The Sedated Ape

1 - My mother always told me that there would be days like this.  She was a psychic, but her visions of the future were always too vague to be of much practical use.

2- My mother always told me that there would be days like this. I found it very annoying that she never gave us a “spoiler warning” before telling us stuff like that. Sometimes it’s nice to be surprised.

3 - My mother always told me that there would be days like this, but every few weeks or so  I like to go outside anyway and see it for myself.

Honoring the less talented relatives of great baseball players.

Cal Ripken Jr was elected to the Hall of Fame in 2007, appearing on over 98% of the ballots. From May 30, 1982 through September 19, 1998, he played in 2,632 straight games shattering Lou Gehrig’s mark of 2,130. He twice was voted the A.L. MVP. They called Cal the “Iron Man”.

His little brother Billy was something closer to being a “Wicker Man”.  He missed 1,032 games in his twelve year career. Not that anyone minded his absence too much.

He did make the cover of Sports Illustrated once back in 1998, but that was because the Orioles had lost 18 straight games to start the season

His biggest claim to fame was writing a dirty word on the handle of his bat he was holding in his 1989 Fleer baseball card. For a while that card was worth more that twice what his brother’s rookie card sold for. Then the novelty wore off and no one cared about it anymore.

I guess  It’s a little corny, but  I used to really believe that love conquers all.

 But last week I saw this show on the History Channel about Attila The Hun. And I got to admit - he seems to be a LOT better at conquering stuff.

The old saying goes that sometimes  knowing when to quit is half the battle.  But they never seem to explain the rest of the battle.  So here:

8%  -  Knowing where the battle is

6% -  Knowing when the battle starts.

9 % -  Knowing who is on your side and who is trying to kill you.

15 % - The tip.

3 % - Knowing how to say “surrender” in the language of your attackers.

8%  - Knowing escape routes into Canada (This doesn’t’ apply if we’re fighting Canada.  In that case it’s useless. Unless you’re a traitor.)

1 % -  Inspiration

5% -poor math skills

Extra 10%-    motivational speakers

Honoring the less talented relatives of great baseball players.

 Robin Yount  collected more hits in the 1980s than any other player and finished with an  total of 3,142.  An every day major leaguer at age 18, Yount earned MVP awards at two positions and his 1982 MVP campaign carried the Brewers to the World Series. His older brother Larry didn’t do so well.

Larry was a pitcher for the Astros for 13 days back in 1971. He got called in from the bullpen in the ninth inning of a game against the Braves on September 15, 1971.  He took several of his warmup tosses but he felt pain in his right elbow that  proved to be too much,  and he had to leave the game without throwing a pitch.  He never appeared in another major league game.

 ”I just never quite got the job done” - Larry Yount

Coming soon:  Dale Berra and Billy Ripken. 

 (Pete Rose Jr. is banned from the The Jan Brady Baseball Hall of Fame)

Back in high school the guidance consular told us all that we ought to find out what we were good at and try to make a living out of doing that.  I think she was right.  And I don’t like to brag, but I really am pretty good at creating more plasma.

So far no one has ever been able to explain to me exactly why “taking the easy way out” could  ever be anything but positive.

 The Mormons believe that the Jews came over to the New World and  somehow turned into Indians.  If they’re right about that we owe Germany a big apology,  because if  it’s true then  it  was the United States, not the Nazis,  who’s responsible for  killing all the the Jews.  Also, does that mean that we should stop calling them Native Americans?

Memo to self: The morning after pill is supposed to kill the baby one day after it was conceived,  NOT  one  day after it was born.

I used to think it was wrong to judge people based on the color of their skin. But it then occurred to me that I don’t really score very high on any of the other ways people are judged. So I wouldn’t really mind if people judge me on the color of my skin.  It’s my best shot of being judged favorably .

Trivia: The African nation of  Angola has the highest child mortality rate.  Mt Olympus has the highest child immortality rate.

 When I was in my teens I always felt that no one really understood me. I guess most people that age  feel that way sometimes. Especially the ones with a  cleft palate.

The other day I saw a couple of Jehovah’s  Witness kids riding around town on their bikes. They were even wearing little bike helmets.  I never would’ve thought Jehovah Witnesses could ever manage to look more dorky, but goddamn if they didn’t pull it off.

I’ve been trying to get into sudoku. I guess it takes awhile for people to get good at the puzzles. I know it has been for me. I’ve started trying them back in August and I still haven’t gotten even one single  bingo.

Take my advice - trial by fire is a pretty bad idea.  It just  causes a whole bunch of new  trials.  Arson ones mostly.

 - Better known as The Ambiguous Dog!-

What have you been up to Ambiguous Dog?

 Thanks, Ambiguous Dog!

This page is almost a year old now. I’m thinking about taking all the stuff from the first year and having it published in book form at a vanity press - or whatever they call them these days.

Anyway, I was wondering if there was enough of a demand for something like that to make it worth the effort. I’ve never engaged in this kinda thing before, so I don’t know how much it costs to have a book printed. 

 I’m not trying to make a profit with this. Whatever it costs for me to make one is what I’ll sell it for.  Plus postage, I guess.  I don’t want your money. I have enough to eat already.

Keep in mind that if you’ve read my whole page there won’t be anything new in the bookthat you haven’t seen. I’ll probably draw something new for the cover and run the whole thing through a spell checker, but that’s about all the effort I plan on spending.

So, if you think you might want a copy (or copies)  let me know. I’d rather you just e-mail me at sedatedape@aol.com instead of  replying to this post. Don’t send money or your address or anything like that now. I just want to see if there is enough interest in something like this.

This is Christmas stuff I’ve posted here before, but decided to combine into one Christmas theme post, so you can all e-mail it, link to it, print off copies to nail to phone poles or just copy and paste it and tell people you came up with it on your own. Spread holiday cheer. Besides, unless you’ve read through all the stuff here you might have missed it. And wouldn’t that be a shame? Plus the letters are now colored green and red. If that ain’t festive I don’t know what is. (Seriously. I’m not good at that kinda thing.)

” You know how on Christmas carolers come and demand some Figgie pudding and say “they won’t go until they get some”? Well, they’re bluffing. After three days they give up an go home”

“I used to write poetry. I never was very good at it, but I am kinda proud that I’m the first poet to ever rhyme the words ”Christmas morn’” and “Granny Porn.”

 “For a little while last December I thought I was God because someone sold me a Christmas tree.I had the saying wrong. Only God can MAKE a tree, but they’ll let pretty much anyone buy one. I really should start paying a little more attention to the world around me.”

“Christmas memory - I got a Nintendo system for Christmas right after they first came out. It was what I asked for, but the game seemed a lot more fun in the commercials. The game I got was called “Staring Contest”. You played against Walter Mondale, the idea was not to blink your eyes before he did. Years later my mother admitted that she just taped an 8″ by 10″ photograph of Mondale to the TV screen, and the “Nintendo” machine was really just a shoe box with a cat toy for the controller. Anyway, don’t ever get into a staring contest with Walter Mondale. He’s REALLY good at that game. I only won once in the whole time I had the game.”

“When I die I’m leaving my body to “Toys For Tots”. I think children all over the world will behave a whole lot better if they knew that if they were bad Santa might bring them a rotting corpse for Christmas.”

The earliest memory I have of Christmas is walking to the K-mart with my sister on Christmas eve to see Santa and ask him to bring me a fire truck . Sure enough, Christmas morning there was the fire truck I asked for, but by that time the fire had already burnt out on it’s own. In retrospect I probably should have asked him for a ambulance too, because my birthday isn’t until March

The story, like most of my stories, begins at McDonalds.Ever since that guy made that documentary about how it might not be the best idea to eat nothing but Big Macs for a month, the restaurant chain has been making an effort to emphasize that some active healthy people eat there, while deemphasizing the fact that two thirds of their customer base would fit into Grimace’s hand me downs.They’ve been sweeping Grimace under a rug all together. A very large thick rug. They don’t tell you that Barney is really Grimace’s kid either, but anyone can see the resemblance. The only real difference is that Barney seems to love everyone while his father’s passion is pretty much limited to a milkshakes and reminding kids that they need to take their shoes off before they get into the ball pit. The deal with the shoes is a homeland security thing, I suppose.