Winter's a-coming! Season of Death Mini-Rants

The BBQ Pit
421

I fucking hate my neighbor’s dogs.

Mostly i hate the way they bark their fool fucking heads off whenever i set foot outside my house. Get the mail in, barkwoof barkbarkbarkbarkbark.

Take the trash to the can, barkbarkbark woof wooofwooof barkbarkbark barkbarkbark.

Mow the grass; wooofwooof barkbarkbark barkbarkbark barkbarkbark barkbark!

Fill the birdfeeder; wooofwooofbarkbarkbark wooofwooof barkbarkbark!!!

Take the recycling to the bin, more of the same, wooofwooofbarkbarkbark wooofwooof barkbarkbark barkbarkbark. Aghh. I know they’re only dogs, but i’m over it.

422

Exactly why I voted for Obama instead of McCain.

I have never liked McCain. Never. But I gave him every opportunity to convince me why he should be President. I was willing to set aside my personal feelings for him and give him my vote if he gave me a reason to do so. Unfortunately, rather than bothering to do that, his campaign turned negative. If all you have to say to me is how horrible your opponent is, then all I can see is how horrible your own character is, and I will never vote for you.

423

Dante gotta install Ffvb. WAY better than the ignore function. It’s like she doesn’t even exist. And she’s the only person I have on it. I can handle Diogenes. I can handle Rand Rover. Lord help me, I can even handle kanicbird. But SFG’s signal to noise ratio is so damn low, I had to actually install third party software to correct it.

424

I live here too, and I really hope you don’t get what you wish.
As much as I hate F-woman (sorry, can’t help it, work at HP), I’m far more worried about the Brown’s Opponent. She keeps referring to all the money she’s spent on her campaign as an investment. What **return **is she expecting on the $212,179/year job she’s trying to get?

425

There is an attack ad locally against a woman named Jaimie Herrera. One of the claims is that “she accepted $22,000 in per diem!” OMFG! She probably matriculated when she was in college, too!

426

You work with my husband, don’t you?

sigh

427

Dude, I suggest you train your stupid little dog out of that impulse he has to attack people in their own yards while you’re out walking him. I had a shovel in my hands - if he hadn’t been brought up short by the leash, it could have gotten ugly - for him. I’m an animal lover and a pacifist, but a dog attacking me while I have a shovel in my hands is likely to get a shovel in the face.

428

Lol. About nine years ago I was walking in my old (bad) neighborhood. I walked in an unusual direction, past this house directly on one of the main drags about six blocks off the freeway. Little yappy dog chasing me along the fence line, old man taking out the garbage. I laughed at the dog and told it to shut the fuck up. From clear across the yard, old man starts screaming at me asking if I want to fight. Dude, I’m half your age and I’m only laughing at your dog. Directly across the street is the territory of the largest Asian gang in the state. Are you threatening me only because I’m white and therefore probably not a gang member, or are you doing it because you’re just fucking stupid?

429

The asshole across the street continues his nightly ritual of revving his motorcycle for an hour in his driveway, riding it once around the block, returning to his house and beginning again. He does not appear to be listening to the engine for the purpose of diagnosis, nor does he ever do any work on it. He and his wife had a mammoth, obscene fight in their front yard last week that almost came to fisticuffs, so I’m afraid to go over and talk to him, and my husband is out of town.

I’m worried this guy is going to pop and is just doing this every night to show the world – and himself – how very, very butch he is. You can see the testosterone in a cloud around his shaved head. If I call the police he’ll know it’s me – he has a cop friend who will tell him.

When my husband gets home I think we’ll try to talk to some other neighbors and see if this is bothering them too. I doubt if we can get a group together to confront him, but my husband is man enough to go over there and tell him that he’s talked to people about the noise.

Sadly, I am not man enough.

430

No, I will not translate anything for you for $5 a page. $5 a page is less than two cents a word. Try 20 cents a word if you want anything resembling a professional translation.

431

We’ve bought a house. And my husband has given out MY email address to the electric and phone and cable company, instead of his. There was much shouting on my part. After I had calmed down a bit, I explained to my husband that I WILL delete all emails from these companies, and I WILL block all email from them in the future. He wanted me to get a spam email address. I told him to do this himself, and never, ever give out MY email again. I’ve told him before to never give out my email. Ever. He has his own email addresses (at least two that I know of), so he’s perfectly capable of creating a special address. And this is the guy, remember, who has told me that he doesn’t want me giving out his cell phone number. And I have complied with his wishes. If his work calls, if his sister calls…I’ll take THEIR number, and promise to pass on a message. But I don’t give out his cell number, because he asked me not to.

Somehow, he doesn’t seem to understand that I have my own privacy concerns and wishes.

Yeah, I just got more spam from one of the companies that he signed me up with, wanting me to compare energy rates. And yeah, I’ve blocked that domain. But I shouldn’t have to.

432

To the nice lady I met while on my afternoon run on the Delaware and Raritan canal through Princeton…

I just don’t understand why you felt the need to honk at me. And when I looked around to see the person who was blowing their horn, I watched as you turned your head slowly from side to side, as if I were in the wrong somehow.

This just doesn’t add up.

You are most likely a licensed driver in the state of New Jersey, and are therefore fully aware that state law says to yield to pedestrians at marked crosswalks, and even if that slipped your mind, there are small signs that say this posted every fifty yards in Princeton.

And the particular crossing where I was jogging is probably the best marked crossing in the county, if not the state. Not only were there two big orange flashing signals on either side of the road, but when I hit the little button, five very bright lights embedded in the pavement were flashing at you, to bring you out of your slumber perhaps.

Waiting for the endless parade of cars to pass is not an option. I have the right of way and I will take it, within reason. I was paying far more attention to you than you imagine—did you know that the driver of every seventh car I see while jogging is yakking on their cell phone? I really do pay attention to you.

In that brief moment I came to the conclusion that you felt I was in the wrong for somehow missing the big bumper sticker saying that The Most Important Woman In The World was coming through and you were upset because you did a little “speed up” followed by a bit of heavy braking.

I have been running 25 miles a week for years, often on that trail. You are the first person who honked at me and gave me a snotty look.

That’s why I flipped you off.

Mind you, I save this kind of behavior for very special occasions. Not only is it unhealthy to give the finger to random strangers in Jersey, but I’m just not that kind of guy. But every two or three years someone manages to act in a way that provokes such a response. You did just that today.

433

I wish I had the stones to say that to a person.

A couple of nights ago I went for a Super Big Gulp refill at 7-11. When I pulled into the parking lot, I watched as a woman stepped out of the only other car in the lot, faced me, and calmly dropped her lit cigarette to the pavement and walked in.

She didn’t even step on it.

I would have dearly loved to have picked it up and walked up to her in the store and said “I’m sorry ma’am, but you dropped this outside.” But she would have said F-U and possibly spit in my face.

It’s times like that when I wish there were some off-duty cop walking out of the store who would nail her with some fancy citation for littering and recklessly discarding a lit substance and being a supreme jerk.

434

Was her car window open? Do her the favor and toss it back in the car. Since you don’t want her to hurt herself by sitting on it, be sure to throw it on the back seat.

435

My front yard is; A. Obviously being worked on at great effort and expense, and 2. Usually dry as tinder because we only water the grass enough to keep it alive. It never ceases to amaze me that smokers see my front yard as an excellent place to throw their cigarette butts.

436

THE GROUNDHOGS ARE TAKING OVER!!!

We love our groundhogs. We could get rid of them pretty easily with some repellent (the ones with castor oil seem especially repugnant to them). But we let them dig where ever they like. Mostly this is along the side of the house or near some other structure like a shed.

I think they might be smarter than I’ve given them credit for and at this point I have to consider the possibility that they are conspiring with the field mice. The latter have phase shifting technology that let’s them pass through apparently solid walls - since there seems to be no obvious place for them to enter. Why they still fall for the old peanut butter on a spring loaded trap trick is completely beyond me.

So if the groundhogs have some other kind of advanced technology, an alliance could be very dangerous. I’m beginning to suspect this since they are now using black plastic sheeting to waterproof their burrows. I don’t know where the plastic came from but some kind of primitive replicator tech wouldn’t surprise me.

They’ve dragged part of the plastic part way down their main entrance to prevent it from blowing away - which means at the very least they have a basic understanding of the Bernoulli principle.

I’m not sure what to do. Fortunately they should be sleeping for the next several months - although that could just be a ploy.

437

Some smokers are thoughtful, considerate, and know that their cigarette butts can easily contain a spark or two, so they are careful about their butt disposal. These are the smokers who are observant of the “No Smoking” signs, too. The rest of them view the world as their ashtray, and view the “No Smoking” signs (and laws) as something to scoff at. Yeah, they’re gonna stick it to The Man, nobody can tell THEM where to smoke, or how to dispose of their butts!

438

Did you know that there are stupid fucking idiots who still think that Microsoft and AOL are beta-testing an email tracking program?? Some mouth-breathing moron I had one brief email exchange with months ago just sent me and 100 of her closest friends the oldest most ridiculous email urban legend on the freaking planet. GAH!

439

Yeah, everyone knows Google beat them to it.

440

It was a reference to an old episode of The Simpsons.

**Dante **gotta talk about **Dante **in the third person. **SFG **gotta feel honored that anyone cares about **SFG **that much.

Send them to me! I’ll run it through Babel Fish and call it a day.