Remember how, a few weeks ago, many here in the States were tut-tutting about those Chinese "Protest Zones" that remained eerily vacant for the duration of the Olympic games? Remember how we lamented the egregious, intimidating, suffocating behavior of China's authoritarian government, which made damned sure those zones stayed empty? Because, obviously, that sort of thuggish, repressive bullshit is something that could never happen here, right?
In the house that had just been raided, those inside described how a team of roughly 25 officers had barged into their homes with masks and black swat gear, holding large semi-automatic rifles, and ordered them to lie on the floor, where they were handcuffed and ordered not to move. The officers refused to state why they were there and, until the very end, refused to show whether they had a search warrant. They were forced to remain on the floor for 45 minutes while the officers took away the laptops, computers, individual journals, and political materials kept in the house. One of the individuals renting the house, an 18-year-old woman, was extremely shaken as she and others described how the officers were deliberately making intimidating statements such as "Do you have Terminator ready?" as they lay on the floor in handcuffs. The 10 or so individuals in the house all said that though they found the experience very jarring, they still intended to protest against the GOP Convention, and several said that being subjected to raids of that sort made them more emboldened than ever to do so.
You see, this is one reason I wasn't really in the mood to give China a stern talking to on the subject of civil rights. I'm an American; I no longer have the moral fucking authority to lecture other countries about that shit.
(h/t: Wilde)
Tags: freedom, or the lack thereof
Oh, you have just got to be kidding me. Wait, you're not kidding me? No, I guess you're not:
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney will not attend the GOP convention in St. Paul, Minnesota, because of Hurricane Gustav, White House press secretary Dana Perino said Sunday.
In addition, "substantial" changes to the Republican National Convention program will be announced Sunday because of the storm, two Republican officials said.
So lemme get this straight: When Katrina, a much bigger storm, clobbered New Orleans, Bush didn't think it important enough to take a break from hanging out with some guitar-playing dude whose name I can't even remember. But now Gustav is rolling up on the Big Easy and both the Republican President and the Republican Vice President of the United States of America feel it's necessary for them to skip the Republican National Convention?
What's that old line? Ah, right: How conveeeeeeeeeeeeeeenient.
Tags: Hurrican Gustave blows Bush and Cheney away from convention
(Note: This was a Slice. Now it is not. It's too important.)
Click "Play". Hear the woman giggling in the background? That's Sarah Palin, Governor of the State of Alaska, yukking it up as two shock jocks call a woman who was a political opponent of hers a cancer (nice, because the woman actually is a cancer survivor) and a "bitch". Yes, a "bitch". Zomygod, how sexist is that?! And yet Palin seemed to find it the height of comedy. Good times!
I'm looking at you right now. Yeah, you, the so-called progressive who is all a-bother about the "sexism" that's so rampant among Obama's supporters. This is the woman you're going to defend? This is the woman who's honor you're going to make an issue of, dividing progressives and undermining our chance to put an actual, honest-to-FSM liberal in the White House? Because, if so, may I just say fuck you. Fuck you sideways with a rusty spike.
Grab that embed and spread this far and wide, people. Bring the noise.
Tags: Sarah Palin is Sexist
Well, I might not have made the full trip yesterday, but I think I made up the exercise deficit on the Wii later in the evening. Not kidding; My shoulders were sore after boxing with Tracy. Man, money is tight right now, but I'm half thinking we need to go buy one of those things now. That was just way too much fun.
Considering the amount of beer, wine, and scotch we put back yesterday, I am surprisingly un-hungover. I am, however, feeling seriously mellow, like I could maybe sit here in my bathrobe for the better part of the day, Tracy permitting. With that in mind, let's warm up the baking device in anticipation of some Slices of Toast.
This is quite the interesting little interview with Brett Favre. He divulges a lot of details about what went on between him and the Packers in the off-season. Obviously, this is just his side of the story, but still, it sounds like he really was nudged out the door, and none too gently. I mean, 'We want to do something special for you, and what do you think if we dismantle your locker and send it to you.'? Really? That's too funny.
The Republican Party is scrambling to figure out what to do with their convention plans as Hurrican Gustav barrels towards New Orleans. On FOX News, McCain opined that "It just wouldn't be appropriate to have a festive occasion while a near tragedy or a terrible challenge is presented in the form of a natural disaster." Um, I disagree, Senator. In fact, I can hardly imagine a more fitting convergence of events.
As for Gustav, passing over Cuba weakened it to a Category 3, but it still could put a major hurt on New Orleans and other areas along the Gulf coast. Let's hope we don't have a repeat of three years ago.
Kona has a must-read post tackling the subject of those fucking selfish ignoramuses conscientious liberals who have latched onto to "sexism" as their reason for withholding support from Obama. He deals with it in a far more reasoned and level-headed fashion than I am capable of at the moment. The stupendous idiocy of these people, who are once again proving how adept the Left is at cutting off its nose to spite its face, has left me in a very bitter place whenever I contemplate this election. I've said about as much as I can say on the subject at this point. All I can do now is hope they come to their senses by November or, failing that, that enough sensible Americans flood the polls to overwhelm their self-destructive and assholish behavior.
I have always enjoyed Steve Benen as a writer and a blogger. He blends the "inside politics" reportership of Josh Marshall with the insightfulness and human touch of Kevin Drum. The problem with Steve for me - and the reason he was an on-again/off-again inclusion on my Google Reader feeds - is that his posts have always been so goddamned long. Combined with his fairly prolific post rate, Benen could easily put 10,000 words a day on my plate, and it's not like I don't have other things to read. You know what I've noticed, however? Since moving over to Kevin's old spot at Political Animal, Steve has tightened things up. I don't know if maybe one of the editors at the Monthly had a sit-down with him prior to giving him the gig or what, but all of a sudden I can get my Benen fix in handy snack size instead of the four-course meals he used to dish out. I'm liking the change.
Gregg Erickson of the Anchorage Daily News on Sarah Palin:
She is smart, vivacious and energetic; she tends to oversimplify complex issues, has had difficulty delegating authority, and clearly has some difficulty distinguishing the line between her public responsibilities and private wishes.
Sounds like your prototypical George Bush Republican to me. Of course, I'm sure Erickson is only saying those things about her because she's a woman.
h/t: Benen, who adds in a separate post:
Palin's qualifications are, to a very real degree, secondary to the issue at hand. What matters most right now is John McCain's comically dangerous sense of judgment. He picked a running mate he met once for 15 minutes, who's been the governor of a small state for a year and a half, and who is in the midst of an abuse-of-power investigation in which she appears to have lied rather blatantly. She has no obvious expertise in any area, and no record of any kind of federal issues. McCain doesn't care.
Sensible people of sound mind and character simply don't do things like this. Leaders don't do things like this. It's the height of arrogance. It's manifestly unserious. It's reckless and irresponsible. It mocks the political process. Faced with a major presidential test, McCain thought it wise to tell an imprudent joke of lasting consequence.
Wow. Tell us how you really feel about the pick, Steve.
Tags: laziness, Brett Favre, Hurricane Gustav, stupid fucking sexism-obsessed assholes, Steve Benen, Sarah Palin
Sun - 9:15 AM: Pete Abraham is spot-on in his criticism of Joe Girardi. Look, the Yankees just had way too many injuries -- particularly to the pitching staff -- to get any idea of how good they could have been, and as a corollary to that we can't really judge the job Girardi's done as manager (except to say he is a much better bullpen manager than Torre was). That said, man do I miss having a manager who would actually talk. Girardi, for whatever reason, has decided to adopt the "Answering Machine" approach to interacting with the press: No matter who calls with a question, it's always the same stale, mechanical, pre-recorded message. That's just weak. I know a guy in his position doesn't want to stir shit up by saying the wrong thing, but he could at least acknowledge reality in some way. When the team stinks, admit they stink. When a player screws up royally, as Cano did yesterday, admit it and address it. When you're six games out in the wild card, admit that the prospects of making the playoffs are looking dire. Don't just sit there and be Animatronic Coach. If you're going to do that you might as well not talk to the media at all.
Sat - 6:55 AM: OK, you have got to be kidding:
CINCINNATI (AP) -- Maybe receiver Chad Johnson can go by the name that his head coach hates.
The Cincinnati Bengals receiver has legally changed his name to Chad Javon Ocho Cinco in Broward County, Fla., a switch that became official this week, according to several media reports. Johnson, who lives in Miami, didn't return a message left on his cell phone Friday night.
"It's something I don't think anyone has ever done before," he told the team's Web site. "Have I ever had a reason for why I do what I do? I'm having fun."
Two years ago, Johnson gave himself the moniker -- a reference in Spanish to his No. 85 -- and put it on the back of his uniform before a game. Quarterback Carson Palmer ripped it off before the kickoff. After the season, coach Marvin Lewis -- who dislikes Johnson's attention-getting stunts -- referred to the receiver as "Ocho Psycho."
I hereby declare that Señor Cinco has reached the T.O. tier in the Crazy Wide Receiver Pantheon. Update your cheat sheets accordingly.
Fri - 7:30 PM: Wow, I don't think I've watched a baseball game in three weeks. Not coincidentally, that's the same length of time it's been since I've gotten to bed at a reasonable hour. Note to the Powers That Be: No more scheduling the Olympics and the Dem Convention back-to-back.
I will, I assure you, be hitting the hay at a reasonable hour this fine evening, and it won't be in my usual wicked-shitty state. Got a fifty-mile bike ride planned for tomorrow, so no fucking around tonight.
Sincere condolences to Sox fans on Beckett, who is rumored to be done for the year. Hey, look at it this way: You weren't/aren't getting past the Rays or the Angels in the playoffs anyhow.
Tags: baseball
Two Summers ago, I attempted the 50-mile trek from the Shire down to Fridge's place near the Connecticut shore. You may recall that it didn't go so well. Three factors scuttled my plans that day:
1. Weather: It was an absolute scorcher on that July day two years ago. Highs in the mid 90's, oppressively humid, and not a cloud in the sky to provide occasional relief.
Today, by contrast, the forecast calls for a high of 79°. It's overcast and we might get a spot or two of rain, which will help keep things cool.
2. Directions: Last time around, MapQuest routed me through Middletown where, in true MapQuestian fashion, they botched things up getting me out of the south side of town. I ended up pointed towards the nowhereland between Middletown and Durham, aided by a jackass who incorrectly told me to keep going the wrong way. Not good times. When I finally did emerge in Durham - still twenty miles away from my destination - my legs were shot and I had to call for a drop-ship to retrieve me.
This time around, I'm taking a markedly different route. I gave MapQuest another shot yesterday - don't ask me why - and it looks like they've tweaked their route-generating algorithm, and in a good way. This new course takes a much more direct route into New Britain, avoiding a needless steep climb through Farmington that they threw in the last time, and it takes me south through Durham instead of Middletown en route to casa de Fridge. Just to be sure, I scanned the route on Google Earth. No apparent trickiness that I can detect.
3. Preparedness: Hoo boy. Where to begin? First off, two days before my previous crack at this trip, I saw fit to take a 35-mile jaunt up to Massachussetts - my longest ride to date that season. My range wasn't where it needed to be at all. Second, on an incredibly hot day, I went out with one water bottle and no fuel of any kind. Third, I kinda got shit-faced the night before, so I started out the day pre-dehydrated and on the weak side. One might say I didn't take the endeavor seriously enough and think things through.
Today, I'm feeling ready. I've already done rides of 50 and 55 miles this year, so I've got the range. I added a second water bottle cage to the bike, and I'll be throwing a couple of PowerBars in my bag. Most importantly, I reined in my usual Friday night proclivities, staying moderately sober and retiring to bed at a decent hour. So, as they say in Houston: All lights are green; We are GO for launch.
I shall drop a line in comments upon my triumphant arrival. Enjoy your morning.
Update: It's a good thing I'm not superstitious, because if I was, I'd be starting to suspect that Somebody does not want me to complete this journey. Twenty seven miles in, I'm making great time, my legs feel strong, everything's going smoothly. Then, just as I'm turning onto 66, I hear something that's a cross between a BANG and a POP and suddenly the back wheel is dragging. My first thought was that I had a flat, which would have sucked, but I carry a spare tube and tools so I would have just been looking at a delay. When I got off to look, however the tire was fine. The rim, however, was stuck. Turns out I popped a spoke and the rim had warped. That is not something you can fix on the road. So, once again, I had to call Fridge for roadside assistance short of my goal. Fuck. Oh well, I'll get it fixed and try again some Sunday in a month or so.
Tags: cycling
John McCain has chosen Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate. Instant reaction? An absolutely tranparent pander to peel off a portion of Hillary's disaffected female supporters. Will it work? Who knows. What I do know is that, unlike Obama, McCain did the easy thing, the unserious thing. Perfectly in keeping with the way he's been approaching this campaign, really. Now it's up to the American people to choose between the guy we saw last night, who is clearly deeply committed to tackling big problems and taking on the task of renewing America and her government, or the guy making news today, who sees this thing as part personal vanity project and part poker night with the guys. Choose well, voters. Choose carefully.
Tags: John McCain, Sarah Palin
Fri - 8:45 AM: And lastly, Ezra Klein (emphasis mine):
Obama is, generally, a thematic speaker. His major orations have almost all been centered around broad themes: The divisiveness of American politics, or the American yearning for change, or the necessity of idealism in a world that all too often rewards pessimism. They have all been aimed at his movement, a set of voters who already agree with his positions and instead seek the enthusiasm that comes only with a sense of broader purpose. His speech tonight, however, was so effective precisely because it was not thematic. Because it did not speak to those who already agreed, but instead tried to convert those who remained skeptical. Tonight, Obama did not call for change. He defined it.
(Note: That explains, I think, my somewhat underwhelmed reaction as compared with the suprisingly positive impression it made on Mike, who has been far more skeptical of the Hope Monger.)
Fri - 8:30 AM: Andrew Sullivan:
It was a deeply substantive speech, full of policy detail, full of people other than the candidate, centered overwhelmingly on domestic economic anxiety. It was a liberal speech, more unabashedly, unashamedly liberal than any Democratic acceptance speech since the great era of American liberalism. But it made the case for that liberalism - in the context of the decline of the American dream, and the rise of cynicism and the collapse of cultural unity. His ability to portray that liberalism as a patriotic, unifying, ennobling tradition makes him the most lethal and remarkable Democratic figure since John F Kennedy.
What he didn't do was give an airy, abstract, dreamy confection of rhetoric. The McCain campaign set Obama up as a celebrity airhead, a Paris Hilton of wealth and elitism. And he let them portray him that way, and let them over-reach, and let them punch him again and again ... and then he turned around and destroyed them. If the Rove Republicans thought they were playing with a patsy, they just got a reality check.
(Note: Attend, ye self-righteous would-be gate-keepers of "real" liberalism: You would walk away from this guy as the champion of our cause? If so, you deserve to go to your graves with your aims unfulfilled.)
Fri - 8:20 AM: Steve Benen:
Most of Obama's more memorable speeches are powerful. Last night, he mixed power with persuasion. Listening to the substance and taking in his vision, it was clear this wasn't about Obama giving his audience goosebumps, but rather, giving his audience a direction, and a reason to follow him. To that end, over the course of 45 minutes, Obama set the campaign on a new course.
It's tricky to go on the offensive while maintaining an optimistic and inspirational tone, but that's precisely what made Obama's speech so effective. He didn't just take the fight to McCain, he eviscerated McCain, his worldview, his party, and his record. Obama took McCain's claims and debunked them. He took McCain's talking points, and mocked them. Remember the questions about Obama's toughness? His willingness to mix it up? Neither do I.
(Note: This is what I meant with my "crumple [McCain's attacks] up into tiny balls and contemptuously fling them back in his face" bit. When Kerry, Gore, and even Clinton parried Republican attacks, they did it in a way that was fundamentally defensive. Obama's mien last night was more like Shaq blocking a shot in the post and snarling "Get that weak shit out of here." I like that tone. I like it a lot.)
Fri - 7:55 AM: TNR's Franklin Foer:
Barack Obama's great strength as a communicator is his ability to address multiple audiences at once. He stoked his base and repositioned himself in the center. He stayed true to his primary message and laid claim to the legacy of Bill Clinton. He severely cudgeled his opponent while staking out the moral high ground. He laced his speech with the specificity that the moment demanded while replicating the lyricism of his last convention speech.
I mean only the good parts of this analogy: Tonight reminded me of the Beijing opening ceremony. It outdid every version of the event that came before it -- at least in the awesomeness of the spectacle and the images it generated.
Fri - 7:50 AM: Kevin Drum:
[T]hen, there was the conclusion. I'm basically pretty immune to that kind of soaring, but relatively content-free, oratory, but I was just spellbound. I honestly can't remember the last time that's happened. And I don't care what the talking heads insisted on jabbering about all day, the setting was perfect, the stage was perfect, Obama's cadences were perfect, and it was just about as good a political rallying cry as I've ever heard. John McCain looks very, very small right about now.
(Note: Wow, he got to Kevin? Of course, that same soaring wrap-up is probably where he lost Angelos.)
Fri - 7:40 AM: Mike:
[I]t wasn't so much the substance of what he said that impressed me, nor was it the extent of his (significant) rhetorical skill. No, it was more than that. What got me was the very un-Mondale, un-Dukakis, un-Gore, un-Kerry attitude of "You wanna be President, Mr. Republican? Well so do I. Let's rumble, bitch."
Fri - 7:20 AM: Wanted to get my own thoughts down on Obama's speech before reading reactions around the 'Sphere. Here they are: A little long, and a little uneven in tone and approach. I can pull out a dozen moments that I thought were truly strong. In particular, I loved the way he picked up each of the attacks leveled at him by McCain and seemed to crumple them up into tiny balls and contemptuously fling them back in his face. The line where he says "We all put our country first" stands out in that regard. I also think Obama's pulling off some masterful jujitsu with his rather ostentatious refusal to accuse McCain of adopting his positions out of political expediency. The subtext of bringing the matter up for the ostensible purpose of dismissing it is "(Oh, but I could. You know I could.)" That's good game right there. On the flip side, while I realize Obama had to take some care to address criticisms that his speeches are all theme and no substance*, his policy-specifics segments had a bit too much of the typical Democratic Power Point presentation feel to them. What made it all a little frustrating, from where I was sitting at least, is that he kept switching back and forth between attack mode, policy mode, and Soaring Obama mode. I think if he had made more of an effort to segment things -- fifteen minutes of attack and rebut, followed by fifteen minutes of Power Point, then wrapping up by painting a typical Obama-esque visionary tableau -- the speech would have felt more coherent and better crafted. But maybe that's just me. OK, now I'm off to see what everyone else thought.
(*Substance which any inquiring mind with an internet connection can find in bulk on his site and elsewhere, mind you.)
6:32 PM: This is going to be a tough night. I have to juggle a fantasy draft that starts at 7:30 PM with the last night of the convention. Hopefully we'll get things wrapped up before Obama takes the stage.
6:30 PM: Shawn Johnson opened the proceedings? Must... find... video...
Tags: Democratic National Convention
You know, the way I see it, if the Bush years have made you more conservative, that's a pretty good indicator that you're nuts.
If the worst and, now, most unpopular presidential administration in United States history has caused you to reposition yourself even further to the right on the political spectrum, that tells me there's something wrong with your wiring.
Or, to put it as plainly as I can, if eight years of watching a hard-right Republican administration loot the nation's wealth, send the economy into a nosedive, shred the Constitution, start one justified war and one unjustified one and prosecute them both incompetently, and generally turn everything they touch to shit has somehow, some way, caused you to go from being a run-of-the-mill FOX News Winger to the sort of person whose latest Facebook update reads "...is checking out a lawsuit filed in Federal Court claiming Obama is not a US Citizen on http://www.obamacrimes.com/", well, my friend, I hate to break it to you but you are completely out of your fucking mind.
Not that I'm talking about anyone in particular, of course. (Of course.)
Tags: Wingers, crazy people
9:50 PM: I did not see a speech like that coming from John Kerry. And why would I have seen it coming? He sure as hell didn't talk like that in 2004.
9:38 PM: "To those who still believe in the myth of a maverick, instead of the reality of a politician..." Oh, fucking SNAP, Senator Kerry!
9:35 PM: OK, Hillary's speech was good, but Bill's speech was great. Listening to him bust out an inspiring piece of oratory like that just reminds you of how deprived we've been in that department since he left office.
8:07 PM: I find Melissa Etheridge's singing voice seriously irritating.
7:30 PM: As predicted, we've now heard the story about how Joe Biden takes the train back to his home in Delaware every night after work roughly a million times. This story is intended to "humanize" him by showing the hardship he endures because of his commitment to being a family man and not a creature of Washington. Personally, though, here's the thing: I think it would kick ass to be able to commute to work by train every day. I mean, I'm sure I'm romanticizing it because it's what my Dad did, but still. I love trains. Can't think of a cooler way to get to work. Sitting back and reading the paper, listening to the click-clacking of the rails every morning and every evening? Sign me up.
6:15 PM: Night three of the Democratic National Convention, and inquiring minds everywhere are wondering... What Will Big Dog Say?
Stay tuned. Or, if you're Tracy, stay awake... ;-)
Tags: Democratic National Convention
Ah, shit. No irony here. This one just plain sucks:
LINCOLN CITY, Ore. -- Former Portland Trail Blazers center Kevin Duckworth, a "gentle giant" with a feathery touch from the paint, has died. He was 44.
Duckworth, part of a Trail Blazers goodwill tour, was scheduled to hold a basketball clinic on the Oregon coast when he died Monday night. The Depoe Bay Fire Department said it responded about 10 p.m. to a report of a man who was down and not breathing at Salishan Lodge at Gleneden Beach, north of Newport on the central coast.
The cause of death was to be determined by a medical examiner but the Lincoln County sheriff's office said there was no indication of foul play.
"Within the world of basketball, within those Trail Blazers teams, he was a jokester," said Phoenix Suns coach Terry Porter, who played with Duckworth. "He was a big loving teddy bear. At times guys got frustrated because he didn't have a mean streak. He was just a great guy. He loved the team atmosphere, loved being a teammate in those successful Blazer teams."
Rest in peace, Kevin. Sorry you had to go so soon.
Tags: Kevin Duckworth
Spotted on CNN.com this morning:
LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Dave Freeman, co-author of "100 Things to Do Before You Die," a travel guide and ode to odd adventures that inspired readers and imitators, died after hitting his head in a fall at his home. He was 47.
According to relatives, he only got to about 50 of the 100 things.
Tags: irony, Dave Freeman
Tues - 11:09 PM: Very strong speech by Hillary. She pounded away at the policy similarities that she and Obama share. She also went right at the PUMA crowd with that "Were you in this for me? Or were you in it for..." riff. All in all, I'm pleased with her performance.
Tues - 10:33 PM: That little "Huhhh-herh-herh-herh" chuckle that Chris Matthews does is uncomfortably creepy in a child-molesterish kind of way.
Tues - 10:15 PM: Memo to MSNBC and the rest of the punditocracy: This is not Netroots Nation. You are not going to see a parade of speakers railing against the GOP. You are not going to be served heaping portions of red meat. You may not like that, you might not agree with it as a matter of political strategy, and I'm sure you don't like it in terms of network ratings, but there it is. The headline act of these four days is a man who calls himself a "Hope Monger" and the tone of the convention is geared towards his campaign themes and his personal branding. If you expected things to be otherwise, you haven't been paying attention.
Tues - 9:40 PM: "Four More Months! Four More Months!" Heh. That's kinda catchy.
Tues - 08:15 PM: Primetime on Night Two is underway. Have at it.
Tags: Democratic National Convention
Mon - 10:55 PM: Very strong speech by Michelle. If the point was for her to connect with the viewers, to come across as authentic and open, passionate and intelligent and, yes, American, then she succeeded admirably. Not sure what I think about Barack's video-conference or their daughters coming onstage immediately afterwards, however. It was cute, sure, but it seemed a little gimmicky and it sort of snuffed out the afterglow of the speech.
Mon - 9:30 PM: Oops. I stand corrected. The Lion of the Senate has just taken the podium. He looks surprisingly good, too.
Mon - 9:15 PM: So I'm just flipping around here between MSNBC, CNN, and CSPAN to see what's going on at the Convention. Checking the official schedule it appears that, contrary to rumors that were going around earlier, Ted Kennedy is not going to make an appearance (although they are rolling out a video tribute to him just now). I'd like to see Michelle Obama's speech, but with my luck they'll have her on at 11:00 PM, and that ain't happening for me tonight. What about the rest of you? Are you tuning in, or are you waiting for the real action that starts with Hillary's speech tomorrow night?
Tags: Democratic National Convention
Peering up at me from the bathroom counter this morning, penetrating the lingering haze my poor brain is enshrouded in, was an opinion piece by David Ignatius from yesterday's Courant commentary section. It begins like this:
As the Democrats assemble in Denver, there's an odd dissonance to the party. The star of the show is "Mr. Cool," Barack Obama, the ultra-charismatic senator who landed on the national stage as if from outer space -- seemingly untouched by the usual racial and political scars -- promising a new era of bipartisanship and national healing.
But the supporting cast is a collection of red-hot politicians I've come to think of as the Get-Even Gang -- led by the party's congressional leaders, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and by the strategists of its 2006 victory, Rep. Rahm Emanuel and Sen. Chuck Schumer. They made their names clawing and battling against Karl Rove's Republicans, and they are partisan politicians to the bone.
The partisanship of the congressional leadership has been a virtue for Democrats, up to a point. By being as tough and unyielding as their GOP rivals, they won back control of Congress. But they haven't done much with their majorities these past two years, beyond bashing Bush.
Which raises a question to ponder as you watch the convention this week: Will Mr. Cool be a strong enough leader to transform the Democratic-controlled Congress from a reflexive role into a force for change? Can the Get-Even Gang become the Get-Ahead Gang? Or will Obama remain the aloof, judicious ex-professor who gives a great speech but leaves the dirty work of governing to Pelosi and Reid?
With these paragraphs, Ignatius creates a handy, easy-to-grasp frame to take to the Democratic convention: Obama, the post-partisan peace-maker, goes into Denver at odds with the Democratic Party leadership, which is fiercely and hopelessly partisan.
Handy, easy-to-grasp, and completely false.
Ignatius has come to think of Pelosi and Reid as "the Get-Even Gang"? Based on what, exactly? The aggressive executive-branch oversight they've exercised? The long list of White House goons they've forced to testify in front of Congress? The impeachment hearings they've dragged the country through? Oh, wait, that's right: None of these things have happened. Instead, the "Heads In the Sand Gang", led by neutered Nancy and hang-dog Harry, has done exactly nothing to hold Bush and Cheney accountable for their crimes, and they seem quite prepared to allow the both of them to walk out of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave unscathed on January 20th.
The "Get-Even Gang". Please.
Meanwhile, on a related note, the first post-Biden poll out there shows a dead heat in the presidential race, and rather than leaving me shaking my head, wondering how on Earth after the past 8 years of failed GOP rule we can possibly still be split 50-50, I'm thinking, well, what do you expect when the Democrats have done absolutely nothing to offer any kind of meaningful resistance?
Tags: David Ignatius
Okay then, that was way more fun than you're supposed to have with your clothes on. Let's hand out grades.
Connecticut Cuties: Gotta hand it to the wife for going with A-Pete over Tomlinson. I think that pick was the moment she graduated to Serious Football Person status. On the other hand.. Matt Schaub? Seriously? Is this a keeper league? Grade: B
Baltimore Borrachos: Tomlinson at RB and Fitzgerald at WR is a very nice core. Big Ben will not embarrass at QB either. Winslow at TE, and Vinatinevitable at K? Nice team. Grade: A
Boston Tea-Tossers: I've never been a Westbrook believer, and yet year after year he proves me wrong. Honestly, though, Nick Folk will surely carry this team to victory. I mean, Nick Folk, people. Grade: B+
Saratoga Fucknecks: Pretty much could rename this team "Tom Brady's Nutsack". There's literally not one other player on this roster that a reasonable owner would go "Fuck YEAH!" over. Grade: C
Power Hitters: Barber and Johnson show depth at RB. Nice array at WR too. If Hasselbeck performs, this team could contend. Grade: A-
Team Furious: Our first auto-pick team!! And actually, it ain't that bad. I'm no McNabb fan, but he'll hold down the fort at QB. Addai and Lewis make for a very solid RB corps. And Jones as a backup? Hey, Furious: trade? Grade: A
Cowford MooMoos: Wow. I'm not one to give praise lightly, but seriously? Romo at QB, Edge and Deuce at RB, Coles and Boldin at WR... Who let this woman into the league? Grade: A+
Problem Child: Strong as hell at QB with Peyton and Favv-ruh. Solid at RB with McGahee and Williams. Pretty cold at WR with Holmes, Evans, and Stallworth. Hell, you'd think some Super-Brain drafted this team. Grade: A
NY Football Mets: Team Questionable!!! Jackson's a holdout, Ocho Cinco is making noise... Ouch. Grade: C+
Le Maq de Dalian: Solid RB corps with Lynch and Parker. Thin at QB. Emaciated at WR. Grade: C+`
Serengeti Wildebeasts: The Wildebeast! Fantastic WR corps with Burress and Owens. Sketchy after that. Grade: B-
Eagle Bend Atoms: Jesus. Steve Smith and Randy Moss? Owning receiving much? With MJD at RB and Rivers at QB, expect this team to contend for the prize. Grade: A+
Possumneck Pounders: Gore and Grant make a solid RB corps, but there's not a lot of guys who can catch after Welker. Grade: B
Respect Mah Authoriteh: Damn. I'd love to harsh on Fridge, but.. Holt, Wayne, and Cotchery? LJ? Eli? This is the team to beat. Good job, Emma! Grade: A+
Tags: fantasy football
Brutal. Just fucking brutal.
"A former POW and a former Prisoner of War."
That's priceless.
"Hey, Saudi Arabia, how are you doing?"
In a sane world, Lee would be on Obama's staff by now.
Tags: Lee Stranahan, John McCain
Three and a half hours until the draft! Wait, help me out here. TwoGlasses fantasy football league: Great idea? Or the Greatest idea?
Anyhow, I'm amped and I've got time to kill. Let's free-associate, shall we? Hmmmmm... draft... BEER!
First up, we've got a nice little brewski from Southern Tier Brewing: Phin & Matt's Extraordinary Ale. I've had this before, but I neglected blogging it, so when I was browsing the shelves on Friday I thought, hey, let's amend that sitchyation, how's about?
The Pour: "Extraordinary" certainly does not describe the meager 1/3" head this ale develops. That was into a frosted mug, too, so you'd expect a little more. No matter; after the whitish foam fades, we've got a cloudy, light-amber body with scant carbonation levels. I caught a slight whiff of malt off the top, and that was it. Note for the record, however, that my nose is functioning even more suckily than usual today.
The Taste: Nice. First impression tells me this beer has very good balance and drinkability. Second impression tells me this beer has some depth to it. Hop characteristics come out slightly more prominently than their malt companions, but only by a nose. Let's call it a 55-45 win for the hops. The green goblins show up with a mostly bitter aspect, but there's a hint of the floral to them as well, which explains why Tracy didn't completely turn her nose up at this offering. The malts here present a strong set of earthy notes, and there's a wonderful smokey taste that rounds matters out on the inside of the cheeks before fading down into the medium-long aftertaste. I like that a lot. Extraordinary Ale falls right about in the middle of the spectrum for weight, which is appropriate as the craftsmen were going for a "Pale Ale". ABV is 5.6% which also places it at the median for buzzy payload action.
The Verdict: This is a very well-structured ale. It's got a good deal of character but it's also quite easy to put away. Perfect six-pack beer.
Up next, a beer whose name and label really grabbed by attention at the packie last week, Shmaltz Brewing's Coney Island Sword Swallower. I mean, there's just something about that picture that's so suggestive of... something. Besides, these are the guys who brought us He'Brew. Would they do me wrong?
The Pour: As Sword Swallower is swallowed up by a room-temperature mug, it builds up a half-inch head of off-white foam that dissipates inside of thirty seconds. Tracy describes the aroma as "clean and beer-like". I would translate that as "slightly malty with a hint of grass". Not a lot of carbonation, as the underwhelming head hinted at. The body is translucent and copper-gold in color.
The Taste: Nice, big body on this beer. That's the first thing that came to my attention. Very bready and yeasty. The hop character asserts itself right away. More bitter than floral, they leave a dry, refreshed feeling after each swallow. The malt characteristics are robust enough to keep up with the hoppy goodness. Mainly I'm getting a sour malt vibe, but there's a bit of oakiness as well. Not at all an unpleasant blend. Strangely enough given the low apparent carbonation, this beer foams up like a champ when you poke it around, filling one's oral cavity with a huge load of flavor. (ahem). Aftertaste is a bit shorter than you'd expect from such a full-flavored beer, and what's there is all bitter. Sword Swallower packs a 6.8% ABV, which is a nice reward for any drinker's efforts.
The Verdict: This beer feels like a good, solid IPA. It's not going to blow you away in any particular department, but it's certainly a worthwhile beverage experience. Given my 'druthers, I'd like to see it priced at about $8 a six-pack rather than $4 and change for a bomber.
Tags: beer
...Or is it drafty in here?
3:30 PM sharp, people. Don't be tardy.
Update: Clearly, someone is ready for some football.
Tags: fantasy football
Oh yes, I think we have us a Loooooooove Connection.
After a few uncomfortable hours of sparring and sizing each other up, we've now had a solid hour of mutual preening. I can only imagine that 'Stonie is beside herself in that tiny bird noggin'. She hasn't been preened or scritched or nuzzled in so long she probably forgot what it was like. I cannot tell you how happy it's making me to see the two of them up there together, totally digging on each other. I've always felt guilty on the days when Tracy and I had to depart for work, leaving our ounce of joy with nothing but the radio to keep her company. Now, at long last, our little girl finally has herself a boyfriend* to keep her company.
(Sigh)
Welcome home, Ozzy. You be good to her now, you hear me?
Tags: parakeets
Together at last. That was a long three weeks. So far, they seem to be getting along okay. Moody has, at times, been a little over friendly -- Hey, what do you expect? She hasn't seen one of her own kind in eight months! -- but Ozzy seems capable of fending off her advances when needed. BTW, I can't wait for his flight feathers to grow in. When the people at PetCo clipped the Moodster prior to our bringing her home, they left enough for her to stay aloft or at least break a sudden fall. Not so with the Oz-Man. If he loses his footing on a perch, he just drops like a rock.
Tracy noticed a single drop of dew hanging off of the plant in our bedroom this morning, and as she is the Queen of the Macro Lens she felt compelled to capture it.
Tags: dew, parakeet, photography
So. It's Biden.
I don't think there's much I can say about Senator Foot-In-Mouth that hasn't been said already this week. His positives are: He's not a centrist mediocrity like Kaine or Bayh, and he's not Hillary Clinton. His negatives are: He's Joe Biden.
Adding: What kind of stupid prank was it to make the announcement at 3:00 AM in the morning on a Saturday? I'll tell you this: If I had signed up for that stupid text-message gimmick, I'd have been pissed to be woken up by my phone at that hour.
Adding More: No, seriously, what the fuck? All goddamned day people are waiting for Obama to announce a decision which everyone knows was made days ago, and they deliberately wait until three o'clock in the fucking morning on a Saturday? That's juvenile. That's, like, "Hey, I have an idea: Let's irritate the shit out of our supporters!" What the fuck?
And: Wow, I never realized this before, but Joe Biden has a really small face for that big melon of a head.
Tags: Joe Biden
Ah, yes, it's that time of the week again. Ain't it grand? Glass of wine at my side, waiting for the wife to walk through the door any second now, Way-Back Weekend mix on iTunes. We're good to go. Time for some Slices of Toast!
Last night I had iTunes rolling through the whole collection in shuffle mode, and among the selections that popped up was the title theme from The Right Stuff. This is easily one of my favorite movie scores ever. It's so soaring, so powerfully triumphant, so evocative of the amazing accomplishments of that era. Of course, I'm a total romantic when it comes to the early days of the space program. It's not just The Right Stuff -- which has a very high rewatchability factor, by the way -- that makes my breath catch in my chest; most any documentary on the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs will do. We did Great Things back then. Nothing was impossible. America was leading the human race in the race towards the Final Frontier. Moon bases and manned missions to the outer planets were just around the corner.
Except that they weren't.
Not even close.
Instead we had three decades of routine shuttle trips to low Earth orbit in store. And now, even that is drawing swiftly to a close. America, the nation that so famously put homo sapiens on the Moon, is mothballing the shuttle in two years. America, whose daring and know-how was so perfectly captured in Tom Wolfe's epic film, will be reduced to hitching rides up and out of the gravity well with (among others, one hopes) the Russians.
Somewhere, I suspect a whole bunch of dead astronauts are stirring in their graves, getting ready to have a serious spin.
Snack recommendation: Simply Enjoy* wasabi macadamia nuts. Un-flippin'-believable. Two wonderfully intense and distinctive flavors coming together in perfect harmony. Not cheap at $7 a can, but oh so worth the splurge. (*Stop & Shop's store brand. If you don't have a Stop & Shop nearby, well, it sucks to be you.)
What Oliver Willis said. Hell, I didn't even need to know that Dave "Mudcat" Saunders has a Confederate Flag bedspread to hate the guy's guts. I'm not saying it doesn't help, but really, from the first time I heard of him during the 2004 election cycle, I've thought he was a douchebag.
Stupid-ass redneck nickname? Check.
Carefully-nursed resentment towards northeastern liberal "elitists"? Check.
Compulsive fetishization of Southern "heritage" and out-sized sense of his region's importance? Check.
Two years ago, I told this irritating bitch -- and anyone else who shares his fake-ass "rebel" pretensions -- to kindly put a sock in it. That request still stands. Neither the Democratic Party nor the United States of America needs the advice of some delusional Civil-War re-enactor* who runs around parroting right-wing parodies of Blue Staters in order to nourish his sense of regional victimization. Grow the fuck up. (*Wild guess)
Steve Benen, settling into Kevin Drum's old digs at Political Animal, tallies the number of times over just the past few weeks when John McCain's campaign has sought to use his POW experiences to shield him from criticism:
I found four examples: 1) in response to questions about McCain's marital infidelities; 2) in response to criticism of McCain's healthcare plan; 3) in response to a question about the first thing that comes to his mind when he thinks of Pittsburgh; and 4) in response to allegations he may have heard the questions in advance of Rick Warren's recent candidate forum.
As others have noted, we're getting dangerously close to self-parody territory here. What are they going to say when, inevitably, one hopes, the Keating Five scandal comes up? "Those who would criticize Senator McCain for those events might want to consider that, for five years, the only savings institution where he could make a deposit was up his own rectum."
I don't understand how they think this defense is going to keep flying. Wes Clark broke the ice two months ago when he said "I don't think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president." At some point, people are going to have to start realizing that, while McCain's service to his country was admirable and his time in prison camp was unfortunate, simply being a POW doesn't say anything useful about a person's character. Unless you mean to tell me that our enemies in war only select servicemen and servicewomen of sterling, unvarnished character to make prisoners of, the inescapable conclusion is that former POW's run the same gamut of human frailties that the rest of us do.
Quote of the Day:
"If the Gore campaign had gone after the fakeness of the Bush ranch, or the cronyism that made Bush rich, the world would be a different place today." -- Paul Krugman, registering approval for the Obama campaign's decisive slams against McCain's collection of houses.
Could the Perfessor be comin' around? Stay tuned...
Tags: space program, nuts, Mudcat Saunders, John McCain was a POW, Paul Krugman
Fortune from the cookie that accompanied today's Luncheon Special #5 (Kung-Pao Chicken):
"Service is the rent we pay for the privilege of living on this planet."
Whoa. Very deep. Not technically a fortune, mind you, as it's an assertion of moral and philosophical principles rather than a prediction of my future, but very deep, very wise.
Yet I must ask: Why so serious lately, oh Fortune Cookie Makers?
Tags: fortunes
There is now only the weekend separating us from the Democratic convention, and yet Obama still has not named his VP pick. Speculation has been mounting for two months, the conventional wisdom flitting from one unbelievably boring choice to another, lately settling on careerist über-Washington-insider Joe Biden. The Obama campaign, meanwhile, has kept mum, letting the speculators endlessly speculate while the rest of us grow gradually more impatient. Having set the modern record for Democratic vice-presidential-picking procrastination, Obama must know that he's created an atmosphere of tense anticipation.
You don't create an atmosphere like that to name Tim Fucking Kaine or Evan Fucking Bayh as your running mate.
Thus... Hillary.
Her chances at the pick have been mostly written off by the cognoscenti and, aside from some drama over putting her name on the floor in nomination and the decision to give her and Big Dog prime speaking spots, she's faded from the day-to-day campaign news cycles. Sufficient time has passed for many of Obama's fiercest partisans to see their temper over Hillary's destructive and Quixotic stretch run fade (yours truly notably excepted). Meanwhile, Hillary's Harridans -- the quarter or so of her supporters who are still telling pollsters they won't support Obama -- have remained remarkably robust in their recalcitrance. All of this, to my way of thinking, points to Senator Clinton as the pick.
I hope I am spectacularly wrong about this. I really do. But I'm sensing a certain Brett-Favre-to-the-Jets inevitability about this thing, and my sense of the inevitable is rarely wrong when the thing in question is something I'd really like to evit.
Tags: Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, vice presidency
A couple of years ago, in a slice about my recurring tornado dream, I mentioned as an aside that I have another recurring dream which I dubbed the "Footwear In A State Of Non-Readiness" dream. This dream is never precisely the same twice, but it always follows the same pattern: I'm supposed to be going somewhere or doing something, people are waiting for me, and I either can't find my shoes or, upon finding them, can't manage to get them tied. In the dream, I become increasingly frustrated and desperate, until whatever the situation is reaches its denouement with the party that was waiting for me departing without me.
Safe to classify this as an "anxiety dream", yes?
Anyhow, I've been having this dream off and on for decades, but only recently has a reciprocal phenomenon started to make itself known to me in the waking world: I've noticed that I find the act of putting on my shoes in the morning comforting. No, wait, that's not quite the right word. Or, rather, it's not a sufficient description by itself. Try this: As I put on my shoes, the sense of them going around my foot and the feeling of enclosure as I tie the laces comforts and reassures me and, dare I say, fills me with a burst of confidence. Feet en-shoed, I feel as if I'm ready to deal with whatever lies ahead that day.
Shoes, for me, signal confidence.
Lack of shoes signals anxiety.
How weird is that?
Hey, this sets us up nicely for a new QoTM: What recurring dreams do you have, and do they have any echoes in your waking life or do they just not make any sense?
"In the end, Russia is still basically Mexico with nukes." -- Kevin Drum, on Russia's ineptitude as a global power.
Tags: Russia
I can't believe it's been over a month and a half since I've beer blogged. I was on a bit of a run there for a while, but somehow all of July slipped past without a single post on one of my most favoritest subjects. Let's rectify that slackitude, shall we?
At Liquor Depot today, I finally broke down and shelled out the $10 for a bottle of Brewery Ommegang's latest concoction, Ommegeddon Funkhouse Ale With Brettanomyces. I'm not really sure where they were going with the name of this one. "Ommegeddon" sounds really cool, but imagery-wise it clashes with the "Funkhouse" subtitle. And I haven't a clue what Brettanomyces is... Ah, wait, here we are: It's a yeast that's common in Belgian-style ales. Verruh Nice. Well, for $10, at least it better be...
The Pour: The cork comes out with a feisty little "pop!" and vapor swirls from the neck of the bottle. Pouring into my Ommegang goblet, I hear an almost soda-like fizz from the carbonation. The beer builds up a half-inch head of very coarse, whitish foam. The majority of this fades quickly, but a thin, solid layer lingers on for several more minutes. A strong fruity aroma emanates from the head. The body is a cloudy gold and suffused with champagne levels of bubbles.
The Taste: Sweet and sticky on the lips, my first thought was "Wait, did the guys in Cooperstown steal a recipe from Unibroue? The weight and mouth-feel of the body certainly come out of the Belgian playbook, with the one exception being the carbonation, which feels a little too coarse for that family of styles. The malts clearly dominate this beer's flavor profile, which is as it should be, but they're not nearly as varied and interesting as I expected. A hint of honey wheat, and an undercarriage that suggests some prankster threw whisky sour mix into the fermenter. Ommegang claims that they added a "blast of dry-hopping" to their recipe, and indeed there's a dry, bitter edge that comes out primarily in the aftertaste. Rather than rounding out the malts and working with them, however, I almost feel like the hops are muffling the flavor. Quite strange. One bright note: Ommegeddon packs an 8% ABV, and I'm feeling all 8 of those percents as I approach the end of the bottle.
The Verdict: Well, even Babe Ruth struck out a few times, right? Ommegang took chances with this recipe, and that's laudable, but it just didn't work for me. This beer tastes like it had an argument with itself trying to figure out what it wanted to be, and now it's in the corner sulking. Save your $10. Or better yet, chip in another $2 and buy two of Ommegang's eponymous ale, which is still their best.
Yay! More Beer Blogging! Yay!
This next brew has been in the fridge for a couple of months, waiting for just the right moment. And I declare that moment to be... now. The name on this one caught my eye: "Dark Force". I mean, that's a pretty awesome name for a beer, right? So intimidating. I felt like it was sitting there on the shelf just daring me to drink it. Then, drawing closer, I saw the description: "Double Extreme Imperial Wheat Stout".
Stop it. You had me at "Double Extreme".
The Pour: Dark Force pours like liquid silk into a wide, frosted mug. It is indeed dark; the kind of brown that's almost black. A sizeable head of brownish-tan foam (Tracy called it "camel" but I don't associate camels with something I want to put in my mouth) develops as I pour. It takes a long time to fizzle down until a mere eighth of an inch or so remains atop the opaque body. Aromas of chocolate and caramel waft off of the head.
The Taste: Wow. The brewers at Haandbryggeriet (that's a mouthful) knew what they were doing here. An absolutely delicious blend of sweet malts greets me at the first sip and makes me swoon. Chocolate and caramel, as advertised in the nose, but also hints of sherry or brandy and some oaky notes, all supported by an immense-feeling body. The texture is pleasantly chewy; substantive enough to provide a home for all that flavor but not so heavy as to make drinking the beer feel like work. There's a very nice bitter hoppiness that's playing hide-and-seek behind the malts. It's quite pronounced when you pay attention to it, yet it seems to disappear when you look away. The aftertaste is, as you'd expect, fairly long and dominated by a Hershey's dark chocolate vibe. Extremely pleasant. Also, if you let this beer get up on your lips it will stick there, forcing you to lick the film off. As if "forcing" is necessary. Oh, and lest I forget, Dark Force packs a rewarding 9% ABV.
The Verdict: This is a damned fine beer. Very impressive. Big, tasty, complex, Dark Force has everything I look for in a stout. I will absolutely be taking a look at Haandbryggeriet's other offerings after this debut.
Tags: beer
Hey All, just a friendly reminder that the TwoGlasses Fantasy Football draft is scheduled for one week from today at 3:30 PM. Please get your affairs in order to ensure you've got at least two hours free, or preferably a little more. (I'm unfamiliar with ESPN's draft application, but if it's anything like Sportsline's we can expect some hiccups.) You also might want to start doing some research. Unless you're Nightshift, in which case you can just throw a dart at the player rankings and expect everything to turn out okay. (Kidding, 'Shift. Kidding.)
Tags: fantasy football
Sat - 11:42 PM: Whoa. "Lighting" Bolt just dusted the field in the 100M sprint. And he could have finished faster, but he was too much in awe of himself and looking around with 20M left.
Sat - 11:12 PM: Yes. Yes, we are.
Sat - 11:07 PM: Here we go. Are we going to see History made?
Fri - 10:15 PM: Holy shit. Cavic had that race. If he'd put any kind of effort into that last stroke, he had that race. Instead, Phelphs lunges at the pad (or whatever it's called) and does the impossible. I didn't believe it in real time, but we rewound the DVR multiple times, and it's true. He fucking did it. Half a body length behind with 25 meters to go, that son of a bitch willed himself forward to the finish, and pulled it off by one 1/100th of a second. Ho. Lee. Shit. (I never thought I'd be this excited about swimming, but what this dude is doing is something I can tell my grandbirds about.)
Fri - 10:07 PM: Phew! Close one there for Dalhausser and Rogers. So glad to see them pull that out against that cranky Swiss douchenozzle.
Fri - 5:45 PM: Baseball is dead to me for the year. Unless, of course, the Yankees stage a most improbable comeback, which they will not. Joe Girardi, who appears to be almost spastically rearranging the deck chairs on this Titanic, sent my homie Melky Cabrera down to AAA today and brought up Brett Gardner. The move was entirely justifiable - Melky hasn't hit for shit all year, the season's in the toilet, and they want to take a longer look to see what they've got in Gardner - but still, it left me depressed. Although, come to think of it, seeing my favorite Yankee earn a bus ticket to Scranton is kinda the perfect coda to this frustrating and desultory season. Time for me to turn my attention elsewhere.
Hey, look! The Olympics!
So I'm kind of in a picture-taking mood, as you can see from the post below, and as I was on my way out to run errands -- new mirrors for the bathroom cabinet, eggs, bird supplies (...shit! I forgot to get seed! dumbass...), and beer -- I thought "Should I take the camera? Nah, what am I going to see running errands?"
Twenty minutes later, I'm driving down West Mountain Road in West Simsbury, on my way from Flamig Farm to Liquor Depot, and what do I see crossing the road about 100 feet in front of me but a big-ass black bear. I nearly shit myself. Broad daylight, and this character is lumbering from one yard to another like he hasn't got a care in the world. I pulled over and tried to snap a picture with my cell phone -- the first time since I've had the thing that it really would have come in handy -- but I was too flustered to remember to hit "store" afterwards, so I lost it.
So yeah, I guess those notices from the Simsbury PD about bears in the area were serious.
Have I mentioned how much I love where I live?
Tags: bears
Mmmmmmm. Baked asparagus. In the interest of variety, Tracy has taken to baking some of our vegetables lately - she did baked green beans earlier this week - and the experiment has yielded some mouth-watering results. So, so, so much more flavor than boiling or steaming. Yum.
I bought these flowers for Tracy at Rosedale Vineyards, right across the bridge from us on East Weatogue Road. Great little place. Whole bunch of their own wines on offer, outstanding fresh veggies, and a smattering of other funky, locally-produced Epicurean goodies. Truly a hidden gem of the Shire.
A couple of weeks ago we ordered a set of four stainless steel "coop cups" to outfit the new Bird Majal. They're pretty great. Way easier to clean than the square, plastic food cups that came with the old cage or the long, rectangular, plastic troughs that came with the new one. There's only one problem. See if you can guess what it is.
This has been the Summer of Storms in the Shire. Virtually every day has featured the same forecast: "Partly sunny with a chance of showers and thunderstorms. Some thunderstorms may produce gusty winds, frequent lightning and small hail." I kid thee not, the weather guys have been cutting and pasting that since early June. And since I'm a Storm Freak, I think it's been awesome. Yesterday we received a righteous, ass-kicking downpour that left the screen on our front door soaked top to bottom. Looking out through it, I saw this impressionist rendering of our front lawn.
Tags: asparagus, flowers, parakeet, photography
From the "You Can't Make This Stuff Up" files:
Barack Obama will give his convention speech on August 28th, the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King's "I Have A Dream" speech.
But you knew that.
Hillary Clinton will give her convention speech on August 26th, the 88th anniversary of the nineteenth amendment becoming law and giving women the right to vote.
But you knew that.
Bill Clinton will give his convention speech on... August 27th. The 125th anniversary of the explosion of Mount Krakatoa.
I bet you did not know that.
(h/t: Guy on All Things Considered whose name I can't remember.)
Tags: Bill Clinton, huge explosions
This just disgusts me:
It's official: Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's name will be placed in nomination at the convention in Denver later this month, an arrangement the two camps agreed on late Wednesday night, after much debate over how to honor Clinton's historic campaign for president.
Sen. Barack Obama, in a joint statement by both offices, said he is "convinced that honoring Senator Clinton's historic campaign in this way will help us celebrate this defining moment in our history and bring the party together in a strong united fashion." Although Clinton will be nominated, and there will be a roll-call vote on her nomination, the two sides are still working out the mechanics of how that will happen, aides said. Clinton will not have enough delegates to win the nomination, which Obama will formally secure before delivering his acceptance speech on Thursday night.
Some Clinton backers had said they would leave the convention after Clinton speaks on Tuesday night, as part of an ongoing protest against Obama's nomination. But Clinton herself is planning to stay for the week, and her advisers said that the dealings with the Obama campaign were actually very amicable. Both teams said they agreed on the need to celebrate Clinton, not only to pacify her supporters but also to demonstrate that the issue has been put to rest as the party heads into the general election.
Sources tell the Post that an earlier version of the deal, which would have required Obama to kneel behind Hillary onstage and "kiss her ass right on the crack" was scuttled at the last minute due to health concerns.
Seriously, what the fuck? When was the last time a losing candidate was treated to this kind of ego stroking? Guess what, Senator Clinton: I already "celebrated" your historic candidacy, and it tasted damn fine, thank you very much.
Tags: Hillary Clinton
How depressing. I click over to Dr. Jeff Masters' WunderBlog at Weather Underground to check on tropical disturbance 92L -- should officially be a tropical depression by the end of the day -- and I see a reader poll over in the right-hand sidebar asking whether people agree with the IPCC that global warming is almost certainly caused by human activity.
56.7% of respondents clicked to indicate that they do not, in fact, agree with that position.
This is no CNN viewers poll we're talking about. This is a site for serious weather geeks, people who are interested enough in meteorological phenomena to check in regularly with whatever promising disturbances are organizing themselves off of Lesser Antilles. Yet a clear majority think they know better than IPCC.
What is it about this issue that causes so many otherwise intelligent people to stick their fingers in their ears and run around in denial?
Tags: stupid people
Originally from Kona, modified to a more reasonable number of songs by Angelos. Here we go. Name that tune!
Now the party's over
And the money's all gone
You remember feeling like
Jesus' sonI'm so fucking sick
I'm the king of the world
I'm a genius of
Useless stuffWilde
The tide is high
but I'm holding on
I'm gonna be your number one
I'm not the kind of girl who gives up just like thatAnd what do you do when
Your own man kills himself and
How do I make friends now
And where is my MomDED
Too many puppies are being shot in the dark.
Too many puppies are trained not to bark.
At the sight of blood that must be spilled so that
We may maintain our oil fields.No time now for losing tempers
Or filling up with rage or anger
Flying off the handle could be detrimental
Calmer hands are called for hereI'm 12 o'clock,
All daylight hours,
I'll warm your bed,
I'll grow your flowers.DED
Few creatures of the night have captured our imagination like vampires
What explains our enduring fascination with vampires?
What is it about the vampires myth that explains our interest?
Is it the overtones of sexual lust, power, control...Angelos
Out on the town, lookin' for a woman,
Gonna gimmie good love
Anybody wanna hang out with me,
And maybe burn me up?I can't live with you
But I can't live without you
I can't let you stay
Ooh but I can't live if you go away
Wow, I seem to have gotten a disproportionate number of songs that have their titles in the first four lines.
Tags: memes
I bought a two-year subscription to Scientific American last week as part of a drive to support Connecticut's Special Olympics team, and yet despite that fact and despite the ongoing efforts of these people I don't see myself expunging "retard" from my vocabulary any time soon. Am I a Bad Person? Discuss...
Tags: retard
Mon - 8:15 PM: This "synchronized diving" is a real trip. Apparently it's been around since the 2000 games, but this is the first year Americans are competing in it so we're only seeing coverage of it now. The other day, when NBC ran a teaser for it, I honestly couldn't figure out what I was looking at. My first thought was that they had a mirrored wall in back of the board, or that they were doing some sort of doubling of the video for dramatic effect. Upon closer attention, I was like, whoa.
Sun - 10:10 AM: 10,500 fans showed up for Brett Favre's first practice as a Jet yesterday. Wow.
Sat - 11:20 PM: OK, I was wrong. I just watched Phelps win his first gold medal, and it was pretty damned exciting.
Sat - 11:05 AM: Whoa. Rest in Peace, Bernie Mac. (Complications from pneumonia? What the fuck is with that?)
Sat - 11:00 AM: The Miami Dolphins signed Chad Pennington. Good for him. I'll root for you fourteen games out of sixteen this year, old buddy.
Sat - 10:45 AM: Missed posting this last night because I was watching the extraordinary spectacle of the 2008 Olympics opening ceremonies. Really, people, anyone who deprived themselves of that show is an idiot. Just one spellbinding, visually impossible performance after another. The "Bird's Nest" looks like one of most amazing venues ever constructed, and I can't wait to see what that blue brick of water next to it has to offer. Can you feel the excitement? Game. Fucking. On.
As for baseball... (sigh)
Losing Joba for August (at the least) pretty much killed the season. Cashman did his best, bringing in Sexson, Marte, and Pudge, but really, how many pitchers can a team lose and still compete? Generation Next was supposed to be Wang, Hughes, Kennedy and Joba. That was the Plan. So what happens? Lost for the season to injury, on the DL for two months and working his way back, in AAA for two months and ineffective in his return last night, and on the DL with an indeterminate prognosis. Nice.
Ah well. Better luck next year, guys.
Okay, Lee isn't really my hero. Brett Favre is my hero. But Lee's one cool motherfucker, and the fact that he got banned from Daily Kos for writing a prescient and accurate post about l'affair du Jean Edwards' Ravenous Penis earns him a merit badge in my book. Please do read my wife's excellent post in his defense.
Know what rankles my ass right to the top of the crack? Intolerant, authoritarian "liberal" websites. Places where the groupthink roams wild and free, crushing those who have differences of opinion. Sites like Kos where the Community - with a capital friggin' "C" - routinely stomps on views that aren't totally in line with whatever the current edition of their Little Orange Book says. Sites where the desire to create a "safe space" for some oppressed class ends up creating a stifling environment for anyone whose opinion might offend the delicate flowers in the audience. Sites where it's an everyday worry that you might get banned for expressing yourself.
You know what, people? It's the fucking internet. That whole "Wild West" thing? It's a metaphor. Flame wars won't actually hurt you. Other peoples' opinions won't send you to the hospital. If you need a "safe space" in your web browser, then you need a therapist. If you're screeching that some guy needs to be banned because of his heretical opinions, then maybe the internet isn't for you in the first place. Get over yourselves.
And Lee? Rock on.
Tags: Lee Stranahan, idiotic web sites
Hello out there! It is quittin' time on Friday and that glorious thing known as the "weekend" -- an invention of organized labor, let us not forget; a product of liberal politics, because you know damned well the Wingers would have us all working twelve-hour days seven days a week for the greater glory of Big Monied Interests -- is upon us. (You like how I slid a mini-rant right into the opener?) A cold Magic Hat has just been cracked open and a thunderstorm is rumbling overhead, sending the pitter-patter sound of rain and cool breezes into the TwoGlasses home office here in our glorious little corner of the Shire. Hey, you hear that? That buzzing sound? Sounds a lot like the heating coils inside a toaster when they get good and red hot. You know what that means. Pull up your chairs, readers, grab your drink of choice and join me for some Slices of Toast!
(Slice Track: Click, Click, Boom! - Saliva)
It's official: We dodged a bullet when John Edwards' campaign sputtered and died out. Edwards has finally admitted that he did, in fact, have that affair he's been vociferously denying for months:
John Edwards repeatedly lied during his Presidential campaign about an extra-marital affair with a novice film-maker, the former Senator admitted to ABC News today.
In an interview for broadcast tonight on Nightline, Edwards told ABC News correspondent Bob Woodruff he did have an affair with 42-year old Rielle Hunter, but said that he did not love her.
Ha! He "did not love her". Very classy, sir. Oh, and he ain't the baby daddy either, so we're supposed to give him brownie points for that I guess.
What an ass. I mean, putting aside the general contempt that cheaters deserve, especially ones who portray themselves as earnest little Boy Scouts, this guy ran for the Democratic nomination knowing he had this corpse -- it's not a skeleton yet; too recent -- sticking part way out of his closet and, assuming he's not delusional, knowing full well what it would mean if it came out during a presidential run. That's just plain irresponsible.
Tell you what though, I dare the Republicans and their media lickspittles to pick up this story and try to inject it into the election somehow. By all means, let's talk about adultery. After all, it'd be a great change of pace for McCain to finally have a subject to discuss that he's an authority on.
(Slice Track: Can't Stand The Heartache - Skid Row)
Earlier this week I was listening to either a podcast or a story on NPR - I forget which or where or when - and someone used the phrase "steamship of beef". I love that term. "Steamship" of Beef immediately makes me picture the most humongous slab of meat in the universe, just sitting there, all glisteny and delicious, a chef standing behind it, perhaps, with a carving knife, ready to cut me off a nice hot slice or ten...
Whoa. I almost got a tastebud cramp just writing that.
Anyhow, what's weird is that I cannot find any explanation for where the phrase "steamship of beef" comes from. I've Googled, Yahooed, Wikipediaed and Asked - hell, I even Cuiled - and I got nothing. Nada. Lots of tips on how to prepare the thing, but nothing edifying in terms of the name's origin. Weird. Is it because the cut is vaguely shaped like a steamship? Long, low, and bulky? That's my best guess, but I'm interested in hearing other suggestions.
Meanwhile, I'm going to go pour a skyscraper of beer.
(Slice Track: Rooster - Alice In Chains)
It would appear that Tracy has something in common with Michelle Obama, aside from an affinity for giving her husband terrorist fist jabs: She likes to leave HGTV on as the "default" channel.
And it would appear that I have something in common with Barack Obama: We both find this preference irritating.
It's my mother's fault. The last time she came down she got Tracy watching some program about people fixing up their homes to add value prior to selling them... Zzzzzzzzzzz... Oh, what? Huh? Sorry, I fell asleep. Yeah, so that was followed by another show about inexpensive home remodeling projects, and that was followed by something about designing your dream bathroom and, seriously, just how many television shows can there be out there about interior design and home improvement? Enough to justify a full-time cable channel, apparently.
Hey, it's not that these shows aren't informative. I can see flipping over to HGTV if there's a particular show you want to check out for ideas for your own house. But the default channel? No thanks. CNN Headline News or ESPN, please.
(Slice Track: E-Beat - Midnight Oil)
Discussing the upcoming Olympic games with Tracy last night -- yes, we're going to watch; no, I don't want to listen to any tiresome, self-righteous lectures about the evils of the Chinese government; the games are about the athletes, people -- I informed my wife that I was not interested in watching the swimming competitions because, while Michael Phelps may be poised to set all kinds of records, I consider swimming to be the single most boring sporting event in the universe. I mean, they're just going back and forth in a pool. Over and over and over and over again. It's impressive that they can do it so fast, and I'd kill to have "swimmer body", but as a spectator sport? Please shoot me.
And that's when the surprising thing happened: Tracy responded that she found golf to be the most boring of all sports.
Hey, I'm no fan of golf, but more boring than swimming? Wife, please.
Let's toss this one out to the audience: What's the most boring sport to watch?
(Slice Track: Vow - Garbage)
...Overheard at Casa de Toast...
Tracy: "When I was at Whole Foods today, I almost bought some salt. It was in a grinder, and it comes from this place in the Himalayas where, it's like, everything is still pure, and-"
Toast: "You're why we have bottled water from France, you know."
Tracy: "It cost eight dollars. So I didn't get it."
The Toast household would like to extend our warmest congratulations to this year's Last Comic Standing... Iliza Shlesinger! Iliza is the first woman to ever win LCS and she is one hella funny chick. From the earliest rounds I latched onto her as a favorite. She's got a wonderfully engaging personality, crazy amounts of energy, a gift for observational humor, and she's smokin' hot.
Iliza had quite the title run. From the get-go the other wannabes started targeting her in their "I'm Funnier Than..." challenges. I have no idea what they were thinking. Seriously, when that one-joke-act Papa C.J. and the uncomfortably awkward Paul Foot decided to pick on Iliza, forcing her to go to the showdown for a second straight week, I was just licking my chops. Of course, she wiped the floor with them, sending a message to the remaining competitors that it was a bad idea to take the same stage with her. Iliza did run into some stiff competition in the Finals. In the end it came down to her and Marcus, a righteously funny dude with an awe-inspiring repertoire of imitations. Marcus turned in what I thought was the better final performance, but the television audience must have given Iliza the edge based on her overall run, because she edged him out.
Good for her, bringing home the trophy for quirky, cute, funny, smart, skinny blonde babes everywhere.
Ha! Steve Greenberg, via Angelos:
But Americans believe Republicans are better with the economy. I blame rampant mental retardation.
Tags: weekend, John Edwards, steamship of beef, HGTV, swimming and other boring sports, expensive salt, Iliza Shlesinger
I hate the GOP. I really do. In fact, if I had my way I'd banish "GOP" from the lexicon. Sure, I can tell myself it stands for "Grotesque Obstructionist Pricks" or "Greedy Oligarch Party", but those little acts of snark can't banish the obscene conceit behind the Republican Party's chosen nickname - the sick joke that there's something "Grand" about who they are and what they represent.
Oh my. What set me off, you ask?
Mainly, it's the tire-gauge lie. You know, the McCain campaign's mendacious attempt to claim that Obama has no energy plan beyond asking people to properly inflate their tires. Jonathan Chait is right: Obama should flat-out call McCain a liar.
Just say it: "Liar"
That's what McCain is. He's not spinning, he's not offering a different point of view, he's not just "being a politician" - he's lying. Call him on it. Call him what he is.
What makes this lie particularly infuriating - because let's face it, this is a small lie as Republican lies go - is the attitude behind it. The glib, puerile, practically openly snickering as they do it, clownish fuck-you stupidity of the lie. McCain knows he's lying - about this and so much else. His surrogates know he's lying and they're happily lending a helping hand. The Republican Party - who, if they wanted to craft an honest platform, would sum it up as "Lie like crazy about absolutely everything and keep shoveling that cash into the pockets of the Rich" - has dropped all pretense of not being liars. They do it as performance art now, knowingly winking at the audience like the guy in those old Joe Isuzu ads. "Yeah, we know you know we're lying. Ain't it so fun?"
No, it's not. I'm fucking sick to death of it.
Don't complain to me about the two-party system. We should be lucky enough to have two viable political parties. Instead we've got one party that barely ever functions in such a way as to advance the nation's interest - a bunch of timid, often clueless twits whose governing slogan comes down to "No, we can't get out of our own way!" - that is only poised to sweep up in November because, thank fucking FSM, most of the rest of America has finally gotten tired of the willfully negligent, incompetent, lying clowns on the other side of the aisle. The running gag show those douchebags are running doesn't even qualify as a political "party" anymore. Their complete lack of moral stature, intellectual seriousness and anything approaching policy coherence would shame a juvenile crime syndicate. They're just a loud, roving troupe of retarded chimpanzees, gleefully flinging poo at everthing that moves, grunting and screeching with outrage and threats at anyone who tries to get anything positive and sensible accomplished.
I'm sick of it.
We need to have a serious conversation about where we're going as a country - especially as regards energy policy, a subject that's roughly a thousand times more important than how we deal with TERROR! - and election season is when we're supposed to have exactly such conversations, but the stupid kids in the back of the class are, as usual, drowning the rest of us out. "Drill! Drill! Drill! Hey, look, a tire-pressure gauge! HAR HAR!!!"
Goddamned malicious, lying dimwits.
I hate the Republican party.
Tags: the Republican Party
Normally I do this on the first Wednesday of every month, but I haven't been able to access my TwoGlasses maintenance page from the office ever since I got my new work laptop. Why? Because the IT trolls installed some bullshit crippleware that prevents either of my browsers from opening any links that use "Javascript.Open". You have no idea just how limiting that is until it happens to you.
Anyhow, last thirteen:
Queensrÿche - "Eyes of a Stranger" (Operation: Mindcrime)
"I've always known that the mirror never lies"R.E.M. - "Moral Kiosk" (Murmur)
"Scratch the scandals in the twilight"U2 - "New Year's Day" (War)
"And so we are told this is the golden age"The BoDeans - "Say About Love" (Outside Looking In)
"They say sometimes it just takes one look"David Lee Roth - "Easy Street" (Crazy From The Heat)
"Say baby, what you doing tonight?"Faith No More - "We Care A Lot" (Introduce Yourself)
"It's a dirty job, but someone's gotta do it"Billy Joel - "Movin' Out (Anthony's Song)" (2000 Years: The Millennium Concert)
"It seems such a waste of time"
(I have to see Billy Joel live some time. I love Billy Joel.)Sheryl Crow - "A Change Would Do You Good" (Sheryl Crow)
"God's little gift is on the rag"Rush - "Tom Sawyer" (Moving Pictures)
"The world is, the world is, love and life are deep"Mos Def - "Rock N Roll" (Black On Both Sides)
"I said, Elvis Presley ain't got no soul"
(This is actually a pretty idiotic song. Basically one long lecture about how black musicians invented rock n' roll - essentially true - but putting forth the ridiculous and racist idea that white musicians have contributed nothing to the genre. Seriously, fuck you Mos Def. Come to think of it, I might just delete this album. It's a Fridge donation, and I've yet to hear one song on it that I like.)XTC - "The Man Who Sailed Around His Soul" (Skylarking)
"The man who walked across his heart
Was doomed to journey from the start
Of every love affair he'd broken
All the lies he'd ever spoken
Tattooed on his arm"Jim Croce - "Photographs And Memories" (Jim Croce Music, Vol. 1)
"Morning walks and bedroom talks"
(Do not buy this album. I got it from iTunes because it was the only thing they had that resembled a Jim Croce "Greatest Hits" album. Thing is, all the versions of his songs on it are these weird-sounding studio-session versions that have absolutely no life to them. I'm going to see if I can find a torrent of an actual Croce's Greatest Hits album.)Billy Joel - "A Matter of Trust" (The Bridge)
"Some love is just a lie of the soul - A constant battle for the ultimate state of control"
(Tracy wanted me to mention how cool it is that Billy Joel is an atheist. It is very cool.)
Not a bad little stretch of songs, Mos Def excepted.
Tags: music
Brett Favre is now a Jet. I know this because before I even opened my email or a browser window there was an IM on my screen from Fridge waiting to tell me the news. Ah yes, those of you who find amusement in my consternation are no doubt on the edge of your seats this morning. And yet all I can offer you is...
(shrug)
(sigh)
I've known this was coming, you see. From the first day I heard someone seriously mention the possibility, I knew it would come to pass. The QB I've made fun of for years? The man who wears the eternal Halo of Hype? The Gunslinger who could throw twice as many picks as touchdowns and still reasonably expect a sloppy, adoring blowjob from John Madden? The legend who tearfully said his farewells to football last year only to turn around mere months later and do The Thing Which Annoys Me More Than Any Other Thing That High-Profile Athletes Do?
Come on, people. Like Brett wasn't going to be a Jet this year?
The Sports Gods, who will never tire of tormenting me for my youthful disrespect towards them, probably had the 4 Train chugging towards the Meadowlands from the moment ol' Love of the Game hung up his green and yellow jersey for the final time. Right after throwing an interception, of course.
Ah, well. I learned to love Scottie Pippen when he came to the Blazers. Learning to love Brett Favre should be child's play by comparison.
From a football perspective, I don't see how this makes the team worse. Sportsline's Pete Prisco opines that "With or without Favre, the Jets are not better than the Patriots. With Favre, they might not be better than the Buffalo Bills." I just don't see how that's the case. The Jets have been in training camp with the same two QB's they started last year's doomed campaign with: The high-character, high-IQ guy with the noodle arm and the young gunner who looked like he was in way over his head every time he stood behind center. Neither has looked any different than they did last year, revamped O-Line not withstanding. So given that Favre's not exactly blocking some more obvious option at quarterback, what the hell, right? Let's give him a shot and see what happens. Right?
Right.
(shrug)
(sigh)
Tags: Brett Favre, New York Jets
"As this year's primaries showed, voters now identify with pro-immigrant, socially progressive Republicans like John McCain and tough-on-defense, down-on-handouts Dems like Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, who ran circles around the populist John Edwards." -- Newsweek's Katie Baker, reviewing Susan Mulcahy's new book "Why I'm A Democrat"
On what planet must one live in order for the phrase "socially progressive" to seem applicable to John McCain?
Tags: John McCain
Okay, Peeps, football will soon be upon us, and it's time to decide just how we're going to deal with it. Who's going to be Boss Hogg this year? Will it be Night "Mostly Luck" Shift? John "Crazy Skillz" Howard? My own insanely gifted self? Angelhose? Who knows...
Whatever the case, the first thing we've got to do is decide how we want to frame things up this season. Last year we tried Yahoo's Salary Crap league. Can't say I was too thrilled with that, as the pricing rules never made a lot of sense, but I'd be willing to give that format another whirl. The other option is to create a more standard-style fantasy league. Yeah, it's a bit more money, but seriously, you're telling me that wouldn't be fun? Hell, Draft Night would be the biggest TwoGlasses party of all time.
Let me know what you guys think. Plenty of time to decide. If we go "old school", I've already got a very solid league constitution and scoring system to start with. If we go salary cap, I'm open to suggestions.
Tags: football
Opa Opa Brewing had a tasting booth set up at Liquor Depot when Tracy and I did our weekly packie run on Friday, and I was sufficiently bowled over by their brown ale that I felt I should purchase a growler of it. Let's take a longer look.
The Pour: I cracked the cap and wisps of cloudy beer vapor swirled forth from the neck of the growler. Pouring into a 22 oz. Coors Light football glass - crappy beer, great glass - Opa Opa Brown Ale developed a ginormous head of coarse-grained, tan-colored foam. We're talking 2-3" of head here. This gradually died down to 1/4" or so over a few minutes. Aromas off the head were malty and slightly earthy. Carbonation levels appear very faint. The body is dark but not cloudy at all, and boasts a robust-looking reddish-brown hue.
The Taste: First impression comes from the dominant malty flavor. This ale is sweeter than most browns I've had, with a taste somewhere between chocolate and caramel. Nougat, maybe? Yes, let's call it that. There's a bit of the woody/nutty flavor one expects from the variety that undergirds this sweetness. In addition, there's a nice, crisp hoppiness that rounds out the flavor, keeping the beer's potent sweetness from being overwhelming or one-dimensional. The body is medium-heavy and quite chewy, and each mouthful leaves a bit of sticky film around the lips. The aftertaste is sweet and, in the only real ding I can name for this brew, a bit watery and short.
The Verdict: This is a solid and distinctive brown ale. Not necessarily appropriate to the season, given the heavier weight and dessert-like flavor, but I can sure see drinking a whole bunch of this some Football Sunday. Opa-Opa continues to do Western Massachusetts proud with this offering.
Sun - 4:35 PM: And the Yankees win game four in a shootout. Did not see that coming.
Sun - 12:15 PM: Quote of the Weekend, from my man Pete:
By the time the weekend is over in Boston, Manny Ramirez will be blamed for the cost of the Big Dig, the Giants beating the Patriots in the Super Bowl and John Kerry's flawed campaign strategy in 2004.
Sun - 10:50 AM: You know what I like? Sunday afternoon baseball games. Seriously, I know it's considered an "honor" to have your team showcased on ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball, but I hate that shit. Who needs to stay up until almost midnight on a work night? No thanks. Give me afternoon baseball to set a nice, relaxed backdrop for my day.
Sat - 6:55 PM: Yanks right the ship to take the third game of their series with Anaheim 8-2. Phew. Now Go A's and Go Tigers!
Sat - 3:30 PM: Not strictly baseball related, but Yankees blogger Peter Abraham writes today "As for me, I'll be at Gillette Stadium for tonight's Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band concert." Now, this would not normally be notable, except the guy just saw Bruce at Giants Stadium last week. And I'm quite certain he's written about going to see Bruce at least half a dozen other times since I've been reading him.
I don't get it. I love music, and there are a lot of bands I count myself a huge fan of, but I've never understood this behavior where people go to see the same band play over and over and over again. The Dead were famous for that, obviously, and more recently I think Phish has attracted that sort of, uh, obsessive loyalty. I didn't know until I started reading Abraham that Bruce had fans like that. It just strikes me as very odd.
Sat - 8:45 AM: Charles Pierce has an entertainingly contrarian take on the end of the Manny Era in Boston. Worth your time, if only to see the phrase "well-perforated ass" properly deployed.
Fri - 9:40 PM: Unfrackinbelievable. Sidney fucking Ponson pitches his first great game as a Yankee - seven innings of shutout ball - followed by a 1-2-3, 2K inning from Marte, and then Mariano comes in, coughs up a run and gets the loss. What the fuck? What is Mo's deal in non-save situations?
Fri - 7:45 PM: Apologies for my tardiness. We've been busy assembling the new Bird Majal. Um... Yankees vs. Angels, yeah. That's going to work out real well. Pettitte got smoked in the opener last night, and tonight we've got Sidney Pontoon going. Good times. Very alarmed that the trading "deadline" passed without us acquiring a pitcher. But, hey... In Cash We Trust.
Tags: baseball
Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your eyes, so that I may present to you... the Bird Majal.
Now that is a bird cage right there. At a rough guess I'd say there's four times as much space in there as compared to the starter cage. Took me about 45 minutes to put it together. After I was done, Tracy and I hit PetCo and dropped about a hundred bucks on perches and accessories. Our girl is hooked up, yo.
I have to say, after getting my hands on this thing, I think the $139 we paid for it is a bargain. Wrought-iron construction with a pretty, platinum finish. A nice, smooth-rolling set of casters on the base. Roomy storage shelf underneath. But the best feature, hands-down, is the two giant doors on the front. The old cage has a single, small, guillotine-style door at the base, and it can be a pain in the ass to get in there and access stuff. As for getting the bird out, forget it; most times it was easier just to pop the roof off. Not the case with the new palace. Those doors are so big I can stick my head inside to say "hi". More importantly, they make every inch of the cage easily accessible. Plus, they're hinged to swing out, which is less dangerous for the bird, and they've got great latching mechanisms. No more using a safety pin to secure the door when we're not around.
And from the bird's point of view? Well, as our thirty grams of sweetness and joy is discovering, you can fly in this bad boy. This morning she launched off the perch up top, flew a foot or so towards the other side, and actually hovered for a bit before returning whence she'd come. You could almost hear her little brain going "Whoa!" I mean, she's already a world-class athkeet; now that she can get some real exercise during the days when we're both at work, look out world.
I've got to go thoroughly clean the old cage now to get it set up for its new inhabitant. Yes, that's right, there's a very good chance that today could be the day we buy our new bird. Have to do a little research first to see if there are stores that sell hand-raised birds ("pre-tamed", in other words), but chances are we'll just go back to the budgie bin at PetCo. They had a lot of males there, by the look of it. Just think, next month this time, Birdstone might hear a knock at her cage door, followed by the Parakeetese version of "Somebody order a pizza?"
Update: Meet the New Bird... Definitely not the same as the Old Bird.
When we got our first parakeet, it only took us a few days to come up with the name "Moody" for her. She was, um, challenging. Didn't move a muscle or make a sound for the first three days we had her. Terrified of us. When she finally did come around and start acting a little more normal -- singing and moving about like 'keets are supposed to -- we noticed that her moods were rather Mercurial, hence the name.
Our new bird is a bit different. First off, we had to help the sales associate wrangle him into the box at PetCo because he escaped the net and was boldly marching around the room (his wings are still totally clipped). On the ride home, he was jumping all about in the box, and when we opened said box up inside his new home, he ACK-ACK-ACK'ed furiously for a full minute, announcing his arrival. The really weird thing, though, is that he's acting cool as the proverbial cucumber in there. I reached into the cage with the camera to get this shot -- something that sent Birdstone into a full-on freakout when I did it with her back in January -- and he just kind of cocked his head like "Hmmmm, yes, that's interesting." Stayed calm even when the flash went off. So just for kicks, I reached my hand back in toward him to see if he'd react, and he let me stroke his wing. He was clearly paying attention, but he wasn't alarmed at all. To put this in perspective, it took weeks of patient effort just to get a finger within an inch of our girl. This is fascinating.
Tracy thinks maybe the new little one was raised differently, but I'm pretty sure PetCo's birds all come from the same supplier. Who knows? Maybe our little tennis ball was traumatized somehow before we got her, whereas NewBird was coddled by friendlier, more knowledgeable employees. Or maybe, as I've read on a few parakeet sites, every bird's temperament is just somewhat unique. We shall see. So far, so good, that's for sure.
Tags: parakeets