Read My Lips - the blog

These days the rod never sees the light

I just caught wind of the story out of Florida about the little 5 year old girl who literally was arrested, cuffed, and detained in the back of a police car for acting badly in kindergarten. Although the situation is appalling, I was possibly most appalled by this:

The girl's mother, Inda Akins, said she is consulting an attorney.

"She's never going back to that school," Akins said. "They set my baby up."

I don't know, but I somehow figure that any child who attains the age of five and lacks the necessary respect for authority to do what this child did was likely set up by a tragic lack of parenting, more than anything else.

Of course, ya'll knew that, didn't ya?

OTBTJTB™

I just don't know what to make of it*

Your Friday, April 22, 2005 Horoscope Taurus!

Your motivation to clean up around the house could be the start of an interesting chain of discoveries. Reorganize things in order to make them more compatible with new methods instead of the way they used to get done.

Is this a specific indication that I badly need to clean up my act, that I'll find a $20 bill I previously misplaced and now be able to put a couple of gallons of gas in my tank, or just your average Taurean spring cleaning reminder?

Your votes will be tabulated later this evening by some Florida Democrats, who've already promised that Al Gore will win despite not even being among the possible choices.

*This message was blessed by the spirit of Pope John Paul II.**

**Only it is truly a matter of faith.***

**Although I hope you know that I am also amenable to charity.

The very latest poop*

There's a new Pope to be known as John Paul III Benedict XVI. In a bold move to increase the number of the world's Catholics, he made an amazing offer public. From this point forward, you can get a free communion with every bar mitzvah, just upon proper request. More.

*Hey, if ya want a faster branch on the news grapevine, I suggest you go here.

It blipped right outta there

My ego is exceeded greatly by my own insignificance.

Even the Mighty Eeyore has nothing on me

In lieu of several missed NNGR™s and such, allow me to explain that I am currently working on getting all the pieces of my book together so as to get it finally published. I have about six people just dying to read it, and several others who have promised to buy signed copies of it because they love me or want to love me, or something like that. I'm well, or not too far off of the mark if you consider everything I've gone through to get to this point of my life, and eating well. There are plenty out there whose lives are not going as well as mine, but I can assure you that could never work as hard to find fault with their lives as I do with mine.

It just takes a little effort and a lot of money

I was just noticing that the SiteMeter counter is getting close to hitting that 100K mark, so if you want your 15 nanoseconds of fame for being the entity that conjures up an extra digit -- please send a certified letter containing a confirming screen shot and the keys to a Cooper Mini -- and I'll mention your accomplishment in an upcoming post. We here at Read My Lips take these milestones seriously.

[Addendum: Someone from Texas, Arlington, United States surfed onto tig.mu.nu/archives/016877.html at 07:54:11 PM via c-67-174-163-91.client.comcast.net via a referral from Google to become the 100,000th visitor to Read My Lips as determined by the SiteMeter Counter. The StatCounter count is actually closer to the right number.]

A phone's eye view of The Real World®

One of the biggest local controversies in my local area concerns this building:

This picture* does not do justice to the florescence of the orange coating or that of the lime green trim. Despite having yet opened, those I have overheard already discussing the establishment consider the new business to be an eye-sore. I, in my unique way of looking at things, can only assess the building's landmark value. On a popular scenic alternative route between the DFW Metroplex and Hill County, a regular multitude of travelers stream through our little town without realizing that actual dinosaur tracks exist here to be seen, that a nuclear power plant exists just a short way away, or that the local area has a quite colorful past. Hopefully, however, though, they'll soon be gossiping about the little town with the florescent orange and lime green Mexican restaurant. Although the sign is not yet in place and the business' name is unknown, could anything have gotten them more attention than a thoroughly atrocious paint job?

*Poor quality is because I used the camera on my cell phone to take the picture.

Oops! Forgot the Alamo

Well, not really.
Yesterday was the anniversary of the fall of the Alamo. I meant to post on it, but ironically, got busy and forgot to remember the Alamo.

References continue to be made to this famous battle cry, some appropriate: (Click on pictures to enlarge.)

As governor of Texas, Bush installed a portrait of Sam Houston, commander of the Texas forces at San Jacinto and then President of the Republic of Texas, clad in the costume of the Roman consul Gaius Marius, in his office in the state capitol. At Cooperstown, when Bush was asked about Nolan Ryan’s pummelling of Robin Ventura, the first words out of his mouth were “Remember the Alamo!”

[Later, when Bush was President,] the captain of the American Ryder Cup team, Ben Crenshaw, of Austin, Texas, was another athlete hero-friend of Bush’s, and he had asked Bush to come to Brookline to give the U.S. Ryder Cup team a pep talk if necessary. ... On the eve of the last day of the match, Bush came into the room where the team was gathered and, by prearrangement with Crenshaw, recited the text of William Barret Travis’s letter from the Alamo. ... In Boston, the day after hearing from Bush, the American team staged a remarkable comeback and won the Ryder Cup. -- Source

... and some not so appropriate:

At right, the ruins of Fallujah, from the excellent Lew Rockwell column. Imagine the rage and determination, to oust the occupiers, from the residents who once lived there, and you can picture the force behind Sam Houston's victory long ago in Texas--together with the war cry: "Remember The Alamo!" -- Source.

Posted by Moona at 09:22 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Something new happened at last night's Academy Award Show

Blanchett's win for portraying movie icon Katharine Hepburn in "Aviator" marked the first time an actor has won an Oscar for playing another Oscar-winning actor. It was Blanchett's second nomination; her first was for the lead performance in 1998's "Elizabeth." - source

It was a truly amazing performance.

A new outlook for some barking moonbats

Ya know, I am getting a bit tired of that old hackneyed line of ya'll's:

Bush lied, people died.

So, I got a replacement line for ya'll:

Bush won, get back to fun.

And for ya'll NRA types:

Bush won, so I get to keep my gun.

And lastly, for ya'll who just can't take another four years of Bush:

Waah, waah, waah! I'm moving to France.

Au revoir, subordonnés bêtes. We'll help ya pack!

Six in one hand, half a dozen in the other

There were six distinct individuals involved in this fiasco. Should any of them be held unaccountable for their actions? Feel free to chip in your thoughts about this situation in the comments.

Who the heck is Hunter S. Thompson?

Other than being some guy dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, I am privy to very little other information. His name is familiar and I believe that he was a writer, but I have never read any of his books. Steve knows a lot more about the guy, but seems to have held him in something less than high opinion. Personally, I possess of no opinion of any kind. Imagine that!

Something to make your body quake

The criminal trial might actually turn out to be the death of MJ before it really gets good and started. Judge said [paraphrasing here] "Get plenty of rest, drink lots of fluids, and we'll see ya back here in a week."

Ya ask a stupid question ...

OK, so someone tell me ... just exactly what it is that a dead guy can do with 8 Grammys, again?

A modern-day fairy tale

Once upon these times, two young maidens in their teens decided that they should stay at home and bake cookies for their neighbors rather than go to a dance where their peers would probably be cursing and drinking. Painstakingly, they worked hard on their altruistic task, carefully decorating the cookies, dividing their handiwork into seven little packages, embellished with red and pink paper hearts on which they wrote: "Have a nice night." Enthusiatically, they delivered their goodies to seven rural neighbors, ringing the doorbell and leaving their little surprises on the front porch.

Within the next few days, they received six thank-you letters from appreciative neighbors. A special "thanks" from the seventh recipient, however, was later delivered in the forrm of a knock on the door from the local constable, who summoned them for an appearance at Small Claims Court.

The pair were ordered to pay $871.70 plus $39 in court costs after neighbor ... [age] 49, filed a lawsuit complaining that the unsolicited cookies, left at her house after the girls knocked on her door, had triggered an anxiety attack that sent her to the hospital the next day.

So, what do you think?

1. The intent of these girls was (malicious/virtuous).

2. These girls were certainly (encouraged/discouraged) from the perfomance of random acts of kindness in the future.
3. The moral of this modern-day fairy tale* is ___________________________.
[Suggestions invited.]

*In case you did not check the link, this was an actual occurence.


Posted by Moona at 12:16 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Laughing at adversity is not normally naturally disastrous

Putting aside the irony of a black hip-hop station having ads pulled by McDonald's

for airing what some say is a racist satire of the tsunami tragedy in Southeast Asia to the tune of 'We Are the World,' a song created in the 1980s to fight hunger in Africa - source

When does humor cross the line?Recently, a hip-hop radio station took a show "Miss Jones in the Morning" off the air following complaints about a comedy segment.

"What happened is morally and socially indefensible," said Rick Cummings, president of Emmis Radio. The station is owned by Emmis Communications Corp. "All involved, myself included, are ashamed and deeply sorry. I know the members of the morning show are truly contrite. They know their actions here are inexcusable," Cummings said in a statement.

The piece used racial slurs to describe people swept away in the disaster, made jokes about child slavery and people watching their mothers die. - source

"You can hear God laughing, 'Swim you b**ches swim,'" was one line in the song, sung by staff of the show.

Across the Atlantic, Rodney Marsh, an English sports commentator, was fired for making light of the tsunami disaster.

In Chapter 2 of the book How to Write, by Jim Foreman, we are told:

One of the oldest foundations to play humor against is conflict. I don't mean conflict which leads to blows, but simply mental of situational conflict. It can be man against man, man against machine or even man against some outside influence such as weather, government or society.

(Well, tsunami jokes seem to fit into this category, and one of our readers did suggest that we might buy a manual on writing.)

And how much worse is such humor worse than cruelty jokes, which have been around for years?

Q. What did the little moron do when he learned that he was going to die?
A. He went into the living room.

Q. Why did the little moron drive his car into a tree?
A. He wanted to hear its bark.

Q. Why did Moona drive the rent car off the road?
A. ????? I'm sure Tig will think of an appropriate answer.

The writing manual previously quoted also tells us,

Humor, like love, usually comes from a situation in which a person is not only physically interested but is also mentally involved. Like love, the pleasure of humor can be experienced again and again if it is applied properly. In humor, there is always the right time and the right place for it to happen and should one of those two parameters be missing, there is little chance that the desired response to humor will result.

It's my take that humor should be included in Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. What I have not decided is whether I receive more pleasure from laughing or from making someone else laugh, but then, that's the way it is with gifts. What I do know is that the most pleasant relationships in life are those in which people can laugh at themselves, at each other, and at situations in life which would otherwise be unbearable.

Santa didn't have time to visit Asia this year so he just gave them a wave as he he passed.

Fairy Liquid have donated a million bottles of detergent to the tsunami appeal, they heard that there were a lot of Asians washing up on the beaches.

Ellen Macarthur's bid to circumnavigate the globe in record time has failed...She was beaten by a Sri Lankan on a deck chair.

Did you hear the Billabong surfing Pro Am this year was won by an Indonesian on a kitchen table.

A bit of advice to the next idiot in line

I caught the news of yesterday's California train derailment and thought very little of it. I was sorry to hear that people lost their lives and that a lot more were injured, but things like that happen on occasion. I was unaware, however, that the derailment was the conscious effort of one person. It seems that Juan Manuel Alvarez, 25, despondent over his failing marriage wanted to take his own life and the only way the idiot could think to do so was to park his SUV on the train tracks. Of course, then, at the last minute, he changed his mind, jumped out of the SUV and walked off, leaving such in the middle of the tracks where it eventually caused a train wreck and ensuing fatalities. CNN Story, in case you have been away for the last few days.

Now I am hearing that they are going to charge Mr. Juan Manuel Alvarez with 11 counts of murder and are going to seek the death penalty. But for a last minute change of heart, it seems that Mr. Alvarez was set to execute himself. Mr. Dow B. Hover of the State of New York used to be the executioner for Sing Sing prison and was an expert in electrocution. He also knew a way to kill himself without taking a whole lot of innocent people with him:

On June 1, 1990, in the middle of the afternoon, Gladys's [sic] son, Jack, stopped by the house to check on him. "Granddad!" he shouted, as he entered the breezeway. No answer. Jack heard the hum of a car's engine. He twisted the handle of the door leading to the garage and discovered that the garage was full of exhaust.

Dow B. Hover sat in the front seat of his Plymouth, the driver's window rolled down, his arms folded across his chest. At first, Jack yanked at the garage door, trying to pull it open, before remembering that he needed to push a button. It was already too late; Hover's skin was cold to the touch. Here, in the same garage where he had once changed his license plates before driving off to Sing Sing, it appears that the state's last executioner ended one more life: his own. - source

The rest of you suicidal idiots take note:

Death from carbon monoxide poisoning is painless and you simply find yourself falling asleep to never awaken again.* No trains or innocent train-riding commuters need be involved.

*It is not my purpose to propose that anyone take their own life, but simply that should it be their choice to do so, they do so sensibly -- without harm to others.

Yada!

Eye candy

Safe for work

Yada!

She likely didn't find it to be so crappy

After explaining that today has been calculated to be the crappiest day of the year, a blogger wishes his sister a Happy Birthday. The title refers to how she likely felt. She likely also agreed with his own assessment of his blog as determined by his titling of the linked post.

Business as usual, it seems

Well, within the first week of service, my DSL connection has already gone kaput! It is as dead as our good friend, Johnny Carson. I say good friend, because, I remember him visiting us in our living room nearly every night during my childhood.

I called the phone company yesterday and spent 30 minutes on the phone with some tech and went through this or that trying to find the cause of my problem. The solution finally turned out to be: Well, I'll have to write up a ticket and let the local engineers figure out what is going on. If it is still down all day tomorrow, give us another call. [Paraphrased according to my poor memory of the conversation]

My third world phone company does not understand that just because we all live in a very small town some of us don't sit around with our thumbs up our asses wondering why the sun does not continue to shine during rainstorms or why you can only make hay while the sun is shining. I can tell you that I'll, likely have email piling up higher than the snow on top of, oh, let's say Pike's Peak. Surely there is some snow up there, by now. I was disappointed at the lack of snow in the Pennsylvania stadiums all over yesterday. I was especially hoping to see the Philadelphia fans pummel the Falcon players with snowballs during game play, like they are wont to do. My disappointment has really left me jaded about snowfall reports. I am not going to assume there is any anywhere other than at the top of the rockies, despite anything Susie might have said.

Anyway, any posting from my end is going to be mostly non-existent until they figure out what is wrong with my DSL. My only other option, the one I am using currently, is to tie up my business line connecting by using my dial-up connection. My business is currently barely trickling in and I am not all that keen on having everyone who tries to call me today getting nothing but a busy signal. I am hopeful most of you will understand.

Mama always told me not to 'scuss politics or religion...

But then I never was really to good about takin' my mama's advice on such matters. Maybe she was right, but the "safe" subjects that she recommended--like the weather---are not always safe either. No one seems to agree on why there are so many unusual weather-happenings.

During the cold Eastern USA winter of 2003-04 we received a few questions asking things such as: "Doesn't this winter show there's no global warming?"

People in the western USA, which was generally warm and dry, could have just as easily asked: "Isn't this winter proof we should be worried about global warming?"

The answer to both? "No."

And everyone thinks that the weather in their location is more unusual than in any other place.

This week has proven the truth of the old saying: "If you don't like the weather in Central Illinois, just wait five minutes."

Still, everyone seems to complain consistently about their own peculiar predicament.

Only the Grand Canal, Venice's biggest and most famous waterway, can still take water traffic, and the falling canal levels have given rise to terms such as "ghost town" and "desert" in local papers.

"The phenomenon is due to low pressure, that is, the good weather that coincides with the syzygy, the alignment of the moon, earth and sun," said Venice's tides office.

So who knows what's worse?

Like ever'thin' else, guess it depends 'pon where yore sittin'.

Gosh, everything reminds me of a song--Hope I'm not gettin' another earworm.

Mud Slide Slim lyrics

From the album Mud Slide Slim & Blue Horizon
Mud slide slim and the blue horizon
Oh, mud slide, i'm dependent on you
I don't know but i've been told
There's a time from time to time
I can't eat, i can't sleep
But i just might move my feet
'cause there's nothing like
The sound of sweet soul music
To change a young lady's mind
And there's nothing like a
Walk on down by the bayou
To leave the world behind
Mud slide i'm depending upon you
Mister mud slide slim and the blue horizon

I've been letting the time go by
Letting the time go by
Yes, i'm letting the time go by
Letting the time go by

Crossing the border

While airport security increases the time that it takes for Americans to travel by air, our borders continue to be difficult to protect--especially the southern border. Does something seem a bit wrong with this picture?

COMING TO AMERICA

How to be an illegal

Mexico government publishes guide to assist border crossers
© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com

The government of Mexico is raising eyebrows with a new comic book offering advice on how to cross the border into the U.S. illegally.

Called "The Guide for the Mexican Migrant," the 32-page book published by Mexico's Foreign Ministry uses simple language to offer information on safety, legal rights and living unobtrusively in America.

"This guide is intended to give you some practical advice that could be of use if you have made the difficult decision to seek new work opportunities outside your country," the book says, according to the Arizona Republic.

Illustrations depict illegals wading into a river, trying to evade U.S. Border Patrol and crouching near a hole in a border fence. Immigrants are also shown hiking through the desert with rock formations similar to those in Arizona and being caught by an American agent.

Among the tips offered:

"Try to walk during times when the heat is not as intense";

"Salt water helps you retain your body's liquids. Although you'll feel thirstier, if you drink water with salt the risk of dehydration is much lower";

"Thick clothing increases your weight when wet, and this makes it difficult to swim or float."

It also says if migrants get lost, they should follow train tracks or power lines. It warns of walking for days to reach towns or roads in the desert.

If caught by Border Patrol, the book says, "Don't throw stones or objects at the officer or patrol vehicles because this is considered a provocation. Raise your hands slowly so they see you are unarmed."

It also recommends not running away from agents in pursuit.

"It's better to be detained a few hours and repatriated to Mexico than to get lost in the desert," the guide states.

Indonesian ungratefuls?

I was listening to a story on the radio this morning, so looked it up to be sure I heard right.

BANDA ACEH, Aceh (AP): Indonesia's vice president reiterated on Friday that foreign soldiers helping tsunami relief efforts must be out of the country by late March, but that aid workers can remain past that deadline. "Three months is enough for emergency help from the foreign militaries," Vice President Jusuf Kalla said during a brief stop in Banda Aceh on a tour of the region most devastated by the Dec. 26 tsunami. "Civilians will still be OK to stay." The Indonesian government has said the hundreds of foreign troops helping aid efforts in Aceh province must leave the area by March 26.

Once I got into this site, I noticed this as well:

TNI allegedly collects 'border fees' from foreign volunteers JAKARTA (Antara): A number of foreign volunteers working in Aceh relief programs have expressed concern over fees collected by Indonesian Military (TNI) personnel along the border between Medan, North Sumatra, and Banda Aceh. Adian, chairman of the Independent Volunteers' Commission, said on Friday that complaints had been raised by volunteers from various countries, including Australia and Japan. Volunteers were reportedly asked by TNI border troops to pay Rp 1 million (US$108.10) each toward the purchase of communications equipment and for security support. The fees had been collected over the last three days in a number of locations between Banda Aceh and Langsa in Aceh, he said. Indonesian Navy spokesman First Adm. Abdul Malik Yusuf has denied the reports. "It's nonsense. No Navy personnel collects levies from the volunteers aboard the war ships to Aceh and North Sumatra," he said. (**)

So why are we spending a billion dollars??????

Well, there oughta be a few other choices than I had before

Well, got Satellite TV, so guess I finally moved into the 20th Century. I said 20th on purpose, 'cause I am well aware that satellite communications ain't nuthin' new. I jes' finally decided it was likely more of a necessity than an extravagance. All a part of my fiscal replannin' and such. Although I jes' made a major restructurin' of my law practice so as to decrease the amount of my monthly overhead, the satellite TV is free if you consider that the telephone company package which included such, along with a hopefully-soon-to-be-installed DSL connection and some 5¢ a minute nationwide long distance plan on my fax line home number, cost substantially the same as my cable internet connection in my now closed courthouse square located business office.

I ain't all that sure than I will be watchin' all that much more TV, but then there are occasions when that seems to be all I do. However, I was quite pleased with what I was able to receive on a clear day with no RF interference from the ancient fire trucks two doors down, which was the line-up seen locally in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area. I pretty well only watched WB for Smallville, UPN for Enterprise, and whatever was showin' on PBS pretty much of the rest of the time. Well, I would catch any of them Law&Order or CSI shows. I 'sposedly have America's Top 120 channels. I guess. I only see about six I am likely to monitor for possible content: History, Discovery, A&E, Bravo, SciFi, and Comedy Central. Heck, I'd rather see CNN and C-Span filtered through my favorite bloggers, likely will only check several of the others for movies I have been lookin' to catch. Yada!

Tragedy spells headlines?

The media seem to cater to the public's fascination with grotesque, macabre, or tragic events.

Violence and tragedy are staples of American journalism because readers are attracted to gruesome stories and photographs. "If it bleeds, it leads" is an undesirable rule of thumb. Judges of contests also have a fatal attraction. Pulitzer Prizes are most often awarded to photographers who make pictures of gruesome, dramatic moments (Goodwin, 1983). Milwaukee Journal editor Sig Gissler summed up the newspaper profession's sometimes Hedonistic philosophy when he admitted, "We have a commercial interest in catastrophe" ("Knocking on death's door," 1989, p. 49).

In fact, some have even been disappointed when a tragedy was less gruesome than expected.

Govind was thrilled to see aid workers. He took them to the beach, showed them how far the water had reached, and described how the boats had been sucked out to sea. He pointed out a damaged boat from another village that had washed ashore. They were struck by the neatness of the waterfront: the debris had mostly been cleared. They asked Govind how many people had died in Komitichavadi, and Govind said none.

This seemed to disappoint the people from Bangalore. The woman mentioned that the scene did not much resemble what she had seen on TV. They had come looking, one of the workers later said, for "places that had been really destroyed."

And some people even seem to be energized by having a cause to rally 'round. [Some of these same persons would not cross the street to help someone in their own neighborhoods.]

Whatever the current tragedy, from David Koresh to 9-11, we can be sure that the media will keep us inundated with the gory details. But as we continue to hear the cries of "Tsunami, tsunami!" I seem to have been plagued with an earworm.

earworm (EER.wurm) n. A song or tune that repeats over and over inside a person's head. Also: ear-worm, ear worm.

Example Citation:

"I couldn't get the song out of my head. It's like a broken record," Clark said Thursday while shopping at the Galleria at Tyler mall in Riverside. "I keep humming it, and you know, I don't even like Prince's music."

Her experience reflects a phenomenon shared by the vast majority of people, according to an ongoing study at the University of Cincinnati. Nearly everybody has been mentally tortured at one point in their lives by an "earworm" - a tune that keeps repeating itself over and over in their heads.

The research also indicates that people who get the most earworms tend to listen to music frequently and have neurotic habits, such as biting pencils or tapping fingers.

-Hieu Tran Phan, "'Sticky tune' hits a chord with many," The Press-Enterprise, March 4, 2003

However, the song running through my head, rather than Tig's Volare song, is to the tune of "Maria" from West Side Story:

The façades behind which opportunity hides

I have been watchin' Amber Frey take the spotlight now that Scott Peterson has been convicted, pushin' to publicize the book that supposedly discloses her side of the story. What I see is an opportunist, but one who innocently found herself in the middle of a nasty situation and used her head so as to come out on top. Most people were a lot more interested in this case than I was. As it will likely be hard to ever understand his motivation for havin' done what he supposedly did, what more is there to learn from this situation. Some guy thought he could get away with murder --- happens all the time, 'cept sometimes it's the gal -- but they usually jes' kill their children. In this case, another person got caught up in the mess, Amber Frey, and, as it turned out, the day she met Scott Peterson was her lucky day. Now, I have not seen enough evidence for me to believe Amber Frey is all that intelligent, but she seems to have been smart enough to seek competent advice at an early enough point in the situation to make it pay off for herself and her children. Is she a villain? No. Is she capitalizin' on a tragedy? No more so than she has a right to take. Is she wrong to do so? Not in my opinion. I am not gonna buy her book, but I still ain't interested in the case. I figger enough of the rest of ya'll will do so such that the life of Amber and her family will be benefited thereby. I hope so.

Coincidentally

The really nasty cold bug, the one you can see currently standin' right over there holdin' the faucet wide open in my left nostril, continues to play havoc inside my head. It has been doin' so since 'bout 5:00 pm last evenin' and now, it seems, it additionally brought along an extremely nasty round of cold weather. Last evenin', late, it was a balmy 70. Currently the air temperature is hoverin' in the mid 30's. Brrrr! I might be able to possibly sniff up a conspiracy if my nose wasn't currently stopped up. Aaaaaaahhhhhhhh ------ choooooo! 'scuse me!

When life hands ya lemons, write hit songs 'bout it

Ya graduate, get famous, win a Grammy, afterward findin' yourself bein' inducted into the high school's Hall of Fame, and, when ya come back to be a part of the festivities, they send ya to the principal's office. 'Course, I dunno 'bout you, but sounds like a good premise for a Country & Western song.

Earth vs. Man, a fight to the finish?

As we all dwell on the massive amount of death that resulted from the recent Sumatran earthquake and subsequent tsunami, consider the following:

The events that this week destroyed the shores of the Indian Ocean, and which leveled the city of Bam a year ago, were of unmitigated horror: but they may also serve some deeper planetary purpose, one quite hidden to our own beliefs. - Simon Winchester - NYT Op-Ed

Did I not intimate as much in my only other mention of this disaster?

As the world gets older, some clamor for the past

Black and White authored by Steve Vaus*
(Under age 40? You won't understand.)

You could hardly see for all the snow,
Spread the rabbit ears as far as they go.
Pull a chair up to the TV set,
"Good Night, David. Good Night, Chet."

Depending on the channel you tuned,
You got Rob and Laura - or Ward and June.
It felt so good. It felt so right.
Life looked better in black and white.

I Love Lucy, The Real McCoys,
Dennis the Menace, the Cleaver boys,
Rawhide, Gunsmoke, Wagon Train,
Superman, Jimmy and Lois Lane.

Father Knows Best, Patty Duke,
Rin Tin Tin and Lassie, too,
Donna Reed on Thursday night! --
Life looked better in black and white.

I wanna go back to black and white.
Everything always turned out right.
Simple people, simple lives...
Good guys always won the fights.

Now nothing is the way it seems,
In living color on the TV screen.
Too many murders, too many fights,
I wanna go back to black and white.

In God they trusted, alone in bed, they slept,
A promise made was a promise kept.
They never cussed or broke their vows.
They'd never make the network now.

But if I could, I'd rather be
In a TV town in '53.
It felt so good. It felt so right.
Life looked better in black and white.

I'd trade all the channels on the satellite,
If I could just turn back the clock tonight
To when everybody knew wrong from right.
Life was better in black and white!

*attribution** courtesy of this page which more elegantly displays the proffered poem, and, additionally, supplies enlargeable thumbnails of still shots taken from some of the programs mentioned.

**I always attempt to do a quick search*** to find attributions when I post somethin' sent to me attributed to author unknown, although that ain't necessarily always the case. I am unsure if it is the exercise of knowin' how easily such can usually be found or my belief that creative people should be properly attributed for their creations. It is likely a bit of both.

***Searches of this type are easily done by findin' a unique phrase within the passage, copyin' and pastin' such into the search term box, enclosin' such in "quotes," and search. Nearly anythin' ya find will usually have been published elsewhere, and oft, one or more of those other sites will have done the hard work and already searched for and discovered the author of said passage.****

****I do, however, make the assumption that any accreditation found is actually correct.

Is it sleep deprivation or jes' a case of mad beal disease??

Hmmm, I've been doin' a bit of surfin' 'round here and there, but it seems that there is not much of any interest to be found this day. Then again, a huge cornucopia of interestin' stuff may exist to be found out there somewhere 'round the blogosphere and I jes' ain't found it or it could be that I have found it and found that it is jes' not for me. Oh, it could definitely be somethin' like that, after all, I did have one of those weird sinus-medication-induced sleepless nights where I jes' laid in bed wishin' I could fall asleep. Now I'll jes' have to work hard so as to see my way through a thoroughly yawn-filled day. I am a bit blue, too, and could use a bit of cheerin' up. Here's a question for which no amount of Google searchin' could disclose an answer: Can a McDonald's "Happy Meal" really make ya happy?

Phone Tag & Other Annoyances

Only Disconnect

By ROB WALKER
Published: December 26, 2004 in The New York Times Magazine [likely requires registration]

The Electronic Secretary: Joseph J. Zimmermann Jr., b. 1912

Joseph Zimmermann Jr., who died this year at 92, invented something called The Electronic Secretary. The concept behind this clunky device was simple enough: if someone called you on the telephone and you weren't there to answer, the caller could leave a recorded message. It wasn't the first answering machine, but it has been credited as the first to catch on commercially in the 50's. It was therefore an important development in the technology of connectedness, the power of being always in touch, which is something that gets a lot of attention. But Zimmermann's invention was also a key marker in a less celebrated history -- the history of what could be called the technology of avoidance. Getting a message from someone you want to talk to is convenient and nice, but letting a machine take a call from someone you don't want to talk to is sublime.

"There's always been a battle between access and control," notes James E. Katz, a professor of communication at Rutgers University and the author of "Connections: Social and Cultural Studies of the Telephone in American Life." Long before the Electronic Secretary, there were people well off enough to have teams of minions to help them get in touch with whomever they wanted to reach and to filter who could reach them. Even so, adding technology to the screening process was controversial at first. "Huge numbers of people objected to these machines," Katz says. Outgoing messages back then were verbose and apologetic; even when Katz worked for a spinoff of Bell Labs in the 80's, he was told that using an answering machine was "inhuman." Not until 1987 did a majority of Americans polled say it was no longer rude to use such a device.

Today, of course, things are different, as the answering machine has given way to nearly ubiquitous voice-mail systems and "interactive voice-response units" (the touch-tone-driven systems that answer calls at a vast majority of American corporations). In fact, it's now considered rude not to have some sort of machine to take messages for you. And not only have we become used to machines that take messages, we also sometimes prefer them to live communication (thus the modern practice of delivering unpleasant news when you know the recipient is away from the phone).

Between cellphones, e-mail and instant messaging, it's now considered exotic to be truly unreachable at all. Yet for every advance made in the name of connection, there is an avoidance counterstrike. Services pop up that allow us to locate our friends while out on the town (like Dodgeball.com), and services pop up that help us pretend to be one place when we're really somewhere else (like the online "Alibi and Excuse Club"). Maybe just as crucial to the cellphone as its built-in voice mail is its off switch -- something early phone users never wanted. To get a sense of where the battle between access and control stands today, just ask yourself what happens when you're talking to a friend in person and your cellphone rings. Do you ignore it? Do you check to see who is trying to reach you (relying, of course, on the requisite Caller ID feature)? Do you take the call? Are you happy to be in touch or exasperated to be bothered? The answers depend on a morass of status judgments and social-protocol evaluations, all made in an instant.

In his research, Katz has found, not surprisingly, that teenagers and young adults are far more preoccupied with connectedness than anyone else. "They want to hear from everybody as much as possible," he says. Partly this is about a technological comfort level, but it's also about life-stage issues -- the young person still developing his identity is very keyed in to social networks; later, time management becomes more important, and connections are more likely to be seen as interruptions. Nevertheless, all of us seem to some extent to be responsive to the summons from afar, even though that summons often turns out to be a friend using up his cellphone minutes (and your precious time) while in line at the grocery store. If the steady advance of communication technology since the Electronic Secretary has taught us anything, it's that there is something addictive about being in touch -- as much as we might sometimes wish we could kick the habit. As Katz summarizes, "There is no going back."

Women Over 50

Here is a piece written by Andy Rooney - CBS 60 Minutes.

As I grow in age, I value women who are over 50 most of all. Here are just a few reasons why:

A woman over 50 will not lay next to you in bed and ask, "What are you thinking?" She doesn't care what you think.

If a woman over 50 doesn't want to watch the game, she doesn't sit around whining about it. She does something she wants to do. And, it's usually something more interesting.

A woman over 50 knows herself well enough to be assured in who she is, what she is, what she wants and from whom. Few women past the age of 50 give a damn what you might think about her or what she's doing.

Women over 50 are dignified. They seldom have a screaming match with you at the opera or in the middle of an expensive restaurant. Of course, if you deserve it, they won't hesitate to shoot you, if they think they can get away with it.

Older women are generous with praise, often undeserved. They know what it's like to be unappreciated.

A woman over 50 has the self-assurance to introduce you to her women friends. A younger woman with a man will often ignore even her best friend because she doesn't trust the guy with other women. Women over 50 couldn't care less if you're attracted to her friends because she knows her friends won't betray her.

Women get psychic as they age. You never have to confess your sins to a woman over 50. They always know.

A woman over 50 looks good wearing bright red lipstick. This is not true of younger women or drag queens.

Once you get past a wrinkle or two, a woman over 50 is far sexier than her younger counterpart.

Older women are forthright and honest. They'll tell you right off if you are a jerk or if you are acting like one! You don't ever have to wonder where you stand with her.

Yes, we praise women over 50 for a multitude of reasons. Unfortunately, it's not reciprocal. For every stunning, smart, well-coiffed hot woman of 50+, there is a bald, paunchy relic in yellow pants making a fool of himself with some 18-year-old waitress. Ladies, I apologize.

For all those men who say, "Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free." Here's an update for you. Nowadays 80% of women are against marriage, why? Because women realize it's not worth buying an entire Pig, just to get a little sausage.

The waves are high but the surfin' is lousy!

Gawk! Are the moonbats barkin' today or what? I cannot believe the number of blogs I surfed by today that are eatin' up the latest WaPo-ABC poll and stories discussin' such results [here is a prime example] and thinkin' another bit of liberal diatribe is worth the paper 'pon which it is written. First of all, it is a poll, and polls, ya'll might recall, showed John "Waffles the Clown" Kerry was destined to win the Presidency of the United States and we all know how that turned out. So, bark, bark, bark, ya barkin' moonbats. I find ya'll's incessant wailin' to be 'bout as interestin' as conversations regardin' PMS an' feminine hygiene products. Jes' sayin', ya know?

That concludes my polibloggin' for this fine day and I'll recommence polliwoggin' 'cause I am feelin' a bit froggy today!

An interestin' bit of drivel that popped outta my mind*

Do ya realize that if Ted Kaczynski had been a blogger, he prolly would have been a great Green Party essayist and turned out to be somethin' other than the Unabomber? Who knows, he might have collected enough tips through his Paypal account so that he didn't have to live off of stew made outta of dead squirrels and such. One thing ya can say 'bout the life amid this blogosphere, it gives ever' nut-case in the world a venue within which to vent his or her frustrations. I wonder jes' how many lives have been saved 'cause of that factor alone. And that ain't even considerin' the number of suicides that are bein' prevented 'cause lonely people can be virtually loved in postin' their dark and desperate feelin's for the whole world to see and then have all of ya'll come rushin' in to give them a bunch of virtual hugs and such in their comments.

I did warn ya it was drivel, didn't I?

*that will likely never be read by anyone anyway.

To all those young people wonderin' 'bout love

How many of these young gal's and guy's blogs am I gonna have to read where I find them pinin' away 'bout this or that gal or guy with whom they really really wanna fall deeply in love 'cept that this or that is right in their way and there is jes' no way to overcome it ... yada yada yada? Been there, done that! Done wore the stupid T-shirt until it was turned into a dishtowel. All of us adults have been through that first real love stage of life. So, as a really ol' ol' man, almos' 50, to a bunch of immature young'uns, 15-20somethin', let me jes' say this: In this day and age, the early days of the 21st Century, ya can purty well jes' fall in love with almos' anyone ya want, as long as it is legal, meanin' ya can't romantically fall in love with your siblin's, ancestors, and, in most states, your cousins, nor can ya have a romantic relationship with any adult until ya become an adult, for romantic purposes, yourself, but, be that as it may --- what you're feelin' right now jes' ain't love. It's itchy-itchy-coo-coo-ca-choo and soon ya are gonna be jumpin' into bed, or maybe behind a bush or the back seat of an Acura, with that same person, and 'fore ya know it, ya'll two will be havin' two or three or four children and be at each other's throats ever' single minute 'cause there jes' ain't enough of whatever it takes to make the both ya happy and you'll be hatin' yourself for havin' ever let yourself be talked into takin' your clothes off in front of that so-and-so in the first place. When it is right, you'll know it is right, and ya won't have to be askin' questions or discussin' whether it is right or wrong. Now, go on with your lives. Learn somethin', observe, gain wisdom. You'll likely have to be passin' this same message along at some future point in your own life, if ya live that long.

Sometimes the strangest things make me laugh

Mimi of Mimi's ESL and Fortune Telling posted a picture with such a truthful and most obvious caption, I jes' got so tickled, I couldn't help but laugh.

Oh George, let's hope so!

Your Monday, December 13, 2004 Horoscope Taurus!

Finances are improving enough for you to focus on possible career enhancement. Maybe you can invest in a little self-promotion. It would go a long way. Consider getting the word out at a party, or a series of parties over the next few weeks.

I am definitely tryin' to figure a way to get enough money or help in gettin' my book published. OzGuru suggested I begin advance sellin' to raise the money. Jes' for your information, I had an ol' friend from way back when I was still doin' the comic strip email me this mornin'. This is what he had to say 'bout the book:

Finally! Yep, given time I eventually got to down load it and read it, straight through, non-stop. I was very entertained, especially during the Oz segment. The mixing of metaphors, and the blending of several different children's stories was a very interesting plot machine, and the ending was not predictable, at all. Well done!

My friend, by the way, goes by the moniker, Wizard of Oz, in online (mostly newsgroup) activities. LOL I used to be very heavily into newsgroups, but my currently dialup ISP does not have a news server, and tryin' to read newsgroups through Google is the absolute pits.

Usin' the system is not necessarily takin' advantage of it

lawfulgal puts on her insurance defense attorney hat and calls Larry Silverstein a loser 'cause he took the insurance companies to court and fought for what he believed was what he deserved, under the terms of his contract, for the loss of the Twin Towers in the 9/11 debacle. lawfulgal sarcastically states:

Way to take advantage of the system, Larry.

I thought it strange how she almos' gleefully proclaimed:

And boy are those insurance companies angry. One of the dozen that Silverstein fought, Industrial Risk Insurers, will be filing an appeal along with the rest.

Hmm, so are not they, too, takin' advantage of the system? Her real gripe, it seems is that he even cared to claim his loss given what so many others lost when the towers fell:

But to Silverstein, it was merely a business disaster.

And now, for your viewin' pleasure, he is happy to present...

The Right Reverend and Ruler of all Munuvia, Pixy Misa, has uploaded a whole bunch of anime movies for your downloadin' pleasure.

Show of hands! Who's never 'sperienced this frustration?

Although we might not have 'spressed it in 'zactly these words, I am sure we have all felt this:

flying the friendly skies of blogspot can be an interesting exercise at times. - Hunter

Any of ya'll that get past the first paragraph, email me a nutshell version. It 'peared to have a flavor of moonbat barkin', from my quick scroll down to the permalink.

"No President had ever witnessed such a thing on his inaugural day."

My signed-sealed-and-delivered Democratic friend hoisted his copy of Fahrenheit/911 on me. It is initiated with the premise that it is one-sided, then delivers a line that shows up barkin' moonbats for what they are: uncivilized.

No President had ever witnessed such a thing on his inaugural day.

The movie, after providin' the evidence of the lawful certification of the election results by the losin' opponent, who, by governin' the situation under only the strictest construction of the rules, displayed honor and integrity, admits that, as the newly elected President of the United States approached the Whitehouse on Inaugural Day, a crowd of disenchanted voters threw eggs at his car.

No President had ever witnessed such a thing on his inaugural day.

No President had ever witnessed such appallin' behavior by the supporters of his opposition on his inaugural day. And who really bears the shame in this incident? George! Your own champion chose to out your crass barbarian behavior to the masses in this movie?

He went to sleep that night on a bed made of fine French linens.

WTF? Is this impeachable conduct? Was he 'spose to sleep on a bed of thorns? I jes' ain't catchin' the ulterior motive behind this inference.

It ain't even good propaganda. Michael Moore needs to get a job behind a counter at 7-11. Click!

The world's 1st blog blurb posted via carrier pigeon?

Sharp Corners: Snip

The high speed cable on the outside of my house got snipped yesterday and is scheduled for repair on Thursday (Friday at the latest) so I'll be offline a day or so. Grrrrr.

_{December 08, 2004 at 12:51 PM}

I'll think up a snappy title if it takes me all day*

missfitsandstarts discusses her views on what she has discovered durin' her recent blog-surfin' adventures:

I expected lots of different blogs about lots of different things, but really, all people talk about (or at least those signed up on BlogExplosion) is:

• Taking their kids to soccer practice in their minivan.
• How much they love being a stay at home mom.
• Wanting to have babies.
• Having babies.
• Not having babies.
• Their boyfriends (or ex-boyfriends).
• How great it is to be a right wing republican.
• How much democrats suck, and/or how much democrats don't make any sense, and/or how they can prove that all democrats are wrong.
• Their love of Jesus.
• How much they want to be like Dooce (well, they don't actually talk about it, but you know it's there).
• Being an aspiring writer.
• Blogging.

Looks 'bout right to me, 'cept she left off those democratic barkin' moonbats that can't find a thing good to say 'bout our sittin' Prez, his regime, or anythin' to do with his administration. Maybe she was wearin' blinders when those sites loaded into the Blog Explosion frame.

*Aw! Jes' live with that one, will ya?

From the December page of The Full Monty wall calendar?

Can we all jes' admit that Ted is one sick puppy? [beware of disgustin' unrevealin' nudity]

I find too many unanswered questions in the news

If'n there were never any real ties 'tween Saddam and al-Qaida, why would this have been even planned?

BERLIN (AP) - German authorities arrested three Iraqis with alleged al-Qaida links on suspicion they were planning an attack on Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi while he visited Germany on Friday, the country's chief prosecutor said. [full story]

The big Blog Explosion extravaganza

Well, I laid in my cold cold house* under the double layer of goose down, basically bloggin' from the comfort of my huge bed. Ya can do that when ya got a long extension cord, a 100-foot phone cord, and laptop computer.** Anyway, I been surfin' via the Blog Explosion network. To tell ya the truth, there is a hell of a lot of blogs out there. I have run across a lot of new ones, and, although most seem to have not even loaded by the time the counter reaches 0, I do try to give them all a good look-over, readin' down at least two or three entries, knowin' from my own 'speriences that even my own best stuff ain't necessarily on the top of the heap. I have a lot to say about my observations from viewin' this myriad of other blogs, but I think I will jes' echo Serenity's sentiments. I have, however, also found a few gems in that junk pile, a couple which I linked in earlier posts.

I may have dropped a revealin' hint 'bout what has been draggin' me down of late and forgive me for havin' done so. I did feel that it was essential that some of ya'll understand what it was that I have been dancin' 'round these last few days. Jes' realize, however, that I am simply makin' this 'barrassin' personal disclosure so as to provide ya with the reasonin' behind my recent mood and am not askin' that any of ya lift a solitary finger to assist me in any way.

My navel is quite distressed that I revealed our secret. Alas, however, once the cat is out of the bag, ya can't get it back in there without gettin' a severe case of cat scratch fever, or if not the fever, ya still get the cat scratches. End of report.

*Given the current state of my financial affairs, I have implemented a most drastic fiscal austerity program.

**Such laptop bein' back up to the same ol' crappy tricks*** it was doin' 'fore I took it to Fry's and left it in their care for a couple of months to supposedly be repaired,****

***Randomly backin' out of pages or doin' other operations without bein' commanded to do so.

****Accordin' to the documentation which was provided when I picked it up, they changed out the motherboard. So that solely leads me to the conclusion that such was not the problem and they unnecessarily replaced a major component, or, what I more likely suspect, given the phone call I received at one time askin' me to again describe the problem, is that they were never able to duplicate the problem,***** could find nothin' necessary to be repaired, and jes' said they replaced the motherboard to delude me into satisfaction that they had corrected my problem.

*****I am thinkin' 'bout settin' in my home office with my web-cam hooked up to record my actions so as to create some evidence regardin' my problem.

It looks like a very promisin' day

Your Wednesday, December 1, 2004 Horoscope Taurus!

A new method of learning will accelerate your development. You have finally found a voice you can listen to and understand. Avoid spending money today if at all possible. A potential soulmate is impressed with your polite demeanor.

Hmmm, first of all, looks like this new dog is gonna get to learn a new trick. I likely will get my head slapped hard enough to knock all that excess wax out of my ears so I can hear better. I also need to avoid my landlady who will be chasin' after me to pay the rent today. And, supposedly, today, I will run into her, whoever she might be, and my gentlemanly ways will work wonders with sweepin' her right off her feet. Yep, looks like a very excitin' time. O' course, this not bein' my first rodeo, I 'spect my day will actually be as mundane as usual. We can all hope not, right? ;)

This cannot possibly be meant for me

Your Thursday, November 25, 2004, Horoscope Taurus!
A struggle to maintain creative control over a project will pit you against an authority figure. This person thinks he or she knows it all. An old friend may arrive to save the day.

First of all, the only project in which I maintain creative control is my Alien Attitudes trilogy, and ain't no authority figure of which I am aware with enough power to wrest creative control of that from me. Secondly, no one could possibly have a greater belief that they know it all than myself, well 'cept that I do seem to have a severe lack of knowledge when it comes to space science crap. However, as I 'spect to remain homebound for the majority of this day, havin' any ol' friend drop by would be a most pleasant experience. If such ol' friend was also a chiropractor would make this an especially miraculous day.

If any of this actually plays out, I will share such with all of ya'll in the Nightly Navel Gazin' Report™.

Did I somehow miss the end of the age of bloggin' memo?

Why do I keep findin' all these messages about this is the end of my bloggin' ever'where I look? Anna; Roxette Bunny; & Silver Blue. I myself have been wonderin' why there is less linky-love and commentin' goin' on than I used to see earlier this year. I know a lot of people got caught up in the hype surroundin' the 'lection held earlier this month, but I figgered things would be returnin' to normal by now. However, despite my efforts and those of my friends, I ain't seen any increase in the level of reader interaction. What gives, ya'll? I am beginnin' to think that this bloggin' thing is turnin' out to be the CB craze of the new age.

Reachin' toward the sky in search of precious metals

OK, if there is supposed to be one behind ever' cloud, why is this the first one* that I have ever seen.

[Update: The clouds have darkened once again and there is a constant deluge of heavy rain fallin' right outside my buildin' ... and wouldn't ya know, jes' when I was ready to go home. What makes it especially pleasurable [/not] is that all the spaces in front of my door were filled when I got back from court, so I was forced to park in my reserved space behind the buildin'. Nice long walk in flood conditions, If'n ya don't hear back from me later, I might have gotten myself washed down the Paluxy River. Keep your eye on the 10:00 news. ;)]

*Taken with my cell phone camera.

JFK in Requiem

Y'allBlog commemorates the 41st anniversary of the Kennedy assassination. Some of ya'll weren't alive or even in Dallas at the time, so are now officially removed from the list of possible suspects, despite what any of the multitude of conspiracy theorists think.

Life or Somethin' Like it

A lengthy storytellin' hopefully worth the effort:

It ain't somethin' for which ya stand in line to volunteer. In fact, ya have no choice 'bout it at'all. Ya find yourself dragged into it, kickin' and screamin', totally unprepared and improperly dressed to face the cold, cold world. Ya spend the next year or so layin' in your own filth unable to do anythin' 'bout it but cry 'cause you have not yet succeeded in gainin' sufficient control over your own body so as to move more than a few feet. Even if you could move more than a few feet, you so often find yourself caged and confined. This confinement often exists beyond the period in which you finally do succeed gainin' the necessary control over your physical abilities, gain your feet, and attempt to explore your surroundin's. Those responsible for draggin' you kickin' and screamin' into this world only allow you enough freedom to provide for their entertainment, delightin' in your failures, as you fall after takin' a few short, hesitant steps on your first few attempts at propellin' your body 'cross the familiar expanse. Although they continually spew a slurry of strange sounds, the larger creatures communicate to you by various loud barks or by painfully strikin' you. Eventually, you slowly gain the ability to understand these strange sounds and find so very little of what is bein' said to you is of any real interest. The larger creatures seek solely to suppress your own intuitive sense of curiosity as you seek to explore and examine ever'thin' you see. Regrettably, you find very little of it to be very tasteful tasty.

Your keepers soon begin to throw tirades about your bodily waste, bein' slower and slower to respond to your cries for clean-up duty and you soon find a major change in wardrobe. No longer do you have the major paddin' the softened those blows to your behind that seemed to come so often when you tried to pick up that interestin' object from the coffee table because it looked too delicious to pass up bein' taste-tested. Soon, it seems, you are pushed to work on disposin' of your body waste by usin' a smaller version of some object in that room where you were often taken durin' earlier points and dunked under water so many times, you were sure they were tryin' to drown you. It actually seems harder than it had been to stand on your feet and walk ‘round than it is to be on top of disposin' your body waste on a regular timely basis, but after months and months of practice, you seem to be able to get through a whole day without bein' forced to change your clothes because you were too late again with your body waste elimination duties. Makin' it completely through the night, however, is still a problem, but even that is soon overcome.

Finally, with overcomin' the problem with gettin' ‘round on your own and bein' able to handle that nasty body waste situation, you seem to have found your legs and are ready to rule the world. Your keepers, however, are still much larger than you, and you are actually beginnin' to understand those strange sounds they keep yellin' at you at ever' opportunity. One word seems to be shouted more than any other: "No." A few choice blows soon convince you that such word means to stop whatever activity you were involved in immediately. And, as seems to be the case, you find, that word seems to come out of your keeper's mouth jes' ‘bout the time you find somethin' really fun to do. It soon becomes your utmost duty to find ever' fun thing you can possibly do without bein' detected by one of your keepers and forced to stop. When evidence of your fun is discovered, you soon find it is best to immediately deny any involvement in the matter so as to alleviate any chance to feel those painful blows again, but, often, it seems there is no explanation that will deflect the blame away from you, and you feel the force of physical power those larger than you have over you. Your personality begins to raise its head in an attempt to come to grips with this power struggle, and you rebel against this forced authority.

Your keepers, however, are not totally tyrannical, and, provided that you generally do their biddin', often end up caressin' and pettin' you on a fairly regular occasion. Despite your disagreement with their fun-deprivin' control, you soon discover that, despite your desire to do so, you are not yet able to do without their assistance. From their generosity, they begin to shower you with objects that they profess are yours, but control how and where they must be placed within the space they also claim is yours. As you more fully begin to understand the language they use to communicate, you discover those pretty movin' pictures on that box they often sat you in front of from the time of your arrival have messages to give about interaction with others, behavior on a general basis, and amazin' discoveries others have made about things and places that exist beyond the small world in which you have found yourself. Beside the interior of your regular domain, you have come to know parts of other places: McDonald's, Gran's, Uncle Pete's and on and on. You are often left free to explore the outdoor surroundin's of most of these places, but often get scolded if you actually come into contact with any of the surfaces and end up with traces of such on your clothes or person. You begin to wonder when this fun-suppression comes to an end.

Over time you grow stronger and stronger, and, although, it feels as if you are compelled to learn things you could never possibly use forever and ever, and yet your brain gets continually filled with facts and figures, dates and data from ever' direction. Duties are assigned to you within your own domicile and your keepers begin to demand more and more that it is their turn to be kept. You begin the master the rudimentary means of economic exchange and find that no matter how much money you come up with, it is never enough to get what you really want. Still, you easily find a way to spend all you can get. You also begin to experience a need to compete with others of your own age group, whether physical, mental or of some sort of social angle. You quickly find your place among your peers, and, likely extremely dislike where you found yourself in the social peckin' order. Still boys are boys and girls are girls, and neither seems ready to mix with the other quite yet. This slowly changes as the constant pictures of the perfect future show such depends upon the selection of the perfect mate, so despite any real physical compulsion to do so, the social peer pressure forces you to mix, mingle, and fit in with the group. No matter how hard you try, you feel so out of place.

Before you are quite ready for it, you body, which has only steadily grown upward to this point, begins makin' more drastic changes, affectin' the voices of the boys and makin' them hairier, while causin' stranger developments to the female physique. The chemicals inside you body react and counteract and cause your skin to explode into painful mounds of escapin' poisons as the hormones associated with these changes wreak their havoc in your midst. Soon you begin to long for the touch of another person, but not that of your keepers or even your own siblings, and seek ever' opportunity to explore and experience members of the opposite sex, as well, in many case, or, alternatively, in some other cases, members of your own gender. Soon this compulsion overtakes your psyche and becomes the drivin' force behind your actions, whether it is plannin' so as to be where you can be seen or shoppin' for eye-catchin' clothin' or preparin' oneself for grandiose physical feats to impress those whose eyes you hope to catch.

Sometimes jes' after reachin' adulthood, if it takes that long, you begin to experience the ultimate pleasure of couplin' with another person, sometimes with the consequence of beginnin' the seeds of another life.

Callin' 'Pon all the Houston Cougar* fans

Here is somethin' interestin' I found in my junk mail box:

Dear Cougar Fans,

As most of you know, our last football game this season will be against Louisville on November 20th, at Robertson Stadium. The primary purpose of this letter is to emphasize that attendance for this game is VITAL. Your attendance will not only help us WIN, but it is essential in our meeting the new NCAA attendance requirements. For a greater understanding of why your attendance at our November 20th game is so important, please read the following statement:

NCAA EMPHASIS ON ATTENDANCE

This year, the NCAA has placed a stronger emphasis on actual attendance for football games. The NCAA is requiring all Division IA institutions to average no less than 15,000 in actual, not merely paid, home football attendance. The standard operating procedure for most universities, including UH, is to announce the number of tickets distributed as the attendance figure for each game.

Institutions will now be audited on the actual number of fans who enter the stadium for each game. Under the new NCAA attendance guidelines, an institution will not be eligible to participate in a bowl game after the second time it fails to meet the NCAA attendance requirement within a 10-year period. Furthermore, the third time an institution fails to meet the NCAA attendance requirement within the same 10-year period; it loses its Division IA status.

With this noted, in order for UH Athletics to meet the NCAA required average of 15,000, we must have at least 17,961 fans in attendance for our game versus 12th ranked Louisville on November 20th. Therefore, we are calling on all Houston Cougar fans to come out and support "Your Home Team" as we take on the Louisville Cardinals, currently ranked #12 in the nation, on Saturday, November 20th at 4 p.m. We need an enthusiastic crowd and we need fans "inside" Robertson!

Get Your Tickets Online:
http://uhcougars.collegesports.com/tickets/hou-tickets.html

All remaining tickets are $5! Come early to the game to be one of the 1st 5,000 fans to receive a FREE Cougar T-shirt. Every fan will receive a coupon good for a FREE hot dog at the game upon entering the stadium. In addition, Radio Disney will be inside Robertson Stadium providing entertainment for kids.

Make sure to tell your friends, family, co-workers, and neighbors to come out on Saturday, November 20th as we look to defeat top-ranked Louisville for the 2nd time in three years. Order your tickets now by calling the UH Cougar Ticket Office at 713-GO-COOGS or log on at UHcougars.com.

Thank you for your continued support.

Dave Maggard
UH Athletics Director

GO COOGS!!!

I wonder what happens if they don't get 17,961 fans to attend - do they get kicked out of the NCAA or jes' lose their Division IA status. If they played like a Division IA team, they prolly would be able to fill that stadium. Oh, wait, the letter says what happens: DOH!

The poor attendance at U of H games may have more to do with the nature of the school, however, than the level of the team's playin' abilities. U or H, unlike UT, Texas A&M, Texas Tech and the like does not have a huge on campus population. Most people that attend there live off campus, and, because of the lack of attractive and affordable off-campus housin' in the local area, most students commute from other parts of the city. The football games at my undergrad institution, University of Texas at Arlington, faced exactly the same problem when I was there in the late 70's and, at that time, the school decided to dispense with their football program all together. I recently heard that they subsequently re-initiated the program.

Actually, I could easily swing the $5. It is the 10+** hours for the round-trip drive to Houston, the $100 worth of gas I will use, and the fact that I didn't attend any football games durin' the three years that I attended law school at U of H that leaves me less than inclined to attend the event. I didn't even catch any basketball games durin' my time there, my first year of law school bein' the last of the three years in which Akeem Olajuwon and Clyde Drexler led Phi Slamma Jamma to the NCAA Finals.

As far as I know, the Cougar football team ain't been competitive since Robert Newhouse, the guy charged with single-handedly gettin' U of H membership in the now defunct-Southwest Conference, graduated.

FB - Robert Newhouse - Newhouse came to the Cowboys from the University of Houston in the 2nd round of the 1972 NFL draft where he ended his collegiate career as Houston's all-time leading rusher. As a Cowboy he led the team in rushing with 960 yards in 1975 the same year he also caught 34 passes. He threw a memorable touchdown pass to Golden Richards in Superbowl XII against Denver. He is the Cowboys 5th all-time leading rusher with 4,784 yards rushing. His career average was just over 4 yards per carry. - [Michael D. Green @ Dallascowboyz.com]

[Addendum: I did fail to mention that I visited often with Shasta, the cougar adopted as the UofH mascot, who was caged near the law school facility.]

*Another point of inane trivia: One of the other members of my law school class was the cousin of John Mellenkamp, the singer formerly known as Cougar.

**It takes 'bout 5 hours each way, not countin' stops for DP and such, and ya jes' never know what kinda traffic jam ya are gonna get stuck in for several hours anytime ya travel in Houston. And, to think, but for a failed first marriage and the tumble of failin' savings&loan in the mid-80's, I might still be makin' my home in Houston.

I feel a little like Rip Van Winkle*

I know I kinda fell into a well over the last few months, what with the huge load of stress I had sittin' on my shoulders, the deep well of depression into which I have recently found myself that lingers still, the indulgence I spent in workin' hard to finally get my book between the covers, yada yada ... and I find that I am lost with regard to the goin's on at some of my favorite blogs. One mystery particularly plagues me: Did Bill die?

*Jes' a minor point of inane trivia. My great-grandparents' house was on Van Winkle Street. Ma and Pa Dane have both been gone for over 25 years now, but I still miss 'em. 'Scuse me now, as I gotta go now. I find it a bit hard to stare at this bright monitor through misty eyes.

Can you hear me now?

Here is a good issue for debate, ya'll.

U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson last month ruled UPS Inc. violates anti-discrimination laws by barring the deaf and hearing-impaired from driving parcel delivery trucks.

He stayed the order, effective today, to allow UPS to continue its policy pendin' review of his rulin' by the 9th Circuit.

Henderson said those with poor hearing should "be given the same opportunities that a hearing applicant would be given to show that they can perform the job of package-car driver safely and effectively."

The federal government bars the hearing impaired from operating trucks weighing more than 10,000 pounds. UPS says hearing impaired drivers pose a safety risk.

As an attorney, I can effectively argue both sides of this question, but as a person, I am not sure which way I personally feel about the situation. I definitely do not want to see those able to do the job declined the opportunity to do so jes' 'cause they can't hear normally, but then, ag'in, the Federal Government must have done some study about the dangers of someone operatin' vehicles who lacked the ability to adequately hear prior to issuin' a bar against such people drivin' trucks weighin' over 5 tons. I jes' cannot really see that the weight of the vehicle is really much of a factor in the danger of the activity, 'cept that a 5 ton vehicle crashin' into a school likely does a bit more damage than say a 4.5 ton vehicle does when it crashes into that same buildin'. To me, the statistics showin' the greater likelihood of accidents cause by that one factor alone would be dispositive. If the evidence suggested that hearin' impaired truck drivers caused a substantially greater risk of bein' involved in accidents, then err on the side of caution. If there is no increase in substantial risk, then what are we all squawkin' 'bout? Feel free to put in your 2¢.

Source of quoted text.

"I yam what I yam"

Your Friday, November 12, 2004 Horoscope Taurus!

A source of pride should be the fact that you know exactly who you are and are not trying to be someone you are not. You are on a slow but steady pace and are reminded today of just how far you have come.

The ins and ups for the down and out

Regrets for the lack of postin'. Severe thought necessary IRL. Navel intimately involved.

In the News: Yasser Arafat clonin' does not seem to be goin' well and various reports concernin' the state of his health continue to flood assorted news services.

It is such a shame that a thoroughly novel titlin' went to genuinely munane post. ttfn

Do I note a wee bit of insecurity, lassie?

Yikes, Tony has announced that gmail is flawed.*

In other earth-shankin' news, Susie admits she could use a new car.

*Editor's note: flaw discovered by namesake of potent brand of cinnamon schnapps.

Despite their best efforts otherwise

The Cowboys won! The Cowboys won! Yea!!!!!!!!

Who is he endorsin'?

Wonkette baffled by bin Laden.

A wee bit of the Kerry campaign's big pile of crap crumbles

It 'pears that the mystery of the missin' Iraqi munitions has been solved with any blame bein' resolved. As the story blows another of the baseless claims of the Kerry camp out the door, this story broke on FOX. Thankfully so, 'cause knowin' the political leanin's of the other networks, this exoneration of the BUSH camp would likely have been shelved 'til after the 'lection.

Thanks to Stephen of PoliBlog for bringin' good things to light.

You call it: Which is worse?

The boys leadin' the charge like the current man in charge

In accordance with several polls and studies, it appears to me that if you are really an avid supporter of our troops in the field, you jes' have to vote in support of keepin' our current Commander in Chief in office.

Sky Captain and the Movies of the Future

To give ya an idea of what I thought of Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, allow me to disclose that I saw this movie sometime last week and am jes' now gettin' 'round to tellin' ya'll what I thought of it. OK, here's the scoop: Go see it 'cause it is the beginnin' of a next wave of evolution in movie makin', kinda like The Jazz Singer or Star Wars, jes' don't spect too much in the way of good actin' or well crafted story-line.

Sometimes the reward is jes' in the doin'

I jes' received this little bit from an 18 year old anorexic with regard to some information and advice I gave her about how her life would possibly play out if she continued to reject the treatment for her problem:

Your info helped me very much. It scared me a little too.

O' course, I hopefully assisted her in livin' a longer, more healthful life. Regrettably, I will likely never know.

Yikes, I have got to agree with a Democrat on one point!

Sen. Joe Biden, on FOX News Sunday right now, questions whether the Saudis are truly our allies. I agree that it is right to question the level of pure loyalty that actually exists within their support. But then he said, with regard to claims that when Bush used the word "guesses" he meant "estimates", that when John Kerry says somethin', you know what he means. Uh, I can't agree with that, 'cause then I would have to say that I was sure that Kerry meant what he was sayin' and not what he said the last time when he said jes' the opposite.

Wild adventures in Friday night bloggin'

Accordin' to Dale, durin' tonight's episode of serialized King of the Hill reruns, "Rusty Shackleford died in 1953". So jes' 'zactly who is really bloggin' at My Pet Jawa? I 'spect some sort of alien conspiracy is at hand.

Then, o' course, there also was those reviews to this book which I found myself compelled to read as a result of the advice a recent commenter, Dr. Leopold Stotch posted upon his blog. Those reviews, surprisin'ly so, make me think such book might actually be worth buyin'. I mean, ya ain't got to be an Asian man to be lookin' for a way to successfully date white women.

Make the best use of the time you have left

Your Thursday, September 16, 2004, Horoscope, Taurus!

You are through the worst. Today could be the start of a new phase in your life where old patterns are slowly but methodically replaced with healthier attitudes. A loving partner could make all the difference in your life very soon.

Let me see if I understand the meanin' here . . . does this say, "Today is the first day of the rest of your life"?

Today's slightly inane discovery

I have likely mentioned that I sometimes come home with some cheap DVD packages from Wallymart from time to time. It seems there is some company called Platinum Disc Corporation that packages some multi-movie/TV show packages. I 'spect these are movies to which no one cared to retain the copyright or for which the rights to such could have been bought very very cheaply. I have gotten quite a few of their packages, and, although I am always a bit aghast at some of the stuff they thought was worth puttin' on DVD, there are sometimes small pearls to be found among these lost films.

I was watchin' the openin' credits of one such movie called A Yank in Libya when I noticed one of the leadin' stars of such was named Parkyarkarkus.* I thought the name was quite unusual, so I went immediately to imdb.com to research some info about this actor. Well, I did not find a clue as to why he decided upon "Parkyarkarkus," but the person born as Harry Parke seems to have had the distinction of bein' the person who died with his head in Milton Berle's lap at a Friar's Roast for the benefit of Lucy & Desi, the same event at which Milton jumped up immediately to ask "Is there a doctor in the house?" whereupon the audience, not realizin' the question was seriously posed, laughed heartily. Said Harry Parke also fathered Albert Brooks and Super Dave Osborne.**

I am jes' hopeful that the movie is as good as the ratin' given by those who have seen it as shown on the imdb site.

*Thankfully, as the movie unrolled, the character actually introduced himself by such name and I learned it is pronounced Park-ya-karkus. It now all makes sense.

**Who, in turn, fathered Ozzy Osborne?

Always eager to lend my assistance!

For those of ya'll who don't know ever' $10.00 word in the dictionary like that pompous blowhard, Al Gore, here's a couple of definitions you might look upon a'fore ya go over to Annika's site to see what kind of vile bile he was spewin' forth, outta the same orifice he used to shove his tongue down Tipper's throat in front of ever'one, even, with regard to our current sittin' Commander and Chief, Dubya!

^{incurious: showing absence of intellectual inquisitiveness or natural curiosity
obsequious: attempting to win favor from influential people by flattery}

So's that I don't get berated for crowin' 'bout my own intelligence, I wanna admit that I looked them up myself, jes' to be sure I was right about their meanin's.

It is almos' laughable

I finally finagled myself an invite for a gmail account. I could not understand 'zactly why they didn't jes' let anyone have one like hotmail and yahoo handed out. I also failed to notice that I have 6 invites to gmail to give away. Seems they really ain't carin' too much if ever'one has one, as filtered through all of us SPAM hatin' internet users. So, if you can prove you are a real person and smart enough not to end up providin' my email address to ever' spammer in the world by forwardin' ever'thin' ya get to ever'one in your addressbook and are not yourself usin' rampant email as a means to make money or push some cause, and would love to have a gmail account of your own, leave a comment. Leave a good email address, and be sure to write somethin' in the URL box so as to not publicize your email address to all the spiders that prowl ever' nook of the internet on a regular basis.

More thoughts on the 'Lympics

I was wonderin' if those superstars in the NBA are angry at themselves for not volunteerin' to play for the USA in this Olympiad now. Also, surely there is no such thing as men's rhythmic gymnastics, is there? I cannot hardly see any real men wantin' to be involved in such a fracas as that.

I am of the opinion that such event should have been showcased on A&E, as all of the competitors seem to be wearin' ballet costumes and all of 'em look like they want to be ballerinas or somethin' from how tight they have pulled back their hair and from the way they have painted their faces. This jes' don't seem to be a sport so much as a dancin' event.

Pat, I'd like to buy a vowel comment

Is the comment function broken? They seem to come so rarely these days, and yet I am without a clue as to what to do. Maybe I jes' ain't posted anythin' comment worthy of late, ya think? Let me see:

Nightly Navel Gazin' Report™: I'm feelin' like I'm fallin' off of my pogo stick -- yeah, likely no reason to comment to this one 'ceptin' maybe some mention about the visual created in the title.

Jes' My Take: Who are you? Who? Who? -- Who? Who? -- Other than havin' one of the snappier musical lyric titles I have used lately, I thought there was a bit of good discussion material in this one.

On My Soapbox: Let me count the ways - yada yada -- I definitely thought this post was comment worthy, as the topic seems to be among one of the most popular topics to discuss that does not involve John Kerry whinin', wafflin', lyin', or otherwise pretendin' to be somethin' that he is not - leadership material --- oops, I digressed, and I seem to have a really bad habit of doin' that lately. Guessin' it is that lack of feedback that is throwin' me off my game.

Pullin' Your Leg: This mornin's 'Lympic interlude -- I jes' thought someone would find the humor I intended when I created this post.

Nightly Navel Gazin' Report™: The Dark Side* rears its ugly head -- I figgered the Star Wars reference would draw a lot of activity to this one, 'specially when a footnote quoted prolly the best scene of the whole series.

Off The Cuff: Another thought on the 'Lympics -- I dunno, I was thinkin' there would be a lot of agreement with this post. Maybe there was -- jes' no one felt it was necessary to let me know.

On My Soapbox: What I want to say about the Paul Hamm/Yang Tae Young affair -- I climbed out on a limb and gave my opinion on a controversial situation after havin' given it the benefit of some long thought and yet found not a single peep in recognition, whether in agreement or disagreement with the viewpoint expressed.

The next post in this succession into the last few posts actually received the last comment received on this blog all the way back on August 24, 2004 at 01:44 PM. Also, I do not intend to rehash all the activity that has not gone on in relation to this blog forever and ever, as the next post is the end of this foray into the recent activity on this blog.

Nightly Navel Gazin' Report™: As close to open mike as it comes 'round here -- This was a post I created specifically for your comments as to things you liked and things you didn't like about my bloggin' efforts in my ongoin' endeavor to make this one of your favorite blogs. I got nary a peep.

Hello? Is anyone out there?

Who are you? Who? Who? -- Who? Who?

When I was younger, we had a sayin' ‘bout people who kinda went around hidin' themselves behind false personalities - plastic people, we called ‘em. Ya'll know the kinda people I'm talkin' ‘bout. When I originally entered into Internet adventures a half-decade plus a year or two ago, I readily detected the rash of fictitious personalities that preyed within chat rooms lookin' for whatever. I have recently noticed the quickly growin' supply of superb ways to create customized avatars existin' here and there. How close are we, I wonder, to a world where our most wondrous creatures exist totally within the electronic realm?

'Lympic remarks

• Great women's 4x200 relay. USA gold and broke 17 year old record time.
• 'Member what I said 'bout checkin' the 'net while watchin' the show, 'cause I already know the result of the gymnastics all-around event, and yet seein' what I jes' saw, I am now tryin' to figure out how that result occurred.

Today's 'Lympics notes

• Say what ya may 'bout our National Anthem, The Star Spangled Banner is surely not as long as some as the anthems playin' for some gold medal winners.
• The internet has 'caused me a bit of dismay this time around durin' the 'Lympics as I am learnin' the outcome of some events prior to such bein' shown on TV. It makes the watchin' less fun but I jes' can't keep from investigatin' those changin' medal totals.
• They don't offer my swimmin' event in the 'Lympics but I can do the backwards butterfly in a continuous circle for a long long time. When I tell people I can swim, it don't mean quickly or all that well, but I can stay on my back on top of the water where I can breath for hours and hours.*
• I am 'spectin' that it is ranklin' home country Greece a bit that Turkey has won more gold medals thus far.
• I never have understood the scorin' on some events, like gymnastics, where it sometimes appears that some people get higher scores for identical movements made with similar mistakes.
• Ya know, the 'Lympics makes one of the best political statements by jes' existin'. So far, this has been a banner 'Lympics pause briefly as they play The Star Spangled Banner**, what with there seemin' to be more countries than ever, and, 'cept for that stupid Iranian who quit to save himself the embarrassment of gettin' his ass whooped by some dude from Israel, the athletes are really beginnin' to blend in with one another into a beautiful pool of different lookin' humans, all at or approachin' the peak of perfection in selected activities.
• I know I ain't the first to mention this, but I personally feel a bit of shame for our country not even makin' the 'Lympics in baseball and are gettin' our asses kicked in basketball, both bein' sports supposedly invented in our country. Sheesh!
• I am kinda lookin' forward to the shot put contests and the marathon run this time 'round, the former 'cause they are holdin' it at the actual site of the original ancient games and the marathon is gonna be run on the road from Marathon to Athens, the original marathon. I can't tell ya how thrilled I am to see the Acropolis and Parthenon in the background from time to time. There have been a lot of wars fought since that buildin' was built, but mankind continues to meet in peace to contest each other in sports.
• The male team gymnastics event was pretty 'citin'. I really like the way they changed it so that each team had to pick three people to perfom ever' exercise and no low scores were allowed to be tossed away. It gave the whole thin' a kinda sudden death feel. Given what I saw from the final round, the medals were rightly awarded. The US team seemed to be proud of themselves for comin' in second, and I think they put on a fantastic show for all to see.

*Yeah, yeah, I know no one gave a whit about that inane bit of information about me, but it came to mind while I was thinkin' 'bout swimmin' so that means it got dumped in your lap whether ya wanted it there or not.

**I hope you stood with your hand over your heart, if appropriate.

Child, no longer

OK, ya'll, it is official. Julia Child will not see her 92nd birthday.* Too much rich French cuisine has done her in. Still, 91 is not a bad run at life, is it.? Takin' a tip from Jay, whose blurb led me to the story, with the demise of Grand Dame Child, ya can find recipes for what ya want to eat at Steve's place.

*I hope to make it to 80 myself. I think that would let me live long enough to get my kid, if I ever have one, through his/her schoolin'.

Whompa, whompa, somethin', somethin'

I tol' ya I couldn't sing. Heck, most of the time I can't even 'member the words to most songs, what their titles are, or who sings 'em. I guess I treat most bits of music much like ya'll deal with this blog. They do say that what goes around, comes around. Maybe if I had the ability to intelligibly discuss various topics surroundin' music, people would be a bit more interested in readin' what I have to say. Or not.

Toureg? I never have understood the logic of that. Jes' sayin'.

Navel fell asleep durin' the movie and I did not have the heart to wake it up. End of report.

Somebody's gotta say sum'thin'

Reality shows are startin' to go a bit far. I mean, last night I watched some strange show on ABC where they actually changed some people's house into their dream home while they spent a week at Disney World. The thrill bein' the reaction of the people? So, Candid Camera on steroids! Already, Toyota has a commercial playin' on that same theme where some gal supposedly drives this old Ford Fairlane into a garage door on the side of some metallic buildin' for a makeover and comes ga-gain'* out sittin in the seat of a brand new Toyota.

Ever'thin' on TV seems to be filled with Reality this or that, tryin' to give us a good look at different people's reactions in highly emotional situations. Almost all of these shows are about as lame as sittin' on a bench at the park starrin' at the faces of passers-by as they step over that fully-filled disposable baby diaper layin' right in the middle of the walk. Oh, yeah, there is the occasional pervert who will look at it, pause, bend over and prod it, and, after turnin' both ways to make sure no one is lookin', gingerly pull it open for a quick peek at what was left in it. Mostly, people are pretty predictable.

Then there is CSI, which is goin' the way of Law & Order and clonin' itself again. O' course, I like the forensic investigation shows better than anythin'. Knowin' somethin' about the way evidence should be collected and what kind of evidence can be collected provides a basis for creatin' doubt when it wasn't used, right?

I ain't really into all them talent show thingies, 'cept Last Comic Standin'. I like humor much more than music.

One of these days, I might do one of them 100 things 'bout me lists. I got one started in a .txt file on one of my computers. I think I got entries for as many fingers and toes I still have left, so that would be somewhere between 38 and 43? I find triple digits to be jes' a li'l overwhelmin'. As if! 81, -5, 0.88372093023255813953488372093023, and 1634.** OK, OK, I used the calculator for those last two. That which I am able to do within my head does not include comin' up with major mathematical solutions. A guy cannot be all things to all people, so if mathematical solvin' skills were at the top of your list of things that you find attractive in a prospective mate, I suppose ya better pass me by. Watch your step, though. That dirty diaper is still there.

*Kinda like walkin' 'round in amazement with a dropped jaw jabberin' 'bout how much ya love this 'n that.

**Add, subtract, divide, multiply.

A ramblin' ode to an idle thought

I almost had it this time, but it has gotten away again. You know what I am talkin' 'bout, don'cha? That stray errant thought that seems to pop into your consciousness and then flit away? I am ever attemptin' to 'member jes' enough of one of 'em to actually have some recollection as to what it was. It is akin to havin' a tumbleweed spinnin' though your mind. It is a very hot Saturday afternoon. Of course, as most of the rest of ya'll know, at least those of ya'll from the U.S.ofA., this is Independence Day Weekend, usually referred to as the Fourth of July, and thusly, I was down on the square for the annual parade, the best ever, in my opinion. Kudos to any and all of ya'll who might happen onto here who took part in organizin', implementin' and participatin' in the event. I was surprised that I did not give away as many FREE soft drinks as I had imagined, but I did not make a really big advertisin' attempt to steal business from the people who came to sell competin' products for a profit. I did not concern myself all that much about it, as the drinks will keep and can be iced down again. It was a very interestin' exercise in social observation, however. I enjoyed the mornin' despite the slim stream of traffic ... wow, that is so analogous to my bloggin' efforts of late.

So, went by Scott's place but didn't locate said Fat Guy, then checked out the other major hoedown to which I had been invited. It appeared that the action at that locale was not scheduled to begin anytime within the next hour or so, so I took the opportunity to come back here and compose this ode. How did I do?

The Alamo, as it is & supposedly was

I actually did take a few pictures durin' my recent excursion. Here are a couple of 'em for ya'll to see.

The Alamo in Real Life

The Brackettville movie set

I really did enjoy the movie set, but was a bit perplexed about one rule they had. Just take a look at the sign:

I wasn't sure how I was ever gonna get home without bein' able to drive where I was not supposed to drive in accordance with the sign.

Why am I suddenly hungry for pancakes?*

Oh cool, The Simpsons is on. So, that almost drew my attention from what I came to blog 'bout. Thankfully, a page still open served to refresh my memory of that mission: despite my best efforts, I keep findin' spellin' mistakes in some of my older posts from time to time. How? I continually find these GOOGLE searches usin' misspelled words assistin' people to find my site. I am not really sure I want to get high returns on a search for prhistoric dinosaurs.

*A barrel of monkeys goes to the one who can figure out how such title mysteriously appeared as published.**

**And a handful of kudos to anyone who actually understood any meanin' of any kind whatsoever from the precedin' footnote.

Tig's final take on the weblogs.com scenario

I have perused a lot of comments here and there sayin' how very horrible it is to find your bloggin' home gettin' wiped away without any warnin'. Jeez, folks, yeah, I guess it does stink, but it ain't like your trailer was blown away with all of your belongin's in a tornado, hurricane or some other natural disaster. Really bad things can happen to a person with no warnin', like gettin' killed in an auto accident due to a faulty tire or a meteor falls from space and collides with your skull. I suppose if my blog did disappear, it might be very upsettin' to me, but prolly not as upsettin' as gettin' screwed by an insurance company when you lost a car that you had maintained so well, it ran like clockwork despite havin' almost 400,000 miles. Now that is somethin' to cry about. So, George, ya'll -- enough whinin' 'bout Winer.

And yet the world did not come to a crashin' end

I thought I had come across a reference to this matter a day or so ago, but really was not aware that weblogs.com was a free blog hostin' service. I thought it was just a listin' service for showin' updated blogs.

So, I am just wonderin' how many bloggers lost their stuff? I am not aware of any of my faves who were hosted there, but, then again, as I was not aware it was a hostin' service, I am not sure who was hostin' on such anyway. I ain't missed anyone, have I? My mind merely draws a blank as I try to 'member those blogs upon which I hit a 404 here recently. Although I do recall havin' found one or two here and there, I cannot recall the specifics of which blogs they were or whether I was later able to find a way in the door.

Another thought, however, is that I am hostin' via Pixy Misa in a similar situation, in which Pixy provides the space for free. I can foresee the same scenario possibly playin' out for all of Munu at some future point, but I am hopeful our kind benefactor Pixy Misa will give us a bit of notice 'fore he pulls our plug.

attribution: Beth

Thursday dawns with clocks flashin'

I guess I might have have been a bit psychic when I decided to post the Nightly Navel Gazin' Report™ last evenin' a bit prior to my regularly scheduled time, 'cause I had no sooner posted such, when a massive thunder cell moved into the area, a torrential downpour began, and the 'lectricity went kaput.

Oh, by the way, ya wanna know the corrollary to Murphy's Law that deals with creative writin'? The lack of access to adequate means of recordin' your thoughts is conversely proportional to the level of the brain's creative output.

Of course, I would have a massive court docket planned for today, so there I was --- bedtime, and I know that all my alarms are gonna be haywire when and if the 'lectricity comes back on. What to do, what to do? Well, there is an alarm function on my cell phone, so I go to set it to awake me at the appointed hour -- and notice its battery is very very low. Well, I plugged it into the charger and hoped the battery would last until the 'lectricity was restored so at least I would have some alarm to arouse me this morn.

I awoke with the crack of dawn, I guess. My head is already poundin' with a horrendous sinus headache, which will be addressed as soon as I am ready to begin the day. I want to eat somethin' to assist my stomach in dealin' with those sinus pills. O' course, the sinus alarm may have been my ultimate salvation, 'cause I discovered a problem with my cell phone alarm plan upon arisin'. The phone itself was set on silent mode.

Was it just me?

OK, ya'll people who did see Shrek 2: Did you think that the Queen of Far Far Away looked an awful lot like Martha Stewart?

Of course, we already knew that Donkey bore a strong resemblance to John Kerry.

RIP Mr Mouse

I was just over reading Beyond the Black Hole and it seems that Mr Mouse is a casualty of bein' on the bottom of the food chain. I know you are likely thinkin' he was eaten by Miss Kitty, but it seems she is not to blame.

Oops, seems Mr Mouse's replacement, Mr Mouse, has already made an appearance, The new Mr Mouse does not look like a mouse you want to try to push around.

More on the Abu Ghraib prison situation

Joe Kelley said, in this post

On the subject of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, I have an observation.

Many years ago, I read a behavioral theory on human behavior in foreign environments. The conclusion was that outside of familiar environments, humans had a inclination to behave in a foreign manner.

He then went on to make a humorous correlation between the actions of congressmen who leave small town life for the glitz of D.C. and the actions of the troops in Abu Ghraib prison.

I look back over my life, and I do remember there bein' times when I was away from the people I knew, surrounded by people that had no preconceptions of what type of person I was and who were not likely to ever blab about my actions to my mother. I remember bein' in the Army. Yes, maybe I was a bit wilder durin' those days. I dang sure know that I drank more durin' my four years in the Army than the rest of my life combined. But still, I never lost touch with humanity. I never intentionally tried to injure anyone without provocation. I never tried to maliciously humiliate anyone.

Then again, I also recognize the mindset that has consumed the American spirit with regard to the incidents of 9/11 and our hatred of those who were responsible for such act. How often have I seen generalizations about Islamics on the blogs of people whose opinions I generally admire, callin' all Arabic people towel-heads and the like. While the acts committed in Abu Ghraib prison were vile. revoltin'. and disgustin', if you take into consideration: anti-Arabic sentiment; bein' so far from homen a war-time environment; and the peer pressure inherent in the brotherhood of the military, and there is some possible understandin' of how this might have happened. It still does not excuse it.

[UPDATE: Further enlightenment on where this situation fits into the grand scheme of the War on Terror over on Dean's World.]

Google searchin' blunders pay off big for some

I was just noticin' I was gettin' a lot of hits connected with the Nicholas Berg story. It seems that for those searchin' for "Nicolas Berg" find my site listed in the top ten returns on Google, as I have a post still on the front page that has the name of Nicolas Cage on it. However, if you do a search for "Nicholas Berg," I am #397 on Google. I guess I should be glad that there are so many who do not know the correct spellin' of the name. Just on a lark, I did a search on both "Nicholas Burg" and "Nicolas Burg" and found not a single return to anythin' doin' with the sad story. Such really surprised me, as I suspected there surely was one or two people who would have used the alternative spellin' for the last name.

[UPDATE: It seems to still be going on. Check the extended entry for the number of searches I found being done on the mispelled name. I guess you could say I am in the middle of a nicolas berg alanche, huh? -- So that you understand the magnitude of such, consider that I have almost met my daily readership number, but on 20% of the regular readers are showin' to have come by.]

[UPDATE part 2: Just to give you an idea of the massive size of this misspellin' phenomenon, check out this spike:

Realize that StatCounter shows the visitations to be approximately 100 more than Site Meter shows.]

[UPDATE another part: It is beginnin' to appear that this is a far reachin' phenomenon. I am almost sure that I would be only a minor cog in the wheel if it was not for the mispellin' of the name coincidin' with my havin' a post where that name occurs still sittin' on the index page.]

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"I was born back when Coalie was a pup, and that dog been dead now for . . . '

OK, now this is something totally cool. Well, at least for the guys who seem to have very little actual concern with regard to their age.

A whole handful of Kudos to DavidMSC.

I am so very mean

I am still lookin' for a literary agent for my book. However, I have so far made $10 minus whatever the costs of printing all the stuff out on paper totals. I had a couple of sets of about the first 50 pages sitting around and have had a couple of people that I talked to about the book take them. Over the past two days, both have returned tellin' me that they were ready for the rest of the story. I said you can have it for $5. Both paid. Denita has read the complete story and was already clamoring to see the second book. I am tellin' ya'll this is a blockbuster and some literary agent better get enthusiastic about it. I actually am currently conversin' with someone who has met my absolute favorite current author, Patricia Cornwell, in person. In the spirit of Bloggers Helpin' Bloggers, I was just tryin' to give a fellow blogger the first crack at this opportunity.

Hmmm, was that ever strange

Well, I had somethin' grand and glorious ready to post last eve . . . to fulfill my promise as contained in the previous post that I would be right back and, yet, for some reason, ever'thin' munu came crashin' down at about that time. I seem to have lost that really well composed snarky post I had prepared, so another bit of bad luck. Oh well, TGIF!

The best of the lot

Well, regrettably Moulin Rouge was messed up so I did not get all the way through it, so of the five movies I rented this weekend, the best one was The Majestic. It was bit campy in parts, but not as campy as one would expect from a movie starring Jim Carrey. I am not a big Jim Carrey fan, although there have been a few roles in movies that only he could have pulled off, Stanley Ipkiss in The Mask and the Riddler. I also was pretty impressed with his acting ability in playing Andy Kaufman. After I viewed the first Ace Ventura movie, I pretty well passed on most of his movies unless there was a good reason to see it. I probably would not have rented this one except that it was directed by Frank Darabont, whose two previous directorial efforts were The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile. This time, however, he did not write the screenplay based on a Stephen King novel.

I really liked this movie. It had a nice feel to it and was full of good actors, including Hal Holbrook, Martin Landau, David Ogden Stiers, and James Whitmore, people most of us recognize in some older movies, but seldom see anymore.* Jim Carrey did a great job, as well. One reviewer compared Frank Darabont's efforts to those of Frank Capra.

Some of today's search terms

What follows is just a small sampling of the different searches that assisted some of my visitors to find my site:

• AOL: what does the enemy say when you try to fast: I somehow do not think the enemy would have any concern if you decided to skip a few meals.
• Google: april 2004 current email free listing in holland: I am almost sure they didn't find it here.
• Google: politically incorrect horoscope: I did not know there was a demand for such and thusly likely missed my calling.
• Google: language of lips: smiles, pouts, smirks, etc.?
• Google: navel cancer: I had forgotten that I once pondered if there was actually such a thing as navel cancer.
• Google: what lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why analysis: There were actually several different searches similar to this one from Virginia. It must be some scholastic project of some sort. I suspect they found no real help here.
• Google: where can i read my fortune: I am sure they didn't find an answer here.
• Google: presumption of innocence as defense: I guess they are getting around to studying the U. S. Constitutiuon at the University of Arkansas?
• Google: small ray of sunshine: easily located without much effort, I would think ;)
• Google: sore bottom of feet: someone is Boston has a very strange foot fetish?
• Google: vicious rabbits: Results 1 - 10 of about 25,300 for vicious rabbits -- I was Number 2
• Google: derrick shepherd pants: Bet they got exactly what they wanted to see.
• Google: best blog ever written: Well, it isn't this one ... regrettably.
• Google: oklahoma banning over the counter sudafed: Bet they got exactly what they wanted to see
• Google: what to eat for dinner tonight: The single most perplexing question with which I am faced on a daily basis. You tell me, gentle reader!
• Google: indubitably: Found here.
• Google: blow baby belly lips: Found here.
• Google: sarcastic remarks about texans: Just goes to show that almost any combination of words can show up on a category or monthly archive page.

Of course, from some of the other searches I have seen, I am still of the opinion that the Internet World is filled with a bunch of very strange people.

How do you spell S-E-L-F-L-E-S-S?

Tillman killed in action
CNN: Former Cardinals safety was serving in U.S. Army in Afghanistan
_{Posted: Friday April 23, 2004 10:53AM; Updated: Friday April 23, 2004 10:53AM}

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Former NFL player Pat Tillman was killed Thursday while serving as an Army Special Forces soldier on a mission in southeastern Afghanistan, Pentagon officials have told CNN.

Tillman, who walked away from a $3.6 million contract as a safety with the Arizona Cardinals to join the military, was in an area where numerous U.S. troops have been killed in battles with suspected al Qaeda and Taliban fighters.

He was serving as an Army Ranger, part of the Army's Special Forces. Tillman played for the Cardinals from 1998-2001.

More details are forthcoming. [emphasis supplied]

[UPDATE: Juliette has Sen. John McCain's remarks about the incident.]

A very strange start to the day

My horoscope for today is quite strange:

Thursday, April 22, 2004 --Your Thursday horoscope, Taurus!
You are in trouble with someone from the past. Issues may surface today that bring up the patterns of yesteryear. This would be an excellent day to break old habits once and for all.

I just await any signs of truth to this one.

Even more bizarre however is the pattern of visitation. I seem to have caught a wave of Google searchers:

Google portly penguin
Google let me serve you
Google read my lips [x7]
Google political correctness brainstorming
Google about blogspot
Google really lame jokes
Google stupid dwi story
Google analysis of what lips my lips have kissed and where and why
Google deeper voice
Google pictures of captured terrorists [x4]
Google under table lips
Google go forth and multiply bible [x2]
Google stupid dwi story read
Google women decline family
Google reparations myth
Google ft. worth evidence labs [x2]
Google breast feedin your baby
Google michael jackson 2004 net worth
Google poem read out at funerals
Google reasons for decline in family
Google i shot j.r.
Google jack carillo
Google saddam escape
Google another man done gone

Could it be that Google has finally re-spidered and is now linking to the new domain instead of the prior site?

Oh well, the day awaits, so I must go forth and face what may!

OK, just follow the little bouncin' ball

OK, let me see if I can give ya''ll a clue as to why I don't do heavy political stuff, take stands in blogwars, or watch much news on TV. We start at a post by Ilyka wherein she states that a certain practice of one Glenn Reynolds aka InstaPundit appears to be sexist. I am suspectin' that I just do not visit InstaPundit often enough to have seen the pattern. However, it looks like a definite case of if the shoe fits, wear it. However, Ilyka's post continued to BuzzMachine which I instantly confused with Buzzstuff , a blog which I read with some regularity. I was concerned that she had a problem with my friend Buzz, so quickly darted to BuzzMachine to see what was the matter. I instantly saw where I had been mistaken, so looked around for somethin' offensive in a sexist sort of way, and found this blurb about Wonkette, who, as you likely know, has been the center of a lot of blogosphere gossip over the last week of so:

Wonkette revisited
: Wonkette -- aka Ana Marie Cox -- was on TV last night. The beginnin' of a career, I tell you. Rumor has it she'll replace Tom Brokaw.

A link was provided that went to Wonkette's site, where said Wonkette (one can only presume) categorically denied that it had been she on TV:

Wonkette: Too Tame for TV?
Some lady callin' herself the Wonkette is supposed to be on CNBC's "Capital Report" tonight (7PM EST, again 10PM EST). But we hear that there was an opportunity to make a comment about John Kerry's gigantic member . . . and she completely blew it. So to speak. Impostor!

I, of course, did not see the televised segment nor not havin' ever seen or cared to see a picture of said Wonkette, would have had no idea if an impostor, indeed, *had appeared.

So, I had to backtrack to Ilyka again to see what it was that she had found distasteful at Jeff Jarvis' [aka BuzzMachine] site. It was a post on A Citizen's Media Association. I can see that there is a myriad of pros and cons regardin' such. I will let those who seem to enjoy pointin' those out to do so. I will just sit back and see what comes out in the wash.

So back to Ilyka, and she points to another post regardin' the Citizen's Media Association. I looked at it long enough to decide I didn't want to read it, and was glad to come back and find that Ilyka had finally had enough as well.

So, onto another matter. After my brief foray into the world of German Bloggs, I thought I might take a gander at what kind of fare you might find on a French Blog. It was hard to locate a listin' that would actually load containin' any French Blogs. I feared that all had surrendered and were now 'mongst German blog listin's. I continued to click links until I finally came across this site: Labo .NET Blogs. It proved to be way too geeky for me. Then I located joube.com, joube bein' the French equivalency of the term blog, it seems. The site also seems to be an equivalent to Blogger or some other blog creation site.Lookin' 'mong the listin's for blogs there, I found Dorry's Journal, or what Babelfish translated to Dorry's Newspaper. About Dorry:

Dorry
Pseudo: Dorry
Date of birth: February 1987
Sign: Aquarius
City: Paris
Cut: 1m77
Eyes: Chestnuts
Poid: 61 kg
Hair: Brown
Style: Connected
Statute: Free
Day out preferred: Saturday
Smoke: Yes (cigarette, it is all)
Fan: Yes, but of which?

He did not appear to have been at bloggin' for very long, showin' to have started only the day before yesterday. I judged his fare to be of a consistency equivalent to what you find on 17-year-old beginnin' bloggers in the English speakin' countries. I could have continued my search in hopes of findin' an academic or political blogger, but I felt I had found enough adventure for this day.

*The use of the term 'indeed' hereon, in no way serves as an endorsement of InstaPundit.

Not all legal questions are that easy to answer

During law school, one of the main tenets of education was that it was always important to fully understand all sides to any given legal situation in order to fully represent your side. There are always at least two sides, and each side usually has some strengths and some weaknesses. If not, then there is usually a situation in which one truly unreasonable person is involved. I say this as a preface to introducing you to this story:

[A]n Australian child has been given legal approval to begin hormone treatment based solely on a psychiatric assessment.

---

He was assessed by a psychiatrist, who concluded he was a "bright, engaging, biologically normal 12-year-old girl who has a strong, persistent, longstanding belief and desire to live life as a male", reported the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper.

The psychiatrist reported that Alex "feels trapped in his body" and experiences depression and suicidal thoughts.

---

In approving the application, the court stipulated that Alex's treatment be phased so that it does not become irreversible until he reaches 16.

One one hand, it seems totally bizarre that a court would go so against natural convention but on the other hand, is allowing such to occur better than allowing a young child to kill or serious mutilate itself? Regrettably, these news stories seldom provide the depth of information necessary to get a full picture of a situation of this magnitude. I am surely hopeful that it is not a situation, as suggested by Sassy, "that Australia's Family Court rushed into the decision to be the first in a social, political and legal statement of liberalism."

The news you don't get watching TV

Anyone want to know the truth about how Iraqis feel about the continued involvement of the US in IRAQ?

It is the most foolish and selfish thing to say "pull the troops out", or "replace them with the UN or NATO". Someone has to see us through this mess to the end. Only a deluded utopian (or an idiot peace activist) would believe that Iraqis would all cosily sit down and settle down their endless disputes without AK-47's, RPG's, or mortars in the event of coalition troops abandoning Iraq. Please please don't get me wrong, I am not in the least saying that I enjoy being occupied by a foreign force, I am not a dreamer who believes that the USA is here for altruistic reasons, I am not saying that I am happy with what my bleeding country is going through, believe me when I say it tears my heart every day to witness all the bloodshed, it pains me immensely to see that we have no leaders whomsoever with the interest and well-being of Iraq as their primary goal, it kills me to see how blind and ignorant we have all become. Iraqis are dying inside every day, and we are committing suicide over and over and over. Some people call me a traitor or a collaborator for all the above and for speaking the truth as opposed to rhetorical, fiery speeches which have been our downfall.

This is the concluding paragraph of a lengthy blog posting by an Iraqi citizen named Zeyad. This is not the voice of an Iraqi citizen who has been filtered by the conventional media so as to spin the story as they choose. These are the words of the actual Iraqi citizen in their full entirety. The truth must be known and responsible people feel it is necessary to spread the truth around.

Who knew rabbits were so vicious

Well, thanks to Bigwig and the gang at Silflay Hraka, I got interested in Richard Adams' Watership Down. I am surprised I had not previously picked up this delightful novel, but it seems to have to initially arrived on the scene at a point in my lifetime when I was likely preoccupied with pursuits other than keepin' up what was on the New York Times Bestseller list. It has been a very long time since I last found a book in which I became so thoroughly enthralled that I couldn't put it down. On the cover of my paperback copy is this review from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

Astonishing . . . Everyone who can read English should read it.

I wholeheartedly agree. Thank you Richard Adams for a most unique glimpse into the lives of the residents of the warren at Watership Down.

[UPDATE: From Amazon.com, there was this beginnin' line of a review:

Watership Down has been a staple of high-school English classes for years.

Regrettably, it seems this book was penned at the same time as I was gettin' out of high-school, so that may be one of the reasons I had not previously encountered the tale. Hopefully it replaced that dreadful staple of our high-school English classes: William Gerald Golding's Lord of the Flies.]

The mess costs a bundle to clean up

I thought Kristopher hit the nail on the head with this post. I am sure the costs are similar in Texas. I thought what was most troublin' was that the figures are what is spent cleanin' up trash on the highways takin' into account the use of prisoners and community service laborers.

Ever'one's smitten with Zoe

OK, I just finished watchin' a movie which I picked after the clerk told me one of my five choices was one I had already rented before. That info is one thing I love about our hometown video store. I had picked up the box and read it and it looked a bit interestin' but there were no big named stars in it and I had never heard of it, so I had put it back. As luck would have it, after I almost rented one I would have been a disappointment if I had learned I had seen it after it started, I took a chance on this one. It is called Cherish.

The central character was great and Robin Tunney gave a great performance.* The movie was a bit quirky, had a great plot, was well written, and seemed to pull everythin' possible out of the box** just to entertain you. It was original with a just enough weirdness to enchant you and keep you mesmerized throughout. Absolute great sound track. Tiger says see it, you'll like it.

*And looked so much lovelier in the role than that picture of her in the imdb.com page about her under that link would leave you to believe.

**Dreamscapes and stop action pleasantly intermixed with novel characters and novel story line.

OK, so I turned out to be Bill --- what of it?

Oh crud, was this not the most perverted, fucked up set of quiz questions ever?

Which Survivor of the Impending Nuclear Apocalypse Are You?
A Rum and Monkey joint.

Thanks Michele, I think.

Why do a weblog? he asked ... why not?

One of my favorite bloggers, mainly because he is never snarky, inane or anything else like me, but writes in such a manner as to hold my interest in whatever topic he addresses, David, of Ripples wrote the most perfect piece explaining the need for and proliferation of bloggin' that I have ever seen. Of course, it was written just before this last Christmas and had missed it. Thanks to Ironbear, one of the co-bloggers at Who tends the Fires, it did not escape my view, and, like David said in his blurb, on a blog, your writin', "once posted, will be available forever, or until your hosting company goes out of business, which will probably occur sooner." Damn, but what that guy always gets right to the point of things. Of course, David cut right to the heart of why I blog:

You could become famous in your own lifetime...

I have discovered that my name is a household word in a remote village in Bengal, where they are all talkin' 'bout what that Tiger did yesterday.

I just want to be famous enough that Renee Zellweger takes me seriously. ;)

Some cool crud I found when I wasn't really lookin' for it

Via a link provided by LeeAnn, I wandered over to this site and saw this link entitled "Beatles" so as a long time fan of the Beatles, being alive at the time when they were just beginning, were all still alive and having heard all their #1 hits as they were released and climbin' the charts toward that eventual #1 rankin', I had to click said link. It took me to a page where I was confronted with the following examination regardin' my qualifications to view the good stuff.

I am at least 3 years old, and no older than 137. I am either male or female, or unsure. I have never (to my best knowledge), knowingly engaged in professional snake wrestling. My chief interests do not include collecting disposable lighters, timing snail runs, or counterfeiting encyclopedii. I do not believe in conspiracy theories involving ducks or any other fowl and own no autographed works of Shakespeare. I will not divulge any information concerning the whereabouts of William Campbell, or his connection to the un-named (though famous) soup company that has some reason to insist on operating a plant in Camden, NJ. I was not coerced into accepting these terms, nor was I forced to visit this page. I am here of my own somewhat free will, and wish merely to learn the ultimate answer to life and the universe, even though I may have initially believed it was 47 or 23 or 17 or 9 (though not necessarily in that order). I either agree to the terms set aside, or not..*

I, of course, felt I passed all the criteria so did agree to the terms. The site was very interesting and I will have to spend much more time there when I do not have a headache.**

*I may have unintentionally corrected a couple of spelling mistakes in the quoted text, and, as such, it may vary from the original slightly.

**Susie, this one seems to be centered in my neck, which is somewhat stiff as I have been sittin' starin' at the monitor without movement for several hours today. It is now time to go.***

***I actually could use a good massage, and would ask my lovely assistant to assist me with such if I only had a lovely assistant to ask .. however bein' as I currently have no lovely assistan, are there any volunteers among the audience. ;)

Stand back please, stand way back!

Now here is a blog with a worthwhile purpose: the Soak Zone.

To Geoffrey, I am personally familiar with the soak zone. Beware of backin' rhinos.

Is spin just a matter of semantics?

If one were to look at this story from a different angle usin' the same facts, could there be found some more appropriate words and phrases to blurb this?

Cold Mountain

OK, after I left the dentist's office today, followin' a harrowin' two and a half hours of sittin' in the chair, I did what I usually do, since I have to drive almost 90 minutes and 75 miles just to get there, I drove across the street and watched a movie. It was just about 5:00 pm when I left the dentist's office and the only movie startin' within two hours was one called Cold Mountain. I had looked through the posters as I walked up toward the ticket box and there was really nothin' on the poster to tell me anythin' about what this movie was about. The only thing that interested me at all was that Renée Zellweger was in it, and those of ya'll who are regular readers know I think Renée Zellweger is the cat's meow.

So I walked up just as some lady had asked for a ticket to see the movie, and as she turned, I said I have not heard anythin' 'bout this movie. She said she had heard it was well written. I thought, OK, Renée Zellweger and a good script, why not. I bought my ticket and in I went.

The lady was right. The movie has a great script. It had a feel to it a lot like Legends of the Fall, in my opinion. It was almost 3 hours long, without any intermission, but it did not drag along. I found the movie very entertainin' and I think it will draw a lot of movie award nominations. In my opinion, Renée Zellweger will be deservin' an award for her role. I am tellin' ya, both she and Nicole Kidman did wonderful jobs. My only regret in the whole movie was that Renée's character did not come around until after half the movie was over. Other than that, I found nothin' to pick on. Go see it. It is definitely worth the price of admission.

Houston, we seem to have a glitch*

Well, it does seem that NZB's dandy new javascript is severely hanging up the loading time on my blog and was working so poorly on my other blog** that I had to delete if from the template all together.

*I am now giving up on blogging for a bit and "really & truly" going to go watch Monday Night Football.

**The really stupid one: Abject Apathetic Procrastination.

[UPDATE: I decided to remove it from this blog also, for the time bein'.]

From somewhere out in left field

Oh my, I was checking my Ecosystem Stats and found I had been linked by The Enigmatic Musings of a Cynical Mind. I read a few of the entries on this blog. Other than having a name that is way too long and being on blog*spot, I sensed a chill crawling up my spine as I saw the pure snarkiness throughout. Am I like the aging starting quarterback who sees the young guy in practice day after day, working hard to take away his job? I surely hope not, but I didn't come up with any zingers like this:

Image the Tiger as the worker and Roy as the Boss. [much bloggy goodness snipped here] Hmmmm didn't think about it that way did you? I say we all go to work tomorrow and bite all of our bosses in the neck!! That's right I declare 6 Oct 2003 as Global "Bite Your Boss in the Jugular Vein Day" Don't kill anyone just grab them and drag them around the office, break room, smoking patio for a bit. What say ye?

This is the probable permalink for the full post, which may or may not work, depending upon the whelms of the gods of Blogger.

I think Brian has a good idea, really, and will be looking forward to several of you regular readers coming back and giving us a few comments on how much fun was had by all.

Oh, I forgot to ask, how many of ya'll saw them Coyboys yesterday. Damn, they just might have a winnin' season this year, huh? But then, of course, they was supposed to beat the Cardinals, they always do. It is almost like a given that the Cardinals suck and couldn't beat their way out of a paper sack. I was sorry that the Boys seemed so bend on knocking the crap out of Emmitt every time he carried the ball, 'cause I still like Emmitt. To me, he will always be a Cowboy, just one who didn't retire when he should have done so. Look at this, he left the game early with a bruised shoulder. I remember a time when Emmitt actually played with broken bones and rushed for large yards. Sorry Emmitt, you have the record, yay! Now it is time for you to go out to pasture. It happens to the best of 'em: Bob Lilly, Don Meredith, Drew Pearson and a host of others all had to put the football aside and find some new activities. Follow suit, guy, you are so much more intelligent than Tony Dorsett.

How will she ever top this?

Kelley has again outdone herself in presenting this week's Cul-de-Sac. You think I jest? Just go have a look-see for yourself.

***s depress ***

Small town Friday night means High School Football. Of course, as I have mentioned previously, our local team is named the ***s, and that is one reason why I started going using my childhood nickname when I moved here. I went to the game tonight because my friend's 1st grade daughter was part of the a special half-time show. The little girls from the summer flag camp performed with the High School flag team. It was a great show. Both bands also performed magnificently. Half-time alone was worth the $5 admission price. Too bad I had to watch the first half of the football game to see it, though. Our local teams offensive play was atrocious, seriously atrocious. First half offense: two fumbles, two interceptions, two total first downs. Half-time score: 31-0. I decided that the offense had not shown any capacity to move the ball forward. I was too depressed to hang around for another half of utter ineptitude by the boys in Red & White. I can catch the final score when the local rag comes out on Wednesday, if necessary.

What I had to eat during the first half: Frito pie and Dr. Pepper, then popcorn and water, finally an order of french fries. I didn't realize how hungry I get when I get depressed. ;)

Damn, there were just so many of them

OK, OK, I know ya'll wonder why I have not posted anything since 7:42 p.m., but I was checking my Ecosystem for some reason, I do not know why, because it had not changed since this morning, and saw that link for the New Weblog Showcase. I remembered I had urge everyone to vote for their favorites, and had not done so myself. So, I have been checking out all of the entries, and no, I did not review them all. I kinda decided there was not that much interest in my having done so for the amount of time it actually took. Heck, it took long enough just to locate and read all the entries in this week's contest. Anyway, here are the ones I liked:

Snooze Button Dreams: Kids trade bad habits like Pokemon cards (PBD) - cute!

How to Become a Hero: Listening like a hero - worthy read but dated from June

Lex Libertas: "No Blood For Coal!" - Excellent but republication of earlier post

Maine Catholic and Beyond: So What's the Deal? Am I Named for a Saint or Not?! - I can't answer his question

The Bored Friends Groupblog: Going To See The Pope.... - scroll for it, August 18, 2003

Don't Be a Hero: Iraq Mobile Phones Musical Chairs - Very interesting

On the Fritz - Troll Alert!: Mad Donna — The Religious Zealot Troll - Excellent! I love it!!!

Baked Chunk: Thoughts on Midgets - what goes on in some people's brains simply amazes me

Colorado Luis: Puro Mestizo - Interesting Analysis/Commentary

Notorious B.L.O.G.: Boycott RIAA - Very Interesting Idea

Just as an aside for those of you who do not find themselves on this list. If you don't know how to permalink, it is hard to find your entry. Blog*Spot sucks, and every seasoned blogger knows that! ;) Some just refuse to leave.

Make mine Strawberry please!

If you were cruising through your blogroll yesterday, you probably hit on a small victory and saw, and maybe even took part in, the selection of the horrible movie Batman and Robin to receive the coveted Kazaam Award for Dubious Distinction in Bad Movie Making. There was much, much, much discussion on which movie should receive this highly sought after award.

One of the movies discussed to be in contention for this award was Vanilla Sky. As luck would take it, such was one of the movies I had rented this weekend, and I had yet to watch it. As such, I was expecting to be wasting my time when I put the movie in the DVD player and pushed the play movie button.

Hey, folks, I don't know who thought this was a bad movie. It was great! I admit that having seen it stated that it was all a dream prepared me. I therefore did view the scenes as something other than reality. However, had I not gotten the clue, I think I would still have liked this movie. Seldom do I sit unmoving, my attention rapt on the screen, so engrossed in a movie as I did with this one. It was bizarre, unique and spellbinding. This from a guy that thinks Tom Cruise is a putz who couldn't act his way out of a Prince Albert can. Of course, playing a rich, successful, but not all that bright, guy, who has women fawning all over him, probably was not that much of an actual stretch for him. He did look much better with that prosthetic that he does in real life. That did ease my pain in being forced to view his ugly mug for a big portion of the movie.

Sorry folks, this is not a bad movie, and Tiger tells you to rent this one, if you have not already seen it. Light some candles, pour a glass of wine, relax, and let it fill your senses. It is poetic, in a manner, and, with the likes of my love*, Cameron Diaz, and the addition of Spanish beauty, Penélope Cruz, [yum!] there is enough eye candy in this one to enchant even the guy who sits there with one hand tucked in his pants.** 3.5 paws up on this one. Tiger says see it!

*emode matched us up when I took some test they had regarding who is your celebrity match.

**Well, maybe not, because there are not any monster trucks or people smashing beer cans on their heads in this one.

And the Best 15 movies are:

OK, So no one had the guts to tangle with the Tiger today, huh? Well, one small creature did throw a noodle, but what the hey? There is still time!

Did you think I was lolling about, not doing my job: creating great fare for my reader's enjoyment? Posh! Nope, it seems there is something going on about blogger's picks of the 15 best all time movies or some such. You know, there are a lot of movies! So, what I have been doing all day is reflecting upon all the movies I have seen over the years and attempting to come up with what I believe are the 15 best movies ever made. I noticed everyone else went with all those popular movies with which everyone is familiar. What I tried to do was actually to think of all those movies that were really novel and did something different, or were not from the same old cookie cutter that everyone in Hollywood seems to use. Here is my list:

Ordered by Year of Release:

1. The Egg and I - (1947) It introduced of the zany humor of Ma & Pa Kettle and their 15 kids, several sequels followed. Abbot & Costello couldn't touch this with a ten foot pole and probably didn't want to do so.
2. The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T - (1953) Screenplay by Dr. Suess, and I saw it on a B&W TV and it was about as eerie as a little boy could stand.
3. Them! - (1954) The absolute scariest creature movie of them all ... I had nightmares about giant ants for weeks after I caught this one on that old B&W set.
4. The Little Shop of Horrors - (1960) Seymour! Feed me! Jack Nicholson in an early appearance as the masochistic dental patient is a must see! (and this one was directed by Roger Corman?)
5. What a Way to Go! - (1964) Shirley MacLaine seems to be both a good luck charm and a bad luck charm, as she keeps marrying poor men who get rich and then die, and she doesn't want the money and wants to give it all to the IRS. How utterly bizarre is that?
6. Cat Ballou - (1965) This is not what you expect from a western, and you get to see Jane Fonda before everyone hated her. By the way, do you have an identical twin you hate and wish he/she didn't look like you, this movie tells you what to do about it.
7. Fantastic Voyage - (1966) I always wanted to know what it would be like to be miniaturized and be sent through someone's body in a submarine. Raquel never looked better!
8. Popi - (1969) Down-trodden Puerto Rican wants a better life for his two sons so concocts a story for them to tell and sets them afloat.
9. Paint Your Wagon - (1969) Two miners share a wife and Clint Eastwood sings in this western musical. 1969 was a banner year for great flicks! Midnight Cowboy, rated X at the time wins Best Picture (and just barely missed making this list)
10. Cactus Flower - (1969) Goldie Hawn shows she is more than a pretty face who can tell a corny joke.
11. Deliverance - (1972) Best movie soundtrack ever, and how did Ned Beatty ever live down that role?
12. My Name is Nobody - (1973) For spaghetti westerns, Clint never had anything on Terence Hill. And of course, who could not like a movie starring anyone named Terence?
13. Popeye - (1980) Robin Williams proves he can be more than Mork from Ork, and Altman produces a vision of Popeye from the early comic pages, not from the later animated cartoons. Classic stuff!
14. The Gods Must Be Crazy - (1980) If it was not for the invention of videotape, I might not have ever seen this, likely the funniest movie I have ever seen.
15. Tank Girl - (1995) Yes, you likely missed this one unless you have caught one of its regular playings on the Comedy Channel. I mean you not only get Tank Girl, but as a bonus, you get Jet Girl, a bunch of mutant kangaroo like things, a power hungry utility company, and some kick-ass action.

Honorable Mentions: Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964), Midnight Cowboy (1969), Billy Jack (1971), Midnight Express (1978), and The Million Dollar Hotel (2000)

However, I will not finish there, because now I want to tell you the 10 worst movies I have ever seen:

Ordered, again, by year of release:

1. The Wasp Woman - (1960) There could likely be a lot more of Roger Corman's losers on this list, but hey, after this one, I do a bit of researching before renting anything he was associated with. (However, I do own his never released rendition of The Fantastic Four, which is not all that bad, and he did a great job on The Little Shop of Horrors.)
2. The Night of the Lepus - (1972) The absolute worst creature movie ever made. Giant rabbits invade the town and while the rabbits looked real, the miniature town looked horribly fake!
3. Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer - (1986) Supposedly based upon the life of Henry Lee Lucas, but this was not The Silence of the Lambs. It sucked big time.
4. Weekend at Bernie's - (1989) I actually got up and walked out of the theater while watching this one. Although the premise had promise, it was so poorly done I just couldn't stand it.
5. Modern Love - (1990) Robby Benson not only starred in this one, but he wrote and directed it. He shouldn't have. Amazon says it is not available on video but that is how I was able to see it. Maybe someone got smart and pulled all copies of this loser from the shelves.
6. Final Approach - (1991) This was one part of the worst double-feature I ever rented. Whoever wrote this script should be taken out back and shot.
7. Bad Lieutenant - (1992) Remember the disgusting bad cop character played by Denzel in Training Day, which I also thought sucked? Take him one step, or maybe two steps, down. There was absolutely nothing to like about this character, and he was just too pitiful a specimen of humanity to give a crap about.
8. Even Cowgirls get the Blues - (1993) I could not understand what kind of statement they were trying to make with this movie at all. Even Uma was not worth watching in this bizarre tale.
9. Cabin Boy - (1994) This loser was written by and starred Chris Elliott. Need I say more? Even Yahoo Serious is funnier than Chris. Letterman was wise to boot him.
10 Titanic - (1997) This was the Best Picture of the Year? What was so great about it? The acting was not all that great and the story was very lame. So what if the sets were glamorous and the score was fantastic? The f**king boat sank and we all knew that was going to happen before it started.

By Request: Catalyst Progressive Weblog

In a comment to my New Weblog Review for 7/13/03, Ben Regenspan has asked me to review his blog.

Catalyst Progressive Weblog ~Progressive? Mostly what I observed was left-sided zealotism, with interspersing news commentary about other subjects here and there. I am never impressed with white text on black backgrounds as it is actually hard on your eyes. The blog, however, was well organized, had links to other articles the blogger found interesting, included a side blog with short articles, and had very well written articles. I would expect this to be popular with those who read The Daily Kos on a regular basis.

New Weblog Review for 7/13/03

As usual, this post is predated so that it can be used as a reference for those who wish to vote for the new bloggers in the New Weblog Showcase on The Truth Laid Bear. Votes will be tallied on July 13, 2003 for this week's entries, so make sure your votes stay on the main page until that day!

STOP! GO NO FURTHER! READ! Anyone who is offended by my review of their entry, remember I am merely stating my opinions and they may not necessarily be the opinions of any other single person [on this planet, unless they are from Estonia, Fiji, or Tarzan, Texas. Additionally, I have been contacted and told that my opinions were officially adopted by an entire alien sub-culture in the Ming Sector and 92% of the species in the Gamma quadrant.]

5.0=exceptional 4.5=excellent; 4.0=great; 3.5=very good; 3.0=good; 2.5=par; 2.0=sub par; 1.5=fair; 1.0=poor; 0.5=tried. ALL RATING IS SUBJECTIVE; Listings within tied ratings are arranged from my most favorite to my least favorite based upon my personal preferences.

5.0~Boots and Sabers: Idealism ~[BEST OF SHOW] A wonderfully well-written analysis of how idealism falls in the face of reality. The blogger did delve far back into the archives to dig up this pearl [May 21, 2003], but it is well worth a read and a vote!

5.0~Who Tends The Fires: The Beauty of Being Mom ~This is the type of post I look for to be a part of The New Weblog Showcase. The prose was delightful, humorously painting pictures of one woman's discovery of the delights living vicariously through one's child. Whether you have experienced this discovery or have yet to do so, the blogger eloquently describes the joys that make parenthood so fulfilling. I was so delighted with the smooth flow of the prose that I was compelled to explore other postings on the blog. I blogrolled it. Vote for this one, visit the blog!

5.0~Priorities & Frivolities: T3 in 2003: Rise of the Political Machine ~One of the classiest titles I have seen among Showcase entries. The blogger humorously uses terms from a lot of Schwarzenegger roles in this well-written analysis of Schwarzenegger's supposed tactical assessment of his chances for ascendency to the Governorship of California. In supporting his contentions, the blogger quotes from some of Schwarzenegger's bodybuilding books. Additional items were linked throughout, but a reading of none was necessary to understand the crux of his commentary.

4.5~Firefive: Barking Moonbat of the Month Award ~Although it was announced that this is the beginning of the named award, this was actually just a fisking of this colmmentary by Ted Rall on Yahoo! News.

4.5~The Usurer: For want of a fly-swat ~A long well written commentary about the problems with unemployment, interest rates, exchange rates and other financial woes in Australia. I disliked the use of acronyms that held no meaning for me.

4.5~Blog o'RAM: Home Alone ~Strange post about spending the day alone with one's family gone, and this guy cleaned house? Oh well, he did take an opprutunity to blog. He has a domain but no domain name, and the link was erratic. The posting was a bit on the inane side, but the attempt at humor is appreciable.

4.5~American Digest: The Sunday New York Times Lite ~Scanned the entire Sunday edition of the New York Times [except the crossword which is all I ever really care about] and synopsized it. It was still more than I wanted to read, however, especially as it was entered on the day before the vote count.

4.5~Frogs and Ravens: Finding the Still Point ~I do from time to time find posts that are so ephemeral that I have a hard time understanding the point being made. This was one of those. I loved the yoga descriptions and understood they were an analogy for some interactivity between the blogger and two other bloggers. It was a bit like being on the outside of an inside joke. I was lost in the meaning of it all, and yet, I somehow found the reading of this post of be somewhat calming. I envisioned myself falling flat on my back in any attempt to effect the yoga pose described.

4.5~SoonerThought: The General Who Would Be President ~A well written informative posting by someone who can only be General Wesley Clark's campaign manager or someone who would hope to hold such position, in all likelihood. I did find a most humorous quip in this post:

None other than fellow Arkansan President Clinton has declared that Clark would be a "fine president."

Yes, these days, such a ringing endorsement by Slick Willie should carry you far in American politics.

4.5~DW-I: "We're not going to beat Dean." ~Blog*spot, the link gets you close but you have to scroll to locate it. The post was full of a lot of very uninteresting facts and figures regarding the fund raising capabilities of the various Democratic candidates, with an emphasis on Dean's showing. The blogger ended with an analysis that had very little to do with the data provided in the post. The entry was well researched, well organized, fairly-well written, and not all that interesting.

4.0~Dohiyi Mir: I Get It: Saddam Was Bad ~On blog*spot and the link does not take you to the post. I was unable to locate the post at all, even though I did a search using a phrase from the excerpt on all four archive pages, as well as the main page. It might be a problem with blog*spot, but I need to find the post to review it. I couldn't. Due to ntodd's comment, I took another chance at finding this post. I was successful although the link still was chaotic. This was a well-written post which dealt with several issues surrounding the news stories out of Iraq, the Bush agenda as the blogger recognized it, and an impassioned plea for more humanitarian relief.The blog seems to primarily Bush bashing zealotism, so those of you who get off on such sites, check it out

4.0~Johnny America: The Royal Tenenbaums ~He saw the movie, the first time with Frank, his fellow Christmas tree seller, and he loved it; Frank didn't. Blogger saw it 5 times, and says the DVD is a must buy, or some other such words. I wasn't really sure why Frank came up, haven't seen the movie. Istill have no idea what it is about or who is in it, even after reading this review. It was interesting and well written, just confusing.

4.0~Bad Money: Today's Graffiti Currency: A Sea Story ~Once each week I seem to find one of these blogs that seem to have some kind of story line that is centered on one arcane subject. Those of you who have been keeping up with each week's contests will remember the dream blog and the truck blog. Well, this blog has a daily post with scanned bills of money. The entered post was one of the best I saw as I roamed about the blog. The story was humorous, though a bit inane. However, it did showcase the writing style of the blogger. Not all the posts are as great as this one, but the blogger knows his way around. This is a blog that I personally will not visit often as it uses some slow loading graphics. They have to load before any text is visible. My low-bandwidth connection makes that a pass on general principles. [Update: Blogger, Harvey Olson, says there may have been site server problems at the time I viewed this post, and loading is not generally all that slow.]

4.0~Canucker: No Echo ~It was a bit difficult to discern if there was any actual point to this long posting. It was an interesting read, but seemed to mostly be a description of showering/bathing on a very bad morning. Language is choice in parts, so beware if you are offended by the "F" word.

4.0~stevedanforth.com: In pursuit of a dream ~The guy is geek, a very successful geek, who wants to throw away success for a dream ... but gives no one a clue as to what that dream is. How very uninteresting, however, from reading some of the comments, a lot of other geeks are very supportive of his decision. Whatever. I am hopeful his dream does not involve his wanting to be a writer, because he also writes like a geek. He does get high marks for technical merit, though.

3.5~mythic flow: Individuality and Freedom ~The blog name in the entry is not the name of the blog and the actual post is untitled, but the link does take you to the right place. Right off, I got this revulsion akin to the sole reason I am the only person to graduate with a minor in English who did not take Sophomore English classes because I refused to read a book that began with a command, I was not pleased with reading a post that began with an incomplete sentence. The actual post hinted that there was a certain amount of intolerance in American that didn't jive with its belief in Individuality and Freedom. In essence, it was a very long, not very well written lead-in to a link to a Bill Moyers commentary.

3.5~Vantage Point: Fighting with Our Eyes Wide Shut ~The link takes you to an archive page, but the post is at the top. The blogger makes a series of broad sweeping statements about the handling of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, pointing fingers at Bush and the Israelis, then praising Irish President Mary Robinson, Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu. Other than some sense that Bush's policy was somehow wrong, the actual point which was attempted to be made was very hard to discern.

3.5~One Father For Dean: Many Are Listening ~I am guessing this blog is somebody's father who is rooting for Dean to be our next President. I suppose if you are on the Dean bandwagon, you might like this blog, but this post had the persuasion power of marshmallows. It didn't move me, it didn't say much of anything to compel me to even wonder who Dean is.

3.5~EconoPundit: Noted with Relief ~The current top vote getter as I was reviewing the entry, I did not find it all that great. There was not much more than one original sentence and a chopped up quoting of portions of a WSJ.com column. The lead-in sentence had three links in it, the first one which had a term: transnational progressivism linked to a prior blog post in which the same term was linked to a June 10, 2002 commentary by John Fonte in American Diplomacy; the second link went to the full WSJ.com commentary; and the third that went to a June 30th column by Ed Kilgore in the Democratic Leadership Council Blueprint Magazine. As too much outside reading was necessary to understand the point the blogger was supposedly trying to be make and the actual quoted part was contextually akin to Dowdlerism, I have to rate this one somewhat lower than the voting would suggest it merits.

3.0~Eric Poole's Very Own Punditry: Court Affirms Bush's Power to Detain Citizen as Enemy ~[LINK is NZB 404 page ~ my link goes to the blog] The name of the blog is a bit different than the entry listing and the post has no title. It is on blog*spot and is dated July 10, 2003. The post was an interesting commentary on a recent Federal 4th Circuit Court of Appeals. The blogger did not identify the court in his post, but did find an apropos quote predating our own Constitution to argue that the kind of actions upheld by the Court were one of the reasons for the American Revolution. The blogger seems to have potential but needs to pay more attention to the technical items. Also, whenever you speak about a court decision, one should always completely identify the court.

3.0~Dissento's (Culture) War Journal: Tommy Franks Pulls a Cartman ~On blog*spot and the link is to the blog and not to the post, so you will have to search for this one. At least the title is correct. The claims made by the blogger were unsubstantiated by the linked story. There does appear to be some element of satire involved.

3.0~PunditMania: Quo Vaids Blogs ? ~Link is to the blog and not to the post. Blog seems to have no permalinking capabilities. I did locate what appeared to be a permalink but it took me to the archive index. This disclosed, however, that the blogger is using BLOGGER software which might explain why the permalink did not work correctly. The post itself was actually a pretty good analysis of blogging itself with lots of links. It was well written, albeit long, and is a worthy read for anyone interested in a good synopsis of blogging.

3.0~What Would George Say!: Out of Respect for the 9/11 Victims please contact your Congress members ~The blogger has very poor writing skills which makes a reading of this impassioned post to be very difficult to read. The blogger does point to what might be a situation worthy of further investigation and commentary.

2.5~TerraFirmaDiaries: just because you can does not mean we will ~This is not the title of the post. It is the first entry under July 7, 2003. The link is also not to the post, but is to the blog. The blog does not appear to have any permalinking capabilities. The blogger does not use the cap key at all, and the punctuation is sporadic. Also, the blogger will from time to time right justify a paragraph to set it off. The link supplied to the story supporting this entry was not in the form of a clickable link. The actual topic of the post was interesting, but the method of putting it out for public consumption was not.

2.0~Precision Blogging: Brief Random Provocations ~This blogger actually tried to enter a week's worth of short blurbs as the entry which may be technically outside the rules, but as the blog is done with BLOGGER software and on blog*spot, for whatever reason, I have not been able to fully load any pages on such sites of late and was only able to view the extinction post. For someone using the pen name Precision Blogger who authors Precision Blogging, I was not very impressed with the substandard technical merit of the blog.

1.5~Writing in Orange: Living in Orange 1: From Your Window ~There is not much of interest here. Although the blog may be of interest, it is too new to have much on it. This message was just an invitation for people living in Orange County to write about what they could see outside their window. I live nowhere near Orange County. If I did live in Orange County and thought that people would be interested my description of what was outside my window, I believe that I would put it on my own blog. As the purpose of the Showcase is to show off your bogging skills, writing skills and to entice more readership, I think this was not a good post for the Showcase or a good blog to have entered at this time.

1.0~BIROCO.COM ~ A way to look at things: A blatant attempt to influence Googlism ~The link is to the blog as there are no permalinks.

I can't be bothered making 'permalinks' for individual entries, as I regard this as throwaway stuff.

I agree, at least with reference to this posting. It was just a bunch of inane and ridiculous statements about the blogger so as to somehow get a longer list on Googlism. Yawn! I did nothing to enhance my listings, and yet my list on Googlism seems to be quite extensive. Do I really care? NO!

0.0~dr.mani's remarkably purple spots: an experiment in selfishness ~No score as I am of the opinion this blogger abused the purpose of the contest. Nothing but some asshat begging for people to send mass amounts of money and gifts. Pass on this one. I mean the domain is called ezinemarketingcenter, and the prizes awarded for contributions are likely ebooks on how to become a SPAMMER.

The New Weblog Showcase Review IV

There actually did not seem to be much interest in entering the Showcase this week. The number of entries was the lowest since I have been doing reviews. I also saw the highest number of bloggers submitting entries at the very last moment with 3. I have been advised that I was a little stricter with my ratings this week than I was last week. That may be so. With less entries, I had more time to pick those nits. As always, those of you who actually appreciate the effort I put into this, give a blurb somewhere!

STOP! GO NO FURTHER! READ! Anyone who is offended by my review of their entry, remember I am merely stating my opinions and they may not necessarily be the opinions of any other single person [on this planet, unless they are from Estonia or Fiji. Additionally, I have been contacted and told that my opinions were officially adopted by an entire alien sub-culture in the Ming Sector and 92% of the species in the Gamma quadrant.]

5.0=exceptional 4.5=excellent; 4.0=great; 3.5=very good; 3.0=good; 2.5=par; 2.0=sub par; 1.5=fair; 1.0=poor; 0.5=tried. ALL RATING IS SUBJECTIVE; Listings within tied ratings are arranged from my most favorite to my least favorite based upon my personal preferences.

5.0~The World Around You: Opposition Makes No Sense ~[BEST OF SHOW]Kristopher put a couple of inanitarians in their place. While this post has more to do with local politics in Alabama, and I generally do not rate entries that are of interest to only a select group of readers, this post does not actually fit into that category. In countering those complaints lodged by his detractors, Kristopher established those actual powers Governor Bob Riley of Alabama does actually have. Such powers are very similar to the general powers held by all executive heads in United States. He provided a well-written response to those who had no understanding of the political machine. Of course, I doubt they will ever see what he had to say. As an example of what is offered on this site, this post was a worthy entry: well written and concise.

5.0~The Chicago Report: Kant Lives ~The only thing I saw to criticize about this posts was one quote which I would like to have seen blockquoted. However, I reflected upon this and felt such did not actually detract from the flow of the prose. The post was extremely well-written and exhibited a good command of vocabulary. I actually had to look up the word hegemon, which did not appear in my dictionary There was, however, an entry for hegemony. I was not using an unabridged dictionary and do not question the existence of the word. Although the post was essentially a discussion of theory based upon a work by Jurgen Habermas, the author, within his prose, provided sufficient reference to such work that an actual reading of the work was unnecessary for an understanding of his commentary. Unlike Matthew, discussed below, Alexander did not propose an impossible solution to a recognized problem, but, instead, stated his agreement with the proposition that the seeds of change are already in place and need to be nurtured. The blog itself appears to be a team blog. I attempted to discover something about Alexander and the other members of the team, but could not locate such. This was the best post visible from those I examined. However, the remaining posts were equally well written. I suspect that the members of the team are all academics. Except that the vocabulary used may be over the heads of the general public, there is very little I could find wrong with this post.

4.5~PrometheusSpeaks: Get a Baby Bib Just Like Dubya Wears! ~[My link goes to post, contest link goes to blog] Right off, the title had me convinced I had another left leaning zealot who was going to mindlessly bash Bush and his administration. I was partially right. I do have to retract the mindlessly part. This post was delightfully humorous. It was so craftfully constructed that it could rival Dave Barry or James Lilieks on one of their best days. I would have gladly given it BEST OF SHOW had Prometheus linked to the actual post.

4.5~o.t.p.: Triteness Studies ~I am not in total agreement with Ron's conclusion:

I can't really think of any subject matter less useful to a college student than this.

I can easily see this type of study to be beneficial for sociology majors. Ron did bring out several good points in a clear and concise manner. This post convinced me to read other entries which I found to be equally well written. This post will be controversial because the subject matter is controversial. However, I do pick the nits. I would have prefer Ron to paraphrase the crux of the article and give me a link. He gave me a link and required that I had to read it to understand his comments. In my opinion, a post should generally stand on its own unless its sole purpose is to urge you to go read something someone else has written. Quote, paraphrase and comment. Close, but no cigar.

4.5~Occasional Subversion: Biotechnology and Hunger ~Not actually titled as such, but the link works. I thought this was a well composed and written posting about an interesting topic. I suppose the only reason I did not give this one top marks is because Matthew did a pretty good job of describing what he felt was the problem but concluded by suggesting impossible solutions:

But if we want to end hunger, we've got to do more than allow our big agricultural businesses to impose their own brands of crops on the world. Instead, we need to help countries develop economies which do not inhibit agriculture and we need to find diplomatic means of dealing with totalitarian governments which impede their citizens' access to food. And we need to stop war, for the costs of reducing conflict in the world are far less than the costs of continuing it. [emphasis supplied]

Maybe I am picking nits more aggressively than last week, but again, this one was only close, but did not ring the bell.

4.5~The Right Christians: Dreams of the Future (3): Without a Future ~I found this posting extremely hard to rate, because I am not a Biblical scholar. I found it ironic that a blog called The Right Christians was attacking the views of the Christian Right. And then there were phrases such as premillenial dispensationalism. Even after I hit the link within such phrase was in, I could not find any means of deciphering the meaning of this phrase. In addition, though again I am not a theologian or Biblical scholar, I had to question the need for those who believe that the coming of the end is near would need to convert Jews and Catholics. I thought the Jews were the chosen people. Wasn't Christianity God's way of allowing the Gentiles to find their way into Heaven? AND are not Catholics Christians? This was a very long well written post. The blog was very nicely designed. However, like the dream blog of two weeks ago and the truck story blog of last week, I feel like this is one you either will really like or in which you will find absolutely no interest. If there had been a glossary provided, I would have given this one a top rating. As I am still confused as to the meaning of premillenial dispensationalism, I am not doing so.

4.5~Web Dawn: Rebirth of the Social Marketplace: Forum View for blogs ~The blog was attractive and the post was blurbing some new feature that looked very interesting, and something most of us would probably like to see, especially on blogs that have a lot of commenting conversations on them. Mark Carey, did link the script used in link in response to one of the comments to this post. Is this part of the post? If the comment had not been made, the response would not have been made. As such, I must subtract such from the rating. In fact, for a super non-techie like me, just seeing the script without any explanation as what to do with such was of no benefit anyway. So, does this post tell us much about the blogger and the blog? I had to actually peruse the other entries to discover if such was true, and I would say it is. This blog seems to be mainly about development of blogging as a social communication tool. This post was about one of the tools developed. However, it was a confusing post and I am not sure this post was an ideal showcase of the blogger's talents or properly identified the theme or subject matter of the blog. As such, I rate it one notch below the top mark.

4.0~Practical Penumbra: Some People are Mean ~Let me start off by saying this is a post I have read previously and to which I have even commented. I read this blog every day. I have told Susie that I love her color combination more than any I have seen. We use the same MT template, and she did a much better job of altering hers than I did with mine. However, Susie, I agree that blockquoting the email did make it look better than the first attempt, but you still needed to reformat the end line returns which would have perfected your formatting of the email. I love what you said, and think you are a great writer who has a terrific sense of humor, however, I am so thrown with those links:

"and, if you are a Palestinian, Buck the Marine." [into which I would have added after Palestinian "you should fear']

and

Ok, I'm done channeling Bill Whittle. [I did not understand the meaning of this, and really hate having to go somewhere else to find out what it might mean]

Susie writes great stuff, and I urge people to read her blog regularly, especially because she points out all the great stuff I write on my blog. This is a great post, but not excellent or exceptional. Sorry Susie, please don't hate me now.

4.0~CavBlog: Bad Advice ~Eugenio is a pretty new blogger but seems to have a pretty good idea of what he is doing already. This is not a bad post, in fact, it is a pretty well written commentary. He needs to use blockquotes to set off the text of articles. I was pretty sure this was not his best post, and looked around at the rest of his stuff. Mostly he comments on the commentary made by others. This one was actually commentary on a news story, and he provided a link to some added information. Eugenio shows great promise and I believe he means what he said in his very first posting:

This is likely only a temporary name for this site (and this is definitely only a temporary format).

Welcome to the Blogosphere, Eugenio. I am almost sure we can expect profound commentary in the future, and hopefully his formatting will improve.

4.0~UltraBlog: Words Ending in "opelessness" ~This is a very late entry. I first read it and I was befuddled as to what point Lewis was trying to make. I thought I was just tired, went to bed and awoke refreshed. I wanted to read it again. It does make some sense if you read it very slowly. I am sure we have all had similar thoughts to those expressed in this posting. I guess I would not go into my theory that our entire universe in actually contained within atomic structure of a cell on the back of a parasite living in the intestinal track of a migratory gypsy moth in a superior reality. I can not quite put my finger on what it is that bothers me about this post: the inanity of the subject matter, the reckless use of compound sentencing, or my lack of comprehension as to the purpose of the titling. I did read some of Lewis' other posts, and this post is fairly consistent with his writing style. It fits in right about here.

3.5~As if Nothing Happened: What are people thinking? ~When I first saw the excerpt posted on the New Weblog Showcase page, I was not enamored because it looked like Rene had entered 3 separate posts. Well, in a way, that did prove proved to be true. However, in actuality, it was also only one post. As is commonly done by most new bloggers, including myself, Rene is placing several posts into one day's entry. As is often the case with new bloggers, a weblog is believed to be about creating one post each day about interesting items from that day. Of course, that does not work well with permalinking and trackbacking. Such essential blogging tools work best if you enter items as individual posts. It is not uncommon for bloggers, including myself, to combine more than one story into the same post, especially if they have a common theme. As such, I determined that this entry was within the rules of fair play for the contest. Regrettably, for the reasons I have discussed, such is not a good blogging method. Additionally, there were portions of the postings that read like they might be quoted materials, but I was unsure. I also thoroughly dislike having to read stories first in order to place the blogger's comments into perspective. Rene writes well and exhibits a very keen sense of humor. I loved this line:

. . . [W]hat else do you do about a 58 year old woman who dances like a flopping fish in a skirt so short you can see something you reeeaaally don't want to[?]

hanging participle and all! Rene has excellent potential, as is exhibited by some of her other writing. She needs to discover blockquoting. Surprisingly to many, there is an actual learning curve to becoming a top notch blogger. This was not the best post and this one could have been done much better. Rene should improve over time.

2.5~Bob's Bits and Bites: Bob's Thoughts ~[This is not the title to the post but the link works.] Bob began blogging yesterday and shares a lot of inane thoughts. However, Bob is an avid collector of tires and would likely hire Michael Jackson to babysit before he would allow Ted Nugent to watch over his kids. What about Bob? This might take some watching to see. So far, Bob has posted twice, two very long lists of mostly utterly inane thoughts. OK, there is a chuckle or two to be found. He tried, the link worked, it was grammatically correct, it was formatted well, there was some funny stuff, just not much. Not that bad for a start but a long way to exceptional.

1.5~OLDCATMAN SPEAKS: Sat. June 21, 2003 [Entry Link=NZB 404 Page MY LINK WORKS!] ~Catman Speaks, but does anyone really want to listen? Another really neophyte blogger who is still needing to get a clue as to what it is all about. First off, do individual posts. Do not put all the things you have to say into one day's post. What is it with your formatting? Are you cutting and pasting from another program? Your lines are extremely ragged. Is that a template from Blogger? I am almost sure the most atrocious Blogger template looked better than that. Several stories were mentioned, and yet not one solitary link. Actually, I did notice a fairly good sense of humor in the post, and I think Catman can evolve into a blogger with some regular following once he gets the hang of blogging. I did actually find a few of his comments to be quite funny. Hang in there Catman. Too bad you wasted your one and only chance of entering the New Weblog Showcase before you were ready to shine. He tried, I found it, and another notch for good measure.

The TOP DAWG Review

Well, the voting is in and my meager readership wants me to go forward with critiquing the upper echelon in the Blogosphere Ecosystem. James JoyceJoyner recommended I tread lightly, but I have to tell the truth. I say Why Not? What harm can it do? Should I fear reprisals? Why? Anyone who is so egotistical that they can be or are damaged by my opinions needs serious psychiatric help. So, here are my opinions:

For the purposes of this review, I will dispense with any rating of the blogs, as they are all exceptional blogs, except that I am not sure all actually qualify as blogs. However, the current status should speak for itself. It is a given that they are all held in high esteem by many. I will cover them in the order that they currently appear in the Higher Beings hierarchy:

InstaPundit: ~It appears that everyone knows InstaPundit is the baby of Glenn Reynolds. This blog sits high atop the Blogosphere Ecosystem because everyone has it on their blogroll and it is updated quite often. Is Glenn Reynolds the grand daddy of blogging? I check the archives for InstaPundit and the earliest entry I could find was dated August 8, 2001. However, as I have lately been reviewing a lot of new bloggers, it is obvious from this post and the ones that follow, that Glenn had been blogging in some form for some period previously. There was no mention of having transitioned from some other site. It is fair to say that Glenn attempts to keep a keen eye on the pulse of the news and of what is going on in the Blogosphere. However, like most of us, he seems to limit himself to a select group of sources. Most of what appears on InstaPundit are dry lead ins to stories on news sites and other bloggers' commentaries. But Glenn has established the format for what most people think blogging is about. I actually correlate InstaPundit with FARK, but on a different level. If I am looking for a directory of the current political news, I can go to InstaPundit for clues on where to look, just as if I want to find the stories about the inane, ridiculous or humorous events that have occurred around the world, I can go to FARK. The one comment that I think is fair to say about InstaPundit is that if you are looking for something thought provoking, engaging or enjoyable to read, you will usually not find it there, but you can start there to find it. Glenn can write, however, just probably has too much else to do to put that much effort into his blog currently. There are no comment functions, so interaction is not available.

Daily Kos / Political State Report: ~This blog is maintained by Markos Moulitsas Zúniga. First post Sunday | May 26, 2002. As a first time visitor, needing to do so in order to do this review, I found the site to be somewhat confusing. It took me a little time and thought to understand that there is an open thread posted every morning just to allow rampant commenting. And there appears to be plenty of comments made to every post. It is evident that: 1. This blog leans left; 2. It has a massive readership; and 3. Markos Moulitsas Zúniga puts a lot of time and thought into what appears on his blog. It is attractive and content driven. Too dry and left for my tastes. Commenting allowed.

Eschaton (Atrios): ~Well, actually this appears to be a team blog by Atrios, Lambert, Leah and Tresy, though it could be possible that it is actually the blog of one person with a multiple personality disorder. It is almost incredulous to believe that the 3rd highest ranking blog in the Blogosphere Ecosystem is hosted on blog*spot. Earliest post located: Thursday, April 18, 2002 and appears to been the beginning point. Although most of the stories are leaning toward the left, there is interspersed a smattering of bits of daily trivia. I read quite a few of the entries, and even those I did not totally agree with, I found to be well written and logical. I found more humor in the writing in this blog than in either InstaPundit or The Daily Kos. A nice site and a nice read, though likely more so of you who are leaning a bit more to the left side of things. Commenting allowed.

The Volokh Conspiracy: ~This blog has actually been on my blogroll almost from the beginning. It is a team blog written by Eugene Volokh, Jacob Levy, Orin Kerr and others. Earliest post found: Wednesday, April 10, 2002, but either had some previous blogging experience or took off running from the start. There is a variance of topics, mostly law related and all written primarily by academics. There is not much humor to be found, but the writing is almost always concise and logical. However, I do often find much of it to be uninteresting. This is one I check almost every time I see an update notification, however, because if it is a topic I am interested in, I especially like to see what the members of the Volokh Conspiracy have to say on the subject. No commenting functions on this site.

Andrew Sullivan: ~Another blog I have read for the first time in order to do this review. Earliest located entry: Tuesday, January 02, 2001 but either hit the ground running or there was some prior blogging or other experience. Although I rarely like light on dark, the contrast with the white on dark blue is easier on the eyes than the normal white on black. There was a good mix of posting styles, some just Glenn Reynold's type lead ins to links, and some nice commentaries. Although I read or scanned most of the entries on the main page, it was not entirely evident where Andrew Sullivan sits on the political compass. The main focus on the blog seems to be centered on homosexual issues. Andrew appears to be a person who has a logical mind. I really liked the style and feel of this blog, but again, there were no commenting functions, so feedback is unavailable.

James Lileks: ~[The Bleat] I do not actually consider James Lileks to be a blogger or this site to be a blog. Earliest entry found: 02/07/97 and from the older entries, it appears that James had indeed begun this effort as a blogger. It is now more like a daily humorist column, in my opinion. That is not to say that it is not worthy of reading on a regular basis, because it is definitely that. It is easy to understand why this is a popular site, because the writing is indeed humorous and enjoyable to read. I have only lately discovered this daily column and added it to my blogroll. I just cannot classify it as a blog. No commenting, but then most would just be praiseworthy pats on the back anyway.

Joshua Marshall: ~[Talking Points Memo] Another blog I am reading for the first time doing this review. Earliest entry found: November 13th, 2000 a reading of which indicates he was at least familiar with blogging. Authored by Joshua Micah Marshall this blog is filled with mostly long commentaries on political issues from the Democratic point of view. The writing is exceptional, the blog is nicely designed and the arguments are logically supported, even if I disagree with some of the author's opinions. No comment functions.

Little Green Footballs: ~I had previously visited this blog without blogrolling it. Earliest entry found: Wednesday, February 07, 2001 but there was an indication that there were a couple of months previous posting on Blogger [and that there was a link to such posts which I was unable to locate]. Authored by Charles Johnson. The current postings all seem to be centered on current foreign affairs issues, terrorism, and the Middle-East Peace Process. Most are straight forward news items, interspersed with Charles Johnson's commentary and humorous observations. Comments are enabled.

USS Clueless: Another blog I had previously visited without blogrolling. Earliest entry found: Stardate 20010313.1150 which translates into March 13, 2001 at 11:50 by my belief. I am not sure why I did not blogroll it the first time I checked it. Authored by Steven Den Beste, suspected Trekkie. It may have been that the top story of the day just turned me off. From reading/scanning [sorry, I could not read the whole review of the first Harry Potter movie, etc.] it appears to be a fairly neutral commentary and observation about various things, mostly centered on entertainment. The writing was good and the author's sense of humor shined through in many places. I might actually have to give this a few more reads in the future, once I find I have more spare reading time. No comments available.

CalPundit: ~I have some past connection with this blog, I believe from linking to something on the site at some past point. Earliest entry found: Thursday, August 22, 2002, but either had prior experience or hit the ground running. Authored by Kevin Drum. Kevin is definitely a California liberal, but the posts are well written and the opinions are logically presented. He presents a humble side and the topics vary from political to technical to pictures of cats. Both commenting and trackbacking are available.

Amazingly, every one of these blogs, or sites, in the case of James Lileks, is popular for good reason. The writing is great and the opinions presented are easy to comprehend. What is surprising, other than a couple of members of the Eschaton team, [and although not mentioned previously, there is a female as part of the Volokh Conspiracy,] all of the top blogs are predominately authored by white males. What is also readily apparent is that all of them have been blogging for a long period, so that is a key indicator to us newby bloggers that building a good following does take time.

The Hulk can't quite bring down the house

OK, as I mentioned earlier, I went to go see The Hulk. It seems that Marvel Comics has seen a resurgence of interest in its characters, starting with X-Men, then Spider-Man, followed by Daredevil, then a sequel to X-Men, and now we get to The Hulk. Right off, let me say that The Hulk was never among my favorites when I was a really an avid comic reader in my youth. As such, I was less enthralled with seeing this movie than I was when Spider-Man, my favorite comic character of all, premiered.

That being said, this movie had more of a comic feel to it than any of the other movies, what with several panels being shown at the same time during some scenes. This is much like you would see if you were reading a comic. Of course, I have seen some blog posting where people commented that they thought The Hulk resembled Shrek. Yes, he does resemble Shrek, or actually Shrek resembles The Hulk. The Hulk was around a long time before Shrek ever appeared. The easiest thing to say is that if you were a big fan of The Hulk comics, you will definitely love this movie, in my opinion. As for me, it was entertaining, but it was not something I would want to see over and over again like I do with Spider-Man.

My lack of enthusiasm does not have so much to do with the movie as it does with the character. The Hulk is the embodiment of uncontrollable rage, nothing more, nothing less. His alter ego, Bruce Banner, is a tragic character, much like the person David Naughton played, David Kessler, in An American Werewolf in London.** Bruce Banner is not any happier about transforming into The Hulk than David Kessler was about transforming into a werewolf. What The Hulk does is to mostly mindlessly smash everything in his way. I say mostly mindlessly because sometimes it seems like he has some idea of what he is doing, especially if he is defending himself from attacks. You really cannot cheer for The Hulk because he is not heroic except when it comes to Betty Ross. Somewhere deep inside of himself, The Hulk does feel the love that Bruce Banner has for her and will protect her from harm.

As I said, if you were or are a really big fan of The Hulk, you will love this movie. The computer graphics were well done [as seems to be the case in almost every movie where computer graphics are involved now], and the feel of the movie embodied the same feeling you got from reading the comics, only bigger and better. If you were not, you may want to wait for the video to come out. There was actually a pretty large crowd in the theatre, and a lot of people brought small kids. I did not sense a lot of enthusiasm from the crowd as we left, but did hear a few remarks from some parents telling people waiting about how their small children were frightened in some parts of the movie. I do not recommend taking small children to this one.

One last point: I liked the casting in this one much better than I did in Daredevil and Spider-Man.***

Now, when are we going to get to see Iron Man or The Silver Surfer on the Silver Screen? Of course, I would really like to see a good movie about The Fantastic Four, but Roger Corman still owns the movie rights to those characters. I actually have a copy of the low-budget movie he made and never released just to retain those movie rights. For a low budget movie, it is really not all that bad. Of course, you can quickly tell one thing he saved money on: lighting.

[UPDATE: According to Ian, Roger Corman no longer owns the rights to The Fantastic Four.]

[Update II: It seems without my knowing so, my wish is being granted.]

*Yes, I am mindful that Blade was also a Marvel Comic character as is The Punisher, but they are Johnnie Come Latelies as far as I am concerned because they were not part of the Marvel stable of characters when I was 10 years old and lived in the world of comics.

**An American Werewolf in London is among one of my favorite movies, ironically, but mainly because it was more about the effects on David Kessler about the situation than what happened while he was a werewolf. An American Werewolf in Paris just did not have the same emotional feel to it as the original.

***Ben Affleck was not Matt Murdock and I liked neither Kirsten Dunst as Mary Jane nor Willem Dafoe as Green Goblin, though thought Tobey McGuire was a great selection for Peter Parker.

The New Weblog Showcase Review III

Well after spending almost every free moment over the last couple of days reading every entry in this week's New Weblog Showcase, I have finally completed the reviews. I found a surprising number of the posts drew very high marks this week. I am unsure if it is because some of them were getting a second chance and had learned what it is that impresses me or that I am getting to be a kinder gentler reviewer. What I do know is that what I believe is a developing carpal tunnel syndrome did not assist me all that much in this endeavor, so those of you who actually appreciate the effort I put into this, trying to insure that each and every one of you got at least one vote, feel free to link to this post, to my blog or to add me to your blogroll.

STOP! GO NO FURTHER! READ! Anyone who is offended by my review of their entry, remember I am merely stating my opinions and they may not necessarily be the opinions of any other single person [on this planet, unless they are from Estonia. Additionally, I have been contacted and told that my opinions were officially adopted by an entire alien sub-culture in the Ming Sector and 90% of the species in the Gamma quadrant.]

5.0=exceptional 4.5=excellent; 4.0=great; 3.5=very good; 3.0=good; 2.5=par; 2.0=sub par; 1.5=fair; 1.0=poor; 0.5=tried. ALL RATING IS SUBJECTIVE; Listings within tied ratings are arranged from my most favorite to my least favorite based upon my personal preferences.

5.0~An Unsealed Room: Cherry-Picking in the Golan Heights ~BEST OF SHOW! I was all set to not like this post. From the title I could tell it had something to do with Israel, and almost every time I see a post where anything about Israel is involved, it is from a zealot on one side or the other smashing the other side. Not this time! For the first time in my reviewing all the posts submitted to the New Weblog Showcase, I find that current top vote getter in the contest is also one that I think is among the very best posts in the week's contest. This was a most delightful look at Israel and living in Israel.

5.0~archy: Why do they support this man? ~John makes quite a few claims with regard to the damage the current administration is doing to its own power base. Though not much substantiation was shown for the assertions made, most of the assertions are widely believed by many. I particularly have seen far more evidence than I need to see to substantiate the claims made about the actions of Ashcroft. The writing was superb and the arguments sound. Good showcase of talents and where he stands on the political compass.

5.0~Where We're Bound: Scale of Democracy ~Danny Denny muses about the loss of democracy and whether our current form of government is actually designed to represent the people. He asks some important questions and says maybe we need a major social shift. Although he described his blog as

A lefty geek talks politics, macintosh, and community media

the lefty must be talking about which hand he uses to throw a baseball, because Danny Denny is Libertarian, whether he knows it or not. Well written and thought provoking. [UPDATE: In the comments, Denny denies being Libertarian and claims he is closer to an anarchist or what murray bookchin calls a communalist. as i get older i find that i tend to avoid labeling myself at all.]

5.0~A Blog of His Own: The French Method ~I remembered the title to the blog and recalled it had not drawn very high marks in my review of its last submission to the contest. Upon reviewing my remarks, I saw I had said this:

This guy needs to get his feet wet. I think he has some great potential at becoming a pretty good blogger, but he seems a bit too new at the game to me.

I am unsure if my words in that review were of any concern when Aaron decided to make this post his entry into this week's contest, but it was a great post. It reminded me of this set of audiotapes I got from Walmart with a lot of old radio episodes of "The Shadow," which included the original advertisements. One of the sponsors on several of the episodes was a salt company that gave away $100 watches for the best ideas submitted suggesting ways to use their salt. It surprised me how many of the ideas had to do with using the salt poured into kerosene to clean stuff. Aaron's delightful post was another example of what changes have occurred over the years.

5.0~suburban blight: Rock and Roll ~Kelley is a great story teller and takes us back all the way back to 1989 [when I was already a lawyer, Kelley] when she was young and in a rock and roll band. I noticed DaGoddess had posted the sole comment when I viewed this post. A great story teller in her own right, this recognition should be doubly appreciated by Kelley. Thanks for making me really feel old!

5.0~geographica: Time for a new map of China ~Very well written post about something that will definitely be changing the face of the world. I was not aware of this situation, and thought Mapchic did a good job of delivering the information. Seeing this post made we want to see what else was offered on the blog. This was definitely the best post from those I saw, and it is pretty fair to say that Mapchic is still finding her niche in the Blogosphere. She shows great promise.

5.0~Hi. I'm Black!: Bret Boone on Steroids? ~Glenn presents an interesting viewpoint on steroid use in professional baseball using Brett Boone's last year's statistics to use as evidence to prove his claim that Brett Boone was using steroids to enhance his physical abilities. The argument was solid, but in my opinion, the evidence was not enough to prove his claim. Still, Glenn has great writing skill and is very logical. I was glad he had another chance to enter the contest since, in his first try, he entered too late to garner many votes.

5.0~Across, Beyond, Through: The Prodigal Father ~Revsparker proves once again with this entry that he is a very thought provoking writer. I feel that this post will not draw many links, as it is again filled with a lot of personal insight, but the prose is very well written. As I have previously reviewed an entry from this blogger, I can forecast some consistency in what to expect.

5.0~Obnoxious Fumes : More on Moore ~I thought this was a great post. It references where the blogger got his idea, made his point with passion and that is it. From looking at the masthead on the blog, this is the type of post I would have expected to see. I was unsure who Moore was until the end where if found the reference I needed. As such, I was left with no unanswered questions.

5.0~truck808: rex sits idle ~Much like the blog dealing with dreams from last week, this blog will either interest you or it won't. Robert, or maybe it is robert, has the same dislike for using the CAP key as e.e. cummings of poetry fame, but the writing was great on this post. Will rex every move? One is left wondering. According to the blog description:

robert posts a photo of a truck every day at 8:08pm and shares a story inspired by that truck

I believe he will. I suspect there are a lot of trucks, so robert has a lot of stories left to tell.

5.0~Grammar.police: Lone Star Wars ~A post written about the war between the Republicans and the Democrats in Texas, regarding congressional redistricting, written as if it was a lead-in to another Star Wars movie. Very novel. Great post. According to Kriston, the Republicans are the evil villains, in case you wanted to know.

5.0~Backcountry Conservative: Orrin Hatch: "I write the songs" ~Jeff begins by saying:

The one angle I haven't seen mentioned about the Orrin Hatch story regarding file-sharing is that Hatch would tend to do whatever the recording industry wanted him to do because of his personal ties to the music industry.

I agree that I had not seen anyone suggest or argue that angle before. Interesting post, well written.

4.5~Political News and Analysis: Patriotism Toward Gov't Opposed by Founding Fathers [contest link/broken]~Oh, but for having provided the correct link to the post in the entry form and having used blockquoting to set off those quotes, I would have lovingly given this post BEST OF SHOW honors. Again, a fantastic posting gets demoted on technical merit. It happens. This guy talks like a Libertarian, or at least the selected quotes do.

4.5~Happy Furry Puppy Story Time: Austin Smoking Ban: Consistency is the Green Goblin of Something or Other ~Norbizness has again shown his unique writing style and sense of humor. He added some words that are not actually in the title on the blog into the titling for the contest, but the link works. I wanted to give this posting top marks, but I got thrown with this:

One of my college friends, an ardent objectivist (but also nature boy) at the time, had to reconcile his feelings concerned [ed. Did you mean "concerning"?] the sell-off of Yosemite to Disney with his deep affection for "Atlas Shrugged".

Is this for real? Where is the link? I have not heard that the US was peddling our National Parks? Good stuff here. Regular reading is suggested.

4.5~Collinization: Find Joy In My Suffering! ~OK, I thought this was deserving of the top score, except the first installment was what John had submitted the first time he entered the contest. As such, I felt it only fair to the other entrants to drop him a peg for having done so. However, he added plenty of additional information so that I am able to conclude he has not cheated by doing so. The previously submitted part is actually a necessary explanation to the cause for his horrible ordeal. Also, John is on blog*spot and is not using individual archiving so you have to scroll to get to this post from the link in the entry submission. If John can only continue to get hurt and describe to us the ordeals he goes through in receiving his injuries and then being treated for such, I think we will be coming back to his blog regularly. He shows a very great sense of humor, is very descriptive, and I find his writing to be delightful reading. I suspect that John has the potential to be a best selling author.

4.5~A Frolic of My Own: A day in Washington ~Not the title, but the link works. A day in Washington seemed like an appropriate title, however, as this was basically just a journal entry about what happens in the blogger's life. I checked out the rest of the blog, and that is pretty much what the blog is about, just blurbs about what is happening in the blogger's life. Good writing, although I did leave with some unanswered questions, such as what in the heck is SAIS? But as a showcase of what the blogger has to offer, this was a good post to enter.

4.5~Prometheus 6: Racism or Why They Don't Understand Us ~I actually had a hard time trying to peg where this one fit on the rating scale. I loved the test, I loved what the author had to say, but it really did not have as much to do with racism or why we do not understand them or they understand us, depending on which side of the fence you stand on, as it did about what I am always saying: "Truth is relevant to perception." People see and hear what they want to see and hear, and all of us are very often programmed to see and hear things a certain way by how we grew up. I think this author agrees, and attempts to convince people not to do so. I am just not sure it is possible. I finally decided it was not among the very best posts in this week's contest, but was really close. I checked out several of the other posts on the blog, and the writing is consistently good.

4.5~RyCam.net: Flag Day ~But for the fact that I wanted to take my red pencil out and mark up all the grammatical and spelling mistakes I found, I would have likely made this one BEST OF SHOW! On the titled day, Ryan used the occasion to talk about the flag and how, in his opinion, what it actually stood for was being taken away. Most apropos posting about Flag Day of any I saw on such day in the Blogosphere. Nicely designed blog, though it did take me some time to locate the link to the current page. I suspect this will be a good blog to read on a regular basis, but if I have not said this before, this is the written word, so edit people!

4.5~Metajournalism: Prison Privatization ~This seems like a great blog to read on a regular basis. The post, in itself, was not all that bad, and using a 4 year old story as your reference is not even that bad, but if you are going to dredge up something that is not on the front page of newspapers right now, put more passion into posting about it. I found the story to be a little dry, as if someone was reporting old news and not as if someone was very indignant about the matter. [I did bookmark the last link, however, as I, personally, am interested in reading more about those statistics]

4.0~Musings From The Imperial Senate: Corporate Welfare ~Again, another blogger who needs to edit for grammatical mistakes and typos. Although I was able to discern the general gist of DarthVOB's opinion, it was a bit circular and oblique. Translating great thoughts into written form takes effort and editing. Sometimes hitting the post key is not the last step. Reading what you posted to make sure it makes sense is also part of the game, or at least I believe so.

4.0~Dog of Flanders: You may have read this before: A guide to the successful showcase entry ~Actually, I thought the pointers were quite good. Although this might be a post that will garner a lot of votes, I do not think this kind of post would compel people to see what else they might find on the blog. [Just as these reviews seem to draw people to this blog, but seldom does anyone read much more than the review.] In my opinion, the contest is really more about building readership than collecting links. The dog lost another notch for tiling a large graphic on the background. Such is very distractive. There are several very nice graphics displayed on the right column. A solid background would assist the reader and make the other graphics show up better.

4.0~Cyber :: Ecology: Nasa to spark war with Mars ~or not actually titled as such, but the title used is close enough to assist you in finding it. The link actually works, or did when I went to the site. Serona used some unique humor to draw attention to this post, but actually might have been chastised by one of the heroes of this post, Sandy Moondust, who is described as one who enjoys "correcting grammar." To tell you the truth, I do not mind colloquial spelling, and am not all that sure how to spell "come on" in the colloquial manner. Try as I might, I cannot seem to say it where is would come out as "common." The topic is cute and the post was humorous. However, as I am always pickin' nits, I think this one is a couple of nits from being among the top.

4.0~Not Geniuses: White Wine or Kool-Aid, Mr. Sanger? ~Sorry, but found nothing outstanding to set this post apart from the type of items I routinely find reading blogs. A gentle dissing of a reporter who gently dissed the President. yada, yada. However, I did like the blog design. From what I saw from the postings on the current page, I think this blog would be a good regular read . As I have previously stated, the contest is a SHOWCASE. I expect the best among current postings to be submitted.

4.0~Little Miss Attila: The Mob Squad [entry link - blog home] ~Entry link is to the blog, mine is to the post. When I saw this entry, the first thing I thought of was I wonder if someone calls her "Hunny." OK, sorry about that, I know it was quite punny, and probably not all that funny. I just am not too enthused when the link does not take me to the post and I have to look for it. However, I thought the post was very humorous and fairly well written.

4.0~Brian Flemming's Weblog: Bill Gates to die in New York: Thoughts on the DV revolution ~My first thoughts about this post is what does DV stand for? I suspect it is Digital Video, but it was never made apparent from the reading of this one post. Secondly, I wondered if the point being made could have possibly been said in much fewer words than were used. Thirdly, I wondered if the scenario discussed by Brian was the only alternative, because about halfway through this post I envisioned a cable network completely dedicated to independent, low budget films. What could provide a better showcase to a wide audience than a cable network? His idea was a throwback to the beginnings of the motion picture industry or devising a scheme similar to play productions. As someone who written, directed, starred, edited, and produced my own 20 minute personal pity party movie in a completely self executable Flash player, I have also wondered how to get an audience for my production. Fewer words Brian! You almost lost me about half the way through, seriously!

3.5~The Blog Herald: Blog Herald attacks France again! ~Oh but I could have scored this posting higher. The composition and formatting of this post made it hard to read. Again, an example of a blogger who thinks once the post key is pressed there is no need to worry about what you posted. So many typos and poorly constructed sentences. The topic, had it been better presented, was very interesting.

3.5~The Tears of Things: If I Had Curated The Arizona Biennial '03 ~It is very rare that I do not read all the way through any posts entered in the contest, but I lost interest pretty fast on this one. Regrettably, it is very hard to critique art effectively for readers without showing it, unless you are talking to people who are very familiar with that to which you are referring. I had no idea what or who most of the people discussed were. I am pretty sure that no one outside the Phoenix area cared anything about what was shown in the Arizona Biennial '03. I thought the blogger had great writing skill and definitely showed great intelligence, but from the blog description and this post, I cannot imagine it developing a large readership.

3.5~Tainted Law: Rational Basis ~This post was very close to getting the minimum score, as the first time I hit the link on the contest page, I got a 403 saying I did not have permission to access the post. Then I tried to find it on the blog, running several different phrases from the excerpt on the contest page and was coming up empty. I could find no link to archives on the page. However, as I was checking out another archive link to see if maybe there was something wrong with the URL, the link to the post finally went to the post. Cool! I am almost sure the blogger had a very valid point to make with regard to the way the U. S. Supreme Court reviews cases involving state laws. However, I had a hard time trying to understand exactly what the blogger was trying to say. Was this post over my head? I very well doubt it. As a practicing attorney for more than 15 years, I have read my share of legal opinions, some better written and more understandable than others. Mental concepts are sometimes hard to put into written form, but a good attorney has to know how to do so. If this had been a brief submitted to me and I was on the bench, I would probably have been asking the attorney a lot of questions so as to get some idea what his argument was about. Maybe I was just missing the headnotes.

3.5~Screaming Bean: Tuesday, May 20, 2003 ~Let me see, soon to be a 2L in law school, married and aged 28. I think I was about 33 when I was married and had just finished my first year of Law School, but that was a few years back. I hope Beanie's future fares better than mine did over his next 15 years. Two good things I would like to say about Beanie: He correctly titled his entry and is on blogger and blog*spot with his own design. I actually love spontaneous road trips and thought I was going to hear about a delightful trip. The post did not relate much of interest about the trip except for his buying a Yale Law School T-shirt to wear while attending Cornell Law School. I was not very impressed with this post, and my attempt to find anything of general interest on the blog failed. This is probably a nice blog for friends and family, but I suspect not of much interest to the rest of the Blogosphere at this time.

3.0~MercuryX23's Fantabulous Blog: WMS [contest link - broken] ~Other than not knowing how to put the proper URL into the box where you submit your entry, Mercury has a voice. He/she speaks, and runs sentences on and on and on. Of course, what he/she is actually saying other than proving to be another of the zealots on the left who see nothing good about the other side of the political spectrum, I saw little of merit to this posting. The writing was atrocious and the arguments were without substantiation. This post was just inane castration of the current administration. Zealots bore me, especially ones that cannot support their stances with logic.

2.5~Properwinston: Properwinston [contest link -broken] ~The entry link is dead, so this entry will likely get no votes, except maybe mine. My link will get you close, but you still need to scroll down to Friday, June 13, 2003. I like the bloggers style, especially the letter style endings. However, I found the prose to be confusing in places. I liked the topic and the viewpoint expressed and believe such shows Grant has a keen sense of logic. I think Grant has the makings of a good blogger, but needs to edit his postings a bit more closely.

2.0~Diversions: Treasure of Nimrud ~Renee is a truly new blogger, having only made a few posts so far. Regrettably, Renee needs to develop her blogging skills. Most of this post appeared to have been cut and pasted from the linked stories, without any embellishment, commentary or the use of blockquoting. The topic was intriguing, and I for one do not want Renee to give up on blogging. I see she has found her niche, and there are probably not many bloggers who want to keep us informed about antiquities and such. A blog is your forum and voice. You need to put some of your personality and writing into it. The archiving seems to be set on monthly, so you have to scroll down the page to find this post. Renee, if you read this, do not be offended by my comments. Blogging does not come with instructions. Most of us have little idea what we are doing when we start, and by knowing what it is that you want to share with the world, you are a step ahead of some of us that have been doing it for a much longer period of time. My suggestion: read other blogs, see what other people write and how they present topics. There is a lot of variety. If I wanted to see only what National Geographic had written on a topic, I have National Geographic bookmarked already. If I come to your blog, I want to see what you have to say on the topic. That is not to say you cannot or should not quote portions of stories from other sources, but add something, some comment about what that story means to you, and establish some indications about what part of your posts are yours and what parts come from somewhere else.

0.5~Entre Nous / Musings of a former Belgian: Widespread "involuntary euthanasia" in Belgium ~Where is it? The link provided does not take you to the entered post. I tried on two different occasions to find this post. I could not locate it. Of course, the blog is on blog*spot, so maybe it disappeared. With nothing to review, there is nothing I can say about it. I thought about commenting on one of the other posts, but the one excerpted was the one entered. I even tried a search using several of the phrases from the excerpt through three weeks of archives in an attempt to locate the post.

The New Weblog Showcase Review II

I was pondering whether to repeat my efforts in reviewing all of the entries in this week's New Weblog Showcase, especially as last week's effort took a considerable amount of my time for three days. However, the author of the blog, I know this is probably bad for me, had to go and mention that it was primarily due to my comments in last week's review that she decided to enter into this week's contest. Also, I noticed that the number of entries for this week were greatly reduced from the 38 that were a part of last week's contest. So, following 15 disconnections, 1.5 hours of reading, 2 hours of writing, and 2.5 hours of review and editing, here are the reviews:

STOP! GO NO FURTHER! READ! Anyone who is offended by my review of their entry, remember I am merely stating my opinions and they may not necessarily be the opinions of any other single person [on this planet, as I have been contacted and told that my opinions were officially adopted by an entire alien sub-culture in the Ming Sector and most of the species in the Gamma quadrant.]

5.0 is top, 0.5 is bottom: ALL RATING IS SUBJECTIVE; Listing is important, as I positioned the posts from the best on top down to worst on bottom within tied ratings based upon my personal preference of one post over another.

5.0~Transparent Eye: Dreaming of a Chirac Assassination ~OK, this one gets BEST OF SHOW, despite one noted grammatical mistake. Since it is the purpose of the contest to present a recent post that makes people inclined to read your blog, this post did the best job of hitting the mark. It is a dream, vividly described, but then most of the posts in this blog are dreams, vividly described. Strange, ephemeral and original, this post will either intrigue you to read more or it won't. [I am just not too sure what it means to be "an accessory after the fast." ;) ]

5.0~Catallarchy: Calpundit's knowledge problem ~Upon viewing the title, I was almost sure this was going to be a fisking. In a way, it was, but not really. It was Brian W. Doss's attempt to point out what he saw as the flaws in Kevin Drum's argument on economic philosophy. Pretty dry stuff, unless you are into such. I am unaware of Brian's resume', but suspect he is an academic, and will rise rapidly in the Blogosphere Ecosystem. I am still not sure that I understand everything about what was written, but I have not read Hayek or Mises, and it is doubtful I will, at least not until I retire or something.

5.0~Let's Run The Numbers: Administration Seeks Overhaul of Federal Workforce ~This blogger begins a long thoughtful diatribe with a laundry list of Presidential actions that he believes show a pattern, then follows with an in-depth analysis of further activity along this line. The argument was well organized, and Jim was forthcoming about how he was in line to be personally affected. Although his line was taut, he did give a bit when logic dictated the necessity of such:

Yes, the bureaucracy can be a straightjacket, and some people are drawing paychecks without doing enough work to justify their existence.

Of course, as I mentioned when I stated my previous support for Ross Perot, I think the bureaucracy is too fat and needs some trimming, but I have to agree with Jim that there may need to be a little bit more thinking about the manner in which it is done. I am not sure, however, that the administration is not on the right track. While this latter portion may not have anything to actually do with my review of Jim's post, it is included to show that these reviews are not dependent upon my agreement with the bloggers' viewpoints as much as the effectiveness of their message.

4.5~Tales from a Yeti Suit: The Three Goddesses ~Almost immediately, I can see this guy bolted from blog*spot and Blogger by looking at the first title and second title and first two words of the post. I went through that titling ordeal when I imported my blogger archives into MT. This was a delightfully well-written descriptive anecdote about one night in the blogger's life. I wanted so badly to give it BEST OF SHOW, but regrettably, the template is horrible [Yeti: have a look at it in low resolution] and light text on dark background, while stylish, causes excessive eyestrain. I hate to see such fantastic content dragged down a peg by technical merit. I do expect to see this blogger emerge as a shining star in the Blogosphere Ecosystem in the near future.

4.5~Kuboid: Today's Theme: Architecture ~Those of you that read last week's reviews will remember that posts which are of interest only to a limited group of readers do not rate the very top mark, even, in this case, when the subject is one that I personally find particularly interesting. If I had been grading on design, however, this would have been BEST OF SHOW as this is the best designed page I have seen in a long while [although AstreaEdge is still my very favorite blog designer]. I thought it particularly humorous when glloyd opined that Prince Charles displayed "a worryingly autocratic tendency . . . ." I mean, he is after all, Prince Charles. Does not that position entitle one to have autocratic tendencies? [When you get ready to make that trip to Brasilia, give me a shout. I would love to see that myself, but if you ever get in my neck of the woods, I would be more than happy to show you my favorite design: the Kimbell Art Museum, designed by Louis Kahn.]

4.5~vision : on: Egad ~To tell you the truth, I was not really sure what Stu was talking about, but found this to be very interesting all the same. It was well written and although the humor escaped me personally, I could recognize the effort. I also viewed some of the other posts and there are some interesting items, but of all the posts on this page, this was the best one. That is what you should submit to a Showcase, your best piece of material. Lamest title I have ever seen!

4.5~this is probably bad for me: Grown Up Passion ~Horrible design: dark text on a dark background and displaying the entire URL on linkage is very distractive. The prose, however, was well composed and easily allowed one to assess where the blogger rests on the political compass. There was enough passion expressed in this post for two posts! Is this another voice for the far left?

4.0~The SchoolHouse Review: How NOT to diversify ~I see something from a blog called the SchoolHouse Review that I wanted so badly to print out, to mark up badly with my red pencil and hand back to a student who shows great promise as a writer, once they learn the basic tenets of proper punctuation. Of course, I suppose I had not been paying proper attention to this issue because I actually thought the sentiment about Jayson Blair was that it was "a tale of deceit by a young man who got a taste of the big time and a failure by those in charge to notice it," and was not aware that anyone viewed such as a failure of diversity. The viewpoints expressed, however, outside of the context of having anything to do with Jayson Blair, are very valid!

4.0~Brian's Study Breaks: Afghan Nation-Building ~This blogger is on blog*spot and supplies no titles, so it was difficult to determine if I was reading the entered post. Thankfully, he does know how to archive with Blogger. Brian puts forth some great points about the problems with actually building a unified nation in Afghanistan, however, the prose is a bit haphazard and hard to follow. Another thing that I felt was lacking was any references to whom some of the people/entities were. In addition, the opening blurb related to a different topic for discussion and the update appeared to also be related to something other than nation building in Afghanistan. Brian showed he has keen analytical abilities, but it may be the shortage of the time he has between studying that requires him to rush his composition.

4.0~Judicious Asininity: Smoking Saves Lives ~Errrrrgh! That design. Actually, I was not too impressed with this post, although it does seem to be doing well in the current voting. It was not the subject matter that disturbed me, but the majority of Romulus' post was a lengthy 5 paragraph blockquote from someone else's comments, followed by one paragraph of this blogger's thoughts. I wanted more from Romulus. However, from looking at the other recent posts in the blog, it appears that Romulus is still attempting to find his blogging niche. He has discovered the essence of becoming a popular blogger, however: impressive blogroll and a prolific linkage. But for his one and only chance at entering the Showcase, he should have picked a post with more of his writing and less of someone else's.

3.5~The SmarterCop: BUSH IS A GENIUS ~On blog*spot but knows how to archive [and Blogger's archiving was working], however I did not find any substantiation in the post for the statement made in the title. While I saw nothing substantially wrong with this post, I also saw nothing to make it stand out from the mundane type of stuff that fills most of the space in the Blogosphere. This being a Showcase, I want to see someone show their stuff, so to speak. This blogger shows great potential, however, and may be the only pro-Bush blogger in this week's Showcase.

3.5~idols of the marketplace: A Mapquest for Peace ~Upon first view, I had great hopes for this post, despite the lame title. Although residing on blog*spot, the permalink did take me to the correct post and the template was attractive. The commentary displayed sufficient linkage to show the blogger had done his homework. However Walter's punctuation was haphazard and there were quite a number of spelling errors. The blogger showed a decided left bias to his commentary.

3.0~Facilitating Paradox: God-Name = God Substance [entry link] ~A late-comer to the contest, this one is on blog*spot and is using weekly archiving so you will have to scroll to find it. I read this post a couple of times attempting to discover exactly what point David was attempting to make. Was it about whether there was one Hindu God or more than one? Was it about David's relgious choices? Or, was the whole point, as what I devined from the final sentence, that David would agree to whatever your opinion about God was if you were to meet? Like I said, I was really confused.

2.5~A Layman's Opinion: n/a ~My link will actually get you closer than the link on the New Weblog Showcase will. I had to hunt for this one. Thankfully, upon reading some of the rest of the blog, Joseph has discovered how to title posts. The writing was somewhat convoluted but readable. The issue discussed was very personal to Brian and his wife, and was likely a good post to have submitted in the contest. Abortion is always a touchy subject, but Brian's provided the viewpoint of someone who understands the personal issues behind having to have made the decision to abort a child. I wish, in all good conscience, I could have given this post higher marks. Hopefully Brian's blogging and writing skills will improve over time.

BEST BLOG OF SHOW IS:

The body of this post has been moved to extended entries. 6/12/03

As NZ has made it a requirement that all entrants into the New Blog Showcase Popularity Contest this second week are required to link 3 of the competing blogs. I entered this post, and please feel free to vote for it. often, linking it to every entry on your blog. I decided to vote for everyone's blog! But there is a price! I get to tell you and the world just what I thought about your entry. I am honest and can be brutal. The date and time of this post were purposely done to insure you indeed GET YOUR VOTE.

STOP! GO NO FURTHER! READ! Anyone who is offended by my review of their entry, feel free to review my entry. I personally rate it 3.5. I am merely stating my opinions and they may not necessarily be the opinions of any other single person [on this planet, as I have been contacted and told that my opinions were officially adopted by an entire alien sub-culture in the Ming Sector.]

5.0 is top, 0.5 is bottom: ALL RATING IS SUBJECTIVE; Listing is important, as I the best on top down to worst on bottom within tied ratings based upon my personal preference of one post over another.

5.0~Folkbum's Rambles and Rants: The Democrats' Summer Softball League ~Could it be? Is a Leftie going to be Best of Show? I was so set against reading this post as I felt the title was leading into some zealotist attack on one side or the other. What I found was a delightful analogy which gave me more insight into the Democratic Presidential Candidates than I have foretold received. VERY WELL DONE! [There was at least one misspelling, however, so don't get a big head.]

5.0~Reason of Voice: The Clinton Wars ~This guy hooked me with the first sentence:

Full disclosure: I'm one of those who thought Clinton a god.

I am thinking, thought, not thinks, so here is going to be a person who decided his god was not all that great. Nope, it did not pan out that way. It was a book review, with some nicely written personal interludes about how the author felt about the former President and the book. I detest Clinton, mainly because I detested his moral values more than his political stance, but found this post to be entertaining. I also know that I have no need to buy this book. Although this guy leans way too far to the left for me, I believe he at least presents a rational argument for his side on issues. I will blogroll it and check it from time to time just to keep a pulse on the other side's take on the issues.

5.0~The Tough Democrat: How to be tough ~The writer makes a good argument for his/her (or her/his) point of view, interspersed with links that do not detract from the reading, but do offer points for further research and opinion about portions of the argument. There is a bit of a bias leaning left, but with the blog name, I was not surprised. The post was well-written, interesting and informative. It showcased the blogger's writing talents with a sprinkling of partisanship.

5.0~Signal + Noise: Finding a use for all that Evian~ Just when I thought I was getting tired and cranky, someone proves me wrong. It look me a few sentences to adjust to the writing style, but the ideas are pretty profound. It's on blog*spot, but the archives work. It gets blogrolled.

4.5~The Talent Show: Why these tax cuts suck ~I was torn whether this one should be 5.0 or 4.5, but did not think it as good as the ones who are at 5.0. The argument was persuasive, and substantiated. The title informed you of the leaning so nothing was surprising. The writing was crisp and easy to follow. Too Left for my blogroll though. [In case anyone wonders, there are actually those that are Too Right for my blogroll.]

4.5~Happy Furry Puppy Story Time: The Administration as Legion of Doom Characters ~I had already pegged this post to be included in new idea to start doing a Best of the Week listing (that I may or may not do, now that I have undertaken this task), so I already had read and liked it before I saw it listed in the Showcase entries. I have always been an avid comic reader and fan, so I feel norbizness hit a home run with this post.

4.5~Mudville Gazette: SACRED WORDS ~This is getting a late review, because the author noted such on his blog. I thought it had been one of those I had previously reviewed, then lost, then overlooked when redoing the review. [The randomizing of links, doing such on two different systems, and the continual addition of new blogs did make it hard to keep up with the ones I had reviewed and the ones I hadn't.] Upon the revelation, I took the opportunity to look at the post again, and I had looked at it previously. It is long, and my power went off while I was reading it. I had never reviewed it. This was a post written by one of out servicemen which provided that unique perspective about this war. I wanted so badly to place this one among the very top, but I could not, in good conscience, place it in the 5.0 rating. I felt there was a lack of smoothness in the flow of prose and manner of presentation. Like genius and madness, there is a fine line between exceptional and excellent.

4.5~Hi! I'm Black: Shell Vacations Club & Their God Damn Salesmen!!!!!!!! ~A latecomer to the contest. I was a bit alarmed when I read the Blog title expecting some racial diatribe about victimization and was pleasantly surprised. Except for the DAILY DOSE lists to stories which point to stories regarding racism and black issues, the general tone of most of the posting are such that race issues are not of any concern. Having read the entry post prior to the remainder of the blog, I was mindful that the blog title might be soley informational. I personally did not think it mattered, as I thought this was a delightfully well written tale about being kidnapped by time-share salesmenpeople. Been there, done that, got the steak knives to prove it. I really liked what I saw in this blog.

4.5~Sanity's Edge: Top Ten Reasons to Read My Blog ~although these 10 reasons lists seem to be popular in so many blogs, usually they are take only a couple of seconds to read completely through, and if done right, can be pretty humorous. This one was. But, more importantly, it caused me to look at some of the other things the blogger had posted Is this not what you hope to accomplish with a good entry into this showcase? I found that I liked the writing style and the topics of many of the posts. I blogrolled it.

4.5~Across, Beyond, Through: May 26, 2003 ~The title will disclose part of the reason this one did not rate higher. this is truly a new blogger who posts one post a day, and includes several subjects in the same post. And he is on blog*spot so no permalinks. You will have to scroll for this one. But the author does a great job of providing insight into something very intimate about himself and invites us to do likewise. I loved this passage:

We don't really grow in our religious minds or our spirits until we become willing to admit that whatever God may be, it's something bigger than us, bigger than our minds or hearts can grasp, bigger than our particular tradition can hold, bigger even than our questions.

I found the other posts to be interesting also, and hope this author finds his way off of blog*spot and Blogger soon.

4.5~Technically Speaking: Mosquito Extermination on a global scale ~A short insightful post on a topic that almost everyone might find interest in. And a nice graphic included. If I was not so busy rating these blogs in the contest, this post would be a good lead-in for my comments about wolves. I also checked out the rest of the blog, and while I might not be interested in every post, I saw there were several that I would find worth reading. As such, I blogrolled the site.

4.5~RandomActOfKindness: Drug Czar Gets Political ~Primarily a reporting piece on an issue that I find very disturbing. The author interspersed just enough of his commentary to allow the reader to understand his leanings. I just expected a bit more passion. The permalink takes you to the top of the page and you have to scroll to find the posting. His Libertarian leanings get him blogrolled.

4.5~Give It Back: Let It Rant ~Lest anyone think I am rating these posts due to my political leanings, let me say right off this guy is leaning way too far LEFT for my liking. BUT, despite the fact he began the post with

I'm not much of a writer . . .

the writer does a pretty nice job of getting the message across. I think the post was well composed, easy to read and follow, and although I personally probably will not blogroll this blog, as I doubt I would read it much, I think this message will bring him a lot of readers from those that believe the government should be about entitlements for those who cannot take care of themselves and their families. I did think the title was a bit lame.

4.5~Collinization: Life tells me, 'Grab your ankles!' ~It's on blog*spot and it is a post about his personal situation. Mostly, especially when they are much younger than I, I have very little interest in reading about the goings on in the daily lives of people, but I found this post to be very humorous, and wanted to see how the rest of the blog looked. I liked it. I think I will blogroll it. I even emailed him and told him how to get comments on his blog, because he asked, and because after the day he had that is described in the entry post, I felt like doing something nice for him.

4.5~General Glut's Globblog: The wheels of overproduction just keep on spinning ~Decidedly leaning one way, but I could not be sure exactly which way his political compass pointed by reading the entry. The blog seems to be primarily about world economics. However, the entry was another one of those that held my interest even though I had no real interest in the subject matter. Good writing style.

4.5~AlphaPatriot: Mideast Peace ~Well written piece that used links extensively as support for data given in the story, which did not necessarily require reading in order to follow the contentions of the author.

4.0~Britblog: Wimbledon~Newsy site for British expariates. Way too graphically loaded for someone with my 2.4K connection. Nice writing style. But the link doesn't go to the post, or even the page the post is on. You have to search for it.

4.0~I Protest: Weapons of mass retraction ~I found this post to be disappointing, as the purpose of the blog was blurbed to be:

Civil rights, politics, human rights, feminism, psychology and other stuff.

So why the same old diatribe leaning on the curently most divisive issue in the Blogosphere? There [was] were a few "quotes" I thought had insufficient references, and* one link that pointed to my needing to read it for a fuller understanding of the readers point. You showed you could effectively excerpt, so excerpt the portion of that page that supports your position. [I personally try currently to limit my "like this" links to bloggers, so that I do not deprive them of readers on their sites by displaying their great talent on mine.] *Frank, in the comments, questioned my observation that he had made insufficient references to quotes and upon review, I was of the opinion that I had been mistaken on that point, and hereby retract such. My apologies, Frank.

4.0~giant city: pill peeves ~If you only knew how close this entry came to being a lot higher up the ladder [though this is not actually a shabby score]: the author did such a fine job of selling me the point, that by the time I had read down to the excerpted portion displayed on NZB's contest page, I saw no need to go further. Overkilled the point. Really hard to fault someone for giving too much of a good thing. But I also wanted to rate them fairly by my personal subjective procedure: I call 'em as I see 'em!

4.0~Mrs. PseudoPsalms: Israel ~Regrettably this blog is on blog*spot and either Anna does not archive often or, most likely, Blogger archiving in on the fritz again [the main reason I personally abandoned Blogger], but I doubt as such that it will do very well in the voting. Too bad. Although I question the logic and her knowledge of the history about the area, her opinion was concise and easy to follow. She excerpted small portions of the articles to lead in to the comments she wanted to make. Look for it, it is the last posting on the entries for May 30th. Again, this post made me eager to read some of the other entries, which is what I think the purpose of the contest actually is. I found the May 28th posting entitled "Presidents" to have be one of the best ones now showing on the page, but it will like fall off before you read this. Anna, get off of blog*spot.

4.0~Cyber :: Ecology: If You Only Knew: Mad Cow Disease, Beef, and Getting in Touch With Your Food ~Although I did not find the general vein of content in this blog to be all that interesting, it has nothing to do with the writing skill or style of the blogger. It is just my choice of what I find interesting and what I do not find interesting. However, the post selected for entry in the Showcase even I found to be of interest. The blogger was very conscious of what sources she used for her story. I did not like the varying styles and sizes of text used in the post, and am still deciding if I like the short warning excerpt used or not. I am not sure I would have read it based upon that excerpt had I not already decided to read all of the entries.

4.0~BusinessPundit: Porn Goes Mainstream ~Very good article review. I did wonder who Hirsch was, but figured if I was really interested, I could read the story. If your goal is to be the Glenn Reynolds of the business news, you show great potential. The story does sound fascinating, so I might have to use this link later to get back to your link to that. Does that make sense?

4.0~Sgt Hook: Duty, Honor, Country... ~I am saddened that I could not, in all good conscious, rate this posting higher. I am a member of the American Legion, went out sick as a dog on Memorial Day to put flags up at our local cemetaries in recognition of our fallen Veterans. I was deeply saddened that two people with whom the author had become acquainted had fallen in the line of duty. But the author chopped this piece up into a history of the day interspersed with portions of anecdotal memories. The topic was superb, the sentiment was utterly apparent, but the organization was attrocious.

4.0~Wizbang: Smart Growth In Loudoun County, VA (Or How To Piss Off All Of The People All Of The Time) - Part II ~Kevin posted a really nice comment and asked that I not be too harsh. Kevin, I just cannot pull my punches. This post droned on and on with details of little interest to those not immediately affected by the situation to end with this statement:

So when the Smart Growth bandwagon arrives in your area think hard before jumping on.

It would have taken far fewer words to make that statement. Great writing, horrible subject for a Showcase entry, TMI! I love your blog, however! It was already blogrolled.

4.0~Rkayn knowledge: Eleanor Clift is a big fat liar ~This entry had one of the longest excerpts in the contest. When I initially tried to access the link, I found the blog was on blog*spot and that the permalink didn't work. Maybe there was a reason for putting what appeared to be the entire text of the post into the entry submission excerpt box. My review of the excerpt was

Of course, as I have no idea who Eleanor Clift is, I am not thoroughly concerned about the fact that she is a liar. I am always interested in who is getting appointed to Federal benchess, so I intially assumed that I would find something in this story of interest. I, regretfully, found that I did not.

and I scored it 1.0. However, I checked the blog and it was the most recent post in the blog. The excerpt was actually a poor example of the content, but reading the entry in the entirety, I found the entry to be thoughtful, fairly well-written, and informative. I adjusted the score greatly. I would have excerpted this bit:

What does the make-up of the circuit courts have to do with "judicial independence"? Would having them all equally split between Republican nominated judges and Democratic judges mean that they are "independent" in any meaningful way? This split has nothing to do with "judicial independence" at all, they are simply a function of who has been getting elected President.

I did notice that this blog had archives dating to 10/6/2002 and thought the cut-off date of the contest was Mar 11 2003 however, as I also noted that there was a major break in the archives between 1/05/03 and 5/01/03 I suspect there may have been consequences that would allow for some relaxation of the general rule for sake of the spirit underlying the showcase. I was hopeful that one of the early May entries would disclose the reason behind this gap, but was unable to access any of those posts.

4.0~GrahamLester.com: A Nonbeliever's Defense of Religion ~If the object of an effective blog post is to hold someone's interest in reading about a subject that they were not all that interested in, this post does the trick. However, hoping to find more insightful opinions about subjects, I did peruse the rest of the blog, which has little of the same type of fare to offer. However, to say this, it looks like this is the only purely non-blogging software blog I have ever seen. UPDATE: I thought he did a much better job on this piece.

4.0~Whiskey Bar: What a Tangled Web We Weave . . . ~I didn't like this all that much, but restrained myself from burying it way down in the ratings. I did put my bias aside, however, remembering this contest was about drawing readership. This post should draw the left in like flies to a lightbulb. Pure partisanship. I did not read all the way to the bottom because I got tired of scrolling down and looking to the right. That display setup was an irritating exercise in frustration.

3.5~FreeSpeech: Bob Herbert forges forward with his class warfare ~Wizbang + Rkayn knowledge = 3.5 ~That's about all I can say, not interesting and way too long to hold my attention. Maybe I was just tired, and wanted something with a bit of humor interspersed.

3.5~Page Three: Seat Belts ~I thought the title was a misnomer, to a degree. It was essentially prior restraint on free speech, and the author just led you to read InstaPundit. Not a great post to intice people to read you, by forcing them to read InstaPundit to understand the context of your post. Also, there are actually links to most case opinons, if you only search for them. I guess I would have to, since you did not do it for me, even though you suggested I read some cases. At least the blog*spot archives worked, but you still have to scroll, but not far. Megan, you are a good writer, so do not have fears about writing passionately about how you feel about things. I think you have great potential to create a blog I would love to read regularly, but not yet.

3.5~Serenity's Journal: 100 Proof ~Just to show that even those I agree with 100% do not draw the highest rating. This was a decent post, but this subject is so common right now, one side says this, the other side says that. I am not saying that one shouldn't have their say, but that it might not have been the best post to enter into the Showcase. Another thing, although it did not enter into the rating, but I found to be amusing was that the purpose of the blog was listed as:

Covering current events with a libertarian/conservative viewpoint. And other musings.

and within this post, the author referred in what seemed to be a derogatory nature to "clouds of pot smoke." I was almost sure that anyone with Libertarian leanings would not have done so.

3.5~Along the Way: Reloaded Thoughts ~I absolutely love this:

As I trudge through life, one day at a time, every once in a while a thought pops to mind.

The title threw me, as I expected it to be a introspection discussion, and was not ready for a movie review for a movie that I have yet to see. If I was a "nice guy," I would award 0.5 just because he said nice things about me on his blog. But I will just stay inclinated that I received those comments because I deserved it. The blog was interesting, though. Mostly seemed to either be family stuff or technical stuff way over my head. [Kenneth (I hope), you need to link your archive pages to your home page.]

3.5~Silver Rights: Some logs and a bottle of wine ~It appears that there has been some problem with blog*spots linkage [no surprise there] but I had previously applied my review to Silver Rights: No sympathy for the devil: Biracial white supremacist deserves his fate, which I prasied as a very well written piece talking about a very sensitive issue, racism, without any pointing fingers. The writing was crisp and I thought the template matched the tone of the writing superbly. However, I was not quite so impressed with this post. The writer expouses a belief in an injustice basing such on the unsubstantiated evidence of what one person said he observed and what another said he had done. While my own observations note that there is often a disparity in the way that class affects the way people are treated for the same transgressions, to proclaim the existence of such require far more substantiation that the writer was able to provide.

3.0~A Blog of His Own: Damn It! Just Knock It Off! ~This guy needs to get his feet wet. I think he has some great potential at becoming a pretty good blogger, but he seems a bit too new at the game to me. The entry post was all right, it gave the person's viewpoint, but I had to actually access the link to get a clear understanding of the context of the post. Aaron, get off of blog*spot, because you are not going to lodge any votes: your permalinks don't work. [link is to blog, the post is among the June 3rd entires]

3.0~Brainysmurf: Partying — east vs. west ~Can you say disppointed. When I read the first three paragraphs, I was entranced with the subject, thinking I was going to get some insight about something really interesting. I just did not quite pan out up to my expectations. Thinking maybe I would find better fare somewhere else on the blog, I checked it out, but really found it to be of very little interest to me. However, if you are leaning a bit to the left side, it might be more to your liking.

3.0~David E's Fablog: Fait Divers: An Unmarried Pixie ~I was never really sure what the author's point was in this story. At first, I thought the issue was the fact that the media tended not to reference the sexual orientation of certain people when writing about them, but then it seemed to migrate to a minimalist fisking of the story, excerpted immensely, and had more to do with the long term investigation of Copeland as a communist sympathizer during the McCarthy era. David, blockquotes work better than italicizing to set off things your are quoting from your own comments. I had a really difficult time doing so.

2.5~DANEgerus weblog: Gary Hart fisked ~grasp--->SPLAT! Missed me Gary! So did this fisking of his stupid commentary. I found both to be pretty inane. If this is the best the person could offer as an entry, I was not too inclined to see what else I could find on his blog. Realize, however, this is my opinion, and some of you might really like this post.

2.5~Mac-a-ro-nies: Blogospherics: Anger in the blogosphere ~This entry is currently #1 in the voting. Are there really all that many people impressed with this post? I mean it was mainly about the stuff other people were putting on their blogs, and not the good stuff, just the petty bickering and "I am gonna take my ball and go home whining." I am surprised at the votes and not overly impressed with the entry.

2.5~Yet another weird SF fan: Libertarianism and SF Fandom ~Maybe the hype on the contest page caused me to expect something better, but I was really deflated reading this piece. I am both Libertarian and a SF fan, but where was all of this supposed data coming from? Surely, the author does not deign to speak for me without some substantiation? I did read a bit of the rest of the blog just to see if there was a better indication of the writer's skill at which to point. I didn't find it. At least he does know how to correctly archive on Blogger, or is it just because this post was made over two weeks ago? I sense a kindred spirit here, but we cannot seem to communicate to one another.

2.0~Just an Ordinary Guy: College Adventures ~

I'm just an ordinary guy, posting my ordinary thoughts...

about stuff they teach in college that the didn't even have when I was in college. Not interested. But still a more worthwhile blog than Rant Dude and a better post than Hawken Blog. I am sure your friends will love your posts. Most of the rest of us probably won't.

1.5~World War Bush: A Heightened State of Paranoia? ~I saw all I needed to see on the contest page:

Anti-war, anti-Bush rantings

Too Far Left and too fanatic ... actually, I do not like fanatics on either side of the fence. I didn't even look. But . . . v

1.0~RantDude's Ravings: Zoom Zoom The Hell Out of Here ~The only one of "the lost posts" that I did not need to go back and read in order to remember my prior review. It was an inane little rant about a non-issue by someone who does not seem to post but about once a week. Why enter the contest to draw readership if you have nothing to offer? And yet, it was still better than that v down there.

0.5~Hawken Blog: Vote for me even if linking to my specific posts doesn't work ~It is on blog*spot, you have to scroll to look for it, and "Vote for me even if linking to my specific posts doesn't work" is not the title to the post. I scrolled up and down that page so many times looking for this post, that if this was the was the best well written message pass along, it had already lost 2.5 points. What is the message? Whining about the fact that you can't play in the contest because you are on blog*spot. zzzzzznt! No, you get .05 for playing. I might check this one again, after he leaves blog*spot. The scanning gave me some indication that he is a blogger. [Now I have to raise up ZOOM, ZOOM which used to occupy this slot on the list.]

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