This is my house, I have to defend it

• Home Alone
  

Ted is beginning to think that the Evil Empire really is truly evil.
They want him to clock his time by the minute but then they want him to donate hours of his time to the pursuit of their profits without being on their clock. Hum! sounds a bit iffy to me, I mean to say, I'm only a dog but if I wag my tail I expect to at least get a pat on the head - fair's fair Evil Empire. Anything less would surely imply a salaried position?
Clocking your staff by the minute does not give you the right to expect them to turn up after "office hours" and not get paid!
Anyway, it's Friday, the clock has stopped, Ted is feeling happy and so to heck with the Evil Empire. Here is a pretty view of Little Bay for y'all to admire.

Life is a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death!

• Auntie Mame
  

... and that means me 'cos Ted tells me he has run out of dog food so I'll just have to wait until he goes to the store tomorrow before I get my breakfast. Maybe he'll give me bacon again; yes, I'll roll my big brown eyes at him pathetically and he'll give me bacon. Bacon, bacon, bacon, oh what a happy dog I am!
So the tale of woe from the Evil Empire Emporium today was one of few customers and very few sales. Oh dear, Senga will not be pleased when she hears those figures.
Nevertheless Ted, Buddy, and Wee Jeanie had a bit of a treat tonight as they attended a special evening event with some of their customers and therefore not only had dinner on the Evil Empire but were able to talk to each other without feeling guilty!
There is justice in the world.

Nobody has ever escaped from Stalag 17. Not alive, anyway.

• Stalag 17
  

Imagine, if you will, that Ted is telling YOU this story and that, as he gets closer and closer to the last sentence , he is whipped up into a maniacal fervor:

And so it is that most of our customers say

"you're new here, how long are you going to stay?"

You would think that the Elevated Echelons of the Evil Empire might pay more attention to the comments received in their Emporia from the very source of their profits! But alas no; that is not the case.

Sales, sales, and more sales please to the definite exclusion of the poor punters we sucked into our clutches just yesterday. You've bought your stuff now GET OUT and free up my office so that I can sell more, more ,more!

You may find this amusing but I'm just a dog and I'm not really qualified in agitated person restraint techniques! But I am fixin to bone up (pardon the pun) on my psyche evaluation courses just in case things get any worse.

I'm no good at being noble, but it doesn't take much to see that the problems of 3 little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world

• Casablanca
  

Well Ted tells me that the Evil Empire doesn't give a toss for anything but sales so I guess the title of this post is pretty apt. After all, as I dog nap during the afternoon TV schedule I notice that the film from which that quote is taken deals with another "Evil Empire" which didn't give a toss for life in general. Is it me, or is there a correlation here with Ted's employer?

Thank goodness for the jovial camaraderie between Buddy, Wee Jeanie, and Ted else they would all be lost in the dreadful dry desert of despair that is [drum roll]
"The Evil Empire Emporium"

Here's looking at you, kid.

Captain, it is I, Ensign Pulver, and I just threw your stinking palm tree overboard. Now, what's all this crud about no movie tonight?

• Mister Roberts
  

Monday again and Ted really, really wishes he did not need to go in to the Evil Empire Emporium.
Oh don't you just wish you could mirror the sentiment of the title at your own place of work?
It's enough to make Ted put a line on the lottery in the hope of delicious escape.

Ted made it home at lunchtime today and took me for a walk; he woke me up and made me go outside. Some people just don't know when to let sleeping dogs lie! I shouldn't be so ungrateful, after all, Ted is not feeling well tonight and yet he still took me out - that's dedication for you!

Bacon, bacon, bacon, bacon ....

• line from an ad for dog treats
  

.... but even better than bacon Ted gave me lots of yummy steak to eat last night. Thank goodness Eddy is such a picky eater; if the Ted's only made dinner for Little Ted I'd never get any juicy tidbits!
Little Ted, in his own words, is "a meat eater", and boy can he pack it away when he's in the mood.

I think it must be the start of grilling season 'cos Ted took me to the propane place yesterday and we got two tanks filled.
It sure is fun when Ted takes the cover off that grill in the back yard. When it heats up I can smell all sorts of exciting stuff and sometimes I can even catch the drips from what is cooking. Ted says I need to watch and not burn my nose but it's so difficult to keep back when all that food is grilling - yum, yum, woof, woof.

Why don't you come up sometime and see me?

• She Done Him Wrong
  

The concept of making appointments for folks to come into the Evil Empire Emporium is just fine and dandy until you get a day when lots of folks come in of their own accord . This is where it all goes horribly pear shaped and potentially dangerous as folks can be mightily unreasonable when they think they have been wronged.

Actually Ted tells me that Saturday was not a bad day. Of course it started well when we met up with Bella and Buddy in the ball park and had a good long romp which tired me out. That Bella just doesn't know when to leave a guy alone so I had to tell her to give it a rest after a while. Bella wants me to go on and on for ever whereas I just want to rush round the park once or twice and then lie down exhausted. Ted tells me there is a correlation there with a particular human behavior but I'm too young for him to explain it to me?

On the way home from the park we passed Senga going in the opposite direction - was she spying on us or is it possible that she actually has a life outside the Evil Empire?

Ted dropped me off at home and then went to the Donut Palace for his breakfast; why he told me this later instead of taking me with him and buying me a pig in a blanket is anyones guess.

Anyway Ted was kept occupied all morning, mostly with nice kind folks who just needed this or that, but of course there is always someone willing to spoil the happy atmosphere. There was one advocate for the Extinction of the Evil Empire amongst today's customers but she kind of liked Ted's accent and softened considerably during the course of their meeting. She still took her business elsewhere but said she appreciated Ted's input.

What can I say? Ted - good, Evil Empire - bad.

Buddy turned up at the Emporium with his son who needed to buy stuff and of course it was only fitting that he should give his dad these sales. Wee Jeanie also appeared with her son who wanted to see where mommy worked. I hope son of Jeanie was not too traumatized by his introduction to the Evil Empire Emporium!

Well I'm being left at home again this afternoon because Ted is helping an uncle move some stuff in his truck. They tell me there won't be any room for DR Johnson when they are all loaded up and they wont let me stand on top of the load cos they say I'll fall out of the truck. I guess that is a sensible decision - but I'm not happy being left Home Alone ..... Now there's a possible tag line for another blog entry.

Ah, but the strawberries! That's, that's where I had them

• The Caine Mutiny
  

... you may tell the crew for me that there are four ways of doing things in my Emporium: The right way, the wrong way, the Evil Empire way, and my way. They do things my way, and we'll get along.

Ok, so I'm taking liberties with the quotes, but is it just me or do the stories Ted tells indicate a degree of insanity in the Evil Empire?

Today was very different from yesterday; all Ted's customers appeared to be sane, in need of the products he could offer them, and appreciative of his efforts to provide them with what they needed. All in all a very satisfactory day spent with good folks.

There was not much time available for socializing with Wee Jeanie or Buddy so Senga had an ecstatic day! Although Ted did go in early and had a few minutes with Buddy "off the clock" and discovered another thing they have in common:
They both watched "The Dirty Dozen" on TV last night and both their wifes disapproved whilst they think it's a great film!

Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.

• Ferris Bueller's Day Off
  

Ted is no Ferris Bueller but he did manage to sneak some "personal time" with Buddy and Wee Jeanie today.
Best not tell Senga or all three of them will be in trouble for wasting corporate selling time but heh, preventing them from taking a few moments out of the day is an untenable position to adopt.

Well, here's another nice mess you've gotten me into!

• Sons of the desert
  

Ted has been having his ear bent by Mrs Ted. She has taken exception to the blog entry entitled:

"Mrs. Robinson, you're trying to seduce me. Aren't you?"

particularly as Ted chose to rename The Queen of the Evil Empire "Mrs Robinson" Woof, woof.

In deference to Mrs Ted's concern we, that is Ted and DR Johnson, unequivocally apologize for any misunderstanding regarding the role of the Mrs Robinson written about in this blog.

For the avoidance of doubt her only role in this soap opera is as Ted's boss; she tows the company line, encourages and coaches her sales team, and as such is fair game for my sometimes wicked sense of humor.

Woof; I have decided on another new pseudonym for "The Queen" and from now on I shall refer to her as SENGA.
To the best of my knowledge there is no film theme attached to this name it is merely a corruption of Agnes used predominantly in the West of Scotland and therefore suits my purpose as an innocent alias for this individual.

Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room!

• Dr Strangelove
  

I'm a happy waggy tail young dog and Ted, for the most part, is a good natured old human so we don't understand why some folks get so easily disgruntled.
Today at Ted's place of employment, the Evil Empire Emporium, there was a queue of people waiting to be sold their unwanted "products."
So eager were these people to be duped into buying stuff they don't need and certainly don't want that one of their number started shouting the odds about being attended to out of turn.
Sadly these head bangers do not understand that people with pre set appointments mingle with the "passing trade" punters and so may legitimately be "taken out of turn."
This is, of course, an underlying problem with the EEE directive for each employee to set up 2 appointments per day - but I guess they provide health care benefits and so the odd physical assult on their minions can be tolerated.

Frankly it won't matter in a hundred years so the belligerent element amongst these customers should up their blood pressure meds and shut their mouths!

Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn

• Gone with the wind
  

Woof woof Yippie-ki-yay, mo**********, oh sorry, I'm either not Bruce Willis or this is the wrong film.
You had noticed a film theme running through my doggy posts hadn't you?

I am Johnson, Dog Raconteur and, as the title says, "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn. I'm just the story teller.

So, did I tell you about Ted's friends at work? No? Well here we go then:
Once upon a time in the deep south (now Mrs Ted would probably dispute this term with Ted but let's face it when you come from Scotland you CAN call this place "the deep south") a lonely Scotsman started to work for the Evil Empire and was assigned a mentor. At first Ted did not know what to think about his mentor but then he discovered that he was owned by a DOG!
Well of course that changes everything. Now Ted and Buddy are buddies and it turns out that they do indeed share many common values and opinions. A good chap to know.

Also, on Ted's journey of indoctrination into the Evil Empire, he encountered a young lady who caught his eye. Pretty young women have always "caught Ted's eye" but this one has a particularly useful asset; the innate ability to understand Ted's Scottish accent and dry sense of humor. Very unusual around here and so they have adopted each other. As she is young enough to be Ted's daughter I shall call her "Wee Jeanie"
Wee Jeanie is the reason Ted does not jump off the harbor bridge every time the Evil Empire comes out with more unreasonable demands. She is the voice of reason at work whilst Mrs Ted is the voice of reason at home. And it's just as well he has both of them since the harbor bridge could be described as being in between and therefore accessible for jumping from in either direction.

Perhaps I will refer to Ted, Buddy, and Wee Jeanie as the Three Musketeers since they do embody the spirit of "One for all and all for one". On second thoughts that does leave Wee Jeanie holding the short straw as I don't see her as an Aramis, Porthos or an Athos.

Ted assures me that there are other good folks working with him and he only really gets ticked off with one individual (there's always one) on a regular basis but you humans just hit it off with some folks better than others and that is what defines a good friendship. Of course dogs just love anybody who will pat them and feed them - what else do you need in life?

After all, tomorrow is another day!

Yesterday, "Mrs Robinson" told Ted that he could take customers out to lunch. Presumably he is expected to make some big sales in return as he tells me constantly that there is no such thing as a free lunch.
Anyway two things happened today. First, Mrs Robinson was out of the building all day (a bit like Elvis) and second, Ted actually had an opportunity to get out and take someone to lunch.
Ted says this was an unfortunate coincidence as he was unable to savor the party atmosphere which prevails when Mrs R is away and yet he did enjoy his lunch at the local yacht club.
The picture is NOT from the yacht club but from an earlier lunch which Ted had enjoyed and realized too late that a picture opportunity had been missed - really you humans are too much sometimes!

They may take away our lives, but they'll never take our freedom!

Aye laddie, no way is the Evil Empire going to grind Ted down. His heart is too brave for that to happen.
Besides, he is not in a moo, moo-d for despair today.
As he said earlier, everybody loves Ted which is a contradiction in terms or oxymoronic if you will. Still, in this strange new land, it appears to be true and Ted is not one to pass up an opportunity for success.

"Is it safe?"

... or should Ted run?

OK, so this is turning into a bit of a soap opera and I'm getting a tad confused - we need to remember that I'm only a dog and so I can be - easily confused!
However as I understand Ted, even although he does not sell gazillions of products each day, everybody loves him. (Must be that foreign charm again but I just can't see it myself)
Anyway, the Queen of the Evil Empire, who henceforth shall be called "Mrs Robinson", continues to encourage Ted to the extent that he feels guilty about writing this soap opera. Don't worry, I won't let him stop 'cos I am a bird dog and I ain't gona lose sight of my quarry.

Life is a bit of a marathon and sometimes you humans reach a stage of great exhaustion; be strong Ted, carry on running and you will come through the fatigue and romp home to secure the jewels.
Remember, kind dentists use Novocaine. And as for the day to day activities of the Evil Empire - well there is always your "empty box" to open:-)

Mrs. Robinson, you're trying to seduce me. Aren't you?

The Queen of the Evil Empire has performed Ted's annual appraisal. That may not be what it's called over here in Americaland but it's what Ted called it when he came home last night and told me about his day; as he does.

It seems that Ted continues to be in favor with the Queen; his winning smile and foreign charm working for him - frankly that does not sound like my Ted but you humans all have your own funny ideas about things. Anyways Ted gets a pay rise although he somewhat ungratefully commented that it wasn't enough to pay for my dog food. Not sure what the implication was there? Did I offend him; I mean to say it wasn't my fault I got him up at 2am and again at 4am to let me out for a pee. He shouldn't leave all that fresh water lying around in my bowl if he wants a good nights sleep!

Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get

... and so it was with me, Johnson the four year old Brittany, who had gone through four families in my four short years.
Unbelievable though it may be I am unable to talk and therefore must resort to mind control of my human in order to get my point across. This sometimes results in confusion and sometimes it doesn't work at all which is why I can't be more specific about my past life. Personally I think the human in my life just can't see beyond my shining character and therefore blocks out the transmissions I send him about my past.
Who cares, let's just eat the chocolates and enjoy!

If you would like to find out more about how YOU can be adopted by a beautiful, loving, and sweet Brittany spaniel (rats! the AKC no longer likes to call us spaniels) then log on to the American Brittany Rescue website and contact your local representative. They are very friendly and will match a dog to your individual needs - but you must be serious in your intention to "rescue" a Brittany or they won't put you up for adoption by one of their dogs!

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water

Monday morning blues, no customers in sight but the Evil Empire still looms large with its' nonsensical and overtly mean machinations.

Here we go again over the top chaps into the no mans land of high pressure selling.

I know you came in here for just one purpose but can I interest you in being harassed by another minion of the Evil Empire who will attempt to sell you more stuff you don't want but THEY want you to have it anyway?
No? Well move along I have more customers to harangue.

Look what I found growing in the yard

Anybody know what it is? Fungi recognition is not one of my skills so I'm hoping somebody can tell me what it is and what, if anything, Ted has to do to get rid of it!
Maybe it's an alien life form, dormant in the soil for millenniums, and brought back to life by the lightning of last night.

Yes, Grandmommy is right - here is another link to prove it:
MushroomExpert.Com

Speaking of boxes ...

Have you seen [this] rather amusing episode relating to humans; I believe it is called comedy and Ted tells me that he has encountered it on a regular basis as a daily truth. The women in his life are constantly "diverting" their thoughts mid sentence - a concept which totally confounds and confuses him. Oh, if only life were as simple for Ted as it is for me, all I need to do is smile and wag my tail and everyone understands.
For humans it is a tad more complex but the whole box versus ball of wire concept certainly makes sense to me - but what do I know, I'm just a dog and a male dog at that!.

... and another thing

Ted was telling me that the Evil Empire has issued work measurement log sheets for its' enslaved workforce to complete. Not only are these poor lost souls supposed to sell unsuspecting people products they do not want but, and here is the really evil bit, they have to record each interaction with their unwilling victims on a worksheet - presumably after the fact, although when the time can be had to do so eludes Ted.
Nevertheless this is what is required and I can't help but think:
rubbish in, rubbish out - but then evil empires seldom think that far out of the box.

Woof Woof, would you like a dog biscuit with that blog entry; no? well shrivel and die so that I can move on to the next poor sucker who does want one!

Queen of the Evil Empire

Most humans have a life but then some other humans do not; they are just mad as the Mad Hatter, cracked as a sub contractors pickup windshield, or just plain loony and that is sad.
It is sad for them and it is sad for the people whose lives their social failing impacts upon in such a negative way.
Everybody should have a dog to come home to; if they don't have a dog then I suppose they should have a wife and family - but a dog would be better. At least if they had one, or best of all both, then they could survive in spite of all the c**p that is dumped on them by the people who do NOT have the benefit of this happy situation.

And what is the point of mentioning this; well, poor old Ted keeps telling me he feels driven to jump off the harbor bridge everytime he is given more c**p to deal with but then he thinks, I can go home to my family and dog dog and family and all will be well again. Don't you just love it when you can have that sort of impact on a person? Makes you want to give out big sloppy dog kisses to everyone :-)

Saturday morning early ...

I was so excited to tell ya'll that I am going to be publishing "Tales from the Ted family" that I forgot a very exciting development in my own life which took place this morning.
Ted and a colleague from the "Evil Empire" met up at the softball park to let me and my new friend Bella run free within the safe confines of a fenced park. We had a fantastic time chasing each other around the park, biting each other on the neck and jumping over each other; we were very energetic and by the time we both collapsed in a heap at our owners feet I was as orange as the ball park suface. Bella looked just the same but then she is pretty much that color anyway!

Once again I'm left at home while ...

... the Ted's have fun.
Today they went off to Corpus Christi so that Eddy could take part in a poetry reading contest organized (a euphemism if ever there was one) by the UIL
Sadly or thankfully, depending on your point of view and whether or not you have your legs crossed waiting for the Ted family to return and let you outside for a pee, Eddy did not make it to the finals. Personally I think the competition was weighted in favor of the City school kids but then I'm biased.
However, in spite of the mind numbing boredom induced by having to sit for 3 hours waiting for some order to emerge from the chaos which surrounded the day, both Ted children behaved impeccably. Not only were they well behaved throughout the competition but, when subjected to further periods of adult oriented shopping, they displayed patience beyond their years. Needless to say they had to be rewarded with a trip to Toys R Us and, as the photo shows, they were very happy with the outcome of their day.

Dr Johnson takes the plunge

Greetings from South Texas; my name is Dr Johnson, that stands for "Dog Raconteur Johnson".
I belong to a human (or is he a bear?) called TartanTed. I will be publishing an alternative view of life in the Ted family from the unique perspective of the family pet. As such I will not be constrained by the same rules as Ted and may possibly just tell it as it is! He has been obliged to do a great deal of lip biting recently with regard to his comments on day to day happenings in his life and so he has asked me to put the record straight on an occasional basis. Enjoy.