Y’all Have Clicked These Pictures Allot

When I get super bored I look at the statistics for T.S.O.T.S.B. to see what leads y’all here and to see what links/pictures y’all click the most. Y’all might not know but this particular blog has only been around here on wordpress for 14 months and some changes. In 14 months I have tried my best to have a vast array of different posts, different shares, and a handful of staple regulars. Two of the most popular “features”, as told by the statistics and comments, are the Bartender Stories and The Magic Weekend stories. I shouldn’t find it odd that those two areas of my blog are the most searched and sought after, but I really do. The biggest complaint I get from readers is that I censor some of the pictures I post, I get told I operate using a double standard because I oppose censorship yet I enforce it strictly on my blog. Eventhough I have explained that I wish to keep my blog at a PG rating to a NC17 rating. Plus, I know people, and I know people have a grand enough imagination to put back in what I’ve censored out.

Associated with the above links, I give you the #1 picture that gets “clicked” here, in 14 months y’all clicked the below picture 8892 times.

The #2 picture that gets “clicked” comes in at 6389 times.

The #3 picture that gets “clicked” comes in at 4129 times.

The #4 picture that gets “clicked” comes in at 3956 times.

The #5 picture that gets “clicked” comes in at 3921 times.

Note to reader, not ALL of these 5 pictures are found on the panel to the right, y’all had to hunt for a couple of them. In the end I’m very happy that my “advertising” interests readers enough to click on the picture. So, I guess the big question I have for y’all is what makes y’all click what y’all are clicking? Also, I would like to add that every single one of the links to the right get very regular daily clicks, which I appreciate y’all looking at my blogging friends as well. It will be interesting to check back in a year to see what the picture statistics look like then. Well, that’s if T.S.O.T.S.B. is still around.

Thank Y’all For Choosing T.S.O.T.S.B.

I know there are about a billion great blogs out there for y’all to check out and I just wanted to take a moment to thank each of you for giving this blog a look. In my book y’all are the best! Hopefully y’all can tolerate me as I ho through day to day. And, for new followers, as well as just newbies here, the links at the top of the page are information about myself and this blog if there were any questions. Again, a huge THANKS!

Thanks For ALL The Great Emails!

When I began checking my email this morning I realized how much email accumulates in 24 hours and have noticed the daily increase over the past several months. On a daily basis I sit down to over 250 unique emails and twice that in spam that is actually filtered, caught, and segregated. It typically boils down to 100 or so legitimate blog related messages which I read and respond to as needed. Why is this all important? It shows me that people are not only visiting my blog but they ate reading as well. In fact, a fair amount of what is posted (refers to “pictures” or graphics) comes from visitors wanting to share. I can never say thank you enough for those. Let’s just say I get many stories, pictures, ideas, and comments that are ALL greatly appreciated.

Which leads me to want to answer some common questions I get to help everyone out. Yes, I refer visitors to explore the links/tabs at the very top of the blog and the links to the right for a shotgun blast of information about me and this blog. Yes, I am a retired disabled United States Air Force veteran who has seen some bizarre shit all over the world and I like to talk about most of it here. Yes, for many years I have been a real life bartender and much of that time was spent working in a full nude strip club. Yes, the bartender stories I write were told to me in person at one given time or another. Yes, I will put your Magic Weekend story here on my blog, that’s why I have that particular feature. Yes, I am aware I use colorful graphic language, it is often a direct reflection of how I speak in real life. No, I am not a professional writer and I choose not to use a spell checker. Yes, Bearknuckle is a real Atlanta based band and yes, I do consider them to be quite badass and fantastically talented. Yes, I will put just about anything up here on my blog if I personally like it or personally find it interesting. Yes, everyone’s email is always welcome.

I think I will break it off there. I just wanted to take the time to publcally thank everyone who has been taking the time to email me for a multitude of reasons because I really do appreciate each and every one of them. Well, except the spam, I could actually live without spam emails. Again, thank y’all so much for the continued support.

An Open Letter To Whomever

It has come to my attention within the last 24 hours that I made remarks which certain people on our planet have taken to be historically in bad taste. These people mistake my sarcasm as me just being a cold hearted bastard. I make light of many things in current times as well as in history but for some reason, that I am obviously to damn ignorant to comprehend, people find cause in pointing out WHY what was said was so wrong and offensive. I have the answer to why this happens and that answer is simple. I am who I am and you ate not me, you are not capable of knowing what I know, seeing what I see, or even grasping why I speak the way I do. I don’t offend people on purpose, people make the choice to get offended by what I say. Here’s the damn deal, I don’t give a shit. It goes well beyond this blog, it goes deeper than social media, and the big picture is something these people choose not to see. Its great that they can pin point focus on a tiny part but 99.99% of the time it is taken way out of context which really draws one attention away from how words were being used. Right now there are people wondering what in the unholy Fuck I am talking about, which is cool because we don’t all travel in the same social circles. If you know what I am referencing that is great and if you are not with the program that is great as well. All I ask is that one must remember that there are things and people and placed that I understand all to well and the way I choose to interact is my way, its not something I need permission to do. It doesn’t make a difference to me if people come here or interact with me. Its nice that y’all do but I don’t run off and cry when people leave me. Shit happens because that’s just fucking life. I will be the first to admit we ate different, and you should cherish that fact not be offended by that fact. But who am I to say, y’all are strong willed people and should already now this. I mentioned, when I started here on WP that I was being reborn, that I was back with a purpose this time, and will not cater to the pussies in the world who think that complaining enough will finally get me shut down. Should it offend me that you are offended? Nope, fuck you. My blog and what I say is not for everyone, hell its not actually for anyone, except those who have the stomach to go ahead and be amused with life and the people here on planet dirt. We, the people of planet Earth, are all fucked up in one way or another. I have yet to meet the perfect human and I am comfortable knowing that I never will. Its probably a stretch to ask people to have their own lives perfect before deciding mine is not, I will make it simple for you, I don’t live the perfect life in your eyes, but I do live a perfectly happy life in my own eyes. Luckily I gave up, many many years ago, trying to convince people that they are very different from each other. As a bonus, this decision to give up has given me a better opportunity to watch people make complete asses out of themselves while they try to get me and others to give a shit about there opinions.

In conclusion, I know I have opened the literal flood gates of hate and poison that certain people have coursing through their veins by merely having an oppositional opinion that may differ from their own. Yes, I am an asshole. Tell me something I don’t already know. But, y’all should know that generally I don’t pull out my asshole card unless provoked to do so. Some will argue, as the do regularly, that the mete existence of this blog and its contents will always provoke an I’ll response from just the right person at that right moment in time. At the end of the day we can all agree on one simple fact, each of us must take care of ourselves and our own sanity. We can’t all be sheeple and Fucktards now can we.

Thank You For Being One Of Them!

Less than three months ago I made the move from Blogger.com to WordPress.com with almost a seamless transition and combination of six complete blogs. Amazingly enough it was the right thing to do at the right time because I really like it here because it is so much easier to use. As well, the WordPress app for Android is super cool and very easy to use, which is good for me because 50% of what I do is done on the go. Anyway, everyone found me once again and all has been going real well, I have no complaints. Well, one complaint, which is I have a hard time keeping up sometimes. There has been grand readership and participation which has been the greatest thing to witness. I watch people joining up to follow The Sting Of The Scorpion everyday and hope that doesn’t stop anytime soon. With an average of over 1000 visitors a month I have to keep up the aggressive pace that I have set. No worries, I have great things planned which I will announce in another post. I’m very happy y’all have been up to the challenge of visiting here so often. Y’all are the absolute best!

One Million Thanks To Everyone!

One Million Thanks To Everyone!

I was looking through some comments and statistics this morning and realized I have some fantastic visitors dropping by. What makes me think that? Since 06 September 2013, the birth and conception date of this blog, there have been 1600 visitors who have left over 400 comments on various posts. Additionally, in the short six weeks time frame 36 of these visitors became dedicated followers. That’s amazing to me how many people stop by here either at random, by accident, or intentionally. Y’all are amazing and I just wanted to take time out and thank everyone from around the world wide web, WordPress.com, Blogcatalog.com, Google+, Facebook.com, and Pinterest.com because without all of y’all I would just be talking to myself.  One Million Thanks To Everyone from around the world who takes the time out of their days to pay me a visit.

Kuwait Uses “Gaydar” To Keep Out LGBT

If you have been keeping up with international news you just might have seen the little tidbits offered about Kuwait implementing “gaydar” to keep LGBT (Lesbians, Gays, Bisexual, and Transgender) out of their country. Other countries in the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Countries) that include Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates already deem homosexual acts as unlawful. Health centers conduct the routine medical check to assess the health of the  expatriates when they come into the GCC countries. However, they are taking  stricter measures that will help them detect gays who will be then barred from  entering Kuwait or any of the GCC member states. And did you know that It’s illegal to be gay in 78 countries, with  lesbianism banned in 49. Five countries mete out the death penalty to gay people, those being Iran, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Yemen and Mauritania.

• Iran:  Since 1979, the government has executed more than 4,000 people charged with  homosexual acts. A non-adult who engages in consensual sodomy is subject to a  punishment of 74 lashes.
• Saudi  Arabia: Although the maximum punishment for homosexuality is execution,  the government tends to use other punishments – such as fines, prison sentences,  and whipping – unless it feels that homosexuals have challenged state authority  by engaging in social movements.
• Sudan: For homosexual men, lashes are given  for the first offence, with the death penalty following the third offence. 100  lashes are given to unmarried women who engage in homosexual acts. For lesbian  women, stoning and thousands of lashes are the penalty for the first offence.
• Yemen: Homosexuality is still illegal in Yemen  in accordance to the country’s Shari’a legal system. Punishment ranges from  flogging to death.
• Mauritania: The Shari’a law applies in  Mauritania. The penal code states that, since 1983, any adult Muslim caught engaging in an ‘unnatural act’ with a member of the same sex is punishable with  the death sentence by public stoning.

This warped plan comes from Kuwait’s director of public health, Yousuf Mindkar. The clinical screens are meant to make sure the foreigners entering the Arab countries are healthy. But Mindkar wants to use them as an opportunity to crack down harder on what’s been seen as a troublesome rise in the country’s gay population. Theoretically, the health officials in Kuwait could distil this practice and other similar research findings into a science-inspired gay detection screening process. But the accuracy rate would be far from proficient, and leaps and bounds away from the level of proof sufficient to ban someone from entering the country. We don’t even have to look to the East for examples of homophobic immigration law. For 22 years the United States tried to screen out HIV-positive foreigners which could be considered a form of gay discrimination. Meanwhile, Kuwait’s gaydar plan is set to be debated at the Gulf Cooperation Countries committee meeting next month. It will be interesting to see if the committee gives the proposal the green light, and even more interesting to find out how Mindkar proposes to pull it off. Unfortunately, wherever the gay detector falls in the spectrum between asking someone if they like sports or analyzing their facial width-to-height ratio, it won’t be the first time history has used soft science to justify a kind of witch hunt rooted in fear and hatred. And those never ended very well in the past.

Everything I have read about or seen on the television about Kuwait and the GCC using supposed scientific tests to ban people from entering one of the countries has sent red flags right up my WTF flag pole. As a serving member of the United States Air Force (active duty) I was stationed in the Gulf region in the country of Kuwait as well as visiting Bahrain for r & r. As an American, used to American culture, I witness first hand, what appeared to me, as unethical treatment to human beings. That’s not seeing things as only a foreigner to the county but as a human being. Who gives a flying fuck what a person’s sexual orientation or their sexual preference is. I wonder why we haven’t seen any WBC (Westboro Baptist Church) support for Kuwait and the GCC. Maybe the WBC has been banned from those countries as well. Neither here nor there, it just seems like there are countries who wish to alienate themselves from others in the world. I would think this would affect their income from international travels no matter their orientation. Anyway, just wanted to pass on some international bullshit news that struck me as worthy to put here.

As a housekeeping note, the 3, count them 3, pictures were borrowed from 3 different sources found publicly on the world-wide web using a Google search. They don’t belong to me or this blog and were, at the time of posting, considered to be free to use in the public domain. If 1 or all of the pictures belong to you or your organization just inform me and I will remove them with haste.