Click the Rambling you wish to read

    Another trip to Nashville another cop at my door.  Seems like the same old stuff, over and over.  By now, most of you are seeing the pattern of my existence and I'm sure you are all mesmerized!  Or maybe caught like a deer in headlights is more appropriate.  A few of you have noted that the Ramblings are not coming as frequently as they once were or even asked if they have stopped completely.  Who would have thought that I would run out of things to gripe about?  In the true spirit of the word 'Random', I've decided that I would start sending it out at random.  That should help with the lack of material.  I guess I do need to send them out a little more often than I have though!  Once again, I'm struggling to find a comfortable balance.

    I'm working on my green thumb.  I've started growing plants in my apartment to better my fung sway.  Yeah, I know how it's really spelled, but I didn't feel like typing it that way.  Can bad karma result from bad spelling?  Will it upset the balance of my ying and yang?  If so, I guess Tori has some horrible karma!  Get it??  Tori....  Spelling???  Ah, forget it.  Anyway, I've got sprouts in my apartment and I'm very proud!  I've even graduated from growing morning glories to other flowering plants that I can't remember the names of.  Ok, maybe they aren't exactly sprouts any more!  Some of them are easily 2 feet tall now.  They are called Arabian Nights.  Maybe I need to start wearing my 'Sultan Keith' costume when I water them!  The mean old lady below me will probably end up complaining that they grow too loudly or poisoning them.  If they all suddenly die, then that's what I'm going to assume.  That or the lack of water.  My retaliations of late, have included running my new Dremel at 2am.  Hey, I really needed to sand that piece of wood and it couldn't wait!  Other than a couple instances of late night wood working, I've taken it pretty easy on her lately.  I like to think of it as the calm before the storm.

    I received my tax checks already and I'm struggling not to make extravagant purchases with the extra dough!  I keep having visions of various musical instruments, camera equipment and computer hardware floating through my head.  I don't know how much longer I can hold out!  My love of new toys will be my downfall one-day!  Even now, I can feel my resolve slipping.  Must....  Resist....  Dark... Side...

    Most everyone in the free world is familiar with those 'Miss Cleo' free tarot reading commercials now.  Call her up and she'll read your fortune from her deck of cards with uncanny insight into your personal life.  I've decided that they should fire Miss Cleo and substitute Bowser from Sha Na Na!  That would be a total hoot!  "I see da loanshark card and dat king of cement shoes card tells me tings ain't lookin' to good for you, man!"  Is it me or would Bowser and Marlee Matlin be a hell of a couple to watch having a casual conversation?  Ok, I'm starting to show my truly evil side by making fun of deaf actresses.  Hey, I liked Children of a Lesser God and she is definitely a beautiful lady.  But I couldn't understand a word she was saying, when she was on LA Law!

    Electrolux sent me to Charlotte for more training the last week of March.  This was something of a surprise, since it was announced that they were cutting 200 to 250 jobs in Bristol and closing the plant in Piney Flats.  I may be instituting the Keith's Unemployment Fund soon, so save your nickels!  I'm not real worried though.  I may have to move to find a job, but I really don't think I'll have much of a problem finding one.  I have yet to be promoted to my level of incompetence.  Unfortunately, I missed the Floating Men show in Chattanooga.  Ain't that just the luck?  On the positive side, I did get to see U2!  They were playing at the Charlotte Coliseum, which happened to be about half a mile from my hotel.  It was a spectacular show!  These guys were good when Joshua Tree came out, but they are truly awesome now!  I love the new CD too!  Anyway, I also found out that the Natural Wonders stores are closing!  I hit the mall one night and discovered that everything was 20 to 50 percent off!  Upon further investigation, I found out that the whole chain was going out of business.  Naturally (get it? Natural Wonders...  Naturally...?  Forget it!), I made multiple purchases that maybe I shouldn't have.  There went the tax check.  Well, maybe not quite that many purchases.  I also scoped out a few restaurants to visit while there!  I hit one place that served authentic Cajun/Creole dishes.  I thoroughly enjoyed the blackened shrimp!  I didn't get to go to the Irish pub called Rira this time.  I went there once before when Blue Rapture took me to Charlotte with them. Gary and I destroyed a plate of chicken wings and volcano sauce.  The waiter didn't think we could handle the volcano chicken wings, so he suggested the hot wings with volcano sauce on the side.  Not only did we eat it, we wiped the bowl of volcano sauce clean.  My scalp is sweating, just thinking about it!  That was an all around great trip!  There was an ice storm that closed the interstate and had us stranded there.  Vanessa and I drove around town looking for snacks and lighter fluid.  We ended up lost, but my superior sense of direction got us back to the hotel.  I'm sure Vanessa's version of this differs slightly from mine.

    While on the subject of Blue Rapture, change has come.  Gary is retired from the band and others have decided to move on to other projects.  Vanessa, Ron and Mike Clark are the remaining members and that is about as firm a foundation for a band as they come.  I'll miss the others, but I feel closest to these three anyway.  I had to pick up another copy of their CD!  I gave mine to Jeff and Kissy Black on one of my infamous Nashville trips.  I don't know if the remaining members are keeping the Blue Rapture name or not.  I would think so, but other names have been tossed around in jest.  I kinda like the ring of 'The Mike McConnel Experience' (Mr. McConnel is one of the members who quit) or 'Bonbon and the B.B.s'.  That's it, everyone send in band name suggestions!

    Ok, time to bitch!!  I know this is what you all want to read, so here it is.  We all have that one person in our lives that we see as being a useless bag of skin.  Wastes of good oxygen.  Useless as skidmarks on brand new BVDs.  As much fun as a hydrochloric acid enema.  I've come to the conclusion that these persons are in some strange way, fundamental to the existence of the universe.  They are as eternal as the sun in our lives.  They existed from the dawn of time and will exist until each of our passings.  Passings made to come quicker with our every encounter with them.  They make our neck veins bulge and raise our blood pressure.  They are the ones who ask you questions with undertones indicating their belief that you don't know what you're doing.  The ones who think they are all that and a Tootsie Roll, yet the smell of incompetence permeates the air when they enter the room.  Not the salt of the earth, but instead the salt to the rugburns of life.  Today, a co-corker named Mike fills this position in my life.  His name belongs in the VooDoo Death Box.  If it were in my power, I would condemn him to the land of anus eating fire ants.  I simply asked him to perform a simple task that falls under his job description and he smirkingly asks me 'Why?'.  Because I f%$@#$ need it done, ya idiotic, pile of aardvark feces!  Ok, I feel better now.  I sincerely hope that I do not fill this position in someone else's life, but maybe I do.

    To top it all off, I have been told that the cigarettes I smoke will no longer be imported.  I know that most of you don't smoke and are either apathetic to this predicament or maybe even happy.  Just gives me another reason to be grouchy and and and....  Mean.  I think I'm going to take a pile of empty packets and make art!  Yeah....  Water fountains, picture frames, an exhaust system for a '67 Malibu...  I also received my first statement from Social Security.  Talking about an old age wake-up call!!!  Looks like in another 90 years and I'll be able to retire comfortably!

Random Rambling Reader Replies:
Leeann:

The idea for the art gallery is great! If you are taking donations I will give you 5! I'm always up for helping out the arts especially in Bristol (so froufrou!!) I wander if the art will be on sale? I could use a good man sleeping in the recliner- hell at least that way you pay for what you get and you don't start off thinking they are this super guy turned fat blob! You buy the blob!! I would like to order the 6'0" 200lb. dark hair, light eyes model please- age doesn't matter because the fat ass is just going to sleep and snore so stamina is not really important!! HAHA I'm some what on a man-hater kick right now (sorry).  Have fun in the Mecca you call home!
P.S.  I did spell check and man-hater was in there! HA what has the world came to?!
kef:  Ok....  Some of the art will be on sale, but the situation you are describing sounds more like an adoption scenario.  Since you will be one of the displays, you can take it up with whomever you are considering to decorate your apartment with.  I'm an art entrepreneur, not a pimp.  Hmmm... a pimp....

As always, certain portions will be edited from the version archived to my website, which is located at http://www.kefields.com/randramb.html

    Ok, here we are with the new and improved random rambling, straight out of nowhere to waste your time!  The flowers are blooming and the bees are buzzin'!  Those plants I mentioned in the last rambling are blooming and the things are huge!  We're talking over 6 feet tall and the flowers are a good 2 or 3 inches wide!  I'm waiting to come home and hear 'Feeeeeeed Me!' when I start up the steps!  I transplanted some of them outside and they promptly died.  If you see me with band-aids on my fingers and looking very pale, assume the worst.

    Oh, the irony!  After my last Rambling, wherein I took a jab at Madam Cleo the psychic tarot reader, she sent me an e-mail!!!  No, I'm not joking!  The following is an excerpt from the email I received:

"Keith, I'm so very happy I am able to contact you.
My name is Cleo, and I am a Master Tarot Psychic. I had an exciting dream last night that could affect the rest of your life!
I was so moved by the dream, that I shared this with my psychic associates.  With this knowledge our prediction powers have been heightened. I am asking you to call immediately and, if I am not available, you must speak to one of my gifted Tarot readers who will know how to use this knowledge to immediately change your future. It could be that exciting.  Keith, please call right now:
1-800-339-7491. This call is absolutely FREE."

    I've finally got my internet connection transferred to DSL.  I networked my two PCs together and can now surf the net on either of them or both at the same time!  I know it's overkill but I just wanted to see if I could do it.  Now I have to see about doing something with the webpages.  I'll have to keep part of the 3rd wave account, because the Casbah is footing that bill and I don't really want to change their web address now that it's established.  If anybody has any suggestions, let me know!

    What a busy few weeks I've had recently!  I took half a day off work one Tuesday and drove to Kentucky to pick up my grandmother.  A beautiful day for a drive through the country!  I got to meet her brother who was in the hospital after having heart surgery.  What a trip!  He's in his mid to late 80's and is funny as hell!  He said he hadn't been to the doctor since 1943.  You can imagine that he wasn't thrilled about the idea of seeing one now.  My great-grandmother made a $50 bet with him that she would outlive him.  When she was in the hospital, we went to see her and told her that she should go ahead and write that check out.  Instead, she had him removed from the hospital.  The nurse was pretty funny too.  She said somebody called and asked if diarrhea could kill you and if they had bathrooms in the hospital.  She told them that diarrhea could kill you eventually, but you had to go to the Hardee's across the street to use the restrooms.  She came at me with used hypodermic needles and I freaked until I realized that I was standing in front of the disposal box.  This is about as far into the backwoods as you can get.  The hospital was only 3 stories tall , but the top floor was only used for storage.  Each level was only about the size of two McDonalds.

    Some big news for me this month was that I got a restitution check from the city of Bristol!  My car was broken into a couple years ago and they caught the guys responsible.  They were ordered to pay restitution, but I never figured I would see any of it.  Well, I was wrong.  They paid a little less than half, but it's definitely better than nothing!  I now can eat something besides potted meat and ramen noodles for lunch and dinner.  That crap gets old after a while!  I made some extra cash from doing photo-editing work and too, thanks to Debbie! I also bought a camera and auctioned it off for more than I paid!  That was a pretty nice chunk of change!  If this keeps up, I may actually get out of debt within the next 100 years.

    Wow, oh wow!  It has been a very good couple of weeks for my musical tastes!  I picked up the new Mark Lanegan CD 'Field Songs'.  He was the singer for the Screaming Trees, one of those bands out of Seattle, but his solo work leans toward acoustic folk, blues and country.  His first solo CD was intended to be a blues based collection, recorded with Nirvana's Kurt Cobain and Chris Novoselic.  Those plans fell through and he ended up recording with guitarist Mike Johnson, who later played bass in Dinosaur Jr. The solo CD was released in 1990 with a cover of Ledbelly's folk song "Where Did You Sleep Last Night?" that had Cobain and Novoselic playing guitar and bass.  The next year marked the explosion of the 'Seattle Sound' with the release of Nirvana's 'Nevermind' CD, among others.  Anyway, this newest disc is excellent.  I also was able to preview the killer new solo CD from Dave Navarro, who is one of  the former guitarists for the Red Hot Chili Peppers and guitarist for Jane's Addiction (notice I didn't say 'former' guitarists for Jane's.... Look for a tour this summer).  And finally, I received the summer schedule for the Floating Men shows.  The floating fellas are coming back to Johnson City on August the 11th.  So if you live in this area, plan ahead and if you live away from here, come visit!

    I just got off the phone with Vanessa and I was laughing so hard that I was crying.  I'll not go into any real detail about our conversation, but to say that it revolved around dorks, horseshoes, buttocks and other fine things.  She also referred to alcohol as 'demon sperm'.  It seems that the last time we all went out drinking, she overdid it just a little teensy weensy bit.

    Many of us who know Chris and Kevin Slaughter, have grown fond as well as reminiscent of the old Slaughterisms of past.  For those who don't know what a Slaughterism is, allow me to attempt to explain as best as I can.  A Slaughterism comes as a statement of fact, comparison, implied threat or any combination thereof.  Often, they do not necessarily seem to make sense unless they are put into context.  Sometimes they are phrases taken from songs, but over time these phrases become associated more with the Slaughter utilizing them than the song from which it was derived.  What breaks them apart from standard English vernacular is the content.  Slaughterisms more often than not include small animals, the devil and/or Elvis.  In the hands of one of the Slaughter brothers, a true Slaughterism will screw with your mind worse than pharmaceutical-grade LSD.  Some prime examples include:

Finer than the fuzz on a kitten's nuts!
Fire's the Devil's only friend.
If you don't like Tool, you suck!
Dinosaurs ain't in the bible, you'll go to hell if you believe in Dinosaurs!
Ever look into the eyes of the Devil?
Hotter than a freshly fucked fox in a forest fire!
Elvis had a dik-dik.
Cuter than a newborn baby kitten in a freshly mown meadow in the middle of May.
They call me hammer.
Heaven let your light shine down!

    Well, it finally happened.  I mentioned in my last Rambling, that my cigarettes were no longer being imported and I have since quit smoking all together.  My last cigarette was May 30th and I must say that it wasn't has hard as I thought it would be.  Another vice given up...  That just leaves me with alcohol, crack and black tar heroin.  Ahhh.... That sticky black heat travelling through your veins with every beat of your heart.... Nothing like it!  I don't smoke the crack (being a nonsmoker and all), instead I get it on a stick like a big rock candy sucker.  You know, even as a nonsmoker, those Truth.com commercials get on my nerves!

    Is it me or does the new David Duchovny movie look is so abysmally atrocious that it may cause physiological damage on a cellular level in anyone who views it for more than three consecutive minutes?  That's all I have to say about that.  As for other celebrity commentary, I am going to attempt to reduce the wear-and-tear on my wrists by asking all of you to go ahead and assume that Robert Downey Jr. will be royally screwing up his life at least once per quarter for the next ten years, or until he finally croaks from an overdose in a Burbank Burger King parking lot... whichever comes first. To clarify: He WILL be messing up, I'm just not going to mention it.  So go ahead and assume the worst.

    RAGEGARDEN ROCK!  You heard it here first... or at least early!
As mentioned in earlier Ramblings, Zack De La Rocha left Rage Against The Machine last year.  The rest of the band vowed to continue on in some capacity and they even tossed around the idea of having no official lead singer, only guest vocalists.  This sounded pretty cool to me, but the latest news from the Rage camp is that Chris Cornell (formerly of Soundgarden) will now front the band.

It all started when Rage bass player Tim "Tim Bob" Commerford climbed to the top of a (not very sturdy) stage prop during some MTV awards show, because he was bored (imagine that...  bored with an awards show...).  Most people thought it was funny and basically said "So what, they're rock stars, that's what they do.  Anarchy, disruption, Woo Hoo!!"  Ironically enough, singer Zack De La Rocha decided this compromised his integrity and took his socialist rants delivered via a rap style and went home.  This from a man who initially became famous for writing the lyric "Fuck you I won't do what you tell me" and eschewing the virtures of social disruption.  Personally I think it was just an excuse to quit, since most bands wouldn't think twice about firing a bass player, in order to keep the singer.  I look for Zack to not do much from this point on...  Don't get me wrong, I loved Rage's music and have all their CDs.  I became more aware of many issues due to their bringing them to my attention.  They held some unpopular views and were smart enough to back them up.  I liked the idea that they were about more than the music.  But they were about the music too.  They prided themselves in making music without sampling.  But at the same time, their last CD consisted solely of cover songs.  Hmmm....  am I the only one who sees and irony here?

Soundgarden, on the other hand, simply ROCKED, and they did so with a cool efficiency that was and is rare.  Like watching lava roll, they achieved total Rock N' Roll devastation.  And to send their rock credibility over the top, they disbanded in 1997, at the height of fame. Now that's how it's supposed to be done.

It seems obvious that this new band will not sound like the Rage of old.  Cornell's manager made a simple statement that summed it all up.  "Chris doesn't rap."  While at first this combination may seem strange, it's really not that much of a surprise.  When Soundgarden played their last Lollapalooza, opening for headliners Metallica, they specifically requested to bring along Rage as their opening act.  At that time, both bands openly spoke of their mutual admiration.  The new group plans to record, tour, everything the fans would seem to want, and if it seems like a good thing, it's because it is.

Random Rambling Reader Replies:
Lisa:

"fung sway" gives it that more southern feel!  :-)  Sorry about your cigarettes!  I certainly sympathize.
kef:  Yeah, that's it!  Redneck decorating!  NASCAR collectables arranged just so....  You know, the odd numbered cars can't go in the kitchen and blue cars bring peace and harmony to the bedroom.  Speaking of NASCAR, if anybody knows were I can get a matchbox, model or other sembalance of the number 6 Viagra car, PLEASE let me know!  This has become highly sought after within my family.  As far as the cigarettes go, I've found that there may be positive side-effects to not smoking...  I've heard that smoking can be linked to erectile dysfunction.  Not that I would know anything about that...  Quit staring at me that way!

I'm offended that you didn't mention your sushi bar experience when talking about your restaurants!! Well see if I will eat raw fish with you anymore!  PHFPHF just joking!  On the talk about art exhibit what would you name mine?  What would you call me? Make sure this is complimentary!!
kef:  I'm still at a loss on how to describe eating raw fish with you!  As if eating raw fish isn't strange enough!  As for the art exhibit, containing you...  How about "Guiding the future through your kids..."?  Seeing as to you being a teacher, I think it would be appropriate.

 As always, certain portions will be edited from the version archived to my website, which is located at http://www.kefields.com/randramb.html

Wow, oh wow!  Where do I start?  It's the 21st issue of the Ramblings and it's been a long time coming!  Lots of things have happened.  So let's get started!

First things first, a big congratulations to Kevin and Kristi Slaughter!  It seems that the Slaughter family are expecting their first child!  I can't begin to imagine having an 'Uncle Ugly', but I bet it would be cool...  I'm extremely happy for them both, YAAAAA!!!!

Belated congratulations to Michelle on the birth of her son Zachary Ryan!  I'm sure it comes as no surprise to any of us who know Michelle that the whole pregnancy thing isn't something that she enjoyed!  As a matter of fact, after the first few days of diapers, I believe she's sworn off all exposure to penises.  My friend Kissy Black, on the other hand, enjoyed the whole thing!  She informs me that she loved being pregnant and that labor and delivery was a breeze!  Of course the baby came almost a month early, so I'm sure that helped.  Anyway, both mothers and babies are doing great.  Congratulations to both families.

Staying on the whole children thing, Jeff, Maria and their only child Julia, came to visit the family back in early July.  Relatives attacked them and the nest of ants that I was standing in attacked me.  I got the better end of that deal; I'll take the ants any day!  Of course it's only natural that everyone wants to see the new baby, so I guess it was expected.  Little Julia was quite the social butterfly and not very picky about whom she gave her sugars to!  Guys, you need to curb that now or it could be a problem later, considering the family history and all....

Moving along to the pre-children side of the fence, congratulations to rambling recipient Brandy Hicks!  Brandy informed me the other day that she is now engaged to be married this coming April!  Wooo Hoooooo!!!  You go girl!  I'm glad you've found what you were looking for.

Welcome to the new readers!  We have an old high school friend named Kim, who now lives in Manassas with her family.  We also have Scott and Rachel Osborne.  I've known Rachel since high school.  She went to a different school, but we were both in chorus, so we got to know each other through choir-oriented activities.  I met Scott in college and we hung out right up until he moved away.  I remember the day that I introduced the two of them.  Scott and I were leaving for Blacksburg, so I could go see the girl I was dating (she dumped me two days after we got back, but that's another story).  On our way out, we bumped into Rachel and I off-handedly made the introduction.  Somehow, I totally missed the sparks flying between them, but they must have been pretty massive!  It was no time at all until they were dating and the rest is history!  Scott and I enjoyed playing Dungeons and Dragons and other role-playing games like that.  I remember one early morning, going to some radio station in Lebanon, Virginia, to play in this tiny room.  All the while, a Baptist minister was preaching the gospel in the next room for his flock out in radio land.  Way back in the day, I was visiting my cousin Jeff in Florida and he introduced me to the newly released Nine Inch Nails album Pretty Hate Machine.  I loved it, but had a hard time finding it once I got back home to Virginia.  Finally one day I did find it and that evening Scott and I went to the Russell County fair.  While we were riding the scrambler, it started to storm.  Thunder, lightning, rain, the works, but the guy wouldn't stop the ride!  Everyone else is heading for their cars and here we are on this big pile of steel in the middle of a freaking lightning storm!  Well, we didn't get fried but by the time we got to Scott's truck, any chance of beating the traffic was lost.  This is when the Nine Inch Nails CD was popped into the stereo.  I swear to you, it felt like the lightning was timed to the music!  It was surreal, to say the least.  Scott is my only friend who has appeared in a major motion picture and with Mel Gibson none the less!  Scott was an extra in the movie The River and as best I remember, he even had a line!  I need to rent that again, so I can refresh my memory.

Ok, in the ongoing saga of my plants, well, the ongoing saga is no longer ongoing.  With the arrival of winter, the plants have died.  I harvested the seedpods off the moonflowers, so come spring the saga will begin anew.  The Arabian knights topped out somewhere around 7 feet tall.  The moonflowers, however, were even larger than that!  They are vines, so they had to have something to grow up, but they took off and did very well.  Some of the leaves were bigger than my head and the flowers were about the size of a large saucer.  It seems that you can't water them too much.  The more water, the bigger the plants.

The DSL connection on my computer is killer!  I'm also now the proud owner of http://www.kefields.com/ for my personal website and http://www.casbahrocks.com for the Casbah.  Now, I'm trying to learn how to make Flash animations.  If you don't know what Flash it, it's really cool animations.

I didn't get many submissions for Slaughterisms, but I did remember a couple of Kevin's old favorites.
"Ffft Ffft, Cat quick, half as smart"
And
"If you don't like Tool, you suck"
It seems that Kevin chewed out fellow rambling recipient Debbie Whited out over sleeping through the Tool set at Lollapalooza.  I'm inclined to agree with Kevin on this one.  I personally waited until George Clinton and the P Funk All-stars came on, before taking a nap.

AAAAHHHHH!!!!  Feel old moment of the week:  I saw a photo of Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, formerly cute toddler co-stars of Full House, and realized that these girls are probably dating by now and will be getting their driver's licenses real soon!

I've seen many movies over the last few months and many of those were fine movies.  However, some of them were disappointments.  The biggest disappointment was Crouching Tiger Hidden Plot.  Sure, the special effects were great, but overdone.  The whole 'walking on air and up trees' bit was used over and over and over... ad nauseum.  And the plot was vague to say the least.  I give it two thumbs down.  It could only be worse if watched while standing in a nest of ants.  I think there should be a redneck version of this movie made.  Crouching Opossum Hidden Squirrel!

I've spoken before about Miss Cleo contacting me via email and I found out the other day that she is currently under investigation in the state of Missouri and faces lawsuits over her psychic hotline's unethical practices, including charging outrageous rates to her customers for free services, as well as for time spent on hold. "Miss Cleo should have seen this coming," joked Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon. "It doesn't take a crystal ball to realize that ripping off consumers isn't without consequences."  Adding insult to injury, an unidentified woman who used to work for the infamous TV psychic has substantiated the Missouri attorney general's claims that Miss Cleo's hotline purposefully stalls callers during their promised "free three minutes" so they can be charged.  She stated "We'd get a bonus for every piece of information they'd get, and by the time we got all this information out of them, the three minutes was up, and then you'd go on to your reading."  She also stated that Miss Cleo is actually just an actress hired by producers, playing the part of a psychic.  I suspected she was a fake, but I didn't know exactly how fake she is!

Ok, here's the deal...  I quit smoking and gained some weight as is common.  Well, the other day I went down to the nurse's station at work and weighed myself.  I figured I was around 205 or 210.  Oh hell no...  235.  I was pissed!  So, in response to that I've put myself on a diet.  Cut back on how much I eat, eat more salads, cut out the Mountain Dew, exercise, etc...  A whole new healthy living lifestyle for me.  And I must say.... IT SUCKS!  I hate it!  Whoever came up with the whole 'diet' concept was an asshole!  He didn't ask for my opinion on the matter and I'm here to tell you that I don't approve!  When I find the bastard, I'm gonna bitch slap him and Richard Simmons both in their respective heads.  Giving up the Mountain Dew was the hardest!  It was easier to give up smoking!  I LOVE Mountain Dew, but now I'm sitting here with a big glass of WATER!  WATER!  Fish poo in water, I don't want to drink this!  I wanted to go see Blue Rapture play at a Gay Pride thing in Roanoke a month or so ago, but I couldn't make it.  It's a good thing that I did miss it!  Turns out that I was wrong about the day that the band was playing.  They played Sunday instead of Saturday.  So I would have driven 2 hours to get there, stood smack in the middle of a large crowd of homosexuals, alone and on the wrong day!  So let's sum this all up....  Here I am, hungry, experiencing DT's from lack of caffeine, sugar and nicotine, getting ready to spend large amounts of time indoors over the winter, too broke to join a gym, probably developing high blood pressure, too busy at work to take vacation and feeling more and more restless by the hour.  Things could be worse.

Not to harp on the whole quitting smoking thing, but even though I quit, I still believe in the personal freedom to smoke if I choose.  As a matter of fact, I did have one on New Years Eve, to send off the year that I quit.  Don't ask what was going through my head at the time.  If I close my eyes, I can still hear the brain cells weeping.  Anyway, I recently learned that Philip Morris started an ad campaign talking about how they sent all this food to starving Africans, blankets to Eskimos and stuff like that.  Turns out that they have spent a little over $125 million last year on various charities.  Well good for them!  On the other hand, they spent $146 million on the ads they produced to let us all know about all the great things they're doing!  Ain't that a BITCH?!

It was recently brought to my attention that in my old college essay on Procrastination I contradict myself.  I have now written a companion essay on contradiction now.  Check it out, if you're interested.

"If it wasn't for the nose job, the liposuction and the breast implants, I probably wouldn't be here!"  Admirable honesty from 19-year-old beauty contestant Andreina Prieto, who was chosen to represent Venezuela at the Miss World competition.  Sometimes, all you can do is laugh.

Alright, I've put it off long enough.  I'm sure we've all heard enough about the whole War on Terrorism and there's not much I have to offer on the subject.  My favorite quote on the whole thing so far was when someone wrote "Anyone asinine enough to kick the biggest dog in the neighborhood in his own yard, should damn well be prepared to get bitten."

On a lighter note, I'm now the proud owner of a beta fish.  I've named him Bleu Feesh.  Bleu was given to me for Christmas by my cousin April.  He is a cool fish, but he reminds me of the time Leeann and I were hanging out eating mushrooms and her fish startled her.  Now that's a story that I think needs not to be printed....  I named him Bleu Feesh because he's got some blue coloration and he's a fish.  I like the French sound to his name.  Since he's a beta fish, April and Melissa wanted me to name him Master.  Master-Beta.  Yeah, right....

Random Rambling Reader Replies:
Kim:
Thanks for adding me to your "Random" newsletter.  I'm impressed!  I never would have thought that you are so deep.  No, I take that back, I just have not had enough contact with you to remember how deep you are.  Person to play me in a movie would be Alyssa Milano and Top 5 movies: The Shinning, Matrix, As good as it gets, Princess Bride, Scooby Doo on Zombie Island.
kef:  Yeah, I know what's getting deep around here, and it's not me!

Ok, this wraps up another edition.  I hope you all enjoyed it and remember, if we were not meant to procrastinate, God would not have created infinity!

As always, certain portions will be edited from the version archived to my website, which is located at http://www.kefields.com/randramb.html