Damn the Rain

I'm sure just about everyone got caught in the lovely monsoon that we had this afternoon. Trying to drive through East Peoria to get home was interesting to say the least with the streets being flooded because the drainage couldn't keep up. Well I finally make it home and walk into the house. The front stairs are wet from all the driving rain and I didn't think much of it because I'm still wearing my work boots. I release the hounds from their torment of loneliness and have to drag them out into the pouring rain so they can relieve themselves. After 10 minutes of standing in the downpour, I bring them back in and dry them off. (Let me say this, Maggie HATES being dried off. She much rather shake herself dry or lay on the bed and get the bedding soaked then deal with a towel. When she sees the towel coming at her you better be ready for a tug of war match.) Today though was different. I didn't have to fight with either dog to get them dried off as much as I could.
Well a couple of hours later they needed to go outside again. I figure that it won't be that bad since the rain stopped. So I hook them both up and out the door we go. As they go trotting off to do their business, I realize that my loving girlfriend will be home soon. So as I drag them both back into the house and get them unhooked to run around, I figure I will go get the mail. Now keep in mind I'm home, alone, with just the two dogs. No other being with opposable thumbs that can dial 911 in case something were to happen. So as I step back out the door and go to head down the soaked wooden stairs, I catch the edge of the top stair with the sandals I'm wearing and slip. Usually when something like this happens to a person, it feels like it takes forever to hit the ground. Not this time. I didn't even have enough time to start saying "Oh Shit!" and I was already on the ground. So there I am sitting on the wet ground, in pain, with both dogs whining and scratching at the door freaking out because they both saw what just happened to me. After a couple of minutes of sitting there making sure I can move my arms, legs, fingers, toes as well as being able to breath without severe pain I dig the cell phone out of my pocket. Am I calling 911? Hell no! I'm not that damn smart. I send a text message to the loving girlfriend trying to find out how long before she gets home. As I pull myself to my feet(a little wobbly but not bad) my phone goes off. Ahh the girlfriend responding.(too much pain to pull the phone out of my pocket much less respond) As I stand there trying to hold myself up, here she comes. She pulls up and asks something. Honestly even now I don't remember what she asked me. I told her that I fell. This in turn gets met with "Aww poor baby fall down go boom?" Then she sees my arm. The jokes stopped after that.

Here's a picture of my arm 3 hours afterwards. (There's a bruise on my back from where I hit the bottom step, but I'm going to be nice and not subject anyone to any torture like that. Just a picture of the arm is bad enough.)




I have to say the one thing that was funny about this little slip was that when I hit the ground, my right sandal came off my foot and landed about 10 feet away from me in the middle of the yard.
Needless to say as I get ready for bed, my arm hurts like hell, my back hurts like hell, and my ego's a little sore as well. The true pisser of the entire thing is that when I finally made it safely out to the mail box, there was no mail at all. For that much pain I'd at least take a bill, late notice or something. Well there's always tomorrow.

It's how much now?

Now I know I'm not the first, and surely wont be the last, to bitch about the cost of a gallon of gas. But over the past couple of days it seems some of the gas stations and even the cities themselves dont know what to put the cost at. On Tuesday I knew that heading into work in the morning that I needed to get gas. Everyone had raised their prices up $3.67 or higher for a gallon the night before. In my runnings I noticed that a few stations in Morton still had their prices at $3.55. Glance at the clock. 12:55. Damn. By the time I get back up here after work I'm sure that the price will go up. Well by the time the end of my work day arrives and I make it back to the gas station, the price is still $3.55. Woo hoo (yeah I know I saved 12 cents a gallon but had to drive a little out of my way to get it, but still now a days every little bit helps)
I drive thru East Peoria down by the riverfront everyday. Huck's seems to have become confused as to what they are setting the price of gas at. Yesterday they changed the price not once, or twice. But three different times within an eight hour span. And that was just what I saw. Who knows how many more times it changed. At the start of the day it started out at $3.67. Around noon I happened to look at it again and they dropped it to $3.55. Sweet the price is coming down. Later in the afternoon I glanced at it and they raised it back up to $3.66. What the fuck? Are they on crack? I thought it was just a one day thing. Nope. This morning their starting price was back at $3.67. Once again around noon the price was back at $3.55. Here we go again. I didn't even look this afternoon. Damn my head hurts. I realize that the dirty SOB's that run the country and the ones that manage the gas taxes here in the Central Illinois area have to get their cut. But for fuck sakes, pull your heads out your asses and set the damn price and leave it. The way things are going, people will have to take out a high interest loan just to buy a gallon of milk and a loaf of bread.

Something new becomes something old?

I have to say that there is something funny, sad, and just down right eerie about celebrities wanting to boost their popularity. To me there's no other way I could describe it. What am I talking about? Celebrity sex tapes. I know it sounds crazy, but if you think about it, when people that are dead that have been deceased for 30+ years and tapes are "discovered" about their sexual exploits, it seems a little strange.
Lets go back in time a little to 1988. There was a tape "leaked" to the press that a young actor named Rob Lowe video taped a sexual encounter with a young female. Now granted, she was under age and he made a HUGE mistake engaging in something like that with a minor, but did it actually hurt his career? Yes he made movies like Wayne's World, Illegally Yours, and The Finest Hour. But I guess it was his way to getting his life back on track. With the release of Tommy Boy in 1995, he has had alot of above average success over the past 20 years.
Now we'll fast forward a few years to 1994. A R&B singer by the name of R Kelly gets himself into a little trouble by marrying a 15 year old singer by the name of Aaliyah. There was, and I'm sure still is alot of scrutiny over their marriage. At the start of 1995, the marriage was annulled. Needless to say alot of singers would try their best to disappear after something like that. But not R Kelly. In 2002, there was a tape found of him with a then 14 year old girl doing things that only two adults should be doing. And I'm not talking about balancing a checkbook. To me the thing that got him in the most trouble was the fact that on part of the tape, it shows him "urinating on the young girl." After not one but two major uh-oh's, did this stop him from making music? Not even close. Not only is he still making music, but some of the albums that he has made over the past 6 years are some of the tops sellers of the year.
Now granted both of them went the entirely wrong way about getting publicity for themselves. And neither of them are out of the woods yet. Rob Lowe is now in a battle with his former nanny about sexual abuse. And R Kelly is still going thru the legal system with the 2002 incident. But alas they were still ones to start what seems to be the craze of sex tape naughtiness. Now you have anyone from Pam and Tommy, Paris Hilton, Brett Michaels, Vince Neil, Dennis Rodman, to even Joanie Laurer aka Chyna (scary) making and releasing sex tapes. Well in the last couple weeks there have been 2 more celebs that have new sex tapes out. And the names are a little startling. Marilyn Monroe and Jimi Hendrix.
A few weeks ago one radio station reported that there was a tape that was sold at an auction of Marilyn Monroe engaged in fellatio with a man. His face is claimed to be just out of the camera angle so nobody knows who he is. The tape was sold for $1.5 million to a private collector. It was once in the hands of long ago director of the FBI J. Edgar Hoover. Wonder why he had it stashed away for 40+ years.
Yesterday on the same radio station, it was reported that a new tape starring Jimi Hendrix will be for sale soon. They even have a website already up for it. I'm not going to put the link for it up, but if you search the internet for it enough you can find it. When I got home yesterday I had to take a look at the website to see if it was for real. And let me tell you, it was a little disturbing. At part of the of the preview, it shows 2 women in the middle of a sexual act and he's laying there either asleep or passed out. I'm not going to lie about it, there is a little bit of morbid curiosity in me that wants to see the tape. Don't ask as to why, but I just do.
It looks like famous people will do just about anything to keep their names in the headlines.