Thursday, 3/1/01 - last night, at his request, I gave my son a haircut. It's the first time I've ever given anyone a haircut.

A lawsuit is pending.

 

Wednesday, 2/28/01 - I'm up to my elbows in apes!

 

Thursday, 2/22/01 - That *&%# cat!
This morning before work, I was straightening up the kitchen counter and picked up a plastic bag from KFC which had contained last night's dinner. When I lifted it up, it started spilling out an unmistakable liquid... cat pee. It got all over the counter and the kitchen floor (and yes, I cleaned it up). I drove to my office, sat down at my desk and smelled something faintly. Yep, I must have gotten some on my pant leg. No one said anything during the day...either my coworkers didn't notice the aroma or they're just really tolerant people.

 

Tuesday, 2/20/01 - The other day, I was on the computer and my 12 year old daughter was nearby, reading. She paused and put down her book, gave a big sigh, and proclaimed, "Dad, you're a big fat fag." A second or two passed until this statement registered. Stunned, I replied, "What?" and she repeated what she had said. No more MTV for her.

 

Monday, 2/19/01 - OK, just one more mention of The Sims and that will be it. I've been playing The Sims off and on for a little over a month (see 1/16/01 entry). Even after buying the Livin' Large expansion pack for this game, I became bored with playing it the conventional way... so I I started doing things differently. Bad things.

I've been killing off my entire Sim neighborhood by having my character marry the females, have them move in my house (with all their money), command them to jump in the swimming pool, and then sell the pool ladders while they're still swimming, making it impossible for them to get out, resulting in their drowning. The male neighbors I just invited over for some burgers... and death. I documented one of these untimely demises in a photo album on Zing.com. I call it "The Death of a Sim."

 

Wednesday, 2/13/01 - Happy Valentine's Day Eve! In honor of tomorrow's day of romance, Dear Brian has compiled a list of Love Tips, a dating guide with loads of helpful advice. Online now is the first installment, For Men Dating Women. A women's guide will follow in the future.

 

Monday, 2/12/01 - Last Fall, I attended a play about the life of Albert Einstein. A local television actor/celebrity here in East Tennessee starred in this one-man show, dressed and made up (and speaking with a German accent) as Einstein.

The play was pretty good except for one part where the actor strayed from the script for some unearthly reason. There were some schoolkids in the audience and he scared the living daylights out of them. I haven't a clue as to what he could have possibly been thinking. Listen for yourself... (einie.aif, sound file, 764 k)

 

Saturday, 2/10/01 - Things You'd Probably Rather Not Read About (Number 3 in a series)
Recently, I made the switch from briefs to boxers for the first time in my life. I now wonder why I have been wasting my life by not doing this long before now. What a wonderful feeling...the difference is like wearing sandals as opposed to boots. And one of the beautiful aspects of boxers is that you can go outside to the mailbox in them and no one really knows that you're in your underwear. Just make sure to wear solid colored ones other than white and without stripes or hearts on them and you've got it made, baby.

 

Friday, 2/9/01 - My mom got me a shirt for Christmas. It's sort of an unusual sweatshirt...it has this fancy stitching around the neck, sleeves, and tail. I hesitate to wear it in public because it's too sexy. It would be tame if someone else wore it, but the combination of me and the shirt is a little too much for women to endure. I'm afraid that I may sex someone up too much again. I say "again" because I wore it to work one Monday and a female coworker had to leave the room 5 minutes into a morning meeting. She then immediately left for the day and didn't come in the next day either. I had training out of the office on Wednesday and Friday of that particular week, and strangely enough, this same coworker worked on the days I was out and called in sick the days I was in. Sure, she came up with some "stomach flu" excuse, but I think we all know what really happened... yes, you are correct... it was the shirt.

 

Thursday, 2/8/01 - I realize that talking about the weather may be a bit lame or unimaginative, but with the past two days we've had here in East Tennessee, it's worth a mention. It's been BEAUTIFUL... warm, sunny days of 65 degrees... it's hard to believe it's early February. I've even been driving with the window down. I know winter is not over, but thanks, God, for the nice break.

 

Sunday, 2/4/01 - I just finished an extensive, and exhaustive, four-page report on the capture of Dear Brian, this site's advice columnist, as it aired on the Today show just before Christmas. It was a lot of work and took longer to finish than I expected, but I think it came out pretty good. This is now one of the biggest pieces of... uh... work... on the Wonderful World of Longmire. Check it out.

 

Friday, 2/2/01 - Today I waxed and polished my house to confuse and anger my neighbors. It's really shiny now, so I set up some high-powered lights to illuminate it at night. The effect is breathtaking.

I see it as a bright beacon of hope and joy in a vast expanse of despair and suffering. My neighbors may disagree with that, being confused and angered as they are.

 

Wednesday, 1/31/01 - If there is a Hell (and I believe there is), it probably has mandatory viewings of continuous back-to-back showings of the movie Baby Geniuses.

A special shout out goes to Birthday Boy Brian Hamby... he's soon to make his spectacular return to the Wonderful World of Longmire. Oh yes.

 

Sunday, 1/28/01 - Here's a friendly little tip: During the Super Bowl is the perfect time to go grocery shopping. Other than some overdressed people who came in for a few moments after evening church services, I practically had the entire supermarket to myself. One drawback, though... almost all of the potato chips were gone.

Speaking of potato chips... create a fart, sample it, and then send it to a friend... or enemy.

 

Friday, 1/26/01 - I'm typing this right after a lunch break in an HTML training class... but that's not really very important, is it?

I was on the Darwin Awards site the other day. This site reports how incredibly ignorant people inadvertantly kill themselves by doing incredibly stupid things. This site brought back to mind one of the stupidest things I ever did to myself. I didn't kill myself, but I rammed a pocket knife blade up my nose. Yep.

I was about 12 or 13 when I was doing a chore for my mom... I was laying white gravel in her flower beds and had to open the gravel which was packaged in thick plastic bags. I took out the cool little pearl-handled pocket knife that my dad had given me and proceeded to cut the bag open... pulling towards myself, of course... which I learned afterwards was a very, very, bad thing to do. As I was cutting the bag open, the knife unexpectedly slipped off and with sudden force, wham!, went right up one of my nostrils. (I bet you just winced at the thought of that, didn't you? I still do when I think about it.)

The amount of blood was astounding.

I staggered into the house and my mom became hysterical at the sight of my now red t-shirt. A trip to the doctor discovered that I had just nicked my septum and no serious damage had been done. I was lucky... I could have put an eye out... for real!!!

 

Thursday, 1/25/01 -Something funny came up today at work. If you're doing web pages for yourself and it's not serious, you can name a web page's address anything you like...like stinkbreath.htm, or whatever. But if your site is a serious, legitimate, or a corporate one, you probably need to take care as to watch what you name it.

Example: A coworker and I were working on a portion of a web site and there was a link to an external site titled "Ask a Scientist." Well, the web author of that site must have been trying to shorten something like "ask a scientist a question" to a reasonable length for an html page name, but wasn't very smart about it.

The name of the page was "assquest.htm."

 

Wednesday, 1/24/01 - Tonight I went out and got some Chinese take-out food. I was the only customer there at the time and I placed my order and sat down at a table to wait on it. A little Chinese boy was going from table to table rounding up all the little baskets that contained packets of soy sauce and duck sauce. Evidently, this didn't please his mom as she came out of the kitchen and started yelling at him. I don't know if you've ever had the pleasure of this experience, but I have to tell you, there is nothing more frightening than a loud, angry Chinese woman screaming in her native tongue.

Picture a samurai coming at you with a sword yelling "BANZAII!" and you can imagine how it sounded and felt. I ran out of there as soon as my order was ready and paid for. It was truly terrifying.

 

Tuesday, 1/23/01 - Just for fun, today I did what I call a "Glory Search" on myself. Whoa... let me rephrase that. I conducted a search engine query on the key words "The Wonderful World of Longmire." I got back some pleasant results. This site was listed on a few other sites on their link pages. Some of the site's owners even had some nice words to say about me and/or the site.

Here's some of the results:


Hey, maybe this site is worth a crap after all.

 

Saturday, 1/20/01 - Inauguration Day
For the sake of observing history and a lack of something better to do, I watched the presidential inauguration and here are some observations and comments concerning it...

First of all, before and after the inaugural ceremony, Bush seemed to be really stiff-like, as if he was making a very serious and conscientious effort to appear somber and super-presidential. I guess he was nervous and maybe a bit scared. As he came into the Capital building with his wife, he looked like he was holding his mother's hand as she was delivering him to his first day of kindergarten. He handled the oath of office like a pro and then launched into his inaugural speech. Concerned, I wondered who wrote the speech as I heard this portion: "Where there is suffering, there is duty. Likewise, where there is grunting and panting, there is doodie."

I watched Bush's speech on one of the three major networks, and when he mentioned the Declaration of Independence, the network showed on the screen, briefly, a shot of that famous painting depicting the founding fathers signing the Declaration of Independence... as if it was a visual reminder... to refresh the viewers' minds to recall "Oh yeah! THAT Declaration of Independence!"

After the ceremony, I watched as the Bushes and the Clintons walked down the steps to leave the Capital. Hillary was wearing a black leather coat that made her look huge... almost pregnant. The thought crossed my mind that she might have a few items stuffed under her coat that she lifted from the White House at the last minute.

The limousine for the departing Clintons arrived with an audible "boom, ba boom, boom, ba boom" sound as you would hear (and feel the vibration from) in traffic from a carload of teenagers with a monster audio system. The limo doors opened up and two bikini-clad babes with champagne and cigars got out, dancing, and motioned President Clinton over to join the party. Clinton yelled out "YEEEEHIIIII!!!! NASTY!" as he put an arm around each girl and jumped into the limo as it took off, tires squealing and Dixie horn blaring, leaving Hillary standing there alone to catch a shuttle bus.

And some serious observations:

I'm surely not the only viewer who noticed something amiss with the two prayers during the inaugural ceremony. The two ministers who delivered each prayer only cited Jesus Christ and Christianity, which excludes a great multitude of Americans' religious faiths. I have nothing against Christianity. It is the dominant religion in this country, but by no means the only one... or the mandatory one. This oversight was unfortunate and probably insulted many people.

I couldn't help but wonder how Al Gore felt, knowing that this day could have been his.

As the 125 car motorcade left the Capital for the parade viewing stand at the White House, there was this guy amidst the crowds lining the street holding up a huge sign directed toward the presidential limo that read "LORD HELP US." I burst out laughing when I saw that. I think his message summed the day up perfectly.

Man, I'm gonna miss Bill Clinton. Love him or hate him, you've got to admit that there was never a dull moment, was there?

 

Thursday, 1/18/01 - In my younger and poorer days, sometimes things got a bit lean and I would have to resort to paying for gas with rolls of pennies that I had accumulated. Now, sometimes you'll see a sign at convenience stores stating that they will not accept rolled coins for payment.

I like to think that I had a little bit to do with that.

 

Tuesday, 1/16/01 - I've got to cut back on playing The Sims.
I bought a copy of The Sims on Sunday, and I have been playing it every evening since. If you're not familiar with this computer "game," it's pretty much like having a living doll house on your computer screen. I won't go into the intricate details, but it is a fascinating piece of software and the graphics are beautiful. I am really in awe of it.

I failed miserably at my first attempt to manage a small family consisting of a dad and his daughter. First of all, I blew almost all my money building a house with too expensive materials and I made a bad decision taking a job as a pickpocket. I was always broke and any attempt to talk to a female ended in disaster when the subject of money came up. They would start walking away. After a while, the daughter became too much of a burden... whining and needing food all the time. So, seeing her as a liability, I set out to kill her. I denied her food, entertainment, sleep (I sold her bed to have money for food), school, and use of the bathroom facilities. Well, I couldn't kill her, but did the next best thing by forcing her to be sent off to military school. I then bulldozed my house and built a smaller house for myself... uh, I mean, my Sim.

I then starting getting the hang of the game. It's quite a balancing act, making sure my guy was happy, well-fed, active physically and socially, entertained, well rested, and bringing home a steady paycheck. There's a lot of strategy involved, too, to enhance their lives and jobs. With all the things you have to constantly pay attention to, I did find some time to start up an affair with a married woman. That is, my Sim is having an affair with a married Sim. (I would never do that in real life... at least I haven't yet). Ah, the glory of simulated adultry...

Here are a couple of screen shots...

The last I saw of my "daughter" before she was herded off to military school. Good riddance.

My Sim enjoying some quiet time in his "special place," catching up some reading to improve his cooking skills.

He looks a little too much like me..his appearance, that is, not the reading part.

This is a really cool game if you've got time and some patience. But it could take a psychological toll on you if you go overboard on it. I've found myself planning my Sim's life in my head while driving to work... seriously.

 

Thursday, 1/11/01 - A Poor Choice of Words to Start a Conversation
I stopped at a convenience store on my way to work this morning. As I was standing in line to pay, the guy in front of me, a rather rough and dirty looking dude, looks at me and blurts out "Damn, I hate going to court." I stood there, half concerned for my personal safety and half trying not to burst out laughing. I didn't acknowledge his statement but thought it a rather odd thing to say to try to strike up a conversation.

Hmmm... I sense an idea for a new web page...

 

Tuesday, 1/9/01 - I was at a drive-thru ATM at a bank and noticed a sign on the bank's window announcing that it would be closed on Martin Luther King's birthday, Monday, January 15, 2001. Seeing the number "2001" on the sign was the first time I seriously acknowledged that this famous year had arrived. The familiarity and novelty of the movie of the same name and knowing that it was now 2001gave me an odd feeling.

But it turned out that I was just sitting on an ink pen.

 

Friday, 1/5/01 - Call me a romantic, but I like turning the blue water to green in the toilets at work.

 

Thursday, 1/4/01 - My friend Suzie recently returned from New York and obtained this business card that was left behind at the bar in a restaurant...

Hilarious. Mr. Wilsea is a very talented man, apparently. Give him a call if you require any of his many services. As you can see, there's no area code on the phone number, so good luck finding him. Perhaps he's located in the NY area.

 

 

Tuesday, 1/2/01 - Today, Brian (my partner in crime) and I were discussing the film 2001: A Space Odyssey. We imagined the film would have been a lot better if Jerry Lewis played the part of Dave Bowman, the last surviving member of the ill-fated Jupiter mission. We thought that Dean Martin could have provided the voice of the computer HAL. Think about it...

Jerry/Dave saying "Open the pod bay doors, HAL. HAL, HAL, oh HAL!"

I can just hear "Everybody Loves Somebody Sometime" slowing down, slurring more and more, to nothing as Jerry/Dave fumbles around while disabling Dean/HAL.

Picture the various comedic expressions on Jerry/Dave's face as he flies into the psychodelic vortex. Sammy Davis Jr. would also have to be in there somewhere. Maybe he could be the Star Child at the end and start singing "Conch, che, cohn... cohn, cohn, che cohn" and rip right into belting out "The Candyman."

Now THAT would be a helluva movie.

 

Monday, New Year's Day at 1:35 a.m., 1/1/01 - Wow, the police sure are in force in the wee hours this morning. I left the house for a few minutes to run to the all-night convenience store for some orange juice and milk and was immediately pulled over. I was completely sober but the cops got me out of my car and made me go through all the sobriety tests. And these tests have changed since my younger years. I had to touch my nose, walk a straight line, stand on one foot for 17 minutes, recite the lyrics to "I Want You To Want Me" (while wearing a blue clown wig and Winnie the Pooh oven mitts), iron some shirts, and change the oil in their cruiser.

Happy New Year.

 

Sunday, New Year's Eve, 12/31/00 - I got back some photos today of the little show I put on at the Lunch With Santa a couple of weeks ago. This was a lunch for the children of employees where I work. I performed a cute little ventriloquist act which, for some reason, didn't go over well with the kids and my act was cut short due to outraged and horrified parents. I have hereby been banned from participating in any Lunch With Santa activities in the future. I don't know what the big deal was... perhaps it was my choice of Eddie, the Naked Dead Elf as a comedy sidekick. Look at these photos and see what you think.

I hope you have a rockin' New Year's Eve, people.

 

Saturday, 12/30/00 - It's incredibly cold here in Knoxville today but I'm sure that's not much to complain about considering the conditions in other parts of the US. A special shout out goes to Suzie J. up in New York... hope you get home OK.

Also, I went outside this afternoon and washed my car just to confuse and anger my neighbors.

 

Monday, Christmas Day, 12/25/00 - My kids and I don't really have any die-hard Christmas traditions other than we usually go to a movie on Christmas Day. Today we went out and saw Cast Away with Tom Hanks. This was a good movie and I highly recommend it. You can tell when a film is doing a great job of telling a story when you feel like you're on the verge of tears over the loss of a volleyball named Wilson.

By the way, Merry Christmas!

 

Sunday, 12/24/00 - I had Christmas dinner and exchanged gifts with my mom, my brother and sister-in-law, their two kids and my two kids tonight. My kids and I then went home and opened our gifts to each other... the first time we have done this on Chrismas Eve rather than Christmas morning. It soon went bad after I lost conciousness after choking on some hazelnut cookies given to me by a loved one. A douse in the face with a bucket of eggnog brought me back around. The kids and I then sang obscene Christmas carols, watched some TV and fell asleep.

 

Saturday, 12/23/00 - I had not been in the Christmas mood yet until today when I went shopping and had dinner with my daughter. Her enthusiasm broke through my holiday weariness and put me in the spirit, and I thank her for that.

 

Wednesday, 12/20/00 - It snowed about one to two inches here in Knoxville yesterday. I went outside and mowed my yard just to confuse and anger my neighbors.

 

Monday, 12/18/00 - My cold has gotten worse, I didn't win anything at the company Christmas party, and my karaoke rendition of "My Way" ended with disasterous results. It was a bad scene.

 

Saturday 12/16/00 - Last night, my son and I went to the mall. I felt fine when I arrived but somehow developed a scratchy throat and cough in the three hours I was there. Tonight, jacked up on cold medicine, I'm heading out to a company Christmas party/dance where, for some reason, they're featuring karaoke again for the third year in a row. I'd stay home if it wasn't for the allure of winning a valuable door prize.

A cold, karaoke, the chance to win something... pick one of these and pray for me.

 

Friday 12/15/00 - I was watching the Today show this morning and heard the news that Muhammed Ali will be in charge of lowering the ball in Times Square this New Year's Eve.

So, expect the year 2001 to come in about 10 minutes late... and shaky.

Ooh... I'm gonna pay for that one.

 

Friday 12/15/00 - Horror at the Post Office
Today, I'm turning over The (almost) Daily Comment to a dear friend and huge admirer of mine, Ms. Tonya Bernhardt, with her tale of Christmas cheer. OK, OK, like all women, she detests me... but this is pretty funny...

My Trip to the Post Office by Tonya Bernhardt
I walked into the post office last night to buy some damn Christmas stamps for some damn Christmas cards. Needless to say, I have not been filled with Christmas spirit yet this year. So I am standing in a line about 25 people deep when these two women about four people ahead of me break out into "Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer." Not even remotely quite singing either, it was like they were trying out for a gospel choir. Everyone in the post office starting looking around like "what the hell?" They finished Rudolph, graced us with "Jingle Bells" and "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" and then proceeded to introduce themselves to each other and the rest of the post office. Maggie and Carol are now fast friends. The postal employees finally got their butts in gear and got them out of there but not before they sang a great rendition of "Silent Night" on their way out the door.

I finished my postal business and headed out into the parking lot where I was met by Maggie who told me to have "A Very Merry Christmas!" again. I mumbled a thanks, gave her the "I am sorry you are crazy" pity look and moved on.

Next stop was the grocery store. I went in, bought food and headed out to the car. As I was pulling out of the parking spot I looked to the left and saw a Ford Taurus station wagon that had flashing Christmas lights duct-taped to the luggage rack and down the front of the car. Whoa! I didn't stick around long enough to see the owner, but Merry Christmas to you too, buddy!

 

Thursday, 12/14/00 - OK, it's finally official. FINALLY. Last night, as you may have seen, Vice President Gore conceded the presidential election to George W. Bush. After Gore concluded his gracious speech by saying "It's time for me to go now," he continued to stand there for several seconds. Obviously something was wrong. Then there was an audible whirring and clicking sound, some smoke, and then he violently exploded in a shower of sparks and flames.

Seriously, even though I voted for Gore, I had no strong feelings for either candidate and I have no problem with Bush being our new president. What's the use in griping or complaining about the election outcome? I'm tired of partisan bickering and the practice of being against someone and their policies and proposals just because of their political affiliation. I thought that President Clinton suffered incredible insults and harassment (most of them unjustly, but some brought on by himself) at the hands of the Republican party just because he was the "enemy." Let's face it and be truthful now, the impeachment thing was pure political punishment disguised as a morality crusade. It will be interesting to see how a lot of these Clinton-bashing talk radio and television shows will fare with a Republican president in office. How will they complain when this new presidency falters, as all presidencies do occasionally. I wish Mr. Bush the best of luck. After all, if he does well, we all do well.

Whew! After 6 weeks, at least this whole recount-pregnant chad-Florida-Supreme Court-lawyers-thing is over now. And all of this long wait for the outcome was caused by a defective piece of paper and a stick. Wow, what an election.

 

Wednesday, 12/13/00 - Well, congratulations are in order for President-Elect George W. Bush... uhh... um... maybe... I guess? Is this the final word? Is today still called Wednesday?

 

Tuesday, 12/12/00 - I'm sure having fun being off from work... just see for yourself (1.6MB Quicktime movie clip).

LET'S GET IT ON!!!

Actually, I'm rather pathetic.

Hey, I take back that remark I made yesterday about Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. During yesterday's proceedings, she made the most intelligent and sanest observation yet throughout this whole election mess. She asked the Gore attorneys if the Florida voters themselves didn't have the main responsibility themselves to make sure that their ballot was definately punched before submitting it. Duh. Makes sense to me.

 

Monday, 12/11/00 - I had some leave time that I had to take off before the end of the year or lose it, so I've taken this week off from work. And I started it out by watching the news coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court presidential ballot recount hearings this afternoon. It was audio recordings only, accompanied by sporadic text typed without any spell checking. Gore's head attorney, David Boies, startled everyone present by calling Justice Sandra Day O'Connor a "dirty old skank," which could possibly jeopardize the vice president's case. The coverage was so intensely exciting that I fell asleep on the couch about 12 minutes into it. When I awoke, it was 2:00 p.m. and for some reason there was a small bowl of pudding balanced on my forehead.

 

Friday, 12/8/00 - You've GOT to see this hilarious movie clip (mpeg video 928K) I received yesterday. It looks like it's for real. Thanks, Cindy, for passing it on to me.

 

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