Two words you would never expect to hear in proximity of each other: ‘treat’ and ‘McDonald’s’

I stepped out briefly this evening to retrieve some fans to deal with our rural Virginian tropical season. On the way, I stopped by McDonald’s to purchase a treat: a 32-ounce sweet iced tea.

My American readers, as precious few as they may be, will probably understand the importance of iced tea (or ice tea if you’re from my region) to American culture. You just don’t brew some tea, pour it over ice and add a couple of spoonfuls of sugar and stir.

No. You brew about 16-20 orange pekoe tea bags in a quart of water, pour the hot tea over a significant quantity of white sugar, stir, cut the solution by half and pour some over a glass full of ice.

So many establishments outside the South serve you a glass of tea and, when asked if it’s sweet, toss you a packet of sugar.

Uncouth, nekulturny bastards.

I hate to say this, but McDonald’s has actually come up with a task and a recipe that almost none of their semi-skilled (and even skilled) staff members can make pear-shaped. I’m sure they’ve tried, but no luck to date.

Anyway, I’ve had today off since I worked on Memorial Day and have thoroughly confused some of you with my persistent blogging and cross-posting. I’ve met a few new folks (added to the blog list at the right of the screen and near the emergency exit) and will probably make more additions in the coming hours and days.

By the way Carmentza, thanks for getting that INXS song stuck in my head.

It’s been very enjoyable, and I actively encourage you to scroll down a few posts and start spreading the Heather McCartney divorce claims posted below. I have little respect for humanity – why should you?

A post-Memorial Day story, or . . . . Can’t beat that logic, it’d be hitting something stupid and defenseless

A week ago, I assigned one of my reporters to collect information for an advance on Memorial Day events and commemorations.

The public affairs person at one of our two Veterans of Foreign Wars posts said that they had nothing planned. Strange, but innocuous enough since the post was being reformed.

Forward to May 29: My other reporter is in a mad dash to get to the main office so we can get our paper laid out and to press early. What does he pass? The final seconds of the VFW post’s early morning Memorial Day flag and rifle salute ceremony.

Said public affairs person calls Tuesday and asks why we didn’t attend and if we could put something in the paper about it. He’s told that he said a week earlier that they weren’t doing anything.

Close paraphrase of his response: “Well, we weren’t sure we were going to do something and I figured I better not tell you until we did it.”

Another photo exhibit, with a theme even!

Sundays seem to be rather productive, blog wise. Go figure.

Anyway, another quick photographic exhibition for your viewing pleasure . . .

The family’s favorite piece of livestock, Copper, doing a little Hugh Masekela this weekend before I decided to take a little road trip to engage in some marginal remembrance . . . .

This was nice to see. As a high schooler I used to bicycle a lot – partially as exercize when I ran track (supressing sniggers here) and because I liked to get out and enjoy some of the less touristy places in Southwest Virginia. This 1944-period United Mine Workers union hall was an abandoned dump then (circa 1980). Now it’s a church.

This little piece of ironwork was highly valued in Norton, Va. as a real-live piece of ordinance from the USS Constitution. Its real story is far more interesting. It’s actually a fake, non-fireable iron casting done when the Constitution was restored in 1907. If you visit several towns across the US, they have some of this piece’s sisters. Others are set in concrete along the seawall at the Boston Navy Yard for use as bollards (not bollocks).

And another story. Thirty-six years ago, the location depicted above was a pleasant, sloped, grassy corner lot where many of us kids played touch football, frisbee or otherwise did the normal things that kids do. At least it was that way when I walked to school that morning. The return trip revealed a significant excavation on that site, and over the next thirty years, the town’s dominant robber-baron family erected the steel skeleton you see. The running joke was that it had one floor for each time th ebuilding permit was renewed, and that was in 1994. The family sold it and a significant chunk of real estate holdings this year, and hopefully this monstrosity will be dismantled. I call it the ‘pagoda from hell.’

Never be nostalgic – only remember.

Not by popular request

Okay, I’ve got to get this out of my system and then I promise, no more Heather McCartney jokes

God, I’m gonna burn for this . . . . .

Top ten specifics of Heather McCartney’s divorce filing:

10) Paul mocked me by buying me a DVD remastering of “The 39 Steps”

9) Kept snickering when he said “this lager doesn’t have enough hops in it.”

Inflicted mental cruelty by repeated playing of “Band on the Run”

7) Said he married me because he was a leg man

6) Said on several occasions that there was something wrong but that he couldn’t peg it.

5) Pet name for me: Ahab

4) Friends made cryptic “Deuce Bigalow, Male Gigolo” remarks in my presence (go watch the movie – it’ll come to you.)

3) Opened lingerie drawer – half my stockings tied off

2) Told me I was a natural for base 5 arithmetic.

1) Said we were a natural for the three-legged race at the Apple corporate picnic

And now for eine kleine schlockmusik . . .

Today I had the experience of listening to the Dixie Chicks latest album release, “Taking the Long Way.”

As many of you all know, the Chicks encountered a rough career patch starting in 2003 when one of their number made a pointed comment or two about the National Command Authority.

That comment devolved into a public shouting match between the Chicks, country music singer/pickup truck shill Toby Keith and various radio stations and fans questioning various parties’ patriotic fervor.

Regardless of what if any position you might have taken regarding those events, the Chicks recently released a DVD purporting to state their positions and attitude about the last three years.

All I can say is: what an incredibly turgid, presumptuous, overblown, whiny collection of tuneage.

I found myself utterly unsympathetic, not with the Dixie Chicks’ stand on the public beating they’ve taken, but with a self-centered effort that focuses on their persecution and not on the general decline and fall of free speech and respect for political positions in the U.S. of A.

I can respect Toby Keith’s efforts in the last three years because they really had no pretense about what they were – cheap, pseudo sentimental rubbish with an eye toward selling records and Ford trucks.

If you want good pop, country or rock political statements, go buy a copy of John Mellencamp’s “Lonesome Jubilee” or “Scarecrow,” or pick up Springsteen’s latest folk collection.

And do yourself a favor – stay away from the Dixie Chicks and Toby Keith.

Pat Robertson’s hulkin’ out

Pat Robertson’s hulkin’ out!

God love Pat Robertson – somebody has to, I suppose.

From his exploits on the way to and away from the Korean conflict – documented in a nationally-exposed lawsuit around the time Pat was running for the Republican nomination for president a few years ago – to his God-given control of the forces of nature against us heatherns, Pat Robertson has been a superhuman force to guide all us American scum either toward the light of goodness or toward the furnace door of hell.

Okay, it’s more like he’s done everything from getting his daddy the U.S. senator to get him out of a tour in Korea to starting an ‘interesting’ media, evangelical and higher learning empire stemming from a low-rent UHF television station with reruns and pleas for money to do either his or the lord’s work. Oh, and there’s also telling gays and people who don’t accept creationism that God’s gonna getcha with a big storm or flood or something.

But that crazy Pat’s at it again – he’s leg-pressed a ton. Yes, 2,000 pounds. At least that’s what he claims. And he has a video purporting to show him leg-pressing 1,000 pounds

And there’s the claims that he does it all thanks to “his age-defying protein shake. Pat developed a delicious, refreshing shake, filled with energy-producing nutrients.”

All you have to do is register on his website – probably exposing you to a ton of unwanted spam and e-proselytizing – to download his (insert echo from above) AGE-DEFYING PROTEIN SHAKE!!!.

Pat Robertson’s shake from www.cbn.com/

.[...]

Thanks to the wonder of (insert echo from below) OTHER MEDIA OUTLETS, I can reveal some ingredients of Pat’s (insert echo from above) AGE-DEFYING PROTEIN SHAKE!!!!!!

“. . . ingredients such as soy protein isolate, whey protein isolate, flaxseed oil and apple cider vinegar.”

I think I know what’s so AGE-DEFYING about it. It defies anyone of any age to consider a blended concoction of soybean, skim milk, vegetable oil and vinegar delicious.

I suppose that it might, however, generate enough intestinal distress to help 2,000 pounds achieve escape velocity.

Go get ‘em Pat. If mankind’s going to be killed by 2,000-pound weights from above, you won’t end up like Wile E. Coyote or some members of Monty Python.

Gangsta Spock

Despite a degree in history and two years of graduate school (or maybe because of it), I thoroughly enjoy subverting cultural icons. And here’s just two reasons why:

Happy birthday to Christopher Lee!

Besides his cinematic turns as Dracula and Saruman, I still remember Christopher Lee for two performances: businessman/gay biker Luckman Skull in the movie “Serial,” and the Van Helsing-esque hunter of Nixon’s memoirs in the March 25, 1978 episode of Saturday Night Live (I didn’t memorize that date – I looked it up to appear on top of my blogging game).

Happy birthday.

Heading to hell in a handbasket

I seem to have forgotten my self-imposed responsibility as a blogger, but I’ve made a few feeble attempts to respond to some of my blogging acquaintances.

In the blur of activity preceding and following my weekly cycle of publishing, however, I did have a sleep deprivation-induced thought that brought on an insane giggling fit and probably guaranteed me a seat in the tenth circle of hell.

When Paul McCartney’s divorce case finally reaches court, his eventual ex-wife won’t have a leg to stand on.

Let me adjust the thermostat . . .

Superstitious twits

We have a family friend who recently bough t a new vehicle. The make and type of vehicle are irrelevant to this story, but the temporary tag is not.

Turns out that the tag’s clearly-marked expiration date is June 6, 2006, or 6-6-06.

Said friend, for the first day she drove it around town, garnered several sincere and sometimes horrified questions about how she could even consider driving a vehicle bearing the mark of the beast or at least a fair poker hand.

I look nervously out my window these days, awaiting the return of witch burning. Are we really in the 21st century?