Archeological Dig in the Twentieth Century

Saying for the Day: Reading this blog is as much fun as digging up old dinosaur bones.

----As I write this blog I have sitting in front of me a box full of artifacts . If you looked at it you might think it was a box full of junk but trust me what’s in this box is not junk but artifacts.

Artifacts , I am sure you know, are what archeologists use to recreate the lives of people in civilizations long gone . A broken vase , an axe made out of rock, the nose from an ancient sculpture in the hands of a trained archeologist tell stories that the average person would never see.

Well In this box are the artifacts that would allow such a skillful scientist to recreate the life of a Lutheran Pastor of the last century. Every little detail could be squeezed out of them and an unbelievably dull picture would emerge.

So I have decided before I cover this box with plastic and bury it in the backyard ( It is required of archeologists that they dig up their artifacts. I don’t know why that is but its part of the code. An archeologist that doesn’t dig but recreates life is called a sociologist and is not held in high esteem by real archeologists.) I am going to share with the readers of this blog some of the stories that belong to these priceless artifacts.

In the days to come I will pick from the box an artifact . I will then recreate the information that it alone can give you.

It will happen whenever I get too near to the box.

It will begin with artifacts that help to see the romantic history of said pastor.(WOW)

It will happen even though Betty, my present wife, thinks that some lives are better unrecreated.

I have to warn you that this could be very dull.

I will put a warning sign in the bushes by the fortress to let you know before you begin to read.

So on those days when I carry out this threat you should drop to the @@@ of the hapless loser.

Even that will be more interesting.

@@@
6250 spins without a prize. Because of yesterdays comment hapless loser wants me to explain the spin stuff. He doesn't want this blog to be even worse for his section.
You see every morning, after his glass of orange pop, hapless loser goes to a website called IWON.com where he gets 50 free spins on a slot machine.
So far he has not won anything.
He hasn't won the camera,
or the Ipod,
or the DVD player,
or the five dollar bill.
He hasn't won the progressive jackpot
or the hundred thousand dollar prize.
And for sure he hasn't won the million.
Despite being such a loser he blogs every day as a warning to those not yet addicted to stay away.
Lately he has ended with Uncle Wiggly sayings because that's the way the stories in the book his mother read to him every night (an Uncle Wiggly book of course) used to end.
So Uncle Wiggly lovers! If the shift key doesn't jam and fill the screen with what could be obscenities we will be back tomorrow with another adventure of " As the World Spins".
***

I don't know if you noticed but I got thirteen real comments yesterday. It was a banner day.
My experience with word verification( you know where you have to type in those annoyimg little letters) yesterday was so bad that I decided to take it off of my blog. I don't want those few people who do comment to go through the ordeal (by the time I made this decision I already had three comments). Spam may come but I'll just put up with it, anything for the good of my readers.
Betty has been and is busy building the Gruesome Casket Company and I have been kit bashing a working $65 locomotive and a $15 dump car into either a pile of junk or a fantasy engine. I really wish I knew which it will be.
Well I finally got the batteries charged and back in the camera so you can click here to see Betty's Mountain.
Well Betty finished the Gruesome Casket Company and went to Bible study. I am working on a new poll which I will put up tomorrow. Half my readers seem to like Bush and half don't. Despite that fact there will be a letter from me to the President in tomorrow's blog. I will try to be fair and balanced (if an unbalanced person can be balanced).
I need a breathing treatment.
GBYA

So comment already !

Saying for the Day: You can lead a person to a blog but you can't make them comment, or read it for that matter!

---I read on a blog yesterday that today , Monday, is “Everybody has to comment Monday”. I really did read that on a blog.

This is a holiday like Valentine’s Day or Easter. No, forget Easter that’s a religious day. Its more like President's Day except it isn’t yet a National Holiday. I know that because they haven’t closed the Post Office. They always close the Post Office on an official National Holiday.

Congress doesn’t know yet how many people blog or they would declare the fourth Monday of February to be “ You have to Comment Monday”. They would do this because they know that it would make people like me happy.

You know the people who get almost no comments.

I get comments on this blog the way I got valentines when I was a kid and I wasn‘t happy then either.. This year I didn’t get any valentines .Not even a little one from my grandkids but that’s a different problem.

Anyway the fellow who’s blog I was reading thought every Monday should be you have to comment Monday.

You might think that’s a bit much.

I know a blog where they’ve had the same picture of trees for the last two weeks. You blog in there and there are are the trees. How many comments can you leave on a tree?

Hey, your tree is looking just as good this week as it did last. Or I think your tree has dropped a leaf or two since last week.

Of course the guy with the blog has an answer for that. He thinks we could just say “ Hi. It’s Monday “ . He really, really wants comments.

I was told that if you didn’t say something about the content they would treat it as spam. You know where somebody visits your blog just to get them to visit theirs.

I , of course would never do that. But then when I stop in and give you one of my precious content oriented comments I deserve a comment back.

In any case today is on somebody’s calendar “You have to comment Monday” so comment already .

As King of this fortress I have put forth the following royal proclamation.

Henceforth and until the moon dropeth into the sea this day shall be
"Leave A Comment Monday".
All loyal and disloyal subjects will comply under threat of royal banishment to the nether regions of blogdom.

Even comments like I got from the nice lady that said “ You are an arrogant, intolerant S.O.B.” are welcome.

I did have to delete that one though not because it upset me but because it had nothing to do with my blue underwear which was the topic of the day.

@@@
6200 spins without a prize. Hapless loser found himself in a mystical time warp this morning. He finished his wheel spinning at Iwon.com and left the site. Then he got the good news that he was again the one millionth visitor that day. He is good at that. He has done that before. that's not the time warp part. He closed out that message and then got one that said he was the 400,000 visitor of the week. Wow. It boggles the mind. Time and space were twisted he was the millionth visitor that day and the 400,000 th that week. In the real unbent world that wouldn't be possible. He knows Iwon.com which is run by CBS would not lie to him so both things must be true. The only way they could be is if somehow due to the electronic magic of his computer time got warped. There is no other explanation .
Do you want to know more my dear Uncle Wiggly lovers . If the time warp doesn't continue causing poor hapless loser to leave the house and find himself in Washington's army he'll be back tomorrow on " AS the World Spins"
***

The day is young and I have already left twenty first class comments. I have been to three blogs that required I get a special login identity, which I didn't. They got no comments. I also clicked the blog comment space on one blog and was thrown out of blog explosion. Just your average Monday morning. Oh I left a comment on one blog that hadn't blogged since last Monday so my comment was under my comment. How neat is that ?
Betty and I had some of my pepper bread for lunch. It was great. I will bring it to the lenten soup meal.
I updated the church website for March and added a new top ten list. Betty has built two houses and a factory and we are planning where they will go on the layout.
My computer hating sister called. She had been reading the paper copies of this blog I sent her. She was having a hard time telling when I was serious and when I wasn't (never and always). I think she believed I was going to keep my blue underware on all winter. Some poor salesman called and I had a lot of fun before he gave up in disgust. I win if they hang up.
The rest of the day was pretty dull (except for Betty's attempt to keep the roof on the barn) so I will spare you the details besides I need a breathing treatment.
GBYA

Where's that stupid violin ?

Saying for the day: If you can't trust television commercials what can you tust?

There is definitely something wrong with my microwave.

This is strange because its almost new. It even has one of those glass things that go round and round by themselves. It has a touch screen instead of buttons. It is state of the art in every way.

With this microwave I have been careful not to put my gold rimmed “ Trust me I’m a Doctor “ cup in to heat my coffee. Microwaves, even state of the art microwaves, can’t read.

The old microwave blew the gold off the rim of the cup and then quit working. The repairman, who couldn’t repair it said I shouldn’t have done that. Then he sold me this one.

Well this microwave I have treated like the delicate cooking instrument it is.

I have even read the instruction book that came with it.

That's why this is so disturbing.

I put in a packet of Uncle Ben’s pre-cooked rice . I set the time according to the instructions. I wait the bell rings. I take out the packet. I wait.

No candelabra.

No violin.

No violin player.

Now I’ve watched the TV commercial. I know I should get a candelabra, a violin, and a violin player. There is one with every bag.

So where are mine?

I tried different settings.

I went through 18 bags.

I took it in to the repair shop. Same repairman that couldn’t fix my old machine said there was nothing wrong with it.

O Ya! Where’s my violin.

Where’s my candelabra.

He ushered me quickly out of the shop . He knew I had him.

So here I sit with bowls and bowls of rice and a non working microwave.

You know maybe its not big enough. The guy that comes with the violin is pretty big.

Maybe there is a newer state of the art machine that has a teleport violin player feature.

I complain to my wife.

She says , because she is kind and compassionate.

“Stop whining and eat your rice”.

I can’t. I hate rice. I like violins.

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6150 spins without a prize. Hapless loser is excited. Thirty five times today while entering his losing tickets on Group Lotto and Prize America he was given the opportunity to buy genuine diamond earnings for a buck. That buck included the shipping. Real genuine diamond earrings , not those imitation zircon earnings. Not those glass pretender earrings. Real, genuine diamond earrings. He would have jumped at the chance . Well actually at the thirty five chances. Except his wife doesn't wear earrings. His wife has never worn earrings. Maybe he should have bought them anyway on the off chance that someday he will get his tongue pierced. Will that happen? It's all the rage.
Well Uncle Wiggly lovers. If the roof doesn't cave in from the weight of all that snow causing the computer to cease working. You might find out tomorrow on "As the World Spins".
***

Question of the moment. What do you get if you mix the DNA of an elephant with the DNA of a laughing hyena?

Betty has gone to church to serve muffins. Where would the churh be without its faithful muffin servers? I am baking pepper bread and researching blogs. I am trying to find out what gets comments.
I tested my how to lose in a blog battle today. I choose a blog with many more wins than l;oses. One with a great template, and one that had fairly good writing to take on. And I lost. I got whomped. I am on my way to the bottom. I dropped 100 points in the rankings. If I choose with care I may not need my special bad blog. This one will be bad enough.
Betty went to Iron River to get a prescription filled. I had garlic and cheese potatoe pamcakes ready for her when she got home.
What I discovered when I was trying to find out which blogs got comments caused me to decide to do a short sociological study. First I needed a random sample. Blog explosion supplied that since I blog in an unrestricted category and rule nothing out. Then I chose the time period from 2:11 to 3:11 to do the sampling. I let blog explosion take me from random blog to random blog and asked of each blog only one question. How many comments did it have on the last entry. I threw out blogs that didn't allow comments. These are my findings. 51 of 78 blogs had no comments at all. That's a little shy of 2/3 or 65.38% to be exact. If you take all the blogs with less than three comments the total is 64 and they make up 83% of the blogs. The blog with the most comments had 21 . So if you are sad because you are getting no or few comments at least you know that 4/5 of all the blogs are in the same boat.
My pepper bread turned out very well.
I need a breathing treatment.
GBYA

This flag don't burn! Ever !

Question of the moment. What do you get if you mix the DNA of an elephant with the DNA of a laughing hyena?

Saying for the day: If you make a better flag they'll beat a path to your door. But watch out for the one's with the bombs.

I don’t know how many of my readers know this but I have a little web company that I run on the side.

The idea came to me in a flash while I was sitting in the bathtub.

Now before you remind me that that was the place I was sitting when I dreamed up the drunken canary blog this was a much better idea than that.

I saw all the flag burning on CNN ( I have a television in my bathroom) and realized what the world really needs is an unburnable Danish flag. That’s right an unburnable Danish flag.

Well I put my two sons to work on the problem and we developed the “Super Danish Flag”. I can’t tell you how we make it because we don’t have all the processes patented yet. It is enough to tell you that this flag is really super.

First of all it can’t be burned. You can turn a blow torch on it for half an hour and it neither burns nor melts. You might have seen our Television add where we have a half naked Sean Penn trying his best to destroy it. He even blows it up and it remains unharmed.

More than that it has been treated so that spit slides right off, manure (this is a family blog) won’t stick, paint turns to vapor. It can not be hurt.

The day after I announced we were going into production we were picketed by a lone Arab with a sign that said “ Unkind to peace loving, flag burning Arabs.

We have since moved the plant to a new and secret location. We are not against picketing but we are a little afraid of bombs. You know, if you can’t destroy the flag, destroy the factory.

We already have an order from the Danish government for 1500 flags. Right now they are stuck in customs because our government doesn’t want to offend anybody. CNN refuses to carry the story for the same reason.

With the success of the Danish Flag we were going to start production on an American model in six different sizes. Then we got a letter from former vice President Gore. He pointed out that if we made that flag we would probably be breaking the law.

It is , you know, the constitutional right of every American college student to burn an American flag. This has been affirmed by two landmark Supreme Court cases which pointed out that American flag burning by Americans was an exercise in free speech.

Well we like the Supreme Court and we like free speech. So we won’t produce the American equivalent of our Super Danish flag.

We are however producing an American flag that if you rub it fast between your hands it bursts into flame. You don’t need a match. We are advertising it on college campuses across the country.

Oh, and that former Vice President has ordered 100 to take with him on his next visit to Saudi Arabia . He wants to give them away as gifts.

We have done our part to make this a better, peace loving, flag burning world.

@@@
6100 spins without a win. Hapless is a bit upset today because for the third day in a row he got cheated out of five lottery tickets and one was for a million dollars. You see he goes to this website called Group Lotto every day. They give him ten tickets on things like boats, cars, and money (lots of money). After he has clicked on the ten tickets, one by one, a sign comes on that says he has won ( note won) ten more tickets (how great is that) . However once he starts clicking he only gets five more tickets and he doesn't get the one for a million. He is upset and reenters but they tell him he has had all the chances for the day and he should come back tomorrow. He gets cheated out of five chances. He might have won that new car he doesn't need, or a boat, or the million. But no! He is cheated out of those tickets. Somebody with some authority should investigate this. Hapless loser can't stand losing losing tickets.
And now Uncle Wiggly lovers if my son Patrick doesn't open the bathtub door again while its full of water, flooding the kitchen and bathroom floors so his poor mother thinks the pipes have broken . We will be back tomorrow with another sleep producing chapter of "AS the World Spins"
*****
Well I have been hard at work designing Bad Bad Blog. The one I will post when I make my run for the bottom on Battle of the Blogs. Work thus far done can be seen by clicking on Bad Bad Blog. If you have suggestions on how to make it worse leave me a comment.
You might notice the deer poll(spelled correctly) is gone. I am now going to meditate on your answers and my deer blog will either be posted or sent to the back of my D drive with the drunken canary. I am now working on a political blog and I need your guidance. Please take today's poll.
Betty spent the day finishing the last module of our HO mountain. It is a work of art. With each thing she does she gets better. I will try to take a picture of all three mosules together and post it tomorrow.
I spent the day updating the church web page . It has the most recent top ten list and this week's bulletin.
Betty and I went to church . Because of the heavy snow the attendance was bad. Then we went grocery shopping. It was so cold. Well now I am back in the fortress . I was going to pull up the drawbridge but its frozen to the ground. Well I need a breathing treatment.
GBYA

I can do it. yes I can.

Saying for the day: A man who sets a goal should put all of his waking effort into reaching it. With a few stops along the way for a drink or two.
—–Well I have set my goal to be the bottom blog in blog explosions battle of the blogs. I very difficult goal because of my one win but still reachable.

The first thing I have to do is to design a special blog for the day of the battle. The blog your reading runs a small chance of winning in a blog battle. One must rule out even that small chance.

I will need a new logo. The real Finish castle has to go. It is too nice. I have a miserable cartoon of a castle I can replace it with.

The dragons will be replaced by animated dragon. GIF animations. Some people hate those. “They are just too 80’s”

Now a great big Danish flag in case an Arab gets to vote. I’m not Danish but my grandfather came from Finland so that’s close.

On the other side a small burning American flag. All the patriotic conservatives will vote against me.

Finally a picture of Hillary that morphs to an ape. I just happen to have one left over. That will get me no votes from the left.

Then I think the entire thing should be done in shades of purple with giant black lightning bolts running through the entire post making some of the words unreadable.

Now if they get beyond the start I am adding an entire two rows of adds. It’s only for one day so I will even advertise that communist loving Google. There are people who just get livid with rage over adds. I get their no vote.

Now the content. This is not really important because most voters make up their mind before they get to the content but just in case I will give you content that even a mother couldn’t love.

I will mention that George Bush is a fascist so the conservatives will vote no.

I will call Ted Kennedy a drunk and get liberal no votes.

I will say that I love Denmark and cartoons. You know who that will iritate.

I will comment on how all dogs, cats and horses should be destroyed. Now I have the animal lovers no vote.

I will say that anyone with a picture of a child on their website has wasted band width. Parents and grandparents will vote no.

I will insult every country I can think of that people blog from and that show up when I surf blog explosion.

So much for the main content.

Next I will make the hapless loser's part ten times as long and six times as dull.

Then to put the icing on the cake I will describe in detail my dull day with every single dull detail. I get up. I brush my teeth (woops I don't have any teeth) . But you get the idea. It will be the longest and dullest post in the history of blogdom.


The day before I make my race I will spend the day surfing blog explosion blogs and leaving nasty comments. I have an entire list of nasty comments to leave.

I will pick 15 blogs and leave a comment that I will be engaging in many battles the next day and if they don’t vote for me I will tell a certain group they posted that cartoon on their blog. They will be so angry they will vote no just to teach me a lesson. Maybe I won’t do this one. They might be so scared of that group like CNN that they will vote yes in sheer terror.

Well now I have to go and surf for six days so I can get up enough credits to challenge anybody that dares to put out a challenge that day.

Onward to the bottom.

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6050 spins without a win. Well hapless loser has calmed down from the euphoria created when he reached the 6000 losing spin. He is back to working on his losers party. He has added to the invitation list anyone whose blog is in the bottom twenty on Blog Explosion's Battle of The Blogs all time losers list. They deserve a pat on the back for their having reached such a high level of losing. Hapless himself hopes to stand proudly with them. Until then he can only admire them from afar. I tell you hapless is so hopless he is Presidential material. Can he continue. Will he lose forever? Did his one win in the Battle of the Blogs tarnish his perfect record?
Well Uncle Wiggly lovers if the cow doesn't get loose from the barn , scaring the cat and causing it to run away , and the house to be filled with mice. We might answer those question tomorrow on " As the World Spins"
*****

I read in a blog this morning that the International Olympic Committee has ruled out American style football for the 2008 Summer Olympics. That means if you want to see amateurs play you have to continue to watch the Packers.
Betty is now painting a river on our mountain. I have this great entry I'm working on but its about a deer and I'm afraid it might end up like the drunken canary blog. I looked for guidance but only 7 people have taken my poll. That's not much help.
Betty went to therapy and the therapist decided that since she has made so little progress and her medicare won't pay for any more that she should discontinue therapy. She did stop and get eggs though so the trip wasn't wasted. I went to blog explosion and did some research. The bottom at the moment is position 2709. For me to get there I would have to lose 244 battles without a win. That assumes the guy on the bottom doesn't lose any more. At 10 credits a loss that's 2440 credits.
Betty is looking for a cup with M&M's in it she put down and can't find. It's probably with the car keys I couldn't find Tuesday and still haven't found. Getting old is just so much fun.
I am getting blog dizzy trying to wrack up the credits I need to start my trip to the bottom. One blog blends into the next and I keep looking for the go sign to take me to the next. This is going to be harder than I thought.
In any case after a hard day of bloging I need a breathing treatment.
GBYA

Onward to the Bottom

Saying for the Day: People who set unreachable goals and constantly strive toward them are either heroic or just plain stupid.
--Well my losers alliance fell through. One person was willing to join. I even checked my e-mail this morning and there were no secret messages. My readers are mostly highly ethical bloggers who are above that sort of thing. So I have set a new goal.
I have set very few goals in my life . That’s because when I set them I never reach them anyway. What I needed was a goal I could reach. Blog Explosion, I thought, offered me that goal.

I had lost two blog battles in a row. I was in 2085 place. The very bottom was at 2654. I knew in my heart I could reach the bottom.

So I set as my reachable goal becoming the 2654th blog in the Battle of The Blogs.

Piece of cake right. I don’t have an alliance right. I was cannon fodder for the big blogs. The ones with 500 or more wins. There was no way I could fail.

That’s when disaster struck. I threw out a challenge. I really expected the big blogs to jump on it. But no! Some poor little guy, like me, decided to take me on. It was the battle of the losers. It was near the bottom against nearer the bottom.

I won.

I don’t know how I won. I don’t have an alliance. My content is really dull. I do have some theories.

Somebody left a comment that they voted for me because I said I was fair. Telling the truth helped to do me in.

The other votes, I don’t know. It was late at night. Maybe the voters were too tired to read and liked my dragons. A dragon is always good for a vote or two. Maybe they liked my fortress. Maybe they liked my deer pole.

Whatever the reason I won. I blew it. My goal may now be out of reach.


Do you know what damage one win can do? Sports Critics.com has 1 win and 32 looses and is still 16 spaces from the bottom. 32 loses and still 16 spaces away from my ultimate goal.

Do you know how long it will take me to lose 32 more battles? And by then there is a good chance that Sports Critic.com will have lost a couple more. The carrot, place number 2654, will keep moving farther and farther away.


But this is my goal and I have a plan. First I make no more challenges. Instead I wait for people with over 300 wins to enter a challenge. They must have an alliance. Then I will take them on. It’s a guaranteed loss unless of course the loser’s alliance decides to make me their poster blog. Then I will be doomed.

Maybe a better strategy would be to help Sport Critics.com and those below him to win. I need to watch and always vote for the one’s on the very bottom.

As they move up I move down.

Yep I think that’s the way to go. Unless of course I can find somebody with 800 wins to take on.

@@@
6000 spins without a prize. For hapless loser today is a milestone day. A day that will stand out from all other days in his personal history. A day to write up in his diary. A day to call the kids and tell them about. A day his grandchildren will talk about to their grandchildren in the distant future. Today was the day that hapless loser spun his 6000th losing spin. Try to imagine what that means. In your mind see 6000 liberal blogs placed end to end and using the words "Fascist George Bush" 6000 times. Or imagine a pile of Danish flags, 6000 flags high, being set on fire by 6000 peace loving Muslims. It just boggles the mind. 6000 losing spins. It is almost time for the losers party.
Can hapless top this? Can he go on to 7000 and even 8000 spins without a prize.
Well Uncle Wiggly lovers if Sports Critics.com doesn't lose another battle and cause poor Dr. John to fall off the fortress drawbridge we will try to answer that question tomorrow on " As the World Spins"
****

Betty gave me the last egg for breakfast today. This means no egg for tomorrow for my egg and muffin. Egg and muffin without the egg is..... well! just muffin. On the food front I told my wife the cereal she was eating didn't have real peaches and strawberries but freeze dried apples flavored to taste like peaches and strawberries. So she read me the side of the box. She is so naive that she believes what they put on the box but I know the truth because I read blogs.
Betty is painting a mountain and I have just finished printing out a week's worth of my blogs for my computer hating sister. She wants to read them and I want her to be happy. If she hadn't pushed me while I was in the hospital I probably still wouldn't be able to walk. There is nothing like " I'll show you !!" for motivation. Thirty six pieces of paper , printed one side. If I was to mail the stuff in my blogs out to my regular readers every week that would come to 252 sheets of paper. A ream every other week. Think of how many trees I save by blogging.
Well after lunch we watched March of the Penguins. I have two observations. It is a good movie and I'm glad I'm not a penguin. I can't imagine walking in 80 below zero weather. I don't go out at 4 below.
Well everything else we did comes under the category extra dull so I won't report it here. The air is full of the smell of mountain paint and I need a breathing treatment.
GBYA

Losers of the Blogs Unite

Saying for the Day: The only way to win in a corrupt system is to be equally corrupt.
---Since I lost my two blog battles I have done a little research into “The Battle of the Blogs”. What I have discovered is a horrible little hidden truth.
This truth is even worse than all the terrible truths the liberal blogs have discovered about our “ Fascist President”.
It is even worse than the truth that the conservative blogs have discovered about that “ lying Socialistic, Arab loving, Hillary”.

This truth will blow the blogsphere wide open. Once I share it with you things will never be the same again.

Here it is. There are blogs out there that instead of standing on their own merits to get to the top of the blog pile have formed alliances.

Yes, though you don’t want to believe it , there are blogs that have joined in voting blocks with each other. Little groups of nine that send out secret e-mail to each other telling when the battle will be and then the eight whose blogs are not involved all jump in and vote for that blog.

The other seven votes don’t matter. In fact it looks more like a fair battle if they go to the other blog.

I tell you this is true. And you thought politicians were crooked. They don’t hold a candle to some blogers.

Of course this is not against the rules and so though it is unfair and immoral it is not illegal . See bloggers are as good as lawmakers at finding the loopholes that make wrong come out right.

If it was against the rules it would be hard to catch them. Everything is done in secret. One would need some kind of interception of their E-mail. To do that you would , unless you are the President, need a warrant. How do you get a judge to give you a warrant to stop the fixing of blog battles.
Hey, Bush’s conservative judges are so far behind the times they don’t even know what a computer is. ( I read that on a blog) You’d never get the warrant.

So what we need is a new blog alliance. I am calling for eight bloggers to send me a secret e-mail and join with me in an alliance.

This alliance would be an alliance for losers. We would not vote for each other’s blogs. No, we would all agree on a time, and then I or the leader for the day would pick a battle.

Then we would cast eight votes for the blog with the worst record. This is a losers alliance.

We won’t worry about content. We will look at, but not bother to read , each blog. Then we would vote for the one with the worst record. Its that simple we are a loser’s alliance.

We will bring justice to a corrupt system.

Are you with me?

***********************************
<--- Take the pole. Please take the pole.
***********************************

@@@
5950 spins without a win. Today was not the magic day that hapless loser yearns for. His spins, of course, got him nothing. His Iwon.com lotto ticket left him choosing not one single correct number. Not one of the internet contests he entered gave him a win. I am telling you he should be depressed beyond belief. But he isn't. I think his wife has been putting happy pills in his coffee. He is all excited because in his spins this morning the million dollars came up twice side by side and missed by one on the last. That's as close as you can get without winning. One day he will wise up and understand that a loss is a loss is a loss. Perhaps tomorrow.
Now my dear Uncle Wiggly lovers if this blog doesn't get into a battle of the blogs that blows away all its credits causing poor hapless loser to have to buy some we'll be back tomorrow with another adventure of " AS the World Spins"
*****
My problems with the ELCA Pension Board are over. The new form 1099-R is here. I will still owe the IRS some money but the problem with 1099-R is solved.
You can rest now Bishop. Now I am just kidding. I know Bishop's never rest.
Betty went to Tops. So I had to make my own lunch. I microwaved two potatoe pancakes from the freezer ( I made them last week) and two White Castle hamburgers. What would I do without a freezer?
The new fortress at the start of this blog is the actual fortress Linna in Finland on a day when the dragons were quite active.(really this is a Linna (fortress or castle) near Helsinki.)
Our daughter called. Now she has an ear infection. We Linna's seem to get more than our share of infections.
Betty went back to working on the mountains. She is having trouble getting the tunnels right. She may have crappy tunnel syndrom. Woops , sorry about that.
Well I really need a breathing treatment.
GBYA

Curses on Blog Explosion

Saying for the day: A judge in any contest must have three attributes. He must be fair. He must have a knowledge of the material. H e must be able to out run all of the contestants.
--Yesterday, I discovered Battle of The Blogs, at blog explosion . This is where two blogs are pitted against each other to see which one has the better blog.
I tried two battles and got knocked to the canvas both times. My poor blog is still showing bruises from the beating it took.

So I decided that my real role in life was as a voter not a combatant. I mean how hard can it be to read two blogs and vote. Piece of cake , right?

Wrong.

I have this tremendous need to be fair. I want the best blog to win. That is the way it should be.
I pick my first battle and begin. It is a fight between a blog that has a lot of pictures of trees, a few buildings and a telephone pole against a blog on football . The football blog turns out to be a blog on soccer not American football.
Well I know nothing about what makes a picture good,
I know nothing about soccer.
That makes the playing field fairly equal. They would be overjoyed to know they have a judge who knows nothing.

Now I have to decide between trees and soccer.
They were nice trees. One picture even had snow.
Soccer was interesting.

How do you decide. What is the criteria between a tree and a soccer blog?
Tree or soccer. Tree or soccer.

One needs the wisdom of Solomon (That’s an Old Testament King ) .Though I would suspect even he would have had trouble with this.
I by the way have never been accused of having the wisdom of Solomon.
In fact because of my drunken canary blog I have been accused of having no wisdom at all.

Tree or soccer. I want to be fair.
I start to sweat and its 4 below zero outside and not much warmer in here.

Trees or soccer. Trees or soccer.
I ask my wife Betty to give me some guidance. She is smarter than I am, as all of you know.
Her kind and gentle response was that I got myself into this get myself out.

Trees or soccer. Help I can’t breath. She runs in with the oxygen but still won’t help.
I have to decide. A thousand curses on blog explosion for having put me into this predicament .
I could quit but I’m getting two and one third credits for this vote and I need them to help cover my losses .

Finally I toss a coin. That’s fair.

I vote. I can’t tell you who I voted for . It wouldn’t be fair to me. Some day I just might forget and throw my blog back into the battle and I will need their vote. But I can tell you I checked and the trees beat soccer.

But for now I am out of the battle business. I promise myself no more voting.

Hey I just found a battle that will give me three credits for voting. I need the credits. Wish me luck.
I want to be fair.

@@@
5900 spins without a win. Yesterday Hapless loser got to enter 7 different sets of 7 numbers for a chance at a million dollars on free lotto. The best he did was 2 right out of seven. He does not pick numbers well. He does not spin well. Yesterday he entered into a battle of blogs and lost 15 credits. Let's face it he is a hapless loser. He has proved it over and over. So why does he keep on trying? Why does he keep on spinning ? Why doesn't he just find a new hobby? Because he believes that when his luck starts to turn he will win like crazy. Any day now everything will shift in his favor.
So Uncle Wiggly fans If the Queen of Incense doesn't decide to take on hapless loser in a blog battle and cause him to be even more depressed we will be back tomorrow with " As the World Spins".
***

All those who voted on the last poll thought this blog was wonderful. Thank you for that vote of confidence. It allows us to go on despite our losses in the battle of the blogs.
Today we begin following my daughter-in-laws advice. she said that before I post what could be a controversial blog I should post a poll and see what people think. Well I am working on a blog about deer. I assure you it is not the drunken canary blog redone. But before I post it I need to know what people think about deer. So I have set up an unbiased pole for you. In the tradition of CNN.
I am getting out of the fortress today. We are dropping the drawbridge and going to Iron Mountain. Betty has to go to the doctor.
Well Betty does not have a torn rotator cup which means no surgery. What she does have is a very bad case of bursitis. The doctor gave her a cortisone shot.
On the way back from Iron Mountain the angel on the visor popped loose and hit me in the leg. When I tried to put it back it popped loose and hit me in the head. I have a new rule. It is never, never fool with angels. At least not in the car.
Since I was awake because of the angel I paid attention to what we were driving by. There is this little grocery store in Kingsford that always had good meat prices on great big signs in the window. Now the great big signs say closed for the season. And I never knew there was a grocery store closing season. What one will discover if one stays awake.
Well everything else is so dull I won't bother to write it down. I need a breathing treatment.
GBYA

Only an 8. Just an 8. Why an 8?

Saying for the day: This has got to be the best blog in the world or my name isn't ......."
--I checked at 100 best blogs this morning and the rating for this blog was an 8.
That’s 8 out of a possible 10.
Hey ! You know and I know it should be at least a 9.5.

This is a great blog. A really great blog.

Of course since I blog every day there is bound to be one or even two blogs that fall a little below great but an 8.
The only thing I can think of is some people poofed in from blog explosion on the day of the Drunken Canary blog. Looking back I know that blog was a mistake. At the time though I thought it was pretty good. It was fairly funny until the bird got squished in the kitchen door and then it was filled with tear jerking pathos.

I showed have known it would fail when I gave it the Betty test. Every day when I finish writing the blog and running it through four different and distinct spell checkers I read the blog to Betty. She has three responses. If she laughs or cries so hard she almost falls off her chair I know it’s a Pulitzer prize winning blog ( if they gave Pulitzer prizes for blogs). If that doesn’t happen I ask her “What did you think” if she responds “yup” then I know it’s a quality blog and I should push the “publish the post “ button.

Sometimes when I ask the question she just sits and stares at me. If I had any sense I would bury that blog somewhere on the D drive and never look at it again.
Well the Drunken Canary blog got the stare. I should have dumped it. I know I should have. Well then why didn’t I?

Hey that blog , like all my blogs was my baby.
It was born in deep thought as I sat in the bathtub. It was shaped as I lay in bed in my breathing mask.
It was brought to life in the morning in the computer. I spell checked it.
You can’t just throw your baby to the D drive.
So despite Betty I pushed the publish the post button.

It was a mistake.

I love comments. I live for comments. But not like the 132 comments I got on that blog. They were all negative. Except of course from the 92 year old, motorbike riding , lady who said “ I like canaries”.

I didn’t know there were that many canary loving people in the world.
They accused me of defaming canaries . They accused me of being uncaring and having no empathy. They used words that can’t be used on a family blog like this one.
They made threats. It was almost as if I had taken a shot at the Prophet Mohammed
(which I would never, never do).
One nice old lady , I assume in real life she is nice, threatened to cut off my...." I didn't know nice old ladies even knew expressions like that.


The reason you can’t find the Drunken Canary blog among all my blogs today is because the comments were so bad I had to delete it.

To this day I still suffer from that blog. There are people who poof in from Blog explosion and see the title Dr. John’s Fortress and say to themselves “Isn’t that the blog that had that drunken canary entry”. Then they poof over to the alternate blog “ Joe’s cooking with Coco”. They would rather read about putting blueberries in Coco than go through the ordeal of another drunken canary.

Of course I haven’t thrown the blog away. I have it stored on my D drive under another name.
I’m going to fix it up and change the canary to a moose. Then if I can get it by Betty I’ll publish it again. Aside from my non President hating, computer loving sister how many moose lovers can there be?

If your wondering what Betty thought of this blog. I’ll let you know as soon as she stops staring at me.

@@@
5850 spins without a win. Well hapless loser did not win the $350 million dollars. Some jerk that bought a ticket won. You can't trust free lotto to pick good numbers. You just can't.
On the other hand hapless loser got seven free lotto tickets on a million today and he's not greedy. The odds may be against him but he crawls very fast when blindfolded and he'll make it across that freeway yet.
For all of you Uncle Wiggly lovers out there ,
" If the cat doesn't scare the cow and cause it to give cheese instead of milk we'll be back tomorrow with "As the World Spins"
****

Well we didn't get much help on the fantasy train yesterday so I'll try one last time. Try to visualize a G scale train where each individual item is a car. For example a plate car or a frog car. Then vote. You don't even have to comment thanks to my son Patrick who told me how to set up a poll. You can help us to decide. Before you leave today's miserable blog first click here to see the six choices.
Its 10:00 and nothing has happened. It just doesn't get any duller than this. I really need to get out of the house, bad lungs an all.
I finally got to do something that doesn't involve the computer. I nailed legs to a sheet of wood that is now the platform for the next mountain. I did it with an electric nailer and I didn't nail a single finger to the board (almost though).
Betty is mountain building again and I have been working on the electric switch tracks. I have them now so they all work. Then I ran the trains to be sure they were working. I did not play with the train . No, I ran it. We model railroad people do not play with trains. This is serious stuff were doing.
I entered my first blog battle today on blog explosion and I got whopped. I was beaten by "Plural of Apocalpse" . I thought I had a chance but she did me in, 9 votes to 6. I think I will go and sit and be depressed or then again I could run the train.
I decided instead to get up off the canvas and start another battle. I'll probably lose this one too. I am up against somebody who has won 158 times. I have one loss to my credit. Why didn't somebody that has one loss like me jump in an take me on. It would have been a fair fight. Now I'm going to lose my 1415 ranking and drop to the bottom while this big winner climbs up another notch. This is the hapless loser meets blog explosion.
Of course I lost. I drop from 1415 to 1998 . If I'm not on the bottom I must be close.
Well I need to sulk and have a breathing treatment.
GBYA

Bumper blogging ! From cave to cave

Saying for the Day:If my blog doesn't have what you need try Fred over at "I got it all"
-----I am waiting for a group of anthropologists to interpret the drawings in a very ancient cave only to find out they say. “ If you want a really good recipe for baked mastodon try the cave wall over at Joe’s Cave beyond the waterfall.
That tradition is being carried on today by what I call bumper blogging. What is bumper blogging you may ask . Well Its where the person with a blog doesn’t feel like blogging that day so he bumps you to another blog. You know it goes like this:
Joe over at I hate Conservatives really kicks that Fascist George Busch today . Give it a look. ( You know you have to click on the blue to see what Joe said don’t you)
Then he asks for comments. How in the world do you comment. Do you say something like , “ Wow Joe really gave it to George didn’t he? Which is really a comment on Joe’s blog. Or do you say “ I really don’t know why you bumped us to Joe . He never says anything worth reading. Shame on you.” At least that’s a comment on the blog your at.
Blog bumping is becoming an art form in itself with people now learning to do a double bump and even a triple bump. It goes like this.
You go to “All Liberals are Dogs” and get this message “ Joe over at “Hillary looks like an Ape” has an important word for us today. So you slog over to Joe’s blog. There you get the message Crying Nancy over at “Untying Hillary’s Shoelaces” really gives it to her today. Now you’ve been double bumped. Isn’t this fun.
The ultimate bump of course is the “round and round bump” when you finish your back at the blog you started with and still know nothing. But what a ride.(This was done several times with the ultimate blonde joke)
I found one blog where the writer I think it was Half witted Bob hasn’t had an original thought since he started blogging. Every day he just bumps you to somebody else. Of course he still wants a comment.
If you want to pursue this further you might try Pete over at “ Blog Blog Blog and Blog Again”. I understand he has a list.

@@@
5800 spins without a prize but our hapless loser doesn't care. He has 100 tickets on a 350 million lotto and he didn't pay a cent. That's $100 worth of tickets and not one penny spent on them. The rest of you poor fools can lose money not winning $350 million but old hapless is losing his $350 million for free. How did he do this you ask. (And why wouldn't you ask after you just threw away $10 on lottery tickets)
Well he went to "Free Lotto" and they bought the 100 tickets on the $350 million. Then they gave old hapless six tickets . Now if free lotto has the winning tickets and hapless has the winning number from free lotto he has $350 million. A bit convoluted but the odds against his winning are only a bit worse than if he bought a ticket.
You know if he bought a ticket the chance of his winning is the same as those of not being hit by a car while trying to run across the freeway blindfolded while carrying 80 pounds of lead weights ( I read that on a blog) .Well for hapless to win you can add forty pounds and have him crawl.
The point is he gets to lose the $350 million just like the guy that bought the ticket and he didn't spend a cent. But then you know if the guy crawls fast he just might make it. Tune in again tomorrow to "As the World Spins" and see how rich hapless is.
****

I turned on the TV this morning and there was an announcer with an impossible job. He had to make Olympic Curling seem exciting. He failed. The US lost what has to be the most the most boring Olympic sport ever. That is except for the participants.
Well we dared to venture into the cold depth of the house and cut another base for the last mountain module. I t was cold down there not that it is warm up here. I am so cold that my skin almost matches my underwear.
Betty has laid out the track and all for the next module. She is good at that. Patrick told me to put a poll in the blog for the fantasy train so I searched on Google for a way to do that. Then like a kid with a new toy I put in two. One on the fantasy train and one over on the left (unless it moved on your browser. I only check firefox). Now you can tell me what you think without having to comment or reveal who you are. Progress is wonderful isn't it.
Patrick called again to tell me something so good I have to share with somebody. But he's calling all the people I share with. Here I am bursting to tell and I can't. I can't put it on the blog because as my sister-in- law said of my blue underwear then everybody in the world could read it and that's just too many so I'm stuck with it.
Well enough of my dull life I need a breathing treatment.
GBYA

Long underwear . Yes. But blue!!

Saying for the day: There is nothing as good for cold weather as good old fashioned long underwear.
---It is very cold today so my wife laid out my long underwear and she heated it first in the dryer. What a wife.
I got my long winter underwear from Habands. When I ordered it I thought it would be like the long underwear my grandpa used to wear. You know, heavy, white, with a trap door in the back.
Grandpa used to tell stories about that underwear. You put it on at the start of winter and didn’t take it off until the snow melted. You really needed that trap door. Grandpa never said but I assumed that when you took it off you burned it but perhaps not. Grandma had that good old lye soap that either cleaned or dissolved everything. In any case his underwear was white, wool, and heavy.
That’s what I thought I was ordering from Habband. What I got is blue, light, and definitely not wool. Its made of some space age fabric that NASA developed ( see space exploration is good for something no matter what they tell you on the blogs). It doesn’t look like it can keep you warm but it does.
The only problem is I don’t like blue underwear. It makes me feel funny. Real men and I am a real man only wear white. So I have a choice I can be a real man or be warm. I choose warm. I have to the house is freezing because my President and his cohorts upped the natural gas prices ( I read that on a blog) and so we had to turn the thermostat down. Not down to below zero like my son Peter but below 80.
Once I have developed enough courage to put on blue underwear I am not there yet. Now I have to get it on. The problem is that the bottom has some kind of lock stitch to keep the cold from coming up your leg. I don’t want the cold to come up my leg so that’s good but my big fat foot doesn’t want to go through the self locking loop.
My arthritic fingers scream in pain as I try to pull the foot through and my big toe gets caught. My arthritic knee now comes into play as the leg doubles back and the pain increases. I pull so hard I almost fall off the bed. That would be a disaster. The last time I fell on the floor Betty had to call 911 to get a policeman to help me up. (True story)
I begin to wonder if keeping warm is worth this kind of pain. Before I answer no the leg suddenly pops through.
If you think after all of this I am going to take this off before the snow melts think again. I am going to have my wife cut a trap door just like grandpa. When the snow melts I’ll take it off and she can burn it.
Then I’ll buy a new pair, only it will be white .

@@@
5750 spins without a prize and our hapless loser doesn't care because he has done the impossible. For the third day in a row he was the millionth visiter to the Iwon. com website. He didn't think he could do it. The odds against him had to be greater than those against having your cigar lit by a lightning bolt on a day with no clouds in the sky. But he timed it perfectly. Now he is wondering if he should contact the Guiness book of world records and let them know. This has to be some kind of earth shaking event. He was so excited he forgot to check and see what he got for being the millonth visitor. It must have been something great. He'll probably never know because what are the odds against it ever happening to him again. Tune in again tomorrow and see if he can find out on "As the World Spins" nominated for an early morning Clinker
***

When I got up this morning according to weather bug it was -21 degrees in Crystal Falls with a wind chill factor of -45 degrees. Do you think I am venturing out today? Think again. Of course weather bug says its going to get up to four degrees but it also says the low will be -12 when we started off at -21 .How does that work out?
Ever since we saw our first fantasy train at the national large scale convention we have been planning to make one of our own. It is winter . We are stuck inside. This is a good time to build such a train. First , of course, you need some fantasy material. we have narrowed ours down to six possibilities , all on sale from Collections for $ 14.99. You can help us to decide. first click here to see the six choices. Then try to visualize a G scale train where each individual item is a car. For example a plate car or a frog car. Then drop us a comment telling us which number you think would make the best train. Before we spend an entire $14.99 we need help.
I took a picture of Betty's latest mountain and posted it for you to see.
My sister that hates computers and the President called to see if my other sister had contacted me. She had. In fact she left two of yesterday's five comments. So I read them to the calling sister.Who said it sounded just like Chris. Of course it did . She wrote them.
Betty spent most of the day doing housework. I blogged and made comments. I am going to have to stop doing that. I got one lady so mad that she sent me a note telling me in no uncertain terms what she thought of me and it wasn't that I was a great person. Another wanted to know why I wasn't a Pastor any more. I hope she didn't think the Bishop threw me out. I just have to stop leaving comments but sometimes I can't help myself.
Well everything else was so dull I won't even bother to put it here. I really, really need a breathing treatment for my old intolerant lungs.
GBYA

No Dogs in Heaven Impossible

Saying for the day: If I have any beliefs about immortality, it is that certain dogs I have known will go to heaven, and very, very few persons. James Thurber
------There is an argument going on in the ELCA as to how we get saved. Is it simply because we are human or does it take something else. If the saved by being human side ends up being right we have a new problem. It came immediately into my malfunctioning brain. Can dogs go to heaven. You know that dogs aren’t human. Not even smart ones like my son Peter’s or the one that my daughter’s friend has that rings a bell when it has to go to the bathroom. Nope dogs aren’t human. So can they go to heaven? Since I needed something to fill up blog space I offer you two old stories on dogs and heaven. (slightly changed to fit the doctrine)

A man comes to his Pastor and asks him to do a burial service for his dog.

Pastor will you do a little service for old Pard.

Gee! George I’d like to but dogs have no soul and only humans go automatically to heaven when they die.

But Pastor old Pard was a kind , loving, dog better than most humans that I know.

George , you know that the Lutheran Church teaches salvation by being human alone and not by good works. I can’t do a funeral service for a dog.

Okay Pastor, but I was going to give the church $500 in Pard’s memory.

George, George, why didn’t you tell me old Pard was Lutheran.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Story number 2:
An old man and his dog were walking down this dirt road with fences on both sides, they came to a gate in the fence and looked in, it was nice - grassy, woody areas, just what a 'huntin' dog and man would like, but, it had a sign saying 'no trespassing' so they walked on.
They came to a beautiful gate with a person in white robes standing there.

Welcome to Heaven Dogs aren't allowed, I'm sorry but he can't come with you.Didn't your Pastor tell you that only humans have souls.

What kind of Heaven won't allow dogs? If He can't come in, then I will stay out with him. He's been my faithful companion all his life, I can't desert him now.

"Suit yourself, but I have to warn you, the Devil's on this road and he'll try to sweet talk you into his area, he'll promise you anything, but, the dog can't go there either. If you won't leave the dog, you'll spend Eternity on this road .

So the old man and dog went on.

They came to a rundown fence with a gap in it, no gate, just a hole. Another old man was inside.

Scuse me Sir, my dog and I are getting mighty tired, mind if we come in and sit in the shade for awhile?

Of course, there's some cold water under that tree over there. Make yourselves comfortable .

You're sure my dog can come in? The man down the road said dogs weren't allowed anywhere.

Would you come in if you had to leave the dog?

No sir, that's why I didn't go to Heaven, he said the dog couldn't come in, only humans. We'll be spending Eternity on this road, and a glass of cold water and some shade would be mighty fine right about now. But, I won't come in if my buddy here can't come too, and that's final.

Welcome to Heaven.

You mean this is Heaven? Dogs ARE allowed? How come that fellow down the road said they weren't?

That was the Devil and he gets all the people who are willing to give up a life long companion for a comfortable place to stay. They soon find out their mistake, but, then it's too late. The dogs come here, the fickle people stay there. GOD wouldn't allow dogs to be banned from Heaven. After all, HE created them to be man's companions in life, why would he separate them in death?"

@@@
5700 spins without a win. After hapless loser finished losing yesterday he x ed out of Iwon.com. You know hit the little x in the corner. Then suddenly this sign comes up." Congratulations you are the one millionth visitor to this website. Wow, how great is that. Imagine a million people came to Iwon.com and he was the exact millionth one. No wonder he can't win at Iwon. There are a million people playing and spinning that darned wheel. Well if that wasn't special enough when he finished spinning today and x ing out the same sign came up. Two days in a row he was the millionth person. The odds must be earthshaking. Twice in two days being the millionth person. Tune in again tomorrow and see if he can time it just right to be the millionth person three days in a row. That would have to be some kind of world record. You can see it here on "As the World Spins", nominated for an early morning Clinker award.

****
Betty went back to painting her mountain. I was thinking of going to get a haircut (I look like an English sheep dog) but we can't get out of the driveway because of the snow. It will be plowed out by this afternoon but by then we are supposed to have a wind chill of -30 degrees.
The mail came and there was no new form from the ELCA ( as if I expected one) even though the guy, that they have no record of, promised me one in 5 to 7 days.
My bishop sent me an e-mail and told me he prays for me every Sunday and I appreciate that. I pray for him every day. But then bishops need more prayer than retired pastors.
What I would appreciate even more is the right form from the national church.
My computer hating sister called to tell me she couldn't get a hold of my other sister (the one that doesn't hate the President). My sister gets excited a lot when she can't get people on the phone. A number of times she has called my son because we were out shopping or gone to the movies. She called me back a half hour later to tell me that Chris had finally answered the phone, crisis over. ( A little crisis keeps the day from being totally dull)
Despite the cold we went grocery shopping. Its going to be colder tomorrow. I had forgotten how cold it could really get and didn't take my gloves. It seems even colder when you are holding onto the handles of a plastic walker and trying not to fall down.
Not much happened after we got home and now I need a breathing treatment.
GBYA

A Chance to Say Goodbye

Saying for the day: Some things are better left not said so don't say them.
-----I was paging through one of those catalogues that come in the mail with ever greater frequency (up from two a week to three a day) when I came across a beautiful little plaque. It had inscribed on it words that would bring tears to your eyes no matter how tough you are. The part that really got me was that the writer of the words didn’t get to say goodbye to the person who died. He never got the chance to tell him or her how much he loved them. Well that set me to thinking. Just about every Monday I reach a point where I know I won’t live until Tuesday. I think its because I have to eat all the leftovers from Sunday because Betty is on a diet and I’m the only other person here. Since on Monday I know I’m going to die shouldn’t I call my kids and let them say goodbye . Isn’t it my duty as a loving parent to keep them out of the poem. If I did it would go something like this.

Monday: I just finished the last of Sunday’s ham along with some left over potatoes. I had part of the ham for breakfast. So now I feel so rotten I know I’ll never make it through the night.
6:30 I call my three kids. One at a time.

KID : Hello

This is your dad I’m going to die tonight and I want to say goodbye and I love you.

Oh no! Do you have cancer.

No. But I'm going to die tonight and I want you to have a chance to say goodbye.

You having a heart attack ?

No. But I'm going to die tonight. I know it.I want to say goodbye and I love you.

Gee thanks Dad. I love you too: Goodbye

6:45 The Pastor shows up called by the kid that’s farthest away. It takes an hour to convince him I’m not thinking of killing myself. That kid always did jump to conclusions. I feel bad that the Pastor got called out. I remember the time when I was pastoring that I got called out at 2:00 in the morning only to find that this drunken lady wanted me to throw out her boy friend. But that’s another story.

9:30 The doorbell rings. I knew we should have given the kids a key. I stumble to the door after taking off my oxygen mask. There two of them stand , my oldest son and my daughter with the degree in psychology. They have commitment papers in hand. It takes two hours to convince them I’m not nuts. Betty enjoys it all. Besides those are Wisconsin papers and this is Michigan. In the morning they go home. I lost two hours of oxygen and feel lousy all day but not like dying.

Following Monday: Ate all the pie and cake left over from yesterday with a little ice cream thrown in. I know I am going to die. Just maybe the pie for breakfast was a bit much. Now what should I do. I remember the poem. I call the kids.

Hello

Hi I know I’m going to die tonight and I wanted to give you a chance to say goodbye .

Oh, not again dad! I love you too. Goodbye.

I don’t hear any more from them. But at least they got a chance to say goodbye.

Following Monday. Today I am so sick I can’t remember what I ate. If I don’t die tonight I’ll live for ever. So , because of the poem I call my kids. I get only answering machines. Imagine not one of my three kids is home. I call until I have to go to bed.
You can’t tell an answering machine your going to die. It doesn’t care and it can’t say goodbye.

The Next Monday: Despite the fact that I am going to die I don’t try to call my children but go searching for the blog that teaches you how to fool caller ID’s. Come on!. I have to find a way to give them a chance to say Goodbye. Don’t I?

@@@
5750 spins without a prize. Today our hapless loser found a new way to lose. Because of his guaranteed cash experience he has taken to playing these lotto tickets every day as well as spinning the slots wheel. At the end of the first ten tickets he is told he has been given ten more tickets. (wow how good is that) So he starts but they only give him five more chances (he counted them). He was cheated out of five chances to win a million. Life is unfair. He wants all ten of his chances . So he clicks in again and they tell him he has had his chances for the day. Its all most enough to make him take up growing flowers and to get off the computer. Tune in tomorrow and see if hapless decides to quit spinning and grow orchids on " As The World Spins" nominated for an early morning Clinker.
***

I was sitting looking at my form 1099-R when the thought occurred to me that the ELCA may have broken the law. There must be some kind of law against filing incorrect 1099-R forms. It was probably pushed by the ELCA to protect poor little workers from big uncaring corporations. The ELCA does things like that. Even if there is no law the form they sent says the ELCA broke the law since they were required by law to withhold 20% and according to this form they didn't even withhold 10% .I wonder if I call the government office and work my way through the phone buttons I'll finally hear " To report national church agencies sending out forms with proof of law breaking push ..." and Bishop I'm still not laughing.For a little ELCA parable click here
Betty had two of the potatoe pancakes I made yesterday for breakfast. She warmed them in the microwave. My pancakes are so good they still taste wonderful rewarmed.
Betty took the car to get the tires rotated and went to her bible study, both at the same time. Didn't I tell you she was a super women. I wanted to get her a super costume but she wants to keep her super powers secret, so please don't tell anybody.
My computer hating sister who hates the President called to tell me she wasn't going hunting with any Republicans. That's good to know because I don't think they would be safe around her particularly if they supported the President. She also couldn't understand why the ELCA doesn't just send me the right form. Now that is a good question and I don't have an answer.
I made two calls concerning billings on the credit card. The people I talked to were helpful and agreed I shouldn't have been charged . They also promised to refund the money. I saved $45. Sometimes people are willing to correct their mistakes.
Got a letter from the ELCA that we thought might be the corrected form but it was just information on how they had changed some rules to make it even harder for me to get out the money I didn't put into the monthly pension. They got that out fast enough.
Betty and I went to the basement to start cleaning. We threw out a kid's pool and an air matress with a hole in it.(What were we saving them for?) Then we got so cold we fled back upstairs.
Betty went back to work on the mountain only to find out that the first module was now stuck to the second. She had to break them apart. I told you she was a super woman.
Well again there are many more dull things that happened on this day. So many that all the dull blogs in all this dull world couldn't hold them. I , on the other hand need a breathing treatment.
GBYA

Help Me I Surf Blogs

Saying for the Day: Nothing can be learned by reading blogs that can't be unlearned with a good Psychiatrist.
---If you are from blog-explosion or are new to this blog I have decided to help you in reading it. This will become part of my help with this blog section which will include things like what to do if the blog makes you sick to your stomach and how to stay awake despite the dull content.
If you are one of my regular five readers (I had six but one went to Florida and didn’t take his computer) you can skip over this part and go right to the hapless loser.
Now for you blog-explosion people and other newbies my blog is divided into three parts. That’s the way I was taught to make a speech.
The first part, the part your reading now contains my deep philosophical thoughts , my feeble attempts at humor , and my heart wrenching looks at life. It should take about thirty seconds to read and when you come to the end of it, the good stuff is over and you can hit the next number and poof right out of here. That is unless you want to leave a comment on how bad it was. You might as well read it because your stuck here for thirty seconds in any case.

Now the next part always begins with @@@ This warns you that the good stuff is over . That’s in case you didn’t know that that was the good stuff. After the @@@ comes the adventures of the hapless loser. The story of a dumb guy who goes every day to IWON.com and takes fifty spins but never, never wins. It totals up his losing spins until that day. It lets him grumble. It serves as a warning to anybody who thinks they stand a chance at Iwon. It always ends with *** This is so you can skip from the @@@ to the *** and not have to read this stupidity.

The last part is the really really dull part. It is a diary of my hour to hour activity of which the highlight is a breathing treatment (wow). It is there because the original purpose of this blog was to let my children know what their old , somewhat senile, parents were doing. It still serves to do that and I can’t help if our lives are dull. Like I said when you get to the @@@ you can hit the next number and poof unless of course your one of my children.

@@@
5700 spins without a win. But while he was spinning our Hapless loser saw an add that said." Tired of losing at lotto. Click here."So of course old hapless clicked there. He really, really is tired of losing. It seems that for just $35 or $34.95 to be exact this company would sell old hapless a service that helps him pick lottery numbers for any state lottery. It seems they have a scientific system based on some kind of new fangled mathematics that can get you numbers that greatly improves your chance of winning. It doesn't promise that hapless will win , only to greatly improve his chances. For a moment hapless considered buying in. But then he thought if the system was really good they would be out raking in money on state lotteries instead of trying to get rich $35 at a time. Hapless may be stupid but he ain't dumb. Besides he knows that science is just no match for bad luck. Tune in again tomorrow and see if he changes his mind and buys in on "As the World Spins" nominated for an early morning Clinker.
***

The universe is back in order as I got up at 6:00 today. If you read yesterday's post on how global warming is making dogs dumber you have to read my daughter-in-laws response at linna's minute . (Pete's blog in the links) She could be onto something.
This has started out to be a really great day. My son Pat has finally posted to his blog (first time since Christmas). Everything seems to be fine except his boys are taking some kind of weird lessons.
To see a picture of Betty's first Ho mountain click on Betty's Mountain.
Forget that stuff about this being a really good day. Just when I thought my tax problems were over the ELCA called. Now they are saying that they sent me the right form in the first place. I read them, again, the information on the form they sent me and they admit it is the wrong information but tell me that isn't the form they sent. Well who sent it to me then? Where is the one they said they sent. Is somebody going into my mailbox and changing the forms? ( I've heard of shape shifters but never form changers). They also said they have no record of the call where I was told a new form would be sent even though it had the usual disclaimer that" this call may be monitored for...". They say they can't send me a new form until I can prove to them they sent me the wrong one. Short of sending back the form I have and even I am not that dumb how do I prove it? Hey, this is my church, the ELCA, the one I raised all that benevolence for. I wonder how much a good law suit would get me? I would make a great witness, a pathetic old man , with a walker, who can hardly breath against a huge uncaring Church that cheated him out of $4000. Oh and Bishop I'm not laughing.
If you would like to read a funny response to the press demands that the Vice President hold a conference and tell them all about the shooting go to Ogre's Politics & Views A more rational view (slightly) is at personal diatribes.
Pastor Kim Beckmann called, not to see how I'm doing, but to try to get me to go to an ELCA conference in Escanaba.The conference will be an answer to the "Left Behind Books" and be based on the book of Revelations. I have no real love for the " Left Behind Books " but if the conference is by an LSTC professor it will probably be as far away from scripture as the Left Behind books. Wouldn't it be nice if people cared about you and just called to see how you were doing.
I just reread that last paragraph and suddenly realized I have become one of those pitiful, old, whiners ( that's whiner not wino). You know the kind that says over and over, "Pity
me, Please pity me." Besides Betty says Pastor Kim was really nice to her when I was in the hospital. But if a guys gota whine then a guys gota whine.
Betty went to TOPS so I made my world famous potato pancakes for lunch. If you beg properly then someday I'll give you the recipe.
And many more truly dull things happened on this day but the blog has no room to contain them all so I will go for a breathing treatment.
GBYA

Our Right to Know

Saying for the Day: The public has a right to know every time the President sneezes.
------The national news media have been very upset on how long it took the Vice President to report that he had shot somebody.
Why?
Because Mr. & Mrs. America wanted to know.

Mr. America:. Ma. Turn on CNN and see if the Vice President shot somebody

Mrs. America: Okay dear. No I don’t think he did.

Darn I thought today would be the day. Did you check the little print on the bottom of the page.

Yes dear but there was just a story about some lady’s daughter falling off a bike.

Well check with ABC. You know how liberal CNN has become.

Nothing on ABC either. Just some stupid story about Iran.

Iran ! Who wants to hear about Iran. We want important news.

I know dear . Like which politician is cheating on his wife.

Well try CBS . I know they ain't worth much but give um a try.

Nope. Just some silly story on Global Warming. Who cares how warm the globe is.

I guess this just isn't a day for real news.

Not like last night when we had two police beatings of innocent people and a mayor caught in bed with a prostitute at the local brothel.

Last night was a good night alright. I hope the Vice President isn’t covering it up. We have a right to know you know.

This is what the Vice President should have done.

Vice President: Woops I’ve shoot you.

Friend. : Well get me to the hospital.

I can’t I have to call CNN and tell them I shot you.

But I could bleed to death.

I know but America’s right to know comes above your personal well being.

Tell em after you get me to the hospital.

What and have them accuse me of not telling the press this important piece of news.

. Hey an hour or two won’t hurt. Git me to the blinking hospital.

If I don’t hurry they won’t be able to start the VP hunting jokes until tomorrow night. The nation will suffer horrible and irreparable harm.

If you don’t get me to the stupid hospital it won’t be the nation that suffers harm.

No I have to call CNN . I can’t be concerned about you.

Well that’s the way it should have gone.
Of course the news media would then have had the following headline.
Vice President Leaves Friend to Die just to Get on National Television.
You can’t win if you’re the Vice President.

@@@
5650 spins without a win. But today our hapless loser was all excited because nestled in the very middle of his daily spam was a note that said " You, hapless loser, are a guaranteed winner of cash". Hey, it didn't say you could win some cash . It said guaranteed. Spam wouldn't lie. So with trembling hands hapless hit the link and went to collect his cash. No such luck. Instead he got ten chances at a variety of prizes all of which he took , none of which he won. What kind of world is it when you can't trust a guarantee ? What kind of loser are you when you lose guaranteed cash? He then went on to spin and lose. What will happen tomorrow. Will he get a new guarantee? Will he spin and win? Tune in and see "As the World Spins" nominated for an early morning Clinker.
***
Slept late today. Didn't get up till 6:30. By the time we got the pills down and ready for breakfast Regis and What's Her Name were on. I turned to the Tony Danza show only to find him interviewing Regis. Regis was both doing his own show and Tony's. Isn't television wonderful. I made a valentine for Betty since I couldn't get out to buy one. On it I wrote " Mina Rakastau Sinnua" and "to my wife who moves mountains" . If you can't guess what the phrase means ask a Finn. Betty is back building a mountain.
Betty went out to get the car gassed up so she can go to the Bible study tonight and came back with a box of chocolates for me. What a wife, am I lucky or what?Mon épouse est la meilleure épouse au monde.
If you like political humor, amd who doesn't, then goto http://iowahawk.typepad.com/
for a shot at the cartoon controversy. Really good if your from Wisconsin or a Packer Fan.
Well it was a dull day. Betty put up with me reading her valentine poems I found on the web. Now she has gone to a Bible study. I need a breathing treatment but it will wait till she comes home. Now I am going to shut down this computer and take a bath.
God Bless You All

Dumb Dogs

Saying for the day: A dog is a man's best friend only if he can't find a human being to be friends with.
------ I read on some ladies blog that her dog eats cat poop. This disturbs her but for me it only confirms my contention that global warming is causing us to have dumber and dumber dogs.
When I was a kid I had a dog. It was a genius. It had an IQ of at least 150. It knew where the yard ended. It didn't need one of those invisible electric fences to keep it from running the neighborhood. It protected me. If you raised your hand to hit me you stood the risk of losing your arm. It could do all kinds of tricks and understood both Finnish and English. It came when you called it. It had deep feelings and mourned for a month when my dad's dog died.
The next generation of dogs. The one we got for our kids were not that smart.
Bobo , my kids dog didn't even come when he was called. Never stayed in the yard unless you hooked him to a logging chain (he was very strong) . Despite all our warnings about bad people that picked up dogs and ate them for super he would get in any car that came along. If people came to the house he would snarl at them (scared them half to death) not to protect us but to get them out of the way so he could shoot out the door and look for a car to get into. He was dumb.
But global warming got worse .I know it did I read it on a blog.
Now my son has a dog which has reached the bottom rung of dumb. It doesn't know its name. It has to be on a chain outside. It doesn't come when its called. It can't be trained to do anything ( my granddaughter gave up and got one of those robot dogs to train). And worst of all it eats socks. Socks, it eats socks. It still eats socks even though it had to be operated on to remove one ($1800 no dog insurance). It also eats small child's toys. It is dumb. But it is the fault of global warming.
At least it doesn't eat cat poop but then that's probably because my son doesn't have a cat.

@@@
5600 spins without a win. That's 5600 times the wheels have spun and didn't match each other. That's a lot of times. Do you know how many calories you would have consumed if you ate 5600 M&Ms . Neither does our hapless loser. He doesn't care. He just goes merrily along spinning away, day after day. Will nothing ever wake him up to the hopelessness of the task he has set himself? Could his stupidity be caused by global warming. Tune in again tomorrow to "As the World Spins" nominated for an early morning Clinker
*****

Well it's drop it day at the Linna's. Betty dropped the egg that was supposed to go on her muffin and I dropped my morning pills. Getting old is such a pain. Before my kids jump in with a comment on how we dropped things a lot when we were young just let me say that now its because we were old then it was because the kids were driving us nuts.
Betty called her Orthopedic Doctor and the nurse told her that the Doctor wouldn't give the information to her therapist but only to her. Further he wouldn't give it to her on the phone but only in person. That means no therapy for two weeks until her next appointment even though the results of the MRI are already available. Isn't medical practice wonderful?
My computer hating sister who hates Busch called. Since no Busch haters have jumped in to help her find a hotel in New York's theater district she is going to a travel agent. I know I said you have until November but she has no patience.
Betty and I went downstairs to cut the base for the next mountain. She made me wear safety goggles over my glasses and I almost cut my fingers off. I can't see right with both sets of glasses on.
We got a letter from the ELCA pension board. It contained the pinn number I don't need but not the form I do need. Thank you ELCA. They have until Friday to get me the new form. If they don't I may have to tell a Muslim about the cartoon they have on the wall down there at the pension board. Don't tell me they don't have one. If they can make a mistake on my form I can make a mistake about the picture. I might even correct it before the place burns down.
My sister-in-law called to tell me my dragons were eating up my blog name. I checked and though it was alright on the firefox browser it wasn't on explorer. So I had a talk with the dragons and now I think it works on both browsers.
My new dragon awards blog is up and running and I have already awarded 3 red dragons and three 1/2 green ones.Check it out.
Well I need a breathing treatment.
GBYA

Poor little Dragons !!

Saying for the day: people who play with dragons are likely to get burned.
------My poor little dragons have been trashed.
Some bloggers think they are old fashioned.
Some bloggers think they are “ so 90”s”
Some bloggers just don’t like them.
They left these comments on the “100 best blogs “ website. You can get there by clicking on the banner on the left. The one that says “100 best blogs”, of course.
The Fascist Blog Fashion Police (not to be confused with the Busch fascist police of left wing blogs) have found me. I have been found guilty of having a 1990's template. I don't have one of those gaudy 2005 templates where the graphics take up so much room you never get to the content.
I had a 2003 template that came with this free blog but I didn't like it. It didn't say anything.
Hey, I like my little dragons. My wife thinks they are cute.
So what if they are gif animations. It is really , really, hard to find a flying dragon that isn’t.
Then of course there is the other problem. What little I know about computers is stuck in the 90’s. I don’t know about flash whatever.
I do know I like dragons.
I have a left wing dragon and a right wing dragon. One is red and one is green. My fortress, like my life is being attacked by both.
They breath fire. But in the end it isn’t real. Its made up fire. Just outdated gif animation. You know like the facts on left and right wing blogs. They look real but they aren’t. Of course the facts aren't gif animations . They are emotion animations.
So please don’t pick on my poor little dragons. They are symbols and despite being gif animations from another age they are powerful symbols.
Also please note in front of my fortress is a tiny little knight. His name is truth and he try's to protect me from the dragons.
I, however remain safe in my fortress and that’s no gif animation.

@@@ Today 5550 spins without a win. The hapless loser, who is a little slow to figure things out, discovered there are days when the IWON.com wheel gives out no prizes at all. He knows because there are days when the total number of winners is two. Since IWON has two contests that guarantee a winner every day that means there were no winners on the slot machine. Nobody, yes nobody, won a camera, or an Ipod, or the million dollars for that matter. This has to be the worst paying slot machine in the entire civilized world. Nobody wins. Hapless loser thinks that employees have fixed the wheel so they can take home the prizes. He wonders if CBS knows this. Well tune in again tomorrow and see if this information cures him on "As the World Spins" nominated for an early morning Clinker award.
******

If you like funny blogs (and who doesn't) you should try Tony's. In the link banners his is the one with guy by the Italian flag. While your there leave a comment and tell him Dr. John sent you.
Betty got up late after 8:00 and went to painting the mountain she made yesterday. I'll post a picture tomorrow. I called my computer hating sister and told her the prices I found for hotels in New York's theater district. She thanked me but said she hopes some Bush hating person will see her plight and let me know where a cheaper hotel is. You Busch haters have until November to help her out.
Speaking of Busch haters and Busch lovers I am thinking of starting a new blog where I award red dragons to left leaning blogs and green dragons to those on the right. The number of dragons will depend on how far out, how full of hate, and how really stupid they are. I'll keep you informed on the progress of that blog.
Betty moved the mountain to the layout and added some trees. Spent the rest of the afternoon cutting cardboard strips for the next mountain. I wasted time learning about flash animation and decided the programs I would have to buy are outside the budget. This is most certainly true since Betty just spent $50 on mountain supplies. We have expensive hobbies. I also changed the top ten layout on the church website and the front end of this blog.
Well I need a breathing treatment.
GBYA

Greatest Blog Entry Ever

Saying for the Day: Now I forgot to remember where I put that list of things I didn't want to forget.
-----I was riding in the car the other day when I came up with this wonderful idea for something to write in this part of my blog. It was funny, it was philosophical, it was really really deep. I created some of my best phrases ever . I used words that were almost beyond my ability and I gave them just the right twist.
If you had read them you would have been driven to comment. They were that good. You would have said things like
“Best blog I ever read”.
“ You certainly have a great command of the English language”.
” “ I am blogmarking you and telling all my friends”.
“I am really proud to be your Bishop.” ( This assumes the Bishop reads the blog.)
“ Dad you have outdone yourself”
and “ I have to tell Peter”.
Not only that you would have laughed until you ended up rolling on the floor. It was that funny.
But at the same time there were elements of a deeper sadness that the reader would feel coming through.
Even if you aren’t religious or don’t believe in God this blog would for a moment have ushered you into His Presence.
I went over it many times in my mind making sure it was just right.
I recited it to my wife who almost lost control of the car . It was that good.
I know by now you are waiting to read this wonderful blog piece.
There is , unfortunately , one little problem. When we finally got home I couldn’t remember a word of it. I couldn’t even remember what it was about. I asked my wife and she couldn’t remember it either. This, even though, she said it was so good she would never forget it.
It was as if a nasty demon had erased that part of our minds but left us the memory of how good it was.
Some day though, perhaps in the car, it will come back to me. I am going to make sure I always take my laptop from now on just in case. If it comes back and I put it in the laptop and the file disappears then we’ll know it’s a demon and I know a good Exorcist.

@@@ Today 5500 spins without a win.
But now our hapless loser know why.
His computer has been infected with the NOWIN virus. This is a new virus that was created by a demented hacker in New Jersey.
It monitors your computer and anytime you are the verge of winning it breaks your communication with IWON. Twice this morning our hapless loser was on the verge of winning when the little wheels wouldn't stop spinning. They just spun until a sign appeared that said you have lost communication please hit the refresh button.
It has to be a virus. IWon couldn't tell him it had lost communication because it couldn't communicate with him. Our hapless loser knows that much.
So now he needs to get SBC to upgrade his virus catcher to get rid of the NOWIN virus. Will it work. Tune in again tomorrow to "As the World Spins" nominated for an early morning Clinker .*****

Betty went to the hardware store for some more paste. It takes a lot of paste to build a mountain. I added to the personal diatribes blog. Its a good addition. You should read it.
Right after lunch my computer hating sister called. Yep that's the same one that hates Busch but I'm not aloud to call her the Bush hating sister on the blog anymore unless I give the reasons she hates Bush and that would just take up too much space. Anyway she may hate computers but she knows who to call to get some information from one. She wants to know what it would cost to get a good hotel , in the theater district, in New York. I suppose I will find out for her.
Betty and I went to church then to the grocery store. I wish I knew the name of the young man who hauled out our groceries this week and last. Both times he stopped long enough to put my walker in the car. I really need the walker to get around but it is really hard to get into the car. I think next week we'll take a thank you note with a little money in it in case we see him.
I looked up the cost for a good hotel in the theater district and the lowest I could find wants $160 a night plus tax. I"m not sure that's what my sister wants to hear.
Well I need a breathing treatment.
GBYA