You got me...

In alphabetical order**.

...A- Available or Single? Available, no. Single... technically, but I wouldn't act on that knowledge if I were you.
...B- Best Friend. "Will... YOU be my psychic FRIEND?" No? You sure? [/walkenvoice]
...C- Cake or Pie. You made both? How sweet. Pie is better, but I won't say no. (And flan is best - the Happy Dessert!)
...D- Drink of Choice. Way too much coffee, I'm afraid. I'm trying to do better.
...E- Essential Item. Lots of things come to mind, but they rotate... I can't do without a particular book or something for a month, and then pffft! But I'm on the computer quite often, so go with that. - OH! Duh. Music. Nearly any genre, too. Gimme my music!
...F- Favorite Color. I've always been a green-blue sort of fellow.
...G- Gummi Bears or Worms. Ew, worms? Maybe if they were GUMMI Worms. See, for me, G stands for Grammar - and I'm full-tilt Strunkian, baby.
...H- Hometown. Lindenhurst, "Lawn Guy Land." I've been exiled for about 20 years, though, so the accent only emerges under duress, sort of like My Fair Lady, only without the domineering.
...I- Indulgence. I loves me a good nap. And for some reason, I've had an ice cream jones the past few days, but file that under E for "comes and goes."
...J- January or February. January. It's the month to enjoy all your holiday swag and general good cheer. February in New Jersey is just cold and mean and grasping. Trust me: January is your friend, but February HATES you, and doesn't care that you know it.
...K- Kids. Reminds me of a popular little ditty on the radio around here:
.......one eight seven-seven kars for kids
.......K-A-R-S, kars for kids
.......one eight seven-seven kars for kids
.......donate your car today
Not that I know much about them, but that's what the internet is for.
...L- Life is incomplete without …. My Ladybug.
...M- Marriage Date. Soon. Exact day is classified - and I hate to do that to you, but there are reasons.
...N- Number of Siblings? 2.
...O- Oranges or Apples? Sorry, but I can't compare them.
...P- Phobias/Fears. I dislike bridges. Not a phobia anymore. When I was a kid on LI, my parents had to take the tunnels to get anywhere, or I would freak out hard. Ironically, I got myself over the worst of it by running away from home at the age of nine. To get to Grandma's house, I had to cross the overpass spanning Sunrise Highway. Major freak out, but I did it - for FREEDOM! (Like Grandma would have let me stay there and not told Mom and Dad, right? "Sorry, I haven't seen him." :::winks at Young Nightfly, who is stuffing his face with flan::: "He sent me this postcard from Timbuktu. He wears a fez now.")
...Q- Favorite Quote. I'm a quoting fool: Twain, Chesterton, Mystery Science Theater. But an everyday quote I keep in mind is from my dad - "If it's worth doing, it's worth doing well."
...R- Reasons to smile. My best girl. My friends. Great books. All the gorgeous blooming stuff everywhere right now, allergies be hanged. Purring kitties. Babies. Music. Smile = good.
...S- Season. Born in late summer, but I'm a spring sort of guy at heart.
...T- Tag Three. I do NOT tag. But it is a magic number. (Yes, it is!)
...U- Unknown Fact About Me. Hitherto unknown fact about me, you mean. That you want me to put on a blog read by tens of people weekly.
...V – Vegetarian or Oppressor of Animals. Seems to me that the "or" is optional. One could eat only vegetables while harnessing the power of 137,400 hamsters on wheels for one's washing machine. Hey, hamsters are cheap, right? So, why not "Vegetarian or Freedom-Lover"?
(Ironically, I went lentil/noodle/fruits/nuts today without planning it.)
...W- Worst Habit. I'm too loud. On top of that, I have been known to blurt Things People in the Room Presently were Not Meant to Know in my Italian Loud voice. Much better now than formerly, so other bad habits are trying to pick up the slack.
...X – X-rays or Ultrasounds. I prefer the F-Ray. "And for the love of God... don't let it fall into the wrong hands!"
...Y- Your Favorite Foods. Indian is good. Pizza is very good. Flan on special occasions. My mom's lasagna and creme puffs. (Sorry, Ms. Sister, it had to be said.) And at the Omega Diner, anything with maple-peppered bacon, which are the three greatest words in the history of lunch.
...Z- Zodiac. What's my sign?? Let me put it this way - I'm old enough to get the joke, but young enough never to have been on the receiving end before. Domestically, I'm in Virgo; going Far East Side, I'm in the Year of the Rat, which was NOT a hit for songsmith Al Stewart. This should narrow down my temporal point of origin pretty closely for anyone so inclined... if reading this far hasn't exhausted your interest in me.

Swiped from Tracey, as seen everywhere fine blogs are written.

** note - NOT "a-b-c order." (Even though "alphabetic" translates roughly as "a-b order," again, I wouldn't try it that way around the Ladybug.)

The philosophy of poker

KG had a multi-faceted rant at the FFO this week, but his first graf was the one that stuck out at me:

[expletive] off to the [bung]holes playing poker that continually get lucky when they make stupid plays. [same expletive] you, I've taken a lot of time and effort to learn how the game is supposed to be played only to have you hit a two [gerund expletive] outer on the [violation of the Third Commandment] river and take a monster pot that should be mine.

Yup. We'll put this in the files:

• The guy who called all my raises in limit with Q-9 offsuit and eventually nailed the straight - beating my pocket aces
• After the flop [A-7-2, off-suit], with two pair [A-2], I raised; then called the all-in re-raise of a lady with pocket fours - and she nailed the third four on the turn
• Pre-flop, called an all-in with a pair of tens, which is a four-to-one favorite over the pair of eights my opponent had - until the third eight shows up on the flop
• Flopped the nut flush, and slow played, calling after the flop [5-Q-10], the turn [a nine], then raising the bet after the river [another nine] - and guess who had a full house, nines over queens?

So, what's the common thread? Well, all of the four examples above happened to me, but with one twist - in that last example, I was the guy with Q-9 and Martin (I've mentioned him before) was the guy trying to drain me dry.

In example four, I was the lucky one. But there's a reason WHY I was lucky - it's because I wasn't that good at poker at the time. An experienced player would have had warning bells going off in his head when his opponent just called the flop bet, especially with a possible flush on the board. Even after turning the two pair, I should have checked to Martin, forcing him either to bet (driving me out of the hand) or, if he still wanted me around, to check and give me a free shot at the full house (the only way I can win the hand). I didn't play it totally stupid, only mostly stupid; but it was still a rookie play. Learning better in the future led me to make much more accurate plays in the other three examples, only to get beat down each time.

Now, in almost everything else, luck follows skill. To use two familiar examples: in hockey, over time the bounces will eventually favor the better teams and players, especially on my level where there is a wide disparity between the best and worst. (In the pros, not so much - they are all so good that the bounces even out.) A guy will happen to be in the right spot, and the rebound will just happen to find him - and he will bury the chance before anyone can recover. Bad luck, yes - but borne of his experience (to know where to be, almost before he's aware of it) and practice (to be able to make the most of the chance).

Same thing in chess. The board goes crazy, pieces are flying everywhere, and the patzer thinks he's got the expert - but the expert's odd-looking move fifteen turns ago has given him a knight or a pawn or an escape square in just the right spot to turn the game his way. His experience and practice have given him a better feel for what pieces work best together, the right order for moves in a combination; the geometry of the game is second nature and he just gives himself more opportunities to work things to his advantage.

Poker, however, is an odds game, and as a result, best play means that you will always be making the high-percentage play: either you will have your money in with the best hand, or you will make a bet that you know your opponent can't match. Therefore, by definition, if you lose, it's because you were unlucky - your opponent catches the miracle card, and his unwise bets make him rich at your expense. Mentally, it's THE challenge for a poker player, the knowledge that the better you get, the unluckier you must be. It drives pros crazy, as anyone knows who's watched ESPN when Phil Hellmuth or Mike Matusow take a tough loss.

Courage, KG. As craptacular as it is, bad beats mean that you are getting better.

Musical Monday - hockey edition

Friends, I don't want anyone to think that a little disagreement between hockey blogs means that we're not all fans. So, the news that Columbus fired GM Doug MacLean has prompted a little musical interlude...

Not too long ago
The NHL expanded, though nobody's certain why
They gave Columbus town a chance
To field a team that could advance
And maybe give the Stanley Cup a try

But every April made fans shiver
As every year the team got sicker
Bottom of the standings
There were no happy landings
The owner gave the man nine years
But the playoffs were never near
And so the GM was cashiered
It's time to find a new hire

So bye-bye Mr. Blue Jackets Guy
Drafted players traded later
While the team lost each night
I saw good ol' fans snack on nachos and beer
Singing, "Soon the team will start to play right...
Soon the team will start to play right" ...

Not to disappoint anyone, but it would be a lot of work to cook up eight minutes of verses at this point, so if anyone who cares happens to see this... be my guest.

The City of Brotherly Love...

...was never more true

A dedication ceremony was held Wednesday afternoon to unveil street signs to define Philadelphia's famed "gayborhood."

Singing "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," a group of about 100 gathered at the corner of 13th and Locust Streets, in the Washington West neighborhood, where one of 36 discreet rainbow signs were unveiled. The sign is the same size as the Locust Street sign and fastened directly beneath it.

Tami Sortman is president of the Philadelphia Gay Tourism Caucus:
"Philadelphia four years ago started a gay-friendly campaign here to bring gay travelers into the city, and we felt that it was really important for these gay travelers to know when they are in the 'gayborhood' area. I live right here, just a block away, and I get people asking, 'Am I in the gayborhood yet?' "

The new signs are being erected between Broad and 11th, Chestnut to Pine Streets.

Somewhere Over the Rainbow? Judy Garland is very popular in gay culture, but then that may be too much information.

A New World Record

.47 BAC will definitely put you in the Wino Hall of Fame.

REDMOND, Wash. (AP) - A woman arrested following two car crashes last week registered a .47 blood-alcohol content on a breath test - nearly six times the legal intoxication threshold and possibly a state record.

Deana F. Jarrett, 54, was taken to Evergreen Hospital as a precaution following her arrest April 11, the Washington State Patrol said Wednesday. No one was injured in the accidents.
Jarrett blew the .47 on a portable breath tester after she collided with two other vehicles in quick succession, the patrol said. A check of all 356,000 breath tests administered since 1998 in Washington turned up only 35 above .40 - and none of those was higher than .45.

The legal intoxication threshold in Washington is .08.
Jarrett did not appear to have a listed phone number, and it was not clear if she had obtained a lawyer.

Only a trained and experienced professional can be conscious enough to get behind the wheel at that level. This woman was sucking down the hard stuff for many moons.

The Bleat goes on

Lileks rules again.

I swear, when some people hear that civilization is over, a small voice deep in the dark cranny of their heart surely whispers: good.

As Chesterton wrote much longer ago, there's a healthy pessimism, and an unhealthy - the healthy pessimism serves to remind us that we can fall short of ideals, so that we will work harder to achieve them. An unhealthy pessimism, far from saying how things can go wrong, insists that we will inevitably fail, that the ideals weren't worth aspiring to in the first place. As Chesterton puts it, the dishonest pessimist says, "I'm sorry to say that we are ruined," but he's lying - he's actually not sorry at all.

I was thinking of both of those things, while also thinking of a different Chesterton book that I'm looking forward to re-reading over the next few weeks, The Everlasting Man. His premise there is simple: that the best way to understand something is either to be a part of it, or else to be so far away from it that you have perspective and objectivity. And in a sense, that runs together in my mind with his earlier observation of the optimist and the pessimist. They aren't parallels - together they form sort of a philosophical Punnett square.

Both the optimist and the pessimist (honest variety) have their home within a country or a church, and they both also have a place in the distance. The particpating of each type, we've already been introduced to: working together to improve and enjoy the thing they both love. The observational optimist (to use a clunky phrase) thinks the best of those distant folks, finds friends across all sorts of sectarian and cultural lines, and generally lives and lets live. The observational pessimist finds all sorts of analogues in the flaws and shortcomings of his own set and in others. But in finding the parallels, each one in his way begins to think that there may be something to that distant group that deserves some respect.

Now it gets a little trickier. You can tell by the date of the Bleat that this is something I've been thinking at for a while, and I'm not sure I've got it. I think that Lileks is observing pessimism gone to seed - but I also think that, once it does, the fruit of it is that a person within a group, the participants from before, starts to sound as if he really wants to leave it. Worse, he usually never gets so far out of it as to be able to regain the perspective of the pure observers. Chesterton describes it as a constant state of reaction. The dishonest pessimist, in the end, becomes a traitor to himself much more than a traitor to his previous affiliations. He is so concerned with refuting, confronting, and denouncing that he can truly be said to be controlled by his rejected points of view. Nothing seems worth saying unless it can somehow be twisted to include a dig at his former mates. Far from being free of them, he's trapped himself in their shadow.

So there's that, all of which seems perfectly rational and plain.

What seems equally plain to me is that optimism can also go to seed, and spoil a soul just as badly. I'm not talking about the "Pollyanna" phenomenon, as if good cheer and hope were themselves to blame. I'm talking about an optimism untempered by any discretion or sound judgment. People talk about shades of grey in morality; the dishonest optimist sees only shades of white. Every failing of the soul becomes excused instead of absolved, by labelling it an illness, or bad upbringing, or circumstances, or anything and everything other than the free will of the soul in question. It's a symptom of an intellect that has long since decided to let mere moods do all the thinking.

Another effect is that any concrete and observable difference becomes inadmissible to the dishonest optimist. All things are equal - meaning equally good. All ideas are equal - meaning equally valid. The only thing they have to reject is rejection itself. And of course in doing that no evil or outrage is rejectable. For all his tsking of others over their "intolerance" and "closed-minded behavior," he doesn't actually go on to say that he is really in the right and they are really in the wrong, but only that they aren't being constructive. "It's inappropriate at this time," implying that it would be quite appropriate later. And for all his talk about how equally good and valid all things are, he does an incredible amount of apologizing to people. In this broad-minded view, both imaginary and real grievances are equally deserving of his self-abasement; that he personally has nothing to do with it and couldn't remedy the problem in any way makes no odds. (And if he was at fault, and could fix it? Well, all the better for his ego that he's accidentally correct - but you'll notice that he usually just stops at the apology, and thus in the one area he can actually help, he does nothing of much value.)

This dishonest optimism is what makes one a "squishy marshmallow." It's not a Pollyanna attitude. Many dishonest optimists are in fact depressing individuals: perpetually sad over everything that's wrong with the world, but unable to see anything that's right; lacking the courage to choose any concrete response to either good or evil, and self-blinded to the differences between. They too get trapped in the twilight, too close to their former home to miss it and too far away to see it properly.

But for all that, they have one advantage over the dishonest pessimists. The pessimists are constantly waiting for something that really isn't going to happen: in fact, something that may never have happened in all of history. He's waiting not just for the fall of one particular civilization, which occurs regularly, but the end of civilization itself. And that is really a losing proposition. Humanity has been up against it far tougher than it is today - for centuries there were far fewer people around than now, and with far less natural knowledge. A plague would wipe out a quarter of an entire continent, in a world that could far less easily spare them; and everyone lived shorter lives. If there was famine or conquest, it wasn't simply a matter of going to Costco, or hopping the next plane to Canada (as they always seem to be promising to do).

And yet in all of that, in a tougher and nastier world, people were civilized. They cared about right conduct and working hard. They had a culture and laws and shared activities. They wondered about their gods and their world. Pretty much as soon as man had enough fellows to have a society, they organized. And sooner or later, independently of each other as far as I can tell, these enclaves of man began to tell, not only their histories, but their legends. They developed language, and instantly turned it into poetry. They wrote in pictures, but also drew them. They left behind pottery bowls and pottery statues.

One could say that of course civilized people do those things, but what of before? And one would probably be correct. There may have been a before. In that case, the whole idea of civilization is even more of a miracle. Mankind give birth to civilization at the first opportunity. Moreover, whenever a civilization does perish, the surivors, far from seeing it as proof of the folly of society, immediately go about giving birth to a new one to take its place.**

In fact, it reminds me of an argument a relative made to me once, that man wasn't any better than other animals, and in fact a darn sight worse. "If we lost everything today," he said, "had no guns, no bows and arrows, no civilization or progress whatsoever - what do you think would happen to mankind?" I thought for a second and said, "The same thing that happened the first time we had none of those things - we'd invent every last one of them." The animals had their shot at us when all of that was utterly unknown, and they utterly failed.

And really, if we were no better than they, why did we alone of all the animals have the idea that, the first thing we need is to be civilized? Because it was our only defense against being eaten? Possibly. But that leaves no reason to keep going after that. Why not stop at the level of a pride of lions, or a troop of baboons, or a herd of elephants? Why not gang up in a hive like insects? I think that it runs deeper than mere survival value. The fact is, it wasn't enough merely to survive. That alone isn't civilization. Mankind wanted more. It wanted to pass itself on, not only physically with children, but culturally. Man has a mind, and wanted to pass on the life of the mind in perpetuity - in culture and religion and law and custom. And when all of those things break down utterly under barbaric regimes such as Nazism, you find that, more than scraps of food or clothes, people cling most desperately to scraps of civilization. There are simply too many instances of sacrifice, tenderness, and creativity under duress to be freaks of individuality. It is an essential trait of man.

So, the dishonest pessimist, in the long run, is bitterly waiting for mankind to stop being human. There are certainly enough brutalities and faults to give them a sense of perverse hope, too. But it is those things that are the freaks. They are common, but they are unnatural. In the account of my faith, they are damage to the integrity and dignity of man, inflicted in the Fall, and thankfully repairable in anyone who wishes to remain in the family of man. Those who don't? The common term for them is psychopath - human ability, intellect, and will, utterly divorced from the thirst for civilization that makes someone human. The pessimist who says "good" to that - to a world completely occupied by brutal homunculi - is not only a liar, but a fool. And his punishment, as Chesterton foresaw, is to be forever in the company of the squishy marshmallows they so despise - one loves all the paths, and the other hates all the paths, so neither of them goes anywhere worth being.

** This is, in fact, a main point of The Everlasting Man; cooking up this post and deciding to read the book again started working hand-in-hand. But I haven't re-read it yet, and when I do, I fear I may find that I remembered it wrong. Well, that's what God invented the comments for.

Just what we needed

Via On the Other Foot, a sordid little exclamation point to the Virginia Tech shootings.

I hadn't heard about Westboro Bastard Church's planned attendance. I'm not particularly surprised. Thankfully, I'm still human and thus am sickened - but not surprised.

Here's an interesting mental exercise: take what you've learned about Cho through his manifesto and his apallingly brutal works of fiction, and compare them to what WBC likes to say about everyone and everything. Consider their similar sullen demeanors and seething rage.

What is the difference between the two, save that Cho actually pulled a trigger?

No wonder they're celebrating the killer's handiwork.

I just read it for the articles

When is porn not porn? When Shell Oil says it's not:

Shell Oil Co. has determined "Playboy" and "Penthouse" no longer are pornography, but instead are "adult sophisticates," according to a company statement.

The issue arose when the Florida Family Association contacted Shell about the sale of such explicit magazines at convenience stores owned by Circle K in southeastern parts of the United States.

David Caton, executive director of the pro-family organization, said his group asked Shell to require Shell-branded Circle K Stores to stop selling the pornography, as it has done in the past with other retailers.

"Adult sophisticates." Yeah, that's the ticket! Is that what you're going to tell the Mrs when she finds this stuff?

Stay off the roads

There is no room for both your car and eleventy-thousand gallons of water.

That is all.

NO... ok, wait, there is one more thing. It's been raining all over New Jersey for two solid days, some towns are under about four feet of water, and the roads are impassable everywhere. So, when confronted with a long line of cars waiting patiently, one can safely reason that the drivers are NOT out for fun, admiring the weather. Therefore it's a bad idea to drive down the wrong side of the double-yellow lines to pass them all. At the next traffic light, there's another quarter-mile line of cars who are now uncomfortably staring at YOU, Mr. Too-Good-to-Wait-in-Traffic. Get a clue.

Ebb

update, 10:00 pm - this should be it for the night. I actually drew a hockey comment, too, which makes me happy. It takes so little...

I've got nothing, mentally or physically. I figure that the best way around this is to blog. Herewith, a running diary of my astounding day home from work:

7:20 - alarm.
7:30 - snooze.
7:40 - snooze.
8:30 - slept through the last snooze. Finally woke, and sat up with difficulty directly proportionate to the weight and payload of the truck sitting on my chest.
8:32 - inventory. Stuffed head? Check. Scratchy throat? Yes, a new item in stock. Well, they give me sick days for a reason.
9:03 - after a nap, a call to the Boss to make it official.

9:04-10:55 - oblivion. Not sweet. Involved dreams of being lost on major highways utterly devoid of fellow travelers. All towns abandoned. Standard anxiety crap, I suppose.

12:40 pm - finished a biography of Wyatt Earp, by Casey Tefertiller. Very well-done, heavily researched; an even account of Earp comes through in all the conflicting sources of the day. Time for lunch and a shower, but not in that order.

1:45 - turns out that I need a new razor; the outside of my throat is now as scratchy as the inside. I thought that I had this thing licked last night. Ladybug even stopped by for a surprise visit, with soup and vittles (she's a sweetie); felt right as rain by the time I went to bed last night, but like a pile of spoiled leftovers this morning. Getting a little better now, though. More soup. Soup is a beautiful thing, my friends.

2:00 - hey! It's ESPN Classic, a great way to waste time watching that which has already gone. In this case, a discussion of American and National League rookies on This Week in Baseball! Yay, Mel Allen.

2:15 - date of original broadcast? My sixth birthday. Ron Guidry is celebrated for a complete game win, 20th of an eventual 25 (and the Cy Young Award for the AL). There's Thurman Munson talking about the Gator now. And the rookies, holy cats: Alan Trammel, Lou Whitaker, Carney Lansford, Paul Molitor, Bob Horner... And who holds the (then) National League record for most homers by a rookie?

2:25 - ooops. I guessed Ralph Kiner, but I was wrong twice: Wally Berger and Frank Robinson, with 38. (It may be more now, but I honestly don't know and don't care to look it up now.) I whistled along flawlessly to the closing credit song, too. It never goes away. (Amazingly, it doesn't seem to be on You Tube, but the opening theme is here - click the "classic TWIB theme" link near the top of the page.)

3:08 - missed two phone calls, which I must return. Be back a little later. ...

4:21 - it's later, now. (And when will now be then?) Looks like the Islanders, in defiance of any hope and common sense, could get their concussed franchise goalie back for tomorrow's game two. I shall say nothing. RDP's health is fragile enough.

4:27 - my PC mouse is annoying me. It chooses to scoot from where I'm clicking up to the close window box, or down to the opposite corner, the 'start' button. Luckily, Blogger won't let me close a page with 'unsaved changes' so I haven't accidentally lost my post. It's an optical mouse and I've done everything I can think of to solve this problem, short of tossing the thing out of the window. (Admittedly, that would not solve the problem either, but it would be cathartic.)

4:30 - what the heck was that?

4:31 - hm. It's the emergency radio for my buddy, an EMT. He usually doesn't leave the radio on when he goes to work. I almost had to tell them to come over here because they just gave me half a heart attack.

5:13 - I'd been following this post on a favorite blog for some time. The upshot of it seems to be that, because a few players (from an archrival, some objectivity right?) got mad at the Islanders' ice-cleaning crew, the poster (and a few of his commenters) have decided to take umbrage. But not because of the crew's behavior, but because that crew is made up of cute girls in tight outfits. I finally had to inject a couple of facts into the discussion (horrors), and quoted the rulebook. The reply I got is simply unsatisfactory to my mind. Again, let me repeat - the Islanders did NOT create this job. They simply hired different people to fill it. And what gets me is all of the harping on about their looks - as if a pretty young woman can't act professionally, and that having them on the ice during TV timeouts somehow detracts from the game. If they hit the rink for a few double salchows or something, I would fully agree, but how on earth can they distract from the game when the only time they're out there is when the commercials are running - and to do a legitimate job? It makes no sense, and the whole "get them wimmins off the ice while the menfolk play their hockey" attitude is a howling farce. What is this, the Syrian Hockey League?

5:23 - yeah, I ruined a perfectly good post with hockey.

5:26 - the past week, my computer has insisted every single day on running some cockamamie updates and then restarting at the drop of a hat. The only thing it seems to accomplish is to make me stop what I'm doing every ten minutes. Seems not to be happening after today's reboot, however.

5:33 - for the chess players in your life, a fascinating page from a fellow named Tim Krabbé. There's a lot of depth, and some fascinating stories behind some of the games and players: this gentleman, for example. (And "The Full Morphy," heheheheheh.)

More later...

7:07 - welcome back. (Gee, that's optimistic.) Did my taxes while I was gone, because I've been procrastinating. I had calculated everything on paper, but I remembered the mass of useless clicking involved in e-filing and it put me off until the third-to-last minute. Small refund. Anyone want to institute a flat tax? Mitt? Rudy?

7:09 - one thing that I did not claim on my return: the imaginary ten thousand dollars I won playing fake cards. Got pretty lucky, actually - I busted a player on the very first hand, and had an exceptionally loose player right behind me. Took him down on the third level of blinds, built a commanding chip lead, and bled the other folks dry. My one lucky call was catching three of a kind on the river to beat a guy with two pair (I had him on a straight draw and got very lucky). If it were that easy in real life I wouldn't have to ref games in my spare time.

7:13 - I should consider some sort of dinner product soon. Perhaps more soup? ...

8:15 - back again. The Ladybug talked with me, agreed that dinner product was good, and brought over some pizza. And now, the nominees for Luckiest Fella Alive.

8:44 - mmmmmm..... pizza. But the Ladybug was sad - at the counter of our favorite local place, she saw a sign reading, "Support the Revolution: Vote for Sanjaya." Uhm... NO. Stern can lay the hell off. It's terrible trying to spoil other people's innocent fun. Even the Vote for the Worst guy says that he doesn't expect to actually determine a winner, and his site actually helps the show's ratings and bottom line. So who is Horrible Howie, anyway, to try to decide what shows are good enough? How is it, when a parents group or something organizes a protest they're painted as intolerant, backward dolts, but when a single person decides to use his platform to dictate to others, it's a laugh? Or worse, a "revolution"?

9:00 - Life is Worth Living, from 1954. Speaking at the remove of three generations, Bishop Fulton J Sheen makes more sense in two minutes than most modern speakers make in a year. Oddly enough, his topic applies to Stern and American Idol - the two halves of freedom: freedom FROM and freedom FOR. To sum up - freedom from is concerned with means: to be uncoerced, free from violence, unrestricted; freedom for is concerned with ends: towards what goal is one directing those choices? His point is that either without the other leads to grave errors, and in a small way Stern displays this. He abuses the first freedom, with no positive goal in mind. He gains nothing and merely causes others trouble; at the worst, he costs people their jobs. As Sheen recognizes, in practice this means freedom only for the strong, who impose their choices on everyone else.

Sheen's analysis, with barely any updating, applies in a much larger fashion to the wider world. The West is guilty of having only the first freedom, as he well recognized - freedom of choice with no end to direct those choices. He used the analogy of a farmer. "I'm free to plant whatever crop I please on my own land," he says, but he has no goal in mind; he tries several different crops only to give up on them after a few weeks. The result is that he does much more work than other farmers, constantly ploughing and resowing; and for all that extra work he reaps no reward, no harvest. In Communism (Sheen argues), the reverse is true. They have the second freedom; freedom for an end, a definable goal. In order to achieve the goal, they simply deny anyone any choice that opposes it. "You are free to do and say what you please, so long as it pleases the state." And this destroys the will of man, made free by God, usurping His authority to such an extent that it enslaves man in a manner that God Himself does not do. It does not fulfill man's will, it abrogates it.

Well, read "Islamism" for "Communism" and you will be miles ahead of just about every expert in understanding current affairs.

Surprised that it took this long

I used to listen to Imus until about 12-13 years ago. (I think I stopped because I grew up.) I'm surprised that it took this long for this fossil to get called out on racist remarks. He was saying this kind of Pferdkaese 15 years ago.

What makes it different now is that Imus has revivied his show via an incestuous relationship with PMSNBC. His show is broadcast on the cable network and many NBC news figures appear on it. He is now more than a comedian.

Only the government can censor. According to the Radio Equalizer (whom is doing great blogging about Imus here), what's going to do Imus in is the marketplace. Advertisers are already pulling out. Will his good liberal NBC guests still come on his show when he gets back from suspension?

One clown (Imus) begging forgiveness from another clown (Revvum Al) while a third clown (Revvum Jesse) pickets the PMSNBC studios.

No job is worth debasing yourself before Al Sharpton.

Thank God Churchill's not around to see this

Being one who served but was never in harm's way, I was reluctant to comment on the Brit marines & sailor's fortnight at Mamoud's. That is until they decided to cash in. Retired Marine Major Michael McBride put it best:

It is hard to imagine that those Sailors and Marines are derived from the same lineage as those who defended Roarke’s Drift, battled the Luftwaffe over London, or manned the HMS Sheffield.

I am also a bit surprised that one's honor goes as cheap as £250,000 these days. Had I allowed myself to be paraded around by an abject terrorist, with a smile on my face, and with my Persian goody-bag, I’d be looking for a rock, under a boulder, in a cave, in the far corners of Death Valley under which to hide, and hoping no one recognized me…I wouldn't be hawking my "story" of shame and recalcitrance. Their performance when threatened smacks of inadequate training, and irresolute individual will…to sell that, shameful.

Lastly we should be leery of those pushing our participation in coalitions when the Brits don't have the courage to fire off a few rounds against the Iranian puppet masters, we are truly in a position where we may have the only combat forces left in the world.

Warriors fight…get a helmet and fire your rifle.

Read the rest here.

Really, can you imagine McCain, Stockdale and the other POWs getting off the plane from Hanoi carrying swag bags?

We have a winner

The caption contest is finished, by virtue of (a) having no more new entries; (b) remembering what I was supposed to be doing on Tuesday. Great entries, too. Here are your top three:

• Bronze - Cullen: "You see, Abe, I eat planets. So, no, I can't just eat the slave owners. Tell you what, just for you, I'll give you guys another hundred years."
• Silver - the Judge, Rob Going: "Look! Our American Cousin's playing at Ford's Theater tonight!"
• Gold - newcomer Jeff of Sepiamoons.com: "Three words, Abe - Hostess Fruit Pies."

That just kills me. Anyone who read enough comics in the seventies will remember ads like this one. If only Tony Stark had remembered the good old days, when evil was thwarted with a few well-placed snacks, Cap would still be alive.

It didn't even have to be pies: click this picture for a closer look at hardened crooks dropping sacks of money and jewels mid-heist to gobble pastries. It's brilliantly cracked. (Bonus points for Peter Parker sewing up the annual "Suddenly Clark Excuses Himself Award" by saying that, in the middle of a brazen daytime robbery, he "just remembered something" - he HAD to have him some week-old preservative-packed baked goods.)

The crook couldn't help himself, and neither could Petey. You think people won't believe that? They can accept without question that somehow, while ducking out for a snack, Pete still got awesome eye-level pictures of Spider-Man hanging upside down from a forty-foot ceiling. Trust me, the Hostess thing is no stretch. We're lucky that MJ and the guard didn't join the scramble.

So there's your winner. Rob takes second for making me duck and cover under my desk, waiting for the skies to open on me for laughing at his caption; and Cullen sneaks through a crowded field to show.

Until next time, true believers - excelsior!

Fudge

Bob Clark has gone to his major award, too soon. His son was killed with him, which makes it twice as awful.

Frickin' unlicensed drunk driving can just FTFO.

X-Men 7, Dolphins 0

I've heard of a guy getting faked out of his shoes, and I've heard of a guy simply getting run over. But you've got to be good to go right through a guy - literally:



And that's not the only issue the guy has with the game, as you can see from a list of his postings. The Chancellor has not found retirement to be very relaxing...

Some people still think it's April first

As Mr. Leghorn was wont to say, I'm cutting but he ain't bleeding.

Listen, it's nothing personal, Ken - I simply have high confidence that going below the fold on either of those posts will result in piercing eye pain and huge therapy bills. I can barely afford this blog as it is, and it's free.

Just sayin', is all.

Safe Terrorists

Sorry I haven’t posted in a while, my boss is actually trying to make me earn my paycheck and I still haven’t figured out how to post from my home computer, but here goes:

You Jersey dwellers may have already caught this one about the Burlington High hostage drill and the choice of fake terrorists that they will never face:

Two Burlington Township police detectives portrayed the gunmen. Investigators described them as members of a right-wing fundamentalist group called the “New Crusaders” who don't believe in separation of church and state. The mock gunmen went to the school seeking justice because the daughter of one had been expelled for praying before class.

All over this story we are told how realistic this drill was. Except for maybe the hypothetical terrorists. It isn't just the desire not to offend, but the school had to choose bad guys from a group that would not put the school at risk if offended.

We have this same problem in Tampa, where the media kissed CAIR’s tush.

80s music is creepy

We all knew this, of course. Sting’s lyrics could occupy us for several weeks, if we wished:

“Peeking through your windows
Hiding in your bushes
Intercepting your mail
I’ll be watching you…”

Today’s focus is on the lesser known Wang Chung. If you’ve seen the Blender/VH-1 “50 Crappy-Assest Songs” (or whatever they called it), then you’re familiar with their hit record “Everybody Have Fun Tonight,” which was so horrible that it sank all the way to #3 on the countdown, and the hosts spent about 25 minutes crushing it.

They covered the strange video, where they filmed each of the singers doing the chorus and then spliced them together, frame by frame, in Nausea-Vision; they mentioned that, for a party song, the singers were awfully somber. Of course, they mentioned the weird lyric – “Everybody wang chung tonight.” But they never mentioned the oddest thing about it: we are repeatedly urged to wang chung during the song; we are never told how. One of the backup singers, fed up about two-thirds through the song, even asks, “Does anyone know what a wang chung is?” He’s so confused he doesn’t even know if it’s a verb or a noun.

In other words, the band is insisting we perform an act that they themselves cannot define – but they’ve named themselves after the term anyway.

All this is more felt than heard upon a casual listen, but it’s there, wearying the mind and nagging the soul; part of the reason, I suppose, that I always preferred “Dance Hall Days.” Not that it was ever a great song. “Come Dancing” blows it right out of the water, and then floats the pieces just to have the fun of sinking them, one by one. But it wasn’t played into the ground like many other 80s hits, and it had that pretty synth bit at the beginning of the chorus, so I always had a little smile for the tune.

Picked it up on an 80s compilation the other day, and popped it into the best sound system I own – my car – and paid more attention this time. First verse was odd, but oh well… and then came the second verse:

“Take your baby by the hair
Pull her closer, there there there.”

…uh…

“Then take your baby by the ears
And play upon her darkest fears…”

…the hell?!??!

Yup, that’s what they say. Apparently “wang chung” means “psychological torment.” THEY NAMED THE BAND THIS. (The name “Sadist Minstrels” must have been taken.) And at the end we’re told, “You need her and she needs you.”

What the blazes kind of a relationship is this? Did they hear “Wrapped Around My Finger” and decide that it didn’t go far enough? I mean, the rest of the song is more bizarre than anything else – in her mouth, an amethyst?? – but this is off-the-charts. It’s like the guys sat around and said to themselves, “We need a good, romantic wife-beating ballad. Let’s take this Russian novel and set it to that leftover Spandau Ballet riff you’ve been fooling with.” The album must have been called “You Make Me Hit You.”

I’m deleting from the shuffle… and backing… slowly… away.

Warning - high explosives

Pro athletes are usually not as nimble off the field as they are on it. Then there's Michael Ray Richardson.

Before Tuesdays game against the Yakima Sun Kings, Richardson made anti-Semitic comments to two reporters in his office when discussing the contract general manager Jim Coyne had offered him Monday to coach his team in the CBA and USBL.

Not that Richardson is the 'tread carefully' type, but to trip headlong on the third rail? And then to go back and stomp on it repeatedly?

"I've got big-time lawyers," Richardson said, according to the Times Union. "I've got big-time Jew lawyers."

Oh, my...

When told by the reporters that the comment could be offensive to people because it plays to the stereotype that Jews are crafty and shrewd, he responded with, "Are you kidding me? They are. They've got the best security system in the world. Have you ever been to an airport in Tel Aviv? They're real crafty. Listen, they are hated all over the world, so they've got to be crafty."

First rule of holes - stop digging. Second rule - even if you think you have a point, you can't usually go back and make it after a great honking blow-up like this. Just stop, retract, and come back around later. If you have this kind of a gift for putting things the worst possible way, it's better just to stop and retract, and let other people handle the media.

And he continued, "They got a lot of power in this world, you know what I mean?" he said. "Which I think is great. I don't think there's nothing wrong with it. If you look in most professional sports, they're run by Jewish people. If you look at a lot of most successful corporations and stuff, more businesses, they're run by Jewish. It's not a knock, but they are some crafty people."

At this point, saying "there's nothing wrong with it, I think it's great, they're very successful" is useless. The reporters were almost certainly slack-jawed, eyes widening in horror. This is like thinking it's OK to jump from the top of the Chrysler Building because you're aiming for the sofa cushion you dumped out on the sidewalk.

Richardson is going to be sacked, for certain, which is itself a shame. He'd turned himself around and gotten free of the cocaine habit that derailed his NBA playing career. (Note to all you kids out there: drugs mess up your brain.) Since I have no blogging "career" to speak of, I'm going to go ahead and try to get around this delicately.

Richardson was stereotypical, sure as shooting. "Insulting" is accurate, "clumsy" a definite. He was asked absolutely nothing about race, so his decision to bring it into the discussion is truly bizarre - the biggest indication that it's anti-Semitism in play. Whatever he may have meant to say, he missed the mark, unless the mark was his own keister, in which case, bullseye. His "they've got a lot of power" line was straight out of the Cliff's Notes to World Conspiracies.

Here's the question - if he had been asked about race, and sipmly replied, "I admire anyone who can do well for himself despite great hardship and opposition," and left it at that, would he be getting suspended and eventually fired? He could even make the case that he'd done the same thing by kicking his coke jones, and we'd have had an uplifting human interest story instead of a spectacular self-immolation. There's the barest scrap of a hint of that sort of statement deep under all the insane crap he did say.

Against this, there's the half-apologetic, "Not that there's anything wrong with that," which is often what people toss out after leaving the impression that they DO think something's wrong with it. The article also mentions that he'd spat out a Coulterism at a heckler, which should have already gotten him a pink slip - insulting the paying customers is bad for business.

Oh - and I love the statement his team made afterward:

"The Albany Patroons' organization sincerely apologizes to any individuals or ethnic groups that these alleged statements may have offended," the statement read. [in part]

Alleged? Two witnesses, likely an audio recording - nothing alleged here, guys. He straight-out said it. How about, "Coach is good at basketball, and bad at thinking. He realizes that he just insulted a good majority of the country. He's sorry about that. So are we. We're considering our options." And he is sorry. He says in his own statement, "[The suspension] is terrible and I don't think it's fair... But I want to make an apology if I offended anyone because that's not me."

In other words, it's possible that all he sees in himself is that scrap of compliment, and thus he can't see why he should be punished for what (in his mind) is mere clumsiness. The larger picture - that his words amounted to, "Jews are pretty good people even if they are Jewish" - is entirely lost on him. All speculation is moot. He's toast and he deserves it, but I can't help but have a little sadness for the guy, that he could be so completely blind to how he sounded and what he meant.

The get well caption contest

update, bump - first off, you guys rule. The word went out from this time and place... uh, sorry. Wrong President. Just chalk it up as another one of those weird parallels. Where was I? Ah, yes, you rule. These captions are a riot.

Second, I'm glad to report that the Invincible Super-Mom is OK - if by "OK" you mean

According to the doctors, there was no permanent damage, and the fact that she drove herself to the emergency room--stopping to get gas on the way, in an almost freakout-inducing incident of Old Lady Toughness--worked out well, as it kept her from suffering a major heart attack within the next few months.

The emphasis is in the original. When I said "Invincible Super-Mom" I had no idea. One of his commenters asked if she crashed through the hospital wall on a rocket-bike, guns blazing.

Chris Sims' Mom = Awesome. Chris Sims' Mom doesn't suffer heart attacks, she destroys them. Chris Sims' Mom wrecks cholesterol's face. We ought to just run a caption contest about her, instead of for her.

Fans of Chris Sims will be sad to hear that the Invincible Super-Mom has had a heart attack. Her prognosis is good, but it obviously means that Chris will take a break from the awesome while he handles important matters.

This is when the fans have to step up, and so I snitched the following picture from the ISB to run a caption contest - to fill the gap a little bit, and to give Chris a smile as a thank-you for months of fun. (Among his many gifts, he is the King of the Alt Tag.) So, you tell me - what do you think Galactus, Devourer of Worlds, and our 16th President are discussing down there?



"See that gap? I'd totally fit next to you on Mount Rushmore. It would even be actual size."

Do better than me in the comments!

(Photo is a Chris Sims original, used here with permission)

Bringing people together

There are some great things about blogging...

1. Anyone can do it. You literally need no money at all. While I was computer-free for a time, I went to the library and updated... All it takes is the willingness to find something to say.
2. It rewards merit and perseverance. You may not wind up at ESPN like Simmons, or with freelance work like many others. You may not get book deals out of it like James Lileks. But people will read and respond, sometimes from the unlikeliest places.
3. Connections. I have a small chain of friends around the country based simply on all of us reading each others' stuff. These are people I'd never have a chance to "meet" otherwise. (And there are a few I've met in person.)
4. It polices itself. A lot of people suspect blogging because one can say anything, never use one's real name (ahem, NIGHTFLY), and never reply to anyone who objects to things one says. I respectfully submit that this is much less of a problem than some people think - primarily because most people are not idiots. They can tell pretty quickly when someone is a troll or a loser or writes nothing worth reading. Such people wind up posting in a vacuum, and the only hits on their page are spammers and their own updates.
5. Truth in Personality. Noms de blog aside, a person's real character comes out. Often what will happen is that a person will leave behind all the everyday fakery employed in day-to-day, face-to-face interaction and be much more honest behind the keyboard. You may pass someone on the street and think one thing, and then think something entirely different when reading what and how that person posts - free of the instant assumptions one makes based on dress, gender, skin, and demeanor.
6. Variety. There are blogs about everything. Blogs exclusively devoted to crochet, and various religions, and a particular sport, and comics blogs, and game blogs, and blogs by pro athletes who play and develop games... There and photoblogs, essay blogs, blogs about politics, blogs about hiking and biking, and even a blog about smashing bad sportswriting. Which brings me to...
7. The quality of the opposition. Said blog about smashing bad sportswriting clued me in to this hatchet job by Dan Shaughnessy of the Boston Globe, who has taken to moonlighting as a bad comedy writer. He must not be familiar with blogs at all if he thinks that it's all syncophant geeks who have lived in their parents' basement for 37 years. I know at least one blogger who was on his own at 17. I know parents that blog, kids that blog. Just bookmark this blog, and then click "next blog" on the sidebar and skip around for the variety. (I do want you to be able to come back easily.)

Mr. Shaughnessy, were he clever, could point out that his hatchet job was brought to light by a blog that more or less specializes in hatcheting other people's writing. I, being cleverer, will point out that his hatchet job was published in a nationally-respected sports section for millions to see, and was specifically aimed at a star pitcher in his own city who will be in the Hall of Fame after he retires. Getting mad at FJM for noticing is to be angry for them for buying and reading the column, which is presumably why it was written and published.

The clincher, though, is that so many "different" mainstream writers, such as Shaughnessy, Kathleen Parker, and even George Will have been slagging blogs... all these diverse individuals saying nearly the same thing, while the supposedly monolithic pajama-clad nerd herd have a million different topics, and no real need to be the be-all, end-all voice in any one of them.

(PS - the target of Dan "Curse of the Bambino" Shaughnessy wrote thus: "First they ignore you, then they mock you, then they fight you, then you win." As the man says, Gandhi is one guy you don't want to mess with.)

The Holy Shamoley

Because, really, there's little else holy about it. From Teflon of Molten Thought*, a cautionary tale about -Ianity without Christ (and a much better title than the one you see here).

Every time I share a tale about something like this, I'm met with a warning "not to judge." In the sense that I am forbidden to say that I'm going to heaven and any of these folks aren't - absolutely. But in the sense that of the two of us, one may be getting more help - of course I can. In fact, I have to, in order to put myself in the position to get as much help as I can toward heaven, because Word has it that it's not easy to get there. Simple, yes; blessedly simple. It's simple to fly, too, as Douglas Adams reminds us: Throw yourself at the ground and miss. That doesn't make success any easier.

In this case, the trouble isn't really with any one thing. Praising God with contemporary song? Not bad in itself; even done badly (as it often is) it can be a help to some people. A down-to-earth pastor**? Good for him. Friendly milling about? My own Roman Catholic parish has the friendly milling down perfectly.

Now, add them all together, and one gets the impression that the whole affair lacks focus; that following Jesus involves nothing in the way of sacrifice or penitence or even basic solemnity. Not all solemn things are unhappy, you know. The key in Teflon's post is here: "The choir director was allowed to exalt God one more time with a hymn..."

Eureka. If you want to know what worship is about, that's it: we exalt the Lord our God. People don't like to do that, which is why churches in general have traditionally been solemn and serious places; to remind us visibly of the importance of being a congregation that belongs to Christ. Anyone will tell you that the lesson we hate most is usually the one we need to keep coming back to - in this case, every Sunday at least. We don't do this to make Him like us, but to express our gratitude that He already loved us, and died for us while we were yet His enemies.

It's certainly possible that a person at home in the First Reformed Comfy Couch for Believers is holier than I am. (To quote CS Lewis, for his sake I hope he is.) But it's possibly certain that this atmosphere is an obstacle to the faith, because it spits out the hard bits and leaves behind the mush. It's quite easy to come to think of Jesus as a buddy and thus as a helpful extra or a refined taste for well-rounded people, rather than as the Savior of the world. Or to put it another way - if you're really convinced that mankind is fallen and needs to be ransomed from evil, who would you trust to be capable of it: hand-holding, head-tilting Jesus, or table-flipping, storm-rebuking Jesus?

To go further, I don't think that the hand-holding Jesus makes much sense at all without the table-flipping. There's been no shortage of people willing to pat us on the head and say, "There, there, it's OK and so are you." There is a decided shortage of people willing to smack us on the rumpus and say, "It's not OK, but you can still do it if you're willing to get back up and keep going." Comforting only makes sense if one is first un-comfortable.

As the Man himself said, Test the spirits to know if they are true - and in this test we see that exclusive hand-holding is a loser. We do this stuff all the time to our kids nowadays. They can't play overly physical sports because someone may fall down go boom. They can't keep score because losing is disappointing and sad. They can't play pickup games and thus they never learn how to work out their own problems. They can't play cowboys and indians because it's culturally mean, nor cops and robbers because guns are wrong, whether or not it's the robber shooting children or the cops shooting the robbers to stop them.

Sure, kids did feel bad when they lost, and when the winners rubbed their noses in it. But the lesson came when strong role models told them not to do that if they won the next time, and taught them how to honestly deal with disappointment. And when they did win, it was sweeter because it was earned honestly, and not given to them in the spirit of "fairness." (In fact, in this sense "fairness" is dishonest, because it unfairly confers a reward on failure and slacking, making them equal to success and diligence.) The alternative is to never be able to cope with failure, making one whiny and miserable all one's life.

Losing is, in fact, a true life lesson - one learns that others are superior in all sorts of skills and contests, and one can (given healthy guidance) remember to be happy for what one actually is, instead of resenting what one is not, and indulging a grievance against the world for exceeding one's own capacity. Think of the mess if everything was like that - a Vonnegutian nightmare where the best medicine, symphonies, cuisine, engineering, athletics, etc. were no better than what any one average person could accomplish on their own. It would be a terrible world if nobody in it could sing or cook or paint better than I could. We want and need people to be vastly better than us in some areas, and it's better for all concerned if neither we nor they were made to feel guilty about it.

So what does this have to do with church? Simply put, what people are trying to do to all of us, they've first tried to do to Christ - He is infinitely better than every last one of us in the one thing that really matters - He is perfect, sinless, God-made-man. If we do not have ANY acknowledgement of this, then the news that He is also our friend loses all its impact. The Methodists that Teflon describes, in focusing exclusively on the friend part of things, lose the power of that revelation. God Incarnate cares and decided to use His might to free us from bondage; in fact, the only possible way that it could work is if He is in fact the Son of God as well as the Son of Man. Lose that grandeur, and you lose everything else. Fail to come to grips with our own failure, through sin, and one can scarcely grasp the Good News that even this can be remedied. Lent comes before Easter for a reason.

*I have GOT to get these guys onto the sidebar before too much longer.
** Pastor "Honky Cat." Heheheheheheh.

Sold-out Gold

I watched a little television today. Maxwell House used the old Madness song "Our House" to sell their coffee. The rewritten lyrics were dreadful, which simply added to the insult. Maxwell House is in the doghouse as far as I'm concerned.

Some random stuff

» The thing with work is that it’s not just one major project, but all the other small stuff that has to go on while the project is running. I have to do so many niggling tasks that I feel like the rest of the staff are working harder than I am. It’s a mental block more than anything else; got loads done yesterday all by myself – not coincidentally, felt like a million bucks.

» Nobody uses their turn signals. I’m convinced there must be a rash of thefts of turn signal sticks. Seriously, some prankster is jimmying open car doors and just yanking them right out of the steering columns. It’s the only rational explanation.

» Back on 2/28 I wrote: “I’m cautiously optimistic. Just typing that probably ripped Rick DiPietro’s ACL or something, but I can’t help it.” I should have helped it. The Isles started losing important games to teams trying to catch them in the standings, and then lost DiPietro, their starting goalie, to a neck injury. He sat tonight while the Isles got clobbered in Ottawa. I think the last team I rooted for that had any success was the ’86 Mets.

» On a related note – one of hockey’s many “unwritten rules” is that you don’t run other teams’ goalies. As a result, goalies don’t really get bodychecked, but they still get contact. If you hassle a keeper you may distract him enough to score, or get him to slash at you and take a penalty. If you just run him over (and make it look like an opponent pushed you) you may put him out of the game. I don’t think it’s intentional, as in, “Gee, let’s hurt the goalie,” but in the back of the mind there’s the thought – “he’s playing well, let’s rough him up and rattle him a bit.” In this case, DiPietro had come way out of his net to beat a forward to a loose puck, so he was more exposed than usual; again, this happens. Steve Begin didn’t clobber him on purpose; but neither did he dive out of the way or anything. It’s all part of the game; and no, I’m not calling sour grapes here. I could use Dwayne Roloson’s injury during the ’06 Finals as a good example as well. Coaches tell guys constantly, “You’ve got to get physical with these guys,” and “Go hard to the net,” and there isn't a magical switch in your head when, at a split-second's notice, an off-balance goalie is in your path.

I’ve been run my share of times, though thankfully I’ve never been hurt badly enough to leave a game. On my level, though, the temptation is worse, because most teams on my level don’t carry a backup at all. If the goalie goes down, they have to borrow a guy from another team or toss some gear on a non-goalie – thus losing two good players instead of one.

I’ve played for nearly every team in our league at least once along the way, and so have most of the goalies. As a result, no matter what happens in a game, the goalies always get along. As an example – I was playing defense one game when a scuffle broke out at the opponent’s net. Of course we all ran over. The other goalie saw me from the corner of his eye and actually wound up to clock me, but I said, “Steve, it’s me.” He instantly goes, “Oh – hi, Mike.” And then he clocked someone else.

» I picked Kansas to win the tournament. Jayhawks fans – I’m sorry.

» Shannon C of “I’m Seriously, Damn It!” spoke very kindly of me the other day – said that blogs like mine (and Tracey’s and Ricki’s) help her and that she reads regularly. This, of course, was two days after I wished for Mark Millar to be run over by Stan Lee in a Hoveround. (Irony 1, Christian Witness 0.) But still, my sincere thanks for the kind words; it keeps me going when I’m feeling blue. A word in season, how good it is!

» Speaking of which, this is an interesting reply to my Captain America rant. I think that KG and I disagree less than he supposes. I don’t think patriotism is obsolete at all; I just think that Mark Millar thinks it is. And having read my Lewis (in this case, The Four Loves), I am aware that blind patriotism has its dangers. I also think, however, that the ideal is necessary. Too many people talk as if blind patriotism invalidates all patriotism, as part of a general outlook that supposes that anything gone wrong means that it getting it right is impossible, and not much worth trying. To no-one’s surprise this means that people risk little, and aspire to no greatness of any kind - works, words, spirit, or virtue.

There’s a whole post related to this, just starting to percolate inside of me. For now I’ll just note that, for a society that likes to discount the Fall of Man, we do an awful lot of worrying about the fall of our principles.

Humping the Homeless for Fame and Fortune

The tent city homeless in St Pete are rejecting an offer of housing:

The city has been preparing to open a 90-day tent city on a vacant private lot so that people could move off the sidewalks near First Avenue N and 18th Street. At the end of 90 days, city officials say, they should be able to place residents in a more permanent setting, including a new shelter in Largo.
Though advocates initially agreed to the move, they now say it will not proceed without written protections.
Among them: The advocates and the homeless want equal say in how the camp is run. They also want to be able to bring new people into the tent city to replace people who are helped. And they don't want to be sent to the Largo shelter, to be built at the former site of the PSTA headquarters.

Let's review: (1) The homeless are rejecting an offer of housing from the city of St. Pete. (2) They want to keep the tent city permanent. (3) They want a say in how the tent city will be run.

Let's take (1) and (3) together. If you want to have a say in where you live I recommend getting off the malt liquor. I live in the hood in Tampa - please tell me that what I see with my own eyes is false and the majority of homeless don't have drug, booze and/or mental problems.

Now (2). The homeless advocates have learned the lessons of Revvums Al & Jesse, who have made their fortunes exploiting the suffering in the black community. The tent city needs to be permanent so that April Kellogg of FOX 13 News has a place to park her butt. These activists are humping the homeless to fame and fortune.

Damned right the Sisko is angry! I am damned sick and tired of my compassion being exploited!

If it weren't for updates, I wouldn't have no posts at all

Friends, I haven't given up - but life and work are just beating me about the head lately. In a good way. This means that I can lurk and toss a few comments, but actual posting continues to be light. I just don't want you to think I've forgotten (all eight of) you.

Good news

Just in: the NHL suspended Chris Simon indefinitely for clotheslining Ryan Hollweg in last night's Islander/Ranger game.

There's no place in the league for something like this, and I hope he's done for the year. The whole point of "policing yourself" breaks down if you don't have the maturity to handle it. And I know that many people see something like this as the logical extension of dropping the gloves, but I disagree. The truth is, dropping the gloves offers the opponent the chance to fight back. He may even win. In other words, it's the difference between a gentleman's duel and a mugging. I rather like that hockey permits the duel, and strictly punishes the mugging.

In fact, I'll go further and theorize that the duel helps prevent the mugging by putting accountability into the idea of protecting yourself and a teammates with a fight. You can't just do that all the time, because you will hurt your team, and you will become a target for others. It keeps things under control. Believe it or not, hockey isn't just a fight with skating, no matter what you saw in Slap Shot.

Bottom line is, if Simon thought that Hollweg was giving him a cheap shot, he can duke it out. Losing a fight is preferable to losing the respect of every player in the league and shaming your team by being a cretin. Besides, it's not like Simon's never gone a round in his career - look at the PIM (Penalties, in Minutes) for his career record. Nor has he ever reached 50 points in a season - the true mark of a grinder/enforcer. So drop the gloves and don't be an unprintable word in a family blog.

First rule - do not dispel

updated, March 9 - you know, the more I read about it the less I like it. It's actually making me angry at this point. Millar's on record as favoring the pro-registration guys, which means that he basically set up Captain America - the living embodiment of our patriotism - as the bad guy. To bring that home with a mjolnir-quality sledgehammer, he has Cap opposed by Manhattan emergency workers in the climax of the big fight, after which Patriotism quits: submits itself and eventually dies.

Now, I know full well that "death" is a completely malleable concept in the comics. But unless something HUGE comes along, the symbolism of this is inescapable: Millar is telling me that patriotism has no place in our world today, either real life or in our imagination as a herioc ideal to which we aspire. Inadvertently, he does get one thing right - when we submit to tyranny, we become slaves, and die. That's exactly why Cap would never have done it, and why the entire Civil War denoument and epilogue are a total load.

My dad was a huge comics fan.

He had an extensive collection and it would take quite a pile of dough to bring it all back together: old war comics like The Haunted Tank and Blackhawks, the original X-Men #1-150 (doubles of some), a great bunch of the early Spider-Man and Hulk comics, some Batman, some Thor, Nick Fury: Agent of SHIELD (in the classic Steranko days, when Fury fought, showered, ate, and made sweet love without ever putting out his cigar)... He had always wanted to break into the trade himself, and I believe he did briefly work at Marvel, though in what capacity I never learned - he had a photocopy of the pay stub on the wall of his studio.

It would kill him all over again to learn about this.

The big thing about Marvel was that, coming into the 60's, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby wanted to get away from the absurdities of 50s superhero comics and do some more socially relevant stuff. The genius lay in doing so without losing the essential tone of the comics: FUN. It remained a great, glowing, over-the-top world of two-fisted action, where people wore garish costumes in public - but which in many other ways was clearly recognizable as our world.

The X-Men and Spider-Man were perhaps Stan and Jack's finest achievement. These were teenagers suddenly shouldering great powers (and great responsibilities), and reacting the way teenagers often will: tempermentally. They would squabble, struggle, worry for their loved ones, and eventually prevail - only to be misunderstood and feared for their powers. And really, that's the universal thread of the teen years, isn't it? Every kid thinks nobody understands me, and the world's against me, and if they only knew my true abilities. These two titles recognized that every kid has a secret identity, and tapped into it.

Escapist? Yes. Still, it's worth recalling the Chestertonian quip that the people who worry most about escapism are jailers. These were rip-roaring yarns, but they also spoke to people - they took on social problems in a way that remained true to their internal logic, and addressed some universal human nature to boot. That's why they're still exciting now. That's what earned Marvel the moniker of "The House of Ideas." And that's what makes what happened to Cap all wrong.

Rewind a bit. The Ultimates line has been launched, repositioning Marvel's classic heroes by telling their origins (some of which are forty years old) all over again in the current day. It's not a bad idea, but they did so while losing the necessary distance from the real-day world to make it an escape. That's mistake number one. The first rule of storytelling, dating back to Homer and Aesop - do not dispel. Don't ground your story so literally that it can't take flight; the reader won't go anywhere.

Then came Civil War, the brainchild of editor-in-chief Joe Quesada and writer Mark Millar - a huge multi-title crossover involving all of the Marvel characters. The main plot is that the government gets fed up with superheroes wrecking stuff and orders all of them to register their powers and identities. Iron Man and Mr. Fantastic are on board; notably, Captain America is not. (This brilliant post from the Invicible Super-Blog sums things up.)

So, we get right back into that real world - but again, too deeply. It's like J Jonah Jameson wrote the comic: superheroes are a menace! Outlaw them all! More disturbing, it ignores a good deal of the strong characterization of everyone involved: Tony Stark hires supervillains to enforce the registration act? Really? And Peter Parker decides that, after hiding his identity since he was 15 so nobody kills Aunt May/Mary Jane/his pet rock, he's just going to call a press conference and blab away? And worst of all, Cap decides at the very end, after he's pretty much won the thing, that it wasn't worth it AND HE QUITS. (Great explanations thereof here.)

Captain !%&^% America does NOT QUIT. This is a man that punched Hitler in the face. This is a man who, when his arch nemesis launched a deadly rocket at Washington DC, hopped on the damn thing like Slim Pickens and brought it down in the Arctic at the apparent cost of his life. That's so frickin' awesome that it blew Chuck Norris' mind; now he's just laying down his mighty shield and giving up? That's pure bovine effluent - and we have yet to address his ignoble death.

Going down over the Atlantic while sabotaging several tons of Nazi vengeance is a worthy death for a superhero. Getting shot by a sniper while going to trial is hella weak. Um - Mark Millar - what frickin' possessed you to kill CAPTAIN AMERICA the same way Jack Ruby killed Lee Harvey Oswald? Are you blargin' insane, jackass? At least let him go out in style. Damn, it would be like Batman dying from bad shellfish.

It's just a craptastic end to a 66-year comic history, and it's a disservice to the character, disrespectful to the faithful readers, and an insult to the Mighty Marvel Manner. I hope Stan Lee runs you over in his Hoveround, Mark Millar. You suck.

Note to file

When food shopping on an evening of single-digit temperatures, it is unadvisable to forget a bag in the car overnight. Case in point:


There are a few bubbles, but most of that is ICE. Thanks be, I didn't leave anything edible in that bag.

Updated look

There are a few changes, mostly cosmetic - but despite the "We saved your old template" message, I am having a little trouble making sure that everyone's link is actually still there. I saved the darn thing myself to my hard drive just to make sure.

It looks like some folks are missing - and it looks like Blogger will not let me edit the template in its new "layout" page, nor let me correct the " that I used instead of ' when abbreviating. I also don't know how to re-add my sitemeter counter. I'm probably lucky I didn't lose everyone's comments, now that I think about it.

Well, more to come, I suppose. Like herding cats, I tell you...

Posted Without Comment (FOX News)

None needed:

Wednesday, February 28, 2007
LOS ANGELES —
These days, the rules of Madonna's household are more along the lines of "like a virgin" than "express yourself." The pop icon is getting a taste of her own medicine — from her 10-year-old daughter Lourdes — and finding that with motherhood comes prudishness.

In a grand twist of irony, Madonna — who posed nude for her "Sex" book, simulated a sex act on a water bottle in her "Truth and Dare" movie, passionately embraced an African-American Jesus in her "Like a Prayer" video and kissed Britney Spears at the MTV Video Music Awards — is having to tell Lourdes not to dress so provocatively, The New York Post's Page Six reports.

"My daughter is going through a phase of wearing jeans so tight she can't bend her knees in them," Madonna told British Elle, according to Page Six. "I have a go at her and say, 'Can't you wear something else? You have a closet full of clothes and you wear the same pants every day. ...
"'And please wear a belt because I don't want to see your butt crack when you bend over.'"

Other reports surfaced recently that the mother of three — who's married to British director Guy Ritchie — won't allow Lourdes to date until she's 18.

The singer better hope her "lucky stars" will align when she tries to impose that rule.

Alphablog

update - in italics, it looks like "YIN" instead of "Y/N" so I fixed it. It was pretty funny though. (I was tempted to change one random answer to "Yang" instead.)

This is a meme, scooped from the pixels of This Life. Heck, why not?

• Aprons (Y-N): I actually own an apron, but truth be told, I have absolutely no idea where it's gone. Back in my table-waiting days, I had two, which still smelled of week-old grease no matter how ruthlessly they were laundered.
• Baking (Favorite thing to bake): There are those infamous creme puffs I keep mentioning (but NOT cooking for Ms. Sister). Those are fun, but I've never made them on my own, only at Mom's house. I'm not ready to fly solo on the creme puffs. I do, however, have a great chocolate cake recipe, and have been known to cook the family lasagna. (Once I made a toaster-oven-sized lasagna in a loaf pan.)
• Clothesline (Y-N): 16 years of apartment living have pretty much ruled that out for me.
• Donuts: Mmmmmm... Donuts... When I do splurge, it's a coffee with one chocolate glazed and one toasted coconut. (Now that I'm about to wed, it's one chocolate glazed and one strawberry frosted.)
• Every Day (One homemaking thing you do every day): I'm beginning to think that single guys are going to be very bored filling out this meme.
• Freezer (Do you have a separate deep freeze?): No - but I do have a fun anecdote about my current freezer. I'm bunking with a college buddy until the Big Event; I began to wonder about him when I went into the freezer one day and found that all the ice cubes were about a quarter-inch thick. "Why such slender cubes?" I thought. "Why wouldn't you just fill the tray?" I had to use every last cubelet for my glass of whatever it was - then I refilled the tray for keeps - over the top like a man, so it would become all one cube when it froze. Then, just tonight, I went in there for some ice (it's been a few weeks) and darned if those cubes weren't fun-sized! They weren't slivers like last time, but still. So I asked about it and my buddy said, "Oh, we have a self-defrosting freezer. If you don't seal the cubes in something they sublimate." And we weren't doing this, why? Because we're single men and we use ice cubes once every lunar cycle, that's why.
• Garbage Disposal (Y-N): Yes. Surprising the difference it makes.
• Handbook (What is your favorite homemaking resource?): Carpentry for Dummies.
• Ironing (Love it or hate it?): Actually, I kind of like it. It's sort of relaxing, and I've finally learned how to avoid shiny streaks of charred thread along the seams.
• Junk drawer (Y-N) (Where?): Pretty much my whole room.
• Kitchen (Design and decorating): I find that I like the Ladybug's ideas on the subject and picking stuff out for the future has gone smoothly. It will be pastels, mostly.
• Love (What is your favorite part of homemaking?): The thought that I will actually have someone to make that home with.
• Mop (Y-N): Yes. Used? Ummmmmm...
• Nylons: No. I have no plans to pull a bank heist.
• Oven (Do you use the window or open the door to check?): If I don't open the door, I can't pay the delivery guy, now can I?
• Pizza (What do you put on yours?): Mushrooms, black olives, or sausage... But usually not more than one of them at once. After that, season with garlic and oregano to taste.
• Quiet (What do you do during the day when you get a quiet moment?): That depends on the moment. Right now, type this. Other times, I chat with my best girl, or read, or write the MOUS.
• Recipe card box (Y-N): I am addicted to the use of index cards for quick notes, lists, reminders, phone numbers, and such - but not for writing recipes.
• Style of house: To Be Determined.
• Tablecloths and napkins? Yes, yes they are.
• Under the kitchen sink (Organized or toxic wasteland?): Surprisingly organized.
• Vacuum (How many times per week?): Once; maybe every two weeks if I'm just not noticing. (There's guy clean, and then actually clean.)
• Wash (How many loads of laundry do you do in a week?): Two or three. My fiancee teases me about it sometimes. "You're always doing laundry when I call you!" She must think I wash stuff one sock at time.
• X's (Do you keep a daily list of things to do and cross them off?): Daily? No. I have my index cards, but I don't often use them for a to-do list. The formal To Do List usually only comes out on special occasions.
• Yard (Who does what?): The apartment complex hires guys to do the yard stuff. It's almost all pine trees around here so I don't really recall seeing them out with leaf blowers and etc, though I know that they had to have done it. Growing up, once I got old enough I was the primary lawn mower and leaf raker, so theoretically I remember how.
• Zzz's: If only. It's clicking past midnight out here. I have periodic fights with insomnia and it's one of my weeks right now.

If anyone else wants it, take it away - I have a strict No Tag policy, but you are free to participate of your own will.
...

Wait a minute, we have a GM?

Suddenly the Islanders look suspiciously like they know what they're doing.

It's amazing, actually. The Isles traded away Mike York and Alexei Zhitnik for Randy Robitaille and Freddy Meyer; then they traded recently for defenseman Marc-Andre Bergeron. They got younger, cheaper, deeper, and quicker. Then they used the money they saved to pick up Richard Zednik from Washington and Ryan Smyth from Edmonton.

Smyth was pricey - their first round pick this year, and two former first-round picks. One of those, Ryan O'Marra, looks solid to me and there's some risk to this long term, especially if the Isles can't sign Smyth to a deal at the end of the year. (It would be an awfully expensive rental.) But, for the first time in a dog's age, the Islanders actually made several trades that all built on each other. In fact, they had a plan. I haven't known what a plan looked like on Long Island since I moved to New Jersey 20 years ago. Seriously, it's like Bill Torrey is back in town.

I'm cautiously optimistic. Just typing that probably ripped Rick DiPietro's ACL or something, but I can't help it. We have a second center! TWO scoring lines, holy shamoley! And we got a guy who can be a leader and a focal point so Alexei Yashin can just play hockey, which he does best when people ignore him and let him play.

I found Jesus 23 years before Cameron did

But I didn’t find the whole family:

Archaeologists and biblical scholars have poured scorn on a Hollywood film director's sensational claim that he has discovered the coffin of Jesus Christ.
Oscar-winning 'Titanic' director James Cameron's assertion that the bones of Jesus and his family were hidden for centuries in a Jerusalem tomb caused an outcry in the Holy Land.

I know that Meredith Viera on the Today Show was downright moist over the idea that a pillar of Christianity was brought down. But since Meredith and Matt wouldn’t know the Gospel account if it jumped up and bit them auf Ihrem Po, they would not know the right questions to ask Mr. Cameron.

Let’s set aside the fact that the names are common Jewish names.

Let’s set aside the fact that these bones were discovered 27 years ago and rejected by scholars then.

Let’s also set aside the fact that a poor family from Nazareth wouldn’t be burying people in Jerusalem.

Let’s set aside the fact that DNA from these bones could prove the deceased were related, but unless the Holy Spirit is brought in to give a sample you cannot prove who they were.

Here’s my question. Jesus of Nazareth was a famous person; his burial would not be a secret. When his disciples started going on about Him raising from the dead, why didn’t Pilate or the Sanhedrin dig up His body and parade it through the streets of Jerusalem, thus ending this fairy tail in its infancy?

Corinthians 15:14
and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, your faith also is vain.

Today is a good day to blog

Today the Hive clicked past its 20,000th visitor since August of '05. We both would like to thank everyone for the patronage. I do have to apologize, however, for the one-sided posting lately. As you can see below, the Sisko has been shut out by New Blogger and has to post from the Mobile Command Unit.

I guess that makes me the Worf of this blog - which is apt, since I feel like throwing down with a bat'leth when I can't fix stuff like this. In any case, we'll think of a workaround for everyone who's been pining for the harder stuff around here.

At Least It Felt Good

The State of Virginia apologizes for slavery:

Meeting on the grounds of the former Confederate Capitol, the Virginia General Assembly voted unanimously Saturday to express "profound regret" for the state's role in slavery.

My dad once told me that if I did what the Virginia legislature did I would go blind. This was political masturbation: 70% of black babies will still be born out of wedlock, the lips and car stereos of black men will still be the only place I will hear the N-word; thugs and gangstas will still show up at the NBA All-Star Game (and be indistinguishable in appearance from NBA players) and Jamaal will still be drinking a 40-once (Old English 800 – it’s got your number!) on the corner of 140th Ave & 12th St in Tampa.

I once worked on a refrigeration unit in a food store in a black neighborhood. I was on the other side of the glass as I heard the shrieks of those who could not get cold malt liquor at noon on a Tuesday. Of course, I walked outside to see Karl Rove and Dick Cheney forcing a black man’s mouth open and pouring Colt 45 down it.

Sorry for this brief moment of insensitivity. Damned right the Sisko is angry!

It’s my computer. I can post at work but not at home.

Blog imitates life

Fresh from his release, the Cagey Mind returns to the Internet. Take that, ChiComs!
...

A long-fallow seed springs to life

Remember back in August when I ranted about the Transformers?

Well, neither did I. [badumdum] It was a fun way to blow off some steam and have a laugh - sort of like the laugh the producers had on everyone who shelled out their six bucks back in 1986. [rimshot]

Turns out that it's true what they say about "nothing goes away online." I actually got my first comment about that post, nearly six months later. I'm pretty sure that it's a put-on. If not, some poor kid is really taking me way too seriously. Dude - it's a cartoon movie about toys. You probably came up with better on Christmas morning, laying on your He-Man bedspread, making all the sound effects.

That doesn't mean I didn't enjoy it. It's hilariously bad, but I actually do own it, from the grand opening sequence right down to the abrupt closing credits. (No kidding - they just sort of launch into them right on top of the big finish, as if they're too embarrassed for that little fadeout: "It's finally over! But - for how long????" I've never seen credits pull a Blues Brothers getaway before.) I also own Weird Al's UHF, the non-MST3K version of Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, and an old VHS copy of The Mole People.

In short, there are many meats in our cultural stew. I enjoy them clean, sober, and hat-free. I won't insult your tastes if you don't insult mine. Just next time, you may want to read a little further than the post you got by googling "Orson Welles + Big Toy."