Pitbulls

This is going to be short. I have a Pitbull mix. He's a sweetheart. I've had dogs before. Black lab, and a Siberian Husky. Decent dogs. The husky was a bit dumb, but otherwise good dogs. Then my wife and I were looking for a dog. I wanted one she could run with. One that had some size on it, and would have some protective instinct. We also wanted a dog that had a reputation of being good with kids. I did some research (http://www.dogbreedinfo.com/) and narrowed the field. Then we started hitting the local dog rescues to see what was available. Please understand I have nothing against purebred, "papered" dogs. But we have so many in shelters and pounds here, it seems crazy to go anywere else. So I looked on Craigslist, and on Petfinder and eventually ran across Beefy and his littermates. The adoption group that had him were running his add as being an American Bulldog, but a volunteer with the group (a friend) told me he was over half Pitt, but they couldn't run the add as such for two reasons:

1. Dog fighters are still looking for Pittbulls and sometimes try to get them from rescues.
2. People are afraid of Pitts, and will shy away from adopting them.

I'm not afraid of Pittbulls. Beefy has proven to be a wonderful companion and exercise partner. He loves children, and will put up with anything, so long as the kid rubs him. He was slapped across the face last week by a little girl who wanted to play rough. Dog's reaction? Fall over and roll belly up to try to entice a belly-rub. He has not been aggressive with any other dogs, but has tried to play with dogs who weren't interested. This resulted in him being growled at, so he ran behind me and hid.

What kills me is how many people are afraid of Pitts. And I mean, run in terror, jerk kids away fear. I made the mistake of telling a woman that Beefy was a Pitt while she was petting him on a walk, and she jerked her hand away and stepped back about 10 feet, saying something about "maneater". Yeah, the dog that was happily licking your hand 5 seconds ago is going to go insane an rip off a boob now that you know it's a Pittbull. So now I have to introduce him as a mutt. Or to other Pitt owners as an "Amstaff Mix", which they immediately understand. I know the media doesn't like Pitts. But please, give the breed a chance.

OOOOoooohh! Dogo!

So, last night Lemur Queen and I went out to world market to buy some overpriced and pretentious goods. You know, the kind that say "we're well travelled and oh so worldly yet don't actually travel because we have no money". Yep, those kinds of goods. So, as we were walking into the store, we walked by a truck, and there was a dog in the truck. It was evening, and nice and cool, so the dog wasn't in danger. And both the windows were rolled all the way down. The dog was sitting behind the driver's wheel, and I noticed him because he FILLED THE ENTIRE WINDOW. He looked like a Pitbull on steroids. It was a Dogo Argentino.

I mean, look at it. That dog is epic. I actually sat outside the damn store so I could talk to the owner when she came out. She was a bit apprehensive when I asker her what kind of dog it was ("Well, we got him in Buenos Ares....") but when I blurted DOGO! She knew she had a friend. Seems she had been given some flak from PETA people about the dog in the past. She was from Georgia, and her and her husband had a farm there. In Georgia, there's a lot of wild pigs. Boars. They root up crops, attack livestock and people. Fierce. Mean. With big ass tusks. Farmers want these bad boys gone. But hunting them is extremely dangerous. High caliber weapons must be used. Even then, the thick hide, slabbed muscle, and really really bad attitude of the wild boar makes it tough to kill. Regular hunting dogs, like a Coonhound, Foxhound, or Beagle would get ripped to confetti by a boar.

Enter the Dogo Argentino. It was selectively bred for hunting Pumas and other large jungle cats. They combined the now extinct Fighting Dog of Cordoba, Boxer, Mastiff, German Wirehair Pointer, Great Pyranees and old Bull Terrier stock. That gave it a good nose (to track), size and stregnth, and a great personality (this is actually a decent family dog) so it could work well with a pack to bring down large game. You know, because it was bred to, you know, freaking kill pumas.

Yep. So this lady had the dog in the truck. He sat there, patiently, waiting for his master to return, ignoring everyone who walked by, tried to pet him, or took pictures (that would be me, I'll post them later, maybe.). I waited for that lady for 20 mins, hoping she would show up. That dog was just too awesome not to check out. Oh, and yeah, even though the dog is bred to kill large wild animals, it's nature is to be loving and gentle with people and kids. Hence the Boxer mix-in. What an awesome dog. If Lemur Queen would let me, I would totally get one of those.

Moving Days........

I always hated to move. I would stay in an apartment long after I should have left simply because I hate moving. And when I DID move to different apartments, I always tried to get a ground floor apartment. Why? I didn't have to move heavy things up stairs and it seems that when I walk I sound like "I'm trying to stomp a mime to death" (ex-neighbors words). But as I got older, I got better at moving. All my furniture can be broken down to man portable loads. I know exactly what size boxes I need and how many I need to move. I have packaging for ALL my fragile stuff. One of my buddies from school was the king though. Even after he graduated, everything he owned could fit into his Country Squire LTD station wagon. Everything. ALL his crap. He was like a Bedouin, able to pick up and move within 2 hours. I love helping guys like that move.

You know who I hate to help move? Chicks. (Not you, my loving wife, you are the great exception!) Especially single ones. Why? Because often times they've never had to move themselves. Their daddy moved them, or their brother, or boyfriend, or SOME GULLIBLE GUY who they roped into doing this. Also, because women have heavy stuff. Not just sofas and dressers, but RANDOM things like a 60 lb ironing board or something. Or a microwave made out of granite. Also, women LOVE to live on the upper floors of apartment buildings. The first floor? The easy floor to move stuff to? Pfft. Please. Since she's not the one dragging that 500 pound bureau up 3 flights of stairs what do she care?

And I know I sound angry here. I guess I kinda am. Waaaaaaay back in the day, YEARS before I even started dating Lemur Queen, I was a hot single guy. Well, hot in my mind at least. But I was always on the prowl for the ladies. So, when a girl would ask me to "come over" for a while on a Saturday, after coyly asking if I was free, I would say yes. Because hey, a girl just asked me over! But then I find out that she's moving, and then never talks to me after I help her move. I had friends who enlisted my help to move their girlfriends, only to have those girls BREAK UP with them hours to days after she was moved. Turns out she had wanted to leave him for a while, but didn't want to do the labor of moving by herself, so she stayed with my buddy until the move was done. Crazy thing, is this has happened three times, to two separate friends. I knew one girl (who was really, really hot. But also insane. As in "Daddy Never Loved Me" type stuff. Also, would only wear all white clothing on certain days of the week. But I digress.) who would actually go out on a ton of dates with as many men as she could wrangle so she would have a large pool of willing and able men to help her move. Of course, once this backfired on her. She dated about 5 guys (telling me the whole time WHY she was doing this) for about a month, and then the week before she was to move, she asked them all for help. Well, the guys found out what she was doing, somehow. The day before she was going to move all of them called her, broke off the relationship, and told her she was on her own for her move in day. If my back hadn't been the one to suffer for that, I would have laughed my ass off to hear those phone conversations.





Also, when I was in college, we had this group that helped move in Freshmen. The New Friends, or some crap. After my freshman year I volunteered every time this came up. Why? Two reasons: 1) get to move in one day before EVERYONE into the dorms, thus avoiding clutter and chaos and 2) scope out hot freshman women before the rest of campus. After the first year of doing this, I realized that (2) as a waste of time. I was not George Clooney. I can't pick up girls like that. Only Assholes, Douchebags, and George Clooney can do that. And I, my friends, am no George Clooney. So I made dang skippy my room was all set up, then I'd go see what/who was coming in this year. Every year there were hot girls. Every year. And you know what? They ALWAYS had a ton of crap with them. And they never lived on the first floor. Well, lucky for us....they brought they're Father with them to move said heavy crap! Oh, wait, he has a "bad back" and can't move stuff (how'd he get it into the trailer?). But that's ok, Freshman Barbie has a brother with her. Oh wait.....that's either a really handsy brother.....or.....it's the Boyfriend from Back Home. Boyfriend ain't TOUCHING the heavy crap. He's too busy groping the girl who's going to dump him in a few weeks for a Theatre, English or Religion major. So, I just gave up and started helping the guys move. Why? I'd see the girls in the cafeteria for the meet and greet. And, I'd see what freshman guy had the coolest stuff, so I'd know where I could hang out and play some Playstation. Rock on!

Like Rats on a Ship.

I've heard about rats leaving a doomed ship, but what about when that ship is stocked with cheese and milk and no cats? The rats swarm. Thus it is now in our little coastal town. Memorial day was on us recently, and more long holiday weekends will follow. So a town that typically has about 70k people swells to around 100k on the weekends. You think I'm kidding? Try finding a place to eat out in the summer. Everywhere is packed. Even Wal-Mart. ESPECIALLY Wal-Mart, who am I kidding? And they're filled with this:

I guess what really kills me is the traffic. It gets pretty congested during regular weekdays here. Our roads suck. So throw in thousands of extra vehicles, and it gets BAD. And the majority of those are not from here, so are not used to the streets and traffic patterns, and thus slow things down even more. I know you and "the family" are going to have a nice, relaxing vacation pal, but how about snapping out of your Jimmy Buffet fantasy long enough to find the damn gas pedal and USE IT. I need to get to work.

Behold the AWESOME!!!!

So, for anyone who ISN'T a comic book person, or married to me, DC comics has been having this "Blackest Night" event in their story lines for a while now. Blackest Night deals with the Green Lantern facing off against what MIGHT me the apocalypse of the DC comic universe! Unless all the heroes can band together to defeat it! (spoilers: they do). But as part of the ad campaign for the story DC release plastic fun rings for each of the power ring corps shown in the book. I have been collecting them for a few months now, and my collection is complete. This is a picture of that awesome:

You are FIRED! But you need to give us some overtime first.......

Ugh, wish I was kidding! Fat Rock here, with fun news. Seems Chubby Industries has had a rough patch of business, and as such has had to cut the hours of the production and manufacturing staff by 20%. Yes, twenty percent pay cut. But here's the kicker: On the weeks we are NOT on reduced hours, we have to work overtime to keep the schedule from getting behind. Yes, you heard me right. Furlough time.................but with overtime.

Damn.

Eve Online

Now, this is the stuff. Better then World of Warcraft. Better than Everquest. WAAAAAyYYYYYY better than that steamy pile that is City of Heroes. Eve Online is more complicated than all 3 of those games combined, and has a wider variety of roles and abilities. Like a big-ass diamond, the facets of Eve are limitless. The learning curve is steeper., but the fun is limitless.


Essentially, you're in space. The empty void of space. But the void is what you make it. There are hundreds of thousands of players, all working in this void, trying to make something. Individual players join corporations, groups of like minded players who use teamwork to accomplish their goals. Corporations can join alliances, which can consist of up to thousands of players. Alliances can band together into coalitions, informal treatieas and the like. The economic and diplomatic tools used in this game would even give Kissinger and Greenspan a run for their money. But don't take my word for it. try it out.