True, true.

I am so getting one of these shirts to wear on stage.

This is Eric Lee Beddingfield riding a mechanical bull at the Pi Kappa Phi house in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. I rode it first, and I rode it pretty good, but, alas, digital SLRs are a little too complex to simply hand to someone and go "get a shot of this shit!" Bonus points to anyone who can identify exactly which fingers (special bonus for which knuckles) I took the skin off of whilst riding for my eight seconds. That's eight out of two rides, mind you...
Copyright Jake Hallman/all rights reserved

This is Bobby. Can you guess what Bobby does with my new adopted family, County Line?.
Copyright Jake Hallman/all rights reserved

Blocks and house payments

That's right, this is a big ol' truck on frickin' blocks in the yard of my house.

To be completely honest, it's on the side of the duplex that I don't live in, but it still bothers me. This only solidifies my conviction to speak with my landlord this week about the possibility of buying the home.

I bet if I suddenly went from being "the annoying old guy on the other side of the house" to "the annoying landlord on the other side of the house" they'd pay me a little more respect, dangit.

Plus, they'd be paying my mortgage...
Copyright Jake Hallman/all rights reserved

I'm pretty sure this is how all of us felt after the 12-hour odyssey that was Chris Mitchell and Ashlee Bartels' wedding Saturday. She's really a very lovely girl, and he's a very lucky guy.
Copyright Jake Hallman/all rights reserved

Here's why I liked playing in Auburn, Alabama with County Line. You can't tell in the picture, but they're dressed like schoolgirls. And they seem to like one another.
Copyright Jake Hallman/all rights reserved

Two DVDs (and a microphone...)

Lesson learned for the day:

Never, ever tempt a man who is the keeper of the off-site backup for your photo collection.

There's a story behind the picture linked above, too. Y'see, I was a somewhat rebellious youth, and had no compunctions about wearing tie-dyed t-shirts, growing my hair out and even wearing a cool li'l peace sign necklace.

I'm about 16 years old in that picture, by the way. It was taken the summer before my senior year at Claxton High School when I was at the Governor's Honors Program at Valdosta State University.

Cropped out is the very nice flute player named Leah that I was friends with. Eddie's probably also got the pictures of Stephanie Kampfer in the archive, too... now she was a hottie!

The pain!

Nothing's sadder than good writers who have to post pictures of their cat in their blog just to get attention.

So here's a picture of Eric Lee Beddingfield. There's a joke in there somewhere involving Eric and synonyms for "cat," but I'm checking myself right here and now.
Copyright Jake Hallman/all rights reserved

Read the cutline for the picture below this one. Contest time!
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Yes, that's me in a Humvee. And with a helmet on. Triple points to whoever makes the best story in the "comments" section incorporating the two pictures. People who actually know what I was doing are disqualified. Be creative, folks.
Copyright Jake Hallman/all rights reserved

Tuesday, part 1

Self-portrait, unhappy in room 110 at the McDonough, Ga. Days Inn.
Copyright Jake Hallman/all rights reserved

Tuesday, part 2

The reason I'm unhappy. Yes, that's my car.
Copyright Jake Hallman/all rights reserved

Beetle Bailey and the decline of Indian civilization.

Today's Beetle Bailey sunday cartoon was sad! You can't have a sad Beetle Bailey cartoon!

Must be some kind of subtle anti-war protest on the part of the Walker family, I guess.

Sorry I couldn't provide a link straight to the cartoon - they're a couple of weeks behind on the official Beetle site. My search for the link did provide me with some history on Private Bailey, however.

He entered college in 1950, and the next year he screwed up and enlisted in the Army just in time for the Korean Conflict. I don't know that Beetle's ever served anywhere but stateside, but... geez... 54 years as a private?

Can you imagine what kinds of acts go on outside the funny pages that keep Beetle and his cohorts from getting any promotions for a half-century?

Things like... (links definitely NOT SAFE FOR WORK)

(or sanity)

this,

this,

or (Dear sweet Jesus!) this.

I know that last one is "ahht", but... wow. How much time did they spend carving that?

Where was I? Oh yeah - can you imagine what would have happened if the kids from Camp Swampy had run Abu Gharib?

Maybe the Iraqis got off light by not having Private Bailey overseeing the prison. Speaking of hazing, turns out that Beetle and company were based on some frat boys.

There was brief discussion about making this our front page tease for the entertainment page. Kathy, probably wisely, felt that it would cause some uproar.

I love the shot, though... no pun intended. It's Jonathan Murphy as "Ralph Rackstraw" in the GSU Opera production of "H.M.S. Pinafore."
Copyright Jake Hallman/all rights reserved

The full moon does it, too.

Today I was speaking with the principal of a local elementary school. The kids were having "sea sticks" for lunch, some concoction of seafood pressed into a stick-like form.

I'm thinking somebody lost the legal battle on the term "fish sticks."

Anyway, she wasn't looking forward to it. Her quote: "When we have sea sticks, all hell breaks loose."

Behavior problems? Food fights?

"Bizarre things happen."

I may make a trip back there later today just to see the aftermath.

Fish story

(Official cutline) This strange sight greeted visitors to Lake Ruby beside Georgia Southern University's Lakeside Cafe Friday afternoon. According to witnesses, the two fish washed up Friday, apparently after one of the similarly-sized bass (perhaps celebrating Lent) decided to eat the other - and failed. According to a university official, neither fish was enrolled at GSU.

(Non-official cutline) There's been a debate at the office as to whether this is real. We heard about the fish from a phone call, and it's not beyond the realm of possibility that some prankster stuck the fish together and called us. I think it's authentic, though, and Eddie agrees with me, so that makes it right.

The "GSU official" listed in the cutline is an incredulous Mike Sullivan, who also assured me that the fish in question weren't students because they couldn't pass GSU's stringent SAT requirements.
Copyright Jake Hallman/all rights reserved

More on the ribbons.

To extrapolate on a previous post (two or three back), here's what I mean with the ribbons. I took some pictures while driving today, and I think only one person reported me as being a member of Al Qaeda.

Right way to display a ribbon (click to see the full-size version of the pics):


Wrong way to display ribbons:


Right way to display a ribbon:


The really wrong way to display a ribbon:

Moderate to severe brain damage.

Weird thing about me: I can't talk while playing piano. This leads to no small bit of frustration when playing the postlude at church on Sunday and someone comes up to speak to me.

However, I have no problem singing and playing. This morning, I hit upon the solution - I'll just sing whatever I want to say to whomever I'm talking to. Kind of a real life operatic recitative.

I can't wait to see sweet little Mrs. Inge's face when she comes to say hi and I belt out "Fiiii-iiiine, and how are yoooo-ooou doing todaaaaaaay?"

Maybe I'll go more with sprechstimme.

Only one side of the van was painted.

Self-portrait, with trees and strangely-painted van, after removing polarizer from lens and before taking pictures of cute little puppies.
Copyright Jake Hallman/all rights reserved

Fish heads, fish heads...

On the way home, I saw yet another car with the magnetic ribbon-shaped signs on the back. Like practically all of the ones I've seen lately, it had a red, white and blue "pray for America" (or something close) sign and yellow "support our troops" sign.

Noble sentiments, both, but here's what gets me about them: y'know how the lettering is on one leg of the ribbon? So if the ribbon were worn, it'd have the letters at about a 45-degree angle on one leg?

Bad description. Take a look here to see what I'm talking about.

Anyway, on more and more cars I see around here, the whole ribbon has been canted at 45 degrees so the lettering runs straight across, and the round part at the top is pointing off somewhere in the upper left.

I can read in all kinds of directions. Heck, I've even learned to read upside-down (all the better for sneakily seeing what's on an interview subject's desk).

Apparently, the good folks of my fair city believe that few people can do that. But then, a lot of thinking about the war around here is pretty simple-minded.

On another subject, I don't have one of those ribbons, even though I support our troops. Here's how I do it:

I want them to come back home.

Here are some hard realizations: the stated rationale for the war, WMDs, didn't pan out. Our "liberation" is being pretty selective, seeing as one of our largest trading partners just happens to be the biggest (by population) repressive regime on earth. The elections in Iraq come because a Shiite cleric, Sistani, called for them. There's a civil war going on in Iraq, as well as a war against we Americans.

I'll say our troops need the best equipment they can get, they need the best leadership they can get, and they need a plan to get out of Iraq post-haste. That's how I support them.

Besides, it looks like I'm never going to get embedded over there. What's the use of a war if I can't do some journalism from it?

Also, I took one of the weirdest pictures today at work that I've ever taken. I'll post one of 'em after they run in the paper, so be patient.