The (almost) Daily Comment


Monday, 2/28/00 - The guy at the convenience store is a friggin' idiot. I stop by there from time to time and he is usually a chatterbox, trying to engage me in small talk. I'm usually polite and say a few words when spoken to. This evening I initiated a conversation first by making a small remark and he just stared at me. Seems like he just wants things on HIS terms... a control freak. Well, I'm not going to play his game any more. No sir. The next time I go in there I'm not going to say a word and just see how HE likes it. I can be tough when I need to be...you better believe it.

 

Sunday, 2/27/00 - I was browsing through the women-seeking-men personal ads in today's paper and saw the entry below (no altered image here, it's straight out of the paper)...

Bring a flatbed truck on your first date!

Now, that's A LOT OF LADY!

 

Monday, 2/14/00 - Happy Valentine's Day for whatever it's worth to you. Since a lot of flower arrangements are to be presented to significant others today, I got to wondering... do the flowers called baby's breath smell like breast milk?

 

Thursday, 2/10/00 - One of my web pages, Sieger on Uncoated, was featured as The Dork of the Day for today!

 

Tuesday, 2/8/00 - I was watching the evening news and noticed that Presidential candidate John McCain is a dead ringer for Garth Brooks, only older.

 

Monday, 2/7/00 - Today at lunch, I coined a new phrase: "The Internet never sleeps©" I'm rather proud of this new saying and if I hear of any of you using it, I'll sue the pants off you. Oh yes, I will.

 

Sunday, 2/6/00 - I read a short news item in the paper today about former first lady Nancy Reagan being interviewed on a cable TV talk show. The paper read "Appearing by phone on CNN's 'Larry King Live' on Friday, Reagan was asked about...."

Appearing by phone?!! How do you do that?

 

Sunday, 1/30/00 - I watched the Super Bowl with some pals at a friend's house. Like everyone, we enjoyed the commercials, especially the one for EDS... the cat herding commercial. When it aired, the only words I actually heard were "cat herding" before I and my friends were overcome with uncontrollable laughter at the sight of cowboys herding cats across the prairie. You can view it and the other commercials that aired during the Super Bowl by going to this page. The halftime show was incredibly stupid. Among other performers, Phil Collins sang. At one point he was raised up on some kind of elevated platform as he performed. Since we have been having snowy weather in the surrounding counties here locally in East Tennessee, I suspected that Phil was raised up on the platform in order for the television viewing audience to see him above the scrolling text at the bottom of the screen listing the school closings for the next day.

 

Tuesday, 1/25/00 - Big news for the past couple of months has been the subject of the little Cuban boy... Julio... Juan Valdez... I forget what his name is... who survived a boat capsizing while trying to get to the U.S. from Cuba. In the past few days, the little boy's two grandmothers have come from Cuba to the U.S. attempting to sway the government and the courts to let him come home. The TV news broadcasters constantly refer to them, of course, as "the grandmothers," but it's humorous somehow to hear it used concerning a big deal political issue. Example: "Today, the grandmothers went to Washington to ..." Anyway, I think I have the answer to this problem of where the child should go. It's quite simple actually - the father in Cuba would have custody of the child, and the United States... the whole country... would have visitation rights every other weekend with two weeks in the summer and alternating Christmas and birthday years. The kid (what's his name... Pablo?) would be brought to a McDonald's in Key West for the U.S. to pick up for the visitations. Of course, the United States, being the non-custodial parent, would have to pay the father child support monthly which would be a percentage of the country's income. This would make little Sancho's father the richest man in Cuba and possibly the world.

 

Sunday, 1/23/00 - The snowy roads cleared up somewhat this morning but hardly anybody was out... probably either stuck at home or watching the Titans - Jaguars game. Go Titans! On the way back home, we decided to eat at a neighborhood Chinese restaurant. The sign in the window said open although there weren't any cars outside. We walked in the place and were met by a Chinese lady. The place was curiously empty and she looked sort of startled, so I asked "Are you open?" She said nothing and just smiled. I asked again and she said "Okay!" I wonder what is so difficult about the phrase "are you open?" Anyway we were the only customers in there during our meal. When we finished eating, we got some fortune cookies. Mine was written in ball point pen on a piece of a drinking straw paper wrapper that was shoved into the cookie. It read "You stupid roundeye and you goatee look stupid. You go home and never come back."

 

Saturday, 1/22/00 - Hey Papa Joey, whatta ya knowey, I looky out the window and it was all snowy. That was pretty cute wasn't it? After a prediction of "the white stuff" (snow) by Knoxville's crack teams of TV meteorologists, I expected none. I woke up this morning at 7, looked out the window and saw nothing. Woke up again at 10 and saw about an inch of snow on the ground and tons more coming down. Drove to the grocery store later in the afternoon and had some fun sliding around a bit. Relaxed and watched it snow more and more. How nice, a snowy Saturday with nowhere I need to go. I did some housework, vacuuming, washing dishes, and cleaning up cat vomit off the top of the refrigerator.

 

Monday, 1/17/00 - I took the day off from work today and the kids and I did the mall and a movie. We saw the movie Supernova, which I suggest that you avoid if possible. While strolling through the mall, we saw a young man displaying a fashion that I'm sure you are familiar with. I'm talking about the custom of "sagging," or wearing one's pants with the crotch area down at or below one's knees and usually exposing the top portion of one's boxer shorts. Even though this style is not new, I am still amused at the stupidity of it every time I see it. Plus, it is a high-maintenance and uncomfortable way of wearing pants if you have noticed it closely. As I said, my daughter and I noticed this guy in his special pants walking with a girl just ahead of us at the mall. Intrigued, we started watching his routine. As he walked, his left hand continuously and purposely brushed against his rear pocket, I imagine this was done to keep a close check on slippage. He would keep pulling up his pants at such regular intervals that my daughter and I started counting the pull ups. The results were 15 pull ups in a minute...a pants adjustment every 4 seconds. Then he pulled a switch on us. His girlfriend started holding his hand as they walked. We wondered how he was now going to manage a one-handed pull up. When she took hold of his hand, we noticed that the other hand, the one checking slippage, cleverly switched to Plan B and changed locations to the front of his body. My daughter guessed that he was now keeping his pants up by hanging on to the front of them with that hand. Why on earth would anyone want to wear circus clown pants just barely hanging on the edge of falling off, and that require so many adjustments to maintain their position on your body, is beyond me.

 

Saturday, 1/15/00 - I just noticed today that January is half over. Seems like just a couple of days ago it was New Year's and Y2K was on everyone's mind. We humans must be a fickle and very busy bunch because I have found that I haven't given the new century or the year 2000 much of a second thought since they came to be. Mostly I've just been thinking a lot about chili and banana pudding.

 

Saturday, 1/8/00 - I have spent every evening this week playing Medal of Honor. I am addicted to it. I must tear myself away from it and take down the Christmas tree and decorations before my kids call the authorities.

 

Sunday, 1/2/00 - Like almost everyone else in town, I was planning to watch the Fiesta Bowl this evening (which the University of Tennessee was playing in) but I ended up skipping the game to shoot Nazis all day instead. Let me explain. I went to my local Target store and bought myself a New Year's gift, the video game Medal of Honor for the Sony PlayStation. It is a WWII era game created by Steven Spielberg and DreamWorks and is really impressive. If you are into gaming and have a PlayStation, I highly recommend it.

 

Saturday, 1/1/00 - Y2Kaput! Well, I waited on the porch for an hour and a half after midnight but the wall of flame and giant robots never came (I admit that I may have overreacted to the Y2K scare just a bit). So, in disgust, I ended up shooting my neighbor's mailbox. I went back inside and watched a couple of hours of ABC's Mega-New Year's Broadcast. News anchor Peter Jennings had been on the air live for 24 hours straight. As the coverage came to a close, the strain had obviously gotten to Jennings as he was dressed stripped down to a t-shirt and some Pokemon boxers, chain-smoking and drinking Colt 45, and constantly referring to the new year and century as "Kimberly."

 

Friday, 12/31/99 - Tonight's the big night. Good luck, everybody!

 

Tuesday, 12/28/99 - Today I came across my mom's Christmas present to me that I had completely forgotten about... a holiday gift pack of C-4 plastic explosives. I put it to use immediately and eliminated the house of an annoying neighbor that I didn't like anyway. Now I can see a particular house on the next street over that I have great interest in... a house occupied by a shapely young divorcee with a nightly routine of performing Tai Bo in the nude with the blinds open.

 

Monday, 12/27/99 - I got to musing today about the new century coming up in the next few days. I wrote a little piece called Century's End about this event.

 

Saturday, 12/25/99 - Merry Christmas! Not a very original or clever comment, but I mean it with all my heart.

 

Friday, 12/24/99 - What a difference antibiotics make. I'm feeling better already.

 

Thursday, 12/23/99 - I am still sick and sick and tired of being sick. The boss gets the Christmas spirit today and lets us go at 3 p.m. I figure this is a good time to see a doctor, so I go to a nearby walk-in clinic. Fortunately (and unbelievably) it is not crowded at all. Besides me, there is only one other person in the waiting room. I am ushered into a examination room. Minutes later, a doctor comes in and asks me the routine questions about my ailment. As I tell him, I notice that he is only wearing one sock. Oh, I don't mean he is naked except for one sock. I mean he is just missing a sock. I also notice that he his speech is slightly slurred and he stutters on the letter q. Well, anyway, he examines my eyes, ears, throat, and breathing, writes a couple of prescriptions, rips them off his pad and we're done. I'm in and out of the clinic in 30 minutes. I drive to the drug store near where I live, give the pharmacist my prescriptions, grab some magazines to look at , and wait. In a few moments, I start to hear some discussion among the two pharmacists on duty. "Mr. Longmire, could I speak to you for a moment?" Turns out that one of the prescriptions was salad tongs and the other was gunpowder. The pharmacists made a few calls and got everything straightened out, but that's the last time I go to that clinic.

 

Friday, 12/17/99 - I was wrong.

 

Wednesday, 12/15/99 - I feel much better today, good enough that I went back to work, but still pretty sick. Work policy states that I take three sick days in a row, I would have to see a doctor and get a note. I usually don't go see a doctor until it's the last resort... like if a leg falls off... so I'll tough it out for a few days. I should be well soon.

 

Tuesday, 12/14/99 - I feell terible. I have stuff runing and exploding out of almost evry body orifisse. I am hevly medikatd. I got go lay down.

 

Monday, 12/13/99 - I must have overdone it at the Christmas party. I called in sick to work today because I now have what may be the flu.

 

Saturday, 12/11/99 - Tonight I went to the company Christmas party and for the second year in a row, the featured entertainment was karaoke. I chickened out last year and didn't sing. This year, I decided to. With the help of a few loyal coworkers, I belted out a version of The Who's "My Generation." And, in true Who fashion, we destroyed all of the karaoke equipment. In the moments just before the fire department arrived, we got rave reviews and a standing ovation... well, make that a stampeding-for-the-exit ovation.

 

Tuesday, 12/7/99 - During lunch today, I and a couple of coworkers happened to be in Radio Shack. We were mesmerized by a show of mismatched sight and sound. On a big screen TV with its sound off, we watched a scene of the Rockettes performing a holiday dance routine at New York's Rockefeller Center, as the Doors' "Riders on the Storm" played on a stereo. Picture it. The effect of this combination was eerie while at the same time hilarious.

 

Monday, 12/6/99 - I watched this Christmas special on TV tonight. It featured a lot of singers that would each have a special little interview moment and tell what Christmas meant to them as a prelude to their performance. Anyway, at the end, Celine Dion, Gloria Estefan, young opera star Charlotte Church, and of course, a choir of kids, performed John Lennon's "So This Is Christmas." Did I say the word "performed?" I meant to say "butchered." Yes, it was as awful as you could imagine. The kids sounded OK... it would be hard to screw that up. Near the end of the song, Celine Dion started wailing these unnecessary adlib lines. I was waiting for John Lennon to rise out of his grave, enter the studio and strangle her with a microphone cord. Wait a minute... Lennon was cremated, so I guess his ashes would have to materialize, bond back together, and reform him so that he could strangle her. Whatever it takes, just as long as Celine Dion gets strangled.

 

Sunday, 12/5/99 - I went by the video store and rented a video game. It was the new James Bond (Tomorrow Never Dies) game for the PlayStation. It was pretty good but it confounded me in a few levels. So, I searched the Web and found some cheat codes for the game. One of these cheat codes was to go to the end of the level (or mission as they were called). When I engaged this code, the screen changed to the scene that you would view if you had played the whole level rather than skipping to the end. Got it? I did this at one level and was startled at what I saw. James Bond was laying in bed next to the male villain of the game. Both were barechested, smiling, and sharing a cigarette. The words "Mission Completed" were superimposed over the scene.

Saturday, 12/4/99 - I took my daughter and her friend out to do a little shopping today. My daughter's friend had a Backstreet Boys tape with her and they wanted to listen to it on the drive home. At first I resisted to give in to the charisma of these phenomenal young vocalists, but before I knew it, I found myself experiencing feelings that I've never felt before. As I listened to the group's heart-wrenching ballads, I began to well up with tears and found myself flushed and short of breath. Unable to refrain from weeping and keep my senses to continue driving, I pulled over to try to regain my composure. The lovesick lyrics echoed in my head with each gasp for breath. Worried, my daughter went to a nearby house and called the paramedics. I was taken to the hospital emergency room, muttering "all the love... the music...so beautiful..." I was admitted into the newly opened Backstreet Boys ward that specialized in incidents like this. The doctor examined me and diagnosed me with "excessive emotional overload," (EEO) and told me that it was a quite common event in today's world, with all of the new boy groups on the music scene. I wasn't alone. I spent the afternoon in the recovery room with a group of young ladies with the same problem. We chatted about which Backstreet Boy was our favorite and discussed our favorite songs. Tiffany and Kristin promised me they would write.

 

Friday, 12/3/99 - Today I had the day off from work and went to the mall with my mom and started my Christmas shopping. In almost every store, I kept seeing these novelty 12" tall Santa figures that would wiggle their hips side to side, dancing to Christmas music. They were everywhere. I kind of got tired of seeing them, so in one store I rearranged a black Santa and a white Santa back to back so that their butts rubbed up against each other as they danced. I thought I was promoting racial harmony but the shopkeeper didn't see it that way and asked me to leave. My mom said that I embarrassed her.

 

Thursday, 12/2/99 - Today some coworkers and I tried out a new Tai Chi restaurant. The food was great, but the service sure was slow.

 

Tuesday, 11/30/99 - Well, it's officially the Christmas season now. The porno shop that I drive past on my way home everyday had their Christmas decorations up.

 

Monday, 11/29/99 - I was drinking a Coke at work today and took a look at the can. It had a slogan on it that read "so REAL you can TASTE it!" ......Huh?

 

Saturday, 11/27/99 - Went to see Toy Story 2 this evening. I never cease to be amazed at the computer animation. The story could be lousy and I would still be totally entertained by the graphics alone. The guys who made that film are GOOD. But even better than those guys were the old master animators and stop-motion filmmakers. You know, the guys like Ray Harryhausen who made the monsters in the old Sinbad movies come to life. Those guys didn't have computers with 'save' or 'undo'. They used film in a camera and had absolutely no room for mistakes. They had to move the miniatures a fraction of an inch, shoot a frame, and so forth to create the motion. The presence of mind to remember all of those movements and produce successful results is astounding.

 

Thursday, 11/25/99 - Happy Thanksgiving! I cooked a turkey for the first time and it actually turned out great. Later in the evening, I was watching ER and saw a rather bizarre sight. One of the main characters was pregnant and in labor... with twin girls. She gave birth in the ER to one of the girls and then an odd thing happened. The newborn baby Immediately gave birth to a baby! It was proportionally smaller than the first newborn. Then the newborn's baby had a baby, then it had a baby, then the next one had a baby... it kept on going on and on like that... the babies kept getting smaller and smaller until the last baby gave birth to an atom. Weird. I wonder what the producers of ER were thinking...

 

Go to current comments

 

Home for the holidays