WarehouseLarry

Online Beat Maker

noreply@blogger.com (Clif) — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 03:39:00 +0000

Well, I have a new toy. Luckily this one didn't cost too much, which is nuts because a shit load of fun. If I had made this thing I'd charge a ton for it! What is this wonderful bit of wonderment? It is an online beat maker!

I'm a musician, so I'm constantly thinking in terms of music and coming up with new musical ideas. Unfortunately I have a few things working against me:

1) I'm a guitarist and I can't very will lug a guitar all over the place with me, and
2) I also can't lug my home studio around with me which is what I us to create all non-guitar music

Until I found this little program Sonic Producer. Sonic producer is an online beat maker. Yes, it exists completely online. This means I can access it from anywhere I have an internet connection!

For those of you who don't know, a beat maker is basically a music sequencer. I can plot out drum beats and other musical parts using a bunch of different instruments and high quality music samples. THEN I can even export the whole thing in MP3 format to use in my other music production programs!

Be Back Soon

noreply@blogger.com (Clif) — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 21:21:00 +0000

Hey dear readers. Sorry I've been non-existent lately, but I've been putting a lot of time into my other blog over at MovieBlast! trying to get its traffic up. I finally got everything optimized and working well and now am going to turn my attention back to this here blog. I plan to integrate the WL blog into the actual WL site by way of a WordPress instead of having it hosted here off-site with Blogger.

Happy new year!

Here's Why John Mayer is Cool

noreply@blogger.com (Clif) — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 03:37:00 +0000

Honestly, I can't name for you a single John Mayer song. I *might* recognize a melody if I heard it, but since I don't listen to music radio...I might not. But I do surf YouTube and I've seen a bunch of this dude rippin' some goddamn blues! This makes him a musical role model for the kids as far as I'm concerned. Here's him doing "Out of My Mind":

Stupid Cheap Graphic Design Stuff

noreply@blogger.com (Clif) — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 14:39:00 +0000

Because I'm generally always broke, I tend to sniff out super good deals wherever I can. Whether it's musical gear, web design software, etc., I always try to find - if not something totally free - then something that is so cheap that NOT buying it will make me feel guilty.

Anyway, here I found a website that offers a few eBooks, graphics tools and web scripts for stupid cheap...each one is under $15 and most are just $7. Most of the stuff is geared toward the eCommerce / Affiliate sales market, but I'm into this and figure a lot of you kids are too, so here's the link:

Cheap graphics stuff!

This site also a ton of other cheap products geared toward many other interests, so here's a link directly to the home page as well:

$7 Dollar Offers

I've already downloaded a couple a few days ago; one from the graphics area and one from the music category. Maybe I'll write up a review once I get a chance to check them out. Then again, maybe not...I'm kinda lazy and unreliable like that sometimes...haha.

The Fake Diary of Clif Haley

noreply@blogger.com (Clif) — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 14:44:00 +0000

The wife and I were going through a bunch of old papers that were boxed up in the garage last weekend so we could shred all the personal account stuff and then toss the shit out. I did manage to find a few interesting bits of writing I'd done a few years ago. What follows are totally fake diary entries I came up with for my own amusement...the dates are fabricated, I think it was all written on the same day around 2003...

The Daily Journal of Clifton Michael Haley Esq. - June 16, 1998

The itch is getting really, really bad now but I'm too embarrassed to go to the doctor! I will DEFINITELY wash the next pair of underwear I buy from a guy on the street! I guess I've learned a few things, though. Namely, A) 'Fruit of the LOAM' is NOT a major brand, B) if a pair of underwear appear to be made out of attic insulation then they probably are, C) if the phrase "please send help America, I am twelve and supporting a family of nineteen on 52 cents a day and am not making enough money to buy dogs for food" is stitched into the waistband, I should probably ask for a discount, D) most legitimate underwear dealers do not also specialize in Three Card Monte, E) when you open a brand new three pack of underwear the only things in the pack should be underwear and NOT toenail clippings, band-aids, spent bullet casings, chewing gum, or fishhooks. Oh well, I gotta go. I just heard about this guy who sells what I'm told is "the best sushi in town" out of his van. I'll let you know!

The Daily Journal of Clifton Michael Haley Esq. - October 9, 1999

God I hate Ryan! The first thing I'm going to do when the band makes it big is kill him. I'm sooooo sick of the way he looks at me and transmits via telepathic rays "You're just a big ol' baby! Baby wanna go poo, poo? Baby wanna ride the magic Wheelbarrow of Happiness to The Land of Happy Happy Bouncy Shiny Things? Baby wanna DIE!" He acts like he's not doing it, but I know he is. I mean, when I see him he's all "Hey dude, what's up?" but his eyes are saying "Hey you big fat baby, where's your big fat pacifier, dumbhead?!" I don't know...maybe it's just me.

The Daily Journal of Clifton Michael Haley Esq. - February 2, 2000

I checked out this great band last night called WarehouseLarry. They sounded like a rocket powered freight train full of Black Sabbath crashing into a nuclear power plant at the speed of light. Awesome show. If I ever start another band I'm going to call it WarehouseHarry, and we're going to play songs that sound exactly like WarehouseLarry's but have different words that say pretty much the same thing. for instance: WarehouseLARRY has a song called "I Love You Baby" but WarehouseHARRY will have a song called "You Know, I Really Like You a Lot, I Mean, No, Really I Do, It's Just That I'm in a Really Weird Place Right Now (Hey, Where You Going?)" I think that would be cool. Something else I think would be cool are shoes that look like feet. Or maybe just tiny, individual shoes for each toe. Damn, those are both pretty cool.

The Daily Journal of Clifton Michael Haley Esq. - April 15, 2000

Well, it's official: I like corn. It's taken me years to do it, but I can honestly say now that I like corn. Corn on the cob. Creamed corn. Whole kernel corn. I don't know why I didn't like corn for so long. It's sort of sad, really. All those years I've missed enjoying corn. I'll never get those years back. And to think there are people out there, lost people, who STILL don't like corn! Maybe I'll rent a corn shaped suit and hand out pamphlets praising the glory of corn tomorrow. Nah, I think I'll just sit home, watch some TV, and partake in a little bit of corn eatin'!

The Daily Journal of Clifton Michael Haley Esq. - January 7, 2001

I've been trying to write poetry lately, but I just can't seem to do it. I'm too happy and content with life. The only things I can seem to write are Hallmark cards or inspirational posters for first grade special ed classrooms. You know, stuff like "Roses are Red, violets are Blue, I know you love me, and I love you too!" or "Being retarded ain't so bad. At least you're not blind!" I'm sure that kind of stuff could make me a hell of a lot of money, but it wouldn't really fill me up inside. Good poetry only comes from the tragedies in life, and I currently have none. Oh well, I better get Dad to the hospital for his chemo. Later!

The Daily Journal of Clifton Michael Haley Esq. - March 25, 2001

I met this great girl at the strip club the other night. She's just like mom except for the stripping and the cocaine and bi-sexuality and the piercings and the mustache and the "big time debt" from the "operation" that she won't tell me about. she gave me her phone number for ten bucks (what a flirt!), but I must have written it down wrong, because every time I call it I get Fong Wu's Chinese Bistro. We really hit it off, though. She sat on my lap and asked me what my hobbies were and (get ready for this!) she ALSO likes building ships in bottles and covering them with rare, misprinted stamps from countries that no longer exist! I mean, what are the odds of that?! I bought her a ring today. Nothing fancy, just a two karat diamond set in a platinum band. Guess that whole "higher education" thing is going to have to wait a little bit! Ah, love. It's a wonderful think.

There you have it...I hope that didn't take up too much of your time.

My Dog Wears a Diaper

noreply@blogger.com (Clif) — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 16:37:00 +0000

Warning! The following blog post involves graphic and horribly vivid details about canine menstruation! Enjoy!

I get a lot of emails from people who visit my online t-shirt shop asking me about the dog in a diaper design, especially since the image is also prominently dispalayed on the website's banner. People also want to know if that is actually my dog or just a stock photo. Well, here's the scoop:

Yes, that is my dog. Her name is "Witashnah" which is a Native American word meaning "virgin" and which is also what she will always remain. My wife and I took her in as a puppy about 5 years ago. She had been - in true cartoon style - stuffed into a sack with the rest of her litter and thrown into a river. Luckily, the sack just happened to be found by a couple who - no joke - breed dogs for a living. So, not only were the pups taken very good care of, they were given all of their necessary shots.

Witashnah the dog and Yule the cat.

A year later things were very busy for the wife and I. We were building a new house so we could finally get out of the city and we were both in career transistions. At last the house was built and we moved in. Soon after that we realized, in our frantic busy state, we had never taken the time to have Witashnah fixed. We realized this because she went into heat and started spotting our brand new white carpet with bright red...stuff. So, in a panic we quickly wrapped her hind end in a pair of boxer shorts. These immediately fell off and we had to opt for a white t-shirt large enough to tie around her waist.

It was also around this time that I was setting up the WarehouseLarry t-shirt store. I had made a lot of progress on the site design, but hadn't actually come up with any shirt designs...and then Witashnah came prancing into my office with her saggy little homemade diaper and - BAM! - inspiration hit. I snapped a picture and 15 minutes later had the first shirt design done. As you can see, she even smiled for the camera.

A Lot of My Friends are Musical Geniuses: Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (Clif) — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 15:55:00 +0000

Here's part 2 of my friends who are musical geniuses. Now, keep in mind that this is not just biased assessment I present here. I'm not simply noting these folks because they are "my friends" or because I "owe them money" or anything. I am blogging about these folks because they are...musical geniuses. They are the Einsteins of music, the Ben Franklins of music, and the Orville Redenbacher's of music! These guys can split the atom with a single note!

Michael Swanson - We used to call Michael "Bobbo" back when he first joined Plow Monday...when he was a nice, quiet guy who didn't rock the boat but only rocked the bass. Now we call him "Michael" because he's so goddamn ripped and so goddamn good on the bass - light years from where's ever been - that, well, we fear him! Plow Monday had a little spur-of-the-moment reunion gig a couple of weeks ago and it's only thanks to Michael that my head didn't burst into flames...I was so lost playing some of these old songs I barely remember that only Michael's thumping, steady, consistent bassline kept me on target!

Brobdingnagian Bards - Brobdingnagian Bards are, by far, the coolest traditional Celtic duo around. Yeah, that's saying a hell of a lot, but these guys are on the ball like no other traditional Celtic duo around. And they have a sense of humor! It's not all bog mummies and plagues with them. They have an entire album called "Irish Drinking songs for Cat Lovers"...!!!! How, oh HOW, can you NOT love that shit?! Check out Brobdingnagian Bards and I swear by the next day you will be carving crop circles into your neighbor's lawn that very night and walking nine times widdershins 'round the nearest faerie mound hoping the little buggers have drinks ready!

A Lot of my Friends are Musical Geniuses: Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (Clif) — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 19:18:00 +0000

So am I , of course, but this has been well documented and spoken about, especially by my wife. Sometimes I'll write some bit of music that I'm sure totally sucks donkey taint and my wife will reassure me that, no, it's complete and utter musical genius and the lawn really needs a good mowing! And as I'm mowing the lawn I'm thinking, "my wife must be right...surely she wouldn't marry a talentless hack!" It's usually at this point that I inadvertently mow over a lump of dried dog doo and find myself in a thick haze of gray poop powder.

At any rate, I thought I would dedicate this post to a few of my musical genius friends:

Jon English - Jon is a one man musical dynamo, and much like a real dynamo he can produce electricity if he's wrapped in copper wire and spun around in a giant magnet. Not only does Jon write and perform some of the greatest music this side of the mason dixon line (wherever that is) he is also a fantastic recording engineer. What's really impressive about Jon's ability to produce very good quality recordings from his little home studio, is that the equipment and software in his home studio is all cheap or free. In some cases he literally just jams a guitar cable into a picture of a piece of equipment torn from a magazine. We were in a band together once called Plow Monday.

Litany for the Departed - This is my buddy Mike's band. They are what the kids call "heavy metal". They are angry all the time. Sure, if you talk to them individually you'll see that they are very nice people who would likely do anything to help a guy out, but when you get them together they tend to set things on fire and suddenly there are battle axes jutting from people's skulls. Mike and I were in a two man acoustic extravaganza for the senses...well, the hearing sense...called Always the Fall. We were angry too, but being acoustic, we were generally subdued about it. We wielded Nerf battle axes.

The Wartime Social - My old pal Ryan is the front man of this band. We were in a band together once called Plow Monday. Ryan is not only a really good guitar player and songwriter, but he is an astoundingly good singer. This does not go unnoticed by the females of our species who tend to clamor over him like flies on a Ugandan infant. Ryan's the third guy from the front in the photo...kind of an odd place for a FRONT man.

The Internet: A Wretched Hive of Scum and Villainy

noreply@blogger.com (Clif) — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 16:03:00 +0000

The Internet is the most marvelous of mankind’s technological achievements. It has managed to shrink the world down into a single networked neighborhood of millions of humans all sharing ideas, information, cultural and social values, history, countless years of wisdom, and video of two girls eating each other’s poop.

If you haven’t yet seen the 2 Girls 1 Cup video I’m sure as hell not going to give you the link. I don’t want to be responsible for whatever happens to you after you see it. I will not be to blame when you run from the computer screaming and clawing your eyes out. I will however give you this video clip, which shows other people reacting to 2 Girls 1 Cup:

This could be you.

It seems like people can find a porno use for almost any invention, no matter how noble its actual purpose. I don’t think Thomas Edison gazed proudly at the first light bulb and said, “’Tis a feat of science, indeed, this light bulb I have created! It shall illuminate this great nation from shore to shore and surely be put up some guy’s butt one day!” and yet weirdos are always sticking light bulbs up their butts. Among other things.

Some sicko even made this 2 Girls 1 Cup t-shirt! Sheesh!

Some Photography

noreply@blogger.com (Clif) — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 14:34:00 +0000

I like to take pictures of stuff. I wouldn't say that I'm a good photographer in an artistic sense, only that I can aim a camera at something and press a button and for some reason I really dig doing that. I think a photographic artist can take a picture of anything, no matter how mundane, and bring out meaning. My friend Rob is one of these guys. He could take a picture of a piece of string cheese that would somehow explain the meaning of life. My pictures only look cool if what I'm taking a picture of is already cool of its own accord. That being said, here's some pics I took at an old abandoned mill in Wimberly, Texas. Unfortunately, it was locked up, so I couldn't get inside.

Nostalgic PBS Kid Show Intros

noreply@blogger.com (Clif) — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 17:51:00 +0000

I was a little beer battered the other night and decided to go on a nostalgic romp through YouTube for the intros to all the live action PBS kid shows I watched when I was but a wee boy. I've omitted Sesame Street, because I think that one's a bit obvious. Here they are in no particular order:

The Electric Company - Hey you guys! Man, I used to love this show. Mainly because it had a live action Spider-Man bit.

Reading Rainbow - I hated to read as a kid, but I sure loved to watch this TV show about how much fun reading is!

3-2-1 Contact - Ah, science for kids. I think just about 99% of the experiments they did on this show have been band from schools now days.

Mystery! - I'll admit that I never actually watched Mystery!, but I always thought this intro was one of the coolest damn things in the universe.

Cool Free Internet Crap

noreply@blogger.com (Clif) — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 14:02:00 +0000

I spend a lot of time on the internet for both work and play. Here's a list of some of the cool net freebies I use to make surfing and working a much smoother ride:

meebo.com - Meebo.com is a handy online utility that allows you to automatically sign into all of your IM clients at once and then IM through all of them via the meebo.com interface. This is great because you don't have to download and install every damn IM client out there and then have them all choking your computer on start up. Plus, it allows you to IM from anywhere, whether the IM clients are installed on the machine or not.

iloggo.com - This thing is the shit. I just discovered this one over the weekend and I dig the hell out of it. Basically, it allows you to ceate a homebase of links to all of the websites you visit most. I used to do this "by hand" by creating a hidden page on one of my websites with simple text links to all of the fun and work related sites I visit. Iloggo.com takes this a step further. You go to a website that you want a link to in your homebase and Iloggo.com not only lets you add the link, but it lets you crop the logo out of a screenshot of the site. Awesome!

statcounter.com - A free and very lightweight tool for tracking traffic to your websites. Very simple to install and gives very good and detailed stats.

findsounds.com - I like to do a little home recording when I have the time, and this site is invaluable for finding sound effects and, even better, tons and tons of great drum samples.

dynamicdrive.com - A bunch of free to use scripts for enhancing your website. Great for designers and developers who don't really know jack shit about javascript but want to be able to implement drop down menus or other slick dynamic effects.

addthis.com - Great for bloggers. Addthis.com generates a button for your bog that lets your readers easily bookmark your articles to all the most popular social bookmarking sites. Check it out at the end of this artcile, in fact.

pingomatic.com - Pingomatic.com lets you automatically ping several blogging search engines when your site has been updated. I use pingomatic.com every time I update this blog.

Well that Gig Sucked

noreply@blogger.com (Clif) — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 16:25:00 +0000

Actually only I sucked. Last night really taught me a lesson. Mainly, never try to play a gig if you don't really know how to play the songs. The first half of the show we played Jon's stuff and I had no clue how any of it went. Sure, I'd been to a 2 hour practice earlier in the week where I mastered it, but then I never had a chance to practice the stuff again...and I forgot it all.

Jon even made cheat sheets and I fucked it all up...HOWEVER, and I'm not shifting blame here - I mean, if this was the Maury Povitch show and we were revealing the results of a DNA test I would indeed, by 99.9% accuracy, be the baby's daddy of suck - two of my songs were marked wrong...essentially one song that did not need a capo said it did, and one song that did need a capo said it didn't. But, even when Jon told me on stage "Dude, this song has a capo!" and I put the capo on...I still had no goddamn idea what to play. I may as well have been trying to fart Carmina Burana into a kazoo.

Finally, after playing Jon's songs that I didn't know for what seemed like 15 hours we got to the last half of the set, which was all old school Plow Monday stuff. YES! Something I know how to play!! Nope. Even as I write this I'm trying to remember the chords to the chorus of "Joke" and I have no idea what they are.

Well, if there's one thing I've learned from this debacle it's this: Practice makes perfect, unless you only practice once for 2 hours...in that case, practice makes suck.

Thank God everyone else in the band is a complete badass! And at least I had a cool hat on.

Gotsa Gig Tonight

noreply@blogger.com (Clif) — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 20:08:00 +0000

That's not really such a big deal, except that I haven't played any stand-up, on-stage, electric rock and roll for a live audience in over a year. It's at a pretty hip place in downtown Austin called MoMo's. Been there a few times, but never as a performer. It's a cool joint.

You see, my old band Plow Monday broke up about 4 years ago. We've managed to have a reunion show in some form every year since. But the last two reunions were small acoustic sets. Our singer Jon still performs as a one man singing, songwriting extravaganza, which is great for him, because he's incredibly badass at it. So this is really his gig, but he asked us to get together to back him up as a full band, and for the last half of the show, we'll play some old Plow Monday stuff. Very cool! It will be fun to rock again!

Letter to Bill O'Reilly About Slasher Movies

noreply@blogger.com (Clif) — Sun, 14 Jan 2007 16:27:00 +0000

Dear Mr. O'Reilly,

First, let me say that what follows may be complete crap. I am no authority on human psychology nor have I done any actual research, because I’m not what you might call a “stickler for details” or “productive” and it is hard to focus one’s attention on compiling relevant data when one’s attention has been severely diluted by 12 or so beers. This is why you don’t see many legitimate sociologically applicable studies or polls done by the Anheuser-Busch Corporation. Most of their studies involve wet t-shirts.

The topic upon which I would like to expound is that of your aversion and disgust to gore movies. You are justified in this aversion and disgust. I feel the same way about Nancy Pelosi, so it is not YOUR psychology that is under the microscope here, but that of those who enjoy such movies. I will admit that I, too, will partake in a gore film on occasion, but only because I am fascinated by the art and skill of special effects, and not because I enjoy watching someone disemboweled with a shoe horn or some such thing.

I would say that the target demographic for these gore movies is men between the ages of 16 to 32. I would say this, but I won’t, because I’ve done no research to back it up, so instead I will just assume it. Now, it is very commonly known among most of the scientists that I did not research that the males of the human species are typically of a more aggressive, competitive, violent, smelly sort; whereas the females are typically of a more gentle, nurturing, super hot, boob-intensive sort (as evidenced by a recent Anheuser-Busch study.) This is due to evolution. Cavemen went out killing dinosaurs and each other, while cavewomen stayed home tending to their troglodytic young and knitting booties out of mastodon fur.

However, now that all of the dinosaurs and cavemen have all been killed by cavemen, us modern day men have no outlet for our completely natural and healthy bloodlust. In addition, thanks to modern methods of avoiding pain, we are generally much more fearful of pain than cavemen were. Whereas our cavemen forefathers might have had their legs ripped off by a saber-toothed goat and kept right on crawling, modern men will hide for hours in attics just to avoid having their wives pluck their uni-brows. We are soft, yet we still have the genetically programmed bloodlust of cavemen.

This is where the gore movie comes into play (and sometimes rewind if it was worth seeing again.) The gore movie allows the soft, slightly overweight modern man to satisfy a deep tickling itch in his brain for violence and carnage without actually going out and gutting his neighbor with a pitchfork. Sure, this happens, but that’s usually because of video games. So the modern man will rent a DVD composed of roughly 5% plot and 95% people being bludgeoned into pulp with tire irons. In this way the modern man experiences vicariously the act of bludgeoning with a tire iron AND the horror of being bludgeoned BY the tire iron, thereby A) fulfilling his inborn want to kill, and B) re-enforcing his fear of pain. It is a two-pronged effect which satiates AND suppresses, in turn making a more well rounded individual!

So now you’re probably asking yourself, “If this is true, then why am I so disgusted by these films? Am I not a man?!” Or course you are, Bill! Unfortunately, one of your caveman ancestors probably suffered some horrible physical trauma and the horror of it was so profound that it left scars on your very genetic code. His cavewoman wife probably tried to gouge out his uni-brow with a sharpened piece of flint. Many true and fine men are just as disgusted by these films for similar reasons, but this is not a draw back. These men, not distracted by want of killing, are able to focus their attention on other things, such as science, philosophy, and internet gambling. This balance is good for society as a whole!

Big Trucks

noreply@blogger.com (Clif) — Tue, 11 Jul 2006 16:39:00 +0000

If you want to buy a jacked-up gigantic diesel 4x4 pickup truck with huge mag tires that's fine with me...but you better fucking use it. If you have one of these monsters and it is NOT covered in blood, mud, scratches, and dents then you're a phoney with a little dick. You should be knocking over trees and hauling boulders every waking minute.

I saw one of these at H.E.B. the other day - taking up FOUR parking spaces - that didn't have a mark on it. It was chromed out and spotless. I thought, man that guy must have a microscopic dick! His dick is probably just a theory some physicist came up with!

"Here we have the nucleus of the atom, then the proton, then - smaller still - the electron, then the quark, and then this guy's dick. It can't be detected with any known technology, because it's so small, but we believe it is there."

I've got a small mid-size pickup. Why? Because I live in a city. I'm not going to be uprooting sequoias or transporting space shuttle parts. I might, and this is a HUGE might, help a buddy move a couch or a beer keg. I don't need a truck big enough to hold senate meetings in to survive...and neither do most of the idiots who have these trucks.

Hey, Dick!

noreply@blogger.com (Clif) — Tue, 11 Jul 2006 16:26:00 +0000

How is the name Dick short for Richard? How did this happen? The first Richard to do this must of really hated himself. "Hi, my name is Richard...but just call me Dick." Poor guy. Must have been manic depressive or something. That would be like me saying "Hi, my name is Clif...but just call me Filthy Asshole."

My name has always caused me a little trouble. It's Clif with one f. Why just one? Because it's short for Clifton, which only has one f. Of course, people always assume it's short for Clifford, which has two f's, so everyone spells it Cliff. It's still better than Dick, though.

"My name is Richard."
"Could you spell that, please?"
"D-i-c-k."
"Don't be so fucking hard on yourself, man!"

When I was in middle school my buddies and I had disgusting nicknames for each other based off of our real names:

Clifton Haley - Queefing Hardly
Bill Duncan - Bowel Dumping
Asa Nolen - A-suck Nutsack

Real creative stuff, you know.

Amazing Food!

noreply@blogger.com (Clif) — Fri, 18 Mar 2005 18:12:00 +0000

Food amazes me. I'm not talking about the kind of naturally occurring food you can just yank off a tree or run down on the highway, I'm talking about the kind of food people make by mixing things together in a test kitchen or laboratory.

When I was a kid, a friend and I would attempt to make our own food by cramming random items from the refrigerator (pickles, ham, yogurt, cardboard packaging, etc.) into a blender. Nothing we came up with would ever be served in a restaurant or given to the homeless. Everything we came up with looked like vomit, even before it actually became vomit. I doubt that many of your finer restaurants create their menus based on dares. "Dude! I totally dare you to take this brazed breast of duck and blend it with some generic cat food and Tylenol!"

I often wonder how ancient peoples came up with the idea of mixing different foodstuffs together to come up with entrees that actually taste good. Was it trial and error? Did ancient man first try peanut butter and okra before peanut butter and jelly? And how could he be certain that mixing peanut butter and jelly wouldn't set off an explosive chemical chain reaction that could destroy his entire village? Did he put some peanut butter and jelly together and then run off real fast just in case?

Because my girlfriend and I are fairly health conscious with our eating our diet consists mainly of food yanked from trees and chicken. This sometimes causes mental problems with me because I once enjoyed the many varieties of scientifically created foods you find boxed in many supermarkets and I will occasionally yearn for Totino's pizza, Wolf Brand Chili, or some other fabrication of food-like chemicals. When window shopping for these items I am ever amazed at what food engineers are able to concoct in their secret underground laboratories. Here are some of the more astounding creations I've recently noticed:

1) Frozen toast. That's right. Frozen frickin' TOAST! GENIUS! Long gone are the days when you had to go through the trouble of putting butter on a piece of bread and then placing it in a toaster. Now all you have to do is open your box of frozen toast, gnaw through the impenetrable plastic bag made of space shuttle shielding inside the box to actually get at the frozen toast, put the frozen toast in a microwave or toaster (if you're old fashioned), re-seal your unused frozen toast properly so as to guard against freezer burn, and enjoy!

2) Hot dogs with cheese in the middle. I'm not sure what sort of fantastic beasts the hot dog companies are getting their pancreases and sphincters from now days, but apparently these animals are full of gooey cheese! Thank you God!

3) Microwave Ice-Cream. Excuse my while my head explodes. I'd like to see Stephen Hawking mathematize his way out of this paradox!

4) Children's breakfast cereals. All of them. Children's breakfast cereals are not of this Earth. Save some money, just buy a two pound bag of sugar and some food coloring.

5) Gigantic avocados. Now, I know this may sound like a food you simply yank from a tree, but the gigantic avocados I'm talking about are HUGE. Much more huge than natural evolution can account for. These avocados must be the result of scientific tampering. I saw my first one just a few days ago and this thing was, I'm not kidding, the size of a regulation softball. Gigantic, I tell you! I imagine at night, once the grocery store employees are all gone, that these avocados are the scourge of the produce section, rolling en masse from their bin and raiding the weaker more defenseless fruits and vegetables like the poor little Roma tomatoes or the totally gay Kiwis. Only the spicy habenero peppers might be able to stop them, but they are all taking a siesta.

Here's What I Got For Christmas!

noreply@blogger.com (Clif) — Tue, 28 Dec 2004 21:03:00 +0000

I got a freaking viral throat infection! How's that for a happy holiday? I was laid up in bed for all of Christmas Eve and Day swallowing razor blades!

I also got a hot sandwich maker -- one of those waffle iron units you put a sandwich in and it not only heats the sandwich up, but divides the sandwich into two sealed triangle-shaped pouches. I don't know how I ever lived life without this thing. It seems like I was happy before getting the sandwich maker, but I must have been living in hell, because I've probably used it forty times in the past three days. I don't see how our forefathers ever survived the winter without one...or even wanted to. I think we owe our forefathers a very grateful salute for enduring all of the tragic hardships which befell them in the making of our country such as smallpox and a complete lack of homemade hot pockets in three minutes or less.

The sandwich maker almost makes up for the sore throat, but not quite. I'm telling you this sore throat was a beast unlike anything I'd ever encountered. THE PAIN! Dear Lord in Heaven, if only there was a magical hot pocket to cure the woeful pain of a virally infected sore throat.

I've experienced a lot of pain in my life...

When I was fifteen I offered to help my dad shuck a wheelbarrow full of corn. I'd hack off the ends of the ears with a MEAT CLEAVER (take note) and then pull off the husks. Well, upon reaching in for yet another ear of corn, a spider the size of a dinner plate leapt onto my arm. My first instinct was to swipe at it with my other hand. Unfortunately, my first instinct should have been to drop the MEAT CLEAVER from my other hand first. The end result is that I plunging the MEAT CLEAVER nearly to the bone in my arm. The spider got a way.

The sore throat was worse than that!

When I was nine I was x-rayed for possibly having scoliosis, that disease which mangles your spine into a sheep shank knot. The x-ray proved negative for that, but did find a benign cyst just inside my rib cage. The next week a couple of surgeons ripped me open, spread my ribs apart with Craftman power tools, yanked out the cyst, and sewed me up (acutally, they used some sort of surgical super glue.) And if that wasn't enough, they left about two feet of an inch wide tube inside me to drain out excess body goo as I healed.

The sore throat was worse than that!

Oh well, at least the Vicodin I was perscribed is making me see things now. Better go!

Dale Crider, Hawson's Bovinery Hoof Rendering Floor Supervisor

noreply@blogger.com (Clif) — Wed, 08 Dec 2004 02:41:00 +0000

Hi. My name is Dale Crider. I work at the Hawson's Bovinery in Teet, TX. Here at Hawson's Bovinery we do everything that can possibly be done with a cow, and all under one roof. We got a machine that shaves flank steak off the bone right next to a machine that makes genuine leather handbags, and next to that machine is another machine that can fix a set of horns to a Cadillac in five minutes every five minutes. Yep, when it comes to cow based products Hawson's Bovinery has got the competition beat.

I started working here I was ten-years-old in the Potted Meat Wing shoveling snout and sphincter for $4.15 an hour 55 hours a week. No Over Time. No Sick Time. No vacation Time. In fact, back then we worked something called Extra Time which meant you came in to work on your time off for half pay and maybe you got to take a sphincter home for dinner. But times are different now thanks to them bastards in the ACLU. Shit, my boy Ricky T. Crider had to wait till he was six-goddamn-teen before they let him start work in the Potted Meat Wing and on top of that they make him wear gloves, and a ventilated mask, and rubber boots and a whole bunch of other crap just so "the product is clean" and he ain't "getting sick or maimed!" Boy's gonna grow up soft, I tell ya.

But any ol' way... Since them glory days of my ten-year-old self I've progressed my way up to Hoof Rendering Floor Supervisor. That's where we take the cow hooves and grind up to make all sorts of stuff like Jell-O, false teeth, skull shaped gear shift knobs, fake fingernails for burn victims, and fake hooves for cow burn victims who can't walk their way to the killing bolt gun.

Speaking of the killing bolt gun... My Daddy started working here back when he was two-years-old de-boning ribs for McDonald's McRib Sandwiches back in 1923. Anyhow, he eventually worked his way up to Killing Bolt Gun Assistant by the age of 14, six years after I was born. He'd lead in the cow to the killing bolt gun chamber, prep it up by painting a little target on its temple, say a little a sweet something to it like "This'll only sting a bit" or "You ever been kissed by a butterfly, Bessie?" at which point he'd give the signal and the Killing Bolt Gun Operator would press a button and a .50 caliber military grade rifle would discharge a blunt lump of steel directly into the cow's brain pan. Pure, scientific precision that operation was. And still is.

But anyway... On one particular occasion, just after Daddy had given the signal, his Stetson fell off of his head and bent down to pick it up. Well, they say timing is everything and they're right. Just went he bent down to pick up his hat, that Killing Bolt Gun Operator pressed his button and Daddy caught a steel slug right in the head. That slug went all the way through and still killed that cow!

Six weeks later Hawson's got a complaint letter in the mail from someone in Scrampy, TN claiming they'd found a chunk of human ear in their can of coctail weiners, so the company...

Aw, shit. I just heard my assistant's having some problem with the hoof-based glass eye machine. Well, I'll finish this up later. You take care, now!

Computer in a state of &$#@!

noreply@blogger.com (Clif) — Mon, 29 Nov 2004 21:39:00 +0000

My home computer has recently decided to rebel against its Human Overloard and discontinue its services. I think it may be a Windows XP problem, but then again it could simply be possessed by demons, at which point I could upload ExerAssist ver 6.6.6 and have the unholy critters expunged in the name our Lord and Saviour Jesus H. McAfee.

However, odds are that my computer will remain an unstable and ill suited platform from which to unleash my massively intelligent blog entries for quite some time, so I am stuck doing it sneakily from my work computer. Shhhhh....

A Few Words on THE ECONOMY

noreply@blogger.com (Clif) — Wed, 24 Nov 2004 03:05:00 +0000

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about the American economy lately. Specifically about that part of the American economy that involves my wallet, because that specific part has recently become what we in economic circles refer to as “empty.” There are a lot of economic factors that I could blame this on. Take Recession, for instance. I could easily blame my lack of money on Recession. “Recession,” I could easily say, “is causing me so much stress that I have to buy twice the amount of beer for relaxation purposes, and as a result, have far less money to spend on more important things like rent or liver transplants.” So I sat down the other day and came up with a few ideas on how we can “stimulate the economy” by increasing consumer activity across a broad spectrum of the economic landscape and possibly robbing people at gunpoint.

My first idea is that everyone should invest in the stock market. Granted, the stock market has recently been closing at numbers well below the temperature levels of planets in the outer reaches of the solar system, but this is mainly because of what economists refer to as “@&$%# Enron!” You should take a large chunk of your annual income and invest it in a bunch of stock. You should do this because you make more money than me. My annual income couldn’t support an investment into a box of saltine crackers.

Investing in the stock market in these modern computer driven days is so easy that even the average Joe can do it, which is probably why the economy is in such poor shape to begin with. People named Joe shouldn’t be allowed to invest in the stock market. People named Joe should be required to consult Financial Advisors, because Financial Advisors usually have very business-like names such as Richard or Edward and are very good at manipulating money whereas most people named Joe are usually only fairly adequate at manipulating the controls on the Tilt-O-Whirl where they work.

Another way to bring the economy up to speed is to buy everything you see advertised on television. There are many fine products available to the consumer on television these days ranging from devices that, by sending jolts of electricity directly into your abdominal muscles, can turn them into firm, healthy, spastic knots the size of pellet gun ammunition to devices that can cook a fully grown manatee in under five minutes. These are actually the same device.

One particular product I find to be highly enticing is the Flat Hose, which is a water hose that when not in use becomes flat so that it is easy to roll up. I think buying a couple of these would do wonders to stimulate the economy especially if we used them to tie up Allan Greenspan and said to him in a very calm but serious manner, “Now stimulate the economy dammit or we’re going to inject you full of Epil Stop Hair Remover!”

And this brings me, via no legitimate segue what-so-ever, to my next idea which is getting involved in internet porn. I don’t know about you, but lately I’ve been receiving a lot of unsolicited advertisements for pornographic websites in my email account, specifically my MSN Hotmail account. Sometimes I’ll receive upwards of twenty-five emails a day from guys like HumpyMcGroin@forwardthrust.com or gals like MissMassiveBigOnes@brothelworld.net with subject headings similar to “!!!CONSOLIDATE YOUR DEBTS NOW AND WHILE YOU’RE AT IT CHECK OUT SOME FREE PORN FOR ONLY $34.95 A MONTH AT WWW.UNSANITARY-UNDRESSED-NAKED-PEOPLE-DOING-NEARLY-CRIMINAL-ACTS.COM!!!” Apparently, the economy is being very nice to the internet porn industry. Maybe the government should sponsor its own internet porn site featuring sultry, seductive, lurid, glamorous nude photos of, let’s say, Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.

In conclusion, I would like to say that surely you can see here that I have put forth quite a number of feasible actions we might take in order to revive our stagnant economy and that, in addition, I obviously have absolutely no idea of how the economy actually works. I blame this on Recession.

Youth of America full of Unqualified Pedestrians

noreply@blogger.com (Clif) — Tue, 23 Nov 2004 00:43:00 +0000

On my way to the wonderful Subway for lunch today, where they have the greatest ergonomically engineered booths within which to supplant one's self, I found myself passing Westlake High School amid the churning of students walking to and/or from their various lunch break endeavors, and all I have to say is WHAT THE HELL ARE THEY TEACHING THESE KIDS WITH MY GODDAMN TAX DOLLARS NOW DAYS?! HUH?!

These kids, complete with their authentic retro 70's era garb purchased on their mom's GAP card, were just wandering into the street as if there weren't any cars barreling down the road at 20 m.p.h. which is the enforced School Zone speed limit around lunch time. I guess they were returning from where ever they'd had their "off campus" lunch: Pizza with a side of zits. But they weren't crossing the street at traffic lights or designated "cross here and not get maimed by two tons of Detroit steel" areas. Oh no, they simply stepped off the curb and right into traffic. When did they stop teaching kids to LOOK BOTH WAYS before crossing the street?!

Anyhow, I really like Subway's booths. They're composed entirely of plywood and some sort of plastic covering which looks hard enough to shatter diamonds on, yet they are extremely comfortable. Truly a feat of ergonomics genius!

Quizno's, on the other hand, employs the use of tall stools. This is no good. I think a man should have his feet on the ground when he dines. You never know when you may have to spring into action, and becoming tangled up in the knot work of legs and foot rails of a stool can hamper any post sub sandwich adventure.

Drunk at Dave and Amy's

noreply@blogger.com (Clif) — Sun, 21 Nov 2004 09:05:00 +0000

yep...i'm drunk at dave and amy's...let me give my cohorts a chance to say something..... here's mike cotton...

Damn, a chance to the greater Clif community, what to say? Well, two pieces of advice -- 1) hangoversgiving is the saturday before Thanksgiving every year, celebrate it with you loved ones next year, but make sure to cover your furniture. 2) Wisdom comes at the expense of world and time. It's what you manufacture with the raw materials of life, and in your last moments is all you have left. Pass it to someone, but don't let slip away.

Well shit, that was heavy, and now for another golden-oldie twin-spin sound set from KLAM in Portland, it's... John Tucker.

Christ, I love teabagging men.

Well, that's all the time we have for Tuck tonight, maybe he'll have more words for us next week. Until then, it's the weather with Jimmy Lavine.

I need new friends.....

"Gourmet" Sandwiches

noreply@blogger.com (Clif) — Thu, 18 Nov 2004 17:55:00 +0000

I just had Subway for lunch and I was once again surprised at how much it didn't suck.

I was never really a big fan of Subway sandwiches back before their big make over; before they decided to sell meats made from animals that actually exist in nature and offer more than one flavor of bread. Remember the OLD Subway with that one limp roll of bread and the cold cuts of meat-ish product that you could ball up and bounce off walls? Well, take it from me, the NEW AND IMPROVED Subway is MUCH better. So I've been eating of this new Subway for a couple of weeks now and have been quite pleased.

My favorite sub shop here in town (being Austin, Texas) is Delaware Subs. Delaware Subs offers gigantic sandwiches crafted from AUTHENTIC east coast recipes. They even offer these tiny little over-priced sugar infused cupcakes called Tasty Cakes that, apparently, only grow naturally "up North." These little cupcakes are so rich in sugar they can rot an elephant tusk from twenty-five feet away.

I do like sub sandwiches. If I had to rank the sub shops here in Austin from what I would eat first to what I would eat last, I would have to say. . .

1) Delaware Subs.
2) Quizno's.
3) Subway.
4) A heaping wheelbarrow full of mammal feces.
5) Thundercloud Subs.

As you have probably gathered from the above ranking, I am not a huge fan of Thundercloud Subs. Nope. They are absolutely the worst. The strange thing, though, is that they are incredibly popular here. I don't understand why. . .

Thundercloud Subs are small, over-priced, made from substances that barely pass as meat and more often probably pass as stones or polyps, and their shops are staffed by hippies. And by hippies I mean hirsute men and women who travel in visible hazes of body odor and patchulli and very rarely take the time to pluck various insects and wildlife from their dreadlocks, not your typical modern day hippie who doesn't even have a job.

And now even 7-11 has gotten into the sub sandwich business offering sandwiches made from, and they really say this, "gourmet" meats and breads, which makes me wonder: Who stood by and let 7-11 bend "gourmet" over a barrell and rape the meaning out of it? Why, back in my day, you couldn't even use the word "gourmet" in a sentence unless you had an off shore bank account and at least ten servants just to pick your nose for you. Boy, those were the days!