Kakahead

Hello Abnardles,

Just a quick note to inform you all that new tasting tanks have been installed in Room 1023.  You can enjoy the flavor of any gravy or fruit salad by merely entering the tank and setting the knob to 2.3 while pointing your index fingers to Alpha Centauri and / or Cleveland.

Please be certain to wear protective clothing while tasting the new entries on the Flavor Dial.  No one is completely certain as to the
effect of cutting the cheese in the confines of the tank. The new entries, of course, include Swiss, Roquefort, and Toe cheeses.  Each
has a luminous cramp lantern designed to strike fear in the hearts of any lingering sleeveless mole wrench hydrocarbons. Enjoy the scented antler handles in full view of the sinus chipper mechanism.

My ears are full of sand.

If you have any questions about the use of the tasting tanks, call 800-400-0001 and ask for Mr. Crinkleberry. He will never really
help you, but he is an excellent listener and has been known to make really good dingleberry jam.

Sincerely yours,

Navnik Obblesoot
a.k.a. “He Who Burns Dust Mites”

————————————————-

“Please pass the ketchup, I think it’s going to rain.”

Say what??  A little early for voting, isn’t it?  Many of us in the U.S. are already pretty sick up and fed with election crap, and really ready to leave all that junk alone and move on with life.  Whether you are physically (or just spiritually) “Occupying Wall Street” or a Tea Party member, there is sure to be much more activism and mudslinging between now and November.  Either way, political rhetoric has already reared its ugly nostrils and is sniffing in the deliciously annoying media compost bins.  Many of us will march to the polls and cast our votes, and some who complain the loudest will abstain (sigh).

As my good friend (not) Mr. Nixon would have said, “let me say this about that.”  We need to determine what kind of planet we want to live on, and more importantly, what kind of planet we want for our kids.  So, we all need to rock the vote.  Again and again.  Not just with ballots, but with each dollar we spend.  Now, I can’t tell anyone what to do, but here are some examples of how I “vote” and why:

Chemical Fertilizers, Pesticides:  I do not buy them.  Ever.  Why?  Fertilizer is available naturally in most places where plants grow naturally.  Composted leaves, grass clippings, and manure are good examples of soil building materials, and are natural fertilizers.  I do have to consume some energy to retrieve these things.  However, much more energy is consumed mining, processing, packaging, and shipping fertilizers and pesticides.  A lot of petroleum is used to support this industry in the form of fuel for energy, and petrochemicals for processing.  And let’s not forget how they are packaged, either in paper bags (bye bye trees) or plastic bags (petroleum again!). And even more wonderfully, the factories that manufacture these goodies pollute, and when it rains their products also pollute.  And don’t even get me started on “weed and feed.”   Our lawn gets mowed, that’s it.  The neighbors probably cry when my dandelions are in bloom.  We think they are pretty, and the bees love them.  In the garden, we get some pretty awesome veggies that we grow organically.  We do not spray any crops to keep the bugs off, but rather we use crop rotation and companion planting to keep insect damage to a minimum.  I’ve heard some folks say, “without fertilizers and pesticides you would not have all that wonderful produce you see at Meijer.”  Well that is simply a crock of moose juice.  Anybody notice the proliferation of certified organic produce at the supermarket??  Huh??  Guess what?  Those growers are doing pretty well these days.

Packaged Meals:  First of all, blech.  Sodium, ingredients I can’t pronounce, sodium, and more sodium.  Most packaged meals are packed full of chemicals, which are made by chemical plants.  Chemical plants consume energy and pollute.  More petroleum.   The chemicals they make pollute our bodies.  We try to eat fresh whenever possible.  Oh, and not to forget the packaging:  plastics and paper.  More dead trees, more dinosaur juice.

Automobiles:  My hot rod is a Toyota Corolla.  I get 35 miles to a gallon, sometimes more.  My lovely wife has a Toyota Matrix, which will also get over 30 mpg.  My next commuter car will be a hybrid which I hope will get at least 50 mpg.  Ultimately I will be working closer to home so I don’t have to burn so much dinosaur juice.  Our planet has a finite supply of oil, and cars are just a small part of the consumption of it.  Call me a “tree hugger,” or whatever other radical environmentalist label you like; but Hummers and Escalades and the like should be illegal (in my professional opinion).  

Electricity:  “Turn the lights off!!  Whaddya think, we own the Edison??  That’s what your Grandma and Grandpa would say ya know.”  My beautiful wife would shout this at the kids to remind them that power costs money.  She used “the Edison” to refer to the power company because when she was a kid growing up near Detroit, that was the name of the outfit that ruled the electrons.  So she echoed her mom and dad when yelling at our kids.  We must have raised them right, they both confess to be habitual light switcher-offers (yes, I know that’s horrible grammar).  Here again, electricity generation relies a lot on fuel, whether it’s coal or natural gas or whatever.  There is more and more alternative energy available these days but the percentage is meager compared to the output of fuel burning plants.  More demand equals greater dependency on petroleum, either directly (burning to generate power) or indirectly (shipping coal).  During the Arab Oil Embargo in the seventies, Mr. Nixon (holy cow, I mentioned him again) urged everyone to conserve.  Businesses were urged to turn off all lighting except that required for security or safety reasons when they closed up shop for the night.  Drive past any shopping mall and see if this is the case these days.  I think just a couple people are leaving the lights on!!

Think Globally, Act (buy) Locally:  “Everything’s made in (expletive deleted) China!!”  That’s the refrain my lovely girlfriend and I chant when we go shopping.  Never thought I’d actually say it, but I do my best to buy goods that were made locally or at least as close to home as possible.  And yes, I do find myself looking for the “Made in USA” label.  Of course, we buy things that are made abroad, but having some awareness is vital.  Keeping the dollars at home help our communities thrive.

Well, I could go on and on, and this could become a very very long Happy Friday.  Suffice it to say that I would see more people join a movement of  ”Let Every Dollar I Spend Send A Message.”  And yes, there is much more that I could do… I sometimes spend my money on crap just like anybody else.  

But I also vote as often as I can. 

Ever have a cold that just didn’t seem to go away?  Well I have one that started on October 13, at approximately 12:17 PM and still isn’t quite gone yet.  Perhaps that’s a slight exaggeration… but seriously folks, this “cold” has been here way too long.  My nose gets stubbed up, add it starts rudding, and then I hab to use up the whole box of tissues every hour; which has become rather expensive.

The beautiful woman I live with shocked me the other day when she said, “Honey, your cold is lingering way too long.  I think you have a sinus infection.”  I’m not sure how she can feel qualified to say such things.  Just because she’s a nurse and does in home care for people (and maybe knows a thing or two about healthcare) doesn’t give her the right to make wild accusations about some lousy cold her husband has.

So to prove her wrong, I have invented a number of methods that are certain to bring this so-called “sinus infection” to its knees, so to speak.  I thought I’d better pass these on to all of you because I’m sure you are interested in following my exact instructions.   Without any further ado, here are the methods, in order of magnitude.

1)  Get an eighteen inch length of surgical tubing and shove it deeply into your nostril.  Connect the other end to a faucet using an appropriate adapter.   Turn on the water quickly, then off just as quickly.  Be certain to turn the faucet completely on during this operation to apply maximum pressure.  Repeat on the other nostril, then repeat the entire procedure at 3 hour intervals.  This will flush out any germ infested mucus.

After 2 days, if symptoms persist:

R)  Continue with the water flush, but after each flush use an ordinary toothbrush to clean each nostril.  Be sure to remove any clingons from the bristles after each flushing operation.   Discard the clingons in the usual manner:  rub them on the underside of the sofa or flick them into an inconspicuous corner.

Still having difficulty?  I see… try this:

9)  Place a birthday candle inside each nostril.  DO NOT LIGHT THE CANDLES!!!  Whadda you, crazy???  Sheesh!  Hold each candle between thumb and forefinger and apply inward pressure while twirling the candles back and forth.  This will lubricate your nasal passages and allow clingons to be more easily removed in steps 1) and R)

Still hab a stubby doze??  OK, one more try:

@*)  Request the assistance of a trusted friend or loved one.  Hand them a ping pong paddle, have them stand behind you with the paddle held parallel to the back of your head.  Have them be ready for “the signal.”   Fill a glass with ginger ale and place two drinking straws in the glass.  Insert a drinking straw into each nostril.  Now you are ready to give “the signal,” at which time your helper should whack the back of your head with the paddle.  This will cause an involuntary snorking of ginger ale deep into your sinuses; which will of course fizz out any congestive fluids.

I personally have not tried any of these methods, so once you’ve given them a whirl please report back to me as to their effectiveness.

So… remember that nurse lady I’m married to?  Well guess what she did??  She said, “Honey, you need to go to the doctor.”  Now, we’ve been married for awhile and I’ve learned (too often the hard way) that all goes much better if I follow orders.

I went to the doctor.  He said, “you have a sinus infection.”   “Oh,” I replied.  “What do I need to do?”  “I’ll prescribe some antibiotic pills for you,” he answered.

I got the prescription filled for FREE at our local pharmacy!!  Is that cool or what??

So what, do I just shove these up my nose???

__________________

Oh… the doctor also said I should get some rest…

OK, so there I was, at work, in the industrial manufacturing stress pile that seems to grow smellier with each passing hour, no plane, no parachute, and thinking about writing a run-on sentence, with no semi-colons but only commas, and probably grammatically incorrect; but that doesn’t bother me one little bit; oh wait, there are a couple of semi-colons back there.

On this particular day at work, I was heating up my lunch in the nuking machine.  My friend Mary saw the vegetation in my Pyrex bowl and said, “you eat a lot of leaves.”  I smiled and said, “yes, and today I have leaves, roots, and the flesh of a dead bison.”  I mentioned that I intended to consume kale, collards, parsnips, and some bison meat from Oleson’s in Manistee.  Mmmm-mmm yummy.

At this point she ran screaming through the top floor window while her ’65 Mustang was in flames and all the propane tanks burst into an explosive conflagration causing the air to become very brightly orange but then black with smoke as the rest of the cars in the parking lot exploded one by one and the military came in full force to let the cat into the shower so she could drink off the floor while the Happy Friday Ken Guy wrote yet another run-on sentence with nary a comma or semi-colon to be found within the whole darned thing.

That crazy Nevvie… she loves to drink off the shower floor!  We believe she may be addicted to shower water.  She is 17 years young and will broop and mee-roouu  until one of us turns the shower on for just a bit.  Then of course we must let her know we are OK with her going in there to drink.  It’s a ritual you see.  Shortly after she gets her drink, the earth’s crust splits open and large steel structures vault toward the sky while people are screaming and running for cover and toasters are flying sideways through the violent winds that are generated (of course) by the huge bats that arise from the bowels of the planet and OH MY GOD HERE COMES ANOTHER ONE get down and hide behind this big rock OH NO THE TREE MONSTERS ARE STEALING ALL THE ROCKS those dirty selfish stinkers they wish to protect themselves and who gives a flying mahookey about us, right, we should be grateful the trees are safe and there’s yet another run-on sentence with questionable (at best) grammatical structure.

OK.  So, what have we learned from this week’s installment of “Goats On Parade?”  Well boys and girls, we’ve learned that some guy who works at an explosion factory likes to eat leaves, roots, and bison meat from Oleson’s  grocery in Manistee Michigan.  We could also possibly infer that the author of this week’s installment of “Radio Sandwich Dust Lanterns” is prone to writing run-on sentences.  Also, a very likely possibility is that I, the author of this week’s “Happy Burger Filled Sock Drawer” may have had a stressful work week and am simply trying to blow off some steam in the form of nonsensical rants that have absolutely nothing to do with the Republican Primaries. 

Therefore, I implore all of you:  Please, if your job is stressful and ouchy, PLEASE remember that work is what you do for a living; but it does not necessarily have to define who you ARE.   In my case, four egg sample, I’m grateful I have a job, but if I let the stress consume me I’m no good to anyone at all.  Hence, I will be sometimes known as the person who sends messages to his peers with the following content as an example:

       My dustflute sings much better than our dog’s frozen trumpet.

None of you may ask, “hey Ken, did you have a stressful week at work?”   And of course I would reply, “does a chicken have lips?  Is a frog watertight??” 

I had a chocolate chip cookie at lunch today. 

It was truly constabulatory!!

“Now,” as Rocky would say, “here’s something we hope you’ll really like!”