A Public Service Announcement (AND a Re-Run!)

You long-time Gentle Readers know that I go on (and on!) about El Pinto salsa and chile sauce, which is New Mexico's best... and that, by definition, makes it the WORLD'S best salsa.  I was amazed and gratified to learn that everyone in these United States can enjoy New Mexico's finest chile because you can now buy it on Amazon.  Witness:

You may wonder why I bought El Pinto on Amazon and you'd be right to wonder.  The main reason is because a uniformed official from United Parcel Service will deliver the chile right to my door, saving me the trouble and expense of driving all the way to The Big(ger) City^TM to purchase same (no store in P-Ville carries the green chile sauce).  So there's that.

Oh, yeah.  I said I had a re-run for ya...

Monday, August 29, 2011

Does My Diet Make Me Look Fat?

I got to thinkin' that Michelle O would NOT be pleased at the way I eat.  Sometimes.  We all do this sorta thang occasionally and I know nary a soul who hasn't eaten a whole bag o' Oreos (or the equivalent amount o' junk food o' choice) and called it dinner at one point or another.  But consider my entire caloric intake from yesterday, in rough chronological order:

• Eight cups o' strong espresso-grind coffee, lightened with moderate amounts o' half-and-half and sweetened with raw cane sugar. Oh, and one level teaspoon o' Ovaltine, per cup.
• A complete bag o' home made tortilla chips from Juanito's restaurant, accompanied by a quarter jar o' El Pinto Green Chile Sauce (consumed in concert with the following)
• Three beers (Sammy Adams Octoberfest x2, Newcastle Nut Brown Ale)
• Four Nabsico Pinwheel cookies
• Two large glasses o' whole milk (we do NOT do 2% or any other sort o' perverted and unnatural food acts here at El Casa Móvil De Pennington... in the truest sense, meaning we also reject anything/everything labeled "organic" or "light")
• Four fingers o' Cragganmore (well, mebbe just slightly more)
• One tin o' Crown Prince Kipper Snacks
• A half pint o' Häagen-Dazs butter pecan ice cream
• One Centrum Silver vitamin pill 

I don't worry about the calories... I get plenty o' those in one form or another... but there are times when I just don't want to cook, even to the point of nuking sumthin' out o' the freezer. So, we just graze when terminal laziness hits.  Am I wrong in this?  Or is Michelle O just an overbearing, dominating, more-than-slightly-addled, busybody?  Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course.

Yup.  El Pinto... it's what's for dinner, sometimes.  And now YOU can do it, too.

Local Boy Base Makes Good...

... from the Usual USAF Source:

Air Frame: MC-130 special-mission aircraft from the 1st Special Operations Wing at Hurlburt Field, Fla., sit on the ramp at Cannon AFB, N.M., Oct. 3, 2013. These airplanes temporarily relocated to Cannon to avoid the wrath of Tropical Storm Karen. (Air Force photo by SSgt. Matthew Plew)

We may not have verdant forests, rolling hills, or vivid Fall color here on The High Plains o' New Mexico but we DO have brilliant skies.

Tales From the Front, Cold War Edition... the Other Side

Just one small item that would drive the current tree-hugging, hybrid-driving, left-wing, liberal academic, Über-Feminist, Paula absolutely nuts if it ever got out:

Well... it's out, innit?  "My Master?"  It is to laugh...

On another, yet related, subject... I'm somewhat reluctant to publish any of The Second Mrs. Pennington's letters to me while I was deployed or when we were otherwise separated, mainly because of the explicit language contained therein.  We DO try to keep this blog at a PG level, or at least at the high-end of that rating.  If I posted any of her stuff I'd really have to use the censor's pen liberally to maintain our PG rating.  But, who knows?  I might publish some of that stuff at some point in future.  I really did love her explicit nature... it was one of the best things about The Girl.  Srsly... a spade was always a spade, and NEVER a "pointed earth-moving implement."  Ya gotta love that.

Wherein I Bring Teh Funny

In two flavors...

I NEED a few o' those cards on the right.  And then there's this:

It made me laugh but it really ain't funny.  At ALL.

Tales From the Front, Cold War Edition, Episode II

We're on our way home from Wallace AS, en-route back to Yokota AB, and had to hole up at Clark AB for a few days awaiting a flight back to Yokota.  I take the opportunity in this letter to rant about why 19-year-old two stripers shouldn't have been allowed to go TDY to certain places on the Pacific Rim unless accompanied by their mother.  So let's get to it...

I wish I could tell you what the outcomes were in those two "love stories," Gentle Reader but, alas: I cannot.  It might be because I don't know (I don't know, really) or it might be because I don't remember (which is prolly the case).  I don't want to come off as sanctimonious or anything even remotely close to that attitude and by that I mean I'm ALL in favor of the troops amusing themselves in whatever manner they choose.  (Parenthetical aside: When it comes to amusing ourselves we've been there, done that, but left the tee shirt on the shelf.  So to speak.)  It's just that I saw way too many of those hasty marriages come to grief where the guy was involved, less so for the woman.  The women usually made out alright.  OTOH, I've also seen a fair share of marriages that began in this manner work out, and by that I mean those unions turned into life-long relationships that NO ONE could ever question.  That sort o' thing was definitely a crap-shoot and the odds of success weren't in the shooter's favor.  

That said, I'm not one to talk: two marriages, two divorces.  Mebbe I shoulda married a hooker.  It couldn't have turned out much worse, come to think on it, and I'm only half-kidding.

Tales From the Front, Cold War Edition, Episode I

I told you, Gentle Reader, that I was expecting and had received a passel o' correspondence from back in the day... which consists mostly o' love letters between my beloved and I, back when we were betrothed and in a long-distance relationship.  I've had an opportunity to scan those letters over the last day or two and the ONE letter I was hoping to find isn't in the stack o' letters I received from SN2.  I've asked Sam to go back to the well and see if there isn't another stack o' letters stashed somewhere, mainly coz nearly all of the letters I wrote during my four-month deployment in Thailand have gone missing.  We shall see what he comes up with, if anything.

That said, I've been spending some time going through my letters over the last two days.  The emphasis is on "my" because reading her letters might could be painful in ways that are hard to describe, but I'm sure you can read between the lines.  I found things in the old letters that might could be of general interest and it's in that spirit I offer the following...

Some explanation is in order, no?  The Second Mrs. Pennington had left Japan a month earlier (from the date of this letter) and was back at school at Notre Dame in Indiana.  I, OTOH, was still in Japan serving in an Engineering and Installations unit at Yokota AB, on the outskirts of Tokyo.  I wrote this letter from Wallace Air Station in the Philippines, where I was on a temporary duty assignment (TDY) to perform a pre-depot level maintenance inspection of the radar facility at Wallace.  So that's the background.  The one thing that mystifies me about this letter is the racy bit in quotes on the last page.  I have NO ideer where that came from, but that saying appears in other correspondence... from the both of us... to no small extent.  All I can think of is we must have heard or seen that expression in some movie we saw or some book the both of us read.  Be that as it may... the sentiment was NOT misplaced, on either side of the wire.

I DO miss the girl.

Today's Happy Hour Soundtrack: Born To Be Wild...

... or until such time as we're nicked by the local constabulary, more about which below.  But first... Steppenwolf:



I've posted about TT Week in the Isle of Man and believe me, Gentle Reader, it don't get ANY wilder than that.  Evah.  Both Daytona and Sturgis are more like the Westminster Kennel Club Show than a biker's destination, mainly coz of the racing.  Now there are races at the former... Daytona, but they're on a closed circuit... and there ain't no races at all in Sturgis.  TT Week in the Isle o' Man features a full solid week of road racing on real roads... serious roads.  And then there's the matter of Mad Sunday, which is THE ultimate biker's wet dream.  Let me quote:

On "Mad Sunday" any member of the public can ride the mountain section of the course, which is open one way from Ramsey to Douglas. In 2012 there were just four accidents on the open day - while in previous years there had been dozens. In 2013, eleven spectators were hurt when a rider lost control at Bray Hill on the outskirts of Douglas.

What makes Mad Sunday so Mad?  No speed limits.  None.  Ride as fast as you wanna.. on a twisty two lane road that runs over the mountain.  I rode Mad Sunday in 1982 and THAT was my peak mo'sickle experience... nothing will ever top it.

But we digress. I received a box full of correspondence from SN2 yesterday, all of which originated in days o' yore.  I found this lil item among the stack o' stuff:

Yup.  A ticket, about 40 bucks worth, give or take a farthing or six.  There's a bit of a story behind that ticket, the Reader's Digest version about which goes like this...

It was in the early evening, just after dinner, when I decided to go for a little putt on the back roads just outside Douglas.  So, there I was, motoring along at about 60 mph on a two lane country road when I had the livin' bejeezus scared outta me when a guy on a Suzuki RG500 GP bike went screaming past me at about 120 mph or more.  The guy caught me completely by surprise and I inadvertently changed lanes when he blew by me.  (Parenthetical side note: given there's actually no track at the IoM TT, most teams do their testing after hours on the back roads.  This was a case o' that.)  So, it wasn't but three or four minutes later when a friendly constable steps out of the ditch on the side o' the road and waves me over, me bein' caught in a speed trap.  I was incredulous and exclaimed "Didn't you see that guy on the Suzuki in front o' me?"  "Wot Suzuki?" said the constable, in reply.  It dawned on me right there and then that some animals are more equal than others during TT Week.

So... it was off to traffic court the next day to pay my fine (60 mph in a 45), which really pissed me off as I missed the first race while cooling my heels waiting to see the fines clerk.  There really AIN'T no justice in this world, sometimes.

Our mount for TT Week:

That was one seriously quick mo'sickle.

Saturday: Dancers?

No... Durango!  These new "Ron Burgandy" ads are pretty danged good.

A Brief Follow-Up

I mentioned one of the best parts about our recent trip Back East was re-connecting with old friends Chip and Kathy.  I posted this pic of the three of us...

That was now, these were then... c.1978:

What a great looking couple, eh?

Thanks, Sam.  You da MAN.

Happy Face!

From the Usual USAF Source:

Air Frame: Lt. Col. Joel Meyers, 389th Fighter Squadron commander, gets a welcome-home hug from his daughter upon his return to Mountain Home AFB, Idaho, from a deployment to Southwest Asia, Oct. 5, 2013. Meyers led an expeditionary contingent of Mountain Home aircrews, maintainers, and F-15Es on a rotational deployment of combat forces to that region. (Air Force photo by TSgt. Samuel Morse)

I love photos like this.  Welcome home, Colonel Meyers, and all the troops in the 389th FS!

Today's Happy Hour Soundtrack: Do What You Wanna Do!

We're in the mood for some old-school funk today...



So, here we are: out on the verandah, enjoying a warm breezy day, beer and cigar close at hand and listenin' to the Isley Bros. tell me to do what I wanna do.  Well, OK, then... we shall do just that.

Did I say it was warm and breezy?

Why... yes, I DID.  It's mah-vel-ous outdoors, simply mah-vel-ous.

The Non-Essential Sunny

Heh.

Broadening Our Horizons LXX

Our brew today...

Just when I was on about the wonderfulness of the mePhone's camera... and then this.  I almost didn't post this pic.

That would be a Lugene Chocolate Milk Stout from the O'Dell Brewery, and Boy does it ever live up to its name.  This brew is a full, rich, chocolatey concoction that pleases the palate immensely... or my palate, at any rate.  One of the Bros really likes it too, giving the beer an 89 rating (Very Good).  From the tasting notes:

TASTE: Creamy, silky smooth, thick bodied, milky, subtle roastiness, chocolate throughout, modest hopping, big juicy kiss of alcohol, date sugar, mild spice, dark berries, faint orange peel, sweet creamy finish

This is a big brew, 12oz bottle took a while to conquer though I did not complain once. Seek this one out for something completely different.

When Jason sez "big brew" I'm quite certain he's referring to the beer's 8.5% ABV content.  We shall sip this one slowly.

And now it's time to fire up a cee-gar and adjourn to the verandah to take in yet another one of the last o' the nice days.

Whut?

I don't get it.

Jes kiddin'.

Almost Mohammed Redux

Moon:  I have you at my five o'clock... you need to close and come around hard left.
Evening Star:  Not in this millennium, Bud.  What ya see is what ya get.

Ah, well.  Close enough for gub'mint work, eh?

Tonight's pic was taken with the mePhone, last night's was taken with the Big Camera.  I'm kinda sorta amazed at how well the mePhone camera does things.

Today's Happy Hour Soundtrack: Second Choice

I heard this tune on RP today and wanted to post it but... alas, the quality of the available video on the Tube O' You isn't so good.  It's not all THAT bad and would bear looking, if you have a mind to do so.  I think I'll be looking up more work from the Nashville Mandolin Ensemble in future.

So... second choice.

Sunshine, daydream, walking in the tall trees, going where the wind goes
Blooming like a red rose, breathing more freely,
Ride our singin', I'll walk you in the morning sunshine
Sunshine, daydream. Sunshine, daydream. Walking in the sunshine.

Sunshine daydream, indeed.  One can NEVER go wrong with the Dead.  Ever.

BAU

"Truer words," and all that.  Most of this "shutdown" has the look and feel of a particularly inept PR campaign gone very wrong.

Almost Mohammed

The view during ADWH this evening...

Close, but no Karbala.

Today's Happy Hour Soundtrack

Shawn Colvin with a very credible cover of a Bee Gees song...

It's only words and words are all
I have to take your heart away

I think this is one of those rare examples of a cover exceeding the original (although there are those who might point out that ANY Dylan cover is better than the original, at which point we would agree to disagree).  That said, the tune is kinda-sorta in keeping with today's earlier post.  There's this about that... words were enough to win her but not enough to keep her.

Better Late...

... or mebbe not, since all I have is a re-run and a bit of a teaser.  The re-run:

All Is Revealed... Sorta

There was an article in Saturday's WSJ that caught my eye... and brain... and that article is available to the general public, not just WSJ subscribers (thank The Deity At Hand, coz that makes what follows much easier).  The opening grafs:

It's no secret that hundreds of millions of people around the world now routinely use the Internet to indulge their sexual curiosity. Today you can ogle more naked bodies in a single minute online than the most promiscuous Victorian could have seen in a lifetime. Because this online activity leaves behind a trail of digital crumbs, for the first time we can gather reliable data on the erotic interests of a broad swath of humanity.

My colleague Sai Gaddam and I have analyzed a billion of these web searches, using data sets that firms like AOL and Excite make publicly available, obtaining other data from adult web sites, and using web-analysis techniques to gather additional data.

One of our most interesting findings was that women are very different from men in how they use these online services. All across the planet, what most women seek out, in growing numbers, are not explicit scenes of sexual activity but character-driven stories of romantic relationships.

Well, how's that for an opening?   OK... it should come as no surprise that women are different than male chauvinist piggies when it comes to online erotica but let's dive deeper.

The female cortex contains a highly developed system for finding and scrutinizing a prospective partner—a system that might be dubbed the Miss Marple Detective Agency. Agatha Christie's fictional sleuth is often dismissed as scatterbrained, but she is actually a shrewd judge of character and harbors deep knowledge of the dark side of human nature. She uses her surprising analytical acumen to solve mysteries that have stumped the police.

Using similar investigative skills, the female brain evaluates all available evidence regarding a potential mate's social, emotional and physical qualities to make an all-important decision: Is he Mr. Right or Mr. Wrong? Only if Miss Marple gives her stamp of approval do physical arousal and psychological arousal harmoniously unite in the female brain.

Do tell!   Really?  Who'd a thunk it?  Taking my tongue out of my cheek, this comes as no great surprise to YrHmblScrb, Gentle Reader.  But going on...

Female erotica demonstrates how the detective agency operates—and how it differs from the much simpler male brain. Whereas two-minute video clips are the most popular form of contemporary erotica for men, the most popular form for women remains the romance novel, an artifact that takes many hours to digest. Like pornography, the romance novel has established a strong presence in the digital domain. It is the primary engine behind the electronic book boom. Currently, three of the top 10 books on Kindle are e-romances.

Ah, now we get to the crux of the story, which goes on to give statistical, demographic, and anecdotal evidence as to how profoundly different women are than men when it comes to erotica, which leads us... that would be me, actually... into real-life situations and experiences.  Herewith an observation, if you will.

I've often wondered how I came to have my modest success in love (and its close relative, the brief fling and/or affair).  I've mentioned that I was never any good at the Meat Market game, what with being able to count the "your place or mine?" one-night stands I've had in my life on the fingers of one hand.  Nope... that was never me.  I always wound up in relationships with friends, better defined as women I'd known for some period of time... varying from at least a couple o' few days to weeks and even months... mostly coz I don't have a flashing smile, good looks, a hunky bod, or any other outstanding physical characteristic.  Ya want proof?  OK, then, here's an icon from my past:

See?  That's me in my prime... at 30 years... and The Second Mrs. Pennington, who was really in her prime, at 19.  What splendid physical specimens, eh?  Well, at least one of us was, but we digress...  

That framed picture sat on the dresser in The Second Mrs. Pennington's and my bedroom for the 20-year duration of our marriage... and on her maiden's dresser, prior to our marriage; it's a picture of she and I on the day we met (back story), accompanied by free verse (?) I wrote on a whim and a napkin whilst waiting for a train in Nagoya towards the end of our New Years trip in 1975. (A narrative about that trip (in two parts) begins here if'n you're interested.)  So there's the physical evidence of my (ahem) hunkiness... but that napkin, and the fact she saved it for so long, demonstrates a larger point: our relationship was based less on the physical than the mental (on her part, not mine, in the beginning.).  I think that poem was part of the evidence collected and filed away by the Miss Marple Detective Agency, TSMP Division.

That last point brings me around full-circle.  I never really saw a description of the "Miss Marple" effect in print until yesterday but I intuitively understood it, even as a callow youth.  TSMP and I were "an item" on that cold night in Nagoya, but we were not yet betrothed.  That would come later, after she completed her Miss Marple analysis... part of which was a demand that I give her a detailed, written accounting of my philosophy of life (yet more evidence for the MMDA), which I did, written in a very long letter to her while I was off TDY in Thailand.  That account survives to this day and I may print it at some time in the future, provided I retrieve it from the archives, currently resting at SN2's house in the suburbs of Pittsburgh.

Life can sometimes be distilled down to the essence of a romance novel... coz that's how wimmen roll.  And we DO know this to be true, seein' as how we encountered the Miss Marple Detective Agency a few times and passed the investigations more often than not.  That's pretty strange when ya think about it, innit?

The teaser is in the highlighted bits, above.   I have it on fairly good authority that I MIGHT come into possession of that highlighted document sometime in the future, provided someone (who shall remain unnamed) makes it to the post office this year this week.  Stay tuned.

Today's Happy Hour Soundtrack

Warren Zevon, from his second album:



This album is my favorite album from Warren, by far.  Just take a look at the personnel featured on the album...

• Warren Zevon - harmonica, piano, rhythm guitar, string arrangements, vocals
• Jackson Browne - harmony vocals on tracks 2, 3 & 11, piano on track 10, slide guitar on track 3
• Lindsey Buckingham - guitar on track 3, harmony vocals on tracks 5 & 7
• Rosemary Butler - harmony vocals on track 10
• Jorge Calderón - harmony vocals on tracks 8 & 11
• Marty David - bass on track 3
• Ned Doheny - guitar on track 10
• Phil Everly - harmony vocals on tracks 1 & 4
• Glenn Frey - rhythm guitar on track 9, harmony vocals on tracks 6 & 9
• The Gentlemen Boys - Background Vocals (11)
• Bob Glaub - bass on tracks 1, 2, 4 - 7 & 9 - 11
• Don Henley - harmony vocals on track 6
• Billy Hinsche - harmony vocals on track 11
• Bobby Keys - saxophone on tracks 5, 7 & 10
• David Lindley - banjo on track 1, fiddle on tracks 1, 2 & 5, slide guitar on tracks 4 & 7, guitar on track 9
• Gary Mallaber - drums on tracks 3 & 8
• Roy Marinell - bass on track 8
• Stevie Nicks - vocals on track 7 & 10
• Bonnie Raitt - harmony vocals on track 10
• Fritz Richmond - jug on track 8
• Sid Sharp - strings on tracks 4, 6 & 11
• J.D. Souther - harmony vocals on tracks 2 & 11
• Waddy Wachtel - guitar, vocals
• Carl Wilson - harmony vocals on track 11, vocal arrangements
• Jai Winding - piano on track 5, organ & synthesizer on track 10, vocals on track 11
• Larry Zack - drums on tracks 1, 2, 4 - 7 & 9 - 11
• The Gentlemen Boys consisted of: Jackson Browne, Jorge Calderon, Kenny Edwards, J. D. Souther and Waddy Wachtel.

That list is a veritable "Who's Who" of the El-Eh rock 'n' roll scene, c. 1975.  I was livin' in Westby, Montana when this album came out and there were VERY few albums that got more airplay in that den of iniquity I called home in those days.  These days I get my Warren fix from Pandora, as nearly all of my WZ albums are on vinyl and as such, out of my reach.  I REALLY need to fix that.

I Did It

I come to bury iGoogle, not to praise it.  Or... iGoogle is dead. Long live iGoogle!  (OK, OK.  I'll stop now.)  I moved from iG to Netvibes yesterday and my new start page looks like this:

Click for full screen

Netvibes was a piece o' cake to set up and you'll note the "refugee" template looks a LOT like iGoogle, by design.  I've only lived with Netvibes for a day now but I think it's gonna do the trick.

Thanks, Dano!

Today's Happy Hour Soundtrack

The BEST album side ever committed to vinyl, period:



This particular take omits "Her Majesty" and more's the pity.  But there's an app for that...



I heard this on RP... in its entirety, including the lengthy pause before "Her Majesty" kicks in... just a few minutes ago.  Apropos o' not much... I own four copies of "Abbey Road," the original vinyl I bought in the way-back, a half-speed mastered vinyl version, a CD version, and the kinda-sorta recently released digitally remastered version.  "Abbey Road" would be right up there if I had to name the best rock 'n' roll album of all time, exceeded only by "Exile On Main Street."  You should really read that "Abbey Road" link, btw.  Just sayin'.

My, but aren't we nostalgic of late?

Saturday, Part Deux

Pretty danged creative... and funny!

Added, somewhat later:



Anyone who's ever been to London and rode the Tube will certainly appreciate that.

Saturday: Siri's Voice

This vid is from CNN... which has an accompanying article that's worth the read.



I'm beginning to worry about myself.

Today's Happy Hour Soundtrack

Remembering Janis...





The preeminent blues shouter of my generation died on this date in 1970, at the tender age of 27.  Ohmigawd but she has been missed. I can't really think of anyone who picked up the mantle that fell from her shoulders.

RIP, Janis.  We remember you fondly.

Progress

From a tweet by Then & Now:

I liked the Chinese better when they were poor, oppressed, and didn't own ten percent* of our national debt.  They built some impressive buildings with our money.

The Perfect Song For Tonight's ADWH*

Mr. Thorogood...

Don't give me no lectures
'Bout stress and strife
So-ber-i-ety
Just ain't my way of life
You better change
Yes, I'm begging you please
'cause if you don't start drinkin'
I'm gonna leave

I've never really had this particular problem, given I've never been involved with someone who is or was a tee-totaler.  That practice would simply be a non-starter from the git-go.  That said, we've been blessed in previous lives with wives, consorts, and girlfriends who had a like mind when it came to the subject of alcohol.  We've even known and loved some wimmen who could drink us under the table.  Yeah, I'm lookin' at YOU, Kid.

So now it's out to the verandah to enjoy a balmy New Mexico evening with three fingers of Mr. Bulliet's fine, fine, fine rye whiskey.  And a cigar.

* After Dinner Whiskey Hour

This Made Me a Bit Misty...

... mainly coz we've got a tee shirt similar to this.  The h/t goes to Curtis.

I'm Not the First or the Only Person to Ask, But...

... if these people workin' for the gub'mint are "non-essential," why were they ever hired in the first place?

Tom Clancy, Dead at 66

I know it's a cliché but I'm shocked, really shocked.  Mr. Clancy was one of my very favorite authors and I've read ALL of his novels... every single one.  From the NYT's obituary:

Tom Clancy, whose complex, adrenaline-fueled military novels spawned a a new genre of thrillers and made him one of the world’s best-selling and best-known authors, died on Tuesday in a hospital in Baltimore. He was 66.

[...]

The critical reception to his novels was gushing from the start. Reviewing “Red Storm Rising” in The New York Times in 1986, Christopher Lehmann-Haupt wrote that the book “far surpassed” Mr. Clancy’s debut novel. 

“Red Storm Rising” is a “superpower thriller,” he wrote, “the verbal equivalent of a high-tech video game.” (Mr. Clancy would eventually venture into video games, which were easily adapted from his novels.) 

Other critics questioned the unwaveringly virtuous nature of many of Mr. Clancy’s heroes, particularly his protagonist Jack Ryan. 

“All the Americans are paragons of courage, endurance and devotion to service and country,” Robert Lekachman wrote in The Times in 1986. “Their officers are uniformly competent and occasionally inspired. Men of all ranks are faithful husbands and devoted fathers.” 

On that last "criticism"... that was one of the things that made Mr. Clancy's books so beloved.  To put it another way... "it's a feature, not a bug."

RIP, Sir.  You'll be missed.

The Season Begins Tonight, Right?

Technically, yes.  There are three games on the menu tonight and I'll prolly watch one of those, at the very least, that bein' the Hated 'Hawks game, in which they'll raise their Stanley Cup banner.  But that's only because I'm a hockey fan, first and foremost.

Well, the foregoing was a LIE coz I'm a Red Wings fan, first and foremost, and everyone else takes a back seat.  But we WILL watch the 'Hawks raise their banner, mostly coz we have borderline masochistic tendencies.  So there's that.

The season REALLY begins tomorrow night when Buffalo visits The Joe.  We're really looking forward to this season, about which Sean Macindoe has this to say:

Detroit Red Wings

Last season: 24-16-8, 56 points, seventh in the West, lost in the second round

Offseason report: Detroit handed a steel chair to Daniel Alfredsson, then celebrated when he waffled the Ottawa Senators organization over the head with it.

Outlook: Everyone assumes the Red Wings will be good, because the Red Wings are always good. And there's lots of reason for optimism heading into 2013-14. Don't forget, this is the team that had the invincible Blackhawks on the ropes in last year's playoffs before somehow letting the series slip away. Goalie Jimmy Howard has developed into a star who could push for a starting role on the U.S. Olympic team. And the move to the East should help, both in terms of travel and quality of competition.

But there are warning signs. The core is an old one, with players like Pavel Datsyuk, Henrik Zetterberg, and Johan Franzen all in their 30s. Adding Alfredsson doesn't make them any younger, obviously, so the potential for major drop-offs and/or injuries is significant.

Suggested slogan: "The Detroit Red Wings, presented by Amway." (No, really, that was their actual slogan. I couldn't make up anything funnier than that.)

Best case: They face the Senators in the first round and win on their way to another deep playoff run.

Worst case: They face the Senators in the first round and lose. Seriously, that matchup is happening. Don't even try to deny us, hockey gods.

Mr. Macindoe puts the Wings in his "Legitimate Contender" (for The Cup) category.  I agree with him but you KNOW I would.

So... OK.  Drop the puck and LET'S GO RED WINGS!

Update, later that same evening:  The banner raising ceremony was simple, classy and done with great taste.



When I say classy I mean tonight's ceremony was quite unlike some other ceremonies we witnessed in the past.  The Hated 'Hawks acted like they've been here before, unlike some other tacky teams we can think of.

The game that followed was pretty good, too. 

It's Always SUMTHIN'

Aiiieee!

I STILL don't have a replacement...

Yup

Hey!  It's October!