Here's praying for each and every one of us a happy, healthful, prosperous, and enema-free enemy-free New Year!
—The Management
January 1, 2009
Obligatory 2009 First Post
Filed in Post Office 
December 31, 2008
2008: Final PostFiled in Post Office
Here's hoping all our ties are strong, all our boundaries are secure, and many of our our penned-in dreams find release and soaring heights in 2009. GP out.
December 11, 2008
Separated at Birth?No telling for sure if these two photogenic bad boys traveled the same birth canal within minutes of one another.
But I think it's fair to say that for the right kind of offer Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich will let Law and Order's Jeremy Sisto play the alledgedly-disgraced pol in the upcoming bio-pic "You Scratch My Back and We'll Both Have Fleas."
November 25, 2008
Everything I Know About Budgeting I Learned From My iPodFiled in The Things I Don't Know The Lovely, Globetrotting Mrs. Blogs is currently out of the country. For security reasons I will not disclose the latitude nor longitude at which she now trots. I would not want to offer added incentive for any lunatic nation to lob piles of enriched uranium over in her general direction.
When she returns from her gallup, this modern-day Carmen San Diego, the lady of the house and I need to put together a coherent budget for our monthly expenses. It is part of a new and necessary discipline we are undertaking. I had originally been counting on the good will of Secretary Paulson, CitiGroup, or the Big 3 automakers, to send a little money discipline mojo our way, but now I think we will stick to throwing darts at bills taped to a cork board for our financial prognostication.
What we know about money can fit inside a thimble and still have enough room left over to protect your thumb. As we bravely march toward what will either be our monetary rebirth or financial Armageddon, I accidentally stumbled upon a core value of budgeting—something I had heretofore never realized or had simply been averting my eyes because of the blinding truth:
My iPod is a budgeting genius.
I own a 5th generation video iPod which holds over 10,000 songs (all legally purchased --so don't even bother you blood-sucking RIAA), twenty or so TV shows, several movies, about 75 audiobooks, 500 podcasts, family pictures, and a little five acre time share in Button Willow I escape to every now and then. It has a LOT of room.
It is advertised to hold 80 GB of digital product. As it is, I can only access 74.40 GB of storage space. The balance, I am told, is lost to the bitter ironies of formatting. I have no idea what this means, but I'm sure there is a parallel dimension residing on that 5.60 GB of prime Apple real estate. And someday we will be reunited, my Shangri-La and I.
In the meantime, after I ply MyPod™ with a recharge, download, and shampoo I look at the capacity bar that designates how much of what is stored where. (Forgive me for the techno-babble. I do get full of myself when I break out the geek speak). It looked like this:
And I had an epiphany the size of Snoopy in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade:
If I have a little over 900 MB left, I can't very well add a high def version of Gone With The Wind @1.42 GB. 
It simply won't fit.
If I want GWTW--if I need GWTW—I'm going to have to first give up my precious Marie Osmond: The Definitive Collection at a mere 750 MB to make the math work. (Sorry, Marie. We had a thang once, but you are simply no longer the globetrotting babe of my homebody heart ).
It's like a sports salary cap except with Gigabytes. The only way you can fit 250 GB on and 80 GB iPod is if you are the New York Yankees.
So, to extend this already elongated metaphor, if you think of your budget like an iPod, you won't be able to spend more than you make. You may have to give up that Baskin-Robbins double dip cone if you crave a Whopper today. You'll need to sacrifice that trip to Disneyland with the kids if you want to install that Dish Network Satellite with all the bells and whistles. You will, in short, have to jettison your Bay City Rollers 25 CD Boxed Set if you at all having second thoughts about that Marie Osmond opus.
Otherwise, as our President might warn, you are going to have huge defitcial problems.
I provide this small insight into the burgeoning world of finance with no thought of remuneration. I am only too glad to dip my cup into my bounty of newfound monetary acumen and allow you to drink from the goblet.
Cheers!
October 6, 2008
Back To SchoolFiled in The Things I Don't Know Just spent the better part of a weekend doing something I should have gotten around to 35 years ago.
I learned a little something about money.
What I know on the subject could fit on the back of a matchbook and still have room enough to left to entice you into a lucrative career as an artist drawing Bambi.
The Lovely, Globetrotting Mrs. Blogs asked me the other day, "Aren't you scared of this financial crisis? Aren't you afraid of what's been happening this week?"
I trained my puckish wit on the poor woman and let loose a thunderous slap-shot:
"Of course I'd be afraid . . . if I had any money."
At the time I said this I felt there was a pearl of wisdom in that clam, even if you had to pry the shell open with a sardine can key to jar it loose.
On further inspection I realized my statement wasn't so much clever as it was revealing.
Sure, Honest Abe Lincoln appears on the $5 bill, but who the heck was on the $500 bill?
William McKinley, 25th President of the U.S., of course.
Fascinating side note:
We'll be the judges of that, GP.
McKinley was shot on September 5, 1901 by Leon Frank Czolgosz. President McKinley lived 8 days before succumbing to his wounds. Czolgosz—get this—was convicted and sentenced for his crime on September 23 and was given the electric chair
On the whole I bet he'd have preferred a Lazy Boy recliner . . .
on October 29, a mere 55 days elapsing from execution of crime to the execution of justice.
Kinda makes you fuzzy warm for the old days, don't it G.P. ?
Yes, it does Caustic Voice In My Head. Yes it does. I also knew who was pictured on the $10 bill—Alexander Hamilton . . .
What's with putting all these guys associated with firearms on money?
. . . but not on the $1000 bill.
Grover Cleveland. Only President to even be elected to non-consecutive terms . . .
Impressive you would know that.
What, you never heard of Grover-pedia?
As I was saying, I went back to school this weekend and got myself an eji-cation of sorts. I'll share more about it on the next post.
Wore you out, didn't I, GP?
You were a bit of a distraction CV
Good night, folks.
Goodnight, Chet.
Go to sleep, CV
Good night, John Boy.
I'm turning the lights out now.
Grandma, I cherish youuuuuuu . . .
October 3, 2008
Sarah-CudaFiled in Donkeys and Elephants You knew it was going to happen sooner or later.
You knew she could only hide out in that GOP bunker only so long.
You thought Charlie Gibson could keep her down.
Then you pinned your hopes on Katie Couric.
You bet the farm on Ifill and now it's landfill.
In desperation, you turned away from amateur cheerleaders and sought out a true paritsan.
You hoped Joe Biden, a veteran mudslinger from the swamps of Scranton, could meet her in a dark St. Louis alley and finish her off.
But you were wrong.
So very wrong.
Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.
Now she is energized.
She has taken your best—your cheapest—innuendo-laden shots and thrown them back in your face.
She laughs the laugh of one laughing last.
One who has sneered in the face of Chuck Norris and sent him cowering.
You strengthened her with your shots of cultural Kryptonite.
Your feeble doses of verbal arsenic have only strengthened her resolve.
And now she has turned her focus and energies.
Now she has her prey in the the metaphorical crosshairs, packing her metaphorical Bowie knife.
Is she coming after Senator Biden?
No. She already ate his lunch yesterday and pocketed the milk money.
Is she coming after Community Organizer State Senator United States Senator World Savior & Beneficent Messiah Barack Obama?
Soon. Very soon.
But first, business needs attending.
You've known it for a time.
Stored in the recesses of your soul.
You didn't want to believe she was capable of such mayhem.
Denial was so comforting.
But you were wrong.
Very wrong.
Wrong, wrong, wr—you were badly mistaken.
Before she takes on Democrats . . .
Before she engages America . . .
Before she ends world hunger and tackles carbon emission fraud . . .
She is coming for your man.
Especially if he lives on either coast.
She's already got the Flyover Guys™.
Now she's coming for The Elites.
And what Sarah wants, Sarah generally gets.
Women, keep the doors locked.
Turn the lights out.
Be afraid of this political preditor.
Be very afraid.
September 30, 2008
Nancy, Nancy, Nancy . . . Filed in Donkeys and Elephants Pity poor Pelosi.
Yesterday she went before her House colleagues, desperate for a simple majority on what has commonly come to be known as the "Bailout Rescue Please, Please, Please Sign This" Bill. With just minutes to go before the historic vote Ms. Pelosi simply couldn't help herself.
Knowing the vote would be dangerously close, she took a deep breath, unscrewed the fire hydrant plug that is her seldom-closed-mouth and unleashed a vitriolic torrent of rage, abuse, and blame in the direction of everyone who ever registered Republican while crediting the Sainted William Jefferson "I"d Like to Bite Your Bottom Lip" Clinton for curing cancer and for miraculous transfiguration from White-to-Black-and-back-again.
It was an ill-advised, classless exercise of breast-thumping (Ooooohhh, I HATE when those difficult visual images pop up outa nowhere) when the concept of catching a few flies with honey would have seemed the prudent course.
Although no House Republicans would go on record as having changed their vote, it's not hard to imagine at least 12 of those GOP bugs switching votes for the sheer pleasure of watching the other San Francisco treat ruminate:
"Look what you've done. I'm melting, melting. Ohhhhh, what a world, what a world."
Ol' GP sure woulda liked to have been one of the 12 flies on that wall.
September 28, 2008
100
821 days.
19,704 hours.
1,182,240 minutes. 
And let's not get stupid about the seconds.
Yes, it's been a few ticks of the clock since ol' GP delivered his epistle on the state of saltines.
So . . . wassssup?
A few changes around the Blogs household . . .
We moved.
The Teenager is now College Girl.
The 11 year old is now The Teenager.
The Toddler is now The Cyclone.
The Beautiful Mrs. B. is now The Lovely, Globetrotting Mrs. Blogs.
Everything seems to have changed.
'ceptin' me.
Same ol' smarta$$ scribbling exactly 100 words just to win a bet.
Pay up, College Girl.
July 1, 2006
Puttin' On The Ritz
Loves me salty crackers
Loves them all day long
Loves them in my 'mato soup
'n' dipped in my won ton
Loves them crispy saltines
Loves them Triscuits too
Don't care much for Goldfish 'cuz
They can't hold the fondue.
If you want some Cheez-Its
Well, I'll sure share what I got
But don't you touch my Wheat Thins, Son
That just make me hot
Likes to wash them down with
One big swig o' Mountain Dew
But all I got is milk today
Hmmmmmm.....
Likes me cookies too!
July 1, 2006
As I Was Saying . . . . Filed in All About Moi OK, so it's been four months and spare change since the nimble fingers of yours truly, Mr. G.P.Blogs, raconteur to the dwindled masses, skulking biographer of the D-list stars, champion of 
free speech so long as he's doing the talking, lightly choreographed the fragile ballet of fingers across his velvet keyboard in search of the perfect thought.
Having come up empty, he shut the dance troupe down and absconded with the ticket money.
But now he's back. Richer for the experience, yet poorer. Sadder for the abyss of posts from February through July, but wiser. Searching for a third cliche to complete the Comic Rule of Three, but failing.
S'how'vey'all been?
The Three of You™, voluntary slaves to my wry, Keillorian tales have been on my mind of late. Have you been well? Have you been content? Have you never been mellow?
I woke up this day from a months-long hibernation that exceeded my intent by thirty-seven minutes. That will teach me for counting on a battery-powered alarm.
You may all, The Three of You®, my merry band of mercurial minstrels, rest easy. Toss out the beer gut, You On The Left. Relax and breathe deeply, You On The Right. 
Let loose that sigh you've been storing for just such a moment, intractable Ms. Center.
I have nothing of import to impart. No gems of value to mine. And again—no third metaphor to bring full circle The Comic Rule of Three.
I am as bereft of ideas as an . . . as an . . . idea-less ideologue in Idaho. Why do you think I've been in hiding? The well had gone dry. The cup 9/10 empty. The . . . . . . . . . . . . well, you get the idea.
But, like Nixon in 1980, I'm tanned, rested, and ready for a comeback.
Starting tomorrow.
Right now I could use a nap.
February 25, 2006
Who Knew?Filed in Fluffy, Not Stuffy 
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. This one, uncovered by an
unnamed source who discovered it in an old scrapbook on sale for $1.50
at a garage sale, is worth about a million. Thanks to the source. You
know who you are.
February 7, 2006
Religious Art For Fun and ProphetFiled in In the Noose 
It cannot have escaped the attention of many that cartoon representations of major prophets are all the rage. Whether you are a band wagon jumper or have been genuinely interested in this phenomenon down through the years, you are likely to find this step by step guide to drawing one particular sage most enlightening.
