5 in 5.

When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. When life gives you tomatoes, you make spaghetti sauce. Made that one up. When life gives you inspiration you blog about it. And when it doesn't, you do the next best thing. You write 5 topics in 5 minutes. Okay, maybe 6 today. Minutes that is. Unless you are an Evelyn Wood leftover from the 70's.

Super Trooper: Nothing like a tale of inspiration to start off the day. A state cop risked his own life reaching into a burning car to pull out a woman, wedged in there like a contortionist. She had crashed into a toll booth, her air bag deployed, her hair full of blood, and she was unconscious. His natural instincts kicked in, and he put aside his own sense of self preservation to save the life of a complete stranger. And then the tale of heroics turns to one of anger. You see the woman, who was taken to the hospital in serious condition, was then promptly arrested for being drunk and driving on a suspended license. If you don't have the common sense not to put your own life in danger, how can we expect idiots like Erin Murray to have any regard for other people's lives? Her charges should be upgraded to endangering the life of the cop, her mangled and smoldering car should be set on her front lawn as a reminder, her rights as a free citizen should be revoked, and she should spend a few years behind bars. These people just don't get it.

Nine: Interrupting my morning cadence one day a few weeks ago, I was jolted into a stark new reality. My ongoing feud with my backyard squirrel(s) had now reached a tipping point. At first, I thought it was the work of one lone wolf, er, rodent. Then I realized one was more like 2 or 3. Ahem. No fewer than nine, count 'em, nine squirrels had figured out that my back yard bird feeders were the natural worlds equivalent of a Golden Corral. They scurry up my "squirrel-proof" pole, they launch themselves through the air from my "squirrel-proof" cover, and generally gorge like Augustus Gloop on the seed meant for the birds. I erect obstacles to thwart their advances. I bang on the window. I throw things at them. I run out and shout "Haaahhh!" at the top of my lungs. I kind of feel like Sigourney Weaver in the Alien series. They just keep coming back no matter what I do.

Nukes: We got 'em. So does Russia. We hated each other for years, yet no one ever was crazy enough to push the button. Saner minds prevailed, and the nuclear escalation of the 80's died down. But they are still out there somewhere. In bunkers, in silos, they sit in calculating silence. But there is solace knowing that the leaders of our nations are men with a conscious, and know full well the consequences of a nuclear detonation. But not Iran. Not this crazy lunatic Ahmadinejad. Do they really expect the rest of the world to believe that BS about it being for peaceful means? Of course not. They know we know. And we know that they know we know. So what can we do about it? Do we sit back and let Israel do what they do best? Do we stop them? Do we join them? I am scared of what the world is going to look like the day after some suicide bomber walks into Israel's parliament and blows himself up. I know we are war weary. I know we shouldn't be the worlds policemen. But if Iran gets the bomb, it could be the beginning of the end. Think I am kidding?

Honest Mistakes: I admit, if I was an Afghani citizen, I would be skeptical when the USA says, "Oops, sorry. We didn't mean it." After all, that country has endured years of occupation. Not just by us, anyone ever remember Russia? An errant bomb or bullet here or there, killing civilians, will tend to tilt the population against you. But in this case, it wasn't an explosion or any shrapnel taking some innocents life. A few books were inadvertently burned. And not just any books, they were Quran's. To some Muslim's, you might as well have pissed on their parents grave. Or shot their grandmother. Or raped their sister. Once again, lives have been lost, and this time 2 American soldiers among them, all because some religious nutbag felt like we disrespected his faith. Hey, you want us to respect you? Then don't go all Rambo on us every time life doesn't go exactly as planned, when a few pieces of paper are destroyed, or someone mentions the name of your god in an unflattering light. As Sergeant Hulka famously proclaimed, "Lighten up Francis."

Censorship: I used to think this was a free country. Yea, used to think that. Back when I was in second grade and that's what they told us. But as the GM rides out his little pseudo-journalistic adventure as a self appointed "blogger", I realize that, alas, I am not. In my previous attempt to be witty, I ranted about my displeasure with a certain member of the lizard family, and his annoying little foreign accent. It seems one is not allowed to name names, and in doing so, I angered the cyber gods. Shame on me, for saying the name of a certain insurance company that spends more money on advertising in one day than some industrialized nations spend in a fiscal year. My account was suspended as I broke one of the rules when I checked the little box at the bottom of a 642 paragraph disclaimer that I never bothered to read, stating that I accepted their terms. It's funny. I have made references to brand names in the past, but was never called on it. I guess when your opinion is cast in a negative light, the dust you stir up wafts all the way up to the powers that be. But the one thing I am really thinking? Who is really reading this shit anyway?

Got a recipe for Lizard stew?

I generally don't hate. Much. Oh the occasional bad driver, a few politicians, a couple of brands of beer, some teachers from my long forgotten past, the Kardashians, rap "music"...wait, where was I? Ah yes, me not hating. But all of the aforementioned dislikes have never compelled me to actually buy a t-shirt stating my displeasure with this or that. Er, almost forgot the "Anyone But Hillary" shirt during the last election. May have to dust that one off again in 4 more years. But I recently went online, and designed my own, custom made, one-of-a-kind protest to the most annoying little creature that has ever graced our lives: the Geico gecko.

I can't put it into words, but when I hear that little British accent telling me how to save 15% or more on my car insurance, I want to bash my skull in with two bricks. Nothing against British accents, it's just this one. Oh at first, the ads were clever, and for a time, he was cute. Then cute became passe, passe became redundant, redundant became annoying, and annoying morphed into seething hatred, a deep loathing of this vile little creature. Why? I am utterly sick to death of hearing that voice.

Enough already! Radio spots, television ads, in newspapers, on banners stretched across the tollways, and yes, even in the skies. During the summer, airplanes fly overhead at sporting events with the bug eyed image in tow. The little stack of money was dumb, the caveman got old fast, and even the Rod Serling impersonator has been shown the door. At least a few of those were funny. But this stupid gecko? Someone please save me. Isn't there a law on how long an ad campaign can run? With all of the increasing government oversight running our lives, can't someone put a stop to this insanity?

Ok, I feel better now. Rage subsiding, breathing returning to normal, Hulk impulse passing...okay, it's gone. I have been thinking about how to protest against this affront to our sensibilities when I found myself in the car this morning on the way to work. I passed under the twisted evil grin and the penetrating eyes of the offending reptile at the Tollway oasis. Within a minute, the all too familiar British accent came wafting over WGN radio. I changed to WXRT. Within 30 seconds they went to a commercial. Do I even have to tell you what the first spot was? Can you start to feel my pain just a little?

Sweet Jesus, is this what it has come to?

Every once in a while I read that some scientists have made a recent discovery, or released some sort of study, that could possibly have an impact on our future. And I am usually thinking, "They are smarter than me so I guess they know what they are talking about." After all, they probably paid more for their education at better schools (Idaho State University in 1984 was $1800 a semester, and $1000 of that was a non resident fee...GO Bengals!!), they probably went to school longer (maybe not actually longer per se, as my college career was around 6 years at 4 different schools, but I guarantee that I learned less in more time), and they are, after all, scientists, the bedrock of our dominance over all other nations on Earth. That and our ability to be morbidly obese, which of course, segue's nicely into today's rant (lesson).

Tobacco. Alcohol. 2 of the top 3 reasons it is great to be an American (the third of course being rock and roll). We are free to smoke our life into cancerous oblivion if we so choose. Or to drink away our liver until it is nothing more than a Kleenex. If that is the path you have chosen for yourself, then God bless America. But now we have the "scientists", men of impeccable knowledge, and sometimes wisdom, and they have decreed that a new vice will now join the other two to form a triumvirate of iniquity. The devil has a name, and it is sugar.

Yes, that sweet elixir of life, sugar, according to the wise men, is, and I quote, "...a toxic, addictive substance that should be highly regulated with taxes, laws on where and to whom it can be advertised, and even age-restricted sales, a team of scientists contends." Why? Because we are fat, and we can't help ourselves. Because it is hidden in everything we eat and drink. Because Bugs Bunny once famously asked Pete Puma, "How many lumps do you want?", and Pete's response was, "...oh, three or four." Excess has made us fat. It has made us unhealthy. It has lead to skyrocketing diabetes and increased health costs that help drive up the cost of health insurance for all of us.

So what is the solution? Why, more government oversight of course! Please, Uncle Sam, tell me how to live my life, as I am unable to do so in a manner in which complies with the line you have painted on the sidewalk that I must now walk. 1984 here we come. What would George Orwell do?

This is America. We are free to slowly kill our bodies in the manner of of our own choosing. I like sugar. No, I love sugar. The first thing I ingest every morning is a sweet cup of coffee. I bake with real sugar. I buy things with real sugar. No diet anything ever creeps its way into my holy temple. I admit I am blessed with a high metabolism body that burns sugar and fat like sawdust in an inferno. You can check my ID at the liquor store, you can put pictures on my cigarettes of dying lungs, you can even take away my guns, that is if Illinois would let me have one in the first place. But keep your damn hands off of my sugar.