Smokey Mountain Breakdown

I rarely rant but I really need to.

My internet tubes are so clogged, I think it's time to call Computer Router.

And it's not my machines or internal phone lines. It's Bell Fucking South ...now AT & Fucking T...or whoever the hell it is and their failure to provide equal and adequate phone service to mountain residents. I don't mind being on dial-up. But the phone lines here only can handle 26.6K modems. They are the very same phone lines that they put in after the flood of '72.

I just really resent paying full price for substandard phone service and there doesn't seem to be anything I can do about it.

Last time this happened it was a DNS issue, so I switched to openDNS. FireFox is barely functional so I'm limping around on SeaMonkey.

So...if I haven't been commenting on your blog, it's because your comment page times out before I can get to it. I can read your blog...I just can't comment on most of them. It took me 45 minutes to get this posting field to come up . Yesterday's template redesign took me 12 hours. Not because I didn't know what I was doing...most of that time was loading up windows in the browser.

So, hopefully they will mosey on over and find whatever phone box is now home to a litter of possums or whatever has chewed a hole in the phone connection between here and Big Creek Market soon.

Secret Agent Hot Dog Man

On another note. I was in town evaluating a cocker spaniel at the shelter and meeting the new director and stopped off to get a hot dog at the new A&W joint in Newport. It's roughly where Hot Dog Man used to set up. I hadn't thought about Hot Dog Man for a while.

When the hot dog man showed up in Newport, I was partly thrilled and partly dismayed. Thrilled because most people here wouldn't recognize the superiority of a Nathan's Skinless Frank. I like Hebrew Nationals, too, but they are a bit salty for my taste. Folks here like the sort of wieners that come 40 to a bag and are bright red. So Hot Dog Man had a little Nathan's cart just like in New York. So that was why I was thrilled. Real Nathan's Hot dogs in lil' ole Newport!

I was dismayed since it was pretty obviously an incursion from the outside world that I fled from. I nervously wondered if a Starbucks couldn't be far behind.

Anyway, Hot Dog Man showed up during the FBI investigations. These had actually been going on for a long, long time. As far as I know, they are still going on. But at that time, they were still investigating the cock fighting. And the Sheriff's Office....well, just about any sort of government office is investigated in Cocke county. We still have that old-timey corruption thing going for us. Boss Hawg and all that. I like it. It's charming.

A rumor started circulated around that Hot Dog Man was an FBI informant. Hell, by the time it got around town, he became an undercover operative for the FBI.

'Cause, you know cockfighters love a good hot dog. Everyone does. I used to order the chili-cheese with extra onions. He never asked me any probing questions.

Well, they busted the biggest illegal cockfighting arena in the United States here back in 2005. We made CNN. And Hot Dog Man mysteriously disappeared. I thought I saw him over in Cosby once. The rumors got so pervasive about his involvement in the raid, that the local paper, The Newport Plain Talk, ran an article where Hot Dog Man denied any involvement with the FBI.

"I'm just selling hot dogs."

The Plain Talk is one of those papers that you say, "The Newport Plain Talk...Bless their hearts!" They just are very gullible. They seem unusually trusting for journalists...even of the community variety. Yes. I subscribe to it. Bless their hearts.

I guess what brought it to mind was that Scott mentioned recently that Hot Dog Man had testified recently in one of the many court cases from all of the FBI's investigations in Cocke county.

So damn. He was an informant.

Secret Agent Man...Hot Dog Man.

I wonder how bad you have to screw up at the FBI to get sent undercover in Cocke county, TN pushing a hot dog cart?