Schmaltz und Grieben mit Alois, Klaus, Deb und der Lugers

November 2007

11/27/07:

SUMMER LONG GONE: Why do I keep thinking about the beach?

Anyway, happy Tuesday!

Image credit: Vento27

Posted by Alois on

DAILY GAAAAAAZ-O-LEEEEEEN! AWARD: One day in the future, OJ Simpson has a heart attack and dies.He immediately goes to hell, where the devil is waiting for him.

'I don't know what to do here,' says the devil. 'You are on my list, but I have no room for you. You definitely have to stay here, so I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I've got a couple of folks here who weren't quite as bad as you. I'll let one of them go, but you have to take their place. I'll even let YOU decide who leaves.'

OJ thought that sounded pretty good, so the devil opened the door to the first room.

In it was Ted Kennedy and a large pool of water. Ted kept diving in, and surfacing, empty handed. Over, and over, and over he dove in and surfaced with nothing. Such was his fate in hell.

'No,' OJ said. 'I don't think so. I'm not a good swimmer, and I don't think I could do that all day long.'

The devil led him to the door of the next room.

In it was Al Gore with a sledgehammer and a room full of rocks. All he did was swing that hammer, time after time after time. 'No, this is no good; I've got this problem with my shoulder. I would be in constant agony if all I could do was break rocks all day,' commented OJ.

The devil opened a third door. Through it, OJ saw Bill Clinton, lying on the bed, his arms tied over his head, and his legs restrained in a spread-eagle pose. Bent over him was Monica Lewinsky, doing what she does best.

OJ looked at this in shocked disbelief, and finally said, 'Yeah man, I can handle this.'

The devil smiled and said:

'OK, Monica, you're outta here!'

(Hat tip: JoAnn)

Posted by Alois on

$100 FILL-UP COMING TO A PUMP NEAR YOU! No, because I was never selfish enough to drive one of these behemoths just to intimidate other drivers.

Super-SUV owners: Now it's your turn to suffer. Your turn to sacrifice. Your turn to see how the "little people" live.

Couldn't have happened soon enough for me.

Posted by Alois on

11/25/07:

SO. WHAT'S GOING ON IN THE WORLD? Let's just say that I don't read the news expecting to be uplifted... but after having to live on bits and pieces gleaned from carelessly tossed newspapers, I think a weekend examination is in order.

Shocka: Syria to Attend US-Sponsored Mideast "Peace" Conference

I think we can all thank Condi Rice's pointless nattering for that. And I'm sure that the Syrians really do want peace... of Israel.

Shocka: Saudi Arabia Marks 136th Beheading of 2007

Well, 'tis the season. The preverbal savages that export terrorism and oil (in that order) keep on doing what they do best.

Shocka: Internet Crooks Steal Billions

They noticed!!!

Shocka: Sarkozy's Resolve Ends French Transit Strike, Students Whine in Protest

Which shows us once again that possibly the only thing in the world more sniveling and deluded than an American college student is a French college student.

Shocka: Government Halts Illegal Alien Employment Crackdown to Rework Rules

No surprises here, except that doing it to appease a judge in San Francisco has to be some kind of new low.

Shocka: Britney's New Album Bombs

Hey, it couldn't have happened to a nicer girl.

And speaking of which... if the music-buying public is sick of this "artist," shouldn't the news media take a hint?

And that was the week that was.

Posted by Alois on

11/22/07:

A THANKSGIVING STORY (reposted, as per yearly tradition, in honor of Michael): Back when my son was seven or eight, his mom was sick with some kinda nasty virus. I was feeling a little green around the gills myself, like I was probably next in line.

It was the kind of flat gray, chilly day that is nearly ubiquitous here in Wisconsin during the month of November (I guess it's weird, but I have always loved days like that). As morning turned into afternoon I was feeling less and less of an appetite; my wife didn't want to even look at food, much less drag herself through the six hour chore of making The Traditional T-Day Dinner. But my son, as little kids are wont to do, was getting hungry.

Back in those days there was a little country store called Steckel's just down the road from us. It was dimly lit, usually empty, and sold only about three things: Beer, tobacco, and hot dogs (that wasn't enough to keep poor old Steckel in business with all the urban people moving south of Madison, but that's a story for another time). Anyway, whenever I went to Steckel's—for beer or tobacco products, typically—I'd pick up a hot dog for my son, who used to have a major jones for hot dogs.

As the day began to darken, which happens at about two in the afternoon in a Wisconsin November, I was trying to get it together in my head to at least go to the supermarket and pick up a roast chicken or something. At least pretend that we were having Thanksgiving dinner.

But then my son had a brilliant idea. "Hey Papa, just forget the Thanksgiving dinner thing. Let's go to Steckel's for some hot dogs!"

He didn't have to work very hard to convince me. Maybe I could manage to choke down a dog. I wasn't feeling very well at all.

We got to Steckel's in the somber gray dusk, bought our hot dogs (which had slightly stale buns and had been on the grill too long) and went right back home. It seemed like a singularly beautiful moment to me; the fact that my son was possessed of that kind of empathy, all the many, many things my family and I had to be grateful for, the battleship gray of the fields and the sky which foretold snow on its way. We ate our hot dogs and watched Planes, Trains and Automobiles, our perennial Thanksgiving movie.

My son has never forgotten that day. "Our best Thanksgiving ever," he says.

I would have to agree.

Happy Thanksgiving!

[UPDATE 11/22/07 PM: This year, besides the usual stuff (of which there is a LOT), the thing I'm most grateful for is having my son move back to the United States from Israel. Yesterday we spent some time playing his new PlayStation game, "Guitar Hero"—Mike blasted through all 16-odd minutes of "Free Bird" and got a hysterical ovation from the "crowd." When it was my turn, I honked and bleated a few notes before the song aborted in mid-stanza and a message informed me that I sucked really bad. "Well," said Mike in a rueful nod to his paternal unit, "I suppose it does beat learning to actually play the guitar."

And I was reminded of the many, many reasons why, at the end of the day, kids are worth the hassle. No matter what Rachel Lucas says.]

Posted by Alois on

11/20/07:

...AND IT'S ACTUALLY TUESDAY! Sorry for my recent discombobulations. Things will be right again in fairly short order. In the meantime...

Happy Tuesday!

Posted by Alois on

11/19/07:

I LEARNT IT ON THE INTERNETS, SO IT'S GOTTA BE TRUE: I see so much ridiculous stuff out there that I think it's safe to say that this will be an ongoing feature.

Let's start with humor. Internets Rule No. 1:

If it's funny, George Carlin said it.

That's not to say that George Carlin hasn't actually said some funny stuff (remember his "golf course" riff?)... but quotations attributable, in real life, to everyone from General George Patton to the Dalai Lama have somehow been laid at Carlin's doorstep.

I guess, if you were a comic, it would be a humbling experience to be seen as the world's Internet's only funnyman.

Posted by Alois on

11/18/07:

HAD ENOUGH OF OIL BARONS CALLING THE SHOTS? Our engineers had better get busy right quick and in a hurry. Need proof?

Chavez Warns of Higher Gas Prices
if US Strikes Iran

Yeah. Let's have Hugo Fuckyourself and a bunch of Islamic terrorists dictate American foreign policy, because we just can't wean ourselves away from SUVs, ATVs, and having all our freight hauled by truck instead of railroad...

Posted by Alois on

"PEACE" IS NOT THE ABSENCE OF WAR: Perhaps the most depressing aspect of working in a leftist city like Madison is the constant feeling that the so-called "grownups" are more immature than the most naive dairy-farm kids I ferry home from school in the afternoon.

A popular sign adorning the lawns of university professors and their ilk on the Madison isthmus:

IT'S TIME FOR PEACE
STOP THE WAR NOW!

Well, perhaps if these people hadn't grown up in the hyper-insulated environment of Madison (where the kids aren't taught the unpleasant truths about the Second World War because it might upset them), they would understand that war is never over until you have secured the unconditional surrender of your enemy (see under "World War II" above). How utterly stupid do you have to be to believe that you can just put down your guns and walk away from an enemy like al Qaeda?

And I'm driving a bus for a living.

Posted by Alois on

REASON 7,876,900... that it's called the "People's Republic of Cambridge."

This is the kind of crap that makes me want to send a box of my dog's crap to the Cambridge City Council--with a big RED bow on top of course, perhaps a nice hammer and sickle to go along with it (or maybe the ChiCom star be more appropriate, hmmmm....More current at least).

During last week's elections, a troop of Boy Scouts set up donation boxes at polling places to raise money for the troops in Iraq. In typical Cambridge fashion, the city removed the boxes and the Boy Scouts because they may have had a "pro-war" bent.

Marsha Weinerman, executive director of the city's Election Commission, said the boxes were removed after a resident complained to commission workers about their implied "pro-war" message.

"We contacted the law department, and it was determined that the best course of action would be to remove the boxes," Weinerman said.

Way to stand up to those preteen hawks, Cambridge.

The Secretary of State told the Cambridge Chronicle that most of the Scouts' booths were legal.

Weinerman cited a law that prohibits political messages near any polling station in an election. But state law prohibits political messages pertaining to a particular election within 150 feet of any polling station, according to a spokesperson for Secretary of State William Galvin's office. There is no law stopping someone from promoting an unrelated political message within 150 feet of any polling place.

Can we say they're "anti-troop" YET???

I mean, if the recent passage by the House of that pile of dreck known as the "Iraq funding bill" weren't enough to clue us into the way liberals really feel about our troops, this story ought to do the trick, don't you think?

Posted by Deb on