
Ha! What a cliffhanger!
You cheeky British bastards! I love it!
Your well-written, mesmerizing sci-fi silliness has got me hooked. Good show.
I love you, River Song!
And you too, Alex Kingston.
Rawr.
The pic above is an actual pepper that got put in the reject bin at Rosemont Farms.
All is well. Finally got some time off away from it all. It was much needed. I expected to be heading to North Carolina when I got back, but soem things have changed with the job and there is a way I can make a good, positive impact here at home with them, so we'll give it a shot.

So, I think to myself today, hey self, you haven't been on the blog in a while... and then I thought how much of a miracle of life it was that after working 103 of the last 105 days, the last three weeks of them nights, I remembers I has a blog at all.
I am very tired. I am wanting a dose of life again. I am tired of all-emcompassment. There must be Leebo Time.
Or... one might kill me.
As Hitchcock would say, good evening. I haven't been on the blog…though it's not for lack of trying. I'm actually writing this on my Blackberry at the Winghouse. Currently, Britany Spears' homogenized, synthesized voice blares annoyingly over, around and through my head and I marvel at…but not by much.. at how much she sounds like Chris Brown. Across the bar from me is a man with blue-ish green tattoos from his sideburns down to his hands. He is completely covered in tats, except for his face, which could use some. There are huge, black, disc-like objects embedded in his ears, each about the size of a coaster. He looks happy. He looks content with life and existence. Fuck him. I am currently in the mix of blueberry season. I have worked 89 of the last 91 days and am currently in a situation where I am working a helluva a lot more than having any fun. This is a situation I find abhorrent, except twice a month when bills are due. When, with a complete babyface-turn…it comes surprisingly in handy. I'm burned out. I'm cranky. I can feel it. I drop a pen and feel nothing but rage. My printer runs out of paper and I want to slaughter thousands. My phone rings and I want to decimate entire solar systems. I showed remarkable restraint when they announced Snookie would be at Wrestlemania. Either that or I just don't care anymore. About life. Or the WWE. There's a gaping chasm in my life. I don't know what it is, except all that "all work and no love or fun" baggage. And also, maybe, all that cool shit I don't have. Like love and fun, for example. Those sound neat. I'm just kind of coasting through the days right now. I'm feeling nothing. Really. Got some hurt. Nothing new. I'm numb. I'm tired. I feel nuzzing. Nuzzing, Lebowski. Holy crap, I'm becoming a goddamn Nihlist. I vow not to let that happen. Those folk threaten castration. They'll cut yer fucking dick off. It won't come to that, Dude. I won't let it. If I can get through the next few months without disemboweling someone with a wooden cooking spoon, I'm going for some major R+R. Walking through pudding. Jeezus. That guy across the bar has giant coasters in his ears. Fuck me. Fuh-uh-uck. Me. I so want to shove a beer in that guy's ear.

Attention, please.
If anyone sees Mike Guerdon could you please tell him we love him (in a niz-on-fiz-ag way) and miss him?
We being me, I mean.
Come back, Grudly Mandinko.
Yer a gock.

I say it was successful in the fact that I achieved my objective in jamming to Trower Live on two consectutive nights. He was awesome. Again. And again.
It was less successful as certain persons that I really wanted to go with me (that I really wanted to turn on to the genius that is Trower) that were scheduled to attend... were not able to.
Their reasons are varied, including, but not limited to, influenza, prior commitments and just not being that much into me.
Still I had an awesome time with me and would attend such an event with me again, should the moment ever present itself. I like my own company. And at this rate, I'd better.
Perhaps it's only fitting that my first post of 2011 is all about Natalie's.
Natalie's is a wonderful place. Nestled snugly off of South Florida Avenue in Lakeland, it is a haven and hangout for a lot of folk, me included.
Natalie's, not by coincidence, is run by Natalie.
I used to go to school with her back in the day. Lakeland High School (LHS) Dreadnaught, Class of 83, thank you very much.
Flash back with me, won't you? Back to that most interesting of times, the 1980's.
We didn't talk much in High School, Nat and I. You see, she was an insanely beautiful and popular debutant. By contrast, I was a resident nerd who spent more time skipping class and partying under the bleachers than fraternizing with beautiful debutantes. Years later, reflecting upon that, I've come to the conclusion that this might have been bad planning on my part.
By using the word "debutant", I don't mean to imply that Natalie was stuck up or anything, quite the contrary. She once smiled and waved to me as some guys were stuffing me into a locker. (I've used that joke a hundred times but this is the first, and strangely enough, last time I've ever put it on the Internet.)
So, even though we weren't really friends in the high school days, I, like the rest of the male population at LHS, thought she was insanely beautiful, and my opinion on that particular point as not changed at all since then.
Flash forward, won't you? Several years later.
With Lakeland High School literally years in my rearview mirror, I spend my time wandering about the landscape looking for whatever the hell it is I'm looking for and can't find. During this pilgrimage, I walk into the only place in the universe that real men consider That Most Holy of Shrines. I refer, of course, to the cultural phenomenon that is Hooters.
As I sit at the bar and try to figure it all out (a practice I still employ and have not really gotten any better at with time), appearing there before me, in full Hooters uniform (if you consider that “full”), is Natalie.
I consider this a good thing. Since Hooters’ inception, I have always believed that beautiful women look great in a Hooters uniform and my opinion on that particular point has not changed at all since then.
So, it was nice to be re-introduced to her at that time. Our conversations were regulated to the standard Hooters-girl-works-the-customer gimmicks, though. As I said before, we weren't exactly old friends from the High School days. It was the usual banter between waitress and customer.
She probably doesn’t remember those conversations. To be honest, I can’t remember them myself. I do know that, in my usual drunken state, I never wanted those conversations to seem like I was trying to pick her up, which, of course, I was. Me and everyone else in the place.
So, Nat's a Hooters chick, then later, a Hooters Manager. After her promotion, I immediately noticed that Hooters Managers wore more clothing. It might have been a promotion for her, but it was clearly a demotion for the rest of us.
Flash forward, won't you? Several more years.
There's this place off South Florida Avenue. No one has been able to make it work. It’s been a sports bar, a seafood place, etc., etc. It's been everything. Every place that has tried to do business there has met with failure and defeat. Kinda like the Dolphins this year.
Enter Natalie.
Natalie dreams. Nat wants her own place. She wants that place. That place on South Florida Avenue. The place no one else has made successful. She wants to make it work. She wants that place, a place where her friends and family and future friends and future family can go and hang out and have fun. She wants her name on the sign and she wants to run it her way. She wants to make some money. And she wants to wear more clothing. Clearly, a demotion for the rest of us.
Her and hers (By now, she has built a small armada of friends and family) set forth to achieve the goal. They negotiate and buy. They spend a lot of money. They sweat. They have fun, sometimes not. They work their asses off. They sacrifice and build.
Finally, Day One. Natalie's is born. There was much rejoicing. Or so I assume. I wasn't there.
Flash forward to a few days after Day One. It's not a request this time. You've read this far. You're invested.
With Lakeland High School literally decades in my rearview mirror, I spend my time wandering about the landscape looking for whatever the hell it is I'm looking for and can't find. I emerge dramatically from the smoke and fog and enter into the front door of Natalie's dream.
Actually, upon further review, it was the side door. I parked on the side.
(This shot of The Tardis also acts as a random shot of a spaceship.)
