Roll Over, Play Dead

You think I’m playin’ then ask my brother.

If Tessa reads this, I’m sure she’ll get a kick out of the title for this post, but I just don’t have the strength to go on tonight.  I still haven’t recovered from last weekend’s duck expedition:

1. work all day Friday
2. buy shit at Wal-Mart Friday night
3. don’t sleep, except for 30 minutes between 11:30 pm and 12:00 am
4. wake up behind schedule
5. depart for Merritt Island at 12:50 am after grabbing some coffee
6. arrive at 3:00 am after meeting Justin, grabbing more coffee
7. get everything ready, boat loaded, shells, guns yada yada
8. …Fire It Up and boat launch
9. end up stuck in the mud 15 minutes from where we’re headed
10. cross a lagoon and end up still a few hundred yards from where we need to be
11. Justin nearly falls completely in the water and gets all kinds of nastiness in his waders
12. push forever, drag all our equipment out, rest before dawn
13. Justin kills His First Offical Merrit Island Duck (congrats my man!)
14. promptly miss my first two birds with three shells
15. "Sorry Justin"
16. Unbelievable Cold
17. pack up, guns and all are put away
18. Biggest Flight Ever comes directly overhead
19. Fuck it, let’s go to Sonny’s

Justin had to take off.  As usual, I slept in the car at a Wal-Mart parking lot.  No, I don’t care if you think I’ve lost it.

I arrived a bit late on Sunday morning (3:50 am) but still made it out to my spot though I had to push even further than Justin and I did on Saturday morning.  I have to admin my navigation skills are not the best in the world, but I double dog dare you to come with me on a hunt, armed with this image, and get us across the lagoon and to where we’re going in 15 minutes with nothing but stars overhead.  In fact, I’ll give $50 cash to the first friend who comes out and can accomplish that feat without a GPS…guaranteed.

Anyway, I took a Northern Shoveler pretty early in the morning and waited till nearly 9:30 am without much action.  I decided to go ahead and pack everything up but left the shotgun ready to go.  Just as I’m gathering everything to leave there’s a "quack quack" and I can’t believe it’s coming my way.  A few minutes later I had my first mallard.  Though it was a female, she was rather beautiful (most people associate the mallard with the green-headed pictures they see all over the place.  Those happen to be males but the females are just as pretty).

Good weekend overall, though the total bird count was 3.  It’s more about the experience and adventure than coming home with something in hand.

That was rather long…didn’t actually plan on writing it all out.  More updates coming tomorrow, including some items for the Foil Helmet category as well as the Music category.  I am pretty sure you’ll want to tune in again for those updates…same Bat time, same Bat place.

This update brought to you courtesy of Shinedown’s kick ass song "I Dare You" from the album Us and Them (who happens to also be a highlight for tomorrow’s udpate).

As promised, here come one metric shit-ton of updates.  In no particular order.  I’ve done the best I can to split them up into proper categories, but given the hour and my motivation, failure is nie.

• Cool video of a package traveling through a warehouse at UPS.  No wonder they lose things every now and then
• Interesting time shift of an artist’s pencil drawing
• Alternate script for Star Wars, Revenge of the Sith
• Play every video game you can possibly remember…yes, even Contra…up up down down left right left right if you’re still with me you are a fucking nerd
• If you’ve not read about soundboards in this blog yet, you need to go back to the archives.  Enter Mr. Rogers
• A little comedy thanks to The Onion:  North Korea Nukes Self In Desperate Plea For Attention
• You’ll be too drunk to remember this, but Cornell (yes, the University) did a study on shot glass size relating to how much a bartender pours.  Bet all you Leo grads feel like a dumbass knowing that Ivy League bastards are getting paid to do research at bars and all we had was The Shithole Known As Ralph’s (don’t kill me for that comment Bobby, you know I Love This Bar)
• 18 odd things to teach your body
• The Facts About Chuck Norris.  I’ve not ready anything funnier in quite a while.  Here’s a sample:  "Chuck Norris isn’t hung like a horse. Horses are hung like Chuck Norris."
• SawStop:  The World’s Safest Table Saw.  Watch what happens when a hot dog hits the blade.  Simply amazing; be sure to read "How It Works"
• If you’ve read this far, you’re in luck:  here’s how to defeat most Interactive Voice Recognition systems aka the fucking system that makes you wait on hold while speaking in a soothing voice until they decide to dump your call

Whew, just in time.  Almost lost my focus.

Pretty good video for Carlton Draught Beer, although I don’t think you can buy it many places in the states.

Tons more updates coming soon.