Liberals (keep up the good work)

So, besides the obvious stated above, I just read this on CNN.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A federal appeals court Friday ordered the dismissal of an ACLU lawsuit challenging President Bush's domestic surveillance program.

Want to know why? Because it was never illegal and has a very targeted focus. I am fine with people not liking something but don't vilify, or make it something it isn't. In order for this program to listen in on a call, the call must originate from or be destined to a known terrorist state. You can still call your crazy college roommates and not be listened in on. Feel free to dislike the President/Congress/(insert government faction here) but don't be a tard about it.

Also, has anyone noticed there have been NO CHANGES since Democraps took over?

Great Cigar Shop

While visiting Rochester New York last week I got online and looked for a local cigar shop. This is always a bit of fun for me as you can tell what the locals seem to favor. In Rochester one place was called The Cigar Factory and was about a mile from my hotel. I walked down, in 94 degree heat, and found a place that looked like a run down old main street shop. I almost didn't go in.

I went in and met Don Cisso the proprietor and his wife. He explained to me that he rolled over half of his stock right there in the shop with a partner and they were both from Cuba. Now I was intrigued as I have smoked only one Cuban cigar previously and it was fairly decent. Cisso educated me on the different leaf types and what he had to offer that was similar to big names I have smoked. I ended up choosing a Red Wine and Honey "after dinner" smoke, and a bourbon which was good anytime. These were not flavored but were scented for a tiny aroma of the stated flavor. These cigars were $2 - $12 a piece, much cheaper than name brands, and were absolutely the best smokes I have ever had. Cisso mixes a mild leaf with a really strong leaf halfway through the smoke that will tingle your tongue. This is the type of smoke that will be fantastic with a good cup of coffee. I plan to be a regular customer of The Don from here on out.

If you like the occasional cigar please visit:
http://www.doncissocafe.com/

Cigar Review (Dirt Torpedo by Drew Estate)

The Captain smokes one or two cigars a month and, because of my travels, I get to sample several different types. My current favorite in a flavored cigar is the Acid Kuba Kuba. This is a medium-bodied wonderful smelling and tasting smoke. It has a very sweet flavor and a great aroma. Recently jumping to a close second is the Natural Dirt also by Drew Estate. This cigar has a sweeter wrapper and I chose the torpedo for a good 30 minute burn. The aroma is not quite as good, to me, as the Kuba. This is a good occasional cigar as I believe the sweetness would become overwhelming if smoked regularly. It is also just a touch more full-bodied than the Kuba once you get 1/4 into the burn indicating a stronger leaf in the middle. My next flavored review will be of the Drew Estate Java, these smell like heaven and I can't wait to try one.

Movie Review (Evan Almighty)

I went and saw Evan Almighty since I was wondering if Hollywood could make a decent re-telling of a story even non-believers know. Let me say this, if you are going for sound theology and a "bible tale" this is not it. It really isn't a secret that Hollywood has no clue about biblical theology so give that a rest.

That said, this movie is AWESOME! Steve Carell really knocked it out of the part making the movie both clean and funny. I would like to extend that as a challenge to Hollywood and comics in general; learn to be really funny, don't go for the cheap cussing or politic jokes. Interspersed with the light-hearted humor, and sometimes side-splitting laughter, are a couple of really touching moments. Morgan Freeman plays a wonderful God who does whatever it takes to convince the New York Noah to do as he has been commanded. The story is typical with no surprises or plot twists, just great humor and a good story.

Go See This Film!

Another Airline Story (United Airlines)

On 06/15/07 I had to book a ticket for one of the many trips I take. On 06/22/07 I noticed that my return flight was leaving to early and I needed to take a flight later that same day, or the next day. I called to make the change for a flight on 06/28/07 and was charged $130 ($100 by the airline and $30 by the booking agency) to change it. I think a $100 fee could be reasonable if there were less than 24 hours before the flight was scheduled, but is unreasonable with a week to re-sell the seat. Every time I am flying there are a million people on "standby" and all the flights are totally packed.

I know they think they have a lot of overhead, but so much of this is electronic that the fee just seems bogus. Last time I flew one of the flight attendants actually asked me if I wanted to buy a $3 bag of M&M's. Who pays that? I mean really, if the food isn't free can't we just videotape how to wear a seatbelt and replace these people with a good vending machine? (<--- made myself laugh with that one)

Anyway, the guy said the ONLY REASON he couldn't refund it was that the transaction was over 24 hours old, They were really sorry about that. So I said gee Punjab (he barely spoke English) I actually see that you just charged my credit card about ten minutes ago so that should not be the reason. This, quite obviously, stumped him but he was polite so we hung up and I wrote to their customer service. Stay tuned for the outcome.

More Crazy Headlines

Man Survives Bobcat Attack by Choking Animal to Death

S.C. Cops: Naked Couple Falls 50 Feet From Rooftop to Their Deaths

Game of the Week

The controls are a bit sluggish, but this is cool.

Tennis Grand Slam Win all the major tournaments and become the grand slam champion!

Play this free game now!!

Happy Father's Day

I got two perfect gifts for Father's Day this year. First, my babies gave me a CD that I had stolen several years ago and I missed a lot. Bryan Adams takes nice simple guitar progressions and combines them with his powerful voice to churn out some of the most recognized music in the world. Secondly I got a Sony Cyber-Shot Dsc-w55. I will start taking some new photos with it soon; the instruction manual is quite thick so bear with me.

Catch Captain Dude on his nationwide tour

The Captain is just back from Arizona and headed to New York in a week. The picture above is where I stayed while in Scottsdale Arizona. The resort is called The Phoenician and it was fantastic. It was definitely not where I belong as a cup of coffee was $9 but the conference I was attending helped subsidize a lot of the costs. I also had the opportunity to catch up with my english teacher from high school, my best friend form that time period, and a teammate from my wrestling team way back when. These people all moved form Oregon to Arizona so I was pretty busy catching up with all of them.

The first night I was there I hiked about six or seven miles, not on trails and at night, into the Sonoran Desert. This was the most unforgiving, harsh terrain I have ever seen. My buddy Jeff has a permit from ASU to collect Gila monsters so that they can be tagged with a geo-locator device and their movements tracked. He had found a total of three in nine previous trips so I didn't have my hopes up. He also said they ALWAYS see rattlesnakes and I greatly fear all snakes so you can understand my trepidation once that beautiful sun started sinking. To sum up yes I was scared the whole time but it was great. We saw one Crotalus Atrox rattlesnake, two scorpions (one real poisonous, one not so much), one owl, and two fighting Gilas. Here is a link to the animals and some shots of the resort where I stayed.

The "N" Word

I love enlightened people.

Can "The View"

I have been behind the times and just watched the segment on "The View" where essentially three people gang up on Elizabeth Hasselbeck and she holds her own just fine. After watching this it amazes me how narrow minded some people who call them selves liberals really are. I watched the segment on YouTube, and have to say that Joy Behar and Rosie O'Donnell are ridiculously narrow minded and gullible. Please understand I am NOT defending the President here, just blown away by how stupid those two women are.

I picked the picture above because I think everything out of Rosie's mouth has some underlying ghey ulterior motive. I believe everything she does is to somehow increase her popularity and help out her cause.

Funny E-mail

I got this in an e-mail from a friend, I assume this is all true as that is his dog:

Have you ever heard that a dog "knows" when an earthquake is about to hit?

Have you ever heard that a dog can "sense" when a tornado is stirring up, even twenty miles away?

Do you remember hearing that, before the December tsunami struck Southeast Asia , dogs started running frantically away from the seashore, at breakneck speed?

I'm a firm believer that animals - and especially dogs - have keen insights into the Truth.

And you can't tell me that dogs can't sense a potentially terrible disaster well in advance.

Simply said, a good ol' hound dog just KNOWS when something isn't right . . when impending doom is upon us . . The other day while I was walking through my neighborhood with my dog, Fritz, he suddenly became agitated and pulled his head right out of his collar. I thought it was a cat. Lucky I had my cell phone camera with me....

How to open a pool

Opening a pool is quite simple yet some places charge up to $400 to do it. Once temperatures reach 60 degrees Fahrenheit, and stay there, you can open your pool.


First, remove your cover. I have a "safety cover" which allows water to pass through the mesh during the closed season. This results in very terrible looking, and smelling, water in the spring/summer. Removal of this 16' x 32' cover takes 20 minutes and requires the assistance of my 8 yr old.


That looks good right? You can see the cover at the top of the photo, it is upside down and I hose it off and let it sit in the sun to dry before rolling it up and storing it. Hosing takes 10 minutes, drying takes one day, and the folding/storing process takes five minutes. I have also put the ladder back in even though the pool is unusable. This is a safety precaution in case someone were to fall in.


Next, I remove all plugs from the returns, vacuum outlet, and skimmer. I REPLACE the plugs in the pump and filter and fill those two devices with water. Yes, you have to stick your hand in the nasty water. Worse than that the skimmer basket had 10 or 12 giant hairy spiders in it.


Fill the pool to the appropriate level. Notice the dark stuff on the bottom of the pool. These items are the occasional leaf I missed during the last vacuuming, and this year tons of worms.


After the water level is up, and the pump and filter are running I add six pounds of shock and six 3-inch chlorine tablets. You can add more shock if you want to speed up the process but my yard gets direct sun all day so any more than this would burn off before the benefit was realized.

48 - 96 hours later vacuum up the crud and check your chemical levels. Mine needed one pound of pH+ and the six chlorine tabs were gone. I added three chlorine tabs, replaced my cartridge filter and the pool is 76 degrees Fahrenheit and ready for our first pool party Friday. FYI when a pool party involves more than five children I always increase the chlorine level quite a bit. Yes, that ruins their swimsuits faster but it's worth the "accident" payoff.

Movie Review (Breach)

Last night I headed over to the dollar movie to see Breach. I was familiar with the story and wanted to see how Hollywood adapted something that was in the press only a few years ago.

Overall, the movie was good, yet slow paced. A young FBI intern trying to become an agent is assigned as a clerk to Agent Robert Hanssen. Agent Hanssen was, by then, well know for his reputation as a patriot and fantastic agent. When Hollywood tried to show how brilliant Agent Hanssen was I believe they fell a little flat in the scenes that should have impressed you with agent Hanssen's ability to read people and the like. It was definitely the screenplay or the direction that caused this to fall flat as the actors certainly delivered in their respective roles. I also didn't feel the tension building appropriately as the scenes progressed, but this is perhaps because I knew how the story ended. The only other irritating thing was a scene with Eric O'Neil (Ryan Phillippe) and his wife Julianna (Caroline Dhavernas) where she asks him to betray his mission because she wants to know why he is gone all the time. Having spent a bit of time working in environments which require discretion I can say that when your wife says "Don't you trust me enough to tell me?" The answer is "No." Even better she followed that sentence with "Do you think you would be betraying your country by telling me?" The answer is "Yes." This is simple and should not be taken as a matter of trust or personal preference, you simply don't share these types of things with people who don't need to know regardless of their trustworthiness or good intentions.
This movie is decent but should only be seen at the dollar flick, or a rental. I would say the main detractor from making this true story absolutely fantastic would be the pace of the film.
Let me throw a quick shout out to one of my favorite guys Gary Cole who was in the movie but will always be Bill Lumbergh from Office Space to me.

Reverend Jerry Falwell

Reposted from Mike's soapbox.

I know this is about a week late, but I just read the Ann Coulter column that followed Jerry Falwell’s death and thought it was worth reprinting. It’s somewhat lengthy but well worth the read. It’s entitled: “Jerry Falwell -- Say Hello to Ronald Reagan!”

No man in the last century better illustrated Jesus' warning that "All men will hate you because of me" than the Rev. Jerry Falwell, who left this world on Tuesday. Separately, no man better illustrates my warning that it doesn't pay to be nice to liberals.

Falwell was a perfected Christian. He exuded Christian love for all men, hating sin while loving sinners. This is as opposed to liberals, who just love sinners. Like Christ ministering to prostitutes, Falwell regularly left the safe confines of his church to show up in such benighted venues as CNN.

He was such a good Christian that back when we used to be on TV together during Clinton's impeachment, I sometimes wanted to say to him, "Step aside, reverend -- let the mean girl handle this one." (Why, that guy probably prayed for Clinton!)

For putting Christ above everything -- even the opportunity to make a humiliating joke about Clinton -- Falwell is known as "controversial." Nothing is ever as "controversial" as yammering about Scripture as if, you know, it's the word of God or something.

From the news coverage of Falwell's death, I began to suspect his first name was "Whether You Agree With Him or Not."

Even Falwell's fans, such as evangelist Billy Graham and former President Bush, kept throwing in the "We didn't always agree" disclaimer. Did Betty Friedan or Molly Ivins get this many "I didn't always agree with" qualifiers on their deaths? And when I die, if you didn't always agree with me, would you mind keeping it to yourself?

Let me be the first to say: I ALWAYS agreed with the Rev. Falwell.

Actually, there was one small item I think Falwell got wrong regarding his statement after 9/11 that "the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians -- who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle -- the ACLU, People for the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say, 'You helped this happen.'"

First of all, I disagreed with that statement because Falwell neglected to specifically include Teddy Kennedy and "the Reverend" Barry Lynn.

Second, Falwell later stressed that he blamed the terrorists most of all, but I think that clarification was unnecessary. The necessary clarification was to note that God was at least protecting America enough not to allow the terrorists to strike when a Democrat was in the White House.

(If you still think it isn't Christ whom liberals hate, remember: They hate Falwell even more than they hate me.)

I note that in Falwell's list of Americans he blamed for ejecting God from public life, only the gays got a qualifier. Falwell referred to gays and lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle.

No Christian minister is going to preach that homosexuality is godly behavior, but Falwell didn't add any limiting qualifications to his condemnation of feminists, the ACLU or People for the American Way.

There have always been gay people -- even in the prelapsarian '50s that Jerry Falwell and I would like to return to, when God protected America from everything but ourselves.

What Falwell was referring to are the gay activists -- the ones who spit the Eucharist on the floor at St. Patrick's Cathedral, blamed Reagan for AIDS, and keep trying to teach small schoolchildren about "fisting."

Also the ones who promote the gay lifestyle in a children's cartoon.

Beginning in early 1998, the news was bristling with stories about a children's cartoon PBS was importing from Britain that featured a gay cartoon character, Tinky Winky, the purple Teletubbie with a male voice and a red handbag.

People magazine gleefully reported that Teletubbies was "aimed at Telebabies as young as one year. But teenage club kids love the products' kitsch value, and gay men have made the purse-toting Tinky Winky a camp icon."

In the Nexis archives for 1998 alone, there are dozens and dozens of mentions of Tinky Winky being gay -- in periodicals such as Newsweek, The Toronto Star, The Washington Post (twice!), The New York Times and Time magazine (also twice).

In its Jan. 8, 1999, issue, USA Today accused The Washington Post of "outing" Tinky Winky, with a "recent Washington Post In/Out list putting T.W. opposite Ellen DeGeneres and Anne Heche, essentially 'outing' the kids' show character."

Michael Musto of The Village Voice boasted that Tinky Winky was "out and proud," noting that it was "a great message to kids -- not only that it's OK to be gay, but the importance of being well accessorized."

All this appeared before Falwell made his first mention of Tinky Winky.

After one year of the mainstream media laughing at having put one over on stupid bourgeois Americans by promoting a gay cartoon character in a TV show for children, when Falwell criticized the cartoon in February 1999, that same mainstream media howled with derision that Falwell thought a cartoon character could be gay.

Teletubbies producers immediately denounced the suggestion that Tinky Winky was gay -- though they admitted that he was once briefly engaged to Liza Minnelli. That's what you get, reverend, for believing what you read in The Washington Post, The New York Times, Time magazine and Newsweek. Of course, Falwell also thought the show "Queer as Folk" was gay, so obviously the man had no credibility.

Despite venomous attacks and overwhelming pressure to adopt the fashionable beliefs of cafe society, Falwell never wavered an inch in acknowledging Jesus before men. Luckily, Jesus' full sentence, quoted at the beginning of this column is: "All men will hate you because of me, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved."

Game of the Week

Age Of Speed Master the race tracks of the future as you tackle huge jumps.

Play this free game now!!

Get a platform please

I caught Mrs. Clinton on Good Morning America today where she continues her Anti-Bush platform. I guess I should be happy that this is where she stands and is choosing to focus her efforts on someone who will not be running, but it gets so irritating. Today she was calling for a DEBATE WITH GWB. Honey, debate your opposition; that being the people who will oppose you for the office of President of the United States. I am glad she continues to prove that her only qualification for the job is that she lived in the White house for 8 years and already knows how she will re-decorate.

Read my Reviews on Epinions

Stop by and read the Captain's reviews on Epinions! Every click gets me some pennies.

I would be happy to review products by request, no requests from the VelvetMantis or Teddy Bare please.

Fandango is prejudiced?!?!?!

From a buddy's blog, spread the word:

http://jubalingen.blogspot.com/2007/05/not-fandango.html

Why I dislike Oprah Winfrey

I have several reasons. For all the good she does, she is wishy washy on so many issues. She claims to be Christian, yet thinks marriage is an unnecessary institution, when she is fat she talks about how it's ok to be fat, when she is skinny she talks about how to get skinny etc.. This past week really took the cake. I figured I would call it out since so many people are getting canned just for talking these days.

Speaking about her Grandmother:
"She used to say, 'I hope you get some good white folks that are kind to you.' And I regret that she didn't live past 1963 to see that I did grow up and get some really good white folks working for me," Winfrey said, to laughter and a loud applause.

Double standard in action.