Congratulations to my guitar-pickin’, scotch drinkin’, poetry readin’, pool shootin’, story tellin’, telephone talkin’, travelin’ companion and good friend Eric who has been dazzling his many readers at Straight White Guy for two years now.

Pop over and say hello to this Marine and Tennessee gentleman.

I found this over at Synthstuff. As my Granny used to say, “It handed me a laugh.”

Are there certain words that always … always send you to the dictionary?

I’m not talking about the fifty-cent words that we only use a couple times per year. Checking those just seems like a good idea. Rather, I am talking about everyday words that, for some reason, you can’t farookin’ remember how to spell.

In my case, it doesn’t matter that I’ve been speaking and writing English for a bit more than five decades. There are a few words that invariably require my turning to Mr. Spellchecker, and it annoys the hell out of me. You might ask, “Yo, Jimbo. You should use that Autocorrect feature in Word. It fixes your spelling as you type.” To which I reply that I hesitate to use that nifty feature because I don’t spell these words wrong in a consistent manner. Each time I stumble over one of the dreaded words I take a crack at it, and invariably the Word-produced Red Line of Stupid appears under my incorrect spelling.

Once the spelling is corrected, I invariably promise myself that I will forevermore remember the correct spelling. Of course, I never do.

Casting my embarrassment (ooops!!! That’s one of them — How many r’s? How many s’s?), I hereby share the list that comes right off the top of my head. There are doubtless more:

Banana: It always looks to me as if it needs more n’s.
Commitment: How many m’s? How many t’s? Maybe I should be committed?
Potato: I always secretly felt Dan Quayle’s pain.
Tomato: See above
Jealous: I get as far as the first three letters, then wonder if the a should be an o.
Acknowledgement: It’s the damned second e. In the word “Judgment,” it’s not there! I probably could use Autocorrect on that one.
Rhythm: This one is the granddaddy of the all. I use this word all the damned time, and yet I have never, ever spelled it without checking my spelling, which is most often wrong. The word just looks goofy as hell to me.

I have no idea why I am obviously incapable of learning and remembering the correct spelling of this baloney words. I’ve even tried mnemonic (OK, so I had to check that word too) devices, but I can never remember the mnemonic device I created.

I figure it must be a wiring thing in my cruller.

I attended a funeral mass today (never a happy experience), at which the singer was superb. It’s a bitch that you don’t get to applaud great singing at a mass.

I figure God wouldn’t mind, but what do I know?

As firefighters from Illinois and Maine, as well as police officers and firefighters from New York and New Jersey head to New Orleans, the City of New Orleans is giving free Las Vegas vacations to its police officers and firefighters and their families.

Am I missing something, or is something wrong with this picture?

h/t Enlighten New Jersey

I will be attending a wake in just a bit, so I won’t have time to write much of anything. I did, however, spend the time necessary to read “Tribes” by Bill Whittle, and I urge you to do the same.

It’s worth the time.

Can you tell me what’s ailing me?*You may wonder how a collection of aging Vietnam Era types who hang together, travel together, and party hard and long, which invariably includes drinking like sailors on liberty sipping an occasional libation and eating like a pack of hungry wolves enjoying fine victuals, manages to continue to remain ambulatory and relatively healthy. If you hadn’t thought about that, trust me: It’s quite remarkable.

The reason why, in defiance of the aging process, we’re all still raising hell is because, like all first-class teams, we have a Team Doctor, and he would be “Doctor Doctor.”**

Doctor Doctor didn’t sign on to be the Team Doctor, but it just sort of worked out that way. Each of us makes our regularly scheduled visits to see Doctor Doctor for checkups, and during any given week, at least one of the Usual Suspects needs an appointment for an ache … here or a pain … there. It would be an understatement to say that he knows us all very well. He knows all our HDLs, LDLs, liver enzymes, and assorted other diagnostic markers lurking in our blood. He has a keen diagnostic sense to begin with, but knowing all of us provides him with an edge in getting to the root cause of any given malady. “Martinis this weekend was it?”

On special occasions, Doctor Doctor (sometimes with his lovely wife, Mrs. Doctor Doctor) has even been known to show up at one of our drunken brawls social gatherings. He’ll even have a beer or two (I’ve never seen him drink more than two) while, I suspect, he silently surveys the gang for clues as to what symptoms he’ll be hearing in the weeks to come. “You think your arm might be sore from pitching a dozen games of horseshoes, or from lugging all that ice? Maybe the upset stomach has something to do with the tequila and kielbasa?”

He practices “non-preachy” medicine, resting assured that we all know what’s good for us and what is not. Doctor Doctor always listens and always carefully considers the treatment options. He has never failed to spot a potentially serious problem, and, unless it is a matter that requires immediate attention, he always chooses the conservative approach. “Well, it could be ‘X,’ or you might need ‘Y,’ but let’s try ‘Z’ first, and check back with me in a week.” I like that approach, and I like him. He’s a good doctor and a good guy.

What would you guess is the question that is most often posed to Doctor Doctor by his Usual Suspect patients? The question is regularly asked following his handing one of the Usual Suspects a new prescription, and the question is ……..

”Can I drink with this?”

* Reference for younger readers.

** I dare not name Doctor Doctor, lest his professional standing suffer as a result of being identified as the de facto Team Doc for the collection of aging reprobates that is The Usual Suspects.

The other night I felt myself becoming unhinged. I thought my head would explode from watching the horrendous hurricane images and listening to the political firebombs being tossed about.

I shut down the computer and plopped myself in front of the television seeking an absolutely mindless diversion. News was obviously out, as was anything remotely resembling a “reality” show. (I had more genuine reality than I needed). I also skipped over my usual favorites, such as the History Channel and Channels. I didn’t want to think about anything. The Military Channel was out too, as I had seen more than enough destruction on television in the previous two days.

I scrolled through the HBO offerings and came upon “Napoleon Dynamite.” I had remembered reading about this movie months before at Impact in a post that was written by a high school teacher who described the popularity of this movie with his students and his use of the movie to his advantage in the classroom.

The movie, which was filmed entirely in Idaho, is about what might be the world’s biggest nerd who lives in what might be the world weirdest family. The plot, if you could even call it that, was simple – the mondo nerd helps another nerd friend (from Mexico) get elected as the high school class president.

It was just what I needed.

I thought it was hilarious. I’m not sure what to make of having been so entertained by a movie that has reached almost “Rocky Horror Picture Show” cult status among high school kids today. Was it hurricane burnout, or am I mentally and emotionally regressing?

Then again, maybe it’s simply a very funny movie.

People who stop by here with some regularity have often heard me speak of Ken, my friend and “bodyguard” and his wife, Kathy, the Deckmistress (a few of you have had the pleasure of meeting Ken). Occasionally I have also mentioned Kathy’s sister Jeannie (the “Good Sister” as we humorously refer to her) and her husband Artie, both among The Usual Suspects. We learned this morning that Kathy and Jeannie’s mom passed away after having been ill for quite some time.

Our condolences to our friends Kathy and Jeannie and their respective families, who are more like family to us than they are friends.

Right now, I don’t even feel like sitting in front of this computer.

Maybe later……maybe tomorrow.