Spring and Rebirth

Last week my cell phone had an untimely demise. Even as, I watched its’ last remnants of life flickering away I looked up to the heavens and said, “Please forgive me for I know not what I’ve done.” My protestations could not stop the inevitable though and although my phone had often spoken the word unto me, I realized that it would not convey its’ messages that were sent from above to me any longer.

I entombed the phone within a box and laid it to rest at the feet of the virginal maidens within the Verizon Wireless location from whence it had originated. They told me not to cry for my phone would not be laid to rest for long. And as they spoke it was as if the music of angels filled the air as played in MP3 format by the speakers attached to the Samsung Juke display.

I gathered my strength as best I could and tried to emulate life for the next few days. That is when the miracle happened. On the third day my Mint Chocolate by LG rose again in accordance with the warranty. The box was returned to me by the messengers of Fed Ex and the container that had held it was unsealed. The phone was there looking as though the weary travails of its’ previous life had never happened. It was unscarred and had truly been reborn!

In other news, I’ve lost my entire contacts list from my phone. Feel free to e-mail me your numbers so I can build it up again.

I Found It!!!!

With a little hard work and ingenuity I was able to find the picture that CNN had up the other day in the Teenage Girls with Venereal Diseases article.

I found it on the Black Folks Community Live Journal along with this great comment.

What I'm upset about besides these staggering numbers, is that the image used is of a Black teen aged guy and a White teen aged girl....does anyone else find that strange? She's fully dressed, he has no shirt on. There's no rap posters on the wall so I guess they're in her room....

Hopefully, the IT department at work won't ask why I was googling "teenage girls pics" or "black guys with white girls".

An E-Mail I recently Received For Real

I recently received this e-mail from a dear friend of mine. For your edification, I thought I would share.

From: Big Dirty
Sent: Friday, March 07, 2008 1:29 PM
To: 'Dagromm'
Subject: Fuck This!!

Hey Dags,

I know how much you hate getting chain letters, forwarded news stories, and really hot trim (ha ha ha!!!) but you need to see this. Do you think it's for real???

At first I was like, "This is really scary", then I was like, "Man that chick is hot and totally about to give it up to that black dude. I wonder which one is about to drop some V.D. on the other? Man she's hot." Then I got to thinking that maybe they're just making all this stuff up to keep guys away from all the hot girls. More for them, right? Like weapons of mass destruction in Afganistan or Iraq or Korea or wherever.

Then I was like, "Hey, even if this is true then there's a lot of chicks out there that like to party and they're going to get pretty desperate what with news stories coming out about their infected va-jay-jays". They're going to be willing to kill for some Big Dirty!!!!

I know, what you're thinking now and I'm way ahead of you. I've already e-mailed the CDC to try and get a list of all the girls that were involved that like to do it. This is awesome! I love the government. I knew people paid taxes for a reason. Hot damn!

Stay Krunk on the Junk,
Big Dirty



For clarification purposes, that was not what I was thinking.

Good Bye, Good Friend

I hate times like this. Today I found out that a good friend of mine has passed on. I had that weird feeling when I was getting ready this morning, and if I had known then that it had happened I probably wouldn't have gone in to work today.

Around midday was when I found out. I sat at my desk and looked down at my cell phone which was blinking. I knew it was bad news. I picked it up and pushed the button. My heart dropped immediately when I found out what had happened. I couldn't believe it. I slammed my phone against the desk out of despair, but nothing was going to help. I've mentioned this friend once or twice on this blog, but I suppose this will be the last time. This time I say good bye and let you know that you'll be missed.

My LG Mint Chocolate phone has rung it's last. It has crashed and gone to wherever it is that cell phones go when they die. I feel like I lost a great opportunity to talk more with it when it was still alive. That's the way it always is with these things, I guess.

If anyone would like to say a goodbye you may do so in the comments.

Real American Heroes

I'd like to take a minute to recognize the great movie icons of the 80's. They fought Mr. T and the Russians for us. They flew special Top Gun missions to protect our freedoms. They took to the streets with their nearly retired partners to fight off criminals. They even drove time machines to the past and the future to make the world a better place. They didn't let anything get in their way. If their trainer or best friend died, did that stop them?? No. If they wanted to commit suicide but were too chicken to do it, did that keep them from doing right? Hell no. If they got locked in the trunk of Marvin Berry's car during the Enchantment Under the Sea Dance, did they give up?? Of course not.

These people were an inspiration to us all. These were the people that perfected the movie montage. These were the folks that taught us no matter if you've got a speech impediment like Rocky, or a dead dad like Maverick, or crazy hair like Riggs, or were out of plutonium to fuel your time travel device, or were only 5 foot 8 inches tall or less like all of them; that you could still come out on top.

Thank you little guys. Thank you all.

My 8 year old daughter has decided to start a blog and made her first post tonight. She's actually been asking me for some time if she could do it and I finally consented. I helped her put it together and with spelling, but she put the content in herself. She really enjoys writing (that's one of the things her teachers like about her) and she is giddy with excitement about getting to have her own page. Feel free to check it out here. If you leave a comment she'd be thrilled.

A Conversation With My Little Friend

YouTube: Hello Dagromm! What’s going on?

Dagromm: Not too much. The rain and cold cancelled out my soccer games this weekend. I’m a little bummed.

YouTube: I know how you feel. I had some big stuff planned too.

Dagromm: Oh well…..So hey, I need to catch up a little with the primaries. Can you get me up to date?

YouTube: You bet Dagromm! Nothing’s too much for my favorite guy!!!

Dagromm: I love you YouTube.

Don't worry Cyber D, it's on the way!!!

Flash Back

Even after all my writing the last couple of years there are still people out there that feel I am a mystery so I thought I would draw back the curtain a little bit and tell you about my time in the FBI. Now understand that a lot of it is confidential, so I won’t be able to disclose everything, but I can tell you that I was involved with some pretty intense portions of our nations’ war with underground crime.

After graduating the Academy with high marks in Marksmanship, Forensics, and Culinary Arts; I was quickly placed on a special assignment. I became part of the Elite DVD Anti-Piracy Task Force. I don’t want to go into all of the dirty details, but I can tell you that this is by far the darkest and most dangerous parts of America’s criminal underworld. Needless to say, many of my comrades didn’t make it out alive. Others even after their duty ended needed psychological counseling to deal with the trauma.

I myself am only now able to get a grip on some of the horrors that I was witness to. The physical scars have long since healed, but the emotional scars have taken much longer. Sometimes at night I relive the atrocities of the Dude, Where’s My Car Campaign that claimed the lives of so many good men. Still, I fought on in what seemed like a war that would never end. From deep in the back alleys of poverty stricken barrios to the high rise lairs of felonious kingpins I fought the good fight, but after the highly publicized Big Momma’s House 2 Incident even I couldn’t go on.

Election Fever!!

Each election I get a little more interested and presumably a little more informed of the candidates running. I don’t know if this is a sign of maturity as much as it is a sign of boredom and looking for some new thing to pass the time. Kind of like the Olympics. It’s only once every four years, so I can suspend disbelief for a few months and pretend that I’m interested in things like shot put, gymnastic floor routines, or tax relief for eco friendly companies.

I knew that I would vote democrat, but wasn’t sure which candidate was right for me. Hillary or Barack. I find it interesting that the Democratic candidates are known to us by their first names. We don’t think about the Republican candidates as John, Mitt, and Mike. They are McCain, Romney, and Huckabee. They are not on a first name basis with the common man. They don’t want to be. Is it just me or does McCain look like the generic “evil/corrupt politician” from the movies?

Anywho, I was sent the candidate profile test and found that I’m 90% Barack vs. 70% Hillary so I guess that’s that. So now I will be promoting the ObamaNation. I’ll push for the one true Obama, the uni-Bama, if you will. Go America!

Hey Dags, What’s Been Going On?

Glad you asked Blog Community. Lots and not a lot at the same time. At work, my medical insurance for the family tripled in cost. You read that right. TRIPLED. Ugghh. My initial reaction was that we’d have to do without and learn to be healthy, but then I thought about how well the kids follow directions and decided against it. I was more than a little pissed and voiced my concerns to the boss and company owner. Hopefully I was able to maintain a little tact. I’m afraid I might have dropped some F-Bombs. I’m afraid I might have dropped a lot of them.

The wife started a contract gig this week. It’s a four week deal, but you never know and we’ve got our fingers crossed that it could turn into more. It’s closer to home and my work, which are good things and runs 8:30–5:30 Mon-Fri, which is also good because it allows her a little time in the morning when we are scrambling getting everyone ready to go. Lots of finger crossing is going on here.

Soccer season is starting which means that I will have next to no free time for the next two to three months. We had our first practice last night in 40 degree weather and a little bit of rain. We didn’t go too long, but it was a good start and I have high hopes. The girls Academy team has been practicing for about a month already. There’s been lots of drama and our previous team manager left and tried to recruit players to go with her. In total we lost a quarter of our team. I got tapped on the shoulder to become the new team manager and I accepted before I had thought much about it. It turns out to have been a good thing though as the club has slashed the dues for me for taking on the role. If it weren’t for this then my daughter probably wouldn’t be playing with them either. It’s been a lot of extra work as well though. Recruiting, looking for practice facilities, paperwork, looking up fund raising opportunities, etc. Oh well, I’m determined to do a good job so that all the girls have a good experience.

By the way, the picture above is the Scrooge McDuck money bin that I've been hoping to build one day. I'm not close at all yet.

For Those Who Want to Know

I understand that a number of you have been curious why Q has been so quiet as of late. He hasn't posted much on his blog and hasn't left many comments on the blogs of others. Well I thought I would enlighten those who aren't as close to the Q. He has of late taken to involving himself in politics. It has damn near consumed all of his time and resources.


You might ask what has led him to this. The Presidential race? A current opening in his local government? Nope. To Q it is something much more serious than that. It's bigger than whether Iraq is ruled West Coast Muslims or East Coast Muslims. He says it's about oppression and certain inalienable rights that are being tread upon. I don't want to go into the whole thing now, but I'm attaching this link for whoever wants more insight.


I'll also attach this pic of Q rallying the people to his cause.

ABC Belittles the Sacrifices of US Troops

Yes my friends and fellow lovers of the American Way, I too was disgusted when I saw what ABC was doing. I don't know why they thought it was appropriate in this time of national emergency. Instead the so-called "American" Broadcast Company felt this was the right time to declare a Dance War between Bruno Tolioni and Carrie Ann Inaba. To compare the difficulties our troups are facing in Afghanistan and Iraq to the competition between Inaba (who speaks Japanese!!!) and Tonioli (an admitted non-American) is at the very least an insult to our troops and in fact an insult to all Americans.

I think it's safe to say that most U.S. Americans know better than to believe that our troops are overseas in the Iraq doing highly stylized choreography while the Al-Queda Nazis respond with their own flurry of shuffle, step, shuffle, step, smile, and turn. I expect the outrage is building to this insinuation and very soon ABC will be shut down by the public outcry. Until that time I will instead have to watch good American programming like Gossip Girl and the new Knight Rider.

Books in Review

In my time away from the blog I did a little reading and thought that I'd share a few reviews for those in search of something to pass the time.

Winkie

Winkie is the story of a teddy bear that is passed down through a family and eventually wills itself to life. It then goes on the run and is captured by special forces and is brought on trial as a terrorist mastermind. The book is a lot deeper then most people glancing at it would probably think and touches on a number of subjects including politics, religion, philosophy, and sexuality. It's a well written book, but not a gripping one. All in all I'd have to give it an A-.

Fahrenheit 451

This is one of those books that has been on my "to do" list for a number of years. Well, I finally got around to reading it, and it was both enjoyable and surprising. I went into this read knowing roughly what the book was about, but I found they style of the writing to be very different to than what I expected. Still well done, but lots of fragmented sentences meant to convey feelings or confusion. Of course it was also interesting to see how something written 50 years ago was still very accurate on a lot of fronts in regards society and the way that thought and information are conveyed. Ray Bradbury certainly earned the 10 cents an hour he got paid to write this book and also his A-.

Planet Hulk

This was a Christmas gift my son received and as soon as he was done, I picked it up and poured through it. This was very well done. The story line was straight enough that a newcomer could pick it up and enjoy it, with characters that came from forgotten story lines of other comics through out the Marvel Universe. On top of that the art was very nice and the covers were beautiful. The hard back even comes with extra background information that shows how well thought out the whole thing was. Nice book for comic lovers. A-

My Predictions for 2008

1. Due to struggles in the Middle East, environmental concerns, and a multitude of things that the common man can't comprehend gas prices will be forced to continue to rise and fuel companies will be forced to make record breaking profits.

2. The U.S. will succeed in closing our borders to all immigrants thus causing a massive rise in the cost of health care as we will have effectively cut our main source of doctors.

3. The spelling of the word extreme will be changed to Xtreme, because it is found to be in fact more extreme that way.

4. To combat the feelings of inadequacy and low self esteem that are sweeping our country due to the constant promotion of unrealistic body type expectations a new cable station is established that stars only "real people with real looks". It is lauded by educators, acclaimed by critics, and shuts down within six weeks.

5. The NBA attempts to turn around a downward trend in television rating by instituting several rules changes including the elimination of the "free throw" and the institution of the "free dunk". Steve Nash's career scoring average drops severely and he retires within two years.

6. The term "trash T.V." will be replaced by the term "T.V."

7. To help ailing retailers Easter is changed to Second Christmas and is heavily promoted as the time when the Eater Bunny brings good children toys and electronics. Your child has been good right? They shouldn't be left out should they?????

8. Everyone will be surprised when the Academy Award for Best Picture goes to Underdog. Everyone that is, except me.

9. The country will go one step further by legalizing prostitution on Halloween each year nationwide. The Speaker of the House argues for it by pointing out the top selling adult costumes for the last year. (This would be a good place for a link, but I'm not up to actually doing the research on this one (I'm at work))

10. The United States will overthrow their current political leader and force him out of office by the end of the year.

The Month in Review

Things have really been in a flurry lately as we raced to the end of our youth sports seasons and the end is in sight. This weekend will be the last game for my daughter's rec soccer team that I coach. After we defeat The Butterflies we will be 8-2 for the season and in second place. Not bad improvement for our team. The first season we went 3-7 and last season 6-4 so we are slowly creeping towards perfection. We still have plenty of area for improvement so I'm excited about next season already. After the game we will have our end o'season party and do the whole trophy thing.

My son has also finished his football season, sort of. His team went on to wint he City Championship. The player that they had lost due to a move to Arizona flew back to help out and the final score of the game was 32-19. He is so proud of his Trophy that says 1st place and City Champion. I don't know if he'll want to play again next year, but I think he'll be ready to go again come next fall. This weekend they have "Bowl Game" against a different city champion. I don't know why, because after you win the City Championship I can't help but think that anything afterwards will be a let down. After that, I think we will mercifully be done.

My daughter's other team (Liverpool) finished their season last weekend. They started the season roughly, but they had two wins and a tie in their last three games to finish on a positive note. The girl spent the last three or four games playing defense which I don't think is the right position for her, but I guess is where the coach felt like she helped the most. The girl was excited about playing defense at first, but looked a little bored about it by the last game. She's got lots of room to grow as a defender. One on one she's alright, but she's a horrible team defender right now. Oh well. They've got their end of season party on Sunday.

Additional winning that's been going on.
I did win one of the drawings at the HR conference. I don't want to say what I won, because I don't know who'll be getting it for Christmas yet, but I thought it was fairly cool. I also won the footpall pick 'em at work for last week. I don't participate too much because people have a hard time with the guy that's handing out the prizes handing one to himself, but it was my turn so f 'em. I also won first prize in the Halloween costume contest. I dressed in my best impersonation of Dingle from Reno 911. I had a wig, fake mustache, uniform, etc. People could actually identify who I was which was cool.

You read all of this and you think everything's perfect, but life is never that easy. The family has had losses, bills are always tighter then I'd like, and I have to replace my car. Just in time for the holiday season.

Corporate F'ing Around

Well blog world I'm getting away from the office for a few days. My boss and I are headed to the HR Southwest conference for the next three days. What's that mean? It means that besides being away from the computer for extended periods, I will be signing up for any and every drawing that I see in the hopes of actually winning something from one of the bazillion vendors that will be set up there. It also means that I will be sitting in many "interesting" lectures and classes. It definitely means that I will be getting a free lunch for the next three days, and ultimately that I will be taking a company paid three day vacation.

Hopefully I'll get enough continuing education credits to keep up my certification while I'm counting how many hot girls actually work in the HR field. For those of you who don't know, it's not many.

My boss has pretty much the same thing in mind that I do. We'll go late, leave early, and work on getting plenty of rest. I do have to admit that I'm excited about Friday's keynote speaker.
http://www.hrsouthwest.com/pages/Keynotes.htm
I don't really know what she has to do with HR, but I'm hoping for an autograph!

Memories

I thought I'd share a few pics as I was recently overcome with nostalgia for my community at large and specifically my Blog Community.

The first one was taken at the wedding of Gyuss Baaltar a few years ago. Here he and the Mrs. are at the reception that immediately followed the wedding. Gyuss took a spare no expense approach to his wedding. The reception was at a really nice Days Inn and he bought his wedding costume as opposed to just renting it. Unfortunately the Green Lantern ring he placed on his bride's finger brought looks of disapproval from her family. They had been hoping for a Legion of Super Heroes flight ring.

This next one comes from the time when Q had seen Scarface and thought that he could become a drug overlord in a short amount of time with a few high profile displays of violence. So he snuck out one evening and keyed the cars of people that he thought might know about the drug industry (which were basically the workers at the local CVS, his family doctor, and the Hispanic families in his small town). This caused a small revolt by the Mexican gangs in the local area and this nice piece of grafitti appeared. Q feared for his life and went into hiding at my place until it was safe, or at least until I stopped buying the meatball Hot Pockets.

I also wanted to share a picture from a time I was hanging out with Cyber D. As everyone knows Cyber D loves going to the movies, like almost more than anything. So a few months back he and I went to the premiere of Transformers. Cyber D loves Sci-fi but had been drinking (big surprise, I know) and while we were waiting had to start mouthing off about how much better the Dr. Who franchise was and that the Transformers movie was like Brokeback Mountain with robots. I edged away as I could see the restlessness growing with each of his loud proclamations. As soon as Cyber D shouted that Megatron was Starscream's bitch I knew it was on. Anyway Cyber D and I didn't get to see the movie together that day, but I did get this funny picture of him totally getting his ass beat.

Susan and I met up once. Once. I had just flown into town and Susan met me at the airport. I didn't expect to even see her on that trip. To be honest I don't even know how she knew it was me. She just said she recognized my pants. She also said that she hung out at the airport all the time and asked if I wanted to buy her a drink. "Ummmmmm.....ok," I said. So she pulled me into the TGI Fridays in the airport terminal immediately ordered a bottle of Crown, poured it into a half-full two liter of Coke, and started drinkning straight from the bottle. The conversation was really weird and seemed to revolve around which of the Seven Dwarfs would be most fun to date. Just before airport security arrived I was able to get this picture.

So a few weeks back, I had run into a Barnes and Noble, when I heard an unfamiliar voice call from behind me "Dagromm! Dagromm!!!". I turned and was surprised to see Tera there. She was in a terrible fury. Before I could even ask what was wrong she shoved a book into my chest and said, "Can you believe this shit??? Well I'm not standing for it!! I'm protesting this! I'm glad you came we'll make human chain at the front door". It wasn't a really effective protest as the Barnes and Noble we were at had four doors and we only blocked two of them. I'm not sure that most people even knew it was a protest. I think they thought we were just arguing. This conception was probably exacerbated by the fact that Tera kept yelling at me when ever anyone came through one of the other doors that I was "doing it wrong". Anyway, here's a picture of the book that set Tera off. She said they stole the title she was planning on using for her memoirs.

I don't travel a whole lot, but I did earlier this year and got turned around trying to find my hotel. I went into a grocery store to ask directions. I walked up to what looked like the most available employee which was at the bakery counter. I asked for some help with directions and got a glazed stare in return. Feeling awkward I glanced down and found a disturbing array of cakes that all featured bunnies. I asked what the deal was with the cakes and was told that it was Tuesday and if you wanted a cake on Tuesday you had to buy a bunny cake. I asked why and was given the glazed over stare again and then told in a very cold voice that, "Everyone likes bunnies!". I didn't want to argue, so I just repeated my request for directions. Her response was that she wasn't being paid to give directions and that she didn't do it for free. She then advised me to buy a Tom Tom and to have a nice day. Thanks Heather.

Life Imitates Art

One of the problems of my current job is that I've been pulled from the recesses of having my own office to having to sit with the commoners in the cubicle area. This means that I have less ability to spend hours talking on personal calls and write on my blog. It also means that I am more likely to have interractions with my fellow employees. I shout out random comments over the cubicle walls like, "I like cheese", and when one person asks a question over the walls to someone else I follow it up with a question like, "Employee Z, why do bad things happen?".

About a week and a half ago I made the statement that I wished we would stop doing cakes for people's birthdays since I don't have much of a sweet tooth (chocolate chip cookies excluded) and instead did nachos. The idea of nachos seemed to really resonate with my coworkers and the next thing you know a nacho potluck was being organized. There was a sign up sheet posted and it was given the title of Dagromm Appreciation Day. I couldn't believe that this had happened. Certainly Eslocura has some strong influence even all the way up into the far reaches of North Texas. When I returned to work after teh weekend a poster had been put up advertising Dagromm Appreciation Day with multiple pictures of yours truly and thought balloons making statements like, "I love cheese" and "I love me". Both of which are true.

So last Friday was Dagromm Day here at work and it was a huge success. Nothing brings the people together like........well........me.......I suppose. I gained a solid two pounds after consuming massive quantums of nachos and everyone was already making plans for the next one. The only embarrassing part was when the company owner came up and saw the sign with my picture all over it declaring it was my day. I felt bad because it was also his birthday and there wasn't nearly the same done to celebrate it.

These Are A Few Of My Favorite Things

If you like deviltry then you're probably a big fan of The Charlie Daniels Band and the Devil Went Down to Georgia. If you've never heard the song then feel free to enjoy.



If you do like this song then you probably also remember the more recent version done by the KMC KRU. It's so fresh I can hardly stand it. Uh uh uh uh. Sorry, I broke into the running man for a minute.