I am sick as hell this Thanksgiving wknd.  All I can really do is drug myself enough to do my airshift and look up stuff on the internet.  So, as you can see the title of this blog you can imagine the severity.  YES! There are real pirates in 2008.  The Somali Pirates.  Click here for their wiki page. Most of the attacks are in the Gulf of Aden.  Basically on the east coast of Ethiopia/Somalia, That’s northeast Africa if you remember from geography class.  Here’s a map.

These pirates have captured and demanded hundreds of million of dollars since the early 1990’s.  The latest capture happened Friday.  This year about 100 ships have been victims.  Click here for a good recap of the latest story.

This is one of their ships

The WHY is obvious! MONEY!!! The HOW is more impressive and yet very simple.  Somalia DOES NOT have a working government.  And…hasn’t had one for about 20 years.  WTF right!!  I understand crap governments, I understand good governments, I don’t understand not having anybody in charge of anything.  My gawd ppl.  We can drill and discover water on Mars,  Elect the first black president, build the iPhone, create a universal monetary exchange in Europe….BUT….no Po Po in Somalia??????  I know what you may be thinking, “Tias, who gives a flip about Somalian government problem”.  I DO!!!!  They recent captured a oil vessel heading here that contained $100 million worth of oil.  The prices have just started to go down.  Don’t mess with my gas prices your Pirate F***s!  The good news is that NATO has gotten together rather recently to “help” with the situation.  Not STOP it, just “help” it.  Here is a pic of some of the fleet.

Again, I say….”Real Pirates? In 2008? WTF Planet Earth!”  I’m going to take more cold medicine now….

Need a couple websites that will help you with your shopping this Friday? Here are a couple:

www.black-friday.net

blackfriday.gottadeal.com

Have you ever wondered why your parents seem to worry about the tiniest, most ridiculous things?  Well THIS is exactly why . . .

–On September 2nd, 20-month-old Nicholas Holderman of Perryville, Kentucky (–in the central part of the state, about 70 miles southeast of Louisville), was playing with his two older brothers when he fell down . . . and landed on his parents’ car keys. 

–At first, Nicholas’ brothers didn’t think too much of it . . . until they noticed that one of the car keys was stuck in his EYE SOCKET. 

–So Nicholas’ mom called 911 and he was rushed to the hospital, where X-rays showed that the key had punctured Nicholas’ eyelid . . . and was lodged IN HIS BRAIN.  (!!!)

–Anyway, Nicholas’ doctors were worried that he might suffer vision loss . . . or worse. 

–But after carefully removing the key and spending SIX DAYS in the hospital . . . Nicholas has made a full recovery from the freak accident (–meaning he hasn’t suffered any brain damage or vision loss).  (Daily Mail)

My video blog from this past week was dedicated to my sweet Sexy Jim.  Our four-year wedding anniversary was Thursday, November 20.  Yay us! 

So I thought in celebration of that day, until they reach their own wedding anniversary, I could celebrate Natalia and Joe’s engagement anniversary.  It was one year ago at the Grand Illumination Parade that Joe brought out the Norfolk fire department to propose to his one and only… watch with tissues within reach… sooo cute!

Congratulations Natalia and Joe!  Looking forward to a beautiful wedding day in May!!

Oh, PS….MY MOMMY AND DADDY ARE COMING TO TOWN!!  YAY!!  I get them for Thanksgiving this year!  First time ever – woo hooo!  Suck on that one, Missouri siblings – ha!  They are driving right now and will be here soooooon!!  Woooo hoooo!!  Can’t wait to see you guys!!

I had to post this today! It’s from this past weekend’s Saturday Night Live. It features T-Pain and Ludacris with special guest “The Blizzard Man” (aka Andy Samberg):

Occasionally on the ZMZ you will hear me or Shag refer to “MacGruber”. If you don’t know who he is, I have posted a couple examples of his work. These are the 2 funniest MacGruber episodes I’ve ever seen. They’re from SNL, and I have to say they’re some of the funniest episodes of any show I’ve ever seen. 

The videos are posted through HULU, which is a popular video player that NBC uses for all of its shows. You may have to sit through a brief ad first, but wait for it. It’s worth it.