Hit me,,,,,,this

This is it.

The week I have been waiting a year for.

On Thursday I will go to Vegas and for eight days, I will do what I love. I will plan and execute events. Actualy, most of the planning was done by other people months ago. I go out to execute, trouble shoot and pull the whole thing together and as an added bonus, I get to teach a class on the subject.

So, spend time in my second favorite city;
Do what I love for a week;
Visit with old friends;
AND
Get paid to be there.

Does life get any better?

I think not.

"It's (Rock Star: INXS) the only talent show on TV that doesn't reek. Yes, that includes the aging sensation `American Idol,' which, the last time I checked, blows so hard it could use its own windy stench to sail right to hell." -- Doug Elfman, Chicago Sun-Times TV critic

A typical friday night in Snobb county

Praise this

There is a group called Bugles Across America.

Their purpose:

BAA was founded in 2000 by Tom Day, when Congress passed legislation stating Veterans had a right to at least 2 uniformed military people to fold the flag and play taps on a CD player. Bugles Across America was begun to take this a step further, and in recognition of the service these Veterans provided their country, we felt that every Veteran deserved a live rendition of taps played by a live Bugler. To this end, we are actively seeking volunteers to provide this valuable service to Veterans and their families.

Our Organization now has 1500 bugler volunteers located in all 50 states and growing number overseas. Since the Department of Veterans Affairs is expecting more than 1/2 million veterans to pass every year for the next 7 years, Bugles Across America is ALWAYS recruiting new volunteers.

Long story short, if there is not a military bugler available to play at a military funeral this organization finds someone to do it. Today I got an email from the listserv warning about a group that is traveling to and disrupting military funerals. According to the email;

The Group is very well trained in instigation techniques. Members of this group do not engage anyone physically, but they do attempt to coerce people into striking them. This gives them cause to file lawsuits in order to gain funds for the organization and future protests.

I was curious what kind of group would disrupt any funeral and for what reasons.

The email listed the offenders as Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka Kansas. After a quick Google search I found their website and when it loaded I was shocked and stunned. For those of you that think I just picked the most inflammatory website I could for this church, oh no. Here is the actual link for the Google Search. Then I cross-checked the site with news sources and sure enough, this is one seriously hatin' church.

Side note: I won't lie and tell you that when I started college I was not some gay-bashin', anti-abortion, right-wingin' bastard; because I was. But my story had a happy ending. It took some time and some very good and patient friends to open my eyes and point out that I was an ignorant asshole. My views have switched radically in the past few years and I couldn't be happier about it. End of side note.

Ok, so shock of the website aside. I was still at a loss for why a Church would protest military funerals. After searching many news sites, their bottom line is this;

The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and subsequent American deaths in the war on terror are God's revenge on a nation tolerant of homosexuality.

Holy Nontolerance Batman!!! That is some fucked up shit.

These people are just as bad as Islamic Extremists. Maybe worse.

They disgrace the deceased and insult the living all because they lack the ability to accept someone else's values and ideas.

I don't care if you are for or against the current American Government, the war in Iraq, homosexuality, American Idol, or Ashley Simpson; if someone dies, show some God-Damned respect.

Comment this

"I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again… Microsoft: Bringing You Yesterday, Tomorrow."

Posted by Amber on tonysimon.org

Try on this

I'm not sure if it's the overpriced shitty looking clothes or the stuck-up arrogant teens that are running the joint, but I don't like The Crap.

I make it a general rule not to enter or go anywhere near their stores but they did something, something that is going to force me into every Crap store in the metro Atlanta area. From August 8th through August 31st, if you go to a location and TRY ON (not purchase) a pair of jeans, they will give you a free song from itunes.

I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that......this

I found this over at big-boy and promtly laughed my balls off.

Quasi-safe for work, just watch the volume.

Anyways...
There isn't much that truly scares me.
Death by fire,
Death by drowning,
Ashley Simpson releasing another record,
the American Idol tour,
and movies starring Vin Diesel.

Today there is something new to add to the list. Androids. Raise your hand if you thought we would see this in our life time. Here's a link to some pics of "her".

Bounce this

I found video footage of "The Dive"


Things happened today.

Actually a lot of things happened today.

The shuttle went up and Mindy McCready OD'd.

Other stuff happened too.

Two of my co-workers were, (insert corporate line here) "indefinitely suspended"
Translation: Got their asses fired.

Why?

$9000 of missing phones.

I don't know if they did it, and I hope they didn't. I like them both. But I don't think the corporation would have acted if they didn't have proof. Yeah, emotions are running a bit high at ye olde retail gig.

Something good happened today too, but we won't be talking about it here for a few days because I'm afraid I'll jinx the whole damn thing. But we'll talk about it soon ok?

Last night, when I should have been writing here, I was finishing Harry Potter and the something, something, something. A talented wizard that 'arry is I tell ya.

A fun fodder read, nothing life changing but 600 pages of mind numbing fun. And mind numbing fun is a good.

Call this

Cingular Office of the President; 877-707-6220

Cingular Corporate Headquarters; 404-236-6000

Today is my day off and life's to-do list is a tad short today.
I need to mow the lawn, empty the dishwasher, read some, but up until now, I have been reading the new Harry Potter book, working on Balloon Camp stuff, and watching various news sources.

CNN has been running the video of the picture to the right all day long and every 15 minutes. They first show it in regular speed and then in Super-Painful-Slow motion. I've searched for the video on the net but haven't found it yet.

Story...At the World Swimming and Diving Championships, American Chelsea Davis attempted a 2½ somersault. Slamming her face into the board was not a planned part of this dive. The video is almost traumatic to watch, but it doesn't look like CNN is going to let this go anytime soon.

FYI, She's fine, not even a broken nose. Three stitches and she was released from the hospital.

First things first.

For those of you who have chosen to abandon their corner of the internet it's time to step back up to the plate. Just write a little ditty one a week. No pressure, but every day you don't write, Dwight gives a close female relative of yours a Dirty Sanchez. If that's not motivation to write, I don't know what is.

Second topic...
I don't want to talk about work, it sucked today and we'll leave it at that. But here's some news for you. If Cingular is your provider, there are multiple towers down in six different Southeastern states with no estimated time of getting them back up and running. So if you can't make a call, that's why.


Third topic...

I think on some level, we all knew this next part was going to happen some day.

Jim nail gunned his hand.

Yeah, go ahead and read that line again and just let your imagination flow.

Ali has no idea how it happened (read: Jim hasn't told Ali how it happened), but Jim did in fact send a nail through his finger using a nail gun.

The nail did not hit any bones and there was very little bleeding. Removing the nail turned out to be very difficult. The medical team at the ER ended up using a Leatherman to yank it out. And by the way, Ali said that Jim is and will be just fine.

Phone this

And here I thought I wouldn't have anything to write about today.

After an unthrilling but profitable 10 hours at the retail gig, I find myself couch surfing, having a stiff.....drink, and dreading going to work tomorrow.

You see right now I lack the ability to make or receive any phone calls. That means other customers in this area are experiencing the same problem. But come tomorrow, their problem will become my problem. Please, someone come over and kill me now.

So as I sit here without the ability to contact anyone, including customer service, I am putting together a plan to deal with the unhappy masses of Snobb County when I go into work tomorrow.

I think I will put a poster on the front door; a type of pre-emptive strike if you will. It will be along the lines of the same letter I posted yesterday, but more tactful. Something like this;



Dear Cingular Wireless customer,

We are well aware that your phones don't work.
Ours don't work either.

We don't know when the problem will be resolved.

We do NOT have the authority to credit your bill.

If you would like to request a credit for your inconvenience, please call customer service from a landline (866-CINGULAR) or from your cell phone (611) when your service has been restored.

If you have further question please come in and sign the waiting list. We will get to you as quickly as possible in the order in which you arrived.

However, if you are here to yell at and insult an employee that is paid an hourly wage so you can feel better about yourself and feel like "You've been heard", then by all means, come on in.

But be warned, you do so at your own risk.

While we are very empathetic to the problem at hand, we are not your personal punching bag and will not tolerate being treated as such.

Your raised voice and haughty attitude will NOT speed up the repair process.

Your yelling and demeaning manner *WILL* cause us to get quite nasty and make us insult you to the point of tears. Don't underestimate our powers. We work in retail.

Bear with us and hopefully we'll all be talking at 80 miles per hour around 285 very very soon.

Thank you for your patience.

Sincerely,

Your retail sales reps


Do you think this will help?

Me neither.

Dear Cingular Wireless Consumer,

Please accept my deepest apologies that your phone is not working in the way that you have grown accustomed to. A truck ran off the road and took out the power that feeds one of our towers. I am sorry that this has happened to you. I would like to take the opportunity to remind you of a few items and answer some of your questions.

A) I was not driving the truck that took out the power to the tower.

B) I do not know how to fix a tower.

C) No, I do not know when it will be fixed.

D) No, I can not credit your bill. Please note that I said, "CAN not", not "WILL not". There is a difference.

E) Your condescending attitude towards me will not speed up the process of getting the said tower fixed.

F) No, I will not apologize for my attitude being that you are currently yelling at me with your finger in my face.

G) No, I really don't care if you take your service elsewhere.

H) Yes, I have thought about going into a different industry. Have you thought about flinging yourself into oncoming traffic?

Thank you and again I am so sorry for the inconvenience.

Sincerely,
Me

Watch this

If you like to laugh and you know who you are; you should be watching Robot Chicken.

Bite this

Don't touch my bone

(For dog lovers only)

Marry this

They say that the third time's a charm.

Move this

The Bawcum Relocation Project of 2005 is complete. I was not available for the moving of actual stuff, but he had plenty of help in Gunner, Chief, and Trina. I managed to hit Nashvegas Sunday night and assisted in the unpacking of boxes and hanging of art/UGA memorabilia.

During our various outings to Walmart, Target, and Home Depot, I was stunned to see the high number of Large (read: Really Effin Big) churches I saw. For a second I thought I had been transported to some religious Mecca like Jerusalem, Salt Lake City or Waco.

Brett wasn't kidding when he described Nashville as,"The buckle that holds the Bible belt together".



OH!!! If this doesn't scare you, I don't know what will.

Party this

Around midnight tonight, recording guru John Keane will press the "save" button one last time and that will be that. The new Modern Skirts disc will be done and will be sent off to be pressed and wrapped for your consumption on August 20th.

To celebrate their accomplishment and because it's been since Athfest; Funkle Ester will be playing Saturday night at Tasty World. One of the Skirts' side projects is opening and we'll go on around midnight.

After the show, I'm heading to Nashville to assist with the Bawcum Relocation Project. Due to the gig Saturday night in Athens, I'm not going to be able to load or unload the truck (Darn, Rats, Aw Shucks) but I'm betting that my anal organizational skills will be put to use at sometime during my stay.

Jack This

As he approached the 18 green, the gallery stood and cheered, and cheered, and cheered, and cheered. He graciously acknowledged the well wishes and then stopped on the stone bridge as photographers respectfully snapped up the moment. The crowd said goodbye for 10 minutes before he could go about the gentle business of finishing his career. With tears in his eyes the Golden Bear ended his career by draining a 10 foot birdie.

Lick this

Thursday night I ventured down to Smuckhead to play in a poker torney with Stacy and her friend Gerald. Stacy and I busted out early but Gerald managed to win the whole damn thing.

While he was busy using our poker chips as coasters, Stacy and I found a gigantic bottle of Absolute Vodka and decided to make inappropriate gestures towards it.

Clean this

George Carlin said it best about Martha Stewart .. "Boy, I feel a lot safer now that she's behind bars. O.J. Simpson and Kobe Bryant are still walking around; Osama Bin Laden too, but they take the one woman in America willing to cook, clean, and work in the yard, and haul her butt off to jail."

Wire this

The internet is still being a bitch. Actually I'm led to believe that it's not so much my ISP as it is my wireless router. But the coincidence of my router going out at the same freakin time that the internet goes down due to a storm is cause for much speculation. Comcast is not taking any responsibility because it

So to create an internet connection for the laptop; I have run a series of cable out of the upstairs bedroom (where the cable modem is located) and down the stairs into the den.

I had an interesting meeting tonight with an agent from Keller Williams. Interesting good and interesting...interesting. Not sure what's next, but Vegas in 22 days.

Read this

When I was a wee tyke my parents read to me all the time and when they couldn't and needed to keep me entertained, they made me watch a shit ton of Public Television. Sure, I would rather have been watching Scooby Doo so I could be cool the next day at the kindergarten water cooler, but my parents were good parents and were constantly trying to educate me.

And if Public Television is around when I have kids they're going to watch it too. Public Television is a good thing and should be considered a national treasure.

Due to a proposed new budget there is a chance that one of the classic educational programs, Reading Rainbow, could get the ax.

This is tremendously tragic. What is Levar Burton going to do for a living? He's only qualified to play roles that take place in space or that require him to wear a diaper.

Connect this

Posting will be light while I wait for a Comcast employee to get off his/her ass, climb a pole, and reconnect the cable that brings the internet into my house.

Well this

After months of reading, research and soul searching I have come to what I consider to be a life changing decision. This is a long time coming, so keep your hands and arms inside the carpet, hold on, and we'll get through this together. See you on the other side.



Where are we going?
How did we get here?

and the big one.....

What's for dinner?

These are the questions that have plagued us since time began.

In conversations with myself dealing with Christianity, I have found myself at a loss for the big West Wing question of; "What's next?".

Growing up I think I misinterpreted what "faith" is. Looking back on it, instead of truly believing, I think I was being programmed. Programmed from a very early age to think a certain way and up until around 8 or 9 months ago I was perfectly happy living in bliss.

If you believe that Christ is the son of God and that he died on a cross, then good on ya. You have something that I don't which is faith. I have officially lost my faith. Don't get me wrong, I'm not lamenting the loss.

However, the beliefs and opinions of everyone should be respected. If you need proof, ask the victims of terrorism what happens when zealots don't respect the thoughts of others.

I digress, what I mean to say is...

I no longer consider myself a Christian.
I am a Deist.

Webster's Dictionary defines Deism as "One who believes in the existence of a God or supreme being but denies revealed religion, basing his belief on the light of nature and reason."

I like that. It's something I can grasp and that makes sense to my feeble mind.

I'm not going to back up my revelation with a bunch of, what I believe to be, facts. It would come across as aggressive or uppity and that's not the point. I think I figured out what I believe and that's enough.

To wrap up...

This brief and discombobulated outing isn't so much for you as it is for me. I needed to write it out and make sure that I agreed with.....well....myself.

Do this

In an attempt to not let life pass me by any more than it already has, I am creating a "life's to-do list". I am going to post the list as a reminder that life is bigger than the day-to-day grind. The list will be a compilation of items I would like to experience before I die. There are some serious life-altering items like, have kids (shudder); and fun stuff like hang gliding and parachuting.

But I found as I started to write out the actual list that I have a poor imagination for this topic. This is where you come in. Please submit items that you would like to do before you die. Try and be specific. Instead of saying, "travel"; say, "Watch the sun rise at Normandy". Got it? Good.

Entries to the list will not include "star in gay porn" so just give up that pipe dream right now. I'm perfectly happy in my role as a fluffer.

"Mom, I have good news, I'm not pregnant anymore."

No babies were harmed in the taking of this photo.

Tony's birthday photo

Shear this

BAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaa.................

Skirt this

On the front page of AJC.com is a link to their new juke box of local music.
Guess who is number two on the list? That's right, the soon to be famous Modern Skirts!!!
Go right now and listen to My Bully.

Damn this

Does anyone here remember The Damn Show?
It was a sketch comedy show that poked fun of the homeless, parodied songs turning the likes of "The Candy Man" into "The S an M Man", and had an unreverent Koala.

After many years of playing with themselves, they have landed a multi-episode deal with MTV. Their new show, which after looking at the trailer looks very similar to The Damn Show, is called Stankovision. You can view the trailer here. It takes a while to load.

Oh and here's that article that will make all UGA grads swell with pride.

Think this

Thought of the Day from Hagood.net

I'm not sure why "War of the Worlds" is considered science fiction. I mean, somebody traveling millions of miles to kill Tom Cruise doesn't seem all that far-fetched to me.

Evict this

My guilty little pleasure

Steal this

Martha, Martha, Martha, shut the hell up. You were CONVICTED of a CRIME that YOU COMMITTED.

With that in mind; Dave, be careful, I don't want to bail you out of jail for this.

This

If there was ever a day that I was reminded how nice and then how awful people can be, today was it. Here's a break down of the retail rollercoaster.

>Helped a nice man that afterwards bought me lunch.

>I was yelled (read: screamed) at by a crazy woman.

>30 minutes later and over the phone, I was screamed at by a Middle Eastern man that I couldn't understand.

>My last customer told me that I would be great at his company and to email him my resume. I know nothing about medical sales but I can't afford to start Real Estate yet, so why not?

>We closed the store, locked the door, and I flew straight to the beer store to find a tasty six pack to help me forget about the crazy stuck up people of Snobb County. No Sweet Water Summer Hummer, so a six of Terrapin would have to do.

>I was less than two miles from home when my new and improved boss call to tell me that the alarm at the store was going off. He lives 40 minutes away and me 10. Who has two thumbs and was going back to the store?

When I pulled into the store parking lot I did have a brief thought of, "I hope I'm not walking into a robbery. That would not be the kind of night I was looking forward to."

To sum up
Store...fine.
Alarm system...bad.

Bet this

Have I mentioned that I will be in Las Vegas in exactly 30 days.


My second favorite city in the entire world next of course to Athens, GA. For eight fantastic days and night I will attempt to accomplish the following..
A) Teach a class and produce the shows for Balloon Camp 2005.
B) Spend time with friends
C) Do a bit of gambling
D) Catch a show or two
E) Watch Dian Diaz at my favorite bar while watching the Fountains of Bellagio.

Over the past few months I've done some work here and there to prepare for the trip but it didn't sink in until last week when we purchased my plane ticket.

If you are going to be out there anytime between August 4th and 13th, give me a call. Good times ahead.


Oh and here's a cute story

Stuff this

Saturday
Drinks
Grilling
Swimming
Gutter Ball
An iPod lesson from Keith
One pant dropping moment that exposed more than what was necessary
Two hot women making out
Sofa beds are good

Sunday
Work at the retail gig
Croquet
Rob makes amazing quesadillas
Team America World Police
Beer Pong
Repeated ass and testicle showing
I dropped and broke a glass
A light got punched out
Strangers hooking up

Monday
Really bad service at a Publix (we'll be getting back to this later in the week)
Funkle Gig

I could go into more details about some of the stuff on the list, but I think I would lose some friends in the process.

But I will tell you two that I learned two things.
1) I am cussing too much and I will be curbing it way the fuck back.
Starting tomorrow.

2) Beer Pong is never a good idea.

Crowd this

I really want to go to IKEA but I'm not going anytime soon.

Circle This

Pi

Schedule this

Question:
If you ran a retail store with 7 computers/registers what is the maximum number of people you would have working at any particular time?

That's right, 7. In her last action before she left; Small Mitten scheduled 8 people including myself to work. I don't miss her.

So after going in at 8 AM for our wonderful, mandatory, Saturday morning store meeting, I got to come home. Great start to the Saturday.