Tornadoes are our illegal immigrants

On Sunday my wife had a friend and her one year old daughter come with us to eat dinner at my wife's favorite restaurant - Her friend and her daughter were born and raised in Arizona and this was her first trip to Missouri so as we drove down Rangeline Road in the center of Joplin  and the dark clouds started forming a few jokes were made about tornadoes - apparently for those people that don't live with this stuff all the time tornadoes are a pretty scary event but for the most part we ignore them unless they actually mention our address on news coverage as a possible impact zone.
When the power was cut inside the restaurant I remember telling this worried mother, "Don't worry about it, they always make a big deal out of these things and then nothing really happens, sort of the same way people in California might think about a small earthquake or to put it in Arizona terms: tornadoes are our illegal immigrants."



The storm came and apparently I was wrong about the not worrying thing because everything we drove though to get there was now gone ten minutes later. We missed the tornado by literally a couple blocks and ten minutes - and this this was a mile wide. We saw a lot of the destruction on the way home - over turned trucks and cars some smashed up houses and trees stripped of branches, and that was not in Joplin it was off the interstate, we avoided going back home through Joplin not knowing how back it was down there.

This shows some of the scale, keep in mind we missed this by a couple blocks.

Long story short, we made it, my family members made it and I am thinking about moving to Arizona.

I will have more later on this later but in this blog I tend to make jokes (bad ones) about stuff like this and it seems sort of in bad taste to do that when they are still finding bodies.

Space Training

When I was in kindergarten all of the kids that were considered "smart" enough got to read this series of comic books about an astronaut in space, or at least that's as much of the story as I know because I was not one of the "smart" kids. I remember feeling bad because I wanted to know how to read the little book and I was not allowed to. I wanted to find out what happened to the plucky astronaut exploring space, fighting aliens and possibly making friends with a talking dog which he would make his partner. I really wanted to read those books, now I don't even know the title of them, but at the time i was obsessed with space travel and those little books.

I remember one day all the teachers in school being excited and our teacher bringing a television into the classroom and telling me that we were going to see real astronauts and a teacher go into space.

It didn't really work out the way they said it would.

I remember very clearly watching the Space Shuttle Challenger explode and the teacher quickly walking across the room and turning off the television - we then got to go to recess early. I was 6.

This morning I found myself at the age of 31 reading a news story about the second to last space shuttle launch in United States history for the foreseeable future. The story stated that NASA celebrated the arrival of the space shuttle Endeavor reaching its proper orbit by sending music to the crew and the song they chose  was "Drops of Jupiter," by Train.

I look back on my life and what could have been - had I been smart enough to read in kindergarten, had those books and that disaster not spoiled my enthusiasm for space travel  - who knows I might have worked really hard and with a little bit of luck I might have actually become an astronaut. But knowing that all that hard work, patients and training would eventually lead to me being trapped in a small tin can listening to that shitty music tells me that I know I have made the right choices.

Animal crackers and complaints.

I was just sitting here eating a bag of  animal crackers, something I haven't done in like ten years. About four handfuls in I realized why the store only charged me ten cents for a 2 pound bag. My animal crackers' expiration date was so long ago that some of the animals in the bag are apparently extinct because I did not recognize several of them.

If I had to guess I would say that this is a fox of some sort, but seeing as how it is the same size as the elephant crackers (and I refuse to believe that I have half a bag of tiny elephants) this means it would have to be a huge fox. It has pointed ears like a dog or wolf maybe, but the tail is way off and looks more like a horse or some kind of mutant deer.

My first thought on this one way it was some sort of cat, like a tiger or Morris from those meow mix commercials. The problem with that is he has no tail, even bobcats has some sort of tail but this thing has nothing. Maybe it was because this was a knock-off brand of animal cracker and the design team found out that if they cut the tail off of the tigers then they would save like a billion dollars a year or something. I can picture some eager cracker designer at a board meeting, "Sure a few kids might be confused but if we clearly label the bag not for educational purposes we should be covered from any legal action."

Then again I could be way off maybe this isn't a cat at all but some sort of mischievous (or possible inner city) gerbil, notice the playful way it is raising it's front leg as if to say "Toss me that string," or "Say that again peckerwood and I cut yo ass."



I have no idea on this one, my best guess would be a hand that got caught in some sort of machinery as part of an industrial accident. I guess if you count one celled organisms as "animals" then this could be an amoeba. Maybe it isn't a whole animal, I guess if you turn it upside down then it sort of looks like the head of a moose but if that were the case you would have to label the bag "animal parts in cracker form" and that's sort of a long title for toddlers to ask for by name.

The New United States

There is a group of people in Southern Arizona that are trying to form a new state and break off from the rest of Arizona and having been there I can see there point. In my opinion I think this would be a good idea to form two states called Arizona and Flagstaff.

(Here is a real news story if you are interested:)
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/liberals-southern-arizona-seek-form-state-130257516.html

I don't think it will ever happen but it did make me think that perhaps it is time for the united states to redraw some state boundaries. I have put a lot of thought into this and I think I have a better plan for the states then what we currently have.

Number one:
In order to be a state you have to touch a state.
Sorry Hawaii and Alaska, but this has been a long time coming. We induced you as states back in the 50's and we both know it hasn't been working out. You guys are like the Laurel and Hardy of states, always getting into hi jinks and misadventures together.

Maybe you guys can form your own country but we certainly need your Sarah Palins and I guess I have to go with Don Ho because that's the only famous guy to ever come out of Hawaii.

Number two:

Let the south finally secede.
Sure slavery was bad and I don't think it would be a good idea to let Alabama continue doing it, and if you talk to anyone from Alabama they will deny that the civil war had anything to do with slavery anyway but other then forcing them to not be jerks and own people why did we need to keep them? I think about this every time I hear those rednecks talking about the south doing it again -

I say go be your own country, we won't stop you and you don't have the read or eat anything not fried and you can vote for Jeb Bush for your president or emperor or whatever you decide on. There would be only one price - give us Florida, well some of Florida - actually we just want Miami - Okay, just Miami Beach other then that you can have the rest.

Number three:

Texas too.

Texas always wants to be it's own state, I say go for it, it is sad to lose Austin, but other then that I can do with out them and their silly hats. They can ride horses to work and hold beauty pageants for toddlers all that stuff they seem to like.

Number four:
There should only be one Dakota.
I don't care which one we keep but they should fight each other and the winner becomes a new state called simply "Dakota."

Number five:
New England is one state.
Maine, Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Rhode Island all form one state but drops the name New England and names themselves Mainconnvershire Island.

That might be it for right now, but there are several more changes that need to take place in the future this is just the start.

Fast and Furious

Somehow the news media has been busy with other things and has let a major event slip right by with hardly any coverage. I am speaking of course about the release of the cinematic master piece "Fast Five" the fifth instalment of the Fast and Furious film franchise.

"Sure they got Bin Laden but at what cost?"

I was expecting this to be the main news topic for at least three weeks but it has hardly had any mention at all. From what I have read from the few sources that are reviewing this film such as Moviezdump.com and  New Republic Magazine, it is the best film of all time. Apparently it has a scene in which Vin Diesel punches some guy and then drives a car really fast and jumps over a train. There is also a nude scene featuring Kate Middleton, and  (spoiler alert) John F. Kennedy makes a guest appearance near the end and reveals to the audience exactly what happened that day in Dallas. I believe it has already been nominated for 7 Oscars including one for a new category which was added just this year for "most furious film."

I have also read that much like the Shaq Diesel in 1993, Vin Diesel is not slowing down anytime soon, it has already been announced that he has signed on to star in the next 15 sequel or "squeakquel" depending on how well the chipmunks crossover special which comes out in may of 2012 does.

I don't know all of the future films' details but I can pass along a few I have picked up. While the first film was entitled "The Fast and the Furious,"  and the fourth was called "Fast and Furious," and the latest instalment is entitled simply "Fast Five" the next film will continue this by shortening the title to "Fast and Fu." Vin Diesel will actually play two roles in this film the obviously not gay street racer and his lawyer John Lawyerstein.

"You want Nos? You can't handle the Nos!"

The franchnchise is going to take a pretty sevear turn near the eleventh film when it is set in a post apocalyptic future in which gasoline is so rare that cars now run on babies and Vin diesil has to steal them so that he can drive really fast and disobey traffic laws.

The 13th film might get a little odd because a major plot point in the film is Vin Diesel's head turning into a basketball.

And of course the final film in the franchise which will be entitled "f" will feature the return of Paul Walker and is going to be three hours of gay porn.

Osama is dead.

It was kind of strange to watch the news reports where college kids were partying because the government killed Osama bin Ladin - I am glad he is dead, it was just strange to see them drop all that PC bull crap and do a keg stand for America. All I could think of was this song.

As much fun as that was to watch, it is horrible to see the spin machine start up immediatly - depending on the cable news you watch either Obama pulled the trigger himself or Bush hired a private death squad to make the hit. My favorite was FOX news this morning with some guy that looked like Carl Rove but wasn't saying that Osama being dead is not the issue but the fact that Clinton allowed Osama to operate while he was in office - i swear that was his argument.
Oh, well back to business as usual.

Private Eye

When you have a slight case of insomnia you will often times do some strange things to entertain yourself while the rest of the world is asleep - I however have a severer case of insomnia and have run through the more regular things like finally completing the game of Zelda I started in 1998 and creating an Itunes playlist for every conceivable situation (now if Herve Villechaize comes back to life and we find ourselves on a road trip through Africa I will have my "Half a zombie to Zimbabwe," mix.)

Now I am entering new levels of odd - Right now it's 5 a.m, and I have been on the computer for the last three hours trying to research the name "Paco" as this name has popped up a number of times in the past month in graffiti tags on buildings near my home and I have always wanted to solve a mystery. Some teenager spray painting on buildings is just about the size of the mystery I think I can handle.

Facebook, Myspace, graffiti websites, Casenet criminal records, news articles . . .blah blah. . .blah. So far I have nothing to show for this, but that simply means I am matching wits with a formidable adversary. My plan now is to start documenting these tags with photos (as soon as the sun comes up.) I will also need a map and some push pins to make one of those cool maps with red string tied to them to show the area of the crime like in the movies.

Maybe tomorrow I can try my first stakeout? I can't wait to go undercover!!! I think I'll watch Chinatown later just for some notes. Anyway, I am only a few hours into the investigation and I already feel like this was a smart move.