Local time where you're at. ("Where you're at"?)

(SCENE:&#160 Aboard Pegasus.&#160&#160 Sparks are flying from Ozymandias McCool’s communications panel.)

LSIK&T:&#160 Dammit, Ozy, that’s the third one today!!!&#160 I told&#160 you not to put your Romulan Ale on top of that board!!!

OZY:&#160 Wasn’t the ale this&#160 time, m’Lord!&#160 I’ve got it on the deck here by my foot in this sealed mug! (inadvertently knocks it over.&#160 Fortunately, it really was&#160 sealed, so nothing spills out.)&#160 See?

LSIK&T:&#160 Okay, fine, whatever. (to speaker) Engineering!!!

MERLIN:&#160 Aye, m’Lord?

LSIK&T:&#160 Get another communications panel up here on the double.&#160 This time, set the voltage for 240 instead of 110 like I asked you the first time?!?!?!?!

MERLIN: (wincing)&#160 Aye, sir.

LSIK&T:&#160 Ozy, hurry up and finish your apprenticeship under him, willya?&#160 I’d prefer you take over for him before&#160 he blows this ship up…??? (sigh)

(Ozy tries to suppress a grin as we fade to black)

—

Okay, Denizens, comments are fixed.&#160 (If you didn’t notice that they were broken, never mind.)

Thatisall.

By now, you guys have heard about the shootings that took place in Tyler last week.&#160 And you’ve heard about the very brave individual, Mark Wilson, who gave up his life to save that of the gunman’s son, through whose head David Hernandez Arroyo was about to put a bullet.

But it’s the reaction of the moronic Texas Department of Not Much Safety which chaps my bohiney this morning:&#160 The standard mantra of “leave your protection to us professionals” – invariably given after said professionals have just been caught again&#160 with their collective trousers down around their collective ankles.

“Leave the crime fighting to us,” said Tela Mange, spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Public Safety. “There are just all kinds of situations that they can find themselves in that don’t turn out well.”

Yeah, Mangey, and those “situations” usually occur after you dipwads have failed yet again&#160 to do the job that we, the taxpayers…

…YEAH, THE TAXPAYERS.&#160 REMEMBER US?????

…are paying you pretty decent money to do.

Couple weeks ago, one of the local news shows had a story about a woman in South Dallas who had some car trouble, went to a Taco Cabana where she’d spotted a Dallas cop car, knocked on the door – then listened with incredulity as the Dallas police-type person refused to help her.&#160 Seems he’d just started dinner and couldn’t pull himself away from it long enough to make a phone call. (Sorry, guys – tried to find the link to the story and couldn’t.&#160 Any of you know where it is, email me, mkay?)

Here in Dallas, we’ve tried that “don’t take the law into your own hands, let us do our job” approach.&#160 The result:&#160 Dallas has led the nation in crime the last six years.

Here’s a hint to the law-enforcement-donuts-and-coffee crowd:&#160 Put the welfare of the people&#160 ahead of the welfare of your own flabby guts and we might trust you a little bit more.

Until then…Article II of the Bill of Rights in the United States Constitution is there for a reason.&#160 And if the local gendarmes&#160 can’t do their jobs, let them not be surprised when we do.

Time to check your friendly neighborhood King & Tyrant for signs of extreme senility.

So I’m on the road headed to church (where, it may interest you to know, I’m writing this – God bless wireless networking (grin)), when I glance down for a nanosecond as I’m approaching the parking lot…

…and immediately blush near to the point where my face is redder than the sweater I’m wearing.

Backtrack a bit:&#160 It’s cool today in Dallas (mid 40s), and I like to look decent at church, so I’m going to dress up.&#160 Sorta.&#160 Grab a pair of tan/cream-colored jeans, plus the aforementioned red sweater and my dress black wing-tips.

“Stylin’ & profilin'”, as Ric Flair might say.

Awright, so I’m near the parking lot now, when I look down at my socks…

…my 100% cotton, pure-as-the-wind-driven-snow white&#160 socks…

IOW, I have followed my usual routine of wearing athletic socks in advance of the sneakers I usually wear.

And my face is now as red as my sweater at the fashion faux pas&#160 I have blatantly committed.

Oh, (very&#160 heavily censored)…!!!