Missing the point

I've seen a substantial increase over the past few years in the number of folks out riding their bikes, going for a walk, or running for exercise along the numerous trails in North West Arknasas, built just for those type activities. The thing about this I find most interesting, is the number of these folks who are plugged into some sort of listening device (mostly I-pods I'm sure).
Although I can understand the strategy of listening to your favorite music if you're training to run in the Olympics (as a guy who used to run for exercise before I discovered jumping rope is substantially more affective) I get the music thing. But going out for a walk or a bike ride and not being able to hear the sounds of everything around you, seems to go against the point of being outside in the first place. Seems to me, if you're listeing the Snoop Dog, Fiddy Cent or Common rant and rave about stuff that for the most part doesn't make any sense in the first place, you can't fully enjoy the sites, smells and sounds of the great outdoors.

Is a dog right for you?

If you don't have a dog, you might consider getting one. There's no need to go into all the reason's why dogs make such great companions-you've read all the email cliches, watchced at least 40 Youtube dog videos and have probably read at least part of 1 of the thousands of books written about dogs. But cliches are cliches for a reason-most of them reflect reality. Simply put, a dog's apparent only expectations of it's master is that you feed it, pet it ocassionally, and let it lay around some place in your general vacinity (I had a girlfriend once that fit that description-I wonder what ever happened to her).
For most dog lovers, these basic aspects of nurturing come naturally. If you're thinking about getting a dog but aren't confident you can consistantly provide these 3 basic dog benefits, don't get a dog. If you still feel the need to have a non-judgemental companion however, you should definitely run up to Walmart and get an artificial plant.

PS. As I'm writing this, my friendly canine companion Max is lying in his dog bed by the back door, waiting to see if he gets to go for a ride today in the "Max Mobile"-a 2002 Chevy Tahoe with a mere 207,000 miles to it's credit. He's already eaten breakfast and has been petted at least 3 times, so the rest of his day is gravy!

Hey, hey we're the Monkies!

The early 70's Saturday morning TV show 'The Monkies' is retro proof positive people will watch what ever kind of junk the networks decide to put in front of them (hard to believe the net-work execs thought that would be a good idea-"Hey, let's find 4 average looking Goobers with not much real talent and make a ridiculous 30 minute Saturday morning TV show that kids will watch. It'll work as long as one of them has a British accent and....." etc etc).
Growing up in Rolla in the 60's and 70's, we had an excuse for watching that kind of stuff: we only had 2 TV channels and sometimes only 1, depending on the weather.
KMOU TV-8 out of Springfield (an ABC affiliate) had some decent shows like 'Danial Boone', 'Wild Kingdom', and 'Ricochet Rabbit', but wasn't reliable for watchable reception. For some reason, KOMU showed up on our "set" on both channel 8 and 3. Ocassionally, we'd switch from channel 8 to 3 and pretend we had 3 channels to choose from instead of just up to 2.
Regardless of the time of day or the weather, we could always count on good reception from good old KRCG TV-13, a CBS affiliate out of Jefferson City, Mo (Jeff if you were a local). KRCG carried all the real good cartoons like 'The Jetsons' and 'The Flintstones' (the real Jetsons and Flintstones-not the ones you watch today with the voice folks who sound kind of like the originals), along with shows like 'Mannix', 'All In The Family', and 'Gunsmoke'.
When we faked being sick and stayed home from school, we could watch game shows like 'The Price Is Right', 'Hollywood Squares' and 'The $10,000 pyriamid' ($10,000 back then was about the average annual salary of people who had a good job). You could also watch the nightly news with Walter Cronkite and once a week or so, a 2 hour movie like 'The Birds' or 'The African Queen'.
Although it would have been nice while we were growing up to have had a few hundred choices for TV viewing like we have today, I'm glad we didn't. If we had, I might never have learned how to throw a baseball, ride a bike, or play Red Light Green Light. I'm sure I would never have been involved with the neighborhood kids in digging underground forts, damming up the creek or chopping down trees to build a log cabin. And with several hundred TV channels at our disposal, I'm sure my friends and I would never have found the time to carry that old toilet all the way up the road to set it on Mackman's front porch, ring the door bell, and run like scalded dogs for the safety of the near-by woods. And had we been inside all day and night watching TV, the Mackmen's probably wouldn't be thinking today, "I wonder what ever happened to those little bastards who lived down the road and left that old toilet on our front porch that time? They're probably in prison....watching old re-runs of 'The Monkies'"!

Attention Deficit Disorder?

Warning to men who grew up before they discovered attention deficit disorder, and are not currently on medication.
If you're in the neighborhood of 50 and don't want to suffer the same recent fate as one unfortunate man from Gravette, Arkansas, listen up and heed the warning to "Stay focussed man!";

This guy's wife sent him to Walmart for some BBQ'd potato chips and a couple boxes of Little Debbies. Like a lot of guys our age, he got side tracked when he saw a sign advertising a "2 for 1" special on Dilly Bars at Dairy Queen. He got home a couple hours later to discover his wife had given him up for dead and remarried.
Not all was lost, however-he said the Dilly Bars were "Really good!".