2003 is here

January 6, 2004

Happy New Year and all that. Hi Mom! I’ll be home for Yom Kippur, kidding only kidding; I don’t even know when that is. I think a funny joke would be to take Martin out in the woods and tell him we’re going to go dump an old couch in a ditch somewhere but when we get there and old redneck with a gun will come out of the woods and start messing with Martin and tell him things like “Boy, you got pretty lips.” – Not necessarily Martin, that’s just an example – I think it would be a funny joke. Today Old Man Cooley told me that in Michigan when it’s 4 degrees outside women put on bikinis and sunbath in the middle of snow covered driveways, he says it’s so hot you can walk around in shorts and t-shirts. Then he told me about driving across lakes and people building cabins on ice and living there for the whole winter – he says if your car falls in the lake you get fined $2000.00 – something tells me if your car falls in the lake under ice, you might just die. Old Man Cooley has the best stories.

January 8, 2004

Well here is the 2004 page per the request.

January 9, 2004

I have an idea for a sketch on SNL, oh never mind I forgot it. I am so sick and tired of Michael Jackson, he should die. I am also sick and tired of all the publicity famous people get doing asinine things, and CNN reports it with the same degree of professionalism they report war and politics. Brittany Spears does not deserve to be on CNN and neither does Charlie Sheen – until he is arrested, again. Long story short I think if CNN is going to cover celebrity gossip they should be complete smart-asses about it, as a matter of fact they should hire Dennis Leary to do their “Entertainment” segments, it would go something like this: “Today Brittany Spears got married and then annulled it to sell more albums, OK Miss Spears you had like 3 good songs and now you suck, yeah you suck, I said it – Go ahead and pose for playboy, get it over with, you know it’s gonna happen it’s just matter of time before you’re sitting in a meeting with your publicity agent who says listen bitch you better get naked before you’re old like Madonna and can’t make the payment on your BMW and have to write stupid assed children’s books to feed your family and by then it’s too late to do Playboy because you’re old-as-hell --- Get the picture”

January 13, 2004

What if trash talking was allowed on Jeopardy and contestants were allowed to fight, like in hockey – Full Contact Jeopardy, you heard it here first, now watch somebody turn it into a reality TV show and make millions, meanwhile Grant Wooten is playing in a short-haired rock n roll band for $50.00 a night. I may have sushi tonight, I’ll cross my fingers. By the way I kicked ass at Jeopardy last night.

January 16, 2004

Last night we played in Florence and of course it was a blast as we expect.  Looks like we are going back to a place in Florence called Club 231 on a Friday night, so maybe some more people we know can come out and see us - maybe I'll invite Todd, for those of you reading that understand, insert your own Grant-Todd joke at this point.  Now as for everything else, I'm doing well no big issues to complain about (Today) of course I've been in bed all day with no interaction with the rest of the world, oh never mind, I went to Wachovia today to deposit a portion of my millions and they didn't have any deposit slips out front - you have to ask a teller for a deposit slip - I asked why and she said it's because they are trying to get rid of them - that makes no sense, people are stupid, they are just going to make the lines longer - dammit and I thought today was a good day, now it's ruined because of the stupid people at Wachovia.  If Grant Wooten were president stupid people would be sent to work in mines on the moon (the mines would of already been built by George Bush, he's looking for oil) and there would be a counsel of smart people to determine who is stupid, the counsel members would be appointed by the Presidential Cabinet and ratified by Congress, there would need to be one counsel per 1 million citizens, so there would be various counsels all over the country.  At first the task would be daunting but after a year or two, once the bulk of the stupid people were on the moon I think a small counsel of people say 9, could pick the stupid people out.  Think of it, out educational system would flourish and crime would drop - the only problem here is that Hitler and Maybe Saddam Hussein already tried this, except their "stupid" people were Jews and Kurd's respectively, and they didn't send them to the moon to work in mines. 

January 19, 2004

What can I say, I hate Michael Jackson, and the Sundance in Columbia is a great place to play, I hope they ask us back (insert your own joke here). The Panthers are going to the super bowl, imagine that, I told my girlfriend earlier this year the Panthers were over-rated, she had to bring that up last night as we were watching the game. I think Wal Mart is taking over the world. More on that later. By the way – Hal is going to Iraq again, sometime is February. He’ll be there until he gets discharged in October. He thinks he will be able to get out a month or so early – GOOD LUCK!

January 21, 2004

John Kerry did well in Iowa, so did John Edwards and guess what, I didn’t watch very much of President Bush – I had better things to do, like putting sox on cat’s head’s. I saw the re-cap on CNN, and at lunch today I saw a Wolf Blitzer interview the “president” of Iraq, who Bush had brought to the “speech” with him. I also noticed Bush grab a little girl out of the crowd and hug and kiss her, as he made his way to the front of the House floor. Guess what, she was black. In a room full of rich white people Bush managed to find a little black girl wondering around – you think that was an accident. I hate it when rich republicans patronize different races, like they really care – and then he says he wants a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriages – how screwed up is that. Ben Stein was on CNN or Fox on Monday evening, and he said John Edwards has the best chance of beating Bush (Stein is a republican, by the way) – we’ll see. Oh no, Martin is screwing with the webpage, run, run for your lives.

January 23, 2004

Thanks for the clarification on the guest book, I thought there was a day care kid gone astray. Her name is Ashley and she’s from Rhode Island. By the way Bush also invited am ex-con who served time for some kind of drug distribution and possession crime – but now the guy owns a business and I guess Bush is saying he’s a success story of the US Penal System – my point is it’s all just propaganda – rather or not it means anything at all is left to be decided – So it is. So it is. Al Gore did it too, remember when he used to call people by name, and hometown and then say how they couldn’t afford their prescription drugs – that got on my nerves so bad, I mean once was OK but he did beat a dead horse.

Check this out, Bush said he wanted to fill unfilled American jobs with temporary illegal immigrants – I find that funny, because we already have more people than jobs – It’s a mass balance thing, you can’t have more people than you do jobs. What he really meant to say was – we can get illegals to fill jobs lazy American’s don’t want, when they can earn money and get free groceries by sitting on their asses, drinking liquor and making babies. Fair enough.

January 27, 2004

Guess what, Hal got married this past weekend, to Amanda of course, bad news is he’s going back to Iraq in February. Amanda’s brother married them in a Hotel somewhere over there near San Diego – I don’t remember the name of the place it sounded like Gerbil – something – all those places over there sound weird to me – anyway, congratulations to Hal.

The past few days have been nice, the weather was awful, but relaxing for some reason, I just stayed inside and read Vonnegut. I am happy for Hal, but what’s going on with the marriage thing anyway, seems like everybody’s doing it – oh well, and it seems so trite – Hal and Amanda just up and decided to get married a weeks time, screw all the formalities and trinkets and dresses and cakes – sounds more reasonable to me to do it that way. But who am I to say, I’ve only been married 3 times – what do I know – ha-ha. Man, I am loosing it, I really think I’ve been married 3 times – who am I kidding it was more like 4. My coop tells me that she can read my diary just like the rest of the world; I didn’t know she cared, so I sent her on an errand that required her to face the cold, and ice and bravely mail 2 letters in the administration building – god’s speed young lady and off you go. I have never met a man named Bullwinkle – have you?

January 28, 2004

Hello, Hello. Last night was more primary action, and Kerry won, Dean was 2^nd and Edwards and Clark were kinda tied for 3^rd – whatever. One thing going on is the senate’s armed services committee inquiry of “WMD” and their interrogation of the former chief inspector Dr. Kay. They want to know what went wrong and why we don’t have any evidence of weapons. Again I am still mad at the administration for going into Iraq in the first place. However in my humble opinion these senate hearings are silly – it’s like being on trial but then again there no judge, just rich white men sitting behind desk asking mean questions and trying their best to ask questions that make themselves look “learned or educated” I remember when Oliver North was questioned about selling Iran weapons, and then he started giving speeches for $50,000 a pop – he never went to jail – he made money. As I was told this afternoon “Bo - It’s all about the money - Bo” No really I was told that, and it stuck so I came home and wrote this.

My sister is going to work the democratic debate at the Peace Center in Greenville tomorrow night, for those of you wondering, she is a raving liberal many thousand times more-so than I, and I can’t wait to introduce her to Folk.

January 29, 2004

Dennis Leary was on comedy central 2 nights ago. I think he’s funny, and witty. By the way I hate redneck humor, I think it is pointless, and not at all clever. Larry the cable guy sucks, and guess what, so does Jeff Foxworthy, you heard it here first people, Jeff Foxworthy is like the redneck Michael Bolton – A NO TALENT ASS CLOWN and Larry the cable guy is just plain DUMB. That stand up thing they had on Comedy Central called blue collar comedy is a perversion of good stand-up. Guess what people, with respect to the majority of humans, especially living in the south I would say I am an experienced stand-up critic. I’ve been known to drive several hundred miles to see good stand up, and of course I watch stand-up on comedy central religiously. Now I know different people have different tastes and I admit I have laughed at these guys before, saying that just think for a minute, is it funny to watch and/or listen to someone talk like a redneck, make jokes about incest and boobies and trailer-park for 30-45 minutes – any intelligent person should say NO – it’s funny as a bit (a bit would be considered a short 1-3 minutes segment of a stand-up routine) but it is insulting to the audience as a whole show. Guess what – Jeff Foxworthy’s show lasted less than a season, you know why, because it’s not funny for an extended period of time. Guess what? Seinfeld was one of the highest rated and best money making shows ever because it was clever, you never knew what to expect next and whatever it was – it was funny. So, after all of this. I like Dennis Leary, I wish he was my uncle. I also like comics that are creative and non-repetitive, by the way – John Boy and Billy suck too. Old man Cooley told me one time as I was listening to the John-Boy and Billy morning show, “If you want to hear rednecks laugh – go upstairs” A few days later I went upstairs – I didn’t like them anymore. And haven’t listened to them since, seriously they suck too. I wish Dennis Leary and Larry the cable guy would go on a reality show together, like last comic standing or it could be something else, man they would hate each other, I bet Dennis would talk so much trash Larry would either fight, cry or leave.

January 30, 2004

Ha-Ha, I am surprised nobody is mad at me for talking trash about “southern” comics, Martin must not be an avid reader of the Wooten Journal – by the way, and I say again, Martin is solely responsible for all that new stuff on the opening page – the “road news.” If you like it or hate it – it’s not my fault, with that said go ahead and tell Martin what you think, you don’t have a problem telling me what you think. Martin loves Larry the Cable guy, and if you ride in his jeep – guess what, you’re gonna listen to Larry, like it or not! Note to self – don’t ride with Martin.

Addition:

Ladies and Gentlemen – it is official; Soni of Hootie and the Blowfish has decreed that I shall not have a mullet. This is not a BFL, my sister ended up in his hotel room last night in Greenville, drinking whiskey and singing songs – this makes no sense, so it goes.

February 3, 2004

Today is primary day in SC, wonder who will win. I am going to wear my John Edwards shirt when I get home. I did not wear it to work today, I don’t attempt to brainwash everyone I meet. There is a time and a place for everything, sometimes we have to keep our mouth’s shut – but not here, not on my little webpage, my corner of the universe – I tell it like it is. Al Sharpton would probably make a good president, Joe Lieberman would make a good Dean of Some College of Engineering, Ashley says Edwards is cute, Kerry is solid but personally I think he looks like’s Fonzie’s younger brother who works in a library – Kerry’s OK but he lacks something, he’s not a motivator – and what Kerry lacks, Dr. Dean makes up for 100-fold – Dean is a crazy bastard – that’s about all I have to say about that. To me Clark may be the best all around candidate with Edwards as a very close second but neither got the press coverage they deserved. I don’t want to take anything away from Kerry, whatever his camp did – they did it right – but the questions now becomes – Can he best Bush….. We’ll see.

This past weekend most of the band ate at 231 in Florence and it was great, their crab cakes were the best, so were their steaks. Way better than Outback – oh and then on Saturday night I had Sushi – great weekend for me.

February 4, 2004

No news is good news. I did my taxes yesterday, or rather paid someone else to do them – I came out pretty well.

February 5, 2004

“Silence isn’t golden when you’re holding it inside” Wonder who said that? I It was Axl, my friend and yours, he’s the same Axl that really cannot sing at all, but yet sold millions of albums – hey there’s hope for me. I was told the other day not to sing, and if I did sing I would be singing alone – If I was as good a singer as I am a bowler – I’d only be able to sing 4 notes. Aliens most surely exist, they may be single celled and breathe hydrogen sulfide, but the chances are good that somewhere out there – they exist. However I am willing to bet say $100.00 that no alien has been here on earth, but if I am wrong then I wouldn’t feel so bad – because hey, at least I’d know. The reason advanced, intelligent aliens have not visited earth is simple: Space is too big. Unless they can travel faster than light, or open worm holes or travel in time – it’s just too big. What is the closest star to Earth (other than the sun)? it’s not Alpha Centauri, it’s Proxima Centauri, which is part o the Alpha Centauri system, the system is about 4.3 light years away and the smaller star Proxima is 4.22 light years away. So a round trip at light speed would take 8.5 years – imagine how much stuff you would have to pack for an 8 year trip, and I fill up the backseat of my truck when I leave for the weekend. Yeah, Yeah I know there could be some kind of “deep sleep” thingy like in Aliens and of course the warp drive non-sense. As of now we, as earthlings, think nothing can travel faster than light: light is the speed limit of the universe. Consult your local physics book for an explanation. If there are Aliens out there chances are they are stuck right where they are at because they have the same speed limit we do, and no one is volunteering for an 8-year trip.

Maybe I’ll write more on astronomy later.

February 10, 2004

Before you correct me you must identify yourself so I can dish out sarcasm based on race, creed, religion and stupidity – I practice equal opportunity sarcasm. Of course I know about anaerobic bacteria, my point was if they exist on earth they can exist somewhere else, and if a species can thrive in hostile environments then who’s to say they can’t exist somewhere else in the universe. Don’t make me get out my wastewater treatment texts and lecture about various bacteria. I will.

February 12, 2004

Portion of a letter one of my mom’s friends sent me asking me about school:

Your Mother (I am her counterpart in Beaufort) suggested that it would be ok to contact you for info on USC's Chem E program. As a recent grad with a real job we thought you might have a clear perspective on our dilemma. Our son BJ, is a senior debating between USC and GaTech...he was also accepted at FL tech and Clemson but not seriously considering Clemson or FL.

As a parent, I worry about the pressures of Ga Tech, since it is a top ten Eng college. Of course it will cost more but then will a big name college net you a better job... as a parent cheaper is good but not at the expense of value. How do you feel USC compares?

Would it be alright for BJ to call or email his questions? I even thought perhaps we could visit your plant in Bennettsville. He says he is interested in Pharmaceutical end but then I am not sure his experience level makes that choice clear.

Here is a portion of my response, seriously

Tech is a great school, a lot of their engineers go on to great things, and Atlanta would be a fun place to live. BUT each student needs to make up their minds themselves. And if you ask me I suggest you make the decision based on what school has the best sports or the best looking girls or the best bars or the best fraternities or the best dorms or the best parties or the best location - why, because I have found that from what I use at work only about 10% comes from college academics, and the rest comes from simply living and enjoying my surroundings. The engineering degree is a badge of honor, but it only gets your foot in the door, Personality, wit, creativity and self confidence get you the job - and you can't polish these traits in a classroom - that's why I suggested checking out the bars. Carol you may delete this part if you don't want BJ seeing it - and I am joking but in a way I am telling you and BJ that academics is only a portion of the college experience and so many students think it is 100% of college they loose touch with friends and don't socialize and end up hating the whole thing. Tell BJ there used to be a fake ID place on Decatur St about 4 blocks from the Atlanta Underground. It used to be $38.

I posted this because I didn’t have time to write today, my boss had me cleaning out gutters and painting white lines in the parking lot. I kidding, only kidding, I was doing important double secret work. I can’t write anymore, they’re coming…….

February 15, 2004

Happy Valentines day, yep that was yesterday.  I got my girlfriend something, I did not forget.  Today I sat around and watched the race, Little E won.  I still think the whole Nextel Cup thing is stupid, it doesn't sound right.  I also cooked homemade vegetable soup and cornbread today for lunch, but the cornbread stuck to the bottom of the pan - I didn't spray it with Pam - that's the current theory.

 February 17, 2004

Yesterday I did 2 stupid things. First of all I asked my boss if donkeys came from horses and cows having sex, turns out it’s a female horse and a male donkey. I didn’t grow up on a farm. If I played you at bible jeopardy, I would kick your ass, but I don’t know too much about farming. Then when I went home I decided to wash the dishes with liquid detergent – in the dishwasher. Suds came out the sides of the door, it was funny and caused a big mess. I knew I wasn’t supposed to put the liquid detergent in the dishwasher but I wanted to see what happened. Can you blame me? By the way, I have put shampoo in the dishwasher before and it didn’t cause such a mess – Pantene, I think it was, I ran out of the Cascade. It’s all Ashley’s fault, she kept telling me I needed liquid detergent and I was like, I don’t need that, I have a dishwasher. Turns out it’s a bad idea to have Grant Wooten and liquid detergent in the same house.

I was reading Martin’s Road Page and every time he starts off a sentence it’s “Another great show for bbt ….” You know what, that’s a Big Fat Lie, also know as a Certified Freaking Liar (CFL) That show we played in Clemson – there were 8 people watching us. 2 of them were my parents and the other 6 were tricked by my parents into coming – they stayed 30 minutes. It was not a great show. We didn’t play bad but the whole thing sucked, every once in a while we end up somewhere like that. We played 8 songs and left at midnight.

Ok Ashley, go ahead and be a smart ass. Ashley just called and asked me what I was doing so I told her I was writing my philosophy for the day and she says, something like “Oh no I can’t interrupt that, you must be sooooo busy” One of these days……

February 20, 2004

Notes from the week.  I learned today that Cinco De Mayo, the Mexican Independence day, is really a celebration of Mexico's unwillingness to pay its bills.  If this turn out to be a BFL, it's not mine.  I did utter a BFL this week, I was on the phone in my office when my coop walked in.  She stood at the door and I motioned her to come in, and immediately got off the phone.  I said to her, that was just my dad, we were planning our weekend, and we're going to play golf with Jimmy Carter -  she believed it.  I quickly told her it was a BFL, to keep my credibility.  Once you loose you credibility - it's gone.  Ask my friend Robert Mitchell.  I also learned where mules come from.  February 21, 2004

February 25, 2004

Yeah, I missed a few days writing, sorry, it’s been busy at work and at home. I am disappointed because now I know I don’t have any Jewish readers. Enough about that! One day I will write about gay marriages, but not today, I don’t have enough time, and I don’t want to make any of my friends mad. I will say, the country needs a little controversy because it makes people think. Unfortunately it makes people mad too, that is a side-effect of controversy, by nature. George Bush said yesterday he wanted a peaceful debate about the topic – yeah right! On a serious note, I think Martin’s additions to the webpage look wonderful. What I like best are his pictures, if you can call them picture – more like visual-media. Don’t know what to say. Oh. Hello to Carly the coop, thanks for lunch today. Oh, and another hello to my other coop who is in school, Dean. Dean called me the other night looking for a library in Greenville. I gave him directions but the library had closed. That’s the library off Highway 123 on the left about 2 miles past Saint Francis Hospital, in case you were wondering. I am going to Raleigh, NC on Friday to get more coops. I am going to ask them to sing that song “She Bangs” but they have to do it like Young William. Some of you have no clue what that means, in that case it’s even funnier. Young William is my friend that I served with in Korea, no not the war, the bar down in Daytona Florida – it’s an all male library.

March 9, 2004

It’s been a while I know. Let’s just say I was busy at work. Forget all the important stuff, let’s skip to the things that really piss me off. I hate cute email address when used for business purposes. If you put a cute email address like teddybear01@soandso.com (I made the address up) on a resume, a business card or letterhead you look like a jackass. It’s fine to have personal accounts with any name you want, I do. It’s a good way to keep personal and business and work separated. I use my aol account for buying stuff online. I found when even I purchase online an give them my email I get about a thousand emails the next week trying to sell me crap I don’t need. So I wouldn’t give out my work email like that. In addition if you don’t have the ability to put a kick ass company after you name like grant.wooten@blackbeardstruck.com then you should use your name in conjunction with a hotmail or a Bellsouth or an AOL account. Let me say, I did not make this up, I read it in a business magazine, about how to make your resume better and professional, let me also so that cute email addresses pissed me off long before I read about editors in a magazine getting pissed off. You know what else pisses me off? (The answer is not everything) When I see someone’s name on a resume or on a webpage or written down somewhere and then I call them by that name and they want to be called something else. What the hell are they thinking? My name is James Grant Wooten. The only place it says James Grant Wooten are my checks, bank statements and drivers license – pretty much anything the government has control over. On my resume I put Grant Wooten, and on my CDs I put Grant Wooten, on my webpage I put Grant – why because I don’t want people calling me James(Not that James is bad). So when I see someone’s business card and it has 3 names on it – screw it, I’m confused and they don’t get my business. To all you young professionals out there, don’t put your full name on your resume – it confuses me and probably those editors too! There is this waitress in Bennettsville at a particular restaurant that is mean, no not rude – mean. She’s a smart ass, and will chastise you if you order the wrong way, order out of turn, order too slow or too complicated. Don’t even think about complaining or your head will be on a platter for the next customers. Soup Nazi, not even close. I bet tonight I will watch Idol, I think it comes on. Last night I saw the School or Rock movie. It was good, funny and clean – not typical Jack Black. Jack Black is one of the duo that makes up Tenacious D, and Tenacious D is anything but clean – they sing about satan, sucking on toes, spinal tattoos and killing each other and joining cults and scoring chicks. They are a real life version of Beavis and Butthead – they used to do 15 minute segments on HBO a long time ago, now Jack is a big star. Wonder what happen to Kyle. They sang this song called Rocket Sauce, and then this epic ballad about a Satan worshiping record store clerk whom they both fell in love with and started fighting over then Kyle took a bullet for JB and they agreed that to rock and kick ass was more important than women. I was a fan long ago. I think it was HBO. A lot of their material comes out in the School of Rock movie, I think that’s why I laughed so much – at the show this weekend I’m gonna try some of my Jack Black moves.

March 11, 2004

Greg Maddux has left the Braves, and the bad thing about this is that I can’t tell my beautiful girlfriend that she is as pretty as Greg Maddux. I’ll have to come up with something else. I am going to Greenville on Friday, that’s tomorrow. I took my paxil, so I am not pissed off right now, but I could easily go into relapse and start writing about how I got pissed off at some idiosyncrasy no one else even noticed. Oh no, here it goes – did I mention how much I hate lines, and I hate waiting in lines. I hate getting hair cuts too. If I had free will, which I don’t, I would either let my hair grow and grow or shave it all off. Life is too short for hair cuts, I could be out discovering a way to make better lime, or invent a new kind of shoe, or whatever, but no, I have to drive and get a hair cut. That’s the best thing about being a Marine, you always have the same haircut and you are paid to get haircuts. I have to go after work or at lunch or on Saturday or on my day off to get a freaking haircut. How much better would life be if hair cuts were a part of everyday life, like a marine. My drill instructor would say “Wooten for the rest of the afternoon you are getting a haircut” I’d be like, sweet I don’t have to run around in circles and do push-ups today. Make any sense? I didn’t think it would. Long story short, I got a haircut today and no my boss didn’t give me the rest of the day off. If by chance my boss’s lovely wife were reading this, she could say to her husband “Grant should have the rest of the day off for being a good employee and getting a hair cut” and he’d be like, sure that sounds like a great idea. Trouble is the next day he would have me shoveling coal or digging a half mile long ditch…. Maybe I’ll join the Marines.

March 12, 2004

Don’t tell me I talk to myself, the other night I had a perfectly good conversation with me about turkeys and rabbits. I have found turkeys not quite as dangerous as rabbits and I was discussing this with myself, I wasn’t hurting anyone, I promise. And I do go to sleep some times at 10PM, and I won’t answer the phone if I am asleep because I am asleep so don’t ask if I am asleep – The answer is NO, if I was asleep how could I be on the phone. Did I wake you is a more appropriate question. Although Turkeys are bigger than rabbits they don’t possess the evil a rabbit possess. If you were to encounter an evil Turkey you would be scared, if you were to encounter a rabbit you wouldn’t live to tell anyone you encountered a rabbit. Don’t tell me this is nonsense I wrote it, do you think I know. Bull Street? Never heard of it. So back to the story about my cats…. Confused yet, I thought so. I am just making a joke, a am not crazy.. promise! Just having fun. Seriously. I was thinking about what I wrote in the yearbook my senior year, the story about rabbits. You’d have to read it, it was a joke, intended to make fun of all the serious people who thought long and hard about what to write for their senior quote. I didn’t think very long, as a matter of fact I wrote it in 2^nd period English class and handed it to Kim to publish about 2 hours later during 5^th period yearbook class. Originally I had the word Damn in my quote, but Kim being the good little Editor she was changed it, I think, I might have gone back and put damn back in it after the fact. The only problem she had was that it was too long and might not fit – long story short, it fit. It was about rabbits and people messing with rabbits and getting their digits bitten off. It made no sense, but who was gonna change it, I mean it’s not like I had any editorial control over the yearbook, those morons in yearbook class must of never read it, except for Kim, and I may have flirted with her a little, at least I like to remember it that way. Flirting gets you a long way in life, it also gets you in trouble. I wonder if ex-girlfriends ever read this garbage? Well as far as I know only 1 knows it exists. Well if any other ex’s are out there hello. I’m doing well, I’m on my way to an executive position with a fortune 500 company, and I never got institutionalized, like so many of you thought I would. I’ll be back in Greenville tonight for 1 night only. See you later. GW

March 15, 2004

I saw Bruno Friday and of course Mac and Dwayne and Steven and Jennings and Ben and John. Most of the people in the picture in my office were there, it was nice, I wish I had more time to talk. Bruno is doing really well, he’s got an office type job with a construction company. I figured he’d be in jail instead. One time Bruno and some other people rode around and ran over trash cans in Bruno’s Volvo late one night – that’s all Bruno wanted to talk about and Guess who those people were? I can’t believe it’s been so long since I’ve seen some of those people, it was quite a shock. Sometime it seems like decades ago we were in high school together, and other times it seems like we graduated last year – I guess it depends on the memory. People have been getting old and missing old friends forever, nothing new. Nothing new. What pisses me off this week? Nothing today, oh but I still dislike voice mail, and when people call and say we’re playing phone tag, this one guy called and he said his name and then “tag you’re it” If he were in prison or working construction and he said that to someone he would get beat-up. Like in the movie office space when that fat lady tells what’s his name he has a case of the Monday’s. Yeah, like that.

March 16, 2004

Running out of things to say, no, I’m just tired and can’t come up with anything exciting. GW is not crazy, tonight is more American Idol – I will watch it. Wow. Some people want to go be missionaries, some people want to be doctors and some want to kick ass and rock. I’m one of those missionary types --- haha kidding. Still running out of things to say. I am not allowed to talk about gay marriage because I may offend the straight people. Can I at least talk about Baptist, I am Baptist so I can talk about them, right? Baptist are different everywhere, even Bob Jones University describes itself as Baptist, then there are Southern Baptist, and within the Southern Baptist there is the CBF, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and their website is http://www.cbfofsc.org I just thought I would share that. Southern Baptist and CBF folks are like a USC grad at a tractor convention. Bob Jones Baptist are like one step away from Waco Texas, if you know what I mean. A couple of years ago a Bob Jones security guard opened fire on a car for running a stop sign on a 6 lane street in Greenville – a security guard, he shouldn’t of even had a can of mace – he had a 9-mm, loaded. I don’t think anybody in any religion can get along, rather you are Mormons, Baptist, Catholic or Jewish or Unitarian. Somebody is going to get pissed off about something, it’s inevitable. Somebody is gonna say women can’t be ministers and someone else is gonna say gays can marry in my church and then someone is gonna say we need 100 missionaries in Tibet and somebody else is gonna say put 50 in Tibet and 50 in Beaufort, SC, then the old people with the money get pissed off and start giving their money to different charities other than the church and that pisses off the poor people because they feel like they don’t have a say so --- sound familiar? And then somebody gets pissed off at the minister because he’s on vacation when one of their parents has a heart attack. Since the apostle Paul started writing about the formation of what we now know as organized Christianity, people have been getting pissed off about such things, and these things vary – don’t even ask about what happens when churches try to build a gym. So the point, there is no point, except I think it’s strange that religious people get so pissed off so easy, sometimes organized religion is more like a Southpark episode than gospel. And have you ever meet someone who is a complete asshole and then you cuss around them and they’re like I don’t use that language, I go to church. What, what? Every church has an asshole and you sir are that man!

March 31, 2004

Sorry yall, it’s been almost 2 weeks since I wrote last. I got busy, really busy, and by the way I never got that day off – damn. I was told I could have my choice between a Saturday and a Sunday afternoon – really funny let me tell ya. I was thinking about PDAs today, do you know what a PDA is? I thought it was a public display of affection, but it’s not. It’s a tiny little computer that fits in your pocket. It can store phone numbers, calendars and even MS office documents. Some have keyboards that fold out, but all have little pens that let you type or write or draw, whatever your fetish happens to be that day. Notice my word choice, there are so many, many things hidden between these lines – ask your local psychiatrist, no don’t, bad idea. Anyway these PDAs allow you to play solitaire, or even Tetris while sitting in a meeting, all the while you look like you are fervently taking notes. Also, I want to conduct an experiment, I bet I can’t but what if, you took 100 people and timed them doing daily tasks like errands, or routine stuff at work for say a month. Then you give 50 of them PDAs and 50 pens and paper – and after a month go back and time them doing the same task. Wonder if the ones with the PDAs would have more free time because of the added technological advantage. I bet at least 1 of the 50 would be induced into a mid-life crisis because hell, that’s just want happens. Anyway it’s my opinion that the PDA would not offer a significant advantage, if anything, it takes longer to log events into a PDA than it does to write them down. One more thing, I saw a commercial about adult ADD – what the hell is this, I mean come on, the commercial reads something like this: Do you have trouble paying attention in meetings, in church? Do you often stray away from the topics at hand? Do you have a hard time focusing when someone talks for an extended period of time? Do you have trouble sitting still in meetings and have the urge to get up and walk about? To you find it hard to concentrate when doing your taxes? ------ Come on. I may come out with a self help video for adult ADD.

April 1, 2004

April fools day explained - again if you are an avid reader and I know that most of you are, you know that today is the only day of the year you can trust a BFL. Why because they lie every other day and tell outlandish stories except today, because it’s April fools day. They fool us by telling the truth. The IRONY here! Or am I a BFL telling you that others are BFLs protecting my own BFLs??? Philosophy at its best. The 2-day champion on Jeopardy is a neurosurgeon, who is also in a band, and he’s a genius – I think I am going to stalk him. He may be from San Diego, if so, watch out I have people out there. I told Ashley last night I was going to take a week off work to stalk a jeopardy contestant – she quickly told me I was crazy. Full contact scrabble would be a fun game. This guy named Knight is running for Sheriff, the only problem - nobody knows when the election is – conspiracy – I think so! If I stalked a jeopardy contestant would that make me crazy? Do YOU have adult ADD, DO I? Maybe but who cares, I’m such a talented actor, I can pretend to pay attention while I am playing minesweeper on my PDA. Southpark last night was funny, it made fun of Mel Gibson, I mean it was degrading. I have no idea about what is going on. 2 weeks ago a little 6 year old boy (he may be 7, although I was at his birthday party but I wasn’t paying attention because of my ADD) asked me if he could go swimming in my pool – I said sure but it’s cold. He stuck his hand in and felt, he said it’s cold but not too cold for me. Needless to say the water was probably between 40 & 50. He didn’t get in. My coop told me she had to go to school today to take a test and register for classes – I say she’s up in the mountains with hippies, I’m gonna ask her for a letter from her teacher. Not that there is anything wrong with hippies. I’d be one if I could; I’m just in the wrong tax bracket, and I get up too early in the morning. Hippies sleep late, because they don’t have jobs, and they live in tents down by rivers, I don’t want to live in a tent. Tents don’t get sci-fi channel.

April 2, 2004

Limerick for the day,

There once was a man named Dave

Who by mistake stumbled into a Rave

He said what the heck

I’ll take some of that “X”

Now he sleeps in his pet hamster’s cage

It took me all week to come up with that one. They should take all the food commercials off the air because American is getting fat, it worked with cigarettes, right? During the NASCAR races Nextel, and NASCAR have all these commercials about the history of the sport, and how NASCAR and Nextel “Stick to their roots” and how they will never forget the great ones, and what a proud tradition car racing is – and they show pictures of past drivers – you know what Bullshit. If you wanted to stick to your roots you wouldn’t of moved the Southern 500 to the freaking end of November, you would of removed Winston from Winston Cup – Nextel Cup sounds stupid, face it people, you wouldn’t change the rules every week when Jeff Gordon complains or someone gets run over in the pits – let em get run over in the pits, screw em, if they want to change a tire in the middle of traffic, let em, NASCAR changes the rules more than any other sport – if you can call it a sport –how can you claim tradition when literally they change the rules weekly – it does not make sense. And this Winston thing pisses me off. And baseball isn’t that much better, steroids and strikes, steroids and strikes, same old BS, at least the NASCAR drivers don’t get arrested and put on trial in the off season or when they retire. I mean damn, the courts are full of professional football and basketball players who killed somebody. The talk at the hall of fame is like this “Well I got away with my 2^nd murder last year”, No biggie I ran a bus load of 7^th graders off the worlds tallest bridge going through West Virginia just this morning – I got a speeding ticket.

April 3, 2004

Nothing important

April 4, 2004

This weekend's show looked to suck from the get go but it came around.  There weren't a whole lot of people but the ones that were there had fun - thanks for the beer.  Oh, and I along with the rest of the band appreciate the people who came out, we've gotten to know alot of the Newberry student body, and they've gotten to know us.  It's nice to have people remember us, I wouldn't call them fans, we're not big enough for that.  But Newberry College has turned out to be a real fun spot for us, I think we're playing there 1 more time before school's out.  Looking forward to it.  I am not a raving liberal.  Ryan Newman got knocked out of today's race and Junior finished 4th.  I like them both, it that OK?  But I was told if I put a 12 anywhere on my truck I would have to find a new girlfriend.  What should I do?  Just kidding, seriously, in the grand scheme of all things Grant, NASCAR doesn't make my top 10, but it is entertaining - but then again so is throwing bottles at rocks and watermelons off bridges - ever try those?  Keep it real. Represent.

April 7, 2004

Hello, Hello. I am still pissed off about Iraq, and it’s all over the news as a constant reminder. Our soldiers deserve our respect, and I would never say a negative word about the job they do – George Bush is a horse’s ass. Iraq was not worth 600 American soldier’s lives. And that number is growing. I predict it will be at or above 1000 by their precious June 30 deadline. For what, the freedom of the Iraqis? As soon as we leave another charismatic man with a big gun and no conscience is going to take over - it’s the way they do things, it’s been going on since Moses or before. It may not be this year, but I feel sure it will happen. As soon as we leave terrorist groups are going to scare the public from voting or scare them into voting certain people into power – which is why we are going to have to stay. Our loved ones are going to stay there to protect a desert with some oil in it, and a few million people who hate us. Terrorist attacks are not going to stop in Iraq, as long as we are there, no matter what. We can’t stop Mexican’s from coming into the US, we aren’t going to stop Syrians, and Iranians from coming into Iraq to take their shot at us. And the more American’s that die, the more Bush will send, and on top of that Bush pissed off the rest of the world so the UN essentially says “Screw you, you made your bed now lie in it.” So we are almost on our own (Except for the UK) Here’s what I say. All the people in the US that want us to occupy Iraq should have to join the Marines. Let them do a 12 month tour of duty over there and then we’ll see. If we hadn’t invaded Iraq we could very well have been speaking Arabic now, and living in caves. What else can we do ? Give the country back to Saddam, give him a cigar and say no hard feelings buddy? I mean at this point we are stuck in Iraq, we are really screwed. We have people in our country with no health care, literally dying on the streets, we have neighborhoods that are so unsafe children don’t get enough sleep at night, and are so poor they can’t get a breakfast in the morning and when they do bad in school it’s the teacher’s fault, so the president makes stupid ass laws to make the teachers more accountable for more material that they don’t even get to pick. We need more teachers, safer neighborhoods, more school buses, more computers in classrooms, better books, free health care for those who need it, we need jobs, we need AFFORDABLE college educations, we need the opportunity to go to college, we need better roads, we really really need more fuel efficient cars and cleaner burning fuel – we don’t NEED 150,000 American soldiers guarding 2% of the world’s oil supply, we don’t NEED 50 billion dollars paying for protection and heath care for the people of Iraq and we really don’t NEED to send people to Mars – there are vagrant human rights violations all over the world, take China for instance or half the nations in Africa, or even Israel and all the violence there – why did Bush choose to protect the people of Iraq. At first Iraq was a threat, now we went to war to liberate a country from a generation of rule by a cruel dictator. Bush should prepare to go back to Texas, or maybe he should finish out his National Guard duty in Iraq. If a dodge neon could pull a 2,000 lb trailer I would of bought one.

Wasn’t the Berlin Wall torn down, aren’t there elections in the former Soviet Union – democracy and freedom can prevail, but just because war may be the fastest cure, it’s not the best one.

April 13, 2004

Canada is letting people hunt little baby seals and beat them to death with baseball bats. It’s called clubbing seals. I am declaring a boycott on Canada, I am taking Bryan Adams out of my regular CD listening rotation and I have posted a little baby seal the background on my computer at work. If this doesn’t have an affect I may send someone a nasty email. Last night Fox News showed people beating these seals and it was horrible, you should of seen it. Next week I will be working on night shift at my job. So be prepared, my phone will be off the hook at home during the day. Monkey’s make bad pets. Idol is not on tonight for some reason, it will be on Wednesday and Thursday, oh well. People who take pleasure in hurting baby seals should be subject to the same cruelty they inflict, if that makes me a liberal so be it. If 100 people gave me 1 dollar I’d have 100 dollars, if 1000 people gave me 10 dollars I’d have 10,000 dollars: I’m thinking about starting a pyramid scheme. You want in? Canada acts so high and mighty, like they have class and we don’t, look at them killing baby seals on Fox News, would we do that? I was going to write a little segment on Hootie Johnson (Augusta National) and why he won’t let women join his club and what a jackass he is, but I just found out he played football at Greenwood High and then at USC – the real USC and he currently lives in Columbia. So as far as I am concerned go ahead and be a stubborn bastard Hootie, represent. Seriously, a report from USA Today say Hootie (Who’s real name is William) was one of the first local Columbia businessmen for taking the Confederate flag down and in 1969 helped start the first South Carolina radio station owned by an African American. This just blew my mind, I think this Hootie guy is just pissed off at this Martha Burk lady or else Hootie’s gone senile. The man’s track record says he’s a progressive liberal in a state notorious for its discrimination. They say he also got Darla Moore to donate 20 something million to USC and it was Hootie’s idea to name the school after her. I didn’t know this either. Wow. As I was searching around, an ESPN writer said if Hootie was the commissioner of major league baseball Kirby Puckett would have been the first black to play professional baseball – in essence saying Hootie is 40-50 years behind the times. This ESPN writer must not have known the whole truth. Hootie is a raving liberal, God Bless You Mr. Hootie.

April 14, 2004

Today I sent an email to the prime minister of Canada asking him to stop torturing baby seals, I felt better after doing so. Well, I haven’t heard back. Charlottesville Virginia is rounding up a bunch of black males and testing their DNA to find a rapist. They shouldn’t be doing that, 10 bucks says Jesse Jackson is either already there or on a plane. Seriously, this is sketchy, what if it were white men instead? The police chief said he would do the same if it were a white man or woman, but the point, this is the first time police have used a DNA dragnet, and they are looking for a black man. They should have started with a white criminal first, so then they could say they were being fair and balanced. Rather or not it’s right to profile like this, where do we draw the line. Why doesn’t the state take a DNA sample at birth of everyone born in the US, and if you enter the country you must gave a DNA sample, that way the police will know exactly who committed a crime, assuming there is DNA evidence. What about that, would you like your DNA in a police computer somewhere? Sounds like a Tom Cruise movie. PS: the DNA sampling is done like it is on CSI – a swab from inside your cheek – no needles. The last I heard DNA testing was $250.00 per sample, imagine if everyone in the US was tested 250,000,000 people x $250.00/sample = $62,500,000,000 that’s 62.5 billion dollars, how much did Iraq cost? say 5 billion/month = 5*12 = 60,000,000,000 so to do a DNA test on everyone in the US it would cost 2.5 billion dollars more than a year long war with Iraq. Wonder what kind of terrorist problems would this solve? Disclaimer: The dollar figures are best guess, and labor cost to process and log all the DNA tests were ignored but so was the speculation we could be in Iraq forever.

April 15, 2004

To drink a prairie chicken mix all this in a shot glass: 1 oz tequila, on raw egg yoke and 2-10 dashes of Tabasco – that sounds nasty. They should drink that on Fear Factor. I had to memorize page 62 of the bartenders bible when I was a pledge. Kidding, only kidding. Ask me to say the Greek alphabet! I can’t write it dumbass, because I can’t spell. Until just now dumbass wasn’t in the Microsoft spell checker, now it is. Old man Cooley is famous for adding misspelled words to spell checker. He would always click and add and assume he’d spelled it write, the catch is he can’t spell or type - so after a year or so every possible misspelling of every simple word had been added to the spell check – thus it was rendered useless – Cooley-fied. I hadn’t told an old man Cooley story in a while. Passwords, passwords everyone has passwords and how on earth can we remember them all. They tell us to commit it to memory, they tell us not to write it down, they tell us not to use a name or a birthday – eventually our heads are going to explode. My login the morning asked me for a new password, I tried all kinds of combinations and it wouldn’t take it, I couldn’t use any variation of my name or my social or one of my previous 8 passwords, and I couldn’t write it down anywhere, like the computer police were gonna search my office to see if it scribbled it one a scratch piece of paper - screwed I say.

April 16, 2004

Remember the movie, “Catch Me If You Can” with Tom Hanks and Matt Damon Mel Gibson. The guy Matt Damon Mel Gibson plays, Frank Abagnale was pretty damn close to the character in the movie. I’ve been reading about Frank Abagnale some just to see how much the movie BFL’ed – guess what. Very little. Remember the scene when Tom Hanks catches Matt Damon Mel Gibson in the motel room and tricks him into thinking he was an FBI agent too – that really happened but Frank didn’t just trick 1 agent, it was like 4 or 5. Frank really pretended to be a doctor in Atlanta, but in reality he quit immediately after the child with a severely broken leg came in the hospital – Frank realized he was responsible for the child and it wasn’t all fun and games – he felt guilty – he quit. He didn’t quit for a girl. He was a lawyer in Louisiana and he did pass the bar after failing it twice. He didn’t almost marry a girl in Louisiana. After Louisiana he went to Utah and was hired as a professor for 1 summer at BYU – he taught sociology. He did want to marry a girl in California but she called the police, and he met a stewardess from France who’s father owned a print shop and Frank paid him to print Pam Am checks. The father thought he worked for Pam Am. The thing about hiring stewardesses at a college and using them for cover was true, he traveled around Europe with them and wrote bad check and made $300,000. Frank was caught in France by the Tom Hanks character. Now Frank is a very wealthy, well to do consultant on forgery and securities type fraud, here his company’s web address: www.abagnal.com

I fixed my mistake! GW

April 22, 2004

Sorry for the delay, I’ve been a little busy. I heard today USC was going to tear down some more of the towers, my parents were promised that in the 70’s, and I was promised that in the 90’s, I see nothing changes. I hope Hal is doing OK, I’d rather clean tanks with a fire hose than dodge RPG’s in the desert. I don’t have a left winged fanatical rantings today. I will say I’m still sick of Michael Jackson, damn he’s weird and people say I’m weird – I guess weird is relative, like space time and all that. Speaking of Jackson, I’ve recently acquired 3 Jackson Browne CDs and I like them, he’s really good live too, I saw him on Austin City Limits a few months ago and before that I didn’t know anything about him. He’s been writing songs for 30 years, and some of them sound quite contemporary, it’s strange to hear a song written in 1971 that sounds like some of the stuff Mac writes. I haven’t had sushi in months, bet I won’t be able to get any this weekend either, although the place were playing has great food, their crab cake is in the top 5 easy, maybe top 3. The crab cake at the Blue Marlin in Cola is fantastic too. I am beginning to hear Harley Davidsons outside, which means it’s time to go. As I leave the vampire hours at the close of the week I may be able to get back on my soap-box and tell the world all about George Bush and how he hates gay people and poor people and minorities and Arabs and farmers and weapons inspectors and new Englanders too. He used to hate people from California until they were brainwashed by the republican monkey boy named Arnold – here, look at the monkey, look at the monkey!

April 30, 2004

Hello again, American Idol is all about racism. What, there was one white guy left, people are stupid. Screaming racism for a stupid ass situation like that, Elton John, depresses the value of calling out a truly racist situation – crying wolf in short. If everything is racist then what? Southpark has been funny lately, especially the Michael Jackson episode. John Kerry is turning out to be a jackass with his medals and ribbons, at least he’s not arguing over the “definition” if sexual relations, ha, ha. Your reading the writings of a crazy ass liberal, keep that in mind, I bet Al Frankin wouldn’t call Kerry a jackass, but I will. Jackass, jackass, jackass, you know who else is a jackass, my good friend Gary, he’s a jackass too. I made Gary up, he’s not a real person, or maybe he is…. Maybe he’s you, yes you, the one with the funny hair, the comb-over king, the master blaster Mr. Clean shine headed jackass…. no, no he’s the one driving the 1975 Plymouth with the lighted crown smelly thing crazy glued to the dash board, and the bobble headed Turkey where the hood ornament should be. Kleenex would be a good present to give someone suffering from allergies. This is boring I am going to hit the road and go to Greenville. Later.

May 4, 2004

I watched a little bit of a sit com last night. I used to watch them; I liked Seinfeld, and Cheers and Frasier and probably the Cosby show back in the day. Just for the record I never like friends. But now I don’t like sit-coms at all, and I am tired of being chastised for enjoying science fiction, so what, it’s my life, I’m not hurting anybody… Yeah I watch Enterprise and Stargate and I’m proud of it, I’ve even been to the theater to see a Star Trek movie. And I watch channel 52, everyday. But the people who enjoy these shows are persecuted, we are shunned from society and forced to talk about Sex and the City and Friends at the water coolers, when we don’t want to talk about Sex and the City. We can and will talk about the Sopranos, the Sopranos are a cross over show, dorks and cool people alike can enjoy Tony. Back to my thesis. If everyone in the US who likes sci-fi would stand up and say I’m not working today, I’m not going to school today, I’m not doing that research today – because I’m sick and tired of being called a dork – the country would stop. The intellectual types - the people making computers and designing engines and buildings and planes and figuring out ways to stop terrorist with better bombs and laser guided missiles, these are the people watching sci-fi. We design spaceships and land things on the surface of Mars, we make it possible for actresses to get better boobs with plastic surgery and make blind people see again with laser eye surgery – but we can’t date super models or be rock stars or be like Donald Trump or even make or way in this cruel world without being treated as a second class citizen, with our heads flushed in the proverbial toilets of the “cool” America. These are my words, they speak for only one, tortured fan of the science fiction world. William Shatner, I salute you.

May 6, 2004

Raise gas prices Vote Bush. That’s what a bumper sticker should say. I’m not too pissed off today so I don’t have a lot to say. What about those Iraqi prisoner pictures? The US just keeps getting bad press. One would think those pictures would piss me off but they don’t, that’s all I can say about that.

May 13, 2004

How long does it take frog eggs to hatch? 3 days, at least in Marlboro County it does. I have 10,000 tadpoles in my fish pond. For Ryan’s wedding I will serve frog legs. Raymond told me today we should drop the bomb on Iraq, and his Sunday school class agrees. Glad I don’t go to that church! Hal encountered an RPG Tuesday. He’s OK; he’s bringing back shrapnel for show-and-tell. His wedding, the un-official official one is now Friday November 19. By the way if anyone wants to call my cell, the number changed it’s 862-2922. Raymond told me Jimmy Carter should run for president so he can build all those Iraqi people houses. Good idea, I pose the question, is that before or after the bomb dropping. What if the government brings back the draft? That would be kick ass. I know some people who need drafting, it would shut them the hell up about the war. Every time I talk to Amanda, Hal’s wife, I get pissed off so bad at the Administration for sending the people we love and care about to fight a meaningless bullshit war, there is no point, no point. Go ahead, say I’m against the holy war on terrorism, I am. I firmly believe terrorism begets terrorism, and I believe the US government historically has been one of the most brutal nations on earth. It’s not so hard to believe John Kerry would throw his metals and ribbons on the white house lawn, to him at the time the president was killing his fellow soldiers in a pointless war, I would have done the same thing.

I predict the Iraqi government will be full of civil unrest and eventually there will be some violence, maybe a coup – that’s the way it’s always been in that part of the world, I don’t think George Bush can change that.

May 20, 2004

The address for Edisto is 307 Jungle Shores Drive and the phone is 869-2330, this is the road behind Piggly Wiggly, or what used to be the Pig if it has changed names or ceased to exist. Road rage in Bennettsville? I was going to work today and this jackass made hand gestures at me for no reason, I’m over here trying to live my life and make a decent living and this jackass just has to go and ruin my day. I didn’t do anything to him, I figure he’s jealous because I’m a rock star, by the way I kicked ass at jeopardy last night, my studying has finally paid off. I’m gonna get in trouble for saying that I kicked ass at jeopardy, disclaimer: I usually loose at jeopardy, and since I had such a good showing last night today was looking to be a great day, now it’s ruined, ruined I say, because of a jackass. I read a bumper sticker this morning: If You Can’t Vote For Bush Don’t Vote. I find that funny, and a bit ironic. I know the point of the sticker is pro-Bush, but there are some undertones there which make the statement loose its validity. The sticker implies Bush and his supporters want you to be for them but if you disagree with the administration then you should not even participate in the democratic process, then your voice doesn’t count, and that their way is the “highway” get on or get off. Simple conservative closed-minded brainwashed BS – this is the reason we are at war, Bush implied: Saddam was a threat, he had stockpiles of WMDs, he supported terrorist, he supported 9-11, and if you disagreed you were, anti-American, unpatriotic and your voice of concern was dismissed – “MaCarthy-ism” …… So the sticker is Right, if you disagree don’t bother saying so because Bush and the republican party won’t listen, because you don’t have a “VOTE” as far as they are concerned.

May 26, 2004

Summer is here, and it’s all kinds of hot, I bet it would be nice if everyone had a pool. Sorry. Martin finally finished school and he’s going on to be a salesman for peterbilt, selling trucks, he’s gonna set sells records I’m sure. We had a great time in Edisto, who caught the biggest crab? Who caught a shark? Grant got his fishing game on. We really hope to go back later this summer, it’s a nice place. Martin and I played golf, we cheated and made up our own rules.

May 28, 2004

I saw the movie Master and Commander last night, it was OK. I didn’t like the cinematography; it was dark and cloudy, full of fog. Also the writer, producer, director people have a medieval medical fetish that I can’t even go into without getting woozy. I also saw scary movie 3, it was funny, as expected. Martin says he’s moving to Raleigh, NC. I don’t know why he’s moving there if he’s gonna sell in Fayetteville, they are not close enough to commute, but he’s a traveling salesman, thus he must travel. Sopranos is almost over, this week’s episode was alright, could have been better I think. The big surprise was not as big as the advertisement said. I thought Tony was gonna kill Tony B and something was gonna go wrong. Everyone knew Adrianna was gonna get it, nobody goes to the feds and lives to tell, Tony would of killed Chris if he had to. But Chris knew this and saved his own ass. Fantasia is the American Idol, so what – not impressed. I bet more people watched Idol than the Miss America or Miss USA things combined, speaking of, are they both Miss or is one Mrs and the other Miss, who cares, beauty pageants are too old school for us now. I vaguely remember watching those pageants on TV as a kid but really, come on, what entertainment value do they have, I never figured out how the judging worked until affirmative action came around, then I noticed the judges made sure a different ethnicity won each year, and by no means could a white girl win 2 years in a row – I’m kidding, I don’t know if there is data to back the “affirmative action” beauty pageant judging rules, I’m making a subtle point about voting, that’s all. Was there a similar conspiracy with Idol, it makes for good TV.

June 4, 2004

Hello, Yep, busy week here. I saw on the news were George Bush was talking to the pope and the pope was fussing at him for invading Iraq. I thought that was funny. I saw the Last Samurai movie last nigh, it was good, but a bit too much like Dances With Wolves. I planted flowers last weekend and did some concrete work too. I’ve never done concrete work, I’m glad I’m dating the daughter of a man who owns a construction business! Nothing much to say today, I’m getting ready to travel again, but then we get a long time off and I won’t have to get so tired on the weekends. I have no clue if James is playing tonight, I emailed him but I haven’t heard back, some people don’t check email, some people don’t answer phones and some people live in caves. Told any good BFL’s lately?

June 16, 2004

Yeah, sorry, still busy in ole Bennettsville. I’m gonna be in a wedding this Saturday, and all that goes along with that. Don’t really know what else to say. I’ve been working in the yard a little, no real exciting news. Last comic standing has just started its second season – I suggest it, but it’s not for everybody, again only those who appreciate good stand up will like the show, if you like Larry the Cable Guy, don’t watch last comic. One thing, the Southern Baptist Convention had a resolution on the table to ask its members to remove their children from public school and put them into Christian schools or home school - it didn’t pass. One thing that did pass was a resolution to support a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. Alright that’s enough, what group has a right to say they deserve different treatment from the government? The government is supposed to be free of religious prejudice; we know that is ideal but improbable. This whole gay marriage thing resembles the civil rights movement. Conservative, hardheaded southerners getting all pissed off because people different from them want rights too. Stupid shit like Brittany Spears and Dennis Rodman getting married in Vegas do more harm to the “traditional” marriage than 2 people of the same sex getting married. If gays can’t marry then celebrities can’t either, there should be a national database of Jackasses that aren’t allowed to marry – just to keep marriage sacred and all, cause by god it is the most sacred thing on earth. Almost as sacred as the singing of the start spangled banner at sporting events – shouldn’t there be a notional database of people who suck at singing, so they don’t ever end up on TV singing the national anthem and make an ass out of themselves and the country – Roseanne Barr, hello! Minor point, the is a Nextel commercial that is aired during all NASCAR races, and I’ve written about it before, it calls the sport timeless and it pisses me off every time I see it. The sport isn’t timeless, it’s progressive, it tries to honor tradition but what it does is honor money. Stock car racing was a sport built by the south for the south, if you want timeless go to your local drag strip or short track. And the announcers always make a big deal out of nothing, of course drivers are going to wreck and they are going to get pissed off – look at all the other major professional sports – same thing. I wish someone like Ted Turner would start a competitive racing circuit to NASCAR and have all the races only in the south, but make the winnings like 5 times as much as NASCAR, adopt many of the same rules, but let em race, and let em get pissed off. If fighting was involved rating would skyrocket, and tickets, tickets shouldn’t be $100 a piece, 20 at the most, come on!

June 23, 2004

The place we played in Aiken on May 14, yeah they wrote us a check and it bounced. Martin and I are trying to recover our funds. Martin says he has talked to the guy several times but finally today the old man said he’d mail martin a cashiers check by tomorrow – we’ll see. I have already prepared a mean letter. Jim DeMint won the republican senate primary yesterday, and I voted for him, why, because I know Tommy. Nothing to do with politics and David Beasley is a lying, self centered bastard. Rumor has it he likes the bottle a little too much, if you know what I mean, can I be sued for this.. hope not, anyway in the upstate he’s all Christian – right-winged-conservative, let’s get the Bob Jones vote. Every story has 2 sides, sometimes 3. I heard him speak a few times, and every time it was I did this when I was 19, this when I was 21 this when I was 23 and I went to Clemson, I was the youngest person to be elected to the state house, yada, yada, yada…. He was real proud of Clemson, I mean real proud. I think he went to USC for law school, though…. Sorry sack of shit. Well, if I get my money for my check I can hire a lawyer to defend me when Beasley sues me. GW out…. Oh by the way I want to send a big hello to my former employee CJ who turned 21 today, happy birthday!

June 28, 2004

Hey, some amazing things going on here in the Marlboro – crop circles have started to appear, and burned out minor league baseball players are going around breaking glassware with bats – oh sorry that’s a Mel Gibson movie. I heard Phish was coming to the Bennettsville Civic Center, oh never mind that was a bass tournament – kidding only kidding. I was thinking about racism last night, and genocide too, it must have been an episode of South Park or the Hitler scene from the Euro-trip movie, anyway why do these crazy ass people want to kill all the people of a certain race? I mean come on, you have to have a pretty bad experience to want revenge on millions of people. What if that same rage and hatred could be turned into something useful – If Saddam Hussein felt the same way about mosquitoes as he did about Kurds or whatever those other groups are he used chemical weapons on, then he would have been allowed to have chemical factories, and the US would not of objected – but no, he was a paranoid bastard….. By the way Martin and his girlfriend broke up, just for the record in case anyone didn’t know, I wanted to get that out there, so don’t make an ass out of yourself and ask him how his girlfriend’s doing. While we are on the subject of “NEWS” I don’t have Monday off, I have Friday off, so whoever is out there making plans for me – keep that in mind… Daytona in Saturday night, I’ll probably watch that… somewhere or other. Going to Columbia on Thursday, can’t wait for that, it’ll be fun, fun, fun. See you later.. GW

June 29, 2004

I was watching CNN and this 90 year old lady jumped out of a plane because old man Bush did it. That’s just what we need old people jumping out of planes, what the hell, of all things to do – the first time one of em dies that’ll be the end of that! Let’s throw cats out of planes while we’re at it. Just for the record I ran the shortest EMS meeting of all time. 30 minutes flat, not bragging. I still think Ghostbusters 3 would be a great investment, it would kill at the box office, All you need is Harold Ramis, Dan Akroyd, Bill Murray and the black guy from Oz, HBO should buy the rights. Spiderman is coming out, Spiderman sucks, and sucks bad – if you like Spiderman – you suck, I haven’t seen the movie, but I know it sucks. Tom Hanks, what the hell is he doing, he used to be in Cheesy movies, why can’t he do cheesy movies again, anyway he plays the same character over and over, he’s going to start to suck if he don’t keep it real. “I keep it real” – Dave Chappelle.

July 3, 2004

I like to count how many times people say the word ACTUALLY and the word BASICALLY when they are speaking publicly and I do it especially if they are boring.  These words are meaningless if you use them too much, they become a qualifier like, very, kinda, and sorta.  Being a highly trained technical and chemical expert - no I am not a terrorist, the word actually or actual should be used when comparing something theoretical, that is a calculated or predicted value or outcome to an experimental value.  For example:  The theoretical yield at our present operating conditions for Sodium Hydroxide conversion is 85%, but actually we only produce 74%.  The incorrect use of the word would be like this, used in conversation:  "Mary where did you go this weekend?"  " Well actually I went to the beach."  Wrong, when I think of Mary's response I think, where the hell were you theoretically going to go, did you sit down and calculate something, did you predict based relativity and statistical probability that you would theoretically end up in Egypt but you actually ended up at the south end of myrtle beach?  No, you are a dumb bimbo, quit saying the word, it has no meaning when used like that, actually is a word that can only be used by professionals, and you stupid ass Jane-Doe anchor woman on the 11 o'clock news do not need to be saying the Plane actually ended up in a creek, or the driver of a car actually survived the crash, it's wasting your breath and it's pissing me off.  If you are in a conversation with me and use the word actual be prepared to defend your statement because I am going to make it my sole mission to make you look like an idiot.

July 9, 2004

Top ten bad ideas for the summer:

10. That milk expired yesterday – go ahead and have some.

9. Hey, let’s see if that alligator bites

8. Don’t ask your girlfriend to marry you unless you want to break up.

7. That’s not a rabbit, it’s a bunny, and it will let you pet it.

6. Mom, can I join the Marines!

7. This is a lot shorter than 10, oh well ran out of ideas

July 14, 2004

Last Comic standing is on and it’s good – watch it. Ken Jennings is on Jeopardy and he’s won a million already. If people would quit shooting each other and just challenge one another to a game of jeopardy, then the world would be a better place.

July 20, 2004

Went to Raleigh, NC Friday night to see Dave Mordal – he was funny, as usual. We stayed at the Brownstone on Hillsboro Street – Martin tells me that’s near something called Sullivan’s, traveling salesmen know everything…. By the way he sold his first truck, so he will not starve this month – but he still may be evicted. I learned last night that the Olympics didn’t have a women’s marathon until 1984 – that shocked me, I thought all that women’s rights and equal rights stuff was over long before I was born – guess not. What made me think about it was John Kerry and how he was spouting off statistics on women – and the lack thereof in engineering and in the sciences – he’s right…. But then he went on to blame it on elementary education… I don’t remember the quote but he said that in early education, I guess he meant kindergarten – all students male and female have equal interest in math and science, then he went on to say that by some age 15 or 16 the female’s interested in these fields drop by 40% and then by college the drop by another staggering percentage… I don’t know if his stats are right, they could be right, women are few and far between in these fields.. I don’t know if he is right or not – about blaming elementary education, I would say society has a good but to do with it as well – I good test would be to have elementary school A grades 1-5 of course and school B with grades 1-5 – all similar students and class size and socio-economics. All the teachers at school A have engineering degrees and the teachers at school B are normal randomly selected teachers from the local school district… then see what the students do when they finish high school. That would take too long. Anyway Kerry’s right about 1 thing – the education system in this country sucks ass! What he concludes from the gender statistics don’t matter a whole lot anyway…. He’s still boring… at least he chose Edwards, thank god, now I can justify voting for him.

August 3, 2004

Sorry, busy again. Here’s some news. We have Shows on Aug 14, Aug 21 and Aug 29. The 21st is in Anderson and the 29^th is in Greenville. They will soon show up on the shows page. Marin and I finished 2 songs completely and another will be done any day now, it just lacks the lyrics for a verse. Hopefully things are going to get stared up again.

Now I am babysitting a Poodle, yes Penny the Poodle. So far she’s eaten Ashley’s steak and my Chinese food – funny story. Guess what, as if I didn’t have enough pets today, one of the Tammy’s gave me a puppy. It’s some kind of beagle looking thing, someone else said it was a Jack Russell – that means it’s a bastard mutt. It was found at the mill and I was elected to take it home… so now it’s sitting on my back porch barking at cats. I could open a pet store! Martin and I played golf on Sunday… we didn’t do all that good, but we never do. Martin is a salesman, all salesmen are good at golf…. He’s just gotta practice. Tip for the day: Don’t drink and drive and sniff chlorine…. Really bad idea. (I made that up, I’m not THAT stupid)

Bad Idea number 5: Hide and seek with rattle snakes.

August 6, 2004

If 2 guys were to get married, who would take who’s last name? The answer… no one knows, that’s why The George is so scared (by the way The George = Bush) of homosexual marriages, he can’t figure it out either. There’s a theory out there that the two people getting married switch first names instead… this is funny but in reality it would make things confusing. One day you come into work, and you’ve suspected a co-worker had a fling with another, but you didn’t know… then you say, “Good morning Raymond.” And he’s like, “Oh, I’m not Raymond anymore, I got married this weekend, I’m Tony…. Yeah, I think Tony wants you to call him Raymond.” Confusing? Yes. And think about it, CNN says 10% of the population is gay, that means 10% of your friends would have different first names. Good Journalism comes in many flavors.

Last night I had to clean up dog piss 3 times in 15 minutes. Have you been watching Last Comic like I told you to? No, you haven’t, well you suck. Gary, John and Alonzo are left. All 3 of them are fantastic...almost as good as Rich and Dave. I hope they come around here, Gary’s going to be in Atlanta in February but that’s t a long way from where I currently reside.

August 13, 2004

Congrats to John Heffron for winning last comic, I called it… he had the best set Tuesday. Anway it’s Friday the 13^th and this hurricane is gonna beat the hell out of Florida… sucks for them. Taking penny home today, she’s sick of me.

August 17, 2004

Don’t you just hate it when jack asses put stuff off until the last minute and then act like it’s your problem when they get caught with their pants down. I am gonna call these folks the “Non Planning Problem Passers” You see they were raised by ferrets and wild pigs, and the only thing they can think about is what they feel right at a particular moment, like getting food, water or a suitable mate to breed with… funny you know one of these folks too – yes there are several packs of them running around south Carolina.. for example, I order guitar strings by the case, I have a spare guitar, spare amp, spare picks, a spare mic and I can even run my guitar through multiple channels on our mixing board… my end is covered, it would take a title wave or a tornado to keep me from finishing a show. Some people don’t think about alternative scenarios, that’s why you see folks wondering down the highway because they already used their spare tire and didn’t replace it, or they forgot to get gas when the map clearly said the next town was 100 miles away – A DATSUN CAN’T get 100 miles per gallon – if it could we wouldn’t be in Iraq – thank you very much, that’s my time for today.

August 23, 2004

Guess what, the US basketball team sucks, they are sports sluts, they should not be allowed to play. Duke vs. The Rest of the World – now I would like to see that – all you Duke fans can put your money where your mouth if that was the case. But a-lass the NBA will keep sending us their best show-offs – I hope they loose, and I hope none of you watch an NBA game again. It’s all Nike’s fault and ESPN too. These players right out of high school, not college, want to make highlight films, want to make sports center and want a shoe named after them – and to win, well that’s fourth or fifth on the list. When I was playing high school football the coaches on several occasions would tell us the local news stations were going to be at a game and we should try to make the “Friday Night Hits” That’s where it starts, some dumb ass Junior College Graduate High School Football Coach telling me I should try to make the local TV shows – and I was supposed to be looking up to these guys – by the way for the coaches that do read this I am most certainly not talking about you. (Unless you focus on high-light films more than teamwork.) I heard a coach ask a running back one time if he had practiced his “Touchdown Dance.” It’s funny at the time, but these kids without father figures look up to these coaches, and then they see it on TV over and over then it becomes OK for Team USA to have less assist combined than the starting point guard for the opposing team, and for the concept of defense to go right out the window because everyone is so concerned about going down the other end and dunking. Dennis Rodman was the last NBA player to play defense – and he may or may not have even been a male or a homo sapien for that matter. Stop watching the NBA, then it will go away. On a different note we played at hooters this Saturday, martin thought it was great, it though it was a waste of time – the world may never know. Anyway what’s the deal with Hooters, I mean come on, it’s a DJ away from being a strip club, parents don’t take your kids there, bad idea. If you want to see that particular thing go to Platinum Plus or a club like that, don’t take your wife and kids to Hooters – it’s tasteless and it degrades women. There is a time and a place for everything and tits and ass don’t mesh with the family unit – yeah I said it, and I am the 2^nd most liberal person on the east coast. I know what the whole thing is about, a husband takes his wife and kids out to dinner and gets to look at hot chicks while he entertains the family, but then the son (let’s say it a son) gets the image of his father looking at younger women in tight clothes showing off their bodies, while mom sits and acts like nothing is the matter – then 15 years later when that kid is married and he’s on a business trip and meets a younger college coed he has the image in his mind of his mother’s approval of such things. One thing leads to another – and you just cheated on your wife. And gay marriage is wrong because it devalues the family unit - but Hooters is perfectly legal! I rest my case.

August 25, 2004

The Olympics are again overshadowed with controversy, like they always are. I’m not going to go through the history but there have been all kinds of judging mistakes in all kinds of sports… the two I remember the most was the figure skating thing, because it was the most recent and the USA – USSR basketball thing in the 80’s where the soviets kept getting extra chances to score the winning basket because of the time keeper. I know this because I watched something about it on the History channel a couple of months ago, I was too young at the time. Anyway as long as there are humans doing the judging, mistakes will be made – example, Ashley and I were watching a Braves game a few weeks ago and Furcal hit a ball that was clearly foul but the 3^rd bass umpire called it a homerun – mistakes happen. The umpires were not blessed with the use of instant reply just like the judges in the gymnastics. Also, personal feelings tend to make their way into the equation, and albeit wrong, it happens – complain all you want, but it happens. Anyway, the silver lining around these under-attended Greek Games is shall I say a Hooters-like TV spectacular, and Dave certainly agrees….. Two Words – Beach Volleyball. I would say misty and kerri are big bbt patrons, but I have never met them – 10 bucks says Martin knows at least one of their siblings…. I’m kidding, only kidding Martin. If you don’t know who I am talking about, turn on your TV. Have a wonderful day, and watch out for the rabbits for god sakes….you want to keep all your limbs don’t you?

August 28, 2004

Gerbils don’t make good pets because they spin webs and try to catch young children. If they were to catch your child the gerbil would not hurt the young one. They are just trying to get the kids to play with them. Long story short – pet gerbils can cause a really big mess – they escape and spin webs all o