Hello 2013

End of one helluva year. Some good, some bad, insanity, tragedy, hilarity. I'm hoping, in the words of Colonel Potter, that the new year is a damn sight better than the old, and that all y'all see peace, love, and beauty.

Bring it...

Love, paleo

Random NFL Week 17 Notes: Grain Of Salt Not Included

Chicago Bears @ Detroit Lions

Tough one, actually. Detroit is far and away the dirtiest team in the NFL, hands down, has been for a long time – the Lomas Brown thing hardly surprises. The Bears? Just evil, the city of Chicago, evil. Also, annoyingly good, enough to win, and give us another chance to make Cutler beat up his sideline.

Tampa Bay Bucs @ Atlanta Falcons

Atlanta has the same problem as Green Bay, and I assume Falcons fans have the same complaint I have – listen to the national media, especially YOU, ESPgoddamN, and you would never know there was a team there, much less the NFC No. 1 seed.

NY Jets

Please, dear FSM, if’n Rex Ryan would shut the hell up, I’d appreciate it. A lot. And Tebow? Look, I’ve softened a bit on the boy. He is still a sanctimonious god-bothering jackhole who has no business playing QB in the NFL, although he might make a good TE or FB, but he has truly gotten a raw deal. Denver, 100 miles approx from Colorado Springs, the sanctimonious god-bothering jackhole center of the universe? Of course he was the biggest story in town, but Denver was not without talent, and now with an actual QB they are likely to be No. 1 seed in the AFC. And then the Jets? You poor bastard.

Carolina Panthers @ New Orleans Saints

Cam Newton, regardless of his Terrible Twos, is having a good year. Watch out for him long into the future, especially if he grows up a little. This game may cause the scoreboard operator conniptions.

NY Giants

New York is suffering a poultry shortage, as Eli Manning has run out of chickens to sacrifice (Tagliabue ftaghn, Ia, IA!). But the rotten sumbitch still seems to have our number.

Miami Dolphins @ New England Patriots

Miami is a team on the way up, Bill Belicheck is Satan’s less pleasant brother. I have no reason to root for this game but come on Fins!

St. Louis Rams @ Seattle Seahawks

The Seahawks are on a roll, and Russell Wilson is a good Badger, but after his post-game interview for the GB-Seattle Fail Mary game (“What push-off? Looked good to me! We worked hard and earned this win…”) he needs pain, and we need to see the miniature slapnuts again in Lambeau.

Dallas Equus @ Washington Redskins

I hate Dallas. With the burning hate of a thousand million hatey burning thingies. Almost as much as the Bears. I also think Dan Snyder, owner of the Redskins, is a human whack-a-mole game. Tough to call...

And of course:

THE GREEN BAY PACKERS @ Minnesota Pop Warner League Vikings

Lest there be any doubt, I wish to humiliate the Queens and co-workers. But I has one minor hitch in my needs – I actually respect 2 Vikings players, Chris Kluwe, who is a helluva human being although I still need him to shank every punt today, and Adrian Peterson, who again seems like a genuinely good guy and a fantastic athlete. I actually would have loved to see him break the rushing record – but it cannot be allowed. If he’d run for 208 yards last week and only needed 94 today, I’d have lived with him breaking the record on us. As it is, however, he has to go down in flames. The rest of the Queens shoulda stayed on the Love Boat.

Disagree at your peril. W00t!!1!!

Casey Kasem Lacks Perspective

Warning: Tangents. Deal.

Driving to work this morning, I listened to the Oldies Station, which until Christmas Day had been the Christmas station. It had been one of my favorite stations, no damnable DJ’s (so probably a nationwide station like Jack-FM, with local news to give it that ‘local flavor’ – in other words, it’s personality was kept in a hard drive, but it had not been bad. However, Jack-FM should be razed, the ground salted, any reminders of it consigned to the dustbin of the dustbin of history), until it decided that the 1980’s were now considered ‘Oldies’.*

They were doing a retrospective of the American Top 100 for the year 1978, hosted by Casey Kasem. The first words I heard from Shaggy were, to paraphrase, “What would it feel like to resign from being as astronaut just as the rocket is taking off? This young man found out, but he is doing alright for himself. Bob Welch went solo from Fleetwood Mac and here has the first of his two songs on the year’s Top 100.”

Let’s break this down a touch.

Okay, that is knowledge that I didn’t have. I have a soft spot for 70’s cheese (my dad’s Olds Delta 88 with the AM radio), and am familiar with Bob Welch from the song Sentimental Lady (video is deeply weird...)

which I quite like. A check of the Wikipedia shows that Bob Welch was an important member of Fleetwood Mac in the years between Peter Green and Lindsey Buckingham/Stevie Nicks, and has been given a fair amount of credit with keeping a Mac alive until the BuckingNicks soap opera blew into town.

However, this was 1978. A year after Rumours, a couple after Fleetwood Mac. It would appear that Welch’s album, French Kiss, did alright, but the Fleetwood Mac rocket had not merely launched at that point, it had sold umpteen million copies already and were well on their way to being one of my most hated bands (except for the song Tusk, basically.)

'Cuz marching band. Yes, I’m a geek. No judging.

‘Doing alright for himself’ compared to hourly rotation on every damn ’classic rock’** station in every redneck market in America?

Perspective, Mr. Kasem.

A few songs up in the countdown, Casey introduced the group as having stolen two cello players and a violinist from the London Symphony Orchestra. He was getting at Electric Light Orchestra (ELO), who I also rather like, the song was Turn To Stone but I would submit this. 

Using the logical thought processes of the likely late 20 something-year-old men that these three were, nightly cocaine-fueled 19 year old groupie orgies compared to command performances for the Queen, something they had already proved they could do and could resume at a later age after recovery from sexual exhaustion? Stolen? Seriously? Bring on the Plaster Casters.

Perspective, Mr. Kasem.

*The 1980’s, I was there, were responsible for much great, vital, music, in many and diverse genres. Top 40 was not one of them. If 1980’s Top 40 were to be ground to itty-bitties, put in a water bottle, and sprinkled on the white shag rug of history by some spectral vacuum cleaner salesman, the Cosmic Oreck would wrinkle in fear, and flee, its cord between its, umm, rollerball. Analogy fail. Fuck.

**I have shared my feelings re: classic rock and the morning zoos before – I think they need, so very much, to go away. Beyond that, though, hell, if they could just play something different every once in a while, there’s a lot of ‘classic rock’, more than just FM or the damnable, horrible, accused Eagles or Bachmann Turner Overdrive. Blue Oyster Cult is more than just cowbell. George Harrison made solo albums as well. C’mon, ya bastards.

You Can't Make Wine With Sour Grapes

We are making supper, watching a bit of TV, and Sweetie is enjoying a shockingly good chocolate grasshopper, whilst I enjoy a bit of pre-dinner schadenfreude.

It's been entertainment galore watching the Pubbies eat their own livers, including eldest-yet-still-military-eligible-Romney-Son Tick grab daddy by his magic underwear and heave him under the nearest 47% person conveyance vehicle. Ha. Ha.

“He wanted to be president less than anyone I’ve met in my life. He had no desire to . . . run,” said Tagg, who worked with his mother, Ann, to persuade his father to seek the presidency. “If he could have found someone else to take his place . . . he would have been ecstatic to step aside. He is a very private person who loves his family deeply and wants to be with them, but he has deep faith in God and he loves his country, but he doesn’t love the attention.”             Via Boston Globe

 "This was a very difficult year, with the strength of the Obama ground game and the fact that Romney just didn't inspire much enthusiasm," said Jamie Radtke, an unsuccessful 2012 Senate candidate and founder of the Virginia Federation of Tea Party Patriots, a statewide umbrella group that continues to expand and now has over 60 member organizations.        Via WSJ

Tea-party activist Greg Fettig, a founder of Hoosiers for a Conservative Senate and a backer of Mr. Mourdock, said the main lesson from the loss is that activists need to be sure the campaigns they support are well-run.        Via WSJ

Dear TeaBaggers and Trog Romney,

Are you goddamn serious? 

Greg Fettig, your candidate said that rape from pregnancy was God's will. What would be your definition of a well run campaign? Oh yeah, sneak the hateful bastard under the radar and then let him bully women to his heart's fill. Class all the way, sir.

Jamie Radtke, Willard was NEVER the popular candidate with your little KoffeeKlatchKlan. Your folks admitted that frequently during the race, but the feeling was that with enough dogwhistles and legislative shenanigans and gerrymandering, you could turn out enough hateful inbreds to make the scary blah man go away. Do not pretend this is some tremendous insight. Also, apparently you did not inspire much enthusiasm. 

Taggart, you wanker, the thing your dad truly loves is money, and he pissed away a pile of it. Not all or even much of it his own, of course, but a PILE of green. Money that under his normal operating procedure would be sent abroad, to keep the rest of his money company. Principles, assuming he ever had any, he pissed away freely, saying anything, contradicting himself in the next clause, tossing the collective salad of any group likely to vote for him. Yes, he wanted to be president, and you're dumb.

 I do wonder what stage of the grieving process this is, is this denial or step 3a, cognitive dissonance. Assholes.

I Love Christmas!

Happy Merrichrishanukwantivus!

I love the end of the year, the holiday season, Christmas in my (Catholic) family (with a heaping helping, after a certain age, of Midnight mass, and looking at the stars on the way home hoping to see either Rudolph or the Star of Bethlehem - and yes, this may explain a great deal about teh way my brain works...) I like being nice to and seeing my loved ones, love giving gifts, (hate crowded stores with the burning of something really really warm), love being with my sweetie!

I've got to work today, have a little fun if possible, certainly not going to get into any major rebuilds, putting out a snack table. 

Happy day to one and all - show someone love, kids!

Sports Don't Mean Much Ever, But...

Mason Crosby needs to be released. Now. Mid-second quarter. Set an NFL record for hustling a dumb bastard out of a stadium. I want him in street clothes outside, selling apples on a corner. Or in a house in the everglades, surrounded by his own graffiti.

Ugh.*

That's all.

UPDATE: 10:10 4th Quarter.

NO ONE BLEEDIN' LISTENS TO ME.

Arrggghhhh!**

*This term may be used for all Jim Carrey films, but Ace Ventura and the Mask were passibly non-terrible.
**See above, or ibid, or et al, or whatever the hell.

New Rule

Please allow me to make a new rule for the world.

ANYONE. (Yes, you, Mr. Huckabee, Mr. Fischer, all you other nutjobs). Who has made the statement that God has decided that 20 children needed to be slaughtered because God is all angerface that his kid wasn't included in the yearbook photos, IS A SOCIOPATH.

You have left the building, so shut up before you wake the neighbors.

PISS OFF.

You are not welcome here.

Won't Even Try A Snarky Title

A parent, and a second suspect, in custody, shoots up a school in Connecticut, leaving over 2 dozen dead, including as many as 18 children. One ENTIRE CLASSROOM of students remains unaccounted for at this time.

The White House, and therefore the president, who I lent my support to, for what it is worth, shrugged it off. No, Mr. President, today is exactly the day to discuss our NON-EXISTENT GUN LAWS in the face of potential political 'backlash' from those with the .357 penis extensions.

Our religious leaders weigh in - Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association, bravely protecting us from teh Gay:

I'm all aflutter waiting for Fox News to blame Susan Rice, and the NRA's call for the arming of kindergartners.

We suck. We absolutely suck.

I am ill.

UPDATE 3PM:

Per Zombie, and then via ThinkProgress, President Obama's statement was far more in the vein of 'let's fix this shit.' Thank you very much, Mr. President. Please. Now.

I am still sick to my soul. Bastards.

I'd Actually Be Happier If They Would Get Their Memes Straight

As an Evil Midnight Bomber What Bombs At Midnight, as well as an electrician, I am a bug for logic. Whether creating an explosive device with nothing but red wires, thus kerfluffling the easily kefluffleable, or designing a ladder logic program to make things go beep beep whirrr, I count on (whilst, admittedly often being failed by) things working either in a complementary fashion, or in an effective, efficient order. I don't particularly handle things well what don't go teh way I expect them to. (Ask Sweetie.)

I would not make a good Teabagger.

Now, given the hangups and hatred of the rightwing entertainment complex, their desire to see women in the kitchen as well as blood (non-white male) in the streets has allowed this remarkable bit of cognitive dissonance.

Mr. Wayne LaPierre, famous paranoid coward and gun masturbator, NRA President, stated that Kassandra Perkins, the girlfriend of the football player who killed her and then himself* would still be alive today had she been packing heat.
Via TP.

In a Fox News Op-Ed, an anti-feminist author states that women will be much happier and comfortable being dominated by men, accept it and have babbies ever after.
Also via TP.

SO WHICH ONE IS IT? ARMED OR SUBMISSIVE?

SO WHICH ONE ARE YOU? DUMB OR ASSHOLES?

Get yer damn messaging straight so we can smack you down, please.

*Dear Internet,

I want to make an early Christmas wish for the families of Kassandra Perkins, Christina Taylor-Green (one of those killed at Tucson), all the kids killed in Norway at the summer camps, and thousands others, in even recent history, killed in high profile cases. As a society, we find ourselves identifying such events by the names of the killers - the victim's names don't seem to matter. Every mention of the Perkins murder is headlined by "Kansas City Chiefs Linebacker Xxxxxx Xxxxxx In Murder Suicide", even the ThinkProgress article, and I like ThinkProgress, or "Xxxxx Xxxxxxx On Trial In Arizona" or" Right Wing Media Darling Xxxxxx Xxxxxx Pleads Innocent in Norway". I have a better idea. Let the names of the killers fall away. Honor the victims.

Please.

paleo

There IS a Flying Spaghetti Monster

I have often expressed my wish that Bret Bielema, Head Coach of the Only Big Ten Team That Matters*, the Wisconsin Badgers, retire, or be hired as a philosophy professor, or fall into the penguin cage at the Como Zoo and be found in the morning in a state that I cannot photoshop.

Oooo, what's this - 

The Most Goofiest Looking Motherfucker On The Planet Gets Hired By Inbreds

Showing his usual high class, and world-beating-but-losing-the-Rose-Bowl play-calling ability, in under two and a half days after whompering Nebraska for the Big Ten Championship, Bielema fled for the lower grade requiring confines of Arkansas. Good riddance! And, we finally have a chance in a  Rose Bowl (it hurts so much to type those words for a team with Montee Ball and Jared Abbrederis, but that is what teh Bretster hath wrought).

*Must elaborate. Penn State, I don't have enough time or internet to 'splain why they are evil - c'mon court system! Ohio State? Cheating evillers, but especially the "Cool Coach", Urban Meyer, Tebow enabler. Nebraska? Must be careful here, Mother in law may be reading... Hmm. I LOVE THE THUGS FROM NEBRASKA, especially Ndamakong Suh, who has done a wonderful job helping Green Bay. Michigan and Michigan State - historically evil, annoyingly good, home of my uncle who's a pain in the ass. Illinois, home of Chicago, hog butcherer to the world, and people with no knowledge of the actual value of lakefront cabins, FIBs (Fucking Illinois Bastards). Iowa - provides the hogs to Illinois, also home to Bachmann. Indiana will never win anything unless the basketball players learn to play football. The Minnesota Gophers haven't won Paul Bunyan's Axe for something like 314 years.

I have to give full props to Northwestern - great college, I don't mind seeing them do well, just not against us.

I Have No Clue How I Have Ever Missed This

THIS.

IS.

AWESOME!

Mexico's Island Of The Dolls. The link here is more extensive. A gentleman, some years ago, in Mexico City, found the body of a girl in a canal, and wishing to appease her spirit, or give her indulgence (in the Catholic sense),

COLLECTED DOLL PARTS AND MADE DISPLAYS ON THE BLEEDIN' ISLAND.

Disclaimer, besides being an enormous nerd, I am also into the paranormal, and the odder corners of the universe, and I HATE GODDAMN DOLLS, creepy as shit. Add age, lack of maintenance, exposure to the elements, and decay. Mix well. Eeuurgghh.

Does This Make Me A Successful Businessman?

Whilst perusing proselytizing posters in our corporate building today, on a quest for coffee, I noted we have a strong corporate presence in Canary Wharf, London. 

Now, recalling recent history, and the destruction of, hell, the turning into gravel and blood of, Canary Wharf, in general, and Torchwood One specifically, during the batlle for Earth between the Daleks and Cybermen, I'm thinking there may be some slots open - paleo's moving on up  to LONDON! 

Or, preferably, Land's End, but beggars can't be stuff and such, a bird in teh hand is worth a hand in a bush, wevs!

(sweetie - "That's just wrong!")
(paleo - "Just a bit of double entendre, honey - ")
(sweetie - "No, schmuck, business don't work that way! And you are a complete nerd!")

Or, p'raps not. Never mind. Fudge. Imma keep hoping.

Oh, and the quest for coffee! Failed. But I did find an excellent liquid printed circuit board finisher. Called 'Douchey and Gerbert', or some such stuff.

The First Rule Of Peak Wingnut...

My prognostication skills rate poorly. Just 2 days ago I thought Louie the Lizard had won the Wingnutolympics

with his discovery that the Black Sith had given Libya to Al Qaeda for his own sinister purposes, sharks with frikkin laser beams, or helping sick people not be, you know, sick. Hell, he had gone so far into the TimeCube I thought it an end to the years wild wacky wacistness!

Bouy, that opinion sunk quickly.

I present to you the theory of the Butthurt Bearded Sky Fairy

“I opened up a birthday present that I didn’t like, and I said it right out, ‘Oh, I don’t like those,’” the radio host recalled. “And it just crushed — and the person that gave me gift was there. You know, I just kind of blurted it out, ‘I don’t like those.’ And it just crushed that person. It was enormously insensitive of me to do that.”
“And you think, that’s kind of how we’re treating God when he’s given us these gifts of abundant and inexpensive and effective fuel sources,” Fischer added. “And we don’t thank him for it and we don’t use it.”
“You know, God has buried those treasures there because he loves to see us find them.”

Bryan Fischer of the AFA team, be proud, quite a feat!* The refs are still running to place your marker! How much do you think I can bench press?

*Note: Current results, finals dependent upon blood sampling.