Who daur writ thees drivel?

During the poker game last night I asked what the difference was between Irish Whiskey and Scotch Whiskey. I expected an explanation that would enlighten me in the ways of international boozing. I was wrong.

“Nothing,” they told me.

“Spelling,” one offered.

It gave me a moment to consider the perceived differences between the Scots and the Irish.

Whiskey: While there is no difference, it seems so much better coming from Ireland. Scotch Whiskey is consumed by dirty old men. Irish Whiskey seems more cheerful. We put it in our coffee. There is no “Scotch Coffee.”

Beer: Guinness versus, well… nothing. Even John Martin's Scotch Ales are brewed in Belgium.

Holiday: St. Patrick’s Day versus….uh, nothing.

National Mascot: Who would you rather hang out with…St. Patrick or a guy wearing a plaid dress without underwear?

Unwarranted cheap shot: The Irish are friends with everyone…the Scots befriend sheep and goats.

Office Products: Well, there is Scotch tape, but use of the term "Scotch" in the name is an insult.

We consult Wikipedia: To cut costs 3M applied the adhesive only to the edges of the tape. A remark was made by a St. Paul, Minnesota automobile detailer that the stingy Scotch bosses needed to put more adhesive on it, and the name has stuck ever since.

So one of the things they are most famous for is so named because they were cheap.

The Scots national slogan is: "Wha daur meddle wi me?" I think they just say this because no one ever fights with them. Why would anyone fight with them? What do you get if you conquer Scotland, their recipe for Haggis?

They can’t even decide on a national anthem. The have numerous unofficial ones.

I asked and was told by citizens of the British Isles that the only problem with Scotland was that it is inhabited by Scots.

That seemed cruel.

Clearly, the Scots have an image problem.

Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful…

Track and field's ruling body is expected to declare Saturday that double-amputee sprinter Oscar Pistorius is ineligible to compete in the Beijing Olympics because his prosthetic legs give him an unfair advantage.

Now, this is news because we don’t expect anyone to do BETTER without real legs.

To me, it isn’t so surprising. Fake over real is a part of our lives. The entire plastic surgery industry is built on it.

For me personally, I see better with my glasses. I put Tabasco sauce on everything. Clothes prevent people from laughing when I approach. Beer makes me better looking.

I could go on and on, but my sleeping pill is about to kick in…

Dame Duke y los puntos...

At ESPN Deportes, se habla español, sure. But not always and they don’t seem to know when…

They are a little confused about language. They show English Premier Football in Spanish and Spanish League Football in English.

They show NCAA college football and basketball in Spanish. This makes no sense.

If you care about watching a basketball game between Mississippi State and Kansas State, wouldn’t you probably speak English? How about Kent State versus Western Michigan?

Sometimes they list a college basketball game as being shown, but when the time comes, they show guys pulling Volkswagen buses with their teeth. You never know until the time arrives what is going to be on or in what language.

It’s not killing me…but it isn’t helping.

I'd rather drink poison...

I heard a story yesterday about a man who accidentally drank shoe cleaner (and his subsequent problems) thinking it was water. Why he was keeping it in the refrigerator, I’m not sure. But anyway, he had finished some yard work and was quite thirsty.

This is what you get for mowing your lawn.

Some of my earliest memories involve hearing the lawn mower running on Saturday mornings. It was like the executioner’s song. My Dad and I had a deal (although I wasn’t present for the negotiation nor was I consulted) that he would mow the hills and I would mow the flat parts.

The highest point in Monticello, Illinois is the Interstate overpass. So I did most of it.

We moved to Texas. This didn’t improve things. It was flat as a pancake.

About age 15, I remember making a promise to myself that I would never mow a lawn again if it didn’t kill me (I often had visions of falling down and running myself over) before I left home for college.

The next 20 years saw me mow the lawn an average of twice a year, usually at great expense to my relationship with my landlord or my wife. The landlords would yell, the wife wouldn’t say a word. I preferred yelling.

Once, I hired some guys to do it, but when they did a terrible job, I complained. They refused to come back. This is one of the stupidest things I have ever done.

In North Carolina, we had centipede grass. It is a vine. It doesn’t grow much. Also, we made sure pine straw covered as much as possible, preventing growth. I bought extra pine straw to cover the areas with no pine trees. One of the first fights I had with Holli was when I caught her raking the pine straw and putting it around the trees. She hasn’t been out in the yard since.

Currently, due to some great fortune and complete lack or irony, we have a gardener. Often, he sleeps instead of working. But the lawn gets mowed.

Works for me.

I don't exercise because I don't own any Lycra Spandex...

On my way to work each morning I see people out walking. You can always tell the difference between people walking to go somewhere and people walking for exercise (besides the fact that when you offer the exercisers a ride, they swear at you).

Speed is one factor. The exercisers walk like someone hoping to someday be a candidate for hip replacement surgery.

People walking for exercise usually have an Ipod (or equivalent) device strapped to their body.

While walking, they don’t look around, they don’t wave hello. I worry about them tripping over a small dog or walking into a tree.

Some people walking for exercise stuff themselves into ill-fitting attire. I guess they are saying, “Hey! Soon I’ll be able to wear this AND exhale!”

(maybe they bought the outfit back when they didn’t need to exercise)

I once joined a health club. It was about $100 initiation and $70 a month. It was about a three minute car ride from the house with no lights or stop signs on the route. It had a pool, some workout machines and a few TV’s to watch while you worked out. No one was ever there.

Even with all that, after a year, I dropped out. I didn’t lose any weight. All I lost was $70 a month.

With the money I saved, I bought bigger clothes, a deep-fryer and some Prozac.

Well, back to the cornfields...

I heard a political commentator on TV say last night that the results of the Iowa Caucuses don’t really matter.

Well, if that is true (and I don’t doubt it is) why did the media just spend six months there covering it like it was the moon landing?

Every single citizen of Iowa was interviewed. People who knew people who passed through Iowa were interviewed. And now they say it didn’t really matter?

I'm not watching this anymore. Let me know who wins.

I guess 5% of all customers get this letter...

Dear Confirmed Customer,

Thanks for deciding to spend your vacation with us.

In planning your trip, please pay no attention to any possible issues that may arise while traveling to a foreign land. Don’t attempt to learn anything before you come. It will be just like home, we promise you.

When calling, please remember to tell us you are calling from the United States. This is very helpful.

For making tee times, include as little information as possible. Name, number of players and courses you wish to play are unnecessary. Just tell us you want to play golf.

When you receive your tee time confirmation from us, immediately delete it. Then after three weeks, email our office and accuse us of never responding.

Remember: If you ask for a 9:00 tee time and don’t get it, it is because we didn’t want you to have it (not because it wasn’t available). Ask again for the 9:00. Threaten to cancel if you don’t get it.

After you have confirmed everything, ask for everything to be confirmed again. Then, two days prior to arrival, change everything. Pitch a fit if your new plans aren’t confirmed immediately over the phone.

When you arrive at the hotel, pretend to search for a few dollars to tip the taxi driver. This will help them understand that you just don’t happen to have any money on you right now and that you aren’t a cheapskate. After all, you just arrived on vacation. Who has money?

In checking into the hotel, try to keep in mind that you are the only person in the universe. If the hotel clerk fails to understand you, please speak louder and faster. Feel free to abuse them for no reason. And whatever you do, don’t smile. It shows weakness.

If you have any problems anywhere, always keep four items on the tip of your tongue:

1. Who you are…it’s helps in asking, “Do you know who I am?”
2. How many years you have been coming here
3. How much money you spent on this trip (try to exaggerate by at least 40%)
4. How things are done where you come from

Always ask to speak to someone else if you don’t get the answer you want. Maybe the supervisor CAN make the sun go down an hour later.

Upon checking out, threaten to not pay based on some trivial item.

We hope you have a great vacation and make plans to come back next year.

Sincerely,

For her, it was like going "all-in" with a pair of fours...

My wife isn’t crazy about the fact that I play poker (Texas Hold’em) every Thursday.

Gambling is not her thing, except in deciding to marry me.

I don’t gamble on spectator sports, but I do like to play cards.

The first couple of years I was here, a friend and I used to go to the casino at a nearby resort about once a month and play blackjack. It was low-rent at best. Guests of the resort would be there mingled in with locals and taxi drivers. The taxi drivers would take customers to the casino, then plop down next to them and scream at them for not-hitting on 15 when the dealer had an eight showing. Fistfights were common. Nice place to take the family.

It was about a 30-minute car ride at night, which in this country is like traversing I-95 on a skateboard. Anything can happen. We once saw a cement mixer crash into a truck full of chickens. Both of them went over the bridge into the river.

We stopped going soon after that.

After a couple of thousand of them, I’ve decided…

The beer here sucks.

I’m tired of drinking this thin, nasty smelling concoction that they put in bottles and call beer. The best of a horrifying lot is the Presidente brand. It’s a pilsner. I can enjoy it if the mug is freezing, the beer is almost frozen and I have just finished crossing the Sahara Desert eating saltine crackers while wearing a snowmobile suit.

But only if there is nothing else available, like antifreeze or seawater.

Presidente does come in a “Light” version, but to me that is just the same sewer water with fewer calories. And if my standards are so low that I’m drinking this crap, what do I care about my waistline?

There are other beers here in the Dominican Republic, but it’s all the same recipe. Open bottle, pour in water from the fish tank, carbonate (a bit) and serve.

Presidente really is the best you can get here. Somewhere, someone wishes they could get a cold Presidente, I’m sure. Like the Hanoi Hilton.

And yes, I know…I don’t have to drink beer. But what else am I going to do with it?

Turning the other cheek...

The guy who lives next door is a self-centered moron and a bad neighbor. I’ve seen him five or six times, out in his yard with a beer in his hand. I have no proof he owns a shirt.

He and his friends (and hookers) partied until all hours last night, playing the stereo so loud we couldn’t watch TV in our own living room. They shot bottle rockets into our yard. They spoke aloud (on their back deck) things you can’t say on television, even HBO. They didn’t stop until early in the AM.

They had the audacity to get mad (and eventually take the phone off the hook) when we repeatedly called them on the phone the next morning about 7 AM and hung up. Who do they think they are?

They got mad when we set their car alarms off at 7:30 AM. They got mad when we poured sugar on their deck so the ants would gather. They really seethed when we sent a taxi to their door at 8 AM.

They hated it when we threw a brick through the window of their house at 8:30 AM and tossed their stereo into the swimming pool at 9 AM.

At 9:30 AM, they were in a snit when the local pizza place showed up with 75 large anchovy pizzas.

And when the police showed up (on an anonymous tip) and arrested them for drug trafficking, they really were hot.

When they get back, I’m sure it will make them mad that someone egged their house, papered their trees, slashed their tires, poured dry concrete into their pool, and burned down their house.

Jerks.