Are you ready to get your ass sniffed?

Next time you fly I think it might happen. Now that terrorists are hiding bombs in their undies I think it a strong possibility. Apparently whatever technology they are using now doesn't detect crotch bombs or ass bombs. I think you are going to crotch/ass/bomb sniffing dogs in the security lines at the airport. Can anybody think of any other quick alternatives to keep this from happening again? No, hiring competent screeners at the airport is not an option. Only realistic ideas please. Cindy Dean did some work for her sister/brother-laws security dog biz in
Constantinople. If I had a business like that I would be training them for this job right away. If I didn't think the world was going to end in 2011 I would probably invest myself. It can't be easy to train the dogs though. In fact It could by quite a nasty task to train them. Dogs seem to be easily trained to sniff out explosives. But now dogs need to be trained to sniff out explosive mixed with Arab balls sweat. Yuck! How do you replicate a smell like that? Not that I would know what it smells like. But you don't have to stretch your imagination to know it can't be good.....On a couple occasions I've thrown out ideas on how to catch terrorists. I have another one. Why can't we have a separate line for Islamist at the airport. Then they can be inspected more thoroughly. Hold on, yes I know it violates Civil rights, the Constitution, blah, blah, blah. This type of thing is not without presidence(see Japanese internment circa 1942). But I have a catch. Let's be real, these people have been screwing up air travel even well before 9/11. What if the government offered an incentives to Islamist to play along. How about a $10k tax credit? You get to May 15th to pay your taxes. Rather than 72 virgins if you die as a martyr, you get 73 Thai hookers now!! Corporations could jump in. All Islamist get %10 of Starbucks. A free air filter with every other oil change at Jiffy Lube. The possibilities are endless. We can even extend it to other ethnicities. Black people could agree to be escorted around retail outlets to prevent shoplifting. White corporate CEOs will agree to stop ruining the Country. Me being 1/2 Mexican and my Dad being full Mexican we discussed the following situation. What if all Mexicans were forced to learn English and always have their proof of citizenship pinned to their shirt like kindergartners homework so everybody will know if we are legal or not? We both agreed we would do it for a $5k tax credit, %15 off at El Pollo Loco, cuts in the line at the DMV and we get to use the Islamist line at the airport(We both would trade the more extensive search for the shorter line). Sure if this happened there would be no one left to pick our fruits and vegetables, build shit, clean our hotel rooms, leaf blow, shop a Big Lots etc. But damn it we won't have to deal with that annoying press 1 for English, press 2 for espanol question! And their might not be anybody left to take my discounted order at El Pollo Loco, but I think the economy is bad enough now that even white people will take those jobs, so I'm not to worried about that....On a more serious note I'm frustrated that we are still debating how to stop terrorist. Terrorism is simply a tactic being used in a greater struggle. Since 9/11 nothing has been done to address the greater struggle. In fact we have gone backward. I've mentioned in previous blogs that the biggest reason radical Islamist want to kill us is because they see us as Christians/Jews all up in their Islam business. We have military bases on Arab soil, we pretty much occupy two Countries, blindly back Isreal. As long as these things are going on we are going on we are going to be dealing with terrorism. Obviously, they don't have the numbers or resources to fight our military in a conventional war, so they are going to use terrorism. Killing their leadership does not help. It just buys us time while they regroup. I've lost count on how many #2/#3 Al-Quida guys we've killed. The idea for them is to create overreaction. And so far it is working well for them. We are spending billions if not trillions in Iraq. Despite Obama's campaign promises we can't leave. It would be a train wreck. We've opened prisons where we hold prisoners without trial, undermining our moral authority(why can't they just be prosecuted in put in our regular Federal prisons?) and own Constitution. I've heard one person, Republican Ron Paul even bring up the idea of simply extricating ourselves from the whole region. That's not to say that the reasons we are there(Isreal/Oil) are not worth fighting/risking our livelihood for. You might think they are. But can we at least have the debate? Finally, I think the Government is pretty limited in it's ability to prevent terrorism. How much can the government do to keep a group of Islamic terrorist to go an a shooting spree in a crowded shopping mall? It seems we've been pretty lucky that they seem fixated in bombing planes for some reason. With that said this latest attempt is quite worrisome. This dude that tried this pretty much had "Terrorist" stamped on his forehead. I think we are all hypocritical to some extent. But I try to be as consistent with my arguments as possible. If you have read my blog before I've been pretty tough to George Bush. But I've never really blamed him for 9/11. But I've always been annoyed by Republicans that twist them self in to a pretzel to blame it on Bill Clinton. I've always countered with the argument, that if the Republicans were so enlightened on the issue and they had nine months to prevent it, why did it happen? I would make the same argument in this case. Everyone from the TSA inspector up needs to take heat for this. I don't know whatever security hole that allowed this to happened existed when Bush was in place, but if it was it should have been fixed by now.

Where do I start.

It been a while since I blogged. Quite a bit has happened since then. I have lots of ground to cover. I'm not really sure how to make it flow correctly so basically I'm going to just throw a bunch of crap out there...We had Thanksgiving. It was at my condo this year. Us cats are not good enough for humans to have around for Thanksgiving, so the neighborhood cats just have our own. It's become a tradition of ours. We just get together eat turkey, drink wine and watch football like everybody else. When you mix cats with wine and turkey we should really call it Napapaloza or something. Anyway, for the 6th year in a row, when carving the turkey Carty made an inappropriate dark meat joke. For the 2nd year in a row it involved the Kardashian sisters. When everybody called him out on it he swore it was the first time he used the Kardashian sisters and last year was Eva Longoria. The consensus was that he used the Kardashian sisters for the 2nd year in a row. Before we ate we said a prayer which is fine. But every year one of the women wants to go around and have everybody say what they are thankful for. When this is brought up all the guys all sigh a little bit which because none of us know what to say. Most of use just copy what one of the other guys say. Plus, they always mute the football game during this and delays eating by ten minutes...My buddy Chico was there. You might remember him from my Cinco de Mayo blog. He is Mexican so naturally him and his wife have had 4 litters if kids. I don't even think he is sure how many kids he has. Most of his latest litter was bumping around my place, heightening my disdain for children. I bring this up because Chico and his wife Lupe were a little down this year, because their son Paco(He is in the Air Force. Pictured in uniform) just shipped out for another tour in Afghanistan. What can a cat possibly do in the military you ask? He keeps birds off the end of runways. If you think that is un-important, ask those people on that US Air flight that "landed" in the Hudson river last year. He also keeps vermin away from the mess hall and helps out maintaining the computer networks when he has time. Plus, if a lizard can sell auto insurance a cat can sure as hell serve in the military.

A while after dinner Carty and some friends went out on the patio to smoke cigars. If there has been a bigger douche bag activity invented in the last 15 years I don't know what it is. They all light up and start talking about the quality and taste of various cigars. I've smoked around a dozen cigars (I'll try anything 12 times} and they all tasted like I was making out with an ashtray. Why anybody would pay more for one cigar over another is beyond me. They were talking about how Arturo Fuente cigars have an "oakey" flavor to it. Now Carty has eaten just about everything possible, so I can see how he would know what an oak tree taste like. But everybody else? What does Mahogony taste like? Is there a particle board flavored cigar? I would lump wine connoisseurs in this also. I mean, I love wine and all. But they all pretty much taste the same. A $300 Cabernet from some specialty store does taste better than the $3 bottle from Walgreens. But not 300 times better. I think wines should be rated on how horny they make your wife/girlfriend. It would be much more helpful then telling be it has hints of raspberry with with a plum finish, I can tell you that much.

Can we stop treating Tiger Woods like the worst person in the world? So he banged some floozies. Big deal. His soon to be 1/2 a billionaires ex-wife will get over it! Trust me. Unless you are a billionaire that turns down every women that throws them self at you, I think you should spare the judgment.

My Mama's business, ArtJewelsandTreasuresByJen is officially no more. They closed their doors a couple weeks ago. It turns out Carty was the soul of the business and when he stepped down the company was rudderless.

I had to go the vet about a week and a half ago. I made some funny meows when I was taking a whiz. Hey, I'm getting old. When you get into your fifties you are going to make some funny sounds when you are taking a piss too. I told her it was nothing to worry about. But she insisted that I go. When I got there, everybody time a one of the staff members would see me they would ask me where Carty is and if he is OK. None of them asked how I was doing? Or why I was even there? The didn't find anything. The did somehow decide that I have some anger issues. Not sure how they came to that conclusion. They wanted to put me on some medication. I was like hell no! I don't have any f****N anger issues!! After some debate I agreed to a couple counseling sessions with a therapist. Rather then meds. I don't think I need the help but I've always had a hypothesis that therapist are full of shit and I just want to test out my theory. I had my first appointment this week. So far my theory is holding true.

I'm getting fired up for Christmas. But a couple things are pissing me off. If you are one of those people that gets really upset because a business/school or some other entity has a sign that says Happy Holidays not Merry Christmas or vice versa you really need to direct you anger at something more constructive. At least that is what my therapist says. I think they need to be kicked in the balls personally. If you are one of the ones that gets pissed off that a sign says Happy Holidays rather then Merry Christmas, please realize everybody does not think exactly like you. And most of all non-Christians buy gifts to(If you read the history of Christmas, it has been a more secular holiday than most Christian would care to admit). So naturally stores in areas where there is a significant non-Christian population they don't want their customers to feel uncomfortable. On the other hand, if you are Jewish, Arab, Atheist, whatever and you get pissed because your company calls it's party a Christmas party rather than a holiday party. Realize, you are out numbered!! Deal with it!

Finally, I was listening to the lyrics of "Rudolph the Rednose Raindeer" and I realized why have the other raindeer gotten a free pass through all these years. They openly discriminated against Rudolph just because he had a very shiny nose? What a bunch of assholes! They would verbally abuse him and bar him from playing reindeer games because he nose was bright red? I sounds to me that Donner, Blitzen and company were a bunch of superficial pricks. They didn't accept him till he bailed them out. Then they "loved" him. Where was Santa through all this? He had to know this was going on. He just allowed the other raindeer treat Rudolph like shit? Rudolph could have easily sued for workplace discrimination. I give a ton of credit to Rudolph. Would you have blamed the guy if he just told Santa and the other reindeer to just piss off on that foggy Christmas Eve? I think we all owe a large debt to Rudolph saving Christmas that year and handling this blatant injustice with such dignity.

Bono predicts the world will end in 2011

It seems everybody is predicting the world is going to end in 2012 these days. Dead Mayans, Nostradamus, religious nuts, Hollywood movie producers etc. It's the new Y2K. At least from what I read. I wasn't alive in 1999-2000. I always found it ironic that most of the people that were making predictions about the world ending in 2000 were non-Christian. They saw a special relevance in that the earth rotated around the sun 2000 times since the approximate birth of someone that they believe lied about being the son of God or never existed at all? Anyway, when people start making predictions about things I just can't help my self, I have to chime in also. It can be football, horses, weather, just about anything. When people start predicting things, I have to make a bet also. By definition this isn't a bet I can really cash in on. But if I'm alive when it happens atlest I can have the tiny bit of satisfaction of being right as I die. I watch quite a bit of the History Channel. The should change the name of it to the End of Life on Earth Channel. They talk about it constantly. They have an endless loop of people predicting all sorts of catastrophes. Earthqukes, wars, famine, disease, things crashing into earth etc. Wow, they are really going out on the limb there. These things have been happening since the beginning of time!! I watched a special on the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. They had some scientist boldly stating that there is going to be another big earthquake in San Francisco someday. Thank you, Professor Obvious. What's your next prediction? the Cleveland Browns are going to suck again next year? This is one the biggest issues I have with the doom predictors. They never really give any specific information. And when they do give detail, it's always veiled in symbolism and kookie language that can be interpreted in many different ways. For instance, most of the the 2012 predictions are based on the calender of the ancient Mayans ending. But that's all it does is end. It doesn't really make any prediction about humanity ending. Maybe all it means is that some Mayan dude got tired of chiseling shit into a rock? The guy who made the so called prediction could have been the Miss Cleo of the Mayan world. We sure our giving them quite a bit of credibility for people without much of a track record of making predictions. Also, if they saw into the future why didn't they predict their own demise just a relatively short time later? Why do we give ancient cultures so much credit? You know they used to sacrifice their own children to try to make it rain so crops would grow right? So they built some freaking pyramids big whoop! They couldn't figure out indoor plumbing but they could see into the future?.....Then we have Nostradamus. All of his predictions seem to be verified posthumously. Some big event happens and people go back and read one of his quatrains with is usually a bunch of astrological gibberish, then say "Oh, here's where he predicted that". What also bothers me about Nostradamus is that he spent all his time predicting big historical events that happened years after his death. As a guy I don't buy this. If a guy had the ability to predict the future now, he would use it to predict the Super Bowl, stock market, which chick at the Club would be willing to bang him that night. He sure as hell wouldn't be predicting events that will happen hundreds of years after his own death. What's the point? I have a hard time believing guys from the 1500's were not just as greedy and horny as they are now... Most of the major religions all predict the end of humanity also. Most seem to take a similar position as Bible and say the it will happen "soon" and for some reason there are a bunch of trumpets, bowls and scrolls involved. Then we have good ole' Hollywood which has been capitalizing of this shit for years. Watching football and baseball I've been seen a bunch of commercials for the new "2012" movie. They show the world being turned up side down while John Cusak is trying to get the airport to escape. I have a hunch John Cusak somehow escapes the demise of life on earth. Of course millions will pay to go watch it. What a better way to cheer yourself up during a time of economic strife, war and flu epidemics then to go watch a movie about the end of world. Sounds like a great way to escape from the stress of life....With that said why do I predict 2011? I don't know. Seems as logical as any other time. It seems like a bolder prediction to call it sooner rather than later. I also put my money where my mouth is. I cashed out my 401k and other investments and I'm spending like crazy. I might not have enough to get me through 2010 much less 2011, so if we are still around in 2012, I have another prediction. I'll be hitting you up for a loan.

I'm back again.

I figured I did about 4 months worth of blogs in August based on my usual pace so I thought I would take some time off. Plus it's football season again. So my time has been occupied with that. Also, my Mama's computer had a virus. I don't what sites she's been looking at. Her and my Dad argued which one of them actually contracted the virus. I'm sure Tommy Lee and Pam Anderson had a similar argument at some point. It was a awkward situation for all. So she has been hogging my computer. She has a Facebook account now, so she thinks she's sooooo cool. Check it out if you already haven't done so. She should be announcing her latest hair brain scheme on there anytime now. She is going to be flipping dollhouses. Yes, she is planning, and I emphasize planning to fix up dilapidated dollhouses and sell them for a profit. I can't believe I'm saying this, but after all her other crazy ideas over the years this one kind of makes sense. Of course she conned my Dad in to financing it. Carty, is coming partially out of retirement to be a consultant. He was adamant that he was not going to take an official title with the new investment group. But like all consultants his qualifications are murky at best, he is charging huge fees and is not willing to have a shred of accountability for the results of whatever his suggestions might bring about the company. Pretty sweet gig. Anyway, she bought three houses this weekend. Predictability, the houses have not had a shred of work done on them and sit unattended as I type this, while my Mama watches "Under the Tuscan Sun" for the 15th time on cable; commercials and all despite having the DVD sitting right above the TV she is watching. It's going well so far.

Week of Bon Day 7:Finally Done

There I did it. Blogged for seven days in a row. It wasn't that hard. I have to be quick. I can barely stay awake. My Mama was hogging my computer. Her computer has a virus, so she has been using mine all night. She finally opened up a Facebook account. And she is going back to school. She is at least attempting to get enrolled at CSN. Facebook and school? My Mama is just a case of acne and two bra cup sizes from being a teenager again. Thank You, I was here all week....Anyway you can find her on Facebook now. You can try to be her friend. She's not very friendly though so don't be surprised if she tells you to piss off. Good luck.

Week of Bon Day 6: Get Off My Lawn.

I was trying to get some reading done late this morning and some punk teenagers were skateboarding on my Mama's drive way. I tried to ignore it as first. Then I just couldn't take it anymore. I went to my Mama's opened a second story window and yelled "Hey Tony Hawk, go shit in your own back yard"! Then one of them flipped me off. Then I was like "Get the hell out of here"! Then they shot back with "What are you going to do? You're just a little freakin cat." That set me off. I put my claws against the screen. And said "A little Cat? I'll go Gran Torino on you bastards!!! Where the hell are your parents? They can't have a job. That would mean they would have some sense of responsibility. Which means they wouldn't have raised you freakin losers"!!! Then the neighbors started to come out and peaking out of their windows. Yes, we have neighbors now. We used to be surrounded by foreclosure homes. Now there at least being rented out, It's been surprising. They left when people started looking. I stayed staring out the window. They tried to sneak back but they would see me in the window. Doing my Clint Eastwood pointed gun thing. I loved "Gran Torino" if can't already tell. I think we all kinda wish we could be like his character in that movie. Not necessarily a bitter racist, but more of a person/cat that just tells everyone what we really think, consequences be damned. Now that I've cooled off I'm kind of regretting it. These punks will probably come vandalize the house or something. It's not really worth it. I should listened to my IPOD loud enough to cover up their sound. Now, I'll be standing watch at the window for who knows how long. This will probably be the last time I impersonate a Clint Eastwood character.

Week of Bon Day 5:My Weekend

I hung out with my Mama Saturday morning. It's a tradition of ours. I go over to her house and we have some coffee. A light breakfast. Usually some pie or something bad for us. We'll talk about how our week went. How we should spend the weekend doing something productive but knowing we are not. We talked to Cindy about Mister passing a way. A bummer, but death is part of life I guess. I went back to my place for a while before I met my Dad at the Red Rock Casino to bet a few horse races. I think we are the two worst avid horse players in the world. Sure we win every now and then, you do it enough your bound to stumble into a few winners, but we've been exceptionally cold this summer. It's still a great time. That's why we keep going back. Plus, gamblers are externally the biggest pessimist in the world, but internally the most optimistic. Ask a gambler how they are doing and you'll never get a positive answer. But inside we keep going back because today might be the day we hit the big one. Anyway, my Dad gets annoyed when I'm at the sportsbook with him because all the cocktail waitresses like to come up to me and pet me all the time. Despite my inability to pick a winning racehorse I'm the envy of the sportsbook. After that, I went home and had a quiet evening alone watching the NASCAR race....Today I went out and played 36 holes of miniature golf. I've taken my game to a new level this summer. If there we're a professional senior tour for cat's playing miniature golf I would be on it. I got home and tried to watch TV. Nothing on. Football starts and three weeks and I'm going through major withdrawals right now. Time can't go by fast enough. This time of year always seems to drag. Not only I'm I waiting for football, I'm waiting for the temperatures to cool down. My power bill was through the roof this month. I might have to pick up a 2nd job. Wait, I don't have a 1st job. I might have to get a job to pay my power bill this month. I spent the rest of the day looking for schemes to for extra cash. If anybody has any idea let me know. No pyramid schemes though. AmWay only works for Mormon's.

Week of Bon Day 4: In Memory of Mister

After a brave battle with cancer my friend Mister was put down today. Or you could say he met The Big E, as us cats call it. He was Cindy Dean's cat. He was a great guy and will be missed.

Week of Bon Day 3:I still don't know what I'm going to blog about today.

It doesn't bode well for the rest of the week that I can't think of anything to blog about. I'll just talk about what I did today. Today was pretty uneventful. I woke up. Took a nap. Has some coffee. Puked on the floor. Watched my Tivoed Real Housewives of Atlanta. Wow, if you want to see some self absorbed human beings you need to watch that show. You wouldn't think that putting the most unlikable people on the planet on one TV show would make for compelling television but it does. I think I took another nap after that. Then I went to my Mama's and took a nap on top of the scratching post I have there. Then I woke up and sprinted full speed back to my condo for no good reason. Then I did some research for my up coming fantasy football draft. Yes, ladies I play fantasy football. I know you find that irresistible in a cat. Is their anything sexier then a bunch of guys sitting around a table drinking beer and hollering out the names of young athletic men? I think not. I went back to my Mama's house. Carty was playing the guitar. My Mama got a acoustic guitar for her birthday. Predictably she hasn't even tried to play it. The high of purchasing it from the Home Shopping Network was good enough for her. My Dad tries but he is hideous. However, Carty is a freakin natural. Within a couple days he was playing the opening bars Bon Jovi's "Dead or Alive". He woke us all up one morning when he was playing and singing "Cielito Lindo" in front of a window watching the sun come up. He says he may have found his calling now that he isn't "working". I hung out with Carty for a while. We had a light lunch and took a nap. My Mama got home. I told her she needs to clean up the puke on my floor. It's still there. My Mama watched the Home and Garden channel while I made sarcastic comments the whole time. My Dad got home. I told him to go clean up the puke on my floor. It's still there. I went back to my condo and took a nap. Carty sent me a text letting me know my Mama was making green chile chicken enchiladas. I went back to my Mama's and ate half my body weight in enchiladas. Now I'm back at my condo blogging. But after all that food I need a nap.

Week of Bon Day 2:How You Know a Restaurant Sucks

There are sorts of deals you can get at restaurants in Vegas these days. I get coupons left and right and a bunch or restaurants have specials. C.J's my favorite barbecue joint is trying to stave off bankruptcy by painting their windows car dealership style with the words "Free Beer". It got me to swing in. You have to spend $35 to get 2 free beers. I bought a couple extra pounds of brisket and brought it home for Carty to get me to $35 bucks. He thought I was just being thoughtful. He's still very naive. But since these deals are you there I've been eating out quite a bit lately. The downside of the deal is that you figure out why some restaurants have to resort to coupons and giveaways. It can be frustrating. Especially for a cat like me that loves food TV. I love Anthony Bourdain and Gordon Ramsey. If you don't know who they are you probably like eating at Taco Bell, Sizzler or God forbid TGI Friday's. If you are one of those people this blog isn't for you. I've watched all their shows and read their books. They make it seem very simple but more often than not restaurants screw it up. That's why most of them go out of business. There are few simple things to look out for. 1st is the menu size. If the menu has a 5 pages. A la the a fore mentioned TGI Friday's, the restaurant sucks. How can they be good at that many things? They make a great shrimp creole AND a great Thai chicken salad. Bullshit, they both suck. If you want a Thai chicken salad go to a Thai restaurant! If you want indigestion go to TGI Friday's. On a related note, if you eat at a place that specializes in something, never order against the grain. For instance Tony Roma's which calls it self "A place for Ribs" offers a couple fish selections on it's menu. Never, ever, ever order the fish in this type of situation. Once you put your order in the dishwasher has to run the swordfish fillet that has been in the freezer since the mid-90's through the rinse cycle just to get it defrosted. Generally you want to stay away from deep fried foods also. Oil is hard to get rid off. So restaurants don't do it as often as they should. Order something fried. Good chance it's been cooked in oil that has been around for a while. Next, I go into the bathroom at every place I eat. If it's filthy I get the hell out of there. If the bathroom is dirty what the hell do you think the kitchen looks like? I also avoid places that serve steamed vegetables. Sure it's quick, hard to screw up, great way to cover up that it was frozen 5 minuets ago. Mostly it's a sign of laziness. It's something just thrown on a plate just to say they gave you vegetables. If they treat the veggies that way. It's a good bet they treated the rest of you meal that way. Another sign of laziness. Individually wrapped pads of butter. Can you remember the last good restaurant you ate at with individually wrapped butter? It's a pain in the ass. You're starving, you want to eat your baked potato or panckes, but noooo. You have to unwrap your butter. And it's never the right temperature to have the right texture. If it's to warm, most of it sticks the wrapper and is a chore just to get on to your knife. Or it's frozen solid and you can't spread it properly on your pancakes or toast. Then you never have good place to put the wrapper. Why is this acceptable? When ever I order a baked potato and the server brings out wrapped butter, I'm like do I have to go back and chop my own chives too? Make my own bacon bits? Churn my own sour cream? Can you make eating a little more inconvenient for me? Sorry I'm ranting again but I just have utter contempt for wrapped butter. Now the little cups of whipped butter. That's the ticket. I would bathe in whipped butter if were socially acceptable. One final complaint. Any condiment with in reason should be at the table before the meal or brought to the table with it. Just last week I went to the Mexican joint in the Red Rock Casino. I ordered Tacos. They brought me the tacos but no salsa!!!! Who the hell eats tacos with no salsa? Salsa is implicit with the ordering tacos. Why do I have to ask? When I go to "Tacos De Mexico" they give me two kinds of salsa without me asking. They wait staff doesn't know a word of English and I get salsa. Ordering tacos and not getting salso is like ordering pizza and having it brought to you with no cheese. I tracked down the waiter and asked for salsa. Then he forgot! For the record I think people that eat ketchup with everything are pussies and should be kicked in the gut at every opportunity. But I know there are a bunch of you out there and you'll be able to empathise with me on this. Is there anything more annoying than staring at your food waiting for a brain dead waiter to bring you whatever condiment you can't possibly eat your food without? Personally I think individually wrapped butter pads are more annoying but it's pretty close. That's it for the Week of Bon Day 2. I don't have a freaking clue what I'm going to blog about tommorrow.

I'm Back!!

It's been a while since I've blogged. I've been busy working on some other projects. I've meant to blog but just kept putting if off and now it's been well over a month. Last night I went with my Mama and we watched Julie and Julia. Long story short Julie blogs everyday for a year. I've decided to see if I can blog everyday for week. I don't think I've blogged two days in a row, so this will be quite a challenge for me.
I'm calling it the "Week of Bon". I really don't have much to talk about. Not much has really happened on the home front. Since my last blog Michael Jackson died. It's not really topical anymore and it's been waaaay overdone on TV etc. But I do have some observations on the topic. It caught me as odd that so many people swept that last fifteen years or so under the rug. First of all the guy is just a plain weirdo. The guy looks like a wax statue at the Roswell Alien Museum! How can anybody take the guy seriously? Second, what about that little boys thing? When he died you just heard a bunch of tributes and everybody pretended that none of that ever happened. The Michael Jackson that everybody liked has been gone since 1987!! Why is everybody crying now? The guy has been a recluse for damn near two decades? His cultural relevance since then has been being a punch line for late night TV. What surprised me most was how upset African-Americans were about the who thing. I get he was black at one point and he had some sort of skin pigmentation thing going on that played a roll in him turning himself white, but he turned himself white!!! Did he have to straighten his afro? Did he have to get rid of his nose? Did he have to have white kids? For me this would be like Garfield going through numerous surgeries to make himself look like Odie. Then adopt two puppies. Then marry Lisa Marie Presley. Then start fondling puppies. In other words a complete betrayal. No way I would keep claiming the guy as my own.

Latest trip to the vet

I was just reading Cindy Dean's blog. She was talking about how she had to go to the emergency room. Then I remembered. Hey I didn't blog about my last trip to the vet! We'll I haven't posted any journal entries lately, so I decided I would belatedly post my journal entries about mine and Carty's check up at the Vet. At the end I also posted last years experience that was orginally posted on my Mama's blog..... We'll start on the Thursday night prior to our trip on Friday Morning.....

Thursday

6:50pm......I'm sitting upstairs watching a moth fly around the room(a favorite summer activity of mine). My mom and dad are down stairs. My mom reminds my dad that he needs to drop us off at the V-E-T in the morning. She spells out the letters, instead of just saying the vet. I go to the top of the stairs and yell down, "I can spell you idiots". I go back to the room I was in.

7:04pm......The moth flies right by me. I catch him in my paws, an kill the S.O.B. Trust me he was asking for it. He was a threat to my family. My actions are completely justified.

7:08pm......Carty is in the kitchen down stairs. I send him a text to let him know we're going to the vet in the morning. Yup, I sent him a text. You really don't expect me to walk down the stairs to tell him do you?

7:14pm......Carty was just at the vet a few weeks earlier to get his heart checked. He had to have patch shaved on his side for his test. Now him and my Mama are seeing if he possibly had enough hair grow back for a comb over to cover up the patch. There was a little Persian he fell for the last time he went to the vet and for some reason he thinks she might be there again. He wants to look his best.

7:30pm.......Me and Carty go to my our buddy Simba's for our usual Thursday night poker game with some friends.

7:37pm.......A sure sign we are getting old. When we arrive at the poker game. We give our friends just regular paw shakes. There was a time where we might do a knuckle bash. Or that one fist on top of the other thing. Maybe a fancy chollo paw shake. Not anymore. Just a plain old paw shake. I think humans should take note, once you hit about 45, you need to lose the fancy hand shakes. Otherwise you just look like a guy that is trying to be younger than he really is and it just looks pathetic. Kind of like having a comb over.

9:41pm......Carty and I bring up that we have go to the vet the next morning. It prompts a conversation in which all compare horror stories from our trips to the vet. Carty has more than anybody, because it seem he's there about every two weeks. I have the best story though. When I was a baby I nearly died from an allergic reaction from my immunization. I actually never lost consciousness and was too young to even remember the incident. But like the old saying goes, never let the truth get in the way of a good story. Every time I tell it I embelish it a little more. I'm up to being out for more than 10 minutes and actually reached the gates of heaven. I tell everyone that when they told me it wasn't my time yet, Instead of coming back through the light I just hung out and had a beer(a Guinness) with St. Peter and John the Baptist(yes he got his head back) before I came back. I said I tried to get them to tell me if they knew who was going to win the next year's Super Bowl, but they wouldn't give in. I think little details like that make your lies a little more believable.

12:15am.......Slightly toasted we all go out for breakfast after the game to a little Irish Pub called "Three Angry Wives". Another tradition of ours. The sign at the front door says their "Special" for the night is huevos rancheros. I have very few rules in life. I don't like confining myself that way. However, I do have a rule against eating huevos rancheros at an Irish Pub.

12:24am.......Carty orders the huevos rancheros and an order of pancakes. The following conversation happens.

Me: What the hell are you doing ordering huevos rancheros at an Irish Pub?! We have to go to the vet tomorrow!! You're going to be farting all day! Then your chasing it with panckes!! I thought you were watching your heart!!

Carty: Hey, If want to order huevos rancheros I'll order huevos rancheros! I know it's an Irish Pub! But the cook is as Mexican as they come! He was probably flipping eggs in Jalisco last week! Damn it, you don't tell me what to do! I'll eat what I want and I'll deal the the consequences!!

Me: But I have to deal with the consequences!! I'm going to be in a carrier and a cage with you all day tomorrow!! Your going to be farting like crazy!!

Waitress: Hey!! Settle down or I'm cutting you off!!

1:45am......We get picked up by cab that smells like a mule just took a dump in the back seat.

2:01am......Home and headed to bed.

7:31am......Awake. Contemplating running under the back corner of the bed so I can't be nabbed and taken to the vet. Think better of it. I tried before and never win. I gather up some books, magazines and my Ipod to keep me occupied during the day.

7:47am......We're in the car on the way to the vet. Carty looks over and says "I shouldn't have had the huevos rancheros".

8:00am......I say hi to Amber the receptionist. We used to be adversaries. We're still not really friends but have come to an agreement to be more amicable with each other.

8:03am......Me and Carty get put into our cage. Carty takes huge dump as soon we get in there. I stick my nose out between the bars to gasp for air. I yell out "Can I get a clean up over here"? How can I manage to play poker, have a blog, play golf etc. But I can't clean up a litter? I don't know. That shit is for you to figure out.

10:41am......I'm first for my check up. I go through the standard thermometer up the ass routine. Get my normal immunizations. This time my Mama is having us get microchiped in case we get lost in a place that doesn't get cell phone reception. I ask the vet if it hurts worse than a regular shot. She says "No, it's only the size of a grain of rice". The I said "Ohh, well let me jam some risotto down your spine and we'll see how you like it"! She gave me the shot. It hurts about 5 times more than the regular shot.

11:32am......Amber comes to get Carty for his check up. While me and Amber just manage to get along, her and Carty have become friends in his recent trips. When she comes to get him he right away asks her if her boyfriend is still being an asshole. She notices a red stain his chest just under his chin. She asks with concern "What is that? Is that blood"? Carty was like "Nah, It a chile stain from my huevos rancheros last night".

12:30pm......Carty and Amber come back to the cage room. They keep talking outside the cage for a while. Apperently Amber's boyfriend is still being an asshole. Now Carty is giving her relationship advise. Yup, she's taking relationship advise from a cat that has never had a relationship that has lasted longer than three months. After they are out there for about 20 minutes I yell out "Hey, If Dr. Phil doesn't have to be in his cage I shouldn't have to be in here either". The both look at me, roll their eyes and keep talking.

2:57pm......My Mama mercifly picks us up. On the way home me and my Mama convince Carty that now he is chipped and he can be tracked on Google Maps.

3:21pm......We get home. Carty spends the next 4 hours trying to find himself on Google maps before he catches on.

The end.

*****************

Friday, May 9, 2008
Bono's Blog. It's been a rough week.
Hi everyone. It been a rough week for me. First of all, to address Cindy's comments on my last blog, no Absolutely Cindy did not win. She did make a little run in the race to make it a little exciting though. Yes, I have been mourning Eight Bells. I'm not sure if it's good or bad to be an animal in this Country. On one hand the death of a single horse got more news coverage than the death of 100,000 people. I'm just as guilty of not paying much attention to it. I'm not quite sure where those people died either, but I heard a little something about it. But then again I'm a cat. What I also want to know is why are the people that are so outraged over the death of Eight Bells, not outraged over the tens of thousands of cats that a euthanized every year? I'm yet to see a news report on that. In my last blog I already addressed some of the hypocrisy in regards to the criticisms of horse racing. Going back and reading it, my comments now seem eerily prophetic. I wish it wasn't so. It completely ruined our Derby weekend. It also kind or ruins the rest of the Triple Crown because we'll have to watch the races holding are breath hoping something like this does not happen again. It's hard to get excited about that. I don't want to sound dismissive of the problems of horse racing. It certainly has them. But this is just another example of misplaced priorities in our Country. On that same note I had no idea that PETA was such a shameful organization. I figured that an organization that's called People For the Ethical Treatment of Animals was a good organization. I found out this week that they are basically an organization that is after self promotion and grandstanding. It turns out that they are one of the leading killers of cats and dogs in this Country. According to the Virginia Dept. of Agriculture they killed %97 of the animals they "rescued" at their "shelter" in that State. If you want to donate to a charitable organization regarding animals, don't donate to them. Give to the ASPCA instead.......So this started my week bad enough. It got worse today. I'll start from the beginning. A few weeks ago the reminder from my vet that Me and Carty are due for our booster shots went up on the fridge. My Mom and Dad keep our appointment date secret because they correctly assume that I will go into hiding that day. The reminder stayed ominously posted there for us to see everyday. I'm not sure if it is some sort of mental torture that they are trying to pull off, but it is not very nice. I tried disguising my voice as my Dad's a couple times and tried calling the vet's office to confirm my appointment date to find out when it was. But the stupid receptionist caught me. I called and asked when my appointment was and she would simply say "I know it's you Bono, stop calling" click. Well this morning, it turned out to finally be the day. I went in without much of a fight. I figured I just better get it over with. A trip to the vet is never good. But this one was worse than usual. When we first went in, me and the receptionist exchanged glares. Then the vet was not there till later in the AM so my Mama could not stay with us during our shots, which really sucks. When the vet finally got there, we got our check up. They take our temperature with a rectal thermometer. Can anybody explain why there has been no significant advancement in taking a cats temperature? If PETA really cared about animals they would be addressing this. They just grab me and stick a thermometer in my ass! No warning, nothing! They should at least talk dirty to me or something. Get me prepared somehow. We'll after that I got a shot of Benadryl. I had an allergic reaction when I was a baby. I don't remember the incident but it gave my Mama quite a scare. So now before all my vaccinations I get an extra shot. Goody for me! Then they put Me in the lovely holding pen for a while before my vaccinations. I guess they want me to think about it for a while. Then I finally get my shots. Shots, plural. I thought I was just getting one. It turns out that I was do for another one. Wooh hoo!! I'm almost positive that freakin receptionist convinced the vet to give me an extra meaningless shot to get back at me. After our shots they put Me and Carty into a cage. You people call them kennels. But let's be honest ok. Is a damn cage. It could be worse. Our vet's office is cats only. Let me take you back to our vet in Albuquerque. In a similar situation we were also in a room with caged up dogs. Once there was a big ole' pincher that would just keep barking. Endless, woof, woof, woof. Loud as can be. Carty and two other cats that we knew from the neighborhood were plotting a way to shank him if they got a chance. Prison style. Fortunately the three of them had the combined IQ of 4 and nothing happened. But I have to admit, I think I would have been ok with it. Ok, back to today. I'm in a cage with Carty. Next to us is some other cat that Carty decides to have an endless conversation with. Every topic under the sun. The election, hockey, chicks, nip, litter, the subprime mortgage crisis. Basically a bunch of stuff neither one of them knew a damn thing about. Then in the cage on the other side of us they put a cute Siamese named GiGi from Spring Valley. She was in for a urinary track infection and you can tell wanted nothing to do with anybody. So naturally Carty hits on her. Three different times!! Through all this I was just trying to get some sleep to make the day go faster till my Mom picked us up. But with all this going on it never happened. When my Mama showed up I asked the vet if I could have a few beers when I get home. She said no. I can't have beer with my vaccinations. I had been looking forward all day to having a few beers and watching the Lakers game. Just another bad break. So now I'm here, sober with a sore ass. So that was my week. Oh, I forgot. The handle on our carrier broke and we were dropped in our carrier. Twice.

John & Kate Plus Train Reck

Yup. I got sucked in too. I feel terrible about it. My Mama's been watching this show for the longest. I never got into. There were three reasons I couldn't tolerate it.
1. Kate
2. Kate's hair
3. Watching a man loose his will to live is too painful.

Let's start with reason one. Before this season I couldn't watch more than ten minutes of this show. Mostly because Kate drove me up a freakin wall. I can't believe John has hung around this long. Her constant nagging in unbearable. Have you ever been at a restreaunt and some annoying squeaky kid is yelling for no good reason at the table next you. That's what watching this woman is like for me....Ok reason 2. What the hell is going on with her hair? It seems like she really likes three different hair styles but can pick with one to go with so she just does a mix of all three. I'm not the most fashionable guy in the world but that hair style is absurd. Reason 3. Even three year's ago you could tell John just wanted to get the out there. He was slowly losing his soul. In the interview scenes he would just stare out in to space. Trying to thing of what he can say and not have Kate correct him or bitch about his comment. It was just way to uncomfortable watch. So why do I watch now? It's a total cliche but the situation is like a car crash. You feel terrible for slowing down and staring but you just can't help yourself. I can't help but watch this thing implode. I feel like a terrible cat because of it. I have to admit, I don't have the slightest bit of interest in kids. I just Tivo the show and fast forward to the interview pars. If people are honest with themselves nobody else really cares about the kids either. Nobody talked about this show John started making out with chicks outside of clubs. Really who cares about a bunch of kids screwing around with Playdough? On the bright side watching this show provides one of the rare moments where I'm happy about getting my balls chopped off. Another thing, why is this show on the The Learning Channel? What the hell do you learn besides not getting married or having children? Those things everybody already knows.

Bono's Vegas Vacation Guide

For those of you that are not familiar with the blog world these things have trackers on them that tell you how many hits you gets, from where, how long etc. My favorite feature of the tracker of how it tells you how somebody got to your site. You can click a link and it will show you what somebody Googled to end up at your site. For example I've gotten a disturbingly significant amount of traffic from concerned parents Googling "Facebook and pedophiles". I'm sure they are trying to protect their kids, but they somehow end up clicking on some cat's blog. Which doesn't speak well for the effectiveness of Googling something. I also get a ton of traffic from people Googling stuff like "$10 meal in Vegas" or "Best hotel for kids in Vegas". When I read these it's usually followed by me having a little chuckle. As much as mainstream Vegas has become I'm still pretty amazed how many people have misconceptions about this place. I feel a lot of people come here expecting one thing and end up getting something totally different. That's why I'm doing Bono's Vegas Vacation guide. I've listed some tips below. Before I start, a couple of disclaimers. Being raised by my cheapskate Mom and Dad, I haven't fallen very far from tree so to speak. So most of my suggestions have some sort budget friendly aspect to them. And I'm a guy, so most tips are from a guys point of view.

First a couple ground rules. If you are considering a Vegas vacation you need to really like at least two of the items below in no particular order. If you don't, consider picking a different vacation spot. No actually don't bother reconsidering, just go somewhere else.

1. Gambling.
2. Binge drinking.
3. Eating good, but considerably overpriced food.
4. Eating awful, but cheap food.
5. Casual/Irresponsible Sex(or at least attempting to have casual/irresponsible sex)
6. Shopping in over priced stores.
7. Going to titty bars....I'm mean Gentleman's Clubs.

Seriously, If you don't REALLY like doing two of these things you'll get bored with this place pretty quickly. If you are someone that is OK with doing just one of these things for three consecutive days and you consider it a vacation, you're likely to be considered ___oholic. Just pick your vice from above to fill in the blank. You can still come though. We really need the money.

Second. I've talked about this before in my Best of Vegas blogs, but it warrants repeating. Under no circumstances are children to be brought on a Vegas vacation. No exceptions! Completely putting the moral aspect of bringing your children to a place nicknamed "Sin City" aside**, if you bring kids to Vegas with you, you're only ruining your own vacation. Example, you and your wife bring your two sons with you ages 14 and 16 to fly out to LV for a weekend away. You pawn them off at the pool during the day. But at night they have to stay in room. Trust me kids that age stick out like a sore thumb in a Vegas casino. You can't let them just wander around unattended. Security spots them in a heart beat. I stick out less and I'm a freakin cat. Ok, back to the story. The kids are in the room at night. You and the ole' lady go out to dinner and a show. She has a couple cocktail's at each event. After the show you hit up one of the casino bars for a couple glasses on wine, then she starts getting frisky. I'm mean really frisky. I'm mean you might get oral for the first time in 4 years frisky. Then you go back up to the room for some action an boom, your two freakin kids are there scrambling to change the channel from the adult pay-per view movie they just rung up on your bill as you walk through the door. The whole night ruined. Best case scenario now is getting a handy under the blankets. Or a pawie in my case. That's what us cats call them. Hear that guys? This is why you don't bring kids to Vegas!

**Personal note. For people that look down on Las Vegan's for being more sinful or having less morals than people from other places can go screw themselves. People in Montana, Iowa or wherever else, are just as horny, greedy, lustful or whatever else you want to call us. We just wear it on our sleeves for marketing purposes.

Tip 1. If possible come on a weekday. A silver lining from the dismal economy. You can get absurdly low rates a decent strip hotel. The weekends are less than they used to be but not as much as the weekday rates are down. If you fall into the looking for casual sex catagory, ignore this tip. The Club's are dead. Not many Women around if you are a guy. An if you are a girl are you really looking for a guy that goes to Vegas on a Tuesday to get a $25 room at the Sahara?

Tip 2. Food is not Cheap!!! This myth lives on from the days of old Vegas when $2.50 buffets were common place. They have been gone for a long while. Even the mall food court chain dog shit like Sbarro or Panda Express will cost you more than usual. So plan accordingly. I'm mentioned it before somebody wound up on my blog by searching for a "$10 meal on the Vegas strip". You would have a better chance at finding Bigfoot on the strip than a $10 meal. A Hot Dog, chips and a drink from Nathan's will run you over $10.

Tip 3. Unless you insist on eating till your about to puke skip the buffets. There all the same(mediocre)and their not much of a deal price wise($25-$30 for dinner). Who the hell wants to wait in line to eat dinner? You people look like cattle at these things. I think a heard a couple fat ladies moo behind me the last time I ate at a buffet. You can eat a really good meal at one of the trendy places for $10 more per person. It's worth it.

Tip 4. Eat steaks and chops in the cafe at a hotel that has a high end steakhouse rather than the steakhouse it self. I've had luck with this one. I think it's reasonable to assume they get the meat from the same source. Probably not quite the same quality cuts, but the drop off in quality is not as far as the drop off in price.

Tip 5. Pick a drink a stay with it. If you're going to be partying for 3 nights in a row hangover can put a real damper on your trip. Take it from a polished drinker as my self if you drink just vodka or just beer all night your recovery time is much quicker. If you jump from beers to margaritas to mojitos you won't want to get out of bed the next day.

Tip 6. Don't rent a car. Money down the drain. Use the under-utilized monorail on the strip. You'll actually have some sticker shock at first but the cumulative price will still be less than a rental or cab fare. But you won't have to deal with waiting in cab lines which are long on the weekends, hot and sweaty in the summer. You also don't have to deal with the smelly reckless cab drivers.

Tip 7. All titty bars, I'm mean Gentleman's clubs are the same if you're drunk enough. Pick the one with the cheapest cover or one with no cover. Don't trust the cab driver, they are on the take from the club owner's. Do your research before hand. Be prepared. Just like you were taught in the Boy Scouts.... How did they get to be called Gentleman's Club's anyway? The place is full of perverts. Calling it a Gentleman's club is actually an oxymoron.

Tip 8. When it comes to the show you get what you pay for. The good ones are expensive. Approx. $100 a head for the cheap seats at the good ones. If you want to go to a good one you probably want to get the tickets well before hand. On the bright side, just like the titty bars, if you're drunk enough they are all about the same.

Tip 9. If you just don't give a shit about much of anything. The quality of the food, the room, the women etc. Just go Downtown. You'll find exactly what you're looking for.

Tip 10. Last but not least. Guy's whatever you do don't get sucked in to shopping with the lady. Every casino on the strip has a shopping mall with all the brand name stores. I'm pretty sure they were created by satan. They are labyrinths you'll never get out of. I've nearly died. One time my Mama sucked Me, Carty and my Dad in. We got so bored that while sitting on a bench outside of Juicy Couture waiting for her to come out Carty fell asleep next to some old man that had also fallen asleep, while me and my Dad played rock-paper-scissors against each other for nearly 45 minutes.

So that's it. Hope you enjoy your trip.

Start spreading the news.

She's leaving today. We'll not today. But sometime this weekend. Who you ask? Cindy Dean. She got my Mama into blogging(at least for a brief period) which got me into blogging. So you can partially blame her for all this bullshit. Where is she going? New York, New York. She wants to be a part of it. We'll not right away, but eventually. She is taking a detour first. Her vagabond shoes have been longing to stray. So lets get right through the very heart of it. She is going to live in Turkey for a few months. Yes, I thought the same thing! Turkey? I was like, What? Was the Four Seasons Beirut booked up? Then she posted on her blog that Istanbul or Constantinople as I call it, is a modern city. Then my Auntie Shiloh said that Turkey is great. And she could see herself spending a few months there also. At first I took their word for it. Being that I've never been there myself. Who am I to say it's not? Then it dawned on me. Cindy lives in North Las Vegas and Shiloh lives in Moriarty, New Mexico. I have been to both of those places. If I lived in either one of those towns I would want to get the hell out of there too. Mogadishu, Somalia sounds like an appealing get away compared to either one of those shit holes. Sorry Cindy, I know Turkey is nice, but I'm not capable of writting a blog without talking shit. Cindy's moving to New York because her boyfriend lives there. I think she has other motives as well. I think she want's to wake up in a city that doesn't sleep. Some people have said Vegas is a 24 hour town. But I've been to the strip at 4am on a Tuesday. That place is snoring. Also, she hasn't made much art lately. I think in the back of her mind she knows NY is one of the art capitals of the world and It will act as a muse for her. Maybe, just maybe she can pull off something big in NYC. She can be queen of the hill. Top of the heap. A number one. So Cindy while your little town blues are melting away we'll be keeping tabs on you. I'm sure we'll find you on top of the list. I don't what list. I don't think Sinatra knew what list he was singing about either, but I'm sure you'll be number one. You're gonna make a brand new start of it in old New York. Just remember if you can make there you can make it anywhere. It's up to you. Best wishes.....Bon.

Happy Cinco De Mayo

Yes I know I'm writing this on the 6th. I was busy last night. My Dad is Mexican, so I guess I'm kind of half Mexican by proxy. No neither one of us has the Swine Flu at the present moment. Thanks for asking. I usually don't really celebrate Cinco De Mayo. Not that I don't want to celebrate my heritage but lets be honest just like St. Patty's Day it's just a reason get drunk. Also, the official reason for the holiday is a celebration of a war victory Mexico had over the French. Who hasn't has a war victory over the French? Personally I think they need to just invent another reason why we celebrate Cinco De Mayo. Nobody knows the real reason anyway. Humans in general are really stupid. How would they know that the who thing was made up. We should just say it's the day the Mexicans ran Hitler out of France for them because they felt bad about beating them at the Battle of Puebla in 1862. Or the day the taco was invented. My Dad suggested it should be a celebration of the best thing to ever come out of Mexico. Salma Hayek's rack.


I would be down for pretty much anything beside just beating the French. Anyway, I didn't get my blog done last night because my cat buddy Chico gave me a ring. Chico's family is also Mexican, so he full Mexican by proxy. But not just your run of the mill Mexican, his family is like keep an eye out for La Migra Mexican. He called me up around 7:30pm and says "Come over were having a Cinco De Mayo party". I was like "Nah it's weekday, I can't really party tonight". Then he says "What? We're freakin cats! We don't have shit to do tomorrow. Beside you love drinking on weekdays. It's your way of sticking it to the man, remember?" Then I was like "Damn, your right! I'll be there in 15 minutes!" So Carty tagged along and we hung out with Chico and his family. It was a good time. Ate some mystery meat tacos and took a couple whacks at a pinata. We also drank some Bud Light. I bring this up because I want to clarify one thing. Mexicans generally don't drink Mexican beer. You rarely see a Mexican drinking a Corona. Mostly because it taste like horse piss. Read the bottle it's brewed at Juarez Downs. You put lime and salt in it because that's the only way to make it tolerable. Sorry to break it to you white people. If you think you're getting some sort of diverse cultural experience because you drink a Corona when you eat at Mexican restaurant, your fooling yourself. If you want to have a Mexican experience, go hammer shingles on a roof when it's 110 degrees outside. Finally, a couple months ago I listed some of my favorite contributions that African-American's have made to American culture that kind of go un-noticed. I decided to do the same for Mexican-American's. Like I did with African-American I'm going to leave out the obvious people that always get mentioned like Ceasar Chavez and.....we'll that's it. He's the only one the ever gets mentioned. Was he even Mexican-American or just Mexican? Anyway here is my top 10 list of the best contributions Mexican-American make to our culture. Number 1, they do all jobs nobody else want's to do. Really. They do. People complain that Mexican take all the jobs. Do any non-Mexicans apply to clean the toilets at the Travel Lodge? Or trim the hedges your lazy ass won't? Ok.......Number 2......ahhhh. Ok that's all I can think of.......I will post a picture of my two favorite Mexicans instead....Tomy Romo and Speedy Gonzales.

The Forgotten Cat

I had a rough night last night. I went into my Mama's garage cleaning my miniature golf clubs. It was around 9:00ish. About 9:45 I heard the door to get back into the house lock. Oh, crap. She forgot about me. Surely my Dad would remember that I was in here and would come get me before they went to bed. Boy was I wrong. From inside the house I can hop on the kitchen counter, that is about the height of the doorknob and I can let my self into the garage. But getting back in is a different story. I can't reach the doorknob. On my way in I holler out "I'm going into the garage"! Then when I want to get back in, I scratch at the door and get let back in. Not tonight. They went to bed. I did a couple token scratches at the door around 10:15, nothing. 10:30 comes to pass, 10:45. I'm staring at the floor, board to death. Getting hungry, really thirsty. Come 11pm I already feel like Andy Dufrene from Shawshank Redemption had to spend a week in the hole. 11:15 I took matters into my paws, we'll sort of. I basically just started scratching the shit out the door and yelling at the top of my lungs. Something like this, "Hey!!! Hey!!!! It's me! Your freaking cat!!! Remember!!! Wake up you idiots!!! Open the freakin door!!! I'm hungry!!!!! I'm gonna piss on your cars if you don't open the door!!! Open the damn door!!!! F#@ken meooowwww!!!!! Finally, roughly 11:30 my Dad heard me. He was like was that you? I was like "No you freakin idiot, It was Santa Clause. Mama, wake up. Make me something to eat!!! So that was my lovely evening. Thanks for letting me vent.

Facebook: It's not just for pre-teens and pedofiles anymore.

I think that should be their new marketing slogan. It's true. Regular folks now have Facebook(or My Space) pages. I checked it out a couple years ago. It was chalk full of middle school kids and middle aged sickos pretending to be middle school kids. Now people that actually earn incomes have Facebook pages. Since I have blog, I can't really criticize. Like us bloggers they figured out its a great way to express you meaningless opinions and pretend you're more important than you really are. Girl's have figured out it's another medium in which they can make backhanded compliments to each other and have some spirited passive aggressive competition with each other. You know, like who can have their most friends in their network. Who can make them self look most like a Penthouse Pet in their photo. You ladies know that your Mom, co-workers, neighbors, pastor etc. can all access these photo's right? Please, I need a female that's on Facebook explain to me what it is about the site that makes you post a picture of yourself and two or three other friends giving weird signs with your hands while standing in front of a Chili's restaurant with your boobs pressed up to your chin. With all these females on the site, of course it's attracted plenty of males that see it as an optimal place to stalk..err, I mean network with their ex-girlfriends......This brings me to another thing. I'm hesitant to bring it up because it's a little embarrassing. This whole Twitter thing has just gotten really big. I'm not sure exactly what it is, but in short it's just people posting/texting everyone whatever they a doing at a given moment. When ever somebody does this this they call it "tweeting" or somebody will tell somebody else that they just sent a couple "tweets". I bring this up because when I was a baby the first nickname my Mama gave me was "Sweetpea". Saying the entire word "Sweetpea" quickly became too much of a task for her so she shortened it up to just "Sweets". Then not long after that, enunciating the S at the beginning for "Sweets" became to difficult and somehow got replace with a T. So since I've been about a year old my Mama's nickname for me has been "Tweets". Which was OK for till I was about two. But as I mentioned in my last blog I'm now 44 years old in cat years. Maybe 45 by now. Anyway, it's pretty embarrassing to have your Mom call you Tweets when you're 45 years old. She even does it in public. It's pretty humiliating. Now it's even worse. With all this Tweeting going on I'm constantly reminded of my childhood nickname that I somehow never shook. If you don't think it's that bad imagine your Mom still referring to you as your nickname from when you were 2 years old. Then you'll know how I feel.

Carty announces retirement. Effective immediately.

A couple weeks ago Carty came down with what I guess was a flu. He had the shits, was throwing up bile, it was pretty rough. He had a trip to the vet where they did a x-ray. The vet saw that his heart was a little enlarged. They said once he got better that he needed to have a follow up to have his heart looked at to make sure that he did not have heart disease. I guess it's genetic with cats of our breed. So the last couple of weeks it was kind of the elephant in the room between us. We knew it was there but we never really talked about. He didn't bring it up so I didn't bring it up. So this past Friday he had his follow up exam. Everything turned up OK, all things considered. They said he has some mild build up in his arteries but nothing that looks serious at this point. She told him just to cut back on red meat and cigars and we'll take a look in another year. This came as a huge surprise to me. I thought they would say it was at least bad enough to have to put him on some sort or expensive medications so the Vet could get a kick back from cat pharmaceutical company. I was wrong. I guess they have souls unlike human Doctors and pharmaceutical companies. Anyway, Carty has been pretty contemplative since then and in order to reduce stress he decided to retire. Yes, I asked the same question you are asking now. What the hell does Carty do? When he told me he was retiring early, I was like, retiring? Retiring from what? All you do is eat, sleep, shit and eat some more? Then he reminded me a couple year's ago my Mama named him Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of her company. Art Jewels and Treasures By Jen(AJATBJ). I somehow forgot Carty was making all the critical strategic decisions for her company. I don't know how I forgot. It clearly explains that state of AJATBJ. They haven't made a sale in months, my Mama hasn't has a blog post since last June. I asked what decisions he could possibly be making to cause stress in his life? When I brought this up Carty got pretty defensive. He said it was all part of a long term strategy. He started talking about how companies that grow too quickly lose direction and end up losing focus on their core business. He pointed out how in order to avoid bad PR he moved the annual shareholder meeting from the Cornell Hotel De France in San Francisco where a rack of lamb and champagne were on the menu to the coffee table in my Mama's living room, where everybody got a 3 piece meal from Popeye's Chicken and a Pepsi. He said the company has $432.65 in it's bank account which makes it more solvent than %90 of all American corporations. It also has no debt. He conned my Dad into financing the venture. I was about to counter back how none of this stuff should be causing stress in his life. But I never got that far. He started getting sentimental. Talking about he was going to miss the rush before a craft show. All the great people he's worked with over the year's. Seeing the company from it's birth and selling like one necklace in it's first year to the record breaking 2008, where sales were around $500 despite the worst economic down turn in decades. Then he started tearing up, I couldn't bring my self to talk shit to him like I usually would. I just gave him a pat on the shoulder and congratulated him. I asked him what he was going to do with all this free time now. He said was going to do some searching to find out who the "real Carty is" whatever the hell that means.....Anyway this got to thinking about aging. The cat book my Mama has says now that I'm 7 years old, that I'm 44 in cat years. Personally I don't feel a day older than 34. But anyway age does kind of creep up on you. You start to notice the small things. Like, I hate kids just a little more than I did just few months ago. I'm becoming more interested in RV's. I Tivo'ed 60 minutes. I complained that my Mama served me to much food at dinner a couple weeks ago. When I take a whiz it takes just a few seconds longer to start and few seconds longer to stop. When I go to the casino to bet football, I'm becoming more and more drawn to the bingo parlor. I might even go in one day. We'll maybe not. But my point is something you already know. Getting old sucks.

Bono VS. Mama....Part 2

You might remember back during football season myself and my Mama had a little competition/experiment where we would pick football games against the spread and whoever picked the most winners won. If you don't remember I kicked her ass. I got so far ahead that I stopped posting the results. I did the competition as a kind of experiment that will hopefully make me feel better. You know, I wanted some reassurance that my knowledge of the games actually help me win bets; that I'm not just at the mercy of dumb luck. Well it worked. At least in the short term. But for any good experiment you need to test and re-test to make sure the results are consistent. It's similar to how movie studios keep casting Sandra Bullock and Nicolas Cage in movies. They just really want to make sure that putting either one of them in a movie will guarantee that it will suck. So maybe five years from now they'll be comfortable not doing it. In this test I'm going to pick the NCAA Tournament Games against my Mama. If you don't have at least a little bit of an idea of what the NCAA Tournament(AKA March Madness) is, please click out of my blog now! No really, now! I don't want you reading my blog. Get the hell out of here!....Ok back to the contest. I'm going to use my in depth knowledge of college hoops for my picks. I'm assuming my Mama will use her same method of picking the team from the region where she likes the food more. She is going to have quite the dilemma in the 1st round of the tourney when Cal-Berkley(Bay area) squares off against Maryland. Dim-Sum VS Crab Cakes!! It's going to be tough call for her. But since I've already beat her head to head during football, Carty is also joining us. However, he agreed to make his picks based in what the result would be if the respective teams mascots would get into a conflict with each other. Example, the LSU Tigers are playing the Butler Butler Bulldogs. Clearly if they had a conflict a Tiger would not just beat up a Bulldog, it would probably eat the poor bastard. Hence Carty will pick LSU. There are some ground rules. Like if a human goes goes against and animal, they can't use a weapon in the conflict unless it's implicit in the name of the team that human would be armed. Examples would be the Xavier Muskateers, USC Trojans, Portland State Vikings. An example of an unarmed human team would be the Texas A&M Aggies. Dictionary.com defines an Aggie simply as a student at an Agricultural School. Texas A&M plays the Brigham Young Cougars in the 1st round of the tournament. So a Cougar would surely take some pansy College student. But you could argue that if the student joined the Church of Latter Day saints and tithed faithfully the BYU Cougar could let him off the hook. There are 63 games in the tournament. It starts Thursday. Me and Carty could have our paws full trying to figure this stuff out.

Start Your Engines!!!

It that time of year again! One week a year I become a Redneck Republican Southerner. This is the week. Why this week? NASCAR is town, that's why! If you can't get excited about watching good'ol boys driving in circles, we'll I reckon you need to move to Scandinavia or something. They have all sorts of festivities going on around town. I'll be at the race on Sunday. I'll be in section 103 row 14. Come by and shake my paw. You can't miss me. I'll be the cat sitting next to a 32oz. Budweiser tallboy with a straw in it and yelling at the drivers things like "put him in the wall!!", "you turn left you idiot, left!!", "Tony Stewart, you have bigger tits than my Mama!". I'm going all out on the Redneck thing too. I'll be wearing the snappy jacket above. I didn't think there were quite enough advertisements on the jacket, so being the enterprising feline that I am, I sold my own add space. It's at the tailor now getting decals added for Kitty Kaviar, IHOP, Glen Lerner & Associates, Albertson's Brand Vodka, Family Christian Bookstores, Cosmic Catnip and the Adult Video Superstore. Also when engaging in conversation with fellow honkies I'll openly question Jeff Gordon's sexuality. Conveniently blame the economy on Obama. Call Democrats socialist for the stimulus/bailing out the banks, but NEVER mention that the auto makers that sponsor all the cars we're watching were also bailed out or the fact we're perfectly OK with those bailouts. Best of all I'm thinking about packing heat....I hope to see you there.

I thought I was dreaming.

Unfortunately I was was not. I did see the Jonas Brothers "performing" with Stevie Wonder on the Grammys on Sunday night. I was kind of three quarters asleep while it was on and it really didn't register. Then I saw some news about it today. I can't believe it. The Jonas Brothers? I didn't know they were a real band. I thought they were a fictional band drummed up by the Disney Channel. Like Hannah Montana, who was also singing on the Grammys for some reason. I still think they might be fictional, I can't tell. I don't think they were really playing the guitars they were holding. They were strumming but there there was no corresponding sound coming out of the TV. Poor Stevie. He had know idea of the situation he was put in. I'm sure it was no coincidence they picked the blind guy to perform with these dweebs. The chance of a musical legend the stature of Stevie that has the ability see, performing with these jerk offs is zero. It's a cruel trick played by the Grammy people. They should be ashamed.

Speaking of crappy Disney programming, I just found out that High School Musical is set in a high school in Albuquerque. I went out my way to check out a couple scenes on You Tube. That place isn't anything like an Albuquerque high school. Did they do any research at all? If it's was like an ABQ high school the kids would have names like Yvette, Chuey and Ilene. They would also have kids with white surnames as first names mismatched with Hispanic last names, like Carson Jaramillo, McKenna Sanchez, Jordan Altamirano and Duncan Chavez. The tallest player on the basketball team would be 5'9". The student parking lot would be filled with dropped Honda Preludes and Chevy S-10's, with stereo systems that are worth more than the vehicle it self. The school would also be rife with gang violence and a third of the female students would be pregnant. To make the musical numbers authentic you would have to mix in phrases like "I know hah", "que no" and "a la modies". If you don't know what "a la modies" means, I can't really explain, but you can try this. Every time you want to say "wow!", "oh my god!", "holy shit!" or "that's amazing!", try saying "a la modies!!" then you'll figure you what it means. You'll also get weird looks, but you will figure out what it means.

Finally, with February being Black History Month, you see a bunch of tributes to influential African-Americans. They tend to be the same few people, you know. MLK, Jackie Robinson, George Washington Carver, Rosa Parks, Thurgood Marshall, John Shaft, Samuel L. Jackson. All those people are great but we've all heard about their accomplishments over and over. So in honor of Black History Month I'm going to do something a little different. I'm going a list some not so obvious and overplayed things that I'm thankful for, that have been introduced to our world by African-Americans.

-the slam dunk

-cone bread(That's spelled right. White people make corn bread which is similar but not quite the same. Black people make cone bread. Cone bread is better)

-the word "beeeaaaach"

-mixing fried chicken and waffles

-the endzone celebration after touchdowns

-the need for 15 yard penalties for excessive endzone celebrations

-malt liquor

-for inventing the ability to use the word "motherf***er" as a noun, pronoun, superlative and punctuation. You can use it as an entire sentence really.

-creating the comedy that is white people trying to be cool by using black slang words and phrases that are either at least two years out of date or were never really used by the black community at all. Examples.."po-dunk-a-dunk","that's tight","you go girl","gettin jiggy wit it","what up dog" and "da bomb".

-for letting white people keep winning at winter sports. You can include other pussy white boy sports like skateboarding in here too.

-for loving hefty white girls that would otherwise be discarded.

-keeping Cadillac in business(at least for the time being)

-keeping Tommy Hilfiger in business.

-keeping whatever companies make car rims in business.

I'm sure I'm missing a few....Sorry black people you don't get credit for low riders, you stole those from Mexicans.

Happy Super Bowl!!

It Super Bowl Sunday! The most American Day of the year. A celebration of commercialism, drinking and eating in excess and the most American sport out there. Football!! Sure other Holiday's have these elements, but the cool part about the Super Bowl is that you get to spend it with people you like. Unlike Thanksgiving or Christmas where you are forced to listen to your drunk uncle, A-hole cousin etc. For me it's a bitter sweet day. It signifies the last day of football till Labor Day. Incredibly sad. Also, you all know I was pulling for Obama in the election. But I do disagree with him closing Guantanamo Bay. I think it should be kept open to detain people that don't watch the Super Bowl. I have utter contempt for those that do not at least go through the ritual of at least watching the commercials. I can think of few acts that are more un-American and treasonous than not at least attending a party. Anybody that goes out of there way to not watch it is threat to National security. They need to be locked up.......Super Bowl prediction....Steelers 27 Cardinals 13.

BONO'S BEST OF VEGAS '09

I'm back with Bono's 4th Annual Best of Vegas Awards. Like the State Fair it gets bigger and better every year. Despite the sad state of our economy I've increased my categories from 37,148 to 40,189. I posted a small sampling below. If you want the whole list it's on sale at Amazon.com or you can download a audio version to your IPOD or MP3 player. It's narrated by Fran Drescher, Gilbert Godfried, Roseanne and the guy from the OxyClean commercials.

BEST PLACE TO STOP TRYING TO REVITALIZE:PLANET HOLLYWOOD CASINO....The place went bankrupt when it was the original Aladden. Then they tore it down built a new Aladden that went Bankrupt. Naturally the people that took it over partnered with Plant Hollywood. A restaurant chain that has filed bankruptcy(twice!)that sells mediocre burgers and charges $12 for it because you can eat it while looking at prop from Rocky V. This beats out Downtown, because I think my advice was taken from last year's list and nobody is trying to revitalize it anymore.

BEST BLOG THAT HAS NOT BEEN UPDATED IN SIX MONTHS:ART JEWELS AND TREASURES BY JEN....Really Mama! Six months? Put something on there, anything!

BEST LOCAL ARTIST:CINDY DEAN.....A repeat winner. I was lucky enough to hang in her entourage this year. It was quite the experience. Crazy really.

NEW CATEGORY! BEST LOCAL ARTIST THAT HAS A BOYFRIEND THAT SOUNDS EXACTLY LIKE RAY ROMANO:CINDY DEAN......He's from Brooklyn, the Bronx or something. I get my accents and NYC boroughs mixed up all the time.

BEST LOCAL ARTIST THAT MADE A LITTLE BIT MORE ART THAN LAST YEAR:JENNIFER GABALDON....Somebody paid money for my Mama's jewelery this past year. She did two craft shows. A %200 increase over 2007.

BEST PLACE TO LAUNDER MONEY:THE CANNERY CASINO.....I can't explain how I know this. You're just going to have to trust me.

BEST PLACE FOR IMMIGRATION TO RAID:CIRCUS CIRCUS.....Have you been to that place? My goodness. I haven't seen that many Mexican's in one place since my last trip to K-Mart. The guy that runs the Indoor Swap Meet here in town thinks there are to many Mexicans there.

BEST PLACE TO OPEN UP AN HORCHATA STAND:THE CIRCUS CIRCUS.....See category above. The place is loaded with Mexican's an not a single Horchata stand in sight. I didn't see anybody selling Churro's either. I was going to keep this under my hat and do it my self. I had financing in place with Washington Mutual, IndyMac and Wachovia. I was taking my time to decide who was offering the best loan terms. During that time WaMu and Indymac went tits up. Wachovia was bought out by Wells Fargo who put a swift end to Wachovia's stated income business loans to domesticated animals program. Another dream crushed.

BEST PLACE TO WITNESS SPOUSAL ABUSE:NASCAR SPRINT CUP RACE @ LV MOTOR SPEEDWAY....I went this past year. After the race in the parking lot, some redneck threatened to murder his wife and had to be held back by his friend when a reared back to take a swing at her. Hard to believe something like this happening at and event that has cases of beer in 12ft stacks every 90ft throughout the concourse of the racetrack. The NASCAR folk are really proud of how they say a prayer before each race though. Jesus must be really proud. The Adventure Dome at Circus Circus came in second.

BEST PLACE TO SEE A FAKE GUN FIGHT:BONNIE SPRINGS......It's a very little Cowboy/Western theme park in Red Rock Canyon just outside of town. When you first walk in a group a struggling actors pretend to have a gunfight. You really need to see it. It's unintentionally really funny.

BEST PLACE TO SEE A REAL GUN FIGHT:THE CORNER OF MLK AND VEGAS DRIVE......I'm relying on other sources on this one. I've never dared to hang around to actually see one. I doubt these ones are as funny as the ones at Bonnie Springs.

BEST PLACE TO CONTRACT HEPATITIS:THE ENDOSCOPY CENTER OF SOUTHERN NEVADA. 40,000 people were put at risk by this place re-using syringes. This just put them ahead of eating a hair from a short order cook at Macayo's(any of them) or getting a lap dance at Foxy Girls on Industrial.

BEST OFF THE STRIP PUBLIC RESTROOM:FLETCHER JONES MERCEDES. It's amazing. The place is darn near gold plated.

BEST PLACE GET FREE STARBUCKS COFFEE:FLETCHER JONES MERCEDES. Repeat winner from last year. It's actually one of the few places you can get Starbucks period.

BEST PLACE TO GET A FREE COPY OF THE USA TODAY:FLETCHER JONES MERCEDES. I often go there get a cup of coffee, a USA Today and go pinch one off in the gold plated restroom. A trifecta of sorts. If you try this yourself, they have a have some lady at a check point at the front gate to ask what you are doing there when you pull in. Just drive right by her. She's to lazy to track you down if you just blow right by.

BEST PLACE TO SEE MY MAMA RIP SOMEBODY A NEW ASSHOLE:FLETCHER JONES MERCEDES. She's there once a week complaining about something. How do you think I know all this crap?

BEST PLACE TO LICK YOUR SELF:BETWEEN YOUR LEGS. Undefeated and still champion. It's never lost in this category.

BEST PLACE TO EAT A HIDEOUSLY OVERPRICED MEAL:JOEL RUBICON AT THE MGM GRAND. It'll cost you around a grand if you order wine with your meal to eat at this joint. I'm sorry nothing is that good. You can get a high end hooker, err I mean escort for cheaper than you can eat at this place. Not that I would know. That's just what people tell me.

BEST PLACE TO GET WOOD:LOWE'S. 2nd place-Cheetah's

BEST PLACE FOR A CAT TO AVOID:CHINATOWN. The Chinese will eat any thing. I tell my cat friends to stay away from there or you'll find yourself hanging in a store front window before you know it. I went down there and ate dim sum with my Mama once. My Chinese is a little choppy but I'm pretty sure the people at the other tables were asking their waitress if I could be prepared medium rare.

BEST BLOG WITH RACIST OVERTONES:BONO'S BLOG. I just beat out Sean Hannity's and Bill O'Reilly's Blogs

That's it for now. Let me know if you want to know any categories not listed here....Bon.

COMING SOON! Bono's Best of Vegas '09

Yes, I've been working tirelessly putting the finishing touches on my list. Tune back in soon. In the mean time you can read last year's list. With the added bonus of most of the typos and misspelled words fixed. How come nobody told me category is not spelled catagory?

BONO'S BEST OF VEGAS '08

It's that time of year again. Award shows, year end reviews. I love them. So much so I have developed my own. This is the 3rd Annual Bono's Best of Vegas list. Yeah, I know I've only been blogging for about six weeks, but I've been keeping a mental list for three years now. I unveil it to my self in early January every year. No! This is not a rip off of the Las Vegas Review-Journal's Best of Las Vegas. I had the Best of Albuquerque list before I even moved here. Besides the RJ's list really sucks. They are incredibly lazy. For example their best seafood restaurant is Red Lobster. Wow! How long did it take to come up with that one? The best place to get meal under $10 is Applebee's. You have to be kidding me. How many places did they actually sample? If the category was the best place to give you the Hershey squirts, Applebee's might be the winner, but it is certainly not the best place to get a meal under $10. Here is partial list of Bono's Best, my full list is pretty much infinite so if you want know a specific category that is not listed here let me know.

BEST PLACE TO GET A MEAL UNDER $10: CJ'S BAR-B-QUE. It's a new place near Sahara and Jones. You can get a 1/4 pork, brisket or turkey for $4. They give you the bread to make a great sandwich. Hell of allot better than McDonalds or the a fore mentioned Applebee's

BEST PLACE TO GET HAMMERED FOR CHEAP: ELLIS ISLAND CASINO. You can get a beer for like a buck. Try the ribs while you are there. Have your Mace ready while you are walking through the parking lot. This displaced last years winner which was any Martin-Harris construction function. The booze really flows at these things, but they can be difficult to get into. So they are 2nd place this year.

BEST PLACE TO SHOP IN GREEN VALLEY: ANTHROPOLOGY. Did I spell that right? My Mom told me to put that on here.

BEST CRAB CAKE: VIC AND ANTHONY'S AT THE GOLDEN NUGGET. Pricey, but they are worth it.

BEST PLACE TO LICK YOUR SELF: BETWEEN YOUR LEGS. You didn't think I was going to keep this list serious, did you?

BEST LOCAL ARTIST:CINDY DEAN. Her link is this page. Check it out.

BEST PLACE TO GET LEGAL PORN FROM AN ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT:THE CORNER OF FLAMINGO AND LAS VEGAS BLVD. I wonder if the people that hand out those little cards have to interview for the position. Do you take a resume with you?

BEST PLACE TO GET CAT TREATS:THE LUSH PUPPY AT MANDALAY BAY. You wouldn't think a place with the word puppy in it would work for cats but it does. If you go there, tell them you know me and ask for the Kitty Kaviar.

BEST PLACE TO GET FREE STARBUCKS COFFEE: FLETCHER JONES MERCEDES. If your in the area in the AM just park in the regular lot. Go to the service building. They have a mini-Starbucks inside. The fru-fru drinks cost money but the regular coffee is free. They don't know your car is not being serviced. They give me coffee and I'm a freakin cat.

BEST PLACE TO STOP TRYING TO REVITALIZE: DOWNTOWN. The place is just a plain dive. It always will be. Can't we just accept it and move on. It seems to me the people down there are perfectly fine with the dankness and smell of urine. Just leave it alone already.

BEST LOCAL ARTIST THAT DOES NOT MAKE ANY ART: JENNIFER GABALDON.

BEST PLACE TO SPOT CELEBS:I DON'T KNOW. If you actually consciously go somewhere to spot celebs you are a loser.

BEST PLACE TO FART WITHOUT ANYBODY NOTICING:DOWNTOWN. See comments on Best Place to stop trying to revitalize. I bet the RJ's list does not have a farting category.

BEST PLACE TO TAKE KIDS IF YOU ARE A TOURIST:ORLANDO. If you bring kids to Vegas you are jackass. Am I the only one annoyed by people that are pushing strollers on the strip? Who thinks it a good idea to drag their children through a casino full of smoke, drunks and women showing %90 of their racks? I'm not one to be a moralist but even I have my limits.

BEST PLACE TO HIDE FROM VISITORS:UNDER MY MAMA'S BED.

BEST PLACE TO TAKE FRIENDS AND RELATIVES:BACK TO MCCARREN AIRPORT.

That's all for now. I was going to have a reader's choice poll like the RJ does, but this site only has like three readers so it seemed like an exercise in futility. If anybody has their own favorites please share. Until next time. Bon.