That is one gay lion, Torn Slatterns and Nugget Ranchers

Harrrrdd core
Those Somali pirates are nothing if not brazen. Today they hijacked a US Airways flight that landed on the Hudson river.

Not good
To increase tourism, cities pay for catchy ad slogans, New York had “So nice they named it twice” L.A. has “That’s so L.A.” and San Diego is launching “Happiness Happens.” I’m not so sure about Trenton’s new tourist slogan: “Come for the toxicity, stay for the crime.”

Amazing
Bo the first dog is adorable. He has black curly fur with a white chest and white front socks which make him look like he is wearing a tuxedo with spats. That marks the first time we have had a formal first dog and an ex-president without a formal education.

Order now
Pamela Anderson is getting married for the fourth time. If you want to get the couple a gift they’re registered at Pier One Chance-In-a-Million-This-Will-Work.

Good idea
Bo, the First Dog, is having a blast. Bo enjoys the run of the entire White House lawn. Well, except when delegates from North or South Korea visit, then they lock Bo up for his own good.

Not good, again
The good news is that China claims they will have health care for all their citizens by 2020. The bad news? By 2021 everyone in China will be dead of lead poisoning and air pollution.

Already used
Jessica Simpson will be in a sitcom with Britney Spears; they’re having trouble coming up with a name because “Dumb and Dumber” has already been used.

Scoring like crazy
The home runs are flying out of the new Yankee Stadium, to give you an idea, ex-New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer could score there without hiring a hooker.

Uh oh
On “American Idol” it s down to the final five. Lil Rounds was kicked off because she didn’t sing her disco song well, and Anoop Desai was booted because Perez Hilton didn’t like his opinion on gay marriage.

Double-pit, chesty up in this here, Torn Slatterns and Nugget Ranchers

Funeral homes are reporting more rock songs are being requested like Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” and the Eagles “Desperado.” The rock songs that aren’t requested much at funerals? AC/DC’s “Hell’s Bells” and Van Halen’s “Running with the Devil.”


She’s OK, but Madonna was thrown from her horse on Long Island. And just like Alex Rodriguez, after the horse dumped Madonna, it went back to his wife.


The Cleveland Indians beat the New York Yankees 22-4 in the new Yankee Stadium. The last time Indians beat Yankees that bad Col. Custer was thinking of updating his resume.


The only surviving Somali pirate is on trial in New York. He is accused of hijacking passengers to steal their money, or they call that in New York: driving a cab.


Jessica Simpson announced she is making a sitcom with Britney Spears. It’s a combination of “Two and a Half Men” “How I Met Your Mother” and “The Big Bang Theory.” It’s called: “How I Banged Two and a Half Men.”

Since you asked:
Last night I made my world famous Lex’s Slider Gliders. Do me, yourself and everyone else in the world a huge favor and forget about it. It just don’t get no better is all.

Picture, if you will, perfect little ground sirloin burgers –about a quarter of a regular burger - dusted with garlic powder and fresh pepper, drizzled in Worcestershire sauce and grilled to perfection with melted cheddar cheese and served on golden brown oven toasted Hawaiian dinner rolls with mixed mayo, ketchup and honey mustard goop smeared on it, a slice of pickle, a thin slice of tomato and a crown of caramelized grilled onions. Tap down with a slight smoosh. Serve with an All American salad of lettuce and Ranch dressing and shredded cheddar cheese.

A beer and a Cubs game and you can try to beat it with a stick, but you can’t.

There is not a man, woman or child in this country who could not write a book about their personal experience with the hamburger. From your first one to your most recent one, they are vivid in our memory.

In fact, you can use the hamburger to chart your progression and inevitable regression through life. When you are a toddler you just have a patty chopped up with nothing on it. As you get older you add a bun. Then later, ketchup. And then dawns that one day when you are bold enough to have cheese on it and there is no looking back.

I can still remember Ann Caroline’s order for our local burger place when she was just past a toddler:

“I wanna hamburger, not a cheeseburger (I made the mistake of getting cheese on her order once and she never forgot it) with nothing on it, not even ketchup (same mistake once with the ketchup) and I want French fries and a saaaaaawiiiiid” (salad)

Last night A.C. ate four of my slider glider complete with grilled onions, cheese, the works.

(Sniff)

Then you get too clever and you start to complicate things, adding funky stuff on your burger like mushrooms and onion rings Hell, even bacon and chili. Some go even further to F things up with turkey burgers and, god forbid, tofu burgers.

But eventually we will all go back to whence we came. A ground up burger with no bun probably served in the old folks home.

Do you remember your first trip to McDonalds? Boy do I. I spilled my first milkshake down the dashboard of my Mom’s brand new Ford Station wagon. My Dad was so furious at me I didn’t have the courage to tell him I had to go to the bathroom.

So then I wet my pants.

That is how great McDonalds was when I was a kid. A lifetime psychologically scarring event is overlooked because their food was so good.

Do you remember the first date who you took, or took you, to McDonalds? Betsy Fox. In fact, I drove many miles out of the way to take her to the very first McDonalds in Des Plaines.

So what started me down this path of culinary sentimentality besides my Slider gliders?

The always hilarious Jim “Bipitty, bapitty bacon” Gaffigan.

“A salad with bacon isn’t really a salad. It’s a game of find the bacon in the lettuce.”

Tell them to go Tweet this up in here, Torn Slatterns and Nugget Ranchers

Uh, no Sir, that’s not, oh forget it
Texas Gov. Rick Perry said Texas could secede from the United States; it was a little awkward, when asked of Texas could secede, President Bush said; “Sure Texas could secede, if the economy turns around we could be downright secedeful.”

Bummed
In sad news, the inventor of the anti-depressant Prozac, Dr. Gary D. Tollefson, passed away; services will be held sometime at that place, I don’t know, I’m going back to bed.

Huh?
CBS has a Fantasy Golf League. This isn’t just for people who need to get a life, Fantasy Golf is for people whose only chance of getting a life is to borrow the life of their imaginary girlfriend.

It’s called “Fantasy Golf” because the name “The Biggest Loser” was already taken.

Aww shoot
President Bush is excited about his $7 mil book deal. Actually President Bush was excited about his book deal until he found out the money is for writing a book, not reading one.

Hate when that happens
She’s OK, but Madonna was thrown from her horse on Long Island. The horse spooked when Alex Rodriguez’s cousin injected steroids into it's butt.

Not good
She’s OK, but Madonna was thrown from her horse on Long Island. First her husband, Guy Ritchie, divorces her, Alex Rodriguez dumps her, so does her young Brazilian boyfriend and now her horse tosses her. Madonna is having a harder time staying on a male than Rosie O’Donnell

Help, I’m talking and I can’t shut up
In the Miss USA pageant, Miss California, Carrie Prejean, said she is against gay marriage. Don’t you love it when beauty contestants offer their opinions on complicated issues? It’s like those “YouTube“ clips when a dog is banging its paws on a piano keyboard. They’re making noise, but they have now idea how.

One or the other
There have been 20 home runs in the new Yankee Stadium in just four games. Some say it is the wind, others think the ball is getting caught up from all the sucking the New York Mets are doing.

More sports, uh, humor, yeah, that's it . . .
The .167 Washington Nationals issued a jersey to their player, Adam Dunn, spelled Natinals. Talk about a team that doesn’t have any O.

Since you asked:

More Wrigley V. Kasey. Kasey has distinct eyebrows and a wrinkled brow that gives her a constant look of worried concern.

Wrigley's default expression is more of a Alfred E. Neuman "What? Me Worry?" look.

This right here a righteous hot mess, Torn Slatterns and Nugget Ranchers

Patent pending
The Octomom has copyrighted the name Octomom. Her copyright on the term Psycho Skank, however, is still pending.

Get a nice gift
Pamela Anderson is getting married for the fourth time. If you want to get the couple a gift they’re registered at Bed, Bath and Been There, Done That.

Busy guy
President Bush is keeping busy at his ranch in Texas. You know the first dog’s name is Bo Obama? President Bush just loves to go to his well and yell down Bo Obama and here it echo.

Hate to hear that
A guy in Russia underwent lung cancer surgery but, it turns out he had a tree growing in his lungs; the good news is he doesn’t have cancer, the bad news? He has termites and Dutch Elm disease.

In fact, this is the most wood any guy has had in him since, well, Siegfried and Roy’s honeymoon.

New meaning
The US announced it will attempt to seize all assets and properties of the Somali pirates. This brings a whole new meaning to the term: Booty call.

Should I have said slow?
Just two days in the White House and when they asked Bo the first dog how the economy was doing Bo said; “Ruff.”

How bad is it?
The economy is so bad, to raise money, Bo, the first dog, auctioned his first White House rug boo boo on eBay.

Keeping busy
NFL announcer John Madden has retired. It won’t be the same for Madden telestrating shuffleboard plays: “See, he landed his disk on the pointy part, so that’s ten points, but then the other guy, boom, knocked him off to the back, that’s minus ten points.”

That should do it
The New York Yankees got clobbered in the first game at their new Yankee Stadium, 10-2. It was so bad New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg ordered Alex Rodriguez’s cousin to shoot steroids in all the Yankee’s butts.

Since you asked:
Statistics are full of crap.

Statistically, my chances of being killed by a Great White Shark are right up there with winning $100 million in the lottery or getting hit by an airplane part.

But that counts everyone who doesn’t live anywhere near an ocean. But Saturday, with a big-ass Great White Shark about 45 feet away, I would say my chances of getting chomped by Jaws were pretty damn good.

Having said that, after my shark scare, I got to talking to a surfer who, even after I told him about my experience, was undaunted and pulled on his wet suit to head out.

He said something that was pretty funny:

“Let’s say the worst happens. There are far worse ways to go.”

By god, he was right. Right now my chances are high that I am going to go out hit by a luxury SUV in the hands of a drunk-on-Chardonnay Carmel Valley mom yammering away on her cell phone.

I’ll take a shark over that demise any day.


Apart from both being adopted brother and sister and yellow Labradors, Wrigley and Kasey could not be more different. Wrigley T. is a tall, skinny light-to-white houndoggy Lab where Kasey is a more reddish, short honey bear Lab.

Kasey wags her tail in a regulated standard left to right pattern. Wrigley gets so wound up and excited his tail spins around like a propeller. I try to tell him that, one day, he is going to take off flying like a helicopter, but as with most things I tell Wrigley, he listens to little if anything I tell him.

Lex’s Big Fish Story. Luckily the one that got away


(or . . . Dah . . .duh . . . dah . . .duh . . .dah,duh,dah,duh,dah,duh)

It was a beautiful bright sunny day Saturday morning, April 18th, 2009, and I was out in the surf at Torrey Pines State beach on my stand up paddle board (SUP) by 8:45 am. The water was a chilly 57 degrees but the waves were perfect for me, three footers and I caught a few. The last one I caught, I had my weight too far forward as the wave broke and I pearled (dove) the nose of my board and fell. When I looked up my board was headed toward the beach. My leash had come off the board.

So I run in to the beach, fetch the board, retie the leash and head all the way back out through the surf. You have to paddle hard to get past the surf so I was pretty beat and not ready to head back to catch another wave, so I kept paddling out a bit farther.

Right then, what do I spot out of the corner of my eye 50 feet in front of me to the right? A fin. Cool, I thought, a dolphin, I haven’t seen one in a while, I might paddle out to go check it out.

(Keep in mind these thoughts came at the speed of light, one after another)

My next thought was that I had never seen a lone dolphin before and that seemed odd. The smallest group I have ever seen is three. My next thought was that the fin didn’t look right at all. It was way too big and more straight up and down and with a sharper angle. My next thought was this is not a dolphin. The final thing I noticed was the fin was not bobbing up and down like a dolphin, this fin was skimming along in a straight line with a slight and slow left to right motion.

That is exactly when I knew.

My heart and head nearly exploded. It was a shark - and a big-ass shark at that - headed South in my general direction. I turned desperately afraid of falling and started paddling for my life as fast as I could. All I kept thinking was “Do not fall, do not fall.” My legs were visibly shaking. It occurred to me to look back, to see if it was coming at me, but I was afraid of falling because looking backwards is the most unstable position on a stand up paddle board. Plus I was terrified I might find out the shark was following me.

When I got closer and closer to the shore, a wave broke on me and knocked me off my board. Not knowing how far sharks swim into the shore, I was mortified when I hit the water, but glad to discover it was only waist deep and I started running for my life to get back on to the beach.

My heart was pounding with abject terror and exhaustion as I stood there on the wet sand with my hands on my knees trying to believe if what happened just happened. There was also more than a bit of shock involved. My next thought was to warn the lifeguards, so I ran over to the park ranger booth and told the guy, a guy named Troy, I think, selling parking tickets, to notify the lifeguards.

Believe me, I’ve had the urge to think I had imagined it or that it wasn’t as scary as I recall, but that is not the case. This happened and I am 95% sure that it was a great white shark. And the only reason I leave out 5% is that I am not a marine biologist or a shark expert.

But I am positive it was a shark and I know it was not a dolphin, the fin was far bigger than any dolphin I had ever seen. And the color was different. The dolphins I have seen look almost black. This fin was the color of my Honda CRV, grayish blue.

If hindsight is 20-20, I am now more positive than ever I saw a great white shark up close and lived to tell the tale.

That night we had good friends over and I served grilled steak and shrimp tacos and drank Margaritas and we celebrated that I hadn’t been brunch earlier that day.

Since then I have felt a touch of post traumatic stress. I can't go five minutes without thinking about something to do with those one or two minutes. My main concern afterwards was to leave messages with top San Diego lifeguard officers and I posted a message on a shark research web site. It lists my incident as the fourth citing/attack in ten days in a 15 mile area here.

http://www.sharkresearchcommittee.com/pacific_coast_shark_news.htm

And it is almost a year to the day that 66-year-old retired veterinarian Dr. David Martin was fatally attacked by a Great White while swimming out in front of Solana Beach. (Shark experts say the Great Whites migrate down to these waters in the spring to deliver their pups)

Having been through this experience, I would like to nominate the friends and fellow swimmers of Dr. David Martin for amazing courage. They went back to him right after his attack and helped swim him in to shore, where he sadly bled out and died, but in the arms of those great friends on the safety of land; they are some of the bravest people on the planet.

We gonna get the Hoobastank on up out of this here beee-yahhh-hitch, Torn Slatterns and Nugget Ranchers

That’s nice
NFL announcer John Madden is retiring, he wants to spend more time with his eyebrows.

Not since then
Did you see the clip of the first dog, Bo? He was wagging his tail and running around. This is the most excited anyone has been to be on all fours in the Oval Office since, well, Monica Lewinski.

Wild dog
Did you see how wild the first dog, Bo was? Take it from recent history, when an animal won’t behave in the White House you either have to get it fixed or appoint his wife Secretary of State.

So mean, Lex
Did you see the clip of England’s “American Idol” “Britain’s Got Talent” of Susan Boyle? Her voice was so great it could shatter a mirror. Almost as fast as her face can . . .

What choice did he have?
Trouble already with the first dog, Bo. Bo ran into the oval office and humped an intern’s leg so President Obama had no choice but to immediately re-name the dog Bill Clinton.

More attacks
Once again, without any warning there was a brutal and ruthless attack. But enough about Jamie Foxx and Miley Cyrus, the Somali pirates are at it again.

Jamie Foxx apologized for his insulting remarks about Miley Cyrus. Foxx said he is truly sorry, not sorry enough to go watch “Hannah Montana: The Movie” but sorry all the same.

Uh oh
The first day with the first dog, Bo, and already there is trouble. Today on the White House lawn, Bo dug up a box of Florida ballots punched for Al Gore.

The first dog, Bo, is already in trouble. Bo had an accident and relieved himself big time in the Oval Office. It made the White House staff sentimental for President Bush.

B pets
The Obamas named the first dog Bo. Clinton’s dog was Buddy and Bush’s dog was Barney, all started with B. And if John McCain had won his pet’s name also begins with b, Brontosaurus.

Since you asked:
Might of outdone myself last night.

Brine marinated (water with sugar and salt) a pork tenderloin. Grilled it with mesquite wood chips smoking. Then in a pan on the stove, sautéed mushrooms, garlic and onions, poured in a cup of Marsala wine, a dash of milk, a dollop of tomato sauce, let it simmer down by half then added sliced carrots for a few minutes, sliced the now done pork loin into medallions and added them to the sauce, let simmer and serve it all over rice pilaf.

A “Bam” of chopped parsley and Bob is your bofizzy Uncle.