Today's Happy Hour Soundtrack

Yet another two-fer... beginning with The Meters, with a funky take on Rod Argent's little-known classic...



That's a pretty good, if radically different, take on the original.  Here's the original version:

You've taken my life so take my soul

That's what you said but who are we to know

I want to be with you as long as you want me to

So don't move away

Ain't that what you said?

Ain't that what you said?

Ain't that what you said?

Liar liar liar

I much prefer Argent's version of the two... but they're both great.  And the lyrics?  Let's just say they resonate.

The Sunday Rerun

I had occasion today to mention "Annie Hall," which is my all-time favorite movie (and I DO thank you, IT).  I posted on this subject a couple o' few years ago, to wit:

Friday, January 11, 2008

"We Need the Eggs"

Lin and I had this brief exchange about relationships in the comments of the “Advice for Women” post below. (Ed: Digression... that post is one of my better efforts.  Just sayin'.)   I mentioned that “school’s out” for me where relationships are concerned, she countered with (I’m paraphrasing) “Don’t give up; your new Best Friend is out there.” The exchange got me to thinking about relationships in general and my favorite quote about relationships, specifically. The quote is from Woody Allen’s best-ever movie “Annie Hall.” It’s the bit where Allen's character encounters a couple on the street, walks up to them and says something to the effect of “You look like a happy couple. What’s your secret?” The woman responds with “I’m basically shallow and don’t have a lot to say.” The man validates her statement with a “me, too” sort of response… taking the point about mutual compatibility to its (hilarious) extreme. That one quick scene has stuck with me all these intervening years. As have many, many other scenes from that movie, but that’s another story.

So…I went looking for that particular quote. And I found it, Gentle Reader, but the scene from the movie was overdubbed in Russian and the English is simply overwhelmed…you can’t hear it at all. Too bad, that. (But if you really wanna see the clip, it’s here.) These excerpts are from the same movie…and they’re not all that bad, but they’re certainly NOT what I was going after. The first clip is the ending of the movie, the second is the opening.

Ah yes, we need the eggs… except for those of us who are allergic to the damned things. Unlike eggs (in real life there are non-egg eggs), there ain't no suitable substitutes when it comes to relationships: it's the “real thing” or nothing. Aside from kidding yourself, you're only setting yourself up for massive failure if or when you settle for a “substitute” relationship. I don't have empirical proof of this “fact” from personal experience, this is simply my thought on the subject.

Now…the movie's intro:

Allen’s monolog kinda sorta reflects my current attitude, with the emphasis on “sorta.” Heavy emphasis on “sorta.”

“Annie Hall” is my favorite movie of all time, and it’s the only movie I’ve ever seen more than twice. The Second Mrs. Pennington and I, coincidentally, saw “Annie Hall” as a first run movie, we saw it again at a Notre Dame film night during her senior year, and watched it again and again as the years passed by. Aside from being brilliantly funny, it might be the most pertinent and poignant movie about relationships I’ve ever seen. Keep in mind, though, I went off movies about 15 years ago, so I’m not one to offer up criticism in this space. Not hardly — not at all, actually.

But…FWIW… Woody Allen never produced another movie equal to this one, IMHO. And I’ve seen most of his work.

Well, OK.  That post was more about relationships than it was about the movie.  But if ya want funny, go here and read some... or all... of the quotes.  If you don't laugh at most of them your sense o' humor is seriously impaired.

Saturday...

... got off to a rocky start.  I overslept, to begin with, and missed all but four minutes of the first period of the Wings' game.  So... I stumble in to the living room, switch on the teevee and go immediately to the kitchen to start the coffee, only to find my coffee pot has gone belly-up.  That's not a way to begin yer day, lemmee tell ya.  So we boiled water on the stove and carefully poured it through the grounds we'd already loaded in the pot and... Walla!  Coffee.  Finally.

So it'll be off to Wally-World later today to buy a new pot.  This one lasted 1,468 days... quite a bit longer than the 875 days of its predecessor.  (I know the exact number of days because (a) I blog stuff like this and (b) I go here and punch in the appropriate dates.

So.  Second intermission in the game and the Beloved Wings are up, 2-1.  They're outskating, outshooting, and outscoring the Hated 'Hawks at this point, so things look good.  But it's the playoffs and anything can happen.

Oh, yeah.  I owe ya a video, don't I?  Well, I haven't checked out all the stuff at The Usual Source but I DID watch this:






Way-damned-cool! 

And now it's back to the important stuff:  LGRW!

Update, 1345:  

Heh.  Lose they did, 4-1... with no empty-netter, either. 

Today's Happy Hour Liquid Lunch Soundtrack

We called Happy Hour quite a bit earlier than usual today, mainly coz we got up quite a bit earlier than we usually do.  So there's that.

And there's this... I was listenin' to XM's Deep Tracks channel Tuesday evening while on my way over to The Big(ger) City^TM and the deejay did a "mary-jew-wanna" set (his words) which included The Fraternity of Man's "Don't Bogart That Joint" (Easy Rider, anyone?), Arlo Guthrie's "Comin' In to Los Angeles," The New Riders of the Purple Sage's "Panama Red," and this tune, also from the New Riders...

And now he's rollin' down the mountain
Going fast, fast, fast
And if he blows it this one's gonna be his last
Run to Acapulco to turn the golden keys
Henry keep the brakes on for this corner if you please

So, there I was... on my way to a meeting of The Retired Colonels Club (I say that coz there was only one other enlisted guy at the AFA meeting, besides me) and singin' along at the top o' my lungs to ALL these tunes.  I hate to think what knowin' all the lyrics to these tunes... even after all these years... sez about me.  Prolly nuthin' GOOD.

Ah, well.  It what it is.  And now it's back outside into the 91 degree heat... on its way to 95, supposedly... to finish as we've begun.  I'm pretty sure a nap will follow.

Random Notes

My comfy couch

Up at oh-dark-thirty this morning... quite literally: 0400 hrs... after spending the night on our comfy couch.  I fell asleep during the Kings - Sharks game (after watching the Broons win a second consecutive game in overtime), waking just in time to see yet another improbable finish, wherein the Kings scored TWO power play goals in the last two minutes of the game to win.  I kinda shook my head and went "wow!" after which I switched from sleeping in the vertical to sleeping horizontal... which is a LOT easier on the back and certain other body parts.  I should also mention that my couch really IS comfortable, in that I can stretch out to my full length and the cushions are quite firm.

I like my couch and I sleep on it nearly as much as I do in my spiffy bed.  There was a time, back in Former Happy Days, when I'd fall asleep on the couch after a hard day only to be woken up by The Second Mrs. Pennington who informed me it was time to go to bed... after I'd been asleep for an hour or two.  So I'd dutifully get up off the couch and accompany her upstairs where I'd invariably stare at the ceiling for the better part of an hour trying to get back to sleep.  There WAS a cure for getting back to sleep in short order but I'd stare at the ceiling more often than not... most times.

These days?  We sleep on the couch when we damned well please.

―:☺:―

The weather has reached the point where it's warm enough to sit outside in a tee shirt and watch the sun go down without having to bundle up.  There's no more hard-edged chill in the air as the sun sets and that's a great good thing.  The bad news is my whiskey and cigar consumption tends to increase exponentially as the weather gets warmer.  I normally only have one cigar a day during winter; yesterday I burned three, including two as we watched the sun go down, all while sipping three fingers o' Scotch... repeated a couple o' few times.  The Scotch is prolly why it was so very easy to fall asleep on the couch, now that I think about it.

―:☺:―

I'll prolly have to make my blog rounds twice today, what with having completed the first round already and noticing most of my reads haven't posted anythang new yet today.  Which is a First-World problem now, innit?  That said, having a do-over on the blog reading beats the HELL outta going to work.

Today's Happy Hour Soundtrack

Lowell George singin' just fer me...

I've got the apolitical blues
And that's the meanest blues of all
Apolitical blues
And that's the meanest blues of all
I don't care if it's John Wayne
I just don't wanna talk to him now

The message is in the music.  I'm sick to frickin' DEATH of politics at this point in time so just don't go there with me, mmm-kay?  Tell me sumthin' good.

Speakin' o' sumthin' good... We have "Waiting for Columbus" loaded up in our cassette player* and are listenin' to it out on the verandah with our windows and door wide open on this beee-you-ti-ful day here on The High Plains o' New Mexico.  It's 90 big fat degrees as we speak and we're LOVIN' it!

* Why yes, we DO still have a cassette player and we use it often, coz that's where taped copies of my greatly-missed vinyl live.

Pretty Cool

Grandmas everywhere are gonna love this...

Dads, too.  Here's what I did with one of my favorite SN3 pics:

Wasn't he just the cutest lil beggar?

Update, 1400 hrs:  Hey... We made the web site! 

How cool is that?

A Preemptive Post

SHUT UP, Virgil -- I don't wanna hear it.  It was close, up until the third Hawks goal.  Buckle up; it's gonna be a long series, Bro.

LGRW!

What's In a Name?

U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Eric Fiel, Air Force Special Operations Command commander, passes the guidon to Col. Albert M. "Buck" Elton II, 27th Special Operations Wing commander, in a change of command ceremony at Cannon Air Force Base, N.M., July 8, 2011. (U.S. Air Force photo by Airman Ericka Engblom)

I used to think my family was sorta unique, in that we have three generations of Bucks... my father, Berl "Buck" Pennington; me, Norman "Buck" Pennington; and SN1, Ivan "Buck" Pennington... all of us bein' career Air Force.  Well, I THOUGHT we were unique until last night, when I met Col. Buck Elton, the commander of the 27th Special Operations Wing at Cannon.  Col. Elton was the guest speaker at the quarterly meeting of the Llano Estacado chapter of the Air Force Association, which I attended last evening.

Col. Elton opened up his remarks by saying he's the third in a line of Bucks, all of whom are or were career Air Force, going back to his grandfather who served in WW II.  I just HAD to raise my hand at that point to interrupt him with my "small world" story and the membership got a pretty good chuckle outta that.

It really is a small world, eh?  Or a strange one, you choose.

I've posted this photo before but some of you may not have seen it.

That's the Ol' Man, me, and Mom... c. 1947 or '48.

Yum

We broke one of our cardinal dining rules last night, to wit: "NEVER eat sushi more than 50 miles inland."  Well, The Big(ger) City^TM is pretty far from the ocean but we heard tell there's a passable sushi bar at one of the Thai restaurants in Clovis.  So we took the plunge, like this:

Yet another crappy cell-phone pic.

What you see is four pieces of maguro, three pieces of sake, two pieces of tamago, a big-ass pile o' wasabi, and a bowl o' miso soup (not pictured is a bowl of greens in sesame oil... that was my salad).  It was good.  Not great, mind you, but good enough that I think we'll go back to Thai City again.

What's great sushi?  Well, it's served in a place like this:

The Second Mrs. Pennington and I in a Tokyo sushi bar, 1991.

That's a long ways to go for raw fish, innit?

A Flora Update

I showed all y'all some of the strange Spring growth we have here on The High Plains o' New Mexico a while back and figgered I owe ya an update now that the shoots have blossomed.  So...

Before blooming, April 21st.

New and old shoots.

Blossom close-up.

I think these Red Yucca things are quite pretty.

Heh

I watched the BEST Game Seven... evah... last evening and witnessed history bein' made.  Never before had a team come back from a three-goal deficit in the third period of a Game Seven to win, but the B's did just that and they did it in a heart-stopping manner.   The B's pulled their goalie for six skaters and then scored not one but TWO goals in the last minute and thirty seconds of the third to tie and then went on to win the whole shootin' match in OT.

Not everyone is pleased with the outcome, however...

The Top Ten Bitter Tweets from Leafs fans are here.  I can't think of a more deserving bunch o' people, actually.  The Leafs... and their fans... are another one of those teams we just LOVE to hate.  I'm looking forward to renewing the old rivalry next year.

Today's Happy Hour Soundtrack...

... is a case where the cover exceeds the original by an order o' magnitude:



OMG but I loves me some Diana Krall, almost as much as I hates me some Billy Joel; it's hard to say which one exceeds the other. That said... ain't the woman SULTRY?  Oh, yes, indeedy.  I do SO envy Elvis.

(Apropos o' everything, this is the album we're listenin' to this afternoon.  What a marvelous showcase o' talent this is.)

What? ANOTHER Re-run?

I'm afraid so.  There was this exchange between Lou and I on yesterday's post about jeans...

Bag Blog 12 May, 2013 19:14

Real cowboys wear Wranglers.

Replies

Buck 12 May, 2013 23:48
But... I am not now, nor was I ever, a cowboy.

Well... I lied.  I totally forgot about this lil number:

Thursday, June 24, 2010

We Were Cowboys Once, and Young

Blog-Bud Dan put a post up yesterday that talked about cowboys... and a good part of that post was about how he and his friends used to ride their hobby-horses all over the neighborhood chasing down bad guys and saving the ranch.  It was only a few days ago that the subject of cowboys came up here at EIP... on Father's Day, actually...  when we went off on a tangent talking about them and our youth.  It goes without sayin'... yet I always do... that I was BIG into cowboys in my yoot.  My parents had close encounters with the Poor House keeping me in cowboy paraphernalia, too.  And I have proof of my last.

That's the intro.  So cue up some appropriate music and return with us now to those thrillin' days o' yesteryear...

That's a Hopalong Cassidy shirt, pants, boots, guns, and RADIO at lower left.

Adding in the Cassidy hat, gloves, and tie.

I have no ideer who these clothes are modeled on.  Prolly some C&W singer.

Weren't we cool?  Heh.

Yep.  We were cool alright and we weren't wearin' Wranglers.

Look Out, Virgil... Here We Come

We had our moments of anxiety, especially in the final two minutes of the third period, but all's well that ends well.

Buh-bye, Ducks.  You had a good run in the regular season but you just weren't QUITE up to the task at hand.  From that "read more" link in the graphic above:

ANAHEIM -- For the second straight game, the Detroit Red Wings faced elimination, and for the second straight contest, their captain helped them avoid it.

Henrik Zetterberg scored the opening goal and assisted on another, while goalie Jimmy Howard made 31 saves as the Red Wings defeated the Anaheim Ducks 3-2 at Honda Center in Game 7 of this Western Conference Quarterfinal series at Honda Center on Sunday night.

The seventh-seeded Red Wings, who needed at least a point in the final game of the regular season just to qualify for the postseason, will now move on to face the rival Chicago Blackhawks in the Western Conference Semifinals. The start of that series has yet to be determined.

[...]

Detroit continued to frustrate the Ducks for much of the third period, but Zetterberg went to the penalty box for delay of game and Anaheim quickly cut the two-goal deficit in half. Beaucheim (sic; should be Beauchemin) threw the puck towards the net and it glanced off Jonathan Ericsson's skate and into the net with 3:17 remaining. Twice before in this series, the Ducks had erased multi-goal deficits in the third period.

THAT was the source of my anxiety, in that we've seen this movie too many times before... but the Wings hung on and the rest is history.  Now it's on to Chicago... where we'll see if those 'Hawks are real or not.  This is a rivalry I'm gonna miss when the Wings move to the Eastern Conference next year... and this final playoff series should be a great one.

In Which We Deviate From the Norm

I did sumthin' today that I thought I'd NEVER do... I bought a pair o' jeans that aren't made by the descendents o' Levi Strauss.  Like this:

Wranglers.  I hate to admit it, but the principal driver here was cost.  Have you looked at what Mr. Strauss' descendents are asking for a garden-variety pair o' 501s lately?  Those Wranglers you see above cost less than HALF... much less, when ya get right down to it... o' what ol' Levi is askin' for his jeans.  So we bit the bullet and bought a pair o' Wranglers.  We'll throw 'em in the wash later on today and will begin wearin' 'em tomorrow.

It's the end... mebbe... of an era.  I've been a 501 kinda guy for over 40 years now but all that is liable to change.  In the meantime it's a beautiful day here on The High Plains o' New Mexico and there's beer that needs drinkin'.  So it's out to the verandah... in our 501s... to drink us some Sammy Adams Summer Ale.

Happy Mother's Day

The fifth annual reiteration of our Mother's Day post:

Happy Mother's Day

 

Ah…dog poop. Probably one of the (very) minor reasons my second marriage failed…coz The Second Mrs. Pennington was largely in charge of the particularly odious chore — following behind three dogs, including two pretty good-sized ones — let’s say about 90% of it. And she never hesitated to point out that fact to me. 

[...]

The Mom’s Day image comes from new-to-me blog TGAW…who has great pics of Glacier National Park, in addition to providing me with this “wouldn’t it be great but it would NEVER frickin’ happen in real life” Mom’s Day illustration. Thanks, TGAW!!

Remind me to write about Glacier…some day.

But, seriously. Happy Mother’s Day to all my favorite Moms, and even to those who aren’t my favorites. I’ll remain cryptic on that last.

Call yer Mom!  Or better yet, give her a big hug and a kiss if you still can.  There comes a time in life when she won't be around, ya know.

Them Wings...

... are gonna give me a heart attack before this is all over.  We excused ourselves from yesterday's Command Performance and hied our Old Ass home to catch the final two periods o' the Wings game.  So there we were... three minutes to go in the third period with the Beloved Wings up, 3-1.  We're thinkin' this one's in the bag... but NO!  Filppula puts a perfect pass behind the net to a Frickin' Duck (say WHAT?) and it's 3-2.  Then Perry isn't called on blatant trip behind the Detroit net and the game's tied.  Oh Shit, Oh Dear.  Z gets the winner on his stick with less than a minute left in regulation and he... hits the freakin' goal post.  So we go to OT, for the fourth time in this series.  But all's well that ends well... Z gets the OT winner, less than two minutes into overtime.  Oh... be still, my beating heart!  

Highlights:



So. Game Seven and we can still fly the flag, if only for one more day.  Talk about winning the hard way...  IF we win this Game Seven we'll face the Hated 'Hawks in the next round, which ain't all that bad.  Yeah, Chicago swept the regular season's games, 4-0, but three of those four games went to OT.  We can beat those guys... not easily... but it can be done.  The worst will be to come, however... assuming we beat Chicago.  It'll be back to the Left Coast to face the winner of the Sharks-Kings series.  Even MORE bad travel... but Hey!  We can do this.  Yes we can.

It all hinges on a win in Anaheim tomorrow night, which ain't beyond the pale.

LGRW!  Bring on the heart attack!

Saturday: Fascinating

There are way too many geeky references and inside jokes in this Audi ad that I don't get.  But I DO get the car.



Here's the runner-up:



I haven't heard of some of those things as bein' bad luck, but that dude is in for a world o' hurt after smashing all those mirrors.

Today's alternate runner-up was the new video from Bowie, who continues to shock and amaze.  I thought the vid was a lil bit too racy for EIP, but you can see it here.

All from The Usual Source o' such things.

Cheesy Videos XXVIII

I was gonna post this as an update to the post below and then I thought "Wait.  We have a category for this!"  And so it is...



Cheesy.  No doubt.

Unusual

It's been raining off and on all day, which is a Great Good Thing.  Even more amazing is the fact today's rain is of the gentle, falling-in-the-vertical-plane sorta rain.  I'd be out on the verandah enjoying the show were it but ten degrees warmer.  Well, Hell... I may just bundle up and go on out there, anyway.  It's almost time for Happy Hour... and there's nothing quite like the sounds and smells of gentle rain in the desert.

The 17th Street Canal and Intra-City Waterway has reached navigable depth and looks sorta like this:

That's a recycled pic; it's overcast and raining as we speak... which is not very photogenic.

In other unusual news... it dawned on me that I'll prolly miss tonight's hockey game, which the Beloved Wings MUST win to stay alive.  I've signed up for a family Command Performance this evening... a dinner celebrating two nieces who graduated from nursing school today.  I guess I'll just have to keep repeating the "it's only a game, it's only a game" mantra.  Priorities, yanno?

It's One o' THOSE Days...

... which is to say the sorta day where I got nuthin' yet my Occasional Correspondents come through to rescue me.  Again.  Frequent Correspondent, Occasional Reader, Superb Cook, Great Drinkin' Buddy, Retired Blogger, and Perpetual Biker Lin sends this along...



About which I replied...

Wow.  Those guys have MUCH bigger ones than I do, speaking specifically about riding in snow, all that "passing on the right" stuff, and some of those mountain "roads."  Ah, to be young again.

That's just scratching the surface.  You'll note the map at the beginning of the video that shows the route these guys took.  That, in and of itself, is amazing.  I've ridden in some rather obscure and exotic places in this world but these guys' "been there, done that" tee-shirt is almost beyond amazing.  Big ones.  Big BRASS Ones.

On another topic... make sure you drop by the Old AF Sarge's place today to see some incredible plane pr0n.  Good stuff, Maynard.

Broadening Our Horizons LXIV

I mentioned yesterday that we'd restocked our fridge o' many charms with some drinkable beer after that Sammy Adams debacle.  We also bought some new-to-me beer, that bein' a sixer o' these:

I was quite taken with the Monks' Ale I sampled a couple o' weeks ago so it wasn't much of a gamble to buy some more of the Brothers' product.  I generally like Wit beers and this is a high qualty example of the genre.  It's tasty, indeed.  Here's what the Brothers have to say about their beer:

Monks’ Wit is distinctly fruity and spicy. The yeast lends a note of spice that accentuates the imported coriander, sweet and bitter orange peel, and other spices. The malt provides a sweet, bready quality up front and a round fruitiness in the middle.  The wheat and oats lend a creamy taste. 

The imported hops and spices lend a clean, dry, finish to this light, refreshing ale.

Refreshing, indeed.  I think Monks' Wit will be a regular brew for me this summer.

So.  Here's some appropriate music for the occasion:

This is perhaps my favorite REM song and we have "Out of Time" in the CD player, as we speak. That said... We ain't so much losin' our religion as we are gainin' some. In one way or t'other.  Those monks are definitely helpin' out in this space.

Amazing

Who'd a thunk it, eh?  OTOH, the competition was pretty weak.  "Elect me coz I'm Stephen Colbert's sister" ain't much of a platform.

My Morning

What's the male equivalent o' "stunning?"

We had to get up at oh-dark-thirty today or at least the Retired Geezer equivalent o' same, which would be 0830 hrs plus two hits o' the snooze button on our spiffy phone-cum-alarm clock.  The reason for our early rise?  A six-month follow-up appointment with our urologist... just to make sure everything is as it should be... and I'm pleased to report everything is peachy, pending analysis of the bodily fluids we surrendered to the smiling nurse.  Let me say this about that: (a) I HATE needles and I HATE feeding the vampires (but we did it out o' necessity); (b) at my age there's a fine line between having to pee and peeing my pants.  I only had three cups this morning before I left home and didn't visit The Little Room before I left the house, knowing as we did that we would have to give up a urine sample.  Well.  It was a near-run thing but we managed to get to the men's room, cup in hand, before catastrophe struck.  All's well that ends well.  Here's the most amazing part:  I was in and out of Roosevelt General Hospital in 30 minutes time... soup to nuts.

So.  We left RGH and motored on down to the automotive beauty salon to give The Tart a much-needed beauty treatment after the rain showers that turned her coating of dust into something that looked a lot like it had recently emerged from a mud bog.  But she glistens now, as befits any dowager recently returned from the spa.

From there we motored on out to Cannon Airplane Patch where I got my own beauty treatment, which is to say my once-every-two-months hair cut.  We also stopped by the Class Six store for to re-stock the fridge with some drinkable beer.  So I'm beautiful now, too, in more ways than one.

I'll be even prettier in about a half hour's time... Beer Me!

A Vignette

I was over at my gun shop in Clovis earlier today, on account o' because Debbie rang me up this morning and told me they'd received a shipment o' ammunition and did I still want some?  Well, yes, sez I, I'll be right over.  And so we saddled up and hied our old ass over to Clovis to do what must be done...

So, there we were, doin' a lil bit o' browsing after purchasing what we came to buy, when we heard a lil bit o' conversation that took place between Debbie and two uniformed Air Force types, one TSgt and one SSgt.  To wit...

Debbie:  Thank you.  It's always a pleasure to do bid'niz with Air Force guys, even if we don't like your Commander-in-Chief.
TSgt:  He might be my Commander-in-Chief but he sure as Hell ain't my PRESIDENT.
SSgt:  Yeah, me too.
Debbie: (laughs) Well, he sure as Hell ain't MY president!
At least five other customers, including me:  He ain't MY president, either!  (That would be everyone in the store.)

God, but I love living amongst kindred souls.

Blue

My favorite color... coz I DID spend 22 years dressed in the blue suit... but we digress.  I love the blue skies here on The High Plains o' New Mexico but I love 'em even more when the blue is in counterpoint with fluffy white cumulus clouds.  Like this...

We had MUCH better skyscapes when we lived in Beautiful La Hacienda Trailer Park and the view was one whole helluva lot better than the one I have these days.  But we takes the good with the bad, I suppose.

We're drinkin' blue today, as well.  This, specifically (to begin with):

I'm not a fan o' fruit beers and this brew does nothing to change my opinion.  It's OK, in that it's not sickly-sweet and the blueberry flavor, while distinct, isn't overpowering.  Still and even, this is not a beer I'd buy in quantity.

So.  It's a beautiful day here on THPoNM and we're taking it in on the verandah while listenin' to the blues (what else, eh?), as played by Lightnin' Hopkins, like this:



Ah, yes.  Play da blues, Lightnin'... play da blues.

Update, Four-ish:  We followed up that Blueberry Hill with one o' these:

Blech!  Gawd, what a piss-poor excuse for beer, and I'm amazed Sammy would stoop so low.  This beer might be sumthin' blue-haired old ladies (and others who drink shandies) might enjoy, but as for us beer lovers?  No.  Hell, no!  We poured that shit out after three or four sips and went to some real beer.  So much for that Summer Variety Pack: we're done.  One third of the contents is below consideration and that's a shame, coz we REALLY liked that "Little White Rye."  But it is what it is.

Cue Up Alanis

I'm talking about Alanis' hit.  From the Usual USAF Source...

Sexual Assault Prevention Chief Arrested for . . . Sexual Battery  Lt. Col. Jeffrey Krusinski, chief of the Air Force Sexual Assault Prevention and Response branch at the Pentagon, was arrested over the weekend for sexual battery in Arlington, Va., according to Arlington County's crime report, issued on Monday. Krusinski's arrest comes at a time when the Air Force has been dealing with a sex abuse scandal in Texas among its military training instructors and facing lawmakers' ire for the decision of a three-star general to overturn a sexual assault conviction. Police charged Krusinski, 41, for allegedly grabbing the breasts and buttocks of a woman in a parking lot in the early hours of May 5 while he was drunk, states the report. USA Today reported that the Air Force removed Krusinski from his position while the case is under investigation. Stars and Stripes reported that Krusinski has been in the SAPR office only several months. The office, which a one-star general oversees, manages programs meant to prevent sexual assault in the ranks, support victims when offenses do occur, and hold perpetrators accountable. 

He's toast, pure and simple.  What an asshat.