Mmmmmmahhhhhhhhhhhh!

Saturday goat blogging.

I keep trying to get goat blogging to catch on but everybody just wants to show pictures of their cats. Oh well.

This is our goat Little Joe. He's a pygora goat that we've had about 8 years.

Little Joe is actually the second goat we've owned. Both Little Joe and his farm goat friend Harry were attacked by our neighbor's dogs while they were in their shed on our property. Harry didn't make it.

Mrs. Wormer went door to door after that attack trying to figure out which of the neighbor's dogs were involved. When she got to the neighbors at the end of the road they were washing their dogs off and before Mrs. Wormer could say anything about why she was there they blurted out "our dogs have been inside all day!" Right.

At that point we were faced with the problem of what to do with Harry's remains. Come to find out disposing of the body of a goat isn't as easy as you might think. The rendering plant won't take goats. That means you have to either bury the goat on your property or take it into the middle of the woods and leave it ala serial killers. We decided to go with the bury it on our property thing.

The problem was Harry was a big goat. A BIG goat. He stood about up to my chest and I'm a tall guy. Getting out the shovel and going to town just wasn't an option.

We had another neighbor at the time that was doing some landscaping and had a backhoe. He offered to did a hole for us and help us bury Harry. He wouldn't be available until the next day but that didn't seem like a problem.

So the next day he brought over the backhoe, we identified a spot and he scooped out a goat grave. When we went to get Harry's body we realized rigimortis had set in and the body was damned heavy. We dragged it over and pushed it into the hole and were surprised to see it's legs and hooves sticking up about 6" over the hole. D'oh!

Now we were faced with some really tough choices. We could try and pull the body out and re-dig the hole but that seemed like it'd be near impossible. We could use the "Dean Wormer" option employed to get the horse out of his office or we could, as our neighbor gently suggested, use the scoop of the backhoe to make the goat "fit."

Let me jump in her and ask you to please understand that in hindsight this seems callous but the whole event beginning with the dog attacks was actually an emotional mess for us. In our wildest dreams both my wife and I never dreamed we'd ever shed a tear over a dead goat. That day we'd spent a good part of the day crying and hugging each other. Our kids were pretty young at the time and we were also trying to comfort them.

I'll never forget my neighbor's face as he sat in the cab of the backhoe and used the scoop to "push" Harry's body into position. You could tell he felt awful and he kept looking at us with sheepish guilt. Poor guy.

Anyhow- back to Little Joe pictured above. Besides the dog attack Little Joe has been seriously sick on any number of occasions (usually fatal to goats) and last summer he was attacked by a ground hive of yellow-jackets which put him in shock and bleeding out the nose. The vet said he probably wouldn't make it. As you can see he's doing fine.

In fact I've pretty much come to the realization that Little Joe is invincible. After the yellow-jacket attack I suggested to the family that we rename Little Joe after the mad monk Rasputin who was poisoned, strangled, stabbed and shot before he enventually drowned. As usual the rest of the family didn't get dad's sense of humor.

I really believe that long after I'm gone that goat will be soldiering on. Eating oats and blackberries and generally having a jolly old goat time. Lucky bastard.

I'll position myself in the book depository and we'll triangulate that evil genius to kingdom come.

Happy Friday! I'm going to take a week off from my mystery but I'd like to leave you with an entire episode of Bruce Campbell's Jack of All Trades instead (with limited commercial interuption.)

I'm always amazed at Campbell's ability to rival the BBC in terms of historical accuracy. All the events depicted surrounding Louisiana and Napoleon, right down to the medals on Napoleon's uniform, are accurate as far as I can determine.

You know what Jack Burton always says... what the hell?

Help me with this.

First the media tells us there's not enough rice but then former president Jimmy Carter tells us there's too much Rice.

Who to believe?

That man can be domesticated.

It's beginning to look like the rule of Zaius may start early- "Florida monkeys revolt, citizens remain calm."

I, for one, welcome our new Patas overlords.

You have just said the secret word, Alice. You have just won a trip to the moon.

Let me say this - I'm with most of my bloggy friends, most recently Blue Gal, in that it's well past time for Clinton to pull the plug on her campaign. It's near mathematically impossible for her to win the nomination despite yesterday's victory and drawing out the contest is just hurting the party's chances against McCain.

Here's an analogy that I think works pretty well-

This primary has taken the form of a knock-out, drag down fight with your spouse. There's been screaming, swearing and even the occasional accusation of infidelity or flirting with that McCain guy that lives down the street. Once in a while there's even an empty threat of divorce.

Occasionally this fight takes the the form of what might be considered hitting below the belt. Words are taken out of context. That old friend from college who tried to break you and your spouse up comes up yet AGAIN even though you haven't talked to him in years.

On rare occasions you find yourself sitting on the porch next to the dog, pouring your heart out to him. So you goofed up the laundry a little bit. So what? It wasn't your turn to do the laundry anyway, you made dinner. What's the big deal that you mixed the reds with the whites? It was just underwear. What does she care if it's white or pink? It's not like she's wearing it out in public and, well, um...

Ahem.

It seems to me that a lot of us are kind of feeling like this fight is going on longer than usual and are getting impatient for the make-up sex. That is, as they say, the best sex of all.

But as long as we're on the porch with the dog there will be no make-up sex.

In the meantime some of us try and tide ourselves over by the candidate masturbation offered at Taylor Marsh on the one side or Daily Kos on the other. Let's face it; this will never be a good substitute for the real thing.

So forgive us if we seem a tad impatient to get to the good part. Who can blame us? Nobody enjoys fighting. There's make-up sex to be had and there are things that are much, much more important than pink underwear.

The last of the V8 Interceptors... a piece of history!

Even though today is Earth Day I was planning to write something somewhat on-topic anyway. On Friday we received word (finally) that the insurance company had totalled my car. So on Sunday Mrs. Wormer and I headed over to the local Toyota dealership to look at Priuses (Priusii?)

I wish I could say this was totally an environmentally conscious choice but the sad reality is I've been spending about $80.00/ week on gas with half my commute in stop n'go traffic. Public transit is an option with an excellent light rail system but it adds about 1/2 hour each way to my already long commute. So I'm planning on continuing driving but increasing my mpg. Purely selfish on my part.

Having said that - for the last year or so THIS has been my dream car...

A car that screams "this man is a cool stud." That, and "mid-life crisis." But I'll go with the first one if you don't mind.

So buying a car that looks like this instead...

...is somewhat of a sacrifice, no? It screams "patchouli eating hippy."

I looked into the tax incentives for buying hybrids and was stunned to find out their are currently no federal tax incentives for a car that is hand's down the best mass-produced environmentally friendly choice available at the moment.

Of course the free SUV loophole remains in effect. Congress could easily fix this "business" loophole by re-defining qualifying vehicles so it only covers the farm equipment it was originally intended to cover. At least we can take a sick sort of glee in the idea that rising gas prices will at least stick it to the assholes who've ripped off taxpayers by buying Hummers.

But what I'd really like to see out of our political leadership was some serious tax credits towards the purchase of fuel-efficient vehicles and mass-transit (a credit is better than a deduction, IMHO.) Yes, this is selfish. But it's a kind of selfish that will have the side effect of helping the environment. Everybody wins.

Except those that drive Hummers.

That's what scares me.

One month until Indy!

This is going to be one of those rare films I actually see on opening night so I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Please, please be good!

Also- Freida tagged me with the "six things you didn't know about me" game.

• My undergraduate degree is in history with a focus on Spanish/ Latin American history.


• I met my wife at a Halloween dance. I was a Frankenstein Monster and she was a six-foot tall Butterfinger Candy Bar.


• I once got high in college by drinking an entire bottle of Robitusin DM. I saw Jerry Garcia in the clouds.


• On a visit to Mexico City I did the special prayer for healing at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe. It took me five hours to crawl to the front of the sanctuary on my knees.


• I'm a Trekkie. Of the old school variety.


• I make a mean Enchiladas Verdes con Pollo. From scratch (except the tortillas.)
  
  

They sure look ripe to me.

I took this picture off the back deck last night. Let's just say this weather is pretty freakish for this time of year up my neck of the woods. I'm expecting a rain of locusts at any moment...

(Freida- I'll get your tag soon. I have to build a snowman at the moment.)

Get a life.

As an Obama supporter I have to say this latest "Fingergate" controversy has really made me rethink my support for Barack. Then I had a discussion with an advertising friend of mine who also happened to have served a Radio Operator in the Navy. He pointed me towards this Obama video-



At the 2:07 minute mark Obama quickly blinks several times in a row. My friend pointed out that Obama was subliminally transmitting a signal in Morse code through this blinking. He translated this message to be "Hillary is a big fat meanie who has cooties."

That's not the worst part. At several times in the video Obama gestures with both hands in front of himself in what can only be seen as the universal sign for "breasts." Clearly he's trying to highlight the fact that his opponent is a woman.

Shame on you Barack Obama. Shame on you.