just skimmed my previous entries....for my readers (of which there are none) an update:

-H is now potty trained and proud
-Bear still finds animals (terrified a box turtle this weekend)
-That pony we rescued/bought had a baby-her name is Zsu Zsu (kids named her) and she is almost as sweet as Flick was-since we had to ween them mama is up in NY with my in laws.
-last month's charity walk raised $8K. not bad?

My Chicago Bears Suck. Jay Cutler....sucks. Fire Lovie, Angelo, the whole damn system.

Not much else new. About to blow both my FFL championships thanks to Ronnie Brown's season ending injury. Grandfather moved safe and sound to NC, now if only we can get him to enjoy life more and stop bitching and harassing my mom.

Kids are great, working on B's speech issues and getting wild H ready for pre school.

In more sad news, the horse above died a few weeks ago from colic. Tried to save him, thought he was ok, we were wrong. My wife is heartbroken. She has never lost any family, so this has been brutal. Poor girl blames herself, which is foolish. Flick was only 5. He was as sweet a horse as you can hope to meet, and as friendly as a puppy. Hopefully will get her a new steed for Christmas, one of her choosing.

Heroes is bad.  It is a good thing to watch for a laugh.  They need to come back with MST 3000 just to mock it.  Other news:  not much.  Eagerly awaiting the next Venture Brothers season premiere, reading the much anticipated Blood's a Rover (love Ellroy) and also wading through Moore's From Hell.  Excellent, but man that is one HEAVY comic book....other great recent reads are Shutter Island and almost all of Neil Gaimen's novels.

Also-I highly recommend that no one tries to find employment with the state of NC.  It sucks.  Enough said.  My kid wants to be a wildlife biologist-I tell him it s a nice hobby, but as a job, well, somebody needs to pay the bills...and, well, enough said.

If anyone actually reads this, take a look at this:

http://www.ohf.org/ncwalk.html

woohoo!  hope we raise some much needed funds for this disease that caused me to get the double transplant.  to donate:

http://www.active.com/donate/OHFWalkNC/OHFWalkNCJAnglem

boy this post is all over the place. 

Wow it has been awhile.  Heroes latest season sucked, and I have read a lot more Clavell.  Shogun is still the best.  I am also digging Brian K. Vaughns work; pretty much all of it.  Other great reads:  American Gods by gaiman and Clockers by Richard Price. 

Just got back from a Mayo Clinic visit-10 years after my kidney/liver transplant and all is going great!  Now if only I can find a way to not get divorced (and maybe even get some action from my ice queen wife) life will be perfect.  Or at least really really good. 

Also had to put my sweet old dog down in january thanks to intestinal cancer.  Cancer is an asshole.

Lately I have been reading more DC stuff.  I have always been a marvel guy, but Frank Miller's Batman stuff is so awesome I figured I should give it a shot.  So I occasionally watch Smallwood.  Now this could be a cool show.  But the fact that everybody looks like a Abercrombie & Fitch model, and the fact that the costumes they wear are even lamer than the ones drawn on them in the books makes the show almost unwatchable.


Also-I love Heroes, and I am awaiting season 3.  But does anybody else notice it is a big X-men knockoff?  

Nikki=Wolverine
Nathan=Angel
Peter=Rogue
Matt=Jean Grey
Suresh=Prof X without the powers
Nikki's kid=Forge
DL=Kitty Pride

They just switched gender for most of them.

Hiro is the only kind of original guy, but even he's a kind of Nightcrawler/Red Ghost with time travel capabilties.  And no I have yet to see season 2.

In Kring's defense, it is kind of like the South Park episode where every plot Butters tries, the response is "The Simpsons did it already."  Much like the Simpsons, the X-men have been around forever, and have had the time to come up with most imaginable/believable powers. 

Just saw the trailer for the Watchmen movie coming out next March.  I got the chills!  I love the comic; and so far the trailer makes it appear the director will follow the comic?  Hard to tell by just a snippet but so far it looks incredible!

Happy Monday.  Had a terrific weekend, after a Friday morning meltdown.  Watched some Olympics, did work around the house, watched my little girl try to figure out why her big brother can pee on a tree and she can't, despite her best efforts.  I love living in the country, but I need to be sure Bruce  knows when it is and isn't appropriate to just 'whip it out' and go potty.  That and his tendency to get naked everytime he swims; not appropriate on most beaches/pools around here, eh?

Man, Shogun is a terrific read.  I plan on reading more of Clavell's stuff, hope it is as good as this.

I am reading Shogun right now by James Clavell.  Terrific book.  There is a part of the book where Rodigues states that the Japanese believe that men have three hearts; one that they keep in their mouth, the one they let the world hear and see.  The second is in their chest, that they show friends and loved ones.  The third is their secret heart that no one knows but themselves, one that they can never show. 

I probably butchered the description of that but you get the idea.  I don't know about you but that might be one of the most accurate things I have ever read.  Amazing.

So Ghost Dog is back.

A year ago, two dogs showed up at my place.  I figured that they were deer hounds abandoned by the piece of shit dog hunters who belong to the nearby hunt club.  You see here in East NC running deer with dogs is legal; you get a pack of hounds, drop them off on one side of a stretch of woods or swamp, then drive to the next closest road, and wait for the deer to run across.  You shoot across the road.  Yes, it is incredibly stupid, unsafe, and unsportsmanlike.  The fat bastards barely leave their trucks.  And yet it is kept legal in NC since it is a 'tradition'.  They do the same thing with bear, which we have a lot of in the woods next to my house.

That isn't even the worst thing.  If the dogs aren't good hunters, or they get old, the hunters just take the dogs ID collars off and let them go.  The hunters don't want to have to spend the money to feed them anymore.  So you get starving dogs wandering everywhere.  They wind up as roadkill, or nuisances.  And the sad thing is due to their nature as hounds they are very sweet and gentle dogs.  They don't attack folks.  They just want to eat and don't understand what they did wrong to be abandoned.  it is incredibly sad.

SO we fed these two white hounds, named Peaches and Ghost Dog by us.  We took them to the vet-turns out they had been fixed, which is odd since most hunters wouldn't have spent that on a hunting dog.   Both had heartworms.  To make a long story short,   Ghost dog wandered off; we figured she died since she seemed to be in bad shape.  Peaches died while we were out of town-we don't think she was strong enough to endure the heart worm treatments. 

And then two days ago Ghost Dog returns, covered in grape sized ticks.  I mean completely covered.  Melissa gave her some Frontline, and sure enough by the next day all the ticks were gone.  We will worm her today.  I don't want the damn thing around because she might get my pooches sick, but unfortunately I hate to see any animal suffer.  SO she is sleeping in the feed barn.

Anybody want an old hound dog?

Oh AND Bear, my youngest dog, found a nest of baby rabbits yesterday.  Bastard.  Only one casualty so far, but he brought me another, uninjured one this morning while I was headed out the door.    M put it back in the nest.  Bear is inside from now on, or at least until the rabbbits can run or something not under my control finds them.

Turns out the pony had a couple of HUGE ticks in her ears.  The vet had to sedate her just to get them out.  She seems much happier and much more laid back now.  Thank God-I thought we had bought a bad horse.

I have that stupid 80s hit 'Push It" by the craptacular Salt -n- Peppa (dear lord!) occasionally stuck in my head lately.  It is truly awful, and once it starts I can't get it to stop.  I think they call a melody that gets stuck in your head a 'brain worm'.  How appropriate!  Now I just need a brain robin to get the damn thing out.  Or get laid.  That may help.

Time to hit the road and go visit some fish dealers.  It is hot and I am lazy.  Hopefully no one is home.

Things went OK.  Kept my cool, but kind of rambled through my talk at a breakneck pace. Oh and made some blunders due to my lack of memory.  I REALLY need to write this 'speech' down and refine it, instead of just talking.  Oh well, live and learn, but no more volunteering as a guest speaker until I get shit down on paper.

New Venture Brothers' episodes and T-shirts are amazing.  Why haven't more folks caught onto this show?  I think it may be hard to follow, or at least not as amusing, if you haven't seen the whole series in a chronological fashion. 

Got a new horse last week.  A pony, and even worse a mare.  I should have my fucking head examined.  She is sweet but untrained and a bit shy about her ears.    Great, another horse who needs work.  But the kids like her. 

Had a nice saturday at mom's house.  Need to stop being such an asshole, but other than that things went good.  Why am I so damn grumpy? Long term frustration by this weakness in my extremities?  Rage at being a fat sweaty bastard?  WDs?  Working out and better diet might help.   It starts TODAY.  How long it lasts is undecided-hopefully at least through this afternoon

My neighbor continues to decimate the woods behind my house for no apparent reason.  Damned hillbilly with too much time and money.  I swear his wife must be a nightmare, or at she doesn't play with his tiny pecker enough, but Melissa seems to think they get along OK.  Of course she does...  This fall a big hedge gets planted either red cedar or wax myrtle.  Any recommendations?  Like anyone has ever read this.  Oh well I have and I find it therapeutic. 

back to the grind. 

in honor/imitation of Jackson Publick

Listening to:

'Loose'-The Stooges

Headed to RM today to speak about organ donation to my dad's old civics group.  Might be hard on me, since dad died in a plane crash 14 years ago.  And it seems like it was only yesterday.  Hopefully I'll keep my emotions in check and give a good presentation.  In any event a half day of real work will be nice!

Well here I am.  Time to blog.