As John Prine Sings:

"Send my mouth, way down south
and kiss my ass goodbye!"

I'm over here now.

Y'all come!

I've Been Hijacked!

I tried to log into Blogger this morning, and was forced to switch to new Blogger or else I couldn't access my old posts.

Well, I didn't like New Coke either, and I turned out to be right that time.

Fuggem.

www.thedryspot.wordpress.com

or

www.thedryspot.net

The Latest Craziness from the Sewanee Cemetary

Apparently, Santa Claus is dead. Sorry about that, kiddies.

What if I Liked Looky Frumpy?

The NHL unveiled their new jersey of the future at the All-Star game last night. Apparently they are supposed to be much sleeker and more form-fitting. This will allow the players to skate faster and not sweat as much, and apparently judging by last night's 12-9 score, they will be able to find the net more often.

I own about 5 hockey jerseys. I like them because they are big and bulky. Like a sweatshirt, but cooler looking. I'm not sure my frame was ever begging for a fitted jersey to accentuate my curves.

And I'm not even Short and Fat.

I Just Got Back from Dr. Jellyfinger

I feel so tawdry.

But he did have dreamy eyes.

In all fairness he did say that this wasn't his favorite part of the day either.

Why do they make you sit for twenty minutes on a cold slab in that assless-chap gown staring at a counter with nothing on it but a tube of Fist-Eze lubricant? Couldn't they store that stuff in a drawer somewhere?

On the bright side, the doc told me I seemed pretty healthy and didn't even mention that I could stand to lose a few pounds. He did say it wouldn't hurt if I grew a couple of inches taller, though.

p.s. Lynnster sent me the following email of encouragement, and I quote:

"Fingers crossed that you get a thumbs up from doc today!"

Nice.

In My Continuing Effort to Bring Some Culture to You Buncha Philistines

Yeah, I know. The last arts event I recommended was a play based on a Saturday morning cartoon. But it rocked! And you're not really all Philistines. Maybe there are some Nabatuans out there...I don't know.

But you do need some more culture. Especially the free kind.

The Tennessee Repertory Theatre is presenting their second David Mamet play in two years. After last years extraordinary production of "Oleanna" they are putting on "Speed the Plow." A tough, witty insiders look at Hollywood and the moral morasses that accompany the life of a producer, this play has a stellar cast and I guarantee it will be wildly entertaining.


But that's not the free part. Most people know who David Mamet is; but usually because of his writing work on television and motion pictures. His theatre drama is some of the best written dialogue I have ever been treated to hear. To remind the general public of some of Mamet's work, the Rep is having a free screening of Mamet's political satire "Wag the Dog" at Sarratt Cinema on the Vanderbilt campus on Thursday at 7:00. Look closely for a young Kirsten Dunst as the poor refugee girl they hire to run through the explosions looking scared. It's a fun movie with a serious message in these volatile times of international policy. Check it out! You can't beat the price.


Back to the play; it's not free but you can't beat live theatre for impactful performances. The production stars David Alford, who I think is a Nashville treasure who doesn't get the attention he deserves, Marin Miller, a wonderful actress in the midst of a breakout year who you may remember as the "Best of Nashville" queen in the Scene this year or from her role of the Adjective Girl in Schoolhouse Rocks and Jessejames Locorriere, a very talented actor who is returning to Nashville after a long hiatus where I think he was either rebuilding motorcycles, singing for Dr. Hook or playing the chainsaw in Jackal. OK, my personal knowledge kinda slacks off at this point in the description.

But that doesn't excuse you from going to the free movie and/or the play. The Dry Spot sez: Check it out!

I'm No Medophile

I go in for my 100,000 tune-up tomorrow with my new doctor.

You reckon that one day on the treadmill and 30 minutes of peaceful meditation will cure my ills?

Nah, me neither.

You Ever Have One of Those Mornings...

...where you just hover your mouse over the Outlook Calendar icon because you don't want to click it and see what appointments, emails and reminders it has waiting for you?

*click, click*

Crap.

I Am Not Switching From Blogger to Wordpress

I am, however, forming an exploratory committee.

Stand by.

p.s. Remember, you can always find me, no matter where I go, at www.thedryspot.net. Please adjust your blogrolls accordingly.

Random Ruminations on the 2nd to Last NFL Weekend

Noticed first by the DogDoc and RuaBelle:
The little robot in the corner of the screen when Fox comes out of commercials has the exact same gestures and movements as Eddie George when he was warming up on the sidelines before a game. It's like he's an avatar. I wonder if Eddie got any royalties?

Noticed by DogDoc's wife, The Dookie:
Inevitably after the first Colt possession of a game, the camera will show Peyton Manning on the sidelines looking at those fax pictures of the defensive alignments. He usually has a look on his face like someone is holding a little dog turd under his nose.

Speaking of that look, UnaCoachaBomber Belicheck really classes up the sidelines with that hoodie and his ever-present pissed off look. Fuggem.

I sure wouldn't mind seeing free-agent-to-be Asante Samuel lining up at corner on the other side from Pacman Jones next season. But, unfortunately, his price tag is going up every game. He could make me get over my "no more DB's with dreadlocks" prejudice. That assumes we trade that swinging door of a safety Lamont Thompson for a bag of footballs and a used kicking tee.

Rex Grossman may win the Super Bowl, but I don't think he could start for Vanderbilt.

Two African-American coaches, and the NFL has to create the "Rooney Rule" to force teams to interview minority candidates when coaching positions come available?! That's just stupid. Let the dumbass cracker teams that choose not to broaden their pool of possible coaches suffer by continuing to suck.

How 'Bout Dem Dores?!

The only way this Commodore team could feel more at home in Rupp would be if you moved the benches to the ends of the court.

Hutch deserved this.

Sorry about that, Fishwreck.

Wish You Were Here

Not only is it a beautiful, clear crisp morning on the mountain, but we found out that these folks are having a convention at Jim Oliver's Smoke House Best Western Lodge in Monteagle.



We're planning to go rap, tap, tapping across some really tiny troll bridges this afternoon. Who's with me?

Ripped from the Headlines

"Oil Hits 20 Month Low-Saudis Say No Reason to Worry"

Oh, don't you worry about that, you greedy f*cks!

Live Blogging the Windows Vista Launch Event-Session 2

Ok, I'll admit it. Office 2007 is pretty cool. And it's blogger friendly since you can publish straight from the application.

It's still a knock-off of Google Docs in that respect, though.

And the chairs didn't get any softer during the break. Please send a seat cushion. Or Preparation H.

Live Blogging the Windows Vista Launch Event

Zzzzzzzzzz.

Oh, sorry. Was I snoring? Damn these chairs at the Opryland Hotel are hard.

2 hours into the afternoon and I think I have Adolph Gates' strategy figured out. Take all the cool features from Mac OS10 and rename them. "They aren't widgets! We call them gadgets." Oh, sorry. My bad. "I know it looks like a dock, but we call it arrow" Uh huh.

The other strategy is to copy one of the most useful universal utilities, Adobe Acrobat Reader, and install Microsoft's proprietary version built in as part of the operating system. They want you to use .xps files instead of .pdf. It smacks of anti-trust to me and I seem to remember it cost Microsoft a few billion (with a b) when they steamrolled Netscape the same way a few years ago.

Lastly, I recommend you invest in memory chip manufacturers cuz this sumbitch hogs some CPU. Don't even think of installing this behemoth without a gig of RAM.

The highlight so far has been when the perky Microsoft demo dude was showing 200 of us a security feature and killed his mouse. Dance, nerd, dance!

This might effectively end my career as a tech reviewer, but I favor truthiness.

BushOla

Apparently they've announced that the new George W. Bush Presidential Library will be built at SMU.

Bring your own crayons.

If We Could Somehow Harness This Power for Good

I read in Monday's Tennessean that Kellie Pickler is filling in for Barbara Walters on "The View" this Thursday and Friday. I'm afraid I'll have to miss it since I'll be working, but I'll bet Kellie makes Elisabeth Hasselbeck look like Marilyn vos Savant.

Some of you work-at-home folks give me the review...or not.

Remember This?

Alia Iacta Est

Consummatum est.

Day 4 Without Caffeine...

...and really, why go on?

But my BP's down twenty points, so that must be worth something.

And what's with all the media outlets suddenly panicking about "black guys?" That's all I heard on the news last night and this morning.

"Beware of black guys!"

"Conditions are right for black guys to appear almost anywhere tonight and early in the morning, especially in the outlying areas of Nashville."

"Be careful because you might find yourself rounding a corner and suddenly encounter black guys when it's too late to react."

Worst of all, Channel 4 sent Larry Flowers to do a live remote somewhere to warn us about this problem with black guys. I think that's wholly inappropriate. Especially on MLK Day. Can't we all just get along?

Oh, what's that? "Black ice?" What the hell is black ice?

Never mind.

Stress Puppy

I went by the Minute Clinic Friday after work for the second time in a few weeks to try to do something about this earache that's been bugging me and keeping me awake since before Christmas. I'm not one of those people who wants a scrip for antibiotics every time he gets the sniffles, but enough is enough with this darn infection.

But part of me also thought that some of the ear pain might be related to some TMJ issues. I've never had a problem with that before, but I've noticed I've been gritting my teeth and clenching my jaw lately when some work-related stress has been getting to me.

Now regular readers of the Dry Spot know that I used to give platelets all the time. Until I had a little incident with the Red Cross. That of course turned out to be no big deal.

One of the good things about giving platelets so often was that it was like getting a mini-physical every month. I've always been a pretty healthy kinda guy with blood pressure readings in the 115/75 range month in and month out. So I wasn't too concerned about it when the Minute Clinic nurse practitioner slid the BP cuff over my arm. Yeah, I've been pretty uptight at work and a good friend and coworker got a really bad cancer diagnosis and I've been dealing with some issues with an aging parent who has gotten herself into a financial jam and I'm involved in a couple of really tenuous business ventures and haven't been sleeping well because of this damn earache, but all in all I felt fairly healthy.

156 over 94.

Crap.

Maybe I am a little tense. I took it again a half hour later and it was within 15 points of normal, but WTF?!

And the worst part is that I have my first appointment with a new doctor in 10 days. I haven't had a regular GP in 20 years, instead counting on Doc in the Box to treat my various infirmities throughout the years. But I figured after I turned 40, I'd better get somebody who I could go to on a more regular basis. My new doctor came extremely well recommended by several other docs, (skinny fingers) so I was willing to wait the three months that it took to get a new patient appointment. Apparently, somebody has to die to make room in the schedule. I guess it's kinda like getting promoted from the kiddie table at Thanksgiving.

But your first appointment with a new doctor is like a first date with a woman. I don't want his first impression of me to be that I'm a broke-down stress cur that needs to be put on Xanax and Lipitor. I always brush my teeth three times and floss like a madman before I go to the dentist, and I used to always wash my hair (when I had some) before I'd go to get a haircut.

So I've got two weeks to destress, eat healthy and get my pressure down out of the stroke range.

Crap, crap, crap.

CostCo-nfusion

Overheard near the big jug-o-pickles aisle:

Two lovely, tall ebony-skinned women were working food demos across the end caps of an aisle and talking back in forth in a beautiful trilling melange of French and Kikongo.

A matronly Belle Meader walks up wearing her post-church finery.

"Excuse me, but what language are y'all talking in?"

"French."

"Oh, are you from Canada?"

"No, we're from Congo."

"Is that near Canada?"

"No, Congo. In Africa."

"Like that movie with the talking monkeys? How precious!"

"?!"

Like That's Ever Gonna Happen

I clicked through a Yahoo news story about an age discrimination suit being filed against the Grand Ole Opry, and I noticed the following option was offered to me on the side bar of the article.

NEWS ALERTS
alerts

Get an alert when there are new stories about:

* Stonewall Jackson
* Porter Wagoner

I believe they have me confused with my good friend Sista Smiff. (...who I can't believe I scooped on this story...)

Thanks for Your Good Thoughts

I'm back in town and we're taking it day by day. My friend is incredibly upbeat and optimistic. I guess our job is to be the same around here.

Fingers crossed!

Sorry I Haven't Been Regaling Y'all With Stories From Florida

As soon as I got here I got some really bad news about a friend and coworker not unlike what Hutch just went through. There's nothing I can do from down here, but I'm feeling pretty damn helpless from a thousand miles away. I don't know what I can do when I get back, but at least I'll have the opportunity of proximity to share my emotions with the folks involved. This sucks.

Whining over for now. Pray for someone you don't know if you have space on your list.

What Kind of Wack Job Am I?

Yeah, you guessed it. I'm at a three-day conference at the Boca Raton Resort and Club, home of Irv and Saul and the early bird special at Luby's before a rousing game of backgammon, a suspenseful episode of Matlock and the sweet sleep of pre-death as the Weather Channel drones on with the sleep timer of the television. Sounds perfect for me, doesn't it?

Yet I chose to leave this 5 star resort to drive an hour south to an oyster/sports bar in a Best Western so I could meet two old friends and watch Florida kick that Buckeye ass in the BCS Championship Game. And I loved it!

Youth is wasted on the young and luxury is wasted on the classless. Yup, that's me...

I'm Leavin' on a Jet Plane

How hackneyed was that post title?! Oh well, whaddya expect on a Monday morning.

Speaking of which, Monday mornings are normally brutal travel days, but the Nashville airport is practically deserted. I guess everybody is all traveled out after the holidays.

And it's a good thing too since because of all of the terminal construction going on this place looks like the airport in Nagos, Nigeria that the TSA keeps warning me has inadequate security every time I go through a checkpoint. No problem skipping that place.

Oh well, off to the mouth of the rat.*

*bonus points if you can figure that one out.

I'm Gonna Tell You Something I'll Bet You Didn't Know...

If you're ever in the woods clearing brush on an unseasonably warm January day, working around a lot of wood piles and moving a bunch of old logs, listening to some Cuban guajira music on your iPod, you'd be amazed how many of the songs begin with a really loud and abrupt rhythm track that sounds exactly like a rattlesnake.

Damn near all of 'em.

Now if you'll excuse me I have to go change my blue jeans.

Schoolhouse Rocks! Rocked!

And so did:

Me and RUABelle
Sista Smiff
Aunt B and the Butcher
Mr. and Mrs. Short and Fat
Fishwreck
BusyMom
CanIBFrank and Interplanet Janet

and a couple hundred other hipsters who had a great time singing along with songs we didn't remember we knew all the words to. Maybe next time y'all will pay a little more contention to me when I make an artistic recommendation...

Seriously, it was a stone blast. NCT still has public performances going on this weekend and next, albeit without the free beer and popcorn. Y'all go! It beats the hell out of Charlotte's Web.

For details, check out www.nashvillechildrenstheatre.org.

Last Chance to Dance (and Learn)

Tonight's the big Schoolhouse Rocks! show for adults at the Nashville Children's Theatre.

Please don't make me type the details all over again. Just click the damn link. A good portion of my blogroll is coming. Don't be left out!

Master of My Domain

One of the most delightful and surprising Christmas presents that I received came from my good buddy over at Fishwreck. He gave me my own domain name! Now he's forgotten more about the internet than I'll ever know, so I'm awful glad that he set this up for me. I was a History major after all.

So behold the glory that is www.thedryspot.net! Go ahead and click it. I'll wait...

Yeah, I know. It brought you back here. Try again. OK, you gotta admit that's pretty cool. It opened up a new window and brought you right back where you were. It's like a magic mirror. And my sitemeter is probably going through the roof with all these circular clicks. (err...maybe not.)

Feel free to cover up your desktop with my glorious old page. As James Brown would say, (if he wasn't cremated and sitting in some creepy bigamist bitch's purse right now) "Hit me three times! Uhn! Uhn! Uhn!"

So why does it just mirror back to this page, you might ask? Because I'm too insecure to leave Blogger yet. Hell, I'm not even willing to go to Blogger Beta because I haven't really figured out Blogger Alpha yet. I know all the cool people are leaving, but I promise to turn the lights off when I'm the last to go. Feel free to change your bookmarks now because whatever I eventually switch to will mirror from here.

And what comes along with a new domain? That's right, email addresses! Of course they all mirror to the same junk account, so anything you send to thedryspot.net will come to me now.

For example, (spammers stop reading now. Oh, and go reach up your own poop chute and pull your intestines out and wrap them around your throat until you choke to death on your own stinky Saddam rope since I'm not standing next to you to do it for you.) if you send email to any of the following addresses, it will come to me now.

CeeElCee@thedryspot.net
CLC@thedryspot.net
ceeeeeeeeeeeeelcee@thedryspot.net
thedryspot@thedryspot.net
smartass@thedryspot.net
dumbass@thedryspot.net
throwrocks@thedryspot.net
whatsthenameoftheAwiththecirclearoundit@thedryspot.net
ampersand@thedryspot.net

I tried to get thedryspot.com when I first started blogging, but it is being held by a company that makes pads to soak up your pissy sheets. That's somehow appropriate. Of course, they're not really using it. Maybe I should get to. The domain name. Not the piss pads.

McLazy

I guess the new big deal at McDonald's that they're spending millions of dollars to advertise is the fact that they will add the cream and sugar to your scalding hot coffee for you. Will they shake it for me later when I have to pee?

Sheesh.

Lucky Seven

My Hooterville buddy, NewsComa has asked me to share the seven best things I've done all year. I told her I'm not sure what I did wrong to deserve another meme tag after NaBloPoMo and the 12 Days of Blogger Christmas, but she told me to stop whining and start typing. Alrighty then.

In no particular order, (cuz that's just the way I roll):

1. Took Knuck's advice to start blogging as a writing assignment to myself. The creative stimulation from reading, writing and commenting has distracted me well through some tough times in my personal and professional life. The new friends I've made through this undertaking have really been an unexpected blessing this year. Thanks for being such an easy audience and laughing at my doody jokes.

2. Adopted Nellie the nervous pudelhund. I've always believed that the right dog needs to find you. Nellie needed RUABelle. They had seen each other in two or three separate shelters and foster/adoption events in various places around town, and I'm convinced it was meant to be. the work and patience necessary to overcome her extreme fearfulness has made the good times together even better.



3. Realized how much my late father used money and the fact that we work in a family business to keep me and my brothers in opposition with each other. As we've worked through the finances of the estate, we've also made a lot of progress addressing the dysfunction of our relationships.



4. Admitted to myself finally that I have been bound by golden handcuffs at work for far too long. I have started to take steps toward picking those locks. I subsequently have found out that I just may be kicked to the curb anyway. Oh well. I'm looking forward to the next chapter of this story. Stay tuned.

5. Took RUABelle on very enjoyable trips to Vegas, Napa and Ireland where she was treated like the princess she is. For a change, I didn't do everything on the cheap. I've decided that it's better to put off vacations and save up in advance so you can pay cash as you go rather than suffering through months of bills afterwards

6. I went to my first Masters in April. While it wasn't the perfect trip logistically, it was perfect to me. If I never get to go again, I'll be satisfied. If I get to go 100 more times, I imagine I'll still be breathlessly awed when I walk through those gates and see and smell the azaleas for the first time.

7. I finally learned to say "no" to some people. Not RUABelle or the pets. But I've learned to delegate better at work and just refuse to take on some tasks that really were the responsibility of other people who were just too lazy to do them and knew that I wouldn't let the ball they dropped hit the ground. I also undertook a much-needed inventory of my volunteer and non-profit work to decide which groups I really wanted to stick with and which ones I could make the most meaningful contribution to.

So those are the highlights of 2006 for me. I guess I could tag somebody else; but I won't. (cuz that's just the way I roll.)

I Smell a Completionist Road Trip Coming On

I've got nine states left to visit. Can anybody think of a reason to go to Delaware other than to set up a corporation or declare bankruptcy?