Not that anyone cares

But it's possible I'll be back at this soon.
Or not.

Techno-Babble On

Ignore what I have told you in the past. The end of human civilization will not be caused by Oprah, evangelists, ambulance chasers or midgets. These things will, of course, be contributing factors (along with our old pal, stupidity), but they will not be, in and of themselves, the main source of society's downfall. Nope. That honor will be reserved for a more vile, malignant and insidious evil: the cell phone.
I realize that the previous statement makes me sound un-American, as the malevolent devices have become such a component of every day life, but it is, none the less, true. I also acknowledge that the statement gives the impression that I am anti-technology, but this is not at all the case. I am way too devoted to my DVR and X-box to even consider membership in my local Luddite chapter. (I am also quite fond of TV, the wheel, the printing press and machine knitted socks) . Justifiably, I have, at times, been labeled philistine, cretin, misanthrope and ass-hat. I not only accept this, but revel in it. Accusations of Ludditism are way out of line, and I will happily burn the mechanized loom of anyone who says otherwise. I do not, will not, however, own a cell phone and must confess that I tend to look disparagingly upon those who do. Because the damned things are evil I tell you!
Let Uncle Laughingwolf 'splain:

It is an established fact that people have become less considerate of others, more self-centered and prone to the belief that they actually have something important to say (the truth being, in fact, that they are yammering idiots). The cell phone merely supports and contributes to these things. Who hasn't had their enjoyment of a movie interrupted by a jerk who believed that the "please turn off your phone" message was not meant for him? Never had their life endangered by a phone wielding nitwit driving a car? Had to listen to some moron's "private" conversation while waiting on line? (My solution to this one, by the way, is to start to whistle whatever tune comes to mind. When the numskull on the phone inevitably hushes me and asks "Do you mind?", I either reply, "No, not at all. Mind if I whistle?" or, "Shhhhh! The chorus is the tricky part." This is why I am sometimes called an ass-hat). These little annoyances build up in the psyche and people become more angry, irritable and likely to climb a bell tower with a high-powered sniper rifle. Bang! Society crumbles. (True story: A while back, there was I guy in my store who had the misfortune of receiving a phone call while still in the shop. He demanded that my customers and I "keep it down" so that he could hear. Guy was surprised to learn that his cell phone had a colonoscopy application).

And, look at the toll these pernicious little gadgets are taking on our children.

It is reported that school bullying continues to rise and experts are not sure why. Well, experts, I can tell you: cell phones. The kids are in each other's business twenty four hours a day and, as everyone knows, familiarity breeds contempt. Your kid isn't getting picked on for old fashioned legitimate reasons like being a band geek or wearing the wrong shoes, he's getting wedgied because he didn't know when to shut up. What is worse is that, because of the phones, the bullying doesn't stop at the schoolyard, but continues to follow the kid home because he is too much of an idiot to turn the damned cell phone off! After all, the call might be important. Because 13 year olds have such a firm grasp on what is truly important. (Unlike adults, who have no grasp whatsoever. "We are out of eggs" is your emergency? I will alert the local news networks you dimwit). No wonder the kid's can't read and are failing in school. They spend too much time yacking on their damned phones and meddling in each other's affairs. Rather than handing your kid a phone and condemning them to a slow mental and emotional meltdown why not just take them to Sea World, slather them in chum and toss them into the shark tank?
It will be much quicker and, if you take your phone, you can snap some cool pictures to send to your friends. That will give you all something to natter about.

Okay, now this is just getting silly. I mean, how hard is it to come up with something to write about? Just sitting here now, I can think of a dozen topics. For example, you could do a piece on...uh...that thing with the...uh...those people who...um...doesn't it tick you off when...crap.
I see what you mean.

Um. No, wait.

Sorry. Still nothin.

I still got nothin.

We doan neat no steenkeen badgers!

This morning, there was a turkey in my front yard.
Not a frozen, steroid injected, pop-up timer sporting, plastic-wrapped Butterball, but a real, live honest to gawd turkey. (A Butterball in my lawn would have been less odd, as my neighbor has a habit of chucking frozen poultry out of his attic window for reasons I fear to imagine. Ah, the charms of suburban life). It scared the be-jesus out of me. Gave Caleb, who I'd just let out for his morning wizz, a bit of a start, too. The damned thing was just standing there, gawking at us and acting as if we were the intruders. That's a fine how-do-ya-do.
Don't get me wrong...I am, though way short of tree hugging, quite a wildlife fan. Most of my best friends are animals. But, since I have resided here most of my life and never encountered a non-Thanksgiving-prepped turkey in my living space, I was a tad taken aback. Sure, my home is in a suburban area that is just a stone-toss from rural (the roads weren't paved until sometime in my mid-twenties), and there is a lot of field and woodland which has not been processed into housing development, but, until now, if I had decided that I craved the company of a wild turkey I would have had to go out and hunt one in its yard. Guess no one informed the turkey.
The confusion, however, is not the bird's fault. It seems that the reason it was in my yard was because there just wasn't any room for it on its own turf. The other tens of thousands of wild turkeys simply crowded it out. Seriously. We are almost arm pit deep in turkeys these days, and over-population is forcing them to range far from their natural hang-outs. Soon, the birds will be moving in next door, dropping by to borrow a cup of sugar and playing their music way to loudly on school nights. And, this nightmare scenario is not a result of global warming, stem-cell research or the Rapture. (On Judgment Day, everybody gets a drumstick!). It is because the good yet mildly retarded folk at the Pennsylvania Game Commission decided that there were not enough native turkeys in the state. So, they imported them. And they bred like rabbits (also imported and, at present, breeding like...turkeys).
You see, what these well-meaning conservationists forgot to factor into the equation is that all of the large predators (wolves, mountain lions, Indians, velociraptors, etc.) had also been eliminated from the Pennsylvania ecosystem. This means that, with nothing in place to keep the population in-check (no, your car does not count) and turkeys not having wallets to carry condoms in, presto...over-population and terrifying early-morning encounters with disgruntled avians. Fortunately, the folks at the Game Commission have a solution.
In order to control the turkey population, they are re-introducing coyotes to the state. Coyotes (which, contrary to popular belief, prefer turkey to roadrunner), by use of elaborate and not too carefully thought-out mechanical traps, will soon cull the bird population to manageable numbers. Also on the list of possible predators to ship in: bobcats, foxes and badgers. (Really? Badgers?).
Problem solved! (Right, like it could be that easy. Do you people not pay any attention?).
See, coyotes, much like raccoons, are highly adaptable to human-crowded environments. Trash cans do not run as fast as turkeys do, and with the all-you-can-eat buffet of Monday morning trash pick-up available, it is far more likely that they will choose the option requiring the least expenditure of energy. They are very much like people in that way. So, the coyotes grow fat on your left overs and the turkeys continue to do what turkeys do when they are not hanging in my yard. The only way this plan will work is for the coyote population to grow so large that the turkeys are forced to move to Ohio in order to get a little breathing room. The coyotes, with nothing to eat them, then take over the neighborhood and soon wild packs of the canids are hanging out on street corners or taking jobs from honest citizens. And we have to import tigers to weed them out. (Or, like that weird "Lady Who Swallowed A Fly" song, goats, horses and cows. I know. That crap is disturbing.). Then, genetically altered weasels or mongooses (mongeese?) for the tigers and cyborg chinchillas for them, and so on.
Some things, once broken, are not fixable.
And, all I want is for my dog to be able to pee without fear of being pecked at.
Thanks, Fish and Game.

Rrrrroooowwwwwrrrrr?

Happier times.

I am, simply put, bereft. Tonight, I rrrrrroooowwwwwwrrrrrrr for you, Ms. Arthur.

Pull!!

Governor Palin and friends go skeet shooting back at home. That's Russia back in the left corner, beside the mini-mart.

Just in case you haven't had your fill of Sarah Palin, Talking Points Memo updates us on what she's been up to since the election.