The question is, if you ever buy Bugles, do you still do it?

Remember the days before cellphones, when you were a kid, and the worst thing you could catch from the opposite sex was cooties?

     Doncha hate it when people call, you ignore it or don’t answer because you’re in the middle of something, and they keep calling over and over and over, not leaving a voicemail, or actually giving you any more than two seconds peace between rings?

     After about the third time, you’re thinking, “Oh, shit, this must be important!”  So you answer the call…
     “Hey? Whatcha doing?”

     My favorite answer?  “Well, dumbass, I was busy ignoring your incessant, non-emergency phone calls, but you interrupted that…”

     Of course, I’ve used a few others. 

     “Ok, do you hear the water?  I am in the f#$*ing shower, ya know…”
     “WHO DO I HAVE TO KILL TO TAKE A DUMP IN PEACE?”
     “What?  So it’s not important?  Well, sorry I was busy whacking it, and I was almost there…. thanks!”

     Of course, three years ago, it was always because, well, “we” were “busy” just about every waking hour.   Callers like that rarely expected to hear two voices answering the same phone… And ya know what…
     I do miss that, if nothing else…

Most of us have seen this type of Video Game before, especially the nostalgic incarnation where you shoot a monkey out of a cannon and attempt to get the best distance while arching through the air and bouncing back from the ground. However, this version, available now for a mere 240 points on Xbox Live Marketplace, uses your very own Xbox Live avatar, features stunning graphic imagery of an African svelte and includes the very real chance that your avatar may end up shoulders deep in an elephant’s ass!

There is something about staying up all night.  I don’t know if it all the creativity that to keeps you up or the thoughts that run through your head.  In this case I would say it was a little of both.

While I was patiently waiting the 6:30 a.m. tic to toc on the clock, I was diligently working on a piece of design soon to be seen.  The tedious monotony of tutorials and code are such sweet company on an early Monday morning, after all code is poetry.  I also managed to finish building my handout for today’s Introductory Computer Class at the Halls Senior Center.  Not much else was going through my head at the time.

It all changed as I began to cook at the turn of six.  I began to reminisce how my Mammaw and Pappaw must have done the same things day in and day out as they prepared breakfast for all of the boys in the painting crew.  God I miss that breakfast… To this day I can’t make white gravy that is anywhere close to that.  Moreover, the main thing I miss of that is the camaraderie, that my quiet breakfasts, with my wife or couple of friends, just aren’t the same. The atmosphere just can’t be replicated. I have fond memories of eating my portion and part of my uncle’s within a period of two or so hours.  Those were the days… just waking up to food prepared to eat as soon as your feet hit the floor.

That reminder quickly moved to a scene in Sam’s Restaurant and Deli for more breakfast than the average human should eat in one sitting.  Again, it was more the camaraderie than the food although it is excellent as well.  Heck, Mark and I would order one of the specials our friend would most likely order the Western Omelet. We would drink out fair share of coffee and smoke. Yes, I said smoke. You see that was prior to the unrealistic and unforgiving anti-tobacco lobby ruined that pastime for those of us who have no wish to kill the ignorant people we encountered during a day.

So, it is with that I leave you to go puff on bowl of tobacco and reminisce something else positive.  After all around 1964 the surgeon general determined pipe smoker’s outlive non-smokers and are relatively innocent of causing lung cancer.