A new member of the family...

I thought everyone might enjoy a picture of my new baby. Now all I need to find are some loose pigs to smoke. If you stop by next weekend we'll be having ribs, brisket, turkey, chicken and armadillo. No possum, sorry Don.

This Week in Tanka...

Roger Clemens boy,
Is playing ball in Greenville.
Texas, Tennessee.
Astros whupped Washington.
Today is Bob Dole's birthday!

Here's today's "Sheeps"

West Yellowstone Crime Log

As usual, there was a lot of criminal activity in West Yellowstone last week. Here are a few of the highlights....

"The same Hayden Street caller from the day before reported this time that her husband had shot her in the head, and then pulled the bullet out with a pair of pliers. She did not give her address. The woman was eventually arrested for disorderly conduct." (I bet that hurt).

"Police were informed that two tour guide vans had been vandalized. In one case a can of clams had been thrown all over the vehicle's windshield." (Oh, the attack of the clam throwers!)

"A gentleman found a neighbor's dog that had wandered off, and tied it up. He tried to call the owner but couldn't reach her. The dog's name was "Hey You." (The owners name was "Hey Mister")

A woman was suffering from inflamed ant bites. She was from Texas. (Naturally...)

The whole report can be found here.

Soccer is Popular in Texas!

And who said soccer would never be a mainstream sport in the US?! Here's proof of it's growing popularity in Texas! An excerpt from today's Houston Chronicle...

"TYLER — At least four people were injured Sunday in a brawl involving two adult soccer teams and spectators at a Tyler park. Authorities said one man was cut with a beer bottle and another was beaten with a baseball bat.

Witnesses said the fight, which involved nearly 100 people, started while a Tyler team called Real Madrid was accepting a championship trophy. Real Madrid member Junior Perez said the situation erupted after a teenage girl began arguing with two older women.

Carlos Perez, another Real Madrid player, said members from the losing Alcones team retrieved five aluminum bats from their cars and began striking other vehicles during the brawl.

Tyler Police Sgt. Robert Plymail said the man who was cut with the beer bottle drove a pickup truck into a sport utility vehicle. Plymail said he will be charged with reckless driving."

It continued from there....

Roger's Boy Coming to TN

From an Astros press release today...

"The Houston Astros announced today that they have agreed to terms with infielder Koby Clemens, the club's eighth-round selection and 254th pick overall in the 2005 Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft and the son of ace Roger Clemens. Koby Clemens will begin his professional career with the Greeneville Astros, the organization's Rookie League affiliate in Greeneville, Tenn., where he is expected to play third base.

Clemens batted .523 (56x107) with 10 home runs, 14 doubles, a triple and 55 RBI for Memorial (TX) High School this year. He posted a .953 slugging percentage and .617 on-base percentage, scoring 39 runs and stealing five bases. On the mound, he finished 8-3 with a 3.17 ERA and 86 strikeouts, holding opposing batters to a .203 average. He tossed three no-hitters and four complete games, and Clemens was named the Most Valuable Player for District 18-5A. "

Please be kind to Rogers' boy. He's a good kid.

Typical Texas subdivision driveway.

News From The West...

On this here day, in 1881, outlaw Billy the Kid, was shot and killed by Sheriff Pat Garrett in Fort Sumner, N.M.

This has been your important news flash from the wild west today.

Look for me on TV

Today's a big day around here at my worksite. We're hoping to get back in the saddle again. There's a real muted buzz, or maybe that's just my medicine talking. Here's hoping for good weather in Florida.

I'll be watching the activity in our big auditorium on big screen with big sound. Usually the media hangs on outside the doors to get a reaction. I'll be the guy in the background in the suit....

Drugs Work

Better living through chemicals as they say. The pharms seem to be kicking in and I'm feeling better.

Much better I'm sure than the two kids who had to ride in the trunk of the car from Alabama to Virginia. Police are arresting this woman who was taking five kids to her ex-husbands house in Virginia. They wouldn't all fit in the car, so she had a couple of them take turns riding in the trunk. My momma has made me do some strange things before, but I don't think she would ever ask me to ride in the trunk (at least not for 8 hours).

Your momma ever ask you to do anything crazy?

Vacation???

Unfortunately no. I got sick July 6th and am just now coming out of it. On top of that, my cable modem died and I had to wait til Saturday to get that fixed. Then my blackberry's battery died and it was back to the stone ages around here.

Fortunately I found a doctor who would see me today and he gave me some drugs and it appears they will work. I think the doc's from Mexico cause he made me pay in cash. And he operated out of the back of a taco truck to boot. As long as the drugs work, I don't care.

So sorry to be off-line so long. I'll refund a month's subscription for each of you.

West Yellowstone Crime Report

I continue to be amazed at the level of crime out west. Here's some tidbits from this week's crime log of West Yellowstone, Montana. The red words are my smart alecky commentary.

-- A gray poodle named Smoky was placed in the town pound. (Eegads! Ole Smoky has been cross dressing and hiding out as a poodle! Phone home Smoky! We still love you!)

-- A man called to report that a female acquaintance had been vomiting every 10 minutes for the past five hours. She chose not to be treated by EMT's. (Yikes! You do the math! Every 10 minutes for 5 hours!??? She's launched 30 meteor showers in only 5 hours! What's that girl been eatin?)

-- An employee reported the theft of 300 to 500 quarters from the laundry room of a large motel. (Please read the next report...)

-- Guests were stuck in a motel elevator. (Hmmmm, they didn't happen to have overloaded the elevator with heavy change did they?)

You can read the whole report here.

Technical Difficulties...

I promise you, it's not me. That image thing keeps crapping out on me. And this week's "Sheeps" was a real award winner. Oh well. I suppose you'll have to wait til the book comes out.

How long til Lance Armstrong wears the yeller jersey? That's all the sports news people care about down here. Lance, Lance, Lance. Hey look, Lance is eating. Hey look, Lance has a girlfriend. Hey look, Lance just passed a hunnert people on his bike.

He's a machine, and will win his fourteenth Tour De Lance here shortly. It'll be nice when he retires so we can hear something about the Astros for a change. We'll, maybe not.

Here is today's "Sheeps"

Work Languages

Everybodys work has a certain language that goes with it. Mine is heavy on acronyms. There are other words that are morphed into special meanings. I've decided to help you out by sharing some special language examples you can use in your everyday job to make yourself seem smarter, hip and real nerdified.

Today's word is LOS (pronounced L..O...S...not loss). It stands for Loss of Signal, a condition when a satellite, or space station etc. is located in such a place that the signal from the ground is lost. Usually for a short period of time, like 5 minutes.

In everyday slang use, you say "Sorry, I just went LOS on you". This means you weren't realy listening or didn't hear what was just said. If you have a disagreement between two groups you say "I just think they went LOS on this subject", which of course means neither was really hearing what the other said, and couldn't reconcile the difference.

So there you have it. Use at will. Just don't go LOS on me. And please feel free to share your special languages, particularly if they'll make me appear less nerdy.

Another title for Texas

Woohoo! Texas won the College World Series yesterday over Florida. The poor Gators never really got into it. To be honest, I didn't watch it, but I feel obligated to hoot about it.

How about that Formula One race last weekend!? Wouldn't you be happy if you paid real money for tickets, a flight to Indianapolis, a hotel room, hot dogs etc, just to see 6 cars go round the track? It would be a long, cold day somewheres before I'd go see another F1 race if it had happened to me.

And the Cocke County cockfighters head to court today. We'll follow all the turns in this riveting story, including the trials, the media circus, the Bronco chase, Neverland, oops....mixing up my famous trials a litttle.

Thursday keeps getting later and later...

Weekly Wrapup in Tanka...

College World Series,
Big Orange was gone early, huh?
Didn't expect much.
San Antonio is champs!
League that nobody watches.

New Tenn License Plates!

The Big Orange Governor unveiled the new Tennessee license plate yesterday to much fanfare. The new plate is a digital print, not a stamp. It has a background picture of some hills and uses an outline of the state as the dash betwixt the numbers on the plate. But amazingly, there's no slogan on it!!?? It used to say "Tennessee sounds good to me!". That sounded like it was written by folks from Nashville. I was disheartened to learn there was no slogan. Then I figured the Governor probably just ran out of good slogans to use. After all, "The Friendly State" is already used up by Texas, and "Land of the Taters" is taken by Idyhoe. But I had a couple in the back of my mind.

How about...

• "Tennessee, 5 Million People, 15 Last names"
• "So Many Recipes, So Few Squirrels"

Got any better ones? Submit them to me and I'll send them to Nashville.

Open Mike Problem Again...

Seems our Governors and former Governors keep running into the problem of saying unkind things about folks while having an accidental open microphone. Yesterday Governor Rick Perry gave an interview to a bunch of reporters. At the end of the interview Gov Rick said "bye" and one of the reporters chimed in with a smart aleck response, peeved that his question didn't get answered.

Gov Rick went over and sat down for a different interview, and during his prep for that he repeated the reporters comment, then added "Adios MoFo". A very nice mix of Spanish and English don't you think. My only issue with it was it was heard by the reporters and later he apologized to everyone over and over. I wish sometime they'd just let it stand. I think it accurately reflected his feelings.