More Active Posts
Front Page
Rants! & Raves! 5.2
 |
 21 Comments |
Here it is, Rants! & Raves!, your weekly chance to sound off about the week past. Remember the rules:
1. A Rave! is something that happened during the past week that you’re pleased about and is signified by the word “Rave!” and/or an appropriately peppy emoticon.
2 A Rant! is something that happened during the past week that you’re ticked about and is signified by the word “Rant!” and/or an appropriately grumpy emoticon.
3. You may Rant! about something a person said, did or wrote, but you may not Rant! about generally disliking a person.
Have fun!
 |
Topic: WorldMagBlog |  |
Email a friend |
 |
Keywords: |  |
RSS 2.0 |
 |
You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed. |  |
Share this: |
Off-key
Rant:
WordPress is awful. You should fix it.
It logs you out for no good reason just as you are trying to post. And then of course it gives you a stupid note telling you that you must be logged in. (No kidding, you malevolent, imbecilic piece of software!)
It swallows your posts which don’t show up for quite some time, resulting in multiple posts. Then when you’ve done all you can do to make the post “stick” it gives you a nasty note telling you to “slow down, you post too much”. Grrrr…
Rave:
Other than that, things are great!
Rave: Thank you all for the good wishes on Wednesday.
Rant:That I was unable to get back here any sooner to say thanks.
Rave:Garden remodeling started yesterday.
Rant:Rain moved in last night which will delay the completion of the afore-mentioned garden remodeling.
This is the day which the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.
HILLARY IS COMING TO HENDERSONVILLE!
I want to ask Hillary about her stance on stop lights vs 4-way stop signs. It’s a big issue and none of the candidates seem willing to touch it.
(Chas, ask her, please. Then suggest that, either way, we go green on the issue. Thank you.)
Rave–We live in a country so free even illegal immigrants can publically protest.
Rant–Said immigrants in San Diego county were carrying the wrong flag and chose May Day of all days for their protest. Sybolism means something, wish these folks would think about it.
Sheesh, and I’m pretty liberal on immigration.
Chas, LOL
Rant: Folks like Chas, bitterly clinging to their stop signs and traffic lights.
Rave: On my fantasy baseball team, I managed to pick up the young pitcher Max Scherzer of the Diamondbacks off waivers. Maybe he can help me crawl out of 8th place. I am rather proud of my clever team name, btw: the Cawdor Thanes!
Rave: Dentists. Specifically, old-style dentists.
It used to be (many decades ago when I was a kid) that dentists were REAL dentists. I mean, you KNEW what you were getting into when you went to a dentist: Pain, Suffering, Discomfort – it was understood and EXPECTED, for crying out loud (which you also expected to do).
No sir. There was NOTHING namby-pamby about dentists back then. As soon as you walked in, you would immediately be put into the Dental Chair, an insanely complicated and enormous chair that looked suspiciously like the electric chair they had down at the State Penitentiary.
And then some beefy ex-con dentist ‘assistant’ with a broken nose would strap you securely down into the chair. Sometimes, if they were feeling particularly nasty, they would even use their feet to tighten the straps on you, until your eyeballs would bulge from their sockets and your tongue would protrude from your mouth.
Finally, after an appropriate interval of contemplative terror, the DENTIST would come into the room. You could ALWAYS tell who the DENTIST was because he had bloodstains and gore all over the front of his dirty white laboratory smock and an enormous light-bulb apparatus was strapped on his head, so that he looked like a one-eyed Cyclopean monster.
The dentist would fuss about with his various sharp steel instruments, examining them and rearranging them to provide maximum visibility to you, while you watched in a complete paralysis of fear and mounting dread. There was no chit-chat – just the dentist softly hissing under his breath and looking at you occasionally out of red-rimmed shifting eyes, and the strangely eager, ragged animal breathing of the goon attendant behind your chair somewhere.
A REAL dentist in those halcyon days of medicine knew EXACTLY how to produce the maximum anticipation of eminent and extreme pain in a patient, and could do it without a word. They were professionals, artists even, in the true sense of the word.
And, then, of course, in one swift predatory swooping movement, the dentist would snap on his great forehead light, utterly blinding you and causing you to open your mouth to scream. This was part of the plan, because he would instantly jam a sort of metal bridle thing into your opened mouth and proceed to vigorously knock it into place using a twenty pound sledge hammer, usually employed to drive railroad spikes.
Then he would get down to his business, yanking and digging and prying and drilling and sawing and hammering. There would be a LOT of blood, of course, and screaming and writhing. If the dentist was REALLY competent, you would even PASS OUT (you would KNOW then – or rather you would know when you woke up – that the guy was REALLY good).
And when finally you staggered forth from the Dentist office with your entire face unrecognizable, swollen up to the size of a jumbo cantaloupe, with cheeks all puffed up and bloody wadding jammed into every crevice in your face, why you would KNOW then that you had been to a REAL dentist and you that you had, by jingoes, gotten your money’s worth.
Rant: Dentists. Specifically, MODERN dentists.
Well, this week, for the first time in many decades, I went to a dentist. My wife pestered me until finally I agreed to go. You must understand that I don’t have ANYTHING functionally wrong with my teeth – never had a cavity in my life, actually, at least in my teeth. But I am a tractable and easy-going man and in the interest of marital harmony and a continuing steady supply of apple-cinnamon muffins, I agreed to go.
So, I get to this Dentist’s office and I am getting myself all geared up for some good old-fashioned Pain and Suffering and Discomfort. I am feeling almost nostalgic about it.
Well, when I get into the waiting room, there are these soft chairs and magazine racks and soothing elevator music. I manage to justify THAT as maybe part of the refinements in modern dentistry in maximizing the eventual horror of the experience. I confidently assume that there have UNDOUBTEDLY been some advances in the psychological sciences of enhancing terror and that this is probably just the hallmark of an up-to-date dentist.
But then these things happened that I am still in COMPLETE shock over. First, some soft-looking pretty little thing with blonde hair and a sweet voice shows me into this sort of counseling room, with soft –yellow lamps in the corners, living-room style furniture, a pitcher of ice water and glasses on the table, and framed pictures of sailboats and little kids chasing balloons on the walls and all sort of nonsense that do NOT belong in a DENTIST office AT ALL.
And then - the DENTIST comes in. I KNOW it is the dentist because the soft-looking pretty little blonde sweetly tells me that it is the dentist.
Well, the FIRST thing I notice about him is that he doesn’t have a SPECK of blood or gore on him. And he doesn’t have a SINGLE sharp instrument on him that I can tell, unless he has one hidden that he plans on whipping out when I am unwary. He is not even dressed in a white dentist coat. In fact, he looks like some sort of namby-pamby BANKER or something, out to sell me a mortgage.
So this ‘dentist’ sits down across from me in a big easy chair, crosses his legs, and smiles reassuringly at me.
“Hi.” He says.
I stare at him suspiciously. Dentists don’t say ‘Hi’, in MY experience. They MIGHT growl ‘OPEN’, if they are in a good mood. But NOT ‘Hi’.
“This” he says, “is a Preliminary Counseling Session we have with all our new Associates. The purpose of this session is to make sure that we (you and I and your teeth) develop a bond of friendship and . . . well, just get to know each other a bit, before we go further – to develop, as it were, the psychology of your teeth.”
Well, my head is whirling and my jaw is banging on my chest like an out-of-control jackhammer; I am trying to make myself WAKE UP, but it does not work.
“After we CHAT for a while and I take some notes and answer any questions or concerns you might have, you can then go back out and schedule a regular appointment later this month or next month and we will then take a look at those teeth, and come up with a Harmonious Dental Program.”
I am trying to speak but my voice fails me and all that emerges is a sort of inarticulate groan, and my brain is seizing up, like a car engine run without oil.
“Now, Mr. Drill,” he says pleasantly, “ARE YOUR TEETH HAPPY?” (Emphasis mine). (I am NOT making this up, people.)
Well, this is when I FLED, bowling over the soft-looking pretty little blonde in the office and running over a guy with purple hair and gold chains and pants down around his ankles in the waiting room. I did not look back or hit the brakes until I fish-tailed my pickup truck into the pole barn at home.
Anyway, what has HAPPENED to dentistry, for Pete’s sake?
Regardless, I will continue to brush my teeth with a jack plane and floss with barbed wire. If that was good enough for my Dad and Grand-Dad, then it is good enough for me.
Modern dentistry can just go to the blazes.
Rave: getting to read Drill’s posts
Rave: work scheduled to come in, enough to fill May
Rant: said work all procrastinating at the same time, when I’m ready for it
Rant: speaking of procrastinating, today I get to spend the whole day cleaning house
Rave: It’s spring, it’s spring, it’s spring, and since I mowed yesterday, I don’t have to do that again for another week
Rave: Tuesday I spent the day calling people I love who are overdue for a phone call from me, and experienced (and gave) much encouragement
Rave: After numerous unsuccessful attempts at reaching my last living uncle, I finally got him on the phone, and found out that he had a major accident in December, and should have died–but he managed to outdo medical expectations that he’d never get out of the wheelchair, and today is walking without a cane. (He’s a month younger than my mom lived to be, and thus at the far edge of our family life expectancy; I’m so glad God spared him!)
Rave: good friends, good books, good health, a good dog, and good chocolate–God’s blessings are new every morning, even the “old” ones
Rave: Grandchildren
Rant: My bride faces thyroid surgery next week; praying it is not cancerous.
Rave: CHAS’ question for Hillary - about as substantive as the MSM questions!
Rant: TJ’s baseball team in 8th place. Hey TJ, you gotta love my D’Backs - best in all of baseball so far!
Ivan, just keep the young gun Scherzer out of trouble. Don’t let him near any 15 year old country music singers or golfer’s wives. OTOH, that seemed to work out well for a certain other pitcher…
I don’t think you’ll need to worry much about your D-Backs. The pitching looks pretty solid now (and Webb is virtually unhittable) and the team has enough talented youngsters to keep them good for some time to come (Upton looks like an emerging star). It says a lot about the quality of a team when Randy Johnson is your #4 starter!
Funny my rant concerns dentistry. I got invited to an actual adult get together for Monday at lunch and I can’t go because my son has a dentist appoint at one o’clock forty minutes from the party site.
Oh, I almost forgot:
Rave: After a terrible start, the Tigers are almost back to .500. And they just completed a sweep over the Yankees (in NY)! Plus, the Devil Rays are in a tie for first place in their division! That’s the great thing about April (albeit now May) baseball — everybody’s still in it!
Rant: The Braves have lost 4 in a row, and John Smoltz is on the DL with a bad shoulder. When he returns, he be the closer, but that presents SP problems for the Bravos.
Re: Three Cups of Tea- I agree, Michelle. The content was fascinating, but the writing was laborious to read.
Rave:
I told you so…
Drill is actually Dave Berry, and he comes here to crack us all up:
This is the evidence:
“(I am NOT making this up, people.)”
That’s what Dave “I’m not making this up” Berry says all the time!
I’m on to ya Drill…
I really do hope someone is recording Drill’s hilarious posts for posterity.
Rave: It’s my birthday!
)
Rant: The weather is not cooperating (there is even a forecasted chance of snow tomorrow
Rave: I don’t mind!
Some of you were making fun of my question to Hillary. But Ivan has it right. It is as relevant as most of the MSM. I can hear Larry King now:
What are you going to do about the economy?
A: Raise taxes and the minimum wage.
What are you going to do about the war in Iraq?
A: Get out and let them have at it themselves. VietNam survived didn’t it? After a few thousand boat people and reeducation camps, things settled down.
What are you going to do about energy?
A: Conserve. Everybody walks, it’s good exercise.
What are you going to do about Bill?
A: Bill who?
Rave- I can finally work outside.
I get to golf tomorrow.
Chas gets to ask Hillary real questions.
Rant: Chas won’t get real answers.
My brother just sent pictures from Eastern Montana. They had 24 inches of heavy wet snow.
Rant: No Electricity and wires down, can’t take care of livestock.
Rave: They need the moisture.
Adios #5: I think the organizers of the “immigrants rights” demonstrations did think about the significance of May 1st when they set their scheduled, that’s why they choose it. I didn’t watch the coverage because it’s always the same, but I’ll bet there were signs carrying the signature of A.N.S.W.E.R. and other anti-American groups.