It all started in 1885.  My great-grandparents settled in the north woods of Wisconsin, bringing with them family meat snack recipes and an adventurous pioneer spirit.  Their time-honored tradition of using only premium cuts of meat and the finest spices and seasonings still holds true today.

My family is still here in Northern Wisconsin, taking pride in the products we make, and quietly becoming America's #1 brand of jerky and meat snacks.  Quality, tradition, and a spirit of adventure have been our way of life for over 100 years.  So go ahead...Find your favorite.  The family name on the package is my personal guarantee of satisfaction.

Enjoy!

JackLink

P.S. 97% fat free and only 3g of total carbs.

There isn't really a whole lot of shit I dislike, well there is, but whatever.  I'm not much of a reader unless it's internet news or techie stuff.  I admit having a short attention span which is why big bulky books never wore onto me.  I usually struggled in high school to get through the summer reading assignments..though 3 books I read and enjoyed were "Of Mice and Men", "The Water is Wide" and "Night" by Elie Weisel (sp?)..

I am a hardcore movie lover.  My DVD library boasts about 400 titles...Some of my favorites include, in no particular order, Goodfellas, Casino, Gladiator, Tombstone, 300, The Boondock Saints, Talladega Nights, Friday Night Lights...or anything with DeNiro, Will Ferrell, Chris Farley or Adam Sandler.  I'm pretty big on comedies.

TV shows I like are The Office, House, Heroes, The Big Bang Theory, the News, Hannity. 

I love Stand-up too.  My favorite comedian has to be Rodney Carrington.  Knockin' back some beers with some buddies and listening to his albums is GREAT fun.  Some other comedians I like are Patton Oswalt, Denis Leary, Pablo Francisco, Dave Chappelle and Steven Wright.

I LOVE to fish..mainly cat and bass fishing.  Largest Cat I've caught is a 30# shovelhead..I have a pic somewhere...Each year I venture to upstate New York and try my luck with freshwater trout and northern pike.  Some of the best fun I've had is sitting on a large lake at night with nothing but a starry sky and the glowing light of my bobbers floating in the water.

Alcohol...I'm mostly found drinking watery beer...Bud, Coors, Miller..though I've honestly been trying to try more of other types...lately has been Sam Adams Oktoberfest...and there's a famous local restaurant that brews their own pale ale that is outstanding.  I also like the whiskey (duh).

I like to shoot pool and am quite good at it.  So good I own my own stick.  And you're all jealous as hell I can tell. 

I'm Live and now I have to go clean viruses and porn off a relative's computer.

It's snowing outside, pretty good too.  The Great White Death.  Here in Ohio it's kind of a joke because the local news media tends to exaggerate the situation.  Like tonight, they've cut in the television about once on the hour to update me, even hours before it started snowing.  You have to understand that we rarely get nailed with the kind of snowfall that warrants this kind of attention.  This isn't the blizzard of '77. No, they expect 3-4 inches by morning.  People up north laugh at us because even with 3-4 inches everything turns into pandemonium. I don't get offended because I know I'm not an idiot (at least in this case) and can drive in the snow.

On the average work day, I wake up, late, and it's about a 30-minute trek, with heavy traffic, into the office.  Throw 3-4 inches on the road and it's more like an hour and a half...seriously.  What's worse is if there is a quick, heavy snowfall in the mid afternoon, 3-4 inches, or even a really bad sleet/freezing rain.  For the past couple of seasons, we've had a few days where we'd get a pretty decent snow in the early/mid afternoon, maybe 4-5 inches or a really bad stretch of sleet and freezing rain.  These are the days I dread, because even considering the weather conditions, not everyone leaves early to beat it.  Worse yet is when everyone decides at 3:00 to leave early. Everyone.  At once.  Then there's the dumbasses like me who ignore the growing lines of traffic and say "oh, it'll clear up by 5:00." The last few times this has happened, and this is no shit, it took me close to 4 hours to drive home. FOUR HOURS.  For a drive that typically take 20 minutes in moderate traffic, a 14 mile distance.  This has to be attributed to, I think, the fact this is a high-volume area...too much traffic, too many exits/on-ramps bunched close together...My point is it sucks.

Now tomorrow I intend to get up early and attempt to get a head start on the traffic.  They're expecting even more snow tomorrow afternoon so I'm going to be watching the online reports like crazy all day, because I'll be damned if I'm going to partake in another 4-hour drive home 20 minutes away.  But who am I kidding, I'll oversleep because I'm up too late on eBaums and i'll be lucky to be in at work by 9:00.

I'm Live, and I can telecommute, but I just like to torture myself.

Should have known it.  When I drove home from work Friday night and saw the Full Moon (or nearly a full moon..I didn't look at the calendar)..Has anything gone right this weekend, or worked correctly for that matter? 

I come home Friday after a long boring day at the office and all I wanted to do was unwind with the massive online killing of other Call of Duty players on XBox Live.  Instead, I scratched my balls for 3 hours...just as entertaining.  No. I come home and kick on the XBox only to see 3 Red Rings.  Exactly 3 months after I got it back from Microsoft.  Yep, 3 months ago, I got 3 red rings and had to send it in for repair.  Ya know, in the year and 2 months I've owned an Xbox, I've come to realize that their repair is about as reliable as a narcoleptic airplane pilot.  This will be the FOURTH time that I will need to send it in. FUCKING RIDICULOUS.  I guess it really isn't surprising considering these consoles have a greater than 16% failure rate.  I know people who have multiple XBox consoles, ya know, one or two to serve as back-ups in case the primary fails.  How fucking sad is that?  What pisses me off further is I immediately went online and opened a ticket (so they'll send me a fucking box to ship it in), and I haven't even gotten a confirmation email.  Of course I couldn't even check the status at all today because the Live site was fucking screwy all day.

It really wouldn't have mattered if it still worked because my router kicked the bucket today.  So I go out today to buy a new one and discovered I had a flat tire. FUCK!  So I pumped it up and ventured to Tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiire Discounters.  Thankfully all it was turned out to be a nail and they repaired it.  So now after a trip to Wally mart, everything is running again...At least until tomorrow when there are more possibilities of failure.  It sucked the site was shitty most of the day but that's just the nature of the beast.  In my line of work it happens all the time.

Possibly the most positive thing I can think of right now as a result of an Obama win.  As far as I'm concerned, I think we can rip the race card right in half and throw it on the floor.  How can this man possibly use race as an excuse when a country with a 13% black population elected a mixed race president, who is predominantly african. It cannot be done. So long Jesse, don't forget your cross!

That aside, I'm not bitter McCain lost.  I'm more bitter at the republican party in general.  I'm happy for Obama.  Despite my strong disagreements with what he stands for, this is a historic event and I'm glad I got to see it. Cheers.

First of all, I'm still slightly agitated that Heroes was not on TV tonight.  Instead we're graced with SNL Bash Republicans '08, I mean Presidential Bash '08.  Joking aside, they poke fun at everyone, though at a seemingly lesser extent at Obama/Biden. 

I'm feeling rather sick due to the back-to-back Banquet microwaveable dinners of alleged Fried Chicken/Mashed Potatoes and Beef & Cheese Enchiladas/Rice.  I skipped lunch today so I was rather hungry.  I now immediately regret it.  And it is not something the people in line behind at the polls tomorrow are going to appreciate (I had to work in a fart joke somewhere).

Some of the political ads this year have been rediculous.  One that sticks out to me is one of a local candidate.  They're attacking Martha Good, who is running for Clerk Of Courts in Hamilton County, Ohio.  They point out all her supposed flaws and at the very end there's this dorky looking kid who doesn't even look old enough to vote let alone punch a hole into any slot.  He's standing there, right, and he says "Martha Good? How about Martha Bad."  Talk about lame as fuck..that pretty much takes the cake.

Tomorrow is the day and I'm glad it's nearly over.  As much as we all bash each other back and forth, I think we can all collectively agree there.  Things have come up that have been beaten to death more than the hide on an old catcher's mit.  Of all the topics that have been discussed, I don't recall seeing much discussion on one item and I've been thinking about it the past several days.  What I'm talking about is early voting.  Maybe it's because I've never had problems voting or having to deal with long lines or wait times, but I simply do not get it.  I don't disagree with it because I'm a registered Republican and early voting favors Democrats (and it does), honestly.  I think it opens the election up to fraud and there have been reported cases so far.  I don't care what is requires, but I think we owe it to our Constitution to keep it Election Day, and not, Election Month.  There has to be some resolution possible to combat the past issues of not enough poll workers or locations or disenfranchisement, which we've made the mistake of taking any excuse as such. To make the process in the current state even more laughable is hearing reports all week of people waiting 3-4 hours to vote early.  I heard some Jacky on the radio today boast about how he mustered the strength and exuberated his patriotic duty of waiting 3 hours to vote early because he feared of problems on Election Day.  He ultimately admitted never having problems and spending no longer than 15 minutes at the polling place...rediculous..Oh well that's all I have.

I'm Live101Proof..and I'm copying everyone else's sign-off.

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How can anyone vote for Obama?  We are on the verge of electing the most secretive President in history.  I'm not really referring to his birth certificate..I mean, school records, transcripts, medical records..Did you know John McCains medical records, that he released were thousands of pages? Ok, he is older.  What Obama released was a single page. Yes, a single page.  Between him and his relatives, they can't get the story straight on which hospital in Hawaii he was born in.  Kind of makes you wonder.  School transcripts from Harvard, Occidental college might clear up this information. Before you call me petty or ridiculous.  This is information we've ALWAYS required from our Presidential candidates.  Bush and Kerry, and now McCain, willingly and openly released most of their records.  Obama refuses and is given a free pass by the media.  Where is the outcry?  If it were McCain or Bush 4 years ago that refused, there'd be coast-to-coast outrage and demand, and most likely lawsuits, for this information. It makes me sick the devotion this guy gets. I can imagine, November 5th, on the news sets of ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC we'll see a huge banner behind the elated Couric, Gibson, Olbermann, that says "Mission Accomplished!"

Now, I know the people with whom he's associated himself with, this topic has been beaten to death.  One major criticism I have of the republicans is how they cowered and refused to nail Obama where it would hurt him, and that's his longtime friendship with mentor Jeremiah Wright.  For fear of being called racist, McCain and the republicans have addressed this next to Nil.  I think this race would be a lot different, in favor of McCain, if they would only DO IT!  It's so frustrating too how all these false accusations come flying in from the left and the republican party just lies down.

Now I think, people need to wake up.  I don't think most Obama supports know what they are supporting.  Infanticide as a result of botched abortions...forced unionization..free tuiton, health care, welfare and driver's licenses for illegals...that parents of minors shouldn't be notified if their child has an abortion...national health care..higher death tax, higher capital gains tax, higher income tax, higher tax on dividends, more taxes, more taxes more taxes!  You can recite the garbage about his tax plan all you want.  Clinton promised the same thing and couldn't do it and he didn't have the financial crisis to deal with.

I typically try to be more eloquent, but I'm growing more and more infuriated in the recent week so, thanks for tolerating. Things seem pretty shitty now, yes.  Imagine what it's going to be with the likes of Obama, Pelosi and stooges like Barney Frank and Harry Reid leading a Democratic controlled Congress.  We need balance, we need to offset the radicals, we need to elect John McCain.

Every year National Taxpayers Union (NTU) rates U.S. Representatives and Senators on their actual votes—every vote that significantly affects taxes, spending, debt, and regulatory burdens on consumers and taxpayers. Unlike most organizations that publish ratings, we refuse to play the “rating game” of focusing on only a handful of Congressional votes on selected issues. The NTU voting study is the fairest and most accurate guide available on Congressional fiscal policies. It is a completely unbiased accounting of votes. NTU assigned weights to the votes, reflecting the importance of each vote’s effect.

NTU has no partisan axe to grind. All Members of Congress are treated the same
regardless of political affiliation. Our only constituency is the overburdened American
taxpayer. Grades are given impartially, based on the Taxpayer Score.

The Taxpayer Score measures the strength of support for reducing spending and regulation and opposing higher taxes. In general, a higher score is better because
it means a Member of Congress voted to lessen or limit the burden on taxpayers.
The Taxpayer Score can range between zero and 100. We do not expect anyone to
score a 100, nor has any legislator ever scored a perfect 100 in the multi-year history
of the comprehensive NTU scoring system. A high score does not mean that the
Member of Congress was opposed to all spending or all programs. High-scoring
Members have indicated that they would vote for many programs if the amount of
spending were lower. A Member who wants to increase spending on some programs
can achieve a high score if he or she votes for offsetting cuts in other programs.
A zero score would indicate that the Member of Congress approved every spending
proposal and opposed every pro-taxpayer reform.

NTU believes a score qualifying for a grade of “A” indicates the Member is one of the strongest supporters of responsible tax and spending policies. We are pleased to give these Members of Congress our “Taxpayers’ Friend Award.” A score qualifying for a grade of “B” represents a “good” voting record on controlling spending and taxes. A “B” grade indicates that the Member voted for taxpayers most of the time, but slightly less than those who attained the grade of “A.” A score qualifying for a grade of “C”
represents a minimally acceptable voting record on controlling taxes and spending.
To qualify for a grade of “C” a Member must have a Taxpayer Score of at least 50
percent. While such a score may be “satisfactory,” there is clearly room for
improvement. We are also issuing pluses and minuses for the grades of “B” and “C” in order to better recognize the differences in the voting records of Members with these
grades. A score qualifying for a grade of “D” indicates the Member has a “poor” voting
record on controlling taxes and spending. A score significantly below average
qualifies for a grade of “F.” This failing grade places the Member into the “Big
Spender” category.

Let's get to the point.

Durbin, R.............. F ............12%
Obama, B.............. F ............16%
State Average........................14%

Biden, J................ F ............ 11%
Carper, T.............. F ............ 21%
State Average........................ 16%

Kyl, J.................... A ........... 87%
McCain, J............. A ........... 88%
State Average.........................88%

Read more <a href="http://www.ntu.org/misc_items/rating/VS_2006.pdf">Here</a>.  Let's try to employ a little common sense on Nov 4th people.

Just wondering if any of you watched the debate.  Who won/lost? Or was it rather balanced? What were some strong points?  Any moments of weakness? Anyone have a change of opinion or persuaded to follow a certain candidate after tonight? Let's get some discussion going.

I think McCain appeared stronger when it came to the military and the war, looked very strong on defense.  The economy issue was kind of a toss-up to me..both seemed to be in defensive mode on that subject. 

Or are you waiting to see how SNL will spoof the debate? LOL

I don't normally seek out inspiring words.  I'm definitely not the person who finds intesting quotes on the internet and posts them all around my cube at work.  I often feel that my goal to be driven is best perpetuated by my actions and not by how full my cube wall is of useless quotes.  However, as I watch Fred Thompson deliver a speech at the RNC he said something that really sticks out to me and may lead me to put up my first quote.  That is "A man who does not quit, is not defeated." He said this, obviously, in describing Senator John McCain. I think it is rare in this day and age that anyone, especially a politician/actor, says anything of value and importance. We could use more of it. That is all.