(Note: Some of the external links on this page and archived (almost) Daily Comment pages may lead to sites and pages where the information may have changed or the page no longer exists. Sorry, I'm pretty powerful but I have no control over this.)

 

Wednesday, 10/31/01 - I haven't felt like posting comment entries for the past few days because I've been nursing a cold. That's an odd expression, isn't it? "Nursing" a cold. Sounds like I've been breastfeeding it... not that I couldn't have, I've just never tried. Jeez...what am I talking about? I think the medication is talking.

Getting a cold isn't as simple as it used to be. Now, whenever we start feeling ill, there is the fear that it may be anthrax. You can't help but consider that possibility in these times.

Anyway, I've been watching a lot of TV in between sleeping and viewed "Judge Judy" the other night for the first time. Was this woman a real judge at one time? I can't imagine someone as vicious and hostile as her being permitted to decide the fate of others. This woman may have some legal experience, but her "personal" style is very bitter and volatile. I guess that what makes the show, huh? And she and the bailiff give each other these oh so smug looks like the plaintiff and defendant are lowlife scum... and she proceeds to treat them as such. Judge Judy needs to be slapped... and hard. I would pay to see that. I know that if I had the misfortune of appearing before her, after a few of her nasty remarks, I would be rushing the bench to strangle her.

I did notice a resemblance, though...

Happy Halloween, by the way.

 

Friday, 10/26/01 - Holy cow! I saw a rare sight yesterday evening... the Goodyear Blimp cruising through Knoxville skies.

I need to back up a little and contradict myself from my 10/16 entry to say that some of the anti-terrorist jokes and gags are quite humorous... just not the hateful violent ones. Check out this photo that was e-mailed to me. I think it's HILARIOUS...

The Chase
(click on image for a larger version)

 

Thursday, 10/25/01 - I wonder if there's a guy somewhere in the U.S. named Ben Laden? If so, his life has gotta be hell right now.

Last night at the grocery store, I felt that all too familiar feeling of a fart coming on. I waited until there was no one in my aisle and then proceeded to release it. It was a difficult one, as I had to arch my back, shift my weight to one leg, and pinch just right to let it out properly. What resulted was the saddest, most woeful sound I have ever heard... like a lonesome train whistle or someone mourning the loss of a loved one. I actually felt a tear welling up in my eye. It lasted about 9 seconds... long enough for some onlookers to surround me. The sound was so heart-wrenching that a little boy in a wheelchair came up to me and gave me a dollar.

 

Wednesday, 10/24/01 -

Frankie says...
Frankie also says...

 

Tuesday, 10/23/01 - My liver's in my lover, who is a lover of liver givers and loves to love the liver of her lover live.

 

Sunday, 10/21/01 - We all can breathe a collective sigh of relief, knowing that it won't be long until the end of terrorism now that the Bat Boy has donned his star bangled headband and joined the fight. God bless Bat Boy!

 

Saturday, 10/20/01 - I have to momentarily break my own ground rules about beheadings on this site. The other night, I taped the classic thriller movie "The Omen" off of AMC. There's one scene where a photographer played by David Warner gets beheaded by a sheet of plate glass propelled of the bed of a runaway truck. Watching the scene frame by frame (guys do this to watch explosions and other stuff), I noticed that the special effects-prepared head just pops off at first impact of the glass. It doesn't slice through the neck, but the head rather disengages when the edge of the glass first hits the adam's apple of the dummy... like it just can't wait to be launched into the air. At normal speed you don't notice this.

I really have no logical reason to mention this. It's just all I've got for today.

By the way, when did AMC start interrupting their movies with commercials? They do now once at the midway part during a movie. I was unaware of this and had to scramble for the remote to rewind and resume recording at the interruption point. No commercial breaks was the beauty of this non-premium cable channel... and now they've gone and ruined it. Damn it.

In one of my other e-mail accounts that is regularly flooded with tons of junk mail, I saw a message with this subject line: "ENLARGE YOUR PACAKGE GUARANTEED." Evidently, the sender was so excited about the possibility of enhancing his privates that he couldn't spell correctyl... uh...I mean, correctly.

 

Friday, 10/19/01 - I had some midmorning fun at work as a coworker and I performed an impromptu juggling act using dusters (those kinds that look like giant squirrel tails on sticks) obtained from the custodial closet. We were simultaneously tossing them to each other in the hallway while I improvised the frantic sounding "spinning plates on sticks music" from the days of the Ed Sullivan Show. We were getting pretty good at it until we had the brilliant idea of lighting them on fire and tossing them. Damn... those things sure do flare up big and melt fast.

 

Tuesday, 10/16/01 - Since that terrible day last month, I've been receiving lots of e-mails with anti-terrorist jokes, stories, cartoons and altered photos. I understand the need to support our country and reassure ourselves with ultra-pro-American patriotism in these troubled times, but I thought an e-mail "story" I got the other day went just a little too far.

This forwarded story told of a father and son visiting Manhattan Island 30 years in the future. They come across a vacant area in the midst of the skyscrapers and the father tells the son about the World Trade Center buildings that once stood there. The young son asks his dad what they were and the father describes the huge twin towers and adds that they were destroyed by Arabs. The story ends with the son asking the father "Daddy, what are Arabs?"

I understood this to mean that Arabic people had been eradicated from existence in those fictional 30 years. To suggest that the Arabic people as a whole were responsible for the destruction of the World Trade Center is a totally inappropriate and ignorant categorization. If the story had used the word "terrorists" rather than "Arabs," the story would have been an uplifting and hopeful parable.

I've seen altered photos of the Statue of Liberty holding the bloody severed head of Osama bin Laden, a doctored photo of the NYC firefighters hanging bin Laden by the neck on that makeshift flagpole in the WTC wreckage, all kinds of disturbing images of revenge. Don't get me wrong, I clearly don't sympathize with terrorists or radicals, but revenge images like this give me an uncomfortable feeling. The creators of this propaganda must feel they need to express and share their anger. Radical groups in the Middle-East burn US flags and effigies of President Bush on a daily basis. What's the difference between this display of hate and what we're producing with these fake photos? The principle is the same. I would hope that the US is above that level of behavior.

It may be a cliché to some to use a Martin Luther King, Jr. quote, but this applies to this situation:
"To retaliate with hate and bitterness would do nothing but intensify the hate in the world. Along the way of life, someone must have sense enough and morality enough to cut off the chain of hate."

Now, to lighten things up a bit (and I hope I don't sound too hypocritical here after my serious tone), I was passing by a office door today where a discussion was going on between three of my coworkers. I had no idea what they were talking about when suddenly one of them asks me, "Do you think they have a WalMart in Afghanistan?" Without thinking, I quickly responded, "Well, they probably used to have one."

 

Monday, 10/15/01 - This morning I slept through the alarm clock but was awakened (and saved from being late to work) by the sound of my cat throwing up on the carpet in my bedroom.

Where Apes Once Trod
My Californian friend Vince, a fellow Planet of the Apes fan, sent me some great video footage that he filmed in April of the Zuma Beach location that was used in the final scenes of the classic sci-fi movie. You know... where the cave was with the ma-ma doll. He used scenes from the movie and edited in his present-day footage using the same camera angles of the film crew. Very interesting and ultra-cool... especially the scene with the words "DAMN YOU" that he scrawled in the sand. Thanks, Vince!

 

Sunday, 10/14/01 - Fall has arrived in a windy bluster this weekend. Check out some local East Tennesseans enjoying themselves in this photo I took yesterday.

 

Friday, 10/12/01 - I'm sorry, but computer humor is just a lame concept enjoyed and appreciated only by geeks. It's rather pathetic, actually.

At work, there are two employees in the department who are leaving. Today is their last day. Yesterday, I had a brilliant idea and seized this opportune moment to send this e-mail to my boss (I x'ed out real names to avoid a lawsuit)...

Original Message
From: Longmire, Mark
Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2001 3:19 PM
To: Xxxxx, Xxx
Subject: new office

Xxx,
This is a bit unorthodox, but I'm going to ask anyway... I was wondering if I could have either Xxxxx's orXxxxxx's office. No, not to move completely from my current office, but as an extra office for myself. Like a "vacation" office where I can go to relax from time to time and get away from the hustle and bustle of my regular office. A nice quiet place where I can go lie down periodically, read magazines, or watch videos. And I would need the lock changed where I have the only key so that I won't be interrupted while I'm "recharging my batteries." Of course, I would still work in my current office... when I felt like it. Let me know if this is possible. Thanks.

- Mark

I didn't get a reply.

 

Wednesday, 10/10/01 - My hometown, Knoxville, TN, gets a very strange mention today in The Onion.

 

Tuesday, 10/09/01 - Marvin Gaye's song "What's Going On?" was recorded in the early 70s and deals with social issues. So, why in the world is it now being used as an advertising jingle for Radio Shack, of all things?

Brand new on the site: Rejected Wheel of Fortune Puzzles. I invite you to send me your ideas for unusual word puzzles you'd like to see on that game show.

 

Monday, 10/08/01 - When I'm with my coworkers, I feel powerful knowing that if I so desired, with one tiny little push of my sphincter, I could totally ruin a meeting.

 

Sunday, 10/07/01 - Saw this advertisement today... it's so incredibly stupid, I can't believe it.

Just take a look... click on the image for an enlarged version... and some comments.

I couldn't help myself and sent this reply to the Wynonna Judd fan who expressed their displeasure with me via e-mail yesterday (see yesterday's entry)...

Hey, everybody has a right to be scared by someone of their own choosing. It's not my fault that she's so spooky looking.

I have no doubt that, like you said, she is a nice person. I'm sure that Boris Karloff was a nice person, too.

I got this reply back today...

she's not scary looking>>>>>She is a very beautiful person.Ya'll are just jealous that she is so nice, and pretty. People only talk about you because they are jealous of you. Hope you realize what you had on ur website was W-R-O-N-G!!! I am a huge fan of Wy's and I could not help but voice my opinion.

+May God Bless You+

God bless me? Hmmmm...I wonder if he or she has diesel?

 

 

Saturday, 10/06/01 - As long as I've been doing The Wonderful World of Longmire...and as hard as I've tried...I've never gotten any hate mail or even a scolding... until yesterday. The following is an e-mail I received concerning a really old page (one of the first on this site) about "people that frighten me"...

How dare you put that Wynonna scares you on ur website. She is a very nice person, I have met her and she is a sweetheart. You really need to rethink cause you might make a few hundred thousand fans mad. You should be ashamed of yourself.

Wynutt2001@aol.com

Mission accomplished! Finally! Offending the world... one person at a time!

 

Friday, 10/05/01 - Here's another sign that I saw a couple of days ago...

Somebody sure is thankful for diesel fuel.

 

Monday, 10/01/01 - What the...???

I saw this sign for a hotel restaurant in Oak Ridge, TN today...

"WELCOME, OBJECTIVE FORCE WARRIOR! ENJOY THE BUFFET, OH MIGHTY ONE!"

I don't know what's going on there and I'm pretty sure I don't want to know.

I clipped this from the family section of yesterday's Knoxville News Sentinel...

Sometimes I think they do this stuff on purpose.

I'm no expert, but I think law enforcement authorities might view this particular family activity as "creating a ransom note."

My daughter made me take her and a friend to go see Ben Stiller's new movie "Zoolander." I couldn't help but make the following comparison to his character and a web celebrity I know...

 

 

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