Seeing as Mother’s Day is practically upon us, it’s seems only fitting that we rasie a Blue Beaver and drink a toast to those who brought us all into this world (apart from us clones who were grown in large glass cylinders in labs, that is).
Usually I concern myself with only my own mother (that’s her in the picture), however I have recently begun to think that maybe I should amend that point of view. After all, I have encountered a large number of mothers that I’d like to…get to know a little better. So to each and every mother out there, on your special day grab a Beaver and think upon this: M - is for…well, mother, oviously O - is for observing your children closely to ensure that they grow up happy and well adjusted T - is for never tiring in your efforts to look after us H - is for hiring the very best nanny that money can buy while you are being a career mom E - is for your emotional stability R - is for really loving us no matter what we do
It seems, these days, that almost every show you watch on t.v. (or the ones I watch at any rate) have a disclaimer at the beginning as well as after every commercial break. You know the one that I mean, “This program contains scenes of violence and/or coarse language that may be unsuitable to some viewers. Viewer discretion is advised.” Now, I won’t get into the violence part, that’s a whole different matter. What I would like to address is the “unsuitable language”.
One of my favourite shows is Hell’s Kitchen. If anyone else has seen this you know that Chef Gordon Ramsay is very fond of using the f-word. This also occurs on a lot of the other “Reality T.V.” out there. However, here’s the funny thing. It’s always bleeped out; the most you hear is “f” then “bleep“. Therefore if you are hearing any offensive language it is in your head.
I think it’s time for the government to step and and censor our brains. It worked on “South Park” when they put the V-chip in Cartman’s brain. Surely it’s not that far fetched. That way the government wouldn’t have to spend it time making up new legislation to “protect” us (i.e. Bill c-10). They could just program the chips to make us do what they want. They could use it for things other than censor-ship as well. They could program the chips to make everyone stop smoking as well. That would be pretty sweet.
Everyone has witnessed the extraordinary fighting prowess of our Bar-room Brawl Tag Team Champions, Gerri and Tammy, “The Mean Mother Scrappers“. They have been absolutely dominant and remain undefeated since their very first fight back in December. They are so intimidating that few people will even step up and challenge them.
Now at long last someone has come forward to challenge for the singles title. Micky dropped by The Redneck for the first time a few days ago, and it was obvious right from the start that he wasn’t going to back down from anyone. Clearly he had his sights set on only one thing, a fight. So, naturally I signed him up for the Monday Night Brawl.
Micky stepped into the middle of the floor, folded his arms across his chest and glared balefully at everyone around him looking for a challenger. One man stepped forward and locked eyes with Micky. The two of them just stood there taking each others full measure. A hush fell over the crowd of onlookers as the two men played out the battle in their minds. After two full minutes that felt like an hour, the second man realized how the fight would end; he just knew he did not have sufficient testicular fortitude. He bowed his head and conceded the victory to Micky. Micky, however, was not satisfied. He kicked the man in the stomach, turned around, reached back, grabbed the man’s head in his arms, sat down hard snapping the man’s neck forward violently, then released him; thus perfectly executing a Stone-Cold-Stunner. The man was down and out.
“How was that for you, f**ker?!”, Micky shouted as he put one foot on his opponent’s chest and then flexed his arms. “Who’s next?!” The entire crowd took one step back, then they all raised their glasses in a toast and started chanting, “Micky, Micky, Micky…”
The title belt was presented to the brand new, undisputed, singles brawling champion right then and there. Micky put the strap over his shoulder and walked up to the bar to begin his celebration.
“Break their nose and they’ll just say sorry; now tell me what kind of freaks are that polite.” Weird Al Yankovic - Canadian Idiot
Well, I reckon I ought to add my two cents worth in regards to our review by Keywork over at Ask and Ye Shall Receive; especially considering I’m the one who asked for. And boy did I ever get it. I’m sorry you did not enjoy your visit to our establishment.
When I first submitted The Redneck for a look-see by those guys I kind of had a feeling that it might not be the most positive review ever (just judging by some of the others), but I guess deep down I was hoping I would be wrong and that they would say it was the greatest thing they had ever read and that they now had a new yardstick (or metre stick as we say up here) with which to measure all other blogs. I guess my first instinct was the correct one.
But it wasn’t all bad; Keywork starts out by saying, “Redneck Bar and Grill is not the worst blog I have ever read”. Then he goes on to say that he’s not being complimentary with that statement. However, just two posts under our review on his site is a review of another blog. He calls this one an “incoherent, slimy sac of anal seepage”. When you compare the two statements, I think we were complimented.
Now seeing as I’ve almost lost sleep over what he said about me being a “pretty good writer”, I feel I just have to defend myself. Keywork said, ” Never, ever, ever, ever, claim to be a ‘pretty good’ writer. Let someone else tell you that.” I’ll have you know that one time I asked my mom if she thought I was the greatest writer to ever walk the face of the Earth and she looked at me in the special way that moms do and said, “You’re a…pretty good writer, dear.” Plus, the Ninja that I wrote the story for told me, “thanks for the story Ernie! its amazing! haa”, and then she said, “…..didn’t you wet your pants at all this weekend?!” I’m not really sure what she meant by that; I have never soiled my pants in my entire life…well, except for that time I was cuddling the wet beaver on my lap, but that’s a different story.
Anywho, I would also like to point out that yesterday we received 45 views of The Redneck with iwillfrakingtearyouapart and keywork as the referrers in addition to all of our regualr patrons. It wasn’t all that long ago that 45 views would be our total one day traffic, yesterday it was around one-fifth. Some wise person once said, “Any publicity is good publicity.” So thank-you very much, Keywork, for the relatively kind words and all the attention. Anytime you want to come on down to The Redneck Bar & Grill and hang out for a while the Blue Beaver Beer will be on me.
As all Canadians know, May 1 is National Beaver Appreciation Day. It is always an action packed outdoor extravaganza. Every store shuts its doors, all the businesses let their employees go home early, and children get the day off from school. If you are one of those unlucky Canadians on foreign soil today, I hope you can at least find a can or bottle of Blue Beaver Beer to commemorate the big day.
For those of you who don’t know the traditions of this amazing celebration, pay attention. There will be a quiz afterwards.
The beaver is a symbol of all that is Canadian. Hard working, furry, bark breath. Or, hard working at least. Some of us are a little furry in various areas.
Canada wide, we will all gather at the banks of streams, lakes, rivers, swamps or even swimming pools and crack a beer for our favorite animal, the beaver. There will be BBQing, drinking contests and people freezing their butts off. It’s pretty much still winter up here folks! Us Alberta Rednecks will have a bonfire at our local ‘watering hole’, such as the mighty Horseguard River. With any luck, the beavers will come out and play, and we won’t have two more weeks of winter.
Since I found out we were submitted for review at http://iwillfuckingtearyouapart.blogspot.com/ a day or so ago, I was a little apprehensive. Turns out the review was scathing on some points. I guess I never knew, Canadians just aren’t funny! I can now join the ranks non funny, short bus Canadians everywhere. With names like Jim Carrey, Lorne Michaels, Mike Myers, Martin Short, Eugene Levy, Catherine O’Hara, Dave Foley, Samantha Bee, Norm Macdonald, Leslie Nielsen, Michael J. Fox, Tom Green and Dan Aykroyd, Phil Hartman and John Candy. Yep, you sure got us on that one. Canadians just ain’t funny.
We might not be the same kind of Rednecks they were expecting, either. I summed up why I call myself one in the post Redneck, and Proud of it. I wish I was one of those rednecks that lives in a house trailer with his sister / wife and doesn’t know how to read. I’m not that lucky!
The end result is, it just don’t matter. I didn’t start this site to make everyone happy. I started it to make me happy. I am, too. I met people worldwide through comments and posts, I learned a whole slew of things about Wordpress and SEO. I taught a quick lesson on Squeezing Birds. I got to see Vic at Blogger Unleashed layin’ thuh boots to a couple make money wannabees. How much better can life get?
Although it would be nice if I could just Roll Up The Rim To Win a Bayliner Bowrider Boat already. Why are they holding out on me? It’s like some sort of coffee conspiracy.
So, I sat down at my computer the other day; about to write the greatest post of my entire career as a blogger (at least in my head it was). All of a sudden I heard a faint rustling behind me. I turned around and what should my astonished eyes behold:
That’s right a genuine, certified Ninja. Well, I mean I assume she was certified. I never asked for any sort of credentials and she certainly didn’t present them. Anyway, I found it rather odd that a lowly blogger would hear a Ninja sneaking up behind him. I was about to comment on this fact when she opened up her hand, showed me a palm-full of some sort of powder and then blew said powder into my face.
The next thing I recall was waking up. I slowly gained my senses and as I looked around I discovered I was no longer in my own home. Then I noticed I was tied up. I thought to myself that if a female Ninja abducts a male blogger and ties him up there can be only one thing she could possibly want; my mind. Sure enough, she soon came into the room with a laptop.
She set it down in front of me and said (in a very thick Calgarian accent), “You will now write my life story.” (It was almost like something out of a Stephen King novel.)
“But I don’t know anything about your life”, I whined protested.
“I am Ninja, you are writer; now write my story!” As she said this she pulled out one of those long Ninja swords (you know the ones I’m taking about) and started waving it around wildly.
“Hey! That’s a good way for someone to get hurt, you know.” Then I resigned myself to my fate. After all I am a pretty good writer; just because I can’t remember what those Ninja swords are called (and even though I use brackets to excess) that doesn’t mean I can’t write an awesome story about a Ninja. So I started writing and the words just flowed out of me. Before long I had written the greatest Ninja story ever told. She read it and she smiled (at least I think she smiled, her mask changed shape a little; and since she didn’t cut my head off she must not have been frowning). Then she nodded her head, opened up her hand and blew some more powder in my face.
This time I woke up back in my own home, safe and sound. My first thought was to re-write the story and then have it published and then license the movie rights and become a millionaire (all one thought). But as I sat down at my computer I found out that she must have used some sort of Ninja mind control technique on me because I could not remember the story at all. (Although, I had a faint feeling like I had used this very same plot device before.)
There seems to be a need for a how-to on big fat bird squeezing. Surprises me, too. What surprises me even more is to realize that I know how to squeeze a plump bird properly. Go figure. I guess it’s just specialized redneck knowledge. And no, this isn’t related to choking chickens or spanking monkeys. That’s a different post for some other day.
Reading this post just won’t be the same unless you know why I’m writing it, so you better go look at JD’s I am Famous (and More!) post. Okay, read it now? Good. Now go back and read all the comments.
So if you want to squeeze a nice, fat bird, you have to promise to follow JD’s parameters. Just enough to get a little squawk (maybe a squack if it’s a duck), and no more! This discussion is not to allow anyone to go out squeezing birds indiscriminately or in a harmful manner. The other thing I’d like you to do for me is stay off the bottle! I don’t want to hear of anyone getting all juiced up and squashing some poor bird while inebriated.
I never planned on squeezing birds. It was more my parent’s idea. They would send me out there by myself to pick eggs, and there would be chickens sitting on them. Right off the bat you find out that one end of a chicken is pointy, and it can hurt you. You can usually just reach under the hen and get the egg, or the hen might jump up and leave. Remember to watch out for the rooster, if you have one. Some of them sneak up behind and attack! No, really, I’m serious. Not too bad for an adult, but a seven year old is a little shorter. Those little peckers can hurt! Anyways, sometimes we had to catch the hens or move them out of the way, so we would have to pick them up. Usually squeezing was involved to keep them in your hands. Birds are warm and fluffy, just like you bird squeezing wannabe’s might have all thought.
Let’s move on here.
All bird squeezing beginners should start out with large chickens, or quails, or another domesticated bird with small useless wings. The reason for this is big wings can hurt you! Just take my word for it. A goose can darn near flap you to death. And don’t even think about what a swan could probably do. Once you’ve mastered chickens, you can work your way up to larger birds if you want. Another key point to remember is the beak, and you want to stay out of the way of that. Chickens, ducks and quails have short necks, so if you squeeze them from behind they can only reach around so far to get you. Geese have long necks and really nasty bills, so you do the math (chickens over short neck + tiny beak <goose with long neck dangerous bill).
I shouldn’t have to point out, but will anyways, that squeezing wild birds can be a dangerous activity fraught with peril. If you can even get close enough to a wild bird to squeeze it, it’s not gonna be happy. If you do any wild bird squeezing, I suggest you get a camcorder and someone to tape it, so you can show us how it went!
One last tip. Every spring, many kinds of birds moult, which means to lose most of their winter feathers and grow new ones for the year. The new feathers are called pinfeathers, and chickens for sure seem very uncomfortable if you squeeze them in the pinfeather stage. A good analogy might be how some people have reported they feel after they shave their unmentionables and the hair starts growing back in. I haven’t done this myself, so I have to go by what I’ve heard about “uncomfortable crotch pricklies” and I imagine that’s what chickens go through every spring, on their whole body.
So take it easy on those chickens. You can tell if they are moulting or not by checking to see if they look bedraggled. If they are sleek and shiny, you’re good to go. Squeeze!
Now after all this, I expect some feedback. I want to hear some reports from the field. Even if you get as far as seeing a bird and then ‘chickening out’, I want to know! Photo courtesy of Sillydog
If you saw my other post on HHO hydrogen generators, you know we like to build our own homemade fuel cells. This stuff isn’t rocket surgery, folks. Even us rural Alberta rednecks can make a functioning HHO hydrogen generator from common hardware store items. Having said that, there is the potential to make a dangerous explosive device by accident. In fact, we did make an explosion accidentally. It happened in Aron’s house, on the kitchen table. The generator we built was working great, until it exploded and blew both ends off the housing. Fortunately, nobody was hurt and only the generator was damaged.
What we think happened was that a loose connection inside the unit made a spark, which ignited the hydrogen. Since then, we have modified our design to contain no connections of any kind inside. The anodes are one solid piece of material from the outside all the way to the end inside.
You can find lots of links to hydrogen generators,where you can get plans for them and even finished units at HHO Hydrogen Fuel Cell Generators. I have also started building a new website to put all of our HHO hydrogen exploits.
You can find it here: Do It Yourself Hydrogen HHO Generators
Quite often in movies/t.v. shows, characters will refer to money by naming the president who face appears on the particular bill. “I’ve got a couple of friends named Hamilton and Jackson who say I can get into this club”, or if it’s a comedy they might say “I have two friends named Washington and Jackson who say you can help us out.” There’s also that song by Sean “P. Diddy” Combs, It’s All About the Benjamins. Now for anyone (like me) who has to look that up on Wikipedia to get a translation, allow me to help. That would be US $10, $20, $1, $2, and $100, respectively.
Imagine, if you will, Canadians doing this. “I’ve got a couple of friends named Elizabeth and McDonald who say I can buy a quarter tank of gas” or for the comedy effect, “I’ve got a couple of friends named…the loon and…the bear…that say I can throw hard metal objects at a stripper.” Of course then the song would be, It’s all about the Bordens, which maybe doesn’t have quite the same ring to it. Once again I’m referring to the 10 and 20 dollar bills, then the 1 and 2 dollar coins that we have been cursed with are very proud of, and the $100 bill (which features the eighth Prime Minister of Canada, The Right Honourable, Sir Robert Laird Borden).
There seems to be a need for a how-to on big fat bird squeezing. Surprises me, too. What surprises me even more is to realize that I know how to squeeze a plump bird properly. Go figure. I guess it’s just 