That's me and my wife doing the international symbol for a handjob on a church bus at the Steve Poltz show in Chicago. Anyone with access to San Diego should not miss him with the Rugburns on New Years Eve. New post below, too.
Impious since 2006
Dec 29, 2006
Look who is on a fan site
That's me and my wife doing the international symbol for a handjob on a church bus at the Steve Poltz show in Chicago. Anyone with access to San Diego should not miss him with the Rugburns on New Years Eve. New post below, too.
B-BOY: Album 2006
I recently received an email from a loyal reader of this Blasphemes site, Killre. In part the email read,
Well, I had a few questions. Who is this clown-hat and what makes him so god damned special? These are the kinds of questions I ask myself constantly by the way. I always felt I should be a detective due to my style of in depth questions and fantastical usage of the Google search engine. So I was off to find out about Will Kimbrough
First step, who is this clown-hat? This is an important first step. One cannot make too many judgements for themselves lest they be tricked into liking a less than stellar performer. What do I mean? Well, let's say you are a tremendous fan of Living La Vida Loca, your whole existence for the last few days has been jamming to that song. Then you find out Ricky Martin was a member of Menudo!! Yipes! Now you either have to give Menudo a chance or come up with a 'why he is so talented' argument for your giggling friends. You may not live it down. I had a friend Wally that got into Olympic figure skating. Never lived it down. As a detective of Rock, you must be aware of these things.
Seems our friend Mr Kimbrough is an accomplished guitar player. So good, in fact, that he has had an issue starting his own career because he is constantly supporting the less talented but more famous musicians. (I am looking at you Jimmy Buffet). Facts here.
OK, good start. Nothing to be worried or horrified of. Next, what makes him so goddamned special? Well, many reviewers bring up his guitar prowess and song writing abilities. Sounds good to me, a fan of Tom Waits, Steve Earle, Steve Poltz, and the Clash.
So what have I learned so far? Not to be afraid of digging something bad or embarrassing. In another post someday I will tell you about my brief love affair with TLC. So far, so good. Next step for Detective F, get the album. I subscribe to emusic and they have it. Bingo! I burn it to disc and listen to it in my car for around a week straight. It is important when you are a Rock Detective to listen to the album more than a few times. You don't want to second guess yourself. I actually did not like Rain Dogs a whole bunch the first time I heard it. For the past two decades it has been a top four album of mine. Well, this album, like a fine hat, just got better.
Americanitis starts off with "I Lie" a lazy, country-like ditty that will have you swaying and rolling and enjoying a wee touch of the finger pick before you start singing along. "I lie / Why? / Because I can / It is the pleasure and the privilege / of the richest people in this land." The sarcasm runs thick giving this groove a slight hint of papaya and honey. Most bands would have tried to get more people to pay attention to the lyrics but Will is just enjoying the ride. This, in turn, allows me to enjoy it a little more and longer myself.
The next few songs take us through a variety of styles and topics. "Life" is a straight up rocker ("I want to be a better man / but I got a short attention span") and "Grown Up Now" is a plucky old time folk singer type of song that turns out to be straight pop by the end. Seems Will was drinking and watching Scooby-Doo until after 29. "Pride" gives us a talking piece. Reminiscent of Steve Earle's "Warrior" Kimbrough talks us through the aspects of Pride that some may have forgotten with such grace and artistry that many of our politicians should directly quote it in their quest to be the sellout-in-chief. Asking when pride got taken off the list of deadly sins, WK suggests some actual reading of Jesus (and Johnny Cash).
Next is "Less Polite" quoted above by Killre as his anthem of Blasphemes is a leisurely stroll some thoughts that he is no longer going to bottle. i won't bore you a track by track review but I did want to point out that this is a politically charged album with many different types of music layered throughout. The production is superb. I think that trimming three or four songs off of it would have made it perfect. A few I had made listen to this agreed. the problem was we all wanted different songs trimmed.
My wife actually wanted "Warring Ways" trimmed. I think it is one of the best gospelish songs I have heard since Ween's "Up On The Hill"
I also very much enjoyed "Act Like Nothing's Wrong" a story song (complete with xylophone) about an executive (**cough**ENron**Cough) who gets caught and figures if he just acts like nothign is wrong all will be OK. "Act like nothing's wrong / Everything's just fine / Hold your head up high and act like / you don't really mind. / If you're terrified like me / Of terrorists and crime / Please take my advice / And act like nothing's wrong." Beautiful.
I give the album my Blasphemes - Best of the year. We will continue to argue about the theme song for this site.
"The artist's name is Will Kimbrough. I've never heard of him before, but then again, I don't really have my ear to the ground for new music. The title of the album is "Americanitis." It's on Daphne Records, which I have also never heard of before... probably with good reason.If you've ever heard of John Prine... It's like John Prine, lyrically, except that it hits harder. It's harder musically, too.I'd like to nominate the song "Less Polite" as the (un)Official Blasphemes Anthem.The refrain..."I'm tryin' to be less polite; I'm sayin' what I really think:The President's a fool, I don't wanna get up early and I wish I had a good, stiff drink.""
Well, I had a few questions. Who is this clown-hat and what makes him so god damned special? These are the kinds of questions I ask myself constantly by the way. I always felt I should be a detective due to my style of in depth questions and fantastical usage of the Google search engine. So I was off to find out about Will KimbroughFirst step, who is this clown-hat? This is an important first step. One cannot make too many judgements for themselves lest they be tricked into liking a less than stellar performer. What do I mean? Well, let's say you are a tremendous fan of Living La Vida Loca, your whole existence for the last few days has been jamming to that song. Then you find out Ricky Martin was a member of Menudo!! Yipes! Now you either have to give Menudo a chance or come up with a 'why he is so talented' argument for your giggling friends. You may not live it down. I had a friend Wally that got into Olympic figure skating. Never lived it down. As a detective of Rock, you must be aware of these things.
Seems our friend Mr Kimbrough is an accomplished guitar player. So good, in fact, that he has had an issue starting his own career because he is constantly supporting the less talented but more famous musicians. (I am looking at you Jimmy Buffet). Facts here.
OK, good start. Nothing to be worried or horrified of. Next, what makes him so goddamned special? Well, many reviewers bring up his guitar prowess and song writing abilities. Sounds good to me, a fan of Tom Waits, Steve Earle, Steve Poltz, and the Clash.
So what have I learned so far? Not to be afraid of digging something bad or embarrassing. In another post someday I will tell you about my brief love affair with TLC. So far, so good. Next step for Detective F, get the album. I subscribe to emusic and they have it. Bingo! I burn it to disc and listen to it in my car for around a week straight. It is important when you are a Rock Detective to listen to the album more than a few times. You don't want to second guess yourself. I actually did not like Rain Dogs a whole bunch the first time I heard it. For the past two decades it has been a top four album of mine. Well, this album, like a fine hat, just got better.
Americanitis starts off with "I Lie" a lazy, country-like ditty that will have you swaying and rolling and enjoying a wee touch of the finger pick before you start singing along. "I lie / Why? / Because I can / It is the pleasure and the privilege / of the richest people in this land." The sarcasm runs thick giving this groove a slight hint of papaya and honey. Most bands would have tried to get more people to pay attention to the lyrics but Will is just enjoying the ride. This, in turn, allows me to enjoy it a little more and longer myself.The next few songs take us through a variety of styles and topics. "Life" is a straight up rocker ("I want to be a better man / but I got a short attention span") and "Grown Up Now" is a plucky old time folk singer type of song that turns out to be straight pop by the end. Seems Will was drinking and watching Scooby-Doo until after 29. "Pride" gives us a talking piece. Reminiscent of Steve Earle's "Warrior" Kimbrough talks us through the aspects of Pride that some may have forgotten with such grace and artistry that many of our politicians should directly quote it in their quest to be the sellout-in-chief. Asking when pride got taken off the list of deadly sins, WK suggests some actual reading of Jesus (and Johnny Cash).
Next is "Less Polite" quoted above by Killre as his anthem of Blasphemes is a leisurely stroll some thoughts that he is no longer going to bottle. i won't bore you a track by track review but I did want to point out that this is a politically charged album with many different types of music layered throughout. The production is superb. I think that trimming three or four songs off of it would have made it perfect. A few I had made listen to this agreed. the problem was we all wanted different songs trimmed.
My wife actually wanted "Warring Ways" trimmed. I think it is one of the best gospelish songs I have heard since Ween's "Up On The Hill"
I also very much enjoyed "Act Like Nothing's Wrong" a story song (complete with xylophone) about an executive (**cough**ENron**Cough) who gets caught and figures if he just acts like nothign is wrong all will be OK. "Act like nothing's wrong / Everything's just fine / Hold your head up high and act like / you don't really mind. / If you're terrified like me / Of terrorists and crime / Please take my advice / And act like nothing's wrong." Beautiful.
I give the album my Blasphemes - Best of the year. We will continue to argue about the theme song for this site.
Dec 22, 2006
Ken Griffey Jr breaks wrist
...in what was apparently an off-field incident. No details were allowed by Griffey spokespeople, however unconfirmed eye witnesses claim it may have involved a grapefruit and a perhaps a weiner dog.
At least he did this in the off season this year, and didn't give the nice people of Cincinnati false hopes once again.
Ken Griffey is apparently more fragile than the leg lamp in A Christmas Story.
Rein It In, Dear
"Chrissmus!" he exclaimed, and he was off and running.
I felt my face scrunch itself into a perplexed frown. I raised my head from the bland salad that I'd been trying to commune with and slowly --oh, so slowly-- twisted my head up and to the left and to the side, corkscrewing the dull, pervasive ache in my neck into a sharper, more focused one. I did it again, this time to the right. It didn't help much. It never does.
The big guy six stools away from me was babbling on about Christmas, and how all it meant to him was money out of his pocket. Idly, I wondered who he was talking to. Maybe it was the cute little redhead I'd noticed when I'd walked in...
I had spent most of that morning and early afternoon picking up a load in Seattle, right down near the waterfront where the tugboat engines roar and roil the oiled rainbow of port water into a rippling foam, straining to nudge the giant container ships laden with goods from the Orient. I wasn't there, though, to pick up expensive electronics from Japan, nor some exotic, esoteric, intricately crafted, new age, ancient world, yin-yang doodad made by some East Asian artisan with centuries-worth of archaic wisdom and artistic discipline. Hell, I wasn't even there to pick up a truckload of something cheap and ordinary, shipped from some Walmart-supplying sweatshop. I was there to pick up recycled glass.
Actually, I was there to pick up a load of empty bottles made from recycled glass. Beverage makers --in this case, a group of wineries in California's Napa Valley-- don't make their own bottles, you see. They contract to have them (custom) made and labeled and then shipped to wherever they fill 'em and cap 'em-- or, in this case, cork 'em.
In retrospect, it probably wasn't as bad a day as I thought it was at the time. Between dragging my eighteen-wheeler from the freeway to the warehouse, and then dragging my very heavily-loaded eighteen wheeler from the warehouse to the corner and through six stoplights and up the sharp, steep on-ramp and onto the crowded, mad-dashing freeway... I figure I probably only [peed] off six or seven dozen people. It bothered me that I couldn't explain to any of them that I didn't like being there any more than they liked having me there, but that I had a job to do. What bothered me even more, though, was knowing that even if I had explained it to them, they still would have been [urinated].
By the time I'd reached the truckstop outside of Toledo, Washington, about a hundred miles to the south, I was tired and cranky and the muscles in my shoulders and neck were bunched tight and a dull throbbing had started in my temples. I wanted to take a nap in the worst way, but I knew I wouldn't be able to get to sleep when I was that keyed-up. I decided to try to relax a little over an early dinner, first.
The restaurant was a big, clean, airy room with booths, tables, and a diner-style counter at one end. For all I knew, the place would be packed in another couple of hours. Just then, though, as I walked in and paused and looked around, it was nearly empty. That suited me fine: I wasn't in any mood to deal with anybody. I didn't even want to deal with the cute redheaded waitress, who was almost certainly too young for me anyway. I took a stool at the end of the counter, facing the kitchen, my back toward the empty bulk of the room. It was about as far away from the few other patrons as I could get.
I asked for a drink and a menu from a brown-haired woman who acted like she was having a worse day than I was. She was trying real hard to be nice, though: When she brought the drink, she didn't throw it at me. I ordered something that came with a salad. I ordered it like I knew what I was doing, dammit, and she scribbled it down like she knew what she was doing, dammit, and if it had taken three seconds longer we probably would have bared our teeth and sprung at each other's windpipe.
When she brought my salad, she didn't throw that at me, either. Not exactly, anyway. It wasn't a bad salad, but it wasn't a good one, either. I picked up a fork and kind of stirred it around a little, then hunkered down and tried to enjoy it as best I could. The throbbing in my temples had spread to the rest of my head, and intensified. That's when the big guy six stools away suddenly started talking...
"Chrissmus! Huh! Don't talk to me about Chrissmus! All Chrissmus mean to me is money outta my pocket," and he was off and running.
I frowned, and raised my head. Carefully, I twisted my neck around a couple of times, but it didn't help much. It never does. Then I swiveled my stool and looked at the guy. He had a big, half-eaten plate of food in front of him, which he was ignoring. He sat half-slouched on his stool, talking steady and loud, looking at no-one in particular-- because there wasn't anybody there.
I swiveled some more and looked around the room. There were three waitresses on duty, I knew, but I could only see one of them. She was at the other end of the room, emptying one ketchup bottle into another. There were a couple of truckers, each of them in a booth by himself. Each wore a flannel shirt and a worn-out look. Each had a tall, well-used thermos standing on the table next to his plate of food. Neither was paying any attention to the guy who was talking about Christmas. The only other customers were a young, twenty-something couple at one of the tables by the window. They weren't paying attention, either.
For a moment, I thought maybe this guy was one of those people who converses out loud with people that they only imagine. I looked at him again, and found that he was now looking at me, still chattering away like it was the most natural thing in the world. He didn't look crazy. His expression was docile and honest, lucid and friendly. Oh, my God, I thought, it's a nightmare come true: He actually expects me to interact.
I felt my upper lip start to curl back to reveal a canine. With a conscious will, I stopped it. I didn't manage to stop the low growl that was threatening to choke me if I didn't let it out, but I don't think he noticed that. After that, for what seemed like a long time, I just stared at him, frowning in a way that was supposed to mean, Who the [rudeness] are you and why the [rudeness] are you bothering me? I don't think he noticed that, either. If he did, he didn't let it slow him down. Maybe he just thought I was concentrating.
I wasn't. I hardly heard a word of what he was saying. Something about his daughter wanting a new computer but she already had a computer but she wanted a new one and if he was going to get her a new one then he was going to get one for himself, too, because he was tired of spending money on everybody else...
I looked at my salad. I was still holding the fork, poised a few inches over the bowl. I took a deep breath, sighed, put it down. I picked up one of the cheap, paper napkins and wiped my mouth. Then I looked back at him.
Now the subject was his wife. I don't know what-all she'd said or done, this year or in the past, but I don't think he liked it. I know this not because I was listening, really, but by his overall tone. And by the way he suddenly ended his tirade: "...Maybe I buy me a new wife, too."
I didn't miss a beat. Briefly setting my jaw in that way that puts a little quirk in the corner of my mouth, I gave my head a couple of short, decisive shakes and said, "Rent one first-- see how ya like it."
Sudden explosion of laughter, four feet behind my ear. I snapped my head around, which didn't do my neck any good (it never does). The redhead had inadvertently sneaked up behind me. She'd been squatting down, quietly rummaging around in those shelves that every dining counter has, everywhere in the world, where they keep the extra condiments and napkins and a stray bussing basin or two. Now, though, she straightened up, still chuckling, twinkle in her eye. She leveled an index finger at me for emphasis and said, "That's kinda how my grandfather met his new wife!"
It's a good thing I'd held on to the napkin, because I needed it: My chin had dressing on it from where I'd dropped it in the salad.
------------------------------
These are the bare bones of the story she related...
It seems that the old boy had a friend who had sent away for one of those proverbial Russian mail-order brides. As the day of her arrival approached, the husband-to-be planned a big welcoming party. To heighten the suspense and the sense of pomp and circumstance, he chose to have one of his oldest and dearest friends --the redhead's grandfather-- pick the woman up at the train station and chauffeur her to the party where he --the husband-to-be, that is-- would make some sort of grand, well-groomed, expensively-dressed entrance, complete with shiny gift.
Needless to say, it didn't quite go the way he'd planned. Having someone else meet her at the train station turned out to be a bad idea.
------------------------------
P.S.... Bud "Happy Holly Daze" Selig must go.
I felt my face scrunch itself into a perplexed frown. I raised my head from the bland salad that I'd been trying to commune with and slowly --oh, so slowly-- twisted my head up and to the left and to the side, corkscrewing the dull, pervasive ache in my neck into a sharper, more focused one. I did it again, this time to the right. It didn't help much. It never does.
The big guy six stools away from me was babbling on about Christmas, and how all it meant to him was money out of his pocket. Idly, I wondered who he was talking to. Maybe it was the cute little redhead I'd noticed when I'd walked in...
I had spent most of that morning and early afternoon picking up a load in Seattle, right down near the waterfront where the tugboat engines roar and roil the oiled rainbow of port water into a rippling foam, straining to nudge the giant container ships laden with goods from the Orient. I wasn't there, though, to pick up expensive electronics from Japan, nor some exotic, esoteric, intricately crafted, new age, ancient world, yin-yang doodad made by some East Asian artisan with centuries-worth of archaic wisdom and artistic discipline. Hell, I wasn't even there to pick up a truckload of something cheap and ordinary, shipped from some Walmart-supplying sweatshop. I was there to pick up recycled glass.
Actually, I was there to pick up a load of empty bottles made from recycled glass. Beverage makers --in this case, a group of wineries in California's Napa Valley-- don't make their own bottles, you see. They contract to have them (custom) made and labeled and then shipped to wherever they fill 'em and cap 'em-- or, in this case, cork 'em.
In retrospect, it probably wasn't as bad a day as I thought it was at the time. Between dragging my eighteen-wheeler from the freeway to the warehouse, and then dragging my very heavily-loaded eighteen wheeler from the warehouse to the corner and through six stoplights and up the sharp, steep on-ramp and onto the crowded, mad-dashing freeway... I figure I probably only [peed] off six or seven dozen people. It bothered me that I couldn't explain to any of them that I didn't like being there any more than they liked having me there, but that I had a job to do. What bothered me even more, though, was knowing that even if I had explained it to them, they still would have been [urinated].
By the time I'd reached the truckstop outside of Toledo, Washington, about a hundred miles to the south, I was tired and cranky and the muscles in my shoulders and neck were bunched tight and a dull throbbing had started in my temples. I wanted to take a nap in the worst way, but I knew I wouldn't be able to get to sleep when I was that keyed-up. I decided to try to relax a little over an early dinner, first.
The restaurant was a big, clean, airy room with booths, tables, and a diner-style counter at one end. For all I knew, the place would be packed in another couple of hours. Just then, though, as I walked in and paused and looked around, it was nearly empty. That suited me fine: I wasn't in any mood to deal with anybody. I didn't even want to deal with the cute redheaded waitress, who was almost certainly too young for me anyway. I took a stool at the end of the counter, facing the kitchen, my back toward the empty bulk of the room. It was about as far away from the few other patrons as I could get.
I asked for a drink and a menu from a brown-haired woman who acted like she was having a worse day than I was. She was trying real hard to be nice, though: When she brought the drink, she didn't throw it at me. I ordered something that came with a salad. I ordered it like I knew what I was doing, dammit, and she scribbled it down like she knew what she was doing, dammit, and if it had taken three seconds longer we probably would have bared our teeth and sprung at each other's windpipe.
When she brought my salad, she didn't throw that at me, either. Not exactly, anyway. It wasn't a bad salad, but it wasn't a good one, either. I picked up a fork and kind of stirred it around a little, then hunkered down and tried to enjoy it as best I could. The throbbing in my temples had spread to the rest of my head, and intensified. That's when the big guy six stools away suddenly started talking...
"Chrissmus! Huh! Don't talk to me about Chrissmus! All Chrissmus mean to me is money outta my pocket," and he was off and running.
I frowned, and raised my head. Carefully, I twisted my neck around a couple of times, but it didn't help much. It never does. Then I swiveled my stool and looked at the guy. He had a big, half-eaten plate of food in front of him, which he was ignoring. He sat half-slouched on his stool, talking steady and loud, looking at no-one in particular-- because there wasn't anybody there.
I swiveled some more and looked around the room. There were three waitresses on duty, I knew, but I could only see one of them. She was at the other end of the room, emptying one ketchup bottle into another. There were a couple of truckers, each of them in a booth by himself. Each wore a flannel shirt and a worn-out look. Each had a tall, well-used thermos standing on the table next to his plate of food. Neither was paying any attention to the guy who was talking about Christmas. The only other customers were a young, twenty-something couple at one of the tables by the window. They weren't paying attention, either.
For a moment, I thought maybe this guy was one of those people who converses out loud with people that they only imagine. I looked at him again, and found that he was now looking at me, still chattering away like it was the most natural thing in the world. He didn't look crazy. His expression was docile and honest, lucid and friendly. Oh, my God, I thought, it's a nightmare come true: He actually expects me to interact.
I felt my upper lip start to curl back to reveal a canine. With a conscious will, I stopped it. I didn't manage to stop the low growl that was threatening to choke me if I didn't let it out, but I don't think he noticed that. After that, for what seemed like a long time, I just stared at him, frowning in a way that was supposed to mean, Who the [rudeness] are you and why the [rudeness] are you bothering me? I don't think he noticed that, either. If he did, he didn't let it slow him down. Maybe he just thought I was concentrating.
I wasn't. I hardly heard a word of what he was saying. Something about his daughter wanting a new computer but she already had a computer but she wanted a new one and if he was going to get her a new one then he was going to get one for himself, too, because he was tired of spending money on everybody else...
I looked at my salad. I was still holding the fork, poised a few inches over the bowl. I took a deep breath, sighed, put it down. I picked up one of the cheap, paper napkins and wiped my mouth. Then I looked back at him.
Now the subject was his wife. I don't know what-all she'd said or done, this year or in the past, but I don't think he liked it. I know this not because I was listening, really, but by his overall tone. And by the way he suddenly ended his tirade: "...Maybe I buy me a new wife, too."
I didn't miss a beat. Briefly setting my jaw in that way that puts a little quirk in the corner of my mouth, I gave my head a couple of short, decisive shakes and said, "Rent one first-- see how ya like it."
Sudden explosion of laughter, four feet behind my ear. I snapped my head around, which didn't do my neck any good (it never does). The redhead had inadvertently sneaked up behind me. She'd been squatting down, quietly rummaging around in those shelves that every dining counter has, everywhere in the world, where they keep the extra condiments and napkins and a stray bussing basin or two. Now, though, she straightened up, still chuckling, twinkle in her eye. She leveled an index finger at me for emphasis and said, "That's kinda how my grandfather met his new wife!"
It's a good thing I'd held on to the napkin, because I needed it: My chin had dressing on it from where I'd dropped it in the salad.
------------------------------
These are the bare bones of the story she related...
It seems that the old boy had a friend who had sent away for one of those proverbial Russian mail-order brides. As the day of her arrival approached, the husband-to-be planned a big welcoming party. To heighten the suspense and the sense of pomp and circumstance, he chose to have one of his oldest and dearest friends --the redhead's grandfather-- pick the woman up at the train station and chauffeur her to the party where he --the husband-to-be, that is-- would make some sort of grand, well-groomed, expensively-dressed entrance, complete with shiny gift.
Needless to say, it didn't quite go the way he'd planned. Having someone else meet her at the train station turned out to be a bad idea.
------------------------------
P.S.... Bud "Happy Holly Daze" Selig must go.
Dec 13, 2006
No more Spam!
We are now no longer a "Spam Blog." Hows about that?
Also, the President is now taking advice on how to proceed in Iraq. So send your suggestions to dumbass@whitehouse.com.
Also, the President is now taking advice on how to proceed in Iraq. So send your suggestions to dumbass@whitehouse.com.
Dec 6, 2006
Spam-a-lot
A few months ago, Killre and I noticed that we had to type in some funky letters-like thing like they make you do at Ticketmaster or something. oday, I finally figured out what it was: Blogger thinks we are a spam blog. What that is I am not sure but I bet it involves the link to Dictionary.com on the right so that we can all understand what Killre's up to. Which is ironic because Killre got confused by it and didn't post for a while.
Anyway, I fighting the powers that be. I am doing this by politely asking Blogger to take us off the Spam Blog List Thing™.
FREE THE BLOGGERS!!! (I call myself that now.*)
*Not really.
Anyway, I fighting the powers that be. I am doing this by politely asking Blogger to take us off the Spam Blog List Thing™.
FREE THE BLOGGERS!!! (I call myself that now.*)
*Not really.
TV, sweet, sweet TV
Recently, I have been watching very little television. There are exceptions, Bulls, Bears, and Survivor. But by and large, no TV. Then Sunday came. I was working on the computer when my wife turned the TV on to A and E. There is a show called "Intervention." Whoa! Good shit.
The show is broken down into segments. For 30-45 minutes we follow the poor sap around as they live their lives. Their lives usually involve them sleeping on park benches, hiding alcohol, drinking alcohol, finding alcohol, driving to alcohol, falling down / asleep, yelling, crying, and being generally miserable and making everyone around them miserable. Some of these folks are unbelievable and their families are saints.
The one I saw was a coke-head that had lost his house, furniture, belongings, car, etc. He was left with a bike and a few changes in clothes. He slept on a condo roof. He showered and changed there (and occasionally swam). He ate breakfast in a hotel where he had kept his room key from years ago and could still trick everyone into thinking he was still staying there. He would meet with friends and old business associates (he had lost his job) and pretend that nothing was wrong. And you know what? He pulled it off! est actor ever.
Anyway the next few minutes are the family/friends/(ex)spouses being bummed and talking to some interventionist guy. Then they trick the main character of the show into a hotel room and intervene. They cry, yell, and eventually get help.
Finally, you get to find out what is up since the intervention. Good times. For the record, Coke-head has been clean and sober for a few years and looks really good except for some funky bowl hair cut that he got. Cute dog, too.
As I claimed at the beginning of this post, I have been working and reading a lot (a full review of the full Dark Tower series in a few months) so maybe TV seems a little too good to me right now but damn! I loved that show.
P.S. Any interventions with me best not involve a camera or we will see how the interventionist deals with violence.
The show is broken down into segments. For 30-45 minutes we follow the poor sap around as they live their lives. Their lives usually involve them sleeping on park benches, hiding alcohol, drinking alcohol, finding alcohol, driving to alcohol, falling down / asleep, yelling, crying, and being generally miserable and making everyone around them miserable. Some of these folks are unbelievable and their families are saints.
The one I saw was a coke-head that had lost his house, furniture, belongings, car, etc. He was left with a bike and a few changes in clothes. He slept on a condo roof. He showered and changed there (and occasionally swam). He ate breakfast in a hotel where he had kept his room key from years ago and could still trick everyone into thinking he was still staying there. He would meet with friends and old business associates (he had lost his job) and pretend that nothing was wrong. And you know what? He pulled it off! est actor ever.
Anyway the next few minutes are the family/friends/(ex)spouses being bummed and talking to some interventionist guy. Then they trick the main character of the show into a hotel room and intervene. They cry, yell, and eventually get help.
Finally, you get to find out what is up since the intervention. Good times. For the record, Coke-head has been clean and sober for a few years and looks really good except for some funky bowl hair cut that he got. Cute dog, too.
As I claimed at the beginning of this post, I have been working and reading a lot (a full review of the full Dark Tower series in a few months) so maybe TV seems a little too good to me right now but damn! I loved that show.
P.S. Any interventions with me best not involve a camera or we will see how the interventionist deals with violence.
Dec 1, 2006
Selig plans to retire...
... in three years... boohahahaaaa!!!
(yes, he really is that evil)link to the story on MSNBC
Selig said he would prefer cutting back the schedule from 162 games to the old calendar of 154 games so that the playoff season does not threaten to spill over into November, but conceded that none of the owners agreed with him.
“I’m a fan of 154 games. I grew up with it,” Selig said. “I don’t want to play any games in November.”
--So now the question - who will replace him? I've heard murmors of George Wil here and there. That's quaint. I say Donald Rumsfeld! He's available! He doesn't like to sit down. He's a go-getter. A real whipper-snapper. He has a great resume too! He even knows the President!
Nov 30, 2006
Things I think about
- Who knew this award existed? I would love to be a judge of the Bad Sex Award . Here is the paragraph from the winning author. Just proves that even when sex is bad, it's good.
Judges were moved by Hollingshead's evocation of "a commotion of grunts and squeaks, flashing unconnected images and explosions of a million little particles." His description of "bulging trousers" sealed the win, the judges said.
- In an effort to help their team through some defensive woes, the Oakland Raiders have fired their offensive coordinator. They have replaced him with the (former) Bears own John Shoop. Nothing helps a struggling club quite like a 3 and 45 draw play.
- A few days ago was the Harvey Milk / George Moscone murder date (27th). I felt it necessary to recap in case you are ever charged for murder in CA and need a defense. 1979 - Dan White entered the SF City Hall and shot the two men. The lawyer then found jurors IN SAN FRAN who sympathized with a homophobic, overly-religious, conservative who believed in shooting people as a key to solving his issues. The lawyer, Martin Binder, successfully sold the jurors on the fact that Mr. White had eaten so much junk food (Twinkies and Coca-Cola specifically) that he became depressed. My parents never bought this argument as I was growing up but I leave it here for you. P.S. Dan White committed suicide in 1985.
- So the Vikings are mad that Rex Grossman talked trash after scoring a winning touchdown in week 3. I saw that game and luckily when Antwoine Winfield intercepted a pass and returned it for a TD he kept his trap shut. Sharper (the complainer) said that he is only playing this weekend because of the death ruling of Saddam Hussein. He is still mad about 9/11.
- Rumor is that the Cubs are on the verge of signing Julio Lugo. Howard and I find this to be good news. The Cubs will now lose 9-7 instead of 9-3. Good job.
- All you clowns talking about impeaching Bush. Give it up. Now. Seriously. President Cheney does not have the ring you think it has.
Nov 29, 2006
Writer's block? Try captioning!
"Hey, the sign says, "Yes." and that's what I plan to do."
After years of malapropisms, Karl Rove figures out that the cue cards have been facing him for 6 years.
"What are we doign in Iraq? Clearing brush."
Nov 22, 2006
Happy Thanksgiving
"Hey, you took all the meat.""Mash potatoes AND gravy? Mission accomplished!"
"It's time to put food on our children . . ."
Caption away!
Nov 21, 2006
Dime to a Dollar
Wagers I am willing to make:
- I bet that by giving the "strategery" in Iraq a new manly name with no substance behind it will not help the cause nor save one life. The "insiders" have come up with three: "Go Short," "Go Long," and "Go Home." I got one: "No Plan; No War." Maybe we should try that next time.
- I bet WR Jeff Samardzija must play his lilly white ass off this weekend if he every wants to be a champion. USC plays Notre Dame. ND has a chance (albeit a small one) to make it to the championship game. It will be his last chance. He was drafted by the Cubs.
- As offensive as it was I bet that Kramer is the first celebrity apology ever that did not contain the phrase, "I apologize to anyone I MAY HAVE offended." Nor did he claim he was drunk and just needed a touch of rehab. Nope. Just a straight-out ni**er-hater.
- I bet there had to be a time when conservatives were a respectable bunch. There had to be a time when they were all not a bunch of sore-loser cry-babies. How did all that spending of political capital go?
- I bet that if you play this game, you will want Tom to catch Jerry in that nifty mouse-trap you created. Just once.
- Saw "For Your Consideration" last Friday. I bet no one you meet that has seen it will consider it Chris Guests best nor worst film. But they will all have different favorite and least favorites.
Send all checks to:
One F
c/0 Blasphemes
Bowels, Hell
60666
Nov 19, 2006
Cubs for Sale... Lovely, Unwinning... Cubs for Sale
Buyers line up for possible bid to buy Cubs from Tribune Co.
CHICAGO (AP) -- A group of 15 investors is lining up financing that would allow it to purchase the Chicago Cubs if the team is put up for sale by its parent, Tribune Co.
Tom Begel, chairman of TMB Industries, said Thursday that he and other investors expect the team to be sold for up to $600 million.
Entire Story Here: LINK
The story of the boardroom drama inside the Tribue Co. has gotten to the point where offers and bids has been communicated to potential buyers - and external media.
Stay tuned, it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better.
CHICAGO (AP) -- A group of 15 investors is lining up financing that would allow it to purchase the Chicago Cubs if the team is put up for sale by its parent, Tribune Co.
Tom Begel, chairman of TMB Industries, said Thursday that he and other investors expect the team to be sold for up to $600 million.
Entire Story Here: LINK
The story of the boardroom drama inside the Tribue Co. has gotten to the point where offers and bids has been communicated to potential buyers - and external media.
Stay tuned, it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better.
Nov 14, 2006
Football Tuesday
With the excitement of the Bears - Giants game behind us, let's have a little informational fun. I am an NFL guy and this will reflect that. I will leave all college pontification to our dear leader Killre.
- The complete history of your favorite teams helmets. This is really cool. And a tremendous waste of time.
- Why the AFC's Colts should not get too happy. Assuming they recovered from that Pittsburgh loss.
- Need some Bears trivia? Not unless it involves the Honey Bears and Rocky.
- Does a Republican or Democratic President help the Buffalo Bills win? I say neither but here is the data. And they remembered their helmet.
- There were winners and champions in Wrigley throughout the 50's and 60's. And you thought the PLACE was unlucky.
- Longest run in NFL history? Look at the full bluff to TD video below.
Nov 9, 2006
Opening the Flood Gates
For the first time in 20 years I went to bed and slept soundly after an election. Every race that was important to me went or was going in the way that I was hoping it would. In the course of two short years gone were Delay, Santorum, Frist, Allen, and democracy-hating, vote manipulating J. Kenneth Blackwell. I may have been one of the few who tipped a cold one at a Secretary of State race (especially one in Ohio) but that was one cold, tasty sip.
The election had gone as many had anticipated. Many voting problems in god-forsaken Florida. Recounts in the House, offspring arrested (guess where?), and Keith Olbermann summing it all up for us while Colbert cries. I slept well Tuesday night.
When I dragged my slowed body out of bed Wednesday morning, my head pounding with memories of champagne and Pabst Blue Ribbon, I softly turned on my television to ensure that I did not misunderstand the results. I am not used to being on the winning end of any election or World Series. I focused my eyes in an attempt to read the ticker at the bottom of the screen. "Rumsfeld to resign." I whistled through my shower.
At lunch that day I had the fortune of watching Bush's reaction to the elections and announcing the resignation of Rumsfeld. Seems that we now need a "fresh set of eyes" on thiswar, uh, liberation we have gifted Iraq with for all the years of good network news that they have given us. Then it came. Sure as a leopard can change his spots and the Cubs can't lay off a first pitch, Bush nominates a sycophantic, intelligence-twisting, threat-enhancing career liar, uh, politician in charge. And dime to a dollar I bet no one remembers. I, however, watched Iran-Contra very carefully. (At the time I thought that selling weapons to radical Islamic Iran in exchange for hostages and money to Nicaraguan rebels was as bad as things could get.) I feel queasy and the drumming in my head returns as the name is announced . . .
Robert Gates.
That son of a bitch Robert Gates. I suppose Ollie North was busy with his ham radio gig. I won't bore you with a full Gates resume but I will bullet point some "nice to know" items. And with my fingers crossed and with God as my witness if the newly Democratic Congress rejects this crook, I will post an image of the three-toed dog.
If there is a God, he put the Dems in charge for one reason. To prevent this man from further harming us all.
The election had gone as many had anticipated. Many voting problems in god-forsaken Florida. Recounts in the House, offspring arrested (guess where?), and Keith Olbermann summing it all up for us while Colbert cries. I slept well Tuesday night.
When I dragged my slowed body out of bed Wednesday morning, my head pounding with memories of champagne and Pabst Blue Ribbon, I softly turned on my television to ensure that I did not misunderstand the results. I am not used to being on the winning end of any election or World Series. I focused my eyes in an attempt to read the ticker at the bottom of the screen. "Rumsfeld to resign." I whistled through my shower.
At lunch that day I had the fortune of watching Bush's reaction to the elections and announcing the resignation of Rumsfeld. Seems that we now need a "fresh set of eyes" on this
Robert Gates.
That son of a bitch Robert Gates. I suppose Ollie North was busy with his ham radio gig. I won't bore you with a full Gates resume but I will bullet point some "nice to know" items. And with my fingers crossed and with God as my witness if the newly Democratic Congress rejects this crook, I will post an image of the three-toed dog.
- Gates did some clever editing of intelligence reports in the 1980's to fit senior Reagan administrations "convictions." Among them, Russia was going to assassinate the Pope and Soviet agents were arming Marxist revolutionaries in order for them to carry out terrorist attacks.
- Helped Carolyn McGiffert Ekedahl rewrite a CIA analysis to "to suggest greater Soviet support for terrorism."
- Involved heavily in Iran-Contra
- Co-chaired the Council on Foreign Relations for relations to Iran whose main position was to allow them to work on Nuclear technology as long as they promised to use the technology only for peaceful means. This was 2004 BTW.
If there is a God, he put the Dems in charge for one reason. To prevent this man from further harming us all.
Nov 6, 2006
Hari-Kerry
First of all, before I telestrate the potentially game-breaking verbal fumble committed by the Great Wooden Chin, there's one other little piece of unpleasantness that I'd like to get out of the way. You couldn't be blamed, Dear Reader, for wondering why I would choose to even mention it here rather than elsewhere on this, uh, blog, uh, thingy. Likewise, you can't be blamed if you wonder about the ambiguity of my stated rationale...
Because of the symbolism, damn it.
*ahem*
Howard,
In the unlikely event that I "jump back on the goddamn bandwagon" anytime soon (go ahead and hold your breath for that, you low-level government lackey) and start rooting for the [Censored], [Unutterable], Bogus [Stool-samples] again, rest assured that I wouldn't be buying the number 33 jersey of left-hander Glendon Rusch. If I were to buy a jersey at all, it would be the numero 29 worn by that scrappy, switch-hitting outfielder, The Pagan Angel. If you're going to waste the government's time and the taxpayers' dollars spying on me, the least you could do is pay attention.
Besides, it's "God-damned bandwagon," you poser.
Now, then...
MEMORANDUM
From: Killre
To: Mr. John "Hari" Kerry, the, uh, steamed Senator from Mass-o'-two-[chetts] who, like a New England lobster, is cooked; Mr. John "Parry" Kerry, that brightly-painted wooden soldier with the tomahawk-chop arm and the magnificent, malleable mandible that really moves when he talks (oh, brother, does it ever!); Mr. John "Airy" Kerry, the very, very former Presidential candidate for the party of the big, parenthetical (D), which apparently stands for "Disorganized," or "Discombobulated," or maybe just "Defense," since that's the side of the ball they always seem to be on in that big, on-going political scrimmage inside the beltway, reacting a half-step too late to the latest ground-gobbling play sent in by the (R)-team's offensive coordinator, Karl Rove.
Re: Your fumble, sir.
To wit: Nice goin', putz.
Almost in spite of their own willy-nilliness, your team (such as it is) was actually holding its own in this year's Mid-term Bowl. For once, they actually had those big, bad, hypocritical (R)s backed up deep in their own territory... before your little choke-job, that is.
Those expensive shoes of yours must taste awfully good. Why else --in the name of all that is sacred and holy!-- why else would you utter these remarks in front of a phalanx of cameras and microphones and students at Pasadena City College...
"You know, education: If you make the most of it --if you study hard and you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart-- uh, you, you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq."
Whoa, lost the handle on the ball there, din'cha, Johnny-boy? Let's run that play again...
"Education: If you make the most of it and study hard and do your homework and make an effort ... you just might learn how to tell a [juxtaposing] joke!"
For that is what you called it, didn't you, oh, great, wooden and chinly one? A botched joke. A badly botched joke, intended to skewer the President by tying his questionable intellect to his questionable foreign policy. Not a bad idea... even if I do say so myself. But, as any coach will tell you, even the best-designed plays in the book can go horribly wrong when poorly executed.
Now, there are some people on your side of the field --Keith Olbermann and Bill Maher among them-- who have rushed vociferously to your defense, Johnny-boy, saying that your remark was taken out of context and that if one looks at the transcripts and the remarks leading up to it and takes the thing as a whole and crawls around inside your brain for awhile and blah, blah, blah, blah...
With all due respect to these defenders, I say, "Phooey."
They're reaching. Plain and simple, they are reaching too far to make your case for you. Don't get me wrong: I'm willing to believe you when you say it was a botched joked aimed at Bush. But their assertions that it wasn't even really all that badly botched is wishful thinking. Asking most Ordinary Citizens to conduct their own, personal, in-depth investigation into the subtle background and textured context of one careless remark is, frankly, asking too much. Most people don't have that kind of time... nor should they be expected to make it. They have better things to do than to try and figure out what you really meant.
The truth is, Mr. Hari, Airy, Tarry-too-long-on-the-National-Stage... the truth is that in this, the Era of the Sound Bite, you handed the opposing team a bit with which they promptly took a bite out of your [jackass]. And you deserved it. You ought to know better. After all, you're no rookie. Besides, gang-tackling somebody who verbally trips over their own feet and winds up with one of them in their mouth is precisely the sort of thing that everybody --including many Republicans and/or conservatives-- has been doing to a certain Smirking Marionette for six years, now. What's good for the Elephant is good for the Donkey, honky.
Now watch what happens, Mr. I Got Even Poorer Grades at Yale Than George W. Bush Did, when some no-name truck driver writes your joke for you. I can't guarantee that it'll be any funnier, but at least it won't sound like you're calling the troops that are dying halfway around the world --so that your party can win control of the House-- stupid.
"Y'know... Education: If you make the most of it --if you study hard and you do your homework and you make an effort-- you can do well. If you don't, you get us stuck in Iraq."
See what I did there?
------------------------------
Luckily for you, Johnny-boy, Ted Haggard is, uh, "playing for the other team," if you know what I mean.
------------------------------
P.S.... Bud "On Wisconsin, On Wisconsin,
Fight Right Through That Line" Selig must go.
Because of the symbolism, damn it.
*ahem*
Howard,
In the unlikely event that I "jump back on the goddamn bandwagon" anytime soon (go ahead and hold your breath for that, you low-level government lackey) and start rooting for the [Censored], [Unutterable], Bogus [Stool-samples] again, rest assured that I wouldn't be buying the number 33 jersey of left-hander Glendon Rusch. If I were to buy a jersey at all, it would be the numero 29 worn by that scrappy, switch-hitting outfielder, The Pagan Angel. If you're going to waste the government's time and the taxpayers' dollars spying on me, the least you could do is pay attention.
Besides, it's "God-damned bandwagon," you poser.
Now, then...
MEMORANDUM
From: Killre
To: Mr. John "Hari" Kerry, the, uh, steamed Senator from Mass-o'-two-[chetts] who, like a New England lobster, is cooked; Mr. John "Parry" Kerry, that brightly-painted wooden soldier with the tomahawk-chop arm and the magnificent, malleable mandible that really moves when he talks (oh, brother, does it ever!); Mr. John "Airy" Kerry, the very, very former Presidential candidate for the party of the big, parenthetical (D), which apparently stands for "Disorganized," or "Discombobulated," or maybe just "Defense," since that's the side of the ball they always seem to be on in that big, on-going political scrimmage inside the beltway, reacting a half-step too late to the latest ground-gobbling play sent in by the (R)-team's offensive coordinator, Karl Rove.
Re: Your fumble, sir.
To wit: Nice goin', putz.
Almost in spite of their own willy-nilliness, your team (such as it is) was actually holding its own in this year's Mid-term Bowl. For once, they actually had those big, bad, hypocritical (R)s backed up deep in their own territory... before your little choke-job, that is.
Those expensive shoes of yours must taste awfully good. Why else --in the name of all that is sacred and holy!-- why else would you utter these remarks in front of a phalanx of cameras and microphones and students at Pasadena City College...
"You know, education: If you make the most of it --if you study hard and you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart-- uh, you, you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq."
Whoa, lost the handle on the ball there, din'cha, Johnny-boy? Let's run that play again...
"Education: If you make the most of it and study hard and do your homework and make an effort ... you just might learn how to tell a [juxtaposing] joke!"
For that is what you called it, didn't you, oh, great, wooden and chinly one? A botched joke. A badly botched joke, intended to skewer the President by tying his questionable intellect to his questionable foreign policy. Not a bad idea... even if I do say so myself. But, as any coach will tell you, even the best-designed plays in the book can go horribly wrong when poorly executed.
Now, there are some people on your side of the field --Keith Olbermann and Bill Maher among them-- who have rushed vociferously to your defense, Johnny-boy, saying that your remark was taken out of context and that if one looks at the transcripts and the remarks leading up to it and takes the thing as a whole and crawls around inside your brain for awhile and blah, blah, blah, blah...
With all due respect to these defenders, I say, "Phooey."
They're reaching. Plain and simple, they are reaching too far to make your case for you. Don't get me wrong: I'm willing to believe you when you say it was a botched joked aimed at Bush. But their assertions that it wasn't even really all that badly botched is wishful thinking. Asking most Ordinary Citizens to conduct their own, personal, in-depth investigation into the subtle background and textured context of one careless remark is, frankly, asking too much. Most people don't have that kind of time... nor should they be expected to make it. They have better things to do than to try and figure out what you really meant.
The truth is, Mr. Hari, Airy, Tarry-too-long-on-the-National-Stage... the truth is that in this, the Era of the Sound Bite, you handed the opposing team a bit with which they promptly took a bite out of your [jackass]. And you deserved it. You ought to know better. After all, you're no rookie. Besides, gang-tackling somebody who verbally trips over their own feet and winds up with one of them in their mouth is precisely the sort of thing that everybody --including many Republicans and/or conservatives-- has been doing to a certain Smirking Marionette for six years, now. What's good for the Elephant is good for the Donkey, honky.
Now watch what happens, Mr. I Got Even Poorer Grades at Yale Than George W. Bush Did, when some no-name truck driver writes your joke for you. I can't guarantee that it'll be any funnier, but at least it won't sound like you're calling the troops that are dying halfway around the world --so that your party can win control of the House-- stupid.
"Y'know... Education: If you make the most of it --if you study hard and you do your homework and you make an effort-- you can do well. If you don't, you get us stuck in Iraq."
See what I did there?
------------------------------
Luckily for you, Johnny-boy, Ted Haggard is, uh, "playing for the other team," if you know what I mean.
------------------------------
P.S.... Bud "On Wisconsin, On Wisconsin,
Fight Right Through That Line" Selig must go.
The War In Drugs
The enemy, it seems, is hiding in the tall grass.
Last month, a General Rick Hillier, head of the Canadian defense staff, reportedly reported that Canadian troops in Afghanistan have encountered a drug problem in their fight against Taliban militiamen. Specifically, the enemy has taken to hiding in a vast, virtually impenetrable field of ten-foot-high marijuana plants-- a real, uh, woolly mammoth. They are using guerrilla tactics, y'see: A whole new way to roll on the concept of "hit and run." Strike a target and then, puff --I mean, poof!-- disappear into the green zone.
According to General Hillier, the problem with... um... weeding them out is two-fold (or, if you prefer, double trouble). Not only does the cannabis camouflage the enemy from plain sight, it also disguises their heat signatures, making it difficult to detect them with thermal sensors. Marijuana, apparently, absorbs heat really, really well.
Ah, but not well enough. So far, efforts to, uh, smoke out the militiamen have been hempered --I mean, hampered-- by the very hardiness of the ganja. They have tried to clear the field by --say it in unison, now-- burning it, but the stuff is too wet, and it won't stay lit... prompting (probably) one soldier to say, "Dude, I, like, hate it when, like, that happens." They have tried white phosphorus. It didn't work. Then they tried dousing the plants at the edge of the field in diesel fuel (because the price of petroleum products is way cheaper in Canada... after all, they've got the metric system) but that didn't work, either.
All in all, it's a real buzz-kill.
------------------------------
Believe it or not, marijuana use is on the rise in Afghanistan: The crew of at least one armored car is using it as camouflage. (Why, what did you think I meant?) Heh, I guess they figure the enemy is less likely to take pot shots at them, now.
And, borrowing an idea from the fly-boys of yester-war, they have even given their vehicle a nickname. They call it, "Death By Stoning."
(Okay, so I made that one up.)
------------------------------
...All of which begs one very, very important question...
There are Canadians in Afghanistan?
Yeah, I didn't know that, either. Apparently it's a... uh... hmm...
Oh, what the hell, I'll say it: It's a joint effort.
Stick that in your pipe and smoke it.
------------------------------
P.S.... Allen H. "Bud" Selig must go.
Last month, a General Rick Hillier, head of the Canadian defense staff, reportedly reported that Canadian troops in Afghanistan have encountered a drug problem in their fight against Taliban militiamen. Specifically, the enemy has taken to hiding in a vast, virtually impenetrable field of ten-foot-high marijuana plants-- a real, uh, woolly mammoth. They are using guerrilla tactics, y'see: A whole new way to roll on the concept of "hit and run." Strike a target and then, puff --I mean, poof!-- disappear into the green zone.
According to General Hillier, the problem with... um... weeding them out is two-fold (or, if you prefer, double trouble). Not only does the cannabis camouflage the enemy from plain sight, it also disguises their heat signatures, making it difficult to detect them with thermal sensors. Marijuana, apparently, absorbs heat really, really well.
Ah, but not well enough. So far, efforts to, uh, smoke out the militiamen have been hempered --I mean, hampered-- by the very hardiness of the ganja. They have tried to clear the field by --say it in unison, now-- burning it, but the stuff is too wet, and it won't stay lit... prompting (probably) one soldier to say, "Dude, I, like, hate it when, like, that happens." They have tried white phosphorus. It didn't work. Then they tried dousing the plants at the edge of the field in diesel fuel (because the price of petroleum products is way cheaper in Canada... after all, they've got the metric system) but that didn't work, either.
All in all, it's a real buzz-kill.
------------------------------
Believe it or not, marijuana use is on the rise in Afghanistan: The crew of at least one armored car is using it as camouflage. (Why, what did you think I meant?) Heh, I guess they figure the enemy is less likely to take pot shots at them, now.
And, borrowing an idea from the fly-boys of yester-war, they have even given their vehicle a nickname. They call it, "Death By Stoning."
(Okay, so I made that one up.)
------------------------------
...All of which begs one very, very important question...
There are Canadians in Afghanistan?
Yeah, I didn't know that, either. Apparently it's a... uh... hmm...
Oh, what the hell, I'll say it: It's a joint effort.
Stick that in your pipe and smoke it.
------------------------------
P.S.... Allen H. "Bud" Selig must go.
Nov 1, 2006
Insert Army Boot to Mouth
Senator, and until yesterday, 2008 Presidential hopeful John Kerry inserted a muddy army boot into his mouth. Kerry told the students that if they studied hard they could do well, but if they didn't "you get stuck in Iraq." His office said he neglected to add the punch line: "Just ask President Bush.
Questions and constant analysis of 'what he said' and 'what he meant' will continue for the next 32 minutes of the news cycle, maybe 33 depending on how long it takes to type.
Whether you think John Kerry was digging at President George Bush or actually insulting the men and women who volunteer to wear the uniform is a matter that you have to ask yourself. It's open to interpretation on how you personally want to take the quote. However, my concern is that Kerry is completely ignorant of the world that we live in, and a terrible politician
Exhibit A : George Allen.
George Allen. How can a serious candidate for the highest office in the land, potentially the world, be unaware of YouTube/Blog-o-sphre of influence that every word and every comment is recorded and shared by all? No one cares, unless you blow it.
And he blew it.
Exhibit B :
On Prompter or Off? Was his comment a pre-planned joke or was it off the cuff?
Damned either way. Why go off the script, and fail, or design the joke and then blow it?
Exhibit C:
Good joke? Not at all. It takes way too long to set up.
Exhibit D:
Kerry went into Spin mode about Rush Limbaugh before Rush was even on the air that day. Why go into spin mode and issue statements about your statement, unless you knew you blew the original statement? "I voted for it before I voted against it."
Exhibit E:
Not 'getting' his audience. Speaking at a college, he assumes that the students will have to goto Iraq if they don't study hard? Huh? It's a pretty big stretch to say if you drop out of college, you'll be in Iraq. Suppose he is comparing Iraq to Vietnam - where apparently John Kerry once spent some time - apparently the Army was not all volunteer based, as it is now. Does he really think that the 18 year old kids in immediate audience can even grasp what the draft was? Not understanding whom you're talking to, another major goof up.
Exhibit F:
The lead up: "If you study hard you can do well..." is also a big goof. John Kerry made all his money by marrying it. I even heard that George Bush had better grades in Yale than John did, but the transcripts had the tell-tale little 'th's that Microsoft Word automatically adds when you type 3rd or 4th...
So this guy is smarter than George Bush?
Again, whether you believe it was a bad joke or a dig at the fighting men and women who have volunteered to fight our nation's battles - doesn't change the fact that John Kerry is a terrible politician. He's unaware of the political atmosphere that exists, he's opened up the anger that galvanized the Republican voters to keep him out of the White House, and he's created a wave of aftershocks for the Democrats in this mid-term election. And worst of all, he's not funny.
Oct 24, 2006
No Joe
MLB News today:
Joe Girardi takes himself out of the running for Nationals job, saying "In the end, I realized that no matter where they play or what they call themselves, they're still the Montreal Expos."
Swell, I guess he's keeping his options open to coach for the Chicago Underachiever Bud-light Society in three years? Perhaps four if Lou exercises his option for the fourth year?
Perhaps he thinks there's a shot at the Yankee pinstripes when Torre's run is over?
Looks like Baker's got a job offer in 3...2...
Oct 23, 2006
The Right Spin
Frankly, I don't think they do it because it's really all that much more effective at knocking down pins. I just think they do it because it looks cool.
Like a mediocre bowler determined to develop that nifty little hook on the end of his roll, George W. Bush and his administration --a.k.a. "Spanky and Our Gang"-- keep re-re-redefining their rationale for invading Iraq. They are looking, you see, for juuust... the rigghht... spin.
Originally, "we" invaded Iraq because Saddam Hussein had Weapons of Mass Destruction. Specifically, "nukuler" ones.
Mmmmm... gutter-ball.
...Time to meet the other players in the match. In addition to Spanky, we have North Korea, Iran and Iraq-- the so-called Axis of Evil. "Axis" is a word that Our Gang borrowed from World War II, because polls show that it is still America's most popular war-- more than sixty years and still toppin' the charts. "Evil," on the other hand, is a word tailored to this President's sensibilities and world-view: It's short, it's easy to pronounce, and it paints an overly simplistic picture with a nice, big brush-- right up Spanky's alley. It also has religious overtones, which is a major plus, and it connotes a certain absolutism: "We" are totally "good"; "They" are totally "bad." No gray area, no middle ground, no complications.
So, let's take a look at the scorecard: Pyongyang has the Bomb, Tehran is trying to get the Bomb, "we" invaded Baghdad, and Washington is spinning in his grave.
North Korea's Kim Jong-il is talkin' some smack:
"Economic sanctions are an outright attack!
So, put up your dukes--
I got me some nukes
and your troops are bogged down in Iraq."
Heh, *smirk*, Maybe we oughta try that ag'in...
Okay, the real reason "we" invaded Iraq was because Saddam Hussein was an all-around Bad Guy and "we" were going to liberate the Iraqi people from his oppressive rule and bringeth unto them the Great Gift of Democracy.
Never mind that it's really none of our [fornicating] business to run around knocking over Bad Guys without provocation. A foreign sovereignty, being sovereign, has a right conferred upon it by fate and circumstance to at least some degree of self-determination, whether we like their chosen form of government or not. Had the Iraqi people risen up against their particular Bad Guy, and asked us for help, then perhaps this rationale would have some merit. But they didn't.
And never mind that toppling Saddam Hussein created a big ol' suckin' power vacuum right smack-dab in the middle of (arguably) the world's most unstable region.
And never mind that "liberating" the Iraqi people from the frying pan of Hussein-ism sent them plunging into the raging gas fire of civil war.
And never mind that we don't even have a true democracy, here. Whether you call our form of government a democratic republic or a republican democracy or a vast, ever-merging corporation in which we are all minority stockholders with a periodic opportunity to unseat a handful of board members... No matter what you call our form of government, it works --ostensibly-- with the consent of those it governs. Or, all too often, with their tacitly approving apathy. It does not work when you shove it down a people's throat like a cold helping of Brussels sprouts and tell them that they have to like it because it's good for them. It especially does not work when you throw the framework of the new government together like an assembly-required toy in the last few hours before daybreak on Christmas morning... without having bothered to read the instructions.
Mmmmm... gutter-ball.
Wait. Did I say we had no "business" invading Iraq? Hmmm... I guess the old boys at Halliburton would disagree. They like to think of all this as a "hostile takeover."
Bowlin', bowlin', bowlin',
let's keep those tanks a-rollin',
tollin', tollin', tollin'... ji-HAAD!
Heh. Lemme, lemme spin that puppy ag'in... *smirk* ...I, heh, I-I think I'm gettin' the hang of it...
Okay, the real, real reason "we" invaded Iraq was because it is the Central Front in the War on Terror.
First of all, Mr. President, it is syntactically impossible to wage a war on terror. "Terror" is an emotion: Intense fear, horror, panic. As such, it occurs almost exclusively within a person's mind and/or soul. Not coincidentally, that is how and where it must be dealt with: By each individual who experiences it, and within their own mind and/or soul. You cannot squelch terror from without. You certainly can't do it with bombs and bullets. Bombs and bullets used in abundance and in anger have a tendency to inspire terror, not stop it. See below.
What you really mean, Mr. President, is "War on Terrorism." I realize that the word "terrorism" doesn't roll off the tongue (especially yours) quite as easily as does the word "terror," but that bald fact of marketing doesn't make my point any less true. Terrorism is a strategy, a set of tactics-- ones that are geared toward inspiring terror. You can wage war on the strategy; you can wage war on the tactics; more to the point, you can wage war on the people who engage in those tactics; but you cannot wage war on the emotion itself... so stop using sloppy rhetoric.
Besides...
About half the time, Mr. President, that mush-mouth Texas accent of yours makes it sound like you're saying "War on Terra." Now, I know you don't like facts, Spanky, but hear me out: "Terra" is the Latin (Roman) word for "Earth," as in Mercury, Venus, Terra, Mars, Jupiter, et cetera, insert your favorite Pluto joke here. So, when you say "War on Terra," I might know that you mean "War on Terror" and you might know that you mean "War on Terror," but there are some people who might think you mean "War on the Whole Wide World" ...especially since you're juuust idiotic enough to really say it.
Secondly, you cannot have invaded Iraq because it is the Central Front in the War on Terror(ism). True, Iraq is the central front in the War on Terror(ism) ...now. It is the central front because "we" invaded. So, while the effect has become the cause (in one sense), it can never have been the cause (different sense). Stop using sloppy logic (my two cents).
Mmmmm... gutter-ball.
As of Monday at noon, Eastern Daylight Time, there will be 820 days left in George W. Bush's second term as President of the United States. If the conflict in Iraq continues as it has so far, the number of American Service-men (and -women) killed in those 820 days will approach 1,750... bringing the total number of U.S. troops killed in Iraq to more than 4,500.
Juuust... the riighht... spin.
Okay, okay, okay: So, the real, real, real reason "we" invaded Iraq is because "it's a struggle between good and evil."
Ahem. Hmm. Uh, I've already commented on Spanky's use of the word "evil." A discussion of his use of the word "good" --at least in this context-- would be pretty much the same. For those of you who have already forgotten and are too lazy to scroll up the page, I'll quickly recap: Short, easy to pronounce, overly simplistic, religious overtones, absolutic undertones. Ready? Break!
As part of the whole Good v. Evil campaign, Vice President Dick...
Wait a minute. You know what? I'm not going to give Dick Cheney an "Our Gang" nickname. Instead, in a patently transparent ploy to generate written responses, I'm going to let you, dear reader, post your nickname-of-the-week for the Veep. You see, sometimes --not often, but sometimes-- One F laments the scarcity of comments here on our little whine and cheez party. So, for his sake: Tell us which of the Lil' Rascals most reminds you of Dick Cheney.
Now, then, where was I? Oh, yeah: As part of their Good v. Evil campaign, Vice President Dick Cheney says, "The hopes of the civilized world ride with us."
Just as I thought: We're doomed.
Whenever you see or hear or read a quotation, clip, or sound bite, be it on television, on the radio, in a newspaper or magazine or even right here on this, uh, blog... thingy, you should always ask yourself questions regarding context. What was the sentence before the one quoted? What was the sentence after? Was anything ... edited [out] of the middle? Because virtually always, somebody, somewhere, has done some editing. See below.
Personally, I can't help but wonder if Cheney's full quote wasn't this: "The hopes of the civilized world ride with us... and I'm calling 'shotgun'."
Mmmmm... gutter-ball.
------------------------------
This past week, Spanky signed into law the Military Commissions Act.
"...and the suspension of habeas corpus for all." --Killre 6/14/06.
------------------------------
P.S...
Bud "Hey, Now, Imagine That: A Whirled Series,
Sponsored By Chevrolet And Budweiser,
Featuring Teams From Detroit And Saint Loo...
Now, What Are The Odds Of That?" Selig must go.
Like a mediocre bowler determined to develop that nifty little hook on the end of his roll, George W. Bush and his administration --a.k.a. "Spanky and Our Gang"-- keep re-re-redefining their rationale for invading Iraq. They are looking, you see, for juuust... the rigghht... spin.
Originally, "we" invaded Iraq because Saddam Hussein had Weapons of Mass Destruction. Specifically, "nukuler" ones.
Mmmmm... gutter-ball.
...Time to meet the other players in the match. In addition to Spanky, we have North Korea, Iran and Iraq-- the so-called Axis of Evil. "Axis" is a word that Our Gang borrowed from World War II, because polls show that it is still America's most popular war-- more than sixty years and still toppin' the charts. "Evil," on the other hand, is a word tailored to this President's sensibilities and world-view: It's short, it's easy to pronounce, and it paints an overly simplistic picture with a nice, big brush-- right up Spanky's alley. It also has religious overtones, which is a major plus, and it connotes a certain absolutism: "We" are totally "good"; "They" are totally "bad." No gray area, no middle ground, no complications.
So, let's take a look at the scorecard: Pyongyang has the Bomb, Tehran is trying to get the Bomb, "we" invaded Baghdad, and Washington is spinning in his grave.
North Korea's Kim Jong-il is talkin' some smack:
"Economic sanctions are an outright attack!
So, put up your dukes--
I got me some nukes
and your troops are bogged down in Iraq."
Heh, *smirk*, Maybe we oughta try that ag'in...
Okay, the real reason "we" invaded Iraq was because Saddam Hussein was an all-around Bad Guy and "we" were going to liberate the Iraqi people from his oppressive rule and bringeth unto them the Great Gift of Democracy.
Never mind that it's really none of our [fornicating] business to run around knocking over Bad Guys without provocation. A foreign sovereignty, being sovereign, has a right conferred upon it by fate and circumstance to at least some degree of self-determination, whether we like their chosen form of government or not. Had the Iraqi people risen up against their particular Bad Guy, and asked us for help, then perhaps this rationale would have some merit. But they didn't.
And never mind that toppling Saddam Hussein created a big ol' suckin' power vacuum right smack-dab in the middle of (arguably) the world's most unstable region.
And never mind that "liberating" the Iraqi people from the frying pan of Hussein-ism sent them plunging into the raging gas fire of civil war.
And never mind that we don't even have a true democracy, here. Whether you call our form of government a democratic republic or a republican democracy or a vast, ever-merging corporation in which we are all minority stockholders with a periodic opportunity to unseat a handful of board members... No matter what you call our form of government, it works --ostensibly-- with the consent of those it governs. Or, all too often, with their tacitly approving apathy. It does not work when you shove it down a people's throat like a cold helping of Brussels sprouts and tell them that they have to like it because it's good for them. It especially does not work when you throw the framework of the new government together like an assembly-required toy in the last few hours before daybreak on Christmas morning... without having bothered to read the instructions.
Mmmmm... gutter-ball.
Wait. Did I say we had no "business" invading Iraq? Hmmm... I guess the old boys at Halliburton would disagree. They like to think of all this as a "hostile takeover."
Bowlin', bowlin', bowlin',
let's keep those tanks a-rollin',
tollin', tollin', tollin'... ji-HAAD!
Heh. Lemme, lemme spin that puppy ag'in... *smirk* ...I, heh, I-I think I'm gettin' the hang of it...
Okay, the real, real reason "we" invaded Iraq was because it is the Central Front in the War on Terror.
First of all, Mr. President, it is syntactically impossible to wage a war on terror. "Terror" is an emotion: Intense fear, horror, panic. As such, it occurs almost exclusively within a person's mind and/or soul. Not coincidentally, that is how and where it must be dealt with: By each individual who experiences it, and within their own mind and/or soul. You cannot squelch terror from without. You certainly can't do it with bombs and bullets. Bombs and bullets used in abundance and in anger have a tendency to inspire terror, not stop it. See below.
What you really mean, Mr. President, is "War on Terrorism." I realize that the word "terrorism" doesn't roll off the tongue (especially yours) quite as easily as does the word "terror," but that bald fact of marketing doesn't make my point any less true. Terrorism is a strategy, a set of tactics-- ones that are geared toward inspiring terror. You can wage war on the strategy; you can wage war on the tactics; more to the point, you can wage war on the people who engage in those tactics; but you cannot wage war on the emotion itself... so stop using sloppy rhetoric.
Besides...
About half the time, Mr. President, that mush-mouth Texas accent of yours makes it sound like you're saying "War on Terra." Now, I know you don't like facts, Spanky, but hear me out: "Terra" is the Latin (Roman) word for "Earth," as in Mercury, Venus, Terra, Mars, Jupiter, et cetera, insert your favorite Pluto joke here. So, when you say "War on Terra," I might know that you mean "War on Terror" and you might know that you mean "War on Terror," but there are some people who might think you mean "War on the Whole Wide World" ...especially since you're juuust idiotic enough to really say it.
Secondly, you cannot have invaded Iraq because it is the Central Front in the War on Terror(ism). True, Iraq is the central front in the War on Terror(ism) ...now. It is the central front because "we" invaded. So, while the effect has become the cause (in one sense), it can never have been the cause (different sense). Stop using sloppy logic (my two cents).
Mmmmm... gutter-ball.
As of Monday at noon, Eastern Daylight Time, there will be 820 days left in George W. Bush's second term as President of the United States. If the conflict in Iraq continues as it has so far, the number of American Service-men (and -women) killed in those 820 days will approach 1,750... bringing the total number of U.S. troops killed in Iraq to more than 4,500.
Juuust... the riighht... spin.
Okay, okay, okay: So, the real, real, real reason "we" invaded Iraq is because "it's a struggle between good and evil."
Ahem. Hmm. Uh, I've already commented on Spanky's use of the word "evil." A discussion of his use of the word "good" --at least in this context-- would be pretty much the same. For those of you who have already forgotten and are too lazy to scroll up the page, I'll quickly recap: Short, easy to pronounce, overly simplistic, religious overtones, absolutic undertones. Ready? Break!
As part of the whole Good v. Evil campaign, Vice President Dick...
Wait a minute. You know what? I'm not going to give Dick Cheney an "Our Gang" nickname. Instead, in a patently transparent ploy to generate written responses, I'm going to let you, dear reader, post your nickname-of-the-week for the Veep. You see, sometimes --not often, but sometimes-- One F laments the scarcity of comments here on our little whine and cheez party. So, for his sake: Tell us which of the Lil' Rascals most reminds you of Dick Cheney.
Now, then, where was I? Oh, yeah: As part of their Good v. Evil campaign, Vice President Dick Cheney says, "The hopes of the civilized world ride with us."
Just as I thought: We're doomed.
Whenever you see or hear or read a quotation, clip, or sound bite, be it on television, on the radio, in a newspaper or magazine or even right here on this, uh, blog... thingy, you should always ask yourself questions regarding context. What was the sentence before the one quoted? What was the sentence after? Was anything ... edited [out] of the middle? Because virtually always, somebody, somewhere, has done some editing. See below.
Personally, I can't help but wonder if Cheney's full quote wasn't this: "The hopes of the civilized world ride with us... and I'm calling 'shotgun'."
Mmmmm... gutter-ball.
------------------------------
This past week, Spanky signed into law the Military Commissions Act.
"...and the suspension of habeas corpus for all." --Killre 6/14/06.
------------------------------
P.S...
Bud "Hey, Now, Imagine That: A Whirled Series,
Sponsored By Chevrolet And Budweiser,
Featuring Teams From Detroit And Saint Loo...
Now, What Are The Odds Of That?" Selig must go.
Loopin' Ella
...rrrRRRAAAAAAGGGHHHrrr...!!
(earmuffs.)
...f-f-f-F-F-FUCK 'EM !!
I mean it: I've had it. To hell with them.
I am sick, sick, sick and tired of bashing my head against the nearest door jamb over every plot twist in the Greek play that is the Chicago Underachievers and Bud-lighters Society.
The time has come, brothers and sisters, to rise up and take a stand.
Fed-up fans, unite! You have only your own naivete to blame.
I, too, was once like you: I thought that those upright, uptight, Bud Light Fat Cats at Tribune Ink and their hacky, tacky, smack 'em on the backie lackey, Jim Hendry, could never, never, never be so unutterably stupid as to fail to see what a bona fide bonanza, what a jacked up jackpot, what a sweet-corn-fed cash cow it would be if ye olde Chicago National League Baseball Club were to make a serious run at the 2008 pennant.
Obviously, I was wrong, for they have gone and hired Lou Pinella to be their new field manager.
The only promising gleam --the one, tiny, golden nugget in this whole, vast, stinking, rancid pasture of [male bovine manure]-- is that at some point, Pinheadella is going to go Mount Saint Helens in a way that is sure to surpass Lee Elia's famous tirade: "Eighty-five percent of the people in this country work. The other fifteen percent come here and boo my players. They oughta go out and get a [fudging] job and find out what it's like to go out and earn a [fudging] living!"
My greatest regret in all of this is that I'll have to hear about Loopy's meltdown second-hand. You see, I won't be paying much attention, by then.
Next season, I am officially switching my allegiance to another team. I haven't decided which one, yet, but it won't be these Chicago [Smegma-heads]. I will not be making any of my regular pilgrimages to Wrigley Field; I will not be buying no two or three Overpriced Styles and a bag of peanuts; I will not be purchasing any hats, jerseys, or other merchandise; and I will definitely not be watching anything, anything at all, on WGN-- which, by the way, Mr. or Ms. Programming Department, is not a sacrifice at all, but rather a blessing for which someone deserves a great big smooch.
No, I won't be doing any of those things: I won't be flushing any more of my hard-earned, disposable income down your toilet, Tribune Company, so go [coitate] yourself.
Instead, I'll be buying some other team's hat, some other team's jersey, tickets to some other team's ballpark, where I will gripe about their prices as I spend, spend, spend and, if I happen to think about your ball club at all, Tribune Company, I will whoop and cackle with glee over the few extra drops of red ink you'll have to use because of my economic boycott. What do you think of that, you Pinella-headed prigs?
I'll tell you one thing I won't be griping about next year: Losing.
No, this time I think I'll try something different, something revolutionary. Something like, oh, I don't know, rooting for a [conjugating] WINNER. Judging by my prognosticational performance over the years, the odds are about 3-1 in favor of my picking a playoff team to root for. So, while you and you and Lou are chasing your tails like a badly booted grounder, my happy [donkey] will be jumping and stomping and fist-pumping and cheering full-throated for a real baseball team, as it charges toward a division championship and/or a playoff berth.
Fed-up fans, unite! Join me on the anti-Cubs bandwagon. Root for a real team. Root for a winner. (Stay tuned to find out which one.)
------------------------------
That high-pitched whine you hear is the worn-out fan belt on the Tribune Inkum Thinkum, the computer (manufactured by Uni-vac) that is trying to come up with just the right combination for the Chicago [Smegma-heads] to offer to the Yankees for shortstop/ third baseman Alex "A-Rod" Rodriguez.
Try this one on for size...
The Pinstripers ship A-Rod to Wrigleyville in exchange for Carlos Zambrano, Jeff Samardzija, the Los Angeles Times, the planet Pluto* and dibs on hiring Joe Girardi as their next manager.
------------------------------
...and speaking of the Yankees next manager...
Rumor has it that Yankees owner George "I Was Trump Before Trump Was Trump, Dammit" Steinbrenner wanted to fire manager Joe Torre because he "only" won the division this year, and not the whole ball of wax. Not only that, Big George wanted to announce the sacking on the same day that the Mets opened the National League Championship Series against those Poo-holes from Saint Loo.
Why? Because he's petty.
Rumor further has it that it was the Yankees players who, uh, went to bat for Torre and convinced Steinbrenner to not fire him. Steinbrenner, of course, wanted to announce that on the same day as Game One, too.
Why? Because he's petty: Big George likes to stick it to the Mets for air-time and column inches, just for the sake of being a prig. It's a wonder he doesn't slip his chauffeur a bonus and tell him to get into a minor "accident" in the parking lot at his private club. Even something as innocuous as that would bump the Mets off of the front page of the sports sections, simply because it happened to the chauffeur of the owner of the Goliath that is the New York Yankees.
Ultimately, it was Torre himself who announced that he would be back as the Yankees skipper next season. He made the announcement on the day before the NLCS was scheduled to start. Rumor has it that Bud "I Keep My Salary Cap In The Closet" Selig --showing far more pluck than usual-- ordered Steinbrenner to make a decision, one way or the other, before the day of Game One.
I can just imagine the players asking Big George not to fire Torre, and Steinbrenner saying, "All right, I won't fire him. Now, you have to do something for me..."
On the day the Mets were scheduled to open the NLCS, Yankees pitcher Corey Lidle crashed his single-engine plane into an apartment building on Manhattan's upper east side.
Chaos ensued, of course. CNN went commercial-free for a couple of hours so that they could tell us, non-stop, that they didn't know anything: "Details are sketchy. We can't really tell you very much at this time. Apparently, some kind of aircraft --we don't know what kind-- has apparently crashed into an apartment building on the upper east side. We don't know who the pilot was, we don't know what he was flying, we don't know where he came from, we don't know where he was going, we don't know why he crashed into a building, we don't know exactly how this all happened, but we're going to stay live and keep finding new ways of saying nothing at all for as long as it takes to ensure that we're still in the ratings race. Fortunately, we have about two dozen stringers in New York and several of them are at the scene. We're going to go to one of them right now, because I sure as hell don't know what's going on. Anderson, what can you tell us?"
"Well, Wolf, I can't really tell you very much at this time. Details are still sketchy. Apparently, some sort of aircraft --we don't really know what kind-- has apparently crashed into this building that you see behind me. We don't know who the pilot was, or why he crashed into the building. We don't know how many people have been injured or killed. We do know that there are an awful lot of fire trucks and ambulances here and there are a lot of emergency personnel hurrying around, uh, but we haven't had a chance to talk to any of them, yet, uh, because they have more important things to do than talk to us, uh, but other than that, Wolf, uh, we don't really know anything. Details are, uh, sketchy, uh, at this time..."
That night, the Mets game was rained out.
A few days later, while the Mets were in the midst of a rousing, seven-game series, a private jet over-ran its landing strip in Burbank, California.
One of the passengers was Alex Rodriguez.
------------------------------
*Pluto's current status is uncertain, pending a full physical
and a ruling by an arbitrator. This portion of the agreement
may eventually become "a planet to be named later."
**The answer is 'Foghorn Leghorn.'
------------------------------
P.S...
Bud "I Just-- I Say I Just Know That Marble-headed
Mongrel Is Backa All This**" Selig must go.
(earmuffs.)
...f-f-f-F-F-FUCK 'EM !!
I mean it: I've had it. To hell with them.
I am sick, sick, sick and tired of bashing my head against the nearest door jamb over every plot twist in the Greek play that is the Chicago Underachievers and Bud-lighters Society.
The time has come, brothers and sisters, to rise up and take a stand.
Fed-up fans, unite! You have only your own naivete to blame.
I, too, was once like you: I thought that those upright, uptight, Bud Light Fat Cats at Tribune Ink and their hacky, tacky, smack 'em on the backie lackey, Jim Hendry, could never, never, never be so unutterably stupid as to fail to see what a bona fide bonanza, what a jacked up jackpot, what a sweet-corn-fed cash cow it would be if ye olde Chicago National League Baseball Club were to make a serious run at the 2008 pennant.
Obviously, I was wrong, for they have gone and hired Lou Pinella to be their new field manager.
The only promising gleam --the one, tiny, golden nugget in this whole, vast, stinking, rancid pasture of [male bovine manure]-- is that at some point, Pinheadella is going to go Mount Saint Helens in a way that is sure to surpass Lee Elia's famous tirade: "Eighty-five percent of the people in this country work. The other fifteen percent come here and boo my players. They oughta go out and get a [fudging] job and find out what it's like to go out and earn a [fudging] living!"
My greatest regret in all of this is that I'll have to hear about Loopy's meltdown second-hand. You see, I won't be paying much attention, by then.
Next season, I am officially switching my allegiance to another team. I haven't decided which one, yet, but it won't be these Chicago [Smegma-heads]. I will not be making any of my regular pilgrimages to Wrigley Field; I will not be buying no two or three Overpriced Styles and a bag of peanuts; I will not be purchasing any hats, jerseys, or other merchandise; and I will definitely not be watching anything, anything at all, on WGN-- which, by the way, Mr. or Ms. Programming Department, is not a sacrifice at all, but rather a blessing for which someone deserves a great big smooch.
No, I won't be doing any of those things: I won't be flushing any more of my hard-earned, disposable income down your toilet, Tribune Company, so go [coitate] yourself.
Instead, I'll be buying some other team's hat, some other team's jersey, tickets to some other team's ballpark, where I will gripe about their prices as I spend, spend, spend and, if I happen to think about your ball club at all, Tribune Company, I will whoop and cackle with glee over the few extra drops of red ink you'll have to use because of my economic boycott. What do you think of that, you Pinella-headed prigs?
I'll tell you one thing I won't be griping about next year: Losing.
No, this time I think I'll try something different, something revolutionary. Something like, oh, I don't know, rooting for a [conjugating] WINNER. Judging by my prognosticational performance over the years, the odds are about 3-1 in favor of my picking a playoff team to root for. So, while you and you and Lou are chasing your tails like a badly booted grounder, my happy [donkey] will be jumping and stomping and fist-pumping and cheering full-throated for a real baseball team, as it charges toward a division championship and/or a playoff berth.
Fed-up fans, unite! Join me on the anti-Cubs bandwagon. Root for a real team. Root for a winner. (Stay tuned to find out which one.)
------------------------------
That high-pitched whine you hear is the worn-out fan belt on the Tribune Inkum Thinkum, the computer (manufactured by Uni-vac) that is trying to come up with just the right combination for the Chicago [Smegma-heads] to offer to the Yankees for shortstop/ third baseman Alex "A-Rod" Rodriguez.
Try this one on for size...
The Pinstripers ship A-Rod to Wrigleyville in exchange for Carlos Zambrano, Jeff Samardzija, the Los Angeles Times, the planet Pluto* and dibs on hiring Joe Girardi as their next manager.
------------------------------
...and speaking of the Yankees next manager...
Rumor has it that Yankees owner George "I Was Trump Before Trump Was Trump, Dammit" Steinbrenner wanted to fire manager Joe Torre because he "only" won the division this year, and not the whole ball of wax. Not only that, Big George wanted to announce the sacking on the same day that the Mets opened the National League Championship Series against those Poo-holes from Saint Loo.
Why? Because he's petty.
Rumor further has it that it was the Yankees players who, uh, went to bat for Torre and convinced Steinbrenner to not fire him. Steinbrenner, of course, wanted to announce that on the same day as Game One, too.
Why? Because he's petty: Big George likes to stick it to the Mets for air-time and column inches, just for the sake of being a prig. It's a wonder he doesn't slip his chauffeur a bonus and tell him to get into a minor "accident" in the parking lot at his private club. Even something as innocuous as that would bump the Mets off of the front page of the sports sections, simply because it happened to the chauffeur of the owner of the Goliath that is the New York Yankees.
Ultimately, it was Torre himself who announced that he would be back as the Yankees skipper next season. He made the announcement on the day before the NLCS was scheduled to start. Rumor has it that Bud "I Keep My Salary Cap In The Closet" Selig --showing far more pluck than usual-- ordered Steinbrenner to make a decision, one way or the other, before the day of Game One.
I can just imagine the players asking Big George not to fire Torre, and Steinbrenner saying, "All right, I won't fire him. Now, you have to do something for me..."
On the day the Mets were scheduled to open the NLCS, Yankees pitcher Corey Lidle crashed his single-engine plane into an apartment building on Manhattan's upper east side.
Chaos ensued, of course. CNN went commercial-free for a couple of hours so that they could tell us, non-stop, that they didn't know anything: "Details are sketchy. We can't really tell you very much at this time. Apparently, some kind of aircraft --we don't know what kind-- has apparently crashed into an apartment building on the upper east side. We don't know who the pilot was, we don't know what he was flying, we don't know where he came from, we don't know where he was going, we don't know why he crashed into a building, we don't know exactly how this all happened, but we're going to stay live and keep finding new ways of saying nothing at all for as long as it takes to ensure that we're still in the ratings race. Fortunately, we have about two dozen stringers in New York and several of them are at the scene. We're going to go to one of them right now, because I sure as hell don't know what's going on. Anderson, what can you tell us?"
"Well, Wolf, I can't really tell you very much at this time. Details are still sketchy. Apparently, some sort of aircraft --we don't really know what kind-- has apparently crashed into this building that you see behind me. We don't know who the pilot was, or why he crashed into the building. We don't know how many people have been injured or killed. We do know that there are an awful lot of fire trucks and ambulances here and there are a lot of emergency personnel hurrying around, uh, but we haven't had a chance to talk to any of them, yet, uh, because they have more important things to do than talk to us, uh, but other than that, Wolf, uh, we don't really know anything. Details are, uh, sketchy, uh, at this time..."
That night, the Mets game was rained out.
A few days later, while the Mets were in the midst of a rousing, seven-game series, a private jet over-ran its landing strip in Burbank, California.
One of the passengers was Alex Rodriguez.
------------------------------
*Pluto's current status is uncertain, pending a full physical
and a ruling by an arbitrator. This portion of the agreement
may eventually become "a planet to be named later."
**The answer is 'Foghorn Leghorn.'
------------------------------
P.S...
Bud "I Just-- I Say I Just Know That Marble-headed
Mongrel Is Backa All This**" Selig must go.
Oct 18, 2006
Curses!
There is this great article on ESPN. Apparently Bill Buckner was wearing his Cubs batting glove during the "play."
Check it out.
Check it out.
Oct 17, 2006
BOM: Blasphemer of the Month
I waited and waited for Killre. A brilliant plan hatched in his demented little mind over this past summer was going to add a special monthly nugget to this blog's bowl. But, alas, I could not wait any longer. The idea sat on the shelf like a package of Twinkies. Calling to me. Pleading with me to eat one. Just one. Twinkies don't go bad; they have an amazing shelf life. But just to wrap my lips around the tasty little pastry-like treat was too much for me to resist. And here I sit. Guilty and not as full or as satisfied as I thought I would be. And yearning for one more.
I had forgotten about Mike Tyson. It had been a while since he had eaten the young or molested a pigeon. No new schemes or incidents seeped out of his tattooed head and into my media. Nothing. Until I came across this. Mike Tyson is getting his own TV show! Mike Tyson's World Tour in true boxing fashion will be a pay-per-view event. Or as I call them, a wait-a-day-for-YouTube event. Seems the old chap is going to cruise around the country and fight people. Anyone really.
In his press conference he interrupted his promoter to claim, "Maybe we will end up in Iran, it's all messed up over there." In fact, according to ESPN.com he plans to fight in Europe and Asia as well as the Middle East. I must admit, I'm listening.
And doesn't want to fight just men either. In true Tyson fashion, the old boy wants to take a few swings at women as well. When he was asked if fighting women was a joke he replied, "I'm very serious." Hot damn! I'd watch that too. Could he fight a woman in a burkah? That would be a fight night. Loser gets an ear bitten off. Let's see EA make a game about that. If it's in the game . . .
I would like to end with a few choice quotes from October's BOM so that you can all enjoy your chicken dinners and stare in awe that he is aware that the word "quagmire" exists. We have a president that may need help.
I had forgotten about Mike Tyson. It had been a while since he had eaten the young or molested a pigeon. No new schemes or incidents seeped out of his tattooed head and into my media. Nothing. Until I came across this. Mike Tyson is getting his own TV show! Mike Tyson's World Tour in true boxing fashion will be a pay-per-view event. Or as I call them, a wait-a-day-for-YouTube event. Seems the old chap is going to cruise around the country and fight people. Anyone really.
In his press conference he interrupted his promoter to claim, "Maybe we will end up in Iran, it's all messed up over there." In fact, according to ESPN.com he plans to fight in Europe and Asia as well as the Middle East. I must admit, I'm listening.
And doesn't want to fight just men either. In true Tyson fashion, the old boy wants to take a few swings at women as well. When he was asked if fighting women was a joke he replied, "I'm very serious." Hot damn! I'd watch that too. Could he fight a woman in a burkah? That would be a fight night. Loser gets an ear bitten off. Let's see EA make a game about that. If it's in the game . . .
I would like to end with a few choice quotes from October's BOM so that you can all enjoy your chicken dinners and stare in awe that he is aware that the word "quagmire" exists. We have a president that may need help.
- "I was a little overweight, smoking too much . . .Once I started training, the stress left. I can't believe I'm not slurring. I'm not angry. Life's lessons are priceless."
- "I think I'm useless to society, I don't think I'm worthy of the people who come out to see me, but they do."
- "If I don't get out of this financial quagmire there's a possibility I may have to be a punching bag for somebody"
- On how many events there will be: "One hundred. One hundred times 4 (rounds) is as many rounds as I fought my whole career."
Oct 13, 2006
Notes from the Blasphemous Side
- Holly Would could you explain this to me . . . 61% of all Egyptians have never heard of an opinion poll.
- From the Tribune:
Defensive tackle Tommie Harris stuck around after practice Thursday to take a few handoffs from offensive coordinator Ron Turner. Could Harris carry the ball? "Tommie has a lot of different talents," coach Lovie Smith said. "You could say he is a skilled athlete -- Tommie would definitely say he's a skilled athlete. But he won't be doing any of that, I can tell you."
Can anyone say "Refrigerator" Harris? Does this mean he gets the Superbowl TD and not Jones? - What is it with everyone blaming alcohol for their own stupidity? Mel Gibson - not an anti-semite, the alcohol was. Foley - not a gay pedophile, the alcohol was. And now Ney, not a corrupt politician that accepted and gave bribes, an alcoholic. I am not a bad blogger.
- My bad. Gibson's alcohol is anti-semitic because critics critiqued a movie.
- There is trouble in Disneyland. There is video footage going around that shows Goofy having sex with "either Chip or Dale." First of all, is anyone really surprised that a character who took his name from Chippendale's is gay? Secondly, and I will type this slowly, Dale has a red nose and Chip has the black nose. Now, which one was it and were they certifiably insane or literally fucking Goofy?
- Who was surprised?
Oct 11, 2006
Da Perfect Storm
There has been, in my humble opinion, way too much talk about the Chicago Bears having "the perfect season." It was brought to a head last Monday night when Tony Kornheiser claimed that he could imagine the Bears doing anything but going 19-0. If it were the Cubs he was talking about he would be either killed or linked to a curse. Hell, if a goat can cast one why not old TK? Anyway, with all this talk, I opted to do my research and give my prediction for the final win-loss record of our 2006 Chicago Bears.First of all, this is a very easy schedule. Of the remaining teams only 3 were in the post season last year, New England, New York (Giants), and Tampa Bay. Of those 3 only New England is leading their division and TB has yet to win a game. Outside of NE only Minnesota has a winning record and we already beat them once in MN.
The forte of this team is the defense. So far this year, they have allowed 36 points. Only three teams come close to that number. Baltimore (46), San Diego (36), and Denver (34). Our newfangled offense has put up a league high 156 points. The closest competitors here are Philly (155), Indy (135), and Jacksonville (118). Denver, by the way has 49 points all season. The 1985 Bears were at 163-88 after 5 games. Just an FYI.
Finally, the terrible outings on Monday Night. The only loss of the '85 season coming on Monday Night against the Dolphins. The Bears have a 16-32 franchise record. But that was when they were on ABC. A Bears Curse. Now they are on ESPN for which I have no acronym.
An undefeated record is almost impossible in any sport. Injuries, suspensions, hangovers all play a part in the modern athlete missing games. But the Bears are extremely deep. When Ogunleye went down, Mark Anderson stepped up against Pro-Bowler Walter Jones and got 2 sacks and a fumble recovery. We got Griese, Benson, Bradley, Gilmore, Davis all ready to step up in case of injury (some already have (Gilmore 2tds)(Davis 1td).
So can they go undefeated? The answer is clearly yea. Will they go undefeated? There is always the bad game. Miami was not great in 1985. It should have been a W, but it was not. Things happen. I predict a 14-2 season. Don't worry, we have the defense signed for at least two more years. That and the ring takes away the sting of the two losses.
In other Bears news, check this out.
Oct 9, 2006
Blimey
[1] *ahem*
There once was a man named Mark Foley,
who turned out to be a lot more thou than holy.
He had a taste for the pages
(especially the under-ages)
as a place to plunge his little pink poley.
[2] Do you see what I see?
Hey, look at that: Your gas prices have been getting lower...
[3] Pickin' and groanin'.
On April 2nd, I posted "Pickin' and Grinnin'," in which I tried to predict this year's National League standings and playoff picture. With the sweat and stifle of summer now past, and the crisp, earthy air of autumn filling our lungs, the time has come to assess those predictions. You can review the original post by clicking on the title, "MLB NL Central Predictions," located on the right side of the screen. If I were you, though, I wouldn't bother... I don't intend to gloss over my mistakes.
[4] Welcome back, Howard.
Have you been making your list?
Have you been checking it twice?
Do you know who's been naughty or nice, you nosey little prig?
[5] Slim pickin's.
Alas, for the first time this century, I failed to correctly predict the winner of the National League West. Clearly, I underestimated the Padres-- particularly their pitching and their ability to win on the road. And I don't think anyone could have envisioned how streaky the Dodgers (my pick) turned out to be: Lose 13 out of 14 here, win 17 of 18 there. Now, some may say, "Aha!... but the Dodgers and Padres actually tied for first place, and San Diego was awarded the title by dint of a tiebreaker," but I'm not going to hide behind that. I underestimated the Padres; I'll take my lumps. Besides, San Diego beat L.A. 13 times in 18 head-to-head meetings, so I really don't have a problem with Bud "I'm Making This Up As I Go Along" Selig naming San Diego division champions.
My forecast was........ LA, SD, SF, AZ, CO.
The actual standings... SD, LA, SF, AZ, CO.
Footnote: I disparaged the Rockies. I said it'd be a toss-up between them and Florida for the title of worst team in the League. As it turned out, the worst team in the League was... well, you know.
[6] Do you hear what I hear?
Your gas prices have been getting lower... just in time for the mid-term elections. Now, let's all be good little boys and girls and say to ourselves, "Hey, maybe those [certain to be cast into a fiery pit of Hades by the very Jehovah they so like to pose next to] Republicans aren't so bad, after all. Let's all drive down to the polls, right now! I'll take the Suburban. Honey, you take the Escalade. Jenny, you take the mini-van. I know you're only sixteen, Jenny, but if you promise to vote the "right" way, they'll overlook the technicalities... They're good at that."
If you're really, really good, you might even manage to convince yourself that you actually thought your own vote through, all by yourself, instead of simply responding to the programming that was imbedded deep in your brain by Exxon-Mobil when you had that "illness" as a child.
[7] *ahem* (again)
There once was a man named Mark Foley,
who engaged in a wee too much, uh, tomfoolery.
The man liked them young
and --oh, yes!-- well-hung,
even if only for some pocket poolery.
[8] Pick a card, any card.
I'd love to be able to tell you I was wrong. Really, I would. I spent six days out of every seven, all summer long, rooting against my own prognostication, but it wasn't to be: Those Poo-holes from Saint Loo won the Central division again. Houston made a late charge, but they waited too long before kicking in the afterburners and fell short (both of the division and, you might note, the wildcard). Aside from that, my biggest failure in forecasting the Central was probably my pipedreaming the Chicago Underachievers and Bud-lighters Society into third place.
My forecast........ STL, HOU, CHI, MIL, CIN, PIT.
Actual standings... STL, HOU, CIN, MIL, PIT, CHI.
Footnote: I said, somewhat ambiguously, that the road to the National League Championship would go through Saint Loo. By now, of course, you already know that those Poo-holes are, indeed, in the NLCS.
[9] Do you know what I know?
Your gas prices have been getting lower... but they still aren't as low
as they were before Halliburton invaded Iraq.
[10] Pickled tink.
Why, yes, I did pick the Mets to win the East. Yep, that was me, alright. Buy me a congratulatory drink: A decent sour mash on the rocks, with a splash of Coke. And make it a double, because they won the division by, like, 16 games or something gaudy like that. What's that? I said it would be closer? Much closer, you say? Hmm. What was I thinking?
Okay, here's what I was thinking: The Braves, you might remember, had won 14 straight division titles coming into this season. Many people, over the last several years, had picked against them and been wrong... Atlanta always seemed to find a way. In fact, I had picked against them and been wrong a few times myself. When I assessed the East this past spring, I couldn't get that of my head. So, I verbally hedged my bets: I picked the Mets, but then I wished my washy (or, uh, washed my wishy) and said, "But watch out for Atlanta, they'll make it close," or words to that effect. It was never close, of course: The Mets ran away with it. So cancel the sour mash. I'll just have a Natural Light straight out of the can, please.
My forecast........ NY, ATL, PHI, WAS, FLA.
Actual standings... NY, PHI, ATL, FLA, WAS.
[11] It's just a jump to the left... and then a step to the right.
You were in Salt Lake City a few weeks ago, Georgie. I was there the next day, but you had already left town. Last week, you were in Stockton, California, of all places. I was there the next day, but you had already left town. Are you avoiding me, you Smirking Marionette?
[12] Pick me up and dust me off.
The wildcard race was, as usual, wild... which is precisely as it should be. You heard me. Some of the more blasphemous among you have tried to advance the ridiculous, silly, absurd and downright crazy notion that I have some kind of a problem with Bud Selig as Commissioner of Baseball. I have absolutely no idea whatsoever where such a wacky and ludicrous rumor started... All kidding aside, though, the wildcard was and is a great idea and, believe it or not, I have always thought so. I really have. Reason: It keeps more teams in contention later into the season, thereby keeping more fans interested in baseball right through September (a key time, when it's competing with football for attention) and into the playoffs. Anyway, my forecast for the wildcard race went something like this: Houston would outdistance Atlanta and San Diego (the "first tier" of contenders), with (in no particular order) the Cubs, Phillies, Brewers and the Bay Area Retirement Home All-Stars also giving chase. Of course, that assessment presumed that the Dodgers would win the West. Instead, the final wildcard standings were: LA, PHI, HOU, CIN, ATL, FLA. Lastly, I concluded my season predictions with the summation that the playoff field would be "the Cardinals, Dodgers, Mets and Astros." The order in which I mentioned those teams was not random: It was a subtle prediction of the playoff seedings. The actual seedings were: Mets, Padres, Cardinals, Dodgers.
[13] P.S...
Bud "Let Us Pray To the Almighty Nielsen" Selig must go.
There once was a man named Mark Foley,
who turned out to be a lot more thou than holy.
He had a taste for the pages
(especially the under-ages)
as a place to plunge his little pink poley.
[2] Do you see what I see?
Hey, look at that: Your gas prices have been getting lower...
[3] Pickin' and groanin'.
On April 2nd, I posted "Pickin' and Grinnin'," in which I tried to predict this year's National League standings and playoff picture. With the sweat and stifle of summer now past, and the crisp, earthy air of autumn filling our lungs, the time has come to assess those predictions. You can review the original post by clicking on the title, "MLB NL Central Predictions," located on the right side of the screen. If I were you, though, I wouldn't bother... I don't intend to gloss over my mistakes.
[4] Welcome back, Howard.
Have you been making your list?
Have you been checking it twice?
Do you know who's been naughty or nice, you nosey little prig?
[5] Slim pickin's.
Alas, for the first time this century, I failed to correctly predict the winner of the National League West. Clearly, I underestimated the Padres-- particularly their pitching and their ability to win on the road. And I don't think anyone could have envisioned how streaky the Dodgers (my pick) turned out to be: Lose 13 out of 14 here, win 17 of 18 there. Now, some may say, "Aha!... but the Dodgers and Padres actually tied for first place, and San Diego was awarded the title by dint of a tiebreaker," but I'm not going to hide behind that. I underestimated the Padres; I'll take my lumps. Besides, San Diego beat L.A. 13 times in 18 head-to-head meetings, so I really don't have a problem with Bud "I'm Making This Up As I Go Along" Selig naming San Diego division champions.
My forecast was........ LA, SD, SF, AZ, CO.
The actual standings... SD, LA, SF, AZ, CO.
Footnote: I disparaged the Rockies. I said it'd be a toss-up between them and Florida for the title of worst team in the League. As it turned out, the worst team in the League was... well, you know.
[6] Do you hear what I hear?
Your gas prices have been getting lower... just in time for the mid-term elections. Now, let's all be good little boys and girls and say to ourselves, "Hey, maybe those [certain to be cast into a fiery pit of Hades by the very Jehovah they so like to pose next to] Republicans aren't so bad, after all. Let's all drive down to the polls, right now! I'll take the Suburban. Honey, you take the Escalade. Jenny, you take the mini-van. I know you're only sixteen, Jenny, but if you promise to vote the "right" way, they'll overlook the technicalities... They're good at that."
If you're really, really good, you might even manage to convince yourself that you actually thought your own vote through, all by yourself, instead of simply responding to the programming that was imbedded deep in your brain by Exxon-Mobil when you had that "illness" as a child.
[7] *ahem* (again)
There once was a man named Mark Foley,
who engaged in a wee too much, uh, tomfoolery.
The man liked them young
and --oh, yes!-- well-hung,
even if only for some pocket poolery.
[8] Pick a card, any card.
I'd love to be able to tell you I was wrong. Really, I would. I spent six days out of every seven, all summer long, rooting against my own prognostication, but it wasn't to be: Those Poo-holes from Saint Loo won the Central division again. Houston made a late charge, but they waited too long before kicking in the afterburners and fell short (both of the division and, you might note, the wildcard). Aside from that, my biggest failure in forecasting the Central was probably my pipedreaming the Chicago Underachievers and Bud-lighters Society into third place.
My forecast........ STL, HOU, CHI, MIL, CIN, PIT.
Actual standings... STL, HOU, CIN, MIL, PIT, CHI.
Footnote: I said, somewhat ambiguously, that the road to the National League Championship would go through Saint Loo. By now, of course, you already know that those Poo-holes are, indeed, in the NLCS.
[9] Do you know what I know?
Your gas prices have been getting lower... but they still aren't as low
as they were before Halliburton invaded Iraq.
[10] Pickled tink.
Why, yes, I did pick the Mets to win the East. Yep, that was me, alright. Buy me a congratulatory drink: A decent sour mash on the rocks, with a splash of Coke. And make it a double, because they won the division by, like, 16 games or something gaudy like that. What's that? I said it would be closer? Much closer, you say? Hmm. What was I thinking?
Okay, here's what I was thinking: The Braves, you might remember, had won 14 straight division titles coming into this season. Many people, over the last several years, had picked against them and been wrong... Atlanta always seemed to find a way. In fact, I had picked against them and been wrong a few times myself. When I assessed the East this past spring, I couldn't get that of my head. So, I verbally hedged my bets: I picked the Mets, but then I wished my washy (or, uh, washed my wishy) and said, "But watch out for Atlanta, they'll make it close," or words to that effect. It was never close, of course: The Mets ran away with it. So cancel the sour mash. I'll just have a Natural Light straight out of the can, please.
My forecast........ NY, ATL, PHI, WAS, FLA.
Actual standings... NY, PHI, ATL, FLA, WAS.
[11] It's just a jump to the left... and then a step to the right.
You were in Salt Lake City a few weeks ago, Georgie. I was there the next day, but you had already left town. Last week, you were in Stockton, California, of all places. I was there the next day, but you had already left town. Are you avoiding me, you Smirking Marionette?
[12] Pick me up and dust me off.
The wildcard race was, as usual, wild... which is precisely as it should be. You heard me. Some of the more blasphemous among you have tried to advance the ridiculous, silly, absurd and downright crazy notion that I have some kind of a problem with Bud Selig as Commissioner of Baseball. I have absolutely no idea whatsoever where such a wacky and ludicrous rumor started... All kidding aside, though, the wildcard was and is a great idea and, believe it or not, I have always thought so. I really have. Reason: It keeps more teams in contention later into the season, thereby keeping more fans interested in baseball right through September (a key time, when it's competing with football for attention) and into the playoffs. Anyway, my forecast for the wildcard race went something like this: Houston would outdistance Atlanta and San Diego (the "first tier" of contenders), with (in no particular order) the Cubs, Phillies, Brewers and the Bay Area Retirement Home All-Stars also giving chase. Of course, that assessment presumed that the Dodgers would win the West. Instead, the final wildcard standings were: LA, PHI, HOU, CIN, ATL, FLA. Lastly, I concluded my season predictions with the summation that the playoff field would be "the Cardinals, Dodgers, Mets and Astros." The order in which I mentioned those teams was not random: It was a subtle prediction of the playoff seedings. The actual seedings were: Mets, Padres, Cardinals, Dodgers.
[13] P.S...
Bud "Let Us Pray To the Almighty Nielsen" Selig must go.
THE FIRE
The fire started Saturday afternoon, the 7th, just south of the business district. The Chicago Fire Department --a mere 185 dedicated men, trying to protect a city of nearly 350,000-- acted quickly to contain the blaze.
They had to act quickly. To say that the city was a proverbial tinderbox would be a gross understatement. Chicago was made almost entirely of wood, which was bad enough, but worse still the overwhelming majority of that wood, from buildings to sidewalks to even the streets, the overwhelming majority of that wood was pine, which burns remarkably quick compared to its harder, denser cousins. On top of that, the city was incredibly dry-- dried out by a long summer with virtually no rain. The tail end of a two-year-long drought had intensified, and barely an inch of rain had fallen since the Fourth of July. Now, in the first week of October, 1871, all of that quick-burning pine was warped and parched by the strong, hot prairie winds.
The fire department battled the blaze for seventeen long hours, until just after daybreak on Sunday morning, October 8th. Beleaguered and bone-tired, hair seared from their faces, soot-blackened, red-eyed, sweat-stained and heat-swollen and cinder-burnt, the firemen trudged in seeming slow-motion back to their station houses. Most of them were sent home to relax, clean up, spend some time with their families. They deserved it: It had been the worst fire in the history of Chicago...
...but it was only a prelude.
------------------------------
Watchman Matthias Schaffer stamped his feet on the wooden floor of the courthouse tower. He lifted his shoulders and tried to hunch his neck a little deeper into the collar of his heavy overcoat. Not even nine o'clock, yet, he thought, and already I'm cold. The long, hot summer hadn't really broken, yet, but within the last two weeks or so, the nights had turned uncomfortably chilly-- especially up here in the tower, with the wind whipping in through the windows.
Schaffer may not have had anybody to talk to, but he wasn't alone in his vigil. This was, after all, 1871, and a sophisticated system of fire alarm "strike boxes" webbed the whole city. They were locked against false alarms, with trustworthy citizens in every neighborhood holding the keys. Additionally, every fire station had its own observation tower. None of them, however, commanded the view as could be had by the courthouse tower. Here, with his back to the big lake, a watchman could sweep the entire eighteen square miles of bustling Chicago-- the fastest-growing city in the world.
Schaffer picked up his spyglass and leaned out, his belly against the window sill. Maybe it's this job, he thought. Just standing around up here in this damned tower, hour after hour. Watching and waiting. Watching and waiting for something to happen, praying it never does. Schaffer swept the glass to the north, far beyond the river, beyond even the residential neighborhoods of the North Side, focusing on the brand-new Lincoln Park, out on the edge of town. His job certainly seemed simple enough: Sweep the horizon, end to end, then change the angle and sweep around again, a little closer-in from the horizon. Keep looking closer, closer until you can stop using the spyglass and then check the downtown area, looking for smoke and/or flame. When done, repeat... until it was somebody else's turn.
Of course, it was nighttime, which made spotting smoke tricky and, besides, there was smoke everywhere-- innocuous smoke from cooking fires and fireplaces in nearly every building. Tonight, too, curls of smoke were still rising from the vast mountains of coal waiting to be shipped or sold along the south branch of the river, where last night's Big Fire had been driven and finally beaten.
Schaffer panned the horizon in slow motion, pausing often to make sure he wasn't really seeing what his mind too often told him was another big fire. As he scanned to the southwest, he stopped... stared... stared... and felt the bottom fall out of his stomach.
Hurriedly, he pulled himself away from the window and turned to the voice box, a simple tube that connected him with the central fire alarm telegraph office on the first floor. Connected by telegraph wires to every station in the city, this was the Chicago Fire Department's dispatch center. Unable to control the rising tone of his voice, Schaffer told the operator that he'd spotted a fire near the corner of Halsted and Canalport, near strike box 342. Telegraph operator William Brown acknowledged the call.
Schaffer returned to the window. He turned his head and quickly scanned the rest of the city, hardly even seeing it. Then he raised the glass to his eye and trained it on the rising plume of smoke to the southwest. As he watched, he both heard and, because he was so close to it, felt the enormous tower bell begin to toll the alarm. Down in the control center, Brown had pulled the lever releasing the gears and pulleys...
Schaffer pulled the glass away from his eye, put it back, pulled it away. His brow furrowed into a frown, then shot up in horror. He heaved himself away from the window and stumbled to the voice box. In a rush, he told Brown he'd made a mistake: He'd mis-located the fire. It was closer in than he'd first thought, nearly a mile closer in, near strike box 319.
There was a long pause. Then Brown asked, "Are you sure?"
"Yes! Tell the station houses it's at 319!"
Again, there was a pause. Then Brown said, "I don't think that would be best."
The two argued for several minutes. Schaffer urged Brown to tap out the correction. Brown refused, saying that a second message would only confuse things. He further reasoned that since the new location was actually on the way to strike box 342 for most of the fire companies, they would see the actual fire and stop there. Brown may also have wondered silently whether Schaffer's second report was any more reliable than his first. In any case, he never sent out the correction.
Unbeknownst to Brown or Schaffer, one local fire company was already at the scene. The key holder of strike box 319, a local storekeeper, had already sent out the alarm. The strike box system was supposed to alert the operator in the central office (Brown), but had failed somehow. Brown had only Schaffer's panicked and spotty report to go on, with no confirmation.
Down on the southwest side, in an Irish neighborhood of shanties, sheds and stables, neighbors pounded on the door of Patrick and Catherine O'Leary. They and their three children had already turned in for the night. Patrick was a Civil War veteran. Catherine was trying to make a little extra money for her family by selling milk out of her barn. Bleary-eyed, they answered the pounding at their door and found a small crowd of their neighbors, shouting excitedly that their barn was on fire.
In all, seven fire companies responded to the blaze on the north side of DeKoven Street, between Jefferson and Clinton Streets, a few blocks north of Roosevelt Road. It took most of them the better part of an hour to get there, however. By that time, the fire had already consumed the entire block to the north and east of the O'Learys' barn. Strong prairie winds, twenty to thirty miles per hour, drove and fueled the blaze. Virtually everything in its path was combustible, extremely so, and the fire quickly became an inferno. It was a live thing, a nightmare hell-beast unchained, gorging itself and wailing its banshee wail, the impossibly tall flames dancing frenzied and wanton, Satan's fiery harem had come to Chicago to celebrate the Apocalypse, writhing with abandon to the white noise of speed metal not yet invented.
And, like a live thing, it began to breathe. Before being forced to abandon his post, the official in charge of the U.S. Weather Signal Office on LaSalle Street reported his anemometer registering winds of sixty miles per hour. That wind was created by the inferno itself, a confused, swirling vortex of updrafts, downdrafts, backdrafts, spawned by the blast-furnace heat and fueling that same heat in an ever-increasing cycle. The Great Chicago Fire roared with full-throated rage and burned in its very soul: Before the night was over, its temperature would far exceed 2500 degrees-- hot enough to melt steel.
The surging, swirling winds drove the inferno forward, and cleared its path: Entire timbers were sucked into the fiery pit of the beast and spit flaming high and far, as if shot from an ancient catapult. A continual shower of sparks, embers, cinders fell on the panicked and fleeing people: A rain of fire. The air grew to hot to breathe. Clothing burst into flame a quarter-mile away or more. Tree trunks exploded, tearing themselves apart from inside, their sap virtually flash-boiling, the shrapnel splinters bursting into flames before they hit the ground.
The firefighters, steadfastly trying to battle the blaze, found themselves caught in a pincer: The flaming timbers hurled up and out of the heart of the inferno landed hundreds of yards behind them, igniting more fires and trapping those who were in between.
By quarter after ten, sawmills and factories along the south branch of the Chicago River were ablaze. Soon after, the grain elevators lining the riverfront became the world's biggest Roman candles. By eleven-thirty, a horse stable and the South Side Gas Works caught fire... on the east side of the river. Hell had officially broken loose. (Before too much longer, the river itself would be awash in flames-- even in 1871, it was that polluted.)
The Hell-spawn was now in the heart of the city... and it drove straight toward the courthouse, where the great bell still tolled. Mayor Roswell B. Mason ordered the courthouse --the symbol of civic pride-- evacuated. Most of the prisoners being held in the basement were released outright. Those considered too dangerous were put in chains and led away under guard. The inferno swept into downtown, consuming the commercial district. The courthouse bell continued to toll --a barely-heard death knell, now-- until sometime after two o'clock in the morning, when it finally came crashing down through the gutted ruins of the courthouse. The cacophony of its passing could be heard a mile away. Afterwards, only the screams of the fleeing crowds and the mad cackle of the beast itself could be heard.
Now a wall of hellfire more than a hundred feet high, more than a thousand feet wide and shrieking mad, the beast bore on. Just minutes after the great bell had tolled its last, the roaring inferno hurled a flaming mass over the main branch of the Chicago River. It landed on an Illinois Central rail-car... loaded with kerosene. Bulls-eye.
Now loose on the North Side, the inferno tore like a mindful thing directly toward the last enemy it had, the last thing that had any chance of stopping it: The city Waterworks. This, the city's main pumping station, drew water from deep in Lake Michigan and supplied pressure to the water mains. It was, stategically, in these early hours of Monday, the most important building in town.
The importance of the Waterworks to fighting fires had not been lost on its builders. Constructed of thick, heavy stone, it occupied a large, open plat of land that kept it far from neighboring buildings. Although the roof was wood, it was covered in a layer of slate.
On this night, however, they needed a thicker layer of slate. Again the great beast of fire shot a flaming missile, this one landing on the roof of the pump house. Within minutes, the Waterworks became a raging furnace and the great pumps ceased. Chicago was now utterly defenseless.
Free to roam, the Great Fire now ran in every direction, chasing citizen all the way to the edge of the hinterland, or driving them --literally-- into the lake, where they huddled or stood neck-deep and tried to breathe without searing their lungs. Throughout the day on Monday, the refugees crouched, or stood, and watched the ghost that had been Chicago burn.
Late Monday night, a cold rain began to fall.
------------------------------
Almost as soon as it had started, the story began to circulate that the fire had been ignited by Catherine O'Leary's milking cow. Either startled or simply clumsy in that way that milking cows so often are, surely it had kicked over a lantern and set the hay-strewn barn ablaze. In truth, there is very little to substantiate this story. Recent, speculative tests and theories have targeted the vast stack of hay itself: A case of spontaneous combustion. It would fit.
The O'Learys' house, mere yards from the original blaze, but to the south of it, was virtually untouched.
------------------------------
All the credit in the world goes to my source and inspiration for this post: Donald L. Miller's City of the Century; the Epic of Chicago and the Making of America. Miller did a phenomenal amount of research on nineteenth-century Chicago, covers a lot of ground and does it well. Unfortunately, much of that ground is rather dry, making for a rather dry book, overall. That isn't the fault of Miller's writing, it is the fault of the material. It is the kind of book that had to be written --the world is better for it-- but is best left to be cataloged by someone with not much else to do, and used for spot references.
------------------------------
P.S... Bud "Hmm, Things Are Looking Grimsley" Selig must go.
They had to act quickly. To say that the city was a proverbial tinderbox would be a gross understatement. Chicago was made almost entirely of wood, which was bad enough, but worse still the overwhelming majority of that wood, from buildings to sidewalks to even the streets, the overwhelming majority of that wood was pine, which burns remarkably quick compared to its harder, denser cousins. On top of that, the city was incredibly dry-- dried out by a long summer with virtually no rain. The tail end of a two-year-long drought had intensified, and barely an inch of rain had fallen since the Fourth of July. Now, in the first week of October, 1871, all of that quick-burning pine was warped and parched by the strong, hot prairie winds.
The fire department battled the blaze for seventeen long hours, until just after daybreak on Sunday morning, October 8th. Beleaguered and bone-tired, hair seared from their faces, soot-blackened, red-eyed, sweat-stained and heat-swollen and cinder-burnt, the firemen trudged in seeming slow-motion back to their station houses. Most of them were sent home to relax, clean up, spend some time with their families. They deserved it: It had been the worst fire in the history of Chicago...
...but it was only a prelude.
------------------------------
Watchman Matthias Schaffer stamped his feet on the wooden floor of the courthouse tower. He lifted his shoulders and tried to hunch his neck a little deeper into the collar of his heavy overcoat. Not even nine o'clock, yet, he thought, and already I'm cold. The long, hot summer hadn't really broken, yet, but within the last two weeks or so, the nights had turned uncomfortably chilly-- especially up here in the tower, with the wind whipping in through the windows.
Schaffer may not have had anybody to talk to, but he wasn't alone in his vigil. This was, after all, 1871, and a sophisticated system of fire alarm "strike boxes" webbed the whole city. They were locked against false alarms, with trustworthy citizens in every neighborhood holding the keys. Additionally, every fire station had its own observation tower. None of them, however, commanded the view as could be had by the courthouse tower. Here, with his back to the big lake, a watchman could sweep the entire eighteen square miles of bustling Chicago-- the fastest-growing city in the world.
Schaffer picked up his spyglass and leaned out, his belly against the window sill. Maybe it's this job, he thought. Just standing around up here in this damned tower, hour after hour. Watching and waiting. Watching and waiting for something to happen, praying it never does. Schaffer swept the glass to the north, far beyond the river, beyond even the residential neighborhoods of the North Side, focusing on the brand-new Lincoln Park, out on the edge of town. His job certainly seemed simple enough: Sweep the horizon, end to end, then change the angle and sweep around again, a little closer-in from the horizon. Keep looking closer, closer until you can stop using the spyglass and then check the downtown area, looking for smoke and/or flame. When done, repeat... until it was somebody else's turn.
Of course, it was nighttime, which made spotting smoke tricky and, besides, there was smoke everywhere-- innocuous smoke from cooking fires and fireplaces in nearly every building. Tonight, too, curls of smoke were still rising from the vast mountains of coal waiting to be shipped or sold along the south branch of the river, where last night's Big Fire had been driven and finally beaten.
Schaffer panned the horizon in slow motion, pausing often to make sure he wasn't really seeing what his mind too often told him was another big fire. As he scanned to the southwest, he stopped... stared... stared... and felt the bottom fall out of his stomach.
Hurriedly, he pulled himself away from the window and turned to the voice box, a simple tube that connected him with the central fire alarm telegraph office on the first floor. Connected by telegraph wires to every station in the city, this was the Chicago Fire Department's dispatch center. Unable to control the rising tone of his voice, Schaffer told the operator that he'd spotted a fire near the corner of Halsted and Canalport, near strike box 342. Telegraph operator William Brown acknowledged the call.
Schaffer returned to the window. He turned his head and quickly scanned the rest of the city, hardly even seeing it. Then he raised the glass to his eye and trained it on the rising plume of smoke to the southwest. As he watched, he both heard and, because he was so close to it, felt the enormous tower bell begin to toll the alarm. Down in the control center, Brown had pulled the lever releasing the gears and pulleys...
Schaffer pulled the glass away from his eye, put it back, pulled it away. His brow furrowed into a frown, then shot up in horror. He heaved himself away from the window and stumbled to the voice box. In a rush, he told Brown he'd made a mistake: He'd mis-located the fire. It was closer in than he'd first thought, nearly a mile closer in, near strike box 319.
There was a long pause. Then Brown asked, "Are you sure?"
"Yes! Tell the station houses it's at 319!"
Again, there was a pause. Then Brown said, "I don't think that would be best."
The two argued for several minutes. Schaffer urged Brown to tap out the correction. Brown refused, saying that a second message would only confuse things. He further reasoned that since the new location was actually on the way to strike box 342 for most of the fire companies, they would see the actual fire and stop there. Brown may also have wondered silently whether Schaffer's second report was any more reliable than his first. In any case, he never sent out the correction.
Unbeknownst to Brown or Schaffer, one local fire company was already at the scene. The key holder of strike box 319, a local storekeeper, had already sent out the alarm. The strike box system was supposed to alert the operator in the central office (Brown), but had failed somehow. Brown had only Schaffer's panicked and spotty report to go on, with no confirmation.
Down on the southwest side, in an Irish neighborhood of shanties, sheds and stables, neighbors pounded on the door of Patrick and Catherine O'Leary. They and their three children had already turned in for the night. Patrick was a Civil War veteran. Catherine was trying to make a little extra money for her family by selling milk out of her barn. Bleary-eyed, they answered the pounding at their door and found a small crowd of their neighbors, shouting excitedly that their barn was on fire.
In all, seven fire companies responded to the blaze on the north side of DeKoven Street, between Jefferson and Clinton Streets, a few blocks north of Roosevelt Road. It took most of them the better part of an hour to get there, however. By that time, the fire had already consumed the entire block to the north and east of the O'Learys' barn. Strong prairie winds, twenty to thirty miles per hour, drove and fueled the blaze. Virtually everything in its path was combustible, extremely so, and the fire quickly became an inferno. It was a live thing, a nightmare hell-beast unchained, gorging itself and wailing its banshee wail, the impossibly tall flames dancing frenzied and wanton, Satan's fiery harem had come to Chicago to celebrate the Apocalypse, writhing with abandon to the white noise of speed metal not yet invented.
And, like a live thing, it began to breathe. Before being forced to abandon his post, the official in charge of the U.S. Weather Signal Office on LaSalle Street reported his anemometer registering winds of sixty miles per hour. That wind was created by the inferno itself, a confused, swirling vortex of updrafts, downdrafts, backdrafts, spawned by the blast-furnace heat and fueling that same heat in an ever-increasing cycle. The Great Chicago Fire roared with full-throated rage and burned in its very soul: Before the night was over, its temperature would far exceed 2500 degrees-- hot enough to melt steel.
The surging, swirling winds drove the inferno forward, and cleared its path: Entire timbers were sucked into the fiery pit of the beast and spit flaming high and far, as if shot from an ancient catapult. A continual shower of sparks, embers, cinders fell on the panicked and fleeing people: A rain of fire. The air grew to hot to breathe. Clothing burst into flame a quarter-mile away or more. Tree trunks exploded, tearing themselves apart from inside, their sap virtually flash-boiling, the shrapnel splinters bursting into flames before they hit the ground.
The firefighters, steadfastly trying to battle the blaze, found themselves caught in a pincer: The flaming timbers hurled up and out of the heart of the inferno landed hundreds of yards behind them, igniting more fires and trapping those who were in between.
By quarter after ten, sawmills and factories along the south branch of the Chicago River were ablaze. Soon after, the grain elevators lining the riverfront became the world's biggest Roman candles. By eleven-thirty, a horse stable and the South Side Gas Works caught fire... on the east side of the river. Hell had officially broken loose. (Before too much longer, the river itself would be awash in flames-- even in 1871, it was that polluted.)
The Hell-spawn was now in the heart of the city... and it drove straight toward the courthouse, where the great bell still tolled. Mayor Roswell B. Mason ordered the courthouse --the symbol of civic pride-- evacuated. Most of the prisoners being held in the basement were released outright. Those considered too dangerous were put in chains and led away under guard. The inferno swept into downtown, consuming the commercial district. The courthouse bell continued to toll --a barely-heard death knell, now-- until sometime after two o'clock in the morning, when it finally came crashing down through the gutted ruins of the courthouse. The cacophony of its passing could be heard a mile away. Afterwards, only the screams of the fleeing crowds and the mad cackle of the beast itself could be heard.
Now a wall of hellfire more than a hundred feet high, more than a thousand feet wide and shrieking mad, the beast bore on. Just minutes after the great bell had tolled its last, the roaring inferno hurled a flaming mass over the main branch of the Chicago River. It landed on an Illinois Central rail-car... loaded with kerosene. Bulls-eye.
Now loose on the North Side, the inferno tore like a mindful thing directly toward the last enemy it had, the last thing that had any chance of stopping it: The city Waterworks. This, the city's main pumping station, drew water from deep in Lake Michigan and supplied pressure to the water mains. It was, stategically, in these early hours of Monday, the most important building in town.
The importance of the Waterworks to fighting fires had not been lost on its builders. Constructed of thick, heavy stone, it occupied a large, open plat of land that kept it far from neighboring buildings. Although the roof was wood, it was covered in a layer of slate.
On this night, however, they needed a thicker layer of slate. Again the great beast of fire shot a flaming missile, this one landing on the roof of the pump house. Within minutes, the Waterworks became a raging furnace and the great pumps ceased. Chicago was now utterly defenseless.
Free to roam, the Great Fire now ran in every direction, chasing citizen all the way to the edge of the hinterland, or driving them --literally-- into the lake, where they huddled or stood neck-deep and tried to breathe without searing their lungs. Throughout the day on Monday, the refugees crouched, or stood, and watched the ghost that had been Chicago burn.
Late Monday night, a cold rain began to fall.
------------------------------
Almost as soon as it had started, the story began to circulate that the fire had been ignited by Catherine O'Leary's milking cow. Either startled or simply clumsy in that way that milking cows so often are, surely it had kicked over a lantern and set the hay-strewn barn ablaze. In truth, there is very little to substantiate this story. Recent, speculative tests and theories have targeted the vast stack of hay itself: A case of spontaneous combustion. It would fit.
The O'Learys' house, mere yards from the original blaze, but to the south of it, was virtually untouched.
------------------------------
All the credit in the world goes to my source and inspiration for this post: Donald L. Miller's City of the Century; the Epic of Chicago and the Making of America. Miller did a phenomenal amount of research on nineteenth-century Chicago, covers a lot of ground and does it well. Unfortunately, much of that ground is rather dry, making for a rather dry book, overall. That isn't the fault of Miller's writing, it is the fault of the material. It is the kind of book that had to be written --the world is better for it-- but is best left to be cataloged by someone with not much else to do, and used for spot references.
------------------------------
P.S... Bud "Hmm, Things Are Looking Grimsley" Selig must go.
Oct 4, 2006
Supremely Dumb
"Nobody thinks your client is really, you know, abstaining from tequila down in Mexico because he is on supervised release in the United States."
~Antonio Scalia
~Antonio Scalia
Sep 21, 2006
When Presidents Kill (Pt. 2)
Let's pick up where we left off . . .
- James Garfield: Soldier. Not the most exciting dude. He was assassinated which is kind of interesting. It seems that the bullets that hit him did not kill him immediately. Alexander Graham Bell came up with a metal detector to try to find the bullet. But seeing as he was laying on a metal framed bed . . . He died of a heart attack caused by lead poisoning. Bonus' for having Johnny Cash write a song about him ("Mister Garfield (has been shot down"). In the movie Unforgiven English Bob mocks the assassination ("But, the President, why not shoot the President?"). He was the only ambidextrous President. But really who cares?
- Benjamin Harrison: Soldier. Grandson of William Henry Harrison makes him the only grandfather-grandson presidential duo in U.S. history. Bonus points for being the last president to sport a full beard in office, having electricity installed in the White House, and being the first president to travel the country by train and attend a baseball game. Negative points for having his ticket comprised entirely of alumni from Miami University which is in Florida.
- William McKinley: Soldier. Superior officer was yet-to-be President Hayes. Generally boring guy but does get bonus points for being assassinated by an anarchist, Leon Czolgosz. Theoretically, the Wizard of Oz was based on him. If so, a big fat negative.
- Theodore Roosevelt: NOT A SOLDIER! This bad ass killed horse thieves! And dudes that stole a boat! He did found the Rough Riders and fought in sanctioned battles but was given his military titles after the war. Technicality, sure, but not a killing soldier. Plus look at this picture. Bad Ass! After his presidency he went on a hunting expedition in Africa and bagged or captured 11,397 animals. 262 were eaten by the expedition and many were sent to the American Museum of Natural History. Many more cool things exist about this man making him "The Blasphemes Murderous President So Far."
- Harry Truman: Soldier. He should not have been a soldier. His eyesight was 20/50 R, 20/400 L. But he memorized the eyechart so that he could kill. Bonus for sure. Fired off the first Hydrogen bomb. The Vietnam War and the Korean War started during his tenure. Should have been beaten by Dewey.
- John F. Kennedy: Soldier. Bonus for wanting to enter the navy. Seems the old boy had a bad back and was denied. He used his political favors not to get a cushy job or his wealth to sit around on a yacht (that would come later) but to enlist. Jack was on the PT-109 when it was rammed and swam 3 miles while carrying a wounded man. Negative points for the incident being used as the basis of McHale's Navy which then became a god-awful movie with Frazier. Negative points for not censuring McCarthy. More negs for Bay f Pigs but big bonus for TAKING RESPONSIBILITY for it. Some could learn from this.
- George W. Bush: Soldier. Sunk a small cargo boat during World War II. Negatives for being a wimp and fathering lame-ass kids.
Sep 19, 2006
The best presidents kill
First of all I would like to apologize for the lack of posting that I have done the past two weeks. I have no internet and have no further excuses. I look forward to this weekends First annual Blasphemes gathering in beautiful California. I look forward to the beer, poker, and bad jokes that only we get. Apology given time for me to turn into Andy Rooney.
Did you ever notice that the best presidents have all killed someone? I looked at a list recently of the 43 presidents we have had in the short-lived life of this great country. I gazed at some names that made me proud and a few that made me squirm (Franklin Pierce, I am looking at you). I had recently read an article that told the surprisingly interesting life of George H. W. Bush. It seems he has killed a man. I wanted to know what other presidents have killed and when. Here is my the first six of my list:
Did you ever notice that the best presidents have all killed someone? I looked at a list recently of the 43 presidents we have had in the short-lived life of this great country. I gazed at some names that made me proud and a few that made me squirm (Franklin Pierce, I am looking at you). I had recently read an article that told the surprisingly interesting life of George H. W. Bush. It seems he has killed a man. I wanted to know what other presidents have killed and when. Here is my the first six of my list:
- George Washington: Kind of a no-brainer. You got your French and Indian War and your Revolutionary War. Soldiers, it seems, often kill during war. At least the good ones do. President Washington also gets bonus points for assassinating a Frenchie, Joseph Coulon de Villiers de Jumonville. More bonus points for having TWO horses shot out from under him in the Battle of the Monongahela. Later this battle would be immortalized (to a sad few) in the Monongahela Metal Foundry, a sponsor to Bob and Ray.
- Andrew Jackson: Another soldier. Bonus points for killing a man in a duel. Minus points for being in 103 duels and killing only one man. Bonus points for being the only president who was a prisoner of war which stemmed from his refusal to clean a British officers boots. Bonus points for being the first president with an assassination attempt on his life. Extra bonus for beating the dude with a cane before being pulled off. Finally, his nickname is "Old Hickory" as in "tough as old hickory wood on the battle field." Good move shortening it.
- James Monroe: Soldier. Bonus points for admitting Illinois to the Union. Negative points for accepting Florida. Bonus points for telling the Europeans to fuck off. Negative points for the Missouri Compromise. Big negative for his presidency being referred to as the "Era of Good Feelings." Jackson should have kicked his ass.
- William Henry Harrison: Soldier. Bonus points for winning the Battle of Tippecanoe. Negative points for being nicknamed "Old Tippecanoe." Second oldest president ever (after Reagan) and first to die in office. Where is the They Might Be Giants' song about this guy?
- Zachary Taylor: I will let you decide what his bonus' and negatives are. I just can't believe this guy won an election. Never voted. Not even in the election he was in. Stuttered. Could barely read and was an infamously poor speller. Refused to be sworn in on a Sunday making David Rice Atchinson president pro tempore. Nickname: "Old Rough and Ready." When the South threatened to leave the union he said he would lead the army against them and that he would hang all people who raised arms against him "with less reluctance than he had hanged deserters and spies in Mexico."
- Franklin Pierce: Soldier. After losing the Democratic nomination Pierce claimed, "There is nothing left to do but get drunk." Bonus! Plus a few extra points for running over an old lady in a carriage. Hey, killing is killing. Negatives for not stopping the Civil War, signing the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and declaring his support for the Confederacy. Negative points for being considered the worst president ever until recently.
- Rutherford Hayes: Soldier. Negative for the nickname "Old Granny." Negative for the first stolen election. Ironically, Ruth also used the Republican Supreme Court to decide on the winner of the 1876 election. This is either called the "Great Compromise of 1877" or the "Second Corrupt Bargain" depending on if your pro or anti-slavery. Hayes was also the first president to have his voice recorded. And it was done by Edison! But it is lost. Game over.