New Car/House

Well, since it looks like I may get evicted from my apartment in 6 months unless I win the Lotto, I found a new car that will also double as a residence if my job search is not immediately successful. I was talking to my former coworker Zack and he had a buddy whose parents own a used car dealership in Collister. They had a 1995 Volkswagen EuroVan they were trying to unload. Zack told them my tale, and they took pity on me and agreed to sell it to me for $7500 instead of the sticker price of $14,895. It's history is a little bit shady from what Zack told me, but it's definitely not stolen, he knows that much. Now I'm looking to find a campground or RV park where I can reserve a spot in case I need it. I haven't even updated my resume yet, but I'll get to it next week or something.

I was thinking about moving to a new state. You know, a fresh start. I don't know where I would go. Outside of Africa, I've always lived in Idaho. There are so many other places to live. When I went on some road trips when I was still in college, I really enjoyed some different spots. The people in the Midwest were very nice. The Appalachian Mountains were beautiful, so maybe the Carolinas would be a place to try a fresh start. I don't know. I'm not even sure what I would do. Maybe go back to school? Not sure what I would study. Maybe I'll focus on becoming a writer. Tell my life story. It's pretty cool. I haven't told Turk, Lamoni or Teena yet. They would just complain and say "I told you to quit stalking your coworkers" and crapola like that.

I could always turn tricks for cash if I ran out of other options. I wonder what you put down on your taxes as an occupation? I think I would go with "self-employed", "hourly social worker," or maybe "Coital Professional." That has a cool ring to it. If I moved to Nevada I could do that without going to jail. No, I don't want to do that. Jesus would send me to hell if I do that. I'll focus on school. Maybe I could get a teaching certification. I don't have a criminal record and if Glenda doesn't press any charges I could be home free. You never know.

Rough Day At Work

Well, I had a particularly bad day at work. In fact, it was awful...I got fired! Well, officially I'm on paid administrative leave, but I'm no idiot. And they did it on a Friday...jerks! I think it was total crap! For those of you who don't know me, I used to work at Boise State University in the Athletic Director's Office. What a skeezy poop-head! I worked in the development office which basically meant I would go around and ask alumni for money to support Bronco athletics. Well the Boise State Broncos can go to hell! I got fired for the stupidest reason!

There's this bitch in the office, we'll call her "Glenda" to avoid any slander charges. Well anyway, Glenda was new to the office about 6 months ago. She had the typical worthless bitch body: 5'6", 125 lbs, 34D (fake, I snuck a peek once in the bathroom) 24, 34, brown hair, green eyes and a perfect smile. She always wore an outfit that worked in the school colors of either blue, orange, white or a combination of them. She was always the first one into the office in the morning and the last one out, and she never ever hung out and partied with the rest of us. Like I said, she's a total bitch. Not to mention she snowed our boss (you remember, Mr. Obnoxious Nosehair) into thinking that she did all the work and the rest of us (she singled me out) were sandbagging it. That's crap! I worked my leg off every day kissing alumni ass to get a contribution. It was easy last year when the team was good, but there were plenty of lean times too. Try and get $5000 for the BSU soccer team and see how far you get.

So I went out on medical leave for 6 weeks back in April (I had some chemical dependency issues to iron out) and this hatchet mark Glenda starts schmoozing all of my alumni. She like totally went through my Rolodex and started calling people and saying that she was taking over my duties because I was in rehab...Rehab! As if! I just needed to get to a safe place and find the inner me, and to get to my Jesus place. It's not like I quit smoking pot and drinking, I just cut back a little. I'm of the Amy Winehouse school...rehab is for quitters. So when I get back from my vacation, she has totally snaked all my alumni and I didn't even know it. I start calling them and asking for donations, and they are all like "I already gave a donation to Glenda. She told me you were in rehab." or "Well that lovely gal Glenda already took my donation this year. I thought you were dead." I was so pissed off!

I got fired from a job in college for beating another girl's ass for waiting on one of my tables, so I knew I couldn't cold-cock the bitch, so I had to get crafty. I allegedly started a string of "bad luck" for her. One day after work she found her tires had all been slashed. Another day after lunch she found that her laptop got wet and was broken. Another day she fell asleep at work because one of the janitorial staff had slipped a Roofie in her coffee cup. My personal favorite was having her ticketed every day for a week by my buddy Dave on the BSU police force. Eventually, the dumb tramp caught on to me so I had to lay low and wait for my opportunities. I kept it on the down low for like a month and a half and started being really nice to her. I baked her my famous banana nut bread and brought her Starbucks and pretended to like the same crap she does like Oprah and lotion from Body Works. Then when her guard was down, I took one of her PowerPoint presentations she was making to the AD himself on her progress and screwed it up. That was so awesome! I guess the AD didn't think it was so funny.

They never could prove it was me who did it, but Glenda accused me of it because of all of the other stuff I had allegedly done (also unproveable...I watch CSI, I know the angles. I dare you to find a shred of concrete evidence). So they gave me 6 months paid leave so both sides could "reevaluate their positions" and crap like that. If I could afford a lawyer I'd have one go way up somebody's colon. Now I've got 6 months to find a new job or something. I think that for now I'll just hang out at home and hit the cheeba for a few weeks. Have a swell friggin' weekend.

New TV Shows That Look Like They Will Suck

I don't get out much (what with my one leg and all), so I have become a consumer of entertainment. I like all forms of entertainment: music, movies, plays, art, etc., but my favorite has always been and will continue to be TV. TV, for better or worse, is the barometer of American culture. TV has always been scandalous. Even in the "golden age" of television, there were groundbreaking shows. Take for instance I Love Lucy. That was the first show on TV that had a character that was pregnant. Before that, pregnancy was totally taboo and could not be on the air. They threatened to shut down the show if Lucille Ball went on the air pregnant. Then there were shows like All in the Family which starred a bigot that became the highest-rated show on TV for years! In recent years, most of the shows that debut in the September/October season premiers tank and are cancelled and replaced by better shows called mid season replacements. Mid season replacements; what a concept. What other business can say that they know most of their products will tank so here's something that has a better chance of working out but we'll keep it hidden away until we need it. Why don't they just start out with the mid season replacements instead? But I digress. Some of the shows are so bad that they get cancelled after 1 or 2 episodes. Some recent victims of the 1 episode run include:

• Emily's Reasons Why Not (2006) - it starred Heather Graham as a single, career woman unlucky in love who employs a list-making system designed to serve as an internal warning on when it's time to cut bait and move on...apparently ABC decided to move on as well.
• Lawless (1997) - an action series starring Brian Bosworth (formerly of the Seattle Seahawks) as, get this, a private investigator. As with most hack shows, it was on FOX.
• Who's Your Daddy (2005) - a reality series on FOX (surprised?) that involved an adopted woman trying to pick her biological father out of a group of impostors. The show attracted protest from adoptive families and adoption-rights groups before airing. This combined with the fact that the first episode had poor ratings caused the five additional episodes to be permanently shelved from the network.
• Anchorwoman: The TV Show (2007) - a reality series about former WWE model Lauren Jones, who became a television news anchor. The show was canceled by(guess who) FOX today, just one day following its 8/22 premiere, due to a disappointing 2.0 rating.

The opposite is true of TV shows as well. There are plenty of good shows that I have loved that got cancelled despite critical acclaim. Shows like Arrested Development, Firefly, and Freaks & Geeks. Each August as the networks start trotting out the trailers for their new shows, there are always some that leave me wondering how in the hell did that show ever make it to prime time? This year is no different.

• Chuck (NBC Mondays @ 8/7C) - A show about a computer geek (works for the "Nerd Herd," a cheap knock-off of Best Buy's "Geek Squad"...they should sue the pants off of NBC) who sees some national secrets and then has a hot CIA agent babysit him to protect him. With a premise that stupid, I give it 6 episodes before it gets cancelled. Now I have been wrong before. I thought My Name Is Earl was going to be cancelled in 6 episodes as well. You can never downplay the appeal of white trash...it's one of the few things that unites us as a country.
• Life (NBC Wednesdays 10/9C) - A show that is too smart for it's own good. It's about a cop that was framed and went to prison for a crime he didn't commit. He then gets out and spends the show trying to solve the crime he went away for. A neat idea, but something tells me that this is a story you can tell in 6 episodes that they will try to stretch into a full 23 episodes that eventually ends up sucking, just like Lost. I give it 7 episodes before it gets cancelled.
• Kid Nation (CBS Wednesdays 8/7C) - This show is already surrounded by controversy and hasn't even aired yet. The premise says it all: 40 kids, 40 days, no adult supervision. They have to make the rules, cook, clean, etc. Child psychologists and parental activists are foaming at the mouth. Whoever green lit this one just got fired. I give it 4 episodes before it gets cancelled.
• Viva Laughlin (CBS Sundays 8/7C) - Are you kidding me? Laughlin?!? I guess Vegas was closed. You can close the book on this pile of crap after 2 episodes.
• Cavemen (ABC Tuesdays 8/7C) - You're not going to believe this, but the Geico "so easy a caveman can do it" ads have spawned their own friggin' TV show. Who says TV execs don't do coke anymore? It's a classic "fish out of water" tale where cavemen work at a modern day office. How many "my girlfriend broke up with me because I hit her over the head with a club again" jokes can you fit into a 30-minute show? You'll have to tune in to find out, but you better hurry, because I think this one gets cancelled after only 1 episode.
• Back To You (FOX Wednesdays 8/7C) - Here's an idea: let's get stars that will forever be known for roles they played on far better shows and are too rich to put any effort into their work anymore and put them together on a show that is guaranteed to bomb. Frazier Crane (Kelsey Grammer) and Deborah Barrone (Patricia Heaton) are anchorpersons (anchorpeople?) that hate each other. I liked it the first time when it had nudity and swearing and it was called Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy. I give this stinkfest 4 episodes before it gets cancelled due to a total lack of chemistry on the part of the stars.

I'll do an update as the TV season unfolds to see how close my predictions come. If you can think of any other disasters waiting to happen this fall TV season, feel free to comment. Catch you tomorrow!

A Fond Memory

I was going through some boxes Teena (Mom to normal people) brought by my apartment this afternoon. There was a bunch of crap from grade school that she had in there: my first report card, some old school pictures, etc. Why is it that we didn't get the usual letter grades when I was in elementary school? Instead of A+ or D-, I got crap like S for Satisfactory or U for Unsatisfactory. I can just hear it now. "Hey Teena, how's Dana doing in school this year?" "Oh she's doing great, she's a straight-S student!" I also found my 8th grade yearbook. I flipped through it and read some of the stuff my friends then wrote in it. "Stay cool this summer," "Pearl Jam Rules!" "Boyz II Men will live forever!" and stuff like that. On the back page of the yearbook was this cryptic phrase "Keep the milk away from Wendall!" What the hell does that mean you ask? Well, this phrase was written by T-Bagg himself in reference to a memorable Thanksgiving dinner we had the previous November (1991) that involved my big brother Turk. In my family, it is referred to as "The Incident," and it is never spoken of.

"The Incident" was Turk's infamous sneeze/fart incident at the dinner table when we were having Thanksgiving dinner at our house. Tyson had early dinner with his family and then came over to our place for late dinner. He was as full as a tick from his meal at his house, but my Mom piled his plate so full! You could have fed a family in Darfur for 3 days with what she put in front of him to eat. I thought for sure T-Bird was going to pass out or rupture his stomach! He were so polite it was cute. So as not to be thought of as rude, he dutifully cleaned his plate. Mom kept piling on the seconds and he kept eating it. At one point, his eyes were watering.

Turk is lactose intolerant, so every year, Teena would make a special batch of mashed potatoes with soy milk, just for the Turkster (I tried them once, they sucked). If he doesn't get the right potatoes, he gets as gassy as a Chevron station. He also can't stand black pepper. Anyway, he eats the regular mashed potatoes made with whole milk. He then puts down the 3 bean salad, turkey and stuffing. After about 20 minutes he starts turning green. Those of you that know me know that I have a penchant for fresh ground black pepper. I get my second helping of stuffing, whip out the pepper mill and I'm grinding away like Britney Spears in a dance contest and Turk gets some in his nose. He revs up, kicks back and sneezes and rips out a fart worthy of a Mel Brooks film at the dinner table! Teena turned white and dropped the gravy boat into Grandpa Jack's lap, Grandpa Jack leaps up from the hot gravy on his bits and pieces and knocks the lemonade pitcher on to the floor and Turk, who is now making for the bathroom slips on the spilled lemonade, hits his head on the buffet and is knocked out cold. What a riot! I can't say for sure, but I suspect that when he hit the floor, a little poop came out.

So here's poor T-Zoom, about to burst from 2 huge Thanks giving dinners looking at my brother prostrate and possibly soiled on the floor of the dining room. We're all gagging from the horrendous smell of the fart (a cross between fried chicken, broccoli & sulphur), Grandpa Jack is yelling "Oh my sweet balls are on fire!" and Teena has begun to cry and starts to try to wake Turk up. Now get this. Lamoni (my Dad), cool as a cucumber, stands up, drops his napkin into his chair and says to T-Money "You want some pumpkin pie or can I just give you a lift home?" What moxie, right?!? Like nothing had happened. T-Tree gratefully accepted a ride home. I of course was mortified and avoided him and refused to talk to him for like 2 weeks after that. Now I can look back on all of it and laugh, because I've got to admit it was hilarious. I can also threaten to tell Turk's Marine buddies if Turk gives me too much crap, which is pretty cool too.

Peterson Autoplex

Well, I swung by Peterson Toyota, part of the Peterson Autoplex (9101 W. Fairview in Boise) and perused their inventory of used cars. I snapped a few photos of the ones I thought might be a good choice. I narrowed it down to 4 different cars. Each of them appealed to me in different ways, and each had a different price point. I'll break it down for you from most expensive to least expensive. I have also posted a new poll so you can vote on which whip you like best.

2004 Toyota Camry LE - $11,999

This baby look fast just sitting on the lot, but it had really high miles for a 3-year-old car (90K). The sales guy (his name was Haji) said that was because the previous owner was a cross-country RV enthusiast that towed the car behind his RV. This cat would spend the fall and winter in Arizona and the spring and summer in Idaho. I'm not so sure I believe Haji...it's not his fault, I just don't trust people from India because they smell like curry, sweat and corn chips. Anyway, if you like it, vote for it. Lamoni says you can't find a better car than a Toyota. He also lights his farts.

2002 Pontiac Grand Am GT - $10,995

This car I actually took out for a test drive. It was fast, fast, FAST! It corners on rails, and I scared the bejeezus out of Haji (serves him right, the stinky devil)! I got it out on the highway and up to 90 miles an hour! Haji looked sick and said something about insurance and to slow down. What a wussie! It also had high miles (90K again) but no super-cool RV story to go with this one. He told me that it once belonged to a sales rep from the Boise Cascade paper company.

1999 Chevy Venture Van (4-door) - $6995

Well I liked this one just because of the roominess of it, if not the practicality. I can fit tons of groceries in there, there's plenty of room if I want to take Mitch off and chuck him into the back and it had a killer tape deck sound system! I also thought that for just a little bit of extra money to make ends meet, I could get a taxi license from the city and hag out at the airport and give people rides into town. No meter, just $20 bucks anywhere in town from the airport. I bet I could get some sweet sympathy tips by telling my fares about Mitch. "Where are you headed? Boise State? Great! Me and my buddy Mitch will get you there in 20 minutes. Who's Mitch? My friggin' prosthetic leg...let's ride!"

1995 Mitsubishi Galant S - $3995

I dubbed this baby the "Millennium Falcon." It doesn't look like much, but she's got it where it counts. Talk about your fuel economy! With gasoline at almost $3 a gallon, this hunk of junk get 32 miles to the gallon! It's gray so I won't have to wash it but maybe once every 6 weeks. The only hiccup is that it's a standard...you should have seen Haji's face when I was jamming Mitch down on the clutch and my shoe got stuck. I was revving the 1.8L to the red line and cursing like a sailor. I finally got Mitch loose but it was a bumpy ride. If you like it, give it a vote.

I'm leaning towards the Millennium Falcon or the Grand AM. I'll stew on it for a few days and check out some other cars on the Internet to see what else is out there. Drop me a line here on the blog or at thicky.d@gmail.com if you have an opinion on which car you liked best. Also, don't forget to vote!

Looking For A New Car

Well, it finally happened. My old car has finally succumbed. I currently own a 1986 Dodge K car. It was a gift to me for my 18th birthday from my big brother Turk. Turk is not his real name, it's Wendall, but he had his name legally changed to Turk before he joined the Marines. He was afraid that when the other guys found out his name was Wendall that they would bet him with a sock full of pennies. Can't say I blame him. It would be neat to change my name to something a little more peppy than Dana, but I can't decide on a favorite. I like Priscilla and Chastity. Feel free to offer up suggestions.

Anywho, my K car bit the dust yesterday. This car has been with me for the last 11 years and we have seen alot together. It saw me through my 21st birthday when I (of course) had too much to drink and drove it into the Boise River. It has survived cross-country road trips to Texas, California and West Virginia. I had it repaired after not one but two deer strikes. The first one was my fault...I was changing the radio station and not watching the road and I hit a buck in the hindquarters. He survived but I needed a new front end. After that, I put those deer whistle deals on my car. The second time was totally the deer's fault. It was standing on the side of the road. It saw me coming (I even slowed down and honked my horn) and decided that for whatever reason, the does didn't like him, too many kids, the other bucks made fun of his rack, whatever, and he leaped right in front of me...blammo! He made such an awful noise that I crapped my pants. Another trip to the shop.

Well that was about 4 years ago. This time, my car blew a head gasket and my mechanic finally told me that he refused to fix the car anymore because he was embarrassed when he had to call his parts guy to get stuff for a K car. He actually offered to give me $500 to go get a new car and never come back. Talk about rude! So I'm off to shop for a new car but I don't know what I want exactly. I'd be happy for any suggestions of reliable transportation under $13,000.

Heather Mills Is A Bitch

I have a bone to pic with Heather Mills. How did that woman ever get to be the Goodwill Ambassador for Adopt-A-Minefield foundation? Because she was rogering Sir Paul McCartney? And who the hell adopts a minefield anyway? Somehow, I think that they would have a hard time getting enough volunteers to go out to the 2-mile stretch of minefield to do a trash cleanup. I bet the president of the Bosnia-Hertzegovina Chapter hears alot of "Sorry old boy, my gout is acting up again," or "Maybe next time old chap, I don't wish to have my other leg blown off, what?" So who does the AAM get to be the next champion for the cause? The person with the international appeal and stature that Princess Diana lent to the cause of removing minefields? Heather Mills?!? I bet if you took a poll of Americans, half of them would say "Isn't she the gril from Pollyana and the original Parent Trap?", and the other half would say "Oh yeah, that one-legged tart from Dancing With the Stars."

Heather Mills didn't even step on a mine to lose her leg in the first place! She was doing cheap British porn, gets in a car accident and the next thing you know she's married to Sir Paul McCartney and then divorces him and get half a bazillion dollars for her trouble. Don't get me wrong, getting shtuped by an old guy is no picnic, but it's not like she married Strom Thurmond. And I can't even get someone to buy me a decaf latte at Starbucks! I'm not bitter. Heather Mills is a bitch.

Where Have All The Candidates Gone?

Is it me, or is the race for the Democratic and Republican nominations simply a contest of finding the least "objectionable" candidate on each side? On the GOP side, you've got a twice married war hero whose myopic devotion to W. has already buried any chance of winning the general election; an man who is more famous for his work in The Hunt For Red October than in the US Senate representing Tennessee (who has not officially announced his candidacy); a thrice-married former mayor of the Big Apple who has abandoned his constituency of pro-choice moderates and is pandering to the Intelligent Designers; the Stormin' Mormon who, lest we all forget, presided over the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics that was besmirched by allegations of bribery and the figure-skating judge scandal (who then headed to the Republican stronghold of Massachusetts?!?); throw in a wacko from Kansas that makes Pat Robertson look like LBJ, a guy from Texas with two first names and another former Arkansas Governor and it's off to the races.

The choices on the other side of the aisle are equally grim. At least Hillary Clinton is not pretending to be anything other than what she is: a person wholly consumed by the lust for power. Her "invisible" ads are cute, but anyone who would remain in a marriage as deeply troubled as hers should raise an eyebrow or two. There's Bill Richardson...he was elected to Congress in 1982 and served for 14 years, he was the US Ambassador to the UN and the Secretary of Energy under Bill Clinton, and then was elected Governor of New Mexico where he created jobs and cleaned up the environment...he doesn't stand a chance of winning. There's the rich lawyer from North Carolina, the kook from Ohio, and the Senator from Illinois that Dems wonder if he's "black enough" (is there a scale of blackness with Colin Powell on one end and Flavor Flav on the other?) and GOP'ers are certain is the Antichrist signaling the Rapture is imminent.

The debates have not helped me very much to decide which candidate to vote against in 2008. For once, I would like a candidate to stand up for what they believe in a damn the consequences. If Bill Richardson believes in the sanctity of marriage, then tell Melissa Etheridge that it makes no difference whether homosexuality is genetic or a behavioral decision, you think same-sex marriage is wrong and don't back down. If Rudy Giuliani thinks that women should have the right to choose whether or not to have an abortion then say so. I can honestly say that I don't envy whoever becomes President after the current administration is through. The W. group has done more to discredit the United States government in the eyes of the world in decades. After 9/11, I admit that I was xenophobic and afraid of everyone who was not like me, and like many others I was duped into thinking it was OK to give up civil liberties in the name of the war on terror. Now I see I was dreadfully wrong. Holding people in prison without charge or hope of release was only something other countries, evil countries did, not my country. Starting wars when there was no provocation or legitimate reason to do so, that was something other countries did, not my country. I have only myself to blame, because I allowed total nutburger to run my country...twice.

As W. is fond of saying: "Fool me once, shame on you..fool me, won't get fooled again." Rock on.