Enough of this

Well... out with it.

This blog has been very rewarding.  It would have to be to keep at it for almost six years.  This is post number 1650, of which I've done maybe a level thousand, and there's a number of those that I can be proud of.  I think that over the next few weeks I will be searching through and finding the best of those to save... but sadly, I think that's all I've got right now.

Those few of you who dig my hockey stuff can find it at Lighthouse Hockey, an Islanders message board/group blog/clearinghouse of all things puck.  I post there as "mikb" since my blog name was taken when I signed up.

The rest?

I'm sorry.  I'm fried.  I look at this thing, and I fiddle-faddle with the template, and I save links to write posts about, or jot down thoughts, and it never goes anywhere.  It doesn't seem worth the bother anymore.  I have no jump left.

It's a pity.  According to a recent spate of spam comments, my blog is (at turns) captivating, wondrous, remarkable, powerful, striking, irresistable (my blog meter begs to differ), super, great, fine, excellent, exciting, inquisitive, unusual, awesome, charming (??), incredible, energizing (!!), prodigious, astonishing, unique (like the million other blogs the spambots sent the comment too), cool, fascinating, suitable (even the spammers damn with faint praise!), hot, and hype.  The main thing this blog is, though, is "fruitful" - with five faux commenters using that term, beating out "hot" and "fine" who had four each.

It was amusing to watch a thesaurus explode all over my comments section, but not worth the trouble to erase fifty-plus links to fake refinancing companies.  (Although with times the way they are, maybe that's the only way they can afford to advertise now.)

Y'all will see me here and there.  I like visiting everyone and commenting and such.  Probably sooner or later I'll be back writing my own stuff, too.  I hope noboby will mind if I send around an email when that happens.  And you have my email: nightflymail -AT- gmail -DOT- com.  Don't be a stranger.

Where's Harriet Nelson when you need her?

When I saw this.

The Department of Justice is seeking to hire linguists fluent in Ebonics to help monitor, translate, and transcribe the secretly recorded conversations of subjects of narcotics investigations, according to federal records.

I thought of this.

The Rays maybe took me too seriously

I was only kidding when I wrote this, but now I think maybe I should get royalties from Tampa.  Last week they were held to one hit (or less) for the fifth time this season.  It's a record for the most times that's happened to any team since 1920.

You have read this correctly - not the 2003 Tigers, not the 1988 Orioles (losers of 21 straight to start the year), not the 1962 Mets... the 2010 Rays stand alone in the liveball era.

How's your changeup looking these days, Spider?

Remember what Mom said...

...about talking to strangers.


Owners of a mall in Roseville don’t like strangers speaking to each other, unless it is about commercial enterprises in the mall, and penned rules prohibiting strangers from conversing.

The rules forbid peaceful, consensual, spontaneous conversations between strangers about any topic not commercially related to the Westfield Galleria mall. According to the rules, an application for third party access must be filled out and approved prior to engaging in a conversation.

After a 27-year-old pastor filed a lawsuit against the mall seeking monetary damages for false imprisonment, assault, battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligence, malicious prosecution, and a general violation of his civil rights after he was arrested for speaking to strangers, the Third District Court of Appeals ruled the mall’s policies are unconstitutional.

Matthew Snatchko refused to stop talking with three strangers who had agreed to talk to him about subjects that included his faith.

A security officer ordered Snatchko to stop talking to the strangers or to take the conversation outside. The security officer made a citizen’s arrest, handcuffed the youth pastor and turned him over to Roseville police.

Mr Snatchko was not harassing anyone, the strangers agreed to talk to him. Even a California court couldn't back this rule.

The Pervs of Polk County

Polk County is 20 miles east of Tampa, and they have these stings all the time.

More than a dozen men from across central Florida walked into a trap set by the Polk County Sheriff's Office.

The men are now charged with attempting to have sex with girls aged 14 and younger, some as young as 8 years old.

Investigators say a Davenport home was the rendezvous point arranged online to catch the 15 men.

You would think that prospective pervs would know enough to stay out of Polk County, but being an addict myself I can understand the power of the Jones. It looks like at least one of the accused had his wits about him:

One of the arrestees, Ray Damon of Dunedin, told reporters that investigators misread his intentions.

"I never said I was going to do anything with or to the daughter. I told the woman what she wanted to hear so she would invite me here because I wanted to hook up with her mom. But I didn't say was going to do anything to the daughter in specifics, or with her or anything..."

And a little surprise:

The Sheriff said one of his detectives got quite a surprise during the operation when he knocked on a door to find a man who reportedly coaches a Little League team that the detective's son plays on.

I have come to the conclusion that I would be the world's worst parent. No computer in your bedroom - it's in a common area. And I know all your passwords. And if I am in a generous mood you will get a cellphone that cannot take or receive pics or video. And if you behave I may even feed you and let you sleep in a bed.

NY Times sportswriters have too much time on their hands

Racial bias down the baselines.

The bean-counters have struck again-- this time in the sports pages. Two New York Times sport writers have discovered that baseball coaches from minority groups are found more often coaching at first base than at third base. Moreover, third-base coaches become managers more often than first-base coaches.

Thank God for the NY Times! I have been watching baseball for over 40 years and I never noticed this. One would assume since I am a tea-bagging racist bent out of shape because the president's black I would be aware that whitey rules the third base coaches box.

Then again MLB's bean counters are just as bad. Carl Crawford of the Rays (and the left fielder for the 2011 Yankees) is considered black. David Ortiz of the Bosox isn't. I know kids, he looks black, but in racial accounting his name goes into the Hispanic column.

Which brings us to an amusing story from Eric Gregg's autobiography Working the Plate about his days working winter ball in the Dominican back in the early 1970's. Rico Carty comes out to argue a call and calls Gregg the N-word. Gregg laughs and says, "You're blacker than I am!" Carty replies, "Yeah, but I'm Spanish".

Back to these NY Times sportswriters. If you are watching baseball and you notice the skin color of the base coaches, you don't live on the same planet with the rest of us. And you wonder why your industry is dying.

A couple of things

Hey all.

I'm pleased to welcome three newcomers to Ye Olde Sidebarre: Professor Mondo, the Clue Batting Cage, and Lighthouse Hockey.

The third of these sites may be interesting to future students in Professor Ag²-zuRç-Œz♣ƒo≡♫'s elective on Obscure Blogging in the Terran Early-21st Century, since it's the first time I've been hired by someone else to write stuff.  Pay = zero, but when I die, on my deathbed, I will receive total consciousness.  In the meantime, you all receive blessed freedom from my occasional hockey posts, since they will usually take place over there now.  (You still get to enjoy my split infinitives.)  I'll link those posts here, but the casual visitor will be spared the in-depth demonstration of my niche amusements.

My thanks to Professor M and philmon for their good writing, and for Dominik the Lighthouse Keeper for the opportunity to do more of what I love.  It's a great community of fans over there, the comment threads are friendly and smart, a lot of fun, and it's great to have the chance to be a part of it.  My normal nom de blog was already taken, so you'll find me posting there as "mikb" - you know, because I'm creative like that.

I can watch football in Sunday night again.

Kief lost his weekend gig.

This is not letting me cut-and-paste. NBC had no comment whether or not Olberman being a race-baiting SOB was a reason for letting him go. I don't care about the reason, but now I can watch Football Night in America and keep my dinner down.

My dog only eats the socks

This dog made like Avis, and tried harder.

According to a bizarre story reported in The Grand Rapids Press, Kiko smelled an infection in his owner's right big toe and set about "amputating" it. Which in doggie terms, of course, means he ate it.

Kind of puts things in perspective, hm?  But how does a man have a toe gnawed off without noticing it?

... Kiko's owner, Jerry Douthett of Rockford, Mich., lay passed-out drunk in his bed.

That will do it.

Douthett actually had type 2 diabetes and was suffering from a dangerous infection in his big toe. ... Douthett's wife, Rosee, a registered nurse, had actually suspected her husband had diabetes and insisted he get checked out. But before he did so, he had a few beers. And then a few margaritas. After that, he went home, passed out, and Kiko got to work.

When you have diabetes, one of the sillier things you can do is ignore it in favor of knocking down some cold ones.  I believe the fancy medical term for this is "contraindication," which is doctor speak for "ARE YOU FREAKING NUTS?!!??!"

If you choose to drink alcohol, only drink it occasionally and when your diabetes and blood sugar level are well-controlled. ... Beer and sweet wine contain carbohydrates and may raise blood sugar. ... Do not drink more than two drinks of alcohol in a one-day period. ... Avoid "sugary" mixed drinks, sweet wines, or cordials.

This guy's lucky his nose wasn't infected.

I know what you're thinking

You've had a few, but you're fine. You had more to drink last Saturday, and you made it home okay. You even joked about opening the car door and feeling your way home with your foot. Just crank up the AC and the radio to keep you alert and drive about 10 miles under the limit and you will be fine.

Really, you will.

She says she is, but she isn't

Shirley Sherrod told the National Association of Black Journalists that she was planning to sue Andrew Breitbart for posting that video clip that gave the impression that she hated whitey.

She is not going to sue Andrew Breitbart. When she does get around to talking to a lawyer, she will be told of a 1964 Supreme Court decision called NY Times Co. v. Sullivan. This ruling set very high standards for a public figure to sue for libel. A good example of how this ruling works today is the National Enquirer-style tabloids (George Bush is drinking again! Oprah is on her deathbed! John Edwards cheated on his wife! - wait, that last one is true.) get away with publishing absolute fiction.

What would make this worth the price of admission is when Breitbart's lawyer gets Sherrod under oath during discovery. The more Sherrod appeared on cable the week after her firing, the more apparent it became that she does hate whitey. Which is why she wasn't on any of the Sunday news shows. After her performance on CNN the media didn't want to give her any more rope.

Why I didn't renew my subscription to the Tampa Tribune.

My two weeks without Internet access at home was eye-opening. Without cable for Fox News, I was totally in the dark when it came to national news.

Local news also has blind spots as well. When was the last time your local news did a story on drug and alcohol abuse among the homeless? When was the last time your local news had a story which portrayed minorities as being racist?

For example, a Google search would show that the only Tampa Bay news organization which covered this was the local FOX affiliate. Do you think that if it were a local mosque or black church that got vandalized like this would only be covered by one station and none of the two newspapers? How many news decisions are made influenced by fear of the NAALCP and La Raza?

I already had a dim view of the Trib for ignoring this story. The day after I was lucky enough to see the vandalism story on Channel 13 I got my renewal notice from the Trib. And that day's Trib missing this story. I chose not to renew.

The NAALCP has already designated me a tea-bagging racist. I may as well speak my mind.

C'mon, don't be so lazy about it

Cara Ellison wrote a post a whiles back about scientists who were positing parallel universes, based on quantum physics.  The wild gue... er, theory, was that the extraordinarily minute effects observed in the microscopic level could be scaled up to larger objects, and viola!  Head on down to your TARDIS dealer and get away from it all.

Even if this is eventually viable as a technology, it would take a loooooooong time.  By then we may be mature enough as a species not to care to revisit our collective terrible twos, any more than you wish to go back and revisit your potty training days.  What's fun as a creative device may go a long way to ruining real life; it's probably for the best that nobody actually has super-powers when they're cutting off other drivers on the highway or getting into tiffs about whose leaves are on whose lawns.

Still, the funny comments drifting into that thread months after the fact suggest that there could be a lighter side to this traveling back in time.

There are plenty of physic scientists out there proving the parallel universes theory.
Have you ever dreamed of something that does not exist on this planet? If so where did the idea come from?
Have you ever dreamed of a looking for your sister, when in this world you have no sister?
Look at all your dreams closely and wonder where the adventures you have never experienced are coming from.

The thought that anyone on This Side may have original thought, imagination, inspiration, or creativity?  Pah!  And that is what I mean by "lazy."  Take ownership of your own thoughts, guys.  It wasn't "parallel me" any more than "the devil made me do it."  It was you.  You did it.  You agreed with Parallel You, who is right now trying to explain to Parallel Family and Coworkers that it wasn't Parallel's fault at all, see, it was YOURS.  You naughty person.  Circular logic is entertaining and all, but sooner or later, someone started to spin that wheel.

Then there was this, a month after the above, three and a half months after the original post:

And we are light energy with free will , our souls are time machines with no ending and no beginning

after death go to another parallel
no reason to stay

Either ee cummings really did go to another parallel (and forgot how to write poetry when he got there), or this is nonsense on stilts.  If there's no reason to stay, why is there a reason to go?  When you get there, what's different?  Ideas floating over to you from Parallel Person?  The upshot of this is really just another dodge, right?  We're all floating light energy with no reason to stay, going to another place.  So what are you going to do in THIS place to make it a little more pleasant for your fellow floaties?  With no reason to stay, there's no reason to take any sort of constructive action.

Heck, even Yoda thinks this is a cop-out:  "This one a long time have I watched. All his life has he looked away... to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where he was! Hmm? What he was doing! Hmph."

Have a little gumption - own your behavior, own your thoughts, own your life NOW.  It counts.

Many a little makes a mickle

I swapped the comments out for a third party system to kill spam.  It worked, but it also really hurt the commenting.  So I suppose it's not too terrible that, after switching back, 17 of my last 19 comments have been spam?

Tinkering leads to difficulty

So... as you can (hopefully) see, I rejiggered the template.  This has also sent the comments wonky.  I apologize, especially to Rob at Crab Apple Lane, because we just seemed to iron out the problem he was having with the third-party commenting system, and now said system has gone bye-bye.  Until I figure out what's going on, I've enabled the old Blogger comments system, with word verification.

In the interim, I already got about a dozen spam I had to delete.  That was the big plus of the third-party system: spam was rigorously smoten.  Here, not so much, probably not even with the word verify.  I don't want to moderate, on the off chance that a conversation threatens to break out around here, so I will just deal with the spam on a slice-by-slice basis, and leave well enough alone otherwise.

Hah! The Internets says I are geeeenyus righter!

I took the first three paragraphs of an actual finished story that I wrote from beginning to end, all by my own lonesome, and I stuck it in a thingy on the Web that computes the skill of the writing that is contained therein.  And these results were mine:

I write like
Vladimir Nabokov

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

Dialogue?  Yeah, I gotta try some dialogue.  The results:

I write like
David Foster Wallace

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

You see that? I are teh awsum. Burn thine inferior printed materials and harken unto this blog!

The Nightfly: Algorithm approved since Monday afternoon!

So what if I'm not appreciated? You know who else wasn't appreciated? HERMAN F'K'N MELLVILLE, that's who. And I can do action sequences, too.

I write like
Dan Brown

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

MUA-Hahahahaa...aa....  ...  Awwwwwwwww.

Via Spleenville.

Anchorwoman

The new Miss Florida plans to study broadcast journalism and business. When announcing this, the Tampa Fox affiliate anchor remarked that this girl could be after her job.

Nerissa Prest seems to know one factor that helped her get her job. This caused me to remember the short-lived FOX series "Anchorwoman", which lasted only one episode and was roundly criticised because it hit too close to home.

I need to confess my own sin. I watch the morning traffic reports and I don't even own a car.

Monday Morning Colonoscopy

The procedure wasn't too bad, it was the preparation. I was pooping for two days. Since I was stranded at home I was able to watch an episode of the old Daniel Boone TV show where Daniel and Mingo go to Florida. One of the Seminole was Leonard Nimoy. Mingo (who went to Oxford, btw) was nearly fed to gators.

Where was I? Oh, the VA hospital had a waiting room where I sat in my hospital gown with a sugar IV (blood sugar was low - maybe because I hadn't eaten solid food in a day and a half.)

When I got to the examination room I laid on my left side and they gave me the juice. As an old wino, I was a little concerned that I was going to like it too much and start craving Oxycotin like Rush or Al Gore's kid. I didn't feel anything, except that thing all the way up inside me, but I didn't care.

Michael Jackson and I are the same age. He had a private doctor and I am being cared for by the VA. Which of us is making out better?

Posting @ work.

Snippets and snarks

* Newly-finished: a soundtrack for the Sudden Yurt Commune.  I'll be working on the insert over the next couple of days.  Any of you Yurters want a copy, please email me - nightflymail AT gmail DOT com - with a mailing address.

* Hey, one of the SYC-OST songs is playing on the iPod right now.  Sweet.

* It is currently 92°, with 85% humidity, about to storm.  This is an improvement over last week, when it was 103°, with 174% humidity, and always five minutes away from a huge rainstorm that never came.

* I've played tournaments outdoors, in the bright strong sun; on painted concrete surfaces that baked like parking lots, where you could see heat waves at the far end of the rink; I've played as many as four hour-long games in a night; I've reffed for nine straight hours each day of a weekend tournament... but I have never been as beat as at the end of my one game last week, indoors no less, during the absolute depths of the hideous oppressive weather.  The heat from under my gear felt like an open oven door.  I could feel my pulse in my neck and ears.  It was brutal.  If there had been an overtime I don't think I could have finished it.  I felt like a crayon melting in a closed car.

* I am holding an hour-long press-conference/ego-stroke/circus/charity fundraiser on ESPN tonight at 9 pm Eastern, to announce my decision about what to do with this blog.

* Speaking of which, the Miami Heat announced a free-agent deal with LeBron's former Cleveland teammate, Zydrunas Ilgauskas.  I thought he left Cleveland because they surrounded him with bad teammates?

* Today someone at work brought in donuts for everyone.  This happens about once a month or so, for no particular reason, on no set schedule, just because.  My coworkers are pretty darned cool.

* I have too good a life to be so pissy lately.

* A few months ago I was walking the Official Dog, and an orange tabby decided to trot over, tail high, to make friends.

Since then Catfriend pops around every week or so and he hangs out with the pupperkins.  She wags, he purrs.  Pupperkins must think he's the strangest-smelling dog ever, but they're buddies - unlike the day last week when a lady on a horse walked through the neighborhood.  (We have a sizable park near the house and folks will sometimes ride there.)  The Official Dog was freaked about that a little.  I kept her close to me, across the street, so she wouldn't spook the horse.

* If Ladybug wasn't allergic, I'd consider getting the pupperkins a catfriend of her very own at home.  I have always been a cat lover.  She'll have to make do with her eleven dozen toys, various snacks and treats, mild Internet fame, and the single attention of her two owners.

* There's a four-lane divided highway about a mile from our house; people enjoy making illegal lefts onto and occasionally off of said highway, despite no fewer than five signs forbidding the practice.  You'd think that you couldn't miss such instructions, nor all the helpful people honking incessantly at you, or the friendly pointing to the signs with one finger.  You'd be in error.  It's amazing that there aren't more wrecks at that intersection.

* Last night was baseball's All-Star Game, out in Anaheim.  Both leagues trotted out an assortment of pitchers who threw 95+ mph: Justin Verlander, Josh Johnson, Matt Thornton, Jose Valverde, Brian Wilson, Jonathon Broxton.  Not surprisingly, there was a dearth of scoring.  The AL's only run came off a walk, error, and sac fly.  Dodger pitcher Hong-Chih Kuo (who was dealing in the high-90's himself) helped this immensely by fielding a dibbler in front of the mound, throwing off his back foot, and airmailing it 20 feet above his first baseman's head.  Every New York Giants fan watching immediately said, "Hey - Eli Manning's in the game!"

* The NL won on a late bases-loaded double by Braves catcher Paul McCann.  They wasted a great early opportunity when Verlander struck out Ryan Braun on a pitch down the middle of the opposing batter's box.  This thing would have been wide of a soccer net.  Every New York Mets fan watching immediately said, "Hey, I thought Jeff Francoeur didn't make the All-Star Game this year!"

* Brian Wilson and Corey Hart were NL teammates.  Now THAT would be a weird musical collaboration.

* Paperwork.  Always with the paperwork.  I close my eyes and see these forms floating around, demanding to be properly catalogued and compiled.  My subconscious has turned into a flash drive.

* Mmmmmmmm...... coffee.......

*In three weeks I will have been married three years.  Wild.

* I love fonts.  Thus, I love Blambot.

* The Mother of Unfinishable Stories goes slowly in any font.  I've been writing others.  As they begin to bog down, I think that switching back to the MOUS may help get everything moving again.  I hope so, because I am enjoying the adventures of the characters in the series and would like not to have that stall permanently.

* Love you all.

Wasting away again in Blogaritaville

Lately it's so much simpler to just comment everywhere rather than cook up content on my own steam.  I have no steam right now.  I am steamless, sans steam, free of motive power... all I have is my thesaurus and the blahs.

Now, somebody claims that there's someone else to blame, but I know this is my own fault.  The Hive no longer buzzes as it once did.  I did a little research about it... we've had 1600+ posts now in the nearly six years I started.  In my two solo years I stuck up a respectable 433 posts, gained a happy little readership, and met some friends along the way.  Many more of you I haven't met, of course, but I feel like I know you from all the posting and commenting that I've been involved in.  It's wonderfully rewarding.

Naturally, as I've had a co-blogger my own output has declined.*  (Then I went and married, too, and all that real life cuts into your time for important stuff.)  But I was still surprised to see how far into the minority my posting has gone.  Roughly three out of every five posts you see will be the Spider's, and that's held for a good stretch now.  Not that I complain - far the reverse.  If he hadn't been firing off a dozen at a stretch here and there, this place would have dandelions growing out of the cracks in the template.  Nor is this a backhanded plea for him to pick things up.  Again, the reverse - I feel a little guilty that it falls to him so often.

* I found some amusement during the researching... Spider joined on 9/28/2006... and inside of a week (10/4/2006 to be exact) he was posting, "Charlie Crist thinks I'm an idiot."  Heheheheheheh.  He also called Palin as VP ahead of the fact too.

So, what is this emo whinging, anyway?

I'm not focused enough.  I'm blogging about blogging more than I blog... and when I do find myself with something to say, few people seem interested.  That's my own fault, of course.  Write boring stuff and get well-earned yawns; I should rename this place "White Noise and Muzak."  It frustrates me to be substandard after doing this so long.  Not that I blog to say "I get x number of hits a day, I'm so important and brilliant!" but any writer wants to interest readers, and if I don't do that I am a failed writer.  That annoys me. 

I also like being in conversations.  I can go places and find vibrant conversations and chime in, or sit in the virtual corner and listen, and be a part of something better than myself.  But lately I seem incapable of giving others a welcome forum for the same thing.  Something about the Hive has been putting people off and I want to figure it out and fix it.  On occasion, it's nice to yell along with folks, but you should never feel yelled at.

This requires some thought.