Neither Steve Winn nor his family had any idea what they were in for when they brought troubled Gandalf (soon to be renamed Como) home from the no-kill animal shelter and they were in for a lot. The story made me laugh out loud and brought me to tears. ‘Come Back, Como’ covers the last six years of trials and triumphs the Winn family experiences having a dog, who isn’t quite right, as a family member. This book is a delight. I couldn’t put it down.

Well they’re back! Not all of them. Not yet at least. So far I’ve only seen (and HEARD!) the wiener dogs and the older couple. This morning at 6:48 AM the dogs were fighting under my window and charging insanely all up and down the street barking their fool heads off while my lovely neighbor thought it would be the perfect time to do maintenance on his leaf-blower and weed-wackers. He just spent the better part of a half hour FIVE feet from my bedroom window revving the stupid things over and over and over and ov… UGH! The next time I’m just calling the cops. I want to be a good neighbor (they don’t). I don’t like making waves… at least not this close to home but this shit’s outta hand.

{edit: 9:06 AM}
My neighbor appears to have decided to cut his entire lawn with a weed-wacker, he’s been going round and round the house for over and hour. The dogs are chasing him around and haven’t stopped barking since this all began.

Dog Town is but one part, the better known thanks to a National
Geographic television series, of the Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in
Kanab, Utah, the largest no-kill shelter in the country. I have the
privilege of calling one of the staff members a friend and I don’t think
he knows just how proud I am of him for the work he’s doing.

Each chapter of the book introduces the reader to a different dog, the
story of how they came to arrive at Dog Town and the work the staff and
volunteers put into trying to find each animal their very own ‘forever
home’. The stories are heartwarming, amusing, sad and triumphant.

From war torn Beirut, storm wracked New Orleans, shelters around the
country and even Michael Vick’s deplorable dog fighting ring, animals
come to Best Friends from all over the world and if they can’t be
adopted they’re given a place to live out the rest of their lives in
peace surrounded by people who love and care for them.

Between each dog’s chapter members of the Dog Town staff have written
essays about how they came to work at the sanctuary and their love for
animals.

Thoroughly enjoyable. I got the book yesterday evening and couldn’t put
it down. This is a book worth reading and a cause worth supporting.

I watched the premier Monday and was totally unimpressed. His writers suck. They’ve sucked since time began. In past lives they sucked! Badly written jokes driven into the ground (The horse is dead! Stop beating it!) to fill space. The good stuff like Headlines pushed to the ass end of the show so you’re either watching it or hoping you can pop back to the channel in time to catch the one bit worth seeing. I was never a Seinfeld fan so having Jerry on the first show didn’t do anything for me. Bringing out that barely coherent idiot Kanye West to apologize was lame. The musical act for the first show sounded like three different acts doing three different songs, badly, at the same time. The set’s pretty damn ugly too.

I skipped Tuesday’s show, I just didn’t care enough to change the channel.

Wednesday I tuned in (and out) to catch Robin Williams. I kinda feel sorry for Robin. I wonder if he ever just wants to come onto a talk show and talk without going off the wall and riffing the improv over and over. Personally after all these years I’d hate to be dragged on stage with the expectation that I go nuts. They also had two ‘comedians’ from Australia who once again drove bad jokes into the ground (the horse is PASTE! Please, STOP!). They weren’t even slightly funny. He did 10 questions with Miley Cyrus, woopie-doo. Then brought out some junk the prop department threw together at the last minute… That’s all I saw, I was watching some UFC fights which were far more entertaining.

Jay, fire the writers, stop making stuff up there’s enough real and bizarre things to make fun of that your writers won’t ruin. Oh, and put the good stuff, Headlines, Things found at the $1 store at the BEGINNING of the show. Then again, do what you want, I doubt I’ll watch it much if at all.

Are you special because you can do this? Is it a genetic talent like curling your tongue? You just tried to curl your tongue, didn’t you? Are there people who can’t catch a fart?

Framed for murder fourteen year old Alex Sawyer is sentenced to life without the chance of parole in Furnace, a maximum security penitentiary built a mile underground (much like the movie Fortress) specifically for youthful offenders. Watched over by vicious, uncaring, silver eyed guards who are backed up by super dog-creatures (much like things in The Chronicles of Riddick) and a warden who embodies evil there seems to be little hope offered to the inmates until Alex and friends form a daring escape plot.

On the narrative… The book is written in the first person. I rarely like books written from this point of view, it’s often too narrow leaving out parts that could add to the story because the narrator didn’t experience them. Beyond that we have to assume the narrator wins, survives, gets rescued, etc. simply because the manuscript exists.

I found the story line somewhat unbelievable. Children in what has to be the worst prison environment since Andersonville? Fed rotting slop and used for hideous biological experiments? I just can’t see it ever happening.

That being said it’s not a BAD book. It’s unfortunately also not a great book. But it did keep me engaged. I’ll be willing to check out the sequel to find out what happens next.

They’re out to get me, I swear it!

In case you didn’t know, the driver side window on my car don’t go up no more.

So I grabbed my coat and hat (figuratively…) and bid my friends a hasty adieu’. I didn’t make it. I didn’t make it a mile. For a minute it looked like I was going to be able to drive around the corner of the storm… HA! At least half the sixteen mile ride home I did in as close to zero visibility as you can get and still be stupid enough to drive. My eyes hurt from staring at the tail lights of the car in front of me.

Flooding, hydro planing, lovely people speeding by in the inside lane or going the other way and kicking up blinding rooster tails. There was three inches of water on the road in front of my house! I literally squoze over a pint of water out of my shirt. I was soaked. I was drenched. I was Beguzzled! Flapdapterpasted! Wet even…

You’ll be happy to know that by the time I got a dry pair of shorts on it had almost completely stopped raining…

The rain gods hate me. Check out the radar loop. The red line of storms leading South West from Melbourne is the exact route I had to drive.

{10:25 pm}