One of the people who take the time to read this blog from time to time has taken the plunge and fired up his own blog. It appears that he is off to a good start. Check out “Run That By Me Again.”

Not too long ago, I came across Pamibe, although I cannot remember how I found my way there. I liked it, and added it to my bookmarks. Since then, I’ve been a regular, so for my ease of reading and your enjoyment, I am happy to add Pam’s site to the Blogroll.

Go forth and read.

OMIGOD!! What a surprise!! I would like to thank members of the Academy, my agent, Murray, and ….. Ooops! Wrong speech.

Alas, Parkway Rest Stop did not win, although it made an impressive showing, given the quality of the competition. I do want to thank the four people who each voted 19 times all those who voted for me.

I would also like to thank Kevin at Wizbang for all his hard work and for providing us with a generous helping of fun.

In June, I recommended, in this post, that you check out Wing, and I told you that you would not be sorry. I trust you weren’t. Well, Wing is now singing Christmas songs. I particularly liked “Jingle Bells.” Go listen.

The CD would make a great stocking stuffer.

Note: Please swallow what you are drinking before going to the site. You’ve been warned.

I am not terribly proud to say that I have experienced all of the following at one time or another, more than I care to remember.

Cheers!!

One Star Hangover (*)
No pain. No real feeling of illness. You’re able to function relatively well
However, you are still parched. You can drink 5 sodas and still feel this
way. For some reason, you are craving a steak & fries.

Two Star Hangover (**)
No pain, but something is definitely amiss. You may look okay, but you have
the mental capacity of a staple gun. The coffee you are chugging is only
increasing your rumbling gut, which is still tossing around the fruity
pancake from the 3:00 AM Waffle House excursion. There is some definite
havoc being wreaked upon your bowels.

Three Star Hangover (***)
Slight headache. Stomach feels crappy. You are definitely not productive.
Anytime a girl walks by you gag because her perfume reminds you of the
flavoured schnapps shots your alcoholic friends dared you to drink. Life
would be better right now if you were home in your bed watching Lucy reruns.
You’ve had 4 cups of coffee, a gallon of water, 3 iced teas and a diet Coke
— yet you haven’t peed once.

Four Star Hangover (****)
Life sucks. Your head is throbbing. You can’t speak too quickly or else you
might puke. Your boss has already lambasted you for being late and has given
you a lecture for reeking of booze. You wore nice clothes, but that can’t
hide the fact that you only shaved one side of your face. (For the ladies,
it looks like you put your make-up on while riding the bumper cars.) Your
eyes look like one big red vein, and even your hair hurts. Your sphincter is
in perpetual spasm, and the first of about five shits you take during the
day brings water to the eyes of everyone who enters the bathroom.

Five Star Hangover (*****)
You have a second heartbeat in your head, which is actually annoying the
employee who sits in the next cube. Vodka vapour is seeping out of every
pore and making you dizzy. You still have toothpaste crust in the corners of
your mouth from brushing your teeth in an attempt to get the remnants of the
poop fairy out. Your body has lost the ability to generate saliva so your
tongue is suffocating you. You don’t have the foggiest idea who the hell the
stranger was passed out in your bed this morning. Any attempt to defecate
results in a fire hose like discharge of alcohol-scented fluid with a rare
floater’ thrown in. The sole purpose of this ‘floater’ seems to be to splash
the toilet water all over your ass. Death sounds pretty good about right
now…

Thanks to my friend Russ, a Navy vet (of course).

SADDAM CAUGHT!
The world is a better place today.

Image lifted from Ipse Dixit.

Between doing Christmas stuff and Life 101 stuff today, I am beat. It doesn’t look like I’ll be doing much blogging tonight. A comfortable chair and a nice cigar beckon.

Of course, it is nice to have been nominated for the 2003 Weblog Awards in this category, and it’s even nicer to see people actually voting for this site. In addition, one of the good things about the process is that it has introduced me to some excellent blogs that I probably would not have otherwise found.

One such site is Unbillable Hours. Its proprietor is a Jersey guy, who also happens to be an attorney (he knows the secret handshake), and who is a wonderful photographer and first-class writer.

I thoroughly enjoyed my visit there, and I think you will too.

Roger, of Curmudgeonly and Skeptical, reports that his MT Site cratered, and so he returned to BlogSpot. That’s right. BlogSpot!!!

Welcome back to the hood, Herr Schultz.

His newly relocated site is here. Adjust your blogrolls accordingly, so you don’t miss anything.

I don’t eat a lot of candy. I’m just not a big candy fan. However, I do like Necco Wafers and often keep them nearby when I am watching television.

Necco Wafers are those quarter-sized, hard, sugary wafers that are packaged much like a roll of quarters. They come in 8 flavors and colors: lemon (yellow); orange (orange); lime (green); clove (purple); cinnamon (white); wintergreen (pink); licorice (black); and chocolate (brown). The number of each flavor and color in each roll is determined randomly. So, when buying Necco Wafers, the number of each flavor you get in the package is essentially a crapshoot.

The only flavor that can be purchased separately (i.e. all one color) is chocolate**. The good news there is that chocolate is my favorite flavor. The bad news is that it is often difficult to find the “only-chocolate” packages.

Necco Wafers have been around since the beginning of the twentieth century, when they were first manufactured by the New England Confectionary Company, which accounts for the name Necco (N.E.C.Co. Clever, no?). Now, more than 4 billion Necco Wafers are manufactured each year, which is enough to completely encircle the world twice if placed edge to edge. Link

What’s good about Necco Wafers is that, with the right technique, they are very satisfying and take a long time to eat. In fact, with the right technique, even a mini-roll (10 wafers) can last for the better part of a TV program.

Here’s how to eat Necco Wafers:

The first rule is that one eats only one Necco Wafer at a time. Putting more than one Necco Wafer at one time in one’s mouth causes flavor collision, which is a bad thing. For example, orange and cinnamon tend to beat the shit out of each other. Putting two or more Necco Wafers at a time in one’s mouth might be acceptable, but only if they are all the same flavor. Nevertheless, this practice is not recommended, as it will result in the roll not lasting as it should

Second, it is always acceptable to throw away black Necco Wafers, because they taste like licorice, and licorice tastes like crap. With luck, there will not be too many black Necco Wafers in your roll.

Finally, one doesn’t chew a Necco Wafer, at least not when one first puts it into one’s mouth . They are too hard for that, and prematurely chewing them is too noisy inside one’s head, requiring an upward adjustment of the TV volume. Rather, one lets the Necco Wafer sit on one’s tongue for a few minutes until it softens up and is ready for a slow, constant-pressure chew, rather than a chomp-type chew.

Necco Wafers have an interesting history. Admiral Byrd took 2 1/2 tons of Necco Wafers to the South Pole in the 1930’s to give to his men as well as the locals he ran into along the way. In addition, Necco Wafers travel well because they do not melt and, as candy goes, they are relatively indestructible. For that reason, during World War II, the government purchased a major portion of the company’s production of Necco Wafers to ship overseas to the troops.

Be a good American. Eat Necco Wafers.

** It is true that the only flavor Necco Wafer that can be purchased separately is chocolate. However, I recall from my boyhood Rod Redwing saying that the Necco Wafer manufacturer used to provide him with special packages that contained only white Necco Wafers. I know you are asking yourself, who is this Rod Redwing guy, and why was he given special treatment by the Necco folks?

Yep. They were Necco Wafers.