[2006.11.30 - 08:00 P.M.]

Holy synchronicities, Batman! Earlier this afternoon I was lamenting the recent absence of blogmemes. You know, those lists of random questions that, for a brief, shining moment, were all the rage across the blogosphere? So what's the first thing I saw as I fired up the old newsreader tonight? Maurinsky has a blogmeme up! Woo Hoo!!! And it's a nice looooooong one.

50 Questions:

1. When you looked at yourself in the mirror today, what was the first thing you thought?

I love my new haircut.

2. How much cash do you have on you?

$38.00.

3. What’s a word that rhymes with DOOR?

Whore. Swear to FSM it's the first thing that popped into my head.

4. Favorite planet?

Saturn. Wish it was closer to us 'cause damn is it pretty to look at.

5. Who is the 4th person on your missed call list on your cell phone?

I don't have a "missed calls" list, just a "received" list.

6. What is your favorite ring tone on your phone?

The Monday Night Football theme. ("Heavy Action")

7. What shirt are you wearing?

My Ned Lamont shirt. Yes, I still love it.

8. Do you label yourself?

Absolutely. I'm a hard-core labeler/stereotyper and I'm not ashamed of it.

9. Name the brand of the shoes you’re currently wearing?

Some crappy, no-name pair of slippers I bought at DSW a few months ago that fell apart immediately. My feet destroy slippers.

10. Bright or Dark Room?

Dark for TV. Bright for reading. Prefer lamps to overhead lights in all cases.

11. What do you think about the person who took this survey before you?

Maurinsky is very cool.

12. What does your watch look like?

Citizen eco-drive aviator watch. Analog face with two digital insets and every function under the Sun.

13. What were you doing at midnight last night?

Sleeping.

14. What did your last text message you received on your cell say?

Something from Fridge about getting out of jury duty.

15. Where is your nearest 7-11?

Not a clue. Probably somewhere in Hartford. We don't have them out here in the Farmington River Valley.

16. What's a word that you say a lot?

Fuck.

17. Who told you he/she loved you last?

Tracy.

18. Last furry thing you touched?

Shayla, my cousin's dog, at our family Thanksgiving party.

19. How many drugs have you done in the last three days?

Naproxen, simvastatin, Advair, caffeine and alcohol.

20. How many rolls of film do you need developed?

None. I've been all digital for years.

21. Favorite age you have been so far?

17, freshman year in college, was fucking awesome, but I gotta go with 38. My life just rules right now.

22. Your worst enemy?

Bill Belichick.

23. What is your current desktop picture?

Tracy and I at Zion National Park.

24. What was the last thing you said to someone?

"Hey Honey, what was the name of that park in Arizona -- or Utah -- that you and I drove through and I've got the picture on my desktop?"

25. If you had to choose between a million bucks or to be able to fly what would it be?

Flying. No question.

26. Do you like someone?

I like lots of people. I like people more and more as I get older. That's weird, I know.

27. The last song you listened to?

"Around The Dial" by the Kinks.

28. What time of day were you born?

7:51 PM.

29. What’s your favorite number?

666.

30. Where did you live in 1987?

Troy, New York.

31. Are you jealous of anyone?

Not especially. I'm pretty much The Man, in my own eyes at least.

32. Is anyone jealous of you?

I think so. Not certain yet. Hoping I'm wrong.

33. Where were you when 9/11 happened?

At work.

34. What do you do when vending machines steal your money?

Usually I hit them.

35. Do you consider yourself kind?

Not especially. I consider myself decent and fair and just, but "kind" doesn't really spring to mind.

36. If you had to get a tattoo, where would it be?

Bicep. And it'd be the Sacred Chao from Illuminatus!

37. If you could be fluent in any other language, what would it be?

Latin. What a beautiful language. I just love the syntax.

38. Would you move for the person you loved?

Of course, if she had a compelling reason. Like a job offer that would allow me to be a full-time blogger/house-husband.

39. Are you touchy feely?

Only with Tracy. With anyone else I'm strictly hands-off.

40. What’s your life motto?

Be excellent to each other. And, Party on, Dude!

41. Name three things that you have on you at all times?

I assume this doesn't mean ALL all, but rather "when I'm out of the house": Wallet, watch, wedding ring.

42. What’s your favourite town/city?

New York City. Greatest city humankind has ever built.

43. What was the last thing you paid for with cash?

Cup of coffee at work.

44. When was the last time you wrote a letter to someone on paper and mailed it?

When I was in college.

45. Can you change the oil on a car?

Hell yes. And plugs, brakes, belts, all sorts of shit.

46. Your first love: what is the last thing you heard about him/her?

She was working for Harvard, I think. Been a long, long time.

47. How far back do you know about your ancestry?

Grandparents. And even that's sketchy on my Dad's side.

48. The last time you dressed fancy, what did you wear and why did you dress fancy?

I wore a suit to my cousin Kristin's wedding.

49. Does anything hurt on your body right now?

The toe that I broke and my lower back (a little).

50. Have you been burned by love?

Not really, no. I mean... it's complicated.

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[2006.11.30 - 07:00 P.M.]

Not sure what this is all about yet, although I plan to read the post at some point. I just know that a.) It's about memes, those crazy-replicatin' information complexes that control all that we are, and b.) Kevin Drum asked that as many people as possible link to it, and who am I to refuse a request from Mr. Drum?

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[2006.11.29 - 08:45 P.M.]

Ted Stevens: Discovered while watching Jeopardy: Ted Stevens (R - Fucking Douchebag) has an airport named after him? Are you serious? The most ignorant and juvenile scumbag in all of Congress has an airport named after him? That's just sick.

The New York Times: The Times has an ad campaign going on that ends with the tag line "It's about the journalism. Period." Hey, excuse me, but this is the paper that employed Judith Miller while she helped dupe the people of the United States of America into backing an illegal, immoral, and utterly unnecessary war. This is the paper that employed Jeff Gerth while he aided the GOP in their extraconstitutional witch hunt against Bill Clinton. It's about your journalism? You won't be getting a cent from me any time soon.

Tom Waits: Saw this guy on last night's Colbert Report and I was immediately reminded of why, when I saw his name appear on MTV's video intros back in the 80's, I'd despair that it would be at least five more minutes before anything worthwhile came on. What an affected, annoying dork. I mean, seriously, with the scrunched up face and the cartoonish voice? It's like the guy walked out of a Saturday Night Live skit. Ugh.

Show Me The Money: This gripe isn't about the show per-se -- although it does seem like a contrived hybrid of Deal Or No Deal and Who Wants To Be A Millionaire -- but about the trend of having contestants explain their "reasoning" before making their choices. Hey, know what? I don't give a fuck what your "reasoning" process was. Move the damned action along.

(Yes, I am a cranky motherfucker this evening.)

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[2006.11.29 - 02:30 P.M.]

Last Ten:

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[2006.11.27 - 11:30 A.M.]

Heroes: Have to agree with the consensus that last week's episode was somewhat anti-climactic. I was under the impression that all the characters would be brought together to "save the Cheerleader". Still, not a bad episode by any stretch, and the capture of Siler (sp?) at the end took me completely by surprise. One request though: MORE HIRO, please.

Friday Night Lights: Off last week.

House: Please tell me they're going to wrap up this storyline with the idiot cop tomorrow night. Please, I'm begging you. It's just not realistic. No one would allow this guy's abusive behavior to stand. Any real hospital administration would have gone to the police department or the courts and gotten this guy shut down. Enough.

Survivor: And the hits just keep on coming, thanks largely to serial turncoat Jonathan. The tribes merged last week, and with Aitu at a 5-4 disadvantage Yul immediately started working on Jonathan, trying to get him to come back and join the four people he'd so recently abandoned. The deal was sealed when Yul showed Jonathan the secret immunity idol he'd dug up on Exile Island. The former Aitu members then targeted Nate for elimination, and when the vote sent him home he was pissed. I believe he used the word "skank-ass" when describing Jonathan in his post-elimination diatribe. High comedy. Favorite: Yul. Biggest Loser: Adam.

Smallville: Repeat.

The Office: Off last week.

Supernatural: Repeat.

CSI: Seriously corny episode with the aging mobster (played by Roger Daltry). Just excessively silly.

Battlestar Galactica: Off last week.

Amazing Race: My girls came in last on this most recent leg, and all because they missed a single stupid road sign. Gah, was that infuriating to watch, especially as it was accompanied by all that obnoxious gloating from Alabama. Luckily, it wasn't an elimination round, so they live to fight another day. Oh, Kim needs to take over driving duties from Rob, 'cause if she doesn't, that guy's gonna have an aneurysm before the game's over. Current Rooting Order: Barbies, Dude and Bro, Rob and Kim, Alabama.

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[2006.11.26 - 12:00 P.M.]

7:27 PM: FROM THE EAST COAST... TO THE WEEEEESSST COAST. THIS IS A RE-TAAAAH-DED COUNTRY.

7:17 PM: This just in: The Giants suck. Can't believe I picked that joke of a team to win the NFC East.

6:33 PM: God I hate the fucking Patriots. That's all. Just wanted to say that. Really, there's not a team I despise more in professional sports. Not the Red Sox. Not the Lakers. I just fucking loathe the Patriots.

4:07 PM: OK, then. Bears at Patriots coming up next. Hey, I wonder who kate is rooting for in that game. Conflict of interest, anyone?

4:02 PM: Final: Jets 26 - Texans 11. Perfectly executed game on both sides of the ball. I couldn't be happier right now. I'm beside myself over a 6 - 5 football team. I think I'm broken.

3:25 PM: Fourth and one at our own 39 and Mangenius goes for it. See, I can call him "Mangenius" 'cause the call worked. Oh, seriously, I am so friggin' grateful to have Eric Mangini as our coach. I can't even tell you. Eric is My Man.

3:21 PM: Taking a look around the league, we've got the Bills up over the Jags 24 - 17. I hate to wish ill upon the Bills, who I actually like, but I'd really like them to lose so we can get some separation in the #2 spot. Bad enough the 'Phins already won this week. New Orleans is handing Atlanta its ass, which is nice. Baltimore is shutting out Shittsburgh. That puts a huge smile on my face. The 'Niners are up a point over the Rams. Where did those guys come from, anyhow? I thought San Francisco was one of the League Jokes this year.

3:20 PM: End of the third quarter. Jets 23 - Texans 3. That's what I'm talkin' about. That's all I've got to say.

3:13 PM: TOUCHDOWN, Cedric Houston!!!!! J! E! T! S! JETS! JETS! JETS! 23 - 3, New York Jets. This is what I wanted to see. This is what I wanted to see. Fucking Jets are taking it to these guys. Wow. You know the lows? The lows when your team fucks up and gets their ass handed to them? This is why you put up with that shit. The highs. My feet are 6" off the floor right now. My Jets are fuh reah-ul.

3:05 PM: Ohmygod the entire season just flashed before my eyes. Pennington took a huge hit right there and got seriously rattled. Had to take him out for a play. Wow, for a moment I slipped into a nightmare there. Thought his arm had gotten ripped off again, but it seems he just took too hard of a knock on his helmet. Damn, am I relieved. "And IiiiiiiiiiiiiiaaaaaEEEEiiiii, will always love..."

3:00 PM: Holy mother of Spaghetti Monster, the Jets have a RUN DEFENSE. Where on Earth did this come from???

2:53 PM: TOUCHDOWN, Laveranues Coles!!!!! J! E! T! S! JETS! JETS! JETS! Wow, was that a nice drive. Apparently, during halftime, the Jets trainer successfully performed a rectal cranioectomy on Chad, 'cause he just motored that offense down the field. BAM! Huge 28-yard pass to Baker. BAM! Big reception by Jericho Catchery to take it into the red zone. BAM! TD pass to Coles, who catches it on the sideline while falling over the back of his defender. Fucking phenomenal drive. If I wasn't so buzzy, I might have popped a tent over that drive.

2:40 PM: Halftime Beer Blogging! Picked up a six pack of Weyerbacher's Old Heathen Imperial Stout last week. Liquor Depot in Avon had it on special for only $5.99. The combination of "Imperial Stout" and "$5.99" is not something I'm likely to pass up. Besides, the name? Come on, it's like this beer was out shopping for me, not the other way around.

The Pour: Silky smooth coming out of the bottle. Deep, dark mahogany in color. Holding it up to the light, I have to report that not a single photon makes it through this body. About a 1/4" head which quickly fades away, leaving a wispy tan film on the surface. Not much carbonation to report.

The Taste: Mmmmmm. Nice flavor. Assertively malty. Hints of both chocolate and caramel here. Slightly chewy mouth feel although, oddly enough, the body feels somewhat light for a stout. The hops are on the bland side. I mean, I'm looking for them right now and I'm just not getting much. Their presence is implied from the overall feeling of balance, but that's about it. Medium-to-long aftertaste with just a tiny hint of the smokiness you'd expect in this breed.

The Verdict: Well-crafted and flavorful, yet the brewers seem to have deliberately reined themselves in. The result is a rarity: A user-friendly imperial stout. Or, put another way, an imperial stout your wife or girlfriend will actually like. Rating: 7.0

2:30 PM: Halftime. Jets 9 - Texans 3. So far, our offense is all coming via Mike Nugent's foot. His last field goal, a 54-yarder, was quite a beauty. Looked like it was floating wide but then, improbably, it hooked back in. Not getting warm fuzzies from Chad. I don't know what the deal is, but his head just doesn't seem screwed on right. On the other hand, our defense once again looks great. I can't say enough about the change in this unit that seems to have occurred over the bye week. It's night and day. These guys can stand in there with any offense in the league right now. God that feels good to say.

1:58 PM: Memo to Citibank: The whole Awkward Guy With German/East European Accent as Spokesman bit? It was lame when Chrysler did it. It was seriously tired when Volkswagen copied them. Now it's totally exhausted. Like, it's falling asleep on its feet. Put it to bed, 'K?

1:53 PM: Tracy "Oh my god, Chad Pennington has no ass!" Seriously? Then where the fuck has his head been these last few weeks.

1:38 PM: End of the first quarter. Jets 3 - Texans 0. Should have had a touchdown on that drive, but as it stands we were extremely lucky that Chad didn't get picked off in the end zone again. Chadwick, I don't know what's up with you, man, but you really need to plant a hand firmly on each cheek and pull your head out of your ass. You are just not playing like the Chad Pennington I've come to know and love right now.

1:25 PM: That commercial with the guy who has his Mustang Cobra shipped to Germany? And the port worker asks him "You couldn't find a car you liked in Germany?" And the guy says "No. I couldn't find a speed limit I liked in America." You know that commercial? I love that commercial. Speed limits suck donkey balls.

1:10 PM: From the Things That Don't Suck Files: Salsa scrambled eggs and bacon with beer at one o'clock on a football Sunday. I live for days like this.

12:55 PM: Dear Tiki Barber: Shut the fuck up. Nobody wants to listen to you run your mouth about your team or your coach. If you're that unhappy, why don't you retire early so you can go hang out on FOX And Friends with your homies Colin and Condoleeza? It's time for the Brandon Jacobs Era to begin anyhow.

12:35 PM: Dear Tony Romo: I love you, man. Just have to get that out there. Five touchdowns against the Succaneers on Thanksgiving day. FIVE. Why does this thrill me so? Because Mr. Romo has finally provided me with the answer I needed at quarterback in both my fantasy leagues. My work team (6-5, but way stronger than that record indicates) has been anchored by Tomlinson. My frat team (10-1) has Larry Johnson. Both were already favorites to romp in their respective playoffs, but the sudden emergence of Romo, who I scooped up off the waiver wire when he got the nod over Bledsoe, could put them over the top.

Hmmmmmm... Twin Superbowl Championships. How sweet would that be?

12:00 PM: Welcome to Week Twelve of the 2006 NFL Season and the TwoGlasses Virtual Couch™. Big, big week here in Jet Nation, which I'll get to in a second. First, our lineup: At 1:00 PM we've got the Jets hosting Houston at the Meadowlands on CBS and Nawlins at Atlanta on FOX. At 4:00 PM, the Patriots welcome the Bears to Gillette Stadium, and we discover if the Pats really are among the league's elite this year or if they're just pretenders.

So here we are. It's November 26th and the New York Jets sit at 5 - 5 on the season. Not a bad record for a team I fully expected to see go 0 - 16 this year. Into Jets Stadium* come the 3 - 7 Houston Texans, the first of six teams with losing records that the Jets will face to finish their season. And so it begins. By late this afternoon, we will know if the Jets are just a feel-pretty-good story, a team on the rebound putting together a decent rebuilding season, or if they're a legitimate shot to make the playoffs. There is no margin for error. There is no room for losses. If they run the table and finish the year at 11-5, there is still no guarantee they make the post-season. Every team they've got left is beatable, but now they've got to go out there and actually start beating them. A single let-down against any of these inferior teams -- a-la their crappy performance against the Browns -- and we can pretty much start looking ahead to next season.

The Texans are an enigma. This is a franchise that, every year, just screams "Shitty Team" at you, but the truth is this season they're not as bad as their record indicates. They beat Jacksonville twice. Not once but twice. Yeah, the same Jacksonville Jaguars that smoked the Jets 41-0 a little over a month ago. David Carr has ceased being a human pinata and turnover machine and is actually starting to resemble an NFL quarterback. They don't have much of a running game, but their passing game is absolutely legit.

Two keys to the game for us: 1.) Bad Chad cannot make an appearance this week. I don't expect miracles from Pennington any more, but I sure as hell don't expect stupid football either. This offense isn't strong enough to absorb turnovers, period. 2.) The defense needs to stay on their hot streak. In two weeks they've allowed a grand total of 23 points to the Pats and Bears. They've done it by putting insane pressure on the QB, blitzing and hurrying their adversaries with reckless abandon. Keep that up and we're golden. Revert to form and we're me.

*I don't care. It's my blog and I can call it Jets Stadium if I want to. Stupid Giants. I can't believe the Jets re-upped to continue sharing a home with those guys for another decade or more. Fuck you, MSG and Cablevision, for blocking construction in Manhattan of what would have been the coolest sports stadium in the history of the human race.

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[2006.11.26 - 09:15 A.M.]

Bound: This is one of those movies that I must have seen on the shelf at Blockbuster a million times and I always wanted to rent it but never did so finally I put it on the Netflix queue and we watched it this weekend and guess what? Boring. Your basic Protagonist Tangles With the Mob flick. Kept waiting for the lesbian angle to somehow make it more entertaining but it didn't happen. Pretty disappointing.

Expected Rating: 7.0 -- Actual Rating: 4.0

X-Men: The Last Stand: X-Men 2 was unusually good as far as sequels go. I guess this was their way of compensating. Nothing new here at all. Almost like they put together a movie of cutting room clips from the first two installments. Total snore-fest.

Expected Rating: 6.0 -- Actual Rating: 3.0

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[2006.11.25 - 04:00 P.M.]

Al. Most. Fin. Ished. And there we go. Done.

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[2006.11.24 - 02:45 P.M.]

Hey, All. As promised, I am here to fill the void that this extraordinarily slow day in the blogosphere has no doubt left in your existence. Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving yesterday. Tracy and I had a very enjoyable time with my family up in Boston. We thoroughly gorged ourselves on turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes with gravy, corn, green beans, baby onions and rolls. Tracy added butternut squash to her mix, which I will not eat because it looks like baby food. There was beer and wine aplenty and snacks and hors d'oeuvres everywhere you looked. All of which meant that, by the time we got in the car to head back to Connecticut, I was making the Sound and feeling the Feeling.

What sound?

Mmmmmmrrrrrrrrrruurururggggppphhh. Uuuuuuuuummmphhrrrssssprrraauugggggggg.

What Feeling?

The persistent churn of a semi-solid mix of food and drink teasing the lower end of your esophagus, occasionally engaging in chunky vertical forays into the back-of-the-throat region.

The Sound and Feeling that say "Hi, stomach here. Just wanted to let you know that you're running me a bit over capacity, and I really don't appreciate it."

It was pretty ugly, and even the two-hour ride home wasn't enough for things to settle. We hit the sack shortly after we got back, wiped out from the festivities. I had planned to read for a couple of hours with my customary glass of whisky to accompany me. Unfortunately, the whisky was having none of it. In a fiery, acidic voice, it kept telling me "Dude, there's NOWHERE TO GO down there." So I had to settle for a fistful of Rolaids and an early night.

Yep, that's Thanksgiving: A day to say "Fuck you" to moderation.

slices

I feel I should alert you all to a disturbing trend I discovered today. I was out at the package store earlier looking around for a seasonal beer for Sunday. Twice -- not once but twice -- I found myself examining six packs which gave all the appearance of being craft brewed winter/holiday ales only to find, on closer examination, that they were products of giant domestic megabrewers. While Coors' "Winterfest" at least had the "Coors" logo on it -- albeit in thumbnail size -- Anheuser-Busch has a seasonal out which travels in total stealth mode. The name is something innocuous and generic like "Seasonal Ale", but there is no brewer logo on it. It wasn't until I read the name "Anheuser-Busch" in the fine print and saw the ridiculous "Born On" date on the back that I realized who was trying to pull a fast one on me. Anyhow, just a heads up for my fellow beer hunters out there that the crap brewers are trying to blend in with the craft brewers.

slices

This week, Tracy bought a "salt pig". What is a salt pig, you ask? Well, it's an open-mouthed container which sits on your kitchen counter, preferably near prime cooking real estate, filled with salt, providing the chef with an easy way to grab pinches of salt. Not the most necessary kitchen accessory ever, but Tracy's a serious kitchen geek, so this purchase didn't surprise me.

Another thing that, come to think of it, doesn't surprise me much, is that every time she goes into the kitchen now, she says:

"SALT piiiiiigg, SALT piiiiiigg."

In a pseudo-monster-truck-announcer voice.

Yep. That's my wife: Goo. Ber.

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[2006.11.22 - 04:00 P.M.]

Tracy and I are headed up to Boston later this afternoon so that we can attend my family's annual Thanksgiving day dinner tomorrow. Thirty eight years and I've never missed a single one of these.

I know I mention this every year, but Thanksgiving is far and away my favorite holiday. Food, drink, family, football, and an almost complete absence of religious pretense.

To honor this greatest of holidays, I'll go with the obvious Question of The Week: What are you thankful for? Ah, but wait, there's a twist: For each serious reason you must give a superficial reason, or vice-versa.

An example:

Another:

Get the idea? Good. Fire away.

I'll be back on Friday to fire up the toaster. Until then, be safe and enjoy the holiday.

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[2006.11.21 - 02:30 P.M.]

Last Ten:

4950 songs, baby. Be a long time before this gets boring.

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[2006.11.21 - 08:45 A.M.]

From the "Life Gives You Lemons" file, weather guru Jeff Masters points us to one of the only positive developments to come from global warming, the Greenland Brewhouse. Their philosophy? Life gives you rapidly receding glaciers and melting inland ice? Make beer!

Keep an eye out for these fine products in your local package store. If I run across them, you can be sure I'll provide a review.

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[2006.11.20 - 07:30 P.M.]

John Howard points us to this story about a recent survey which reveals that Baby Boomers are "mighty irritated" that today's television shows don't cater to their interests and tastes. Here's my question: What the fuck are you Boomers doing sitting on your ass watching television? Aren't you supposed to be out skydiving, rock-climbing, wind-surfing, and circumnavigating the globe in the yacht you bought with your Ameriprise investment earnings? Active Lifestyles, Motherfuckers! Sitting around on the couch staring at a box is a game for the young.

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[2006.11.20 - 06:00 P.M.]

I have reason to believe that Derek Jeter smells like marijuana. Or, at least, that he likes the smell of marijuana. See, I just tried a free sample of Jeter's new cologne, "Driven". No, I do not normally go around splashing cologne all over myself, but Tracy just got back from a meeting at which she signed up to be an Avon lady (ding-dong!) and Jete's new signature scent is one of the products they're pimping. Anyhow, the little applicator pad smelled nice. Seemed like a clean scent, not too funky or anything. "Sporty", Tracy called it. Five minutes later, however, when I put my hand to my face, I smelled the distinct aroma of weed. Really strong weed. Like, afraid to go out to the supermarket now strong. So now I'm wondering if that's just my body chemistry having some oddball reaction with the Eau De Jete, or if the Captain is really into weed and this is his way of telling us without destroying his clean, upright image in the sports community.

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[2006.11.20 - 07:30 A.M.]

Heroes: Slow episode last week. Hiro goes back in time to re-hook-up with his waitress girlfriend and try to prevent her death at the hands of Siler. Meanwhile, Cheerleader Dad has his elvish underling coerce Isaac back onto the smack so he can paint in the blanks leading up to tonight's showdown. Which, by the way, should be epic.

Friday Night Lights: Another week in Dillon, another terribly-scripted football game. Yes, we get that Smash was rattled by the presence of uber-scout guy, but would he really not be able to rush for a yard, and would the entire team go scoreless because of his struggles? And, yes, we get that the newly clean and sober Riggs gets to be the hero, but seriously, three touchdowns to single-handedly win the game from a guy who thirty-six hours before could barely tie his shoes without a beer and a chaser to steady himself? I love the drama in this show, but the football is just goofy so far.

House: House and Wilson go on a road trip! That was excellent. Of course, Stupid Vindictive Cop is back home the whole time, conducting his witch hunt. At some point, someone in House's inner circle is going to stand up to this moron and explain exactly why they all indulge House the way they do, correct? I mean, I kept waiting for it last week. Somebody needs to tell the dude "Look, he's an eccentric genius who saves peoples' lives, and you're an insecure bully with a badge and an axe to grind. Now fuck off, please."

Survivor: Oh, what a difference two weeks makes. Candice defects to Raro, Jonathan stupidly follows her, and suddenly it's a new game. The four-person Aitu tribe, led by Ozzy and Tek Jansen (aka Yul), go on a rampage, reeling off four straight challenge wins, none of which are even close. Candice gets sent to Exile Island twice. Jonathan scrambles like mad to ingratiate himself with the dumbasses over at Raro. Just a spectacularly entertaining couple of episodes. Oh, and last week's sneak double-elimination tribal council? Brilliant. Oh, how we snickered when Jenny got her walking papers. Bitchy, aggravating little thing. Current Favorite: Tek. Current Loser: Tough call. Love to give it for Jonathan for being such a sniveling twit, but I have to go with Adam, simply because he comes across as having the IQ of a turnip.

Smallville: Definitely starting to feel a glut of super-beings. Now we've got not one but two mystery characters to deal with: Angry spine-eatin' guy and Silent glowin'-eyes guy. I think Earth needs to build a security fence to keep all these extra-terrestrial immigrants from crashing our party.

The Office: Oh my. So the Stamford crew arrived in Scranton last week, and the single biggest development, from a comedic perspective, is the instantly hostile dynamic that developed between lovable sycophant Dwight and seriously deranged fruitcake Andy. That's a well that might never run dry right there. (Line of the Night: "1985 called. It wants its car back.") Meanwhile, Tracy and I have agreed that, much as we love Pam, we like Jim better with Karen. She's got Pam's quirky sense of humor -- a must for Jim -- but she's more confident, more mature, and more stable. Just an all-around winner.

Supernatural: I really thought Dean was going to do that deal with the Devil, trading his soul for his Dad's and ten fine years of family-style demon hunting. I was immensely relieved that he didn't. It'll be interesting to see how he handles confirmation of the fact that, yeah, his Dad went to hell to save his comatose ass. Not that there's anything he could have done to stop him.

CSI: This shit where the review board tried to railroad Sanders for running down that thug who was killing the guy? Ridiculous. Just strains the boundaries of belief, even more so than the show's usual forensic follies. Frankly, I hope Sanders goes out and runs over the brother too.

Battlestar Galactica: My Gods that was good back-story filling going on. And it's good to see Ty getting his excrement consolidated. I knew they couldn't just have him fade away into some lame-ass Leaving New Caprica scenario. Only false note of the episode was Adama's half-hearted attempt to resign. That just strikes me as out-of-character. Oh, and BTW: How come the writers never explained how/when Starbuck got back into the flight rotation? One week she's grounded, next week she's up and flying like nothing happened. Are we supposed to believe that, after she cut her hair, all was forgiven?

Amazing Race: Fantastic episode last night. Have to say, the Cho Brothers played that leg about as poorly as was humanly possible. They absolutely deserved to lose. Oh, and the challenge rappelling down the tower? I was actually shocked that not one person said "Nuh uh. I'm out." Anyhow, Current Rooting Order: Barbies, Dude and Bro, Rob and Kim, Black Chicks.

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[2006.11.19 - 12:30 P.M.]

7:15 PM: Cowboys are kneeing out a 21 - 14 win over the Colts. Somewhere, the evil Nick Bonercocky is popping his stupid champagne bottle. Bastard.

5:57 PM: The scoreboard says IND vs DAL, but I feel like we're watching OAK vs TEN.

5:18 PM: Romigod what a nightmare this game is so far. I started Tony Romo in both my fantasy leagues this week. Not looking like such a hot call right now. Actually, this game is a fantasy debacle all around. Where the hell is the offense?

4:55 PM: Just got word that Donovan McNabb tore his ACL today and is done for the year. My condolences to Mr. McNabb and to Eagles fans everywhere.

4:53 PM: E-Trade has a new commercial where the viewer is initially presented with an image that looks like a bunch of sperm swimming around under a microscope. Later, we discover they are actually computer mice. But still: we're supposed to think they're sperm. That's an, ah, interesting direction to go in with an ad campaign, E-Trade. Let me know how that works out for you.

4:36 PM: Wow, they should rename this Cowboys vs. Colts game "The Mistake Bowl".

3:43 PM: Game over. Well, not really. It's the two-minute warning. But, pretty much game over. Chicago up 10 with the ball and they just got a new set of downs. Incredibly disappointing game. Yes, I know the Bears were heavily favored, but the fact is the Jets lost this game more than the Bears won it. Came down to four things: 1.) That stupid-ass on-side kick call by Mangini, 2.) Chad's pick in the end zone, 3.) Chad's second pick on that bone-headed lob he threw to avoid a sack, and 4.) That fumble that should have gone to the Jets but was wrongly overturned. Take away those four events and the Jets were the better team on that field today. What a friggin' waste of a solid effort.

3:21 PM: The other announcer (not Buck) was just praising Urlacher as a "great football player" and he follows up with "You hate to have to point that out, but there are still people out there who have doubts about him." To which I say "Who?" Seriously, who in the entire world of football has "doubts" that Urlacher is a great player? Raise your hand.

3:14 PM: Oops. Did I say A+ defensive effort? Grossman just hooked up with Mark Bradley for a 57-yard TD run after Drew Coleman missed the tackle. OK, this isn't going our way. Just have to get used to the fact that we're heading back down to .500 again.

3:12 PM: End of the third. Bears 3 - Jets 0. Bears just took over at their own 40 after a Jets 3-and-out. Have to say, it will be enormously frustrating if Pennington and Mangini waste this A+ effort from the D.

2:54 PM: JESUS FUCKING CHRIST ANOTHER FUCKING PICK!!! FUUUUUUUUCKKKK!!!!!! God fucking dammit I can't believe it! Another huge Jet drive and another fucking PICK! Ohmygod you have no idea how close this laptop is to going across the room right now... I mean, you take the sack there, Chad. You take the friggin' sack. You do NOT throw a short lob up in the air into the middle of a bunch of defenders. FUCK.

2:45 PM: Well, at least the Bears only got 3 out of it. Jets just staged a great goal line stand to keep Thomas Jones out of the end zone. Still, I'm fucking aggravated.

2:39 PM: TERRIBLE call by Mangini to open the second half. He has the Jets try to sneak an onside kick which the Bears recover at midfield. Bad, bad, bad call. Our D's been holding all day and you go and give the Bears half the field to start things off? Sorry, Eric, but that was the wrong time to get cute.

2:24 PM: Halftime. Score remains Jets 0 - Bears 0. I cannot say enough good things about this Jet defense right now. Looking at this first half and last week's game against the Pats, it's like, Who are these guys? The names and numbers on the jerseys are the same, but it's like they were all replaced with pod people from the planet Badass over the bye week.

2:07 PM: BIG turnover! Bears run it on third and a million and Thomas Jones coughs it up (pending review). If the call stands, Jets get it well inside Bears territory. WOW, they overturned it. Bears keep the ball. WOW. Can't believe it. It was close, but there's no way the evidence was there to overturn that call. Jets got robbed. Then Chicago punts, and now we're at our own 23. WOW.

2:01 PM: Brick just got called for a penalty in a sequence that perfectly embodies everything that's wrong with the NFL's false start rule. They showed the slo-mo replay, right? Brick shifts his wait about half an inch to one side, the Chicago defender comes across the neutral zone, and they call false start on the Jets. It's just such a bullshit rule. Worst rule in the book. They need to change that. They really do. Jumping jacks, baby. The fucking O-Line should be able to do jumping jacks until that ball is snapped if they want to.

1:54 PM: Hey, um, I don't want to jinx us or anything, but I have yet to be reminded whose country this is so far today.

1:50 PM: OK, I was wrong. Jets, to my immense relief, get the stop. So no blood drawn off the pick. Can't let that happen again, though. You can't throw away a chance to score against this D.

1:47 PM: Ugh. That was punch in the gut, right there. Pennington drives the offense all the way down to the Bears 5 and then throws a fucking pick in the end zone that Urlacher runs back out to the 35 or so. Shit, shit, shit. Oh, that sucks. Got a bad feeling that could get the Bears going on the other side of the ball too.

1:39 PM: End of the 1st, Jets 0 - Bears 0. Jets appear to have just converted a third down at around the Bears 40. So far, it's been a purely defensive battle, and the surprising part is that the Jets are holding their own in that regard. Pass and run D are both looking pretty solid.

1:24 PM: Looks like Leon Washington is our go-to ballcarrier today. Barlow's up-the-middle power running style isn't getting it done against these guys. Nice to have options.

1:03 PM: Great, we've got a retarded officiating crew. They just had the teams switch sides on the field, switch back, and then switch back again. But at least Joe Buck is announcing, so there's that.

12:45 PM: Welcome one and all to Week XI of the Virtual Couch. (Why the Roman numerals? Because it's the NFL, dammit!) Grab a cushion and a beverage and lets get down to business.

On tap at 1:00 PM we have my J-E-T-S up against the B-E-A-R-S on FOX and Pats at Packers on CBS. At 4:15 PM we've got Colts at Dallas. Not a bad slate of games at all, although my enjoyment of the late game will no doubt hinge on what happens in the Meadowlands today.

Do I think the Jets can beat the Bears? Yes. Yes, I do. This Bears team is several zip codes away from perfect. They almost lost to the Cardinals on the road and they did lose to Miami at home. That tells me their 8 and 1 record is soft 8 and 1.

Do the Jets have their work cut out for them to score the upset? Fuck yeah. Our O-Line is rapidly improving, with the rookies Mangold and Ferguson really starting to gel with the vets, but let's be real: There's a reason the Bears have the #1 ranked pass defense, and that reason is a terrifying pass rush that gets in your QB's grill early and often. I don't know if our line or the man behind it is quite ready for this. I just hope Mangenius has something up his sleeve to counter.

Assuming our offense struggles (a good assumption), how do we win? Turnovers. Last week the Jets managed to rattle the unflappable Tom Brady, getting him to fumble and throw a pick. If they put that kind of pressure on the very sketchy Rex Grossman, things could get real interesting. In fact, I'm going to go out on a limb and predict at least one DTD for Gang Green today.

If the Jets lose this game, they're at 5-5, exactly where everyone thought they would be with a win over the Browns and losses to the Pats and Bears. That would still leave them in a decent position to make a playoff run with the ridiculously silly schedule they've got down the stretch. If the Jets win this game... well, it'll be a whole new world in the AFC East, that's for sure.

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[2006.11.19 - 10:30 A.M.]

Hedwig And The Angry Inch: I'll admit it: I thought this movie was going to be stupid. I mean, a glam-rock musical about an East German singer who has a failed sex-change operation? Come on, how could this not be annoyingly campy and silly? Well let me tell you, folks, this is the best glam-rock musical about an East German singer who has a failed sex-change operation that you will ever see. The story, which centers around Hedwig and his band traipsing around middle America "stalking" the singer's successful but disloyal protege, regularly jumps back in time to give us a biographical narrative of Hedwig's bizarre path from East German boy growing up during the end of the Cold War to Frustrated Rock Star of indeterminate gender roaming the family restaurant circuit. It's a ride that veers from goofy to amusing to jaw-droppingly hilarious. As weird as this film is, however, it never comes across as being silly or over-the-top just for the sake of being silly and over-the-top. (You know, like some glam-rock musicals I could mention.) In fact, it's even kinda-sorta touching at times. Oh, and last but not least, the music, like, totally rox. Great, catchy songs paired with trippy animated videos. I think I might actually download the soundtrack from iTunes. Anyhow, see this movie, OK? It's a lot of fun.

Expected Rating: 5.0 -- Actual Rating: 8.0

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[2006.11.18 - 10:20 A.M.]

Going to be around the house all day today as Tracy and I paint our living room and dining room, and I figured I'd fire up the toaster so I could check in during breaks. (*I'm not actually sure if painting counts as home improvement, but since our budget precludes addressing any of the big ticket improvements we've got queued up, I'm calling it that anyway.)

If you're just sitting around looking for something to exercise your eyeballs with, here's a must-read from Media Matters Jamison Foyer. The piece notes the blinding speed with which our "liberal" media have dusted off the bag of tricks they use to trash Democrats when they're in power (as opposed to the more familiar bag of tricks they use to trash Democrats when they're out of power). Mr. Salkowitz, take note.

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The paint we bought smells like eggnog. That's fucking excellent. It's also vaguely eggnog colored, although the hardware store describes it as "honey wheat", which frankly isn't half as cool.

That's it, it's official: If anyone comes in and asks, I'm telling them our downstairs walls are painted "eggnog".

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Ohio State vs. Michigan. (Yawn) OK, not much of a college football fan -- seriously, get a playoff system -- but usually I just kind of smile and say "Yes, that sounds very exciting." The hype around this game, however, has me especially nonplussed. Game of the century? Seriously? I mean, damn, even Kevin Drum is jacked up over this. Someone, please, explain to me what I'm missing. (Note: If "someone" is Angelos, please explain without putting down the NFL in the process.)

slices

Ahhhh, done painting. Eight hours and $100 spent. A gallon and a half of paint for two rooms. And it looks amazing. Tracy picked out a color that just goes perfectly with everything we've got. Brings out the best in our art. Goes beautifully with both sets of curtains and our rug in the living room. Even brings out the character in the brick around the fireplace. Everything looks warm and rich and fresh.

Paint: It does an interior good.

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[2006.11.17 - 12:30 P.M.]

Dictionary.com defines "ideology" as:

1. the body of doctrine, myth, belief, etc., that guides an individual, social movement, institution, class, or large group.

2. such a body of doctrine, myth, etc., with reference to some political and social plan, as that of fascism, along with the devices for putting it into operation.

Let's see if our president can correctly use "ideology" in a sentence. Here we go:

"It's just going to take a long period of time for the ideology that is hopeful -- and that is an ideology of freedom -- to overcome an ideology of hate."

Ooooooh. Sorry George. "Freedom" and "Hate" are not ideologies. And in case you were headed there, neither is "Hope". Better luck next time and thanks for playing.

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[2006.11.17 - 12:30 P.M.]

What lesson did George Bush take away from the Vietnam War? "We'll succeed, unless we quit."

Put another way, the 60,000+ American lives we lost in Vietnam? Not enough for George.

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[2006.11.16 - 11:30 A.M.]

Murtha or Hoyer? Wow, the first thing you have to think when pondering the competition for House Majority Leader is... This is the best we can do? Jack Murtha and Steny Hoyer? And what the fuck kind of name is "Steny" anyhow?

Well, OK, those are the choices. Personally, I'd like to see Hoyer get the gig, and here's why:

All of the above has me lined up against Murtha. But here's the biggest reason I oppose him: I do not believe that a party that represents itself as being in favor of reproductive freedom should give both of their congressional leadership positions to anti-choice Democrats.

I realize that the Democratic Party has made room for the anti-choice position. Not comfortable with that decision, but I tolerate it as a tactical matter. That doesn't change the fact that support for abortion rights is a plank in the Democratic platform, and an important one at that. What the hell kind of message does it send -- to women in particular but really to anyone who gives a shit about protecting reproductive choice -- if the Democrats elect two anti-choice party members to be their majority leaders? And from a practical standpoint, how much can we rely on these guys to fight the good fight during Bush's last two years of judicial appointments?

One anti-choicer at the top of the party food chain is more than enough, thank you.

And what also irks me is that Pelosi should have given enough of a shit about this issue to find someone other than Murtha to back. First woman Speaker of the House? Come on, Nancy, pull your head out.

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[2006.11.16 - 8:00 A.M.]

This is just flat-out horrifying:

FORT CAMPBELL, Kentucky (AP) -- A soldier who pleaded guilty to conspiring to rape a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and kill her family described how he was approached by a fellow soldier with the plan to carry out the attack.

Spc. James P. Barker, one of four U.S. soldiers accused in the March 12 rape and killings, pleaded guilty Wednesday and agreed to testify against the others.

..

Barker told military judge Lt. Col. Richard Anderson he was drinking whiskey purchased from Iraqi soldiers with 21-year-old former Army private Steve Green when Green proposed a plan to attack the family.

"He brought it up to me and asked me what I thought about it," Barker said. "By the time we started changing clothes, it was more or less a nonverbal agreement that we were going to go along with what we were discussing."

I'm trying to wrap my head around this. I can grasp, intellectually if not viscerally, the pressures that fighting an insurgency puts on our troops. I can understand being on a hair trigger and maybe letting your rage get the best of you when you're out patrolling the streets. That's why it doesn't surprise me when I read stories about soldiers summarily executing men who they "suspect" of being insurgents. It's wrong, it's unjust, but it's understandable.

What's not understandable is how a pair of guys can sit down over a glass of whiskey and say "Man, I hate this shit. Hey, I know: Let's go rape a young girl and kill her family!" Once you're in that frame of mind, you're not a human being anymore. You're a monster.

In this case, a monster that the actions of the Bush Administration and the United States government helped to make.

To be clear, the ultimate responsibility for this act rests with the perpetrators. The fact that the vast majority of our troops over there do not commit such crimes shows that the dehumanizing pull of the situation can be resisted. But it is not credible to suggest that these men would have been equally likely to do what they did if they were hanging around the base back home as opposed to deployed in an understaffed checkpoint in a kill zone in Baghdad.

I guess what I'm trying to say is this: The thickness and durability of the civilized veneer we each live inside varies between individuals, and we never know where any one person's breaking point is. The sane course of action, therefore, is to avoid subjecting that shell to undue stresses unless we have a very compelling reason to do so.

In Iraq, we're doing it for no good reason.

Always, in the back of your mind, remember this story and factor it into the toll. We have hard figures on how many soldiers have died in Iraq and we have semi-reliable figures on how many have been injured and maimed. What we don't know, and may never know, is how many have been turned into monsters because they were thrown into a pscyhologically untenable and dehumanizing nightmare. We just know that, as with the dead and injured, it's more than it had to be.

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[2006.11.15 - 07:35 A.M.]

Connecticut is just a little bit bluer this morning as Joe Courtney has eked out a 91-vote win over his opponent, Republican incumbent Rob Simmons.

Simmons ran a relentlessly negative campaign including ideas both new and slimy -- alarmist ads claiming Courtney wanted terrorists to be able to make overseas phone calls -- and old and clichéd -- a comical spot where an Agent-Smith-Like voice repeatedly refers to Courtney as "The Tax Man".

Congratulations to Joe Courtney on his victory, and many thanks to the voters of the second district who, just barely, managed to throw the Bum out.

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[2006.11.15 - 07:00 A.M.]

Could Vinny Testaverde help the Jets get to the playoffs? If he steps behind center for the Patriots he certainly could. The Pats signed 43-year-old Vinny Greenballs yesterday to back up Brady, who is apparently suffering from shoulder problems. On behalf of Jets Nation, I'd like to welcome Vinny back to the league. We hope to see him on the field soon.

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[2006.11.14 - 07:45 P.M.]


Finally got that Newsweek issue I've been dying to see since Atrios posted about it on Sunday, but get this: Mine came with a special limited-edition cover! (Click for larger, frameable size.)

All kidding aside, this has to be the most delicious cover story ever. If I could infiltrate the White House somehow, I would photocopy this magazine cover (the real one) and plant it everywhere. It'd be on the displays of all of Bush's exercise machines. It'd be in all the bathrooms. There would be a copy in every drawer of George's desk. I'd put copies under his and Laura's pillows. Every single place Bush looked would be this beautiful picture to remind him that, in every last one of his life's endeavors, he failed to measure up to his dad; That he's just a punk-ass kid with a big mouth and a second-rate brain.

BTW, anyone know if I can get sued for this shit? I mean, parody and all, right? I don't remember hearing about anyone getting reamed for the famous "We're Fucked" fake cover after the 2000 election.


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[2006.11.13 - 06:40 P.M.]

So I'm scanning headlines on my newsreader and I get to an article titled "Leaders of Iraq Study Group Query Bush" and so of course my brain comes up with:

SELECT Facts, Logic FROM President P INNER JOIN Reality R ON (P.Memory = R.Event)
WHERE (P.StatementType NOT IN ('Lies', 'Evasions', 'Platitudes'))
ORDER BY R.EventDate

And then I'm thinking, Hey, I bet that returns zero rows. Maybe I should use an outer join between Bush and Reality...

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[2006.11.13 - 3:30 P.M.]

Wow. No, really, wow:

The Red Sox bid $42 million for the right to negotiate with prized Japanese pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka, sources told ESPN's Peter Gammons. Boston's bid far exceeded any other team's offer.

Forty-two million dollars. Just to talk to the guy. If they sign him, you can jack that total up to around $90 million or so. For a single pitcher.

I dunno. Sounds to me like the Sox are just trying to buy a championship.

UPDATE: $51.1 million!!! The early reports were wrong! The Sox bid was $51.1 million. Wow. I'm just shaking my head at this.

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[2006.11.13 - 12:30 P.M.]

Glenn Greenwald:

"It is hard to overstate how ignorant and wrong Beltway pundits are about everything."

To borrow a phrase in response: Heh. Indeed.

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[2006.11.13 - 11:30 A.M.]

I am still basking in the glow of the Jets' victory yesterday, still buzzing from the competence that they displayed on both sides of the ball, still frankly astonished at the sheer brilliance of our young coaching hero, Eric Mangenius. And while I'm still here, safely cocooned in the warm, fuzzy place where my Jets are invincible, I've got something to say about the guy Mangini beat yesterday.

Mike Greenberg on ESPN Radio's Mike & Mike show this morning described Bill Belichick as a man who "oozes charm, class, and warmth in everything he does."

Greeny was, of course, being sarcastic.

The truth is this: Bill Belichick is a prick.

He's a jerk. An asshole. A douchebag. A jackass. A punk.

With me?

Let me sum up how I feel about him: He's a winner as a coach, but a loser as a human being.

That Belichick has let his irrational vendetta against the Jets franchise destroy a decade-plus-old friendship with Mangini clearly exposes the man as the spoiled jerk that he is. That he continues to publicly and ostentatiously snub Mangini at every opportunity shows you the blackness of his heart. That he steadfastly refuses to acknowledge the incredible job that Mangini has done with this team -- a team that was not supposed to win this year, period -- tells you everything you need to know about his character, about what kind of man he is. And what kind is that? I refer you to the list of descriptors above.

But you know what? This is good. I'm glad Belichick is behaving the way he is. I'm glad he's shown such heroic dedication to taking the Low Road. That'll make it that much more fun in the coming years each time Mangenius eats his lunch.

Oh, you don't think Belichick's worried about that? Here's the Post's Mark Cannizzaro:

November 13, 2006 -- FOXBOROUGH - This is precisely why Bill Belichick didn't want Eric Mangini to take the Jets' job.

This is why Belichick, in advising his defensive coordinator last January, tried to dupe Mangini into thinking the Jets' job was not a good one, that the owner was loopy and that he should wait for the next - better - opportunity.

This is why Belichick is now so cold regarding his feelings about Mangini - as evidenced by his low-road refusal to even acknowledge Mangini by name to the media.

Because the apprentice didn't take the mentor's advice and now, two games into their personal intra-division rivalry, the apprentice has already out-coached the mentor and beaten him, Belichick has seemingly disowned him as a friend and colleague.

Jets 17, Patriots 14 yesterday at Gillette Stadium is exactly why Belichick wanted no part of Mangini in the AFC East.

Yeah, you read that right, and Cannizzaro's not the only one saying it: Eric Mangini out-coached Bill Belichick. Uh huh. He surely did. And I've got a feeling it won't be the last time, either. Eat it, Bill.

(Reaches down and inserts plug back in spleen.)

There. I feel even better now.

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[2006.11.13 - 07:30 A.M.]

Heroes: Well, now, turns out Peter isn't the naive schmuck we'd been lead to believe. Nice job "negotiating" with his brother. On the flip side, please don't let the stripper's kid become a central character. Please? Kids are terrible. Kids kill T.V. dramas dead.

Friday Night Lights: I was unbelievably happy to see Saracen rat out that thug. I've always hated bullies and I seriously hate psycho bullies. Good on you, Matt, for telling the truth. Oh, and by the way: It would be nice to see some actual football at some point in this show.

House: Look, the whole Asshole Cop Who Torments House plot line was interesting for about, say, 15 minutes. Now it's tiresome. You can't fuck with the food chain in this show. The entire thing is predicated on House being The Man. They tried pitting that rich black dude against him, they tried making Foreman his boss, and it doesn't work. Making House "vulnerable" and/or putting him in a bottom-dog position fucks everything up.

Lost: I cannot fucking believe they're going to leave us where they did until February. Those fucking goddamned fuckers. Good play by Jack, BTW. Stick it to those bastards. Play your own game, dude. Stupid Others.

Survivor: The challenges are getting truly tiresome. Time to shake things up, Jeff. I'll miss Flicka a little bit. It's entertaining to see a chick walking around on a tropical island and doing competitions in knee-highs.

Smallville: You know what the problem is with this show? It's time. It's time for Clark to become Superman. But that's not going to happen, 'cause that would destroy the show's premise.

The Office: Jim's headin' back to Scranton, to Scranton, to Scranton. Jim's headin' back to Scranton? Oh, I think so. And he's bringing Stamford Girl with him. It's gonna be a Stamford Girl Vs. Pam in a Babe Off for the ages, and we've got front row seats.

Supernatural: Awesome episode with the whole Dean Getting Almost Busted For Murder thing. Crazy good show. You should watch it. You really should.

CSI: (On DVR delay.)

Meerkat Manor: Mozart is a very sympathetic character, but really, she can't blame anyone but herself for her current predicament. Start a clan of your own or stop being a hooch. It's that simple. You can't have kids as long as you're living under Flower's roof, girl.

Battlestar Galactica: Sharon is now the star of the show. What they've done with her character and her relationship with the crew is just amazing. And if that's not enough, the way they've complexified the situation between Baltar and the Cylons is just gripping. They're obviously using both characters to paint paralllel images of friendship/treason. Brilliant.

Amazing Race: Hey, what's up with that!? You can't end an episode in the middle of a leg! Bastards. My rooting interest at this point goes: Barbies, Cho Brothers, Dude & Bro, Black Chicks, Angry Guy & Annoying Girl.

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[2006.11.12 - 01:05 P.M.]

6:51 AM: Hey, look at that! The Jets still won! Woo Hoooo!!!

10:20 PM: Time to go to bed. Eli, you're killing me dude. When the fuck are you gonna bust out the way a Manning is supposed to? Damn.

8:07 PM: FYI, we're watching Amazing Race right now, so we won't be joining you for Sunday Night Football until 9:00 PM. Tracy's gonna punch me in the head if I don't stop rooting for the Barbies. But I can't help myself...

7:01 PM: Again, it begs to be stated: LaDainian Tomlinson is a fucking human typhoon, destroying all that lays in his path. Another weekend, another 4 touchdowns. I think the guy's a Cylon. Seriously. Best explanation that comes to mind.

6:28 PM: Off-Topic: I haven't got this issue of Newsweek yet, but when I do, I think I'm going to have it framed. Atrios says it and no reasonable person can disagree: Luh-huh-huh-HOOOOOOOOO.... Zur.

6:15 PM: You know what? I think I've got more beer blogging on tap. I mean, on this glorious day, how can I not? The thrill of victory still courses through me, and what it says to me is... beer. You must have more beer. It is a drive that, unlike the Pats final possession, cannot be denied. So let's take a swig of Geary's Autumn Ale.

The Pour: Nice healthy head that stays around for a bit. The body is a medium-to-dark brown with hints of copper. Very little carbonation present after the pour.

The Taste: While the immediate impression is of a nicely-balanced ale, things swing decisively towards the malt side after a few seconds. A sweet-and-sour malt flavor dominates here, swelling up with each mouthful. The hops feel like they're making an effort at the outset, but then they recede into the background, leaving the suggestion of bitterness but never taking center stage from the assertive malt. The body is medium to heavy and the aftertaste, while not truly long, hangs around for a bit. An odd hybrid beer, overall. Kind of an unusually malty and sour brown ale.

The Verdict: I'd like it if the sour part of the malt were a little less prominent, but other than that I can't find a ton to fault here. Very drinkable and certainly interesting enough. Worth checking out if you run across it. Rating: 6.0

4:40 PM: Off-Topic: In case you were wondering, Joe Lieberman learned absolutely nothing during this last election cycle, and remains one of the biggest douchebags on the American political scene. Not that this is news.

4:05 PM: Regular-season wins don't get better than this. They just don't. Beating your most hated rival at their house? The enemy coach has declared a crazed, irrational vendetta against your team? Come on. This is what I watch sports for. I'm going to be walking a foot off the ground for the rest of the day.

4:03 PM: Bill Belichick just looked like Eric Mangini took a shit in his mouth.

4:01 PM: Jets win. I think I'm going to pass out. Brady moved the Pats down to the Jets 40 almost effortlessly, but then he fumbled with nine seconds left. We did it. They did it. Jets win.

3:58 PM: Minute and eight left. Brady needs to go about sixty yards to get in FG position. You know he can do it. You hope he doesn't. And you try not to toss up your cookies.

3:54 PM: Two-minute warning. Jets holding on to a three-point lead with third and long coming up. If they convert it, this thing is ours. If they don't... Well, let's just say I hope the D has some gas left in the tank.

3:38 PM: TOUCHDOWN, Jericho Cotchery! (holy shit holy shit holy shit... deep breath...) J! E! T! S! JETS! JETS! JETS! Oh, please, football gods, let me have this. No, wait, not me. I want this for Eric Mangini. I want Mangini to walk up to that prick Belichick after the game and shake his hand and smile and think to himself "I beat you, asshole. Respect that you pompous fuck." Oh, please...

3:35 PM: WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! Brady! Picked! Fuckin' fuckin' fuckin' fuckin' fuckin' fuckin' fuckin' YEAAAAAHHHH!!!! (Ooops, I just got spittle on my glasses.)

3:32 PM: Wow. Wow was that a fun sequence to watch. Pats threatening to score and the Jets get two consecutive sacks. They just ate Brady up. Oh, I'm a happy Jet Fan right now.

3:15 PM: End of the third. Jets 10 - Pats 6. Patriots just got a big gain called back on an illegal formation penalty. Sweet.

2:35 PM: Time for some Halftime Beer Blogging! Last night I had to make an emergency packie run to get Tracy some cognac for a recipe*, and on a whim I picked up a six pack of Brooklyn Brewing's Black Chocolate Stout. This, it turns out, was an excellent decision on my part.

The Pour: Thick and glistening coming out of the bottle. Visions of used motor oil. Exactly what a stout should suggest. Thin, dark, mahogany-colored head that dissipates almost completely inside of a minute.

The Taste: Oh, yum. Whopping hit of roasted malt right off the bat. Big, bittersweet chocolate presence that starts on the tip of your tongue and then rolls straight back and down your throat. Heavy mouth feel, as you'd expect. As the malt fades, the hops take over. Nice, deep bitterness going on here. Assertive without being overpowering. Aftertaste is loooooooooooooooooong. This beer leaves a film on the roof of your mouth and a lingering ashy/smoky flavor on your palate that isn't going anywhere for a good long time.

The Verdict: A deeply satisfying beer experience. This beer has everything you want in a chocolate stout. It's rich, fairly complex and loaded with flavor, and yet the brewmasters didn't go overboard like many do with this variety. This is a chocolate stout you won't get tired of halfway through the glass. Rating: 8.0

*Beef Tenderloin with Mustard Cognac Sauce. Unfuckingbelievably good. Seriously, I wanted to go upstairs and write out an additional check to Bon Appetit magazine, on top of what we already paid for our subscription.

2:25 PM: Halftime: Jets 7 - Pats 6. Nice to see the Jets D toughening up inside the red zone. This has been a messy, bruising game so far due to the shitty weather conditions, and yet this is precisely the sort of low-scoring, grind-it-out game that the Jets might be able to steal a win with.

2:15 PM: Amazingly bad roughing the passer call right there, nullifying a Jets pick. Absolutely a disgraceful call. Wow. On the bright side, the Jets D is playing possessed right now. Well, at least by their standards.

2:00 PM: TOUCHDOWN, Kevan Barlow! (deep breath) J! E! T! S! JETS! JETS! JETS! Very, very nice 16-play drive right there. Chewed up a shitload of clock and we took the lead.

1:54 PM: There is a certain thrill that runs through a man when his wife starts recognizing football formations. I mean, sure, it was the shotgun, which is pretty easy to pick out, but still. The girl's come a long way in four years.

1:33 PM: Oh, hey, check out the new Recent Comments widget over there in the navigation bar. I love Haloscan.

1:05 PM: Week Ten of the NFL season. It's rainy and mild here in Connecticut, and also in Foxboro, Massachusetts, where my Jets are about to take on Bill Belichick, Tom Brady, and the hated Patriots. The conventional wisdom is that the Pats, who were thoroughly bested by the Colts last week, are going to come out and thump the Jets in this game. 'Cause, you know, the mighty Patriots are a proud team and a smart team and they respond well to adversity and they never lose two in a row and blah diddy blah fuckin' blah. Fine. Truth is, based on the Jets' pre-bye-week performance against the Browns, I have little reason to disagree with such dire predictions. But, hey, Any Given Sunday, right?

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[2006.11.12 - 01:00 P.M.]


This put a huge smile on my face this morning. Here's to ending tyranny at home, baby.

BTW, Tracy pointed me to this article in the Courant wherein The Mastermind (cough-loser-cough) denies that the election was a debacle for the GOP or even anything much to worry about. It's the sort of Rove-ian psy-ops bullshit that usually infuriates me. But you know what, Karl? I'm laughing at you. The GOP got their ass handed to them, pal, and it was on your watch. You're no daisy, Karl. No daisy at all.


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[2006.11.11 - 01:00 P.M.]

Last night, Tracy and I, along with my homie Fridge and Tracy's brother Kelly (subbing in for Mrs. Fridge, a last-minute scratch) went to see Queensrÿche at the Chevrolet Theater in Wallingford, Connecticut. The band is touring in support of their recently-released Operation: Mindcrime II, a twenty-years-on follow-up to the brilliant Operation: Mindcrime (one of the Top Ten Albums Of All Time). The show was, in a word, outstanding.

This is the first time I've gone to see an eighties metal band during the aughts. Now and then I see that Def Leppard or Motley Crüe or Poison are out there touring and I'm like "Heh, they're still at it?" But I take a pass. There's just something a little scary about the prospect of watching your favorite metal bands slog through middle age. When Fridge emailed me last Spring to alert me that Queensrÿche was coming to town, however, I had to make an exception. This tour, you see, was going to be something special: Each night, the band would be playing O:M and O:M II in their entirety. Me, pass that up? Not a chance in hell.

We rendezvoused at Chili's for dinner and drinks prior to the show. Amazingly, I stuck to my low-carb regimen, opting for wings, dry-rubbed ribs, a scotch and soda, and two Michelob Ultras. It was not easy watching my companions mange away on nachos and fries and all that good stuff. And, I have to admit, if Tracy had ordered an Awesome Blossom, I would have probably caved. Somehow, as it was, I was able to man up.

About forty minutes before show time, we headed over to the Chevrolet Theater, which some of you might know as the Oakdale Theater. The place has been completely remodeled recently, and with the spiffy new appointments came the new name. Let me just say right now that the Chevy (as I will henceforth affectionately refer to it) is the nicest place I have ever seen a show. It's a medium-sized venue -- probably seats 5,000 people or so -- located just a mile off of the Wilbur Cross Parkway. A bit of a haul for us, but worth it.

As you enter, you find yourself in a large, domed atrium ringed with concession stands, all of which offer an impressive variety of beer, wine, and liquor. That's right, liquor. I was at a rock concert, and instead of being limited to Bud and Bud Light, I was sippin' on Jameson's and Jack Daniels. Think I was happy? You think correctly.

On the far side of the atrium is the entrance to the theater proper. We passed through the doors, down some stairs, along a newly carpeted hallway, and emerged into a spacious and pristine auditorium. There did not appear to be a bad seat in the house, but ours, a mere twenty-something rows back from the stage, were particularly well-placed, far enough back that we wouldn't get blasted by the amps, but close enough that we'd be able to see and hear all the action clearly. I can't emphasize enough how clean and non-claustrophobic this place was. Even the restrooms were spectacular: Miles and miles of gleaming porcelain with acres of urinals. This was so not the typical run-down civic center or stadium I'm used to seeing rock concerts at.

The show was scheduled to start at 7:30 PM, and that is precisely when it started. No delays, no seemingly endless sound checks. At 7:29:59 PM someone hit a button to raise the curtain, and at 7:30 PM things were underway.

Taking the stage were vocalist Geoff Tate, guitarist Michael Wilton, bassist Eddie Jackson, and drummer Scott Rockenfield, all from the band's original lineup. Joining these four was new guitarist (well, new to me at least) Mike Stone. While the four musicians looked pretty much like your typical hard rock veterans, scruffy and lean and intense, our frontman Mr. Tate looked... um... pudgy. Like he'd maybe packed on a pound or thirty since his glorious hey-days in the eighties. I found this kind of endearing, actually. It really allowed me to connect with him, you know?

The set the band occupied was simple: A graffiti-covered wall in a grimy back alley with a staircase that led up to a platform, above which hung a video screen. An ominous low tone filled the air. Voices echoed over a hospital loudspeaker. A nurse began to speak: "It's ten minutes past curfew, why are you still up? Hello? Hello? Perhaps you need another shot... That should do it. Sweet dreams... you bastard..."

Away we go.

The plot of Mindcrime is pretty straight-forward. A disillusioned junkie named Nikki hooks up with an underground organization called The Order which is run by the nefarious Dr. X. Said villain exploits Nikki's naive idealism and his heroine habit, turning him into a hit man. Nikki goes on to kill a variety of preachers and politicians, and along the way falls in love with an ex-hooker-turned-nun named Mary. Eventually, Nikki figures out that X is using him for his own decidedly evil purposes. He attempts to leave the Order when X tells him to kill Mary, but the Doctor is having none of it. Nikki then decides to warn Mary and run off with her, but it's too late: He finds her dead, killed by X or one of his henchmen. What's worse, Nikki winds up framed for Mary's death, convicted, and sent to an insane asylum.

A classic tragedy, providing the grist for a slew of dramatic, soaring tunes.

Here's the best thing about this tour: They play the albums straight through and pretty much by the book. No time was wasted with the usual concert cliches. No tiresome banter with the audience, no sing-along competitions, and no endless solos. The band went out there and just performed for us. Oh, and when I say "performed", I'm not just talking about the music. No, they performed. Along with a small cast, Tate actually acted out much of the story, splitting time with another dude in the role of Nikki and getting busy with a busty blonde in a white dress (Pamela Moore) playing Mary. Further, in case that wasn't enough to help people follow the story along, the video screen above the stage was perpetually humming with helpful images, many taken from the O:M video, and snippets of lyrics. Mindcrime: Live was a full-on sensorama.

The Big Question of the night for Fridge and I was this: Will Tate still have his amazing range or will age have taken its toll? For the non-Queensrÿche fans in my readership, here's the deal: In his prime, Geoff Tate had one of the best rock n' roll voices ever to slam out through an amplifier. His range peaked somewhere in low Earth orbit, and he had depth and power to spare. Right up there with Chris Cornell and Rob Halford in the Pantheon Of God-Like Vocalists. Well, the dude's in his forties now and sporting a gut. Also, the songs on the new album strongly suggested that he was reining it in these days. So there was some trepidation.

Early on, it seemed our fears were confirmed. As the band ripped into Revolution Calling, you could tell Tate was trimming his sails, taking alternate routes around the soaring summits of the song's chorus. But then he fared a little better on the title track. And a little bit better on Speak. By the time he hit Spreading the Disease it seemed like he was at about 80% of his former capacity, and 80% of Tate's voice is more than most singers will ever have. Oh, speaking of Disease, a lyrical interlude:

Religion and sex are powerplays
Manipulate the people for the money they pay
Selling skin, selling god
The numbers look the same on their credit cards

Politicians say no to drugs
While we pay for wars in South America

Fighting fire with empty words
While the banks get fat
And the poor stay poor
The rich get rich
The cops get paid
To look away
As the one percent rules America

As you might imagine, by the time we hit that last line I was in full-throated sing-along glory mode, both fists raised in the air. I mean, for some strange reason, the material just didn't seem dated at all.

The drama peaked with a fantastic presentation of Suite Sister Mary. This is the song where Nikki and Mary hook up -- and I mean hook up -- and he tells her X wants to have her killed. It's also the point in the show where the full range of Tate's acting prowess is revealed. Oh, he's rolling around on stage, he's reaching out to her but, but... NO!... turn away! He cannot bear the pain of what he's become! Ah, the tension, the darkness, it overwhelms him.

People, Geoff Tate is a fuckin' Ham. Bone. I leaned over to Fridge at this point and said "Dude, his acting is... Shatner-esque."

It was wonderful. I was smiling from ear to ear. This was my kind of concert.

The band pounded and wailed their way through the rest of O:M, finally culminating in the overpowering crescendo of Eyes Of A Stranger. My world was thoroughly rocked.

And then? Intermission. Headed out to the atrium for a leak and a glass of Jack to get me through O:M II. We got back to our seats and had a solid ten minutes to rest our feet before the band returned for the second act.

Operation: Mindcrime II is a pretty good album. It's occasionally powerful, and there are a few songs that almost rise to the level of its predecessor. But it's not Operation: Mindcrime. For one, the Wall Of Sound production values that characterized the original effort aren't there, eschewed for a more Spartan and staccato sound. The songs themselves run in a less operatic direction than the first album. There's a more introspective tone, and the focus is more on the linear narrative of the story.

See, Nikki gets out of prison, and he wants him some revenge. At the same time, he's conflicted. He desperately wants to leave his life of violence behind and make something of himself. Alas, his thirst for retribution consumes him. As he struggles with his memories of lost love, he simultaneously plots to kidnap Dr. X, who has gone on to become a powerful business mogul. This he accomplishes in a most unlikely fashion: By ramming X's limousine with his motorcycle. (Not a recommended method of capturing an adversary.) Nikki takes X back to his hideout, where he binds him to a chair. We see our anit-hero agonize over his choice. He wants his pound of flesh, but in the clear light of his now drug-free conscience, can he truly choose to take another man's life?

The audience is on the edge of their seats at this point.

We soon have our answer: Nikki (Tate) blows Dr. X's brains all over the stage.

Fucking awesome. My jaw actually dropped wide open.

Yup, turns out old Nikki shares my vengeance fetish.

From this moment of dark catharsis, however, it's all downhill. The heat of revenge quickly fades, leaving Nikki cold and empty and alone. Still pining for Mary, he slips back into drug use. Finally, feeling that his existence is void of value or direction, he takes his own life by way of a drug overdose. In the end, the music suggests he finds some peace. The listener, however, is left sad and aching, the weight of this twisted character's truncated existence pressing down heavily on them. Not exactly a story of redemption.

O:M II features two legit rockers, the single I'm American and the kick-ass Signs Say Go. Experiencing the album live, I had an extremely rare reaction: I enjoyed the music more in person than I did the studio effort. It was fuller and richer and just fucking louder. Also, it took the live show for me to finally be able to follow the plot. I've listened to O:M II a handful of times, but always in the car or at work where I'd get through it in bits and starts. A far cry from my college days with O:M where I'd crank the stereo in my room at the frat and geek out over the lyrics on the CD insert. So this was a good thing. I have a feeling I'll be digging on O:M II a lot more from here on out.

The band took their leave around 10:00 PM. They kept us waiting a solid five minutes before returning for their encore, which consisted of rousing versions of the band's crowd-pleasers Empire and Jet City Woman. It was a perfect way to wrap up.

All in all, one of the best concert experiences I've ever had. If you've even the slightest inclination towards heavy metal in you, I recommend checking out this tour. It might very well be your last chance to see this immensely talented group live.

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[2006.11.11 - 11:00 A.M.]

President Georgie McStoopid, commenting on the election:

"Whatever your opinion of the outcome, all Americans can take pride in the example our democracy sets for the world by holding elections even in a time of war..."

Three points:

  1. Bush talking about having "pride" in our democracy is a sick joke. If there's one thing that this jackass has made clear in the six years he's been in office, it's his utter disdain for the will of the people and the opinions of others. (OK, that's technically two things, but still.)

  2. I love that he feels the need to point out that we held elections "even in a time of war". Because you know he's thinking "Dammit, why didn't I use the war as a pretext for cancelling that stupid thing?"

  3. "Time of War". Time of war, time of war, time of war. Some day I'm going to put together a Top Ten list of Things Bush Repeats Over And Over That Make Me Want To Punch Him, and at or near the top of that list will be "Time of War". WE ARE NOT IN A FUCKING "TIME OF WAR". We are fighting an insurgency in Iraq as part of our occupation of that country. Even if you consider that a "war", it's not the sort of conflict that makes this a "time of war" in anything but the narrowest literal sense. This is not WWII. Our society as a whole is not on a war footing. Apart from the families of our military men and women, no one's making "war time" sacrifices here on the "home front". Our economic engine has not been redirected towards winning in Iraq. In point of fact, everything is pretty fuckin' normal around here. So stop playing the "Time of War" card you lying, manipulative piece of shit.

Bonus Tracy Comment: "Yeah, we were really brave going out to the polls. Woo Hoo."

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[2006.11.10 - 04:00 P.M.]

Oh, this definitely qualifies as one of those stories that makes me want to put my fist through a fucking wall. Seriously, this is a major harshing of my post-election buzz.

The Democratic Party rolls through the 2006 midterms like a tsunami, taking the House, the Senate, a slew of governorships, basically the whole ball of wax. At the controls of the party's biggest fundraising and distribution organ, the DNC, during the two years preceding this sweep? One mister Howard Dean. So what do you do with a guy who, any way you look at it, had a considerable hand in this historic rout? Well, if you're James Carville, the Ragin' Douchebag, you shitcan him and replace him with god-botherer (and election loser) Harold Ford.

Tell me again why anybody in the party still listens to this loudmouthed asshole? Carville has coasted for fourteen years on his role in Clinton's '92 victory. In the time since that election, this world-class idiot has achieved not a single fucking thing. Instead, he's been one of the poster-boys for the blinkered, clueless, insider mentality that did so much to lose the last three election cycles for us. (And I'm sorry, but you just can't ignore the fact that the guy's married to GOP operative who, I'm sure, is quite happy to help him stuff his head up his ass each morning.)

Fuck you, Carville. You don't amount to a pimple on Howard Dean's ass, you schmuck.

Oh, and I make this pledge here and now: If the DNC replaces Dean at this juncture -- with Ford or anyone else -- I will not give them one goddamned red cent of my money during the next election cycle. Not a penny.

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[2006.11.10 - 11:30 A.M.]

One of the tangential outcomes of Tuesday's election that many lefty bloggers have gleefully noted is the huge dent it puts in Karl Rove's reputation as a political strategy "genius". Here's Steve Benen on the subject:

[I]n April, [Rove] was freed up to devote his time and attention to the campaign cycle. Indeed, he had nearly seven months to figure out exactly how to keep the Republicans in the majority. Plenty of time to craft a killer plan.

How'd that work out?

For years, many of us on the left (and I include myself in this category) seem to have struggled with Rove-envy. He's the "genius" mastermind; the "architect;" the strategist without which the GOP would crumble. Except, as we're finally beginning to realize, he's not really any of those things. Rove is more snake-oil salesman than Svengali.

Actually, accusing Rove of peddling "snake-oil" gives him too much credit. Most patent medicines, although useless, were at least harmless as well. What Rove's been peddling all these years is pure poison.

Here's the thing we all need to understand about Karl Rove: He is not now and never was a "genius" of any sort. His utter lack of ethical restraint gave him more latitude for his attacks -- a wider range of options with which to beat his opponents -- and this was mistaken for "genius" by the superficial twits in the press and the frustrated and beaten Democrats he left in his wake.

Whether it was a whisper campaign suggesting his adversary was a pedophile or a high-profile character assassination a-la the Swift Boat liars, Rove's greatest advantage has always been his willingness to go where even the most seasoned political hard-ballers would not. That's not a mark of intelligence, it is the mark of a man whose moral compass was long ago smashed to pieces.

It is a good thing to see Rove diminished and humiliated in defeat, and not simply because we can (and should) savor our moment of vengeance on him. He is the paradigmatic emblem of all that is wrong in American politics. Perhaps now he will finally start to be seen, not as a mastermind, not as a person whose services we should covet, but as a cautionary tale of what happens when you sell your soul for political advantage.

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[2006.11.09 - 06:15 P.M.]

Colin McEnroe on Joe Lieberman:

"One could not help but think, watching Lieberman's victory speech, that there are persons of deep faith, persons whose deep faith pushes them toward the sanctimonious and persons whose nature obliges them to roll around on their faith in public like a dog on a dead fish."

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[2006.11.09 - 08:00 A.M.]

Hey, I think I've found a great retirement home for Rumsfeld. He'd fit right in. Seriously, somebody send the guy a brochure. (Sorry, I couldn't help myself. Bought The Final Cut on iTunes last night and I'm rediscovering it at the moment. Great fucking album.)

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[2006.11.08 - 10:00 P.M.]

Question of the Week - Election Aftermath Edition: Which individual race outcome are you most pleased with?

I've been pondering this one all day. I have to go with Chris Murphy taking out Nancy Johnson. Never liked that skeevy thing with her homey grandma facade hiding a cold, vicious political operator's soul. Now I've got me a shiny new liberal representative in the house. That put a big old smile on my face.

What about you? What candidate's (or ballot initiative's) demise just had you grinning all day long?

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[2006.11.08 - 01:00 P.M.]

Well, now, this is shaping up to be quite a day. Donald Rumsfeld is stepping down as Secretary of Defense. Robert Gates, former CIA head, has been tapped to replace him. Some quick thoughts:

I always knew that, if this scumocracy ever finally did come flying apart, it would be fun to watch. I just underestimated how much fun.

Update: Turns out Gates is an alum of Iran Contra University. Excellent.

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[2006.11.08 - 12:30 P.M.]

Last night I noted early on the desperate flailing attempts by the empty heads on cable to paint this momentous Democratic victory as an affirmation of conservative values. Today, Ezra Klein offers a convincing smack-down of that nefarious meme. A few conservative Dems won yesterday, and quite a few genuinely liberal ones did as well. The true story of this election, however, had nothing to do with the eternal struggle between right-wing and left-wing ideologies. It was about Americans putting ideology aside and rejecting, across the board, a political party that was destroying us from within like a cancer. That's the story. That's what happened. The media fucknuts suggesting otherwise deserve nothing but contempt.

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[2006.11.08 - 12:30 P.M.]

I'm trying to think of comparisons that capture the sense of relief and joy and giddiness that I'm feeling today. There was the time some friends and I went hiking in the Lake Ausible region of the Adirondacks, grossly underestimated how much water to bring, and had to hike out on the second day over a 4500-ft. peak with full packs on, followed by a four-mile hike out to the car, all without a drop of water. This election is like that 2-liter bottle of seltzer I chugged when we got to the car. There was that excruciating stretch in the 1990's where UConn kept falling just short of the Final Four, always losing in unexpected fashion to second-tier teams that came out of nowhere. This election is like that 1999 win over Gonzaga in the Elite Eight.

This is the euphoric compensation that one feels after a long, dull, grinding pain finally stops hurting. It's a sense of relief that penetrates straight to the core. Slowly, gently, all morning long, the weight has been lifting. For the first time in what seems like an eternity, light has started to peek through the clouds.

What strikes me as particularly shocking is the degree to which I'd internalized the expectation that this nightmare would never end. That the bad actors would keep running their game until the end of time, having successfully corrupted the democratic process to the point where we could simply never win again. Only now that I've seen an emphatic demonstration of the falsity of that pessimistic view have I begun to appreciate the death grip it had on my political self. I suspect I'm not the only one coming out of that psychological muck and murk and saying to myself "Oh, my. You poor thing."

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[2006.11.08 - 07:30 A.M.]

I'll be writing several election follow-up posts as I wrap my brain around yesterday's events. I have to say, it is so damned nice to wake up the day after an election and not have to write the traditional Left-Wing Blogger's Lament. We won big last night. The one race I had the most energy personally invested in didn't break our way, but I'm not going to let that stop me from enjoying the moment. America has spoken, and what it said was "Step the fuck back, George."

Oh, and by the way, 'Wingers? Are you listening?

SPEAKER PELOSI, BITCHEZZZZ!!! BWAAHHHH-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!!!! EAT IT. EAT! IT!

Back later with more trenchant analysis.

Update: Tracy, in the bathroom listening to NPR earlier: "I just hope we haven't emboldened the terrorists." Indeed.

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[2006.11.07 - 09:00 P.M.]

11:50 PM: Dems have the House back. The Senate is still up in the air at this point. Hopefully when I wake up it'll be in our hands or at least split. Pretty good night, all around, although Lieberman's victory makes me want to puke. I'll take solace in the fact that maybe, just maybe, America is waking up.

That's enough for now. Time to go to bed.

10:36 PM: Oh motheroffuckingchrist. Harry Reid was just on talking about how if he's leader he's going to work in a bipartisan fashion. Now Hillary's on talking about the "vital center". Right. You know what? I agree. I want to see some bipartisanship too. I think it's essential that the Republicans in the minority next year reach across the aisle to help us impeach president Bush.

10:20 PM: Yup. Just watched a five-minute-long mutual masturbation session between Tweety and Scarborough. Moderate Republicans are losing and conservative Democrats are winning, hence the country is still a very conservative country and becoming more so. Ignore the fact that the Republican moderates are moderate because they're in the northeast and ignore the fact that the conservative Dems are conservative because they're from the south and midwest. Those things aren't important. Oh, and ignore the obvious conclusion that this is shaping up to be a rejection of the GOP. What this brewing pro-Democratic upheaval really amounts to is an affirmation of America's conservative character.

Fucking. Wankers.

Can we vote to elect new cable television pundits?

9:30 PM: Wow. Linc Chaffee is going down? I wasn't paying much attention to that race. Everyone else see that coming?

9:23 PM: This is the second time I've seen Wolf Blitzer "call" a race for a Dem while the graphic behind him shows the Republican with a lead. I'm sorry, but that makes me very uncomfortable.

9:00 PM: Finally home from the polls. Tracy is totalling the Senate returns for our location so she can call them in to the Lamont campaign.

So far, nationally, things are looking pretty decent. CNN just called the Santorum loss (sweet). They've projected two Dem pickups in the House so far, with the vast majority of those races still to be called.

According to what I've heard locally, Chris Murphy is going to take out Nancy Johnson. That's huge. She's been a boil on the ass of Connecticut since before I moved here in the early nineties. No word statewide on the senate race. Lieberman won our polling station handily, but then I had forgotten that Simsbury is a heavily Republican town.

Annoying pundit watch: The talking head panel on CNN is harping relentlessly on the fact that the Dem candidates who are helping them make pickups are all conservative Democrats. Like, they're mentioning it every five seconds. Oh, and they're predicting that, if the Dems take over on the strength of these candidates, they'll pull the party "to the center". 'Cause right now, the Dems are soooooooo far left. Idiots.

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[2006.11.07 - 05:45 P.M.]

Cast my vote at 4:55 PM EST. Straight Dem ticket, of course. I love voting. I wonder if this is the last time I'll be allowed to do it...(sigh)

Update: Oh, cool story: Tracy went in to vote first while I was out manning my Lamont post, and the guy in front of her in line was... Terry, from Survivor.

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[2006.11.07 - 11:50 A.M.]

Brisk morning at the polls. Very strong turnout. And get this: No Lieberman presence whatsoever. Every other candidate on the ballot in our town is represented except Lieberman. Lamont, Chris Murphy, Nancy Johnson, Jodi Rell, Linda Schofield: Signs for all of them everywhere. Not a "Vote for Joe" sign to been seen. Looks like he's conceding Simsbury. (The alternate hypothesis, that he thinks he's got it locked up, is unlikely. As Tracy reminded me, Simbsbury broke hard for Lamont in the primary.)

Update: Don't mind the trolls, folks. They're filth, and should be treated as such. I'll resume the ban-and-delete routine if necessary when I get back from my afternoon shift at the polls.

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[2006.11.07 - 07:55 A.M.]

This is it. The Big Day is here. The day when we find out if we still have a functioning democracy or not. If we wake up tomorrow and the GOP still holds both houses of Congress in their dirty clutches, we know it's over. As Nightshift said in comments the other day, "anything less than a Democratic take-over of the House will be prima facia proof of fraud." Or as Rob Salkowitz neatly sums it up, the Republicans' options are "Cheat or Defeat".

We know the GOP will try -- through intimidation, dirty tricks, and all manner of fraud -- to steal every race they can. Their system, however, is far from perfect. They do not have a master central database where they've cooked up the results of every race beforehand. They have to work each race individually. They have to use a variety of tactics depending on the situation on the ground, and some of those are much more iffy than others. The way to beat them is simple: Overwhelm them. Get out and vote against them in such numbers that they cannot prevail, that the proverbial thumb they have on the scales makes no difference.

I'm going to be heading out soon to work the polls for the Lamont campaign. Before I do, I have three messages.

To the Conservatives: The GOP is not your party anymore. Small government that stays out of its citizens affairs? Fiscal responsibility? Competent, pragmatic foreign policy? Can you even say those things with a straight face these days? The Republican party has been taken over by authoritarian thugs who care only for their own power. They are no more interested in what you think, in your values, than they are in mine. The only way to get your party back is to poke them hard in the eye by voting for the only other viable option. Don't do it for me. Certainly don't do it for the Democrats. Don't even do it for your country. Do it for the only reason conservatives ever do anything: Your own self interest.

To the Independents and Undecideds: Time to drop the pose, OK? Yeah, I know you're above it all. I know you've invested a lot in the idea that both parties are roughly the same. I know you've struggled long and hard to cultivate the notion that you're wiser than us partisans. But right here, right now, you need to put that shit aside and vote a straight Dem ticket. You need to unburden yourself of the conceit that this is anything remotely approaching politics as usual. Please: Get your head out. Just for this one election. In '08 you can go right back to playing the field if that's what makes you happy.

To the Democrats and Liberals: Keep your chins up. Work hard. Hope for the best even while you steel yourself for the worst. If we win big tonight, we can party our asses off and revel in the fact that the country we love isn't lost after all. If we don't? Actually, I don't have an answer to that. Let's not talk about that until and unless we have to.

See you on the other side of this thing.

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[2006.11.06 - 08:00 A.M.]

Steve Benen, commenting on the GOP's latest dirty trick, robo-calls designed to seem as if they're coming from Democrats and scheduled for maximum annoyance:

The NRCC is dishonest, dishonorable, and disgusting. They are shamelessly and intentionally destroying politics in the United States. They are cowards who, faced with a fair right, feel the need to cheat.

I'd extend that to cover the entire GOP and their media lickspittles. But otherwise, yeah, that just about sums things up.

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[2006.11.05 - 12:00 P.M.]

11:38 PM: Game over. Colts win, 27 - 20. Brady throws four picks. Sweet. Good night.

9:52 PM: Colts 17 - Patriots 14 at the half. Nice game so far. This is my kind of pace. About these officials, though: Where did the NFL get 'em from? The Pats fan club mailing list? Come on. In the final two minutes, they give New England a fourth down conversion before they even look to see where the ball was, and then they give New England an extra timeout they didn't have coming. I mean, please. Knock it off. The Patriots don't need any help.

8:52 PM: Patriots down 7, Brady takes them down to the Indy 20 where, finally, the Colts D stops them on 3rd down to make it 4th and 3. Belichick goes for it. Brady drops back, like, ten steps, finds an open man in the middle, zips it to him, and converts for the first down inside the 10. God, I fucking hate these guys. (BTW, against this Colts defense, wouldn't you just try to run it on every single play and see what happens? I would.) Crap, there we go, Pats just tied it up.

7:45 PM: I'd like to give a big shout-out to LaDainian Tomlinson, the studliest player in all of fantasy football. Tomlinson is single-handedly keeping me alive in my work league this week with 172 rushing yards and 3 TD's. That's 9 TD's in his last four games. Dude is a one-man wrecking crew.

7:35 PM: I hate the way Sixty Minutes always ends their intro with "All this and Andy Rooney", as if tossing in a crotchety old dude with fucked-up eyebrows who makes banal observations for two minutes is some kind of bonus for their viewers. Seriously, if I found that shit entertaining, I'd work at a nursing home.

6:45 PM: So now that makes two recent polls out that show the GOP closing the gap. Great. That's just the kind of evidence they'll need to point to after they rig all the close races on Tuesday. Oooooooh, I am very nervous. Very nervous indeed.

5:30 PM: Just want to note that, with the Bears losing, the Colts are the last undefeated team in the league. So now the stakes in tonight's game are even higher: Not only does Peyton need to beat Suckface Belichick and his team of Borg drones to stick it to all the Manning Haters in Boston, he needs to do it because he's the only thing standing between Nick Bonercocky and his fucking champagne bottle.

4:40 PM: Phew! That's enough of that. Almost five hours of sucking up leaves, and I am exhausted. Of course, it could be worse. It's not like I sucked as much as, say, the Bears.

3:31 PM: There. Thank you. See how easy that was? Now throw another one on the next drive. That'd be awesome.

3:25 PM: Dear Eli, Please throw a touchdown pass. Right now. Please? I really don't want to lose to my fantasy football nemesis again this season. You're killing me, dude.

2:10 PM: Shocker of the Day thus far: Miami 14 - Chicago 3, in Chicago. For the sake of Bears fans everywhere, I hope they (the Bears, not the fans) pull their collective head out of their collective ass and get this thing back under control. 'Cause I don't care what your record says, if you lose to the fucking Dolphins you get stripped of "dominant team" status. It's in the 2006 rule book. Look it up.

1:30 PM: iPod Update: Wow, "P" was fuckin' brutal. Blew right through a gig catching up there. How the hell did I make it through three years with iTunes and never manage to rip any Public Enemy, any Phish, any Primus, any Pearl Jam? Well, actually, that last doesn't surprise me that much. I sorta stopped listening to them after Neil Young reached into Eddie Vedder's skull via his eye sockets and ripped out his songwriting ability.

Oh, you know how when you're going through a large music collection that you've spent decades building you inevitably run across a few gems that you've forgotten? Well I just ripped Love Junk by The Pursuit of Happiness. What a great album. If you remember them at all, it's probably for their pseudo-novelty hit single I'm An Adult Now, and you probably wrote them off based on that. Mistake. The rest of the album is packed with phenomenal stuff. Amazing emotional depth to the lyrics and catchy hooks. I wonder what ever happened to them...

12:45 PM: This afternoon's lineup: At 1:00 PM, Dallas @ Washington on FOX (Go ROMO!!!!) and Houston @ Giants on CBS (Go ELI!!!!). At 4:00 PM, Denver @ Shittsburgh. (Is it irresponsible to suggest, only half way through the season, that the Steelers are the Lamest Defending Champion of All Time? I think it would be irresponsible not to.)

12:00 PM: Week Nine of the NFL season, and the Jets are on a bye. Good thing, that, 'cause we've got yard work to attend to. (sidebar: Can't someone get to work on genetically modifying deciduous trees so that their leaves disintegrate on contact with the ground?) I'll be popping in and out throughout the afternoon to 1.) Get yard beers and 2.) Check in on the games. For the BIG matchup tonight, of course, I assure you that we will both be installed on the couch, eyes glued to the set, cheering our hearts out for Peyton Manning as he once again attempts to climb Mount Doom (enter Gillette Stadium) and defeat the evil Sauron (Bill Belicheck) and his orcish hordes (the Hatriots). Please, FSM, I beseech thee, by thine noodly grace, allow good to triumph over evil just this once.

Want to start your football Sunday off right? Read this interview with Curtis Martin in the Post. Not only is he one of the greatest running backs ever, the dude is just a fine human being. It sucks like hell that his career is over.

One more thing about Martin: He is, by all accounts, a man of deep religious faith. But you notice how he can get through an entire Q & A session -- answering questions not just about football but about his personal life, his background, his past -- without shoving God in your face? Can you imagine how much better off we'd all be as a society if more religious people emulated his example? Yeah, I thought you could.

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[2006.11.05 - 10:30 A.M.]

Readers, it's recipe-sharing time. Last night, Tracy cooked us up some home-made soup from a low-carb cookbook that I've had laying around forever. You wouldn't figure that would be a source of too many culinary delights, right? Wrong. It rocked the house. It was freakishly good. It was Expensive Restaurant good. Oh, and it took all of ten minutes to prepare. Ready? Here goes:

12 ounces (3/4 cup) of roasted red bell peppers
1 cup chicken broth
1 garlic clove, pressed
1/2 teaspoon oregano
1 cup heavy cream
Salt to taste and lots of black pepper
1/3 cup crumbled feta cheese
Additional oregano to garnish

Blend the peppers with the chicken broth in a blender or food processor. Put the mixture in a heavy saucepan and heat gently with the garlic and oregano until it comes to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer, uncovered, for 5 minutes. Add the cream and bring to a simmer. Taste for seasoning. (This is where Tracy added some garlic powder and crushed red pepper, because she's wicked awesome.) Pour into deep soup bowls, crumble feta cheese on top, and sprinkle with pepper and additional oregano. Consume. Experience food-gasm. Serves 2.

There you go. Trust me on this one, people. I don't pass on recipes unless they're guaranteed to knock your socks off.

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[2006.11.05 - 09:45 A.M.]

Rounders: Great acting jobs by Matt Damon, Ed Norton and John Turturro weren't enough to bring this movie up to the level of my expectations. Primarily, it was the story itself that fell flat. The whole "he made it back to where he was when the story began" thing just left me feeling like "And? So what?" Also important, however, was that this movie confirmed a bias I've been quietly nursing for a while: I just don't like poker that much. Don't find it terribly compelling. Not impressed by people who are skilled at it. So I guess I should probably just file this one away as "Not For Me". Your enjoyment may vary.

Expected: 7.5 -- Actual: 5.0

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[2006.11.03 - 01:30 P.M.]

We're just hacking around doing chores today, so why not fire up the toaster oven for a second run this weekend?

Taking a break from cleaning our gutters right now. Actually, I might be finished cleaning our gutters if I can't figure out a way to get up onto the roof of the dormer. Our ladder is about four feet too short, and the pitch of the front part of the roof (about 45 degrees) is too damn steep for me to climb up it to get to the back. I'm debating whether I should go introduce myself to the guy who just moved in two doors down, who is out in his back yard at the moment wielding a considerably taller ladder than my own. Would that be a good ice breaker? Or would he be silently mocking my ladder envy the whole time?

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iPod Update: I am through the M's! And I still have over 11GB left on the Pod! Remember, this is only fill in work I'm doing here. A considerable portion of my entire collection is already on there. I can't believe this is going to work out: I'm going to have every song I know that I would ever conceivably want to listen to on a device that fits in my shirt pocket. I feel like George Fucking Jetson.

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Well, now, that was an interesting experience. We just had a sales rep from Schulco come in to do an estimate on replacing all our windows. Two-hour long song and dance, measured everything, went through several binders worth of informational materials. Very impressive product, at least to our untrained selves. Finally, after a ten-minute long calculating process and a whole bunch of build-up, he drops the bomb: $26,000.

I'm like, yeah, um, see... that'snotgonnahappen.

Several calls to his office and a half hour's worth of haggling and trying to gives us incentives and discounts, he'd worked his way down to $19,000.

I'm like, yeah, um, see... that'snotgonnahappen. Bye, now.

Anyone out there ever heard of this company before? Are quotes in this range normal? We have eight 8x2 pane windows (wider than normal), two 6x2 in the bathrooms, and two ginormous picture windows on the front bordered by 4x2's. That's a lot for a Cape, but still. $26,000 is almost an order of magnitude more than I would have estimated replacement windows would cost us.

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Tracy and I are sitting in the office comparing Wookie voices. You know, as in trying to imitate Chewbacca? Yep, that's what we're doing.

This Surreal Moment brought to you in part by: Wine.

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[2006.11.03 - 05:30 P.M.]

Toast With Jam

Get your hands up! Get your hands up! It's a special NBA Edition of Slices of Toast!

Tonight is, for all intents and purposes, opening night of the NBA season here in the Toast Household. True, the league kicked things off on Tuesday, and my Blazers opened their season on Wednesday in Seattle (with a gutsy win, I might add). But, living way out east here as I do, this is the first night I'll have the chance to stay up late and watch the Black and Red take the floor with my own eyeballs (courtesy of NBA League Pass). As you can see from the picture at left, I'm pretty amped up for the occasion.

Last year was a mixed bag for Blazers fans. On the one hand, they finished with the league's worst record. On the other hand, they had one of their best drafts ever, snagging both LaMarcus Aldridge and Brandon Roy with two of the top ten picks. Now, I'll admit it, I was one of those guys who was disappointed after the draft. I wanted them to Draft the 'Stache, mainly due to my weird love of Gonzaga. The off-season buzz around Roy, however, quickly made me forget all about Mr. Morrison.

Word on the street was we might have a R.O.Y. in Roy.

Fast-forward to Wednesday. If Game One was any indication, the hype around Roy might just be matched by the reality. What's more, the entire team, by all accounts, has been transformed by the influx of young talent and the off-loading of bad actors and non-contributors. If this keeps up, can Blazermania be far behind?

OK, I'm getting ahead of myself. There are legitimate reasons -- youth and inexperience first and foremost among them -- that the "experts" were predicting this team would be lucky to win twenty games this season. One good game against an average team isn't enough to make any serious fan recalibrate their expectations just yet. Even if they play that well for the remaining 81 games, odds are they're not making the playoffs. We can't delude ourselves.

We can, however, have hope. For the first time in half a decade, there is reason to believe things are looking up. And at the end of the day, isn't that really what every sports fan wants? The feeling that things are getting better? Not stagnating, not getting worse, but improving? I expect this Blazers team will track the trajectory of my Jets this year: Probably won't make the playoffs, will doubtless fall on their faces more often than we fans would like, but ultimately, they'll make progress. They'll be better at the end of the season than they were at the start, and probably a lot better than anyone expected.

That's what I'm hoping for, at least. That's why I'll be on the edge of the couch until half past midnight, getting acquainted with my new, improved, and improving Portland Trailblazers.

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There is a contestant on tonight's Jeopardy whose name is "Cobra". That's what he has written on his podium and that's what Alex keeps addressing him as. Further, the dude is apparently a professor. Oh, and he's stocky, bald, and kinda dorky looking.

Two words, Dude: Name Change.

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I am not a Comcast-basher, but by FSM if there were a Comcast rep in my living room tonight they'd be leaving with a black eye and a bloody lip.

Tracy and I sat down tonight to dinner and T.V., as is our wont, but when we turned on the cable box we got... nothing. Off, on, off, on... nothing. No guide, no menu, not response whatsoever. But this happens now and then, so no big, I unplug the box to cycle it... wait 60 seconds... plug it back in. The box whirs and clicks for, like, three minutes. Way longer than the usual reboot. When it comes back, guess what: All of our DVR recordings are gone. Further, all of our DVR programs are erased. Oh, and OnDemand isn't working either. So we lose this week's Fantasy Show on ESPN, Wednesday's Colbert Report, last night's Daily Show and Colbert Report (which are luckily replayed at 8:00 PM today, but still), and most importantly, last night's Office.

And I've got to remember to reprogram all our shows.

Fucking fuckers.

Update: Ohmygod. This is a nightmare beyond your cable television imagining. Our Comcast box completely shit the bed tonight. About 10 minutes into Battlestar Galactica it froze up. Couldn't do anything to make the box respond. Had to reset it. Five minutes later, the picture and controls locked up again. Called Comcast and spent 20 minutes on the phone. They tried to tell me they'd have someone out on Tuesday. I said, uh, no. Tomorrow, or I cancel all three services I have with them. So, yeah, guy coming out tomorrow. Meanwhile, every 15 minutes, the controls on the box stop responding, so there's a real good chance I'm going to miss that Blazers game I was so excited about. I'm about an inch away from whipping something hard across the room.

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It would appear that our difficulties are behind us for the moment, although I don't dare push a button. All I know is the Blazers game has started, and I'm seeing it.

Wow. I haven't watched a basketball game since the Huskies lost in the NCAA Tournament last Spring. This is nice.

1st Quarter: Blazers 25 - Warriors 24. For a few minutes there, Portland was running away with this, but then the Stupid caught up with them. Golden State got a bunch of opportunities they shouldn't have had and closed things back up. Not all negative, though, by any means. Good news? Dunleavy already has three fouls.

2nd Quarter: Warriors 46 - Blazers 45. Not bad, considering the Warriors totally outplayed the Blazers on offense. Decent defense by Portland, but on offense? Ugh. Everything was popping up shots from outside, just like the bad recent days. No meaningful penetration. No patience in the half court. The Blazers are only in this game because a few outside shots fell the right way.

3rd Quarter: Warriors 74 - Blazers 65: Bad 12 minutes right there. Real bad. No penetration on offense, lots of sloppiness on defense. There's really nothing more painful than watching your team give up second chance after second chance.

Final: Warriors 102 - Blazers 89 : Blah. I should have watched the Seattle game instead.

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[2006.11.03 - 04:30 P.M.]

My Question of the Week this week is a simple one: What's going to happen on Tuesday?

With every poll that comes out indicating that the odds of an historic "Wave" sweeping the Dems into power in both houses of Congress are getting greater, I get just a little twitchier, a little more paranoid. With every contrarian story I run across talking up the GOP's fearsome ground operation or the serene confidence of Karl Rove and George Bush, I grit my teeth a little harder, wondering just what shit souffle those rat fucks are going to cook up this time to subvert democracy. But now and then, in some rare, quiet moments, I let myself believe. I think "This is It: The end of the road for Movement Conservatism."

Here's my prediction, for what it's worth: I think the Dems pick up 30 seats in the House and barely take the Senate. And then, early next Spring, they impeach Bush and try Cheney and Rumsfeld for war crimes.

OK, I'm not really predicting that second part. Just fantasizing.

What do you think goes down Tuesday? Is the nightmare over? Or will we wake to a cacophony of wailing and gnashing teeth Wednesday morning that will make '04 sound like easy listening music?

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[2006.11.03 - 12:00 P.M.]

Ah, yes. I have been waiting a long time for my chance to do this. Because, let's face it, as far as vanity blogging goes, nothing beats the luxurious narcissism of Random iPoddery. Without further ado, then, here's what's on my current favorites playlist at the moment:

1985 - Bowling for Soup
Goody Two Shoes - Adam Ant
Gypsy Road - Cinderella
Hanging By A Moment - Lifehouse
Here It Goes Again - OK Go
I Get Wet - Andrew W.K.
Kung Fu Fighting - Carl Douglas
Minority - Green Day
My Sharona - The Knack
Party Train - The Gap Band
Stacy's Mom - Fountains Of Wayne
Steve McQueen - Sheryl Crow
The Devil Went Down To Georgia - Charlie Daniels
The Sunnyside Of The Street - The Pogues
White & Nerdy - Weird Al

Man, do I love this thing. Definitely in the "Best Gift Ever" conversation.

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[2006.11.02 - 12:30 P.M.]

Let me get this straight: Recent studies suggest that an effective way to counteract the deleterious effects of high-fat diets is to drink shit-loads of red wine?

You -- yes, you -- Scientific Community: You're pulling my leg, right?

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[2006.11.01 - 08:30 A.M.]

How do I make my iPod play albums according to track number? The default sort order appears to be alphabetical. Help me, accomplished Podsters.

Update: I am also taking recommendations on good iPod accessories. Cases, car kits, that sort of thing. If you've got suggestions, I'd love to hear 'em.

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[2006.11.01 - 07:40 A.M.]

A couple of thoughts on this ridiculous brou-ha-ha over John Kerry's comments on Iraq. I don't know where Kerry was going with his observation that students could either work hard in school or "get stuck in Iraq". Doesn't strike me as a brilliant thing to say a week before an election, but then Kerry didn't exactly blow me away with his mAd campaiGn skillZZ in '04, so I'm not shocked.

I do know this: Substantively, he was not entirely wrong. Yes, there are many, many intelligent, successful, dedicated young men and women out there who deliberately chose the armed services as a career path. There are also lots of high-school drop outs. There are lots of young people who, as has always been the case, wound up wearing the uniform and carrying a gun as the Job of Last Resort. You all saw the predatory recruiters cruising the mall parking lots in Fahrenheit 9-11. You all read the stories about how the army relaxed its standards to allow the borderline mentally retarded to serve. All this fake indignation over a statement which isn't even necessarily off-base is just absurd.

The other matter is Kerry's response to the GOP orgy of criticism. So far, I think he's actually handled it quite well. In response to repeated calls for him to apologize, he's basically told the administration, the GOP, and their winger lackeys in the press to fuck off and die. That is exactly the response they deserve, not just in this case but every single time they cry foul about any Democratic transgression whatsoever, real or imagined: Fuck. Off. And. Die.

These people have no standing to complain or to criticize or to even dream about claiming the moral high ground. Not about any issue, ever again. When the vicious little rats start their squealing, they should be met with nothing but contempt and mockery from our side, 24x7. Their time is up. Their place in the national conversation is gone, their seat at the table abdicated by their choice, as a consequence of their actions. They need to be put in their place in no uncertain terms. They need to be told to fuck off and die.

Update: Of course, Kerry caves in and apologizes. So pathetic. So predictable.

New Rule: Any Democrat who lets the Republic Party force him or her to back down or apologize for anything whatsoever between now and 2008 is disqualified from getting the Dem nod for president. Who's with me on this?

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