Zeroing Out the Moleskine, vol. 223
I have a 36 mile commute to work, and it took 1 hour, 25 minutes for me to get there on Monday. I was massively late, and so agitated I almost blew a hole in the side of my brain.
The next two days I tested alternate routes, and both were only slightly better.
I’ve lived in Atlanta and Los Angeles County, and this place is just as bad. Not because of the number of cars on the road, but because of “construction.” Continuous, unceasing “construction…”
My blood pressure is spiking, just thinking about it. I feel like going to Target, and throwing haymakers at complete strangers. …I almost said Wal-Mart, but I’d probably get my ass kicked in there.
I’m fairly confident I could take the average Target shopper, though.
A few days ago our cable service stopped working on the Big Ass Television (BAT). Well, to be more precise, all channels above 13 stopped working… Just downstairs, though; the TV in the living room was somehow unaffected.
Fearing the worst, we (Toney) called Comcast. And they tried to fix it remotely, which didn’t work. So, they said they’d have to send someone out.
We haven’t experienced too many bumps in the road since Adelphia went away; Comcast has been shockingly reliable, with both TV and internet. But I know how these outfits operate… I figured we’d have to wait a week before they had an opening, and got pissed in advance.
But they said, “How’s 8 AM tomorrow morning work for you?” I couldn’t believe it. I realize it’s not fashionable to praise your cable company, but Comcast has been great. Expensive, but great.
And while I prefer cheap but great (the Clive Bull full-show podcast), or even free and great (Wordpress), I’ll gladly settle for expensive but great (Comcast). Ya know?
What would you list in those three categories? Do you have one for each? Use the comments section to bring us up to date.
I know I’m jinxing myself, and being completely foolish here, but it’s already July and we haven’t had to use any of the Soviet humbox air conditioners yet. All twenty of them (or whatever) are still stacked in the basement. It’s been an unusually mild summer, and I’ll take it. In fact, it’s a little chilly right now. How great is that?
But, of course, now that I’ve spoken about it, all hell will break loose. Within days it’ll be as if we’re living deep inside Ernest Borgnine’s butt crack.
Yes, it’s best to keep some thoughts to ourselves.
Wanna see something strange? Why, of course you do. My friend Tim mailed me a brochure a few days ago, advertising Ripley’s Aquarium in the Smoky Mountains, and their new summer exhibit. Check it out.
Tim included a post-it note with the following written on it: “Come one! Come all!! See the little babies as they struggle for each breath.”
Is that some weird shit, or what? What will they have next year? Polio victims? The Lighter Side of Dementia? People who communicate through a microphone pressed to a neck hole?
I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
And Brad sent me a funny link a few nights ago. This one. I thought some of you might get a kick out of “Ryan Jensen’s” impressive accomplishment.
Do you have any scars? My knees are all jacked-up from various childhood shenanigans. And I have a scar on the pointer finger on my left hand, from an old paper route injury. But that’s all I have to offer, I’m ashamed to admit. What about you?
…Yes, scars. That’s what it’s come to. Do we have a problem?
This month’s Best Beer of All-Time: Stone Brewing IPA. God, I wish I had one right now. They’re nothing short of fantastic. Indeed, it’s the Best Beer of All-Time (July).
I’m not very good at doing accents. I start out OK, but always drift Chinese. If I’m trying to imitate an Indian customer service person, for instance, I sound Indian for a few seconds, then lapse into the voice of a ball-busting Chinese man who worked at a laundromat in Greensboro years ago:
“You marrie?! Hahahaha! You nee wife!! You goddamn pathetic. Hahahahaha!!”
Every single time. The man haunts me in my soul…
And I’ll close out this disjointed mess with one more Question: Do you still read a daily newspaper? If so, which one? What sections? What features keep you going back?
I’ve never been a big newspaper reader, I’m afraid. I used to follow the baseball standings, and checked out the box scores, etc. But I don’t even do that much anymore. I get all my info via the internet.
Toney, on the other hand, still reads the paper front to back, like it’s 1978. She knows all the local scuttlebutt, and I know nothing. I envy her focus, but I just can’t do it.
What about you? Do you still read a physical daily paper, made of paper? Tell us about it.
And I’m going to Best Buy now, to purchase the new Wilco album, entitled Wilco (The Album). You guys have yourselves a great weekend.
I’ll see you on Monday.
Filed under: Daily
1st!
Not first!
woohoo 3
Cheap but Great: Amazon.com (referring to the $70 annual fee for “free” two-day shipping)
Free and Great: The WVSR (don’t mean to be a kiss-ass)
Expensive but Great: Whole Foods Market (the closest ones to me are about 20 miles away, and I try to get there at least two or three times a month)
5 on a late post! Great end to the work day!
I have a nice big burn scar on my right calf from the tailpipe of a dirt bike I rode when I was a youngster. It hurt like hell when I got it.
Cheap but great: Yuengling Lager
Free but great: The WVSR
Expensive but great (at least the time I was there): Ruth’s Chris Steak House
Oh, thank God. I’ve been sitting here hitting F5 because I have nothing to do at work today!!!!
I’m listening to the new Wilco album right at this very minute, and enjoying it.
I’ve read the local big-city paper every morning since I was about 13 years old (that’s about 35 years), and never plan to stop. I spend about an hour every Monday through Saturday reading it, and probably two to three hours on Sunday. I can’t imagine starting my day without it. And I honestly think that 35 years of daily newspaper reading has made me a smarter and more knowledgeable person — I have millions of useful and useless scraps of information stored away in the noggin, that I never would have accumulated without the daily paper. No offense to you Jeff, but I kinda look down on people who don’t read a paper every day, ’cause I think they’re purposely missing out on learning about what’s going on in the world. And it’s absolutely impossible to get a similar amount of information from TV and radio. The Internet is better, of course, than TV or radio, especially if one visits a “real” news source every day (like a real newspaper’s web site), but there’s still nothing like sitting down every day for an hour with a newspaper.
I’ve got a several scars on my left leg. Had a major car accident years ago (fell asleep while driving) and shattered my left ankle. Several surgeries later, I now have a cool-looking Frankenstein-type scar running from ankle to knee. There are also some smaller scars from the external fixator that was once used to hold everything together.
Missed it again…damn. Have a great 4th.
top ten? Prolly not by the time I finish.
If thewvsr had a paper edition I might read that. Last time I had a subscription they just piled up. I’m not wired that way. Even when I just get a sunday paper it goes to waste.
Scars, knees from being a kid in the rolling hills of SE Ohio.
Throat from an attack by a mexican near the University of Cincinnati campus
Arm from being broken by Campbell Co. Ky Sheriffs
Left middle finger from grabbing the top of a chain link fence after a tomato fight with my uncle
Right thumb/index finger web from trying to cut open a bagel with a steak knife
Various chicken pox scars.
that’s all I can really remember.
As an aside:
The resources section has inspired me a bit and I bought the podcast studio listed (for $100 bucks). The shitty blog should come by the end of summer.
In between big toe and next toe from stepping on something (god knows what) in the Ohio river
We have the Austin Un-American Spaceman. We had it pared down to weekends only but the Boss O’ Me took advantage of some deal and now we get it daily. That equates to 5 or 6 issues going straight to recycling, still in the plastic wrappers.
I have scars that jingle jangle jingle.
Oh wait, that’s different.
I have scars from 2 laproscopic surgeries in my torso area. Two about an inch or so long, and several “poke holes”.
I used to have a scar on my shin from the same shit that happened to SeanInSac…dirtbike tailpipe burn…but it’s barely visible now. When that thing scabbed over, it looked like I had a beef jerky glued to my shin.
Good Afternoon Surf Reporters…….
I still read our daily local rag, it only takes about 5 minutes. I check out the Obituaries to make sure I’m not in them, then the Police and Fire reports, once again to make sure I’m not in those, either.
I’ll check out the Pittsburgh Post Gazette if a headline catches my eye, but they’re on-line, that’s where I do most of my reading.
.75 goes in the local newspaper vending machine for a Omaha World Herald each and every morning on my way to work.
I cannot hardly wait to get to my desk and start sucking down the java and doing the crossword puzzle. I can easily waste the 1 1/2 hours of the morning using this routine, it’s the rest of the day I have a problem with!
knee surguty scars (3)
barbed wire fence (right thigh)
bicycle crash (right elbow)
bar fights (knuckles)
table saw (left thumb)
left ankle surgery scars (2)
8 or 10 other odds and end cuts or scratch’s that left minor markings
surguty?
Oh, and scars, I missed that!
Scars? Let me tell you about scars….
From the top:
Upper left forehead from pulling a monstrous Zenith black and white TV off of a shaky little stand when I was about 3.
Got about 15 stitches.
Falling down drunk uphill. Stumbling home one night from the bar, thought I’d take a short cut through a vacant lot and up a small hillside. Slipped and my face landed on a sharp pointy stick right below my left eye. Another 2 inches up I would have lost that eye. Bled like a stuck pig, but I didn’t get stitches although in hindsight, I should have. That was also the night I lost one of my shoes on said hillside after I fell.
As I walked home, in the rain(with much difficulty) my footsteps were slap, flop,slap, flop. I decided walking barefoot would be better than one shoe only. So I chucked the other shoe onto the highway.
(HEY! That’s how all those solo shoes show up on the roadsides! Now it all makes sense!)
Got home at 2:30 in the morning, drunk out of my mind, soaking wet, barefoot and bleeding profusely from my face. The wife was not pleased.
Oh, scars, right.
Lower left lip running all the way down to below my chin. Auto accident, ate a steering wheel at 30 mph. Extensive plastic surgery on that one as it had lacerated clear through to the bone, so I basically ripped my lower lip off. That one took about 200 hundred stitches both inside and out.
Left index pointer finger on the pad. Sliced while paring an apple with a pen knife.
Right kneecap. Neat little scare that is perfectly 5 sided. That was from the above mentioned auto accident. When I crashed and went into the steering wheel, the steering column came down and the underside bolt head went into my knee.
And I guess circumcision leaves a scar(does it?) but I’ll leave that one alone.
Cheap but rreat, taking a date to Taco Bell and getting a BJ on the way home.
Free but great, beer from my neighbors fridge.
Expensive but great, Dogfish 90 minute IPA, Jeff you should really try one. IMO it is much better than Stone but it is about $12 bucks a FOUR pack but has enough alchohol to offset the fact that they only give you four.
Have a scar (more like a corner missing) on the end of my finger where I ran it through a router table trying to put a Roman ogee design on it when I was in high school.
got major facial scar from a frozen cow pie fight as teenager with my sister
farm life, got to make your own fun
got gnarley scar from surgery i had when quite young
didn’t walk for almost a year afterward
i hate circumcisions
As the mother of a baby born 3 months before his due date (2lbs, 5oz – and spent 6.5 weeks in the NICU), I’m just hoping that Ripley poster is just really bad joke.
Scars – Cysts removed: one near right knee, one on right shin, one near right elbow, one on upper left arm and one on left shoulder. Scar on bellybutton for laproscopic surgical removal of a tubal pregnancy and have had 2 c-sections (although they cut the same area both times, leaving only one scar).
i put my soviet humbox in last week – it was miserable here for about 2 days, and now it’s back to chilly.
scars – the best one is my knee where it got ripped open by some asshole’s car door when i was biking. i don’t want to see the insides of my joints, i really don’t.
i also got a little one on my middle finger from broken glass. not very traumatic, but it was deep enough to permanently distort my fingerprint.
as a hockey hack, i get a lot more bruises than scars.
oh yeah – my funniest scar is the one on my shin where i got bit…..by a rabbit. seriously. the damn thing calmly walked up to me, bit me in the shin (through my 80’s skintight jeans, no less), then calmly walked away. it was bizarre.
I can only think of three scars, one of which is not too bad. It’s on the top of my left hand, under my index finger near my thumb. Just a small white scar that was left after an idiot in high school who my mom was driving home slammed the car door shut as I was holding the side to get out. The latch that shuts the door instead latched on me, thus leaving this nice scar.
The other two are on my left breast, from three surgeries I’ve had to remove tumors and cysts. First was when I was 16, second 19 and last one 28. They used the same incision twice, hence the two scars. I asked the doc to just take the whole damn thing since I can just buy another at the local market, or whatever, but he refused to do it “because of my age”. Dickwad.
Song playing on iPhone: ‘Bandoleros’ by The Southerners
First! What!!???
Damn you Ryan Jensen!
Still read the paper here – everything except the sports section (shrug). Up until a few years ago, I still had pulse dialing
Scars – Everybody has them. Emotional and Physical. It is the Emotional scars that hurt the most (sniff).
I was young and vacationing on a lake/pond somewhere in Maine. Whilst getting in to a motorboat, i stepped on a broken bottle that some jackass tossed into the lake/pond. Scar on my left heel.
I was working on a home “project”. I decided to hold a piece of wood in my left hand whilst I drilled a hole in the piece of wood with my right hand. Amazingly, the electric 1/4″ (or was it 3/8″) drill veered off of the piece of wood and hit my left wrist. Scar on my left wrist.
Cheap but great: food in Taiwan
Free but great: The WVSR (right on Joe T)
Expensive but great: the real question is “What is expensive but sucks?”
When in the States, I read the Boston Globe every morning. I cannot begin to describe how much I enjoy that. I think that is where Toney is coming from.
Oh, and by the way, whilst. That’s a great word.
ETW, The “Babies in Incubators” brochure is real. Here’s an article about the exhibit:
http://www.gwinnettcitizen.com/0408/ripleys1.html
Very strange…
http://www.comcrap.com is the URL I often find myself subconsciously typing when I go to pay my monthly bill. Awful, awful company, score a lower “approval rating” than the IRS I read.
Oh yeah, I gots scars:
Right side of forehead: Mom slammed on her brakes in her 1965 Mustang while I was sitting in the back seat. That was before front seats had locks on the and I went sailing into the dash. I was about 4.
Center of throat: Last year’s spinal surgery, which Jeff has Smoking Fish sightings with.
Right knee: one (okay, maybe two) too many Kamikazees, walking across railroad tracks to get to my car in 5 inch fuck me pumps. Heel got stuck in the tracks, I ended up in emergency. Good times.
Strait down my torso: Exploratory surgery when I was 21. Turned out to be my galbladder. I was stapled all the way from my pubic bone to between my tits. My girlfriends snuck a bottle of wine into the hospital, which I happily drank while on Demerol. Throwing up while your entire gut is stapled is not a fun experience. I thought they were gonna have to pick my intestines up off the floor. They did not. The nurses were not amused. Oh, I just remembered – it was Blue Nun!
Right Pinkie: Another alcohol related injury. Stone sober this time. First beer of the day in a pint glass. Started to drop the glass and instead of letting it go, I tried to catch it to keep from spilling the golden elixer. Bad idea. Glass shattered and severed my tendon. Another trip to emergency. Good times.
Cheap but great: San Francisco taco truck food
Free but great: I’m sticking with the WVSR
Expensive but great: Donald Pliner shoes
Happy Thursday, Surfers! Have a great 4th!
(Sorry about the Jorge-length post, but Jeff asked)
Shit, I forgot one!
Top of butt crack: Sitting down on the school bus in high school – I accidently sat down (HARD) on my purse and stabbed myself with a pencil. Yet another trip to the doctor for him to dig the lead out.
Carry on.
The smell and texture of newsprint sends me to the brink of a seizure. Burns the hell out of my mucous membranes. Get all the info I need from the Internets. Besides, the obits are the only local news of interest. Plus, every time I read the local paper, I feel the need to whip out my red pen and send corrections to the editor.
Expensive but great….Tiffany….met her on my trip to Vegas.
Cheap but great….Coors beer
Free and great…..my advice.
Scars…seeing Mom and Dad get along for a couple of days.
Grew up in fear of of an iron lung. Had pretty bad asthma as a kid. ‘Outgrew it’ as they say.
No daily paper for me. It comes from 180 miles away and I don’t care much about recent murders there. Interweb gives me national and the world. CNN, MSNBC, Huffington, tmz, NASA, MLB… to name a few. I like to shop around for my info.
Happy 4th to all. This little village is going to have some great music at the “High Country” ($10 a ticket..we’re so going) and a bombs bursting in air show that always seems to top itsefl. And…we walk to it. Maybe it’s a 1/4 mile. Party and play safe to all…-d
3-inch scar across the back of my right hand where my oldest sister dug her nails into my skin and pulled because I was winning an argument and she didn’t know what else to do. I was about 13, she 16.
2-inch scar above my left knee. Souvenir from when my family took a cruise on the QE2, and my siblings and I were left unattended in the ship’s game room. Argument with sister #2 ensued. Running. Sharp object sticking out of the wall socket. Blood. More running to find my mother. More blood running down my leg onto my lacy socks and patent leather Mary Janes.
1-inch half-moon scar on my left thumbprint. Knife wasn’t sharp enough to cut a bagel, but it WAS sharp enough to cut human flesh. 5 stitches at the po’-college-folks-without-insurance clinic, where my wallet was stolen.
1-inch scar near my right elbow where a mole was removed. The night after the stitches came out, the incision burst open while I was asleep. Didn’t notice til the morning, but by then some surrounding tissue had died.
2-inch scar on my right elbow where I flew over the handlebars of my bike, landing funny-bone-first on the filthy asphalt and making mincemeat of everything down to the bone. Lived in an ass-backwards small town in Taiwan where access to proper medical care was limited. Lucky my arm didn’t necrotize and fall off.
Papers: New York Sunday Times on a rainy Afternoon read slowly over a couple of Pints of Fullers London Pride, laugh at the communist editorials, drool over the real estate section! Scars: after 20 years it’s finally fading, a perfect round burn ring on my left cheek courtesy of my one & only trip to Johannesburg: guy fires gun in air pushes the hot muzzle into my cheek & demands all my money! Guess what? He got every penny! My Company had transferred me there as the new regional Manager at great expense! arrived on Tuesday left on Wednesday! Good Times!!!
Reading the link leads me to believe it will showcase other species and how they incubate their babies – not have actual preemies on display (I would think that would be very medically frowned upon – using human babies).
Trust me, there is nothing “cutesy” about 2 pound babies on respirators.
But, I’m off my soapbox – it seems like it will be animals who have natural instincts when it comes to incubating their young, which actually WOULD be very interesting to see.
Expensive but great: First class upgrade on American Airlines (real food, real blankets, hot cookies)
Cheap but great: Got to be Lager
Free but great: AVG anti-virus– yeah a lot of people complain it doesn’t play well with others but its saves me Norton / Mcaffe money for beer
Scars– I have a few. A real screamer on my right leg about 2 inches above the knee. Fell onto a rock when I was 10. Should of had stitches its nasty.
One on my Index toe(??) right foot dropped a knife – almost severed the tendon, I was 5 months pregnant and ended up in a cast for 2 weeks. Can’t wear flip flops any more
Papers – gotta say no and I work for a newspaper company. My news comes from the web. Exceptions are when I am traveling. News from a new destination always seems a little more interesting. And the free papers they give out by the tube in London.
Greensboro News & Record every single day! I read what captures my attention, but make sure to read the advice column, editorials, and read over the list of names in the obits. I like it first thing in the morning. Used to love the afternoon edition, but that tanked in the 80’s as CNN took America by storm.
Scars on a few digits belonging to the left hand. That’s about it.
Free but Great: WVSR, Fark, and 4Chan/b/
Cheap but Great: eMusic
Expensive but Great: My new iPod touch
Scars: Most faded over time except the one over my left eye. I was a kid visiting my aunt and uncle in Leamington (Ontario). My cousin and I were screwing around in the back yard and I got clocked by the teeter-totter thing on their swing set. All I remember was blood everywhere and my mom (a nurse) coming out the back door with a suture kit clutched in her hand. I didn’t matter how much pain I was in, I knew dammed well she planned on sewing the cut closed without a local, so I ran like hell. By the time they found me the bleeding had stopped, so mom relented on the stitches. To this day, 35 years later, she bitches that “it wouldn’t have scarred if you had just let me give you a couple of stitches”. For the record the excuse tendered for not offering a local was that as a nurse she wasn’t “legally allowed to give a local”, conveniently forgetting that technically she wasn’t allowed to give stitches either.
Newspapers: I don’t read a physical paper anymore, but I do read several on-line editions (Toronto Star, Christian Science Monitor, New York Times, Globe and Mail) daily and I monitor Fark throughout the day.
Wilco is on my “to do list”, but I just downloaded the new Dinosaur Jr. album and it’s fucking awesome.
Yay, number, um 39. Hmm.
I call Comcast Comacast. Their support is only so-so, and thier management suffers from terminal arrogance. Plus, your monthly ’statement’ will continue to suffer from ‘charge creep’. In other words, expensive will only get more so. And this comes with a nearly shamefully low download speed, compared to most of the rest of the world. I dumped them for Verizon DSL 2 years ago and have never looked back. Good riddance.
On the local front, if you like blues, c’mon up/down/over/out to Wheeling for the annual blues fest. Here’s the link…
http://www.heritagemusicfest.com/
Elvin Bishop, Sonny Landreth, The Fabulous Thunderbirds, what’s not to like? (Disclaimer: no connection, just been to every one of ‘em.)
Buzz out
“Pray for whirlled peas; watch out for global worming.”
And I guess circumcision leaves a scar(does it?)
Best Comment of the day!
Knucklehead reminded me of a buttcrack scar. I have one of those too. Mine was from the drainage of a pilonidal cyst. Disgusting.
Free and great: FreeBSD, of course. It’s nice having my computer do as it’s told. That’s obviously a double-edged sword, but still. There is a huge amount of free software out there, and it’s usually superior to the pay-ware. Just sayin’. (Any points for that?)
Cheap and great: I’ll second Swami’s recommendation of Amazon’s “free” shipping. Also have to mention Wegman’s (there’s one in Scranton) – excellent quality produce and meat, low prices on “normal” groceries, “exotic” stuff available at Whole Foods-like prices.
Expensive and great: If you like Stone IPA, try their Ruination Ale or Weyerbacher’s Simcoe. Et cetera. Wegman’s notwithstanding, nobody beats Whole Foods’ chocolate selection. WF also has a huge variety of beer and cheese (two of Nature’s Perfect Foods), although Weg’s is catching up. The E+G category also includes various German cars.
Re: Dogfish 90, it’s a bit much for “just drinking” IMO, especially in the hot weather, but it couldn’t hurt to verify :^) You can also mix it with Dogfish 60 to make a “Dogfish 75″, which is a very good thing.
Not much to offer scar-wise, just a formerly-detached piece of thumb flesh from when I was 10 and my brother and I fought with broomsticks. I also have a piece of graphite (not lead?) embedded in my hand from a similar childhood fight conducted with pencils. I probably have some scar tissue left from where the dog bit my leg when I was bicycling – um, 40 years ago.
I can’t remember the last time I read a real newspaper, but it was probably the Washington Post. I read the Onion and the City Paper now and then. I get the Sunday Smegma, or whatever it is, deposited in my driveway every week – it’s “free” but I didn’t ask for it and can’t make it stop. I get my news from the Inter-Tubes and the car radio.
@Knucklehead – If I recall, Blue Nun is “the delicious white wine that’s correct with any dish”. Or so said the radio commercial.
@Tyrosine – /b/ is not my cup of /t/, but knock yourself out.
@ NDfaninAZ:
“Mine was from the drainage of a pilonidal cyst”
Shit, those are painful as hell. I hope your doctor gave you some sweet drugs following the debridement.
Free but great — the local outdoor concert series that takes place each week after the farmer’s market. You can’t beat sitting outside in the town square on a warm summer evening.
Cheap but great — Trader Joe’s. Not the typical grocery store and they don’t carry a large selection, but what they do have is made from quality ingredients and usually pretty damned good. Not a drop of high fructose corn syrup to be found.
Expensive but great — I second girlgoyle. First class on American Airlines rocks. For international flights, Air France (gasp!) does an excellent job as well. Gourmet food in never-ending supply. All the liquor you care to drink. Each passenger gets his/her own Christian Lacroix PJs to sleep in (and keep, of course). Around bedtime, the flight attendant comes around, opens a storage chest in back of your seat, pulls out a fluffy comforter and full-size pillow in crisp linens, and personally tucks you in. After that kind of treatment, you’ll hate sitting in steerage more than ever.
@Tyrosine
That little procedure sucked worse than getting my gallbladder taken out! Nothing like getting your asscrack cut open, and then the doc tells you to make sure to keep the wound open by packing it with gauze (has to heal from the inside) and sends you on your merry way.
I do believe I got a Vicodin (or equivalent) Rx out of the deal.
The new Wilco album is good (not great like others) but well worth the $12.99 I paid in advance to have it arrive at my door on the first release day!
Free but great: hiking in the woods (in free parks, of course)
Cheap but great: Craigslist (though the “great” part varies by how metropolitan your locale is; rural Ohio, I don’t want any part of your Frankencars and broken Wal-Mart furniture)
Expensive but great: sushi
Scars
forehead: scar from a swing being hucked at my cranium
wrist: scar from my wrist getting caught up in a metal fence as I climbed over it (saw bone on that one, and tetanus shot)
knee: scar from falling on a rock (I received no stitches because it happened at a church camp and the elders thought no medical care would be an ideal punishment for running where I wasn’t supposed to….fuckers)
thigh: embedded pencil lead….which appears to be a light motif here among Surf Reporters
left index finger: I accidentally cut off the pad with a box cutter; it was very painfully reattached with multiple stitches and still looks ornery to this day
abdomen: a few scars from two miserable operations; there will be more, eventually
Uh, I think totally JCIII wins the Scar Off, though.
I don’t have any pencil lead in me.
I feel left out
Scars… my most recent scar is from shingles. I thought shingles was an “old people disease”, until I got it a few weeks ago right after my 29th birthday. Apparently you can also get it when you’re really stressed out.
The worst part? Shingles is treated with Valtrex (the genital herpes medication), and I had to give the prescription to the hot pharmacist at the local Walgreens. That sucked.
Expensive but great: Good beer.
Cheap but great: Jerk chicken plate at Eats, here in Atlanta.
Free but great: Comcast cable internet, since Comcast still doesn’t charge me for internet access for some reason. That’s a long story that I’ll save for another day…
Jeff
Your tv has probably gotten set to antenna instead of cable, just go into the menu where you set up the channels and change it back.
Scars, a few physical ones but the emotional ones are much more interesting…..
Beer, yuck, someone pour me a rum and coke.
all cable sucks
Hey! I got a pencil lead too! In my right knee, from doing a powerslide down the hallway at school in seventh grade and crashing into a classmate who’d just done the same, but with a pencil in his back pocket.
I have two creepy-looking souvenirs from life in the tropics on my right calf, from getting a weird infection that I suspect was streptococcus pyogenes: started off like little pimples and became expanding, bleeding, pus- and assorted-fluid oozing sores that eventually ate all the way down to the muscle. One’s about the size of a quarter, the other’s a little smaller. Hurt like hell, gave me a bad fever, etc., etc. Doctor here (they ain’t the brightest) said they were boils. My wife and her peasant wisdom-filled mother finally cured them with a pasty combination of coconut oil, ashes from the burnt leaves of some kind of tree, and crushed-up penicillin tablets. Which also hurt like hell, but it worked.
Left some nasty marks though. I usually tell people they’re bullet holes, that sounds more manly.
Read our weekly local newspaper which is delivered free, plus I pick up the free London papers: 1 in the morning and 2 in the evening though I’ve read most of the stories on line so they’re a quick read on the train. I actually bought 2 national papers recently – The Sunday Times to get my free Withnail & I DVD which was worth the £2(!) and the News of the World for a free haircut offer ….
Scars – I have way too many paper cuts on hands/fingers. Being a secretary for 20-odd years doesn’t help. Also, both knees are pretty damaged. Probably from falling down drunk too often … I usually have plenty of unexplained bruises, too.
From top downwards;
3x stiches right eyebrow – teenage fist fight
7x stitches right eyelid – jumped
7x stitches left jaw -cyst removal
4x stitches lower lip -jumped-same incident as above
20x stiches neck from jugular to windpipe – knife attack- used a few of my nine lives on that one!
18x stiches lower abdomen -apendectomy- just in time!
12x stiches scrotum- hydrocele
Funny thing is that I always wanted a scar as a kid.
(Well OK, not the one on my balls!!)
I have a starburst pattern on both cheeks from a ritual scarification performed by the high priest of Er-Duh after I was abducted by his alien spacepawns and thoroughly probed.
I hear that’s what happened to Seal, too.
Scars. Loads, but none too interesting (Tiff, you seriously raised the bar) and none disfiguring.
The one that had the potential to be disfiguring is the one on my forehead from falling out of bed when I was 6. The ER doctor told my dad that he (the doc) wasn’t a surgeon and wasn’t great at doing stitches. My dad looked at him and said, “Well, I am a medical malpractice attorney, and I am sure that you will do a fine job stitching up my daughter’s face.” And he did.
Oh, and JCIII, I too have a scar from pulling over a huge Zenith TV that was precariously placed on a flimsy TV tray when I was about three. Mine is on my pinky, where the outer edge had to be stitched back on.
Free and great – sex
Cheap and great – chocolate marshmallows
Expensive and great – Harveston Ola Dubh (although I would like to try this flying first class thing that has been mentioned – it sounds awesome!)
All this visceral scar business is really grossin’ me out, but here goes: when I was 10, I was into making candles. I had a vat of boiling paraffin on the stove, and accidentally dumped about 3/4 of a gallon of it on my legs. I have a burn scar on my right thigh, which is about 4 inches wide and 8 inches long. It took about 6 to 8 months to heal. I wasn’t interested in candles after that. Talk about pain. Whew!
Scars- I have tons. I am more than slightly accident prone.
Left temple- Got attacked by a dog at age 3, had over 200 stitches. Plastic surgery on the scar for high school graduation, looks much better.
Belly- Appendectomy and double ovary removal. Looks like something out of frankenstein. Mr. Wally calls it my stripper scar.
Hands- Bit by a bobcat volunteering at the zoo. Sliced open my finger with a pair of tongs throwing a hissy fit in the kitchen at work.
Arms- mutiple burn scars from popping fajita platters. Do not recommend working in a mexican restaurant for this, and many other reasons.
I do read a paper news source but read the local newspaper online everyday. Love the comments! There are some truly stupid people in this town!
Still read the Parkersburg News and Sentinel (now one paper) seven days a week. It’s much easier to take a paper to john, than a laptop. When I was a kid, my dad used to get numerous Sunday papers, including The Pittsburgh Press, Columbus Dispatch, Washington Post, and The New York Times. I loved spending Sunday afternoon reading each and every page of all of them. Now, I just don’t have the time. The only out-of-town paper I still read is the Sunday edition of The Charleston Gazette, the best paper in the state.
Free but great: masturbation.
Cheap but great: salt.
Expensive but great: Ruth’s Chris steaks.
I have lots of scars but I’ll only point out one. It’s between my pinky and ring finger on my right hand. I was wiping out a wine glass and it just as I made a swipe it cracked open at the rim and sliced my hand open. You could see bone or tendon or something, it didn’t bleed at first.
Free but great: masturbation.
Cheap but great: salt.
Expensive but great: Ruth’s Chris steaks.
I read the sunday paper but that’s it. I also get about 10 or 12 magazines in the mail every month. Nothing pornographic (sickos), just stuff like Reader’s Digest.
I have lots of scars but I’ll only point out one. It’s between my pinky and ring finger on my right hand. I was wiping out a wine glass and it just as I made a swipe it cracked open at the rim and sliced my hand open. You could see bone or tendon or something, it didn’t bleed at first.
Sorry for the double post.
Sorry for the double post.
Wow, these comments are giving me a Google workout — 4Chan/b/, pilonidal cyst, debridement, streptococcus pyogenes, hydrocele, Harvieston Ola Dubh. Who knew you could learn so much in one day from reading the WVSR?
And it seems that you all are living examples of cautionary tales. Pencil lead, chain link fences, Johannesburg, frozen cow pies, candlemaking and …rabbit bites?
I am reminded of a cupla other scars that don’t belong to me, but…. My friend’s teenage son had testicular torsion and lost one after the blood supply was cut off. My friend, being a good mother, bought her son an implant for his 18th birthday because he was self conscious about it. I told her not to do it because as long as he was embarrassed by the missing testicle, he would remain a virgin. Besides, would a “nice” teenage girl know the difference? Money wasted, I say. I frequently tell the kid to be grateful I’m not his mother.
Another friend has a 5-inch scar across his neck where he had an orange-sized tumor removed. You can’t really see the scar because it’s currently covered by a fat roll on his neck. Told him if he ever lost weight and the scar became visible, he should concoct a really, really good story because no girl wants to hear that he had the tumor for AN ENTIRE YEAR before he sought medical advice, only to find out that it was Hodgkins. Being a dumbass will not get you laid, but having your neck slashed in some gruesome way just might.
btw – cost of one fake testicle? $1800 just for the part. Surgery not included. My friend should have given the surgeon one of those little rubber balls from the gumball machine at Wal-Mart to implant. Again, money wasted, I say.
I’m a day late, but get into the settings for you BAT and change the input signal back to “cable”, ‘on air’ settings will get you all of 2-13.
Scars have a few left, some faded. Two still prominently displayed now that I have a receeding hairline are two on my forehead from the devil horns amputation…
Got a bunch of scars on my hands from a lathe oversight. Nothing major, no limbs pulled into rotating machinery, just clearing swarf with a hook, only problem is it bounced back onto my hand doing a bit of dicing. Didn’t even notice it until I looked down to see wtf was tapping on my foot… Turned out to be blood dripping, finally look at my hands and oops. That’ll take a minute to clean up.
Some knife scars on a couple fingers from when I was a kid before I realized the only good knife is a fixed blade or one with a good locking mechanism.
Legs have cleared up for the most part. Humid days will usually show telltale signs of past wounds.
@Brynhildr….thanks!…..Now I’ve got the “Off to the Rodeo” song stuck in my head. The “Were You Born An Asshole?” song is always in there…but now this other one has been added (again!!) to my… myPod.
Cosmetic…..uuummmmm…….balls…..is just too weird.
They make ‘em for dogs, too.
Comcast, how do I hate thee? Let me count the ways….
1. I wanted an MCard and you refused to let me pick one up and install it myself. No, I had to pay you $20 so I could wait home all day for your trained professional, who, when he finally got here, had never seen an MCard before, didn’t know what it was, or what to do with it. So I had to show him. Then pay you $20 for the privilege. WTF?
2. It took you over a year to carry SPEED HD. WTF?
3. My obscene bill. WTF?
FiOS for me in 6 weeks. CANNOT WAIT.
Dogfish 90 is too much for a hot weather quaffing beer. I have a couple in the fridge (and some 60s) for when I’m in a savoring mood.
@Greg….That’s weider.. or more weird? Either way…..TH???
Brynhildr – her son coulda just kept the skin as a pocket and inserted a gobstopper on occasion.
Scars – too many to mention. I’m also a klutz:
Appendix when I was 14, it turned out there was nothing wrong with it just excruciating pain/vomiting/etc from a visit from Aunt Flo. But Marcus Welby had to take a guess at something.
Knees are hacked up from Mtn bike accidents.
Bridge of nose – also from Mtn bike accident -not that long ago – saved a fall with my face which was part of the bigger scene of me looking like a plum for a couple of months complete with a blood coloured eye once it finally opened. A ‘good’ friend took pride in calling me hamburger face until it was all better.
Huge dog 4 teeth bite scar on the back of my calf – It’s just from a few years ago and kinda looked like a tattoo for awhile. Probably went in about a centimeter deep. Ouch.
Kristin – the best is your bunny story, too bad it’s not on video. You could have turned it into a big screen film
Newpapers – never unless I am in line waiting for something. I hate local news on TV and papers – too much whining. There are too any more important things going on in the world and I’m not talking about MJ. Internet is the best way to get to the source unless you don’t have that option.
Oh and happy 4th of July to my neighbours of the South.
Damn leanne…what about me here in the sowthwest?
Enjoy your rockets red glare….-d
Free but great: my old Mustang
Cheap but great: VW
Expensive but great: BMW
DTO – Of course Happy 4th to you too. I meant that to everyone in the states.
Free – the mountains & the ocean
Cheap – a kayak and mountain bike (quality pending)
Expensive – a powerboat and vacation property (quality pending)
Priceless – the stories I read on here.
leanne — I guess a removable testicle totally trumps the guy with a glass eye when it comes to party tricks.
Brynhildr – damn you’re hilarious.
Have to admit though it’s something I’d rather see on the Internet than in real life.
Happy Independence Day to all of you in the U.S.!
Happy 4th of July! Get drunk and blow some shit up…….for your country!
Comcast is crap, period. I don’t know when Adelphia left where you live, but it mustn’t have been too long ago, because you still enjoy your service from Comcast. Be wary. It will all go down the tubes soon enough. They’ll be sneaking fees onto your bill, forcing you to buy cable boxes, missing bi-monthly repair appointments, yelling at you on the phone, and not returning calls soon enough. Just you wait.
Scott Baio dodges another bullet, Steve McNair not so lucky.
Lord I apologize blah blah blah…
Scars
both wrists (Carpal tunnel)
both elbow (Cubital tunnel)
abdomen (Hernia)
Seven inch scar on my happy zone(Penis reduction surgery)
I’m so hung over it’s absurd. I think I’m covered in cinnamon flavored Kentucky Jelly. God.
2 inch scar on my chin: Chased by my Brother and trip and fell chin first. Doctor butchered me on the stiches. Scar above my left eye running along the eye-brow: looks like a boxers cut but I got it showing off on my bicycle and hit a telephone pole.
I have read the paper everyday since delivering them as a kid. They have lost thier appeal as I catch myself reading articles that I read on the internet the day before. But I like the coupons and local things to do articles.
I hope everyone has had an enjoyable 4th and took it easy on the 5ths. Well lets play a little catch up. Scars, have I got scars both physical and mental.
Scars – Head to toe
Top of head – Round scar and four stitches from jumping on a sofa at the tender age of three. Bounced to high and flipped over the 2nd story banister onto a pile bicycles.
Right ear – Age sixteen, small scar from a toenail clipper being thrown at me by my sister after telling her how bad her pork chops where. She burnt the shit out of them of course.
Right hand inside thumb and finger – Age four, scar and five stitches from teasing aunts dashcund.
Right hand on 3rd finger – Age 17, scar and 5 stiches after blocking a board with nails in it during a fight. I was able to grab the board and pull it away from the other boy and started beating him with it.
Left wrist – Age six, One inch scar from jumping over fence and landing on a piece of glass. Six stiches and a miracale I didn’t cut the artery.
Left baby finger – Age 25, finger got caught on angle iron sliding down a ladder to get to my GQ station. Still have small knot on the side of the finger.
Stomach and left knee – Age 13, attacked by german shepard while collecting for my newspaper route.
Left and right uh… nope, not gonna tell ya, alright!
Left leg above knee – Age 14, broke leg after attempt to jump over very large Buick failed. 2 months of traction with a long pin sticking out of my leg and another 2 months in a full leg cast.
Right knee – recent, had surgery to repair torn miniscus.
Left heel at ankle – caught in the spokes of bicycle while riding on the back of the bike with my older brother.
Sunday paper only and just for the coupons. I like making my money stretch, OK!
@ Jason – Cinnamon flavored KY jelly? Did someone try to make you into a cinnamon roll?
Scars: Left eyebrow from a headbutt
Right corner of mouth, forehead from right eybrow to top and all over the top of my head – thru the windshield of a car and landing in the street. Over 700 stitches.
Left shoulder – surgery to insert a titanium rod for a severely broken humerus.
RIght underarm – running thru a glass door
Right thigh – Barb wire fence
Left foot – lawn mower accident
Left hand – Knife
i actually live in tn about 30 minutes from the ripleys believe it or not museum and when i saw the signs going up for this exhibit, as the mother of a preemie baby who was on oxygen for 6 weeks in the nicu before he could come home from the hospital i was offended so i did some research, what i found was that back in the day there was no funding for incubators and whatnot, the only way doctors could earn the money for the expense of trying to keep preemie babies alive was by charging admission at the fairs, and this led to more and more research and the modern nicu’s we have now, so i’m not offended.
the ripley’s museum is great, wv isn’t too far from tn, if you haven’t been to the smokies you should come, it’s beautiful here. and in the tourist-ey areas there’s plenty to do.
I also have a scar on the top of my head from when I ran into a bus, C-section scar, and a nice 10-incher on my lower belly where part of my large intestine was taken out.
Then there’s the one on my nose from a mole removal (I’m NOT a witch), one on my back from the same thing, and in three days, another one on the back of my right leg for, you guessed it, mole removal. All y’all fair-skinned freckly folk, go get your skin checked, because the melanoma? She is deadly.
Did I say Walter Cronkite on Thursday? I meant Steve McNair. Easy to get the two confused.
Free but great: gassing up and setting red anthills on fire and listening to their little thoraxes crackle.
Cheap but great: The Dali museum in St. Pete
Expensive but great: Road trip to Canada when gas was $4.00 per gallon
Scars- Above right eye from a bullet fragment.
Bullet wounds on back.
Upper forehead from a stupid tub accident.
Between middle and ring finger when trying to punch a classmate and he held out a pencil to stop it.
Knee after hitting road after being hit by a truck when walking at night.
Loose skin between thumb and forefinger when cutting onions with a knife. Stitched that one up myself.
Back of right hand- after walking through a glass door and the stalagtites of glass fell and cut all my tendons. Lost use of hand for two months.
Upper thigh- stabbed by a walkout customer while managing a restaurant and I went after him. Still busted up his face on the cigarette machine in the lobby real good before the police followed the trail of blood to his house.
Did you know- It would take a person more than 400 years to watch all the videos on YouTube.
On IPOD right now- “The Vampire Song”- Concrete Blonde
Free but great: The Navy experience
Cheap but great: Aussie rules football
Expensive but great: My first divorce
@Shiny Rod….just a little music for you today……
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tx8×3LCnYZw
or anyone else who’d care to sing along…..
have a good day everyone!!!…-d
@ DTO – You sure know a way to make a broken man happy. Thank God that was 20 years ago. Still LMAO
Hello!
Comcast here. Read your blog. Glad everything was resolved to your satisfaction. If you’d like our team see if we can get you a lower rate for your services, email us at the address below. We’d be glad to reach out to our contacts on your behalf.
Kind Regards,
Melissa Mendoza
Comcast Customer Connect
National Customer Operations
We_Can_Help@cable.comcast.com
@ComcastMelissa
Came back from the beach on the 5th of July and decided to watch a movie on the old VCR. (I know — still in the dark ages). We have direct TV. When we had it installed I asked the guy “are you sure my VCR will work now?” He assured me it wouild.
A few months hence (last night) I try it. I knew better but I did it anyway. I turn on the TV and select channel 3, turn on the VCR and find that I have to select TV on the remote to get it to work. One little click over to TV from the Direct TV setting. Figured once the movie is over I’ll just go backward to the Direct TV setting, turn off the VCR and everything will be hunky-dory. This is where life as I knew it ceased.
Nothing I did could get the Direct TV service back as it was. Not even resetting the defaults on the remote. Not even hitting “reset” button on the box. The TV will not now even turn on and off with Direct TV remote now. If I had had a hand grenade I would have pulled the pin and held it tenderly to my chest. All this is just what a person needs to cap off and otherwise really nice weekend.
So I will be calling Direct TV after work. As you might expect I am so looking forward to this.
Oh by the way, all my scars are emotional ones.
@Your Public….I grew up playing with B3 players…Darrell Waynescott, gravel-voiced Kentucky boy with way to much soul for a white guy. Used to sing the crap out of ‘Hollywood Nights’. I used to think his neck was going to burst open any second….man! Bill Keenan…he used to talk with Robert Moog when Moog was first getting started. Bill had this switchboard looking/ patchworking thing, aka….Moog synthesizer. We used to do ‘Long Distance Runaround’ by “Yes” and he’d kick pedals playing the bass line….. And kicking pedals?……Tony Thomas, Memphis Tennessee. Spent three years on the road with him. From Bach’s ‘Toccata & Fuge’ to hard bop and beyond….Tony can kick pedals on a B3….a forgotten part of the ‘rig’. The guy was/ is all feet and fingers. Flat out fly!!! He used to work with Groove Holmes (yeah…dualing B3’s) after he got off the road. He could work magic with his stops and his wazooo Leslie he was always sooping up. Used to turn the B3 off and on to bend notes. Amazing player…..
I have various scars along my legs from being a rough and tumble kid in gymnastics. And alos several from fights my sis and I got into when little.
But by far the worst is the 2+ inch scar on my right boob. I was doing my hair and dropped the curling iron and of course it landed on the first mound of exposed flesh it came to, the right boob side of my cleavage. When I removed the fire-stick from my chest, it pulled some skin with it. Holy SHIT that hurt.
I had 2nd degree burns on my tit, had to see a plastic surgeon for scar therapy.
You can’t really see it in the winter but in the summer the sun will really bring it out.
I also have a lovely scar on my knee that is the result of too many cocktails and stiletto heels…I ate pavement in a sparkly dress and got right back up and hit the bar…bleeding. I was too drunk to care.
Scar on my shin from an errant chair in my way while I was fleeing from an older sibling who I may or may not have pantsed in front of a crowd of friends.
Scar on my knee from a misguided attempt at rollerblading down the local Park Hill, which was essentially a paved road of death.
Scar on wrist, 7-shaped scar on my forehead, and scar between top lip and nose from, umm, my little ceiling mishap (http://trinamick.blogspot.com/2007/04/cats-dont-always-land-on-their-feet.html).
As for newspapers, I check our weekly paper for the movie times, obituaries, and court news. I want to make sure my name isn’t in the last two.