major river anywhere else in the world, the Yangtze would have continued south parallel to the Mekong, passed out of China and dumped itself into the Gulf of Tonkin (Vietnam) instead of becoming the great waterway that served as the backbone of trade, communication, unification and conquest that made China the power it was in the past and is becoming again now.

- - - - -

“I thought Sanjaya was good last night,” said Jeff the security guard.
“You mean his rape of The Kinks?” I said.
“Yeah. I thought he did good.”
“Jeff, have you ever actually heard The Kinks?”

shrug

“There’s more to rock ‘n’ roll than jumping around onstage and screaming like a fifteen year old playing air guitar in his underwear in his bedroom.”

Q: What’s the difference between the Star Wars prequel trilogy and the war in Iraq?

A: One outlines the manipulation of a corrupt and complacent democracy into a manufactured war to facilitate the rise to power of a malevolent, oppressive, downright evil force …

… and the other has light sabers.

I can’t take credit for that one - but this fellow can.

*****

This morning I wondered, “If George Lucas decided to make a Star Wars movie out of the current Bush Regime, which administration members would play each role?” I think I have three of them nailed down, but I’m open to suggestions.

Emperor Palpatine - This has got to be Karl Rove, right?

Darth Vader, Dark Lord of the Sith - Cheney. Gotta be. Wasn’t Vader’s armor made by Halliburton?

Jar-Jar Binks - Dubya. “Yes sah, Mee-sa’ll be glad to start illegal unprovoka war without Congressional declaration, level foreign cities an’ villages, blow the legs off Jawas, an’ take the goodwill of entire planet an’ flush it down the toilet. Hooray for Maxi-Big Oil! Oh, an’ does this mean Gungans forget that Jabba bin Laden remains at large-a an’ that my fath-a’s company sold him his blast-as?”

It’s been a busy week and El Raymundo is tired. There were family festivities with the relations in Baltimore all last weekend and The Debra’s folks have been in town this week. Workload at the Place of Toil and Labor has skyrocketed and I think my body is confused because last week was a four-day work week and this morning, Friday, I woke up and my body said, “Huh? We’re going to work? Again???”

But it’s Friday evening now. The Debra is cooking dinner with MegaJan and William is reading Mutiny on the Bounty. I’ve poured myself a small glass of pre-dinner goodness – a bit of Lagavulin – and am ready to relate a few non-linear snippets of life.

The UltraHot Geo Coleman sent me a link whose by-line read thusly:

“ST. PETERS, Missouri (AP) — A woman, angry that her new puppy had died, pushed her way into a dog breeder’s home and repeatedly hit her on the head with the dead Chihuahua.”

Now that’s a hook!

The story continues: “As the woman drove away, she waved the dead puppy out of the car’s sunroof and yelled threats at the breeder, police said.”

I would be remiss to leave out the fact that the UltraHot Tiffany Taylor also forwarded me that story today. No, not the pron star Tiffany Taylor (Google that one at your own risk, sports fans). The Time Warner Cable Security Analyst Tiffany Taylor.

Alert: Approaching non sequitur

John Holmes, a colleague of mine at the Place of Toil and Labor, mentioned that I was not going to get a real person to staff the position on my nascent Change Management team. It’s been decided, he said, “to use an NPC.”

“An NPC!” shouted Shinnguard. “A Non-Player Character! Will it be a Paladin with a longsword +1?”

“No, it’ll be a Paladin with a Holy Avenger +5 and a Helmet of Very Intentional Goodness,” I said.

“Whoever it is, they’ll have to be Lawful Evil or Lawful Good,” said John with a shrug. “One or the other.”

“I only roll twenties,” bragged Scott.

“I don’t know about you, but I only roll twenty-twos,” said John.

“On a twenty-sided dice?”

“He rolls deuce-deuce.”

“I roll fours when all I need to hit is a seven,” I said. “And then my character is run through the chest with a spear and skewered to an oak tree. And then druids light him on fire.”

Alert: Approaching non sequitur

A chat window popped up and Michelle D. was asking me:

Michelle D: When you think of country ho’s, what do you imagine?
El Raymundo: Huh?
Michelle D. I’m going to a pimps and ho’s party tonight and I want to go as a country ho. What do you think one looks like?
El Raymundo: I have no idea, Michelle. I grew up in the suburbs.

I asked Bernard if he had any idea what a country ho looked like. He said Tonya Harding.

I sent Michelle the link to my Angelina Jolie/Village People/hot tub dream.

El Raymundo: This will make you laugh: (the Me and Angelina Jolie post)
Michelle D: You are borderline obsessed.
Michelle D: I had a dream last night too. I was trapped in a mud pit with alligators.
(pause)
Michelle D: I think I prefer your dream.

Which leads me to the Camel Joke.

A military detachment was sent to the deepest corner of Iraq. The men expected to be there for a very long time and knew they would be isolated and lonely, so they brought a camel along “for emergencies.” You know, because they would be lonely.

After a few months a captain was sent to join the detachment. When he arrived he asked what the camel was for. “We get lonely here,” said one soldier, “and the camel is for emergencies.”

Several months pass and the captain is feeling the isolation, so one day he takes a box and sets it on the ground behind the camel. The captain mounts the box and becomes one with the camel. When he finishes he zips his pants and asks a soldier, “Is that how the men do it, soldier?”

“Not really,” replied the soldier, “usually we just ride the camel on into town.”

Jeff Watson commented on the current price of gas thusly:

Jeff Watson: “The price of gas the day Clinton left the White House (Jan. 2001) was $1.54.”

Me: “How much is $1.54 now? Inflation is what, about 3% per year?”

JW: “The White House says there is no inflation.”

Me: “The inflation rate from JAN 2001 to APR 2006 was 3.36%. So $1.54 is roughly $1.59 in 2006 dollars.”

JW: “Hey America, electing 2 oilmen to the White House was dumb!”

Me: “TWICE!”

JW: “Once. Gore won in 2000.”

Me: “Ah, yes. Correct.”

Jeff also found this great clip of a surprise guest at a recent White House Easter event.

From Tamsen:

Donald Rumsfeld is giving President Bush his daily briefing on Iraq.

He concludes by saying: “Yesterday, 3 Brazilian soldiers were killed.”

“OH, NO!” the president exclaims. “That’s terrible!”

His staff, stunned at this display of emotion, watches nervously as the President sits, head in hands.

Finally, President Bush looks up and asks, “How many is a brazillion?”