this is not a political blog.

having said that, i must go political for just a moment.

yes, i am a registered republican. yes, i vote republican most of the time.

but:

look at the goof on the right. the guy who lost the popular vote in 2000 but still won the white house. the one who can't form a sentence without saying "uhh". the one with that goddamn Bush Smirk on his face. the one who stubbornly uses the bible as his sidearm. the one that goes to war for who knows what the hell for.

now look at the man on the left.

ahhhh.

a new face. new ideas. more popular in the eyes of the rest of the world. the ability to talk circles around that bo-tard bush. a person who realizes mistakes and is willing to fix them rather than plod on in the same rut simply to avoid admitting defeat.

am i the only one who sees the light? i can't imagine four more years of his mistakes, shitty gags, and unprofound statements, and damage to our world image.

i am boggled by the lead that bush has in the polls. do people like him because they see a regular, goofy guy who says stupid things and therefore can relate to that? i suppose. but a regular goofy guy who says stupid things should not be president. voting for bush is like smoking--it makes no sense at all but still millions do it, and for what purpose? i am so glad to see the polls have evened out after the first debate.


would you buy a used car from this man? probably. vote for him? no. go smoke some cigarettes or something.

1,052 dead and 200 billion wasted in iraq. why? for what?

i'm just complaining. as usual. if you get anything out of this, please watch the coming debates. please vote. please get this asshead out of the white house.


in the words of Earl Pitts, WAKE UP, AMERICA!

--this concludes ben's political rant. now back to your regularly scheduled blarf.

and here i sit on a saturday night...

...exhausted.

like every night.

kinda like last night, when i came home from work and fell asleep on the floor at 9pm.

but tonight, i feel fulfilled.

today was a typical workday--dealing with broken cars, trying to please gruff customers, and coaxing my shittiest employee to accomplish something besides offering me senseless bullshit excuses.

but after the official work was done, i took it upon myself to detail the shop's work truck. i haven't detailed a car since i worked for eltaday onicsay back in january and i realized all over again how much i enjoy doing it. it's a perfect occupation for a perfectionist who loves cars. it reminded me how i'd much rather be running a detail shop again instead of a repair shop. when i came home i was full of vim and vigor rather than the piss and vinegar i'm usually full of.

it makes me want to go back to the old job, maybe at the proposed new location near here. but no, that's a shitty idea. that company is like communist china--big, powerful, incredibly backwards, poorly run, and dangerously stupid.

i want to start my own business. however, a profitable detail shop is something of a pink elephant in Jefferson County, NY.

my mind stands tangled.

--this is all for now.


Benny's Place <--click here for a better view

in lighter news, i can't wait til the star wars trilogy comes out on DVD--finally! but i must make my standard blarf complaint--why can't it be the original versions? i can't stand the new stuff--especially that particular jabba the hutt/han solo scene--jabba WALKS? solo treats him like SHIT? talk about ruining jabba's fearsome nature. jabba should be SITTING and eating small live creatures out of glass jars. and killing slaves for sport. nobody steps on jabba's tail and gets away with it. not even solo.

buzznet is now back on my good side. they had issues. now they don't. and now flickr is on the mend. my how things change. and if you're wondering about that cool panorama of my living room--it's all in the elf s410. it kicks my ass (that means "it's good".)

last week's kenny chesney concert at the state fair was awesome...



...the seats, however, were not.

even buying the tickets a couple months in advance only got us the absolute edge of the grandstands with a full view of... the parking lot. the stage was waaaaay off to the left. a GREAT time, though. attendance was record-setting, and as a result the traffic was snarly. those damn state troopers (!) kept diverting traffic away from the exits on I-690! grrr... because of that i missed most of uncle cracker's opening set.
(no, no, wait--i was late because i was waiting to give a ticket to JOANNA who was STILL ON THE THRUWAY when the concert started!! just ripping on you, jo.) but whatcha gonna do.

what am i gonna do?

i'm gonna...grill hot dogs! mmm. but i don't wanna fire up the grill. what to do?



the redneck method:

1. heat hot dogs in microwave.
2. fire up electric range.*
3. donn oven mitt.
4. place hot dog on range surface.
5. roll hot dog around on range top with oven mitt.
6. listen to hot dog squeal in agonizing pain.
7. continue until dog is lightly bbq'd on all sides.
8. place hot dog on heel of bread loaf (or preferably a new england style bun)
9. apply hunt's ketchup.
10. eat and enjoy!
11. open all doors and windows to vent copious amounts of hot dog smoke.



*gas range can be substituted with similar results--simply roast over the open flame, just like a campfire!

(joanna is reading this procedure with much dismay--NICE!)

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FUN FOR EVERY-WUN: WASTE MORE OF YOUR PRECIOUS TIME
with this precious game:



count the number of fish in this portion of benny's aquarium. answer below!
(DON'T PEEK, you freakin' cheaters.)


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. .


. . .


. . . .


. . . . .


. . . . . .


. . . . . . .


. . . . . . . .








*drumroll* seventeen fish. (for you behind-the-scenes trivia buffs, there's a total of 25 fish in my 55 gallon tank. remember this fact when you visit. you will be quizzed.)

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and now for the drama section. that's the way things work around here--BS, complaints, humor, drama. BS, complaints, humor, drama. it's the Blarf Cycle. there's a little sumthin' sumthin' for everyone here at the blarf....


Fishers Landing

so anyway, i spent most of labor day at home in lafargeville with my oldest brother, sister-in-law and their daughter. we went out in the family yacht--a 15' aluminum boat. it was the first time since 2001 (i think) that my boat made it back into the waters of the St. Lawrence River. i've missed the boat and the river dearly. i love that fishy, organic smell of the open water, the cool humid air, and the ripples & waves. and i love how the prehistoric outboard p-p-p-pukes raw gas & oil straight into the crystal clear water. nothing like 1950's technology, eh?

boat stats: it's a 1957 Crestliner with a 1956 30 hp Evinrude Lark outboard. it's pretty old-skool to say the least and is most def funky. for having not been used in 3 years, it ran like a raped ape. time has not been good on the woodwork that i redid years ago, but it's still a great little boat. earlier this summer, as the wooden seats fell apart while cleaning, i found the time capsule that i installed under the captain's seat--a few newspaper clippings, my high school graduation program, a dollar bill, and a funny note. it was supposed to last a lot longer, but 8 years was long enough to make it cool to open. man, am i really that old? anyway, back to the story...


Rock Island Lighthouse

we started out at bill & jacks marina, where i spent my high school & college summers pumping gas, selling bait, and making gut runs.* we headed for the 1000 islands bridge, then back to the rock island lighthouse, thru the narrows, and then back to fisher's landing. we also circled the little island near the bridge that our grandparents almost bought back in the 50's--one of the most KickassBeautiful spots on the river. it burns to know that this island couldashouldawoulda been in the family--but it isn't, and all we can do is imagine what it would have been like to spend our summers there. instead, grandpa bought a plane--which was pretty kickass in itself--but now all that's left of that era is an overgrown turf runway and a dilapidated hangar. *sigh* another childhood memory that slowly bit the dust over the years...

again, back to the story...

my 3-year old niece did a lot of the driving--and singing. it was a fun, beautiful evening on the river that i didn't want to end. i love the river and i love the fact that it's right near home--it's yet another reason to end up living there.

another thing about home that i love is looking up to see the starry nighttime sky. yeah, i know--i've blarfed about that before--it makes me think of the past and how i'm torn between jefferson county and the rest of the world. like the stuff in my boat seats, my home life has also been in a time capsule in the 2+ years i've been gone. the only thing that seems to change is the age (and total number) of nieces & nephews.

as i was headed back to syracuse tonight, the starry sky got me thinking again. the 90-mile drive back to syracuse on sunday nights (or in this case, monday night) has become a bridge between my life at home and my life in syracuse. it gives me time to defragment my mental hard drive. especially tonight--i've had two days off in a row, which only happens to me once in a goat's age. the drive is time to think about work--what is good and what is bad about the new job. it's time to think about the future--what i want to do with it and where i want to be. it's time to drink a bigass coffee with 7 sugars and a shitload of creamer from the Nice & Easy Mobil station off of exit 47. it's a time to think about my family, friends, and country life and how i wish i could be closer yet still have the benefits of city life. it's time to think about how, over time, i've figured out exactly what i want in a woman and i'm glad i never married any of my ex-girlfriends (no offense, ladies--you all know we're still friends) but i must admit it kinda sucks being single after a while. and it's also time to sing along to Frank Sinatra...and then Poison...and Boston... and Bob & Doug McKenzie. (that was tonight's selection--imagine going from Strangers In the Night to Look What the Cat Dragged In.)


the Narrows

these road trips are a good time. tonight i actually wished the trip was longer so i could think some more. or maybe it was cuz i wanted to sing along to Foreplay/Long Time by Boston one more time.

--dunno. probably both.

*gut run: taking buckets of fish guts from shore to the river channel by boat and dumping them, so that seagulls for miles may feast on the rotting, stanky carcasses and the rest will wash up on shore of someone's ritzy riverside cottage. ahh, those were the days...

the loyal steeds (jeep and ford exploder) parked in front of the new roost.

i think buzznet has officially shit the bed.

or maybe they just got sick of people like me using the site simply for image hosting and put a stop to it. (thus, my pictures on the blarf have not been loading lately.) (and the same goes for bstats for us blogger users; i guess we won't be able to see who's been reading us anymore. no more "anal destruction xxx pics" searchers. ah well--maybe i'm better off not knowing those things.)

at any rate, mark recommended www.flickr.com for image hosting and boy, it sure beats buzznet. i haven't even begun to explore flickr and i'm already impressed. you can modify and resize images, and that's all i need. plus, it's fun to say it fast: FLICKR FLICKR FLICKR!



and more great news for you blarf photo lovers:

i now have a digital camera: the canon powershot s410 elf. it, too, rocks, and FINALLY i can post pics as they happen--not 2 months later when i get the film developed. (note, the first pic, as shown above--taken a mere 5 minutes ago!) my last 35mm camera finally gave up the ghost when i tried to load a new roll--it would have NONE of that. that's okay though, since using a 35mm camera makes me feel like a guy who still used 8 track tapes in the 80's (come on, man! git with the times!) 35mm is great--but not for blarfing.

and that leads into an aggrevating story:

i got this camera at best buy, a place i LOVE to HATE. i went there a month ago for the World's Most Perfect Entertainment Center. when you walk into that place, you're immediately covered with sales associates like stink on shit (piss off! i dunno what i want yet!) and when you're ready to make a purchase, those same associates have either: 1. gone to lunch, 2. gone out for a smoke, 3. been shuffled to another section, or 4. have completed their life span and have deceased (much like the mayfly--and this is why you never see the same salesperson twice.) and when you finally get an associate, they inform you that "(the item you'd like to purchase) is no longer in stock--in fact, we sold the last one an hour ago"--BULLSHIT you did--it's been out of stock or on backorder for weeks. don't lie to me. you leave the floor model out to make it LOOK like you have stuff in the store, but you haven't got ANYTHING out back except for dvds, cigarette butts, and the bodies of deceased sales associates.

no one else has the selection that best buy has (or should i say, the implied selection) so i pretty much had to go there. so it was that scene all over again when i grudgingly returned to buy a camera. i was determined to have this camera for my weekly trip home, and when the mayfly couldn't find the camera in the lockbox, she muttered, "we might have sold the last one"--i immediately went into an internal rage "YOU M**HER F**KERS AAAAGGGGHHHH DON'T TELL ME THIS BULLSHIT GODDAMN BEST BUY BULLSHIT *&$^#%@*(#$&#@#*$#$$*%!!!!!!!!!"

and then she said, "oh, wait, here it is! the last one!"

--aaaaaaahhhhhhhh.

relief. murderous thoughts quelled. pulse rate lowering. blood down to a simmer.

much better.

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as i left the carousel mall happily, i felt sorry for the next guy who would want a canon s410 elf--"sorry, sir, we sold the last one an hour ago...YOU M**HER F**KERS AAAAAAAAGGGGGHHHH DON'T TELL ME THIS BULLSHIT GODDAMN BEST BUY BULLSHIT *&$^#%@*(#$&#@#*$#$$*%!!!!!!!!!"