Not Your Father's Air Force XXXI

From the Usual USAF Source:

DOD to Offer Benefits to Same-Sex Couples Following DOMA Ruling

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said the Pentagon will "expeditiously" move forward in making benefits available to all military spouses—including same-sex couples—following the Supreme Court's June 26 decision regarding the Defense of Marriage Act. The Supreme Court struck down a major provision of the 1996 law, saying it's unconstitutional to deny federal benefits to same-sex couples who are married in states where it's legal. However, the ruling left in place any state laws banning same-sex marriage, reported the Washington Post. In a statement released following the ruling, Hagel said DOD "welcomed" the decision and "will immediately begin the process of implementing the Supreme Court's decision in consultation with the Department of Justice and other executive branch agencies." During a Wednesday afternoon press conference, Hagel said it's not yet clear how much it will cost to implement. "We are now exploring all the pieces," said Hagel. Pentagon spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Nate Christensen said the ruling "means the Defense Department will extend all benefits to same-sex spouses of military personnel that are currently extended  to opposite-sex spouses, including medical, dental, interment at Arlington National Cemetery, and with-dependent Basic Allowance for Housing." Christensen said he anticipates it will take six to 12 weeks to update the identification card issuance infrastructure and to update applicable ID card guidance. In addition, he said DOD is "carefully reviewing command sponsorship for overseas tours and all applicable status of forces agreements."  (AFPS release)

—Amy McCullough

We knew it was coming now, didn't we?  I wonder what the SOF with, say, Egypt or Saudi Arabia says about same-sex couples.  Are they exempt from stoning or being hung from a crane?

Today's Happy Hour Soundtrack: Still Stuck in the '80s

Yaz, from about '82:

now he's in control he is my lover
nations stand against him he's your brother
been a long time, been a long time now
i'll get to you somehow

move out, don't mess around
move out, you bring me down
move out, how you get about
don't make a sound just move out

Ah, yes... just move out. And don't make a sound, please.

In other news... we took Happy Hour on the verandah, mainly coz (a) we went early, before it got too hot and (b) we went outside directly from the shower, leaving our head wet to take advantage of the evaporative cooling that's innit.  That worked, for a while, but our hair was completely and totally dry by the end of our first beer.  Here's why:

No matter... we just wet our head down again as we poured our second beer and continued as we'd begun.  But... that said, we shall remain indoors until such time as the sun dips below the horizon.  It's REALLY hot outdoors.

Dayum!

It's not even noon yet...

We MIGHT do Happy Hour indoors today and for the foreseeable future, too.  Mebbe.

Hey Virgil!

Read this.  An excerpt:

The core stayed intact, but the rest of the roster was in shambles. In 2011, the Blackhawks lost in the first round. In 2012, they did it again. By the end of last year, there was talk that coach Joel Quenneville was on the verge of losing his job. The process worked. Thank you, Chicago, we hope you enjoyed your moment. Now please step back into the line and let someone else have a turn.

But that didn’t happen, and now we have to figure out how the Blackhawks were able to glitch the system.

For starters, they managed to keep that core — and their core was really, really good. And it may not be going anywhere soon. Toews, Kane, Seabrook, Keith, Hossa, and Sharp are all signed through at least 2015, and each one comes with a lower cap hit than Paul Stastny.

Sound familiar? It should. 

Do As I SAY, Don't Do As I Do

Spare me the Climate Change rhetoric, Barry, including yer smart-ass comments about the Flat Earth Society.  It turns out they're on the same page as you, anyway. 

But about that Africa trip... it's gonna be expensive:

In the days before his departure on Wednesday, much of the attention in Washington has focused instead on the high cost of the trip, estimated to be somewhere between $60 million and $100 million.

Ya know what they say... "A 100 million here, a 100 million there and pretty soon you're talkin' REAL money."  Not to mention all that CO₂ you're gonna spew into the atmosphere.

What Might Be This Season's Last Hockey Post

Hockey Night In Canada's closing montage after last night's game.  "War, children, is just a shot away!" 



Ooh... hockey and the Stones.  YES!  Well done, HNIC, well done.

H/t: the Usual Hockey Source.

Congratulations Blackhawks

The Chicago Blackhawks... 2013 Stanley Cup Champions.

Jonathan Toews hoists the Stanley Cup. — Nuccio DiNuzzo, Chicago Tribune, June 24, 2013

It was a GREAT series, some of the best hockey I've seen in years.

Broadening Our Horizons, LXVIII

A danged-near PERFECT summertime brew...

That's an Easy Street wheat beer from the O'Dell brewery and it's tasty, indeed.  It goes down VERY smoothly, too, so it might could be a lil bit dangerous.  I can see me knocking back about three of these today, easily, especially given it's rather warmish outdoors at the moment (about 92 fat ol' New Mexican degrees.  But they're DRY degrees.). 

Here's what our Go-To Guys have to say:

Taste: Medium body with a mildly creamy complex malt palate, sweet malt stays throughout with some doughy bread flavours. Hops are a touch spicy with a light yet balancing bitterness, flowery and herbal flavour fades quick. Nutty and powdery yeast character with an earthy undertone. A relatively sweet brew and all around pleasant to the tongue.

Notes: Clean cut American wheat brew, well focused on the malts with a well balancing hops and yeast. Optimum lunch time beer material here! Right up there with Widmer’s and Harpoon’s UFO.

I've never had a UFO but I have had Widmer's wheat and I agree with Mr. Alström, who gave a nearly unprecedented 100 points to this beer, Easy Street is most definitely a world-class beer.

And now it's out to the verandah to enjoy that Partagas Spanish Rosado you see in the ashtray above and my second Easy Street.

Life's pretty danged good right now.

More Proselytizing, Coz It's What We DO At This Time o' Year

From an article in the Chicago Tribune...

"Everyone who picks up a stick and puts on skates one day wants to place the Stanley Cup over their head," said Philip Pritchard, curator of the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto. "It's a lot bigger than the game itself. It's an icon of the sport. It's the pinnacle of everything they do."

This isn't the case in America's three other major sports: football, baseball and basketball. (No offense, soccer.)

"It's easy to say if you're a hockey player that I want to win the Stanley Cup, but you don't hear many football players say they want to win the Lombardi Trophy," said Richard Davies, author of "Sports in American Life: A History." "'I want to win the Super Bowl' is what you hear them say. Or, 'I want to win a ring.'"

[...]

"I think of the World Series trophy and the Lombardi Trophy as something that's really part of the TV age, a part of the birth of televised sports," said Anne Madarasz, director of the Western Pennsylvania Sports Museum. "Both those trophies came in 1967, the beginning of the Super Bowl era. They were created to give people a reason to watch these contests, developing and driving the commercialization of sports."

The Stanley Cup also acts as a historical document, with the names of every player from the winning teams engraved in rings that stack up under the crowning bowl.

RTWT, as we citizen journalists and hockey evangelists say.  You prolly won't learn anything new if you're a die-hard fan (you will, if'n you're a newbie), but it IS a good read.

The Cup might could be awarded tonight... but let's hope not.  I wanna see one more game and I wanna see those Broons take it all.

Yup

Naps are VERY underrated in our culture, unless you're younger than six or over 65.  I qualify, fortunately.

Today's Happy Hour Soundtrack: Wallowing In Nostalgia

We've spent the afternoon out on the verandah listenin' to music from the '80s, which is to say we're wallowing in nostalgia.  We've defined a Thompson Twins station on Pandora which gives us a lotta tunes from that duo trio, in addition to stuff from Spandau Ballet, The Psychedelic Furs, Wham!, Depeche Mode, and others... including The Fixx.  About which, this:



There's nostalgia and then there's Nostalgia, with a capital "N."  I can be somewhat nostalgic about the '60s but the truth o' the matter is I couldn't find my ass with both hands during that time, seein' as how I was still growin' up.  The high point(s) of that decade were the birth of SNs One (1966) and Two (1968) and the rest of it was eminently forgettable, characterized as it was by near-poverty (read as: having to work two jobs simply to put food on the table), and a marriage that was notable mainly for the conflicts we endured.  Not the best o' times, as it were.

The '70s were pretty much more of the same... more poverty (read as: paying off all the freakin' bills The First Mrs. Pennington ran up on our way to divorce and living off of per diem checks from my travels around the Pacific Rim), leavened only by the fact that I met and fell in love with The Second Mrs. Pennington at mid-decade.  And the fact TSMP and I married towards the end of that ten-year period.  Other than that?  Forgettable.

The '90s were mostly good, except for the end when the cataclysm hit in the form of yet another divorce.

We're still too close to the Oughties to form an opinion but I cannot point to any one single thing that makes that decade memorable... in any way, shape or, form.  I spent that decade just gettin' by.  That said, the "gettin' by" was pretty good, from a strictly financial perspective.  The rest of it?  Not so much.

Ah... but the '80s?  It was the BEST of times, beginning when TSMP and I sold our first house in 1980 (and pocketed a good chunk o' change in the process), and were subsequently posted to London for three years.  It was there that I achieved senior NCO status and the money finally got good, allowing us to indulge in long weekends in Paris and take delivery of a spanking new Beemer in Munich... among other things.  We came back to the States in '83 whereupon I wrapped up my USAF career in 1985 and we moved to Dee-troit to begin my civilian career... which went famously.  We bought our third house in Dee-troit and were about as happy as any two individuals have a right to be.  In other other words: it was the best o' times and there simply weren't any worst o' times.  It's just too bad the rest of life couldn't have been as good as that decade.

So, yeah: "Nostalgia Я Us" today.  With good reason.

Quick Hit

My Buddy Ed In Florida sends the following along (which I think I've seen before, but no matter):

A university creative writing class is asked to write essays containing these four elements: religion, royalty, sex and mystery.

The prize-winning essay reads: "My God," said the Queen, "I'm pregnant. I wonder whose it is?"

Heh.

Today's Happy Hour Soundtrack: Including a War Story

Ah, yes... take us back to 1977:



So, there I was... at the ADCOM NCO academy down at Tyndall Airplane Patch in late 1977.  Tyndall had a fine, fine NCO club which was my local watering hole during my six or seven week stay there.  And there was this fine, fine late-20-something waitress who worked there who was built like the proverbial Brick House.  I made a habit of playin' "Brick House" on the jukebox when she was on duty and servin' us... and also made a point of sayin' "that's YOUR song, Darlin'."  She'd grin and we'd exchange friendly banter.  I hit on her numerous times but was always rebuffed... kindly and gently... until my very last week at Tyndall.

It came to pass that the academy graduation ceremonies were capped with a Dining Out... which differs from a Dining In in that spouses and significant others are allowed to attend... and it also came to pass that I asked our waitress to be my date for the evening.  I almost fell out of my chair when she accepted, given the fact she'd resisted all of my previous attempts to get to know her better.  There was a rather significant fly in this ointment, however, in that I was chosen by the academy staff to be Mr. Vice (the person who proposes all toasts), and Mr. Vice sits at a small table at the foot of the mess, all by himself.  That meant that I wouldn't have either the time or the occasion to chat my date up, given as how she would be seated at another table.  But, no matter.  I sat my date with a group of instructors and their ladies and hoped for the best.

A short digression... after dinner and during the course of toasts, one of the instructors wives stood up and said "Mr. Vice!"  "Yes, Ma'am," sez I.  "I'd like to propose a toast to News In Briefs!" says she.  My face IMMEDIATELY went red as the lady laughed but I recovered sufficiently to address the President of the Mess and say "Mr. President... to News In Briefs!"  And we drank the toast.  

Explanation:  There was a daily ritual at the academy, rotated among the four flights of students, wherein a group of four or five students did a daily presentation consisting of news and current events.  This presentation was held in the school's auditorium and was about a 15 minute affair, which was almost always boring.  I took it upon myself to liven up things a bit when it came my flight's turn to present and I made sure the table at which we sat had a skirt around it which concealed all the presenters from the waist down.  So... we each gave our short presentations until such time as it came for the "news in brief" portion... when I announced to the assembled student body and cadre... "And now... the news in briefs!"  At which time we all stood, clad only in our blue shirts, ties, and underwear.  The room went nuts... and I think I secured my place in ADCOM NCO Academy history.

So there's that.  I noticed after the toast that the lady who proposed it explained the significance to my date who threw her head back and laughed about as hard as I've ever seen any woman laugh.

Fast forward to the end of the formalities and the subsequent dance, yadda, yadda.  My date and I spent a couple o' few hours of quality time together during the rest of the festivities and it also came to pass that she and I didn't part company until about 0900 hrs the following morning.  That night remains one of the fondest memories of my entire military career.  She most certainly was a Brick House... and mighty, mighty... as well.

And the girl?  We promised to stay in touch and we did, for a brief time.  But I was committed to The Second Mrs. Pennington (who was my intended at the time, so there was no technical infidelity involved), there was all that distance... she remained in Florida, I returned to North Dakota... and life went on.  I often wonder what happened to her, though.

Good tune, this.

Linkage

Occasional Reader Rob sends along a link to 43 ads from the 40s and 50s, as seen in Field and Stream.  Here's one such (click for really larger):

Somehow I just can't picture Mom wearing these.

Something else I can't picture:

If you were a kid you'd go to jail for rolling one of these into a group today.  Hell, you'd go to jail just for having one.  

Full disclosure: I had a mini-arsenal of grenades, pistols, rifles, swords, knives, and other assorted weapons as a kid and look how I turned out.  Wait.  Mebbe that isn't a good ideer to do.

Saturday: A Movie I Might Watch

Nah, not really.  I tried watching "Lord of the Rings" but couldn't make it through the trilogy, mainly coz Peter Jackson's interpretations of LOTR deviated from the images I'd created in my lil imagination, sometimes mildly and at other times wildly.  I HATE it when that happens.  Still and even, the special effects were pretty good and look good here, as well.

Today's Happy Hour Soundtrack: Dangerous

We were semi-dangerous today, seein' as how we got up at oh-dark-thirty (which would be sometime around 0630 hrs) and set out into the world to get stuff done around 0800 hrs, said stuff bein' gettin The Tart her long-promised beauty treatment (a thorough wash 'n' wax), and a run out to Cannon Airplane Patch for to resupply whiskey and victuals.  We did all o' that... in addition to patronizing the local coffee shop... and were home before 1100 hrs, at which time we rewarded our-self with a verandah sit, a couple o' beers, and a fine cigar.  Coz we CAN.  So anyhoo... we heard this tune on our way out to Cannon:

I'm a Danger Man from a dangerous city
And I lead a very dangerous life
I got a dangerous car, goes dangerous speeds
And very dangerous wife
I got 16 or 17 dangerous girlfriends
Not counting one or two
Look out kid you don't want to get hit
I'm dangerous to you
You better look out 

(full lyrics here: they're good!)

I don't have any David Bromberg in my music collection but I just might have to remedy that oversight.  This tune made me laugh right out loud as I listened to it, in addition to striking a small chord in my black lil heart.  I might coulda been dangerous at one time or another in the way-back... given as how I lived in Dee-troit for ten years, owned a few dangerous cars, drove dangerous speeds, and most definitely had a dangerous wife and a few dangerous girlfriends, once upon a time.  And then there are the mo'sickles and no truly dangerous man can be without same.  Yeah, we qualified.

These days?  Not so much.  But we still can dream, eh?

Hey! It's Summer!

From an informed source:

But this year, the solstice happens on Thursday, June 20 for places in North America west of the Central Time Zone, occurring at 11:04 P.M Mountain Daylight Time and 10:04 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time.

Well, OK.  No matter what time zone you're in... summer's here by the time you read this.  Let's PARTY!

About that image... While we were living in Ol' Blighty The Second Mrs. Pennington and I had it on our agenda to travel down to Stonehenge to party at the summer solstice but we never got around to doing that, and more's the pity.  Rumor has it the summer solstice at Stonehenge is one of the premier parties in all of creation.  Yet another missed opportunity.

Today's Happy Hour Soundtrack

Anna Nalick singin' about sumthin' that's kinda hard for me to do...

Cause you can't jump the track, we're like cars on a cable,
And life's like an hourglass, glued to the table.
No one can find the rewind button, boys,
So cradle your head in your hands,
And breathe... just breathe,
Oh breathe, just breathe

Breathe.  We all take our breath for granted until such time as it goes away and mine's been goin' away for about the last six or seven years.  I don't go on about self-inflicted wounds all that much in these pages or anywhere else, for that matter, mainly because they're self-inflicted.  No cryin' or whinin' allowed, in other words.

But, that said... we're about to go on full-time oxygen for our COPD.  We had a battery of pulmonary tests run today and the results weren't too terribly good.  They sucked, in fact.  So it looks like I'm gonna be hooked up to a frickin' machine for the rest of my life, such that it is.  But, Hey... we knew this was comin'.

It's always SUMTHIN'.

It's Her Birthday

We have a habit of celebrating our cars' birthdays here at EIP and have done so every year we've been disseminating digital drivel on these here inner-nets, here's one such example:  

The Green Hornet on the day I bought her, 2000.

The Tart on the day I brought her home.

The first pic is quite the glamor shot, innit?  The second?  Not so much.  I did have a photo-op planned for The Tart, in that I was gonna get her all dolled up and pose her in some exotic locale... like in front of our WPA-era Art Deco courthouse in the dead o' night.  Well, the best-laid plans, and all that.  The Tart is still waiting for that promised beauty treatment and will continue to wait until the monsoons are over.  I ain't gonna get her looking all spiffy only to have her look like death warmed over six hours later.

But anyhoo.  She's a year old and here we are.  Do I still like her?  Yes.  Do I have any issues?  Yes.  Particularly when I see this frickin' ad on my teevee:



And why is that?  Simply coz that cheap-ass lil car (about half the cost of The Tart) has a full-color, seven inch LCD screen, built-in voice-activated nav system, a power sunroof, and a heated steering wheel, The Tart having NONE of those.  It's not that those things aren't available from Cadillac, they are.  It's that all of them are extra-cost options which we did not choose to purchase, bein' the cheap-ass frugal person we are.  That said, you'd THINK a company with the audacity of billing itself as "The Standard of the World" would make those sorts o' things... ummm... standard.  Or mebbe you'd think the buyer, had he really wanted those things, would have actually bought them.

All nits, however.  The basics, after a year's worth o' driving:

The average speed and average fuel economy have both decreased since the six-month report... 45.5 to 43.0 mph and 23.1 mpg to 22.7, respectively.  Both of those numbers reflect mostly in-town driving and I believe they're fairly respectable.

My bottom line?  I love her... still... and I'm gonna keep her.  Everything I said at the six month point holds true: "She's fast (enough), comfortable, quiet, reasonably frugal, and an overall joy to live with.  She's also downright freakin' beautiful, mebbe even THE most beautiful car I've ever owned."

Today's Happy Hour Soundtrack

Our nose is jes a lil bit out o' joint.  We've just returned from a fruitless trip to The Big(ger) City^TM, the object bein' to get The Tart serviced but one in which we wasted our precious time.  I called the dealer yesterday to set up an appointment for The Tart's service, bein' the conscientious sort I AM about motor maintenance, and was told that routine service was a walk-in affair with no appointment necessary.  "Just don't come during lunch hour," sez the kind lady, "anytime between eight and noon and from 1:30 until five and you'll be good."  Not so.  I arrived at precisely 1330 hrs today and was told the service department was all booked up and would I like an appointment for 1500 hrs?  "No," sez I... "I'll come back another day."  I hope this isn't a harbinger of things to come.

But, oh well.  Walk on...

"Sooner or later it all gets real"

Heh.  Beer me!

My Favorite Kinda Clouds

Took a break during the second intermission of the game to step outside and was rewarded with these views:

Those are embryonic mammatus clouds.  They're not fully formed, like these (see the images at the foot of the article).  But, Hell... close enough for me.  We had a helluva good t-storm earlier this evening and these clouds are the result of same.

Now it's back to the game... Let's Go Broons!

Today's Happy Hour Soundtrack: A Hard Day

Cowboy Junkies with "Anniversary Song:"

And I don't know how I survived those days
before I held your hand
Well I never thought that I would be the one
to admit that the moon and the sun
shine so much more brighter when
seen through two pairs of eyes than
when seen through just one

Have you ever seen a sight as beautiful
as a face in a crowd of people
that lights up just for you?

Have you ever felt more fresh or wonderful
as when you wake
by the side of that boy or girl
who has pledged their love to you?

Well I've known all these things
and the joys that they can bring
Now every morning there's a cup of coffee
and I wear your ring
and I wear your ring ♥

I never once forgot our anniversary when we were married... and the ultimate foolish thing is I STILL remember that day, all too well.  The Second Mrs. Pennington went me one better in the way-back when she'd come to me sometime in September and say "Do you know what day today is?"  "Well, no," I'd respond... "what day IS it?"  "The day we met," she'd reply.

The day we met.  There's a back-story, of course.

They always go us one better, don't they?

Interesting

The Tart gets monthly diagnostic reports from OnStar and I really like that feature.  But I kinda wonder about some things.  Here's an excerpt from last month's report:

And here's an excerpt from this month's report:

What happened to that 33% oil life?  I only put another 200 miles on the car in the last month, so one would THINK The Tart is still good to go, no?  But mebbe she just needs annual check-ups, like the rest of us.  In any event, I guess I'll take her in.  Sometime.

Posted Without Comment

Today's Happy Hour Soundtrack

In honor o' the day, kinda-sorta... Cat Stevens before he got weird, found Allah (even though Allah was far from lost or misplaced), and changed his name:

I was once like you are now, and I know that it's not easy,
To be calm when you've found something going on.
But take your time, think a lot,
Why, think of everything you've got.
For you will still be here tomorrow, but your dreams may not.

There's something of a minor back-story here.  The First Mrs. Pennington and I were goin' through some hard times a couple o' years after Tea For the Tillerman... the album from whence this song comes... came out.  To be more specific, **I** was going through hard times, agonizing over my marriage and whether I should go or stay.  My father recognized the signs even as I tried to conceal them and he did what any good father feels compelled to do: he intervened.  His intervention took the form of  a rather strident and forceful "here's what you SHOULD do" and I was less than pleased with his "advice," as might be imagined.  We'll not go into any of the sordid details (which were sordid, indeed) but the upshot of this turn was that my father and I didn't speak to each other for a couple o' years after that.  "Father and Son" got listened to a LOT immediately following our "talk" and in the days, months, and years that followed.

There's a happy ending in that we made nice in the end, thank The Deity At Hand.  I think I learned a lil sumthin' from that episode; at least I hope I did.

Father's Day

Today is one of the few days in the year in which we recycle.  That would be pixels, in this case.  Without further ado...

Happy Father's Day

Today is the day we celebrate the Ol' Man, Dad, Pop, or whatever name you apply to your father. He’s the guy who is our earliest impression of what it means to be a man... and the guy who is primarily responsible for molding boys into men. Here's my role model:

 

Dad in his Army Air Corps lieutenant's uniform, me, and Mom... c.1948 (maybe).

The Wiki has an interesting article on Father's Day... including the proper spelling as opposed to common usage... which includes this lil bit:

Where Mother's Day was met with enthusiasm, Father's Day was met with laughter. The holiday was gathering attention slowly, but for the wrong reasons. It was the target of much satire, parody and derision, including jokes from the local newspaper Spokesman-Review. Many people saw it as just the first step in filling the calendar with mindless promotions like "Grandparents' Day", "Professional Secretaries' Day", etc., all the way down to "National Clean Your Desk Day."

Heh. That describes the earliest time period when a movement was on to make Father’s Day a national holiday… or during the very early part of the 20^th century. I think it’s interesting to note that all those ersatz holidays actually have a day named for the occasion now… even though they may not be officially recognized holidays.

But anyhoo: call yer Ol’ Man.

So... Holding with our tradition here at EIP we have recycled last year's post on the subject.  It occurred to me that I'm Green in at least this one regard... we do NOT send old blog-posts off to the landfill or otherwise harm our ecosystem, beyond actually publishing this pixelated fertilizer.  Blog posts have a half-life of at least 5,000 years, yanno?  Coz the inner-nets are forever.  Or so I'm told.

That was what we said in 2010 and the year before that.  We don't QUITE have a standard Father's Day post aside from what you see above.

Today's Happy Hour Soundtrack

Chuck and Linda, in their primes...

Oh well, oh well, I feel so good today,
We touched ground on an international runway
Jet propelled back home, from overseas to the U. S. A. 

The lyrics?  That would be SN1, who's back home yesterday after his year in the desert.

Welcome home, Buck.  Ya done good.

Saturday: John Oliver Is a Funny Guy

I might have to start watching the Daily Show now that that dick Stewart is on hiatus.

Today's Happy Hour Soundtrack

The Doors...



Well, there are whiskey bars and then there are whiskey BARS and we're thinkin' about sumthin' like this:

The first pic is of YrHmblScrb, ensconced at the Long Bar in the Raffles Hotel, Singapore (and earlier, in Cad's Alley... still in Raffles... a most appropriate venue for SOME of us).  Let us quote from the linked Wiki article:

The storied Long Bar, where the Singapore Sling cocktail drink was invented, and which was patronised over the decades by a host of literati, including Ernest Hemingway and Somerset Maugham, was relocated from the lobby to a new adjoining shopping arcade.

The Long Bar... which is indeed long, capable of seating about 30 or more folks... was my very first destination when I got a little free time away from the job, a lil consulting gig I was doing for the late, lamented Ed's Famous Data Company.  I was one of two "Pros From Dover" who were dispatched to the Pacific Rim for that gig and the only reason I mention that is the fact my partner in crime had never heard of Raffles, the Long Bar, or Somerset Maugham.  We managed to set the boy straight and got him famously, gloriously drunk in the process.  The first picture shows me with a draft but there were many, many G&Ts that followed that beer... or preceded it... if memory serves.  The upshot was the two of us bein' poured into a taxi at the end of our evening, which might rank right up there as one of the best bid'niz trips ever... if only because we got to drink in one of the most famous watering holes in the entire world.

So what brought all this up?  Blog Buddy Glenn posted an excellent reminiscence of his round-the-world cruise (courtesy of our favorite uncle) back in '87 and mentioned the Long Bar.  We took it from there...

Proof That God Doesn't Like Fluky Double-Deflection OT Winning Goals

He missed the United Center.  Close enough for Deity work, though.

h/t: a tweet from Jon Passantino.

Today's Happy Hour Soundtrack, In Which We Revisit a Meme, Briefly

First, the meme, which would be this:

Monday, May 24, 2010

Music We Love to Hate

I got to thinkin'... we've posted a LOT of music over the last four and a half years that floats our boat, makes our heart sing, brings back memories of Former Happy Days, or otherwise tickles our fancy.  And in so doin' we have studiously avoided the dregs of our musical experience, which is to say... Music We Love to Hate.  We'll change that with this post... and you KNOW there may be more.  Lots more.

First up... the supremely over-rated and sickeningly sweet Henry John Deutschendorf, Jr. This dude is Number-Frickin'-ONE on my list of artists that make me dive for the remote or the radio button or whatever that will JUST MAKE IT STOP.  All of his songs... any of his songs... but this one in particular:

Aiiieee. Saved at age 27 by camping out in the frickin' mountains?  Spare me.  PLEASE.  You can get diabetes thru repeated exposure to this shit.  That goes for all the rest of his dreck, as well.

And then there's the "If I NEVER hear this again it will be too damned soon" category. The all-time winner:

The one exception: Tina Turner's version, all others please leave NOW.  CCR, in particular.  And every damned one of those Filipino cover bands that played this song ad nauseam in every single Angeles City bar I ever set foot in.  This is the tune I'd choose in the "if I had a nickel for every time I've heard this" category.  Coz I'd be blogging from an upscale condo in Miami Beach or in the south of France if that had ever came to pass.  Unfortunately...

We'll not flog this dead horse too much in this first-ever installment of Music We Love To Hate.  Let's close with this:

Aiiieee.  Yet AGAIN.  Get on back to your Sit-TAY and frickin' STAY there.  Don't abuse my earholes with this shit, ever again.

OK we're done.  For now.  You cannot BELIEVE how painful it was selecting these tunes, Gentle Reader.  Please accept my apologies if the songs are truncated or otherwise incomplete.  I'll freely admit I only listened to the first three bars... if that... of each tune.  It IS Music I Love To Hate, after all.
You know there will be more.  I'm gonna have fun with this.

Well, we never followed up on that meme, until today.  I have to add one more song and that would be Lennon's tune about his own personal dystopia, which never ceases to rankle.  We're talking, of course, about this:

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...

[...]

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...

Oh, John... just STFU, will ya?  I loves me some Lennon and his collaborative work with Sir Paul is timeless, indeed.  But his solo stuff?  Too much Yoko and not enough Paul.  I have NO ideer why Pandora thinks I'd like "Imagine," but the fact remains I've given this tune a "thumbs down" on at LEAST six separate occasions.  We heard the first few bars of the song again today, and that makes me wanna scream at times.  

 

So... what were we listenin' to today?  A buncha Beatles tunes, not the least of which was this:

It IS a good day... replete with sunshine, good beer, and a good cigar.  It don't get no better than this, even with the odd "tune we love to hate" raising its ugly head.  We'll take the good with the bad, coz that's what life is all about, innit?

Broadening, LXVII

We're drinking a new-to-me Belgian ale today... and this brew will be a "one and done" affair. 

The Barley Pop Go-To Guys don't like it very much, either.  A couple o' quotes:

Too processed and clean for a Belgian blonde, sweet to the point of almost being syrupy on the palate. There are other Belgian blond ales that are far superior to this one. Perhaps worth a try if you appreciate the style.

-- Jason

And...

Notes: A very commercial Belgian ale. And, sadly, this beer might be a very good beer if it wasn't so damn clean & filtered -- most Belgian beers are bottled-conditioned. My advice is to skip this beer. It's not the worse, but there are plenty of non-commercial Abbey-style Belgian ales out there to drink.  

--Todd

It's the sweetness I don't care for, that and a vague "chemical" taste that creeps in as you drink.  I'll finish this six-pack; it's not quite at the "pour it down the drain" level of some brews I've sampled.  But we won't be buying any more.

Clever

Sums it all up nicely, doesn't it?