I feel that yesterday's log entry may not have adequately conveyed my distaste for ads, which is to simply say I thought of more to vent about on the matter. To expound, I loathe all forms of advertisement be it junk mail, cold calls, commercials, spam, billboards, car magnets, sign yards, plane banners, t-shirts, bar cups, door flyers, bumper stickers and yes, even free mousepads.

I make two exceptions to the above credo. First, Times Square does advertising right. If you are going to do something annoying, do it huge, phenomenally huge. I want the sky obstructed from view and my head to have to pan left to right to take it all in because as my pal e-love says, "enough of anything is funny." Granted when he said that he was referring to biting the backs off of Easter peeps and sticking them all over someone's car. What can I say, I ran with it.

The second ad I will turn the other cheek for comes to me about twice a year. The book of the month club (BOMC) is solely responsible for about 1/5 of all the works in my library. And, they're nice hardbound and trade paperback's, not those low-rent consumer rags. Their plan is simple; pick five, receive five, write cancel on the monthly subscription card and wait for their next mailing in six months to repeat the process again.

So in other words either make me think the planet is being attacked in some Independence Day kinda way or make my reading your literature actually worth my time. If you do that, call me your customer for life.

If I were able to eradicate five things from the planet, one of them would be advertisements. This phenomenal waste of paper and human time is seriously outlandish. The only thing not wasted was the cost of my anger-management class because it proved ever helpful in coping with the deluge of crap I receive physically, digitally, and over my phone.

Given this, you can imagine my elation when I read about the fine dining establishment of Hooters in Augusta, Georgia having to close its doors after filing bankruptcy when they lost a 12.5 million dollar lawsuit. The crime: faxing unsolicited ads about their apparel challenged eatery to random recipients. It seems the proprietor did not know about, or banked on others not knowing about, an obscure federal law passed around ten years ago making it illegal to send faxes to people in a spam-like fashion. His defense: the ad agency he used, owned and operated by one Bambi Clark, said that she did it all the time.

Hooters is entangled in a second lawsuit regarding another little known law that states people should be smarter than to take legal advice from someone named Bambi.

Bambi Clark has been subpoenaed and asked to expound on her statement, doing it all the time.

Troy DeArmitt found himself in an unrelated lawsuit for claiming he had attended an anger management class, when in fact he had not.

I used to drink. I no longer do. I used to try to explain. I no longer do.

A friend of mine was recently bemoaning the agonies of hanging out with people who drank a lot and the relentless push for him to consume equal amounts. While he does not mind the occasional taste he does not desire to swill the unreasonable quantities that are placed in front of him (funny that). So, I shared with this friend my secret weapon when combatting such high-minded fellows.

"If you find yourself taking heat over the glass of coke or water in front of you," I tell him, "simply state, no thanks... recovering alcoholic." No single comment will renovate an uncomfortable and annoying situation faster. And you get the added humor of ?

1. witnessing the priceless look as they size you up, amazed that such a vanilla looking guy could acquire such a rogue disorder at such a tender age.
2. watching them come to grips with the fact that you were once a better drinker than they are attempting to be
3. having them know that you have the internal wherewithal to overcome being a better drinker than they are attempting to be
4. and, digesting that you're strong enough to have once been a barley fish, kick it, and still hang out in a bar with a bunch of lushes without even being tempted by their shiny grogs of plenty.

There are few guarantees in life, but when battling the emotionally addled this fix has been absolute. I promise if you put it into terms they respect, mindless as these terms are, you can enjoy your diet sprite in unencumbered peace.

And, of course it doesn't hurt when you and your real friends behave in a drunken and unabashed fashion without the benefit of alcohol. All the zaniness with none of the slurred speech or $100 plus bar bills at the end of the night that no one pitches in for.

David Copperfield hasn?t got a thing on this girl.

Editorial Note: I hate that I and the rest of the free world knows this hacks name. ?Watch and be astounded while I make the planet and every living thing disappear live on network television.? No, Davey, you sit and watch while I amass the contempt of a thousand planets in your direction. Consider it my show of gratitude for turning the fascinating art of sleight of hand into nothing more than commercialized sleight of mind.

people in quest of money will stop at nothing in chasing the almight dollar. pah-leez.

Last night a greatly impressive storm descended upon our city. Down the street from us a great tree got splintered which made our garage fiasco look like Charlie Brown's Christmas. We have been without a phone or dsl line for over 15 hours now which is inhibiting my posting something more impressive than an excuse (from work). When back in business, I will make up for it in short order.

I was never more certain that a word was not a word as when I read the following:

As Sanders LaMont, the ombudsman of The Sacramento Bee, and a former editor of the Modesto Bee, said: "I think there is a legitimate argument that elected officials have a right to certain privacy."

It's not the first time I've squinted into the pages of my dictionary with wild amazement.

excerpt from Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris

A fortunate few of you have already heard tell of my similar experience while visiting the nearby and ominous Amish country, mid-west chapter. For those who questioned my motives for sharing this taboo yarn, I now present the academic work of Mr. Sedaris as my evidence that it is noteworthy, it is interesting, and it is very, very funny.

The word 'turd' appeared six times in this short story. I actually had to add it to my word processor's local dictionary for convenience.

While Microsoft Word does not recognize the word turd, it can automagically change "Ameria" to "America".

Nicholson Baker, in his work the Fermata, referred to the male member approximately 67 times and never used the same descriptor twice.

Paying for things with damp money equals huge fun. After an energetic bout of tennis or an afternoon at the pool, nothing rivals reaching deep into a front pocket and placing this dark and heavy paper into the upturned hand of a cashier. The facial contortions made while studying the soiled bills and contemplating the source of the money's funk are unrivaled.

Unrivaled at least until the tables are turned and a cashier deposits moist bills in my hand at the conclusion of some transaction. The look of compounded disgust on my face is absolute while I consider the amount and whether or not to put them in my pocket, wallet or garbage can. Heathens.

Did you ever notice that the phrase "I'm an adult" sounds very much like "I'm a dolt"? Just because your age categorizes you as such does not mean your demeanor must. So I encourage you to sleep till noon, skip your chores, watch three movies in one day and on occasion eat yourself into oblivion so you can, if even only for a moment, again taste the unassuming beauty that defines youth.

the older i get, the less i can explain.

I'm 90% certain that the cause behind our debilitating eco-system stems from burnt microwave popcorn. How can you mess this up? And, if you mess this up, how can you think it acceptable to not go to every person within nasal shot of your crime and grovel for forgiveness on violating their personal space with your culinary ineptitude. Not only does this produce one of the most unnatural smells known to man, but it does not say a whole lot for your ability to contribute and/or participate in this thing we call life. Being one who still uses a pre-JiffyPop recipe to make my corn, I am flabbergasted that someone can fail in this meager endeavor.

As long as we have humans unable to follow a set of instructions that begin with "Place bag in microwave", I vote for government regulation restricting who can engage in this complex form of food preparation. Unless of course you plead uncertainty given that steps two and three of the instructions could not be consulted since they were written on the bag which was currently spinning in circles in the radiation box.

The greatest reward of taking the time to grow a website such as this can be found in the constant connectedness one can create with those close to them. An ancillary benefit of such a venture can be found in the connectedness people you do not know have to you, the creator. I have only recently begun tracking the activity to dearmitt,com (huge crime that) and have gained new and curious insights about the people who visit and frequent my humble cyber abode.

8am and 10pm are peak times for visitors.

Weekdays see more traffic than weekends.

A lot of people use the google search engine (smart move)

Linux is the least used OS coming here.

And, best of all, there are people out there who are way more freaky than I am. So daft in fact, I am dedicating a new section of dearmitt.com to what they want from me. Because a very cool part of logging is that I get to see what people want to see from me. I will update this section as long as the weblogs continue to proffer items as bizarre as "bolt thrower chick" and "copulating squirrels" and I will call this new cavity "What do you want?" Please visit it now and frequently if you ever require a sign that you are more normal than your fellow man. And, please don't ask me why some of these requests are leading to content I created because I honestly do not understand more than half of them.

Bad karma equals fallen trees, broken roof tiles and felled power lines. Case in point:

Troy wake up.

No.

Troy wake up, a tree fell on our garage.

I said I'd get up in ten minutes, just give me ten more minutes.

Troy, I'm not kidding. A tree really fell on our garage.

Of all of the lies Marty has used to get me out of bed in the morning, I can only pretend today's was a fabrication. Because five minutes after this discourse I spent my post holiday Monday morning dealing with this.

In thinking about it over the day, I have concluded that this serves as a friendly warning from the environment for my front yard landscaping project where I've devastated this tree's long undisturbed brethren. How many times do I have to argue that we are not alone here guys.

And, man do we under-appreciate garage door openers or what? I spent five minutes scratching my head trying to figure out what you do when the clicker-thing doesn't set the massive door to motion? Can you believe that you actually have to touch the door to make it go up and open. Don't even get me started on the host of organisms and contaminants that are now permanently married to my epidermis from this transaction. Ughhh!

This device accomplished in 15 minutes what I could not in two weeks; share a single ip address among all of my home computers (win2000, win95, mac) to grant web access across the board. Sometimes you just have to pony up to get the job done right. And, not only did it fulfill my need but my visiting brother-in-law was able to wirelessly use my web connection while hanging out downstairs in the dining room with about two mouse clicks from his apple iBook. Now how sexy is that?

In doing a landscaping project over the past few days, I have learned that if I ever needed to bury a body to prevent incarceration, I'd just turn myself in.

I'm not a fan of slapstick comedy, skinless chicken or backyard fireworks. After witnessing the grandiose spectacles a government budget can produce, why bother with these ma and pa affairs? Now, I'm not naive ve enough to think that mine is a majority opinion here though. I know plenty of patriots who plan and then execute their own version of the fourth to intimate barbeque filled audiences and ...

equal pay, rights and respect has got to be right around the corner if this is any indicator.

Well, Chris and Gina are at it again. Continuing to amaze me and garner my total and complete respect.

Man do I wish the turned up collar look would come back. I love it to death and it stands as one of the few fashion trends I'd like to re-live. Currently, when getting ready in the morning I don the typical gap or jcrew polo shirt and the collar stands up as it was on the hanger. I typically leave it this way through my morning rituals (i.e. watering the lawn, eating breakfast) and only lower it in bashful shame on my walk to the metro station. Each day I leave it up a little longer though and like easing your way into a cold swimming pool I'm secretly assuming the hip guy role a few minutes at a time. If my past stylistic record can be relied upon in anyway, the fad will come and go before I make it through an entire day with my collar standing tall and proud.