Bitchin' Camaro!

By now, my faithful readers should know my two favorite things in life are: 1) the song, Bitchin' Camaro, written/performed by the punk band Butthole Surfers and 2) online contests. That's why I'm so excited about a new sweepstakes contest I just learned about. My favorite telecom company - Charter - is combining my two favorite things (well, sort of) by giving away a new Camaro! And not just any Camaro, but the hard to get 2010 Camaro 2SS, which is one bitchin' Camaro! Plus, sales tax is included in the prize. Charter continues to outpace the industry in creative and newsworthy contests from giving away an HDTV every day to Xbox 360s to a Hybrid Car last year. And Charter was previously giving away a laptop every day for two months, and has now switched to giving away a new Camaro. The contest runs from September 15 through November 26 at noon.

To enter the contest, go to Camaro Sweepstakes (no purchase necessary). Or, visit charter.com/camaro to register today and view the complete rules, specifications on the Camaro and more. Plus, you're automatically entered when you order any Charter service online. In addition, you can get a $100 gift card when you buy three (3) Charter services, $50 gift card for two (2) services, and $25 gift card when you buy one (1) Charter service. Gift cards are from major retailers in clothing, home and accessories, restaurants and more!


At Charter, they love fast. And this new 426 hp Camaro is one of the fastest and hardest cars to get in North America, and Charter's giving it away free! Charter services have always brought your home to life, now they’re bringing your garage to life (that is, if you're lucky enough to win the sweepstakes)!

And if you're technologically inclined like I am, then you'll also want to check out the following links:

Charter on Facebook
Charter on Twitter

Movember is coming...

Today I received an email from one of my favorite uncles in the whole wide world - Uncle Matthew. He lives in Fargo (but does NOT own a wood chipper), he's married to my beautiful Aunt Veronica, and he's endowed with about 24 inches of ferocious wiener. Of course, I'm referring to his two Dachshund, Theo and Tucker (the elder Theo is pictured here). Additionally, Matthew is a champion disc golfer, as well as an extraordinarily exceptional expert educator. And whenever he comes to visit, Claire loves following him around the house asking, "Matthew, where you going?" In a word, my Uncle Matt is AWESOME! That's why I wasn't surprised to learn he was taking up a cause to raise awareness about cancers that affect men. Specifically, he plans to grow a moustache this Movember. Trust me. Both his head and face are now shaved as opposed to what you see in the photo of him holding baby Claire. So, he's starting from a clean slate... literally! Following is more info about this great cause...

Dear Bogart,
I have decided to join a global movement that is bringing much needed attention to cancers that affect men. I'm doing this by growing a Moustache this Movember, the month formerly known as November. The funds raised go to the Prostate Cancer Foundation and the Lance Armstrong Foundation (LIVESTRONG).

Peace & Gentleness,
Uncle Matthew

To make a donation, you can either:
* Click this link http://us.movember.com/mospace/8010/ and donate online using your credit card or PayPal account , or

* Write a check payable to Movember Foundation, referencing Registration Number 8010, and mailing it to: Movember Foundation, PO Box 2726, Venice, CA 90294-2726.

All donations are tax deductible to the extent permitted by law.
The Prostate Cancer Foundation will use the money raised by Movember to fund research to find better treatments and a cure for prostate cancer.

The Lance Armstrong Foundation will use the money raised by Movember to fund:
* The LIVESTRONG Young Adult Alliance program which has the goal of improving survival rates and quality of life for young adults with cancer between the ages of 15 and 40.

* Research initiatives to further understand the biology of adolescent and young adult cancers.

For more details on how the funds raised from previous campaigns have been used go to: http://us.movemberfoundation.com/research-and-programs/

Please help me by helping support my Uncle Matthew. And if you're so inclined, please tell him Bogey sent you!

Live from Chaska...

We just got back from a long road trip... more on that later. In the meantime, do you remember when Saturday Night Live was funny? Yea, me neither. I'm apparently too young. However, Stew swears up and down that at one time SNL was very good. Then again, they've had a lot of good skits in the past year involving Tina Fey as Sarah Palin. So where am I going with this? Well, I didn't see this particular Thursday night special episode of SNL, but I found it on the interweb thingy. And since I'm still groggy from our road trip and too tired to blog about it, it's easy just to post this 10 minute SNL clip and tell you to "Enjoy!"

I wanna be sedated!

I overheard Stew on the phone this morning talking to my doctor at the Chaska Valley Vet Clinic (I give my doc TWO PAWS WAY UP). Anyway, he mentioned something about taking a trip with a dog that gets very anxious in the back of a vehicle. Then he mentioned something about "Hurricane Katrina survivor" and "18 hour trip from New Orleans to Minnesota locked inside a cage for most of the time", and I figured it out - he was talking about me! I started to freak out until I heard him mention "sedative". This perked my ears WAY up, especially if a sedative has any sort of relation to my Grandma's homemade psychedelic doggy biscuits! After he got off the phone, he told Claire they were heading off to "go get Bogey some travel medicine". So as soon as they walked out the door, I ran over to the CD player and popped in my favorite Ramones song, "I Want to be Sedated":

Twenty-twenty-twenty-four hours to go;
I wanna be sedated.
Nothing to do,
No where to go, oh!
I wanna be sedated.
Just get me to the airport,
Put me on a plane.
Hurry hurry hurry,
Before I go insane!
I can't control my fingers,
I can't control my brain.
Oh no oh oh oh oh!
Ba-ba-baba, baba-ba-baba, I wanna be sedated...

In other news, Grandma arrived yesterday afternoon while on her way back home from a conference in New York City. Claire made out like a bandit with a new t-shirt from M&M World... a new scarf... a new NY baseball cap... and loads of candy. If I survive the trip we're taking, then there's a good chance I'll blog about it. Stew says I'm not allowed to write about where we're going in case one of my four faithful readers decides to alert the local authorities... Anyway, I just hope the sedative works, and that the trip is groovy! In the meantime, pictures of Claire and Grandma...

Dog tired

My hairy butt is dragging, folks. I'm beat. The last couple weeks have been more than one dog can handle. The fact that I didn't blog about the Glenn Beck 9-12 Project event last weekend should be all the proof you need to know how worn out I am. I went so far as to actually visit www.the912project.com to see what it was about. I had my suspicions and was unclear as to exactly how a Teabagging Party could be tied to September 11, 2001, without exploiting said tragedy. Doing so requires some sort of willful suspension of disbelief... something Teabaggers seem to have no problem accomplishing. Anyway, back when I visited the site, it contained an internal page labeled "The 2nd Amendment" (HERE). At this page, I was able to read the text of the 2nd Amendment to the United States Constitution (the gun one). I also like to read the comments section of websites and newspaper editorial pages. Momma thinks I'm a freak for doing so, but you can learn a lot about who else reads the information. For example, there were 1,730 comments alone under the Glenn Beck 9-12 Project "The 2nd Amendment" page. It was pretty much a mix between comments indirectly threatening the life of the president and comments like "Obama needs to go back to where he came from!" Now, what exactly Hawaii has to do with a non-partisan rally to protest government overspending, I'll never know... but I've never claimed to know what goes on inside the head of a Glenn Beck fan (or a Teabagger for that matter). I wonder why this internal page was taken down? Anyway, since my visit to the site, I've been listening to a lot of Right Wing talk radio whenever I'm in the car with Stew. Apparently, some on The Right cannot figure out why many people (and blogging dogs like me) continue to refer to some on their side as "racist". Well, I was going to go down The Duck Test path (if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks racist rhetoric like a duck...), but I decided to use a visual aide instead. Forgive my novice Photoshop skills, but I think you'll get the idea...And here's Jon Stewart's take on Glenn Beck's little love fest with teabagging...

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Mad Men
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Healthcare Protests

Oh darn. I was going to blog about my Aunt Michelle's 40th birthday surprise party, but it appears I got off track yet again. Oh well, now it's time to go pick up Grandma from the airport and go on a picnic... then I plan to take a nice long nap.

My new guilty pleasure

Just when you thought my favorite past time was making fun of teabaggers and other Fox News viewers, I'm throwing you a curveball. You see, I recently started watching truTV (Channel 51 locally). One of my favorite shows is Rehab: Party at the Hard Rock Hotel, which takes you behind the scenes of Rehab, the hottest party in Vegas, for an inside look at how security and staff indulge big-spending customers (aka "douchebags") but still keep the chaos under control. But what I like most about truTV are the shows that make me jump out of my doggie bed. Literally. I'm talking shows like World's Wildest Vacation Videos. Every Thursday night you'll see frightening and hilarious clips of marauding monkeys, massive mudslides, pugnacious polar bears and more. But don't just take my word for it. Check out this clip of a lawyer participating in a bungee jump gone awry.

C'mon... who doesn't enjoy seeing an attorney plummet to near death (sorry Uncle Franny)? truTV programs are so amazing that you can't help but have a physical reaction when watching. I mean, seriously, I jumped to my paws after learning the guy in the video actually lived. But you should watch truTV with caution because when the stories are real, the effect is actual. Hey, maybe that's why the network's slogan is: truTV. Not Reality. Actuality. Anyway, one of my other favorite shows is The Smoking Gun Presents, a show about the world's dumbest criminals, drivers, fans, daredevils, competitions and partiers. If you've ever visited The Smoking Gun website, then you'll know this show has got to be hilarious. Plus, stars like Danny Bonaduce, Leif Garrett and Dustin "Screech" Diamond make hilarious commentary about what you're watching. It's awesome! Go see a ton of videos for yourself at truTV video.

Schoolhouse Crock

Remember Ronald Reagan's 11th Commandment - Republicans shall not speak ill of fellow Republicans? Well, after today, there's a new one added to the list.

The 12th Commandment: Thou shalt not permit thy precious little school aged brats to behold the President of the United States, for he shall surely indoctrinate them in things not of Bibleism!

Well, I did it. Against Stew's wishes, I sat Claire down to watch President Obama indoctrinate school children this morning. Of course, after she realized she was about to watch Barack, the Radical Black Socialist instead of Clifford the Big Red Dog, she jumped off the couch to go play with her plastic golf clubs. I don't get what all the hubbub was about, but I thought it was a good speech about working hard in school... doing your best, regardless of your personal circumstances, blah, blah, blah. Luckily, after the speech, I learned from some Teabagger invited onto MSNBC that it's not the text of the speech that's objectionable to racists, er, I mean "patriotic Americans", but it's more so the accompanying lesson plan that asks the students to write a letter to the president asking how they can help him. I guess it's sort of like how Stew had to write a letter to the Governor of SoDak when he was in 6th Grade, except nobody at the time seemed to care or sharted themselves over it. Or how Stew was forced to listen to Suzy M.'s auditor dad talk about the fascinating world of accounting on "Career Day" in the 8th Grade. Or how each year the Governor of SoDak has an Easter Egg Hunt on the lawn of the Governor's Mansion that's clearly designed to indoctrinate kids about the virtues of unregulated, free-market, capitalism (i.e., bigger kids stealing candy and Easter eggs from the weaker kids). Anyway, according to the Teabagger on MSNBC, the Obama lesson plan is specifically designed to influence kids' thoughts, behaviors and personalities. Of course. It's obvious.

It's true. As a kid, Stew's mother forced him to write "thank you" letters to his relatives following each birthday and Christmas. This act obviously influenced his behavior because to this day, he consistently fails to write "thank you" letters anymore. In fact, he despises having to write them almost as much as he hates having to shave or bathe and, if he actually does send a "thank you" letter, it's typically six months late. So I submit all this Obama lesson plan is going to do is anger kids by giving them more homework, thereby creating even more future Conservatives after the kids learn to: 1) blame people of color for all the problems in the country (including today's additional homework), and 2) instill an even greater sense of entitlement in the students, particularly those from more well-off families who are accustomed to having things done for them. I'm fairly confident kids from teabagging households won't be very inspired by Obama's words today after they've likely had "socialism" lessons shoved down their throats by their (rational?) parents for the past six months. So my advice to the haters out there is to follow the advice of Jon Stewart and "...pace your rage!"

Can you imagine if Obama's speech contained "propaganda" over what the tax code should be, or the role of government and the idea that students should study moral precepts alongside science and English? That's freakin' crazy talk, right? Oh, wait... that's exactly what Ronald Reagan did in November 1988. Which is the equivalent of hearing Obama justifying the Stimulus Package in today's speech by citing Roosevelt's New Deal as an example of how Americans have historically made a commitment to investing in their country's future. But he didn't do that. A missed opportunity to indoctrinate the kids. No, instead he just told the kids to stay in school... try your best... don't give up... and take responsibility for your own destiny. What a radical, elitist, commie message we should all fear!

The difference between Reagan's speech more than 20 years ago and Obama's speech today is that Reagan told kids what he believed about American government and Obama galvanized them to work harder. In all likelihood, neither of them were written with the purpose of indoctrination. But only one of them truly inspired.

All Aboard...

The Crazy Train!

Early this morning, we had visitors come calling. At least I think so. All I know is that I heard a doorbell ring which - for reasons unknown to me - causes me to immediately charge the front door while salivating and barking ferociously... while Stew chases me around the house trying to corral me into the mudroom off the garage. Luckily, upon my incarceration, I could still see out a small window in the mudroom, and I saw two young boys dressed in white shirts, ties, black slacks and carrying backpacks. And through the closed mudroom door, I could faintly hear Stew cursing, "Damnit, it's a couple of young Republicans coming to chastise me for not home-schooling Claire like Glenn Beck does his kids!" Anyway, here's a summary of the brief conversation I heard through the open mudroom window:

Kid #1: Good morning, Sir. We're hear to tell you about the New Covenant...
Stew: Stop right there! Did Minnesota Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann send you? Are you here to slit my wrists and make me one of your "blood brothers"?
Kid #2: No way, Sir! We're just a couple Jehovah Witnesses.
Kid #1: Yea... a lot of folks say we're brainwashed, but even we have enough sense to know Bachmann is bat-shit crazy!

After taking a free copy of The Watchtower, Stew sent the lads on their way. And on the off chance you missed Bachmann's latest in what has become a bi-weekly habit of making the likes of Sarah Palin and Joe-The-Plumber look like a couple of geniuses, HERE's a story about a speech our state's 6th District Representative recently gave. Luckily for Bachmann, her district is comprised of an equal mix of churches and crystal meth labs, so she's likely going to be re-elected in 2010. Oh, and did I mention most of her campaign monies come from the insurance industry? What a strange coincidence. [source]


THE SUCKER TRAIN!

Yesterday, Stew took Claire and me to the little playground at the end of the block, and on our way back home we ran into a couple neighborhood entrepreneurs. Three "tween" gals had set up a little Kool-Aid/fingernail-polishing stand... I'm guessing it was their version of a little girl spa. Anyway, in true Stew fashion, he did his best to avoid human contact by taking Claire and I across the street instead of walking past the mini-spa. But that was not enough to deter Kennedy, who I'm guessing was the VP of Sales for the organization. Kennedy followed us into our garage and asked if Claire would like some Kool-Aid while getting her nails done. Claire just looked at the girl with a "watcha talkin' 'bout, Kennedy" look on her face, but after Stew put me in the house he took Claire over to get her nails painted. Three dollars got Claire pink nail polish with sparkles, plus a couple of Lady Bug designs on her thumbs. Then this afternoon, a different girl from the same organization rang our doorbell. She announced that today they have a Slushy stand, and that a portion of profits "goes to charity". If I were Stew, I would've asked, "and which one of you cute little mini-Madoff's is named, Charity?" But Stew doesn't always think clearly. And since Claire had already had her fill of juice for the day, Stew just gave the girl all he had in his wallet (two whole dollars). I'm guessing the little ponzi-schemers will be back tomorrow with some other business proposition for which Stew will fall hook, line and sinker. So much for his Starbuck's Venti Iced Mocha Fund!


THE STILETTO
[A sailboat version of the S.S. Minnow... minus the shipwreck]

On Sunday, Auntie Karen invited Grandpa, Grandma, Momma, Stew and Claire to go on a sailboat trip down the St. Croix River on The Stiletto - owned by Auntie's friends, Charlie & Karen. This was Claire's first-ever trip on a boat, and she really enjoyed it... especially when she got to spend a couple hours playing in the sand along the shoreline. Stew said he felt like a Kennedy, which must be why he decided to down about a 12-pack of beer by himself. Anyway, enjoy some pics from the day!

Here's Claire asking, "Is this my boat?"
Here's Grandpa showing off the latest trend in sailing gear: work boots, Wrangler blue jeans, a seed corn hat, and a wind-breaker...

And here's Grandpa helping weigh down the front of the boat to better slice through the waves... or something like that.

Here's our little Gilligan posing with Thurston and Lovey...

Claire and Momma... and Momma's Paris Hilton over-sized sunglasses (Momma claims the store didn't have any other sunglasses, which is why she should stop shopping in the Teen Fashion section of clothing stores).
Grandma doing a little gig to celebrate her birthday. Happy Birthday, Grandma!
Claire enjoying an afternoon of searching for rocks to throw into the water. Please note Grandpa took this picture with a zoom lens while lounging in a deck chair on the beach. It's a great shot, Grandpa!
Wiped out after a day of fun...

What's up, Doc?

And now a few words from my favorite doctor... apply them "liberally" wherever it hurts.

UNLESS someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not.

-- Dr. Seuss