Ligers and Tigons and Napoleon Dynomite, Oh My!

There is a scene in Napoleon Dynamite where Napoleon is drawing a Liger and he says it's 'pretty much my favorite animal' or something like that. A Liger is the product of breeding a male lion and a female tiger. A Tigon is a result of the mating of a male tiger and a female lion. I had no idea there were actually such animals. Here is the Wikipedia definition. The picture above is a Liger.




The picture on the right is of two Tigons.









There are also Li-Tigons, Ti-Ligers, Ti-Tigons and Li-Ligers.

Weird.



EDITED TO ADD:
A commenter asks how there can be Li-Tigons, etc. if the Ligers and Tigons are sterile. The Wikipedia article states, 'Male ligers are usually sterile. Female ligers are often fertile and can be mated to a tiger resulting in ti-liger offspring or to a lion resulting in li-liger offspring.'

Wonderful, Beautiful...

It occurred to me this evening that I didn't do my usual Friday Night Standup/Quotes post this past Friday. I considered doing a bunch of quotes from the Simpsons but there are so many, I would never be able to choose. Here are a couple of sites with Simpsons quotes and I'll just let you Google about for yourselves searching for Homer and Bart's pearls of wisdom.

My favorite Homer Simpson quote of all time occurred during an episode in which Homer was forced to be the designated driver for his drunk friends. At the beginning of the end of the night of Homer's designated driving nightmare, his friends were spouting off all sorts of ridiculous things they just had to do right then. Sober Homer said, "That's just drunk talk...wonderful, beautiful drunk talk."

For your entertainment, I give you herewith ten examples of Wonderful Beautiful Drunk Talk. After each intoxication proclamation, you should insert The Chorus.

• Look at that ass! Shhhhhh...I'm going to grab it.

Chorus: Yeah! Woo Hoo! Alright! Let's go!!!

• I'm going to kick his ass!

(Chorus)

• Let's walk to...(fill in the blank with your favorite local gay bar)!

(Chorus)

• Waffle House!

(Chorus)

• For Halloween, let's all dress up like...(fill in the blank with ridiculously difficult costume ideas, the construction of which will never happen in a million years).

(Chorus)

• Let's go to my house! I'll make omelets!!

(Chorus)

• The casinos in Louisiana are open all night!

(Chorus)

• One day, I'm going to buy this bar.

(Chorus)

• Let's all sing American Pie!

(Chorus)

• We can be in New Orleans in three hours!

(Chorus! Chorus! Chorus!)

Theory of Stupid-ivity

Do you ever wonder how some people make it through life on a day to day basis? You know the people I’m talking about. Everything they do is backward or dangerous or just plain stupid. My dad's favorite quote:

God looks after small animals and dumbasses.

Where Does This Sh*t Go?!

Where is my 1964 AM Gold CD?! Today, I brought five of my AM Gold CDs to work for my personal listening pleasure. When I opened the 1964 case, there was no CD.

I don't lose things. I have every school picture ever taken of my son except for his second grade group picture and I have every checkbook register I’ve ever had since my first checking account except for one register from the fall of 1982. I also can't find the CD case for my soundtrack of My Best Friend’s Wedding. Where is all that stuff?

Is the '64 AM Gold CD in some car I traded in? Is it in a CD player in a beach cabin I once rented? Is it in a portable CD player I sold in a garage sale?

Miss New Orleans, Miss Jane and Wang Chi's Search for the Holy Grail

I went out Friday evening with Miss Jane and Wang Chi in search of The Holy Grail. Although the night began with the search for Monty Python's Holy Grail we also found ourselves searching for Miss Jane's Holy Grail.

Our friend, Miss Jane (one of her many pseudonyms) was having a hard time getting into the party mood. She e-mailed me shortly before 5:00 p.m. saying she had a headache and didn't know if she would be joining us. I convinced her that a couple of cocktails and clever conversation with me and Mr. Chi would fix her right up. The quest for Miss Jane's Holy Grail of Fun had begun.

We started out at a little pub on Crockett Street but her mood didn't improve when the bar allegedly ran out of the wine she had been drinking. After a brief discussion, we decided that rather than Miss Jane changing beverages, we would leave in search of another bar. As we stood to leave, we heard a huge commotion behind us. We turned and noticed about six people at the bar yelling at something toward the door. We turned around and looked back toward the door (no one was behind us) then back toward the bar where now about ten people were yelling in our general direction. It turned out they were yelling at us. They had found more of Miss Jane's wine. After unintentionally creating such a scene, we decided to stay there until it was time to walk to the movie.




As we were on the way to the movie, Miss Jane again tried to bail on us. We convinced her that although our scintillating conversation and a couple of glasses of wine hadn't improved her mood, surely some Monty Python antics would do the trick. We walked to the newly and beautifully refurbished Jefferson Theater to watch Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

The theater was about two-thirds filled with a large and enthusiastic crowd. Some were even in costume. All around us, we could hear people quoting from the movie and I couldn't wait to see the movie on the big screen with a theater full of people who also loved the movie. Did you know there are Monty Python action figures? And, that you can actually buy helmets and tunics and swords? Neither did I.


Finally, the lights went down, everyone cheered and the credits began to roll. However, it soon became evident that there was a sound problem. I don't know anything about movie sound but it seemed that the track with the music was fine while the track with the dialogue was scratchy and barely audible. It was heartbreaking to watch the video and not be able to also experience the hilarious dialogue. The disappointment of the crowd was palpable.



The projectionist ran the movie up to the point of the French Taunter and finally gave up. With many heartfelt apologies, someone got on stage and told us the distributor had sent the Jefferson a 'trick print' of the film and they would try to get a good copy and reschedule the screening. As you might guess this didn't help Miss Jane's mood. She blamed herself and the little black cloud that had followed her around all day.

We headed back to Crockett Street once again convincing Miss Jane to give us just one more chance. There was to be a street party with one of my favorite Baton Rouge bands, Cam Pyle, playing. Surely, surely that would do the trick. When we got back to Crockett Street, there was no stage set up and we eventually found out that the street party had been canceled because of rain earlier in the day and because of the threat of rain that had been forecast for that night (which never occurred).





Our last, last chance to find Miss Jane's Holy Grail of Fun would happen in TEN where the consumption of a Sugar Baby martini or two would surely do the trick. (Zina, I finally got the ingredients for the Sugar Baby: Bailey's, Vanilla Vodka, Kahlua, Buttershots and cream with caramel drizzled across the top.) While my Sugar Baby was yummy as usual, Miss Jane declared hers 'not foamy enough.' I fear that her little black cloud had grown to her own personal Hurricane Dennis at that point and there was no way out for her other than mandatory evacuation.


Miss Jane finally broke free from our death grip of the promise of better times just around the next corner and left Wang and I in TEN. We moved on to the Star Bar where we happened to run into my son and his wife and his sister-in-law and her boyfriend. Eventually, we went to get a hamburger at the biker bar where we ran into my sister and her husband then went back to the Star Bar to finish out the evening. I love Crockett Street.

Finding fun for me is less of a search for an elusive Holy Grail and more like just reaching for one of those plastic Mardi Gras cups that fill up kitchen cabinets all over south Louisiana and southeast Texas. They're always within reach and there's plenty for everyone. You just have to open your eyes, know where to look and reach out and grab it.

Dannielle's Baby

My cousin Susan's daughter Dannielle and her husband Jonathan had their baby. Her name is Alayna. She was born July 6, 2005, weighed 9 pounds 4 ounces and was 20.3 inches long. I have written about Dannielle before here, here and here.

Here is a before picture:



Here is an after picture:

Lorna's Blog Party

My friend Lorna hosted a blog party. She posted the following 15 words which were to be included in a story and posted on our own sites. The deadline to turn in a story is Sunday, 7/10, so pop over there and join the party.

Here are the words:

incessantly, vibration, apple, reaching, professional, immaculate, seawater, blush, wondering, manufacture, quivery, desperate, straw, separated, tendrils

Here is my story:

As the young boys tap danced incessantly outside my balcony room window, I realized that the nap I was so desperate for and so badly needed wasn't going to happen. The sound of the click, click, clicking on the pavement below created a vibration in my head that might possibly be soothed by several apple martinis preferably sucked down through some sort of festive straw and decorated with a lovely tiny paper umbrella. I began wondering where I might find this magical concoction. To hell with the nap.

Reaching for my watch on the hotel room nightstand, I discovered it had been less than an hour since I had been able to manufacture a suitable excuse and had separated myself from the madness of the bars and chaos that is Bourbon Street. My friends, being the professional drinkers they are, were still out there somewhere.

I walked out onto my small balcony to check out the scene below before planning my quest for the perfect apple martini. Tendrils of beads still hung from the railings from the evening before which had been thrown by lustful men with quivery hands hoping to see the blush of a woman's (any woman's) breast.

I walked back into our previously immaculate room which, after two days in New Orleans, now looked as though it had been hit by a tornado and went into the bathroom to freshen up for my apple-icious quest. I brushed my teeth and, without thinking, took a big gulp of French Quarter tap water which, not suprisingly, tasted somewhat like seawater. Perhaps the wretched tap water in The Quarter is the reason people drink so many non-water type beverages while on their pilgrimage to decadence. It's as good an excuse as any, I suppose.

Friday - Party at Work

So far, this hasn't been a bad day for a Friday. Fridays at my office are usually horribly busy for some reason. I have my fingers crossed that the rest of the afternoon will go as smoothly and I can get out of here and start the weekend.

Here are the CDs I brought to work today to get me in the weekend mood:

Pretenders - The Singles
Janet Jackson - Rhythm Nation
The Sopranos - Music from the HBO Original Series
Ricky Martin - Ricky Martin
Pink - Missundaztood

I've listend to Pink and Ricky Martin this morning and it's working!

Blog of Funk

When I heard about the bombings in London this morning, the first thing I thought of was a friend I met when I first started this blog. Deek Deekster lives in London and writes the Blog of Funk. He's an amazingly entertaining writer.

My favorite post of his is titled Up, Down or Sideways. Up, Down or Sideways refers to the decisions we make during an evening of partying. Deek guides us as we explore the varying degrees of intoxication experienced during a night out and how to proceed so that you make it through the evening mostly intact. At various times throughout the evening you are faced with an important decision: do you imbibe more (up), less (down) or, for the moment, try to maintain (sideways)?

I've met so many delightful people from all over the country and all over the world through blogging that the world seems a little smaller to me. My first blogging friends are especially dear to me (Lorna in Canada, Astrid in the Netherlands, Deek in London, Se7en in New Orleans and Lauren in Louisiana). My newer blogging friends are over there on the sidebar and I look forward to reading them all for many years to come.

Take care of yourselves!

Wednesday - Sugar Baby Night

I have a new Wednesday night agenda. I meet some friends whom I have known for years at a martini bar for drinks. Although I have known them for years, it's the martini night that's new. Our new place is a bar called TEN which serves many different kinds of martinis our favorite of which is the Sugar Baby. I promised my cousin Zina I would find out what was in them and I did; but, three Sugar Babies later, I don't remember. I'll write it down next time, I promise.

Today, one of my Wednesday drinking buddies (we shall call her Party of the First Part) started the e-mail pony express to gather up the troops for the after-work excursion. I (Party of the Second Part) e-mailed immediately that I would be there. Party of The Third Part e-mailed us that he would join us but could only stay until 5:30 p.m.

Party of the First Part e-mailed me at around 4:45 p.m. to tell me that I should get downtown ASAP since Party of the Third Part could be there and possibly stay until 5:45 p.m. Being the good drinking friend that I am, I left work about five minutes early to beat the traffic and made it to TEN by 5:07 p.m. The other Parties were nowhere to be seen. I had two options. I could start drinking or walk up and down Crockett Street in the 90+ degree heat and look for them. Guess which option I chose.

So, I sat by a window overlooking downtown Beaumont and the Crockett Street parking lot with my Sugar Baby martini and Harry Connick, Jr. to serenade me. I found my bliss sitting right there in that bar. It was just me and Harry and the bartender and a 10-foot tall window until 5:30 p.m. when Party of the First Part arrived.

According to Party of the First Part, Party of the Third Part couldn't make it. Party of the First Part quickly caught up with me Sugar Baby wise and, although we only stayed until 6:30 p.m. we squoze in enough gossip to hold us until next Wednesday.

Is squoze a word?

The Big Move

Over the holiday weekend, we moved my son and daughter-in-law to a little town about 20 miles south of Houston and about 120 miles west of Beaumont. My son's friends packed the moving van and me, mom, my sister Bonnie, my sister Terry and her husband Dan and two of their kids (Katie and Alec - Elliott had to work, lucky dog) unpacked the van (along with Cory and Jamie, of course). We did an efficient and speedy, but unblogworthy, job in 100 degree heat.







I consider any strenuous activity that I come away from with the ability to still move my right shoulder to be a successful venture. My family, on the other hand, were all sore and taking a variety of drugs and rubbing Aspercream all over their bodies. My calves were sore but I thank the laziness of my youth for my relatively supple joints (except for the aforementioned shoulder).




While my siblings were marching in the drum and bugle corps or playing football or playing volleyball in high school, I was hanging out with my no-good hippie friends doing as little as possible. Who knew that laying around on beanbag chairs listening to Canned Heat and Black Oak Arkansas would have it's advantages all these years later? Power to the laid back people.




The picture below is a box I refused to open because of the *porcelain love statue* allegedly contained within. I didn't want to know.

Outer Space Porno: Deep Impact

I'll write about the big move tomorrow. For now, I have something else on my mind. Perhaps it's because I've been watching the Twilight Zone marathon all day, but I have some concerns about NASA's Deep Impact project in which a projectile was fired at the comet Tempel 1 in an effort to discover facts about the birth of the universe.

Some quotes from various articles I've read on the net:

• Little is known about comet anatomy, so it wasn't clear exactly what would happen.That's reassuring.
• In what scientists say is a coincidence, the spacecraft shares the same name, Deep Impact, as the 1998 movie about a comet that hurtles toward Earth.Coincidence?! I thought it was named that on purpose! Coincidence?!
• Scientists emphasized that there was no chance that the mission's Impactor could destroy Comet Tempel 1 or put it into a hazardous orbit.Somehow that does not make me feel better. A blanket declaration of 'no chance' makes me hope that someone at NASA was knocking on wood when they made that statement.

My main fear is that we are going to create some sort of cosmic tsunami. How could this possibly not have an affect on Earth? The solar system? The entire universe?

I visualize the other citizens of the Milky Way watching us saying, "What the f**k is that Earth trash up to now? Honey, come look at this. Now those assholes are blowing up a comet. I guess they got tired of blowing up each other."

Today's Horoscope

My horoscope for today:

You want everyone to have a good time and are willing to put out an extraordinary level of energy to accomplish this goal. This is truly a socially oriented day, so make the most of it by doing something exciting with your friends or family. Your unconventional approach now will excite others. Shine your love light and the good feelings will reflect back on you.



I shall do my best. Off we go...

Friday Night Quotes and Moving Day

This weekend, we're moving my son and daughter-in-law to Houston. That might sound like work to you but in my family, it's just another opportunity to get together and create bedlam and mayhem. Hilarity will no doubt ensue. Someone will absolutely, positively, without fail, do something so stupid, so ridiculous, so unexpected that we'll be talking about it for years.

In honor of my dys-FUN-ctional family, tonight's quotes are about laughter.

• We cannot really love anybody with whom we never laugh.
  Agnes Repplier
• The more you find out about the world, the more opportunities there are to laugh at it.
  Bill Nye
• Laughter gives us distance. It allows us to step back from an event, deal with it and then move on.
  Bob Newhart
• Total absence of humor renders life impossible.
  Colette
• Laughter is by definition healthy.
  Doris Lessing
• The most wasted of all days is one without laughter.
  e e cummings
• If you don't learn to laugh at trouble, you won't have anything to laugh at when you're old.
  Edgar Watson Howe
• Laugh at yourself first, before anyone else can.
  Elsa Maxwell
• You cannot be mad at somebody who makes you laugh - it's as simple as that.
  Jay Leno
• If we couldn't laugh, we would all go insane.
  Jimmy Buffett
• He deserves Paradise who makes his companions laugh.
  Koran
• One doesn't have a sense of humor. It has you.
  Larry Gelbart
• Always laugh when you can. It is cheap medicine.
  Lord Byron
• The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter.
  Mark Twain
• He who laughs, lasts.
  Mary Pettibone Poole
• You don't stop laughing because you grow old. You grow old because you stop laughing.
  Michael Pritchard
• Laughter is inner jogging.
  Norman Cousins
• I was irrevocably betrothed to laughter, the sound of which has always seemed to me to be the most civilised music in the world.
  Peter Ustinov
• You can't deny laughter; when it comes, it plops down in your favorite chair and stays as long as it wants.
  Stephen King "Hearts in Atlantis"
• Laughter is the closest distance between two people.
  Victor Borge
• Laughter is the sun that drives winter from the human face.
  Victor Hugo
• Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator, but among those whom I love, I can: all of them make me laugh.
  W. H. Auden