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A few of you may have noticed that Mad Jack's Shack may have been a mite slow to load recently. The site is now fixed, thanks to the kindness and generosity of JR, SysOp of ToledoTalk and programmer extraordinaire.

 Thanks JR.

While I'm at it, I'd also like to thank the elite QC team over at ToledoTalk for their lightning fast response and succinct missives.

Thanks guys 'n gals, ladies and gents, madams and monsieurs. I really appreciate the help.

What have I been up to? Well...


Since my bout with the big C, I've been taking Alprazolam to get to sleep nights, and to visit the dentist.  I'm phobic (odontophobia/dentophobia) and the easiest way for me to get into the dentist's chair is using Alprazolam, AKA Xanax.  The trouble with Alprazolam is that it's a benzodiazepine anxiolytic, which means it's an addictive, controlled substance.  Taking it to visit the dentist is fine; taking it every night to get a decent night's sleep is not the healthiest activity in the world.  Add to that the fact that my system is naturally resistant to opioids in general, so the dosage of Alprazolam that I need to take in order to get any benefit from the drug is such that it would put the average person under the table for a solid 12 hours.  Main Lady opined that this resistance was more due to the fact that I'm used to operating in an impaired state.  Me, I don't think so.

My new witch doctor strongly suggested that I get off the drug, so I quit three days ago.  I feel like five miles of bad road, but there you go.  I had a similar problem a few years back when I quit taking Morphine without notice.  Two days after I quit I landed in the ER after making a mess on the living room floor.  The ER people didn't know what the problem was, but Main Lady spotted it in very short order.

"Jack, how long have you been off morphine?"

"Two days."

"That's the problem.  You're experiencing withdrawal symptoms."

I took a little morphine and a short time later I was okay.  I may use a tapering off method rather than just quitting.  I think it may be slower, but a bit easier.

Other than that, the political scene here in Ohio's capital is much more complex than the residents of Toledo enjoy.  The politicians are both smarter and better liars, there's more money floating around, and the payoff schemes are a whole lot more complex.  Investigative journalists get lost just trying to follow the money, let alone uncover anything.  The most exciting thing that's happened to me so far in Columbus is some genius who test fires his handgun collection once every three weeks or so.  He waits until 1:00 AM, and then this fool empties the magazine, rapid fire.  So far he's managed to hit the bed of someone's pickup truck, and that's it.  Well, he isn't shooting at me, and gunshots have never bothered me all that much, so what do I care?

There is, however, one neighbor in our little community that is something more than a casual pest.  This rocket scientist gets a mind to travel around 1:00 AM (the usual time for such things), and he turns his car stereo up so loud that it wakes me up and I'm well over 100 yards away.  He leaves it on and turned up to ten while he screws around with his garage door and parks his car (or leaves, depending), so we're talking maybe 10 minutes.  Just enough time to get everyone awake, but he's gone and all's quiet ten minutes later.  So if anyone does call the cops, he'll be long gone by the time they show up.  The HOA won't do anything about it, and yeah, he's playing rap music, and yeah, he's black, and unemployed, and 20-something with pants around his knees.  His usual M.O. when leaving is to open the garage door, start the car, crank the music up as high as it will go, back the car out of the garage, then get out of the car, walk back into the garage and screw around with something for five minutes or so, they he closes the garage door, gets in the car and drives away.  I can hear the music all the way out of the complex.

So, you see, there is a period of time where the car is running with the driver's side door open, and he's in the garage (or maybe the house - who knows), and since he's about six feet tall and 400 pounds of blubber, he's not going to be too quick.  So someone, some enterprising individual, could actually hop in the car and drive it away.

Ha!
Ha!Ha!
Ha!Ha!Ha!

Can't you just see the typical grossly overweight noisy clown watching his car vanish down the street?  It wouldn't have to be driven very far, either.  Just around the corner, where the sound system could be rendered inoperable, or maybe the car set on fire.  I kind of like that last one.  He'd call the cops and try to make the dispatcher understand what just happened.  The fire department would get a call about a burning car, and very likely beat the police to scene.  By the time the dust settled, well...

Not that I would do anything like that.  Just thinking out loud.

And that's all that's fit to print.  Thanks for reading.