Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Fishy

Well, thank God!

The National Ocean Service made the unusual declaration in response to public inquiries following a TV show on the mythical creatures.

It is thought some viewers may have mistaken the programme for a documentary.
"No evidence of aquatic humanoids has ever been found," the service wrote in an online post 

 However, has anyone seen Daryl Hannah lately?

And in other news. . .

Again, we are web's best source for news about hot dogs, pole dancers and Islamic rat people.

7 pound hot dog.  Yes, believe it.

5 O'Clock

It's 5 o'clock somewhere right?

A long time ago when my mother was in the Peace Corps in Jamaica (yeah, of all places), we found ourselves sitting in a dark, dingy bar with the locals drinking Red Stripe and playing these strange fruit slot machine contraptions with Jamaican dimes.  A Jamaican dime was worth about about a penny and a half back then, so when you hit it big you won about $2.73.

Nevertheless, we were there in the dark with our Red Stripe, the fruit machines, and lots of very fragrant and loud local people.  All was right in the Universe until the bartender informed us in thick patois that there was no more Red Stripe and our only other option for beer was Heineken in a can.  Well sure, who gives a crap when you've already had 8, 9 or 14 Red Stripes.  Beer is beer.

I had never had a Heineken before and frankly, at age 17-point-something I had less than a experienced palate for beer. In my mind, alcohol was alcohol and I was getting loaded in a foreign country with my mom while slightly underage.  The bartender slid over two sweaty cans of Heineken and I took a huge gulp of the frosty beverage.

My first reaction was to think, "Who farted in my mouth?"

My second reaction was to recoil in a pasty-faced horror at the terrible flavor explosion from the Heineken.  Heineken stinks pretty bad as it is, it's a pilsener, so it can be on the bitter side.  Couple that flavor with the probability that those cans of beer were without a doubt mishandled countless times on their long journey from Holland that resulted in an awfully pungent skunking of the beer.  Add to that the constant olfactory assault by the many unwashed locals, ganja, curried goat cooking in the back room and other foul smells, and this told me one thing:  I will never drink another nasty, smelly, fart-in-my-mouth Heineken again for as long as I live.

Never say never pal.

Fast forward 7 or 8 years and I found myself in a similar situation of beer drinking time vs. only one selection of beer.  Well, when in Rome. . .or D'Lo, Mississippi. . .

I cracked open a bottle of ice cold Heineken, poured it into a ridiculously over-sized stein my friend insisted we drink beer from (you know how guys are), and took a sip.  What happened then was unexplainable.  I tasted slightly sweet and bubbly notes on the front end that finished with a crisp, slightly bitter and medium-bodied back end.  And as they say, the rest was history. . .

Since then, I have probably purchased and drank oh, I don't know, maybe $20,000 dollars worth of Heineken.  I'll never put it down.  I enjoy doing odd jobs around the house like opertating heavy machinery while drinking it; the riding lawnmower, the tractor, the chainsaw, the gun.  Gotta live a little dangerously every now and then you know.

I've drunk it on airplanes and boats, in the Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean and Pacific Ocean, near a volcano, at the top of a mountain, on top of a house.  I poured it on my balls right before I was supposed to walk into a dance club and ended up walking home 3 miles through the ghetto in my own shame.  I drank it with a buddy while driving backwards up a lava rock formation in the dark in Costa Rica.  I had one in my hand as a friend got pulled over for drunk driving in Costa Rica who then blew into a breathalyzer the size of a Marshall stack in the trunk of a police car, paid a $50 dollar fine on the side of the road, had his drink returned to him, and we trundled on our merry way.

I've even tried to create interesting photographs of it:





I said all of this because I. . .well, what was the point of this?  I can't remember.

Is it 5 o'clock yet?  And do you have any Heineken?

Allah is Displeased

Via Weasel Zippers:

As the fatwa explains, according to Islam’s prophet Muhammad as recorded in a hadith, a frog’s “croaking is praise [to Allah].” Accordingly, “a number of jurists [fuqaha] have relied on this [hadith] to forbid the eating of frogs, under the notion that ‘that which is banned from being killed, is forbidden from being eaten.’”

I guess this doofus didnt get the memo.

R.I.P., Old Friend

RIP Andy Griffith

Andy Griffith has passed.  He was 86.  The man meant a lot to me as I have so many fond memories of watching the Andy Griffith show with my dad.  We must have watched 3 shows a day, before we got cable TV.  And even more after we got cable.  I will miss him.  But more than that, I will miss those memories.

Some moments really do cause to stop and reflect.  This is one of those moments.


Al Sharpton: "This election is about yo momma"

Yeah, he said it.  Video below the fold...