Another opportunity, missed.

Dammit, how often does an opportunity like this present itself? A world-famous Olympic athlete, known specifically for being a contender despite having no lower legs, is charged with murdering his girlfriend, and he fields a lame alibi.

So we get this:

That's what we get when cowards are placed in editorial positions. Clearly, it should have been run thusly:

Random Halloween Day Thoughts.

• --The Eighth Grader In The House carved up a jack-o'-lantern that was better than any that I've done in 40 years. My wife, a sculptor, was impressed. Not fancy; just well-executed. I don't have a picture because the effect is lost without darkness and a candle, and I forgot to take one last night.
• --I still need to finish cleaning guns from Blogorado. Next year we should put together a gun-cleaning table to sit and chat at while cleaning guns at the end.
• --While working the crosswalk during the city-sponsored Halloween event this weekend, my partner and I wondered how else girls would learn to dress up as sluts in public, if they didn't have their hot moms to show them how at Halloween.
• --Yard decorations for Halloween have gotten out of hand. I don't think Christmas-style strings of orange house lights were even seen before about two or three years ago. Now they're ubiquitous.  Front yard graveyards are thick on the ground. Stupid inflatable fabric lighted yard decorations? All over.
• --My daughters are terrified that I'm going to wear my kilt and pith helmet while accompanying them and their pack of friends trick-or-treating this evening. I've let them believe that I'm going to. Talk about the scariest thing that they can think of on Halloween! Heh.

• --While in the front yard spattering stage blood (left over from my graduate studies) onto the white lace garage sale dress that The Fourth Grader In The House was wearing, I thought to myself that the greater horror for me was seeing my kid in a bridal gown.
• --My younger daughter, while standing outside with the blood drying on her bridal gown, saw the cat playing with a mouse. She tried to save the mouse, and got bitten for her trouble. Didn't break the skin, and the mouse was healthy as could be. I told her that she was lucky that I got to see the rodent, or I would have her getting shots. Do they still do that? I also threatened her with a thrashing if she ever again tried to touch a wild animal of any stripe. I killed the mouse, which did have a broken back already. The cat looked at me disgustedly, and ate it.
• --My elder daughter dressed in black, painted her nails, eyes, and lips black, wore a giant silver cross and a chain belt, and made her face white, and went as a Goth Girl. She practiced sighing and rolling her eyes as she announced, "Trick or treat" in a voice dripping with irony.
• --My neighbor thought that it was AWESOME when I put Burglar Bob, the reactive shooting dummy, on the front porch. He liked it even better when I put the words "Free Candy" on my skeevy old van parked out front. I took some pictures, and then chickened out. I gotta work in this town.
• --At the last second I had to run get some candy. The door hasn't been knocked on yet.
• --I should probably fix that doorbell.

TANSTAAFL

Longtime internet friend Larry Correia writes his hilariously on-point reactions to a Yahoo article about people who are getting out of paying their mortgages due to their own misplaced values, and are spun as heroes for it.

I laughed out loud. Seriously.

Liberally Lean In The Land Of Dairy Queen.

Barry Green is a former district attorney in Wise County By-Gawd, Texas. He still practices law there, and he just doesn't seem to give a damn what you think of him. You kind of have to admire that in a man. Funny stuff.

He also has some decent off-the-cuff local news updates and thoughts for north Texas.

Remember, folks:

"Time Out!" only works for kids' games.

That's good snark, right there.

It's no secret that Ambulance Driver and I both have criticisms with with the way helicopters are being used for patient transport. But AD now suggests a fine structure for chopper adverts.

More amazing than we are capable of imagining.

Tamara said, in comments: "As the saying goes, 'The universe is not only stranger than we imagine; it's stranger than we can imagine.'"

Proof of this, courtesy of The Onion, is Mitch:

"The identical processes that have given us the remarkable camouflage of the stick insect and the magnificent plumage of the bird-of-paradise have, it would seem, also given us a man who cannot scramble an egg," University of Pennsylvania biologist Ann Goldwyn-Ross said. "Despite evolution's emphasis on the inheritance and replication of advantageous traits, a man walks among us today who sweats profusely in any temperature and went to see Anger Management in theaters twice."

That's some good stuff, right there.

I beg your pardon for the profanity...

...but I believe I'm about to post a link up on the right, to ShitMyDadSays.com.

I could drink a beer or a cuppa coffee with this guy's dad. I laughed aloud repeatedly.

Note: EVERY SINGLE POST is profane.

Okay, wait: I found this one, which again made me laugh:
"We're out of Grape Nuts... No, what's left is for me. Sorry, I should have said, 'You're out of Grape Nuts.'"

Visual pun time.

What does this have to do with the stage portrayal of King Mongkut?

Sometimes we have to do that which is needful.

This time, it wasn't me who arrested this kid.

This time, I kinda cheered up. when I heard he went to jail.

Last time, it got to me a little.

But I'm better, now.

This Just In:

Generalissimos Miguel Jackson and Francisco Franco are still dead!

______________________________

Hat Tip to Tam.

Buy this shirt.

Read the reviews, and you will know why you MUST buy this shirt.

And as they were thrown out of their own embassy,

...a voice from behind the door could be heard to say, "Is not bacon. Is round ham!!!"

Answer this simple question:

"Do I Have Swine Flu?" Go to this site to find out.

"Lemme think about it. No."

A man who claims the position of Somali Prime Minister-- a position so week that he lives in Virginia, and meets in Nairobi, Kenya rather than in Mogadishu-- begs us to give him resources for his country to hunt down the pirates themselves.

Now why would we want to do that?

A: If his nation can't generate the will to fight such offenses on their own, then we don't need to be making them gifts of naval armament, and

B: Why should we wish to deprive our Navy of a righteously target-rich environment?

My answer to the request, through diplomatic channels, would be,

"No. And on a completely unrelated note, you might want to keep your loved ones out of certain Somali ports over the next couple of months. We will take your request for assistance as formal permission to rout the problem ourselves. KayThnxBai!"

5-Shot Revolver + Speed Strips + Pistol Match

= Slowest El Presidente evar.

Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang.
Reload. . .
Bang.
Reload. . .
Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang.
Reload. . .
Bang.

I'm pretty sure I heard the scribe ask the timekeeper afterward what date we had started on.

:)

Visual Thursday

For our first nifty view, please see art made with flocks of sheep, crazy shepherds, and very, very well-trained dogs. Simply awesome, and totally worth calling your kids over to see.

For our second site, I must caution you that a few of the pictures are possibly NSFW, and merit review before calling the kids over. In my house, they came running when they heard the hysterical laughter. The site, probably known to many of you, is Picture Is Unrelated, in which they have compiled an impressive growing collection of those odd photos that you sometimes find, where the subject does not match the background. Be sure and page through their archives, and read both the headings and the captions, which make the site. Made of win.

Life is getting better. And better still.

And yet still we complain.

Today's earworm: Synthesizers and white linen suits.

For two days I've had the song "Crockett's Theme" from Miami Vice in my head.

Must be nice to have a theme song. Me, if I ever had one, it'd probably be Muzak version of "MacArthur Park."

Wrong hobby, youngsters.

In a rural town with crumbling asphalt streets, no curbs, and less than 100 yards of public sidewalks, why not take up a past time OTHER than skateboarding, brainiac?

Might I suggest bicycling? Or roping? Maybe weeding your folks' driveways?