The Orange Folder Chronicles

The weirdest children's Christmas story ever written

2011-12-24T21:33:00.000-08:00

OK, So I'll have to fess up here and admit that "The Orange Folder Chronicles" wasn't given an advance trade copy of this book to review so while I haven't actually read it, I bet the story I have in my mind might even be better than the actual book.

But seriously, how did this one make it by the nanny patrol? I love the leering look Mr. Claus is giving this concerned looking Ho as "Rudolf the wingman" looks on.

"Nice Ho Santa baby"

Reason #57 why it's not cool to be a dumb looking dog

2011-11-30T21:43:00.000-08:00

"I can't believe I put up with this shit for that cheap ass Wal-mart dog food he buys"

How to tell when the school photographer just doesn't give a damn

2011-08-19T15:50:00.000-07:00

There's dedication to your job and dedication to just "finishing your job". I imagine the guy taking the school photos that day just wanted to shuffle the kids through and get back to the bar.

"Little Jenny redefines photogenic"

Great moments in multi-tasking

2011-06-13T15:59:00.001-07:00

Here we have what must be one of the greatest demostrations of doing two things at once and doing both of them well.

I can't state that I know the circumstances that lead to this guy needing to engage in communication in the midst of a power on drift but I like his style.

"Well fuck you too buddy, but I win since I'm also racing a car while I'm insulting you"

PS: I freely admit I stole this photo from Hooniverse, who stole it from someone else. Not good form but how could I not share something this great.

How to flunk a grade school history project

2011-06-10T10:00:00.000-07:00

Screwing up just seems to come so naturally to today's kids.

Weird product ideas from the “didn’t think about it” marketing department

2011-05-20T05:59:00.000-07:00

#1) 1996 MK III VW Golf Harlequin

Under the brilliant guidance of the lowest paid employee at Volkswagen who actually owned a car, the company decided to release the special “Harlequin” edition in 1996.

By carefully selecting unbent panels leftover from crash test cars VW was able to create that special “Piece of shit” patina that normally takes 20 years and six owners to create.

“Clowns not included”

Even stranger still is the apparent reverence VW owners have for a vehicle that looks like it was repaired by “Larry the Cable guy”.

264 of these monstrosities were built and just in case you’ve become enamored with thought of driving a car with a salvage title, here’s a link to the Harlequin registry - http://www.rossvw.com/harlequin/

According to the registry, four different paint schemes were offered. I just wonder what the names of these could have been - “red drivers side door with green hood” perhaps?

The car below is for sale – Only $10,500! Yea, that’s a great deal on a 96 golf.

Why does every Volkswagen on the planet have a "shocker" sticker on the bumper?

#2) Hello Kitty Armaments

Various guys at the NRA and bored gun manufacturers are always trying to convince the women of the world that the use of deadly force should be cute and sweet, thus the rise of the pink gun.

No matter what gun shop or sporting goods store you go in, there’s always one (and never more than one) pink Lady Smith & Wesson in the case or pink child’s size .22 rifle at the far end of the rack.

Exactly the person I think of when I see a pink gun for sale

Sensing that plain girly pink wasn’t exactly spurring sales, various gun customizers have taken it upon themselves to offer special Hello Kitty shotguns and rifles.

“Hands up or I’ll blow the stuffing outta ya!”

It must be working, check out this happy owner of the Hello Kitty AR-15

“Sweetie, would you be a dear and go down to Walgreens and get me some tampons?”

I have to be honest here and admit that there’s some dark sick and twisted part of me that really wants to walk in the local Bank of America with my Hello Kitty shotgun and demand a refund of my share of the TARP bailout money.

My personal favorite, however, is the limited edition Hello Kitty Kalashnikov with the optional knitted buttstock cozy.

#3) Lewd fishing equipment

Really, this thing is so wrong on many levels. First of all is the obvious. I think the local police dept. posts an amber alert just in case every time one of these is sold.

“Hey guys, check out my pole!”

It sorta makes me want to get one and put it on and walk around the mall just to see what happens (not really, pepper spray and tazers leave a helluva hangover).

Looking like a perverted captain Ahab aside, who want to battle a monster trout by having a fishing pole jammed in their nuts anyway?

I suppose if you can get your mind off fishing for just a little while it might make sense. Can I see the catalog of attachments for it?

#4) Darth Vader collectible plate

This is going to look peachy in Nana’s china cabinet next to the Hummels.

“Use your change purse Luke”

Royal wedding - Photo of the day

2011-04-29T15:11:00.001-07:00

Irony - Part 2

2011-04-08T20:39:00.000-07:00

Today I was late leaving work because I was messing around on the internet checking eBay, Facebook and all those other sites that that are so popular with those of us who'd rather not be working. Good thing too because my tardiness seems to have prevented me from being an eyewitness to the ventilation of this Suburban. The truck has "Servicios Funerarias" written on the side - "Funeral Services".

Particulars from Channel 44 News about the crime:

Police collected 7 S&W .40 caliber shell casings from the street. The owner of "Funeraria Rios"Juan Rios, aged 43, and his employee, aged 34, both died at the scene.

This sort of crime is very common in Juarez and usually results from buisnesses not paying their "cuota" or protection money. Either that or someone wasn't pleased with the undertaker's work.

Irony

2011-03-28T13:27:00.001-07:00

"Crap, the jack is under all these tires!"

NPR – Cheaper than Death from above

2011-03-25T12:27:00.000-07:00

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting receives around $400 million from the federal government. Of that, about 75% is used to fund public television and the rest goes to NPR. According to the Washington Examiner, they get about $90 million a year from the federal government.

Recent debate in the House of Representatives is looking at cutting this expense as a means of deficit reduction (after all, aren’t there better ways to spend taxpayer’s money than on radio programming for people in rural Kanas? - "The object of this bill is to get NPR out of the taxpayer's pocket," said Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn. "It is time for us to be good stewards and save the money of the American taxpayer.")

http://washingtonexaminer.com/politics/congress/2011/03/house-votes-cut-npr-funding

Now, I can’t really comment on that but two days ago, John Boehner, the Republican speaker of the house, started bashing the Obama administration over the establishment of a “no fly zone” above Libya.

He asked what the ultimate goal is in enforcing UN resolution 1973 and what the cost would be.

Well Boehner, we here at The Orange Folder Chronicles get what a dumb shit you are so here’s a little help answering the second part of your question (I can’t figure out the first part either so you’ll need to continue with your polite questions to President Obama on that one).

“Now wait a minute, you know math is hard”

I have no idea what it costs to fly a sortie in an F-15 and definitely don’t know about flying one in an F-16 so lets just stick to the cost of firing cruise missiles, which I figure is like the grownups version of a bottle rocket fight.

According to “The Guardian” (assuming you can trust limeys, which I think we can since they have such cute girls) the American’s have fired 168 missiles so far:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/25/raf-role-libya-no-fly-modest

Elisabeth Hurley, a trustworthy Brit

Kate Middleton, another cute chick from “Tealandia”

Also, according the US Navy (we know we can trust them, they never lie) each one of these costs $569,000, which compared to a bottle rocket is probably pretty reasonable since you get a much cooler explosion.

http://www.navy.mil/navydata/fact_display.asp?cid=2200&tid=1300&ct=2

It’s shaped like that for a reason

So mister Boehner, using my $2 Chinese calculator I get about $95,592,000 just for the missiles. Add to that the fuel for the sub (I think uranium is slightly higher than the $3.54 a gallon regular gas my Ford Ranger uses), the cost of paying all those sailors, the donuts you had in your office while writing your latest silly rant and so on. I think we can safely say that this little action cost a tad more than a years worth of stinking liberal biased radio programs. Does that help you out Mr. Speaker?

“So you say your Republican congress is making a lot of noise?” “Sell it, it’s a lemon!”

If you're gonna build something, make it interesting

2011-02-28T13:52:00.000-08:00

Daily suggestion on how to have a kickass day

2010-12-02T12:54:00.000-08:00

Tip #27 - How to have a kick ass day

"Find money walking across the parking lot of Wal-Mart"

It’s a pomegranate world whether you want it or not

2010-11-03T11:40:00.000-07:00

Whenever I manage to find something I like, I generally stick with it and don’t feel much obligation to change. Change is only good if it’s better.

I can't begain to tell you how many of my favorite things have been discontinued just to make way for something "new and improved".

For example, I grew up in a simpler time when juice came in flavors like orange, apple or grape. There was no need for exotic stuff or weird blends.

Anything fruit flavored was based off these simple flavors and it never got more unusual than maybe raspberry or cherry.

In the 80s however, something seems to have gone awry. Someone discovered that they had these large weird green berries in the land of goofy animals and suddenly everyone on the planet was trying to figure out what they could stick kiwis in that had never had it before.

So who was the first guy to think "That looks like a fuzzy green testitcle, let's try it out" anyway?

Kiwi wasn’t really good enough by itself so you had to mix it with something else, usually bananas. I never have liked bananas so I never really like the weird mixtures of kiwi either. Kiwis are OK by themselves but to be honest, it’s just not as good as orange, apple, grape, cherry and the oh so exotic raspberry.

Apparently enough people like having kiwis mixed with other crap though that it was deemed a success. I’ve got no real beef with that except once kiwis became “de riguer” the entire product development staff at every large food conglomerate suddenly seems to have realized that they have to keep concocting weird ass tropical fruit flavors or there is really no justification for their jobs.

So, starting in the 90s legions of people with no real purpose in life started concocting all sorts of bizarre and clearly inferior mixtures of whatever oddball fruits and flowers they could find on the internet. It became like the great race to the south pole and eventually jumped the shark.

Mangos, dragonberrry, quince or whatever oddity you could find a native eating began to infiltrate the food isle. Weird flowers and spices are starting to appear. Pomegranates and some nasty tasting thing called Acai berry have risen to the top lately as the Lindsey Lohans of weirdo fruit of the day.

To be honest, pomegranates suck as food. You have to pick at them, they are full of seeds and the flavor is mediocre at best. It’s sorta like trying to unwind the rubber bands on a golf ball core just to find out there’s nothing more interesting inside than a rubber ball (of course, I’m sure golf balls aren’t made that way anymore. There’s something new and exciting now like Nike balls made out of titanium hair wound around a balled up core of Tiger Wood’s tramp’s phone numbers or something)

Gratuitus photo of Racheal Uchitel nearly naked

Problem is, there is only so much shelf space on a rack so to make room for all these weird flavors, something’s gotta go. Well, have you noticed lately how you can hardly ever find plain old orange soda or grape gum down at your local zippy mart? To hell with that, we need something new and fashionable like pomegranate mango.

I’ve had this habit of drinking wine coolers instead of soda since the 80s. They taste good and aren’t as sweet as soda and I just like em. That’s about to end though as now the only tolerable flavor left is something called “Seagrams Exotic Berry” (raspberry flavored) and even that’s getting hard to find.

Gone are lemon-lime, orange, lemonade etc. They’ve been replaced with weird stuff like “Calypso cooler” (this is bright blue colored) and “Jamaica me Happy” or “Fuzzy Navel”. Ad men suck alright. I have to confess that drinking wine coolers is a bit “frue-frie” at best but it’s downright intolerable to be drinking something that tastes weird and has a name only Richard Simmons could appreciate.

However, this is what broke the back of this old camel. I went to loot out the kids Halloween candy and boosted a Tootsie pop. The wrapper looked a bit off to me so I looked a little closer and saw this:

Come on people, - You know this isn't right!

Before YouTube there was the Xerox machine

2010-10-26T14:36:00.000-07:00

The other day while I was sorting out and tossing old papers, I realized that I’m old enough to remember some stuff that has gone the way of the Cold War.

For example, I can still recall the putrid smell of purple mimeograph fluid (and the uncontrollable urge to sniff a fresh copy even though it smelled like puke).

Most of all, I remember what it was like to fuck off at work before email and the internet. Back when office correspondence came to you in a brown reusable envelope with a red string closure, nearly everyone below the rank of area manager had some sort of “copier joke” tacked to the wall in their work area.

These were usually tattered sheets that had been copied over and over so many times they were barely readable, covered in defects and spots like an octogenarian’s DNA.

At one point they were ubiquitous. You could travel from one business to another one on the other side of the country and there’d be the same blurry page taped to the side of a filing cabinet. I remember wondering who could have drawn the originals and exactly how old were they? Copiers date back to the late 1950s but the mimeograph was invented back in the 1870s.

While digging through my old papers, I ran across a small stash of these. Most of the ones I had inadvertently saved were just simple text with jokes like “Stress is the body’s reaction to resisting the natural urge to kick the shit out of someone who desperately deserves it” or compilations of made up corporate sounding acronyms that spelled out variations of the word “shit”.

There were two of these though that were universal. No matter whether you were in a government office or a warehouse you’d see these two taped up in all their yellowed glory to some cubicle.

The first of these was Snoopy’s work week. He starts out dancing on Sunday and progresses miserably through the week, slowly improving towards the weekend. Girls always had this one.

The only one of these more common than the “Snoopy at work” was “Never give up”. Say those words to anyone who remembers the first brick cell phone and this is what comes to mind:

He must have really liked that car

2010-09-20T08:30:00.001-07:00

Here’s a vintage photo of unknown origin of a guy who went to extraordinary steps to save his car from a flood. I’m assuming the car did not run or he would have just driven it someplace safe.

I hope all that water didn’t loosen up the soil and cause the tree to fall over from all the weight hanging off one side of it . It would be a real bitch to do all that and come back and find your flooded car with a huge tree on top of it. Note the house on the right is completely flooded out.

South Africa’s contribution to a more irritating world

2010-09-16T13:48:00.000-07:00

So last night I decided to go down to “Plaza de Largartos” in El Paso to see “the grito” or the traditional cry of independence of Mexico. It was being held in El Paso this year instead of Juarez because Reyes Ferris, the mayor of Juarez (who wisely lives in El Paso) decided that it was too insecure to host the bicentennial Independence Day celebration of Mexico from Spain in Mexico and the whole thing was moved across the border into the US.

After driving around for an hour around the area cordoned off by the El Paso police (who unlike the various Mexican police are doing their jobs instead of shooting at each other) I finally parked and started walking toward the celebrations.

I knew from 4 blocks away it was going to be unpleasant. The sound wafting around the buildings was familiar and I knew immediately that the 2010 World Cup has forever changed the world into a less enjoyable place. That irritating bleat of vuvuzelas was growing louder as I got closer. Seems some enterprising soul had gathered up all the leftover red white and green horns unsold after Mexico got knocked out of the World Cup and remarketed them as holiday noisemakers.

The typical vuvuzela owner is a kid about 3-4 feet tall or 5-6 feet tall at the end of his horn, which puts the damn thing right at ear level. After about 30 minutes of being deafened by every third passing kid, I knew it was time to leave and went to Taco Tote to watch the whole thing on TV. Definitely the right decision since they weren’t selling beer downtown and the national fireworks in D. F. were stunning.

Today is the 200th year of independence of Mexico from Spain, which our local narcos celebrated by adding some red to this green and white taxi on Ave. De Technologico.

"Viva Mexico!"

1950s Fiat dealer in Vermont - Make that California

2010-08-30T10:37:00.000-07:00

Here's a cool shot I ran across of a Fiat dealer in Vermont in the late 1950s (Note- A reader of this blog I pretty much trust states that this dealer was in California, not Vermont). The blue car in the front is a Autobiachi based off the Fiat 500. Even nicer is the Fiat Jolly in the showroom. Originally sold with wicker seats and a canvas "surrey" top these car are highly desireable today and a mint example can fetch north of $60,000 at auction.

Not bad for a Fiat 500 with roof chopped off!

"I'll take the 2 fer deal!"

Islamic gay bar at ground zero?

2010-08-24T14:18:00.000-07:00

So it seems in the furor that has erupted over the building of “something by Muslims” near the site of ground zero in New York , conservative blogger Greg Gutfeld has come up with his own novel response to this.

He has proposed the building of a "islamic freindly" gay bar next door. I guess the logic behind this is that Muslims find homosexuality to be an affront against Islam and would be equally offended as he is to building “a mosque” next to the former site of the World Trade Center.

Here’s his entire proposal, including the part about not serving alcohol in his bar since Muslims “don’t drink”: http://www.dailygut.com/?i=4696

However, I can’t get over some conservatives proposing opening a gay bar. This has got to be a first or at least the first time they’ve been willing to admit they consider gays more “American” or “normal” than Muslims.

I suppose there’s a master ranking of “hated people” tacked up on the walnut panelling in some smoke filled backroom of the RNC national headquarters up in the Hamptons or something.

I’m curious though, what does a conservative gay bar look like anyway?

Do you open the door and walk into a tiny room full of coats?

Little known facts – Washington really is the evil empire

2010-08-13T14:28:00.000-07:00

Sometime back in the 1980s a contest was held for children to design grotesques for the National cathedral in Washington DC. Third place runner up was kid named Christopher Rader, who drew a picture of Darth Vader. This was accepted and immortalized in stone on the cathedral.

The statute was designed by Jay Hall Carpenter and carved by a guy named Patrick J. Plunkett and sits on a gablet on the northwest tower.

I know it sounds like something I just made up but I’m not that good. May the force be with you.

Topiary abuse

2010-08-03T16:04:00.000-07:00

#1 reason not to piss off your landscape crew:

El Huerfano

2010-07-21T10:31:00.000-07:00

There’s lots of stuff in America that people just don’t know about. Not big enough to garner national notoriety but interesting nevertheless. As a service to my fellow Americans, when I find this stuff I’ll tell you about it here.

Driving north on I-25 in southern Colorado is mostly a boring exercise spent looking at endless rolling plains with far off mountains it the distance. However near the town of Walsenburg is a curious rock formation erupting from the grassy plains.

Named “El Huerfano”, or “The Orphan” by Spanish explorers in the late 1700s, it is a volcanic cone of large blocky gaseous basalt several hundred feet high.

The butte was used as a marker by early travelers and first appears in Spanish documents in 1818. The area was incorporated as part of Mexico in 1821 and large tracts of land were granted to favored individuals and many small settlements and ranches were established near El Huerfano. Many of the towns and landmarks around it still have Spanish names. The area became part of the United States in 1848.

This drawing, based of an 1853 photograph made by Soloman Carvalho (photographer to the Col. John C. Freemont’s 5th western expedition), shows Huerfano Butte looking pretty much the same as it does today, minus the four lane highway running past it.

There’s not much in the area so the Colorado highway dept. constructed a pulloff on the side of the interstate so you can stop and view the little orphaned mountain in the middle of nowhere.

It’s located a few hundred yards off the highway on what looks like private ranchland but there’s really no one around for miles to stop you from taking a closer look. A dirt road runs beside the rock formation that you can go down to get closer.

So you think your kids need a British nanny?

2010-07-20T15:11:00.000-07:00

OK, this is a direct rip-off from the New York Daily news. I don’t claim any responsibility at all for writing this but how could I not share this. Unaltered and as reported on their website http://www.nydailynews.com/

A 30-year-old British woman's death, when using a sex toy while watching a porn movie, was probably caused by her state of arousal, officials said.

Nicola Paginton, a children's nanny, was found dead in bed - naked from the waist down - in October as the porn movie played on her laptop, according to the Daily Mail.

A pathologist and coroner said during an inquest that Paginton died from a sudden heart arrhythmia, likely caused by "her activity before death." the paper reported.

Police had been called to Paginton's home after her employer, Sarah Griffths, went to her house when she failed to show up for work. She and a neighbor saw Paginton lying on her bed with her cat sitting on her chest.

Supercalfragalistiexpialidocious!!!

Car bomb pandemonium in Juárez

2010-07-16T07:34:00.000-07:00

Just when you thought things couldn’t get any weirder in Juárez the narcos ramp it up a notch. Yesterday someone ran a small car filled with explosives (said to be a Ford Focus by local news Chanel 44) into two pickups full of Federal police on the main thoroughfare in downtown. The explosion at the corner of Sieptembre 16th and Bolivia street killed two police officers and a medical technician. The blast also injured seven more officers (these guys ride standing up in the bed of the pickups) and two bystanders.

According to Channel 44, the attack was in retaliation for the arrest of an member of the “La Linea” drug cartel. Channel 44 reports that this individual was responsible for collecting protection & extortion money for the police (exactly what group of police wasn’t made clear). They also report that each person reporting to “35” had to bring in $16,000 pesos (about $1500) each month!

Later in the day, this “narcomanta” appeared painted on a nearby wall (messages are usually left at the scene of murders and public placement of torture victims to communicate to the rival cartel). It says; "What happened on 16 (de Septiembre avenue) will keep happening to all the authorities who keep supporting El Chapo. Sincerely - the Juarez cartel. We still have car bombs."

As if the residents of Juarez didn’t have enough crap to worry about, now they must add car bombs & IEDs to the list. I guess narcos go to see “The Hurt Locker” too.

Update 3:34 PM:

After investigating the crime scene, athuorities have determined that about 22 pounds of C4 explosive was detonated with a cel phone from nearby. Borrowing a page straight out of the Al Queida terrorism handbook, the narco dressed up a body in a stolen police uniform and called the police to report a victim first. Once the police showed up to investigate the bomb was detonated. This shows a fairly sophisticated plan of attack using techniques developed by insurgents in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. One only has to wonder how and from whom they learned these techniques.

Mexican slang lesson of the day – “Cuernos”

2010-06-08T09:33:00.000-07:00

Mexicans have an expression when you cheat on your spouse. They say that you are giving them “Cuernos” or horns.

Now think back to your childhood and when you were watching Bugs Bunny on Saturday morning and he would humiliate Elmer Fudd or Yosemite Sam and they’d sprout an ox head to show what a fool they had become.

Yea, like that only you’ve been given the horns by your mate. Another common slang word in Mexico is “Guey”, which is a bull or oxen and pretty much means your share the IQ of the animal, which is how your spouse managed to give you the cuernos in the first place.

This make me wonder who was involved in deciding who would win the “Troops Choice award for Entertainer for entertainer of the year” at Spike TV’s Guys Choice awards.

Sandra Bullock graciously accepts the Troops Choice award for Entertainer for Entertainer of the year (Hey George, are you gonna tell her?)

Seen at a BP station recently

2010-06-08T07:52:00.000-07:00

Well, you didn't thing BP would accept responsibility did you?

It’s always 12:00

2010-06-05T10:41:00.000-07:00

When I first entered college one of the guys down the hall brought a VCR with him. His parents owned a video store and he got one of the old rental units with him. This was early on in the technology and it was a pretty amazing thing to have in the dorm room.

People seem to have forgotten how much “shock and awe” some of the early consumer electronics had when this stuff first came out. I was so amazed by this thing that I had to have one. At the time the hottest thing was being able to freeze the picture and advance the movie one frame at a time. Advancing a frame at a time was a valuable feature for drunken college students to settle arguments or catch a peek at a nipple or two.

I saved money all summer to be able to buy a 4 head Sony VHS machine that could freeze picture without a static line on the screen (a technological breakthrough at the time) and that would advance 1 frame, 5 frames or 16 frames at the time. This was a state of the art hot rod machine at the time and set me back $400 in the mid 80s. It had all sorts of tracking control and tape speed adjustments that towards the end of VCRs were completely eliminated.

This machine was incredibly well built and I got about 10 years of service out of it. I can’t think of any consumer electronics around today that have that sort of longevity to them.

This VCR carried me through college, enduring hundreds of showings of Monty Python’s Meaning of Life, Pink Floyd The Wall and the original Terminator movie. Back then it was a bit more of an event to rent a flick and watch is as opposed to today’s ability to watch movies on your phone or anywhere with a few clicks.

Plus, I miss the soft greenish blue flashes of light from the machine that always thinks it’s midnight.

Blog reboot - with a promise

2010-06-04T11:51:00.000-07:00

Well, it’s been a while since I wrote anything here and it’s about time I started back up. After witnessing BP’s massive clusterfuck in the Gulf of Mexico, I realized that the world needs my guidance.

So stay tuned for more articles about weird vehicles, bad advertising and other enlightening information about stuff you never knew about before.

Now for the promise. After my last article in which I defended Jesse James for behaving like a guy I got a lot (well for this site it was a lot) of feedback about sticking to other topics. Therefore and henceforth I halfheartedly promise not to write about celebrities and who or what they are doing. I still feel that the world lacks enough Perez Hilton, TMZ, Radar Online and US magazine but I’ll try to stick to stuff I know more about like old cars and hit men.

Next up: tales from the past, volcanoes and a review of human powered cargo trucks.

Post Scriptum 6/8/10 - Well it was a half hearted promise and who could resist that one?

Vote for me or I’ll bust yo’ fool haid!

2010-04-01T10:15:00.000-07:00

I was pretty astounded this morning to read in the WSJ that Lawrence Tureaud, who is otherwise know as “Mr T”, has announced his bid for Republican Party candidate in the 2012 Presidential election. Mr T is famous for playing B.A. Barracks on the original “A-Team” TV show, an iconic cultural gem from American television. The interview, which I suspect must be some sort of comeback bid for it's bizarreness, was conducted in the parking lot of a Chicago Tastee-Freeze. He was quoted as saying “Barack Obama is sissy-boy! I can give him a beat down with one hand!”. When asked about his apparent lack of political experience, his response was “I ain’t no worse than Bush fool!”

He also stated that his decision to run as a Republican had something to do with not being a “granola eatin’ wimp”.

During the interview Mr. T seemed to be quite at ease and answered most of the questions directly, except for how comfortable he thought he’d be riding on Air Force One. It’s quite possible that he may have misunderstood this question as his answer was “I ain’t gittin on no plane.”

Whether or not he’d make a good president, I would have to probably side with him that he “ain’t no worse than Bush. Good luck Mr. Tureaud and I will be looking forward to seeing a primer black and red van in the presidential motorcade.

“Check the date fool!”

The Character assassination of Jesse James by the cowards of Twitter

2010-03-26T14:41:00.000-07:00

The bullshit dealings of the average people thrust into the Hollywood spotlight are not my usual subject here but the “scandal de jour” this week is just too hard for me to ignore. Hard for me to ignore mostly because it involves two of the people I most like to watch on TV.

Everyone loves a good tale of woe with a villain and a damsel in distress. What better actors than the tattooed bad biker dude Jesse James and “America’s sweetheart” Sandra Bullock?

Toss in a bevy of the trashiest looking strippers you’ve ever seen and that’s enough to keep Perez Hilton and TMZ occupied for weeks.

Like a mad mob of tea baggers waving flags and threatening children, a flock of what I assume is mostly women have taken to the internet to voice the fact that they have tried Jesse James in their minds and have found him guilty.

Google has this odd little updating headline that appears mid page that scrolls blog updates and tweets in real time as they are posted. It’s utterly amazing to me to watch as one internet toughgirl after another posts foul mouth recommendations to Sandra Bullock about how she should dump her husband and/or remove select body parts. All of the accusations by the Rachel Uchitel wannabees appear to have been taken as gospel by these tweeting twits without any reasonable examination of alternative realities.

As a sometime skeptic, I have to look at the alleged scumbaggery and ask a few obvious questions. Well, obvious to a person who’s only seen one or two episodes of Oprah in his life.

I have however, read many of the issues of “Garage” magazine so that qualifies me to ponder this.

Let’s take alleged skank #1, Michelle “Bombshell” McGee. This is the professional stripper/tattoo fetish model who initiated this whole thing by selling her story to In Touch magazine for a reported (by TMZ of course) $30,000. According to this woman, James had an 11 month affair with her on the couch of his motorcycle shop. A motorcycle shop that thanks to the Discovery Channel is quite a tourist attraction. I guess that couch comes with one of Harry Potter’s invisibility cloaks.

According to her story, she went there looking for work as a model for the magazine. That part of the story is certainly believable as each month some curvaceous chick is sprawled across a car or bike in the centerfold section of the magazine. I’m sure a lot of the tweeting twits would find this distasteful enough to call James a pig but it’s a pretty longstanding way to sell car magazines and as smart and cunning as he may be (Donald Trump’s words, not mine), he did not think of this.

So I thought she probably went down there and maybe something happened as I read the story. Jesse James himself seemed to lead an air of truth to the story as he quickly issued a public apology. Bad dog!

As the story unfolded, skank #2 chimed in. This would be his ex wife Jamie Lindemuller, a stripper/pornstar who’s known to pretty much hate the guy (ever wonder how it feels to walk into a party and when the chit chat turns to careers you say “pornstar?-I do).

She had plenty to say, including stuff like he had phonesex with her, she wasn’t surprised as he’s a “chronic cheater” (you watch, this will develop into a syndrome to be treated by self proclaimed healers like “hoarding disorder”) and that he tried to get her to cheat on Sandra with him.

Uh, maybe she’s just wanting to get even I thought to myself and then I envisioned a grand scheme where she sent skank #1 over to the shop to seduce him so she can bring his world down.

Then suddenly (but not surprisingly) skank #3 appears out of the woodwork. This chick seems to be the least credible of the whole group. A tattooed blond stripper who’s got a rap sheet a mile long and claims she slept with him too.

I don’t know about most people, but I just have problems believing stories by people who to beat up the cops trying to arrest them when they get busted. Also, as she’s making this accusation, sheis defending herself in court for blowing a .18 on the breathalyzer. Holy shades of Animal House Batman, that’s a serious bender!!! US magazine obviously has high standard for it's sources.

Another minor point that makes me question her is that she’s pretty ugly. Like his look or not, Jesse James has proven he can bag the best looking women around (from pornstars to cutest actresses, ask any guy to make a list of girls he’s like to be with and it’s going to include a few pornstars and Sandra Bullock). World class philanders have standards too people.

Next, as if in a race to grab the headlines, a photographer who, while not completely skanky looking, appeart to be cut from the same cloth chimes in too. This one however, unlike the others who seem to be claiming they were are all with him at the same time, says she only had sex four times and it wasn’t any good.

Hmm, just enough to get the website of her photography and modeling business splashed all over the web. I don’t think that’s a bad plan for getting free celebrity endorsements for a small business do you?

Lastly skank #5, a lawyer from the Tiger Wood’s debacle smells a wounded fish and mucks up yet another chick (aka: skank #6) claiming to have had therapy on the West Coast Choppers couch. No monetary gain there is there.

Now back to the twittering hoard. “Loser” seems to be the word of choice they paste on James as they bash out 140 well chosen characters on their iphones. I got news for you, a quick Google search shows that Sandra Bullock is worth about $85 million dollars and Jesse is worth anywhere from $35 to $100 million. I believe it, every truck on the road has a WCC sticker on it. Funny way to define loser ladies. As many of you pointed out, I'm sure he was glomming onto Sandra Bullock for the money.

OK cel phone nation, let me ask you a simple question. “What’s six inches long, has a bald head, and drives strippers crazy?”

Give up? Of course you do. You are all women and don’t get what motivates strippers. I’m a member of that pig gender known as “men” and will help you out here.

The answer is a hundred dollar bill. See ladies of twitter, strippers (and the one lone lawyer) do what they do because the love money more than anything else.

Now look at Jesse James, a tattooed biker. It’s a well established fact that bikers like to hang out in places where strippers are. Who’s gonna believe a biker when a stripper’s talking?

Did he do it? I don’t know, maybe. But my big question is why are all the women of the world so quick to believe the word of four strippers and a lawyer? Esp. when there’s $35 million dollars in $100 bills at stake?

PS: I’m pretty sure Sandra Bullock knew he was a biker when she married him. Let her sort it out.

Bad day in Juárez

2010-03-15T10:00:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday in the middle of the day a 25 year old pregnant American consulate worker and her husband were murdered within sight of the Santa Fe international bridge in downtown Juarez. Their 10 month old baby in the backseat of the Toyota RAV-4 was unharmed.

This was an especially bold act in an area with a high concentration of Mexican army and police protection.

Elsewhere in Juárez a 37 year old man who was the husband of another consulate employee was also shot and killed. His two children aged 4 and 7 sitting in the backseat of his Honda Pilot were wounded. This attack took place nearly simultaneously with the first ambush.

This was also an unusual instance in that US government employees were killed.

Both appeared to be the work of Mexican drug cartels.

The consulate employees were evacuated to El Paso and the consulate is closed for today and tomorrow.

However, I had no other choice other than to go to work today.

President Obama has vowed to work with the FBI and Mexican authorities to find the killers.

(Copyright Reuters news photo)

The real reason for Republican opposition to health care reform

2010-03-11T16:08:00.000-08:00

I kept hearing it but it took someone putting the argument on paper for me to fully understand the fear. Now I get it.

Stellar moments in advertising or "How to sell Malt Liquor"

2010-03-02T13:12:00.000-08:00

One of my many hobbies is collecting beer related paraphenalia or "brewerania" as it's known. The other day I ran across the best item I've found to date. This little 6"X6" sticker made in the mid 1970s has to be one of those great gems in forgotten advertising.

Drawn by Mad magazine and "Tales from the Crypt" comic artist Jack Davis, it's one of those non-PC wonders that instantly makes you smirk and pine away for the old days before everyone got so offended over everything.

Love the hood ornament on the pimpmobile!

You can learn more about Jack Davis here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Davis_(cartoonist)

Republitard of the week

2010-02-08T15:04:00.000-08:00

Here we have the worlds most famous MILF giving a speech to her "tea bagger" pals as they envision themselves as a real political force instead of the spoon fed voice of the big business health care lobby that they really are.

Remembering what worked in high school, she's cleverly written some notes on her palm to reminder herself of what she's supposed to be talking about (probably a few geography pointers as well in case that pesky Katie Couric shows up).

However, in a typical “I’ve been blond at times” moment, she apparently forgot that if you talk with your hands, some smartass just might take a picture of them and prove that’s not the telephone # of a cute guy you met at the bar written there. According to AP, it says "Energy, Budget cuts (with "budget" crossed out), Tax, Lift American Spirits."

Come on Sarah, you could have studied for at least a few minutes and remembered that!

Oh, and BTW here a few more retardicans for your amusement (I think I get why these people are so terrified of illiterate Mexicans):

And lastly....

Ever heard of LSR holder Bill Likes?

2010-01-13T11:50:00.001-08:00

A while back I was driving up to Taos NM to go investigate an old dump full of 30s car parts & beer cans when I passed this home built oil museum on the side of the road.

Now I’m the sort of guy who can’t pass up something like that without taking a look so I stopped and found the owner, who was happy to give me a tour of his oil memorabilia collection.

It was one of the most impressive collections of vintage oil cans I’ve ever seen but what caught my eye the most was this photo and a trophy sitting on top of a glass case.

The photo shows a guy wrenching on a flathead powered roadster on the salt. The caption reads “Bill Likes Bonneville World Land Speed 1952 146.365 MPH Class B N.F. Roadster”

The trophy says “B. Likes 137.40 MPH 7-8-9-50”

I asked the guy where he got this from and he told me that a friend had come by with a bunch of old trophies in the trunk of his car and was selling them. He picked out these two items because he liked them.

I made the comment that I wonder if the car still existed and he said he thought it did in about the same condition but with a small block Chevy.

I seem to remember he said it was in Chicago or somewhere like that but I’m not sure.

I’d love to hear more about Bill Likes and his trips to Bonneville but that’s all I know. Unfortunately because of his last name finding anything relevant on Google hasn’t been too productive (I get everything anybody named Bill seems to like). Anybody know anymore about him?

PS: I'll probably post this on the H.A.M.B - somebody there has to know.

Bam! Bam! 2010 in Juarez Mexico!

2010-01-07T12:24:00.000-08:00

Today is January 7th, 2010 and already there have been about fifty murders here in Juarez. When Juareneses ring in a new year, it’s done with gunfire.

I had a meeting at one of our other locations at 10:30 so as I was going out the door I thought “Maybe I should take my camera in case I run across something interesting”. Well, I did see “something interesting”.

On my way there, a Cruz Rojo (Red Cross) ambulance and a municipal cop passed me with the sirens blaring. I figured something must be up.

As I got to the Dennys in front of Galerias Tec on Avenido Technilogico I saw two dead narcos in the parking lot near their Dodge Durango.

I always heard eating at Dennys was bad for your health

He had a “Grand Slam”

Good thing the PJF drives around with sheets in the trunk!

I'll let you know more about the particulars of this one once I get more information.

Fuck you Woody

2009-12-25T12:39:00.000-08:00

My 4 year old only had one simple request of Santa this year, a Buzz Lightyear.

So one day I was at Sam's (damn, this blog really is about Wal-Mart isn't it?) and I found a life size, fully functional Buzz for the paltry sum of forty bucks.

When I say fully functional, I mean it. He says 75 different phrases from the movie (with the correct Tim Allen voice), has pop out wings and a fake laser on his arm and even comes in the spaceship box like in the movie. And as if that wasn't cool enough, he comes well equipped to cope with even the worst traffic in LA.

"You know what Woody, you whine too much. Me and Peeps are taking the RC car and headin' over to the liquor store & the drive in - don't bother to follow us!"

Note to fellow juveniles: A quick google search of the words "Buzz Lightyear" and "finger" or "bird" reveal that I might be the only person on the planet to notice this.

USA outsources saving the world

2009-11-29T15:41:00.000-08:00

Here's the problem with Hollywood these days. They don't seem to realize that most of us sit around with nothing better to do than watch all sorts of trivial science facts on the Discovery channel.

Last weekend, I sloped the kids and took my wife to see "2012". I love end of the world movies and was pretty stoked to see a big budget Armageddon on a movie screen.

If you like these movies don't bother to go see this one. It seems someone finally managed to top Bruce Willis in the category of ridiculous survivals. This movie awkwardly lurches from one "beyond highly improbable" escape after another.

The movie starts the stupid stunts with a high speed escape in a limo (news flash Roland, limos are not fast maneuverable vehicles) that even drives through an open floor office space in a collapsing building.

"Hell, dodging cars falling out of the collapsing parking deck was a piece of cake next to not getting stuck in a cubicle"

From there they race to catch a plane to be deftly flown in between falling skyscrapers by a pilot who's "had a couple of lessons".

No Roland movie is complete without something flying under something falling, - also note LA fucked yet again.

The takeoff is the first of three in which the runway literally falls out from underneath the plane as it barely makes it skyward (really, three fucking times! One even happens to be the world’s largest plane, the Antonov-225 - a one off built to carry the Russian space shuttle).

When asked how the front loading plane could drop a Bentley out the rear later in the flick, we were told "Look closely, the plane in the movie is the Antonov 500 not the 225 so there!

From there they fly to Yellowstone where John Cusak manages to outrun a pyroclastic flow first in a 25 year old motor home and then in a twin engine Beechcraft (as the runway collapses from underneath them - #2).

"Vroomm, vroomm!"

Of course this was needed since wacko conspiracy theorist Woody Harrelson had the map to where the survival arks are.

Next they fly to the Las Vegas airport, which is still standing atop a huge block of ice - err, rock. There they happen to run into the same Russian oligarch that Cusak drove the limo for. It's there that we learn that our fantastically quick learning pilot also did the Russian's girlfriends boobs, which buys them a ticket to ride on the aforementioned giant cargo plane since he can be the co-pilot (whatever school he went to, I'd like a few lessons from that place!).

Not only can he make a nice pair of tits, he is also a quick study of Cyrillic and managed to get the beast airborne for a third cool take off from a disintegrating runway. Hmm, I wonder if I could get some lottery numbers from these people.

I guess the reason for the incredibly weird series of coincidences with the strange Russian and silicone hootered girlfriend is to get past the fact that they need to fly to China. Why China? Well here's where we get to what may be the only believable part of the movie.

You see, since the USA no longer has the productive capacity to build anything the "ships" being built to load all the scientists, rich folk, art treasures, pairs of animals and other persons of extraordinary ability (I hope they got Dorismar in the ark!) are "made in China".

"No, the PRC did not paint these with lead paint - honest"

Yep, now we've off shored the only thing we were really good at for the past 30 years - saving humanity from world ending scenarios in far-fetched movies.

I really do object to having the Chinese take over the job of saving the world. Americans are supposed to do that. After all, we are ones who first figured out how to blow it up. From Gort to Al Gore, we've got a monopoly on saving the world. Why share that one too?

PS: I really didn't spoil the movie for you. There are still lots of amazing escapes that I didn't reveal; including crawling through the ductwork to remove the tit doctor's mangled tools from the "gears of doom"

"Oh shit! anytime I see a gear bigger than a nickle in a movie, I know someone's getting a body part squished in it - I think my dignity is stuck in this one!"

NRA home furnishings

2009-11-12T07:34:00.001-08:00

I know a lot of narcos out there read my blog so I thought I’d help you guys out with some great products from the NRA. These are actual products sold by the National Rifle Association through their website.

First up - nothing’s worse than when you’re sitting in your office cooking the books and trying to hide the millions you made exporting marijuana than having some of your rivals bust in and try to whack you.

This handy magnet attaches to the side of your desk so you can always have a pistol ready. Don’t get caught off guard and end up in the trunk of some old abandoned car like the guy you replaced.

It’s also good for avoiding getting busted by the Fed for mistakes on tax return because you were nervously watching the office door.

Please note that the ad says “pistol not included” and if you’re stupid enough to think you can use this with your plastic framed Glock, you deserve to end up on Channel 44.

http://www.nrastore.com/nra/Product.aspx?productid=SA%2024385

Item #2 is designed to help you watch futbol-soccer in peace. Don’t try to explain to your mother why you have an AK-47 leaned up against the end table to watch the game.

Now when she comes over, this tasteful clock will help you conceal your dirty business from mama.

It’s also nice to keep the maid from swiping your prized mother of pearl handled 45 and blaming the children (pinche chaca ladrona!)

Pistol also sold separately.

http://www.nrastore.com/nra/Product.aspx?productid=HO%2024670

Lastly, while the second amendment is not much of a concern for drug dealers since obeying the law isn’t a top priority it’s still important to keep firearms legal so you don’t have to buy them from the pinche Chinese. Nothing sucks like having a cheap ass Chinese made gun jam up in the middle of a firefight right?

Don’t let little Jose fail to understand the importance of this American right and how it affects the family business. Get him this NRA bib so he can learn to show his support for illegally exported high quality firearms from the USA!

http://www.nrastore.com/nra/Product.aspx?productid=SS%20363

PS: I’m pretty sure the NRA doesn’t like narcos very much so you may have to get an innocent looking pal to help you get them.

Dia de los Muertos calavera

2009-11-01T19:25:00.000-08:00

There’s probably a lot of information out on the web about the Mexican holiday “Dia De Los Muertos” or “Day of the Dead” so I won’t elaborate too much on it other than to say that it is not the Mexican version of Halloween.

This holiday is more of a tribute to passed loved ones and friends. A small shrine is usually set up with representations of the deceased person’s favorite things. Often with food, drink and maybe a photograph or small model of a favorite activity or loved one.

Another tradition on this holiday is “calaveras” or skulls made out of sugar. I found this “pan dulce” (sweet bread) calavera in S-Mart for nine pesos and brought it home for my wife. I was highly suspicious that the black lines had been made with a marker but they were actually something sweet according to my wife.

Mushmouth fashion

2009-10-05T11:01:00.000-07:00

Just in case you need any further proof that most of the people involved in the fashion industry are nothing more than phony hucksters of the most reviling variety, I offer you this:

Oh brother, where art thou?

2009-09-29T10:43:00.000-07:00

Some of my massive fan base (I inherited all of Michael Jackson’s fans after he died. However, for all of the old MJ fans who keep emailing me, I do not have his old photos of McCauley Culkin so quit asking) may have been wondering where I have been.

Just in case you've been pining away for more strange photos of food containers or homemade trucks I'm still here and will resume shortly.

However, just so everyone doesn't think I've gone to play checkers with Elvis I'll explain where I've been.

I've been laying low lately. I got a bad case of the willies after posting on some of the Mexican drug violence. I use some software to track who views this site and how they got here. It tells me where they were from, what their URL is and any searches they made to find this place. After my post on August 10th (since removed), I noticed that people in Miami and El Paso were suddenly reading this.

No one local ever reads my blog. they just don't seem to care (or can't figure out how to use a computer). Miami? I don't know anyone there and in both cases they were searching for information specific to my post.

I suddenly had visions of saying hello to Al Pachino's "little friend". So I figured I'll remove my reporting of what local reporters had to say and lay low for a while. You know, so I don't end up all duct taped up in the back of an SUV with blingy wheels.

"Say hello to my little friend, pinche blogger reportero!"

PS: OK, guys from the Tulsa sex offender registry, I did get this one photo of McCauley from MJ’s manager:

National Community Tax Coalition lies to you

2009-09-07T15:25:00.000-07:00

I was killing time at work today and typed "El Paso" and searched for images and ran across this photo posted to the website of some sort of liberal organization called "National Community Tax Coalition".

The caption on their website ( http://www.tax-coalition.org/affiliatesProgramProfilesElPaso.cfm ) reads "One of the neighborhoods served by El Paso’s Neighborhood Services Division".

I was appalled that these people are posting a photo of one of the poorest neighborhoods in Juarez Mexico and claiming it's El Paso and that some sort of exploitation is taking place in El Paso TX (located in the USA, a different country you dipshits!).

I drive by this exact street everyday. It's visible from I-10 as you pass the UTEP campus and can see across the river into Mexico.

Scenic veiw of the Anapra neighborhood in Juarez Mexico - (Note to geographicaly challenged activists -this is a different nation than the USA )

Now, I don't really give a damn about whatever cause they are promoting one way or the other but I do get mad when blatent lies are tossed around to promote ideaology. People, if you are trying to get others to join your cause, tell the truth. Posting this type of yellow journalism on the internet makes you no better than pharmeceutical companies that are organizing disruptive activists to stop the healthcare debate.

El Paso sucks but it isn't that bad.

Sharia vacation photos

2009-08-31T07:58:00.001-07:00

"Smile Neda and don't forget to remember where you were standing in line"

The return of generic beer

2009-08-26T12:21:00.000-07:00

Mmm, tasty!

I must spend way too much time in Wal-Mart. This will be the fourth time I’ve spoken of it in this blog. However, since I find solace in pushing my cart with the one bent wheel through the cookie aisle late at night, I’ll lay some more Wal-Mart inspired thoughts on you.

Wal-Mart, it seems has had some sort of marketing psycho-weasel squirm their way into the packaging design area. Whereas their store brand once had appealing graphics that seemed to be trying to evoke your senses that you were not buying the cheap store brand (when in fact you were doing just that) now they’ve channeled the late 70’s stagflation in full force.

“I tell ya brother, times are tough”

See, from the time of Nixon to Carter you could go down to the store and buy any sort of food in a UN approved plain white box with the name of the contents on it. Call it “playing the commodity market with food stamps” if you want but this stuff was everywhere. A savvy person could figure out who made it by such things as addresses, packing dimensions etc. It was all generally horrible and the only saving grace was that it was cheap.

“Hey, all they have on this damn island is an IGA store!”

This stuff all went by the wayside by the late eighties or early nineties as we all embraced the concept that we wanted to be rich or at least pretend like we were in our McMansions with the granite countertops and leased BMWs. Noodles became pasta and the plain white box that said “Macaroni twists” became Italian inspired “Rotini” with a nice drawing to imply your cheap ass carbs came from Tuscany.

Fast forward a decade or maybe two and we’re all having a big potluck at the CCC work camp with beans and rice. Seems that Wal-Mart’s branding committee decided that we’d feel like we were wasting our money buying fine Italian Pasta and maybe what consumers have a hankering for these days is a good ole box of the cheapest noodles we can find.

Hence the new look of the “Great Value” brand. Lots of plain white area with a diner style photo of what you can make with the contents. Add in the most boring font you can find and it’s gonna be a winner with the newly unemployed.

Sauce and noodles, now that’s sexy

PS: I hear Smiley Face is getting his notice too, here’s the new guy

“Don’t worry fellow Americans, everything’s gonna be alright…

Ever wonder what the USDA does?

2009-08-21T15:23:00.000-07:00

I went down to Sams Club and instead of just getting the cheap milk and some chicken (not to be confused with Wal-Mart's really, really cheap milk http://fiat128-theorangefolderchronicles.blogspot.com/2009/02/is-milk-really-167-gallon.html ) I came home with the usually 150 bucks worth of stuff I really didn't need. One of the things I picked up was this "Kung Pao Chicken Kit".

To be honest, it's pretty tasty stuff, I recomend getting some next time you are frittering away your hard earned cash in Sam's.

Anyway, as I'm sitting there reading the box and realizing I've just ingested more salt than Lot's wife I notice this seal on the box.

Inspected for wholesomeness? What the heck is that??? I dunno but I'm glad our government is making sure it's not in my Kung Pao. I'd hate to come down with a bad case of "Wholesomeness".

The flattening of the bulls

2009-08-19T14:09:00.000-07:00

Wal-mart gets a lot of crap from people in small towns for coming in and building a huge store that puts all the local mom and pop stores out of business. I’ve seen lines of protesters form over proposed Wal-marts and in some cases the giant retailer has even backed down.

However, this pales in comparison to what took place in Juarez Mexico. About a year ago while everyone was ducking for cover and worrying about the drug war Wal Mart decided they needed to open up a third Supercenter in the city.

So, in order to make a nice flat spot for the store, they bulldozed the bullring.

Yep, you read that correctly, “they tore down the bullring in Mexico to build a Wal Mart”.

Built in 1957, demolished to build a Wal-mart 2008

Apparently the bullring belonged to the Hurtado family and they own many bullrings throughout Mexico and have done this several times before. From what I was told by a guy I work with, the city was going to declare it a historic monument and the owners tore it down and sold the land before that could happen.

Lets hear it for the moneymen who tear down a Mexican cultural icon to put up an American icon. Do you think the locals feel like they’ve been sold out? No, all they see is the happy smiley symbol of an invader taking away a part of their identity.

Chinga la raza, viva Wal-mart!

As a final indignation to the old bullring, the whole complex (which includes a Starbucks) is named “Plaza Monumental” after the old bullring and sports a sign with the outline of the old ring.

All that remains from before is this now oddly out of place monument to the bullfighters and a bunch of out of date “tourist guide” web sites directing confused googlers to the parking lot of Wal-Mart.

Luckily for the city of Juárez, the older Plaza Balderas bullring had yet to be paved over so it’s been brought out of retirement and pressed into service once again.

PS: There is a wonderful hole in wall restaurant near downtown Juárez called “El Tragadero”. It’s a dingy place filled with even more weathered old men but when you start looking at the yellowed artifacts covering the walls you can see history. It’s the preferred eatery of the “Toreros” and the walls are covered with newspaper clippings, signed photos and other bullfighting memorabilia from long ago. Go there next time you’re in Juárez (just be careful of the airborne “lead pollution”)

More weird Mexican trucks

2009-08-18T12:13:00.000-07:00

Here’s another bizarro home made truck I pass a lot on the way to work.

This is made from a mid 80s Toyota LE van, possibly the only vehicle that could give a Volkswagen Bus a serious challenge for the title of “World slowest vehicle”.

By chopping off the roof and adding aluminum diamond plate to the sides a bed was formed. The builder reworked the sliding doors with some hinges from a hardware store to swing open. This gives the truck several ways to be loaded, with the back tailgate or from the side.

Of course, no pickup in Mexico is complete without conveying the notion that the owner is a real vaquero (cowboy for you easterners) so some cattle guard style roll bars were installed with what seem to be mid 70s Ford LTD hubcaps to simulate wagon wheels on the sides.

The greatest car thread anywhere on the internet

2009-08-17T09:49:00.000-07:00

I've never really mentioned the H.A.M.B. before and if you don't know what it is by now then this blog entry probably isn't for you (especially if you're one of those lawyers or insurance companies that keeps googling my post about the MCS fire).

The H.A.M.B. is the brainchild of Ryan Cocharan, a typical gearhead with a few extraordinay skills. For over a dozen years, his Hokey Ass Message Board has been the go to place for all things hot rod. Or maybe I should amend that. All things "traditional" hot rod.

Aside from hot rods, it's a facinating window into Americana and the period of time from the 1930s to the mid 1960s. No thread on his forum exemplifes this better than this one. I encourage you to just click at random somewhere in the middle of the 375 plus pages of this and get lost in time. Consisting of mostly old family photos from the contributors, it has some truly amazing photos that you'll never see in Life's archives or anywhere else except the H.A.M.B.

While it's centered around cars, it is at the same time so much, much more.

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=110219

Cash for clunkers, but where are the clunkers???

2009-08-14T09:46:00.000-07:00

So yesterday in a self abusing exercise I decided to drive behind my local Pontiac & Chrysler dealers and see what people are turning in as clunkers.

What I saw truly makes me sick. Top of the list is this very nice looking BMW 735i. Someone seriously drove this into the Pontiac dealer and drove out in one of their discontinued shitboxes???? PEOPLE – What the fuck are you smoking????

“You know, this leather interior is too nice, I’d rather sit on some scratchy cheap ass cloth and listen to the engine strain in a rebadged Korean built G3”

Across the street, some idiot got rid of this Mercedes in exchange for a Dodge Caliber or PT Cruiser. No, it did not have a bad paint job – those streaks on the hood were caused by the overheating engine as they murdered it. The grille? That appears to have been taken home as a trophy by some service guy as it’s been carefully removed.

I’m not a big fan of using a pickup truck to drive around in all the time but I own one and it’s real nice to haul things in. Mine is a 1969 Chevy C-20 bought from the state of NC in a sealed bid auction for the princely sum of $503.99. It’s state yellow and rust colored and has a toolbox bed with diamond plate welded in the floor. Not very attractive but it does the job.

Far less attractive than these “clunkers” for sure. Of special note is the nice Chevy Stepside with the custom paint job. Paint that was blistered off the hood as it was blown up under the most wasteful government program ever conceived by city dwellers who want your ass on a bus.

No rust, I live in the desert!

Who’s definition of “piece of shit” does this fall under?

There’s going to be alot of lonely boats out there

This old Ford was super clean, in fact it looked like it had just been painted.

Another BMW, that just sucks. BMWs are great cars.

America is now the “land of the bailout”. Can’t run a bank? “No problem, we’ve got a government program to bail you out!” “Mismanaged your auto company?” No sweat, just sign up here for your bailout. “Can’t afford to put gas in your big 'ole car when its $4 a gallon?” Well, here’s $4500 to put toward a new one.

What a wasteful society we’ve built ourselves…

How fish feel around sharks

2009-07-29T04:28:00.000-07:00

So I’m sitting here at my desk and the HR Manager comes in my office with a serious look on his face.

I don’t know about you but I’ve always considered HR people sorta like owning an exotic pet like a lion or maybe a Komodo Dragon or something. Nice to chat with and generally pleasant but in the back of your mind you always wonder if they are going to bite you one day.

It’s never a good thing to have the HR manager come to your office looking serious. He comes in and sits down and tells me he’s got something to tell me so I glance around the office to see if I want to take anything with me.

He proceeds to tell me that my boss’s brother has been killed during the weekend. It was a kidnapping gone wrong and the “sequestadores” as they are known killed him. The brother was a “yonkero” or junkman. This title refers to people that own auto junkyards or scrap metal yards and they are high on list of targets for the kidnappers in Mexico as they usually have lots of money and plenty of cash on hand.

I feel a nervous chill come over me. The sort of reality slap you get when your wife leaves you or you get busted by the police when you are a teenager. I realize that I’ve seen far too much of this. This is the second person related to someone in our plant to be killed (earlier it was the nurse’s husband, who was sitting outside a friend’s house drinking beer when a group of hit men showed up for the owner of the house and shot everyone outside). My brother in law tripped over a body in the dark while walking to work a few months back and I’ve personally seen five different shootings. A supervisor at one of the other plants was gunned down (he was apparently involved in the drug business) and a car chase ended in one of the other plant parking lots with gunmen shooting two people in front of everyone. The gruesome bloody Nissan Murano just sat there with the wipers on and blood oozing down the door.

Since the local police have their dirty little hands full with the drug war (and trying not to get shot themselves) gangs of bank robbers and kidnappers have set up shop in Juárez with impunity. The cops never catch anyone (that would require actually looking for them) nor is there ever any justice. Oddly, this activity increased dramatically since the PJF and the Mexican army came to town under the guise of getting things back under control. Makes me wonder.

After a while you start to get immune to this stuff, it just becomes numbers on the nightly news (10 today, over 1,100 year to date). You get sort of this sense like you are a wildebeast in a herd and when someone else gets picked off by lions you just keep running. When it happens to someone you know, it quickly comes back to you that Mexico is a very dangerous place to be.

I would advise all of you to stay away from here unless you can’t avoid it like me.

Al Qaeda in the hood

2009-07-28T12:19:00.000-07:00

Yesterday the FBI busted into 134 Lakeside Circle in Willow Spring NC and arrested 39 year old Daniel Patrick Boyd, his two sons and four other suburban terrorists with scary sounding Middle Eastern sounding names. Boyd, who looks more like a mullethead than a mullah had been running his own radical prayer sermons out of his house and operating a training camp out of nearby Caswell county.

Now normally, I don’t pay much attention to stuff like this, figuring it’s just another case of mistaken identity by the Dept. of Homeland Security. I usually shrug it off and consider myself lucky that some bumbling flatfoot hasn’t fingered me as the ringleader of some secret plot to blow up all SUV driving cel phone users.

However, this time it was the address that caught my attention as I used to live four doors down from this house. According to Yahoo, it’s 0.18 miles away. I always knew they weren’t right anyway – never offered me any beer…

"Everyone stares at the girl in the red dress"

2009-07-23T11:41:00.000-07:00

I got up this morning and was pretty stunned that my email inbox wasn’t full of photoshopped pictures of Obama as Morpheus from the matrix.

Yesterday, during his speech on healthcare reform he made this comment

"If there's a blue pill and a red pill, and the blue pill is half the price of the red pill and works just as well, why not pay half price for the thing that's going to make you well?"

I usually don’t bust out laughing during presidential speeches (well, at least not when George W. Bush isn’t speaking) but that quote had me laughing hard.

Hmm, this and maybe the photo from my June 10th post might explain a lot here. So that’s what all that stuff about “new energy policy” is about.

Lookout coppertop…

It's not the size of your weinermobile but how you use it

2009-07-21T09:52:00.000-07:00

Last Friday it seems that the 22 year old chick in charge of driving Oscar Mayer’s “Weinermobile” had a little bit of trouble handing the 27 foot advertising tool she had been put in charge of.

During what I can only guess was a slight unauthorized excursion to try to see Lake Michigan she inadvertently took her rolling sausage down a dead end street.

In a hurried bid to zip up the trip quickly, she gave the gas a quick poke and accidentally rammed the wiener into a tight garage and could not extricate it. Seems like she thrust when she should have stroked (she’s a girl, what did you expect?).

The dog and house remain locked together for hours before it was finally freed leaving the house battered and bruised. The owner of the house had recently dropped her insurance and she hoped that Kraft would pay up but the wiener wreckers didn’t leave a call back number nor did they call back in the morning.

"Oh yea baby, I'll call you in the morning"

This is not the first time the girls have had problems with the big plastic wiener though, back in 2008, they managed to stuff the wiener into a snowbank, which may have lead to the the greatest piece of newspaper journalism ever created, read it here

http://www.firefighternation.com/profiles/blogs/889755:BlogPost:362894

Oddly, after pulling it out they found it had gotten shorter in the cold

Worst comic book cover ever

2009-07-17T09:03:00.001-07:00

OK, I freely admit that I stole this from someone else's blog who stole it from failblog.org, so sue me if you want. Still, I have to warn kids about the "man of steel" (or is that Steely Dan there?) right?

The big empty Slurpie

2009-07-16T13:22:00.000-07:00

Years ago when Clinton first got elected there was a guy by the name of Ross Perot who was vehemently opposed to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). His famous line was “that giant sucking sound of American jobs headed south”.

Well, quite a bit of time has passed since then and the sound I hear now is the one you get when the cup finally runs dry. The only thing he seems to have failed to predict was that other kid with the much longer straw getting most of the syrup.

I ran across this giant stamping press today being hauled across the border into Mexico. You don’t see much of this anymore like you used to. At one time trucks were lined up at the border with massive machines from America’s chrome age. You’d see all manner of presses, lathes, machining centers etc. making their last journey to the hydraulic graveyard.

Most Americans of working age today have never stood inside a manufacturing plant listening to the rhythmic cadence of stamping presses. There’s a certain awe you feel when a huge die slams shut with enough force to shake your bones through the earth from 1,000 feet away. Like some Nine Inch Nails concert on “11” these things create music in harmony with each other, banging out the chords of a better life under your feet.

Most of them are gone now, sent away across the ocean to be copied and to bring a better life to billions of other people while our own society stagnates and declines. A nation that produces nothing but paper and ethereal ideas eventually comes to have nothing but paper and dreams left.

How appropriate then that this great machine lies on it’s side like some fallen beast in one of the Lord of Rings movies.

The name on the side says "Bliss"

Finally a president I can relate to!

2009-07-10T07:25:00.001-07:00

The photo below appeared in the New York Post today. I have to say, I like the fact that I share something in common with our president for once (although, I think there's a photo of G.W. Bush checking out Queen Elizabeth somewhere).

I'm not sure if "horndog" is a requirement to be a democratic president or Obama's just been hanging out with Bill too much but I say it's not a such a bad thing. Lets the rest of us know that these people really are normal. I just don't want to hear any complaining about how much the lump Michelle puts on his head hurts.

"Barack Obama & Nicolas Sarkozy discover that the US and France really do have common interests"

Coolest truck in the world - Weird Mexican trucks

2009-05-25T14:38:00.000-07:00

I have a thing for bizarre homebuilt contraptions. Especially the halfass backyard engineering sort. I was a big fan of “Junkyard wars” and other shows where people build stuff out of debris.

Of course, in Mexico this takes on a whole new meaning. This isn’t done to see who can build barbecue grilles out of car trunks or weird mailboxes from tractor parts for entertainment. There it’s done mostly out of necessity to fill some real need.

However, I have to think that the guys who built this truck were smirking just a bit when they stood back and took a good look at their entry into the cutthroat world of maquila parts transport.

I pass this contraption frequently on the way to work. It is used to deliver parts to a maquiladora down the street from mine.

By cutting the back foot off an US old school bus and welding it back on behind the drivers seat a truck cab was created. The extra long frame rails support a 24’ dock height box.

Now, think back to grade school and remember how the doors were. Yep, the narrow swing door is still there and the only way to get inside. But as a plus, your buddies can hang out on the stairs with door open and enjoy the breeze (seat belts are for pussies).

The real ingenious part thought, is shown in this photo. The white and yellow square you see on the front bumper is a valid license plate. Wonder how they did that?

Swine flu steals narcos thunder

2009-04-30T20:43:00.001-07:00

Well today while everyone was distracted by the possibility of an unsavory, snotty death the cartels of Juarez decided to come out of hiding.

I stopped off at S-Mart for some beer to drink in the long customs line (it's hot now and most of us daily crossers drink to pass the time in line in the summer). As I drove down Plutarco Elias Calles, one of the major arteries in the city I suddenly came to what appeared to be a roadblock by the police and the Mexican army. I quickly stashed my beer and drove forward to find the road blocked off because one of the cartels decided to shoot up a woman in the middle of the street as she was driving.

Plutarco Elias Calles, a major four lane one way street blocked by police

I've talked to alot of Juarenses and they all tell me the same thing - they are more afraid of "influenza porcina" than the narcos. I guess after so many years of shootings in the street, you get used to it. Seven people succumbed to "acute lead poisoning" today. No one died of the flu or for that matter was even diagnosed with it. Even the people who beg and sell useless crap on the bridge were wearing masks.

"Un Peso Jefe?"

Pandemic panic

2009-04-30T05:26:00.000-07:00

As you are probably aware, Capt’n Tripps is upon us. The sudden outbreak of H1N1 “Swine Flu” has paralyzed Mexico. The Mexican government went public with it 6 days ago last Friday (it’s a matter of debate over how long they knew about it before that). Since then the entire nation has been gripped with fear and suspicion and not to mention quite a few uneasy jokes.

At the last count 159 people in Mexico have died from this and Mexico D.F. has canceled all public gatherings, even soccer games (I know some people here that would buy a bus ticket to hell if America was playing Chivas). Schools and universities have been closed until May 6th.

Yesterday all employers were told that all pregnant women are to stay home from work and all non essential government services were shut down (that one act will probably increase the treasury reserves of Mexico by billions of dollars as government employees will not be able to go to work and embezzle any money). Restaurants and bars have been ordered closed and will only serve take out (this promoted a street blocking protest in Juarez by bar owners and “teibloleras”- strippers, who cannot earn income at the moment).

Today there is talk of closing all large businesses. Crews have been set up to wipe disinfectant on commonly touched surfaces such as phones, door handles and even the railings on the walkways of the international bridges.

Millions of face masks have been handed out. While these probably won’t stop anyone from getting the flu, they might stop the flying snot from sick people from ending up on your shoulder.

All this in spite of the fact that not one case has been officially discovered in either Juarez or El Paso (I question this, one day before the announcement was made a 49 year old woman working 2nd shift in our plant died of a respiratory illness describes as “her lungs filled up with phlegm”. I was told that it would be reported as she died in the Seguro Social hospital).

This country is in a near state of panic with people walking around in masks, not touching each other and doing a wonderful job increasing Johnson & Johnson’s bottom line.

Mexican hottie protects herself while daredevil tests bronze lion

How the United States provides cheap and reliable public transportation to developing countries

2009-04-29T10:34:00.000-07:00

Anyone who has ever ridden a bus in most US cities knows how pathetic public transportation is in our country. The number of busses is limited, you have to sit and wait for 30 minutes in between busses and ridership is low. There are a few exceptions, mostly in very large cities but in smaller to medium sized cities public transportation is mostly a waste of time and resources.

I’ll use my own city of El Paso as an example. It has a population of around 700,000 people. Most buses run on their routes every 30 minutes, when the busses are not broken down (very common in this city). They ply one of 14 predetermined routes and you have to walk to the nearest bus stop to catch one. The fare is one dollar.

The busses all have handicapped access, large flat lifts designed to pick up those tied to wheelchairs or unable to climb the steps. For the rest of the populace, the bus kneels down when it stops so that first step is nice and easy. These two features lead to frequent failures and almost everyday you can see one of the city busses broken down on the side of the road like some ratted out old French car with the city maintenance vehicle alongside.

My wife attempted to use the public transport for a while but found that the bus frequently never arrived or she had to get off and wait for another one after the handicapped access lift got jammed and the doors could not close. After a few months she decided that the 37 year old Fiat 128 I bought out of Hemmings Motor News for $500 was more reliable transportation (actually it was. Other than one broken clutch cable, the little car got her where she needed to be every time.)

So, is public transport just an idea that doesn’t work? No, in fact all I have to do is cross the border into Juárez Mexico to find a cheap and highly efficient public transport system. Well almost. It’s not public at all. Instead, there are thousands of old US school buses on every street. They are privately owned by “ruteros”, the name given by the denizens of Juárez to the owner-drivers of these vehicles.

Other than looking sporty, the tall pipes keep the exhaust fumes above the pedestrians

They are so prevalent that you can literally walk out on any moderately sized street, stand there for about a minute and one will stop for you if you hold up your hand. No schedules, no designated stops and it costs 3 pesos (less than a quarter) to ride.

Five deep in a downtown park

Now, they are old school buses so there’s no kneeling at the curb, and someone with a wheelchair will need someone else on the bus (like the driver) to help them board. They do have some things that the American counterparts don’t though. Things like vendors selling snacks on board, lively music and lots and lots of amusing decorations. Lots of Virgin Guadalupes, futbol logos, sexy girls and dedications to passed relatives adorn the rear windows. It’s a large outlet for reproduction 59 Cadillac taillights and velvet fringe. Illicit Bugs Bunnys are fairly popular too.

I wonder if we Americans would just let our hair down for a few moments if we couldn’t come up with brilliantly simple solutions like this.

Chrome naked ladies - popular with drivers of heavy vehicles worldwide (with the possible exception of Tehran)

And you thought everyone in Mexico was named Jose or Pedro

Princess Leia vs. the missing sock monster

2009-04-24T09:39:00.000-07:00

It has occurred to me recently that I just might end up in the soup line as a result of everyone out there being tight fisted with their money. I work for a company that makes electric motors for pools and spas. Even I have to admit that demand for hot tubs probably is pretty elastic during a “severe economic downturn” or whatever euphemism you prefer for “Great Depression 2.0”

So I’ve been trying to figure out what I could do for income should I lose my day job. As the three of you who read this blog are aware, I probably won’t feed the kids as a writer so I did some brainstorming and came up with some ideas.

Then I got realistic and threw out billionare playboy, race car driver, SUV salesman and most of the other things that most people aren’t going to pay for in a recession. So what do people have to have, I mean can’t live without? Food, water, someplace to sleep and probably sex.

After thinking about for at least a minute I decided that being a pornographer is something I’d probably like a lot. As a mater of fact, this is probably the best choice since the internet is still partially free. I could start a fetish site.

A quick bit of research turns up a scary bit of info though. Most of the imaginable fetishes already have their own websites. Turns out there are quite a few unimaginable fetishes with web sites too.

Guess what?, they seem to have conventions for people who want to dress up in surplus mall Easter bunny costumes and get it on (google “furries” if you really need to know). In addition to that bit of weirdness, it also appears that adult diapers aren’t just for jilted astronauts anymore.

All right, fuck it. I’ll just have to invent my own fetish and get people to join in (hey, if third rate sci-fi writers can invent religions there’s no reason I can’t do this).

The key to a good fetish is that is has to have just enough appeal to draw people in. Remembering my own adolescence, I hit upon the idea of the “Princess Leia slave girl” fetish. I mean, there’s got to be thousands, maybe even millions of slovenly fat kids who fancy themselves as Jabba the Hut.

I quick search of the internet didn’t reveal any preexisting Leia slave sites but I did find this photo, which means people out there have thought about it.

The third girl from the right has me rethinking my new career path

OK, so I was wrong does that mean I don't get the job?

2009-04-24T09:23:00.000-07:00

OK, I was off base on the whole pony murdering conspiracy. But you have to admit, animals would be a good way to test your biological weapon right?

In hindsight it would be better just to test it on cows in some third world country, that way you wouldn't have hordes of pre teen girls demanding action.

I'm still hoping the DHS will still consider me for a job. Did I mention that I know how to operate a mop also?

How to build bombs, poison the water supply and fuck up a polo match.

2009-04-20T22:03:00.000-07:00

Today 21 polo horses suddenly all dropped dead of what appeared to be heart failure. Right now it’s suspected that there was a toxin in their food or something. While I think this is really sad as horses are beautiful creatures and my 5 year old daughter loves them, this also sends sheer terror up my spine. Terror of the type you’d imagine if you read The Stand by Steven King for the first time. Yep, a world like the late 80s B-flick “Def Con 4”.

HELLO DUMBFUCKIN’ DEPT OF HOMELAND SECURITY, WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU ON THIS???????

As guy who crosses the border everyday and realizes how “unprotected” we really are (unprotected like a drunk 16 year old slut at a frat party) I’m sure these guys haven’t thought about how this could possibly be a small test to by someone like Al Qaeda to see if you really can commit mass murder by poisioning the water or food supply.

Hence the title of today’s blog, I’m hoping that since you are monitoring the Internet you guys will see this and pick up on it. You’re welcome, that tip’s free because I love my 5 year old daughter. Get out your cop equipment and get on it quick.

PS: Seeing how I could possibly get laid off at any moment due to the “sucky” economy, and Obama might throw a bit of that 700 billion your way keep me in mind if you need some employees, I’m pretty perceptive for a suburbanite.

"TSA & DHS launch undercover investigation into polo pony assasination plot"

Are humans hardwired to think about phalluses?

2009-04-16T22:14:00.000-07:00

I went out exploring in the desert of New Mexico and got a bunch of those tiny hairs from the prickly pears in my shoe. These things are barely visible but they’ll drive you nuts as they bend back and forth when you rub them.

So I found a Walgreens and got myself a pair of tweezers to get them out. When I took them out of the pack, I couldn’t help but laugh at the remnants of the card and blister pack. Surely I can’t be the only juvenile minded soul who wonders if the penis shaped trash left over was intentionally designed that way by some smartass.

Packaging engineer is probably a pretty boring job

And, just in case a pack of tweezers can't get you giggling, here's the several thousand year old Tara Lia Fail.

More little girls with big guns

2009-04-15T21:25:00.000-07:00

Yesterday the PJF arrested 20 year old Anahí Beltrán Cabrera seen in this photo along with her Browning AR-50 .50 caliber tripod mount machine gun.

In addition to this nice bit of kit, she was also found to be in possession of an arsenal that would make an Al Qaeda cell proud. Her personal gun collection included the .50 cal, a .30 Browning, six full auto "assault" rifles, a grenade launcher, 267 magazines, a hand grenade 9,627 rounds of ammunition (holy shit!) and just in case firing some serious ordinance wasn't enough to get her amped up she also had 750 grams of cocaine to keep her excited.

In Mexico when the cops bust someone, it's traditional to put the perp on parade for the cameras along with whatever they found. Not included in the photo are the three pickup trucks she had to haul all this stuff and the helicopter belongs to the PJF but she's probably got an old Huey parked somewhere

Now that's a bit harsh

2009-04-13T22:16:00.000-07:00

Sometime in the 70s or 80s when I was a kid, handicapped parking appeared. At first this was a great idea, reserving a space for someone who really has trouble ambling across the parking lot. Like all things though, this have become widely abused over the years as just about any minor issue qualifies you for a special plate to park in the forbidden third of the parking lot.

I think most people secretly hate the overabundance of handicapped parking places that are reserved in every parking lot in the US. Especially when you frequently see someone get out of a big ‘ole SUV who doesn’t seem to be in much discomfort and could probably benefit from the extra walk waddling up to the store. I’ve got no beef with a person who has a real need for it but I bet I speak for most of us when I think to myself, “Yea, if that was me I’d just buck up and walk the slight extra distance to the door”.

However, instead of just thinking it’s a bit undeserving the DOT in the state of New Mexico takes extra measures to make sure people think twice about taking that cherry spot in front of the door at the rest areas.

Wall of death revisited

2009-04-12T10:11:00.000-07:00

Remeber the guy with the lion in a sidecar on the wall of death? These guy from some unidentified ex bit of the British empire (probably aussies, they're always doing stupid crap like this) decide to recreate the stunt but must have had trouble procuring the lion. Same goes for a motorcycle so they scrounge up some sort of wheezy Vespa type scooter.

The tie and shorts are a nice touch. Probably Angus Young's nephew.

Now that's a fire!

2009-04-07T21:05:00.000-07:00

OK, now that that nasty business is over back to blogging (final headcount on the plus side of 108, a very bad day)

Today on the way home I stopped in the Plaza Monumental Wal-Mart to get some beer (more on this aberration later, let's just say for now that "yes, they really did demolish the bullring in Juárez to build a Wal-Mart). As I got out of my car I noticed a large plume of black smoke rising up in the sky. Two days ago a warehouse burnt down and the sky was full of smoke so I thought it was odd to have another one so soon (it's not very common but it happens just like everywhere else). Here's some early shots of the plume from the downtown TXDOT cameras in El Paso.

By the time I got home an hour and half later the plume was so large it filled the sky and was creating it's own stratus cloud far into Texas.

It's now 10:12 PM, over 5 hours since I first noticed it and the fire is now so large that it is consuming the entire MCS de Mexico plant located on the Carratera PanAmerica (yea, the one they race on) out by the airport. They make "home furnishings". This is about 40 miles from my house and I can see it from here. The entire fire fighting force of Juárez is on the scene and they have requested Governor Rick Perry of Texas to allow the fire dept of El Paso to cross into Mexico to help.

The surrounding area is being evacuated because there is a huge tank of Freon inside the plant that they expect to explode at any minute.

Now I wasn't aware the Freon would even burn so I googled it and guess what, burning Freon releases phosgene gas! Phosgene was also know as mustard gas during WWI and is some really nasty stuff (it's banned under the Geneva protocol of 1925 as a weapon of war).

Right about now, I'm pretty glad I took the wind patterns into account when I bought my house (there's an oil refinery on the other side of town and the legendary ASARCO copper smelter is here so I bought upwind unaware that ASARCO had been closed).

And the days are even longer

2009-04-06T18:29:00.000-07:00

Well, looks like I get to live long enough to go in tomorrow for another day of sheer terror. Now I know how fish feel when there's a shark hanging around.

(With apologies to Mr. Frazetta)

Night of the long knives

2009-04-05T20:16:00.000-07:00

There have been several events known as "night of the long knives" throughout history. The most famous is the 1934 purge of Hitler's opponents within the Nazi party. AC/DC sang about it in one of their better but little know songs.

Tomorrow is my own personal night of the long knives. I've known for weeks now that 20% of the people working where I work are going to get laid off tomorrow. In some instances, I know which ones. One old guy who stop by my office every day to voice his complaints is on the list as far as I know. It's the ones I don't know about that worry me the most. Maybe me.

I can't say that I'm an ideal employee, I'm just whoring myself to the highest bidder. Whenever I can, I goof off. Surfing the internet, emailing porn, blogging or a multitude of other vices that are OK as long as people like your company. Cause for termination if they bore with you. I've never been laid off, fired or otherwise been told to take a hike. I'm not sure how I'd take that or what I'd do. Sell shit on ebay most likely. However, using the sickest of indicators - deadlines beyond the "kill date", I assume I will survive this one too. I'll let ya know.

In a morbid twist, they are having a "discada" or sort of a backyard fiesta for those that survive the day after. There will be music, barbecue etc. in the parking lot of one of the plants and all the salaried employees (that is, those that are employees on this day) are invited. A bit macabre if you ask me. I think mobsters do this after someone gets "whacked".

I just imagine the temples of Tenochtitlan stained red with blood while the crowds cheer as another head tumbles down the stairs.

Miss Sinaloa, hot chick with big guns

2009-03-27T18:58:00.001-07:00

No, not those kinda of guns. I’m talking AR-15 Bushmasters. In the Mexican TV series “El Pantera” Rosaura, the daughter of drug kingpin El Rubio, is a sexy and tough leader of a drug cartel. Sounds a bit far fetched to have a hot chick as a leader in a drug cartel but this sort of thing actually goes on south of the border.

Rosaura “La Reigna” in protective custody of El Pantera

On December 22, 2008 Laura Zuniga, the recently crowned “Miss Sinaloa” was arrested at a Mexican army checkpoint along with seven members of the Juarez cartel. Along with them were a small arsenal of guns, 633 rounds of ammunition, over $100,000 and enough cel phones to film a Verizon commercial.

Miss Sinaloa

Unfortunately for Snow White and the 7 deadly dwarfs, target shooting isn’t really part of the competition in the pageant so she has been stripped of her title. Other officials with the contest also pointed out those fake boobs aren’t supposed to be allowed either. She is still getting some free housing courtesy of the PJF though.

From the catwalk…

…to the perp walk

Hey, Viva Mexico!

Dumb ass warning labels

2009-03-27T18:51:00.000-07:00

I’m sitting here eating a “naco taco” (redneck version of ceviche, canned tuna on a chipotle tostado) and wondering what the hell is wrong with my fellow homo sapiens.

Written on the side of my Wal-Mart brand tuna (hey, we’re in a fucking recession – fuck you Charlie!) is the following warning “Allergy warning: Contains Tuna”. Why???? Is it really possible that someone could win a lawsuit against Wal-Mart after they ate the contents of a can label “Chunk Light Tuna in Water” with pictures of minced fish on it?

I’ve seen this on cans of peanuts too. Almond Joy says “May have been made with machinery that processes nuts” To hell with the machines, what about the name of this product make lawyers think that information is worth using up ink for?

I say let natural selection take effect here. Anyone who knows they have a peanut allergy and opens up a can of Skippy and makes themselves a PBJ is probably going to improve the gene pool with their absence.

Ay Guey, eres mensa o que?

2009-02-26T15:11:00.000-08:00

How come ever person I ever met that was a member of Mensa seems to be a complete idiot? They always seem to have one or more glaring defects, like the inability not to say the most offensive thing imaginable if given the opportunity.

I think that it just must be that anyone who'd actually want to be a member of Mensa is socially maladjusted. After all, isn't the point to prove to the rest of the world that you really are smarter than they are?

One of the things that I really get a kick out of is when people tell me they are members of Mensa. I always smirk everytime some overly Aspberger'ed self proclaimed "know it all" points out their acceptance by Mensa. It's because I know that the gardener would bust out laughing if he heard this.

You see, "mensa" in Mexican slang means "stupid". Many times when I've just failed to get the obvious point I've received the "no mensa" crack from my wife (who happens to be Mexican).

Yep, I just get a kick out this. Especially when it's my cousin doing it.

My contribution to the universe of hate crimes

2009-02-20T12:38:00.000-08:00

I came up with an idea today. I can’t say it’s the best idea I ever had but in some ways I think it just might have legs.

See, I think there needs to be a new group to persecute. Remember back in the 80s and 90s how “gay bashing” suddenly became a topic of conversation? I’d like to update this for today’s world. I don’t really think people should be beating up gays though, they really don’t “deserve” it.

Same with ethnic minorities. No, I don’t really have anybody who I think needs a beat down because of their race, gender, proclivities, or even what kind of car they drive (although those Honda kids with the fart can mufflers might need at least a “yer a fuggin’ moron” look).

So who then? Who really needs a hard ass smackdown? Well, after looking at my 401k today I have an idea. See, I want to go get a ski mask and a baseball bat and buy a ticket to New York. I’ll skulk in the shadows of some hot dog cart and when I spy the right ration of charcoal grey suit to spare tire and thinning gray hair on with the “banker bashing”.

I just have this image in my head of some reporter interviewing a disheveled middle aged man with twisted gold wire frame glasses, maybe a sleeve torn loose or a little blood, describing his horrific attack. And I'm amused about it...

Is the milk really $1.67 a gallon?

2009-02-19T02:50:00.000-08:00

I've got a pretty bad bout of insomnia right now so I decided to go down to the Wal-mart market and get some stuff. I was out of coffee cream anyway and didn't go last night like I should have because I really am a lazy fucker. My plan was to get up 30 minutes early and go in the morning (we all know how much that sucks don't we?) but instead I got up 4 hours early.

Anyway, so I figured I might as well go get the cream. As I get up, I wake up my wife, not entirely by accident, thinking maybe there's something better to do than go to Wal-Mart at 3:00 in the morning. No dice, but she does have a grocery list for me. Her list reads like a plot for a hurricane, "Milk, eggs, bread and of course cream".

So I trundle down there and head for the milk case. Underneath the name brand milk (who buys this stuff? It's fucking milk, it comes out of cows, it's all the same) is the Wal-Mart brand and the tag says $1.67 a gallon. That can't be right, $2.50 a gallon is a smoking deal.

So I ask one of the weird non English speaking nocturnal stock trolls if the price is right. Apparently that was a really tough question because he had to consult with some others in his clan and finally get the guy who knows how to make fire and open bottles to answer for him. "Yes, that's the price" he says.

Now, given the quality of low rent 3:00 AM labor these days, I still don't trust him but I grab a coupla gallons, get the eggs and cream and bread and head for the counter. Dude was right, $1.67 a gallon.

I still think some sausage fingered stock boy entered this in the system wrong and it should have been $2.67 but what the hell. Maybe in today's economy the price of milk is dropping just like the price of oil (I hope the price of beer is next). Or maybe it's from China and the reason it's white is lead paint.

I think I'll go wake up my wife again and inform her of my good forture.

"Your cream is here"

Hot rod, post numero uno!

2009-02-17T14:15:00.001-08:00

Well, you have to start somewhere so I decided to start with the frame. I have to start there or it remains a pile of parts.

Since I pretty much have a good idea that I don’t know what I’m doing, I decided to buy a book on the subject. After reading that, I still have no clue but at least I have something to refer back to.

Remembering how I got out of grade school, I decide that when all else fails it’s best just to copy from someone else who looks like they have a clue. In this case, I’m cribbing “Littleman” and his superb “Death’s Doorstep” (see http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=104367&highlight=deaths+doorstep&showall=1 to see what someone who has a clue does).

If you saw the TV show “Hard Shine”, you might recognize him as Dave Lohr, the guy who actually won the contest (check out his blog here http://www.littlemansspeedandfabrication.com/)

In order not to be a total shameless ripoff, all I’m copying here is the front rails and to be fair, these are time honored hot rod tricks. I’ll have a few less holes but the general idea is the same.

Death’s Doorstep, what a real hot rod should look like

Frame rail of Death's Doorstep

Based on what I thought it should look like, I drew up a plan on some old graph paper I’ve had since high school and then made a life sized pattern out of cardboard. This just seemed to be how it should be done.

I managed to bum some 2X6 rectangular tubing off a fellow HAMB’er “elchuco” (Henry Ramirez - I’ll get him back for that, it was a great thing to do) and went snooping around on how to make holes. I figured it would be pretty cool to make them get progressively smaller as the frame tapers down so I tried to determine what to use. A trip to the steel yard turned up Schedule 40 water pipe. It’s sold in incremental sizes and most importantly it’s cheap.

Now, one thing I learned in my “research” is that lightening holes don’t do much other than look “bitchen”. The pipe I put in where I cut the wall out weights more than the part I cut out. Also, it pretty much does nothing to make anything stronger (the sidewall is what makes the square tube rigid). No problem, It’s gonna look cool and that’s what I’m after here.

Henry also came up with a brilliant idea. He knew a guy who owns a water jet over in Juárez and the guy agreed to try to cut the holes out of the rectangle for $50. That’s a smoking deal over what the hole saws for all those different sizes would cost me.

Now, here’s another nugget of knowledge for ya. Water pipe is sold by the internal diameter, not the external diameter. That means when you cut the hole to stick your “holes” in, you need to add the wall thickness twice (watch that one, many a smart feller have added it only once). I called the steelyard and asked how thick the wall was for each of the sizes I had planned on using. These sizes were determined by what sizes they sold.

On paper, I knew what size to cut the holes. In reality, I was going on blind faith that nothing would go wrong such as the steelyard guy not knowing what he was talking about.

Henry offered to draw up an AutoCAD drawing of what I drew on the napkin for the water jet dude and since I don’t have AutoCAD I jumped at the chance. This also helps the guy to make it since this equipment just loads the cad drawing and cuts.

It worked like a charm, cutting perfect and clean holes in the rails. This is a thousand times nicer than I would have done with the hole saws and I didn’t have to clean up any of my blood afterwards. But, the big question remains – will the holes fit after I get them made?

I cut a rounded notch in the back of the rail to transition it down to the part where it will meet the part of the frame that runs under the cab, which will be 2X4 rectangular tubing. This was done by hand with a cheap ass electric cutoff tool from Harbor freight. I think I may have paid $8 for it. Luckily it worked and I didn’t take off any fingers either.

I got the sizes I had planned for from the local steelyard. These guys are used to selling truckloads of beams to people building bridges and metal framework so they looked at me a little weird when I went in requesting 6” of 6 different sized tubes but they humored me when I told them what it was for.

I don’t have a bunch of tattoos or a pompadour haircut so I probably don’t look much like a guy building a hot rod in his yard. In fact, I probably look more like your accountant than Billy badass. Just fine by me, I’m too old for that crap anyway.

I work in a factory and it’s standard operating procedure for guys to abuse the use of the toolroom. Instead of spending all afternoon with a hacksaw trying to cut a straight line with my vise bolted to a table, I bribed the guy in the toolroom with a 12 pack of Tecate to turn em down for me. Plus, since he’d be cutting them down on the lathe, I asked him to bevel the edge so my weld bead would be below the surface so I’d have less grinding to do. He did a super job on them and was happy to get beer in payment (I love Mexico).

Now for the moment of truth, will they fit? As my kids look on (Isabella, my daughter was dying to “help”. I consider this a good thing) I laid one rail out and got one of the stacks of holes.

They fit perfectly! There’s not much gap to fill in and I’m pretty stoked about the result. The plan is to tack them in and then weld up the gaps. After that, I’ll cut a long skinny wedge out below the holes and fold up the bottom part to make the rail tapered. The welded in holes should keep the sides from warping on me.

Well, that was the plan until I noticed something I hadn’t noticed before. Two of the holes seem to have been made by a mill that leaves a big nasty weld bead on the inside of the pipe. I’ll have to go back and bribe the toolroom guy with some more beer to turn this out of them. Either that or sit in the yard with a dremel for a couple of hours grinding it out.

Oh well, that’s minor compared to the fact that I need to wire my garage for 220v 80 amp service to accommodate the Miller 180 Tig welder I picked up for the project. Now where can I get a book about wiring?

The Great American Short Hair conspiracy

2009-02-16T11:54:00.000-08:00

This is one of those things I’ll probably get a lot of flack over but I’ll say it anyway. I spend a fair amount of time reading the tripe on http://www.msn.com/ Kinda for the same reason they still have local news. It’s light and mildly entertaining.

About once a month they have some civilization altering article to help you determine if you are “age appropriate”. These articles are almost always aimed at women and usually a thinly veiled attempt to sell jeans or sweaters.

As pointless as they are, they do strike a nerve with me,-a pretty big one actually. What is this shit about women needing to cut their hair short in their mid to late 30s? I live and work in Mexico most of the time and this culture has not bought into this bullshit at all. Most, (not “many” or “some” but a solid “most”) women keep their hair long well into their late 40s or 50s. I’d say at least 60% keep it long for life. If you don’t believe me, just watch Univision for a couple of hours and check out the villainesses.

And you know what ladies? It looks great. No, they don’t look like desperate cougars struggling to maintain their youth. In fact, they look alive and vibrant. In fact, a lot of them look “hot”, how ‘bout that for an adjective? Here’s a few samples for you:

Salma Hayek now 42 years old (An owner of a website with alot higher traffic than mine once said that if there was such a thing as the Salma Hayek channel, he'd watch it all day long)

Mirabelle Guardia, 49 or possibly north of 50 (Maybe not the best example to make my case as she's alot like a restored old car - much of the original equipment has been replaced or upgraded)

Angélica Rivera, 38. Perhaps the best example I found of a pretty older girl without a bunch of modern plastic parts.

You’ve read everything from Cosmo to Redbook your whole life trying to determine what men like. Don’t try deny it, these magazines wouldn’t still be around printing the same articles over and over if you were not buying them. I’m a pretty average guy and let me tell you what we like – long pretty hair.

Very few women can pull off short hair and look good. If you’re older and your face isn’t perfect guess what? It makes you look 10 years older, instantly. Gotta big snozz, guess what? - the “Night Ranger” look is for you. Overweight? Just like loose fitting clothes hide the armpit rolls, long hair is going to hide a bit of those labrador retreiver jowls on ya. Short hair is nice on your son, not you.

I suspect that they age appropriate haircut myth is being perpetuated by late 20 something hotties who realize they are about to pass that crest and are trying to thin out the “MILF factor” down at the local Radisson lizard lounge. Probably it’s recited in secret sorority meetings until believed as fact.

Don’t do it, you look better with long hair.

Anyway, why do I care? Well, as my 5 year old daughter tells me “I just want to help people.”

Stuff that just pisses me off

2009-02-14T10:40:00.000-08:00

What I'd like to know is why, with my profound love of sophomoric humor, I was not the person who invented "Truck Balls"? "Big Cougar" here had a chrome plated set about the size of basketball.

While I risk my life dodging the Mexican army and drug traffickers every workday there is some guy (who I imagine is alot like a real life "Larry the Cable Guy") sitting by a kidney bean shaped pool with a bottle of Jack Daniels black label stuck in a silver champagne bucket ogling his tanga wearing Shania Twain lookalike. That really should have been me.

Oh well, I guess there's a market somewhere for the pecker shaped gearshifter or the "real feel" boobie horn button...

Places best to avoid

2009-02-11T15:39:00.000-08:00

I took this picture in Apex North Carolina. I assume the owner of this car wash thought he was being clever naming his business “The Wet Spot”. I don’t know if that was the most appealing name he could have come up with but he thought it was worth going with and spent hard fought cash to hot press his wet dream into plastic.

This is one of those places where you sit in the lobby reading two year old copies of People or Field & Stream while 5 guys detail your car. I personally don’t want to sit in the wet spot while someone washes my car and I really hope that no one calls me on the cell phone and asks me where I am, i.e.: “sitting in the wet spot”.

That aside, his attempt to work the Hooters business model comes crashing down the creative ladder of sexual innuendo to the rung of redneck humor with his mangling the spelling of the one thing on the property that should suck, his vacuums .

At least he has showers for when you're all done sitting in the wet spot.

Stuff is just different out west

2009-01-30T14:25:00.000-08:00

I was headed over to Austin for the Lonestar roundup last April and I got up early to go gas up the car. I pulled in and saw a van from Mexico with something that looked weird on the roof.

I got a little closer and discovered it was covered in skulls. You see shit like that all the time out here.

Mexican Drug War

2009-01-30T13:58:00.000-08:00

I work in Juárez Mexico, one of the most violent cities on earth. Directly across from J-town as it’s affectionately known is El Paso TX, one of the most economically depressed cities in the United States. This combination makes it one of the most important smuggling corridors in the world.

As you might imagine with anything valuable, it’s worth fighting for. And fight they do. Juárez is currently the location of an all out pitched battle for control of the right to load dope into every imaginable vehicle and attempt to pass it into the US.

Every day for the past year 1-10 people have been murdered in the streets or tortured and then dumped in the streets. The official toll is around 1,500 for 2008 while the news media toll is around 1,650. Considering the Mexican government's history of covering stuff up http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB10/intro.htm I’ll go with the news.

Inspired by You Tube videos of Iraqi insurgents, the victims are often decapitated and placed in public places with notes stapled to the bodies threatening their rivals. More common is “acribillaron por cuerno de chiva” or “sprayed (with bullets) from the ram’s horn", slang for the curved clip of an AK-47.

A roving news team www.canal44.com/ using SUVs and motorcycles has a daily rundown of the days killings on the 10:00 news. We call it “watching the muertos”, or watching the dead. But you really don’t need to watch the news, just drive around. Here are some photos I took on the way home from work:

This guy got wasted on a major street in front of a school and a crowded grocery store. He’s still in the car as I got there before the cops. 5 minutes earlier and I might not be writing this today.

At the same time in a separate unrelated incident about a block away a group of men in this white SUV were trying to escape their fate. Crashing into the pickup infront of them, they ran through the red light before getting gunned down. “Perito” is Spanish for “Coroner”. This truck is a typical ride of the local narcos. You learn to watch your rear view mirror for these trucks and stay out of the way. Missing liscence plates are also common as most of the trucks are stolen from El Paso.

Instead of a truck, this guy had a nice new BMW 540. He didn’t get long to enjoy it. He was shot down exiting a pool hall. I got there along with Channel 44 and stood in the big crowd that these events attract. The “sicarios” or “hit men” are never captured when this happens. According to Channel 44, they shot this guy, calmly took his keys and took “something” out of the trunk and left.

Now then, does your commute really suck that bad?

2009-01-28T06:58:00.000-08:00

I've got a few buddies who work in Washington. One of them managed to send a photo taken on inauguration day that had been quickly suppressed. In the spirit of a free and open society I thought I'd share it with you.

Best photo ever

2009-01-27T07:07:00.000-08:00

This cracks me up everytime I look at it.

Lincoln didn't really crib Renault did they???

2009-01-12T14:06:00.000-08:00

I was looking at photos from the Detroit auto show and front and center is the Lincoln C Concept. My first thought was:

Damn! that thing looks like a Renault Megane!

Is Detroit so bankrupt of ideas that they have to copy the French??? Hate to admit it but the Renault is probably the better looking car. I've seen alot of them running around here in Mexico and they are pretty funky, just interesting enough to catch your eye.

You decide:

My weird hobbies

2009-01-05T14:47:00.000-08:00

I'm one of those people who is car obsessed. Don't try to parse that, you either are or are not. It like something you're born with that stays with you forever. Alot of my free time is spent doing something based around old cars. Either working on them, looking at them or shooting bull on internet forums about them.I'm not real sure how I got this way but some of my earliest memories are of me playing with my matchbox cars so I've had it a long time.

My other much stranger hobby is collecting antique beer cans. These are the kind you'd need an opener to get the beer out. I know exactly where this came from. When I was about 13 my mother used to take me to the Asheville Mall and drop me off (this was back when the word "predator" was used only to talk about large meat eating animals). I'd play Missile Command, Galaga, Defender and Robotron 2084 until I ran out of money. One day went to B. Daltons Booksellers and happened to pick up a book about it. I was hooked. It's a laid back hobby that usually involves drinking beer at some microbrewery, which isn't a bad thing to do.

Metal detecting is another old recently reaquired hobby from my childhood. As a kid I'd read about Mel Fisher trying to find the Atocha and was enthralled with it. I'd dream about finding lost treasure. I was probably 10 years old and mowed lawns for $5 a pop (did you know that kids nowaday get like $50-$75 for doing this?) until I saved up $240 to buy a then state of the art Compass metal detector. A few months ago I bought a new one to look for cans with and found that I really enjoy wandering around aimlessly in the desert looking for stuff other people lost.

Day job, part 2

2008-12-04T09:39:00.000-08:00

I spotted this truck driving down I-40 in North Carolina one day. Single?, Really???

Day job

2008-12-04T09:27:00.001-08:00

This photo's been floating around the Internet for a while now but I thought I'd share it in case you missed it.

I imagine a staff meeting where the patriarch of this family is discussing the fact that racing cars and motorcycles on the wall of death just isn't dangerous enough. "OK, how about we piss off a Lion too?" musta won out over doing it blindfolded while juggling chainsaws.

Still wasn't exciting enough for the woman on the right.

2008-12-01T12:48:00.000-08:00

Aw, to hell with non political posts. As I don’t think I mentioned before, I work in an electric motor factory in Juárez Mexico (no, I didn’t make that up for effect, its true!).

Sometimes I wonder about how this transpired. I mean, it’s not part of anybodies life plan to go work in what amounts to a war zone (more on that later). Never the less, it’s been interesting and when I think about how I ended up here I have to find someone to blame. That’s the American way after all. We don’t want to accept responsibility for what happens to us, must have been someone else’s doing.

My two favorite groups to blame are boardroom Republican types and unions. I could write a book about the first group but am far too lazy for that so I’ll stick with the latter.

Unions did a fine job for many years and once that job was completed they set out to fuck their members out of a job. No future for anyone in this country really other than those who sell ideas for a living (or porn).

I present to you what should be made into posters to be hung in all union halls across America. I took this photo while waiting in line to cross back into the US after work one day.

Here we have some teamster’s old truck serving its new master in Juarez. I find the juxtaposition of the pro union bumper stickers serving as bookends to the Mexican license plate to be far to appropriate.

If the driver actually understood the meaning and implications of the stickers on the back of his newly acquired vehicle no doubt he’d agree with the cause. After all, US unions have helped to ensure many a Mexican has a good job with ample benefits.

The Truck

2008-12-01T11:00:00.000-08:00

The inspiration for building a “traditional hot rod” came from eBay actually. I had always thought of hot rodders as the sort of guys who sit around and light their own farts for amusement. I grew up in the 80s when hot rod got morphed into “street rod”. This was a style of car that was intended to be used to cruise around at 15 miles an hour when operating and spend most of the time parked with it’s owner sitting a folding chair nearby to answer questions about his purchase – if he could.

It wasn’t exactly my cup of tea. I was into driving fast, mostly around curves in tiny Fiats that handled like go carts. Proving my manhood by driving a Pepto Bismol pink and blue automatic pavement pounding pig was not the least interesting to me “Drag racing” indeed.

One day while searching the “other makes” section of eBay, I ran across a fellow selling this strange beast. Looking part Mad Max and part hound of hell, it lit a fire in me. I loved it. There’s just something raw and perhaps a bit evil going on here. Something that society at large would probably frown on. I was just the ticket for how I felt at the moment and the thought has not faded yet.

Faced with the fact that I don’t have a nice fat checking account, it was sold to some guy in Reno NV. Not before I had the chance to call up the guy who built it first though. Yep, “I’ll build my own” I thought. After months of searching, I found one close enough for me to drag home. So, I took $710 and threw it out the window and became the proud owner of what could best be described as a lot of scrap steel.

When I showed up to retrieve it, it was so heavy that I thought the tires on my trailer were going to burst. I took a blowtorch and cut the back half of it off (I really don’t need a giant 3,000 lb differential from the 1930s anyway). I made it home without killing any innocent bystanders.

Stay tuned…

The start...

2008-12-01T10:11:00.000-08:00

OK, so why a blog? To be honest, I keep asking myself the same question. Not really sure other than I feel like I have something to say and am under the possibly misguided perception that someone wants to listen.

So what’s it going to be about you ask? Well, there seem to be plenty of political pundits out there with blogs so I’ll try to avoid that (no guarantee though, politicians usually make me have something to say).

Mostly this will be about stuff I find interesting, comments on life and a chronicle of my attempt to build a hot rod. When I say “build a hot rod” I don’t mean order parts from a catalog and bolt them onto a Mustang that I bought from an auction. I’m talking about taking a derelict vehicle and sheets of metal and making the damn thing from scratch. I this case, I’ll start with a 1934 International 2 ton grain truck. This truck has sat since the mid 1950s in the desert north of Phoenix.

50 years sitting outside takes a toll on anything so there’s not much left of it. All I’ll be using from the truck is the cab (whatever can be saved) and the grille. That’s it. All of the rest will be either hand built from scratch or modified from other vehicle parts.

No, I really don’t know what I’m doing and have never attempted anything like this but I figure if I can move to another country and learn the language and work there, this is in the doable column. Besides, what else can a guy who had driven a red sports car his whole life do for a mid life crisis?

Anyway, back to this blog. This is where I get a chance to say what I want, no matter how rude or offensive it may be so you might want to add this to the blocked websites on your kid’s net nanny list. There you have it, you’ve been warned. I accept no responsibility for your kids growing up warped or other unfortunate events that may befall them such as their kids being born naked or ugly.

If you’re still onboard after that then sit back and prepare to be amused, disgusted or just plain glad you’ve turned out a bit more normal.

I’ll add periodic updates as I feel like it, not a moment sooner.