Hi, I'm a weather pixie. OK, stop laughing. I SAID, STOP LAUGHING, DAMN YOU. Click here if, for some ridiculous reason, you'd like to know more about the current weather conditions in Knoxville, Tennessee. 

Friday, 1/31/03 - Years ago on this day, a great man was born. A man of honor and integrity, a loyal friend to man and beast. A man of compassion, a man of hope. A proud American who defends his country's honor from sea to shining sea. A caring man who knows how to treat his women with kindness and respect. A man who believes that children are our future and goes out of his way to donate his time and money to youth-related programs and charities. A man who knows no hate for people of other races and creeds. A man who has no equal in the community and is always there whenever someone needs help, regardless of who they are.

Let us honor him on this day, his birthday.

(silence)

Coincidentally, Brian Hamby, local area drunk, was born on this day, too.

Happy birthday, Brian!

Here's some quick Photoshop stuff I did today...

Yeah, I know... they don't make much sense, but there they are, anyway.

Wednesday, 1/29/03 - Hey, I was right!!!...

RALLY MONKEY!

Tuesday, 1/28/03 - President Bush is giving the State of the Union address tonight and is going to "rally Americans" to back his plans for a war with Iraq. I wonder if he's going to use a rally monkey?

If you want a few laughs, watch CSI:Miami. I watched it last night for the first time and thought that the tough-guy acting style of actor David Caruso was unintentially hilarious. Last night's episode dealt with finding the persons responsible for a death caused by a home-based drug lab. Caruso's character started an interrogation of the suspected chemist by asking, "Are you my cook?" This "cook" term was used several more times which only added to the amusement. Check it out and see if Caruso hits you as funny.

Monday, 1/27/03 - Meng strikes again. Evidently, just before school this morning, Jimmy snuck into the family room and got on the computer when his mom wasn't looking and sent me back a reply to Saturday's e-mail exchange...

How can I argue with logic like that?

Now, I feel embarrassed... for actually taking the time to argue with a total idiot.

Feel free to contact James Meng at midiman3@lvcm.com.

Sunday, 1/26/03 - Well, well, today is Super Bowl Sunday. Since the Tennessee Titans lost their playoff game, I don't know who to root for now. Maybe Tampa Bay since this is their first Super Bowl and are considered the underdogs.

Or maybe I could go to this instead at the Knoxville Civic Coliseum...

After all, this circus has dogs dressed like people. How often do you get to see that? Or performing alligators and pink ponies in precision? Plus, part of the best entertainment value on earth includes not a single, not a double... but a triple leap of death. Again, I ask you... how often do you get to see a triple leap of death performed by trained professionals rather than the disastrous results of attempts by your unskilled neighbors or redneck in-laws?

It's tempting, but... naahh, I'll just watch the game. I'm sure they'll have dogs dressed like Oakland Raiders fans.

Go to the left column of this page and take a look. HELLO!... I've added a "weather pixie" to The (almost) Daily Comment in case you're concerned about the current weather conditions in Knoxville.

I believe this new addition is more accurate in reporting the weather than our local TV weather pixie, Matt Hinkin. Plus, this little cutie won't interrupt this page to tell you that there is still snow on the ground after telling you the same thing 15 minutes ago.

That reminds me...

My pal Brian Hamby really likes Andy Griffith reruns. Read this e-mail he sent me...

Here's the e-mail he sent to the TV station...

Even though his comments were rather harsh, you'd think that a TV station would have a little experience in handling irate viewers. You'd also think that they would have a generic response ready to send out as replies to e-mails. Apparently not, judging from the smug reply Brian got to his e-mail...

And it goes on...

You'd think this would be the end of it. WRONG. The TV station manager replies with some bogus legal hogwash...

Wow. Since when is an e-mail , posted in its verbatim form, considered slanderous by the very person who wrote and sent it? And does the TV station "own" the e-mails it sends out? I don't think so. I would think they lose the right to "ownership" once they click the send button. Take a look at the station's "Contact Us" page. It says nothing about that only glowing complimentary e-mails should be sent. It also says nothing about possible legal action for posting any "personal" reply received from a WVLT staff member. Did I already mention that this is bogus legal hogwash? Well, it is. IT'S HOGWASH... HOGWASH, I TELL YOU!!!

Anyhoo, let's continue...

I think we learned something today... you don't f*** with Andy Griffith fans.

I'll let you know if anything else comes up with this.

Saturday, 1/25/03 - It's very, vary rare when I get "hate mail." But on the odd occasion when I do, it's usually pretty tame, such as disapproval of my take on Wynonna Judd as being scary. This morning, I received an e-mail that went beyond just disagreeing with something on my site and went a step further to attack me personally. This person doesn't know me, so what should I care, right? Even so, the last sentence in this person's message really irked me. I felt that I had to respond and defend myself somewhat.

It's bizarre that someone could possibly find offense in my poking fun at the Harriet Carter gift catalog. I think I expressed a general, yet sarcastic, amusement at her novelty gift items. How could anyone feel the need to defend Harriet Carter's "integrity?"

Well, someone did...

Can you believe that someone actually wrote that?

My repy ...

Feel free to contact James Meng at midiman3@lvcm.com.

Wednesday, 1/22/03 - Lately, I've been working on my other web site, www.eegah.com. It's inching toward completion. Just yesterday, I completed a page that contains an exhaustive list of sound clips from the movie. The funny (and maybe sad) part is that it's a lot of work to honor such a bad, bad movie.

Another funny thing is, although I have made hardly any mention of this site, it already comes up as the 7th listing when you do a Google search on "eegah." I would be proud, but then again... how many idiots out there actually do a Google search on the word "eegah?"

Friday, 1/17/03 - Matt Hinkin, a TV meteorologist on Knoxville's ABC network affiliate, has probably gained some new enemies... of the gay variety.

A musical special called "The Disco Ball" aired last night that featured performances of songs from the disco era. As the song "It's Raining Men" just got started, the program was inexplicably interrupted by a local weather update. Any idiot who was in Knoxville today knows that it snowed. Matt, an even bigger idiot, felt the need at this particular time to remind us of this and to advise us to stay off the roads.

Brilliant, Matt. I guess you took the opportunity at this exact time to tell us that not only was it raining men, but the roads were also slick.

Of course, after the doppler map was explained to us, the disco program finally resumed... right at the applause at the end of the number.

Right now, as I'm typing this, the Doors are performing "Light My Fire" on The Tonight Show.

I kid you not.

The keyboardist and guitarist from the original band are there, along with a Jim Morrison lookalike singing vocals.

And yes... it's as bad as it sounds.

Thursday, 1/16/03 - You've probably heard that Maurice Gibb, one of the three brothers in the Bee Gees, died recently.

As far as I know, no pink panty bombs were involved.

Christopher Shields pointed this story out to me about a guy (who happens to have the same name as him) who tried to buy a new SUV using only coupons. It may not work out for this guy, but you've got to give him credit for trying.

Have you ever had to pee and fart at the same time? Talk about walking a fine line... a tightrope, if you will. You have to wait until the fart builds up enough pressure on its own and you have the confidence that it can be released with no straining involved... because we all know that if you switch over to utilizing the sphincter to push, you let your guard down on the bladder, resulting in wetting yourself.

So, to sum up, it's best not to attempt to fart with a full bladder. Well, not unless you're in a swimming pool.

My car was running rough yesterday so I opened the hood to take a look. I found a Sloppy Joe sandwich wedged into the air filter compartment.

I'm no mechanic, but I'm pretty sure it didn't belong there.

Tuesday, 1/14/03 - There was a murder committed recently in Kingston, TN. The confessed killer lives down the road from me, within short walking distance, and his son is a friend of my son. The boys used to hang out quite a bit about 3 years ago but are now just casual friends.

I've talked to the father several times and, of course, this event is very surprising... "He seemed like a real nice guy..." And he did. You never know what's really going on with people or what they're capable of.

Saturday, 1/11/03 - Nice Going, Tennessee!
You may or may not have heard the news story about the South Carolina family that was traveling through Tennessee on New Year's day and was stopped for suspicion of bank robbery (a bank robbery, as it turns out, that never occurred) ... and if that wasn't bad enough, they ended up having their dog killed by a state trooper. An all too-tragic comedy of errors.

If you don't know about it, read this article.

You can practically smell the bullshit in this article when the cops tell their side of the story.

Great. That's all we need...yet another embarrassing act of stupidity coming out of Tennessee getting national attention. The story even made the Today show yesterday.

(Also, this article is a very well written personal commentary about the incident)

When Geese Attack
A couple of my coworkers got the bright idea in their heads to start feeding an injured, Canadian goose that inhabits the surrounding building grounds. The goose is flightless due to serious wing damage and can only get around on foot. This goose has become quite demanding and has now claimed the immediate area as its own personal space. So, now everytime you exit the back door, it comes charging at you with its head down, hissing. Luckily for me, I can defend myself with my black belt in Tai Chi.

Speaking of the workplace, the other day I was in a staff meeting and felt the urge to sneeze. I managed to hold it back a couple of times, but the third time wasn't a charm. I sneezed a wad of snot into my right hand. No one noticed, but I had my hand cupped, hiding the evidence for the last half of the meeting... just hoping that I wouldn't have to write anything or shake hands with anyone.

I thought that you all would like to know that. I know you care.

Speaking of caring, a couple of coworkers and I went to the Waffle House for lunch yesterday. The waitress was so attentive to us to the point that it became very annoying. She was constantly at our table asking if we needed anything and whisking our soft drinks away for refills and even refilling our salt and pepper shakers. When our three separate bills arrived at the table, one of my coworkers picked them up and was looking at them, seeing whose was whose, when the waitress came over and took them out of his hand and said "Let me help you with those," and proceeded to read each item on each ticket as if he was an idiot. She then asked us once again if we wanted drink refills or to-go cups. When she got out of earshot, I made the comment that we should get out of there before she offered to wipe our chins or any other body surfaces.

We figured that she must have been new on the job. We imagined that less than a month from now the newness will have worn off and she'd be sitting behind the counter, cigarette dangling from her mouth, slamming down shots of whiskey while screaming "What the hell are YOU looking at?" at customers seated at dirty tables awaiting service.

We also became intrigued by the terms "smothered and covered," which in Waffle House-ese means something or other to do with cheese or onions or something like that. We discussed the idea of the cooks smothering the waitresses with pillow cases (which just happen to be handy there in the restaurant for some reason) and covering their bodies in the corner with bedsheets. Hence, the "smothering and covering." Both the pillow cases and bedsheets would have the Waffle House logo on them, of course. We also went so far as to think of stacks of waitresses' bodies stacked up by the dumpster outside, with some of them exposed because the bedsheets covering them became loose and were blowing across the parking lot.

The other evening at the grocery store, I got in line at the self-checkout behind this idiot woman who was trying to scan and bag items and mind her kids one-handed while carrying on a conversation on her cell phone. Needless to say, she kept dropping money and items all over the place and the kids kept whining and wandering off... that resulted in doubling, no... tripling... the time it should have taken if she had attempted the process phoneless. I felt my aggravation level rising and I was very, very, very close to telling her to hang up and give it a try. Maybe that what we need to do more often... tell these oblivious cell-chatters that they're taking up our time and are a general pain. But I suppose that would only be met with hostility as you confront any person with an addiction and no sense. I still cannot see why and how people talk on cell phones all the time... at ill-judged and sometimes potentially dangerous times... just to chat. They're a nuisance. If you want to chat, pull your car over to a parking lot or sit somewhere out of our way. Then, you can sit there and talk all you want with that stupid grin on your face.

Anyhoo, I got fed up and went to the express line and got through while she was still bumbling around.

I wonder how the phrase "shit-eating grin" came about? I'm sure glad I wasn't there when it is was conceived.

I bought two 35 gallon Rubbermaid storage bins the other day. It got me to wondering: why are the sizes of these type containers (and garbage cans) measured in gallons? Wouldn't it be more appropriate to measure them in height, width, and depth? Do the manufacturers think we're going to be storing open liquids in them? I'm sure the garbage men would get a kick out of lifting the lid of my cans on trash day to find them filled to the brim with egg nog.

Why are the comics in the newspaper funny pages so awful nowadays? The jokes are lame and totally unfunny... unless you're 6 years old. And what's with the continued appearance of Peanuts? Didn't Charles Shultz die a few years back? Are these reruns or did he do several years worth of strips ahead of time? I say bury that tired old strip with the cartoonist and put something new... and funny... in its place.

I've recently nicknamed my pants "The Wetlands" because that's the way they usually are.

Friday, 1/3/03 - I submitted a photo to an interesting website called The Mirror Project. This site features self portraits of photographers in all sorts of reflective surfaces. Mine's pretty lame compared to the others on there.

Here's another interesting site that contains a list of phobias.

Here is a list of my personal favorites found on the list:

• Arachibutyrophobia- Fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of the mouth.
• Barophobia- Fear of gravity.
• Cathisophobia- Fear of sitting.
• Dutchphobia- Fear of the Dutch.
• Geniophobia- Fear of chins.
• Genuphobia- Fear of knees.
• Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia- Fear of long words.
• Linonophobia- Fear of string.
• Octophobia - Fear of the figure 8.
• Pogonophobia- Fear of beards.
• Spacephobia- Fear of outer space.
• Walloonphobia- Fear of the Walloons.
• Zemmiphobia- Fear of the great mole rat.
  
  and of course...
  
  
• Phobophobia- Fear of phobias.
  

Now. here's some that I came up with that could go on that list:

• Headoncollisophobia- Fear of oncoming traffic.
• Skankaphobia- Fear of blind dates.
• Volophobia- Fear of Big Orange fans.
• Wynonnaphobia- Fear of Wynonna Judd.
• Hardeeophobia- Fear of the new Thickburger.
• Ponyophobia- Fear of carousel rides.
• Chuck'supchuckaphobia- Fear of ingesting or choking on the vomit of someone named Chuck.
• Eegahphobia- Fear of being mauled by a giant prehistoric caveman.

Hmmm... the real phobias are stranger than the ones I made up.

Wednesday, 1/1/03 -

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

On TV covering the New Year's festivities in Times Square in New York, Christopher Reeve was shown singing among the crowd gathered there. I think that they should have tied a rope around his neck and dropped him instead of the ball... maybe it could have snapped his neck back into place. Well, it was just a thought.

And what was with all the fat girls in evening gowns on Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve show? Is 2003 to be The Year of the Fat Girl?

Also... you've all seen the characterization of the new year replacing the outgoing year as a baby taking over the duties from the old man, right? What I want to know is why we never see the New Year character at any other time during the year? Like... would he be a teenager around February?

Minutes after the stroke of midnight, I went out and broke all of my New Year's resolutions all at once. They were...

• Urinating in my neighbor's mailbox
• Smoking cigarettes made from cat hair sheddings
• Wearing a shirt, but no pants, in public (like Donald Duck)
• Screaming obscenities in a duck voice (like Donald Duck)
• Shooting a BB gun at my neighbor's enormous white thighs (like Donald Duck)
• Setting my neighbors' nativity scenes on fire and sitting back in a lawn chair with marshmallows and wienies to enjoy it
• Dressing up like a werewolf and visiting several local nursing homes

I've been on vacation from work since Christmas Day and I've been loafing a lot. Other than helping my brother and his family move to a new house, I haven't accomplished very much, not even updating the (almost) Daily Comment. So, the following is a bunch of stuff that's accumulated over the past week...

I tried out this desparate plea for cash in the way of a stocking hung outside my office door...

It didn't work. No money, just someone poured a pot of coffee into the stocking.

The Yule Log
Christmas morning, I went into the guest bathroom at my house and noticed some towels in the floor and saw that someone hadn't flushed the toilet. So, like an idiot, I flushed it and watched as it overflowed into the floor. It was then that I noticed this note attached to the door...

Santa, is that your handwriting?

So, at 7:00 on Christmas morning, I was unclogging a toilet and mopping up a bathroom floor. Not your typical Christmas tradition, but par for the course at the Longmire house.

I went to a deli the other day for lunch. Near the cashier there was a can with a slot at the top for coins with this writing on the label...

PLEASE JOIN THE FIGHT
AGAINST CHILD ABUSE
IF YOU IGNORE CHILD ABUSE,
IT WON'T GO AWAY...
BUT THE CHILDREN WILL!

Wait a minute... if I get this right (and please correct me if I'm wrong), all I have to do is ignore child abuse long enough and the children will go away... and you can't have child abuse if there aren't any children, right?

PROBLEM SOLVED!!!

This video clip was sent to me last week. I laugh at it everytime I watch it. It shows what can happen in an office building when the boss is out. Enjoy.

©2003, Mark Longmire, The Wonderful World of Longmire