It was a dark and stormy night...

"Hello.."
"Hello,Mr. Sling?"
"Yeah,who's this?"
"This is nurse Torkrench from the O-Town hospital sir,we need you to come in immediately".
"Wha'..Why,what's going on?"
"The results from your blood tests have come in..I'm sorry to tell you this,but I'm afraid every test has come back positive".
"POSITIVE?..Positive for what?"
"We really shouldn't discuss this over the phone sir,please come in right away,it's a matter of life and death".....*CLICK*

"Holy Crap!"I thought."What the Hell is happening?"

I didn't waste another second,although my senses were reeling from the implications of this most distressing phone call.
Dressing quickly,I jumped on ol' Blue and pedaled my ass to the emergency room as fast as I could.

My heart was pounding from fear and exertion as I threw open the doors to the emergency room,strangely empty of the usual cadre of ill and injured.

"Mr.Sling?",asked the elderly blue smocked nurse behind the receiving window.(I recognized the voice of nurse Torkrench).
"YES!..Yes I am..You just phoned me to come in and..."
Please follow me to room 6 sir,...we've been expecting you".
I followed obediently,driven by the urgency in her voice.

"What the Hell is going on?..I don't underst..."
"Please sir,you need to lie on the exam table so we can start the I.V."
I smelled rubbing alcohol,and felt the slight burn as the needle entered my vein.I began to feel disoriented almost immediately.

"Nurse Torkrench,what's wrong with me?..You said the blood tests were positive".
The room was growing dimmer,and I felt myself beginning to lose consciousness.Two men in black entered the room,carrying what appeared to be ice chests.Nurse Torkrench smiled.

"Oh,they were POSITIVE Mr Sling..A positive match for our beloved Fuhrer,President Bush...As a matter of fact,you are the best candidate for organ harvesting we've ever seen!"
The room was black now...I felt a wave of warmth wash over my body.

"Very good Mr.Sling,just let it go...I promise,you won't feel a thing..."

****HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!****

It's all about the O...

I take every opportunity to poke fun at O-Town.
I'll constantly remind it of past mistakes,express doubts about it's character,and bombast it with my unsolicited opinions at the drop of a hat.
Because hey,..that's what friends do! ;)

In an effort to create a more balanced assessment,I offer these photos sans captions,except to say that they are there when I need them.They provide me with a sense of stability.They never question my motives,and make me happy for no particular reason.

That is,after all,what friends do...

Traumatic Liscense..

Watching medical shows on television,ER and House for example,you get the feeling that emergency rooms are high velocity hotbeds of suffering,tragedy,and various assorted and sundry traumas too horrible to contemplate.
For the most part,this just isn't so.
It's all about waiting,comparing ailments,and most of all,Workmen's Comp.
"What's the problem sir/ma'am?" The receiving nurse asked each person,with just enough sympathy to appear genuine.
"I hurt my knee..AT WORK!"
"I twisted my ankle...AT WORK!"
"I was at work,working,when I bent over to pick up a very heavy work related crate of work documents and hurt my back!...AT WORK!"

LIMP...SIGH...GROAN...

I sat there listening to this parade of charades for several hours,waiting for my lucky triage number to be called,and getting more irritable by the minute,when a young man came bursting through the doors shouting,"My wife is in the car!..She's overdosed on muscle relaxers!"
A wheelchair flashed,and blue smocks dashed to retrieve the semi-comatose woman.
"Get her into room 6 STAT!!"

At this point,..I may have committed a social faux pas..

"HEY!...Why does THAT broad get to go in before ME?..She just swallowed a bottle of muscle relaxers,...I'M THE ONE WHO'S TENSE!!"...

Update..

"HOLY SHIT!"...as God as my witness,that's an exact quote from the Doc when he saw my wound,which of course,had become infected.
After a few shots of anesthetic,some deft and painless scalpel work,and a nice bandage,I was outta there.
1 antibiotic tablet twice a day for two weeks.Vicadin for pain.

I really need to give props to Dr. H for making me feel at ease,and for that whole painless thing...You ROCK Doc!!

But I'll tell ya who rocks more!..YOU GUYS!
Each and every one of you that stopped by with your kindness,and well wishes...A blessing on your houses.. :)

We now return to our regularly scheduled program.

Dammitt !!

Apparently,I was bitten on the back of my neck a few days ago by an insidous member of the family of Arachnids,Latrodectus,(Latin for,"Fuck you,you vindictive man-eating bitch!"),or more commonly referred to as a "Black Widow" spider.

Turns out,it's not nearly as much fun as I thought it was gonna be.

What began as a niggling sensation,has become an angry bump the size of hail!..Which we all know,is always the size of something else really,really big.I'll spare you a more graphic description.Suffice it to say,it's thoroughly pissed-off!

In an effort to document the experience,a list of accompanying symptoms follows.They are; (in alphabetical order)

A) My neck hurts all the way down to my shoulders.

B) There is some minor disorientation,and difficulty in focusing on th...

C) Intermittant bouts of nausea.

D) Sleep?..Forget about it..There is simply no way to lay my head down for more than an hour without waking up from the pain.I'm gonna try sleeping while propped up against the wall tonight,but I don't hold out much hope for that.

E) SONOFABITCH!!...

According to the internets,I need to keep the wound clean,and take acetaminophen for the pain.Truly,this has made it something close to bearable.Although,changing the bandage twice a day has resulted in some interesting new dance moves,as the bite occurred slightly ABOVE the hair line.In any case,I'll probably go see a doctor this weekend so he can charge me about twelve-thousand dollars to tell me to do what I'm already doing.Hey!..Know what they call the guy that finishes last in his class at medical school?...."Doctor".

In the meantime,I'm looking forward to the inevitable super powers that are bound to ensue!..That's gonna be totally cool!..

So far,there has been no major indications,but I AM experiencing a disturbing urge to hang upside-down in the dark recesses of some construction site outhouse,..as well as an unusual desire to mate with females five times my size..

As always,I hope this post has found you and yours in the best of health and spirits..As for me,...DAMMITT!

Metric Confusion..

Back when I was in grammar school,before computers,before cell phones,hell,..even before Hamburger Helper,there was a whole lot of talk about converting to the metric system.
The thinking was,that it would be a good idea to become accustomed to using the same standards of measurement that the whole rest of the world was using.
This made some sense to my young self,so I was willing to go the whole 9 meters in an effort to adapt.I figured,in for a penny,in for half a kilogram,know what I'm sayin'?
It might just help us to better understand our global neighbors,and by my way of thinking,18 grams of prevention is worth 288 grams of cure any day!
The whole idea fell by the wayside however.Popular resistance was just to strong."Give 'em a millimeter,and they'll take a kilometer!" Grandpa proclaimed.
Sitting here today,on God's little hectare,I think Grandpa was probably right.Our current system is woven into our collective psyche,an integral part of who we are as Americans.I figure if it ain't broke,don't fix it.
And I say that,without a milliliter of regret.

Sometimes,..It's Like That..

I should probably be posting something,but all I can think about right now is cold cereal.
It started shortly after I got up this morning, while I was making coffee.I looked up on top of the cabinet and there was Little Newt's stash of kaleidoscopic,vitamin fortified,pre-sweetened,bonanza of Diabetes-in-a-box breakfast fare.I made a hazy mental note,poured a cup of French roast directly into my eyes,and hurried off to work.
Still,the images of Lucky Leprechauns,Silly Rabbits,and Crunchy Ship's Captains lingered..Tuna salad and Snapple just didn't measure up to the hours of hyper-active bliss those radiant characters promised, so lunch was disappointing and unsatisfying...I needed to feel the "rush"!
I'm back home,all alone,with a gallon of milk and a cereal bowl big enough to bathe in....If I don't end up in a Coco-Pebbles induced coma,I may post something later...just not now.

Be Afraid...

I'm not especially superstitious,so Friday the 13th doesn't hold any real dread for me.
My maternal Grandmother however,was an encyclopedia of things portentous.Things which usually culminated in some body's unfortunate demise.
A dog howling at the moon?..Some one's gonna die.
A rocking chair rocking when no one is in it?..Some one's gonna die.
Muddy footprints on her kitchen floor?..Some one's gonna wish they were dead...So Friday the 13th was a particularly stressful day for her,what with the precarious maneuvering around cats and ladders,mirrors,and cracks in the sidewalk.It was a phobia,and it has a name..paraskavedekatriaphobia...A fairly common,irrational fear of Friday the 13th.
Some less common phobias are:

• Metrophobia- Fear of poetry.


• Barophobia- Fear of gravity.


• Arachibutyrophobia- Fear of getting peanut butter stuck to the roof of your mouth,(I kid you not!).


• peladophobia- Fear of bald people,..and my personal fave,..


• Hippopotomonstrossesquippedaliophobia- Fear of long words..A qualified psychiatrist can diagnose it,he just can't tell you that you have it.Gotta love the irony..

Thankfully,I've managed to make it through life without suffering from any crippling or incapacitating fears.Well,..save one.

• Trickledickaphobia- The fear of discovering too late that I've walked out of a public restroom with an all too obvious pee stain on my crotch.

That's the only thing that really terrifies me...I mean,..that,and Mormons.

EDIT: I'm pretty sure I just killed my spellcheck.

Brother's Birthday Blogging..

"Something hideous is changing law abiding citizens into monstrous,hyper-violent psychopaths!"..

"The Hidden",starring Michael Nouri,and Kyle MacLachlan,is a sci-fi thriller released in 1987 by the makers of "A Nightmare on Elm Street".

During the course of the film,they desperately needed an unsavory looking ne'er-do-well to portray,..well,..an unsavory looking ne'er-do-well.. Fortunately,they spotted my very own,flesh and blood,baby brother lurking about Venice Beach,and the search was over!..That's him,(bottom photo) in the leather vest making an escape attempt after an explosion in the police station.

He turns the big Five-O this week!..
I found this DVD in the bargain bin at Wal-Mart for less than five bucks,(I would've paid as much as $9.50 if I had to),and thought I'd share it with y'all,and hopefully embarrass the hell outta him in the process.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BRO'!!

In other news,...Sewercide Bombers !!..

Well I accidentally turned on the news this morning..My bad.
Along with the birth of a healthy new bouncing baby nuclear power,the O-Town Talking Heads informed me that there is another E-Coli outbreak.This time,our lettuce is the culprit.

"Not to worry too much",bubbly Ashley of the blonde persuasion assured me,"It's the generic E-Coli,and it's only in the water!"...

HUH??...Generic?..As opposed to that higher priced,name brand bacterium??

Like,maybe I'll just Toddle my happy ass down to,"Bob's discount Bio-hazard and Typhoid repair shop",and pick me up a bushel or a peck o' that over the counter gastrointestinal wake-up call...Hey!..Maybe I'll even save enough Shekels in the process to afford that Colonoscopy I've had my eye on!...Sweet!

Not being all that fond of salad,I wasn't really concerned at first.Then it occurred to me that,while I don't think of lettuce as "food",..I'm pretty sure it's what food eats.

Oh,Great...

I was worried that things weren't gonna get any scarier.

Pencils,rulers,and blank sheets of paper...

We had a brutal week at our little cabinet shop...The fun kind...
We're building all new kitchen cabinets for Mr. and Mrs. K,the owners,and we all get to stretch our skills and imaginations a little in the process.Dadoes and dovetails where we would normally use butt joints.Solid hardwood painstakingly bisquited together,rather than plywood veneer...Spindles,and hardware and Oak,..Oh my!.. It's more like furniture than cabinetry.
Yeah,I know I get a little enthusiastic about such things,but trust me,it's a wannabe craftsman's wet dream.
In the midst of all this flow of ideas and changes on-the-fly,we're still meeting our more standard contractual obligations.Hence the brutality,and my less than usual ability to post,and leave annoying comments on my stalkee's blogs.
Rest assured,I will be visiting my sidebar victims,..er,..friends,during the course of the weekend.So do me a favor and have some coffee ready will ya?...I'm still a little tired.

O-Town Trivia..

Well, the Equinox has come and gone,the Salmon Festival is barely behind us,and we find ourselves flung headlong into "Perry Mason Days"!..

Did you know that the creator of the famous barrister/slueth,Mr. Earle Stanley Gardner,was raised right here in Oroville?("Oroville"is Spanish for,"festering pustule")..Well now you do.

I find it just a little curious that we would honor a fictitious character,rather than one of the most prolific writers in America,(check your Guinness book),..but there it is.

By official proclamation of the hamlet of O-Town,men will be required to sport bushy eyebrows,wear black wool suits with skinny black ties,and the women will adorn themselves with really pointy tits.

Drunken blogging..

Blogger is being a butt!
I was exactly in the middle of commenting on Alan's recent post,when I was summarily dismissed.Maybe it's a coincidence,..That would be the normal assumption,yet,the paranoid that dwells within suspects otherwise.More likely,it's a purposeful effort to get ,(in Allan's words)
"The young ones accustomed to being patted down by security guards"..

If you find yourself here,then please be sure to check up on what more erudite folks like lorraine,allan,and legal alien have to say about the current state of the union.

EDIT:just to be sure,I tried commenting on allan's blog one more time....no go,..but in all fairness,I'm 2 shots short of a half pint.
Sometimes,..it's like that.