The City of Akron and my Trash Can

Crap. First off I had typed this long story with pictures and everything and while working on it erased it. So, here goes again.

A few weeks back the City of Akron gave us our new trashcans. (You know, the type the rich folks in the suburbs use) No more trashbags on the curbs for us! I'm sure this is breaking the hearts of The Trash People. (Read that, it's one of my favorite entries)

So I'm dropping my son off to school and we see the trash truck coming down the street. So I drop him off and come back home to find my trash can and mailbox entangled in a way that just isn't right for a mail box.

Stupid me, I'm thinking. "Well, I'll go see what the note says on my door". Of course, much to my unamazement of course there was no note on the door. Oh, and thank you paperboy for making sure you only missed the BIG puddle by mere inches. After all, that whole maybe 20 feet from me driveway to the porch is way to much to maybe, Oh I don't know, TOSS THE PAPER UP THERE!

So I call the City of Akrons new tax funded 311 phone system from my home phone. (Since it's local you can't call from a cell phone)

So the first person says why don't you fill out a claim fix it and the city will reimburse me. Yeah right, and this pigs will fly out of my butt next Tuesday.

So I tell her, well you guys broke it, so you guys need to fix it.

So now I get switched over to the sanatation department.

(At this time I saving this as a draft so I can eat lunch and will finish this post later)

O.K. I'm back. So the sanitation department says he'll send the foreman around and they'll get back to me. So sure as crap the foreman doesn't show up until I call back again then amazingly, "He's on his way now"

So the foreman I guess takes a look at it must evidently be as smart as I am because he agrees that the mailbox is knocked down.

I get a call back from the sanitation department saying the will somebody out to fix it. So guess what, the next day I have to call them again since no one showed up.

Finally the day after that they send out some brain whiz who decides putting it back in the hole good enough that a bird landing on it could knock it over was good enough.

At this point I'm so irritated it's time to bring in the big guns.

So I look up my councilman and hopefully he is somebody I voted for.

Enter Mr. Kilby. He tells me he just had an incident with the santation department himself. They are supposed to still pick up tires but didn't pick up the ones he left out. So he called the sanitation department and they told him they would come and get them. He didn't pull the "I'm the councilman card" to see if they would do it.

Well, it must have been that same foreman because they didn't show up to pick up his tires either.

But wait, there's more. So now he comes by the next day with the Parks department. Now only in the city of Akron, is the Parks department responsible for taking care of the devil strip. (Look it up, I think it's an Ohio thing)

So he calls me yesterday to see if they came out and fixed it yet. Well, as of today my mailbox still looks like it does in the picture above.

It's supposed to be fixed sometime this week. So now we wait.........

Straight from the headlines!

KINGSTON, Jamaica (AP) - Former heavyweight champion Trevor Berbick was found dead in a church courtyard Saturday with chop wounds to his head in a suspected homicide.

Now this is just funny!

You know everyone on the set had to try to keep from busting out laughing during this story!

Who says that a period is a bad time of the month!

Not to long ago my wife recieved one of those free sample things in the mail. Well this one was from the Always company and I s*@t you not. Their new slogan.....

Have a Happy Period.

I swear, you can't make that stuff up. Even my wife and daughther both got a laugh out of that one.

In the words of Ron Popeil, "But wait, there's more!"

I wanted to do my research so googled in the phrase, "Have a happy period" and the always company actually has a website that shows up first when you type that in.

http://www.beinggirl.com/en_US/happy/pages/index.jsp

However, once again..."But wait, there's more!"

If you scroll down the page, once again I s*#t you not, you can actually send your friends or loved ones a "Have a happy period E-card"

http://www.beinggirl.com/en_US/happy/pages/ecards.jsp

My favorite one is the one that has the saying, "You have the right to make it the best period it can possibly be."

O.K. how do you make it the best period it could possibly be. I can see THAT conversation happening.

"You call that a period? Girlfriend I've seen periods and the end of a sentence with more spotting than that. When you learn how to bleed like a real woman give me a call. Until then....."Have a happy period!"

What's next? From Ex-lax. "Have a healthy dump for to good of God and your country"

Why I didn't take this picture

Something pretty cool happened yesterday in Toledo Ohio of all places. Actually a little south of Toledo. I was out doing some geocaching when I saw a huge bird circling pretty low overhead. At first I thought it was a buzzard as they are pretty common in Ohio. The closer I got I noticed that the bird had a white head and a white tail feathers.
I would not have thought I would have seen bald eagles in Ohio. That was pretty cool.
Now, the picture above isn't from my camera. My camera. I found this picture on the Internet.
The reason being is my digital camera has this really neat feature. There is a little warning on it to let you know when your battery is low. What it does is it comes up with a message saying "Low Battery" and then the battery dies so you can't take any more pictures.
Basically that is a really nice feature to have. It's kind of pointless to have the ability to take say one more picture when the camera can use that battery energy instead to tell me the battery is going to die before I can take one more picture.

Eric meets Whitney

O.K. you have to admit this is a pretty good look alike. She had me fooled for a minute even though I was wondering what the hell Whitney Houston would be doing in Toledo. :)

However, if you've ever been to Toledo it's the place to go it is the type of town you would hang out in if you need to take care of your crack habit.

She even seemed to be quite buzzed while taking this photo. Now knowing my luck not only was this not Whitney Houston but it's a pretty good chance it was a guy in drag. Hey, one day though when I'm one of those old grandfathers that lie to their kids I'll never tell them it wasn't her.

It's important that you make sure your grandkids respect you more than they do their own parents. After all what are thier parents going to do if you lie? It's not like they are going to tell them, "Don't believe our granddad, he's full of crap!"

Only from the government.

Only the state of Ohio will take time to send me monthly notices to let me know there are no changes to the sales tax. So basically they send out a notice to let you know there is no need to send you the notice they are sending.


"This is notification that there will be no rate changes effective November 1, 2006. All rate changes as well as notice of no rate changes can be found on our Web site at tax.ohio.gov on the Sales & Use Tax Page at the link below:"

Have you ever noticed.....

Not to sound like Andy Rooney, but have ever noticed whenever anyone starts off a conversation with, "I don't mean to bore you with this...." the very next thing they proceed to do is to bore you with it?

Handicapped Parking

The other day I'm at the library, because that's the way I roll, and I noticed that the handicapped parking spot had a sign similar to this one.

So I was trying to figure out why the fine is $50 to $300. Are there vaying rates of unhandicappedness that I'm not aware of. If you park in the handicapped spot and get out of your car in running shoes and your sports bra do you get the $300 fine? If you get out of the car and you have a slight limp from the softball game last night then I supposed you get hit with the $50 'it's kind of O.K. ' fine.

Of course if you park in a handicap spot and you aren't handicapped, by taking that spot away from a handicapped person that means by default you are mentally handicapped so maybe it should be O.K. for you to park there. Except I don't know what kind of sticker you would have to have on your car to point out you are mentally handicapped. Maybe it could just be a picture of a guy sitting in front of a TV set watching Jerry Springer.

Note to all guys (and girls) part two.

Note: To all guys (and girls) who wear those cell phone earpieces. If you wear them while you are driving good for you to talk hands free.

However, I usually see people wearing them in the gas station, at the mall, in restaurants, etc.

I know you may think, "Dude, I look so cool and hip with this awesome new high tech gear!"

1. Most of the time I see people with these things on they usually aren't talking to anyone because outside of their little word, they really are not as popular as they think.

2. As the post below about the cars with flames. You don't look cool, you look like a dork.

3. You actually more look like the post below. Everytime I see one of those earsets in someones ear I just want to go up to them and say, "Hello, you must be 7 of 9." (Only the reel geeks will get that reference.)

That gives you something to think about in itself. If someone as geeky as ME thinks you look dorky than you can only imagine how dorky you must really look!
















"Hey baby! I'm 7 of 9, want to hook up?"

Note to all guys

Any person that is over the age of 18, hell, I'll even stretch it and give you to the age of 21. If your car, truck, motorcycle, moped, bike, scooter, or any other means of transportation has ANY kind of design that incorporates flames it is not cool. Chicks will not look at your car and want you because your car has flames.

It just makes you look like a dork.

My idea for a new collaboration.

How about a new duet. Matisyahu and Sean Paul.

It would definetly be a song that would be good to dance to. It could bring Jews and blacks, or hispanics. What is Sean Paul anyway? Paul is not really a name of Mexican decent.

It would bring the people of both cultures together as they will spend decades trying to dechipher the lyrics from their songs.

Keep your ears open for the first single, "Mumble, mumble something mumble what?"

Masters of misdirection

Once again those political knuckleheads in Washington are at it again.

Last election instead of focusing on the war, the economy, oil prices etc. The politicians succesfully made the American population focus on gay marriage.

(Note to Congress-Just because you may not want to gay people to 'marry' each other no matter how hard you try I don't think you can 'un-gay' somebody)

Now those knuckleheads are at it again. War? No. Oil Prices? No. The Economy? No? North Korea? No. Irag? No. Iran? No.

Now they nimrods are trying to once again avoid the important issues for that all so important issue of Flag Burning. Yes, they are ready to screw around the Constitution and try to add an amendment to make flag burning against the law via a Constitutional amendment.

Now a few quick questions.

1. By a show of hands... How many of you have actually ever seen anyone burn a flag? O.K. let me change that. How many of you have actually seen anyone in AMERICA burn a flag? Do you really think that the terrorist that we see burning flags are going to say. "Abdul, we better stop this, it is illegal in America!"

2. Do you actually have any idea how hard it is to actually find an American flag that is actually MADE in America? Go ahead, try to find one.

That's not right!

There are some things in life that should just not be done. Now no matter if you are a fan of Guns' N Roses are not you have to admit that back in the day they rocked. I still dig quite a few of their songs and have several of them I listen to on my I-pod occasionally. (Yes, the brother is down with GNR)

While working in Germantown, WI last week I heard something that should never have been done. Now, occasionally a cover song can be good. However, SHERYL CROW, should NEVER, EVER, EVER, NEVER, do a cover of a GNR song. Yes, I actually heard Sheryl Crow do a cover of Sweet Child of Mine by Guns N Roses. It was so horrible that I had to find out who was butchering, I mean, singing it. Sheryl stop it, just stop.....

Why this person irritates me.

Who is this person and why does she irritate me? She is no one famous. Actually there is a 99.999% chance you have no idea who she is. I don't even know much about her except her name is Victoria Banit.

The reason she irritates me is not a personal one. It's people of her ilk. She is a realtor. Now, there is nothing wrong with that in itself. The house across the street from me is for sale and is listed by http://www.victoriabanit.com/

Therefore, maybe wrongly, I'm going to assume this person is Victoria Banit. The reason she irritates me is there is something going on in the Real Estate industry that is quite annoying. Why in the name of God do 9 out of 10 For Sale signs have to have the photo done by Glamour Shots or your High School year book photo on the sign. If someone is buying a house, I really don't think their deciding factor will be. "Well, the real esate agent had this really nice necklace on the sign out front."

Also, if your reasons for buying a home are based on a 10 year old High School yearbook photo, Please don't move in across the street from me.

Alligators kill 3 in Florida in one week

News release: After 3 deaths of humans by alligators in Florida in the last week, the Bush administration and the Department of Homeland Security have raised the "Alligator Terrorist threat level" to code periwinkle.

It has been determined that these are specially trained Al-A-Qaedaors . Not to be confused with the domestig Alligator.

One of the terrorist Al-A-Qaeders has been spotted in a remote pond in Timbucktoo. An immediate offensive of 25 B-2 Stealth Bombers and the 152nd Walmart division of the National Guard have been dispatched to protect us Americans from this threat.

The Department of Homeland Security has issued these safety tips to avoid being attacked by the terrorist Al-A-Qaeders.

1. By ducttape

Dick Cheneys' Haliburton company will shortly be coming into the area under a 2 billion dollar contract to rebuild the swamp that was drained to catch this Al-A-Qaeder.

Some things just aren't right.

There is an old saying that "Love is Blind." Evidentally love must also be a eunuch. This 33 year old man recently married this 104 year old woman! 33.................104................. A very important fact here. She is not rich............. We are all probably thinking the same thing now, and it's so gross that even "I" don't want to broach that subject. Now onthe other side we have Anna Nicole and an 80 something year old billionaire. (Whose money she is fighting for right now) Now in this situation everyone on planet earth knew what this about. Also, if this guy was a billionaire let's not act like he didn't know he was paying for a VERY expensibe piece of ass. When you are worth billions I suppose you overpay for products. Now, what I don't get if you are going to by a billion dollar piece of ass, at least don't do your shopping and the local trailer park. C'mon man, you could have done so much better. To be honest to inherit a few billion that could have been me sitting on his lap!

How hungry can a person be?

Last week on my way up to Goodrich, Michigan I made a stop on the way.

There was person in front of me that was purchashing an Egg Salad sandwhich. Now I know you may think that that's bad enough in itself. (In itself? that doesn't sound like proper english)

As they say on those Ronco commercials, "But wait, there's more!"

This was not a freshly made Egg Salad sandwhich, it was one of those pre packaged sandwhiches, "but wait, there's more!"

This was not a restaurant stop, not even a truck stop. This was at a Speedway gas station! Why on earth would anyone want to put an Egg Salad sandwhich into their bowels (a prepackeged Speedway sandwhich nonetheless) into their bowels during a road trip must only be to punish the other person in the car with them.

Conversation dont's

Recently someone I was talking to started off a conversation with this sentence:

"The other day I was watching a show about ice....."

O.K. If you EVER find yourself starting a conversation with "The other day I was watching a show about ice...." STOP. For the love of God, stop..

This is wrong on SO many levels.

1. You should not let people know that you actually had the time to watch a show about ice.

2. Say the word out loud to yourself "ice".. Does it sound like anything interesting can be said about ice? Unless it's a compound word like icepick, iceskate, icefishing, etc., Plus besides icepick even the words in that list are a stretch at the best.

I'm a draw.

Date: February 4th, 2006

Eric Kirkland plays to two packed shows in Cleveland, Ohio!

Yep, 8 people a show in a several hundred seat theatre!

Idiot of the Day

Sometimes a persons name just really seems to fit them. Finally after a few days have passed Vice President "Dick" Cheney has decided to speak.

Getting past what he even said, what surprised me the most was this statement.

"Texas officials said the shooting was an accident and no charges have been brought against the vice president."

For some reason I don't think that would have happened in ANY other incident if someone got shot in the face.

What really irks me is back when Clinton was getting orally pleasured in the White House Congress had to get together and hold hearings and drag him through the mud. Now Dick Cheney can shoot a guy in the face, cause the guy to have a 'mild heart attack' and all he gets is a "It was and accident, let's move along folks". Pure and utter BS.

Getting old

This is what I refer to as our "Antique Table" The table is actually a sewing machine my wife inherited from her Grandmother.

The clock was a retirement gift for my mother.

Now the phone on the left amazingly actually still works. It was quite interesting to watch me son try to figure out how to dial on a rotary dial phone.

Anyway, what dawned on me is I remember growing up that phone being used in our house.

You know you are getting old when an item you once used in your lifetime is now considered and antique.

Two nights... Two Views

There is one thing you learn being an entertainer. No matter how nice of a hotel you manage to get for a gig, as the entertainment you will always manage to get that one certain room.

Usually it's the room that is one of the following.

1. Next to an elevator shaft
2. Next to the icemaker
3. All the way at the end of the hall from the elevator.
4. On the side of the building that has no parking
6. The handicapped room
7. The room with no batteries in the remote
8. The room that the heat/air doesn't work right or is extremely loud.
9. The room next to the main entrance with in and out traffic.
10. The room next to the bar
11. The room next to the slot machines (Casino gigs)

Or like on a recent tour I took, you get "The room with a view"

Here are two pictures from two consecutive nights, in two different cities, in two different hotels.



Yep, nothing gets a man motivated on a nice sunny day like brick!

Goodbye to one of our own

A friend recently informed me of the pointless murder of a good man.

Blair Shannon may not have been a household name but when I was informed by my friend if I knew Blair the first words out of my mouth were, "I haven't seen him a LONG time, he's a really nice guy!"

While I hadn't worked with or seen Blair in several years I remembered him as soon as I heard the name. You usually only remember a person by name that quickly for one of two reasons. The person is an a-hole or, like in the case of Blair, the person left such a positive memorable impression on you that you remember them in a heartbeat.

I remember Blair as being a very positive and very happy guy.

It's a shame that the comedy world has lost one of the really good guys well before his time due to a random act of violence.

Peace be with you my brother.

Idiot of the Day (Still not done daily)

Sometime this is just so easy it's not a challenge. The latest idiot of the day is Pat Robertson. Pat needs to open his eyes more and shut his mouth more often.

Let us review some of Pat Robertson's earlier blunders.

1. In regards to a Pennsylvania town who decided to not go with teaching "Intelligent Design"

''I'd like to say to the good citizens of Dover: if there is a disaster in your area, don't turn to God. You just rejected Him from your city.''

2. On activist judges

''I think the gradual erosion of the consensus that's held our country together is probably more serious than a few bearded terrorists who fly into buildings.''

3. The latest, suggesting that Ariel Sharons stroke was retribution from God

''You read the Bible and he says 'This is my land,' and for any prime minister of Israel who decides he is going to carve it up and give it away, God says, 'No, this is mine.'''

I think every time Pat Robertson opens his mouth God is probably saying. "Oh me! What is this idiot going to say now! I REALLY messed up on that one!"

I'm sure God is sitting up in heaven thinking. Hmm, world hunger, hurricanes, floods.... I'm bored, think I'll give that Jew a stroke, that'll teach him!

I'm getting so sick of people like Pat Robertson and his ilk that feel they are some communication vessel for God. What's worse are the sheep that follow people like Pat Robertson and can't see through the fog to say, "You know, I think he's gone whacko!"