Should you be interested in what makes this guy so very happy, the translation is here.

Video shamelessly swiped from Coalition of the Swilling

The One has again asked Congress to increase the debt ceiling – this time by an additional $1.2 trillion. The previous debt ceiling of $15.2 trillion was exceeded nine days ago.

Clearly the administration’s incurring all this debt is “unpatriotic.” Those are his words, not mine.

I guess when it comes to vote-buying money, there’s just never enough.

He makes me sick.

As in past years, our Mostly Cajun friend regularly scours the “Births” section of the local Louisiana newspapers to see what people have been inflicting on naming their newborns. Each year, his readers get to vote on the “Name of the Year.” Here were the choices for 2011:

Makynle Joynce Renne
JaCeira LeiShi
KenDailyah dAriel
Javein Jovontaye
JaKyja SaMona
Phylahja Renee
NaMahnie Trenea
Nisar Demeare
Deonnie Darriele
Tanyria Lynae
DiAmon JaNai
Dzyiah DaShay
Kayleia Aurihanna
Cy’Ra Na’Sha, My’Ra Ja’Nai (twins)
Breezi Lei
Keyonnie Amayah LeShay
AlyJiah Andrellus
NaLainti Shanel Bethany

And the runaway winner was ….. [click]

You absolutely, positively cannot make this shit up.

Sunny hits another long ball.

Be sure to check out the House of Sunny.

I don’t watch television all that much, but since having gotten the bigass TV, I find myself watching more TV than I had in the past. One of the shows I admit to watching with some regularity is Storage Wars. For those unfamiliar with the show, it involves a half-dozen or so fairly dislikeable people bidding to purchase the contents of storage lockers that have been abandoned by the people who stored their stuff in the locker. The potential bidders are given five minutes to stand outside the locker and look in to examine the contents prior to bidding. No stuff-touching allowed.

Each of the regular six characters has a distinct TV persona, and the bidding, not surprisingly, is spirited and often is accompanied by stated plans by one character or another to drive up the bidding so that one of the other characters has to pay more for the locker’s contents than the bid driver-upper thinks it’s worth. This often leads to stare-downs and open hostilities that are about as believable as professional wrestling.

Still, I watch it. Apparently millions of others do as well. The show has an average viewership of 2.8 million per episode. So I ask myself, ”Yo, Jimbo. Why do you and so many others watch this rather silly and highly staged nonsense?”

I don’t know about the rest of the 2.8 million, but for my part, I have often wondered just what the heck people store in those lockers, which are quite common in this area. Curiosity? Just plain nosiness? Not much difference between the two, I suppose, when it comes to watching someone rummaging around in someone else’s stuff.

There is also the allure of a “mystery box.”

Remember “Let’s Make a Deal” when the contestant would be asked, “Do you want one-thousand dollars in cash or what’s behind Door Number Three?” The audience would invariably scream at the contestant, to choose Door Number Three. Hell, I would take Door Number Three.

The show has caused me to wonder about a couple things:

When a locker is opened and it is a ungodly mess filled with lots of personal stuff, such as old clothing, old shoes and other real crap, I wonder if the person who rented the locker and who was the previous owner of the stuff happens to be watching and how he/she feels about the characters picking through his/her stuff in front of 2.8 million people.

Sometimes, one or more of the lockers contains stuff that is actually worth a lot of money, which presumably would come as a surprise to the person who originally stored the stuff, otherwise why would he/she abandon the locker knowing its contents would be auctioned off?

Holy shit, Mabel! Look at the TV! Remember that old _______ [fill in the blank] we put in that storage locker? It’s worth twenty-thousand dollars! It was your idea to stop paying the rent on the damned locker!

By contrast, I have also seen episodes where some of the contents of a locker are obviously quite valuable (e.g. jewelry, three all-terrain vehicles), causing me to wonder why the locker was abandoned. Owner died? (The terms of the contract undoubtedly bind the estate.) Owner in jail? Owner on the lam?

I’m obviously over-thinking all of this.

Oh, I also have been watching Pawn Stars and American Pickers.

I think I need an intervention.

Go read.

It’s November or never, Peeps.

via Doug Ross

Just sitting here thinking about what I might write that is even remotely humorous or interesting. Nothing is forthcoming. I think I know why. My cruller is pre-occupied with dealing with what seems to be the daily assaults on this country by the corrupt, lawless, arrogant, socialist bastard who currently occupies the White House.

One day it’s recess appointments (while Congress is not in recess), which flagrantly violate the Constitution, and the next day it’s making cuts to the military that will put us up Shit Creek should we have to quickly put lots of boots on the ground. Presumably, he’ll use the money he takes from the military to fund more bullshit “green” businesses that will return the favor by way of campaign contributions.

I know I’ve said it before, but if this rogue is given four more years in office, game over.

The Drinking Lamp is lit at the House by the Parkway.

Good thing too, because it’s cold as hell tonight in the Garden State.

Lamp is a Christmas giftie from daughter and son-in-law

Dear Iowa Caucus Peeps:

I don’t mean to be offensive, as I’m sure you are all very nice peeps. Having said that, I really don’t give a rat’s ass what your precious caucuses (cauci?) think about any farookin’ thing.

Very truly yours,

A Guy from Jersey

Santa brought me the Ernie Kovacs Collection, and I have spent a good deal of time enjoying it on the bigass TV, beginning with his earliest shows from 1951 and 1952. Kovacs, one of TV’s pioneers, was way, way ahead of his time. There was nothing like Kovacs’ show on television at the time. He created hilarious characters and very often flew by the seat of his pants. For example, during one show, he walked out of the studio and strolled down the hall to get a drink of water from the water cooler. He returned to doing the show as if the interruption never happened. I gather he was thirsty, and it was live TV, so why not go get a drink? It worked.

I only recently learned that Kovacs was from Trenton, New Jersey, and that he died in 1962 around the time of his 43rd birthday when the Chevy Corvair he was driving spun out of control and hit a telephone pole. You can see a photo of the car here. I can only imagine where he would have taken television had he not died so young.

I knew that he was married to Edie Adams, an extremely attractive woman who appeared regularly on the show (in the early days, he referred to her on the show as “Edith”). What I did not realize was that Edie Adams was a classically trained singer, as is evident from her performances in the 1951-1952 discs. She graduated from Juilliard and then the Columbia School of Drama. I’m sorry to say that I remember her best for singing cigar commercials. She passed away in 2008, but she was single handedly responsible for assembling the material that appears in the collection. She rescued (i.e. bought) the material from the networks before they discarded all of the old kinescopes and taped game shows over all the video tapes of Kovacs’ later shows).

If you are old enough to remember Ernie Kovacs, or if you have an interest in early television, I believe you would enjoy the collection.