Bite Me!

At first it started buzzing around my head, but I was engrossed in something on the 'net so I just waved my hand and shooed it away.  When it started flying close to my eyes, I stopped what I was doing, picked up a flyswatter and waited for it to land so I could get my revenge.  It landed my my bare thigh and I saw it wasn't a fly, but a huge mosquito.

When I raised the swatter to whack it, it flew off.  I still wanted to kill it, especially with the recent West Nile cases in Texas.  I waited for the mosquito to land again and it did, very near to where it had landed before on my leg.  I slowly raised the swatter but it took off again.  It didn't fly but a few inches when it landed again on my leg.  I lowered the swatter and watched.

It kept taking off and landing, looking as though it was testing the best place to stick me.  It tried at least a dozen times until I finally swatted it with the flat of my hand.  It was just a smashed piece of flesh on my palm, but there was no blood in it, so I must have not been bitten. 

I got to thinking that it was the first mosquito I had seen this year and then started remembering all the times over the last few years when I was with people who complained of being bitten but I never was bothered. I recalled a time when I stopped by the side of the road to take a photo of a horse in a nearby pasture.  To get to the fence, I had to go through a damp ditch with knee high grass and swarms of mosquitoes making a cloud around me...but not being bitten. (I was more concerned with a rattlesnake in the high grass, to be honest)

I haven't been bitten by a mosquito in years and years and I don't think it's a coincidence that the last time I suffered mosquito bites was before I developed diabetes.  A quick Google search shows plenty of folks with diabetes complaining they are bitten more than their non-diabetic friends, so that's probably not it.  Still, there's got to be some reason.

Maybe I'm TOO sweet for the skeeters, both literally and figuratively.   Nah, that can't be it.  The mosquitoes probably avoid me because of my sour disposition.

Clip art courtesy of DailyClipArt.net

Hitchcock Cameos

A compilation of (most of) Alfred Hitchcock's cameo appearances.

The music gets a little tiring after a couple of minutes, but there's always the mute button.

Hank Skinner on Death Row

44 1/2 minutes long, but well worth watching. I've often wondered what it would be like to be on Death Row and Skinner gives a cursory glimpse of that existence. As the video went on, I found myself in the place of the condemned being driven to the death house, looking out the window along the drive and seeing the beauty...and the ugliest...all the while knowing it was the last landscapes I would ever see.

The video is completely one-sided, the maker of the video making no bones about being against the death penalty. It doesn't paint Pampa in a particularly good light, especially in the scenes where it shows only the worst and ugliest parts of this small town.

I didn't realize it until I watched the video that I used to roughneck with a guy who had, several years prior, lived at the house where the murders were committed; I had driven by there doing some research for the book I had intended to write, but didn't recognize it as the place where my co-worker had lived, that I had been inside the house and visited with him and his family.  I don't know why I didn't remember that when I was researching the book.

The windbreaker Skinner speaks about being tested has been misplaced: Evidence Missing in Skinner Case.

Personally, I've gone back and forth on Skinner's innocence; at first, I thought he didn't do it, then was convinced he had. Now, I'm not so sure.  The uncle that Skinner claims to have done it died in a car wreck several years later after the murders and another witness* has also passed away.  I've interviewed Skinner's ex-girlfriend (whose house he was found at after the murders) and I understand why her recanting her trial testimony has been discounted:  she's not a credible witness.

*Witness, in this case, doesn't mean "to the crime" but rather a person with "evidence" offered to prove Skinner's innocence.  In this instance, it was someone in jail who claimed to have called the house just before the murders and being told by one of the victims that Skinner was passed out on the couch.

It's going to be interesting to see how this all plays out.  As it is, it's a landmark case in how DNA evidence will be treated in future trials and subsequent appeals.

Money Can't Buy Love

So they say, but it CAN rent it for a while

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You Would Choose Love

Money may buy a little happiness, but not the happiness of true love. You rather have a true soulmate than a private jet. And while many people may claim they would choose love too... You're one of the few who would really do it.

Would You Choose Love or Money?

Blogthings: Free Quizzes for Everyone

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Can't Buy Me Love - The Beatles

The Scot Version of Jerry Springer

This Could Be Me

Except I rarely drink and can't sing a lick. When I do sing, my cat runs from the room

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For some reason, the original video was taken down. I think I might have linked to a video that someone copied and it was taken down because of copyright issues. I did manage to find this one, hope it works for a little longer than the first one.

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