Thanks Cyber D

I'm glad that Cyber D still has e-mail exchanges with me once in a while. Luckily the other times I've published our e-conversations hasn't dissuaded him from communicating with me. So, I'll publish our correspondence from last week in the hopes that Cyber D will send me the receipt template that I asked for.

From: Dagromm
Sent: Friday, April 04, 2008 4:30 PM
To: Cyber D
Subject: receipt

Cyber D,

Do you have any sort of template for a donation receipt?

Dagromm, PHR


From: Cyber D
Sent: Friday, April 04, 2008 4:34 PM
To: Dagromm
Subject: RE: receipt

I’m certain I can provide you something, but it will have to wait until next week. I don’t process receipts so I’ll need to touch base with someone else in my department in order to get a template. Otherwise I could craft something from scratch that would fill your needs but – again – I would have to put pen to paper no earlier than next week. I hope that’s okay. Let’s circle back at that time?

Cyber D


From: Dagromm
Sent: Friday, April 04, 2008 4:39 PM
To: Cyber D
Subject: RE: receipt

Oh God, I got office speak from you. OK, we’ll “circle back” and “touch base” on the “particulars of the project”.

From: Cyber D
Sent: Friday, April 04, 2008 4:41 PM
To: Dagromm
Subject: RE: receipt

F-you! Sometimes office speak is the most salient way to communicate politely. Would you have preferred…

Yeah I can help but I don’t have time now. Let me talk to some people or else I’ll just pull something out of my ass but you’ll have to wait your f-ing turn! Get in line!

How’s that?

Cyber D

From: Dagromm
Sent: Friday, April 04, 2008 4:47 PM
To: Cyber D
Subject: RE: receipt

That’s really not what I’d expect from someone I consider a friend either, but I guess we were raised differently. I suppose I’ll just take the high road and “wait my turn”.

From: Cyber D
Sent: Friday, April 04, 2008 4:49 PM
To: Dagromm
Subject: RE: receipt

Smoke…

Cyber D

From: Cyber D
Sent: Friday, April 04, 2008 5:12 PM
To: Dagromm
Subject: RE: receipt

my


From: Cyber D
Sent: Friday, April 04, 2008 5:16 PM
To: Dagromm
Subject: RE: receipt

pole


You'll notice that Cyber D is quick to lose his temper at 4:40 on a Friday. I should have known better than to ask something of him when I know he's already been drinking.

Time shoots by and there are multiple things to catch loyal readers up on. The boy has an unofficial girlfriend. It’s been going on for a while. She told a friend that she liked him who told him and he said “ummm ok” and then he asked her to the dance which she couldn’t go to because she had family coming in town, she calls him semi-regularly, he took a picture of her with his cell phone, and now she wants to know if he can go to the mall and hang out sometime. So that’s romance and dating in the modern day. Her name is Ebony. She’s a sista.

The girl’s soccer season is almost to the midway point and she and the team have been struggling. I don’t know if she’s just uncomfortable transitioning between the two teams or what, but she knows that she’s not playing well which is frustrating her and making her play worse. She and I have worked a little extra and have talked about it, so I hope that’s about to turn around this weekend. The team started getting really physical in practice and I’m hoping it carries over into the games, because we’ve been lacking in that regard to a painful degree.

Today I find out that the girl has strep throat. She had to get a shot in the leg and I don’t know that she’ll be playing this weekend. I got her McNuggets. That's the only medicine I know. That and Pee Wee's Big Adventure.

Life is a Song

Sometimes I like to share the knowledge that I have gained through the many experiences in my life. In a way I feel that is my major gift to the world that will be left behind long after I am gone. I pass on knowledge so that others don’t have to make the same mistakes, so that they in turn can build from the foundation that I have lain and further the cause of creating a better humanity.

To that I end I will profess that I live my life as if it were a movie. A musical in fact, in which people will instantaneously burst in to song and dance as the whim strikes them. When I’m not crooning to my kids about the glories of fried chicken while in the drive-thru at Popeye’s, I’m espousing the inadequacies of other drivers during my morning drive, or serenading my coworkers. I feel that I have gained a unique knowledge and insight from this practice of living life as a movie and I will share it with you.

The following is a list of songs that I can without hesitation tell you should not be sung while making love. In fact most of them should never be sung while naked and sweaty under any circumstances. If you are to take on an existence, like my own, in which music helps define your life then I can only hope you will follow my advice.

Knockin’ on Heavens Door (Guns in Roses) – I know it seems like this would be the perfect song especially if you can mimic Axel Rose, but it isn’t……at all.

That’s the Way (uh-huh uh-huh) I Like It (KC and the Sunshine Band) – Once again this seems like it would go over well, but it doesn’t. In fact you might get asked to leave, forcefully.

Genie in a Bottle (Christina Aguilera) – I don’t feel that I should have to explain this, just take my word for it.

Star Trekkin’ (The Firm) – OK, two words, mood & killer

American Pie (Don McLean) – Do you realize how long this song is???? Fellas, if you try to sing this while in the act you are just going to feel bad about yourself in the end. Save yourself the therapy and please don’t attempt it. For the same reason you might also want to avoid the Sugar Hill Gang’s “Rappers Delight”, Baby Bubba.

It's been a little while and a few things have been rolling around in my brain to mention. The first one is this news story that I saw a while back. I didn't notice a whole lot of talk on the subject, but I found it somewhat amusing. For some reason I find myself taking the Little Miss Sunshine approach to this story. I wish they would have just gotten an autograph and then let her go on her way. Maybe take a picture with her lighting up or something.

The girl and I have spent most of our free time at the Dallas Cup watching soccer. She's been excited to watch the Liverpool U-19's from England play since she plays for a local Liverpool Academy team. She wears her Liverpool shirt to games and cheers very loudly. We've made friends with some other supporters of the team and sit with them at the games. The girl has been working on te lyrics for "You'll Never Walk Alone" which is their unofficial theme song and even persuaded me to get her a Liverpool F.C. flag. Last night we went to the semifinals and watched them play against Benfica from Portugal. My daughter's impression after the game was that the Portuguese were all a bunch of cheats and fakers, so it's a been a learning experience for her. Liverpool came out on top scoring in the last two minutes of regulation to take home a 2-1 victory and secure a spot in the Finals against Tigres (Mexico).

After the game, we stuck around and the girl got her flag autographed by the Liverpool players. They were all very nice and took the time to sign things and take pictures. They have a few stud players that I'm sure will be playing with somebody's first team before long.

Two Great Powers Coming Together

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.