A Friendly Warning

I was poking around the Bluegrass Blog in preparation for Sista Smiff’s live-blogging efforts tonight, when I came across this banner ad.

People, this is exactly why you need to be really careful when you book a random cruise ship vacation. You never know who else is taking up 3/4 of the boat.

You have been warned.

No More $2.99 Lettuce Wedges at O’Charley’s for Me!

Yahoo! The FDA is going to let bag spinach back on the shelves.

I was starting to feel kinda puny eating nothing but iceberg and romaine.

Anybody wanna play e. coli roulette with me?

What’s a little flesh-eating bacteria between friends…

I’m Confused…

I see wanting to try to off yourself because you had to play for the Titans…but not because you have to play against them.

Drama in the Comic World

My condolences to Mrs. Jag and Mrs. Coble.

I know they must be distraught.

Dome Sweet Dome

Long-time visitors to the Dry Spot may remember that one of my first significant posts (if any of them really have been…) was a story about my love for New Orleans and my first visit back there since Katrina.

I was elbow deep in marinating my flank steak last night (not dirty, get your mind out of the gutter!) when my cell phone rang and I saw it was our good friend from the Crescent City on the caller ID. My hands were nasty (quit it!) so I asked RUABelle to get the phone out of my briefcase and hold it next to my ear. (she’s an angel that way.)

As soon as the call connected, I knew where she was. I could barely hear her above the din of the crowd and the wail of the music. “OhmigodohmigodI’mattheSuperdomeand it’sU2andGreenDay!U2andfreakin’GREENDAY!” she shrieked.(parentheses) Then the phone cut off as I’m sure she would rather have been actually listening to U2 and Green Day versus talking to us. But we thought it was really special that she had chosen to reach out to us in that special time.

RUABelle turned on the television and we both stood there watching the show and the pregame festivities with huge grins on our faces. In a moment of synchronicity (or just two people who have lived together forever and finish each other’s…sandwiches?…sentences, we both said at exactly the same time, “I’ve got goose bumps.” Well, she actually said “goose pimples,” but I always thought that was kind of a dumb phrase. Since when do geese get acne?

The football game was almost immaterial to the success of the evening and the gesture. It sure didn’t hurt that the Saints kicked that Falcon ass, and I’ll bet they’re still partying in the French Quarter. Hell, Saints fans party all night when they lose. What was important was that an institution had returned and the symbol of all that was wrong in the post-Katrina fiasco had been repaired and made better much faster than anyone could have expected.

I know that there are still thousands of people displaced and houses to be rebuilt, but in order to make New Orleans whole again, people have to have something to come back to. Former residents have begun to put down new roots in cities like Baton Rouge, Houston and Nashville-good places to live and raise a family. They need a reason to return to the city and contribute again to its culture and charm.

There is still a lot of fear that the levies have not been rebuilt well enough to bear the brunt of another storm, and rightfully so. Infrastructure should be the first priority and believe it or not, the Super Dome is part of that infrastructure of the city. Mayor Nagan has a tough row to hoe, and America needs to keep focus on the rebuilding efforts. Last night shined a spotlight again on a city with a hole in its heart. We must continue to help them out even after the stage as been struck and the ESPN caravan has moved down the road.

I liked what Tony Kornheiser said when he called the Saints “everybody’s second favorite team.” I have to admit that they’re rapidly moving up to 1A status in my book.

Brush with Greatness #241

No sooner had I unfolded today’s Tennessean to attempt the sudoku on the second leg of my bus journey to work when I looked to my right at the first stop light and saw a familiar face.

That’s right, Sista’s Mista’s got his own bus bench!

It’s a big week for the Grascals. Go out and experience some grass of the blue variety for a change.

Reality Redux

Now y’all know that I have recently taken it upon myself to serve as a watchdog and ombudsman for reality TV, particularly for “Survivor” and “The Amazing Race.” Well, now the folks at the Race have done gone and done it.

First they kicked off the Muslims. Then it was the Hindus. Now they’ve eliminated the cheerleaders from South Carolina! The nerve of them!

I contend that some of these competitions are slanted against certain types of contestants. I believe they were specifically told that there would be no math.

Oh sure, the triathlete with the broken artificial leg was able to climb the Great Wall of China with a jute rope, but asking these Gamecocks to navigate the busy streets of Outer Mangolia aided with only a map, a local guide, a cameraman and a taxi driver was just unfair!

Who’s next on Bertran Von Munsters’s hit list of tokenism? If it’s the Miss USA contestants from California and New York, I’m outta here. A fella’s got to draw a line in the sand somewhere.

It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like September Freakin’ 24th

The Lowe’s in South Pittburgh, TN already has Christmas trees and lights prominently displayed.

Noooooooooooo!

Reality Bites!

I’m kinda hit and miss with which reality shows I watch. But I always catch Survivor and The Amazing Race. I’ve noticed a disturbing trend so far this year.

In the first week and a half, Survivor has voted off the big fat black guy and the big fat Hispanic guy. The Amazing Race has eliminated the Muslim team and the Hindu team. I know the producers brought this on themselves by how they set up and segregated the teams, but I smell something fishy.

Oh yeah, I guess I should have said: ***Spoiler Alert*** but what the hell, this all happened over the last ten days and it’s not my fault if you can’t keep up with your TiVo.

On a semi-related note, RUABelle and I were talking about end of life issues. I specifically told her I didn’t want to spend my life in a vegetative state, dependent on a machine and living on fluids. And then she had the nerve to turn off the TV, throw away my beer and kick my ass off the couch.

You Wanna Know a Secret?

Sometimes I get off the bus a couple of stops early and buy RUABelle some flowers at Village Florist. Then I walk home through Hillsboro Village just so I can see everybody thinking, “There goes the best boyfriend ever.” **

Then I get home and hear it from the person who matters most.

Everybody say, “Awwwwwwwww.”

** Or else they’re thinking, “I wonder what that dumbass did to get into trouble with his girlfriend.”

A Blatantly Stolen Story

I’m usually not one for telling other people’s stories here at the Dry Spot. But I got this one across the internet transom from an old high school friend of mine who lives in Mexico. It sounds like something Rex L. Camino would write, and I’ve always wanted to be able to write like him; so here it is.

Pretend I wrote it. Hell, I didn’t even retype it. It’s just a ctrl-A, ctrl-C, ctrl-V job. I’m worthless and weak.

Without further adue:

So, I was flying from Mexico City to Los Angeles last week, and I had a personal and somewhat dangerous encounter with the fear of Liquids on a Plane. When I was about to board the plane in Mexico City a nice, but rather dull woman reviewed the contents of my carry-on baggage and discovered the presence of — gasp — two vials of insulin. She immediately shot a flare, and a nice but rather dull airport employee came to find out what all the fuss was about. She showed him my insulin with a look of sheer panic on her face. He took a quick look at my little, red, velcro-enabled insulin wallet, and asked, “How much insulin do you have here?”

I pulled out the two vials and laid them on the table in front of the two dullards. He carried on, “Did you bring any syringes?”

I counted the syringes, which were also in the wallet, and told him that there were nine. He scurried off to consult someone who apparently had more expertise in the use of insulin as a bomb. In the right hands six milliliters of insulin can go a long way. Apparently.
The nice man returned to ask me whether I had a prescription. I informed him that we were in Mexico, which I presumed he already knew, since he was Mexican and we were speaking Spanish; that I lived in Mexico; that I had bought the insulin in Mexico; and that in Mexico a prescription was not required for any type of insulin, including the two types he was worried about.

He said, “You just get a doctor to give you a prescription.”

Oh, so that’s what you do. Cool. So, the normal procedure is that for all non-prescription medication that one is interested in taking, the best plan is to go to a doctor to ask for a prescription that you won’t need. I like it. Then, the nice lady proceeded to inform me that in Mexico one in fact did need a prescription to buy insulin.
I’m quite certain that I buy more insulin than she does, like the insulin I had bought the day before without a prescription, and I’m also certain that she had no idea what she was talking about. They were just trying to beat me down.

Then, they told me to take all the insulin I would need on the plane, as they were going to take the rest. He said, “Enough is enough.
¡We’ve got to keep these motherfreakin’ liquids off this motherfreakin’ plane!”

I tried to argue that it wasn’t that simple. After all, if insulin dosages actually worked the way they imagined, wouldn’t I have just taken all my insulin for the trip at home and not bothered to carry it around with me? I decided not to press the issue, though, as I really didn’t want to get arrested, which was starting to seem rather likely. Plus, I had already made the plane fifteen minutes late. Or somebody had. They took my insulin wallet and placed it in a large, black garbage bag, tied it in a knot, and gave me a baggage claim ticket for it. I felt certain I would find a garbage bag with a bunch of broken glass and insulin in it on the belt in Los Angeles.

It’s heartening to see that the War On Terror has been conflated with the War On Diabetics. It’s a good way to combine the use of resources. I just hope that when they kill someone with these policies, they feel really, really safe as they do it. I’m also glad it wasn’t me this time.

Also, remember that the syringes couldn’t possibly have been used as weapons, since not only are they designed not to injure you, they are also designed not to hurt.

Don’t take Liquids on a Plane,
Will

The Truth, and Nothing but the Holistic Truth

From today’s Tennessean:

“In his practice, Dr. Brent Davis offers an Ion Foot Bath, which he says drains a body of toxins.

‘The patients put their feet in the water where electrodes are producing 24 volts making the water turn into positive and negative ions. A huge number of ions are defused into the body and that pulls out the toxins,’ Davis said.

The color of the water after the treatment is evidence of the patient’s loss of toxins, according to Davis.

‘When the person starts, the water is completely clear. By the time the patient is done, depending on the patient, the water will be dark and sometimes black. That color change is toxins coming out of the body.’

Although just hearing about the process may make it hard to believe, patient Angie Kirk says it works.

‘I’ve done it four times and every time the water has been a different color,’ Kirk said. ‘I feel better after I do it.’”

Ummm, yeah. Where I come from, planet Earth, we have a very similar procedure. We call it washing our feet.

It May Just Be Our New Widescreen HDTV…

…but does anybody else think that Jared from Subway may be getting a little bit fatter?

The Dry Spot-Putting the “F” in “Fugly” Since 02/06

Bluebird Blog is offering two free blog redesigns to some lucky winners over here.

I can’t think of many other blogs that have a bigger disconnect between form and content than the ole Dry Spot, so wish me luck. Maybe we’ll be able to make the world a little drier and a little less fugly together.

I Wonder

If this dude was holding me hostage in this bunker, and all I had to rescue me was my trusty Treo 600, how long would it take after I posted to my blog before someone would take an interest in my well-being.

Let’s find out. It’s now 3:00 on Tuesday 9/19.

What’s that?

“It puts the lotion on its skin and then it puts it in the basket!”

Huh?

“It puts the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again!“

Help.

You Wanna Know What I Learned at the Airport Today?

If you put a baby into one of those automatic baby changing machines in the restroom and fold the table up, the baby isn’t changed when you fold it down again. As a matter of fact, it’s messier than ever.

Last time I offer to help…

The Better Part of Valor

I really respect Kat Coble’s concept of “no delete” posts. It takes a lot of courage to just plunge ahead without self-editing. I’ve never been much of an editor, myself. As a history major in college, my idea of a rough draft was before I had run the spell check. Then I printed it out and turned it in.

I try not to edit myself too much in life, either. I do recognize that there is a line of propriety and common decency. Sometimes, when the light is just right and I carne my neck just so, I can barely make that line out in my rear view mirror.

How It Could Work

Three ways to get from Midway Airport to the Hyatt Regency-Chicago:

1.) Taxi-1 hour-$38.00 (The way my boss took)
2.) Multi-hotel shuttle bus-1 1/2 hours-$27.00
3.) CTA Orange Line train-30 minutes + a 5 minute, four block walk on a pretty morning-$2.00

Guess which way CeeElCheapskate took? Somebody appoint me to the MTA board and I’ll get this crap worked out!

Thus endeth the sermon.

Conspiracy Theory

Many bloggers know that Mothership BBQ has become the unofficial “2nd boardroom” for staffers of WKRN. So I was surprised to hear John Dwyer and Heather Orne talking this morning about a suspicious fire at Calhoun’s yesterday. But then Dwyer said, “What sort of a knucklehead would do something like that?”

Hmmm, what sort of Knucklehead indeed…

That Was a Close One…

I just got pulled over by Metro’s Finest. I was totally in the wrong, not paying enough attention on the way back from the bank driving down a bad part of Murfreesboro Road. I turned left onto a worse road during a green light without noticing that there was a red left turn arrow. Oh, and I had to gun it pretty good to avoid getting t-boned by an oncoming car that I hadn’t noticed. An oncoming police car. Crap.

I pulled into the parking lot of a pretty scary apartment complex with the blue lights flashing behind me. I turned off the radio, took off my sunglasses, rolled down my window, shut off my engine and had my license, registration and proof of insurance in my hands in the ten seconds it took the officer to walk up to me.

I apologized. I smiled. I joked that I was an idiot and that I was listening to somebody bad-mouth the Vols on sports talk and had rolled into the intersection. (A stab in the dark, I admit, but it worked.) I’m pretty sure he had already made up his mind not to give me a ticket when he saw me pull into that scary parking lot. “Just show me your insurance and I’ll let you off with a warning,” he said. “I’m sorry, but I had to pull you over because they were all watching.” They? The whole stop was less than 30 seconds and he was outta there before I could get my window rolled up.

So I am embarrassed yet happy to say that I am the beneficiary of reverse profiling. A white guy with a tie on in a bad neighborhood (because it’s where I work) who isn’t buying drugs and has his registration crap together is usually pretty likely to get out of a ticket.

To summarize CeeElCee’s advice when getting stopped by the fuzz:
1.) Be polite.
2.) Keep it light.
3.) Be white.

It’s sad but true.

Another good piece of advice is that if you get pulled over at night, turn on your dome light, have your license between your fingers and position your hands at 10 and 2 o’clock with the window down as the officer approaches your door. There’s nothing scarier to a policeman than walking up on a car at night. If the officer sees you in this position, odds are he’ll ask if you’re a cop too. The proper response is, “No officer, but a friend of mine who is says this makes you all feel more comfortable when you’re stopping somebody at night.” If you can manage to say that without slurring your words or throwing up on the floorboard, you’ll probably be free to drive another day.