What this world needs...

...is a Black Jesus:

Director/co-writer/co-producer/star Jean Claude LaMarre, an actor who has helmed several features, most recently "Brothers in Arms," injects a smattering of racial references into his sliver of the greatest story ever told. Indisputably, there has never before been a telling of Jesus' life in which the itinerant preacher has claimed he was born in a manger because discriminatory lodging laws in Bethlehem denied his mother a bed at an inn. And nowhere else has Nicodemus asked his fellow Pharisees, "Can we believe that this dark-skinned Nazarene is really Him?"

Now I know that our Lord did not look like Charlton Heston or Max von Sydow, and a close look at Chapter one of Matthew’s Gospel shows that our Savior had some African ancestry. But the film maker is so obsessed with skin color that he leaves out the most important aspect of our Redeemer (bold highlights added by me):

But lacking the drama of Jesus' trial and the passion, as well as the substance of his teachings, LaMarre's turgid take has very little to offer dramatically or inspirationally.

What is more important to know about Jesus? That he said, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life; no man comes to the Father except through Me.” or the color of his skin?

Top Ten time!

Top Ten new features of the "Gerald R Ford" class of US Aircraft Carrier -

10. Free loaner carrier whenever your original is in drydock
9. The captain trips down the stairs whenever he leaves the tower
8. Cool nicknames like "USS Unelectable" and "Lost to Carter"
7. Standard 6-CD changer in the dashboard and XO-side airbags
6. People don't automatically associate "Gerald Ford" with the United States, so you avoid a lot of embarrassing anti-American sentiment in foreign ports
5. New standing orders - land a fighter jet, chug a Pabst
4. Flight deck flips over entirely to reveal 9-hole pitch-and-putt golf course
3. Captain Chevy Chase
2. You get to tell EVERY city to "Drop Dead" before launching missiles

and the number one new feature of the Gerald Ford Aircraft Carrier -

1. It's not named "GM"

Thank you, Swillers!

See Emily flay

Your Friday feast of frowning fury is fast upon us.

Notice how I avoided the Queen Mother of All Dirty Words, there. That's because there's plenty of THAT on the other end of the link. You are duly warned.

My contribution is simple - Spammers. No matter how you filter them or report them, they multiply like rabbits - but not the cute fluffy Easter card kind; more like the scaly, Skeksis, eat-your-own-young kind, that hums along to Rod Stewart singing "Have You Ever Seen the Rain?"

[NB - "sing" is the wrong term for what Rod does to that (or any other) song. He runs it aground like a drunken tanker captain, then wallows in the wreckage. For all of that, he can join the list, with knobs on.]

But we were discussing spammers. Y'know, it's so much fun to spend a half-hour of my day at work cleaning up before I can actually do work - and most of these people aren't even trying anymore. Nothing that would make me even remotely think, "Hey, this might be business-related." One subject read "ViHaggara", which sounds like I'm being spammed by illegal immigrant stereotypes: Jo, main, you want some vihaggara? Eeet's good stuff. Whatsamata main, ju don' like vihaggara? Like ju don' gots no problem! There was also "lo sing we ight". It works as an advertisement for a failed Christmas carol, but not for a diet aid.

PS - "Rolex" is not spelled R-O-L-L-U-X, unless you are actually selling a brand of vacuum cleaner no-one's heard of before. My guess is that you're the one that sucks, spambot.

PPS - I also spend a half-hour at home cleaning up because you fail to curb yourselves, you misbegotten whelps of six-legged poodles. Quit flinging your poo at my front door. A big Old Man send-off to the whole pack of you, and may you join your fellow leech-breeder in Motel Five-to-Ten.

I predict Dirty Thursday 11/02/06

I saw most of the FL guv debate Monday night. Forget the polls, here is what I saw:

Crist was a candidate who has sewn up his base and is going after the middle. He had the confidence to give a Dem answer to an abortion question ("I am personally opposed, but.." Just quit sending me campaign flyers lying about how prolife you are.)

Jim Davis was a candidate still trying to reach his base. He mentioned W several times and even made a few weak attempts at race-baiting to try and motivate blacks to the polls. (This guy is a political eunuch.)

Black Dems feel about Davis the same way I feel about Crist. Even worse for Davis, because there is no evidence he gave a rat's toenail about black people before two months ago.

My prediction is that there will be some Dirty Thursday surprise sprung on Crist having to do with race.

I know, I'm wearing the tin-foil hat on this one.

House of the Red Bullseye

Because I failed to read This Life yesterday. Sorry, Lisa.

There is a house in New Jersey
They call the Red Bullseye
And it's been the ruin of many a checkbook
Dear God, they just got mine

Well I started off in menswear
Bought my new blue jeans
Then I stumbled into electronics
And bought twelve DVDs

Now the only thing a shopper needs
Is a cart and an empty trunk
And the only time he'll be satisfied
Is when he's bought his junk

Oh mother, tell your children
Not to shop until they drop
Spend their lives and all their money
In the House of the Big Red Spot

I got one card at the limit
And the other was reclaimed
I'm going back to the Red Bullseye
To toss my cash down that drain

There is a house in New Jersey
They call the Red Bullseye
And it's been the ruin of many a checkbook
Dear God, they just got mine

Musical Monday, instrumental edition

At work, it's been King Hell Week since early September. When that happens I usually turn to the instrumentals: jazz, film scores, collections of pop and swing and none-of-the-above. I work pretty quickly without lyrics to concentrate over.

Cullen and I swapped large instrumental mixes a while back. I was pleased that we shared just enough similar taste to serve as a launching pad for the other stuff neither of us had heard of the other's collection. Good times. I've also been scouring for a couple of the cds he used, since Windows Media actually will tell you the album if it recognizes the song.

This means that you also get the "All Music Guide" review of said album (if there is one) and it's always fun to see which of your favorite albums only got 2 stars and a condescending smackdown - or which ones got the famed "No further information is available for this selection." It also means you get inane screeds such as one Dave Thompson's review for Shadows are Go!

The Shadows enjoyed 20 British hits between 1960 and 1965, and this is their first American compilation.

Considering the vast amount of vinyl-to-CD and tape-to-DVD work yet to do, this may not be as shocking as Mr. Thompson thinks it is.

So we probably don't even want to wonder what that says for the Great American Record-Buying Public,

We're too busy wondering what all those capital letters mean. "...great American record-buying public" is just as easy to understand, but doesn't make us clinch up inside in anticipation of what foolish thing you are about to write.

...smug, snug, and secure behind their piles of Ventures vinyl and sorry surf compilations, blissfully unaware that, a mere ocean away, entire generations were shaking to the Shads.

Hoo-boy. How about we go ahead and wonder what this says, in spite of it all. Maybe it says that this is the first American compilation of the Shadows, and as a result all this "smug ignorance" is somewhat understandable for those of us who were born after 1960. Maybe it says that there's a huge market for this now that surf is coming back. Maybe it says that you know jack about the American record-buying public (great or otherwise), and they had plenty of Shadows 45s in a separate stack. I lean toward that last, since you're slagging surf compilations in the same review in which you praise the Shadows' music.

You know the songs, of course...

WHAT?!? I thought we were smug, and cowering behind the mighty shielding power of "Hawaii Five-O" and "Walk, Don't Run"?

...These melodies are scored into your brainpan regardless of whether you know, or even care, that the Shadows used to be Cliff Richards backing band.... yada yada infulenced Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page.... blah blah you ignorant yobbo.

OK, I made up the ignorant yobbo bit. You'll have to grant me that it isn't much of an exaggeration.

...and with a cutoff date of 1966, there's not a vocal cord in sight.

In 1967, the band had clear skin installed so you could see their vocal cords. Pretty much finished them as a charting band.

...its 23 tracks take your senses by storm, easy listening burned through with a vitality that makes a mockery of the unhip reputation the band (like their boss man) acquired après Beatles.

Besides naming many of the tracks - completely unnecessary, since there's a complete track listing before the review starts - this is the only time the reviewer even attempts to describe what kind of music this is, except that it's not surf or the Ventures, despite being compared to both right off the go. That's extremely lame. I like the "après," though. Classy. Let's skip to the end.

The fact is, this band was kicking butt while you were still saying 'bottom,' and this isn't a retrospective after all. It's a manifesto.

Since the latest recording is forty years old, sport, yes it is a retrospective. I mean, say what you want about Paul McCartney (Heather certainly is), but he's still writing new music après Beatles. (Classy!) The manifesto part is all yours, and like most writing in that genre, it sucks out loud. It is, however, superior in one fashion - it's short, so I can make fun of it more easily. For example, you wrote 'butt,' not 'ass,' and then insulted your readers for only saying 'bottom.' That's funny. You're as edgy as a Play-Doh knife and you know it.

And quit telling everyone how inferior they are that they only just now got around to buying music they enjoy. You aren't better than anyone else because you discovered a band earlier than other people. It's nauseating to listen to blithe gibberish pass itself off as important writing, and worse when the writer is only writing to give himself airs - to the point of openly snubbing the readers who are his only reason for writing. If you didn't actually sign the Shadows to their label and sit in the producer's chair, you don't really have a point to being such a snot, do you?

Go Figure (Exodus 20:2-4)

" I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. " You shall have no other gods before Me. " You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth.
Exodus 20:2-4 NASB

More people who claim to believe that the above verse is the Word of God believe in astrology than the average American:

12.3% Americans who believe astrology impacts one's life and personality.

13.6% Evangelicals who believe this.

Can someone explain this to me?

Which line was not in the movie "Airplane"?

“Timmy, do you like gladiator movies?”

“Timmy, have you ever been in a Turkish prison?”

“Timmy, have you ever gone skinny-dipping with a priest?”

Another lunchtime down the tubes

I'm sick of the MSM not getting credit for all the great journalisming that they do, you know? As a former journalism major, this reporter can tell you that The Craft is difficult enough without hearing all this non-nuanced hoo-hah from bloggers in pajamas (possibly with footsies) and their cheap blended scotch.

Just look at the exclusive scoop from the brave embedded reporters of CNN - at great personal risk:

Anyone can ride shotgun with the finest fighting force in the history of God's green earth, but it takes cojones to ride with the Islamists insurgents facing such overwhelming odds. Why, one could get beheaded shot at poor ratings if one isn't careful. A sniper-scope view of our own occupying soldiers is a story you won't find anywhere else!

In order to bring you this harrowing footage, we're willing to take that kind of risk, so you filthy Internet parasites should be more respectful of us crusading journalists. Now you know why our sources must remain anonymous, even from the chain of command of their victims targets. What would happen to the news if we passed on word of where these people were, and how they organize? They'd never trust us again, that's what. So when they say they want "a PR campaign aimed at influencing the American public," well, we deliver, because it's important. We can always get more soldiers, but once sources lose trust it's over - Kim Jong Il stops returning our calls, and Kofi too, and soon we won't be able to tell you anything we want. Don't you dare question my first amendment rights! (Or my patriotism.)

(w/t to the filthy parasites at The Coalition of the Swilling)

update, 3:08 pm - Mr. Bingley reports that the above satire is, if anything, short of the mark. Not only do they talk about "getting beyond the emotional debate" and airing it, they give us another link to the damned thing. Miserable snot-licking dung-jockeys.

Groovy

This... is my boomstick!

The Zombie Movie Survival Quiz

Like Ash from the Evil Dead trilogy, you are the hero. Congratulations. As the chainsaw toting king of witty one-liners, you certainly know how to handle any of those undead nasties heading your way, don't you?

Take this quiz!



Quizilla
Join

Make A Quiz More Quizzes Grab Code

Go get some at A Boy Named Sous.

The boys at FJM...

...are sophisticated men who know their racket, and Moneyballing stat-swingers all. They also get quite busy laying down the hurt on bad sportswriting. As a result, they may have missed today's gem from the reliable Tim Keown. A sample:

Analytical all year, a lot of the paid experts will base World Series predictions on goofy stuff like momentum and team chemistry, stuff that really has nothing to do with who wins a baseball game.

The man ought to send Ken Tremendous a fruit basket or something.

You can say what you want about the postseason and heart and whatever else, but understand this: If Lou Piniella succeeds in getting A-Rod to the Cubs, the decision to hire him as manager will be worth twice what they pay him.

Let's just go ahead and confer capitals on the man - he is now The Reliable Tim Keown.

There's more, of course. However, I do dare to dispute TRTK on one point - his item on Jose Uribe.

Must have been a nice Jeep, is all I can say: Police in the Dominican Republic issued an arrest warrant for White Sox shortstop Juan Uribe and his bodyguard, who are suspected of shooting two men who walked too close to Uribe's Jeep.

And not only that, but the details read like a bad joke: The two men Uribe is suspected of shooting are a Dominican farmer and a captain in the Italian Navy.

That's bad, but after the highly-publicized kidnapping of Ugueth Urbina's mom, it's actually not surprising. Many of the country's successful citizens have to live in security compounds to keep safe; gangs look at carjacking as a reliable means to earn some butter-and-egg money when they're not robbing people or holding them for ransom.

Bottom line is, Urbina saw two strangers approaching his car and his first reaction was likely, "Oh hell, these guys are gonna dump my corpse in the street and take off in my car." I'm not saying it's right, but I think I need more details.

(update, three minutes later - well, there we are. It may not even have been Uribe, and the gentleman farmer may be trying to play on public sentement to mooch some dinero from a recognizable (and rich) source. I'll have to follow this a little more closely.)

Musical Monday - Closing Time

This ain't no Mud Club

No CBGB's

I ain't got time for that now

--Talking Heads, "Life During Wartime"

That's all for CBGB's, Greenwich Village's popular club. (w/t to Cullen) They helped break bands like Blondie, Talking Heads, and the Ramones - Patti Smith was the last headliner for Sunday's farewell concert.

"It may be the end, but it's not over," said longtime Bruce Springsteen cohort and E Street Band guitarist Steven Van Zandt.
"New York City and rock 'n' roll in general will never recover from losing this place. I will not stop fighting until it is dismantled by its creator."

Ah, yes, more deep philosophy from Mr. "I was Dean Martin in the E Street Band" Zandt. It's the end, but it's not over, but we will never recover! And we love it so much it must be dismantled! (The Stone Pony is about forty miles due south, there, Severino. And let someone else drive.)

Hm, I don't see everyone's favorite Catholic liner notiste chiming in on this one, which surprises me. For someone who's lived within easy traveling distance, I have surprisingly little emotional attachment. I've walked past it a couple of times but never went in. Now I won't get to at all, although I agree with Cullen and hope that Mr. Kristal can see his club reopen. (In Vegas, of all places. Blondie can come full circle, going from the club circuit to playing casinos, and back again.)

2 GOP senators urge new Iraq strategy

I am good. When I saw this headline on my ISP home page, I said to myself, "Hagel and Warner".

This close to the election they give cover to Dems ripping the president, and they know it. Hagel is running for president and trying to out-McCain McCain. Warner is President McCain’s Secretary of Defense.

The only way my hand would touch the screen for McCain would be for it to be hacked off my arm first. Too many times Dems, in ripping the president would start off with the phrase, “I agree with Senator McCain”.

I know that President McCain (along with Vice President Graham and SecDef Warner) lost to the president on the interrogation bill, and having realized that he actually needs Republican to vote for him in the primaries, McCain is starting to kiss the base’s tush. Zu Klein, Zu Spaet.

The Florida Amendments on this year's ballot

First off, I have a strong bias against amendments of any kind. The Florida Constitution is the easiest to amend in the country (just ask the pregnant pigs). Most of these ballot initiatives could have been taken care of by regular law passing. Isn't that what law makers are supposed to do? MAKE LAWS?

General rule: If you can't vote yes, then vote no. NEVER LEAVE AN AMENDMENT QUESTION BLANK!!!!

#1 State Planning and Budget Process. The Florida Legislature put this on the ballot. Why didn't the same people just pass a law? NO

#3 Requiring Broader Public Support for Amendments. Normally I would vote yes on anything that would make it harder to amend the FL Con. But I will vote NO until the State Defense of Marriage Amendment is added.

#4 Protect People, Especially Youth, From Addiction, Disease and Other Health Hazards of using Tobacco. This amendment is pure Bravo Sierra. Absolute Barbara Streisand. Complete Pferdkaese.

If tobacco is the Weed of Satan, if the desire is to protect people, especially youth, yada, yada, yada, why play these games? Make it illegal. Call up the National Guard and burn it in the fields! The reason why this stuff is still legal is because the biggest cigarette junkie in FL is the state treasury, which cannot live without the tax revenue.

Cigarettes and the lottery. Why should the Florida government soak the rich when the poor give it up easier than Paris Hilton? Please vote NO.

#6 and #7 Homestead Exemptions for low income seniors & disabled vets. Once again, the Florida Legislature put this on the ballot. Why didn't the same people just pass a law? I could vote YES.

#8 Eminent Domain. This is in response to the Kelo decision by the Supreme Court, which expanded the ability of local gov'ts to take your house. Back in the day, local gov'ts could take your house to build a firehouse, library, police station - use for the public good. What's been happening is that the Supreme Court has ruled that it is okay for the gov't to take your house and sell the land to a developer because the profit from the sale and the increase in property taxes is considered a public good.

So, instead of a developer coming the you and offering to buy your house, he has the easier task of greasing a few county commissioners. If you like your house, vote YES.

Hopeful this is helpful. Forgive me for slipping into a little military slang and German in which you would not want to hear coming from your children's lips.

Somewhat later than advertised

And surprise, but it's a big disappointment! I got out of work later than expected, met up with the Official Fiancee, and there went blogging. As a result, well, the post is not ready. This isn't something I can just zing off, either. But I will continue to plug away offline. Think of it as a nice surprise one of these next few days.

Interfaith hospitality blogging

update and bump (Oct 13, 1:35 pm) - Thameed has replied in the comments below. Thoughtful stuff; I'll work up a full reply for late tonight. Don't let that slow down anyone else, however.

original post (Oct 11, 1:27 pm) - Stacy of Still Stacy (funny how that works out) had a running discussion with a couple of Muslims commenting at her blog, taking issue with some of her statements on Islam. She offered to give them a post of their own, and one fellow, Thameen, has taken up the offer.

This deserves some in depth discussion, but for now I observe that there is one big thing that Thameed only hints at, and that ought to have been stated plainly for the record. Islam teaches that Jesus was a prophet to the final revelation of Mohammed; as a result, the word of Mohammed is not open to any sort of discussion. (If I'm wrong on this, Thameen, please explain it further.)

In general, Westerners (even non-Christian) deal with Him on different terms - they accept or reject His claims, but in either case, it's a valid topic of discussion. Even the old Christian bumper sticker, "He said it, I believe it, that settles it," has as its fulcrum that key element - I believe it. It has been considered and accepted. And after this, the consequences get a lot of play: because I believe it, how then must I act? How do I reconcile my daily life with the life I am called to live in Him? And if serious new evidence or arguments come around, the question goes back on the table.

Having a similar discussion in Islam is questionable at best. Thameen mentions that "when you move away from the very basics of Islam, it becomes difficult to find consensus among Muslims." He does not mention that the reason why is that nobody opens the debate that may eventually lead to some consensus. It's too risky.

Say what one likes about Christianity - many already have, some of them Christians - but they've never stopped hashing out the details amongst themselves. Much is made of the infighting that has led Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox to spill blood over those details; but Islam doesn't have that debate across sectarian lines that I've seen, and it hasn't spared them a jot of the bloodshed. Muslims claim more Muslim lives each year than any Western country can lay claim to, and often it's not about disagreements, but agreements: honor killings, for example, are carried out against family members in accord with a point of conduct not kept. (That the victim of the killing never consented to the conduct - or may have had absolutely nothing to do with it at all - doesn't seem to be the point.) The sectarian violence is deplorable, but one culture shows evidence of progressing beyond it, in spite of it; the other doesn't.

When it comes time to interact with other cultures, the West, informed by centuries of dealing with its internal differences, comes out much further ahead - they don't avoid evil, but they have a mechanism that helps to mitigate their misdeeds. Islam, informed by centuries of avoiding uncomfortable self-examination, tends to deal with other cultures in the same vein, and makes many of the same mistakes, but with aggravating factors.

This may seem harsh. I'm trying not to be; I see Thameen's grace and generosity and count it as great progress. It's just an outside observation.

Breaking

A Cessna Cirrus SR-20 owned by the New York Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle has crashed into an apartment building alongside the East River in Manhattan, killing four people.

ESPN is reporting that Lidle was piloting and is among those confirmed dead. MSNBC is just now corroborating. TV says that there will be a press conference with Mayor Bloomberg shortly.

update, 5:07 pm - now the ESPN link is more detailed. It's practically identical to the MSNBC one, so apparently there's some rip and read going on; let's just call it the AP report.

update, 5:19 pm - oh, well that's tactful, CNN:


The underlined bit at the very bottom reads "Watch the orange flames ravage the apartment - 1:50". Geez, do you think you could have a little courtesy for thirty minutes in respect for the dead and their families?

update, 5:26 pm - Bloomberg's on now. First Q was about Lidle. (British-voiced lady. Nice. Work for CNN much?) Bloomberg cut her off: "We don't release names before notification of kin." Good for him. She finished the question anyway. Wankette.

2nd Q - how many apartments affected? A - unsure, some have been combined into suites. (It's an upscale building, lots of professionals, some writers/actors...)

two Qs on terrorism. Bloomberg - "This is an aviation disaster; unlikely to be more than what it appears to be." Praise for the emergency response teams.

5:30 pm - Bloomberg - the plane took off from Teterboro, tower lost radar contact when plane lost altitude.

Q about flight restrictions. Bloomberg - NTSB will have to determine if it was a violation or if trouble took the plane out of its flight plan. "I'm sure it will take some time, but they will eventually release their report..." More praise for emergency response.

5:33 pm - Q - "What does this say about the security of New York City's airspace?" Bloomberg - I don't see that there's any greater significance, it's just an accident.

Q about flight record - Bloomberg - "A small plane like this would be unlikely to have a flight recorder, those are only for larger commercial flights."

A couple more questions trying to link this to 9/11 - typical journo template sort of thing, from the sound of it. (Lots of that sort of thing in the text reports, too.) Bloomberg's not buying.

5:36 pm - Bloomberg summing up: took off from Teterboro, circled the Statue of Liberty; no violations of flight plan until plane dropped, going north of 59th St. Bridge; plane hit at 2:42 pm. 11 firefighters treated for minor injuries. No bodies found among debris in the apartment, two on the ground. Confirming only two. Steadfastly refusing to name anyone, or even to tell whose plane it was. Masterful. He's doing very well here.

5:37 pm - Bloomberg's out. Eyewitness News channel 7 is on board, still pegging this as "Cory Lidle killed in plane crash."

update, 5:42 pm - I missed this while typing, the reporter is mentioning it now: two people were actually in the apartment that was struck by the plane, and were unhurt. (Luckily, not near the window.) Confirming two dead, an instructor and student pilot, NOT four.

5:44 pm - another fine touch from the anchor: "They don't release names until the kin are notified, but of course they have to know by now." BECAUSE YOU'VE BEEN BLARING THE NEWS FOR THE PAST TWO HOURS.

5:55 pm - Lidle had about 75 hours of flight experience, their expert du jour (Ron Wasilko, a flight instructor) calls it "beginner level experience." Calls the weather conditions "marginal" and said he wouldn't have taken out a training flight in it.

6:05 pm - Interesting - the Al Jazeera account just popped up. Not a single mention of Lidle, but lots of stuff like this:

• The Federal Bureau of Investigation said there was no indication that the crash on Wednesday was related to terrorism. But the White House said it was not ruling out any theory for the crash.
• George Bush was informed shortly after the crash, which evoked memories of the September 11, 2001 attacks.
• A woman who lives on the same street, Chris Foege, said, "I just stood there in shock, I thought 'this can't be happening to us again.'" It was like "9-11 all over again."
• The television images of the burning building evoked memories of the devastating attacks of September 11, 2001 on New York and Washington when hijacked airliners were flown into the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, killing almost 3,000.

That "This can't be happening to us again" bit ran in an inset box. I'd twit them on all of this, except that it sounds a bit like some of the AP stuff I've been reading the past hour.

6:53 pm - ESPN updated their story with a sidebar of athletes, coaches, and sports administrators killed in plane crashes.

Turgid Tuesday

Or, "Ho-hummenshanz." I've literally got nothing but a half-clever title for half a post.

Thing is, I prepared nothing. I was hoping someone was meming so I could piggyback, but today there are no outs. I don't have a standby post ready for pixels yet. The weekend was three solid days of jump, jive, and wail.

I loved it all. Proposing was the easy bit; not in the sense that it was the least work - it's true but I expected that - but in the sense that it's the most abstract. Hey honey, we can see even more of each other, permanently - whaddya say?

Well, she said yes, and so we're setting about making it happen. It's the difference between a building and a blueprint. (Wow, original metaphor there. I really do have nothing, might as well ride this all the way down.) So, we're assembling materials, pouring the foundation, and each step makes it more prosaic. A hole in the ground describes the outline of the building a lot better to the untrained eye than the blueprint, even if a skilled foreman can look at the one and turn it into the other (and beyond).

So we get the perennial farce of looking at each other every now and then and saying, we have a china pattern! A guest list! Each month and week will add some other piece, another person we've contracted to snap pictures, play music, serve cheese puffs and martinis - and eventually, hold our mortgage, join our checking, and write our single car insurance policy.

Nearly everyone gets those little jolts, I suppose - nothing to do with the time or expense or effort, but the electric tingle that lets you know that another bit of the line is laid, and soon you'll be cutting ribbon on a real thing. And then, after that, we move into the real thing and run shop out of it for the next forty or so years. We're building a pre-history for kids and grandkids: we did this together, before you were born, and this is the picture and the souvenir table card.

Yes, we did look young then, didn't we?

Apologize to the New Jersey Klan? Never!

First, there are things when said with the words "New Jersey" which are totally funny. Poet Laureate of New Jersey (there is one!). The State University of New Jersey (good old 23rd-ranked RU).

And another has to be the New Jersey Ku Klux Klan. Apparently they are accused of sabotaging Hammonton's plan to move their old town hall.

On a serious note, racism isn't just a Southern thing. The KKK has been alive and well in South Jersey for over 100 years. And for their own safety, the demonstration they threaten better have more than the reported 5 to 15 sheetheads.

This is why my basketball season ends with March Madness

A strip club. Sticky-icky. Guns. And NBA players. Just save the template and change the names for the next time. Read on:

Police say Pacer player fires shots in altercation outside strip club

Fifteen years of fun

In his first regular-season game since signing his contract-in-perpetuity, Rick DiPietro was lit for six goals in thirty-two minutes of play - against PHOENIX.

This shows exactly how big a sports mush I am. I've spent six months worrying about the Mets and their Methuselan starting rotation, but they're up on LA 2-0; I've been eagerly waiting for the Lord's Own Hockey to start, and the Isles get mugwhumped in the desert. (By the way, RDP managed four penalty minutes, too.)

Oh, and in Big Al's Weekly Lincoln Portrait Donation, we finally started our survivor pool. I had five possible choices for the first week: Saints v. Panthers, Rams v. Lions, Jags v. Redskins, Browns v. Raiders, and Bears v. Seahawks. Well, I won four of those five games in the regular pool. Three guesses which of the five I picked as my survivor.

Good Info re Crist/Davis & Foley

The last two posts from The State of Sunshine are good news for GOPers in Florida.

First Mr. Negron, the replacement for Foley is only behind by 3 points in a pretty heavily Republican district. He can make that up, so all is not lost in Foley land.

Second, Dem guv candidate Davis has done little (since choosing a black running mate) to fire up black Dems who haven't come out in numbers here since 2000. Davis is 21 points behind. He is going to have to go negative and racial to close that and flog the black vote. Does he have die Kugeln to do it?

Also, let's say that Speaker Hastert puts the hammer down on Foley last year when he first heard of the emails. I mean, investigates the meshuggah out of him. I can write the story now:

Bigoted GOPers accuse congressman of pedophila because he gay!

Any way Republicans played this it would have been spun to do damage to them.

I have no problem with the double standard, that GOP pols must be purer than their Dem counterparts because of media bias. But it's just sad that, in an effort to try and screw teen boys, Congressman Foley may end up screwing the country.

Foley Moley

Advance notice - the links in the lower half are likely to induce nausea, so click with care.

Building off the Barking Spider/Coalition tag team, I'd like to direct your attention toward the right of the stage, and this invaluable compendium of linkage from the Gateway Pundit.

The picture at the Swilling's post is really fun, as it shows Democrats celebrating finding a picture of a president, congressman, and federal appointee doing their jobs. (There's hope.) Other possible interpretations based on the Democratic response:

1. Mark Foley is not allowed to visit his own constituents in his own state because he is a Republican, and later shown to be a sexual predator
2. Mike Brown is not allowed to visit a hurricane relief effort led by his own agency because he will be fired from that job sometime in the future

Number One seems to be acceptable to Foley himself, as he resigned in disgrace. Perhaps the Left would have preferred the Clintonite alternative - a drawn-out trial in the House of Representatives to remove him from office, as per Article I, Section 5, paragraph 2.

Otherwise, I can't see the point here. A lot of people on both sides of the aisle knew about this for a while, including several people whose reason to be* seems to maliciously out politicians against their own wishes**, or to store up dirt for the proverbial October Surprise, even when it is evidence of criminal activity. Those people should join Mr. Foley in disgrace, and possibly win all-expenses-paid trips to Club Fed. As Calvin Coolidge famously (and briefly) said, "Let the guilty be punished." Not because they've got the wrong letter trailing their names, either - but because they are guilty of crimes.

On a purely political level, I'm not sure how much hay is to be made in this brief twilight of bad news for the GOP. If one only cares about punishing the other guy when it helps your results in the midterms, it's obvious that your side will go just as far to shield a wrongdoer. It doesn't inspire confidence; in fact, it puts paid to the notion that you're offering any sort of "New Direction," unless "faster" is a new direction. A Google search for "Top 10 Republican Sex Scandals" (similar to the link above; w/t to the Swilling) turned up a lot on Foley, and a few pages later, some stuff on then-mayor James West of Spokane, Washington; and Brian J Doyle, deputy press secretary of Homeland Security. It also turned up this laundry list*** courtesy of something called the dKosopedia, a Wiki page that is filed under "Articles Lacking Sources" and links to the aforementioned out-sourcing site mentioned above, which I will NOT share.

Comparing this to the oft-glossed malfeasance of congressmen and presidents is sort of like bragging about one's squirrel hunting in the home of a man with five lionskin rugs and a stuffed grizzly bear in the corner.

Here's the twist, however - the ones making these comparisons are the politicos themselves. Average folk - voters and taxpayers and humble 60-hit bloggers - are wondering why ANY of it gets a pass. The Dems are right to call Foley a skunk, but they seem to also think that anyone who's ever pulled the wrong lever is tainted by the smell. They seem to conveniently forget that many of their own skunks are currently trying to pass themselves off as exceptionally homely raccoons while this is happening, and worse, they are attempting to convince the world that their own farts smell like rainbows.

I'd appreciate a little more honesty about the human condition. Does it really matter whether your rubbish heap has 11% less stench than someone else's? Even if Foley had been a paragon of virtue, wise as Solomon and cute as a bucket of puppies, you'd oppose his politics, right? That's the point. Something like this is going to quite properly lose one's supporters and send one to prison; it isn't indicative of some moral taint of Republicanism. If five people agree with you, and one of them turns out to be a serial killer, do the other four people have to change their mind in shame about capital gains taxes and the Second Amendment?

In short - stick to your vision for American governance, if you have one. If all you have is "the GOP has a few criminals," well, so does the Left. We're not proud of ours, and we'll help you bust them, but don't whine when we want yours busted as well.

* a little Kansas shout-out there, to make amends
** but only the Republican ones
*** among the genuine items is a generous portion of hearsay and rumor, and some people whose political affiliation is never mentioned, except for being on the list

Charlie Crist thinks I'm an idiot

I received a taped message from Charlie Monday night. In it, he mentions his positions on social issues (How did he find out I was a Bible thumper?), gay marriage, etc. He also said that he was against human cloning.

Human Cloning? Where did that come from? Then I realized that he is trying to make me think that he is against embrionic stem cell research, when he is actually for it.

I know that Democrats think I am stupid. I know that the MSM thinks I'm stupid. I am not realizing that a lot of GOP politicians think I'm stupid as well.

I'm not all hot and bothered over Crist. The unborn in Florida are screwed anyway, so I'll vote for Crist because the other guy would be a disaster. (The other guy is my congressman, Jim Davis, and he has a medical condition that would prevent him from being an effective governor. He has no gonads. The most cowardly politician in DC.)

But if Crist continues to remind me of how stupid he thinks I am, I may just write-in my pastor for Governor.

And when I meme, and when I blog

There'll be one more post on the Web to carry on...

1. Most over-the-top celebrity demand. Actually, the big one - the insatiable demand - is the admiration and love of the public. Everything else, including all the contract riders made famous by The Smoking Gun, is simply symptomatic of this need.
2. Most entertaining celebrity screw-up. The Crooze. It's such a public self-detonation, and better still, it's blown the clamshell wide open. People are asking questions and making mock of what they learn, and that's usually the beginning of the end for your cult as far as public image is concerned. Good times.
3. You’re a top-tier celebrity. You travel to a new town for a month. What are your demands for your hotel room? Huh? Oh, I'm sorry, I was still laughing at "you're a top-tier celebrity." Hotel room, you say... OK, I ask for the room to be clean, comfortable, not missing towels or pillows or anything; and an extended check-out time. I love that.
4. You’re a top-tier celebrity. What are you famous for? Writing, I hope; otherwise, for being the World's Fastest "Minesweeper" Player.
5. You’re the star of a wildly popular sitcom. What’s the name of the sitcom? "The Four of Us." I actually had character sketches and plot ideas - the theme was "Seinfeld" without the neurotic self-absorption. "Friends" nearly had it down before turning Chandler and Ross into eunuchs. However, I've aged past the main roles and would now have to take a supporting role.
6. Tell me a memory of something that happened to you in high school. We were supposed to dissect cats in senior biology, advanced placement. I've always had a pet cat growing up, and was not prepared to see several varieties for our enlightenment on our lab tables. I had an episode - we're not talking just crying, but bawling, blubbering, absolute despondence; the kind of thing that kills the snickering after a moment or two, when people start to realize that this is serious, the kid's totally lost it. Nobody ever blabbed about it that I found out, and nobody gave me a hard time afterward, which is possibly one of the kindest things I've ever seen, considering it was high school.
7. Did you fall in love in high school? I crushed a time or two. Fairly embarrassing, but live and learn. Fortunately, one of the lasses was quite kind and we actually became friends for a year or so before graduation.
8. What did you want to do with your life when you were in high school? No idea. Veterinarian was right out (see #6, above). I've always enjoyed writing but was never well-supplied with burning ambition.
9. Have you ever come close to dying? I had an emergency appendectomy when I was 12. It was pretty bad, but they got to it in time.
10. Have you ever broken a law? Besides traffic laws?
11. Have you ever broken a bone? Thankfully, no, but I did dislocate my right pinky. It's been permanently kinked ever since.
12. Is there one job you would do regardless of how much you were compensated? Overnight DJ. The show would be free-format, taking calls on good topics or just spinning unusual music when things were quiet.
13. Name one thing you love most about your closest friends. That we don't have to audition for each other; we can just be normal together.
14. What is the most unexplainable, supernatural thing that has ever happened to you? I've experienced moments that I believe were supernatural, but were explainable. To me that does not automatically disprove their nature.
15. Why do you read blogs? I get to know people I would never meet otherwise, and have great conversations on every subject under heaven. For example - top Star Wars lines that are improved by replacing a word with "pants." Example - "Alderaan is peaceful, we have no pants!" (Thanks, guys.) Additional example not on the list: "Uh, negative, we have a pants leak down here - large leak, very dangerous..."
16. Three movies that mean a lot to you. You'll be disappointed, guys - movies tend not to mean a lot to me. I have favorites, but nothing really life-changing or deeply significant. Maybe Star Wars for giving me a lifelong geekout, and Mary Poppins for the beginning of my soundtrack fetish.
17. Flowers or candy? Books.
18. Have you ever been questioned by the police or federal agents? In relation to other matters I've witnessed, then yes.
19. Do you go on rollercoasters? Infrequently, but I enjoy them as a rare treat.
20. Do you consider yourself more creative or more logical? Creative.
21. Start a rumor about another person who comments on RTG (be nice!) I suppose that's Lisa, since it's her trackback I got this from: "Lisa buys soup and compulsively steals the small saltine cracker packs, and hoards them. She has over 65,000 individually-wrapped crackers from diners and restaurants across the country, spanning 28 years of dining."
22. What is the longest you’ve ever stayed awake? Nearly two days. "At the end, I believed that I was a hummingbird of some kind."
23. Tell me how you got one of your scars. I cut my left kneecap on a broken toilet bowl that we were hauling to the curb.
24. What is your favorite smell? Plenty - fireplaces, grilling steaks, a burnt match, fresh coffee, and roasting marshmallows.
25. What was your first job? Clerk, audio-visual department, Ocean County Library.
26. What do you get complimented on? Creativity, smarts, and friendliness are usually what I hear about.
27. Name one thing you disavow. The live-action Grinch movie with Jim Carrey. IT NEVER HAPPENED.
28. Name one thing you affirm. The Nicene Creed.
29. Do you believe in Karma? Capital "K", probably not. Little "k", sure - there are many arrows in His quiver.
30. Are you physically flexible? Eh. I've been a goalie for some time, but I'm low on the scales compared to other goaltenders. For an average guy of my build and age, I may be high average.
31. What are the last four numbers of your cell? Not applicable, as I am currently not in jail.
32. What is your favorite love story? I'm kind of in it right now. Commercially, "Pride and Prejudice" is good for starters, followed by the Macawbers from "David Copperfield."
33. You’re the anchor for your local hometown news station. What’s your sign-off phrase? I would have various production assistants read the credits in a variety of styles, a la "Whose Line."
34. You are a character in a movie made in the 1950s staring Ava Gardner. What character are you? The lovable eccentric with a heart of gold.
35. Favorite place and favorite weather? One place is much like another. It's the company, not the location. Similarly, I enjoy weather as a class - mild spring days are the best to be in, but I love love love big weather - the sound of a thunderstorm or a frame-rattling blizzard. In a strange way, I've even enjoyed the two hurricanes I've seen.
36. You can go to the moon, round-trip, for $10. Do you go? Hells yeah.
37. What’s your favorite acronym? Snafu, mostly because it's achieved word status.
38. In your job, is it more important to be consistent or to constantly surprise your boss? Consistent, by a long margin.
39. You have a week and unlimited money. What do you do? Pay off my Mom's house, support my parish for the next several decades, and throw a great wedding for my bride to be.
40. Tell me a limerick. Geez, pick one.

This meme was the source of the Kansas bit, below, so congrats to Lisa on the double-trackback!

A warrior's drink

I hate to break the Spider's heart, here, but.... prune juice? (w/t to Lisa at This Life)

Yes, there it is on page five. I know these guys are pushing sixty, but really.

The guys seem awfully touchy about being considered a contemporary act, and not a nostalgia piece, as seen on that page. But even so, this rider is somewhat out of date, as Robby Steinhardt's out (again). He's been re-replaced by David Ragsdale, who's only pushing fifty. Break out the Ensure!

PS - they don't rate "Arena Rock" status, or even "Oldie Acts"? They're reduced to the Cutout Bin section? Oy vey.

Radio kaka

In many of the musical memes you've seen hither and yon, there's a category for dreadful music - songs that grate, annoy, vex, irk, or generally sound like cats on meth. But I had mercifully forgotten today's Dreadful Song until it slouched onto my radio a couple of days ago and made me ill.

Friends, I give you "At This Moment" by Billy and the Beaters.

(If you're drawing a blank you're one of the lucky ones. You should probably put this blog down now and have a snack or something, and come back tomorrow.)

Even when I first heard this song many moons ago, I couldn't really get the point. "OK, so your heart's broke..." Certainly it's possible to handle that sort of thing well - but Billy wants us all to suffer with him, so he has to go way over the top with the lyrics, with the music, with the whole vocal performance.

Bill, here's a hint: she don't love you no more because you're wailing all the time. The Beaters probably don't like you either, but they stuck with you because you could handle key changes and the amps all fit in your Custom Van. This is how you repaid them, and all of us. Now they can't get gigs at the Kiwanis picnic, for crying out loud. The drummer doesn't even put this down on his resume anymore; he tells interviewers that he spent six years in a Turkish prison because it's less horrifying.

Maybe it didn't seem so bad on paper. The band laid down the keyboard, muted the drums, kept it soft and rueful, and then called it a day. Then you breezed in, sang, added that pointless saxaphone krep, mixed it - and when they heard it they were aghast. Too late, fellas. Worse, it got picked up on "Family Ties" and the producers used it every time Alex P Keaton got weepy about whatserface that didn't want to sign a long-term TV contract so they sent her character backpacking across Europe, or something. And every time they heard it, they saw him moping, and died a little bit more in their souls.

Alex, the rest of the Keatons were too squishy marshmallow to tell you this, but man up. Geez, even the emo kids thought you should grow a pair. And what the hell would make you (or any actual person) use these lyrics to convince a girl to stick around? No woman is going to say to herself, Gee, he's even more immature and effeminate than I thought - sign me up. Then there's the big dramatic offer - "If you stay, I'd subtract 20 years from my life!" Yup, turn around, baby.

Who on earth thinks that it's romantic to widow one's true love twenty years sooner? Arrrrrgh.

I found two other versions, by the way: Tom Jones, and Clay Aiken. That says it all, don't it? (Confidential to Clay - COMB YOUR HAIR. It's the album cover: it may be the thing that convinces people to buy the album before they notice that you sang At This Moment on it.)

It's your turn, dear readers - anyone else guilty of audio assault should be named below.

A few notes

The Ladybug and I want to thank you all for the well-wishes over the past week.

I've gone back and done a little bit of cleanup on the formatting. Blogger's not playing friendly with our new contributor, and keeps hosing the html - that's where all of those weird dashed lines came from. We'll get it all right in the end.

The sidebar is also newly sorted.

Musical Monday will show up a little later in the morning.

Mark Foley and Dirty Tricks Thursday

GOP Congressman Mark Foley resigned over innapropriate emails and IM messages to teen boys. Read about it here. Be advised of a very strong parental advisory concerning the IM messages.

Mr. Bingley of the Coalition of the Swilling wonders why the St. Petersburg Times sat on a story they knew of last November:

And what is the deal with the St. Petersburg Times, which seemed to know all this a year ago and has sat on it until...4 weeks before the election? Aren't they an accessory to any crime by not reporting it to the police?

The reason why a media outlet would sit on a story for nine months and risk getting scooped is the concept known as Dirty Tricks Thursday (n.): the Thursday before an election when candidates often accuse opponents of scandalous behavior, knowing that the charges will bring headlines while also allowing the opponents little time to refute the charges.

In my humble opinion, I believe that these Mediunhueren wanted to spring this at the last minute and lost the story by doing so.

No pressure or anything

In about ten minutes the computer's going to join the printer and the television in the trunk of the Discount Chariot. I should be re-wired in the new digs sometime over the weekend. Thanks to our generous new contributor, the Hive can keep its shingle out while I'm knee-deep in box.

Sergeant, you have the conn.

Circa 1984

A Christmas photo of yours truly and my brother, inspired by all the hullaballo at Tracey's. Mom's got all the really good pics from Halloween and etc (such as you see here) but this for now.

Dig the hi-boy stereo and the stack of 8-tracks up top.

slight tweak - I realized that it looked like the second link was one of those pictures from my Mom, when it is in fact another of Tracey's commenters. The request was to see those obsessed little kids enjoying those obsessions. That's just an example. Thank you; carry on.

There's nothing wrong with your computer - it's only a Barking Spider

The Nightfly has graciously gave me permission to post on his blog. He has a real life (which just got a lot realer) and both of us found it hard to post as much as we should. So I am the Hamburger Helper of the Hive.

I first met the Nightfly seventeen years ago in dorm at Rutgers University. I was a 30-year-old sophomore (I was in the Air Force before RU) and it was the day before the freshman Nightfly's 17th birthday. I was the dorm daddy shepherding about 30 young skulls full of mush. The Nightfly's Mom had a little separation anxiety, and was able to leave after I promised that I would watch over the young fly.

Quick aside: On the same weekend of Freshman Brainwash- - I mean Orientation, the Nightfly's roommate asked me where the local Catholic Church was. I had no idea. In dorm daddy school I learned what to do if someone was hooked on booze or drugs, or got pregnant or was suicidal or gay (or hooked on booze AND gay AND pregnant), but the leaders of dorm daddy school never thought that some new students would want to hook up with the Lord instead of each other. But I digress.

As you all know, the Nightfly is a pretty solid Catholic guy; sociologists would call him a John Paul II Catholic. I am probably best described as an evangelical Christian guy - I come from the spritual awakening that was going through the military in the '80's. I also found that Jesus of Nazareth was the only way I was keeping sober.

(I know what your thinking: "I was all messed up on booze till I found the Lord, now I'm all messed up on the Lord.")

But part of JPII's legacy was evident at RU back then. The Catholic guys and the evangelical guys hung out together - this is something that JPII encouraged. And that continues today.
I have lived in Tampa for the last ten years. Posts from me will be mostly, political, current events and religious items. This is probably the most I've wrote about myself in a post.

I write in italics so you know it's me and not the Nightfly posting.

More later.

You should sit down

The Ladybug said yes.

I had one of these as a kid

No, not the top picture, though I agree with Mr. Lileks' narration on the subject. The bottom picture - the Space:1999 lander. Totally had one of those. Moonbase Alpha had floated serenely into the Galactic Republic, where it was regularly visited by the Millenium Falcon, Wedge in his X-Wing (I always dug Wedge - the man survived two Death Star runs, so he obviously rocked wicked hard), and whichever GI Joe guys wanted to tag along.

I think that the Star Wars guys secretly envied the Joes. Well, maybe not Vader: "Superior articulation is insignificant next to the power of the Force." But secretly, he had to wonder - I took the lava bath and got replacement limbs that don't bend? My saber comes out of my shockingly-rigid right arm? Can we blow up Planet Kenner next, my master?

But the last straw had to be when Buck Rogers showed up with bendable elbows. Oh, that is IT. We are throwing down, Smirky. You'll wish they had beaming in your stupid continuity.

I think that G-Force had to feel most left out, however. Even the Galactica toys could get by in a pinch. Sure, the Cylons couldn't get served in Mos Eisley, but I got the first edition fighters, the ones that still shot the little missiles out of the sides - before safety concerns made the manufacturer take that feature out. That was cool, so they made the cut. But G-Force were the wrong scale - a model, not a genuine toy, and with no actual figures, since each would only have been about a half-inch high relative to the Phoenix.


Their entire ship would have fit into the Falcon's cargo hold; the Star Wars guys were mean about it, too. "Hey, Luke - did you paint your landspeeder again?" Even the picture is tiny (only one I could find on short notice). Naturally I had to build an entire fleet of Lego craft to keep them company. And those Legos had it all working for them, too - at home dogfighting, hobnobbing with anyone, and nobody expecting them to be to scale everywhere. The minifigs basically looked like jawas, so it was all cool there. The smaller ships could be recon droids. They bridged the gap, they made it all work. It's no wonder that eventually there would be Star Wars Lego sets everywhere. (For a c-note I could get my own 800+ piece Falcon and come full circle, or, with patience, build my own. Some of these are actually quite awesome.)

There's one ship I wish I could show you, however: the Star Hawk, circa '81 or '82. It took batteries in the front compartment and played different FX, with two red LEDs in the nose for lasers. The back had two portable crappy fighters that popped off and reattached. I can't find even a trace of it.

OH - of course. Star BIRD. Behold the goodness. And on an unrelated note, I have to spend the next four hours on eBay for no reason whatsoever.

Right on cue

Just got back from some schlepping of items to the new digs, turned on MNF. Saints are smooshing the Falcons. On the bottom crawl, the big news - the Madden Curse claims its next victim. "Seattle RB Shaun Alexander (cracked bone in foot) out indefinitely."

Sorry, Ladybug.

Musical Monday

Back in college, the Barking Spider would tease me with stuff like, "Hey! Mike just discovered a hot new band called SUPERTRAMP." There are certain exceptions such as the Anderson Council, but I'm old before my time.

This hasn't changed much, as you can tell from last week's installment. My first impulse is still the retro racks. There are three major sources of new stuff in my little musical world:

1. Old bands with new records
2. Soundtracks
3. Video games

Is this reputable? Am I playing it too safe? I already know that I enjoy Steely Dan or U2, so it's not like it's a challenge to pick up their next album; I've already heard the soundtrack stuff when I saw the show; and the main draw of the game is the play, not whatever interesting stuff they've licensed.

For me, it's about enjoying what I listen to. I'm not much of one to go get a disc because it's an important release or an essential classic album. It's not such a bad deal, really. And the odd chances that get me to a new band are well worth it - I got to see the Anderson Council for the first time live from the bassist's backyard, thanks to an in from Dawn Eden. (The guys remembered the happy mouth, too. I'm touched.)

Less shame, more stealing

Lisa stole this meme, and now I'm stealin' it back...

1. First name? Mike
2. Were you named after anyone? I was named after my sire (for lack of a better term). I was officially "Michael Dominick R----- II" until my mother's remarriage and my adoption. That's why my younger brother is "Jr." and I am not.
3. Last cry? When doves cry. Who knows? It's been months at least.
4. Do you like your handwriting? It's not the neatest, especially if I'm in a hurry; it's sort of a mishmosh, half-caps thing. It reminds me of my father's, except that he was neater. My Mom, on the other hand, looks like she's forging a cursive textbook.
5. What is your favorite lunch meat? Probably turkey.
6. Kids? Someday, I hope.
7. If you were anohter person, would you be friends with you? Possibly. I'm told that I'm very friendly. I'm also told that I'm loud and hyper.
8. Do you have a journal? You're looking at it. I've tried to diarize a few times, but it's not me.
9. Do you use sarcasm a lot? I'm more of a hyperbole/metaphor guy.
10. Do you still have your tonsils? Right now, I have about twice as much tonsil as usual.
11. Would you bungee jump? I would enjoy it, but I would never do it, if that makes any sense whatsoever.
12. What is your favorite cereal? Corn Pops.
13. Do you untie your shoes when you take them off? No, I just untie them at random throughout the day. (Note to self - revise #9.)
14. Do you think you are strong? No, but I'm stubborn. Physically I'm no Hercules, that's for sure.
15. What is your favorite ice cream flavor? Dexter Freebish at Thomas Sweet in New Brunswick, NJ. I also enjoy anything in the mocha genre.
16. Shoe size? 10½.
17. What is the least favorite thing about yourself? My tendency to complain.
18. Who do you miss the most? My dad. Every day.
19. What color pants and shoes are you wearing? Olive khakis, sneakers.
20. What are you listening to right now? An eighties mix; currently playing is "Mexican Radio" by Wall of Voodoo.
21. If you were a crayon, what color would you be? What is this, media week at Dumbass Community College? Fine - I choose Burnt Umber. I always imagined that this color smells like marshmallows roasted over a campfire.
22. Favorite smell? Heh, you just got it. I love the smell of a wood fireplace, especially when there's snow outside and hot chocolate inside.
23. Who was the last person you talked to on the phone? My ladybug.
24. The first thing you notice in a person you're attracted to. Their eyes, and how they smile.
25. Do you like the person who sent this to you? Lisa, do I like you? Sure, why not!
26. Favorite drink? I'm a coffee fiend, but I've been trying to cut back - successfully, so far. But I like to add a little something happy to the coffee for special occasions.
27. Favorite sport? The Lord's Own hockey.
28. Eye color? Dark brown.
29. Hat size? Small (please hold your jokes until the end). On the rink, I actually wear the largest-sized junior helmet. I don't know what number that works to.
30. Do you wear contacts? No, but I may need to start.
31. Favorite food? I will eat nearly anything. I'm partial to Indian, as a special treat.
32. Scary movies or happy endings? Happy ending, thank you.
33. Last movie you watched at the theater? Cars. Well worth it.
34. What color shirt are you wearing? I'm wearing my Leeroy Jenkins t-shirt.
35. Summer or winter? Each has its charms. I love snow. I enjoy sunshine. But spring is best, I think.
36. Hugs or kisses? Or?
37. Favorite dessert? Flan. It's the Happy Dessert!
38. What books are you reading? 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea - I'd never actually read it, so it was time.
39. What's on your mouse pad? The Dell logo.
40. What did you watch last night on TV? Nil.
41. What are your favorite sounds? Laughing kids, purring cats, my girlfriend on the other end of the phone, good music, a live hockey crowd.
42. Rolling Stones or Beatles? The Beatles.
43. The furthest you've been from home? Miami.
44. Where were you born? Lindenhurst, Long Island

Your turn, pardners.

Keeping priorities straight

update and bump - and a tip of the wings to Brian at Memento Moron, for scooping the story and carrying it downfield.

Death threats; how pleasant. Guys, you need to quit acting like University of Hezbollah. You're in school to learn, so learn how to be adults and stop being so frickin' emo about a football game.

Tough losses cause crazy reactions - for example, last Saturday's tough Oregon/Oklahoma football game; in the last 75 seconds Oregon scored two touchdowns and blocked Oklahoma's potential winning field goal try. This involved a couple of controversial calls, and Oklahoma complained to the NCAA, as is their right. However, one's choice of phrase may require toning down:

To describe the lapses in accurate officiating at the Oklahoma-Oregon football game last Saturday as constituting an outrageous injustice is an understatement.

That's university president David Boren in an open letter urging the Big 12 Conference to protest to the Pac-10. (If you publish it on your university web site, it's rather open, no?) As it happens, they had a point about the officiating being substandard. The Pac-10's press release on this is rather well-mannered considering the hyperbole in Boren's missive.

I note, in passing, that a lapse in officiating would render it inaccurate by definition, but passing over that for the moment... "outrageous injustice" is an understatement? It may cost the university some money if they go to a second-tier bowl game or miss their conference championship, but nobody was injured by it, unless you count that one guy who got so mad that he punched his refrigerator, but he was kinda sloshed anyway, and really, he was just mad that the bean dip spilled and played it off later when he came back into the room and heard what happened.

There, see how silly that sounds? Being a former governor and senator, perhaps Mr. Boren is just used to reaching for the stars when contemplating justice. When this is in the news, then I think that outrage over a sports contest is somehow misplaced.

It's entirely possible that young Sam Ashaolu will die. That is an outrage. A lost football game shrinks in the mind after that. Sure, I've shouted ridiculous things in the heat of the game; I've written blog posts fisking columns and critiquing umpires, being one who enjoys a good sport-themed argument. The difference knowing that it's ridiculous, that I can be passionate and still be friends with the other side of the debate at the end. It's much like sport itself in that way. If we invested it with too much meaning, then we'd enjoy it less and all the arguments would have to turn into grudges and genuine enmity.

God bless France

She has lost one of her finest daughters:

NEW YORK (AP) -- Helene Deschamps Adams, a daring World War II spy and French Resistance fighter who saved American fliers from capture and Jews from execution by the Nazis and played a role in secret preparations for Allied invasions of France, has died.

She passed away on Saturday, but this is just hitting the public now, as far as I can see from the web. Deschamps Adams had a heck of a story, all the more compelling for being true. She left studies at a convent to join the Resistance: "She was fond of saying, 'I didn't like the idea of Nazis taking over my country,' her daughter said."

Her daughter's name is Karyn Anick Monget - "Anick" was her mother's code name in the OSS. It must mean "frickin' awesome" in some language.

She rescued downed US fliers before the Nazis could find them and guided groups of Jews to safety across the Spanish border... brazenly posed as a secretary at the Vichy headquarters of the ... French equivalent of the Gestapo... Another time, faced with the choice of being blown up or having her cover blown, she walked into a building where she knew a bomb had been planted. She barely escaped, bleeding and partially deafened, when it exploded.

That's my poor emphasis. Holy shamoly, is that ever amazing. And we thank you.

Liberté, égalité, fraternité!

Short-term memory loss

Every Tuesday part of my lunchtime reading is Gregg Easterbrook's Tuesday Morning Quarterback on ESPN.com. About a page and a half down today, there's this throwaway nugget from Easterbrook:

And in other news, why isn't Kenneth Starr investigating Reggie Bush? Who paid for that room-service cheeseburger? Come on, don't tell me you've already forgotten who Kenneth Starr is.

I haven't. Don't tell me you've already forgotten who Patrick Fitzgerald is.

update, 6:10 pm - he hits Starr again on the bottom of page five regarding the Reggie thing. Thing is, he makes some good points about Bush's possible benefits while in college, so OK, one official pass on that. However, right above he also says of the Segway person-mover: "Being hit by 105 pounds of metal moving 12 mph is equivalent to being popped by an NFL linebacker."

Only if said linebacker picked it up and clobbered you with it. The last time any NFL linebacker weighed 105 pounds was in grammar school, and at a 4.5 second time in the 40 meter run, a sprinting linebacker will approach 20 mph over the very short term. Being hit with a Segway is more like being popped by a high-school cross-country runner, which is still unpleasant.

That being said, I agree that the Segway is not really a good pedestrian equivalent, especially on crowded city streets. They're heavy, take up a lot of space, and don't even move as quickly as a bicycle.

Twenty years and a day

update - 9:40 pm - done deal; Willingham flies to Floyd in left. So far, only ballplayers on the field. The Bravos and their '95-'05 division run are officially cooked like Christmas ham. Oh, and "Takin' Care of Business" has been played out for what, twenty-five years? What, you couldn't find a cut of "Celebration"? Geez, Kool and the Gang probably would have done it live for you guys.

On September 17th, the Mets beat the Cubs and won the NL East, back when there were only two divisions per league, and winning one was the only ticket to the playoffs.

On that occasion the fans stormed the field afterward and tore it to shreds, leaving the Mets with a nearly unplayable field for the next game. This year, there's three outs left (it's currently Beltran leading off the home eighth), and I think it will be better; the Mets have made the playoffs a few times in the past eight years (albeit as a wild card) so the only mayhem should be in the plastic-shrouded lockers down in the clubhouse.

The Mets' starter 20 years ago was Dwight Gooden. This year, it was Steve Traschel. Amazingly, Trax held the Marlins to three hits in 6 and 1/3 innings. But things really got loud when the Mets turned a sweet 3-6-3 DP in the top half of this inning, and even louder when Aaron Heilman struck out the third guy on a 96-mph heater.

Otherwise, it's interesting that the Mets, both then and now, sort of backed into this - the '86ers were swept in Philly before clinching at home, and the '06ers took the mickey three times in Pittsburgh before tonight's game.

I'm afraid to call the Barking Spider, what with this and the Gints/Iggles last night.

Thanks to all of the visitors following Sheila's link - there's plenty below so help yourself and join the commenting!

Musical Martin

This is all Sheila's fault.


How could I have passed this up?

Other artists usually have serious cover shots for a hits album, or splashy graphics and fancy packaging. Not Dino. All Dino needs is a casual picture (probably staged, but still catching him at ease) on a clean silver background. Add his name, and there you go. Of course I bought it. Thirty songs, smooth and creamy, bite-sized nuggets of perfect cool.


This shot is from the interior, and it's Dean all over. Someone off-camera probably cracked a joke. I like to think, instead, that it's the exact moment that his daughter Deana mentions in the liner notes - "He saw Mom and I and, before he gave the signal to start the session, he stepped from the riser and gave each of us a kiss and a hug."

Both her and her sister Gina give great remembrances of Dean. Steve Van Zandt somehow gets into these liner notes too, and gives us this: "He would always be a part of my personality, just as the Rolling Stones would be. I would combine the two in the E Street Band playing Dino to Bruce Springsteen's Sinatra. And this is what David Chase would pick up on when he cast me in the Sopranos twenty years later."

OK, so, Steve? All those shots of you in the bandana crouching next to Bruce like a puppy while he's trying to play? Not cool like Dino. The Sopranos? Totally not about your "resemblance" to Dino. These liner notes? NOT ABOUT YOU AT ALL, YOU WANKER.

Luckily, all his self-delusion is on one convenient page, back-to-back, and easily removable with a pair of scissors without losing a single picture of Dino or a word of his daughters' memories. I think I owe it to Dino to trim it away. Steve's liner notes NEVER HAPPENED. On with the music.

Why bother?

If you had something to say in the dark days before the World-Wide Web, you had few choices:

1. an overturned, empty soap box on a street corner
2. a visit to a bar to get good and oiled before holding forth
3. self-published pamphlets with oddly-place Captial letters decrying Tyranny of the Publick

Now, of course, all you have to do is stay in your little Hive, tippity-type away, and click a few times. Ta-da! Now your words are in the public forum for the nations of earth to see. You can even skip the drunk part, though it may help some.

The thing is, once you got up on that box, or that barstool, you had to pay a small price - people got to talk back. They could shout you down, or leave, or disagree, or what have you. The web (WORLD-WIDE, lest we forget) is the same thing. Sure, you can close the comments and put up screeching hissy fits about not liking the replies, but that doesn't stop anything. Anyone can say what they like on their own space, and they can link back to you to show the original, just as a person's words can be quoted from a pamphlet. Heck, if you litter the park with your little missives, someone could even take it home and write a reply. You can tell them not to, I suppose, but if you didn't want people to have them, why did you print them?

This post from the ISB demonstrates a fine example of this silliness, WWW style, in the form of a comic blogger named James Meeley. He was quoted from time to time, in various places, for things he'd written on his brand-new blog. Five posts, total, it was, and he was getting links, which is a nice little intro. Many bloggers work a lot longer for little or no notice. But he didn't like that people linked him without his permission and went about complaining about it everywhere.

Here's the thing - on his front page, he had a Technorati link labelled "Links to This Blog." If you really don't want them, why advertise them?

I'd show you, but, well - see for yourself. The gentleman in question took his blog and went home - sort of funny, since that's where a blog usually comes from in the first place. I couldn't even find a cache image for you.

Kids wear the darndest things

It's not too hard to find products marketed for children that make the parents' stomachs clench.

Abercrombie and Fitch have had their well-known travails in this area; one could make a case that a lot of their clothes were at least marketed to teenagers with their own income, although marketing clothes with unclothed models is not a strategy that readily occurs to an average shopper.

Still, they're hardly the only ones, and any trip to a mall or a tourist souvenir shop will furnish one with anecdotes to last until crotchety old age. Yes, yes, then of course I don't have to dress my kids like that, who am I to judge, etc. etc. [/lileksvoice]

This happens to be good advice - so good, in fact, that I don't feel in the least uncomfortable about offering it back - you don't have to dress your kids like that either. Should I have a child I plan to keep this excellent advice. I'll not see her wearing such things as "bitch," "sexy," "naughty," or "hot stuff" across her pre-teen rumpus. And if he's a boy, neither will he be sporting t-shirts such as I saw on a recent trip to Sears:

1. "Now Hiring - Person to do my homework and house chores. Must also sit in detention for me. Dial 555-LAZY."
2. "Do you mind? I'm trying to ignore you."
3. "Warning - Kid Has Attitude. Stay back 50 feet."

Yup, all wholesome ideals any kid should aspire to.

No one has to dress a kid in this stuff, but we have to put up with that kid seeing them on his peers and wondering why he isn't enough of a delinquent to be cool like them. Those pressures are great enough without the implied approval of sloth and incivility. Kids have always had attitude - but it's a lot harder to grow out of it when the parents are buying shirts that support staying the way they are. Warning? We shouldn't have to be warned about them - they need to be warned to knock it off. (Then again, one of the other slogans was: "Go ahead and send me to my room, I've got pizza and video games!")

So, young fogey that I am, I'm pretty sure that dressing kids like this is a bad idea. Clothes like this undercut a parent's authority - it's like a note to disregard whatever they say about manners, hard work, or discipline. Will it turn them into degenerate junkies or Klan bikers or something? No, and I'm not staking out that kind of territory. The changes are subtle. You don't get a long time at all to establish sound habits of mind and body in a child. Letting that foundation crack early robs a child of strength that he will need later. A t-shirt is a laughing matter; a kid who blows off unpleasant tasks is more serious. The kid may do it anyway, but he ought to at least know better while he's doing it - he shouldn't feel proud of it, nor scoff at anyone who's trying to help him become an adult someday.

Appreciating Dean Martin Appreciation Day

Click here and start scrolling. When Sheila gets a hold of a topic, it takes off - I confess that I couldn't take time to read it all, but I bookmarked the hell out of everything and tonight I will have reading material for a solid two hours, at least. This is all great, great work.

Besides, if there's anyone we can appreciate, it's Dean Martin.

Didn't want to have to do it

I didn't want to touch this story, in any way. But I can't get away from it - much the same way the Isles can't get away from Rick DiPietro now. Ever.

Charles Wang's idea was simple - keep the #1 goalie happy and fix costs at the same time. So, every year until he turns forty, DiPietro will collect an identical $4.5 million from the Islanders. It sounds so good, and so deceptively simple, and it's all just wrong.

Part of this, of course, is that the Isles are already crippled by Alexei Yashin's $7.6 million per year - a number which may be justifiable if Yashin were the best forward in the entire league, instead of maybe the fourth best on his own mediocre team. It's Yashin's contract that is really killing the Isles. That $7.6 million means that they couldn't even consider a run for Patrik Elias, or a trade-and-re-sign of Marian Gaborik. It's why they couldn't retain Roman Hamrlik or Adrian Aucoin, their two best defensemen from 2003-04. It's why they will be hard-pressed to keep Trent Hunter, Denis Grebeshkov, or Jeff Tambellini if they develop into top-flight talent.

But back to DiPietro. I'm not quite of the Scott Burnside opinion (or the Allan Muir opinion) that this is a hugely stupid move; it's more that the Isles outsmarted themselves. DiPietro is currently not worth $4.5 million, and especially not when that number is about 10% of the NHL salary cap. He may be later, but that's where the true anti-genius of this bad contract comes into play. The contract is too long, and thus too inflexible. If DiPietro regresses this season (as he did following the long lockout) he'll be overpaid and untradeable. If he suddenly emerges as a Vezina candidate, then he becomes underpaid, and wondering whether or not it may be in his best interests to hold out for more, or force a renegotiation. Somebody is going to be unhappy about this, no matter what.

Of course, as a fan I hope that DiPietro outperforms the contract, and I have more confidence than Burnside that it can happen. (Burnside even refuses to acknowledge his one lonely playoff win, against Tampa Bay in the first-round washout in 2004.) DiPietro improved as the year went on, behind a worse team defensively - a team that, in the end, had only one of their top six defenders from the previous season still in the lineup (Radek Martinek, not exactly the second coming of Denis Potvin). Check the numbers - he faced only 24.7 shots per game in '03-'04, but 28.5 per game last year. His team scored slightly fewer goals per game in front of him as well (2.9 to 2.8), and with the increased emphasis on offense producing higher scores league-wide, any decline was likely to be a disaster even if DiPietro had played better.

But still - between this, and Yashin, and the GM circus, the franchise is turning into a Ringling Brothers sideshow, and that's not the way to attract top talent on or off the ice. It's no way to keep a fan base. It's almost like a Slapshot/Major League scheme to move the team someplace.