The JackB

"When you're in jail, a good friend will be trying to bail you out. A best friend will be in the cell next to you saying, 'Damn, that was fun'." Groucho Marx

Bathroom Stuff

"One Post to rule them all, One Post to find them,"

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“One Post to rule them all, One Post to find them,
One Post to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.”

Thus spaketh Jack, Bishop of Bullfrog and traveler in cyberspace. I am not a hobbit, a dwarf nor an elf. I am not from Numenor. No will confuse me with a balrog or Gandalf. I am just a blogger.

It is Saturday night and I am going to try and hang up my spikes for the rest of the year. Instead of spending hours trying to prepare a complete end of the year post I am going to spend a little time listing some posts of mine (there are around 1,000) from this past year. They may not be my best, but they are those that caught my eye this final Saturday night of 2006.

January

Obsessed With the Blogroll
The Many Layers of Hell
Blog Disappointment
Women and the Look of Death
Charlie’s Angels- Child of the ’70s
You Just Aren’t that Funny
Commenting on Comments
A Question of Faith
My Daughter’s Favorite Book

February

A Boy Named Mookie
The Olympics- Snowboarding and My Age
Valentine’s Day Should Be Banned
What Do You Know About Me
Where I Come From
^@^@$$^^* Voicemail- Another Rant
It Would Have Been Great
Sounds of My Youth
Just More Ranting

March

American Inventor
Teach Your Boy to Pee Like a Man
He Stole My Lunch
When your Favorite Blog Suddenly Goes Bad
The Talking Penis- A New Bathroom Adventure
My Bill Collecting Service
**A Question For the Readers**
Afraid to Say Goodbye
Things Men Do

April

How Do You Make a Baby?
Comic Books Find Religion
Cookie Gives Shaft a Run For The Money
Shaving
What I Fear
How Do I Respond to This?
The Hokey Pokey Versus The Bunny Hop
Wondrous Places & Things
The Boys
Horror Movies- No Sound Equals No Fear
Women and Shoes

May

The Dodgers of My Youth- That Infield
Laws of return: diasporas as part of the state community
Diaper Changing Dilemma
How To Build More Traffic to Your Blog
Yom Yerushalayim
How To Deal With Angry Canadians
I Want A Castle
Darth Vader Reports- Death Star Destroyed
The US Civil War- Old Photos
My Son Speaks to G-d But He Doesn’t Answer
What Do You Call Your Blog?

June

My Grandfather Laid Tefillin
Thoughts About My Grandfather
The Couple That Pees Together
Eliyahu Asheri Deserved Better
Gaza
Dear Soccer Hating American
Pictures, Videos and Memories
The Bearer of Bad Tidings- One Less Set of Footsteps
No, You Cannot Cancel AOL
The Father Leans On The Son
A Father’s Day Post
Father’s Love Their Daddies Too
I Don’t Always Believe In Happy Endings

July

Why Don’t We Hear About Israeli Refugees?
‘He who cannot defend Liberty does not deserve Liberty’
You Are How You Camp
A Soldier Says Tefilat Ha-Derech
Three Days in Israel- Graphic Images
Do The Dead Walk In Dreams
A Little SchoolHouse Rock
It Was a Bad Date
Because They Can’t Steal Our Kids

August

A Secret For My Children
Frum & Gay
The Ginsu Knife
My Parents Purchased Cemetery Plots
Japanese Chair Ejector Video
Grandpa Is Still Gone
Eicha- An Aching Heart Mumbles

September

Do You Have An Accent?
My Theme Song
And That Is The Way that it Was- A New Year’s Reflection
Seinfeld in Prison
The Pain In My Grandfather’s Eyes
The Birthday Party Dilemma
The Phone Sex Surprise
How To Tell The Sex of a Bird
As The Bodies Fell- He Played
Morality Without Religion- A Comment to The Self-Righteous

October

Did You Listen to Abba?
Does Blogging Make You Feel Obligated?
A Little Notoriety For The Shack
How Stonehenge Was Built
Blogging Can Help You Make/Lose Friends
He Put a Gun To My Head
Who Would You Rather Be?
Twenty Five Years of Torah Reading

November

I Hate The Holiday Season
Movies Use The Same Scream Sound Effect
The Moon Is Following Us
My Brother- A Lesson in Simple Physics
Why The Baal Teshuva World Irritates Me
Israel & The Next War
It is a Useful Talent
My New Haircut
How Long Will You Keep On Blogging?

I think that I am going to pass on doing a December roundup. A safe and happy new year to you all.

I Have Been Attacked By a Bubblehead

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In an earlier post I mentioned that I am a finalist for the Weblog awards. I am rather dubious about awards like this because they have a knack for creating unnecessary dissension.

This morning I see that the first salvo was fired across my bow by the old bubblehead. It seems that he thinks that I am a drunk and suicidal Santa Claus. Now that is just grating on my nerves. I am neither drunk nor suicidal.

I have mulled over the proper response to such. Do I let him know that I am a true holy man. I am Jack, The Bishop of Bullfrog.

Should I explain to him about the origin of this. Shola Rhodes learned all about my affiliation with Holy Croaker circle.

Or perhaps I should reveal that final words of the talking penis man from this story were “Dive, Dive, Dive.”

Anyhoo, I haven’t had a cup of coffee yet and I learned long ago that questions like this require my caffeine drip.

P.S. I found this little ditty on his blog. Emphasis in bold is mine.

Keeping the blogosphere posted on the goings on of the world of submarines since late 2004… and mocking and belittling general foolishness wherever it may be found. Idaho’s first and foremost submarine blog.

Now I am not a sailor nor am I a cartographer, but I do know that Idaho is nowhere near salt water and that most submariners prefer the ocean to their bathtub. But hey, that is just me. 😉

Halloween- Things That Frighten Me

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In honor of Halloween here again is a list of things that frighten me including one or two new line items.

This a list of things that have frightened me in my life. Some are still relevant and some are not. But I thought that it might be interesting to just throw them all out there to see what they look like during daylight hours. P.S. I have explanations for all of these, but I may not include them on the list. Why? I just don’t feel like it. 🙂

  1. The Dark.
  2. The Amityville Horror scared me.
  3. Oscar the Grouch
  4. Bigfoot- The one from the Bionic Man television Show. He gave Steve Austin plenty of trouble.
  5. The Creature in the Legend of Boggy Creek
  6. A couple of dogs that chased me on my paper route.
  7. The homeless guy from the park.
  8. V.L.- He and I got into a fight in high school. I pretty much kicked his ass up and down the corridor, but I do remember shaking with adrenalin afterwards. For about two weeks I was concerned that I was going to have to face him and his older brother again.
  9. Having my heart broken again.
  10. Breaking someone’s heart.
  11. Not being able to provide for my family.
  12. Letting my children down.
  13. Not making it to the bathroom in time.
  14. Finding out that I have a child that I didn’t know about.- Ladies this is never a problem for you, but we men wonder about this sometimes.
  15. Being mugged at an ATM- When I was in college a guy was murdered at the ATM I used that day. It was several hours after I had used it, but….
  16. Something happening to my children.
  17. Getting stuck at a job I hate.
  18. Never living out my dreams.
  19. Being paralyzed.
  20. Losing a parent/close friend or family member- Actually I have lost several friends and family members, but it is still a fear.
  21. Being eaten alive or mauled seriously by a hog. (But I won’t go down easily, so sirree Bob.)
  22. Losing my perspective on life and why most of these things are nonsense.

I Locked My Keys in the Car

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A recipe for an interesting day.

Step #1: Lock your keys in your car. Bonus points for those who are brave enough to do this in relatively deserted locations.

Step #2: Realize that not only are your keys locked in the car but you are in dire need of a bathroom.

Step #3: Run like a madman through the streets in search of sanctuary.

I’ll let you decide what other ingredients should be added to this mix.

A List Of Things About Me

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I received a request to try and create list of things about myself. I don’t have any real direction so I am going to just throw it out there and we’ll see if it is remotely interesting. (originally posted here.)

  1. I have a problem with brevity, I am naturally long winded.
  2. Although I can be gregarious I can be exceptionally quiet.
  3. I can be the life of the party or the shyest guy in the room.
  4. I am a hopeless romantic.
  5. I love movies that have a character that has loved and lost- Casablanca and Unforgiven come to mind.
  6. I am exceptionally stubborn. I can maintain my position against the world, even at the expense of cutting off my nose to spite my face. I am working on that.
  7. I can bark like a dog. It sounds like a very large dog and I have used it on many occasions for many purposes.
  8. When I was 12 I called the police on the FBI.
  9. I was evacuated from a Forest Fire when I was 16 and have been through several major earthquakes.
  10. I used to be able to curl 150 pounds and benchpress more than 300. Now I find putting up 200 to be challenging.
  11. I am a Peace Corps baby. My parents met in Ecuador but I was born in Los Angeles.
  12. My first car was a 1969 Dodge Dart Swinger. That was followed by a 1977 Cheverolet Impala Station Wagon. Then I had a 1977 Camaro, it was Blue. That was followed by a 1990 Toyota Camry Station Wagon. That was followed by a 1996 Honda Accord and a 2000 Honda CRV.
  13. I took my Dart offroading, did donuts in the quad at my high school, drove through trash cans, shopping carts and endless other barriers that we would assemble.
  14. In high school I helped an underclassman sneak out by allowing him to hide in the trunk of the Dart. I didn’t want to do it but he begged me for a month and I finally gave in. I drove for about 3 miles before I let him out, but not before I hit every speed bump and dip I could find. When he got out of the car he was covered in a ton of muck, not to mention some oil I kept in the trunk.
  15. I went to Israel for the first time in 1985. Before I left I made sure to get a haircut because I had heard that the barbers there were terrible. While in the chair I kept encouraging my barber to cut my hair really short. By the time he was done my head was shaved. My mother was furious.
  16. One of the guys in my group started calling me Rambo. When we met the other kids on the trip they wanted to know why that was my nickname. It didn’t take long for us to make up all sorts of stupid stories about how I was in the army, or had saved a family at the airport from being robbed. None of them were true, but I thought that they were pretty cool. I was 16, what did I know.
  17. I am afraid of the dark and have been for as long as I can remember. I once tried to overcome my fear by walking alone at night through the woods for a couple of miles. It helped a little, but sometimes I still feel like that scared little boy.
  18. I have Irritable Bowel Syndrome. My biggest fear is that one day I won’t make it to the bathroom in time. I have used all sorts of places and have some pretty good stories about my bathroom escapades.
  19. One morning when I was having trouble I pulled into the parking lot of a diner. The men’s room was locked so I ran into the womens. Fortunately it was empty. While I was in the middle of my business two women walked in and spent a ridiculous amount of time primping and talking at the mirror. When they finally finished and left I ran out, washed my hands and ducked out of there. A policeman saw me walk out and stopped me. I didn’t know how to respond to his questions so I answered him in Hebrew. He finally decided that I must not have spoken English and let me go.
  20. I could eat pizza every day and never get tired of it.
  21. In college I tore the doors off of a pick up truck at my fraternity house. It was an old truck that had been sitting out in the rain for about 5 years. It didn’t work and no one wanted to take responsibility for getting rid of it. One day after having had my heart torn out by an ex-girlfriend I took out my frustration on the truck. It took me about an hour to kill the first door. I was surprised when the door came off and of course had to see if I could do the same to the other door. It only took 45 minutes to tear that one off.
  22. I love watching The Worlds Strongest Man Contests on ESPN. They are goofy, ridiculous, but oh so much fun.
  23. I loved Gladiator. One of my favorite movie lines is “Unleash Hell”
  24. Speaking of favorite quotes here are a few from Casablanca ” “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.” “Rick: How long was it we had, honey?Ilsa: I didn’t count the days.Rick: Well, I did. Every one of them. Mostly, I remember the last one, the wild finish. A guy standing on a station platform in the rain, with a comical look on his face, because his insides have been kicked out.”
  25. I was in the pilot episode of a game show called “The Grudge Match.” The show consisted of three rounds in which you fought an opponent. I was reluctantly matched up against a woman.The first round we had kind of a pillow fight. They gave us “pillow swords.” I let her smack me with it a few times and then took it out of her and started to popping her with her sword and mine. Continued
  26. The next round we were given big sticks that had pillows on the ends, they looked like giant cue tips. She kept trying to hit me in the crotch with her stick and I kept shaking my head at her. Eventually I swept her legs out from under her and that ended the round.The final round was boxing. They gave her regulation 16 ounce gloves to use. I was given oversized 32 ounce gloves. Continued again
  27. They were monstrous and if i held them up I couldn’t see her. I spent a large part of that round trying to avoid having to hit her, but she had no compunction about hitting me, especially below the belt. I finally got fed up with it and hit her back. I didn’t hit her hard, but I would be lying if I said that I didn’t get a little satisfaction out watchin her hit the canvas. There is only so many times that you can let someone do something like that before you react.
  28. In my life I have considered working as a sports writer, rabbi, lawyer and teacher.
  29. I once took out a singles ad. I got 24 responses and went out with 17 of the women who responded to my ad. For a brief time I dated 3 of them. It was cool because since they all had found me through the ad they knew that there were other women and no one gave me any grief about the others. Eventually I narrowed it down to one and had a girlfriend for about 8 months or so.
  30. If I was single again I would not use an ad. It was a ton of fun, but it was an incredible amount of work to date that many people. Too hard to get to know anyone seriously when there are so many others, but it was fun while it lasted.
  31. In college I lost a “push-up” contest. The goal was to do more consecutive push-ups then the others in the competition. I did a little more than 700. The winner did close to 850.
  32. I love to read anything and everything. My profile lists a very small selection of the authors I enjoy.
  33. I love history, it fascinates me.
  34. I wore glasses or contacts for 20 years. I had the lasik surgery four years ago and never looked back. It is amazing.
  35. I wish that I had James Earl Jones voice. I like mine, but his is on a different level.
  36. I have worked as a writer, editor, teacher, youth director, cross country coach, P.E. coach, sold copiers, ad space (online and print), run a marketing department and sold lemonade.
  37. Many years ago I was told that a great way to relieve stress was to just go outside and scream. I have never done this outside, but I admit to having done so in my car. And I admit to being scared at the outpouring of emotion. I always feel a little more vulnerable afterwards. FWIW, I don’t think that I have done this more than three times and never while actually driving.
  38. I have been accused of being too intense. I have also been accused of not taking anything seriously. The answer lies in between.
  39. I have a body that was built for demolition, grace is not something that is used to describe me. I am not a klutz, I play many sports, some of them well, but I am just kind of big.
  40. I am a daydreamer. I love to spend time lost in thought about things, people, places and all sorts of stuff.
  41. I once believed that I would never be married. I have a bad case of wanderlust and I didn’t think that I could be in one place with one person for any length of time.
  42. When I was younger sometimes I would get in my car and just drive until something caught my eye.
  43. I am a storyteller. I am good at coming up with stories off the cuff and just running with them.
  44. Everything in this list is true, but I have had to work hard at making sure I didn’t include anything that was fabricated. I really wanted to and I may still do it yet.
  45. The best thing I have ever done in my life is become a parent. It is the hardest and the scariest, but still the best.
  46. I used to say that I wanted six children. I still do, but I am not sure that it is a reasonable goal.
  47. In college I told one of my girlfriends that I wanted to have six children. She told me that I was selfish and crazy, that it was unfair to ask one woman to bear that many children for me. I told her thatI told her that was very spiritual and that I would do as my forefathers did. I said that I would spare her the full load and offered to marry her and her two sisters. Not only did I offer my hand in marriage but health, retirement and vacation benefits.She didn’t think that was funny. I still smile about it.
  48. The scariest thing about being a parent is my own memory of the things that I did. I cringe sometimes at the thought of my children doing as I did.
  49. I sometimes think that G-d gave me a daughter to punish/teach me a lesson. I love her dearly, but again when I think about boys/men and girls it makes me crazy. I work out harder so that when I am 50 those boys who come looking for my daughter will think twice about it. I don’t really think that it will work, I never was intimidated by fathers, but maybe it will work for me. Who knows.
  50. I almost never proofread my posts. I don’t spell check them and unless someone points out a mistake it sits there, a siren notifying the world of my silly error.
  51. I always wanted to be able to speak with an Irish accent. I don’t know why, but I do. I can do a pretty good Southern accent. If I am speaking with someone with a drawl it just sneaks out of me. It can be strong enough to fool people into thinking that I am from Dixie. Of course they get a little irate when they hear me speak in my normal voice, but that is a story for a different day.
  52. I love Didi Reese Cookies.
  53. When I was about seven we had an Old English Sheepdog named Fluffy. She was wild. She ate shoes, the door, and assorted odds and ends. She used to go tearing through the house at top speed. I remember her knocking my sisters over like bowling pins. Eventually my parents gave her away and I cried.
  54. When I was 24 we had to put our dog to sleep. I took her to the vet by myself and I held her paw as they injected her. I watched the lights go out in her eyes. It was terrible. Her kidneys were failing, she could barely see and she many other problems, but it was still hard. I stayed in the room with her and held her dead body. I cried then too. It was rough.
  55. I could extend this silly list of nonsense, but I am not sure that it is even worth posting so I’ll cut it off here for now.