Ford Trucks Red, White & Blue Balloon Festival
An event for the entire family is coming to Sam Boyd Stadium on January 13 & 14, 2007. The Ford Trucks Red, White & Blue Balloon Festival will feature twenty-five special shape balloons and forty race balloons. Making it the second largest Special Shape Balloon Festival in the country.
We went there.
They didn't launch the balloons and they did last year. There was no wind, so that couldn't have been the reason. The balloons were only inflated for less than an hour. And to top it all off, the DJ for KOMP radio said there was no smoking at the outdoor event. Ummmm. So thats the way its going to be.
Between the balloon event, and the short New Years fireworks display, I have to wonder what's going on.

Iraq is smaller than Arizona. It has less people than California. Mexico City has almost as many people.
With that in mind, why is it so hard to conquer?
If something sounds wrong, it probably is.

Did someone say disturb?? Someone say ugly head? Guess thats my cue. For all they have seen and done in deed, "it must be horrible".  The news on the wankertube should be reformatted in three layers.  First the news, keep the sounds and oratory media.
  1st superimposition, CSI like hyperbolic pornography.  The kind of stuff that tailors itself to fantasies involving solving murders and keeping consumers together when trauma takes ahold in some unfortunate demonstration of tissues force and physics.
This sets the tone for alerting the viewer that interest and fantasy is now licensed(thus possibly connecting with a baseindex of meanings from outside the actual box of the hour(program)).
'because we care about YOU' Thats a real message solicited across the broadcast interface. (TV)..
Second superimposition.
THE media REAL detectives, police EMTs and medical triage peepz must sort through every second of the day.  mainly the gruesome cacophany of images taken for evidence in repugnant flash lighting. If you like text there are reports to be read then. Adjoin a sparse but breathtaking clause of  THE scenery. things WE are familiar with, that usually offer the inheritance of their usual safe, usefull ordinary meanings, (this is a wall, that is a mailbox, this is a refridgerator, thats a bustop,hey look children playing in a park!).  Now you have the news. 
Hmm, clean desert clad 'workers' kicking in a slightly dusty door for the nteenth instance and reviewed? Following an APC exposing security enhanced bodylanguages, ...
Nope, just keep the dumbed down audible headlines and cirkle-reasoned headline qualifying agents, (gotta keep something to let us knoiw its the news right?),,,,
Add the fantasy liscencing agent, and then please dont close your eyes cuz you need to know what youre recompositing with the fantasy licsencing agent along with the ordinary scenery clause into the news,ok now add those two last little darlings so that YOU, who WE care about, like ..oh my GAWD, all the time -- DUHH !!! can actually get the news, and then, i dunno, pop an asperin or something.
Thats the world of these poor people from under one umbrella of hate to under a several of others is like. 
And then read some antiquated irrelevant humoring bits of stuff copied of John Quincy Adams in his feverd rush to rise to his occasion something something um experiment in democracy .. yeah yeah yeah and TRY like hell to keep an even brow when someone tells you in so many unspoken terms of preemptive censorship that{"if we werent there" As If {(the official infinitive state of the term 'there' is whatever an ends justifying a means will suffer;) evidence of children torn apart and wailing parents is ok}}. Im done.  Im too pissed now to be of any use. Tvee news should be experienced in three layers minus the heart though, if we are as interested as our habits suggest. sorry eh. There is always a simpler way, what use this is escapes me.
If anyone has any better and distanced perspective please share, my myopia is summoned me into a trite fairweather gadfly.
yuck!!! ooh, theres what I was hoping for "Please enjoy your visit to LVDude." ok, next time then.  can I still have that beer??

From: Morningstar.com, stock named HAL.
I guess, from what I've read, $1.4 billion was awarded to the Texas company called Halliburton in a no-bid contract. It was run by Dick Cheney, a Bush advisor (See Article).  That stock price has to be one of the hottest ones in the NYSE. Man, why can't I have buddies like that!!!   
The Bush speech was touching. .
Help the Iraqis people grow democratic.
Stop the 'insurgents'. Stop the Alkiada regime. That sounds great!
But how do we know we've won, exactly?
And how we never, ever, hear about the oil production over there?
I've always thought thats what the war was really about. We never hear about that though.
I do wish we'd help our neighbors in Mexico, instead.
Maybe they'd stop fleeing to the US. I suppose there is now profit in that. To bad, hombres. Your country doesn't seem to have anything we would kill for to get. hmmm.
Now, I gotta say that I don't intentionally look up disturbing new.
It just seems to rear its ugly head all by itself.

It was cold in the parking lot in front of the Frontier. We found a parking spot, almost right on the Strip, and right around 9pm. I thought that was AMAZING! We had to hang out for the next three hours for the big fireworks spectacle, so....

Becky and I walked up and down the Strip.
We popped into the Frontier, Venetian, and Treasure Island. Compared to the other New Years, the crowd was as thin as Charmin. But like I said, it was f-f-f-f-f-r-e-e-z-ing!
Finally the time came...midnight on the Strip.
I futzed with my new Christmas camera for a few moments, the looked up, and it was over! Wut thu hay I hooted, and I'm not an indian. 2007 had to be the shortest New Years fireworks display I'd ever seen, lasting only 6 minutes long.
The things I enjoyed this New Years were:
The scantely clad girls.
The guys in heavy fur jackets.
The people with flashing balls in their mouths.
The horse cops.
And the all-slapped-give-out drunks.

Good Morning babe
I had a great time last night. You were right about the fireworks being so short.
I really didn't know what to think about that guy that came up to me dancing.
I've never had that happen before. It was kinda flattering to me. I wanted to grab
you but you were taking a picture. LMAO!!!!!!!!. What was so funny about it
was the way he danced. I got a kick out of all of the people there. I couldn't
believe how some of those young girl's were wearing dress skirt's in cold weather.
WOW!!!!! LOL. Thank you so much babe for a good time at the strip.
I Love You
Becky

WHY??????

12/31/2006 - I saw the New Years Ghost
I saw a ghost this News Years Eve when I looked in the mirror. It looked just like me.
Then I started seeing ghosts all around me.
When you go out this New Years, look around at the people. Picture them as if you watching them in a video filmed 100 years ago.

Notice how much we all look alike, how well we get along, and how we all seem to be related? Don't look at our differences. Look are how much we have in common.
Pretend you lost your long term memory?
Ever see a picture of a Great Great relative that looked just like you? Ever talked to someone who thought just like you?
If you can think like me for just a moment
Imagine that when we die, we don't go anywhere. Imagine the we are all reincarnations of our ancestors, without their memories. Imagine that it goes much deeper than that. Imagine we are all the reincarnations of the dinosaurs and further back. Too me, life seems too obvious. Animals, birds, fish, insects, we all have the same organs. We all must be related.
We were born with knowledge.
It came from someone. It probably came from our parents.
Nature could have populated our memories with that of our ancestors, but for whatever reason, it didn't.
Who knows, maybe we'd still be arguing about how someone sacrificed our favorite lamb or something...
But doesn't that seem a lot easier to believe than some fairy floating down and touching us with her magic wand.
If you think like I do, you'll know that on this planet, all life is related. Given enough time, we all come back.

Hi babe
I Love you too!!!

IE only allows 20 cookies per sight.
It looks like one cookie when you look at it in explorer, but you could basically
unstring a cookie.txt file delimited by ";" into cookie1, cookie2...cookie20.
Handling the cookie is IEs job since you have to go through its routines to access local files.
That really sucks. All the other browsers don't care how many cookies you have.
I hate spending hours trying to figure out why items are dropping off when the reason is plain stupidity.
--- sheesh ---

Hmmm, scrolling action incapacitated at some point, but aside from that.  A super great method for quitting shmoking is this, and it really works.  Dress up your hands each morning.  One hand, the hand you smoke most often with, dress up as a
burglar, or better yet as Bush, or any of his sneaky awful cabineteers.  Dress the other up as something good to you, like some one you would ordinarily most always trust.  Then when the burglar attains in its arms a cigarette you immediately know to
demand an answer from it as to what nefarious intentions it plans for you.  And it will say to you, "Oh this? I just want to
bring the chemicals inside by way of lighting it on fire, you kniow, show them off again to the rest of the body, beginning with
the lungs and heart."  Well, youve caught him there! and the wrestling match should be easily won, as you are alot larger and heavier than your own hand.  After awhile the burglar hand should just give up.  If youve dressed up your other hand correctly
wrestling with it will not be an issue, it will not want to do things it knows you frown upon.    No - Bad mr rumsfeld, you will not host a fundraiser in my body - bad bad mr rumsfeld!!
Im winning yay! This has such moralizing
overtones i think Ill just stop now.

I've heard good things about being hypnotized to quit. How do you look that up?

Thats kind of why I mentioned it in this blog. I wrote the shrinks name down, but forgot it, and lost what I wrote it on.
Shoot. And if I try to look it up on the net, I get thousands of junk sites.
I thought his name was Bill...but I forgot his last name too.
--- One of these days I'll fix the order of entries on this blog.

I have Bill's email address written down, on my liptop, but not here at work. I haven't emailed him in two years plus. So, I don't if it's any good. I can try emailing him this evening.If I hear back from him, I'll ask about the smoking hypo.

Jimmy... You remember - Oh, what's his name (Bill something)? The tall, gray haired bloke who you worked with at MGM, and I worked with at Fly's. The cashier... Remember how he said quit smoking, using hyptotism, and it worked for him really well.

People we lost in 2006
Gerald Ford (US president) 93, James Brown (singer) 73, Peter Boyle (actor) 71, Moses Hardy (oldest man) 113, JB Hunt (trucking mogul) 79, Samual Bowers (KKK Imperial Wizard) 82, Dave Kochran (author X-Men) 63, Mike Douglas (talk show host)  81, James Van Allen (Van Allen belt),  James Harvey Young (medical historian) 90, Mikey Spillane (Mike Hammer author) 88, Red Buttons (comedian) 87, Billy Preston (singer) 59, Darren McGaven (actor) 83, Don Knotts (comedian) 81, Wilson Pickett (singer) 64, Shelly Winters (actress) 85, Lou Rawls (singer) 72, Aaron Spelling (TV mogul) 83, Dennis Weaver (actor) 81, Louis Cutlar (my dad) 83.

Wilson Pickey was 64...I copied the footnote reference accidentally. Thanks SAE.

Jimmy... Wilson Pickey (aka: Pickett) was 64, almost 65 - not 93. typo!!!! Howl...

Feeling down from a cold
I wasn't really a pleasure to be with today. I guess its a cold. Sore throat, sneezing, itchy eyes, can't breath.
Since I've been back, my breathing has taken a drastic turn for the worse.
Becky and I are going to quit smoking on New Years.
It seems like the right thing to do. Nevada hates smokers and I don't like being an addict.
I suppose if I succeed, I'll end up like all the other people who quit smoking and hate smoking too.
I'll probably end up using the inaccurate term "Cancer Sticks" in slurs, myself.
BTW - The odds of rolling a 3 in craps are about the same as a smoker getting cancer. 
Only an idiot would think 3's are probable. Hence, "Cancer Sticks" is a stupid label. I know it sound cool.
"Empysema Sticks" would be far more appropriate. Everyone that smokes will eventually get emphysema.
While I'm on stupid slurs,
"Heart Attack Coffee", "Chlorestoral Bacon", "Big Butt Burgers", "Fat Fanny Fries",  "Mucous Milk", and "Bimbo Beer"would be more appropriate labels.
You could even slang ham by saying, "Here, have an ass sandwich", but thats just wrong.
IM'd GMa
We thought we were all invited over today for dinner, but it turned out the invitation was for New Years.
IM'd Ida
We talked about our Christmas's.
Ida says her boyfriend is going to liquidate his business and retire. He hurt his hip not long ago.
I should offer to buy it from him. Ida says he was doing well with it.
She invited Allen into our Instant Messenger conversation.
IM'd Allen, after over a year of silence
We'd been friends since high school, but fell apart over money. That kind of thing seems to happen a lot.
He was funny as usual. He said he'd just visited the Blue Hole in Kentucky. Small world.
He was getting run off by the same hillbilly that tried to run us off. I told him that the guy knew both Allen and me.
Its funny how hard it is to recognize people after they've lost all of their teeth.
I thought the hillbilly guy was just paranoid about us finding his pot crop

 
The Christmas I'll remember best will be the one thats happening today.
My memories of the past
have faded into sepia-like images, tinted by the colors of the spirits that I've chosen to keep in my mind. What I'm trying to say is, when I remember Christmas, I see the spirits of love.
So, at this time...
I want to thank the 100s of people who have shared their holidays with me and made them absolutely wonderful.
You've worn pajamas, business suits, tank tops, and robes. You've put bows in your hair and worn funny hats.
We've celebrated at work, at your place and at my home. We've spent time together and you made me smile.
And I want you to know that I love you with all of my heart.
Thanks for the memories.

Howl.... Life is life. We shall see what happens. But it's all in the right direction over time..

Not that I can claim to know the exact wording of the NV law that just took effect, I can't see where it descriminates. It applies to you, me, and every other Bloke and Sheila (British terms for "Guy" and "girl"). If it ends up closing up all those little bars, of which there are 15 on each LV intersection, then so be it. Part of progress. Who needs those 2 million bars in LV anyway. Let people drink at the larger establishments that will still be around or at home. 

The law discrimates against business types. If they said it applies to all businesses, and allowed for smoking areas, that would be a start at being impartial, but it didn't. The law said it applies to you, you, and you and but not you.
If you own a hookah bar (a specific club for tobacco users), your business will be destroyed. If you don't have an unlimited gaming license, or a strip club or brothel, or serve food thats not prepackaged, your business will be damaged.
After the hooka bars did all of the homework to start a legal business, gotten all of their licensing, and dealt with all the Krapola involved, after all that, a law came up that will shut them down. RED just invested $250,000 to expand one of their hookah bars in Las Vegas.
Don't we have too many stupid laws already?
What if they came up with a law that said computer consultants had to be licensed and pay $20,000 a year in taxes.
These kind of items have already popped up in laws claiming to be Sin Taxes. Cute, but stupid.
What will happen when these kind of discrimintory laws hit your business.
I've read the sample ballots countless times.
No way would the voters think that
- any bar that serves a wedge of lime with a drink be counted as a serving unprepackaged foods
- hotel rooms would be included in the ban,
- the health department can now write $100 tickets to customers
   in effect, turning them into another policy maker and enforcement agency.
But really, I could care less. I'm not effected by the law.
Nevada is. I'd expect the winners of the law would be the casinos. They've had business legally thrown in their direction.

We took to the dentist at 8am this morning.
THEY SAID: She can't have a root canal, so they're going to have to pull her molar.
However, they are saying she needs to be put under for the extraction.
While waiting in the lobby, waiting I talked to this fellow about Medicare supplimental insurance. I told him I thought Champus took care of that for a small premium. Somehow we got to talking about Mexico.
He said, his parents, rather than go through the health system in the US, got their teeth work done in Mexico for 10% of the cost. He also said he has heart problems and will probably go to Thailand for an operation.
I thought that was an interesting thing to say.

This is my yellow page ad, and it cost $200 a month (for three ads).
Advertising is expensive. It'll come out in The Yellow Book some time in April.
Hopefully, I won't have to take a job at Walmart before then...haha.
Http://www.lvdude.com/bequick is close to being finished.
It can take credit cards right now, but it needs at least 40 hours to be polished up.