My World Has Gotten Bigger

 I just discovered that Sleeps Til Noon is being read in 29 different countries around the world, so I would just like to say HELLO HONG KONG!…. I am completely blown away by this fact.  When I started this little venture a few months ago, I thought it might get read by a few friends and family members. That’s pretty much who I think of when I bang something out every few days but now I get it, I have a wider audience and that’s exciting.  I would love it if you would comment at the end of this post so I can get to know you better.

This all began back at the first of the year when I was trying to finish up my second novel and had already started on a third when I kinda got stuck.  My lovely and extremely creative wife, who by the way is the real writer in this family, writes a newsletter at www.energizieyourcreativity.com.  She has killer stuff in it every week. 

Anyway she said, “Would you like to try blogging?” and I said, “No.”  And she said, “Why not?” and I told her that I didn’t like the music, that the shoes were really stupid and I thought people jumping around like their feet were on fire was dumb.  She said, “That’s clogging.”  

So I thought I would give it a try.  I told Diana that I thought I would call it “That Little Ole Blog from Texas.”  She said that was dumb and asked me if I was ZZ Top?  I said, “No”.  Then she asked if I was going to write about ZZ Top and I said, “No”.  So she said, “Well, there you go.  You need to call it something that fits you, a name that says something about you.”   So here we are with Sleeps Til Noon.

It really does fit because I do like to sleep late when I can and my lovely wife lets me.  Also it fits my anti-authority state of mind to a zzzzz.

Back to why I started this little ramble in the first place.  I just want to thank everyone, everywhere who takes the time to read my ramblings and musings every week.  I want you to know that I really appreciate it.  I hope that I can make your day a little better, make you chuckle or smile ever so often and that maybe every once in a while I can get you to think of something just a little bit differently.  I will keep poking fun at, ridiculing those who need ridiculing and pointing out some of the dumber things in our world if you will keep reading and laughing.


Since this entire post is a shameless self-serving plug for Diana and myself, my good read for today is SURGE by Rod Tanner.  It is thriller about a Category 5 hurricane hitting the Houston/Galveston area. It was published the year before Rita or Katrina hit.




Stay tuned for future adventures and remember there is always more Sleeps Til Noon stuff at www.hotslop.com






  

TSA....Touching Sensitive Areas

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said on Monday that TSA procedures would continue to evolve.   I don’t know if I like the sound of that.  You know what your parents always told you what light petting would lead to.

I believe the TSA is the only place where being a convicted sex offender could be plus for getting a job.

TSA is working on a new plan to make the screening process more tolerable but I’m afraid taking everyone out to dinner before the pat-down is really going to slow things to a crawl.

Actually I’m hearing what is really slowing the line down is the cigarette break after the pat-down.
                  
Not everybody is upset with the TSA.  A number of people in line said they weren’t going anywhere.  They were just there for the pat-downs…
                  
Here is a headline that caught my eye.  Has Dancing With The Stars lost it’s credibility?  What credibility?  The real question is “Why do they have judges?”.

I guess the Pope wanted a little spotlight time.  At first he said that male prostitutes using condoms would be alright and then a couple of days later he amended it to include women prostitutes.  I understand Mother Superior worked him over pretty good with her wooden ruler.  I think she rapped him pretty good on his,..uh, er …knuckles.

The FBI raided three hedge funds on Monday in what could turn out to be one of the largest insider trading probes ever, according to news reports.  They say this is a trillion dollar industry.  I had no idea the landscaping business was that big.

Here is a quote by Sarah Palin during an interview with Glen Beck, “Obviously we gotta stand with our North Korean allies."   Yeah this is someone you want running the country.   I’m pretty sure she thinks that Rio De Janeiro is in North America and Columbia is a city in Ohio.

Vince Young is living up to his name.  He is certainly acting like a kid.  This week after the blow-up with Coach Jeff Fisher of the Tennessee Titians he said, “I want to go to the Super Bowl. That's it.”  Well he needs to get down to the ticket office and buy him one.  That’s the only way he’ll be there.

I see where Rush (I may have a tiny brain but I make up for it with my big mouth) Limbaugh is pissed off that Motor Trend Magazine named GM’s Volt the car of the year.  I thought it was kinda nice having an American made car make the grade.  I guess Rush has all his stock money tied up in Mercedes or some other foreign manufacture.

It looks like Tom DeLay will be re-districting from Sugar Land to Huntsville.






Stay tuned for future adventures and remember, more Sleeps Til Noon stuff at www.hotslop.com

Not The Day To Be A Turkey

Supposedly the first Thanksgiving was held in 1621 but for some reason we only celebrated it a couple of times over the next 242 years.  Then Sarah Josepha Hale, a magazine editor, who spent 40 years writing editorials and letters championing a national day of Thanksgiving, finally saw her obsession become a reality when President Lincoln in 1863 proclaimed the last Thursday in November as a national holiday.

I’m assuming during the 242 years that they didn’t celebrate Thanksgiving was because they didn’t have much to be thankful for.  They didn’t have a microwave, so I don’t see how they could have had Thanksgiving dinner anyway and there was no TV to watch football.   Even the day after Thanksgiving was a drag because there were no retail stores to go shop til you drop.  People didn't have jobs, so they didn't even get the day off.
    
I don’t know how they discovered any new territory, after all their wagon trains didn’t have a GPS.  I’m not even sure why they went west, they didn’t have Rush or Glen to tell them which direction the country should go.  And why discover new territory anyway? They couldn’t tweet anybody to tell them how cool it was or what the natives were wearing that year.

Of course in my warped little brain, I look back and think they had a lot to be thankful for.  Hey, they had no computers, cell phones, automobiles, television, movies, fast food, airplanes, microwaves, Sarah Palin, Rush Limebaugh, Glen Beck, The Tea Party, Republicans, Democrats, The Taliban, Randy and Eve Quaid, al-Qaeda, red-light cameras, traffic jams, dependency on oil, airport security pat-downs, rap music or text messaging. 

Stay tuned for future adventures and I hope everyone has a Happy Thanksgiving.  It could be a little bleak around here.  I just found out that our favorite pizza place is going to be closed. Damn….Remember more Sleeps Til Noon stuff at www.hotslop.com

Stuff This

I’m not sure where the origin of Black Friday came from.  The only Black Friday I can think of was Robinson Crusoe’s buddy.  Anyway I thought this might be appropriate since we are coming up on Black Friday to start the shopping frenzy portion of the year.  I don’t know if you have ever heard Delbert McClinton’s song, “Too Much Stuff” or listened to George Carlin’s great monologue on “Stuff” but we Americans have more Stuff than anyone on the planet.

We have so much stuff, we don’t have room to keep all of it at home.  We have to rent places, known as self-storage, simply to keep our stuff. To give you an example, America now has over 40,000 self-storage sites.  All of Europe has only 1350 sites and Mexico just has 250 places to store their stuff.  I think they put a lot of their stuff in jalapenos.  

Of course we have all of this stuff because we keep buying more of it.  The reason we keep buying more stuff is that our economy depends on it.  If we don’t buy more stuff, businesses will go out of business and people will lose their jobs.  And, if there is nobody making stuff, then there is no stuff for us to buy; but since we don’t have a job we don’t have the money to buy more stuff anyway.  If this seems like a never ending loop; it is.  And if this seems depressing; it is.

I’m not sure exactly how we got here, but I have an idea.  The Indians who were the original Americans didn’t seem to have a lot of stuff and neither did the Pilgrims that came over and evicted them.  In fact for hundreds of years, most people didn’t have a lot of stuff.  You just had what you needed to get by on.  Somewhere along the line, we started buying more stuff.

The change seems to have started with the advent of advertising.  You know Christmas wasn’t really a big deal for thousands of years until the first advertising people convinced the retailers what a great time it was for selling us more stuff.  

Since then the advertising world has convinced us, (John Q. Public), that we are too fat, too skinny, too ugly, too poor, too bored, and just plain not good enough the way we are.  That what we needed was stuff.  Stuff to makes us happier, prettier, richer, and better than the next person.  So now we are bombarded everyday on the TV, radio, newspapers, the Internet or as we are driving down the highway about more stuff we need to buy. 

I’m not sure how we break the stuff cycle but we might try by asking ourselves one question.  When do we have enough stuff?



 Stay tuned for future adventures and for more Sleeps Til Noon stuff, check www.hotslop.com

The Same Ole News

When Rep. Charles Rangel spoke before the House Ethics Committee yesterday, he kept saying, “I’m not a crook.”  Didn’t someone else say that?  Sounds familiar…..He also said, “I didn’t try to hide anything.”  Well hell, no wonder he got caught….

Have you noticed how under the radar Tom DeLay’s money laundering trial is?  Did you even know it was going on?  That’s because nobody gives a shit about Tom DeLay anymore.

A gay couple got married on a plane while flying over Canada where gay marriage is legal.  Pat Robertson said he was shocked…..He couldn’t believe that God hadn’t struck the plane down.
                                             
Lisa Murkowski's has won the Alaska election for Senator as a write-in candidate.  Sounds to me like the TLC producers screwed up, maybe it should be Lisa Murkowski’s Alaska

Here is a little Christmas present for everybody that is unemployed. Republicans in the House have blocked a bill that would have extended jobless benefits for the long-term unemployed beyond the holiday season.  I guess there are no unemployed Republicans. Isn’t that nice? Could it be that the G in GOP stands for Grinch?

Two former longtime employees at Bernard Madoff's firm were arrested on Thursday in connection with the investigation into the now-imprisoned swindler's Ponzi scheme, the FBI said.  What?.....Bernie didn’t pull off the 65 Billion dollar scheme all by himself.  I sure didn’t see this one coming.

I feel bad for all those folks in Haiti.  No wonder they call it Haiti.

In 1867 when Congress approved of the purchase of the territory that is now known as Alaska, the Republicans were against it.  They said it contained nothing of value but furbearing animals, and these had been hunted until they were nearly extinct.  Wow, sounds like Sarah Palin’s Alaska to me.


The TV show Medium just got canceled.  The star of the show is a psychic who works for the Phoenix police department.  You would have thought she would have seen this coming.


Today's good read is Fly By Wire by Ward Larsen. A well written story with a twist on a terrorist attack on the US. 



Stay tuned for future adventures and see more Sleeps Til Noon at www.hotslop.com

Extra, Extra, Read All About It

I just want to point out to all the folks who were so excited about the big change voted in the election a few weeks ago that the same four people, Boehner, Pelosi, McConnell, and Reid will still be running Congress.

Sarah Palin’s Alaska.  The TV show about the woman who loves Alaska so much she quit in the middle of her term as Governor.

When a reporter asked Sarah Palin about her reading habits, she snapped, “I’ve been reading since I was a little girl.”  Unfortunately it’s the same book, Alice in Wonderland.  She says liked the tea party.

When it comes to being un-ethical Rep. Chales Rangel is proof that the Democrats can stand toe to toe with the Republicans.

I’m not sure why the critics are so up in arms about the airport X-ray scanners.  There is not a single incident where Superman’s X-ray vision ever killed anyone.

News headline on MSNBC.  Are you a GPS Addict?  It may be eroding your brain.  Did MSNBC hire the guy who writes The National Enquirer headlines?

I see where the Tea Party is pressuring the GOP to get behind the ban on earmarks. I’m not sure where this is coming from.  I checked and other than the few women in Congress, there is not a single Senator or Representative wearing ear rings.  So far the Tea Party has made no comment on tattoos or nipple piercing.

A World War II military-style airplane has crash landed in upstate New York, and the pilot is injured. The plane, a 1940 Aeronca L-3, is considered a light observation aircraft and was used to support ground forces and direct artillery fire on enemy troops in World War II.  I know we have been re-deploying soldiers for longer assignments since the Iraq war began but this is ridiculous.  I think this guy has done enough.

I saw a news story where The Rev. Cedric Miller, the leader of Living World Christian Fellowship Church in Neptune, NJ, has told his congregation to give up Facebook because it causes infidelity.   I am pretty sure there was a typo in the story.  I believe the Reverend is from the planet Neptune.

 Texas governor Rick Perry, elected this month to a third term, said in a recent interview with Newsweek that the Troubled Asset Relief Program, used to fund GM, was a mistake.  Let’s see, GM earned $5 billion in the first nine months of 2010 and is on track for its first full-year profit since 2004 and their IPO will be the biggest ever on Wall Street.  It should raise around 22.7 billion.  Yeah buddy, here is a guy who knows what he is doing.  No wonder Texas is the 9th poorest state in the United States.


Stay tuned for future adventures and see more Sleeps Til Noon at www.hotslop.com
                                              

A Letter To The Editor From The Tea Party

Here in Houston we have red light cameras. These are cameras that take your picture when you run a red light and then you receive the ticket in mail.  I might add there is no mention of red light cameras anywhere in the Constitution.  The fine folks here have voted to turn the red light cameras off, which is only a small step in the right direction.  I say turn off the red lights.  

Why does the city have the right to prevent me from driving down to the local pub for a cold one as fast as I can? I could make it in half the time if I didn’t have to stop for those pesky red lights.  And especially on the way back home when I really need to make up time because I have lied my ass off about when I would be returning. My new cute little secretary wanted just one more for the road

Besides after 10 or 12 beers it’s hard to concentrate on everything while your driving, like red lights, stop signs, buses, trains, other cars, people walking or jogging and especially those peasants on bicycles (if you can’t afford a car, then you need to go back to your own country).   It’s hard enough trying to remember where you live without all those distractions.

While we are at it, we need to turn off all those TV and radio programs except for Rush, Glen, and Fox News so we can only hear the truth; not all that blathering about fair play and how much money we wasted on uncalled-for-wars.  While we are turning everything off, could we please include that terrible talk about our wonderful Wall Street bankers; these guys are the backbone of the country.  They are always looking out for the common folk. Some of them have even taken a cut in their bonuses.  Well, they talked about maybe doing that.  I guess they turned that idea off.

If we would just turn off the red lights, give everyone a gun, quit paying any taxes, disband Congress and let Wall Street make the laws, we could really be the home of the brain dead and land of the free ride.