In Which I Bring Teh Cute

Yeah, it's all sweetness and light until they pee all over every-freakin'-thang and chew a hole in the arm of your couch.  Go ahead... ask me how I know.

That said, I still miss my puppehs.

h/t:  The Shoebox blog.

Oh, Goodie

I'm glad I'm stocked up coz it looks a lot like I'm gonna be housebound for the next couple o' few:

It's all gray and windy outside at the moment with off and on drizzle and it looks like this is the sorta day when it's ALL downhill from here.  I notice that areas slightly to the north of us are under blizzard warnings, so I suppose thangs could be worse.  This is bad enough for me, thankyaverymuch.

We're Out

The occasion was all over the news yesterday and today... Hell, Fox News even sent Geraldo to Kuwait to cover the withdrawal, an event I took a pass on.  I can't think of one single, solitary reason to lend my eyes to anything featuring that guy.  Period.  That said, I did see several smaller pieces here and there, one o' them being this one from the Usual USAF Source:

Sixty-two airmen and 55 soldiers flew aboard a C-17 from Imam Ali Base in southern Iraq to Kuwait, Dec. 17, 2011. This was the final US military flight from Iraq as part of the phased pullout of US troops, which concluded on the following day. Here, the airmen and soldiers aboard the C-17 prior to its takeoff.  Air Force photo by MSgt. Cecilio Ricardo

Last US Military Flight Leaves Iraq: Iraqi-Kuwaiti theater—Sixty-two airmen and 55 soldiers assigned to Camp Adder, known to the Iraqis as the Imam Ali Base, on the outskirts of Nasiriyah in southern Iraq, boarded a C-17 from Travis AFB, Calif., on Dec. 17 for a flight back to Kuwait. It was the last flight from the last US military base on the last night of Operation New Dawn, said Maj. Gen. Anthony Rock, 321st Air Expeditionary Wing commander, who flew from Kuwait back to Iraq to thank the troops for their service and make the historic flight back with them. The Daily Report was aboard for both legs. "This is a very historic night. I encourage all of you to look at the airmen to your left and to your right and shake their hands," said Maj. Gen. Russell Handy, the senior Air Force leader in Iraq, who also made the flight back to greet the troops. Handy told the airmen to remember the hundreds of thousands who served before them and the 4,500 Americans who gave their lives in Iraq. "We buy a lot of equipment in the Air Force, but it's really all about the people. If there was ever an operation that was about the people, it's what we did here in Iraq. Thanks for your service and everything you've done," he said. Camp Adder transitioned back to the Iraqis on Dec. 16.

—Amy McCullough

Thanks for your service, indeed.  There are NO words to express the debt o' gratitude we owe these fine young people.  The old ones, too.

Digital Pack Rat

Which is why we have hard drives measured in terabytes now.

I got off the dime yesterday last night and turned up the new desktop which, predictably, did not go off without a hitch.  The first issue?  My backup software... Norton Save & Restore... doesn't run on Win7, it runs on XP and Vista.  Only.  I could read the handwriting on THAT wall, yet I still contacted Norton's support center in Bangalore for an interesting yet time consuming chat.  After a 15 minute wait for "the next available technician" Prajeep informed me he couldn't help (coz he wasn't trained on N-S&R) and transferred me to Rudhpo, who confirmed my suspicions: S&R V2.0 doesn't run on Win7 and is no longer a supported product.  After another half-hour and 55 Yankee Dollars we had Norton Ghost 15 downloaded, installed, and were ready to begin recovering our considerable archives.

Which, one more stroke on the dead horse's back: the software appears to be IDENTICAL to N-S&R v2.0.  Same interface, same colors, same menus, same every-damned-thang, except it runs on Win7. There are no added features that I could see, save its ability to access my checking account, which benefits NORTON but not ME.  I would have told Norton to fuck off but I was a hostage... pay the ransom if you want your data back.  So I did.  But I didn't LIKE it.

We began the file and folder restore process around 2100 hrs and completed it shortly after 0300 hrs this morning... or after about approximately 73,000 files had been restored to the new box.  You have to babysit the restore process to prevent file duplication and also to avoid overwriting existing files on the new box with bad data from your archived image... specifically in the case of "ini" files.  I'm quite certain Win7's ini files are different than Vista's.  We installed other bits and pieces of software whilst babysitting and attempted to get rid of all the crap HP loads on a peesee... stuff you neither want nor will ever use.  Why vendors do that particular trick is beyond me, as well.  But they all do it.  And we digress.

So.  I have a few minor thangs left to do today (Firefox, again? or stay with IE9 which seems to be pretty fast?) before we're done but the majority of the work is complete.  The good news is all those files seem to have made it through to the new box OK and I can continue being a digital pack rat.  We all need stuff like photos of old co-workers from 1998 that we can no longer name, right?  That, and other stuff.

Today's Happy Hour Soundtrack

Just because we haven't shared our soundtrack of late doesn't mean we've been without one.  Oh, no... there's always music in our life, even if it's only in our head.  This tune was part o' today's abbreviated outdoor Happy Hour, abbreviated because (a) we got a late start and (b) it was three clicks to the right o' "chilly."  But... here's what we were listening to:

That's the Ann Peebles version of a song Etta James does best, and it was Etta we were listening to today.  Alas, the Tube o' You doesn't have a suitable version of Etta doin' the tune, only a couple o' poorly-recorded live versions.  But Miz Peebles does an entirely credible version of the song, as you may have noticed.

I've been privileged to see Etta James on a number of occasions, the most memorable o' which was in a small pub in Camden Town (in London) back in the day, which is to say sometime during 1980 - 1983.  When I say "small," I mean SMALL... as in "could mebbe seat 100 people, with another 50 standing."  The Second Mrs. Pennington and I arrived at said pub about two hours before show time in order to secure seats before Etta's performance, knowing full well how small it was from previous experience with that venue.  The end result was we were both very well-oiled by the time Etta took the stage (and I use the term "stage" loosely)  but that did NOT diminish the experience in the least.  Miz James did two sets that night, if memory serves, and that evening was one of my very best musical experiences... which included the opportunity to say "hi" and thank her personally for her performance.  It don't get no better than that, Gentle Reader.

Oh So Briefly

I just now poured my first cup and I really, rilly hate it when I do stuff like this.  Half the day: gone.  It's a matter of guilt and the vestiges of Type-A behavior that refuse to go away completely, I suppose... no matter that I didn't go to bed until 0500 this morning.  But it is what it is.

I spent a great deal o' time yesterday, measured in hours and hours, reading Christopher Hitchens obituaries and there are MANY.  The most interesting thang, to me, was that it seemed like everyone had a favorite Hitch story to relate, no matter if the person writing the obituary was American, British, Irish, or some other nationality.  It didn't seem to matter if the obit writer agreed with Hitch's many, and often contradicting, views on political or philosophical matters.  The man was genuinely liked and respected by a wide range of people great and small.  There were also a few stories about the way Hitchens handled the death sentence that is cancer and the dignity he maintained in his final days.  I hope I have the same sort of intestinal fortitude when my time comes.

And now it's off to make the rounds.  BTW... The image above?  It's a button, and I just might buy one.

Broadening Our Horizons XXXVIII

This could be BOH XXXVII, Part Two... seein' as how we went back to the well today for yet another seasonal installment from that lil ol' brewery in Bawston.  Well, let's make it that Big-Ass brewery in Bawston, just for accuracy's sake.

Today we're indulging in my favorite selection from the 12-pack, the Black and Brew:

This is some seriously tasty beer despite the terminally-cute name, which is an all too obvious reference to this beer's main taste components: coffee and malt.  How could one NOT like this combination?  I mean... it's caffeine and alcohol together, two of the four major food groups (the other two bein' nicotine and sugar).  The only thang that's missing is sex.

And now we shall adjourn to the verandah for our second outdoor Happy Hour in as many days.  It's warm enough today that we don't need our flea jacket... just a sweater, a cigar, and that beer I just poured.  Life is good.

RIP, Christopher Hitchens

I just now learned one of my heroes passed yesterday... Christopher Hitchens, dead at 62.  From the link:

But if one needed any proof of Hitchens’ impact and far-reaching respect, the Atlantic’s Nicholas Jackson has it: The New York Times changed its front page well into the night to put Hitchens’ obituary on it.

“That is, the most influential newspaper in the world has put its work and printing process on hold to make room on the front page for the obituary of a single man. If that isn't a testament to his work, I don't know what is.”

I'll remember Mr. Hitchens for the innumerable times I was thankful to the man for his immaculate prose that both entertained and enlightened.  I have way too many favorite pieces of his to name just one, but this will do as an example.  From "Hitch 22," his recent memoir:

“Care to meet the new Leader?” Who could refuse? 

Within moments, Margaret Thatcher and I were face to face. Within moments, too, I had turned away and was showing her my buttocks. I suppose that I must give some sort of explanation for this. Almost as soon as we shook hands on immediate introduction, I felt that she knew my name and had perhaps connected it to the socialist weekly that had recently called her rather sexy. While she struggled adorably with this moment of pretty confusion, I felt obliged to seek controversy and picked a fight with her on a detail of Rhodesia/Zimbabwe policy. 

She took me up on it. I was (as it chances) right on the small point of fact, and she was wrong. But she maintained her wrongness with such adamantine strength that I eventually conceded the point and even bowed slightly to emphasize my acknowledgment.

“No,” she said. “Bow lower!” Smiling agreeably, I bent forward a bit farther. “No, no,” she trilled. “Much lower!” By this time, a little group of interested bystanders was gathering. I again bent forward, this time much more self-consciously. Stepping around behind me, she unmasked her batteries and smote me on the rear with the parliamentary order-paper that she had been rolling into a cylinder behind her back. I regained the vertical with some awkwardness.  As she walked away, she looked back over her shoulder and gave an almost imperceptibly slight roll of the hip while mouthing the words: “Naughty boy!” 

I had and have eyewitnesses to this. At the time, though, I hardly believed it myself. It is only from a later perspective, looking back on the manner in which she slaughtered and cowed all the former male leadership of her party and replaced them with pliant tools, that I appreciate the premonitory glimpse—of what someone in another context once called “the smack of firm government”—that I had been afforded. 

Even at the time, as I left that party, I knew I had met someone rather impressive. And the worst of “Thatcherism,” as I was beginning by degrees to discover, was the rodent slowly stirring in my viscera: the uneasy but unbanishable feeling that on some essential matters she might be right.

RIP, Hitch.  Thank you. 

Didja Watch It?

I have no stomach for the "debates," or the soundbite parade, or the "lookin' for the gotcha moment," or whatever you want to call what these gotdamned sideshows have evolved into this year.  It's all I can do to read reasonable commentary about the event... actually watching the thangs would be a bridge waaay too far, as even the day-after soundbites irritate the piss outta me. 

No mention of the debates would be complete without my UCR rant against Fox: NO Red Eye last night, just a re-run of the sideshow.  I hate-hate-HATE them for that.

I MIGHT Have Learned Sumthin' Today

My Inner Eight-Year-Old was insistent with his nagging today and we blew off configuring the new box in favor of a rare outdoor Happy Hour.  Rare... for this time o' year... I should add.  So I shot the video below... since v-logging is all the rage these days, or so I've read in other places.  And who am I to disregard the trendy and the topical?

We had some issues with this vid.  First of all, there was no sound when I viewed the vid locally.  At first I thought that was coz I also had Pandora goin' on my phone and the phone mutes Pandora when you switch to the video camera.  So I naturally thought ALL audio was muted... but NO!  The Tube o' You picked up the audio just fine.  And then there was the video orientation... I shot in portrait mode but the vid came out in landscape, which means I look like I'm layin' on my side.  But the Tube o' You came to the rescue yet again, with their editing tools that let you flip the vid 90 degrees.  This ain't technology... it's MAJIK.

So the net-net is I get a letter-box video.  NEXT time we shall shoot phone vids in landscape and won't have these issues.  I don't wanna hear stuff about fanboi phones and how they get this stuff right without intervention or external processing.  Coz it's a case of "Fanboi phones?  FANBOI PHONES?  We don't NEED no steenkin' fanboi phones!"

Oh, Betty!

Another one from the in-box:

The cougar is my favorite big cat, but I'm not so sure Betty is my favorite cougar.  The vid is here, if'n you're curious.

Wonders Never Cease

What HP said they'd do, on 12/06/2011:

What they actually did (about 15 minutes ago):

Good on 'em, eh?  I think I know how I'm gonna spend the rest o' my day.  Mebbe.  I say "mebbe" coz I'm dreading the restore process, having acquired one of those tee shirts about a year ago.  This chore may or may not be performed immediately... and there's also the fact that I just now poured my second cup.  It ain't smart to do stuff like this when one isn't fully caffeinated.

And He Uses It, Too

From the Usual Source.

Mah Girl, Doin' What She Does Best

"I will let them eat cake."  You GO, Sunny.  Marie's got nuthin' on you!

"It Was a Good Hit, It Was a Clean Hit"

All us homers know suspect the refs have it in for our team(s)... but Flyers fans might could be right about that.

In This Morning's In-Box

I immediately deleted the message when I saw the subject line and the sender.  But I had second thoughts, so I went to the trash and read the note.  Alas, it's NOT an ad for tracers... which are the sort o' "sparkles" a select few NOT on my Christmas list deserve.

In other in-box news... last night HP notified me the new box has shipped, five days earlier than estimated.  Happy-happy joy-joy!

Linkage & A Minor Bitch, Piss, and Moan (Or Two)

First... Blog-Bud Jim, aka Suldog, puts the Christmas ditty he penned to music.  And the resulting one-man-band performance is awesome.  We (and not the Royal We, I mean YOU, too) need to convince him to YouTube the song.  So comment appropriately.

Second:  Lex takes us flying in the Kfir, here and here.  Is there a BETTER post-military retirement gig than flying fighters as a civilian?  I think not.

―:☺:―

Department o' Miscellaneous Bitches & Complaints:   (1)  Remember a couple o' few days ago when I said we had a warm-up on the way?  Well, it's yet to arrive.  Yeah, it IS warmer, which is to say almost 50 degrees, but it's also windy, rainy, and blustery, accompanied by Mrs. Hippy levels of humidity.  There won't be an outdoor Happy Hour today, but we remain optimistic.  Mebbe tomorrow.

Well, mebbe not.  Dang.

(2)  I've been living in El Casa Inmóvil de Pennington for two and a half months now and I've yet to turn the water on in the guest bathroom's tub.  Let me clear: said tub has NEVER been wet.  Not once.  So, that said, why is the danged thing dirty?  I've been looking in that tub for a couple o' days now in the hopes it will somehow clean itself, or that perhaps the Cleaning Fairy will show up and do the obnoxious deed for me.  I haven't had ANY success in either case, so it looks like we'll have to add another chore to the ever-growing list.  A maid... A Man Needs A Maid. 

Racists!

So there I was... watching Red Eye this evening (or this morning, if'n ya get technical about it) and that gotdamned Pajamagram ad for Hoodie-Footies came on at every freakin' commercial break.  EVERY. SINGLE. ONE.  I danged near wore out my mute button but then it struck me...  There's no diversity in this ad!  None at all!  Look:

All 12 of those women are blue-eyed blondes... all of 'em.  Doesn't this break some sorta law?  I mean ain't this America?  What's wrong with the Pajamagram people?  Didn't they get the memo?  I'm gonna call the EEOC or someone like 'em and see if I can't get the ads pulled.  Or mebbe I'll just sue... coz I'm offended.  Racists!

OTOH, mebbe I'll buy one of those damned thangs for every woman in my fam'bly, select friends, and mebbe a few strangers, too.  One or the other.

The 27th Special Operations Wing Wishes You Happy Holidays

And a Merry Christmas, too... although the HH language outnumbers "Merry Christmas" by about five to one.  Big sigh...

So, we're just in from running our errands and while we were out we stopped at the Cannon Airplane Patch airpark just inside the main gate to take a few cheesy cellphone pics of the various units' Christmas greetings, and there were a lot of 'em.  And here we go...

The beginning of the unit displays

"Non-standard" refers to the fact this unit flies a specially modified bid'niz aircraft.

 Cannon has a UAV unit, too.  These guys obviously fly Reapers.

SN1's old unit... the Fireballs.  The 522nd flew F-16s when Buck was with 'em.

 Hey!  You're not THE Green Hornets!  Stop that!

Saving the best for last... Have a KILLER holiday!

Click to embiggen, of course.  Right-click on the images once you get into Blogger's new-fangled (and ugly) pic viewer and choose "view image" if ya wanna see the full size pic.

Random Notes

Blog-Bud Andy has taken up v-logging with his new fanboi phone that does photos, videos, finds you dates, changes the baby, and fixes dinner, among other thangs.  He's done two of those thangs now and he's pretty good at it.  I tried that back when the MinoHD was new, once.  I sucked.

Andy also mentioned in his v-log that he'd been off for three whole days and was kinda-sorta beside himself.  I've been off for 3,327 days now (not counting today) and am just as happy as the proverbial pig in... umm... stuff.   I'm living proof (well, "living" is loosely defined) that being easily amused is one o' life's most under-rated blessings.  (And how did I get that exact day count, you might ask?  By going to this handy lil web site.  I LOVES me some technology!)

―:☺:―

Remember a couple o' few days ago when I posted about the Beloved Wings blowing out those Feral Dogs at The Joe?  Well, they did the same thang last evening to the hot Winnipeg Jets, who came into The Joe last night on a roll, having won sumthin' like seven of their last ten.  Alas (for Winnipeg's fans), those same Jets proceeded to flame out, losing to the Wings by a score of 7-1.  The Jets DID manage to score the first goal (34 seconds into the first period) but it was all downhill for them from there.  Good stuff, Maynard.

―:☺:―

Shocked!  That would be me when I slide off the bar stool and forget to ground myself before doin' so.  The seats of my spiffy bar stools are covered in some sorta suede-like fabric that is a potential solution to America's energy crisis, provided one could somehow harness the megawatts of static electricity generated by the simple act of getting up.  I swear I've seen blue arcs emanate from my fingertips once or twice.  This phenomenon is exacerbated by the current negative ten percent relative humidity inside El Casa Inmóvil de Pennington.  The low or nonexistent indoor humidity is yet another reason to hate winter.  Which I DO.

And it's still cold outside, although there's a warm-up coming by mid-week if the good folks at the NWS in ABQ are correct.  

We might even be able to pull off an outdoor Happy Hour!  Let us pray... 

―:☺:―

I believe I mentioned I was considering buying a new peesee rather than getting the current desktop repaired.  Well last Tuesday I did just that.  I did my patriotic duty to stimulate the economy... and I also gave Hewlett-Packard (a fine, outstanding AMERICAN computer company who sells stuff assembled in China or Taiwan, outta parts made only-gawd-knows-where) my bid'niz, in the hopes they'll be able to keep my pittance of a retirement check coming along each and every month.  Well, that and the fact that HP gives me an employee discount on their stuff, and every lil bit helps, yanno?  OTOH, I'm not too pleased with how long it's gonna take the box to get here.  I ordered the thang on 12/06 and HP tells me the machine will ship on or about 12/19, with a five to seven day delivery date to follow.  Doesn't that seem excessive?  But then again... Taiwan is a long ways away from New Mexico.

Right Now

I'm watching the Army-Navy Groundpounders-Squids game, which is to say the also-rans playin' for second place, seein' as how the Air Force Academy has already won the CinC's Trophy.  That said (and you know I just HAD to say it),  it's a pretty entertaining game, all things considered.  Army tied it up with seconds left in the first half, despite the two Army turnovers that gave Navy their touchdowns.  So we're at the half and the game is tied, 14-14.

President Obama is milkin' the game for all it's worth, and then some... what with performing the coin-toss and then spending about five minutes with the CBS broadcast team.  That's all well and good and I'll cut him some slack today, mainly coz he's giving the Cadets and the Midshipmen their due and is sayin' all the right thangs.  Good on him for that.

I love this game, not so much for the football but for the tradition, the rivalry, the Spirit Messages, and all the shining faces of those ossifers-to-be.  This really is "America's Game."

So.  Halftime.  Time to pour another beer and consider putting a match to a ceegar.  We're still into that Sammy Adams "Winter Classics" 12-pack and there's some damned fine beer in that thang.  We might buy another one of those.

We're Off to a Great Start

Not:

Freezing fog.  Yecch.  That stuff is the precursor to black ice, which causes no end of excitement on the public thoroughfares... just ask any Oregonian.  The good news is we're supposed to warm up today.  Eventually.  All the way up to the high-30s, even!  Yays!  

I frickin' hate winter already and it ain't even here yet.

Broadening Our Horizons XXXVII

Two days in a row, this broadening thang.  Today it's a Sammy Adams Chocolate Bock (rated "B" at BA) which is included in a 12-pack of winter seasonal ales I picked up today.  Like this:

Yeah, I know.  I made a beer run yesterday but the local likker locker didn't have the seasonal "Winter Classics" 12-packs (which includes two each of the above plus two Old Fezziwig Ales, two Black & Brews, two Winter Lagers, two Holiday Porters, and two Boston Lagers) and Wally-World did.  Go figger on that one, eh?  But... in this neck o' the woods ya gotta jump on these thangs while ya can, coz ya never know how long they'll be around or even if they'll come back once the first round is gone.

As for the beer itself?  I give it a B+... mebbe even an A-.  Hearty, tasty, full-bodied, and warming... a perfect accompaniment to one of those Drew Estate Cafe con Leches I got in the mail the other day.  And I mean PERFECT.

It Ain't Just America

The Brits are fed up, too:

Globalization strikes again.

From The Guardian's weekly selection of viral vids.  The Doggie Dunker vid is pretty funny; I considered posting that one.

Your Hockey Red Wings Update...

It's been a while, hasn't it?  Part o' the reason it's been a while is the Beloved Wings came down off a seven-game winning streak by losing two in a row, one to the once-hated-but-now-mostly-pitied-Avs and the other to the resurgent Blues, both games being lost in the opponents' barns.  But the Wings came back home to The Joe last evening and played a game that had us rolling around on the couch in glee.  A lil blurb from NHL.com:

DETROIT – One of Mike Babcock's most common catch phrases is about "starting on time" it's another way of saying a good start to the game by his Detroit Red Wings would be just fine by their coach.

What happened on Thursday night at Joe Louis Arena took it to the extreme. Either the Red Wings started really early or the Phoenix Coyotes were still a time zone or two away. Regardless, Detroit ended a two-game losing streak by scoring early and often in a five-goal first period that paved the way to a 5-2 victory against the stunned Coyotes.

You just don't see that many goals in a single period, or at least you don't see it all that often.  SN1 and I were on the phone for the last three goals and it's serious understatement when I say I was rolling around in glee... we both were.  There ain't nuthin' like a blow-out to ease the pain o' back-to-back losses.

Highlights:

Hockey is a strange sorta game in that almost ANY team can win on any given night, given the parity in the league nowadays.  Well, except for Columbus, mebbe.  There's NO hope there.

Yup

Kinda looks that way, don't it?

From the Usual Source.

Broadening Our Horizons XXXVI, or, Look What I Found, Moogie!

N'Awlins' finest, or so I heard...

I heard right.  This is some good stuff, Maynard.

―:☺:― 

Incentive...  I got this in the mail today:

This really cheeses me off, or to put it bluntly: Family Values, my ass.  So I ran right down to the courthouse and registered to vote.  Alas, I found out I can't vote in the upcoming city election... you must be on the voter rolls 30 days prior to any election to be eligible to vote. 

Dang.  Now I can't do my bit to avoid havin' to drive out to Cannon when the beer supply runs low on Sunday.  It's always sumthin'.

It's Foam Rubber Brick Time

As in a foam rubber brick to throw at my teevee when these egregious "holiday" ads come on:

Sometimes I think it's too bad the FCC eliminated the "equal time" doctrine, coz I'd love to see some of those fatass "People Women of Wal-Mart" all dolled up in a hoodie-footie.  Now THAT would be worth watching.

PS: The vid above is last year's ad which has SOME redeeming social value, what with the skimpy outfit included in the twofer.  This year's ad has yer usual svelte chick goin' on about how she used to wear layers and layers of stuff to bed but hubby solved THAT problem by buying her an adult-size infant and/or child's sleeper.  Yeah... that's just the ticket for yer Inner Pedophile.

Unique

I've mentioned in the past (there's your understatement for the day!) that I'm a great fan of PBS.  I'm NOT a great fan of "pledge week," which has morphed into "pledge-ten-days-or-more" of late.  But I tolerate... barely... pledge week; it's a necessary evil.  A minor digression: I lost access to KENW, Portales' PBS station (run by Eastern New Mexico U) when I switched my teevee provider from Comcrap cable to Dish Network.  I now get KACV out of Amarillo, TX, and I suppose that makes sense to the Corporate Suits at Dish but it doesn't make sense to me.  That bugs me for a number of reasons... no real "local content" is one... but another is KENW held its semi-annual begging down to a very low level.  KACV, OTOH, is in constant beg-mode, or so it seems.

But!  I've watched MUCH more of this begging than I usually would, mainly for the unusual and captivating regional Panhandle accent, which I find amazing.  Here's an example I recorded earlier this evening, pay particular attention to the lady as she speaks, her accent just cracks me up (in a good way).  You'll have to turn your sound WAY up... I apologize for the audio quality.  I thought the MinoHD would pick up the teevee better than it did.

Ain't that sumthin'?  The weird thang is I don't hear much of that accent here in P-Ville.  There's some, to be sure, but not a whole lot.

Oooh! And Aaah!

From the Usual USAF Source:

Wake Up to the Rhythm: Neatly tucked away on shelves in Wake Island Airfield's base operations building, airmen uncovered an immaculate trove of 9,000 vinyl records—the 1970s collection of Wake's former radio station. Inconspicuously locked behind a door stenciled with the station's call letters KEAD, "it's a little time capsule," said Colin Bradley, a communications contractor. "I have not run across a collection that well preserved or that intact in my career." Originally provided by Armed Forces Radio and Television Service to entertain the troops, the island's 611th Air Support Group detachment is working to send the unique collection back to AFRTS in Virginia for preservation. Requiring an estimated $10,000 worth of packaging and 75 16-inch boxes to ship, the records will complete AFRTS' local museum collection, with any extras headed to the Library of Congress or National Archives. (Wake report by Capt. Amy Hansen)

Wow.  This lil item rings bells with me seein' as how I did a short stint (not quite a year) as a deejay at an AFRTS affiliate station (a very loose affiliate) in Sinop, Turkey back in the '70s.  Our station... KBOK (which was a play on words, "bok" bein' Turkish slang for excrement)...  received between $50 and $100 every quarter to buy records from the base exchange and YrHmblScrb was in a position to buy a lot of those records.  That money went a LONG way back in the day, seein' as how yer average LP only cost two and a half Yankee Dollars back then.  

Our station library was at least as large as Wake's and I took the opportunity to "borrow" records on a daily basis and tape them on my reel-to-reel recorder, an endeavor that produced about 100 reel-to-reel tapes with an average of five albums per reel.  It's too damned bad that I was "under the influence" during most of those taping sessions, coz the resulting tapes were mostly over-modulated and nearly un-listenable, in retrospect.  This, of course, was during the Golden Age of rock 'n' roll and I scored me some mighty fine music during that year.  Those tapes still exist... along with my Revox A-77 tape deck... and are in the care of SN2.  Mebbe I'll retrieve 'em some day.

Seventy Years Ago Today

My Pearl Harbor Day post, parts of which I've published every year since 2006.

Pearl Harbor Day

Sixty-eight years ago today... "a date which will live in infamy"... the nation was shocked out of its complacency and determination to stay out of the conflict engulfing the rest of the civilized world by the horrific Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor.  Here's an excerpt from President Roosevelt's speech to congress on the following day:

The men who fought back at Pearl Harbor formed the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association about ten years after the war and they used to hold a reunion in Hawaii every five years... until 2006, when they held their last reunion there.  I published this post to mark that occasion (note that the link to the news article is dead now):

Pearl Harbor Day

The USS Arizona - Then and Now (U.S. Navy photographs)

It’s said — quite often and by many, many people — that 9/11/2001 “changed everything.” And it is indeed true for the current generations of Americans. But I’ll submit that 12/07/1941 “changed everything” to a degree it is impossible for us who were not alive and going about our business on that Sunday in December, 1941 to realize. Those of us whose parents were members of The Greatest Generation understand my point. A smaller subset, those of us whose parents fought in World War II, understand the point a little bit better, perhaps. We have the benefit of hearing the first-person narratives of that day in December 1941, and stories from the long, long days that followed…from the dark and despair of the war’s first year to the signing of the Japanese surrender on the decks of the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay not quite four years later. And a lot in between.

They are leaving us. The Pearl Harbor Survivors Association is holding their last meeting (dead link) today.

PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii - With their number quickly dwindling, survivors of Pearl Harbor will gather Thursday one last time to honor those killed by the Japanese 65 years ago, and to mark a day that lives in infamy.

This will be their last visit to this watery grave to share stories, exchange smiles, find peace and salute their fallen friends. This, they say, will be their final farewell.

"This will be one to remember," said Mal Middlesworth, president of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association. "It's going to be something that we'll cherish forever."

The survivors have met here every five years for four decades, but they're now in their 80s or 90s and are not counting on a 70th reunion. They have made every effort to report for one final roll call.

Their last meeting. I know All Things Must Pass, but it saddens me so. We owe them so much, and our thank-yous seem inadequate compared to the sacrifices they made.

But: We shall continue, we shall honor their sacrifices, we will remember, and we shall rededicate ourselves to the task that faces this generation…the one that began on 9/11/2001. The Greatest Generation expects it from us.

The 2006 news article may not be available any longer, but the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association is still alive and kicking.  They are few now, but thank God some of those heroes are still around.  It won't be too much longer until they're all gone and as I said above: "It saddens me so."

Çay

This is much more than a talk about tea... it's a primer on Turkey and the Turks.  I spent three years in Turkey and pretty much enjoyed every minute.  Granted, there were times during that three years that were less than exciting but I never failed to be enthralled by the country, its history, its beauty, and its friendly people.  And yeah... I drank a LOT of çay.  Raki, too... but that's another story (see the vid at the link).  

Go ahead... spend some time with this video.  I think you'll be glad ya did.

Generic 24-Hour Newscast

Sigh... this is the danged truth, ain't it?

One Learns the Strangest Things On These Inter-Tubes

As in: smoking can make a woman's nipples fall off.  Seriously:

I cringe every time I see a patient for a breast lift who is a smoker. I’m deathly afraid that despite my warnings, she will smoke before or after surgery and cause her nipples to turn black and fall off.

Yes. Smokers who undergo breast lifts are at great risk of losing their nipples.

I’ve seen it before.

The nicotine in cigarettes and the carbon monoxide contained in cigarette smoke can diminish blood flow to various parts of the body. These toxins act as a virtual tourniquet. If the blood flow to a particular body part becomes greatly reduced or halted, that body part dies.

That would be cosmetic surgeon Anthony Youn speaking.  It follows that smoking might could be responsible for premature penis death, too.  Not that we'd know anythang about THAT, of course.

h/t:  The Shoebox blog.