I can’t stand cyclists.  Now I’m not talking about people who sometimes get on a bike and ride around, I’m talking about those idiots who have to go out and spend $500 on their stupid little bike shorts and colorful dumb shirts and ride around being a serious cyclist.  Ok, maybe I don’t hate all of them, but when they get in my way they make my list of things I despise.  This all started years ago when I was living in Austin, TX and my drive to work was through the west side of the city where there’s a bunch of rich areas (Sandra Bullock lived in that area for example) and every single friggin morning my drive would be delayed because some group of idiot bike riders decided they just HAD to get out there during rush hour traffic and play like they’re Lance friggin Armstrong.  Oh, I don’t like Lance Armstrong either…why?  Pretty simple – the jackass has a wife who stands by him during his cancer ordeal and then he screws around with Sheryl Crow.  Oh how I just love Sheryl Crow…she just has so much to offer the world.  Not only is she a first-class musician, but her take on foreign policies and world events is extremely eye opening…uh huh.  I swear I think she’s about as sharp as a bag of wet liver sometimes.  So anyway, these guys in Austin would be lined up going down the road and it seemed like no matter what time I left in the morning, they’d hold me up and my hatred for bicycles grew by the day.  Here it is about 5 years later, and I get to deal with it all over again.  The route I take to work presently goes through a few well-to-do suburban areas…and yes they are once again on the west side of the city of Nashville.  Weird…both cities well-to-do on the west side with idiot bike riders…man that’s bizarre.  For the last few months, workers have been repaving and doing whatever on the roads around where I work, which of course added to my drive time in the morning and pissed me off…but I figured they were widening the roads or something so that maybe…just maybe it would be worth it in the long run.  So one morning driving in I noticed there were no more road closings or construction equipment or anything…the work was done!  My excitement soon turned to disgust as I looked to the side of the road and saw a lane that was only about 2 feet wide on either side…and then I saw the sign…”Bicycle Lane”.  WHAT THE HELL???  Let me get this straight…the area around Briley Parkway and I-40 is still in a state of chaos and has been for years with the unfinished construction, yet the city has enough time and money to come out and put friggin bike lanes in???  First off, if you wanna ride a bike on city streets, get out in the traffic and take your chances, make a game out of it.  Second, if you are going to ride your bike in traffic…especially rush hour…do not be surprised if you see me honking my horn and screaming at you explaining what an idiot you are.  Why all the hostility?  Ok, it’s no secret I have ZERO patience with people when I’m driving….I want to get from point A to point B as efficiently as possible and not waste my time, so when someone else who feels like screwing around on the road wastes my time, I get just a wee bit peeved.  Some might call this road rage, but I think what I have may surpass that at times.  This morning I’m driving in to work, and going through the area with the stupid bike lanes.  There was a line of about 15 cyclists in the bike lane next to the oncoming traffic.  I’m heading one way, the bike riders are heading towards me and THEN they have this bright idea to make a left hand turn.  So idiot lead cyclist sticks his arm out for a turn signal and they all just start cutting across the lane of cars they were riding next to!  And if that wasn’t bad enough…they just start cutting in front of MY car so they can get on a side street!!!  Since when in the hell is this ok???  Well, you might be wondering how I handled this situation, and I’ll tell you.  The first thing I did was gently beep my horn and then I gave them a look that stated “hey guys, let’s be a little more careful next time”.  Riiiight……man I SLAMMED my horn down and held it while screaming at each and every one of them.  Oh I remember saying things such as “stupid idiot” and “moron” interwoven with various profanities.  Normally I am really not the type of person that yells at other people in their cars and I don’t know if I’ve ever shot someone the middle finger while driving.  Don’t get me wrong, I let people know when they screwed up, but with the number of people with guns and crap like that, you never know what another driver might do.  When I lived in Texas I remember hearing many times about road rage incidents where someone would shoot another driver for various reasons and the idea of getting shot isn’t too appealing.  However the odds of some jerk on a bike sporting an AK-47 or whatever are pretty slim so I felt the need to vent a little bit.  Well my verbose statements went pretty much ignored…I guess those jerks were too busy listening to Dave Matthews on their IPODs and figuring out a way to end global warming.  All I know is that it’s on…oh yeah…it’s on.  War is now declared against these people.

Along with my many ventures into the entertainment world, I now have a new item to add to the list – a new movie!  Yep, me and a couple of buds have entered a local contest to make a horror movie.  It’s called “The Unlucky 13” and the deal is you have 13 days to make a film that lasts 13 minutes or less.  The catch is you had to wait until this past Saturday to find out what specific element must be included in the film to keep people from working on something for a year and then passing it off like they just did it.  Well last week one night the whole story came to me…so I went ahead and wrote it gambling what the element would be.  My story takes place on Halloween night, and as fate would have it, the specific element is Halloween…cool huh?  Nice how all that worked out.  Now I don’t want to give away the story, but it involves an evil clown.  Filming started last Saturday and me and one of the dudes working on it with me…Jason…went around to get some props we would need.  We stopped at Party City to get some costume stuff and makeup, plus for a scene we needed a bunch of red balloons.  After that we headed to Toys R Us to get a couple of things, and to make sure the dozen balloons wouldn’t pop while sitting in the heat of the car, he ran inside while I kept the car running with the AC on.  So there I am…cruising through the Toys R Us parking lot going about 5 miles per hour with a backseat filled with red balloons, a clown suit on the floorboard, a video camera and a giant knife.  If a cop had stopped me how in the world would I not look like I was cruising the area looking for kids?  Once that thought hit me I parked the car and went inside.  We filmed all night Saturday to make the tale of an evil clown and editing is currently taking place.  I’m sure it will find its way online sometime soon…we have to have it finished by September 30th for the contest…and I’ll figure out a way to get it online for people to check out.  And the soundtrack to it rocks…it’s pretty eerie stuff.  I know how good it is because I did it…hahahahaha.    The winners will be announced at the Nashville Horror Convention on October 8th.  I’m sure some pseudo-artsy crap will win even though I know no one will top the story we have.

I was trying to avoid this, but I just can’t.  Is anyone sick of hearing about Hurricane Katrina besides me?  Now I understand it was a huge disaster with loss of life and everything, and I’m not trying to belittle it by any means, but I’m just wondering exactly when is enough money enough?  I donated to the Red Cross a few weeks back, and at that time their website said they had raised over $25 million for this…and that was a couple of weeks ago.  Now the government is going to shell out BILLIONS on top of all the private donations.  Where exactly is this money going to?  First off, insurance should cover property damage to businesses and homes and the items contained therein, right?  Ok, and I do believe everyone has now been moved out and there’s tons of food, water, etc., that are being given out to help people.  So what will all this money go to?  The reason I sound so cynical on it is because whenever large amounts of money are floating around, it always ends up being spent on something it wasn’t supposed to or in people’s pockets that shouldn’t get it.  For instance, you remember hearing about the $2,000 debit cards that were handed out to the people in Houston?  Well, it turns out one was used at a strip club and others have been used to buy new TV’s and things like that.  I know a few bad apples spoil the bunch, but why don’t we all take a step back and see exactly how much money is still needed before tons of it is just thrown around?  I know this may sound cold blooded…but I really don’t think the government needs to hand over billions of dollars for this.  The reason is, private donations really seem to be raking in a ton of cash…can we wait and see what this covers and what it doesn’t before allocating federal money?  Oh, and the red cross is about to REALLY piss me off.  I read today they are actually considering changing their logo from the red cross to something that won’t offend muslims.  That is no joke…it’s a real story.  So the organization named the red cross is thinking of not using a red cross for their symbol.  Makes perfect sense to me.  If they do that I wish I had never given them a dime.

I can’t remember the idiot’s name, but that one atheist guy sued again last week that the Pledge of Allegiance is unconstitutional since it contains “under God” and the guy actually won in a federal court.  When will someone with some balls stand up in the government and explain to EVERYONE that there is no such thing as this mythological separation of church and state???  Again, please show me in what federal document it states this…please…I beg you.  Now I’ve mentioned before that I’m running for the U.S. Senate (www.boforsenate.com) because politicians are a bunch of cowards and I’m sick of it, so I check out the websites this week of the top two Republican candidates – Ed Bryant and Van Hilleary.  Now these guys are considered “real” candidates…you know…all official and stuff because they have a party backing them up…but both these guys are clueless.  Of course they both had to furnish statements about this even this week to prove their conservative values.  Ed Bryant deemed this court decision as “flawed”.  Yeah, that’s exactly what he said…sounds like a guy who really will take a stand on something.  Van Hilleary said he was appalled.  And his solution to this problem really cracked me up.  The guy said "We need to elect a solid conservative who will fight to confirm judges who interpret the Constitution instead of rewriting it" which sounds fine, but THEN said "In the U.S. Senate I would support a constitutional amendment to protect the pledge and the values this country was founded on".  Hey brainiac...let me get this straight...you chastise the judge for rewriting the Constitution, yet you then offer a Constitutional amendment to rectify this problem.  What kind of logic is that???  If the judge is ALREADY rewriting the Constitution then what good what an amendment do???  Wow, tough talk.  It's scary to think these two are considered the front-runners in the Senate race.  They both used this event as something to issue a nice little statement which was probably typed up by some volunteer so they could show they didn’t like it and have strong conservative values and blah blah blah.  I emailed them both, not like I’ll ever hear anything back, but I basically called them gutless.  You know what my solution would be?  Impeach the judge and have him thrown off the bench.  Yep, see these “real” Senate candidates should have called out a member of the House of Representatives to start impeachment proceedings so they could get the ball rolling on kicking that sorry-ass judge off the bench.  It’s been done before.  Impeachment doesn’t only apply to a President…it can apply to federal judges as well.  So why didn’t they?  Because they are spineless politicians who try to talk tough but when push comes to shove they don’t want to offend anyone.  Sounds like the type of leadership we really need in Washington doesn’t it?  But back to the court ruling, how in the heck did this judge come to this decision?  There is absolutely NOTHING the U.S. Constitution has in it to justify his ruling, therefore he should be removed.  Nope, he’s a guy with a personal and political agenda, that’s all it is.  But here’s my question, if me…a Christian…is supposedly ramming my beliefs down someone’s throat by reciting the Pledge with “under God” in it, isn’t an atheist who sues to have that removed ramming THEIR beliefs down MY throat?  So why is that ok?  Atheists are a very small minority in this country…so we’re going to change everything and bend over backwards to accommodate them?  I don’t think so.  The claim was that by making his daughter say that in school it was coercing her into believing in God.  That’s a load of crap and he knows it…it just drives this idiot nuts that he couldn’t get his way with his lawsuit he lost over it before and the lawsuit he lost to have the prayer removed from the Presidential inauguration ceremony so like the big baby he is, he has to try and sue again to get his way.  People that sue to get their way on something like this are the same little kids on the playground who didn’t have the guts to stand up to someone and had to tell the teacher on everyone…little snot nosed brats.  So what’s next, recalling all currency because it says “In God We Trust” on it?  I would love to tell this guy something – this country was founded by CHRISTIANS, George Washington said “It is impossible to govern men without God and The Bible”, the laws of this country were based on CHRISTIAN  principles so deal with it, shut up, and get over it.  If you don’t believe in God then fine, but don’t dictate when and where I can express my faith.  It’s not ramming my beliefs down anyone’s throats at all…that’s reserved for those scumbags in the middle east who chop heads off if you don’t believe the way they do.  If you don’t want your kid saying “under God” then tell her to just skip that part if she wants to…and if she’s made fun of by her classmates well guess what, it’s bad that happens but it won’t be the last time she’s made fun of…every kid has to go through it.  Oh wait…we’re raising a nation of wimps now…I keep forgetting.