Why not?

Don’t answer that.  This is my blog where I do all of the yammering.

Chalk this one up as something you just can’t make up, ladies and gentlemen.  Understand at this point that the following text is as spot-on accurate as I can keep it.  When I exercise hyperbole, I will let you know just to avoid any confusion about what I’m reporting.

Let’s start with a few background items just to put everyone in the right frame of mind:

Background Item #1 – In 1959, The Coasters released the song “Charlie Brown”.  The first two lines of that song go as follows:

Fe-fe, fi-fi, fo-fo, fum
I smell smoke in the auditorium

Background Item #2 – In the summer of 2001, I participated in a wedding in which the rafters were adorned with a veritable plethora of all sorts of candles.  It was beautiful.  After the wedding when the groom’s party returned some of their tuxedos, melted pieces of wax were found on the shoulders of some of the jackets.  It would seem that some of the candles up in the rafters had dripped wax on all parties down below.

Background Item #3 – A few years ago, a member of the TharpSter organization was inducted into National Junior Honor Society at the neighborhood middle school.  Part of the ritual at middle and high schools nationwide involves a candle lighting ceremony.

Background Item #4 – John Marshall High School is what I’m guessing to be one of the oldest high schools in the Northside Independent School District here in San Antonio, Texas.  Several members of the TharpSter organization have graced it’s halls since at least the 60’s that I know of.  In the early 90’s, it produced no less than two football players who eventually went professional, one of which sports some Super Bowl bling.

Just last year, the school finished construction on a new auditorium.  I would expect that the administration at John Marshall High School is a tad bit protective of its new digs.  That, of course, is just an assumption on my part.

That’s enough for the background items.  Let’s get to the point.

Later this month, the National Honor Society chapter which attends John Marshall High School will induct this year’s crop of qualifying Juniors and Seniors into the society.  As I understand it, this year’s ceremony at John Marshall High School will not involve a lighting of the candles.  Let’s assume that open flames within the auditorium are a no-no.

Instead of forgoing any sort of lighting ceremony whatsoever, the creative minds behind the event will resort to the next best thing.

What is the next best thing, you may ask?

Glow sticks.

<Hyperbolic opinion>

Get your cameras ready people.  This is going to rock when it gets loaded up to the internet.  Such an event should appear as a crowning jewel on the academic resumes of those students who pop, shake, shake, and glow their way into the National Honor Society during the 2011-2012 school year.

Tradition rocks.

</Hyperbolic opinion>

Update – 10/26

There’s just some stuff you can’t make up if you try.

“Execute Order 66″ was all that the previously mentioned boss-man had to say, and his minions automatically executed their generals who were strong in the Force.

Just those two simple words and a number were enough to get the power hungry Sith Lord and his henchman in a cape a good 25 years of power over the entire galaxy.

He got his way.

What is not known is that at the same time he ordered the deaths of all of the Jedi, he also ordered a Whopper with cheese and no tomato, fries, and a diet soft drink.

He got his way there, too.

At about a third of the size and cost of a regular sized plunger, the Micro Plunge 3000 is more than capable of handling all of your small capacity plunging needs.

For those of you with a small sink, small tub, or even a small commode, the Micro Plunge 3000 is just the tool you need to take care of those jobs where a liquid drain cleaner isn’t enough, and the regular plunger is just too much.  Gone now are the days of having to clean up the mess you have after using an old fashioned plunger that splashed too much.  Say goodbye to that awful smell of the cleaner that you just poor down the drain.

The Micro Plunge 3000 is not only suited for just the right sized job, but it is also good for just the right sized person too.  The diminutive and those with smaller hands find the scaled down size of the Micro Plunge 3000 to be just right.

Now, this little wonder can be yours to take care of all of your small capacity plumbing needs.  Be sure to ask for the Micro Plunge 3000 at any store where you purchase plumbing supplies.

Disclaimer:  The Micro Plunge 3000 has been designed specifically for small to medium capacity plumbing needs involving sink and drain clogs along with small commode blockages.  Whereas other applications of the Micro Plunge 3000 may be considered, the manufacturer strongly recommends the user to consider the risks, impacts, and consequences of using this device for anything other than for what it was designed.

I should warn you now that there is no one singular aim, focus, or theme in this entry.  Instead, today’s dispatch will parallel the activities I have planned for the garage this weekend.  Brush pick up is happening in my neighborhood this week and I’m cleaning out the clutter. 

It’s not like I’m going to produce something on the order of a gaggle of buckskin clad beauties dancing around a rhinestone cowboy or anything. 

As my dogs have walked up and down the streets this last week with me in tow, it’s been pretty obvious that I’m not the only one with a veritable plethora of flotsam and jetsam to leave curb side.  Along with the standard issue of tree branches and fence posts, my neighbors who reside within a one mile radius have taken steps to unload everything from laundry hampers to broken toys to mattresses to computer parts to vacuum cleaners. 

Hope ponders her next move.

Commodes appear to be on order as well, as you can find one immediately to the east and another one to the south of the TharpSter.Org compound.  The mere presence of such practical joke-worthy gold has nearly put The Pit into a tizzy with thoughts of pulling the ultimate prank on the neighbors with some low level bombing.  Fortunately, the virtual moat which surrounds the compound keeps her from running across the street and assuming the position of crouching tiger, hidden dragon on the discarded toilet.  It’s nice to know that even though she’s learning a thing or two in obedience training, she hasn’t lost her mischievous sense of humor.

Where that dog is concerned, I can’t help to sit here stupefied about what her life may or may not have been like before coming to the organization.  Every day she gives us a reason why it was a good decision to take her in.  Sadly, we received some bad news about her the other day.  It would seem that when we originally had her tested for heartworm back in January, the organisms in her blood were not sufficient enough to generate a positive test result. 

Now they are.

As soon as I can generate some major ad revenue for this site, I’m raising the rates in order to help pay for the treatment.

Overall, the outlook appears to be pretty good for Hope.  The biggest challenge will be to keep her calm, rested and lethargic in the weeks following the first treatment.  She’s yet to start taking after me, so such behavior won’t be inherent.

One other oddity about the trash pile I’ve attempted to assemble and retain at the edge of the compound is the sudden revelation that I appear to have better junk than my neighbors.  I know this because the drive-by looters and scavengers with their flatbed trailers and junk laden truck beds liberated everything I left out there yesterday, save for a basket weave hamper which has been on my hit list for years.  Watching all of my stuff go away so quickly gave me the same feeling I had when I had to make a call on keeping Brett Favre on the fantasy football roster this year.  Sure he’s been useful in the past, but his future is uncertain.  Sometimes you just gotta knowingly flip a two headed quarter and call tails.

The TharpSter PounDown continues.  I continue to use the app on a daily basis reporting whatever caloric input or output I undergo.  The total loss so far since I originally reported the event to you is four to five pounds, depending on whether I have my keys in my pocket whenever I get on the scale.

Speaking of food, wifey made a great dinner last night.  We had her homemade spaghetti, salad, and garlic bread.  Sure it seems like pretty plain Jane stuff, but you haven’t tasted her spaghetti. 

Don’t get me started on the garlic bread either.  The way that woman mixes the butter in with the garlic before spreading it on the French bread could very well be considered a work of art.  So much so, that the flavors lingered in the butter I spread on my toast this morning.  That was right before I put grape jelly on there though.  I haven’t quite mapped out how I came by eating garlic grape jelly on my toast this morning, however I can only guess that the organizational CFO’s efforts last night to provide us garlic bread may have generated unintended consequences.

Blog comment spam still appears to be on the rise.  I took steps last week to shut down the ability to place a comment on The Pit Bull Diaries page.  That particular page was being pounded with every piece of junk mail one could fathom.  Frankly, I was getting pretty sick and tired of moderating all of the irritating canned statements which offer no relevance to the post in which they’ve been added.

Perfect example:

“Low amounts of useless traffic” don’t bother me.  It’s the high amounts of useless traffic which litters my website with the electronic equivalent of door to door solicitors and circulated advertisements in my mail box that bother me.

The mischievous part of me is typically inclined to let the spam pass and subsequently use my creative outlet to criticize and mock the cranial shortcomings of others.  However since I’ve dedicated a big portion of this blog to big government types, I can’t see where it would be fruitful to duplicate my efforts.  Instead, I’ll just delete the spam with the caveat that I’ll discuss the extremely stupid ones in a blog every once in awhile.

So let’s do a quick checklist here to see if I was able to clear some of the clutter.

Trash pile.  Check.  

Pit Bull update.  Check.

Garlic grape jelly.  Check.

Blog comment spam (aka doosh baggery).  Check.

Buckskin clad beauties dancing around a rhinestone cowboy.  (I know.  I said I wasn’t going to go that far.)

Check.

Sometimes the moment arises where you have an itch just deep enough in your ear canal that your fingernail just can’t reach.  At the same time, a paper clip or the door key to your 1984 Chevy Citation just won’t do the trick.  That’s when the Q-Tip or even the more generic term “cotton swab” does the trick.

You didn’t come here to read a thousand words on the virtues of ear canal nirvana did you?  If you did, I’m afraid that I’m going to stop at about a hundred.  While the subject matter does deserve some attention, I just can’t see eating up precious space on the web with verbal brilliance about the attention whores the nerve endings in my ears have become in my approach to my mid-life metamorphosis.

One of the few conveniences the arrival of the 21^st century has provided to us is the ability for just about anyone with a camera built into their cell phone to take a picture of just about anything and publish it to the web nearly instantaneously.  For that matter, they don’t even need a computer to do it.  Anyone with a data plan or some sort of web access on their phone can do it now. 

I’m sure Thomas Edison would be proud.

The perfect example comes from last week when I posted a picture of succotash to my Facebook photo album from a booth at Ruby Tuesdays.  The decision to post a picture of vegetables that day was probably a smart one.  Had it been twenty years ago and I had been with a group of my buddies instead of my beloved wife and kids; I would have looked to get a picture of the sweet young thing that put that succotash on the table in front of me.  Being the devoted husband and father that I am, I opted to post a picture of the vittles instead. 

When I uploaded the picture, I put a simple caption on it which said “Sufferin’?” 

Whereas a couple of the enlightened souls who grace my friends listing would normally add their own commentary to such a picture, no one responded to it. 

On a side note, my teenaged son has taken to using the lovely young lady who served us our dinner that evening as the benchmark in which to compare other observations he makes when out in public.  “Wow.  She’s almost as hot as the one a Ruby Tuesdays.”

For those of you who have never encountered a boy in his teens whose hormones are starting to rev up, it’s really quite an amusing sight.  Sure I went through the same thing at his age, however at this point I get to watch it from a “been there, done that” point of view. 

Just the other day while surfing the net, I ran across the symptoms of heat stroke in dogs.  Those signs are wide eyes, bright red tongue, thick saliva, and heavy panting.  Anytime Megan Fox shows up on the TV around here, my son displays the same symptoms. 

With the launch of TharpSter.Org last year, I’ve found myself to be more apt to take pictures of the weird stuff I see so that I can put them out there for everyone to see.  I’ll be the first one to admit that I’m usually one of a small few to find anything in these pictures to be humorous, strange, or ironic.  On the other hand, it gives me something to write about outside of the shenanigans being perpetrated on the American people by my dogs, Congress, or even TOTUS & The Symbiont. 

In the last month, I’ve encountered two different instances which either didn’t make sense, or seemed just a bit odd.  Technically I can think of a third, however how much can I really expand on the cargo shorts I bought yesterday that had a belt sewn into the waist band AND a set of belt loops?

Last night, the CFO of the organization made a delicious chicken fajita dinner.  She grilled up some peppers and onions along with the chicken, and made some fresh homemade salsa and pico de gallo to boot.  We also had some nacho cheese out of a jar for additional chip dipping.  I’ve never really publicized it, but we have a rule within the organization which dictates that all chips should be dipped.  No exceptions.

As tasty as dinner was last night, I’m still trying to understand why the whipped cream was on the table with everything else.

Speaking of food, let’s talk turducken.  For those of you who aren’t familiar with this dish, it’s a combination of a turkey, a duck, and a chicken (all deceased).  The unique thing about this combination is that one is shoved in another, which is then shoved in another in an effort to produce a culinary delight.  I personally have never had a turducken, however I’ll say this.  Any dish which possesses the word “turd” in its spelling is going to give me pause to consider whether I should really be eating it.  Consider dishes like turdloaf, turdsoufflé, turdchiladas, and turdgumbo.  Authors note:  I had to add those words to the custom dictionary on my PC here so as to get rid of the little red squiggly lines which frequently warn me when I’ve misspelled something.

Anyway, turducken appears to be available in presentations other than the traditional ornithological Frankenstein you may see on a lunch or dinner platter on the fourth Thursday of November around the time of day either the Detroit Lions or the Dallas Cowboys are playing football on TV. 

That’s right people.  Turducken is now available in a can.  It’s not one of those gallon sized cans that you can buy at the local warehouse grocer either. 

Nope.

This stuff is available in a 14 ounce can like your normal can of vegetables.

I should take the opportunity now to let you know that even though you can purchase turducken in a can, its availability may be limited.  Try the pet food aisle at your grocery store first.  If that doesn’t work, you should be able to find it at Pet Smart. 

Give me a quick show of hands now.  How many of you are wishing I wrote about the wonder of Q-Tips?

Enough said.  If the government says it’s good for you, or even bad for you, then you should take it on blind faith that 535 elected and appointed officials along with the attached bureaucracy and red tape know exactly what’s best for you.  Don’t even question it by applying critical thought or common sense.  Just do it.

Now that we’ve established the omnipotence of the government, let’s talk about pipe sleeves.  For the most part, these tubular shaped neoprene foam beauties are designed to be wrapped around your assorted hot water pipes so as to retain as much heat as possible in the pipe instead of escaping outward.   This allows your water heater to work a little less hard, which allows for a lower temperature setting, which eventually leads to small savings on your energy bills.  There’s probably some benefit as it relates to going green, however I try not to deal in too many hypotheticals here at TharpSter.Org.

The only thing you really have to do with these things is to wrap them around your pipes and secure them about every 12” (that’s a government recommendation, not mine).

The perfect example for use of the pipe sleeve is on your water heater.  Please take notice that I didn’t call it a “hot water heater”.  Technically, you don’t need a hot water heater anymore than I do.  My water heater does a pretty good job of heating water, and I don’t need the hot water in my water heater to be heated.  Easy as that.

Notice the convenient absence of the pipe sleeves on my own water heater.  I should probably make the point here that the missing pipe sleeves has absolutely nothing to do with my hatred of how our government today wants to run my life.  Instead, it has everything to do with the fact that I’m a procrastinator and just haven’t gotten around to insulating those bad boys.  As a result, I’m losing approximately 2 to 4 degrees (Fahrenheit) of warmth from those pipes on a regular basis.  Geez-o-Petes, if the earth were in the middle of climate changes that drastic, Al Gore might actually have a factual leg to stand on.  It’s not though, and neither does he.

Strangely enough, it would seem that taking care of your hot water pipes is not the only thing pipe sleeves should be used for.  I’m sure there’s not a kid alive today that hasn’t picked one up in a the local home improvement store and initiated some sort of saber-like dual with a sibling, or even the grumpy old customer service associate who is there for the soul purpose of telling customers where the #5 lock washers are located.

Yet still, there are bound to be other uses for the pipe sleeve, just as much as there are other uses for paper clips.

Botanically inspired, contemporary art comes to mind.

For what it’s worth, paper clips make for great Q-Tips.

Mind you, this isn’t the type of trash talk that takes into question the honor and integrity of your sister or the aesthetic traits of your mother.  This isn’t the trash talk which is finished off with the phrase “You just got served”, or “Oh, you’ve just been told.”

Nope.  I’m talking about 100% pure trash.  The flotsam and jetsam of our lives which we discard with reckless abandon to the front curb on various days of the week for it to be hauled off by one of the winners of the city’s annual lottery which awards a position within the municipality collecting trash for a decent hourly wage.

At this point, you may be wondering why I even bother taking up the valuable web space which resides here on TharpSter.Org to talk about trash of all things.  If you are wondering that, then I can only surmise that you haven’t read much of what I have to say before today.  Don’t worry though, because I’ll indulge you a bit.  Those of you who visit here on a regular basis and absorb what seems like a whole lot of aimless wandering in my writing already know that I will eventually get to my point.

I’m talking about trash today for two reasons.  First of all, I am compelled by New Year TharpSterLution #7 to double down on what I publish this year.  Now you may assume that in order to achieve that particular goal, I’m going to post any piece of crap that comes to mind out here on the web with the specific intent of putting up quantity over quality.  The jury is still out on whether your assumption is correct.  There is some pretty abstract and goofy stuff that rifles back and forth between my ears.  Whereas getting it out on the web for everyone to see offers some interesting possibilities, I’ll limit the audience to my perpetual, forehead slapping epiphanies to the notes section on my new iPod Touch.

The second reason I’m talking trash today involves the fact that I have a propensity for noticing the strangest things.  Recall, if you will, that it was me who called attention to a recall for athletic cups at Dick’s Sporting Goods.  No one else was very forthcoming for pointing out the amusement of it all, so I felt that it was up to me to man up and call it out.

That being said, I’ll resume with my trash talk.

Here in San Antonio, sales numbers for outdoor trash cans have plummeted for the last few years.  Retail giants such as Wal-Mart, Target, Sears, Home Depot, and Lowe’s have had to resort to selling a variety of other products in order to stay in business and make up for the substantial revenues they used to enjoy as a result of citizens of the Alamo city needing a place to put their junk.

Sometime during the Hardberger administration, the decision was made to cut costs by changing how our trash is collected.  Whereas before trash on my street was picked up by a guy driving a truck (aka –  the daily winner) and two guys riding the back, doing the lifting and throwing, the city decided that the same amount of work could be done by one guy driving a truck.  At the same time, the city instituted a recycling program which allowed for all of our plastics, papers, and aluminum to be picked up on a regular basis as well.  The city was able to do this by issuing each house a set of trash cans which could be picked up by a truck outfitted with a claw to grab the container, lift and dump it, and put it back down.  Each house received a black bin for trash, and a blue bin for recyclables.  The only things residents have to do is put their refuse in the correct bin, and get it to the curb on their designated day.

To think about it, the city of San Antonio was well behind the curve in making the decision to take the streamlined route of trash collection.  Many years ago, while growing up in Casper, Wyoming, we had a similar system without the recycling component in the picture.  That’s right people.  One of the most memorable items about my upbringing in Wyoming was the trash collection system.

For those of you who have never been there, Casper is a pretty windy town.  I imagine it’s due to it’s positioning within the valley of a mountain, but that’s only a guess.  None the less, the wind is pretty irritating.  The reason I bring up the wind is because of its love/hate relationship with the trash collection system.  Windy days and trash days never mix well.  When I was in Casper, you could drive down any street on any day and find no less than five dumpsters that had been blown over, only to have their contents littering the surrounding yards and sidewalks.  The reason for this is because the bins had no way of latching shut.

Finally one day, a resident who had become sick and tired of chasing his trash dumpster and its treasure down the street took matters into his own hands.  In the early morning hours one day, he took his dumpster full of the good stuff down to city hall, and left it on the steps at the front door.  He set it upright, with the lid closed, and then left.  Within a matter of hours, the Casper winds had knocked that bad boy over and spread trash all over the place.

Today, I’m sure any other city would have completely missed the point and would have subsequently identified the culprit and charged him with littering. The city of Casper in the late 80’s got the message.  Within weeks, they had special latches attached to all dumpsters.  These latches successfully kept the lids closed whenever the wind knocked the dumpsters over.

Look at that, I jumped on a tangent about trash.  Let’s get back to the San Antonio trash collection system.  For the record, the wind is not bad enough here for us to worry about latches.

I frankly have no problem with this system of collection.  Currently my only real issue with trash collection is that fact that when I tell my son to take the kitchen trash out, he always forgets to put a new liner in the basket.  Maybe I should leave it at his bedroom door.

So even though I have no problem with the city’s new system of trash collection, someone obviously does.  There’s a house down the street which appears to have discontinued putting the blue or black bins out at the curb on our designated days.  Why this is the case is truly beyond me.

The funny thing is what is going on instead of moving bins to the curb.  It started sometime around Thanksgiving of this last year when the homeowner (or renter maybe?) laid out some tarp like device on their yard, and then started putting their trash on it.  The city does have a biannual rubbish pick up for tree branches, appliances, and other trash turned treasure like items, but the appearance of the pile happened months after the last rubbish event.

What’s even stranger is the fact that the pile does not even look big enough to be holding nearly two months of trash.  That being said, what’s the deal with this pile of trash?  Is it a protest against the current system like the one that took place in Casper, Wyoming all those years ago?  Is it a political statement?  Are they trying to get a homeowners association installed in this area?  I can only guess.

None the less, the pile continues to stay there.  I would bet it will be there for another four to five months until our next rubbish pick up.  Before that happens, I’ll be sure to submit a picture of the pile to Google Earth.  Anytime someone punches up the address of this trash pile on that application, they can follow the link to see a picture of the pile taken by yours truly.

In the meantime, the only thing I can tell you at this point is that there will be more to come as developments arise.

Before I do so, I should let you know about my as of yet undisclosed super power.  Ask anyone what type of super power they either have or would like to obtain, and I can guarantee you a wide variety of answers.  Naturally, there are the generic ones such as flight and speed.  For those whose bloodstreams rage with hormones, don’t forget x-ray vision or the ability to become invisible around girls locker rooms or gentlemen’s clubs.  Some even get more creative with the ability to see flatulence.

Granted all of those super powers are pretty cool, and I wouldn’t complain about having any of those skills, short of the last one.  For me, I’ve discovered that I have the innate ability to find irony in just about anything.

I know.  It’s pretty creepy.

I first discovered this power in January of 1993.  Shortly after the inauguration of Bill Clinton, he opened up the White House as a gesture to the American people that it was the people’s house, not just his.  During this event, C-Span aired the new President standing in a reception line as he met and shook hands with those who took the opportunity to see the White House.  Naturally, the crowd of people who had gathered to attend the reception far exceeded the number of people who were expected.  Once this was realized by the powers that be, Boss Hillary pulled a few people aside to discuss the new administration’s first crisis.  Unbeknownst to her, the First Lady had an open microphone on her when she let loose the statement which pretty much summarized the evening, as well as what I saw would be the theme for the next eight years.  “Look.  We’re screwing these people.”

As the years progressed, I honed my new found power to find irony where it couldn’t possibly be present.  I even found it one year in a jury box where the good people of Bexar County had decided it was my turn to participate in my civic duty.  How often does one ever get to serve on a jury where the last name of the defendant in an assault and battery case is Slaughter?  I can assure you that the weight of the moment was not lost on yours truly.

Now that I’ve painted the appropriate picture for you, allow me to move forward with my public service announcement.  Sadly, this announcement comes from the people at Under Armour.  According to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, at least five out of 211,000 pieces of sporting equipment have been reported to crack or break upon being hit.  Such events have subsequently caused cuts and bruises.  Further review of the specifications on these items indicate they were made in China.  This is especially sad, as the less than desirable labor practices and human rights abuses of the Chinese could very well spell uncertain punishment for the individual who assembled the defective product.  My only real criticism of the manufacturer in this case is that the recall should have taken place after the first report, instead of waiting for four more.

Now you may be wondering how the TharpSter’s aimless babbling about a product recall has anything to do with his super power of seeing irony.  Set your doubts aside, my dear reader.  The attached picture reporting a recall of Under Armour Athletic Cups was taken at Dick’s Sporting Goods.

Sometimes, you just can’t make this stuff up.