I love April Fools day. I just love pulling pranks on people. Unfortunately, due to past, uh, "incidents" I've been forced to promise that I wouldn't play jokes on certain people anymore. Or because of my position at work, I can't pull anymore on the job pranks. Something about lawsuits and stuff. That being said, I want to give credit to some really good pranks pulled today.

First: The IT department at work. When we all showed up this morning, none of our phones worked except in the customer service arena. We couldn't make or take any calls. This caused people to panic for about an hour. I on the other hand just sat back and laughed. ITG, you guys rock!

Second: Ken DeCoster of Rockford's WNTA 1330 talk radio pulled one on the city. On his talk show, separate of the news portion, he asked people what they thought of the City of Rockford spending Millions of dollars to replace the street signs around the city. They are going to do all of them so they are in English on top and the Spanish equivalent on the bottom. IE if it was Cat Street it would say Calle Del Gato underneath it. He kept this going for hours. I didn't hear the whole thing, only part of it when I went to lunch. I did get to hear him tell everyone it was an April Fools joke however. Ken, I applaud you! At five o'clock tonight they were still talking about it!

Yea, some people are mad over the whole thing, even after it was brought out that it was a joke. To those people, get a life. It was a joke, and funny. Sure my blood boiled, but once he said "April Fools" I cooled off quickly and admitted he got me. It's for fun.

Third: The guy that thought it would be fun to chase his friend way too close. It was hilarious when he slammed on his brakes and you rammed him so hard you both slid into a ditch. Nothing is funnier than two teenage morons playing bumper tag at 70+ miles per hour. Wait, that wasn't an April Fool's joke. Those were just April Fools.

Posted by: Contagion at 06:03 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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I know people can sell anything on EBay, but seriously folks. Who the hell is going to buy the ability to become invisible?

Well, actually, probably the same guys that bought the x-ray vision glasses from the back of comic books.

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Just in time for St. Patrick's day we get a clip from Argentina of some gnome-like creature wearing a pointed hat.

According to the article in The Sun:

The midget - which wears a pointy hat and has a distinctive sideways walk - was caught on video last week by a terrified group of youngsters.

Teenager Jose Alvarez - who filmed the gnome - yesterday told national newspaper El Tribuno that they caught the creature while larking about in their hometown of General Guemes, in the province of Salta, Argentina.

He said: “We were chatting about our last fishing trip. It was one in the morning.

“I began to film a bit with my mobile phone while the others were chatting and joking.

"Suddenly we heard something - a weird noise as if someone was throwing stones.

"We looked to one side and saw that the grass was moving. To begin with we thought it was a dog but when we saw this gnome-like figure begin to emerge we were really afraid."

Jose added that other locals had come forward to say they had spotted the gnome.

He said: “This is no joke. We are still afraid to go out - just like everyone else in the neighbourhood now.

"One of my friends was so scared after seeing that thing that we had to take him to the hospital.”

He's right, this isn't a joke. This would classify as a prank. Jeez! Not that I have any proof that it's a prank, but seriously am I really going to trust a group of teenagers hanging out on a street corner at 1:00AM?

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This week started off really good. I had just spent the weekend with a group of the greatest guys I've had the pleasure hanging out with. Then I had a day off to "recover" from the fun.

Then I went to work. I walked into a maelstrom of laziness, incompetence and bullshite. On Wednesday I was given the shaft. I’m not going to go into a lot of details, but my company basically told me that I’m not a valuable employee, I’m not appreciated and that what I do is unnecessary to the benefit of the company. When I confronted them on this, they claimed “That is not the situation.” Yet actions speak louder than words and their actions spoke volumes. I caught them in some “untruths” or misinformation. I’m not saying I was directly lied to, but either the powers that be were lied to, are misinformed or misunderstood information given to them.

Then they knew they pissed me off and instead of confronting the situation they avoided it. Pissing me off more. There is nothing that annoys me more than milquetoast management. I had more meetings canceled today; in fact all of my meetings with upper management were canceled. After the last one was canceled, I forced a confrontation by stating I wanted to follow up on our conversation from Wednesday.

We sat down, discussed it and they wanted me to put my feelings and issues in writing for a formal request. After that they questioned my ability to manage my employees and they questioned my ability to continue functioning in the position IÂ’m currently in. Because of that I told them I refused to put it in writing in fear that they were going to use it against me at a later time. That set them on the defense. Denials of retaliation were flying left and right until I pulled out the examples of were they retaliated against me in the past.

I really think my time with this company is coming to an end rapidly. Either voluntarily or involuntarily. I am proud of the fact that in one of the meetings with my peers, after they pushed some of my buttons, I didn’t utter the phrase, “Don’t piss me off or I’ll rain fiery death down upon you like the gods of yore.” Especially since they have all heard me talk about my mortar and how I could shell the building from a half-mile away. Not that I would actually ever do that or anything else remotely that stupid. Just that I don’t know if they would take it as the joke it was meant as right now.

Anyway, IÂ’m getting ready to tear into a couple of cases of beer soon.

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It seems that for reasons unexplainable to man, I have again spawned. Long time reader Petey has started his own blog, PeteyÂ’s Powderhorn.

IÂ’ve known Petey for four years and consider him a good friend. HeÂ’s one of my many re-enacting and drinking buddies. Well I guess technically re-enacting buddies are drinking buddies, but hey does it really matter? HeÂ’s a nice guy with a good heart and a good head on his shoulders. ItÂ’s only taken me 2 years to get him to actually start one.

So go over and give him a chance. Just a warning, he is promising to be like Graumagus in the earlier days with fire and venomÂ… after he getÂ’s his blog legs.

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Later tonight when you have had a couple drinks or 12 in your system, watch the following clip.

I'm not sure what it's about, but it has some kind of creepy kid, a goofy bird and some hot German girls wearing lederhosen, or whatever the female equivalent is. Anyway it has to be hilarious when you are drunk.

Thanks to Jabbah at I Hate My Cubicle (NSFW) for finding this.

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Last night Ktreva and I were able to meet up with some mighty fine bloggers at Klas in Cicero. We had Blackfive, Tammi and T1G. Unfortunately others couldn't join us for work or family obligations. Not that this wasn't a perfectly fine group to begin with, it's just sometimes it's fun to meet other bloggers and talk to them face to face, not via e-mail or comments.

The food was excellent, there were plenty of great stories, and a great time was had by everyone. The highlight of the night was some sweater wearing Czech guy kept hitting up on T1G. I'm not sure it was for friendship or date, but the guy was persistent. At one point Tammie and Ktreva asked me to run interference. After looking at Blackfive, I told them all the only kind of interference I know how to run is as a Wingman, and I don't think T1G wants that kind of help.

It was a lot of fun, and a perfect way to have fun this time of year.

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Yesterday I went over to ShadoglareÂ’s dwelling for what we dub Cheesy Movie day. Basically people bring over a slew of B-movies or ones that are so bad they are good. We watch them to find the rare gem that is the truly great B-movie. We had a slew of movies to choose from, but here are the ones we ended up watching.

Cannibal: The Musical (AKA Alferd Packer: The Musical). ItÂ’s almost too bad we started out the day with this movie as it was the best cheesy movie of the day. It was made by Trey Parker and Matt Stone while they were in college. So this was before their South Park days. ItÂ’s not out on video apparently, but somehow Shadoglare obtained a copy of it. This was absolutely hilarious! If you get a chance to see, itÂ’s one shpadoinkle of a movie!

The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires. Okay, itÂ’s a cheesy kung-fu movie with vampires and zombies. It really made no sense and to be honest I was pretty bored with it. I ended up dozing off a couple of times. I like cheesy kung-fun movies, but this one didnÂ’t do anything for me.

Dorm of the Dead. This is a movie I brought. It was bad. Before the opening credits we had zombie kills, and up skirt shot and boobies. I, uh, well we all did, thought I had gotten zombie pr0n. The acting was horrible, the cinematography was awful and the writing was horrendous.

Flight of the Living Dead. Okay, when I first heard about this movie I figured it couldnÂ’t be more than 15-20 minutes long. Zombies on a plane, thereÂ’s not much more that can happen. You have an outbreak and with in 15 minutes the flight is overrun with the undead. To be honest, this was the second best movie of the day. It was done really well and the way they did it, they filled an hour and a half with zombie goodness. I will say that when the outbreak finally happened, the plane was overrun in 15 minutes. (we timed it). It may not be a top 20 zombie movie, but if you like that genre itÂ’s worth watching.

Space Truckers. Okay, we debated if this was really a b-movie with such actors as Dennis Hopper and Stephen Dorf as main characters. ItÂ’s cheesy, but I donÂ’t think it was a b-movie. I enjoyed watching it, but it really is stupid, especially the square pigs. I think they could have done this better, but hey it was made 10 years ago and it didnÂ’t last in the theaters very long.

Overall we had some good movies and we had some bad ones, but they were all enjoyable. Half the fun was making fun of the movies while watching them.

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I made it to Knoxville in plenty of time to have some fun tonight. That is after the first two rentalcars that had check engine lights came on, a stand still accident in Chicago, and having a stand still in Kentucky while the used explosvies to contruct the road. Yea, that's right, they were blasting the road.

Of course I get here to find out that Bloodspite requested a room with one bed. He then advises me he grew up 15 minutes away from where the filmed Deliverence. I'm really glad I brought my .45 with me.

So far we've sampled a lot of the local brew and have started drinking on some of the stuff we brought from home. However he did take me to a hippy joint called "The Mellow Mushroom" for beer and pizza. The pizza was damn good, the beer was hit and miss. Tomorrow we plan on drinking more beer and then on Saturday we are hitting the game. Depending on how things go I plan on blogging interesting things as soon as I can. Unfortunately sobriety and time dictate what I can do.

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As we all know that I'm a big fan of zombies and I even have a zombie contingency plan. Of course many of you think I'm insane for this, but I hate to break it to you, it can happen. Don't believe me? How about 5 scientific reasons a zombie apocalypse could actually happen.

You have Brain parasites, neurotoxins, the real rage virus, neurogensis, and nanobots. So see, having those plans is a good thing.

Thanks to Shadoglare for the link!

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Today at lunch I headed to a local grocery store to pick up some munchies for the weekend. While I was there I decided to take a walk through their liquor department to see if they had any new beers to review. As I went down the aisles, Ktreva pointed out that the Great Lakes Brewery beers were on clearance for $2.99 a Six-Pack. Folks, the price on this beer is normally $7.99 per sixer. Now Great Lakes makes the Edmund Fitzgerald Porter that I reviewed back in June, and received a damn good rating. Of course I picked up a six pack of two of their other beers, the Elliot Ness and Dortmunder Gold to review at a later time.

As I stood there I did the math in my head. $2.99 a six pack. That comes out to $11.96 for a case. That's a damn good price. And even though I'm not supposed to drink beer, I do entertain. Ktreva suggested I buy as much as I can at that price. So I did, I ended up buying a total of 10 six packs for $29.90. And as my wife put it, "That's premium beer for Keystone Light prices."

This morning I was thinking there was a large surplus of beer in this house that wasn't getting drunk. Those weekly beer reviews I generally only drink one and give away the rest. But I haven't had a gathering or re-enactment in a while so I have a lot of sixers sitting around waiting to be drunk. After today, I have a ton more.

Yes some of those six packs only have 5 beers in them, but that's 86 beers (15 six packs X 6 beers - 4 missing). That's over three and a half cases of beer. And that isn't counting the growlers I have in the fridge.... and I don't drink beer... as much... anymore.

So which one of you drunks is going to be knocking on my door tomorrow?

Posted by: Contagion at 07:08 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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Well hell it looks like I just passed the 100,000k visitor mark. The lucky(?) person was refered over from Quality Weenie with the Internet provider being Wide Open West.

Huh... I wonder if I should have offered a prize for that... but what the hell would I give?

Posted by: Contagion at 03:12 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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1 Congrats!
Beer or firearms are always good gifts.

Posted by: jimmyb at September 23, 2007 04:48 AM (4ki9u)

2 Hey, if the prize is beer, that was me!

Posted by: Ogre at September 24, 2007 10:56 AM (oifEm)

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...because it's what he wanted.

It's Harvey of Bad Example Birthday today. He had one wish for his birthday.

This year's theme... Boobs.

Specifically adult human female breasts.

Since he is one of my blogging mentors and just an all around good guy I decided to get him exactly what he wanted. The problem is that I just couldn't pick out one pair. I spent most of the day shopping. It was really hard to find the perfect set of Golden Bozos for him. I obsessed all day over the gift. Searching everywhere I just could not make up my mind.

Finally I found the perfect gift. I'll warn you now this is NSFW I hope you enjoy Harvey! more...

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I discovered something new last night about my wife. Apparently gently slapping the sides of her breasts in a playful manner is not something she enjoys.

Ktreva also didn’t seem pleased when I referred to them as “fun bags”.

My head is still sore this morning.

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It's labor day, a time for people to get together, grill some meat, drink beer and celebrate the American worker and women that have given birth. Well, maybe not that second half.

To me it also symbolizes the end of the summer. Technically it's not over until September 21st, but you know what. It doesn't technically start on Memorial day either. And guys if you are lucky enough to have a beautiful lady doing the grilling for you, let me give you all some tips.

Make sure that you give her the meat she needs. It has to be thick and juicy.

Then make sure she fans the flames so it's nice and hot. She can do what ever she needs to warm it up for you.

Happy Labor Day!

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For years they've made movies based on video games. Now they've finally made a movie based on a classic video game that looks like it's worth watching.

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1 hahahahahahahaha!!!!

Posted by: Richmond at September 01, 2007 03:58 PM (xsbFQ)

2 What Richmond said!

Posted by: Roses at September 01, 2007 09:16 PM (6KPV+)

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BALLS!

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I like Tetris, itÂ’s a fun little time waster, but I donÂ’t know if I would want to stand outside and watch it played with the lights of a building.

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All right, IÂ’m a little behind in posting this, but dammit, IÂ’ve been busy. Ogfest was just about the most damn fun IÂ’ve had in a long time. Ktreva and I left right after work to head down. When we arrived at the hotel, the bellhop guy kept wanting to help me carry my bags, I really didnÂ’t feel comfortable letting him carry my side arms, I donÂ’t think he understood. Especially since I didnÂ’t tell him the innocent looking black bag was filled with handguns and ammo.

As soon as I walked up to the desk to check in, I swore I heard Tammi talking. I just couldnÂ’t see her, and I was more interested in checking in and getting the bag of firearms out of the lobby. Sure enough after dumping off the luggage in the room we found Tammi in the bar with T1G, Og and Jon. We had time to grab a beer when Oddybobo and Zonker arrived. While we were sitting there talking Bloodspite arrived. He was all frazzled and worried looking, something about traffic, driving 8 hours and no air conditioning. Fortunately he shut up and put his beer hole to good use.

We all went to this microbrewery in Naperville. They told us for the size of party we had it would be an hour and a half wait, or we could go up stairs and just grab some tables first come first serve or wait until ours were ready. Harvey and TNT arrived just as we stole some tables from the locals. IÂ’d review the beer, but honestly I know they had some that sucked and some that were decent. It didnÂ’t matter; most of us were swilling beer like there was no tomorrow. After dinner we went back to the hotel to drink some more. (DonÂ’t you judge us!) Redneck, Leslie and Shou joined in the fun.

Saturday Harvey, Bloodspite and I headed to Buffalo Range to hook up with Graumagus, Og and Curious for some shooting. We had a lot of fun at this range. We did learn two things though. First, Harvey and Bloodspite underestimate the amount of ammo that can be burnt in two hours shooting. Secondly, Bloodspite's “twins” are inconsistent as all hell. The safest place to be is directly in front of them when shooting. EVERYONE that shot them was all over the place. They felt nice and handled well, but I guess when you store them in a chaw can the rifling gets mess up! (Sorry buddy, their dogs!)

Saturday night we went to Klas in Cicero for dinner. Teresa was there waiting for us. She even made me kiss her ring again. How cool is that? Biloxi also joined us at the restaurant. After dinner some presents were given to T1G and Og made speech. Any rumors about me drinking straight from pitchers are unsubstantiated at best. Such things would be highly uncouth.

I also brought my camera with. At one point in the night I turned on the motor drive and was taking paparazzi style pictures. My memory card holds over 1,000 pictures, I had 638 left Sunday morning. Looking at these pictures there are some really good ones. Unfortunately many people there did not want their pictures taken for fear of photoshopping reasons. Apparently one or four of the bloggers in the room have a history of such things. Thus in order to get them to cooperate I promised that I would not post any of the pictures on the internet, supply them to someone else who might or knowingly provide them to anyone that may photoshop them in any way. Thus if you want to see the pictures, tough. IÂ’ve burned them onto a disk for my own keeping.
Saturday night after the restaurant we went back to the hotel for even more drinking. (DonÂ’t you judge us!) I never realized how much beer a group of bloggers can consume. Fortunately IÂ’m a lightweight so I only had a couple Saturday night. Again much fun ensued. There were stories and jokes. People having a great time, and some NASCAR fan that wanted to us to all blog about NASCAR.

Sunday went well, we crawled out of bed around 10:30 AM. As I was passing through the lobby there were a group of bloggers there. At this point I would like to say to all of you, IÂ’m sorry. I donÂ’t remember who was all there, I was feeling a might out of it. I believe it was Tammi, T1G, Jon and ZonkerÂ…. But I could be seriously wrong. Especially after stepping outside into the daylight. For the first time this month I cursed the sun for being that bright life-giving star in the sky.

Some people had left long before I had, especially those that had flights or long drives ahead of them. About 2 in the afternoon while Ktreva and I were eating lunch, Bloodspite calls and leaves some kind of garbled voicemail for me. Folks, IÂ’ve heard of drunk dialing, but he was driving dialingÂ… then again he may have been drunk driving dialing from the sounds of the message. Between the cell-phone static and that thick Missouri drawl of his, I could barely make out what he was saying. Well except that he was about 130 miles from the Possum Roundup. It must be a Missouri thing.

Speaking of roundups, hereÂ’s the best part of a blogmeet post. Who all was there. This is done in no particular order what so ever. Just the order in which I found the link to their blogs.

Ktreva: Well hell, I married this one. She threw herself on that grenade. But she did look dead sexy in that dress Saturday night. Yea, I donÂ’t know how I landed her either.

Oddybobo: This is my second time meeting her in person, and she is just as sweet, beautiful and wonderful as I remember her being. Even if she did try to tackle me and put me through a wall in the hotel.

Zonker: This is the first time I met him, unfortunately I didnÂ’t get much time talking with him. He seems like a nice guy, IÂ’m just going to have to force myself to not be so shy next time and actually strike up a conversation.

T1G: The birthday boy himself. As I said in his birthday comment, heÂ’s like the older brother I never had. Only drunker, less articulate and with a worse haircut. Farking hippy!

Tammi: Smart, funny, beautiful. And contrary to some rumor, she is not monstrously tall. I donÂ’t know where that came from, but itÂ’s just wrong!

Og: Great guy and fun to talk to. I just really wish he would stop trying to take his clothes off around me. It seems every time I turned around he was picking up his shirt, unbuckling his belt or licking his nipples. Hey, if IÂ’m going to be traumatized, so are you.

Jon: This was my first time meeting him; IÂ’m glad he resurrected himself from the blogging grave. Great guy to talk to and heÂ’s the perfect designated driver. Plus I have some GPS navigation system envy. The next time IÂ’m in his part of the hand IÂ’m going to have to look him up.

Bloodspite: IÂ’m damn glad he talked the Bloodspouse into letting him go, even if it was with a promise from me to keep him out of trouble. DonÂ’t you all laugh at once. Good guy to joke around with, especially since he likes to advertise that he grew up where they filmed Deliverance. Plus he brought me a six-pack to do a review on. Looking forward to being able to kick back a couple of dozen more beers with you at some time.

Harvey: The Blog father himself. Some of you might not believe this, but Harvey has some skills. He picked up my Colt 1991 Model 80 .45 and was getting “kill shots” at 50 yards with it. I’m re-thinking my position on pissing him off. But I'm definitely getting him back to the range sooner or later.

TNT: Short, Sassy, SexyÂ… and looks like a pirate with underwear on her head. Yet, she pulls it off with a certain flair. However I need to make sure that she and Ktreva never go shopping at an outlet mall together again. They cut into my beer money.

Redneck: This is another blogger I met for the first time. I actually spent some time talking with him; he seems almost as shy as I am. However, by the end of the night I couldnÂ’t understand a damn word he was sayingÂ… but I think he was talking about fishing.

Leslie: This is a second meeting for us; unfortunately we did not get much quality time together. Actually I think my shyness and her sense of self-preservation kept it that way. One of these days IÂ’m gonna finish that conversation we tried to start at FritzÂ’s a couple of years ago.

Teresa: The lovely and regal Teresa. It was just an honor that you let me kiss your ring again, and this time you didnÂ’t even slap me. Thank you for gracing us with your presence. IÂ’m looking forward to our next meeting.

Graumagus: IÂ’ve known Grau for years, but damn I didnÂ’t realized how much he likes to drive. I think he spent more on gas then beer. He also needs to get a rifle that is Contagion proof. Damn cheap Russian ammo jamming up the bolt!

Shoe: This is the first time I met her, I didnÂ’t really get a chance to talk to her. In fact IÂ’m trying to remember if we ever exchanged words outside of and introduction and salutation. She seems really nice. Damn my shyness!

Biloxi: Another first time meeting for me. He sat at the same end of the table that I did at dinner. So we actually were able to talk and have some conversation. He was nice, polite and just fun to talk with.

Curious: Okay, I really only spoke to him briefly at the range. In fact I didnÂ’t even realize he was a blogger until that night at dinner. But it was nice meeting him anyway.

I think thatÂ’s everyone. If I missed someone IÂ’m sorry.

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WeÂ’re back from Ogfest. It was a great time. We were able to see some friends we hadnÂ’t seen in a long time and make some new ones. IÂ’d really love to go into details, but right now IÂ’m just so damn tired, I can barely keep my eyes open. I promise there will be more details later.

But until then, I will leave you with this question, “What is a possum roundup?”

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