Some folks

have all the luck. You read about them once in a while - bought a house, found some cool antique firearm in the attic. Bought property, there was some cherry old muscle car in the barn. Bought a car, found a couple kilos of really good cocaine in the trunk...okay, maybe not that last one so much.

I never find anything. And I always thought that was a bummer.

Until I had cause to remember that not all surprises are happy ones. Today we have: Man Discovers Severed Leg in Smoker Bought at North Carolina Auction

[mother of the leg's original owner] Peg Steele, explained her son had his leg amputated after a plane crash and kept the leg following the surgery "for religious reasons" she doesn't know much about.

I'm really not aware of the set of religious beliefs that require keeping severed limbs and storing them in slightly-useful cooking appliances. Then again, there are a lot of thing I don't know.

"The rest of the family was very much against it," Steele said.

The rest of the family knew? What did they do, sit around at Thanksgiving and, as this mother griped about the fact that her daughter was a few pounds overweight and didn't dress in a manner that would lend itself to landing her a doctor husband, dread the segue to Aunt Peg's Lecture On Why Keeping Your Severed Limbs Is Tacky?

Big weird world out there, folks.

Conversations from a gas station

Gas gets steadily more affordable as one leaves the Florida Keys, passes through Miami, crosses Alligator Alley, and procedes north on I75. One does not want to buy much more at $3.35/gallon than necessary, when 50 miles down the road it will be $3.19.

That's why, today, I found myself in pretty serious need of gas on the Alley (that's the empty stretch of 75 that crosses from Miami to Naples). So I stopped at the Mobil station on the Indian reservation.

I gassed up, used the bathroom (it smelled), then wandered into the store for water, cigarettes and a snack. As soon as I walked in, a guy stepped up to me. A very large, bald, muscular, intimidating guy. Did I mention he was really big?

To my deep, sincere and heartfelt relief, he smiled. "I like your bumpersticker," he growled, with some very heavy accent. "The one about Israel."

I have an "I support Israel" sticker on my Jeep.

"Oh," said I. "Thanks." I grabbed my water and a snack (which I am not confessing the specifics of because it's pathetic) and got in line. The very large man was in front of me, with a small boy maybe eight years old.

He smiled again. I think he realized he'd scared the bejesus out of me.

"I'm from Israel," he said.

"That's cool," I answered. "I've never been there, but someday I'd like to go." I would, and it seemed like an appropriate response.

"What's the other sticker, the one with the knife?" he asked.

"An Army combat action badge," I answered. It's not much - it basically says, something unfortunate happened to me and I didn't run screaming, but I'm proud of it.

He smiled again and left, and the cashier rang up my stuff, which came to a little over $6.

"Were you in Iraq?" she asked.

"Yeah," I said. And the bill magically decreased to $5. "Hey, thanks." I smiled, she smiled. That's an awkward moment, but an appreciated one.

As I walked out the door, the small boy who belonged to the large man came running up to me.

"My Dad said you should take his card." He held out a business card.

Huh? I took the card, thanked the boy (who ran away), and headed back to the Jeep. As I walked, I glanced down.

I, apparently, had encountered Mr. Mike Lee Kanarek, chief instructor at this place.

According to his biography, I was entirely correct to be very happy he approved of my bumpersticker.

Between the ages of 6 and 18, Mike studied judo and then karate until joining the IDF at age 18 in 1985. After serving three years as a Special Forces member in Orev Golani (one of the most elite commando units in the IDF) where he was extensively trained in KAPAP among other combative methodologies and technologies, Mike was honorably discharged as an outstanding soldier.

It goes on from there.

Now, this is the internet, and it's hard to tell for sure how much truth is in anything out there, but since Mr. Kanarek is, if nothing else, a large and intimidating man, I will officially err on the trusting side. He gets an impressed daaamn from me.

And other than being big and scary, he was a very polite man, and the boy who was with him (I assume his son) also appeared polite and well-mannered.

Huh.

From CNN - Snake-brandishing woman gets house arrest

This is exactly what it sounds like. Girlfriend held off the fuzz by brandishing five (no shit, five) venomous snakes.

Officers were trying to prevent the despondent woman from harming herself with a hunting knife when the confrontation took place October 25, police said.

Jackson picked up two western diamondback rattlesnakes, a pigmy rattlesnake and two copperheads to try to keep police from taking her into custody, authorities said.

Jackson, who was raising the snakes for laboratories, received several bites during the standoff and was taken to a hospital after police subdued her with a stun gun.

Wow. I mean...damn. I wouldn't do that. I find snakes...frightening. I don't kill them, I just wish they'd wear bells or orange flags or something. I hate being startled. I hate most of all being startled by a snake.

Then again, if you're brandishing them, you're not being startled, are you?

On the downside of this, you get bitten by the snakes. And they take your snakes away.

On the positive side, it's better, apparently, to hold off the coppers with reptiles than with a rifle.

I have a relative (NOT immediate family) who held off some Michigan State Troopers for a while with a rifle. They took his rifle away and he spent a not-insignificant period of time in prison. Pointing a gun at the cops is a serious felony. Pointing a snake appears to be...a little gentler in terms of repercussions.

Keep this in mind the next time you have a stand off with your local law enforcement agency.

(Disclaimer: We actually approve most highly of cops and don't think you should engage in any standoffs with them. If you must, we recommend using non-venemous snakes, because after all is said and done, everybody can have a good laugh about blue racers. Not so with the green mambas)

Sign me up

For the clinical trial.

Now, I'm not a Cosmo-type gal, but I enjoy picking between sizes 6 and 8 rather than 10 and 12. I put in some effort to be able to do that, though.

I'd love to be able to put in less effort, though. Effort sucks. And this pill...

...the animals also ate around a third less food than they normally would.

But that's not the primary draw...

The hormone-releasing pill has so far only been given to female monkeys and shrews who displayed more mating behaviour and ate less.

Now, of course, it can't just be the Fun Skinny More Sex pill, so they have to issue a disclaimer:

a psychologist said low-libido was usually caused by relationship issues.

Well, duh. But the pill that might make it possible to overlook the fact that the man in your life has spent the last nine hours on the couch giggling at his own farts?

If this shit actually works out, it'll be the fastest drug in history to be FDA approved and to be entirely covered by every insurance plan in America.

Then, of course, two years after approval, we'll learn it causes eyelid cancer and excessive hair growth on the elbows. But know what? Nobody will give a damn.

Good job, British scientists!

Good news for my boozehounds

Now, if the major media outlets spent more time letting us know about this kind of thing...

Adding ethanol -- the type of alcohol found in rum, vodka, tequila and other spirits -- boosted the antioxidant nutrients in strawberries and blackberries, the researchers found.

Any colored fruit might be made even more healthful with the addition of a splash of alcohol, they report in the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture.

Fruity drinks as health food? Out-freaking-standing.

Now, I know you're thinking, Abby, we know you drink beer. And we know you drink wine. And we know that the voices in your head have, on occasion, caused you to drink scotch. But fruity drinks?

Oh, yes. Life is far too short to avoid the yummy, boozy drinks with umbrellas. Now, I rarely have the opportunity to drink umbrella drinks - I do not, much as I'd like to, live in a beachfront tikki bar (although if my entire life doesn't fall into line in short order, that's always on the table).

But when the opportunity arises, I believe firmly in the fruity drink. Now, I'm not into orange juice, and I generally dislike peach schnapps (are you seeing the options narrowing?). Frozen drinks are...well, I find they get tedious. And a little tequila goes a long way.

So where does that leave us? Lots of places, really, but I have an affinity for the Singapore Sling. It's red, and fruity, and because I ran across it somewhere in Asia, I have happy memories associated with it.

Little did I know until I ran the Google search that the correct recipe for said drink is shrouded in confusion and is the topic of discussion among the sort of people who discuss that sort of thing. Check out this lengthy discussion.

Huh. Well, it's been a while since I last ordered one, but as I recall, the good ones are a deep red.

Anyway, go get yourself a fruity drink with an umbrella. They're good for you! If you have suitable companionship available, find a bar that has a patio and some torches and consume your entire RDA of fruits from a large, silly glass.

WTF?

So I picked up the phone and dialed a number. And got that weird, disconnected busy signal. I tried again a couple minutes later. Same thing. Tried a local number. Same thing.

Huh.

Grabbed my cell. It can't complete any outbound call.

Emailed a buddy. She can't get a call through on either phone.

What the Hell?

My phone runs on the same FIOS lines as my internet access (which, we can see, works). My cell is an entirely different company.

I can only think of one thing that would cause this, and it doesn't make any sense, because I can't imagine why anyone would be running high-powered frequency jamming equipment here.

Well, I can, actually, but I don't think the couple of entities on the base that would have that shit would switch it on during a workday.

This is annoying.

Things you see on the road

I was driving from Jacksonville, North Carolina west to I95 quite early yesterday morning. It's a pretty area, fairly agricultural. I was on a fairly major state highway, but it was a regular two-lane in a lot of places.

And what did I get stuck behind, ladies and gentlemen? I got stuck behind this.



Yep. That's a truck full of chickens.

In the words of my Dad, that reminds me of a song.

Unlike my Dad, however, I will not sing that song for you. I will merely provide you with a link where you may hear it. Don't buy the damn song - it's not that good. Just click on "preview" and you'll get all you want, I promise.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you...John Anderson's classic, "Chicken Truck."
And yes - I do have this on CD.

Learning from the mistakes of others

I have no idea whether this is true or not. But The Smallest Minority found a post on the Mississippi Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks message board that can serve as a caution for all of us who've ever looked at a deer and thought, I wonder if I could rope one of those?

The answer, apparently, is yes. But it doesn't sound like a very good idea. Excerpt:

A brief 10 minutes later, it was tired and not nearly as quick to jerk me off my feet and drag me when I managed to get up. It took me a few minutes to realize this, since I was mostly blinded by the blood flowing out of the big gash in my head.

Now go read the whole thing.

Today's mystery object

I found this while I was walking the Bad Dogs and I couldn't help but pick it up.



No - not the cigarettes. The object. The cigarettes are just there so you can see its size.

I was utterly perplexed. It's heavy, but not as heavy as a lead sinker of the same size would be. I was initially quite concerned it was something ass-related, because that would be my luck.

"Oh? You're looking for your shiny metallic suppository? Well, I think it's IN MY POCKET!"

But I don't think so. When I took it out of my pocket and set it on the counter, the behavior of nearby objects immediately told me that my object is magnetic. Very magnetic.

So what do you think it might be? The closest thing I can think of is a cow magnet, but it's a little small and the shape isn't quite right. Please - if you know, let me in on the secret...

There's a moral in here somewhere...

From CNN - Sword seized after man mistakes porn for rape

A man says he broke into an apartment with a cavalry sword because he thought he heard a woman being raped, but the sound actually was from a pornographic movie his upstairs neighbor was watching.

I should have something to say about this beyond, "Huh." But I'm not sure what it would be. I guess the moral would be - turn down the volume if you have shared walls. Or something. I dunno. It makes my head hurt, so I think I'll go buy some fruit.

Oddly, we do note this occured in Wisconsin, even though it's the sort of thing that one would expect to have happened in Florida.

This amuses me

From CNN, we have U.S. seniors fight off muggers, killing one

One of the tourists -- a retired U.S. serviceman whom officials estimated was in his 70s -- allegedly put Warner Segura in a headlock and broke his clavicle after the 20-year-old and two other men armed with a knife and gun held up their tour bus Wednesday, said Luis Hernandez, the police chief of Limon, 80 miles east of San Jose.

Well done, Mr. 70-something former servicemember!

I did NOT shoot these clowns

Literally.

Somebody shot two clowns in a circus in Columbia.

My maternal great-grandmother dislikes clowns. My maternal grandmother thinks they're creepy. My mother hates clowns. I hate clowns. Someday, if I have a daughter, I shall teach her to hate clowns.

But still, I didn't shoot these clowns. I've been here in Tampa. You can check.

Cat Torture?

We're having a little debate here in the greater Tampa area, and it centers on an age-old question: How evil is dressing up your pet?

Apparently, Checker/Rally, a local/regional burger joint, is sponsoring some sort of "Rapcat" contest. When I saw the headline, I figured it had something to do with cats and urban music. So I clicked on the link.

And apparently, no - it did not involve music. It involved, literally, wrapping one's cat. In a decorated paper bag. With head and leg holes cut in. Actually, TBO referred to them as "armholes," but I don't think cats technically have "arms." The cat owner is supposed to decorate said bag with the logos of favored sports teams and then take pictures. The pictures are to be sent somewhere, and apparently, the best pictures will net the winning owner...something.

Huh? I followed the link to the "rapcat" site. There's no information there, but there is a picture of a stuffed cat dressed as a "rapper."

Which makes me wonder about the paper-bag sports-team thing.

Whatever. The good people at Hillsborough County Animal Services are concerned that beyond just being stupid, this activity could be cruel. Because perhaps (and Animal Services wasn't taking a hard stand on this), most cats would not enjoy being shoved into a paper bag.

Well, the official Bad Dog position is one that supports humiliation of cats. However, we do not under any circumstances support any form of meanness to any pet animals.

We recognize that the act of shoving a cat in a paper bag would, under most circumstances, pose absolutely no threat to anything except the dignity of the cat in question. Whatever idiot would try to shove a cat in a paper bag would probably also suffer severe arm lacerations, which strikes us as appropriate. So at first blush, we SUPPORT the idea of shoving cats in paper sacks.

HOWEVER - this contest appears to be non-specific, tacky and stupid. We feel that the target audience of this contest is probably also quite stupid, and thus we're not certain they can be trusted to shove cats in bags without taking things too seriously and hurting the cats.

So - upon review, our verdict is one of disapproval. We do not support this dumbass "rapcat" contest. You shouldn't either. Find other ways to humiliate your cat that don't encourage corporate entities to dream up stupid shit like this.

We're all gonna DIE!

Holy shit - it's the ATTACK OF THE KILLER PEANUT BUTTER!!!!!!!!!



This is the Bad Dog Family Peanut Butter. I did not for a second suspect it was lurking in our house and planning to kill us. Forunately, WFLA, our local NBC affiliate, provided us with THIS TIMELY REPORT.

Surely, though, our peanut butter doesn't want us dead, right? WRONG!



It's got the Peanut Butter Mark Of The Beast - a series number that begins with "2111..."

Maybe THAT explains THIS...



I'm unsure of what to do with this peanut butter. We've all been FINE. And it's barely half-used. So I don't really want to throw it away. But we probably shouldn't take any chances. I think tomorrow I shall take it out and BLOW IT UP. That seems the sensible course of action.

Frank discussion

...of an adult topic.

Listen, I'm really thrilled that there are products out there to help men "of a certain age" continue to...experience all facets of life in a satisfying manner. Know what I mean? I really am happy for all involved. Sex rocks. I assume it would suck to want sex, be in a situation where sex was available, and not be able to have sex.

So I'm totally over the Levitra, Viagra and Cialis commericials. With the exception of the dude throwing the football through the tire swing, they don't bother me a bit. "Smiling Bob" from the Natural Male Enhancement commercials is cool.

But now there's a new one. Who out there has seen the Maxoderm commercial? There are two and they usually run back to back. The first one is pretty normal, late middle-aged dude in a bar picking up some sleazy chick. But the second one...I defy you to watch it and think anything except, "that's an Amway salesman picking up a hooker!"

And for some reason, the commercial sets it up like the hooker cares that they guy is using Maxoderm. I totally don't get that. I mean, other than shortening the total amount of time before she grabs the stack of 20's off his nightstand at the Amway convention hotel, what the hell does she care about his...potency?

A note - I really tried to bring you all this commercial for easy viewing. The only youtube maxoderm commercial, though, is a different one. And the Google search? You don't want to hear about that.

Just FYI

I'm from West Michigan. You do not want to know about the google search that led to this information, but I was pleased to learn that if you want to see DRAG QUEENS and play EUCHRE at the same location, you can do it in West Michigan.

I can hear Mom and Dad heading out to the car right now. I know Dad likes euchre, and everybody likes drag queens.

Anyway, here's the site. You can thank me later.

Can't stop...

I just can't! Forgive me!

Are YOU the father of Anna Nicole Smith's baby? As near as I can tell, somewhere between three and six men are currently claiming to be the father.

I'm reasonably sure Mr. Abby isn't the father, because he's pretty hispanic and the baby looks pretty white, but you can never know for sure.

So! If you're the father, speak up! Leave your confession in the comments! Maybe we can ALL go on the Nancy Grace show and talk about it.

Uh-oh - Sparky is now claiming to be the father! I thought Sparky was neutered, but the jury is still out!

I can't help myself

It's like a messy car wreck, I cannot turn away.

Local new site headline: Smith's autopsy under way; mother blames drugs for her death

No shit?

Yes - I clicked on it. I feel so...dirty. But here's a great one:

In another bizarre twist to the case, the husband of actress Zsa Zsa Gabor, Prince Frederick von Anhalt, claimed that he might be the father of Smith's infant daughter.

This is the most thought I've given to this woman at any point in her sordid life. And I honestly can't decide whether this media frenzy is infuriating or sad. This woman's entire life, and her death, adds up to nothing but a punchline to a tacky joke. Bummer.

I'll try to stop now.

Rev. Ted Haggard Part II

Praaaaaaise Jeeeeesus, Reverend Haggard is healed! He's totally straight now.

Nope, no more of that sweet man-on-man lovin' for Reverend Ted. 'Cause, you know, the man prostitutes and the drugs were the Devil, working through Ted. He's much better now. No sidelong glances at attractive young men. No late-night slow drives through seedy districts, seeking company. No "off the books" time at his wild and crazy praise conventions.

Nope. He's fixed.

I can't help but comment about this guy. Every time I catch an article about him, I'm probably going to have to say something about it. It's just too precious.

Well, I'll be damned....

So I just got this forwarded email from Abby's Mom. It was a link from an old school friend of mine who...(c'mon, can you guess?)...has a blog! Groovy...

I kinda checked out of my hometown in a big way when I joined the Marine Corps. There weren't many people I cared to keep knowing, but Jess is one I feel very bad about not doing better at keeping up with. She's a wonderful person. She came to my wedding, and visited when I got back from downrange.

So I went to her blog. And it looks like her life is very good right now. And you know, there's probably no reason for that to make me as happy as it does. Actually brought a tear to my stony little eyes. Good for Jess.

So, without further ado, if you care to drop in on her, go here.

Damn. The blogosphere. Cool.