12. February 2005 · Comments Off on Cats on A Smooth Surface · Categories: Media Matters Not

First Rather…now Eason. I refuse to add “-gate.” I’m tired of the whole “-gate” thing. Most folks even 10 years younger than me have no idea why we defame gates in this way.

Twice now in less than a year, major players in the media have said or done things that were less than honest, less than factual, and very controversial. When busted, did they admit their faults? Did they take a deep breath and say, “Look, I got excited, I screwed up.”? No…they acted like one of my cats when she accidentally let a turd loose on the kitchen floor…scratch-scratch-scratch…look up at me and mew pitifully, “It won’t cover up.”…scratch-scratch-scratch…”Meeeewwwwwww.”

And there, right there is the problem. We all understand getting excited. Who hasn’t said something completely stupid in the heat of the moment? I know when I was young, the words “I was wrong.” were the hardest things to get out of my mouth. Some folks say that about me to this day but seriously, I’ve gotten better. But ya know…I’ve grown to believe the best thing to do when you mess up is to admit it right away. Less hassle, less worry, lets people know you’re human.

And that’s the problem with some of these folks and they just don’t get it. We’re not that pissed about the stupid stuff that sometimes slips through your personal or professional editor. What gets us going is when you act like my cat and try to cover up something that’s out there for the world to see and you’ve got absolutely no dirt to use and you insist on scratching and scratching away…cats on a smooth surface.

Note: All apologies to the Asbury Park NJ band with the same name, but the image was too strong.

11. February 2005 · Comments Off on If You Could Have Seen… · Categories: General Nonsense

the crap that I didn’t publish this morning…you’d thank me.

There were comments on this that involved leather and binding and signs of the apocolypse but, in the end, I couldn’t form a punchline that didn’t make me a little nauseous.

Then there was a good half hour rant about this crap that just went on and on and on and then I stopped to take a swig of coffee and realized the irony I was setting myself up for.

So…-shaking my fingers like Jack Black-…you owe me…

10. February 2005 · Comments Off on H2G2 Frenzy Builds (Vogon Porn) · Categories: That's Entertainment!

There’s only one movie that I’m waiting for this year. Yes, I’m curious about the duel between Anikin and Obi Wan, but when that scene is over, I’m expecting to take a nap while Boyo finishes the rest of the flick.

But the movie that has me impatiently checking the calendar for the 6th of May and that has me keeping my towel handy, is “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to The Galaxy.”

Here’s some Vogon Porn for you all. It’s okay…it’s only pictures…there are no sound clips of actual poetry readings…I don’t think it would be legal. I’m curious to see how they’re going to handle that…because you know…a theater full of people watching a Vogon read poetry in surround sound…well…ewwwwwwwwww.

Vogan Porn via Emily.

09. February 2005 · Comments Off on It’s Ash Wednesday · Categories: Good God

…43 years old and I still have to spell-check “Wednesday”…

Others are explaining their religious points of view, I thought I’d try something a little more fun and in the spirit of the season as it were.

The most radical and shocking statement that Jesus uttered during his time on earth was:

“The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.”

Make yourself some mac and cheese and salmon cakes while you reflect on this or just discuss in comments.

Yes…I know John said it first. Jesus picked it up after John was sent to prison and ran with it. But still. It was the wildest thing anyone had said about God or has said since.

To me it means stop waiting. The time to get your collective sh…stuff together is NOW. There are no ordinary moments. We’re spiritual beings on a physical journey not physical beings on a spiritual journey.

2000 years later there’s an entire culture waiting for the end of all things instead of living in this moment as if it was the holiest of times. If Jesus is the Son of God, I can’t imagine how sad he must be.

No…not back on the Percocet…just the kid who thought he might want to be a Priest kicking up.

09. February 2005 · Comments Off on Worst. Music. Idea. Ever. Challenge… · Categories: That's Entertainment!

Over at PoliBlog.

Via James Joyner over at OTB.

08. February 2005 · Comments Off on A Meme Rolls On · Categories: General

Via Michele who got it from Jim who got it from Ken, who in turn got it from Army of Mom who seems to have gotten it from Seven Inches of Sense.

10 albums randomly selected from my collection:

Anywhere But Home – Evanescence
Money For Nothing – Dire Straits
Song(s) You Know By Heart – Jimmy Buffet
Live at the Greek – Jimmy Page and The Black Crowes
The White Room – The KLF (Also known as the Justified Ancients of MuMu, further known as the JAMMs)
101 – Depeche Mode
Live in New York – Blondie
Live from House of Blues – The Blues Brothers and Friends
Live at the Beacon – The New York Rock and Soul Review
The Last Waltz – The Band

What is the total amount of music files on your computer?

I’m not going to count megs or gigs but about 70 Albums and about 30 “orphan” tracks.

The last CD you bought is:

The Best of Bob Seger. “Roll Me Away” never got enough credit as it’s own track.

What is the song you last listened to before this message?

Bizarre Love Triangle – Frentel- via Radio Paradise.


Five songs you often listen to or that mean a lot to you:

It’s Hard to Be a Saint in the City – Bruce Springsteen…Because it is.

Oliver’s Army – Elvis Costello

Wonderful Tonight – Eric Clapton…It’s the song Beautiful Wife and I love to slow dance to.

The Weight – The Band with The Staple Singers…When Mavis kicks in on the second verse…it’s better than any church for my soul.

Over You – Roxy Music…For a mime named Lisa…who got away…thankfully…but all the same…

Who are you gonna pass this stick to?

I’d like to see all y’alls own versions, either in comments or your own post.

08. February 2005 · Comments Off on It Could Be Worse.. · Categories: That's Entertainment!

It hurts that my eight year old, Boyo, would rather watch Fridays on Cartoon Network than watch Battlestar Galactica with me…on the other hand, the Alien vs Predator DVD has become officially his. It’s in his rack, right next to Day After Tomorrow and along all the animated movies. And he practically demanded to know why we don’t have the rest of the Predator and Alien Collection, and by the way didn’t we mention that we were going to get Twister on DVD last year? Hmmm, cartoons, monster and disaster movies…not bad…not bad at all…and to be fair, he doesn’t have to play quietly when he watches stuff by himself.

What’s really hard is giving him a credible argument about spending less time playing video games when Beautiful Wife and I are both vidiots.

08. February 2005 · Comments Off on Battlestar Blogging, the Second · Categories: That's Entertainment!

With everything going on with ME I almost forgot about it.

How cool was Friday’s episode? The salute to Top Gun simply rocked.

I don’t know anyone who’s NOT watching this show. Even the crusty ol’ retired Chief, GS15, who runs the division jumped into the conversation last week. The conversation was about Number Six, aka, Tricia Helfer, but hey, he watches.

08. February 2005 · Comments Off on Ethical Question: · Categories: General

Should I go back to work when I’m feeling 100 percent or should I milk the convalescent leave for all its worth?

08. February 2005 · Comments Off on The Cool Thing… · Categories: General, Technology

about corrective surgery is that as the incisions heal you realize that the pain you started with is gone and as the pain from the wounds fade, your legs are better than before the surgery. But now I’ve got 8 days of itchy staples to deal with and if I don’t go mad, I don’t know why.

06. February 2005 · Comments Off on Drug Update · Categories: General Nonsense

Day of Surgery: Percocet baby…damn that hurts.

Day after Surgery: Switch to Tylenol 3 w/ codeine. Doesn’t hurt as much.

Superbowl Sunday: Down to Motrin and that’s only because of a bit of swelling.

When you have surgery on your legs, sleep with your legs elevated above your heart as much as possible and you’ll be amazed. Also…try to retrain your cats not to boof your legs to show they love you cuz…yeeeeowww they manage to find just the spot.

This is going too smoothly…that worries me.

04. February 2005 · Comments Off on All Good · Categories: General

Surgery went as planned. That’s a weird experience…having them shoot a little shot in your IV and going, “Whoa…that’s fun…” and then waking up a couple hours later remembering nothing at all.

Incisions are about 15cm up both legs with an “H” style release across the fascias. The surgeon took one look at my legs and decided both compartments needed doing. I guess I have unusually large calf muscles because everyone kept commenting on them…sort of creeped me out. No…my physical therapist was not there.

Must go put the legs back up now…I was only mobile to ummm…take care of unignorable bodily maintenance.

Thanks for the prayers all, I’m sure they helped.

Percocet-land is a nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live here.

03. February 2005 · Comments Off on Why My Physical Therapist Needs to Be Step Promoted: · Categories: General Nonsense, Wild Blue Yonder

Because as she was adjusting my crutches and showing me how to use them for post-surgery tomorrow, she said something like this:

You want to make sure you have about a 30 degree bend in your elbow so your triceps take all the weight and my…you do have some triceps don’t you?

Why yes…yes I do.

She’s a wonderful human being…a fine young American…and she knows how to make an anxious older guy feel damn good. That’s natural talent dammit and it deserves respect.

03. February 2005 · Comments Off on Idol Blogging · Categories: That's Entertainment!

This drove me crazy all night. The dude who made up his own rap and was thoroughly going for the Napoleon Dynamite look? Wasn’t that a comedian who used to do pizza commercials and stuff? Chris Wilde? Any bells?

02. February 2005 · Comments Off on I’m Copying This One to a Standby Email · Categories: Iraq, Politics

The very next time an old friend…okay liberal nutcase who still thinks it’s 1968 and thinks I’ve been brainwashed hard by the vast right-wing conspiracty…hits me with, “They LIED about the WMD!!!!” I’m sending them Reasons by Dean Esmay.

Well done sir.

Side note…I know I’m blogging a lot today. I have pre-op tomorrow and surgery on Friday and then I don’t know how long I have to have my legs elevated so I’m trying to get as much out as possible before I can’t sit at the computer. Besides…it keeps my mind off the fact that they’re slicing my legs open in less than 48 hours.

02. February 2005 · Comments Off on Another Media Blogger · Categories: General Nonsense

Manic Viking is a new guy on the block. The title alone recommends it but he writes about movies, and drinking, and video games, and drinking, and webtoons. Check it out before it becomes a recovery blog because dude, if you’re drinking Jaeger and Bawls as a cannonball…Robert Downey Jr. is giving you the look.

Via Fritz.

02. February 2005 · Comments Off on Rehash of The Homeland Horror Version of Seperated at Birth · Categories: General Nonsense

When I see the new head of Homeland Security, I shouldn’t immediately hear “Let’s do the Time Warp agaiiiiiiiin.” in my head.

02. February 2005 · Comments Off on They’re Not Laughing With You, They’re Laughing At You! Addendum · Categories: General, Media Matters Not

Toy Soldiers by Douglas Kern.

Major “Matt” Mason Shot Down.

More Loved Ones Captured.

Via Reynolds.

Add any more you find to the comments.

02. February 2005 · Comments Off on Groundhog Day!!! · Categories: General Nonsense

The station that my clock radio is set to has a sense of humor. For the past three days the same song has played at exactly 0h-my-god-it’s-early…every morning. I should have figured it out on Monday…it’s not an oldies station and yet, “I Got You Babe” was the song. It was literally a sleeper joke. I hit the snooze bar or the off button and rolled over and out…watch the CAT…head downstairs for coffee and to feed the felines their moist…and God almighty they’re getting fat…cats need diets too. It wasn’t really until this morning that I even noticed it was three days in a row…and then it still didn’t fully hit me until I was driving through the fog this morning and the morning crew of the station mentioned Punxsutawney Phil .

If you can’t get to the site…it’s six more weeks of winter…but if you listen to the one in New York…it’s only a month and a half.

01. February 2005 · Comments Off on Seperated at Birth, Half-Life Edition · Categories: General Nonsense

Every time I saw Dan Senor on the news it just drove me nuts…he reminded me of someone…and then today it hit me. The G-Man from the game Half Life.

31. January 2005 · Comments Off on What’s Your Music Player? · Categories: Technology, That's Entertainment!

Okay, all you gizmo freaks. I’ve got a very very nice tax return coming this year…so much for tax breaks just for the rich…and I’m thinking of upgrading my MP3 players. I use both hard drive and flash. I’m thinking of going all IPod.

What say you all?

30. January 2005 · Comments Off on Tell Me Again Why You Didn’t Vote? · Categories: Iraq: The Good

I can’t find a web-based version of the story but earlier today on Fox, Shepard Smith reported that in one town, after a bomb had gone off, Iraqi citizens were lining back up to vote while the carnage of the explosion was still being cleaned up.

Say what you want, I’m impressed as hell and my hat is off to every Iraqi who came out and voted today…even if they are embarassing the hell out of every yahoo American who didn’t vote back in November because FILL IN YOUR WHINEY-ASSED EXCUSE HERE.

29. January 2005 · Comments Off on Watch Spirit of America on C-SPAN 2pm Eastern, broadcast of Iraq election coverage · Categories: Iraq: The Good

More news from Jim Hake of Spirit of America:

Great news! We’ve just received confirmation that C-SPAN is planning to
cover Spirit of America’s Iraq election event this Sunday from 2pm to
4pm Eastern (11am to 1pm Pacific). Please watch. Your support has
made this possible. Please forward this message far and wide and
encourage people to tune in.

Iraq’s elections are an historic event. This broadcast will provide a
unique, more complete picture of the elections with ground-level news
and views from the Iraqi people. You will get much more than the
typical focus on violence and terrorism. We’ll have reports, photos
and video from all corners of Iraq. The broadcast event is described
more here: http://www.spiritofamerica.net/site/blog/459

You can see reports and photos now at:
http://www.friendsofdemocracy.info. And, during the show on Sunday,
we will be publishing the discussion at
http://www.friendsofdemocracy.info and asking for your comments.

For members of THE DAILY BRIEF: If you’re going to be in Washington D.C. tomorrow and would like to be part of this panel, drop me a line and I’ll see if I can hook you up.

28. January 2005 · Comments Off on Friends of Democracy · Categories: Iraq: The Good

Here’s part of an email I received from Jim Hake of Spirit of America talking up Friends of Democracy:

Spirit of America’s work with Friends of Democracy to provide a full
picture of Iraq’s elections is coming to fruition. This project has
been to provide a ground-level view of the elections from the people
and bloggers of Iraq (yes, I know, bloggers are people, too). There
are lots of good reports already on the Friends of Democracy site at
http://www.friendsofdemocracy.info

The information is not “candy coated” – it simply does more than
emphasize terrorism and violence. It provides good news and bad.
Please link to the site and check it for news. It will be especially
good on election day. We’ll have reports and photos coming in from all
corners of Iraq.

Iraqi election news from (GASP!) Iraqis.

How cool is that?

28. January 2005 · Comments Off on Caption Contest, The Seventh · Categories: General Nonsense

The pic is from last year but I’d never seen it before so have at it. Winner(s) Monday.
Hint…I loathe Elmo. Kermit’s the man!

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in the comments section are solely those of the commenters…and some of them are going to hell…no matter how funny they are.

Other Caption Contests:
Wizbang is about the elections.
Conservative Life is also at the elections.
Rodney over at Outside the Beltway has some guy that looks vaguely familiar to pick on.
Villainous Company has got an awesome shot of Condi.
Argghhh! has got one to ponder.

28. January 2005 · Comments Off on Another Mickey Mouse Idea · Categories: General Nonsense, Science!

Stryker has fun with science:

“For example, an experiment that would raise concerns, he said, is genetically engineering mice to produce human sperm and eggs, then doing in vitro fertilization to produce a child whose parents are a pair of mice.”

Attention Scientific Community: If the idea sounds like it came from a mad scientist as played by Marlon Brando in Gramma’s Housedress…perhaps it’s not the best idea.

Narf! He kills me…

26. January 2005 · Comments Off on Uh Oh… · Categories: That's Entertainment!

Beautiful Wife and I have a new obsession. She didn’t come to bed until almost 0100 this morning. A friend mentioned it when they heard we enjoyed playing Diablo II. Honestly, my wife is much more into Diablo than I ever was, I don’t have the patience for the hordes of little gremlin dudes, but this…this is different. And I have no idea how we missed it when it first came out, but I do like it when I can find a “Game of the Year” edition with all the patches and upgrades for about 20 bucks at Target or Walmart.

It’s called The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind and it’s like falling into your computer for the first time again. Nope, never played the earlier Elder Scrolls either, I was more of a Might and Magic zombie.

So what’s different about it? You’re dropped in a world, you don’t know why, you don’t know how, and oh, you can do whatever you want. Pure freedom. If you should be able to do something…you can. You’re not bound by your quests. You’re not limited in your range of movement.

If you’ve played, please add your comments. No spoilers please.