General Mook, Overlord Award Winner

So today I see that my influence in this world has not gone unnoticed. Selena from herMotherhood Sucks blog, and it is a very infamous set of articles followed all over the place by smart people, as well as us leaders who strain to grasp the insanity of those we lead, has now officially awarded me the much coveted Overlord Award.

This award allows me to change ANY 3 things I want to, IN THE ENTIRE WORLD. It appears my need to rule the Universe is still being debated, and I'm sure we'll end up having to divvy up the sectors sooner or later once real life catches up with all that Star Trekky and Star Wars business. After much careful consideration, I have settled upon the following things (note to readers, I tried hard to narrow down my vast needs to three things):

1. Football season will be year round, and Nascar will be dropped to a total of 10 weeks a year. Sorry to all my redneck racecar loving friends, but you can race anyday you want out on the streets and bet your own damn money to the winners. Football is still clearly, in my not so humble opinion (the only opinion of which matters to me anyways), the king of all sports.

2. Above the waist nudity will be allowed worldwide. However the permit to do so must be cleared directly through me. In some cases, I will require it for some women. Like Cindy Crawford (my all time love), and certain other women who I deem it to be so. For others it will be deemed that they never participate in this for the entirety of their lives... There will be harsh sanctions for violators! (Hey, I'm a 32 year old guy hiding an adolescent soul...did you expect me to gloss over this aspect of life)

3. Bitching and whining to me verbally, as well as outright temper tantrums that are used to stifle the bitching and whining, will be ceasing about 3 seconds before they start. Failure to do so will result in your entire wealth being transferred to me, as well as copious sessions of waterboarding...by my cat, the esteemed Colonel Beauregard Sterling Lovell. He's gotten plenty of baths, and he's looking to dish out some retribution

I have other rules as well, but apparently this award only entitles me to 3 official changes. The rest will be carried out, Geneva Convention be damned! I could've gone with more worldly ideas to solve today's political issues, but gthat would seem so selfless....and by God, I havent been selfish enough in my benevolent leadership up to this point.

Also apparently I have to nominate other people (bloggers) for this auspicious award. Those that I would nominate generally dont condone being put on the spot like this. Personally I think Selena just got tired of me not writing and thrust this award upon me, all the way from upstate New York just to make me show SOME direction with my life and give her new reading material... I believe she finds her Overlord status a little higher than mine... women! sheesh!

I'm An Uncle Again

This is my new niece, Elliana.

It's weird, I talk about how how long a day can be, but how fast the month and years can go by. Of course, I'm sure my sister has thought the last few months went by excruciatingly slow. As a guy, when pregnancy hits, we keep thinking we need it to keep going for awhile. First we want to make sure the bun in the oven is baked long enough to come out just right. Secondly we want to hold off on the expenses of new babies as long as possible. However, the women want to get it over with, and get that rib-jarring, bladder-pressing baby out into the world so they can get on with life and motherhood.

I guess the doctor wanted that baby out quicker than she was ready to come out into the world. I suppose he wanted to make sure he got credit and paid for the baby before squeezing in some time at the golf course while on vacation. As for me, it seems like just yesterday that her first little girl had just come into the world, and now here she is with little girl number 2. The first one, Sophie, looks like a miniature clone of my sister. There is really no difference between the two except for size and age. I'm sure my brother-in-law's parents are hoping Elliana gets some of her looks from their side of the family. Hard to tell at this point, since all babies come out red/pinkish. And of course, our family seems to have pretty strong genes to be overcome.

Hopefully they will come up to Iowa to visit next summer or the following Christmas, so I can meet my new niece... and of course get to hang out with my brother-in-law. I think Becky keeps him down there in Florida just to keep us from getting together, since he and I are like peas in a pod. That and now that Sophie is old enough to understand things, there is always risk of me telling her how Becky got away with everything at that age. She needs to have stories to throw back in her mother's face whenever being chastised for the same kinds of things.

Luckily, being an angelic child like I was, Becky can't do that to me with my boys. They already know what a well behaved and good little boy I was growing up. And if they ever get the idea to question that line of thinking, they can just ask me and I'll set them straight.

Anyways, congrats to my sister and her husband. They only had to have another baby to get Mom and Dad to go down and visit them!

State of the Cat Address

From the Desk of Colonel Beauregard Sterling Lovell

The State of the Cat is improving in this last week. After escaping a harrowing session of torture, things are beginning to return to as normal as they can be.


Two weeks ago, I was trapped into a a portable cell, and transported to a man they call "Doc". Some call him a vet, others call him other things. Without a doubt he is a veteran in the underworld of the dark practices of torture. I remember being let free from my cell only to be stuck with needles. When I came too, and after what was most likely an intense session of questioning and further torture, I found my fingernails yanked from their rightful place. They had attempted to extract more information from me while keeping me heavily drugged.

However, being a Cat and an Officer, I have a much sharper mind, and while withholding any sensitive information, Planned my daring escape. They tried to thwart me with newspaper in my latrine instead of my usual sandbox that I have become accustomed to. It took a little while to get my legs back, having been so heavily doped up on their drugs, however began to get my balance back. I convinced a weaker minded human being to replace the sand in my latrine, and feed me heartily while I nursed backed to health. We have seen a return to increased fecal output, however our ability to invade the upper deck has been nullified without use of my climbing paws. Keeping the small child that runs around the Mookified Compound in line has proven an upward battle. I intend to use a nighttime attack to put him back in his place in the pecking order around here.

I still suffer tenderness and some soreness in my left front paw, for which revenge will be exacted at a later time. I will be holding full investigations on this Rendition program, the methods of torture/enhanced interrogation that have been employed on me personally, and other such matters... hopefully I can get them televised to the public through C-Span 9. I believe the greater public awareness will help bring "Doc" to justice on the international level. In the meantime, I prepare to bring the General down for his part in this dastardly plot. I have taken over his chair, antagonize him during his "meetings on the throne", and prepare to stalk his sleeping quarters to allow for him to suffer from sleep deprivation and greater levels of paranoia. Then maybe I'll rip out his fingernails...

Signed,
Col. B.S. Lovell
Feline Combat Div., Commanding

Writer's Block

Writer's Block... The manifestation of creative constipation.

Constipation in its regular form can be a really painful thing to deal with. I've been through it a few times, but with the help of a product by FLEET, it can go away, often hitting you at the worst possible time in the fully opposite direction before you get to feeling normal again. I once had an issue with partial blockage, so that I did get to go #2, but wasn't getting rid of all of it. I eventually succumbed to visiting an emergency room, getting xrays and blood/urine tests to figure out what was wrong with me. When the nurse showed up with a box of Fleet enema stuff, I felt a sense of embarassment and stupidity. Instead of spending $1100 on quality American healthcare in a small town, I could've gone to the store and spent about $15 getting my own box of Fleet and a box of raisin bran to complete the homemade detoxification.

As a guy who enjoys writing, and enjoys being able to have a creative outlet, when I get this mental constipation going on, its almost worse because it isn't physical pain, but more like a feeling of depressive soul sucking depriving me of my outlet to vent whatever life incident I find humorous enough to share, or merely pandering my own ego and pushing my own brand of weirdness onto you readers.

Whether it's something the kids said or did that I found intriguing or downright hilarious, or the cat's antics for that matter, or merely some random gripe or observation about life, I like to put it out there with a little bit of the Mookified perspective. For the last couple weeks, I get some hint of inspiration to write about whatever may have happened that day, almost daily and usually at the most inconvenient times, and by the time I get in front of the computer.... it's gone. The anecdote or full blown story might be great, but I can't seem to get it from my head onto paper (or do you call this electronic paper?).

I'm not as smart and extremely adept at going after politics or social issues like some of my counterparts I follow on here (this is the one and only time I will admit to this. If you ask me face to face, I will tell you that I am the smartest person I know), I just stick with what I know, which is just basically observation of people and things around me, ocassionally being able to expound on them further as though I know what I'm talking about. Other times, its just a bunch of "Grade A" American Baloney (which I am an expert at this), as the whims bounce off my brainpan and onto this blog.

Today I'm blogging about this, just to blog, hoping that writing down SOMEthing will get my brain fired up to relieve the cerebral pressure and I can squeeze out a few more things that I actually get into for long enough to make this blog worth visiting.

Something I've noticed about this new blogger format when typing up a post....no convenient spellcheck, and I've had to come back and re-edit, searching the tools just to keep these paragraphs separate, instead of one big block jumble of words.... The problem with technology, is nothing ever seems to be good enough. And if you find something easy to use and it works for you, the companies WILL change it up and make whatever you did obsolete or non-operational. As long as they are changing, you have to change with them and do it the way THEY want you to do things, or you have to become some sort of misanthrope and miss out altogether.

And since blogging is kind of an egotistical thing for most of us- face it, this is about ego to a degree in that we actually think what we have to say matters to other people and that they should read it and follow whatever we tell them- I think they (the technology companies) have the biggest egos and get off on making us change our ways to conform to their wants, or be crushed in self defeat. I told you these bastards were evil!

Being Shortchanged By My Own Brain!

I've noticed that when I'm extra tired, the dreams I have are much more interesting and sometimes so active I wake up exhausted... and pissed!

I don't really remember what I was dreaming about, even moments after waking up, but I know my dreams are stifling my growth. Not growth like having sipped some of my mom's coffee stunted my ability to be tall, but in life. Not sure if I was shortchanged economically, emotionally or otherwise, but I just KNOW, that my dreams ability to draw things out way too long are really irritating me.

I know that whatever is going on in the dream is interesting, and it keeps leading to some magical golden point. But the dreams keeps elaborating on and on, beating a dead horse. Kind of like those online copy ads that keep telling you what a great product/service/opportunity you can have if you respond now.... oh but wait let us tell you more, by merely expounding on what we just said, but with different word orders and sentence structures, followed with some vaguely written "testimonials". YEAH YEAH YEAH, JUST GET TO THE G%$$@&^* POINT ALREADY!

Yeah, my dreams are kind of annoying like that. Yes, I've been sucked in, I'm interested in your story, but more so, I'm interested in what the point is, what golden nugget of information is going to hit my hears, bounce around my brain and make me better off for knowing it.

And you know what? Every time I think I am right at that point where I'm gonna hear it... I wake up! That stupid alarm clock, or my stupid bladder complaining about how it needs to be emptied right now or it will wet my bed, is always interrupting my dreams just when they are getting to the good and juicy part of the story.

I keep thinking that I'm going to learn the secret of life, or how to make my first billion dollars, by merely HEARING the next utterances of whoever is talking to me in my respective dreams. And I can FEEL it with every fiber of my being. Then that clock goes off or my bladder wakes me up, and I find myself thoroughly disappointed and irritated that I had my chances shot to hell because of having to wake up.

I'll let the rest of you take it from here... I'm sure I had something really important to tell all of you to conclude this blog post, but I can't seem to remember what it is...

God Versus Nature

So just a bit of disgusting guy humor to chew on for a few minutes. Now I know you all usually come here for up to date serious discussions that I introduce which will inevitably change the world, but I figured I'd lighten things up from my usual all-business-all-the-time posts...

So I had some greasy foods and some fiber loaded foods over the course of a few days. Eventually they came back to haunt me while I was working. Before you ask, no I did NOT soil myself while driving the patrol car. I did however go to a familiar facility that I am comfortable using. It also happened to be a church, an episcopalian one at that, that I lock up and do security checks at. I had a copy of the Sunday paper and took it in with me. 20 minutes and 10 pounds later, I ran out of that bathroom. You know its pretty bad when your own stuff frightens your sense of smell to the very core.



Surely I thought I will burn in hell for having destroyed the facilities. So naturally I asked a female friend. She assured me that "Jesus always forgives." That's nice, but also one opinion from someone who doesn't exactly regularly attend church, and keep up to date on the Sin/Not a Sin list.



So I asked a male coworker. He assured me that "Blowing up a Sh***** in the House of God is one of those unforgivable sins like suicide and that surely you will burn."

So, in order to break the tie I went to my lovely sister for her opinion. I told her the basic story and the answers I received from my two friends. She then informed me most assuredly that "God is an angry God. The New Testament and Jesus love stuff was just to co opt the tenderhearted people into worshipping God. And that you will definitely burn in hell." Again this opinion is from a non churchgoing person....but awfully harsh coming from a new age hippie liberal type. That and she is my sister... she probably relishes the day to find out whether I burn in hell or not, hoping for the former. Lot of love between her and I.


I asked her that if I destroyed an Episcopalian bathroom with all their tender loving God ways being a falsity in the name of the true angry God, that I might get leniency for helping to take down his false church. She said I'd be lucky if that were the case... she's probably still hoping for the hellfire and brimstone option for me.

Then I began to wonder... Angry god or not, he made me and he made the stuff to make the food I ate, and he should've foreseen the problem of the nature of my body reacting to this stuff and known that sooner or later, a church would be bombed out by my #2 stinky business. So ultimately this is God's fault (this is purely satire...don't go getting in a huff over this statement, you religious fanatics!) for making me this way...after all He created me in His image....So maybe I'm just trying to achieve His goal of becoming more like him. Maybe this production of Smoke On The (Holy Toilet) Water, is more of an homage of His greatness? Has God destroyed a few spiritual toilets in an effort to exalt Himself in front of the angels as an All-Powerful God among Gods?

Discuss amongst yourselves, and proffer your opinions.... Was it a Holy Sh*t, or a fast track to Hell?

American Healthcare Issues

First off, let me say this isn't an argument for why we should leave health care in America the way it is, or pushing for universal coverage. I'm just doing a little nit-picking and general complaining over a few things.

One of the things I intend to bitch about came up on a blog by Renaissance Guy about a guy with an infected tooth who ended up dying. He went to the local emergency room and they gave him a prescription for some pain meds and an antibiotic and told to go get his tooth pulled. He was uninsured.

The big thing I wondered is why they couldn't have had some doctor come on in and just yank the infected tooth out and go from there with the pain meds and prescription.

One commenter, who goes by the moniker Plainly Spoken, said:

I would suspect that is because ER’s are not equipped for dental work and do not have dentists on staff. I would further think this is because there are not significant numbers of people going to ER’s for dental issues. Also, I would suspect that the large majority of dental emergencies occur because so many people ignore dental issues until forced to deal with them (which may well come from a lack of dental insurance and/or ability to afford dental care).

Fair enough opinion, but still I have to disagree that the people who work in the hospital aren't capable of pulling out a friggin tooth. They have local anesthetics, they have scalpels to cut away the gum if necessary, they have clamps to hold things out the way, and I'm sure something resembling a pair of pliers. Add some gauze to the hole when your done and give the guy some pain meds.

To which another commenter going by Spherical Time replied to my solution:

I think doctors are unlikely to attempt surgery that they haven’t trained for, especially with as few preparations as getting a scalpel, clamps, and a pair of pliers (and the gauze and painkiller).

That’s a good way to kill a patient

As to ST's first paragraph I agree. Although one caveat I might add is how many ER doctors got formal training treating gunshot wounds? Sooner or later it has to be figured out. As for removing a tooth, it isn't exactly rocket science. Yes, it is better to be trained in the professional manner, however, its still pulling a tooth. Take an X-ray to see what the tooth looks like altogether, then yank that puppy out of the guy's mouth. I would assume the reluctance of a doctor in an ER to do such a thing would be more insurance/malpractice/lawsuit related than the ability to do minor in house surgery.

As to removing the tooth killing a patient, I disagree. I've had a few teeth forcibly removed without the help of a trained professional, and I never died from it. I felt like I'd rather have died than deal with that kind of pain, since when it comes to my mouth I'm a big wimp, but somehow I survived it okay.

The stories we were given as kids, and some people may have actually experienced, about tying string to a loose tooth and a doorknob, or pulling a bad tooth out with pliers, they aren't just stories. That kind of thing actually happened... in one's own home, by the babysitter, or whomever.

Heck, for decades, if not centuries, both dental and medical care were administered where ever it was needed. They didn't require a big fancy building and a staff of specialists for every possible scenario in order to do the job. If a guy needed a big gash cleaned and stitched, the old saw bones (doctor) would do it right in his own house which sometimes doubled as his office, or at the patients place. If a guy needed a tooth removed, they removed the dag-blamed tooth.

Who needs big fancy buildings, a board of directors, insurance executives and legal departments to fix minor issues before they become major ones that might require all of the above? Hell, I have known quite a few elderly people who made a trip to the hospital for some reason or another and refused to stay, after the doctor made the decision to keep them, because they knew damn good and well that staying in the constantly sterilized environment might actually be more dangerous in the form of getting a bad antibiotic-resistant staph infection or pneumonia, than going home to heal up from whatever ailment they suffered from. They can check in by phone, or visit the clinic to be followed up with or monitored, and only choosing to stay in the hospital if things get really really bad that they actually physically REQUIRE hospitalization.

But then again, thanks to lawyers, if the doctors don't toe the line and something goes wrong, the patients family can sue the pants off of them. Whether it happened in the hospital or because the doctor didn't make them stay. I do argue for tort reform in the medical field. Not a full on "you can't sue the doctors for shit" kind of tort reform, but for putting a little common sense back into the system. If the doctor fucks something up, sure sue him. Get the cost of the medical requirements covered by the doctor, hospital, and/or their insurance companies. Get the lost wages to the family in the event of death or permanent disability. Even get your mental anguish and pain and suffering payments if you want...not $10 million dollars worth of pain and suffering by any means, but some smaller, more reasonable figure would be fine in my eyes.

I know life is precious and priceless, especially if it is yours or a loved one's, but some of these lawsuits that award millions in damages on top of the economic scope are ludicrous. I don't care if the guy is a $5 million dollar a year CEO of some corporation or some barely making handyman. Cover the health care costs for life for screwing him up, a reasonable wage recovery amount (in the event of the little guy, give him his last 20 years of work he would have done if it hadn't been for this medical "mistake"; as for the CEO, he can do with less than 20 years at $5 million per), and some capped compensation for your pain and suffering.

I'm not a big fan of lawyers and their ability to make a ton of money from your lawsuit while you get a pittance when something goes wrong in the medical business. I'm not a big fan of the insurance and hospital execs who get big pay for essentially "running" a corporation already tracking to succeed regardless of him being a member of the board. I'm not a big fan of the big pharmaceutical companies who insist on pushing their drugs onto everyone at a steep price, and working their damnedest to keep the generic versions from being available, or their working with insurance companies to keep erectile dysfunction drugs covered while not covering other types of more relevant lifesaving drugs and forcing the customer to pony up every penny for them.

I mean look, I'm not anti-regulation. I believe there has to be some regulations to protect all parties involved, but often times we over regulate things, and use too broad of a brush with those that exist that actually stymie the process in some instances.