[2005.11.26 - 06:00 P.M.] WEEKEND BEER BLOGGING
While hunting for beer options for this weekend, Tracy espied Flying Dog's Gonzo Imperial Porter. Examining the exterior of the four-pack, she quickly learned that this brew was a tribute to the late Hunter S. Thompson ("gonzo" journalist). She then further discovered two flavor scales, one of which indicated that this beer was very dark, and a second which placed it well towards the malty end of the spectrum. Her hop-o-phobia thus assuaged and her interest piqued by the association with the venerable Mr. Thompson, Tracy prevailed upon me to make this our selection for the week. (OK, she didn't have to twist my arm too hard.)
My impressions: This is an aggressive but somewhat one-dimensional porter. The texture is chewy and kind of coats your tongue. Long, long aftertaste. The kind of long I could still be tasting tomorrow morning. The flavor is intensely smoky. Not quite Someone-Put-A-Cigar-Out-In-This smoky, but awfully close. Despite the advertised maltiness, any sweet overtones this beer might have are overwhelmed by the charbroiled taste. Very mildly hopped. Most of the time you won't notice the hops at all, because you'll be preoccupied with chewing the embers before you swallow them, but every now and then the hops will poke through and strafe the side of your tongue a bit. Overall I'd say this particular porter is intense, edgy, imbalanced, and a little over-the-top. Definitely grabs your attention out of the gate, but I can see it becoming tiresome pretty quickly. Best in small doses. Hey, sounds like a certain writer you might be acquainted with...
(Tracy says: "That must be why they sell it in four packs.")
Rating: 5.5
That's right! That's right! It's a Weekend Beer Blogging Two-Fer! Yeah, Baby! And to what do you owe this pleasure, you ask? I'll tell you what: The MONSTER is in the hizZouse!!!
The first snow has fallen here in the Shire, heralding the arrival of Winter -- real Winter as opposed to "calendar" Winter (now there's a SSTAM post just waiting to be written) -- and what is Winter if not the time to sip from that most exquisite sub-species of genus Beerus, the Barley Wines? Ah, yes, here they come to a packie near you: Sweet, silky smooth, and ready to Kick. Your. Ass.
First up this season is an old friend, Brooklyn Brewing's Monster Ale. I almost missed it today as I scanned the racks, but, just as I was about to turn away, there it was, it's mylar label winking at me from the bottom corner of the domestic microbrew section. Immediately, I was transported into reverie. Ah, Monster, I remember when we first met. It was our mutual friend, Hank, who introduced us. I was having a football party at my spankin' new bachelor pad, and he was kind enough to bring a six-pack of you along for the fun. Somehow, in the excitement, I missed the informative blurb on your packaging that read "11% alcohol by volume". So it was that, after imbibing the better part of the aforementioned six-pack, I missed several other things, including the AFC Championship game and the pizza we had ordered. Ah, Monster. Good times.
A word of warning to those who don't already know: Barley wines are an acquired taste. Starting from the swill that Americans know as mass-produced domestic lagers, a barley wine could be seen as a third cousin, twice removed. A good barley wine has a stronger spiritual kinship to a single-malt Scotch than it does to, say, Budweiser. The barley wine is no casual beverage. It is to be sipped. Slowly. It requires -- nay, it demands -- your attention.
Monster is an absolutely splendid spokesman for the family. It has the silky texture that comes from the ultra-subtle carbonation that characterizes the type. It has a sweet and heady aroma. There is a strong enough suggestion of hops to remind you that you are, in fact, drinking beer. And there is the kick. The kick that says a high-octane alcoholic beverage is en-route to your gastrointestinal system. Ah yes, while Monster is not nearly as overwhelming in this regard as other barley wines, it does let you know who's in charge. Firmly. No talking back.
If you are a beer aficionado, you absolutely need to give Monster a try. If you're a casual beer drinker looking for a little adventure, then for you, my friend, this qualifies as Living on the Edge.
Rating: 9.0
You know, considering how goofy and arbitrary these internet quizzes typically are, that's actually a pretty accurate picture of yours truly. For starters, all the elements where I scored higher than 50% actually are elements of my moral belief system and all the ones where I scored less than 50% are not. So kudos to Wikipedia user Arocoun, who designed it.
It's funny. Most of the moral philosophy I remember reading (I minored in the subject in college) talked about moral belief systems as something that one develops over time. Kohlberg, in particular, dedicated his entire career to identifying and codifying a system of "stages" of moral development that people progress through. It's literally true, of course, that each individual's sense of morality and ideas about what is "good" change over time, so I guess you can call that "development". Whether it's "progress" -- whether we become "more moral" or our moral belief systems become more "refined" as we move through life -- well, that strikes me as a Your Mileage May Vary situation. I suspect a lot of people just become bigger assholes as they get older. Just a hunch.
Looking back on my life so far -- and rudely extrapolating from my sample size of One to all the rest of you -- the process of moral "development" strikes me as less of a building up than a stripping away.
You're born. In a short span of years your society, culture, religion, family and peers dump a truckload of stuff on top of you with the label "MORALS" stenciled across it. Then you spend the rest of your life digging out, slowly, painstakingly evaluating all these ideas, tossing away the ones that don't make sense and keeping only those that do. Some people lack the intellectual curiosity and/or introspective nature the task requires, and so they stay buried under the pile. Others escape into the fresh, bullshit-free air. Many make it halfway, discarding a lot but remaining forever burdened with a few tokens of their upbringing. (I still have a hypertrophied sense of guilt, courtesy of my Catholic upbringing, that I carry around like a mental rabbit's foot.)
Here, then, are the chips and shards that I have removed from the spare-yet-beautiful sculpture that I call my moral system:
What, then, after stripping away the notions above, was I left with? Well, it basically amounts to:
This is no joke. No siree. I'm as serious as a heart attack. In fact, I'm thinking book deal: "Everything I Ever Really Needed to Know I Learned From Bill & Ted" has a certain ring to it. But I digress.
This, then, is my Hedonistic Moral Imperative: To spend nights wrapped up on the couch with my beautiful wife, playing games, entertaining ourselves, engaging in all manner of mental and physical stimulation. To eat rich and wonderful foods. To drink deeply of intoxicating spirits. Also: To climb mountains, to ride my bike until I'm going to drop, to earn my black belt. And also: To never stop developing my mind -- not because I have to, but because it's fun. And also: To deepen my relationships with my friends and share in their experiences, because not everything that is to be enjoyed has to happen directly to me, sharing is also a pleasure, maybe the greatest one there is.
That's my morality.
[2005.11.21 - 05:15 P.M.] BEAVIS & BUTT-HEAD
Toilet humor. Inane, incessant laughter. Slap-stick violence. Hair Metal. I can't count how many times Mike Judge employed these instruments to devastating effect, leaving me doubled over on my couch. Granted, I was an easy mark. Just a simple "Shut up, assmunch! (WHACK!)" was all it took to reduce me to tears. Hell, a good imitation of The Butt-head Laugh still starts me giggling like an idiot eight years after the show went off the air. "The Simpsons" and "South Park" are fine, sure, but in my heart I'll always be a "Beavis and Butt-head" guy. They touched my Inner Dumbass in a way no one else ever could.
So it's understandable, I think, that I was filled with disgust today as I read Dana Stevens' review of the new Beavis & Butt-head anthology, Beavis and Butt-Head: The Mike Judge Collection in Slate. Not because Stevens wrote a negative review of the show. No. That would have been more merciful. What Stevens did was to write a positive review that comes off as both pompous and humorless.
Surely that's impossible, you say. The climb from the valley of Cornholio to the top of Mount Pomposity is too steep, too severe, even for a writer working at Slate!
Ah, but you forget, my friends: 9-11 changed everything:
The high-school burnouts Beavis and Butt-Head... are sublimely passive losers, both products and harbingers of the end-of-history anomie of the mid-'90s. It's impossible to imagine a post-9/11 Beavis and Butt-Head. Not because the show was devoid of political content but because the world it so ruthlessly satirized, a suburban cocoon of mindless consumption and complacent self-regard, abruptly ceased to exist at the beginning of this millennium.
(I'll wait while you wipe up after your spit take.)
Yup, no more mindless consumption and complacent self-regard in this country. Those days are behind us. We're consuming for Freedom now, motherfuckers.
Phew! Talk about setting a brisk pace. We've got to be halfway to Pompous Peak by now. Lead on, Ms. Stevens!
To truly appreciate Beavis and Butt-Head, you have to watch from a similar place, a Zen rock garden of peaceful imbecility. There's an almost Beckett-like purity to the tedium of Beavis and Butt-Head's serenely empty lives.
Wait wait wait! Not so fast! My lungs need time to adjust to the thinning air.
"Beckett"? What are you talking about? Butt-head, did you catch that?
"Huh huh. Uhhhhh-huh. She said 'bucket' you dumbass."
Oh, sorry.
OK, let's keep moving:
In light of later events like the Columbine school shootings, these debates seem worth revisiting. They're exactly the questions that Beavis and Butt-Head itself, in its indirect way, asks of its viewers: Is attributing the moral decay of a generation to the antics of these two snickering dill-weeds a classic case of mistaking the effect for the cause? Is our culture stupid because we watch TV, or do we watch TV because we're stupid?
Hmmmmmm. Is Dana Stevens a pompous mess because she writes for Slate? Or does she write for Slate because she's a pompous mess. Perhaps we'll find out when we reach the peak. I think I can see it from here:
Wonky animation used to signify outsider status.. now it signifies mainstream cool. In the same way, the boys' stupidity, which originally held up a cruel mirror to the MTV audience, was soon adopted as a model of behavior for, well, stupid people. Maybe it's only now that Beavis and Butt-Head are dead.. that they can be appreciated as the subversive sages they truly were.
Or not?
Damn you, Stevens, it's BEAVIS AND BUTT-HEAD!!! Can't you see that, in the act of attempting to divine depth, meaning, and cultural relevance in the show, you annihilate the very thing you seek. To be at one with the Boys is indeed akin to enlightenment, and like that elusive state it is not something that can be grasped after, much less discussed analytically. In your attempt to deconstruct their behavior, you betray them and... Hey! Beavis! Quit it, we're really close to the edge up here... HEY!!!
Aaaaaiiieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.............
"Huh huh. Put that on your 'blog', dude. Huh huh. Buh.. Log. Huh huh huh. Uh huh huh."
"Heh heh! Yeah! yeah! Aaaaaiiieee!"
"Huh huh. Bloggers like to work on their 'posts'. Huh huh huh..."
[2005.11.12 - 12:00 P.M.] AMERIPRISE: WE KISS BOOMER ASS!
OK, I have to take a moment to vent about Ameriprise's unbelievably annoying ad campaign. You've seen these if you watch football on Sunday at all. The first one went more-or-less like this (um, loosely paraphrasing):
"You were the generation that changed the world."
[Footage of crazy hippies protesting and going to concerts]
"You were wild and crazy and great and you never let anything stop you."
[Picture of four young people standing outside old VW mini-bus]
"And you still don't..."
[Picture of four fifty-something people standing outside new VW mini-bus]
"At Ameriprise, we know aging, insecure Boomers have mad cash, so we're willing to give your egos a big, sloppy rim job..."
This fucking thing has been annoying me for weeks, and now they've got a new one:
[Sixty-ish foursome standing on cliff overlooking ocean while crappy sixties song plays in background]
"You're bold. You're different. You're redefining retirement. Blah blah blah. Invest with Ameriprise. (slurp)"
I'm sorry, I can't fucking take this shit. Like all Gen-X'ers, I've lived my entire life in the shadow of these freaks. I had their fuckin' music forced down my throat 24-7 for years. I had to endure endless stories about the stupid friggin' 60's from my elders at college. I've had to sit and watch as every fucking life stage the Baby Boom went through was serially celebrated as the be-all, end-all of life on this planet.
Now this? I think not.
Here's my suggestion for Ameriprise's next ad:
[Woodstock footage]
Man, you sure did tear shit up when you were young...
[Cut to stock ticker]
Then you grew up and sold out! You bought into the System, dude...
[Suburban scene, outside of McMansion, Hummer in foreground]
You struggled mightily to preserve the illusion that you were interesting and different...
[Shot of wrinkled sixty-something guy falling off surfboard]
But you weren't! You were just obnoxious, over-bearing, and self-absorbed!
...And now you're OLD, dude!
[Footage of middle-aged kids walking boomer parent into nursing home]
Harsh.
[Boomer taking out dentures, looking in mirror, fingering age spot on face]
Pretty soon, YOU'RE GONNA DIE!
[Show casket sitting by altar]
At Ameriprise, we're here to help escort you towards that Great Woodstock in the Sky. Invest with us! We'll kiss your fat, wrinkled ass like there's no tomorrow. Because who knows? For you, there might not be!
(sigh)
Hey, I can dream...
[2005.11.06 - 03:00 P.M.] BEN
About six, maybe seven years ago, I was coming in to work a little late at the software shop that my buddy Fridge and I worked at. As I passed by his desk, he ripped his headphones off and, with an evangelical intensity in his voice, said "Dude, you have to listen to this CD. It's fucking awesome. I'm on my third listen already this morning." So it was that, later that day, I found myself listening to Whatever And Ever, Amen for the first time. I was... intrigued. Here's this guy with a high-pitched, sorta whiny voice banging the living shit out of a piano and singing about a geeky guy getting his revenge on the world ("One Angry Dwarf and 200 Solemn Faces"). Was this a novelty album? But, wait, just two tracks later, a haunting song about a guy and his girlfriend going through some sort of medical trauma together ("Brick" -- probably Folds' most famous song). I didn't know quite what to think, where to put this guy in my musical universe, but I kept coming back. For the next couple of weeks, on a pretty much daily basis, I found myself heading over to Fridge's cube to borrow what I referred to as the "Angry Dwarf" CD.
Three albums and half a decade later, it's safe to say that Ben Folds is one of my favorite artists alive today.
With each album, Folds has moved further away from the college-bar-friendly wise-assery of "Dwarf" and towards the more introspective, soul-baring, emotion-wrenching style of "Brick". This has worked for me. When my first marriage was falling apart and my life seemed like a complete mess, he was there with (appropriately enough) "Mess". When, after learning the lessons of the heart the hard way, I found my One True Love, he was there with "The Luckiest", a song that brings tears of joy to myself and Mrs. Toast every time we hear it. Folds' remarkable ability to tell the stories that so many of us have lived through, yet do it in a way that it feels like he's mind-melding with you, personally, is the true mark of his brilliance.
Having given you this background, you'll understand that I had pretty high hopes as Tracy and I headed into the Orpheum Theater in Boston last night.
I was not disappointed. Ben was awesome.
But before I tell you about that, let's set the stage a bit.
You know how I said yesterday that the last show I saw at the Orpheum was Motley Crue? That was in 1985. I don't think they've cleaned the place since. Seriously, we're walking into the lobby and Tracy gets a bad case of pucker face. "This place is kinda gross. It smells horrible in here. Moldy." Indeed, my affection for the venue aside, my wife's senses could not be refuted. The olfactory shortcomings of the environment were enhanced by a general state of disrepair. Peeling paint, loose seat backs, that sort of thing. Surely, though, the wondrous acoustics I'd remembered would still be in play, right? Well... not so much. For all the shows I'd seen there previously, I'd been in the upper balcony. This time, we were in the "orchestra" section -- basically the entire first floor -- in row Z. The last row. The very last row. Above us was the oval-shaped opening of the second-floor lobby. In front of that was a very low ceiling which stretched on for some thirty feet before things opened up into the main portion of the auditorium. Not what you'd call the best acoustic conditions.
Oh well. We still had a decent view of the stage since the Orpheum simply isn't that large. So that was a good thing.
Until the 6'5' guy walked in and plopped down two rows in front of us. Splendid.
The show had one and a half opening acts. The first was a woman named Christine Baze who is doing this thing called the Yellow Umbrella Tour to raise awareness about cervical cancer, which she is a survivor of. Heartwarming and inspiring story. Yah. The five-minute lecture video on the HPV virus at the start of her set, however, was frankly grating (Tracy pointed this out first, so it wasn't just me being Impatient Concert Curmudgeon). Oh, and her music sucks ass.
The "real" opening act was a band called The Fray, and they were a pleasant surprise. In the interest of full disclosure, I should say that I'm not a big "opening act" guy. I don't go to a lot of concerts, and when I do I'm pretty much focused on seeing the band I know and like and paid for and hauled my ass out to see. Opening acts are generally a nuisance -- an unwanted and overly drawn-out act of foreplay forced upon an audience with no alternative but to wait patiently for the Main Event.
The Fray, though... They were pretty good. I found myself liking them. They aim squarely for the "Earnest, Middle-of-the-Road, Straight-Ahead Rock" vibe. This is a pretty oversaturated neighborhood these days, and not a sound I have a natural affinity for like, say, hair metal. So the bar is high. Last band with this kind of sound I was really into was the BoDeans, and that was over a decade ago. But anyhow, The Fray rocked. They were tight, they played their hearts out, and their songs managed to rise above the general blandness generated by similar groups. I'd actually consider buying one of their albums. They were that enjoyable.
And still, I was glad to see them go, because they were the last thing between me and Mr. Folds.
At about 9:15 PM, they started flashing the lights to get people back to their seats. Then they waited another ten minutes just to fuck with my head. Tracy turns and sees me sitting there bolt-upright, bug-eyed, practically vibrating, and she just starts cracking up.
Finally, at 9:30 PM, the lights go down. Colored spots flood the stage, changing hue in rapid succession, while an intense symphonic piece plays in the background, and then... and then... and then that keeps happening for a couple minutes. I'm like, Ben, dude, stop fucking around.
Then he took to the stage, assumed his customary sprinter-like stance, leaning into the piano, and began a rendition of "Bastard", the opener from Songs for Silverman. Woo hoo! All right, let's go! Woo... Hey, is he singing? I can't hear him. Oh, hey, nice job, Mr. Mixer Board Guy, thanks for showing up. And why don't you see if you can find the piano on that board of yours. I hear Ben's good with that thing.
Yep, it took the sound crew about three full songs before they finally got everything mixed just about right. Go figure. Maybe the Orpheum is a hard place to mix for. I don't remember Crue or Ratt or Twisted Sister having a problem, but hey.
In any event, right about the time the mixing guys got their shit together, Ben and the band hit their stride. The early part of the show was heavily skewed towards Ben's last two solo albums. In addition to the opener, we were treated to "Trusted" and "You To Thank" from Silverman as well as "Gone", "Annie Waits", and "Still Fighting It" from Rockin' The Suburbs.
The highlight of the early going was "Jesusland". Both of them. Having played the song once straight up, Ben paused and then lamented how he wasn't able to sell his label on releasing it as a single because it wasn't "radio friendly" enough. This segued into a rousing reinterpretation of the song that incorporated arena-rock flourishes reminiscent of U2 -- building up an Edge-like filigree at the top end of the keyboard before plunging into the first verse -- and Springsteen -- the heavy pause before panting out "JEE-susland" in the chorus . Strangely enough, this worked both as satire and as a legitimate "cover" of his own song.
By now, Ben was seriously loosening up. Moving into improv mode, he treated us to a few short snippets of songs that were, as he put it, "half baked" -- just stuff the band had been screwing around with on tour -- a piano riff or two with Ben singing New York Times headlines in lieu of vocals. And then we got something that has been, unbeknownst to me, a Folds staple for some time: A cover of Dr. Dre's "Bitches Ain't Shit". Yes, seriously. I actually think Tracy and I were the only two people in the audience who weren't expecting this, because the audience was doing the chorus from the second he started it up. Gangsta rap and a little soulful piano. A marriage whose time has come.
Having played up until this point with the accompaniment of a bassist and drummer, Ben moved into the next phase of the show by dismissing his companions and going solo (Mrs. Toast: "That was awesome"). This part of the set included "Don't Change Your Plans" from Messner and "Brick". It also featured "The Luckiest", thus relieving the apprehension that Tracy and I were feeling that he might overlook "our" Ben Folds song. (For the record, Tracy cried. I just brimmed. OK, I might have had a drop. Or two.)
After bringing the band back, Ben wound things up with "Army" and an incredibly powerful rendition of "Narcolepsy". During the former, Ben actually did something I was beginning to think was impossible: He engaged everyone in an audience participation bit that not only wasn't tedious, it was cool as hell and it served a musical purpose. See, there's a harmonized horn segment towards the end of "Army", but Ben doesn't travel with a horn section or a string section or whatnot, and he would never stoop to using recorded backup material. So instead, he broke the audience in half and had each half take part of the harmony and do it a capella style ("ba-da-baaaa", "buh-duh-da", "ba-da-da-DA-daaaaa"). It worked beautifully. Pleasure to take part in.
For the encore, we got "Zak And Sara" from Suburbs and, yes, my first Ben Folds tune ever, "One Angry Dwarf". Perfect ending.
I'd wondered, heading into this, what Ben's demeanor would be like on stage, how much he'd interact with the audience, whether he'd stick to doing his set by the numbers or bust out a bit. Well, the man knows how to do a show. He hit just the right note on every possible score. Balanced the mix of material between new stuff and old, threw in just enough curve balls that things never felt "rote", and managed to connect with the audience without being overbearing. All in all, it was a hell of a show. Next time he's in the region, we'll be sure to catch him again.
[2005.11.06 - 04:30 P.M.] CHARGERS 31 - JETS 26
Forty minutes ago, I was jumping around my living room shouting:
"B! R! O! O! K! S! BROOKS! BROOKS! BROOKS!"
Now I am sitting on my couch sulking, wondering if anyone out there in Jets Nation has a Herm Edwards voodoo doll I can pick up cheap.
What a fucking... ARRRRRGHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! ... (sigh)
Down 5 points -- should have been down 4 except for an inexplicably bone-headed, if ultimately inconsequential, decision by Herm to go for two on the previous possession -- it's 1st and goal from the 3, about a minute and change left in the game: What do you do? Do you A.) Smash the ball in with your sure-thing Hall of Fame running back, or do you B.) Let your wide-eyed, fresh-from-the-nursery QB take three shots at the end zone? Most people, I'm guessing, go with A. But if you're Herm "Dumb-As-A-Fucking-Post" Edwards, of course, you go B.
Astonishingly, Herm the Ever-Smiling Twit actually had the sense to hand the ball to Bollinger in the second half, after Testaverde got sacked for the 800th time since his ill-advised return from retirement. This decision probably came two or three games too late to save the season -- even in the putrid AFC East -- but, hey, better late than never. For his part, Bollinger responded by leading the team on consecutive scoring drives, getting us almost all the way to the promised land. He could not, however, find an open man in the end zone for the game winner. Not his fault. Herm's fault for going 3 of 4 with the pass in a clear run situation.
I don't want to hear any shit about moral victories or good losses, either. The Jets could have won this game. It was there for the taking. Instead they fall to 2-and-6, ever closer to being consigned to the Matt Leinart Sweepstakes.
Fucking Edwards.
[2005.11.05 - 01:30 P.M.] A FEW RAMBLINGS BEFORE I RAMBLE
Sorry for the unplanned blogging stoppage this week. Been kinda busy and all of a sudden I look up and it's like, whoa, the weekend's here already! Anyhow, Tracy and I are off to Boston in a little bit to catch the amazing Mr. Ben Folds at the Orpheum, and I wanted to check in before we hit the road. (BTW, I cannot imagine a better place to see Ben perform -- the acoustics at the Orpheum are simply incredible. 'Course, the last time I was there it was to see Motley Crue. I imagine this will be a somewhat different experience.)
Not too much to say at the moment about the horrifying-yet-predictable Alito nomination. Just as I figured, Bush went with a "strict-constructionist" fruitcake. Great news for everyone who wants to put that meddlesome federal government back in its place and let our rich and powerful corporate overlords get back to crushing everyone underfoot like God (and the founding fathers) intended. Yippee. Unfortunately for those of us who prefer living in, you know, "America", Alito's the Almond Joy of judges: Nutty on the inside but smooth and sweet on the outside. That makes the prospects for a sustainable filibuster somewhat grim.
Oh well. Reproductive freedom? Privacy? Civil Liberties? Workplace safety? A clean environment?
All overrated.
In other news, Harry Reid strapped on the stunt testicles this week and pimp-slapped Bill Frist and his gang of GOP tools in the Senate. Rule Twenty One, baby! Who saw that coming? I propose that we nickname our man Harry "Blackjack" from this point forward. Just a masterful move. And it is about fucking time the Senate was forced to stare the Bush administration's Iraq mendacity in the face. Take a nice, long look, gentlemen, and then get on the phone to Home Depot's contractor desk, because you're gonna need a fucking truckload of white-wash for that shit.
Elsewhere, Scooter began the quest to "clear his good name" of those awful charges brought by that nasty bully Patrick Fitzgerald. Hey, Scooter, here's a tip: You don't have a good name to clear, you lying, conniving, traitorous boot-lick. But, by all means, please go right ahead and plead "not guilty". I'm lovin' the prospect of a nice, long, leisurely trial. The better to expose your White House bosses, my dear man.
Ah, yes, just another week in George Bush's America, where the fun and games never end.
Very well, then. I am off to enjoy a splendidly warm and beautiful autumn day with my splendidly warm and beautiful wife. We shall walk the streets of Boston, dine at an as-yet-to-be-decided-upon fine dining establishment, perhaps drain a pint or two of ale, and then off to hear Mr. Folds dazzle us with some piano magic. I hope you all have an equally glorious day.
Picked up a six pack of 
Perfect Fall day here in Connecticut.
Hey, wait a second: Nobody told me you had to clean the gutters on a house. What's that all about?
After a blistering hour of raking, Tracy decided we needed a leaf blower. Off to Home Depot we went...
