Homers On The Range

Well, I finally pulled the family truckster back into my driveway in Wylie, Texas last night after a long week spent visiting the wife’s family in the Great White North. A lot happened during my time away that needs to be commented on. Plus, I’m going to sprinkle in a few of my own observations from our 2,000 mile round trip trek across the central United States. Here we go…

* I have officially dubbed this to be the Summer of the Dead Has-Been. After arriving at my uncle’s 50th birthday party on Saturday night, the first thing I heard someone say was, “hey, did you hear that they found Steve McNair dead?” Add him to the list along with David Carradine, Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, Michael Jackson, Billy Mays and Karl Malden. If I was Drew Bledsoe or Scott Baio, I’d be staying indoors a lot these days.

* The Texas Rangers closed the gap between themselves and the Anaheim Angels to regain a share of first place in the A.L. West. As I was driving home yesterday, they were in the process of completing a sweep of  a very good Tampa Bay team. Even better, they finally sent Chris Davis and his limp dick of a bat down to Oklahoma City, making Hank Blalock the new everyday first baseman. While Davis was solid defensively, he looked like Corky Thatcher at the plate, hitting a paltry .202 with an ungodly 114 strikeouts. My prediction: Davis will never see the light of day in the big leagues again.

* The Mavericks re-signed Jason Kidd and are about to sign some giant white Pollock. No one seems to care.

Now for some nuggets from the road.

* I spent the greatest four years of my life at Iowa State University. I’ll never have that much fun again. Unfortunately, I had forgotten what an amazing place the campus is until the wife and I swung through Ames on our way up to Minnesota. If you ever get a chance to make it to Ames, do it. Eat at Great Plains Pizza or Hickory Park, drink a beer at Cy’s Roost, laugh at the smelly kids playing Magic in the comic book shop on Lincoln Way and stroll through ISU’s central campus. You won’t be sorry you did.

* I think I offended at least one person in Minnesota when I referred to William Tecumseh Sherman as a bastard. Instead of crying about it like an overly P.C. pussy, you could have just called scoreboard on me. Your side did win that war after all. On a side note, I find it funny that Sherman is such an icon to the “anti-war” left. If the United States military were to employ his tactic of total warfare in Iraq, the anti-war Left would be in an uproar, ready to prosecute every level of the U.S. government for crimes against humanity. We also would have won that war three months after it started, but that’s another story. But you have to remember that nothing gets a peace-loving, anti-war hippie more excited than the thought of killing his fellow Americans, which is exactly what Sherman did. Don’t believe me? Ask the first anti-war peacenik you come across what his thoughts are on the Iraq War. I’m sure you know what his response will be. Next, ask that same hippie douche what he thinks about Texas (or any other red state in the south) seceding from the Union. Watch as his pants tighten at the thought of the Obama-led U.S. military marching south to teach those no good, free thinkers a bloody and well-deserved lesson.

* Lakes in central Minnesota are freezing fucking cold even in July. I don’t recommend jumping in one.

* Why is the simple act of driving so tiring? Granted, I drove almost 1,000 miles yesterday, but I still didn’t think I was going to be that exhausted when I finally got home. I mean, it is just sitting in a chair and using your hands and one foot, right? Maybe it’s more mental exhaustion from driving around countless morons who refuse to go five miles over the speed limit and who change lanes without looking.

* And on that note: Fuck you, Oklahoma. Die.