it comes in pints?

In the Navy

So we saw the young feller off today.

My office mate's kid has been working here too for a few years. Today was his last day of work, and he's off to join the Navy.

Godspeed, young swabbie!

Quote of the day

This a little bit different from my usual quotes of the day(s). Usually, I quote something deep, pithy, or at least witty. But this one gets the honor because it is simply unparseable:

”I hope that he will understand, if he is the nominee, the degree of disillusionment that will happen if he doesn't become a greater man than he will ever be.”

Just ... wow.

I'm having a devil of a time trying to find a grammatical term for that.

UPDATE: I just realized that I hadn't put in a link. Sorry Dave!

Nice touch

Received a letter today from the judge on my recent trial, thanking me for my service and such. I'm happy and gratified to have the opportunity to participate in a civic duty, despite the inconvenience with work and all. But it's still nice to hear from the court that it's appreciated.

Yeah, I'm sure it's more or less a form letter, but it's still a nice touch and one I haven't seen before in two previous trials and several other times I had to take a day off and show up at the courthouse. Your Honor, very nicely done, sir.

And speaking of ignorant hillbillies...

How do these ignorant dolts keep getting elected?

I mean, I'm sure he's a lawyer, but stilll...

Ignorant hillbillies

Just now catching up on my reading, and realized I had forgotten to post about this on Sunday.

Now that the political contests have moved on to Kentucky and West Virginia, Instapundit notes that the media are filling up on stories about ignorant, disease-ridden hillbillies from inbred political backwaters.

Help a Girl Out, Please

Okay, guys...I'm doing some research and I need your help. Girls are welcome, too, as always, though the character I'm writing about is a twelve-year-old boy. What I need are stories about stupid shit you did roughly between the ages of twelve to fourteen. Pre-pubescent misadventures and the like. If you don't want to share them in the comments, you can e-mail them to me (secondbreakfast3 - at - yahoo - dot - com). I'd appreciate it and who knows? It might be fun. Thanks.

"There was three pumas in the cravasse..."

Gawd these guys are funny. First saw them on their variety show back in the sixties. Saw them in person back in the early 80s. Saw their revival show back in the late 80s.

What a classic act. Here are a couple of their classic bits (revised) performed with the Boston Pops (and no, the line in the post title is from the original bit, not from this one):

"No wonder Mom always liked you best"

OHMIGODOHMIGODOHMIGOD

So I'm sitting at home doing my telecommuting thing. Overloading my brain with SOPs that need-A-Changin' and various spreadsheets. Even a [spit] Powerpoint [spit] presentation I'm supposed to give at the Operations Department meeting tomorrow (can't postpone it because I already swapped a slot once).

And so to lighten the mood while doing these things, I threw on the turntable a Smothers Brothers record. [Strange Interlude: The Sainted Bride and I saw the Smothers Brothers in Reno many years ago. Quel excellent. The SB even met Dick in person when she worked at a bank in Santa Cruz, many years ago, because he owned a vineyard up the coast a ways. But I digress...]

Then I got sidetracked and thought it would be kinda fun to find something on Youtube and embed it. I found some rather quickly, including this one. Screamingly funny, but far to un-PC to embed. So click on the link and go to about 3:45 minutes in. Then listen to the Brothers Smothers, through the "anthropologist" verse to the one after. Then you will understand why I didn't embed it. And you will laugh. And yes, I will post later some of the other things I found, including the song the Sainted Bride lovingly refer to as "Cabbageheads".

Happy Mother's Day

To all our Moms out there. I hope you're being spoiled today.

Rock 'n' Roll Trivia (The Incredible Motown Deity Smokey Robinson edition)

Ah, Smokey.

Damn Sir! If I had ovaries I'd melt in your presence, even in just the presence of one of your CDs. Heck, if I had a better stereo system I might grow ovaries and melt anyway.

Heh. Just kidding.

Shut up!

All kidding aside, Smokey is one of the all time greats. Joel knows what I'm talking about. And so without further babbling foolishness, a big ol' dollop, indeed, a veritable Baker's Dozen (UPDATE: Bah! Baker's Dozen my foot! This is Smokey! I added another to make it a Baker's Dozen Plus One) of Smokey's amazing goodness:

99 balloons 56 Questions

Stolen from the Lovely Ricki.

UPDATE: Shit. Had to shut this down already because of the f*ckin' spammers.

The Friday Fuck Off Thread

I'm sure you all will have stuff that's much worse, but for now, Guy Ritchie can fuck off. I finally watched that piece of shit movie of his last night and now I'm pissed off. It's not just that Revolver was bad. It's that asswad had the nerve to run around after it was panned saying that it was because we were all just too stupid to get it. That was the most retarded fucking movie I have ever seen in my life. That is not an exaggeration, folks. I mean it. Worst fucking movie ever made.

The fuck off floor is yours.

Having to close the FFOT before the weekend is up because of obsessive spammers linking to filthy p*rn sites can fuck off. Even if Ken wants to thank you for the links.

Coming up

UPDATE: It's Flemming Rose and it will be about 6:40PDT. ANOTHER UPDATE: Some technical issues, moved to (probably) 7:30.

I don't see it on their guest list on the website, but coming up this morning at a few minutes after six, I think, on KSFO will be the a representative of newspaper that published the Danish Muslim cartoons. I didn't catch the name, so I don't know yet if it's Flemming Rose or another. I'll update when I know more. If interested, you can listen here.

Remember, keep it young, keep it hip

Well, y'all know I ain't much in the way of hip. But the Sainted Bride is off to a work function this evening and I'm left unsupervised. So what did I do after perusing all the cool internet porn sites?

Twelve Angry Men

Well, more like eight angry men and four angry women. Well not so much angry as... well not even peeved. All wanting to do our civic duty, and only somewhat inconvenienced (more for some than others, of course, but we're all committed to doing our civic duty. And stuff). And we did.

And yeah, I forgot to post this earlier when I got home from the duty.

Blast from the past

Okay, I really, truly, honestly have no idea why this popped into my head this evening. But when I was younger, my little bros sometimes watched Wonderama. I was a little old for it when it went national, but it was kind of cool. Especially since I was bordering on pre-adolescent and kind of in a snotty, Jr. High type mindset when I saw it.

And I so desperately wanted to catch an aardvark and go on that show just to show up that Bob McAllister.

Of course, I'm matured some in the last 35-40 years or so. I guess.

Oh. Good. Lord.

One more brief American Idol post. Just caught a few seconds, walking back into the house after watering plants. But Rasta boy needs to go home. Not least for reminding me of that (mercifully) short reggae phase that Eric Clapton went through.

Eric, drugs are bad. I'm glad you got it out of your system. 'Nuff said.

SHORT UPDATE: For the guy who came on later, yeah it was pretty good but it's not wise to choose a Ben E. King song because, dude, you're not Ben and if you don't fricking NAIL it, you'll get marked down more than otherwise. Just sayin'...

And now again

Since I'm a wee bit out of touch, I thought I would provide a video one of the songs the Caps performed last night.

I was hoping to find "Ebony and Ovary" but I think it's too recent. Also, there was a McGreevey song the Bingster and Bill would have enjoyed but, alas, couldn't find that one either. So here's a different one. Enjoy.

And now...

...off to see these folks.

UPDATE: Spec. Tac. U. Lar. Especially the new (and especially topical right now) "Ebony and Ovary".

They even hung out in the lobby after the show, signed CDs, and such. We bought their two latest and got them autographed. DNT got autographs on two copies of the latest Lirty Dies lyrics as well, one for a friend at school who had just missed them in Sacto not long ago.

And tomorrow, back to jury duty.

Jury Duty

And now I'm off to report for it.

UPDATE: And I'm on it. Knew it as soon as my name was called for the first 12 in voir dire (I can spell it, I just can't pronounce it) because there's no reason, being a fairly average, non-offending sort. Mostly.

SECOND UPDATE: Just as an irrelevant aside, the pay sucks ($15 a day, starting second day, plus $0.15 a mile, starting second day). But the hours were way primo. Instead of leaving the house before 5am and getting home about 6pm, I left the house about 8:15am and got home about 5pm. Of course, all that stuff I'm not doing at work will still be waiting for me when I get back...

Country/Western Music Trivia (Yet another Retread Edition)

So that sorta-fisking of Nick Bostrom took a lot out of me. Also, I've still got a lot of stuff to do in the yard, and dinner to make, and miles to go before I sleep. So I have nothing new on the trivia front. So in order to have at least something to post, I went back through some of my previous posts to find questions that no one got. And I think I may have thought of a couple of new ones. Maybe. How would I know? I'm like, totally tired and old.

But in any case, I hope you will enjoy these retreads/new questions that I may or may not remember the answers to in the cold, harsh light of day:

Heroine

Pfc. Monica Brown: A true heroine. Hoo-rah, indeed.

Moose Butter

Now that I've got your attention...

Daughter Number Two is home this weekend, that we may see these folks.

More than that, because she's home we went out to dinner and then she decided she wanted to see "The Music Man" at the high school. So we did. Fun. And now it's late. And I'm wired from being up too late, so I'm drinking beer and blogging. Sorta.

Anyhoo, a while back, DNT played for me a recording by "comedy a cappella quartet" moosebutter ("98% a cappella, 100% goofy"). I don't remember just what it was, being a long, long time ago, but today she passed along their rendition of "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer". Tres amusing ("Won't you slay my guide tonight?").

It's not currently available on Youtube (though their puppet version of "Psycho the Musical" is), so I uploaded it. Enjoy the whole thing. You will not be disappointed.

Who's Afraid of a Martian Probe?

Apologies in advance. I didn't realize how long this had gotten until I finished, and since I have stuff going on tonight and tomorrow, I'm not going to try to edit it down to a reasonable length. You have been warned, but I, in my infinite mercy, have hidden it below the fold for those of you not interested.

The Friday Fuck Off Thread

Condescending bastards who talk to grown adults as if they're four years old because they seem to think they're the only person in the world who ever got an education or had the occasion to crack a fucking book from time to time can fuck the fucking fuck off. Think carefully before you say the words "you should read...." to someone, especially when there's a good chance you're speaking to somebody who already has fucking read...

I know that's a stupid one, but I've collided with these people far too often. No, Mr. McSmarterthaneveryone, I don't need to pick up a copy of that Howard Zinn book that so many people seem to think makes them a brainiac because they keep a copy on their shelves. I read it when I was fucking seventeen. In college. Bite me.

Go ahead. Bite back.

I have no title for this post because it's too long and I'm wasted

[UPDATE: I corrected the honorific for Dr. Bostrom; that should have occurred to me last night]

Our buddy Bings linked to an article by Nick Bostrom. I mocked a bit of it below, probably unfairly, but the phrase amused me.

And this may have gotten overly long and rambling, so apologies in advance if it's not up to my usual super-journalistic-fiskatory standards. Which I doubt it would be even if I actually had such standards. My only defense is that Dr. Bostrom's article is also overly long and rambling. And I'm drinking.