NOT Racist

But most definitely sport-ist:

If you saw this pic standing alone (and you ARE, Gentle Reader), you'd be forgiven for thinkin' it came from the pages o' NatGeo in some sorta article about South African ritual dances.  But no, it's from a CBS News slideshow titled "The NFL's Most Rabid Fans."  Or sumthin' like that.  My first thought was rabid is rabid and there isn't such a thang as "most rabid."  You just shoot 'em... those poor animals so afflicted... period, end o' report.

My second thought?  You RARELY see these sorts o' thangs at hockey games.  Yeah, there IS some occasional weirdness, but it's weirdness I can really get behind.  Or in front of, as the case might be.  Example:

I rest my case.

Cannon In the News

From the Usual USAF Source:

Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Installations, Environment, and Logistics Terry Yonkers, New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez and State Land Commissioner Ray Powell were among many Air Force, State of New Mexico and county officials at the lease signing ceremony on Jan. 18, 2012, in Santa Fe.  (U.S. Air Force photo by Armando Perez)

Air Force Receives Land Grant to Expand Melrose Range: The Air Force accepted a land grant of 11,000 acres from the State of New Mexico that will allow Air Force Special Operations Command to expand live-fire ranges and desert and urban warfare training on the Melrose Air Force Range adjacent to Cannon Air Force Base. "It's an honor for me to be here today to accept this very gracious gift," said Terry Yonkers, the Air Force's assistant secretary for installations, environment, and logistics, during the Jan. 18 land-transfer ceremony in Santa Fe. He added, "Ranges and airspace are the lifeblood of our ability to train and be ready to fight those conflicts the nation asks of us." The land gift is valued at approximately $3.2 million. It is the result of a June 2008 memorandum of understanding between the Air Force and New Mexico. New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez (R) was one of the dignitaries at the event. (Washington, D.C., release)

Cool.  More s'plosions in the night!

Humor From the Humidor

I was gonna make this post another in our "Broadening" series but we've pretty much reserved that title for beer.  Yeah, cigars ARE included in those posts from time to time, but we're mostly on about the beer here (or there).  Today we're drinking more of the same...which this week is sumthin' from those oh-so-delicious Sammy Adams Winter Seasonal 12-packs... but we're smokin' sumthin' quite different.  One o' these:

That would be a Kinky Friedman Texas Jewboy.  No, really.  Look:

It's a damned fine cigar when ya get right down to it... and I'm about one-third of the way down to it (the end of it).  There's jes one small lil drawback, however.  From the linked review:

Overall: For a cigar that started as a gimmick and a prop for my sense of humor it turned out to be a pretty good cigar. The only thing that bothers me is the price. At 10.00 a stick it is a lot of gelt (Yiddish for money) to be handing over for a cigar. At that price point there are other cigars I rather smoke, but it was nice to have Kinky over for the holiday and he won’t be a stranger to my humidor.

Yeah, what he said.  I don't think I'll buying Kinkys by the box anytime soon, but I will keep my eye out for samplers that include one of his cigars... which is how I came by this one.

The Usual, Customary, and Reasonable Lament

Which is to say the freakin' wind.  WeatherUnderground sez it's clear or "mostly cloudy" outside but it is NOT; the blowing dust has reduced visibility to the point where I cannot see 18th Street across the vacant lot outside my window at times.  It's simply fugly outside.  I don't think we'll be goin' anywhere today.

At least it's not snowing.

Public Service

I may have piqued your interest in hockey, what with all my scribblings, rants, moans, groans, and magnificent videos of beautiful goals and bloody fights over the past six and a half years.  If I have stimulated your curiosity... and if you're not interested in following the Beloved Wings (you twisted, misguided, and wholly uninformed soul, you)... then here's just the thing for you: a handy flowchart titled "Which NHL team should I root for?"

Click to embiggen

"Because we always win!"  Heh.  (Note:  Purists and other pickers o' nits will note this flowchart is out o' date, what with the inclusion of the Atlanta Thrashers now Winnipeg Jets.  But the attached legend is close enough.)

h/t: A tweet by JessicaRedfield ("I'm determined to make everyone an NHL fan," sez she), re-tweeted by GeorgeMalik.

The Day the LOLcats Died

Pretty clever.  And true.

Keystone

Creating hundreds of thousands of new Reagan Democrats, one would hope.

Your Usual, Customary, and Reasonable Hockey Post

I got a link to this lil blurb in the mail today from NHL.com:

They are celebrated as the Original Six -- the half-dozen NHL clubs that pre-date the 1967 expansion and hearken back to a different era. But not since the early days of expansion have the Original Six been on track to be as dominant as they've been this season.

Entering this weekend, four of the top five teams in the NHL standings are members of the Original Six. Detroit, a 3-2 shootout winner at Phoenix on Thursday, is first with 63 points, one ahead of a group of three teams that includes the New York Rangers and Chicago Blackhawks, and two points in front of the Boston Bruins -- who have played only 44 games, fewer than any team in the NHL. Only the St. Louis Blues, the other team in the three-way tie with 62 points, breaks up the Original Six party.

How unusual is it to have the Original Six so heavily represented among the NHL's elite? Very.

It may be unusual but it's also very cool.  Yeah, I'm one of THOSE fans... the few, the proud, the snobs who think the Original Six play the best hockey.  Well, except for the major suckage that is the Habs and the Leafs, although the Leafs are better than usual this year.  I can cut the Habs a sprout because of their history and by that I mean the most championships in any major sport, except for those Yankees (that would be 27 World Series wins to Montreal's 24 Stanley Cups).  Ya gotta give the Habs credit for that, even in this "what have ya done for me lately" world.

Speakin' of "what have ya done for me lately"... here's Big Bert with the game winner last night:

The Wings are undefeated in the shoot-out this year (4-0) and have won too many games that way, to my way o' thinkin'.  It's BEST when you totally dominate your opponents, but two points is two points... much better than one, or none.

Wherein I Play the Proud Grandpa

Grandson Sean in his first public performance... at his high school's talent show:

As captioned by SN1 on The Tube O' You:

Jack, Caitlyn and Sean play Norwegian Wood...Starts out kinda rough, but gets better after they start singing. Focus is restored quickly. First video...let me know what you think!

Sean is sitting, on guitar and vocals.  The performance took place on the evening of 1/19/2012.

Today's Happy Hour Soundtrack

We were in a country sorta mood, so here are two songs from Mile Marker 383...

Telephone Road is ten miles long
Fifty car lots and a hundred honky-tonks
Jukebox blastin' and the beer bottles ring
Jimmy banging on a pinball machine 

Come on come on come on let's go
This ain't Louisiana
Your Mama won't know
Come on come on come on let's go
Everybody's rockin' out on Telephone Road 

and...

I got sixteen days
one for every time I've gone away
one for every time I should have stayed
you should have worn my wedding ring
I got sixteen days
fifteen of those are nights
can't sleep when the bed sheet fights
its way back to your side

the ghost has got me running
the ghost has got me running
away from you, away from you, away from you.

I've got both of these tee shirts... bein' as how I spent a couple o' few weeks in Houston in the way-back and then there's that "16 Days" thang, about which: yeah.  Several times.

We had such a brilliant day here on The High Plains o' New Mexico today, a rare day in which I could open all the windows AND the door without the fear of bein' invaded by 1,267 flies, and that's because the cold winter nights have killed off all those pesky critters.  Which also allowed me to listen to my own record collection, which was a Great Good Thang.  I mean... Pandora is great and I love it to death, but there are times when ya wanna hear exactly what ya wanna hear.  No?

Slow Day

Slow, but beautiful:

I really, rilly enjoy all y'all's company but the Great Outdoors is calling and I see an extended Happy Hour in my future.  Right after I mail off that Thank-You card to al-Gore.

Yup

Lotsa good stuff at the Usual Source today... but I liked Ramirez best.

I think Ramirez is the best political cartoonist working today.  He's always spot-on.

How Pretty Is THAT?

The pic is the result of today's restock.  Last week we mentioned we bought our fourth or fifth installment o' Sammy Adams' Winter Seasonal 12-packs and also had minor regrets about not buying more.  Well, we fixed that:

I got lucky... those were the last two 12-packs on the shelf.  Which are now in my fridge.

Beer me!

Thanks, Wales... Ya Twit

OK, my consciousness has been raised, but no more than it already was.  SOPA is dead (well, tabled) and PIPA should be, soon.  This is one place where I agree with Obama: neither bill, in their current forms, adequately address the issue of copyright infringement and both pose disastrous potential consequences for the inter-tubes as a whole.  Hollywood and a moribund music industry are doin' their worst to kill a vibrant internet.  Fuck 'em.

Still, a day without The Wiki is pretty damned painful.  I've already missed it three times and the day's barely begun.

Hey, Norman!

Why not?  It's only an 11 hour drive; if I leave NOW...

Speaking of... last night's win in Dallas puts the Beloved Wings at the top of the Western Conference by a single point and just one point behind Noo Yawk for the league lead.

LGRW!

"Dee-troit, Dee-troit... gotta helluva hockey team*..."

*Paul Simon's original not available on The Tube O' You.

Today's Happy Hour Soundtrack

We haven't done this for a while...

And I've dropped out, I've burned up, I've fought my way back from the dead.
I've tuned in, turned on, remembered the things that you said
I'll be your crying shoulder,
I'll be love's suicide
I'll be better when I'm older,
I'll be the greatest fan of your life.

This is one of the better "one hit wonders" in my lifetime.  The Deity At Hand knows there are hundreds... if not thousands... of these one-hit artists out there but this tune resonates me with me.  Powerfully.

Yet More Thievery

From a link at the Shoebox Blog...

Them Fanbois... they don't remember what happened AFTER Snow White bit the Apple.

Update, 1100 hrs:  There are a TON of similar images out there.

Miscellanea

The 1099s are beginning to roll in; I've received two from My Favorite Uncle (the USAF one and the Social InSecurity one) already.  Private industry, which is supposed to be SO much more efficient and timely than the gub'mint, hasn't seen fit to send me their 1099s as yet... but they have until the end o' this month, right?  And I'm thinkin' they'll use every last day of the available time, too.

I'm also thinkin' I MIGHT do my taxes before the very last minute this year, on the off-chance I may get some money back.  That's because this is my year to take the one remaining child exemption I share with The Second Mrs. Pennington, which usually results in a modest refund rather than me writing a check to the Infernal Revenoo Service.  "Service?"  My ass...

―:☺:―

Did that sound bitchy?  I didn't mean to sound that way, if so.  Wait.  Mebbe I DID.  But, as long as we're bein' bitchy, there's this: I don't like Blogger's new default comment form, which takes ya to the bottom of the comments page.  Which means ya have to scroll back up to read previous comments (which I always do, so's I don't repeat what someone else said and look stoopid or redundant or both) and then scroll back DOWN to make your Astute Observation™.  Unless you're the first to comment, which is almost never the case for me, given that I lay around in bed until the crack o' noon.  Or thereabouts.  On most days, anyhoo.

WHY do coders feel compelled to fix shit that ain't broke?  That's one o' life's small yet enduring mysteries.

―:☺:―

This is interesting...

Air Force photo by A1C Ericka Engblom

F-15E Reaches 10,000 Flight Hours: An F-15E operating from Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan, became the first Air Force F-15 of any type to reach 10,000 flying hours, according to airmen at Bagram. The Strike Eagle, No. 89-0487, achieved the milestone on Jan. 13. A crew from Seymour Johnson AFB, N.C., flew the aircraft on the historic mission. The F-15E, assigned to Seymour Johnson's 335th Fighter Squadron, has been flying for more than 21 years and is a veteran of combat going back to Operation Desert Storm. "It has taken more than 21 years of qualified maintenance technicians performing more than one million hours of inspections and repairs in all types of environments . . . to ensure aircraft #89-0487 was available," said CMSgt. John Parrott, superintendent of Bagram's 335th Expeditionary Aircraft Maintenance Unit. He also credited all the other airmen, like weapons loaders, involved in keeping the aircraft operating. (Bagram report by TSgt. Vernon Cunningham)

That's from the Usual USAF Source, of course.  I wonder about the veracity of that claim, though.  I suppose it's true when one only considers the F-15, but I'm pretty damned sure each and every B-52 has at least 10,000 flight hours on the airframe, given the fact the BUFF has been in service for-frickin'-evah (read as: since 1954, the newest BUFF bein' procured in FY62).  The same could be said for the KC-135, the C-130, and god-only-knows how many other front-line airframes.  They're gonna be around a LOT longer, too, from the looks o' the budget situation. 

We Concluded Our Experiment

"What experiment," you may ask?  This (from an old post):

Speaking of...  I bought myself a box of Deep Dishes for Christmas and that box remains largely untouched, as I'm engaged in a lil experiment.  I read somewhere that aging a cigar has much the same effect as aging fine wine... as in "the older, the better."  That presupposes you keep the cigars properly humidified, of course, which I'm doing.  So, we pulled one of the now three-month old Deep Dishes out of the humidor yesterday, fired it up, and I couldn't tell if it was any better or not.  There may be two things in play here: (1) I haven't given the cigars enough time to age properly or (2) I just don't have an educated palate.  As far as (1) goes... I'm not sure if I have the will power to let the cigars age for a year or more.  And there ain't no fixin' (2).  It is what it is.

I published that about four months into the experiment.  I'm happy to report that (a) not only did we HAVE the willpower to see this thang through (there bein' three aged cigars left in the stash, as of yesterday) and (b) I got a second opinion from SN1 yesterday about the project.  His verdict?  Hard to tell, but the stick seemed more mellow... which meshes with my opinion, as well.  The only way to really tell is to smoke two sticks back-to-back, one fresh outta the box and one aged.  My bottom line is the project wasn't entirely without merit but it's also highly unlikely I'll ever repeat it.  My palate just isn't that refined to notice any differences.

I'm surprised that I let those cigars age for well over a year.  Why?  Simply because I'm not known for my will power... now or evah.

Mi Corazón...

... is HEALTHY.  Or it should be, at any rate.

2. A Stronger Heart 

A 2011 analysis of 16 earlier studies involving more than 200,000 people, conducted by researchers at Italy’s Fondazion di Ricerca e Cura, found a 31 percent reduced risk of heart disease in those who quaffed about a pint of beer daily, while risk surged in those who guzzled higher amounts of alcohol, whether beer, wine, or spirits.

More than 100 studies also show that moderate drinking trims risk of heart attacks and dying from cardiovascular disease by 25 to 40 percent, Harvard reports. A beer or two a day can help raise levels of HDL, the “good” cholesterol that helps keep arteries from getting clogged.

That's from "10 Surprising Health Benefits of Beer," which might be surprising to some but not to us beer drinkers, who've known it all along.  I mean... how could something so GOOD fail to be good FOR YOU?  Other beer-bennies include protection from Alzheimer's, stroke, diabetes, and a longer life.  It must be said the key is moderation, of course, as immoderate intake just makes ya a drunk and those guys have an unfortunate tendency to die alone in alleyways.  Or worse.

Cheers!