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June 10, 2008

Incest to the Test

No, not anything to do w/ "My Sister's Feet". I'm sure this title will bring the weirdos outta the woodwork when Google indexes this post.

A couple of years ago, I signed up for the Yahoo Personals, a matchmaking service. It was frustrating not being able to contact my matches with the free version, so I paid for a six months subscription.

I didn't have much luck, to put it mildly. I got a few dozen replies and even had an email relationship with a few of the women. I had written in my profile I wanted to take it slow and know from personal experience that it's not hard to get to know someone even if I've not met them in person. (People's words say so much about them, you see.) Some of the email relationships didn't last long; a couple of my matches weren't satisfied with my cautious attitude and wanted to meet without getting to know each other first.

That wasn't what I wanted, not by a long shot. I truly believe that appearances aren't all that important. (I certainly wanted my matches to feel that way!)

I had one woman tell me straight out "I need it, I need it BAD." I'm not put-off by agressive women, and perhaps a sex-starved woman might be the ideal match for SOME men, but not for me. To say something like that to a total stranger goes way beyond the pale, wouldn't you agree? I hope that woman is all right today, and didn't get strangled by the Texas version of Jack the Ripper.

(What would one take to a first meeting with a woman such as that? Flowers, candy or a pail of water? Certainly one would want to take condoms, the thickest they make)

(and besides that, hooking up with a nymphomaniac would be, IMHO, just like owning a bar; it'd be fun for a little while....)

A couple of others must have not read my profile because they asked me if I smoked (it was on my profile) and when I told them I did, told me that wasn't acceptable and one even said "You'll just have to quit, then." I wanted to meet her just so I could have a pipe, a cigar and a cigarette crammed in my mouth and then could blow smoke in her face.

Another woman and I exchanged emails for several weeks and I thought everything was going A-OK. I was to the point where I thought I might like to meet her in person. Things fell apart when the topic of one mail was "What do you like to read?" She said she read her Bible (a good thing!) but when I mentioned that I loved the Harry Potter series...well, all of a sudden I was the Anti-Christ. Sheesh.

I had signed up for weekly notifications, and I knew the end of this experiment was near when I was matched up with a woman I had dated several years ago; we had a very rocky relationship and my family didn't like her, my friends didn't like her and to be honest, I really didn't like her much. It was by far the worst relationship I have ever been in.

(her profile was full of lies; her age, her natural hair color and how many times she had been married. I understood her lies about her own disposition because any sane man would've run from the truth.)

So, when the six months subscription was over, I figured it certainly wasn't worth another $79.95 to match up with nutjobs, nymphos and holier-than-thou religious wackos.

If I want to get beat-up, I'll just go to a biker bar, walk in and loudly say "Harley-Davidson? Ain't that some kinda Japanese motor-sicle?"

For some reason ( I guess I was bored ) I recently put up another profile, but kept getting it rejected. (I wasn't descriptive enough for the service, go figger) I did, however, get the email with my first match.

It was my cousin.

I've deleted my profile.

Rattlesnakes in Palo Duro Canyon

ORIGINAL POST HAS BEEN EDITED

(to add information, to correct my atrocious spelling and grammar, the usual stuff)

Updated as needed.

NOTE: I'm now not for sure if these photos are from PD Canyon. The photos were horrifying and I know a sight like that definitely COULD be somewhere here in the Texas Panhandle. ( or in surrounding states)

A video at YouTube has these same photos and claims they were taken in Wyoming. Another video looks to be similar country, but doesn't have the same images.

This is probably yet another case of an email "spoof" or at the very least, a mistake as to where the photos were taken.

So, my apologies to all who have found this post via Google, my apologies to all who regularly read this blog and my apologies to whoever owns these photos.

Things like this shouldn't happen...but will probably happen again.

Happens to the best of us. Happens a bunch to a doofus like me.


Here's the original post.



My neighbor sent me these photos earlier this a.m. She didn't say who took them, and I'm normally loathe to publish something like this, not knowing to whom they belong or who I should credit, but thought they might be of interest to the readers of this blog.

So, if someone reading this owns these photos and objects to me putting them in this pathetic excuse for a blog, just email me and I'll be more than happy to take them down. Really, I'll be happy.

My toes are still curling up and I'll probably have nightmares tonight.

Click the photos for larger view.







I honestly believe that all God's creatures have a purpose and a right to exist on this planet; I also am concerned about the environment but looking at these I can't help but think:

"Five gallons of gasoline and a match...."


End of original post


Here's the last mail I got about rattlesnakes. I honestly think that's real as to the location, as well as the perspective of the shot influencing weight/length.



My last encounter with a rattler Snakes Alive!



Here's a photo a friend sent me a couple of years ago. It's supposed to be in Kansas, and since he is a State of Kansas highway employee, I figured he could vouch for the location.



The funny thing is that this photo also made the rounds, and it eventually got back to me as being in a Texas highway culvert.

I know we Texans are prone to brag, even to stretch the truth some, but we're not supposed to out-and-out lie about things. (well, not all the time, anyway)



Thanks to all for the emails regarding this, and thanks also for being polite. That's why this blog has limits on posting. I don't mind being told I'm wrong, but I draw the line at being called names because I've made a mistake.

(If I enjoyed that sort of thing, I would've stayed married)

One reader from Yukon, OK sent me this link; seems that the mail has made its way out West and now the snakes are in California.

Man, those snakes sure get around, don't they? Faster than a speeding email.

Thanks for the link!



Palo Duro Canyon official website

Some good photos there, loads of information on the canyon.




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When I Said I Do - Clint & Lisa Black

For my friends, Chester and Alison

Sneaky See-Through Super-Hero

I'm told I'm fairly transparent anyway....

Your Superpower Should Be Invisibility



You are stealth, complex, and creative.

You never face problems head on. Instead, you rely on your craftiness to get your way.

A mystery to others, you thrive on being a little misunderstood.

You happily work behind the scenes... because there's nothing better than a sneak attack!

Why you would be a good superhero: You're so sly, no one would notice... not even your best friends

Your biggest problem as a superhero: Missing out on all of the glory that visible superheroes get

June 9, 2008

Wasps After W.A.S.P.

Here's a cropped part of an acccidental photo I took at my home town's cemetery. I had stopped by the grave of an old friend; he was younger than me, but we rode the bus together for years. His mom and mine were friends, we lived only a few miles apart.

He had no flowers on his stone, so I decided to take some of the extras I had brought along and place on his grave. I usually also pull a few weeds around the stones and there was a particularly stubborn clump of goatheads just under a beautiful praying cherub statue. I moved the statue over and transferred my camera from one hand to the other so I could get my pocketknife out to cut the roots of that horrible sticker-producing weed.

(I hate those things, they're all over, the stickers get on your pants and shoes and when you get out of your car and cut across your lawn you've just started your own goathead patch. We had so many of the ******* things on our football field, the coaches would make us pull them up during our water breaks, we called it "Goathead Bowl" )

About that time, a swarm of yellowjackets/wasps came boiling out of the hole visible at the bottom left of statue in the following picture:

(click for larger view)



We Texans are prone to exaggerate, but I swear there were several thousand extremely angry wasps in the surrounding air in one second. Ok, ok, maybe a hundred, but they WERE P.O.'d.

The rest of the photo is blurred, as are the little yellow bits that are the wasps. Their wings were going ninety miles an hour, but if I'd have had the camera tilted a little bit more, you'd have seen a blurry pic of my fat butt going 100mph, heading in the other direction.

I've been stung before as a youth, by all sorts of bees, scorpions, spiders and such and came out fine. My dad, though, as he got older, became deathly allergic to them. Pop passed on the baldness gene and an often petulant nature to me so I'm just figurin' I should prob. stay away from wasps now that I've gone past the half-century mark.

And momma, if you're reading this from heaven, this is one of those cases a person SHOULD run with a knife in their hand. I'm no cherub, not even close to being a mature angel, but I looked like that (praying) when I got in my pickup and rolled up the windows. I also put 14 slashes in my dashboard with that knife, too, rolling up the window.

I'm a Raconteur Wannabe

From the Word of the Day feed in the right-hand column:

raconteur \rack-on-TUR\, noun: One who excels in telling stories and anecdotes.

He has an excellent raconteur's mind, memory, vocabulary and tongue, brings in a story just at the right time, in the right manner, serves his anecdotes perfectly either piping hot or ice-cold as tragedies.-- Anatole Pohorilenko and James Crump, When We Were Three


The pronunciation makes me think of Dolly Parton travelling from concert to concert.