Some of This and Some of That, Part 2

From My Journal

Go Dave!

August 2005

     In this day and age one is hard put to find real heroes, but occasionally one comes along. Such is the case with David Owen Rye who was so annoyed by a noisy car alarm that he fired three bullets into a Toyota Camry, silencing the alarm and bringing the police. The police didn’t appreciate his actions and neither did the Camry. Now tell me if ya’ll haven’t wanted to do that same thing at some point in time. 

Strikers Beware

August 2005

     Today union strikers shut down England’s Heathrow Airport for most of the day. The report said that 70,000 travelers were affected. It caused more consternation, resentment, confusion, and misplaced people than the terrorist subway bombings that recently took place in London. The only difference was that no one was killed. That’s probably because the travelers couldn’t readily get their hands on the strikers. 

Running Was Never This Fun Before

Friday 2005

     You will all be glad to hear that after two days of the Running of The Bulls, in Pamplona, Italy, no one has been reported injured. I knew you’d appreciate that. But you have to understand what they don’t call an injury. They don’t call it an injury just because you have to go to the hospital to get your head sewn up, cracked ribs taped up, or put to bed until you come out of the coma. And they don’t call it an injury if a one-half ton bull puts a horn into your body, as long as he uses an existing orifice. Getting trampled or tossed through a storefront won’t even get you honorable mention. This year, for the first time since this insanity started, they are letting the fairer sex run. By that I mean women. (Now days you have to be specific.) And I say, good for them. Men have looked stupid enough for way too long, now we have some company.

Bears Beware

October 2004

     I was glad to hear that for the first time in about fifty years, the state of Maryland is having a bear season. That means that for a couple weeks people are allowed to go out into the woods to try and kill a bear. It seems that the state has more bears than they think they need. I’m not sure if anyone asked the bears for their opinion. Anyway, these hunters, to be able to sneak up on the bears, smear themselves all over with horse manure so that the bears can’t smell them coming. But the problem is the bears can smell the breath of these hunters, evidently regardless of how much mouthwash they’ve used. So some genius has developed a chewing gum that will confuse the bears--I guess, much like the horse manure thing.
     
     Now they don’t say what’s in this gum or what it tastes like, but I figure that if the house manure works on the rest of the body, why not--well, you get it I’m sure. How, when you think of high intelligence, a bear is not usually the first thing that comes to min—clever and quick learners up to a point, but higher reasoning ability is just not the bears’ thing. So we have these not-too-bright bears out in the woods, along with these supposedly much brighter hunters, who are covered in horse manure and chewing on something equally disgusting--I mean, from just a casual observation it might be hard to determine which specie has the higher intelligence.

“Put Down Those Nail Clippers and Slowly Back Away”

December, 2004

On the news the other day they said that in some airport, they, whoever it was, had placed a fake bomb in some luggage and it had gone whizzing past the inspectors without so much as a question. My question is why I can’t ever get these inspectors. After making me walk barefoot through their metal detector, they will confiscate my nail clippers with dire threats, making me feel that I’m lucky not to be hauled away immediately to Gitmo.