Just like they always do, posthumous interviews of people in the neighborhood indicated he was a great guy. “He would take out my trash for me on Tuesdays” said neighbor Gertrude Thayer. “He was always so polite.”

Others on Acorn Drive remembered how he loved Halloween. “I can remember his house was always decorated first; spooky lights, spider webs, loads of pumpkins everywhere. This was his Christmas” said friend Jerry Themapoulos.

If this was his Christmas, Jonathan Orange most certainly didn’t get the present he was looking for. Apparently he was going to re-enact one of Charles Schulz’s Charlie Brown/Great Pumpkin stories, and with his love of Halloween and his genetics, he was a perfect fit. But that night, on his way to the pumpkin patch, he had a little too much to drink and had wandered into a bad part of town. Police haven’t been able to piece together the exact chain of events, but they speculate that Jon, in his drunken state, refused to back down to taunts from gang members about his appearance, and the gang that ran the street where he was found overwhelmed him, rendering him unconscious, then performed their rite of passage for new gang members, a rite which includes the horrific treatment of the victim’s lifeless body.

Police currently have no one in custody. Anyone with information about this crime are asked to contact the police.

CAUTION: The photos are graphic.

I’ve been driving by this house for the last week and finally had to stop and take a couple pics.

I told you about my escapades in snot. Well, the fun ain’t over yet. I awoke this morning feeling about the same way I’ve felt each of the last seven; not so sick that I can’t go to work, but not so well that I’m not weak and achy by the end of the day. Still a bit of a cough, still some drainage, and as a bonus I think the drainage has been causing some nausea. Sweet.

When I picked up the original prescription for amoxicillin, the clinic doctor had noted that I had some impacted wax in my right ear. Just a few days later I was noticing a hearing issue in that ear (which like dominoes then caused me to realize I have some hearing loss in my left ear. Double sweet. (story to follow when time allows))

I decided to try ear candling.

On the box’s instructions I saw what I believed to be a good example of cognitive dissonance:

“…try to keep the height of the flame between two and six inches…”

“…many people find ear candling to be relaxing… ”

Because really, what says relaxing more than draping your head in a wet towel like you were just pulled from a burning building, then holding up a small mirror to monitor the blow torch that’s inching it’s way toward your head?

Didn’t work.

Anyway, I was up early this morning because I was still not feeling up to par, the ear candling, carbamide and wooden spoon did nothing to reduce the amount of wax crammed against my eardrum. With all of these symptoms still hanging around, I figured I either had brain cancer (unresolved hearing problems and sinus issues), lung cancer (persistent cough) or leukemia (for the general shitty feeling). I wore a path in the carpet by 6am, pacing as I considered my funeral arrangements. I’m going with a maple casket, btw.

I decided I was definitely going to see the doctor.

I seldom buy the gas station/convenience store doughnuts when we fuel up the trucks in the morning, but since I was still running on only 5 cylinders, I thought I’d treat myself with a custard bismark. I love custard doughnuts. But there was a voice. A harbinger of things to come… Oh no, Mr. Clay. You won’t be enjoying anything today. Not with your luck.

It was like the custard bismark, devoid of any custard, was laughing at me.

So I get to the doc’s office and I give him my spiel. He takes a chest x-ray. After he looks at it, he says my lungs are clear. No pneumonia. (And I secretly presume no lung cancer, either. He wouldn’t forget to mention that, would he?)

He then takes out a very small crochet needle and proceeds to pull this from my plugged right ear:

His nurse enters a few minutes later and puts a spray bottle up to my ear and squirts seven gallons of fluid into my head, which dislodges more wax and a small amount of gray matter. But it no longer sounds like I’m speaking to people through 3 feet of pudding. Which is nice. And I can cross brain cancer off the list of ailments. (I think.)

At the conclusion of the morning I was in possession of my second run of antibiotics after having not taken any for roughly a quarter century (fuck that sounds old). Doc is thinking it might be a resistant infection. Or maybe an allergy. Or maybe leukemia. (That one was added in by me later. So was AIDS.)

Happy days.

So the concept is, the speeding air around the ball both lifts it and creates an area of lower pressure around it, keeping it within the stream. And the difference in pressure is greater than any gravitational pull on the ball.  I think.

Oh, how I wish I were smart.

Sorry to make you tilt your head sideways to view the video. Please see previous wish.

I’ve got one.  Had it for about 4 years now.

Goes like this:

We know where Bin Laden is.  Have known for awhile. Been waiting for the right moment to kill and drag his smelly, lifeless body by camel through the hills of Afghanistan for all the media to see.

But if you’re like me, you’re thinking that may not be the best solution.  Don’t get me wrong - I like the idea of chairs that burn crispy for murderers.  But I think the martyr after-effect would so not be worth it, psychopathic terrorists looking for some cock-eyed form of revenge.

But maybe it’d be a good test for the next president, if the president wasn’t the candidate the current administration wanted in office.  A passing of a hot terrorist potato, if you will.

If Bin Laden’s caught in the next 2 1/2 months, don’t say I didn’t warn ya.

That’s right. I’m taking your posts from my feeder and putting them right into a nice little Word doc with the end goal to publish them so others might read them. Or maybe just blackmail.

Who’d you say you were voting for, again?