Author: Dick

Welcome to our new EFD mascot, the Carey Salt Soldier, guarding our right flank. A fine looking sentinel he is and no doubt salt of the Earth. He was chosen for his good looks and his qualities, which I will not touch here with a 10-foot pole. This comes courtesy of James Lileks, whose outstanding Web page is linked in my blogroll. Carey was among the “Orphanage of Cast-off Mascots” within Lileks’ hilarious “Institute of Official Cheer,” which includes the famous and witty “The Gallery of Regrettable Food.”

Lileks is a conservative columnist with the Star-Tribune in Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota. His political columns are humorous even if you don’t necessarily agree with his point of view. He also has the “Backfence” column which is a more interactive and fitting place for Lileks’ brand of humor.

During my relatively young fling with the Internet, Lileks was one of the first with whose work I have become severely and unabashedly attached. He is one of the finest writers in the media, plain and simple. I urge you to check out his work every chance you get. You will find something that tickles your fancy unless you have had a humor bypass.

Sometimes I think it pays not to listen very closely to the lyrics of certain songs. Take Thin Lizzy’s “Jailbreak” for instance. The song has a very infectious beat. I heard it today while sitting at a traffic light and almost drummed my fingers through the steering wheel. But get a load of this:

“Hiding low looking right to left
If you see us coming I think it’s best
To move away do you hear what I say
From under my breath”

They’ve got me all the way to “what I say.” But then, unfortunately, the “From under my breath” comes along and I want to scream and say: “What in the hell do you mean, ‘do you hear what I say/From under my breath?'” I would find it very unlikely that anyone would hear anything from under someone’s breath other than, providing that person is alive, breathing. So it’s a rhetorical question, huh? Not a good one at that.

These are cool lines:

“I can hear the hound dogs on my trail
All hell breaks loose, alarm and sirens wail”

These are not:

“Like the game if you lose
Go to jail”

This is about as clear as a milkshake. What game is he talking about? Monopoly? You don’t go to jail if you lose. If you lose you’re out of the game. You go to jail when you get the “Go to Jail” card. Sheesh!

Finally, we reach critical mass with these lines:

“Searchlight on my trail
Tonight’s the night all systems fail
Hey you good lookin’ female
Come here!”

The song just goes all to hell after those first two lines. “Hey you good lookin’ female!” “You go female.” “I am female hear me roar.” It’s pretty freaking awkward if you ask me. And “Come here!” I bet those lines are just teeming with success in picking up women.

On the other hand, I am not collecting a single cent in royalty money for criticizing these puzzling and often painful lyrics. And I also still like the song. I guess that makes me a moron, huh? You need not hit the “Comment” button on that one.

My friend Sally sends me a wooden cow continuing the theme of barnyard animals as love offerings.

Sigh! I hate to touch this one. But I’ve just got to do it. It’s my destiny, man.

A local Kenyan official has announced his offer of 20 cows and 40 goats for Chelsea Clinton.

Godwin Chepkurgor told CNN Tuesday that he had loved the former first daughter for seven years and this handsome offer, at least for Kenya, is proof. I was in Books-A-Million yesterday when I heard Chepkurgor being interviewed.

“I offer her as much as I could,” Chepkurgor told CNN. “I know there are a lot of differences in our culture.”

I said what in God’s name is this guy talking about? And then, an offer for sweet Chelsea’s hand was the answer. Well, I mean it is a pretty good offer. I don’t know how fat the cows are but goats, they’re the kitten’s PJs. I’d probably marry someone for just one goat.

On the World Wide Web

For whatever the reasons, I didn’t pay all that much attention to my StatCounter page after I installed the counter on the blog. As I had said after posting the counter I had heard various opinions of Web counters. Some were good. Some were not good. I still looked at the stats even though I am not being overrun with visitors.

It wasn’t until a day or two ago that I realized Stat Counter does some pretty cool tricks. The most interesting to me is the “Visitor Paths” tool. This lists over a couple of days’ time the computer host and location of the visitor. Using this I can sometimes determine, or at least have a pretty good idea, who is visiting. For instance, when I see the computer host is in Paragould, Arkansas, I can pretty well guess that my friend Suzie or someone in her household is reading EFD. Hey Suzie!

What I think is way cool is knowing I have international visitors. In the last 24 hours I had people check out EFD from Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, the Netherlands, the Bahamas and the United Kingdom. The Visitor Path feature also provides referring links. I checked out some of those referring links and was dismayed to find one in the United Kingdom that proclaims: “We don’t like Americans.” Well, good for you. We don’t like people who don’t like Americans. I am not going to further its intentions of slamming the U.S. by providing its link.

Still, it’s nice to know people around the world are checking out some of my lunacy. And I am glad to welcome the global village to my musings but I must be brutally frank, Frank. If you don’t like Americans, you probably won’t like me, so just stay the hell away. Okay? Okay.