Check out this hilarious post about a very playful pup on dot.bench.

“The sheeping of America is nearly complete.”

— Ted Nugent

Boy, did I hit a wall in Reality last night. Everything was going pretty normal when the evening started: The doggie and I got home around 6pm, and I made a small pot of half-caffeinated coffee. I strung some Christmas lights on my balcony, then sat on the balcony and drank a cup, while looking out at the world and allowing these lights to color my perspective. Then I settled in at the computer with a second cup about 6:45, checked my e-mail and opened a chapter file to do some rewriting.

The next thing I knew, it was 8:30. I came out of a deep sleep totally confused and disoriented. I didn’t know if it was 8:30am or 8:30pm. But it’s dark. Why am I here? What day is it? For a full minute, I didn’t remember sitting down at the computer. I had a bad pain in my neck from sleeping 90 minutes in an office chair. I should try to make it to the bed.

Finally, I recovered my senses and decided to have dinner and watch TV, both activities so proximate to the core of Being as to effectively re-grid the most acute aphasia of spacetime. The only problem: I wanted cereal and toast.

Steven Wright used to say If Reality wants me, it will call back later. Well, last night it called me and got a busy signal.

I’m working on the book tonight, but I’m a little curious about something. Chapter one has been posted for about a week and a half, and no one has mentioned checking it out. Chapter two is ready, so I’m wondering is anyone is interested in seeing it. Please leave a comment. Thank you for your support.

Tonight we welcome a new recommendation to the blogroll in metaphor’s right hand gutter: http://myparkbench.com/ . I found this fine blog through blogexplosion, and I’ve been lurking for a while.

There are good reasons for my suggestion that you read this blogger’s stuff: he’s funny, he writes well, and he has a puppy. Can’t go wrong.

Secretary of Kaos Donald Rumsfeld, on being asked why US soldiers have to dig through scrap heaps to try to armor their own vehicles:

“I’ve talked a great deal about this with a team of people who have been working hard at the Pentagon… if you think about it, you can have all the armor in the world on a tank and it can blow up…”

Now you can see why I wanted so desperately for this flying monkey to be one of those fleeing the castle this fall. Unbelievable.

The title of this post is from the movie Stripes. When asked by an officer where his sergeant is, Bill Murray’s character says, “Blown Up, Sir.”

Very funny cartoon for those who just love dealing with 3rd world tech support.

I think Bush is (imagine this) telling the truth when he says that our troops will return with honor. But I don’t see how we can substantiate it, if the media aren’t allowed to photograph the return of coffins.

Swift blazing flag of the regiment,

Eagle with crest of red and gold,

These men were born to drill and die.

Point for them the virtue of slaughter,

Make plain to them the excellence of killing

And a field where a thousand corpses lie.

–Stephen Crane, War is Kind

Dad got a plane from the UPS guy the other day. An early Christmas present from Mom I guess. It has an air-propelled, single piston engine and Styrofoam wings. We took it to the park by the beach. I got some pictures with Dad’s phone.

If you look closely in these pictures, you’ll see The Spot , which has some of the best burgers on the planet. I don’t go there, because I don’t want to get hooked on the damn things. Sooner or later, the relationship would have to end badly.

The brown house to the left of the Spot is The Old Hotel, now a private home. People used to say it was haunted. I doubt it. Why would a ghost hang out in a house that close to the ocean, when it could just haunt the beach? … Come to think of it, maybe it was the garden that was haunted. That makes more sense.

Dad went by himself today and flew the little plane again. Said it almost got away on the wind. Climbed a couple hundred feet, over the Spot and the Old Hotel, and landed in the middle of the street. All glory is fleeting.

An interview here with singer/songwriter Richard Buckner. I keep searching, hoping someone will post lyrics so I can get a better grip on them. Some are like my poetry, others like my fears.

While our moral hysteria marginalizes and disenfranchises swaths of our society, our moral values leaders are doing their damnedest to leave a choking wasteland for the children to live in. This isn’t some pie-in-the-sky vague warning, friends. The sky isn’t falling; it already has. The Republican controlled Congress, and the barely self-controlled president, are eviscerating decades of environmental laws as we sit in our comfy chairs right now.

I can understand wanting to move the gays to the back of the civil rights bus. It’s not like this is a country that claimed to stand for tolerance and inclusion. Freedom … humbug! We’re cowboys, not interior designers. But the environment, people, is where we live. It’s not just what goes on in the places we can see from the places where we go on vacation. It’s all one web, and anything we let them do in the places on Discovery Channel has real effects right on our block. Besides, if you think you don’t have some sort of ecological disaster going on within a bike ride of your house, you’re confused.

What are we going to do about this? We tried getting a new president and that didn’t work. Any ideas?

Have you ever loved someone so much that you couldn’t stand the thought of losing them? But you knew you were going to, and it was going to tear you up. But maybe you could make a deal … Oh God, please let me keep this dog.

Ever feel left behind by life, alone in the world, empty-hearted, with nothing but your memories? Ever feel like your memories are haunting you? Or maybe you are haunting them.

Do I still have your attention? Thank you. On my Web site, there’s a page of my writing. Poetry and very short stories. I’ve just described The Guy who Wanted a Dog and Garden Window. You’ll find them there. I promise there is nothing on that page that takes more than 5 minutes to read. Hope you like it.