I received a parking ticket while in Denver a few weeks back. I went to this DISH Network deal, because the place I work at is going to start selling DISH. So, it wasn’t for fun. Hell, it wasn’t even that enjoyable. The whole thing was kind of over my head, and no one was overly friendly, and the whole thing kind of sucked. This is going to come as a complete shock, but I’m not real fond of being around people. I know, I know, I seem like such a people person. Yeah, I’m afraid that too many years of dealing with bitchy, self-absorbed people and their stinking problems that I cannot fix have led me to see the worst in people. I don’t give anyone a fair shake anymore. I just start looking for the aspects of their personalities that are going to piss me off right from the start. Life is easier this way, and believe you me, everyone can piss you off if you just give them half a chance.

So, anyway, after this DISH thing, I go out to my car and there’s a flipping parking ticket in my door. ‘What the hell?’ I think to myself… actually, I believe I may have yelled it out loud. I grab the ticket and try to figure out what it is for.

Okay, so from my rear tire to my rear bumper is in the driveway of the place I went to the DISH thing at. By the way, their driveway is like a football field wide. I had no idea I was violating any sort of ordinance, so once I get home to Nebraska, I call the number on the ticket to dispute it. It is pretty obvious that the chick who answers the phone does not like dealing with people calling to dispute tickets all day. I explain the situation to her, that I’m from out of town, that I was hardly in the HUGE driveway, that there are no markings or signs stating where you can or cannot park, etc.

“Denver statute states that you can not park within five feet of a driveway,” she obviously reads from some sort of card.

“How am I supposed to know what Denver statutes are?” I ask. I’m not being snotty or rude or anything, just asking a question.

“Well, sir,” she practically seethes, “you will have to file a protest by mail.”

“Then why is this phone number on the citation I received,” I ask.  I’m starting to feel not so polite.

“Or you can schedule a time in front of the magistrate.”  She completely ignores my question.

I hang up.

So, I send the following letter, with documentation, to the Bureau of Idiots Who  Penalize Visitors to the City and County of Denver… or whatever:

Yes, I’m anal and even included a Goggle Earth image of the driveway… just to prove my point about how long that stinking driveway was.

I mail my dispute, confident that they will let the whole situation serve as a warning and let it rest at that.  I figure the next time I go to Denver, I will know better and I will be able to follow the ordinance.  I start to have flashbacks to my dispute of my property tax increase with the idiots who call themselves commissioners for Scotts Bluff County, but I figure I can’t lose every time I battle the powers that be, right?  Right?

A couple of weeks go by, and I get the following response from the Bureau of Idiots Who  Penalize Visitors to the City and County of Denver:

Seriously… a form letter? I go off. No wonder my blood pressure is out of control and I’m on the verge of a heart attack. Every one I deal with has their head up their hiney and is out to get me.

“Screw it,” I yell. “I’ll just not pay it. What are they gonna do, send meter maid Lefebre up to Nebraska to arrest me?”

My wife tells me to calm down.

“I don’t care if they issue a warrant for my arrest in Denver.  They’ll never catch me… and if they do, they’ll never take me alive!”

My wife tells me I’m overreacting.

“I’m not overreacting!  Stupid meter maid Lefebre is obviously just a Colorado Buffaloes fan, saw my Nebraska plates,  and is taking it out on me that the Huskers kick the snot out of the Buffs almost every time they play… and I don’t even care about the stupid rivalry!”

My wife tells me I need to watch my blood pressure.  She tells me that the ticket is going to be paid and I don’t need something stupid like this going on my record.

“Fine,” I yell.  It’s kind of funny how I let everything piss me off and I end up yelling at my wife because of it.  She doesn’t think it’s really funny, but you know what I mean.  ”But I’m going to let them know how I feel about it.”

The wife rolls her eyes and smiles… which see seems to do a lot when I’m all torked off.

So, I type up the following and include it with the payment to the Bureau of Idiots Who  Penalize Visitors to the City and County of Denver:

I mailed it yesterday. They will probably receive it the first of next week, and I bet no one even takes the time to read it… but I don’t care. I feel better for having written it, and the next time I go to Denver, I’m going to violate as many parking ordinances as I can… even though I don’t have a freaking clue as to what any of them are. I bet I’ll be able to do it without even trying… and I bet meter maid Lefebre will be waiting for me…

Being short is not cool.  Short people are seldom respected, self-confident, successful, or desirable.  If being short was a positive trait, then in your youth, your parents would have lectured, “Drink your coffee.  That stuff is good for you… it stunts your growth!”  Instead, parents emphasized the danger of coffee stunting growth as a warning, much like the if-you-cross-your-eyes-they-will-stay-like-that-forever warning, or the if-you-do-that-too-much-you-will-go-blind warning.  Being short is perceived to be as undesirable as walking around for the rest of your life crossed-eyed, blind and acne-scarred… with hairy palms.  sigh Being short is not cool.

If you haven’t been able to guess this fact, I’m short.  So, what exactly does “short” mean?  Well, I’m kind of thinking that “short” means below the average height those around you.  In other words, I’m short because I’m below the average height of a male in the United States of America. Wikipedia actually has a really nice breakdown of the average heights around the world.

Ok, so I’m 5′ 7″. The average male in the U.S. is 5′ 9 1/2″. See how they do that crap? ‘1/2″ ‘. They gotta throw in that 1/2″ just to rub it in a short guys face. The bastards! And that’s just “average” U.S. males. The average “white” U.S. male (which, I’m a cracker) is 5′10″. Seriously?!? I’m a full 3″ shorter than my cracker brothers?!? sigh… no wonder I can’t seem to get a fair shake.

Alrighty, so let’s think back to short people who have been successful.  Any leaders that you can think of who were short?  Well, of course, there was Napoleon Bonaparte, right?  You know, the little French dude who was thought to be a little power-hungry.  In fact, Napoleon, had a complex named after him: Napoleon Complex.

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The Napoleon Complex is an informal term describing an alleged type of inferiority complex which is said to affect some people, especially men, who are short in stature.  So, Napoleon must have been a real shorty, huh?  Just a tiny little guy, right?  Guess how tall Napoleon was.  C’mon, take a stab at it!  That’s right, Napoleon was 5′7″!!! Oh, for crying out loud…

So, who are some other famous short guys… or, maybe I should write, who are some other guys famous for being short?  Well, there aren’t really many famous athletes.  In order to be a competitive athlete, one has to be relatively tall.  So, a career in athletics was never in the cards for me.  So when I complain that athletes are overpaid entertainers, and people say crap like, “They had to work hard to get where they are,” I have to come back with, “Yeah, I guess working hard at having parents with the right genetics earns them a multi-million dollar-per-year contract.”  Seriously.

Hey, what about Danny Devito!  He’s a short dude, right?  He’s famous, right?  He makes a ton of money, right?

Well, who would honestly want to look like Danny Devito? I mean, c’mon. If he wasn’t an incredible comedic actor, he would probably be a side-show act at a circus.

Ooh, ooh, what about Tom Cruise?  He’s real short too, isn’t he?  I mean, he’s a dinky little guy, right?  By the way, Tom Cruise is 5′7″…

Tom Cruise, is well respected, right? And he does the whole acting thing, right? He was even nominated for an Academy Award for that Born on the Fourth of July
thing, right?  And the hotties… how can anyone forget the hotties of Tom Cruise?
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Tom Cruise has done pretty well for himself. And like I wrote earlier, he’s well respected…
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I mean, it’s not like he’s a little crazy or anything…
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Oh, who am I kidding. Tom Cruise is a complete freaking nutjob…
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See, being short is enough to drive a person absolutely INSANE!

Ok, so being short sucks because you really can’t be a professional athlete, and being short can drive you crazy.  Oh, I know, there is gonna be some dipwad who says something like, “What about Spud Webb… Spud Webb was only 5′6″?”  Well, Spud Webb is what is known as an “anomaly”.  He is one of the shortest pro basketball players of all time. So people of his stature… err, our stature… are not likely to have much success in sports.  Also, Spud Webb wasn’t a cracker.  Crackers can’t jump.

In addition to the lack of multi-million dollar athletic contracts and the whole going-insane thing, short people are have a 50% higher risk of having a heart problem or dying from one . Also, tall people earn more money than short people, both due to height discrimination and also the fact that tall people are apparently smarter than short people ! For crying out loud… can us shorties catch a freaking genetic break here?!?

Even renowned marketing guru Seth Godin, who stresses that our “Lizard Brain” (which, according to Seth, is the primitive part of the brain that keeps us mired in fear and self-doubt) keeps us from accomplishing our real goals in life, uses a typical short-dude slam to get his meaning across.  Of course, Seth is saying you need to build a quality reputation and a lot of anticipation for you and your products online before clients meet you in real life (or something like that), but “I thought you’d be taller” could be taken as “I’m disappointed that you are physically short”.  I know (hope) that this is not what Seth meant, but c’mon, Seth… way to help feed the Lizard Brains of the vertically challenged!

So, yeah… us shorties have a rough go of it.  I did happen to notice on the Wikipedia link that the average height of a man in Mexico is around 5′ 4″ to 5′ 5 1/2″. Suddenly, I’m all about allowing unlimited immigration (legal, illegal… who cares) from Mexico to the U.S. Hell, let as many of our little Mexican neighbors in as want to come. In a few short years (no pun intended… who am I kidding, pun definitely intended), I will feel like a giant around all of the short Mexican dudes.

Or, maybe I should consider moving to Bolivia. Dudes are only like 5′ 3″ there. I would be like a god to them… MWAHAAHAAHAA!!!

… and all of you jerkholes who look down on us smallies, stick it where the sun don’t shine… err, or in the above picture, where the sun does shine

I always write about how nothing good comes from the panhandle of Nebraska. Apparently, my beliefs may not be 100% accurate.  On January 15, 2011, for the first time in history, Miss Nebraska was crowned Miss America.  Miss America is from Nebraska, and that is something kind of good.

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Teresa Scanlan was crowned Miss America in humble Las Vegas, Nevada at an understated ceremony viewed by a few people around the world on ABC.  Teresa Scanlan is 17-years-old (one of the youngest Miss Americas ever… and the youngest Miss Nebraska ever), plays Chopsticks on the piano like nobody’s business, fills out a bikini nicely (even if there isn’t much bikini there), looks extremely elegant in evening ware, and isn’t afraid to answer a politically-charged question with a politically-incorrect answer (and she still won?!?).  Teresa is intelligent, and her goals are not acting or a singing career or modeling.  Her goal is to find a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court… and I know that the Presidency of the U.S. is not something she sees as out of her reach.  Normally, I would scoff at a beauty-pageant winner stating that she may have her eyes on our nation’s highest office, but I have been following Teresa’s story for awhile now.  You know how some people seem to be able to actually accomplish the goals they set for themselves?  Well, Teresa is one of those people.  And the kicker is… Teresa is from the panhandle of Nebraska!  In fact, she probably lives less than a couple of miles from the humble abode I call home.  So, I guess not everything in the panhandle of Nebraska sucks.

Now, if you’ve ever read my blog before, you know that my blog posts that are completely without a complaint are few and far between.  In fact, this is my 75th post in about 1 1/2 years of blogging, and I think there have been like 3 posts without a complaint!  This post, I’m afraid, is not going to be the 4th.

In past posts, I have complained about the idiocy of Scottsbluff and Gering residents regarding the differentiation of the two communities.  Scottsbluff is proud to be Scottsbluff, and Gering is proud to be Gering.  The two small communities refuse to consolidate and become one rural powerhouse.  Instead, they remain separate in both government and attitude, and they remain two rural economic weaklings.  Gering residents especially are territorial and throw major whining fits whenever consolidation of the two communities is mentioned.  Gering, of course, is the smaller of the two communities (they don’t even have their own grocery store), and seems to be suffering from a touch of Napoleon complex.  My personal opinion is that the two communities should put aside their perceived differences, join economic forces, and become one.  With the combined talent and resources of the two communities, we could grow into the next Ft. Collins.  Or… we can stay separate, and things around this dump will never change.  Each community is already reliant on the other, and neither community will ever thrive without it’s neighbor.  Stop being neighbors and start being family!

Well, this division between these two communities was well presented after Teresa’s accomplishment tonight.  When I logged onto my Facebook account tonight, after the victory, the division was quite prevalent.  You see, Theresa lives in Gering, NE, but Teresa graduated from high school in Scottsbluff, NE.  Oh my!  Which community does she really claim?  She chose Scottsbluff as the place to complete her high school education, so she prefers Scottsbluff, right?  Oh, but she went to school in Gering, and she and her family live in Gering, so she is a Gering girl, right?  A common example of a Facebook thread is as follows:

Scottsbluff jerk’s status:  Congratulations to Scottsbluff’s own Teresa Scanlan!

Gering moron’s comment:  You realize she’s actually from Gering, right?

Scottsbluff: Well… she graduated from Scottsbluff High!

Gering:  Yeah… but she went to Gering schools too…

Scottsbluff: But she chose to graduate from Scottsbluff!

Gering: … but her family still lives in Gering.

blah… blah… blah…

Seriously… the most prestigious beauty-related award that a young woman in the United States can win… and she is from NEBRASKA, and not just Nebraska, but the PANHANDLE OF NEBRASKA… and you idiots have to argue about exactly which town she is from?!? What would Miss America think?!?

Well, I would guess that Miss America would say:

“I am proud of being from both Scottsbluff and Gering.  These two communities have every right to claim me as their own, because I love both and will continue to support both as I complete my duties as Miss America.  Scottsbluff: I will continue to shop your stores and eat at your restaurants and praise your school system!  Gering: I will… uh… I know there’s something… oh yeah… I will continue to sleep in your jurisdiction… when I’m not out doing Miss America stuff… promise!”

She is, after all, thinking of being President, so she has to learn to diplomatically lie…

Seriously…  Husker-football can’t win their way out of a wet paper bag and the Husker-girl’s volleyball choke in the tournament.  The most impressive thing to come out of Nebraska in the past few years is Teresa Scanlan… and us locals are arguing about where she is really from?!?  And people wonder why I bitch…

Once again, the Tainted Butterfly, has come through with a holiday themed header for my blog.  Thanks!

I know… I know… January isn’t even half-way over and I have a Valentine’s Day thing going on.  If Walmart can do it, so can I.  And I know… I know… hearts and flowers and crap seem kind of sappy, but I like the way my turd seems to have the hots for the floating heart.  Ahhh, young love, is there anything that makes you want to gouge your eyes out more?

Facebook: a wondrous social networking site that enables people to connect with, reconnect with, share with, support, and live vicariously through one another.  I have befriended people I haven’t really thought of since grade school.  I also have come to find out that, as much as people change, we all have certain aspects of our personalities that remain the same in adulthood as they were in childhood… especially our senses of humor.  Facebook can be a great thing.

Facebook can also suck.  Facebook is a world unto itself.  We manage relationships on Facebook differently than we handle real, live relationships in the non-Internet world.  Sometimes, however, the line between on-line relationships and off-line relationships is blurred.  I like to think of myself as the kind of guy who doesn’t really care what the vast majority of people think of him.  I like to think that I really don’t care if I piss someone off.  I like to think… not often, but sometimes…

I am trying to come to terms with unfriending on Facebook.  It’s kind of funny, I don’t believe “unfriending” was even a word until online social networks came into existence. … and it sounds so harsh.  UNFRIEND! This is the ending of a relationship.  This is making a proclamation that the person you are unfriending is no longer someone you want to stay connected with in the online world.

Have I ever unfriended someone?  Well, to be honest, I have.  I went through a phase where I was adding friends left and right.  I was friending friends’ friends, I was friending people I barely knew, and I was friending people I didn’t have the foggiest about except they played the same games I used to play on Facebook (Mafia Wars, Vampire Wars, etc.)  My friend-adding rampage was back when I was first getting this blog started.  I figured the more “friends” that I had, the more people who would click the occasional link to this blog that I shared on Facebook… and the more people that I could share my wickedly funny sense of humor with… or something.  And then I started to realize that people who don’t actually know me might not get my sense of humor.  I tend to be slightly sarcastic and, maybe, a little cynical.  Not everyone can relate.  One of the cool things about my friend-requesting rampage is that I found some people that I barely know in “real life”, or that I really don’t know at all, who have some remarkable things to say from time to time, or are just kind of fun to keep up with (the whole “living vicariously” thing).  I have found people who “get” my sense of humor, make smart-assy comments back to me, and make some pretty smart-assy posts of their own!  These people are all still my Facebook friends.  A few months after my rampage, I started going through all of these new friends that had accepted me for whatever reason.  I started to to feel kind of stupid for having so many friends who I knew absolutely nothing about.  The dude in England who was an excellent vampire in Vampire Wars really didn’t probably care that I was ready to turn 40… and probably never clicked on my links… plus he was taking up a ton of my homepage with all of his vampire-ish accomplishments.  This was the point where I went through a lot of unfriending.  I removed everyone who was just a gaming friend, and I removed everyone who I thought might be annoyed by my posts, comments, or shared links.  And then the guilt set in: the guilt that maybe some of those people that I unfriended actually liked being my Facebook friend… that even though I never heard from them in comments or relevant posts, they will miss me and feel slighted that I had unfriended them.  I felt bad… and, at times, I still do.

I still have way too many friends on Facebook.  There are still some who I have no contact with who are pretty much just taking up space in my list of friends.  But I figure, “Hey, if they want out, they can bail.”  Whether I lose those “friends” on a regular basis or not, I don’t know because I really don’t miss them when they’re gone.

What gets me is the people I know, who I actually personally know, who I have been Facebook friends with (and I assumed at least “acquaintances” with offline), who I don’t believe I have ever said anything to personally offend… who all of a sudden show up in my “people you may know” list, and Facebook points out that I can “Add as friend” these people who were … I thought… already friends (at least they didn’t completely block me, I guess).

“Hey, wait a second… we already were friends.  What happened?”  And of course, the first thing to go through my head is, “What did I do… and I’m sorry?!?”  I have no clue what I did to drive this friend away, but something happened to our online relationship that led them to horrifyingly unfriend me.  The kicker is, how do you overcome the unfriending on Facebook when you see this person face-to-face in real life again?  They made a statement that they want nothing to do with your jokey-little-ass on Facebook (where they can actually block you from certain aspects of your Facebook presence and theirs and still keep the friendly relationship), so why in the world would they actually want to even share the same breathing space with you in person?  I can’t imagine that they would.  It’s like a real human relationship has been decided by the click of one little link on Facebook: “Remove from friends”.

What’s funny is, in the real world, you may lose a friendship, but you usually know why it ended.  No one is going to come up to you in person and say, “I’m removing you from my friends… please have nothing to do with me ever again,” without you having a question or two.  Online, it just seems kind of creepy to send a message to someone who recently unfriended you, “Hey, what happened… why’d you drop me?”

For me, I just try to think that maybe they accidentally hit the “Remove from friends” link.  I could message them (or ask them in person) why for with the unfriending hostility… and if it was a mistake, they can say, “Oh, man, I didn’t mean to unfriend you… I’ll send you another invite and we can be friends again!”   Of course, I think I’d rather just suspect that the removal was an accident on their part and… someday… they will notice the mistake and request my friendship again.  We all know better, but I gotta do what I can for my self-esteem

I know that being a smart-ass and a cynic and depressingly funny at times can turn people off.  When I started this blog, I knew a few (or many more) people would be turned-off by what I was going to write.  I didn’t set out to make friends with my happy-stinking-joy attitude.  I guess my attitude here spills over onto my Facebook account from time to time (or, all the time).

With a blog, if people disagree with you, or think you’re a jerk, or wish you would get run over by a steamroller, they can leave a comment or send you an email telling you what an ass you are.  They usually just don’t go to your blog again.

With Facebook, if people disagree with you, or think you’re a jerk, or wish you would get run over by a steamroller, they can also leave a comment or send you a message telling you what an ass you are.  Because Facebook is a little more personal than a blog, for some people, unfriending must be a little less sloppy way to say they’ve had enough

Getting unfriended on Facebook is something I just need to do a better job of coming to terms with… but it makes me want to write in my online outlets how I really feel sometimes.  Oh yeah… that’s right… I’ve been doing a PG-13 version of the Happy Stinking Joy of life, while a R (or maybe even NC-17) version would help me feel like I’m getting more off my chest.  I’m gonna keep it at PG-13, however… ’cause I can’t stand losing those stinking Facebook friends…

We had to replace our dryer.  Our old dryer just pooped-out.  She had been in a state of deteriorating health for quite some time, but we have put up with her “quirks” because… well… she was our dryer.  When the wife and I were married over 16 years ago, one of the first major purchases we made was a washer and dryer.

I can remember shopping for her (the dryer… not the wife… although I vaguely remember that as well).  We went to every place in town, trying to get a good deal.  We looked at all sorts of off-name brands, but we ended up going with Kenmore from Sears.  I don’t remember the exact reasoning behind why we purchased this particular brand, but I know I have felt confident that we made the right choice.  I have never looked at our washer and dryer and thought, ‘We made a mistake by going cheap.’  We considered buying our washer at one store and our dryer at another.  ”Matching appliances” that were to end up in the basement or the laundry room or the spare bedroom were never a big concern for us.  However, the particular washer and dryer that we purchased in our first year of marriage just… well… they just seemed to go together, kind of like a newly-wed couple.
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Mr. Washer and Mrs. Dryer have been with the wife and me through thick and thin.  Whether they were cleaning the bedding and lingerie of a newly-wed couple, sitting in storage while the wife and I hopped apartments in Denver, cleaning the tiny clothes of our firstborn, cleaning dog hair off of everything after we received our family’s first dog, cleaning up the spit-up of our second-born, cleaning up the spit-up of our second-born, cleaning up the spit-up of our second-born (oh, the joys of a RSV-prone and mucous-filled child), or preparing the daily garb of a laundry-producing family of four people and one dog in present day; Mr. Washer and Mrs. Dryer have always tried to be good to us.  I have spent many a late night sitting downstairs watching T.V. or pecking on the computer, while Mr. Washer scrubs the whites and Mrs. Dryer fluffs the darks.

Listening to the two of them in harmony could be quite … err… interesting?!?  While Mr. Washer went into spin cycle and Mrs. Dryer tumbled her load round-and-round, there unison motions often caught my attention.  Mr. Washer would spin, slowly at first, and then faster and faster, shaking the stillness of the basement with his urgency.  Mrs. Dryer kept the same unison pace throughout, yet I sensed that they were working toward a common goal.  Finally, Mr. Washer, at a frenzied speed in search of some extraordinary outcome… stopped spinning.  I could tell he was spent.  Mrs. Dryer usually continued on, searching for her own “mission complete” banner.  Every once in awhile, the two of them would reach their goal at the same time: Mr. Washer’s final spin cycle quickly grinding to a halt as Mrs. Dryer’s buzzing high-pitched alarm screamed that her load was complete.  It was kind of exotic and erotic, in a very blue-collar and… uh…  pervy kind of way… probably like the erotic encounters of most married couples

Mr. Washer started having issues a little over a year ago.  He really wobbled when he went into the spin cycle, and we knew that something was wrong.  Finally, he just gave out.  Every time I tried to start a new load, he would just hum.  I tried my best to get him working on my own… which, with my mechanical expertise, resulted in several swift kicks to his nether-regions.
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Mrs. Washer did not seem to approve.
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Nothing I did (i.e. no matter how hard I kicked) worked.  We finally called an appliance repairman.  Like $50 later, some doohickey was replaced and Mr. Washer has been working like a champ ever since!
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Mrs. Dryer has been in a state of decline ever since we moved into our new house over two years ago.  It seems her heating element has been going out… or something.  It used to be that we could throw a wet load into her and, within a multitude of mere minutes, she would have it dry.  Recently, it would take a second, and sometimes third, cycle to actually remove all moisture from a load of clothes.  Apparently, she had come down with something… something terminal.  Finally, a few nights ago, she wouldn’t work at all.  I threw a load of wet mass into her, closed her door, pushed the “start” button, and… nothing.
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Crap!

I figured, initially, that this was something I could fix… given my exemplary track-record with fixing major appliances and all.  I gave her several swift kicks.  Although the kicks did nothing to spur her into action, I did seem to notice several sever looks-of-reproach from Mr. Washer.
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Ignoring the ire of her spouse, I decided to perform a little surgery.

I think I’ve already mentioned this, but my mechanical skills are a little lacking.  I blame my lack of ability on the fact that I don’t have the proper tools.  Convincing the wife that I needed to add to my haphazard tool collection, I headed to… Walmart… and bought a multimeter.  Armed with the necessary tool to assess Mrs. Washer’s condition, I started the procedure.

First, I tested the actual outlet she plugged into.  As the multimeter’s needle sprung to action with the insertion of the red thingie and the black thingie into  the slots that we are taught from early childhood not to stick anything into, my heart raced.  I realized that between my fingers raced enough electricity to kill the average mortal.  Feeling slightly immortal through my discovery, I proceeded to the removing-of-the-screws on the back of Mrs. Dryer.  Leaving the appliance plugged in, I proceeded to test this and that… not knowing exactly what I was testing, but feeling exilerated that I was playing with something with which I shouldn’t.  Not finding a clue as to the current condition plaguing Mrs. Washer, I unplugged her, turned the multimeter device to the “ohm” setting, and continued with my examination.

The ohm setting apparently tests the connection through different electrical components of a system without the necessity of outside electricity… or something.  The multimeter’s AA battery provides everything one needs.  All of a sudden, I’m not a general surgeon… I’m a “specialist”, as I test this component and that.  I become increasingly disheartened as my search proves more and more futile.  The wife recommends that we just purchase a new dryer.  I remind the wife that Mr. Washer was fixed for next-to-nothing and recommend that we try the same with Mrs. Dryer.  The wife points out that the average appliance lasts about 15 years, Mrs. Dryer is over said 15 years, and that we could really use a dryer with a little more capacity to dry our increasing quantity of clothes and linen-type-stuff as our boys grow.  Feeling like I had let Mrs. Dryer (and Mr. Washer as well) down, I somberly agree.  Mrs. Washer has fulfilled her purpose and her time had past…
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Mr. Dryer was devastated…
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After quick visits to all of the major local appliance places, we settle on a nice Maytag that Home Depot was offering at clearance prices.  We brought her home, plugged her in, and tried her out.  She works great.  She gets hotter than Mrs. Dryer ever did.  The new dryer is sleek, shiny, and has great capacity.  We like her a lot. She may have been “cheap”, but you could never tell that from her appearance!
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Okay, maybe her appearance screams “cheap”… but only in the softest of screams.

At first, I was afraid that Mr. Washer would hold some contempt towards our newest appliance.  However, I think he’s coming around
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In fact, this is the happiest I have seen Mr. Washer in a long time. His spin cycle seems to be a little faster and he cleans better than he has in years… and I can’t quite seem to figure out why…
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Appliances… go figure?

In my last post, I kind of painted Nebraska Governor Dave Heineman as a dolt.  Let me rephrase that: Nebraska Governor Dave Heineman kind of painted himself as a dolt and I wrote about it.  I really didn’t have anything positive to say about good ol’ Dave.  After thinking about it, I decided that he did deserve a couple of props, so I am going to right that wrong right now!

Governor Dave made a lot of fun of The Star-Herald !  I like making fun of The Star-Herald myself, so I enjoyed Dave’s ribbing of our “local” paper!  However, Dave made a comment about The Star-Herald not being like The Omaha World-Herald, and I kind of tend to disagree.  The Star-Herald is owned by The  Omaha World-Herald and is a lot like its parent paper.  I want to emphasize that The Star-Herald has a local staff of reporters, marketers, and support personnel who are, for the most part, good, hard-working people who do a bang-up job!  However, just because you are owned by an Omaha company does not mean that you can charge Omaha prices.  Also, The Star-Herald does not seem to have a local paper “feel”… and I can’t quantify what I mean by that, it’s just the way it is.  So bravo, Governor Dave, for making fun of The Star-Herald !

Second props go to Governor Dave for his honoring of Western Nebraska Community College’s Lady Cougar volleyball team for bringing home a national championship at the NJCAA level!  Dave proclaimed December 3, 2010 as “Cougar Volleyball Day”.
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It’s pretty cool when little podunk Scottsbluff can claim a national anything, let alone a championship.  WNCC has a great athletics program, and I don’t think we local residents appreciate our student athletes as much as we could.  Great job, Cougar volleyballers… we are proud of you!

It would have been cool to see a little higher-profile coverage given to our local national champs in our local newspaper, but I think the Huskers played that weekend…

My wife has this crazy ritual of getting up well before the butt-crack of dawn on the Friday after Thanksgiving and, with her sister, heading out to various retail locations to fight mobs of people for a very limited amount of sale items. I love my wife, and I know she is muy inteligente almost all of the time… but this yearly ritual makes me doubt her sanity.  In fact, she and her sister sit down after Thanksgiving dinner and draw out a game plan (war plan?) for the following day’s shopping blitz.   They almost always gets what they were shopping for, and they always have interesting stories to relay to the men-folk (who are usually just crawling out of bed upon the return of the shoppers).

There was apparently some hot deal at Walmart that had people lined up all the way back into the laundry soap aisle.  Apparently, there was a pair of young couples who had the foresight to grab some folding chairs from  the “folding chair” aisle at Walmart, and these couples had set-up camp in the laundry soap aisle.  By “set up camp”, I mean they had their Walmart folding chairs strung across the aisle and their laps and the shelves beside them loaded with some McDonald’s fast food and other heart-healthy treats.  And, according to the wife, each couple had a baby with them, and each mother was breast-feeding her baby… right there in the laundry soap aisle… sitting on the Walmart folding chairs.

Of course, being a guy, I’m thinking to myself, “uh huh huh… breastfeeding… that’s cool.”

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The wife, sensing the smirk on my face and the glazing of my eyes says, “Remember, this was in the laundry soap aisle at Walmart.”

“So, they weren’t hot?” I ask.

“Seriously… the laundry soap aisle at Walmart… what do you think.”

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After clearing the image from my head, I let the wife continue with her story.  Apparently at 5am, the Walmart people cut the shrink wrap off of the “special item” and the laundry-soap aisle cleared quickly.  The trailer trash that had set-up camp in aisle seven left as quickly as everyone else… leaving behind an aisle and shelves filled with chairs from another department (for all other shoppers to navigate around), their uneaten fast-food remnants, and a bunch of trash.  Seriously, someone needed to yell at these trashtastic couples, “Really?!?… I have to watch your ugly kids suck on your ugly wives’ knockers, and now I have to move through your filth to make it down this aisle?”  This would probably have led to the trailer trash yelling obscenities (’cause that’s what trailer trash does) and the holiday season could have started with a real bang!  The amount of disrespect that certain people seem to exude at any given opportunity is one of the reasons that I do not venture out on the morning of Black Friday.

According to the wife, the shoppers at Walmart were actually quite pleasant this year.  The real jerks seemed to be the upper class shoppers at Menards.  Apparently the upper class isn’t used to having to venture out early on a Friday morning and deal with other shoppers en masse in attempt to complete their holiday shopping in an cost-effective manner.  Thanks, crappy economy :D  I love it when the beginning of the Christmas season brings out the worst in people… which is what it’s all supposed to be about anyway, right?  Apparently the Menards shoppers were pretty careless with their carts full of appliances and… bean bag chairs (I don’t know what marketing genius came up with the grand idea of  having a Black Friday special on some stupid 70’s relic that easily can load up a shopping cart and make it very difficult to see where one is going when one is loaded up on them, but he/she should maybe find something else to do career-wise).  A bunch of pissed-off people pushy around carts full of crap and not being able to see (nor apparently caring) where they are going… sounds like fun, huh?  Yeah, if I had been there and some inconsiderate boob had banged me with his/her cart, there would have been a tipped over cart flying down an aisle and a string of obscenities flying from my lips (’cause I’m kinda trailer trash like that )

People, in general, tend to suck.  I’m pretty sure that many of the really sucky ones come out early on Black Friday morning… so I find it’s best just to avoid it.

Lee, the winner of the first Happy Stinking Joy Scavenger Hunt, made good on his promise to send me a picture of him in his first place prize. So, without further ado…..
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Man, that is one good looking piece of work.  I know that after everyone sees this picture, they are gonna fall in love… with the shirt!  If I do another one of these scavenger hunts, you will have your own chance to win one of these beauties.  And as you can tell from the picture, they look good on almost anything! 

Ok, so the first ever Happy Stinking Joy Scavenger Hunt is officially done.  Looks like only two people made it all the way through.  I’m thinking that 20 questions may have been too many.  I wanted it to be challenging, but I didn’t expect that it would be an all-day project.  Funny, though, that  people will spend all day managing their imaginary farms on Facebook with no real-world payout… but they give up (or won’t even start) a scavenger hunt with the real-world payout of a FREAKING AWESOME T-SHIRT

The first person to get an answer to every question to me was Aida from North Carolina!  However, she had one of the answers incorrect.  I sent her an email letting her know that one of the answers was incorrect.  In the meantime, I received a submission from Lee in Montana.  All of Lee’s answers were correct.  Then, shortly after receiving Lee’s winning response, I received the final correct answer from Aida… and that was the last response I received.

Congratulations, Lee from Montana!  Your white, XL Happy Stinking Joy T-shirt is on the way!  Thanks to both Lee and Aida for taking the time to complete the hunt!  I may do another one, or I may not.  If I do, I will make sure it doesn’t keep you away from your Farmville farm for too long… ’cause I know how important those baby chicks can be… or whatever

As far as answers go, following are the correct ones:  A=Answer

1. On this home school blog , there are some very useful product reviews… including one for The Handbook of Vintage Remedies. By what percentage is the immune system lowered by the intake of sugar products, and for up to how long? A= 40% , 4 hours

2. Jokes are always fun, if not always funny. On this joke site , there is a bar joke about Sadar. He walks into a New York bar, listens to a conversation, and says something. What does he say? Yeah, I know… I don’t get it either A= Baljith Singh Married

3. This NFL team sucks in almost every imaginable way, but they do have one thing going for them… and that thing involves pom poms The 2011 Swimsuit Calendar for these hotties was shot on location in Mexico; what is the name of the stretch of Mexican coastline where it was shot?  A= Riviera Nayarit

4. This website offers advice for the average schmo to gain control of his or her finances. Many people will testify as to the difference that this website and program have made in their financial lives. So, with that in mind, what did Pamela S. from Georgia find her credit rating at after implementing some of this program’s advice?  A= 881

5. The poignant poem “Mullet Inspiration” by Jill and Nichole H. found at this site is not only a rhyming masterpiece (seriously, even though it doesn’t always make sense, it rhymes), but the love the narrator has for mullets cannot be denied. Since what year has the narrator been growing his/her mullet?  A= 1989

6. This bizarre site offers some interesting ways to look at life. The author of this site has some very stringent recommendations for a healthy diet. In fact, if you get your Chakras all in alignment and whatnot, you may not need actual food at all. The author of this sight states that there are humans living today who receive their sustenance entirely from what non-food? See, why couldn’t the person who wrote the Sadar joke have had a sense of humor like this?  A= Light

7.  The site for our local library encourages visitors to become “friends of the library”.  How much would it cost an individual to have a lifetime membership as a “friend”?  A= $100

8.  Who doesn’t think motorcycle racing is cool?  I think motorcycle racing is cool, and so does this site.  In fact, this site is so into motorcycle racing that it has an “Official Car”?!?  Really, I ain’t kidding!  What is the “Official Car” of this motorcycle racing site?
A= BMW M.

9. Ahh… a fellow blogger.  This site is funny (some of it is adult humor).  A depressed chick making her way through life, what could be funnier… except maybe a dude dealing with a mid-life crisis, but I digress.  Her family includes a dog named Coco.  What kind of dog is Coco?  A= Miniature Australian Shepherd

10.  Who can’t get enough of LOLcats?  Yeah, I’ve had enough too.  However, there is a site that not only has the disgustingly cute LOLcat pictures, but it has some pretty cool merchandise available!  There’s this t-shirt… hahaha… about Pluto… hahaha… that starts, “Silly Pluto”… hahaha…  what is the rest of the saying on the shirt?  A= Orbiting the Sun is for Real Planets

11.  This next website is by another fellow blogger… but she has only written a couple of posts and her site seems (thus far) to focus on the “stinking” part of life that I attempt to make fun of in my blog.  Check out this butterfly’s blog, because her inspiration to start her blog (which she needs to write in WAY more often) is AWESOME!  She writes of the blogger who inspired her to start her own blog, and she writes that he and his blog are full of “_____, _____ and _____”.  Surprisingly, none of the answers begin with “s” and end with “t”, but filling in the three blanks is the answer to this question.  A= character, wisdom and humor

12.  Okay, on to a musical siren’s site.  Okay, she isn’t really a siren in the “musical” sense (’cause her singing isn’t really that good)… more in the “seductress” sense of Greek mythology, but whatever!  Whoever said “blondes have more fun” hasn’t, apparently, checked-out many non-blondes!  On this site, you will discover that the singer is going to be in a fashion show on November 30th of this year.  What is the name of the sexy fashion show?  Double whammy… second part of the question: what is the location where will she be performng live on April 5, 2011 (it’s almost like my hometown).  A= Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show ; Exhibition Way, Finnieston, Glasgow G3 8YW (Glasgow, United Kingdom would have also worked)

13.  This movie was okay… just okay… but I feel some sort of personal connection to the main character… probably because I’m a major stud… or not.  What is the main character’s full name (first name, middle initial, and last name)?  A= Richard B. Riddick

14.  WOW… talk about an ADVENTURER ! This Nebraska entrepreneur (the husband of a husband-and-wife team) holds a world record for traveling over 5300 miles in 43 days using what mode of transportation (manufacturer and model are part of the answer)?
A=  Polaris Genesis jet ski

15. I had this site commented as a suggestion on my blog post asking for suggestions for websites to use in this scavenger hunt… or some other such confusing, seemingly run-on sentence.  When I first visited the site, I thought ‘Way too chickie and feminine for me to admit I had read it and found some meaningless tidbit of info to use in the hunt’… then I noticed Charlie.  Charlie is pretty cool.  The blogger/photographer/whatever wrote a post about Charlie and had a picture of him in a bath of light.  She made a very profound statement about Charlie.  She says that there is this pattern for beings like Charlie… you have to, from time to time, be there and welcome them with open arms.  ’Cause the Charlies of the world tend to realize that they’re __________ again.  Fill in the blank.
A= Bassets

16.  This site is pretty cool.  A coworker of mine is a co-owner of this site (in fact, almost all of my coworkers have their own websites… we work at an Internet company, so we’re kinda geeky like that… and 4 of my coworkers’ sites appear in this hunt).  One of the DJs conducted an interview with the lovely Joy Whitlock.  In that interview, Joy discusses the meaning of the word “beautiful”.  In the interview, Joy states that when she thinks of the word “beautiful”, she immediately thinks of _______.  Fill it in.  A= Jesus

17.  This blogger, in one of his posts, touches discusses exactly how fast we need our Internet to be.  If you really think about it, the Internet speed we actually need to increase the quality of our lives isn’t nearly as fast as one may think.  In fact, according to this blogger (who uses as an example the world class broadband connections of South Korea), ultra-fast speeds often are little more than an enabler for online-gaming addition.  In South Korea, there may already be an entire generation of kids turning into ______ _______.  Fill in the blanks.  A=  gaming zombies

18.  I like short stories.  So, here we go.  This particular story is one of my all time favorites.  The answer will be in three parts, and you can just separate the answers with commas on my Tiny Contact Form.  For the Lottery, who assembled first?  Who is the oldest man in town?  Who selected “… a stone so large she had to pick it up with both hands…”?  A= the children, Old Man Warner, Delacroix

19.  People often ask me why I’m so hard on the Craphandle of Nebraska.  What is it about the Scottsbluff, NE area that drives me so absolutely nuts?  Well, anyone who spends a little time at Walmart will be injected with all of the negative energy that this place puts off.  Don’t want to visit Walmart, then stop in the local Verizon store when it first opens in the morning and count how many f*bombs you hear come from the mouths of people waiting in line.  Many people in this area seem to feel a sense of entitlement, and when they don’t get exactly what they want exactly when they want it, they want everyone within ear-shot to know exactly how upset they are.  That kind of negativity tends to rub off.  If the negative energy isn’t enough, there is the fact that wages aren’t exactly stellar… which probably leads to the negative energy flying off of so many of the residents here.  The organization that offers this website attempts (very poorly, in my opinion)  to bring new businesses to the Craphandle.  On this site, the economic development association provided some census-style data.  Included in this data is a snapshot of data from Scotts Bluff County.  According to the snapshot from 2008, what is the per capita income for the average resident in Scotts Bluff County.  If you are thinking that this number cannot be right, this figure is about half of what the average individual in the United States made in 2008 (according to http://bber.unm.edu/econ/us-pci.htm)  Also, from this same 2008 snapshot, which household income level finds the largest number of households resting in its range?  Yes, this is a two-part question with two answers… and yes, it is a shock anyone wants to call this place home.  A=  $21,274, $15,000 - $24,999

20.  Best blog on the Internet… PERIOD… or not.  Man Toes seem to be an issue for this blogger.  What is the name of the restaurant where preppy-boy-freak-long-toe and Mr. 65+ almost ruined the consumption of World-Class pizza?  A= Cinzetti’s

That’s it, boys and girls.  If anyone would like to know where you had to go to get to any particular answer, please send me an email and I will give you the directions I followed to get to all of the answers.  Lee, I expect that you will send me a picture of yourself in the t-shirt you won!  Again, thanks to all who participated… even if you didn’t finish