 Happy Friday everybody! Hope everyone is successfully fighting their way through the post-holiday blues. What’s that? You don’t have the blues? We can fix that!
Actually, I suppose we’re not really post-holiday anything yet. Still have New Years to get through. Crap…now I’m really depressed. Sigh. Okay, so here’s the update on Cousin Fred’s subterranean hovel. After a flurry of activity over the course of the past 48 hours, everything is done. Seriously. All of the major system are in and operating. Furniture delivery began at 1AM this morning. What I’m left with above ground is a large entrance tube that you have to climb down. It has an opening large enough to lower a refrigerator down inside (that was at 2AM). At the far end of the series of chambers, there is a smaller escape tube above ground. There are also ventilation tubes, etc., along the way. Looks like a tube farm out there on the north farm. And we though the gophers were destructive. I asked Cousin Fred what inspired his move underground. He pointed out that all of his hovels on the north lawn to this point have burned to the ground. He figures being underground makes it less likely to burn. Uh huh…hmmmm. Well, all I care about is getting him and Gigi out of the Main House before the Wife returns from her travels back to the Land of Yankees. Friends, those of you who are dedicated followers of this blog (all three of you by last count) may recall my rant post about Hilton hotels and my treatment at the hands thereof. You may also recall that, after I posted a less than five-star recommendation of their hotel, the manager of that hotel sent a rather condescending and snarky email along with several crime scene photos of me walking through the hotel…just to let me know they were keeping an eye on me. What was the trouble you ask? Well the link to the posting is here, you can read about it. BUT, I will say that it involved forcing us to move rooms from a really nice floor to a less nice floor. Now it turns out I may know why! Marriott hotels (allegedly) and I’m betting Hilton hotels (also, allegedly) hold out entire floors on their hotels for nefarious (depending on your perspective) activities! Mr. Robin, you making this up, you say? I point as evidence to a recent report about a woman who is suing the Marriott Corporation for $10 million because the hotel attempted to force her into a different room on a different floor during a stay in Atlanta last New Year’s Eve. She refused and eventually the Cobb County Police Chief himself showed up and ordered her arrested. Why all the drama, you ask? The woman had been mistakenly placed on a floor reserved for Atlanta-area swingers. Seriously. Swingers in Atlanta take their fun and games mighty seriously. It also occurs to me that Marriott must be so desperate to fill beds with people doing whatever that they’ll call the Law on you if you don’t comply. Sheesh…$10 million…I wonder if I could join the suit? We’ll go after Marriott and Hilton! Makes you wonder what secret stuff Motel 6 has going on – no wonder they leave a light for you. Of course, the Hilton I stayed at in Colorado has crime scene photos of my big behind (crime scene photos add 10 lbs. you know). Hilton Corp. would likely project the crime scene photos on a wall during the trial and ask (rhetorically, of course), “Seriously, ladies and gentlemen of the jury…what self-respecting deviant group would want THIS in their midst?” I’d be thrown out of the courthouse on my left ear. Time to stand up America! If you’re a rabid right-wing Christian conservative, I urge you to visit a Marriott or Hilton hotel and insist at the front desk that they put you on their “special” floor. Then run up and down the hallways banging on doors and yelling, “Repent, fornicators, repent!” We’ll show them! That is all!  Happy Wednesday everybody. It’s 0420 at The Compound as I’m writing this post. I just finished going through the overnight news feeds as I do every morning. Judas priest…what is it with everyone?
I counted no less than five people who shot/killed their families on/around Christmas before: 1) turning their weapon on themselves; 2) letting the police do it for them; or, 3) turning themselves in to police while making tearful confessions that included “it wasn’t my fault.” Then there was the Real Housewives reality TV star who…let’s see…broke into a motel room; jumped in bed with its occupant (while the maid was still in there cleaning); cops show up to arrest her, she slipped the handcuffs (Harry Houdini’s illegitimate daughter I bet) and then threatened to kill the cops arresting her (hint: never a good idea). Let’s see there was an online posting containing a video of The Trump’s daughters sitting pool side at their father’s golf resort in Florida in bikinis and making kissy faces at the camera. That was next to photos of people in upstate NY digging out from under 5 FEET of snow with more on the way. Ummmmm…Katherine Graham’s (look it up) son committed suicide. One of the Three Stooges (Paul Manafort) got to spend Christmas in the Hamptons with his family (good for him), but is about to be indicted again (tsk, tsk). And then there was Mike Flynn’s brother (pictured) on Twitter making the case to The Trump that his brother should be pardoned because – and we’re quoting here – “He [Mike Flynn] has taken the biggest fall of all for you.” Of course, he immediately pulled that tweet and replaced it with something a bit less in-your-face, but nevertheless begs The Trump to pardon his brother. Wonder if Brother Flynn was a disciple of Billy Carter or Roger Clinton or the Creepy Bush Brother (that no one sees anymore)? Then there’s the Texas congresswoman who may or may not have gotten a grade school teacher bumped out of first class so said congresswoman could fly home in style (she just wanted the Champagne, I bet). I’m betting the airline went out of their way to accommodate said congresswoman…who now claims that she is the victim and that this is an example of racism in action. Really? Did I miss something here? You got your seat in first class - sip your Champagne, be happy, and STFU already. Merry F**ing Christmas everybody! So much for peace on earth and goodwill toward whatever. Makes me want to go back to bed and not reemerge until after the New Year. But, I can’t do that. There is major construction going on here at The Compound. Sure, it would be easy to hide my head under the blankets, but who knows what would happen…besides, I might miss something! Cousin Fred has decided, after having Hellkat One’s trailer and the Cabinet Saloon Replication burned down around him (separate events, same outcome), that the best place for he and Gigi is underground. Literally, underground. A huge excavator and humongous crane showed up yesterday and are still parked out on the north lawn. Despite near Sears Kenmore Freezer temperatures yesterday and last night, the excavator began digging a series of deep trenches in an L-shape. Cousin Fred was out there in a 0-degree rated fur-lined parka directing the action. It was too damned cold to wander out there to see what was going on so I just periodically checked out the window. Late in the afternoon, The Nephew showed up with his heavy hauler loaded with three steel tubes at least 12 feet in diameter and 20 feet in length, which he unceremoniously dumped on the lawn before driving off giving Cousin Fred the finger. By nightfall the crane had lifted the tubes into the trenches and then an army of welders went to work and have been at it all night long. My cousin, the termite. What could go wrong? That is all!  To the Anglophiles among you, Happy Boxing Day! For the rest of you, I‘m sure you’re already camped out in the Cosmic City Walmart parking lot waiting for the doors to open and the post-Christmas sales to begin!
Hope your Christmas was all you expected or wanted it to be. For me, I scored THREE fruitcakes (so far). Had a little with coffee this morning and now I’m riding a carb/gluten/sugar high that should last until noon. Again, if you received a fruitcake and have no use for it, just bring it to The Compound and drop it on the lawn – no questions asked, no one will judge you. Here at The Compound we turn away no fruitcake. For two days only, the gates will be open and you can pull in and drop without fear of warning shots being fired. I’ve cleared out all of the meats and stuff from the freezer so there’s plenty of room. Things were quiet here at The Compound over the holiday. The Wife is still on another of her excursions (she hates fruitcake, by the way). Cousin Fred (have to hide the fruitcake from him) and the Hairdressing Hydrologist Gigi (haven’t figured out where she stands on fruitcake) were here. We were binge watching Trailer Park Boys – all 11 seasons – on Netflix. If you’ve not seen that show, I can highly recommend it. Whoever wrote those episodes is a comedic genius. It’s truly the subtle humor that makes it great. In between episodes, I continually reminded Cousin Fred that he and Gigi have to be out of the Main House by the time the Wife returns later this week. Cousin Fred assures me that it’s being taken care of and they will be the door. He also presented his plan for our entrepreneurial enterprise in the coming year. “Is it legal,” I asked? “It’s not exactly illegal,” was his response. Okay, I’m in. It’s not like I have anything else planned for the coming year. Cousin Fred’s plan is for us to open a prepper ranch here at The Compound. It will work along the same idea as a dude ranch, but without all the cowboy stuff. Basically, people will pay good money to come here and take training in prepper-type survival skills such as use of firearms, reconstituting and then eating freeze-dried gluten-free roadkill, raiding adjoining properties to steal your neighbor’s water, brewing crude homemade beer, getting through electronic hotel room locks (it’s sooooo easy to do), hacking your neighbor’s computer network to stream Trailer Park Boys over his broadband (again, soooo easy to do) and so on. As sketchy as it sounds, it may very well work. I mean with the lunatic fringe leadership with a bad haircut in charge (NoKo and US), fake news, fake money (BITCOIN), and whatever else is keeping you awake at night…civilization as we know it is about to crumble. If we can ease the crumbling for people and make some cash along the way, it’s all good. Cousin Fred also wants to video it all and possibly turn it into a reality show. I pointed out that those reality shows are kind of 2016 now. He pointed out that we’re emerging as a Kingdom of Fear and that people would be interested in what we’re doing here. Uh huh…hopefully those interested parties won’t be law enforcement. I observed that at least there won’t be any tramping around naked in Colorado looking for The Bigfoot. As I said that, Cousin Fred raised an eyebrow…ugh. That is all!  So, did you hear about the parents of a high school kid in Ohio who ordered several bottles of wine and then replaced the labels with one that has a picture of their son and the words, “This child might be the reason you drink so enjoy this bottle on us!” They passed the bottles out to his teachers at school as Christmas gifts.
Clever, don’t you think? Of course, you couldn’t do that here in Oklahoma. The state alcohol overlords, (aka, ABLE) would descend upon your household like a pack of locusts based on an obscure Oklahoma statute (courtesy of the morons on Lincoln Blvd) that makes it a Class 1 Felony to replace the labels of any alcoholic beverages and pass it off as your own. Welcome to Oklahoma. Your mug shot would be plastered on the back screen of every morning talk show in OKC with the hosts asking rhetorically (because you’re already locked away in a secret ABLE wing of the notorious – or is it infamous - Oklahoma County jail until you meet with an “unfortunate accident”), “What do you suppose they were thinking? Did they consider the teachers’ feelings in this? We, as Oklahomans like to oppress our educators. Teachers have come to expect that here. Wine given with even a humorous intent might make them feel <host shudders> empowered! Oh sure, today it’s wine. Tomorrow it’ll be a livable wage!” Friends, what is it that makes you drink? Have you ever thought about it? For me, it’s easy. It’s Cousin Fred. He and Gigi the Hairdressing Hydrologist arrived back in the U.S. from their two-month holiday in Russia last night. While I was glad to see the two of them again, I was quick to point out that the Wife would be back on The Compound in a little over a week, so they needed to sort out their living arrangements. Cousin Fred chuckled and assured me that it was being taken care of, not to worry. Now, I’m worried. He also informed me that he’s come up with a great idea for a new moneymaking proposal for us to work on. He said that he and Gigi (who was now face down on the table, snoring) worked it all out on the flight home. But first, he said, he needed sleep. He dragged the still-slumbering Gigi down the hall with him to the guest room. I can’t wait to hear what he has in mind. Like I don’t have enough crap to keep me busy as it is! Eh, well, that’s a worry for another day…today. That is all!  Happy Wednesday, everybody! Christmas is nearly upon us. Nearly upon us? Frankly, I feel that it’s overtaken me and left me in the road with tire tracks down my back. The good news is I’ll wrap up my holiday gift giving stuff today. Then I’ll sit back with my morning café-sita and await the credit card bills.
I thought I would be spending the entire holiday weekend alone, but nooooooo. Guess who’s coming for a visit of the permanent kind. Yep, Cousin Fred and Gigi the Hairdressing Hydrologist. They’re flying home from Moscow after two months of (apparently) self-inflicted confinement in a restroom in the Vnukovo airport where they’ve been living on whatever they could get out of the vending machines in the Customs Hall. As you may recall they went there in the hopes of finding evidence of Russian collusion with The Trump’s people and collecting the $10 million bounty that Larry Flynt offered for solid proof that would impeach The Trump. Our own CCB Boris and Natasha never made it out of the Customs Hall at the airport though because they saw two Federal Security Police waiting at the doorway, presumably for them. It turns out that the Russian Federal Security Police they saw at the entrance to the main terminal are always there. A kindly janitor in the restroom finally clued them in after tiring of cleaning up the beverage cans and candy wrappers for the past two months. They should be home by Friday, which works because the Wife is leaving town Thursday for another of her fabulous vacations. I’m going to have to figure out the living arrangements while she’s gone. Since the Cabinet Saloon replica burned to the ground back in October (thank you law enforcement), we’re a bit short on guest accommodations here at The Compound. The Wife refuses to let Cousin Fred back into the Main House, particularly after she caught him using a tube of her high-dollar skin care product as toothpaste. Eh, it will all work out I’m sure. I have a little over a week to solve it. So, The Trump succeeded in getting a tax reform measure through both houses of Congress yesterday. Now, we’ll have to listen to both him and his odd spokesperson with the crooked mouth tell us what a great leader he is and how it wouldn’t have gotten done without his superior brand of leadership and management. Uh huh. In the meantime, we have tax relief. It’s not perfect, but neither was Reagan’s tax reform measure in 1986. We survived that. Hopefully now The Trump will be able to focus on doing something about that NoKo lunatic-fringe leader with a bad haircut…oh wait, that’ll have to wait until after his fabulous golfing weekend in Florida, I guess. The Trump’s fabulous weekend that is, not the NoKo lunatic-fringe leader with a bad haircut. There are no fabulous weekends in NoKo. Did you hear that Kim had his senior rocket scientist executed because there was a delay in launching one of his rockets into the sea? This was the second “missile executive” in five days to be, ummmmm, cut from the program. I suppose if we’re lucky, he’ll execute them all and have no one left with brains enough to launch anything, anywhere. Hmmmmm. Okay, enough with the drivel for today. Take care, be safe out there and keep an eye on the sky…just sayin’. That is all!  Aaaand….we’re back!
How the hell are you, America? Miss us? It’s been kind of a wild couple of months as Mr. Robin was tied up in a project, but things have wrapped up and we’re back doling out our (nearly) daily doses of cynicism and the truth no one wants to read. We’ll start with the most pressing issue…namely fruitcake (or lack thereof). As long time readers of this blog will recall Mr. Robin has never turned down a free fruitcake in his life. So, here we are less than a week from Christmas and I’ve not received anything from you people! Surely, there are those of you out there in blogland who have received this year’s edition of Aunt Tilly’s special rum-laden fruitcake which you have unceremoniously tossed under the tree to fill the empty spaces. After Christmas, you’ll feel guilty, but will nevertheless toss the canned fruitcake out with the leftover Ramen noodle and anchovy casserole you offered your family this year. Wasting fruitcake is a sin! Look, here at The Compound we’re only too happy to take in orphaned fruitcakes. There’s a large U-shaped driveway leading up the main house. Just drive to the top of the U and toss your fruitcake out on the lawn…no questions asked. Your calorie-packed confection with the mass of pressurized granite has found a home! I’ve cleared space in the freezer so that I can eat fruitcake from now until Labor Day 2018. And, remember…the more brandy or rum or other intoxicants that Aunt Tilly poured into the mix, the better. There’s no better feeling than having your fruitcake and feeling high AF for the effort…just sayin’. Okay, enough with Fruitcake-o-Rama 2017…just know, I’ll give your unwanted fruitcake a home here at The Compound. Let’s move into the role of Mr. Robin playing media critic. Friends, I may giving away my age, but I am a devoted fan of TV network news. I have been known to quit jobs when I couldn’t make it home in time to watch the evening news. And, I’m not talking about the local chumps…that’s just pure entertainment. Nope, it’s the full blown in-your-face correspondents being blown away in 150 mph hurricane winds and/or injured by shrapnel from smoke grenades fired by Israeli police. That’s the stuff dreams are made of! And, admittedly, I’m a CBS Evening News person. Always have been. From Walter Cronkite (he shoulda run for president) to Dan Rather (what’s the frequency, Kenneth?) to every mutt in between and beyond. I was disappointed when they let Scott Pelley go. As you may recall, CCB was one of the first to announce that he had been fired, even before he knew. We’re good that way. CBS made moved him out while he overseas on an assignment. Well done, CBS! You rat bastards. Next came the weird transition between Pelley and Anthony Mason (Mr. Milquetoast). Mason was harmless enough, but you could tell his heart wasn’t in it. There was even a three-day period where they rolled James Brown from CBS Sports in there on presumably a tryout (he did pretty well, by the way). It was all leading up to the ascension of Jeff Glor to the throne. Jeff Glor…have you watched this guy? He has this odd sort of deadpan, monotone voice without inflection. It’s creepy. He’d be great in a movie about a deranged serial killer, but America’s most trusted and beloved news anchor? Nope. It’s like listening to Carlton the Doorman (remember him?). I will admit that I’m not the only person to notice. I suspect CBS has been giving Carlton voice lessons. After a couple of weeks on air, he’s beginning to show signs of inflection…my God, he may be human! Friends, have you heard of Kris Van Cleave? This is an ambitious and seemingly upright sort of fellow that I used to watch on the local CBS affiliate in DC. After I moved back to Oklahoma, Kris began turning up on the CBS Evening News as the transportation correspondent. Kris is always buzzing off someplace to cover something and does a reasonably decent job of things. …until last night. There he was, Kris Van Cleave, on the story in the Atlanta airport where hordes (hordes, I’m tellin’ ya) of people are stranded because the power at the airport went out on Sunday. He interviewed people who were upset, he stood among the “sea of baggage” piled up in the corridors of the airport. He covered every angle, even accusing the head of Georgia Power of being inept in his job that redundancies in the system failed too (okay, he didn’t actually use those words, but you could tell from the sneer on Kris’ face that he was thinking it). Van Cleave’s story ended with him standing in middle of that sea of baggage. He was wrapping things up and handed the broadcast off to New York with a “back to you, Anthony.” There was a second of stunned silence before Carlton the Doorman said, “Thank you, Kris, by the way my name is Jeff Glor.” Van Cleave puked forth with his apologies, but they cut him off and moved to the next segment. Kris Van Cleave…dead man. He’s probably still among the bags in Atlanta. In exile. Banished forever from the Land of Carlton the Doorman. Kind of like Cousin Fred, who is still in Moscow. More on that tomorrow. That is all! |
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