Down. And Out.

Down... for almost 24 hours:

Google’s Blogger service has been offline or unreliable for much of the day, with Blogger-hosted blogs changed to read-only mode, and posts and comments made after 7:37 am PT on May 11, 2011, removed.

In a post on the Blogger help forum, the product team said that it had rolled back a scheduled maintenance release from last night and that its “engineers are working hard to return Blogger to normal and restore your posts and comments.”

Google’s reply for a request for comment was, “The team is working on this.” The company has posted some short updates to the Blogger Twitter account and Status blog, but hasn’t yet explained what’s happening, how widespread it is, and what will happen to users’ content.

Blogger had started rolling out its first major redesign in years in April. The team said in a tweet that the outage was not related to launching the new design.

Update: At 6 am Friday Google said Blogger would be “back to normal soon.”

The posts I put up yesterday still haven't been restored and Blogger has only been back for about a half-hour as I type.  I also noted that videos have gone missing on the blog as well... all ya see is a "Http/1.1 Service Unavailable" message where the vid should be.  So much for putting all yer stuff in the cloud, eh?

―:☺:―

 Photo:  David Guralnick / The Detroit News

Out.  That would be my Beloved Wings, who fell JUST short in their comeback quest last evening.  I had a very brief e-mail conversation this morning with a friend who said she knew I was "going to wax poetic" about the Wings today.  Well, there's this about that:

Ah, the Wings.  You'd THINK an adult... Hell, an OLD man... wouldn't get so wrapped up in something so trivial as the fortunes of a hockey team.  But I kept hope alive, even as the Sharks iced the puck with something like 00:01.4 on the clock.  "Icing!  Face off in their zone!"  That was me to SN1, who was on the phone for the last two minutes of play.  And then time ran out...

I turned the teevee off when the horn sounded, not bein' able to bear the Wonderfulness Of The Sharks from the likes of Versus announcers.  SN1 did the same.

I still can't believe they lost.  Fucking Neemee.  ;-)

I still haven't turned the teevee back on.  That's about as poetic as it gets today.

I'll be rooting for Vancouver in the Western Conference Finals, not that I really give a Big Rat's Ass.  When it comes to the SCF I'll root for whoever wins the East, for the first time in recorded history.

Another Rerun

I have to be over in The Big(ger) City™ for an eye-followup in a few and I did that thing I always do, of late: slept too well and too long.  So... there's no time right this moment to make the rounds and dream up some sorta drivel to check the blogging box.

Bob Reese, in comments to yesterday's post about my impending separation from the lovely Miss Zukiko, took issue with my statement that Miss Z and I hadn't really done any traveling together... sayin' "what about that US 550 trip?"  Well, that was on Miss Z's great aunt... the late and not-so-lamented 'Zuki.  The 'Zuki was a much better bike on the open road than Miss Z but she had this unfortunate tendency to fall right over at the most inopportune times... like when people were looking.  But we digress.

Here's what we wrote on the conclusion of that road trip Bob was on about:

Be It Ever So Humble...

…there’s no place like home. I’m there, and it’s an understatement to say I’m pleased. My own bed. My own PC. My own stuff. Getting away is nice, visiting with friends and family is nicer still, but getting back home? Priceless.

I ended as I began, which is to say I covered a whole lotta ground in one sitting. The first day of the trip saw me riding 577.6 miles in 11 hours flat; yesterday I did 591 miles in ten hours and 21 minutes. The difference? Better weather…much better weather. I dodged a bullet, though…a half hour after I got home the frickin’ bottom dropped out and we were inundated with rain. I held my breath, figuratively speaking, for the last 100 miles of the ride. There were HUGE thunderstorms to the east and the south of me as I closed in on P-Town, and it looked like I was gonna be in for it. The gods smiled on me, though, and although I got a smattering or two of rain, it was nothing serious. Fortune, for once, was on MY side.

Oh. Total mileage for the trip: 2267.7 miles. And not even one close call. That last statement just may be the most amazing thing of all.

I only did three things last evening after I got home: returned SN2’s phone call (he rang while I was on the road), took a long hot shower, and fell into bed. And I slept the sleep of the truly exhausted. This morning I feel fine, well-rested, and refreshed. Now I have to get on with life…unpack, pay the bills, and do other assorted things that have gone undone for the past 17 days. Normal blogging, such as it is, will resume tomorrow. In the meantime…

Today’s Pic: The first of perhaps six or eight pics from Arches National Park. I like this particular photo because it shows the scale of the monoliths, which are absolutely HUGE. Note the road winding into the distance and the small dots that are the cars on said road. Riding among, through and between these formations is an awe-inspiring experience.

Saturday, June 2, 2007.

And here's a couple o' shots of my partners in crime... of the flesh and blood and steel varieties:

The first pic is SN1 and SN3, the second pic is YrHmblScrb and SN3.  Both pics were taken in Fort Collins, CO... just prior to our departure for a jaunt out into the Colorado countryside.  That trip wasn't all fun and games, though.  Part of it was Pure Hell (on wheels).

Game Seven, Baybee. Game Seven!

So, the Beloved Wings pull another one out of the hat... and won this one going away.  Big Mo is on our side and Game Seven will be played in enemy territory out in San Jose.  But that's OK.  The Wings can... and WILL... beat those Sharks in their own barn, witness night before last.  That said, there's NOTHING quite like a Game Seven in the Stanley Cup playoffs.  Nothing.

Tonight's game was a nail-biter... scoreless through two periods with the Sharks drawing first blood four minutes into the third.  From the linked ESPN game recap:

Skating with confidence and desperation, the Red Wings outshot San Jose 45-25, but they were on the verge of elimination after Couture batted a rebound out of midair and the puck trickled past goalie Jimmy Howard with 16:06 remaining. The puck barely crossed the goal line before Howard covered it with his glove, but the goal stood after a review.

The Wings threw everything but the kitchen sink at the Sharks yet couldn't seem to get anything past Neemee (whose name I INTENTIONALLY misspelled), who was the difference in the game up to the point that Couture scored for the Sharks.  Jimmy Howard, to his everlasting credit, was just as good as Neemee even though he faced half the shots.  

So, here we are with 16 minutes left in the game and Neemee doin' his very best brick wall imitation through 50+ minutes of play.  I told SN1 that we'd seen THIS movie before... the Wings dominating the game in nearly every aspect, only to have a garbage goal give the accursed Tiburones the lead... and he responded with the UCR cliché: there's a lot o' hockey left.  And so there was.

Yup.  Zetterberg tied it about seven minutes later, Filppula got the go-ahead goal less than two minutes after that and the Wings survived a San Jose power-play to win it.  Oh yeah... Darren Helm (my hero!) added an empty-netter to make it 3-1, the first time we've had anything other than a one-goal game in this series.

It don't get much better than that, Gentle Reader.  Unless it's a Game Seven... for the WIN!  I just hope my heart holds out.

LGRW!

(photo and game stars from ESPN)

Update and Linkage

Yanno that Chomsky thing I posted this past weekend?  Well, Lex gives us this about that:

Noam Chomsky

 Chris Hitchens treats him roughly.

(It’s no use excerpting Hitchens; he’s like a seven course meal, and must be taken sequentially.)

What The Good Captain said.  

I read another good piece by Hitch last night, which made me terribly sad.  The man is dying slowly and that is positively the WORST way to go.

The End of an Era?

My Buddy Lee in Oregon (that's him up top) called a couple o' days ago to let me know he'd be in my neck o' the woods around the end of this month and would be droppin' in for a visit.  It seems like he won an e-Bay bid on a spiffy limited edition Duck... said Duck bein' in Fort Worth, Texas... and he planned to pick it up the end of this month and ride it back to Oregon, by way of P-Ville.  Which is verrah cool, sein' as how Lee and I haven't had a few beers together in almost exactly five years.

But stuff happens.  Lee called the next day and told me the deal fell through, which is a longish story about which I'll spare ya the details, Gentle Reader.  It came to pass that I suggested he should consider buying Miss Zukiko instead, what with she bein' sumthin' of a Poor Man's Ducati and one whole HELLUVA lot cheaper than an SR4S Tricolore.  Well, one thing led to another and it looks like I've sold Miss Zukiko into bondage, the bondage bein' of a consensual and pleasurable sort, of course.

We do have mixed emotions about all this. As I told Lee (excerpts from a recent e-mail):

I feel like one of those heroines in a cheesy romance novel: "Lee!  This is all SO sudden!"

I say that coz I have VERY mixed emotions about selling the bike.  It's been a long, long time since I've been bike-less and you know that "rider" makes up more than a little bit of my personality.  I'm having a hard time letting go.  But I suppose it's time and it makes sense to give Miss Zukiko up to someone who will actually RIDE her... not just pull her cover off, wash her, and stare at her while she dries.  Hell, I never even took her on a decent road trip, so it's not like we made any lasting memories or anything. 

[...]

I think I'll keep my leathers.  You may think I'm weird, but I just MIGHT buy a Can-Am Spyder RS.  I didn't quit riding Miss Zukiko because I don't LIKE riding, I quit riding her because I don't have enough breath to horse her around and the sporting riding position is just too damned hard on my old bod, specifically my wrists and (what's left of) my forearms.  The Spyder has a reverse gear, yanno?  And wouldn't I look cool on one?  Much better than those geezers on Gold Wing trikes, methinks.

So that's the story.  It remains to be seen if I'll actually pull the trigger on one of those Can-Ams... but I HAVE been thinkin' about 'em for a while.  I'll repost that vid:

So it may be the end of an era... but it might could be the beginning of another one.  Or mebbe I'll just buy a new Miata.  Decisions, decisions.

It's Not Global WARMING That Bothers Me...

... it's the gotdamned Global BLOWING.  Yes, yet another rant about wind.  I'm just in from retrieving the day's mail (more about which below) and it was quite the slog up to the mail kiosk and back.  This is what we look like at the moment (or 53 moments ago, according to WX Underground):

The troops in my shop used to joke about making me carry my tool box everywhere I went so I wouldn't get blown off the top of the mountain, back in my young radar days... mainly coz I've always been light in the ass.  I could have used some ballast today, srsly.  I think the wind in the above WX report is very understated... it feels more like 40 mph continuous wind with 50 mph gusts.  And it's hot, too.  But it's a dry heat.  Heh.

―:☺:―

About the mail...   Our humidor is a lil bit fatter now, seein' as how we received a resupply shipment from Cigar.com in today's mail.  We opted for three copies of this sampler this time around:

Coffee Infused Sampler
Sample the finest coffee-infused smokes all hailing from the Drew Estate factory, the authorities on cigar infusion. Includes 8 cigars, two each of Isla del Sol, Tabak Especial Cafe con Leche, Tabak Especial Red Eye, and Tabak Especial. A Starbucks selection at a Dunkin' Donuts price!

We've smoked three of the four varieties listed above (we love 'em, too) and we're burning the previously unknown-to-us Isla del Sol as we speak.  I'm about a third of the way through the cigar and I'm fairly well impressed.  It's not quite as strong as the others in this sampler but it IS pleasing.  And here's what we're drinking along with our cigar:

Yup.  This takes the sting out of being forced to remain indoors.  Kinda-sorta.

Datsyuk and the Art of Elevating One's Game

I went on last evening about the brilliance of Pavel Datsyuk in last night's win over San Jose... not that any of you noticed.  Other people have noticed Pavel's brilliance, albeit not through my pathetic scribblings here at EIP.  Here's Mike Brophy, writing on the subject of this year's Conn Smythe trophy candidates at Sportsnet.ca:

Pavel Datsyuk, Detroit Red Wings: An injured Pavel Datsyuk is better than no Pavel Datsyuk at all. The three-time defending Selke Trophy winner as the NHL's best defensive forward, Datsyuk was a sight to behold Sunday in San Jose. Despite being unable to take faceoffs because of a wrist injury, Datsyuk was the most dominant skater on the ice drawing three assists and playing keep-away with the puck. With so many members of the Wings playing hurt, Datsyuk's wizardry has helped keep Detroit alive.

So: noted.  Dats is great and there's just no arguing that.  What is terribly worrisome for the Wings and the future of their quest for Cup Number 12 , however, is that tell-tale phrase "with so many members of the Wings playing hurt..."  There's a quantity issue in that statement, as well as a quality issue.  It's not the sheer number of injured players, it's WHO is playing injured and how much those injuries are affecting their performance.  Case in point: Johan Franzen wound up sitting on the bench for most of the third period last night, unable to skate because of the pain from an ankle injury.  He's been playing hurt... when he's played at all... for the entire Sharks series.  And how much do the Wings miss The Mule?  Consider these records:

• NHL record for most goals in a 4-game playoff series (9).
• Detroit Red Wings record for most game winning goals in one month, March 2008 (6).
• Detroit Red Wings record for most goals in a single playoff series (9).
• Detroit Red Wings record for consecutive playoff games with a point (12, tied with Gordie Howe)
• Detroit Red Wings record for consecutive playoff games with a goal (5, tied with Gordie Howe and Ted Lindsay).
• Detroit Red Wings record for most goals in a single playoff year (13, tied with Henrik Zetterberg).
• Detroit Red Wings record for most game winning goals in one playoff year (5, 2008)
• Detroit Red Wings record for most points in a playoff game (6), May 6, 2010, vs. San Jose Sharks

Franzen is a scoring machine in the playoffs and his absence explains, in part, Detroit's scoring paucity in the San Jose series.  Let's talk Zee, as well, since Zetterberg is mentioned in the same breath as The Mule, above.  Zetterberg missed the entire Phoenix series and hasn't been himself in the Sharks series, although he's improving with every game.  He isn't 100% and that much is obvious.  Those two guys are the biggest and most obvious holes in Dee-troit's offense.  So can the Wings overcome their lack of production?  Yes, with caveats.

Here's what Stu Hackel sez about that (at SI.com):

When a player ups his game the way Datsyuk did on Sunday night, it can lift an entire team. In fact, that’s just what Babcock and other coaches hope for, that their whole club moves up on the intensity scale and wants to win more. The team starts to collectively exert the extra effort to win more of those one-on-one fights for the puck, and come back harder defensively, and block more shots, break up more plays and create more of their own chances than their opponent does. You see one of your teammates give more, and you want to give more, too. It’s contagious at this time of year, or should be, and you don’t win in the playoffs without it.

This is the point in time when we discover if the Wings really have it in them to hold on, hang on, raise their game, and continue to succeed.  This is also the time the younger guys have to step up, when the vaunted depth of the Red Wings needs to materialize in substantive ways.  There's not much doubt the capability is there, all the Young Guns need is leadership and examples to follow.  I think they have both in numerous role models (can you say "Lidstrom?"  Sure ya can.)... but Dats is leading the way right now.

They can do this.

A Modern Day Record

I awoke at precisely 1314 hrs today and that's sumthin' of a personal record for sleepin' in, otherwise known as sloth and indolence.  The only excuse I have for this behavior is the UCR one: I went to bed around 0630 hrs this morning.  I'm beginning to worry about my sleeping habits (ed: beginning?  You've been bitching about this for five years.), which have been gettin' progressively weirder and weirder over the last year or so, with the overriding thought bein' "this ain't normal."

I suppose I shouldn't let this bother me.  This isn't insomnia or anything like that because I sleep very well and in an uninterrupted manner once I actually go to sleep.  My main issue is bein' out of synch with the rest of the world, which is kinda-sorta bothersome.  I can get over that.

The coffee sure is good this morning!

There WILL Be a Game Six

Our emotions were VERY sinusoidal tonight... swinging from the depths of despair to something approximating ecstasy, or as close as we get to that of late.  At the depths of our emotional swing we were thinkin' it was as good as over, what with the Wings going down by 3-1 within a minute after the the third period began.  O, ye of little faith!   The Wings found their game and mounted a third period attack and took it to the Sharks with a determined ferocity.  And they triumphed, winning 4-3.

So.  Yet another one-goal game.  Yet another game where the Wings had a slow start and the bounces... such as they were... all seemed to be going in San Jose's favor.  But the Wings hung in there, persevered and ground out a win that ensures their season lasts at least one more game.

And that's the way ya gotta look at it: one game at a time.  Win Game Six at The Joe and then get back to San Jose for Game Seven, where it'll be anybody's series.  Big Mo has swung in the Wings' direction, and I like that.  They might just pull this off.

Oh.  One more thing... Hey S-Andy!  Pbbbbt! 

Update, 2140 hrs:  The game winning goal, credited to Tomas Holmstrom on a tip-in from a blast by The Perfect Human.  But watch Datsyuk make a perfect fool out of Patrick Marleau before passing off to Lidstrom at the point... that's a thing o' beauty!

Datsyuk was playing hurt, btw... slowed down by a wrist injury.

The Best Mother's Day Post...

... comes from Paul Kukla, proprietor of Kukla's Korner and a Big-Time Red Wings fan.  Here it is, quoted in its entirety (something I rarely do):

I was an early riser as a kid and found it hard to find a friend up to play at 7:00am so it was my mom at times who became that “friend”.

I can’t tell you how many times I made my mom stand in front of the painted goalie net on the garage door (no portable nets back then), gave her my baseball glove and told her stop the tennis ball from hitting the door.

She did have a great glove hand, but could be beaten low on the stick side.

Heh.  Izzat cool, or what?

Speaking of the Wings... it's about an hour until the puck drops in San Jose.  So...

LGRW!

Happy Mother's Day

I almost never get this right... is it "Mother's" with the apostrophe, or without?  Well, the Wiki sez "with," so that's the way we'll go.  And here's the third fourth annual iteration of our Mom's Day post, in part.

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.

Weekend Outrage

I picked this up from a tweet by Blake Hounshell and sorta wished I hadn't after reading the (mercifully short) piece.  A couple o' excerpts:

We might ask ourselves how we would be reacting if Iraqi commandos landed at George W. Bush’s compound, assassinated him, and dumped his body in the Atlantic. Uncontroversially, his crimes vastly exceed bin Laden’s, and he is not a “suspect” but uncontroversially the “decider” who gave the orders to commit the “supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole” (quoting the Nuremberg Tribunal) for which Nazi criminals were hanged: the hundreds of thousands of deaths, millions of refugees, destruction of much of the country, the bitter sectarian conflict that has now spread to the rest of the region.

[...]

Same with the name, Operation Geronimo. The imperial mentality is so profound, throughout western society, that no one can perceive that they are glorifying bin Laden by identifying him with courageous resistance against genocidal invaders. It’s like naming our murder weapons after victims of our crimes: Apache, Tomahawk… It’s as if the Luftwaffe were to call its fighter planes “Jew” and “Gypsy.” 

That would be Noam Chomsky.  I seriously thought the asshat was dead, but no... he apparently still lives and is churning out shit Pravda would have rejected for being too extreme.  This guy is such a fucking waste of oxygen.  And a living icon of the Left.  Go figure.

Still Alive

Detroit's Nicklas Lidstrom celebrates his first goal with Brad Stuart during 1st period action between the Detroit Red Wings and the San Jose Sharks in game four of their series at Joe Louis Arena, in Detroit, May 6, 2011.  (JULIAN H. GONZALEZ/DFP) (ed:  I LOVE the fans' reactions!  There are more fan shots here.)

It was a near-run thing, but the Wings prevailed in Game Four, 4-3.  That said, it damned well shouldn't have been close, what with the Wings up 3-0 in the first period.  But those Tiburones just won't roll over and die when they should and what's worse is Dee-troit keeps letting them get back in it.  But all's well that ends well... tonight.  Darren Helm got the game winner this evening, and that was the icing on the cake for me.  I'm thinkin' about buyin' another Wings sweater with 43 on the back, mainly coz Helm is rapidly becoming my favorite Wing.  The guy has blazing speed, puck sense, makes the most amazing hits, and is damned good defensively.  As I told SN1 tonight... I have a serious man-crush on this dude.  Watch this and see what I mean:

But back to the Wings-Sharks... I'm not a bright-eyed optimist about the Wings chances of winning four straight, but it HAS been done before.  The Wings need to take it one game at a time, play their best, and beat the snot out of these upstarts.  It's not impossible, just improbable.  And wouldn't that be cool?

Update, 2215 hrs:  Helm's winning goal...



Izzat good, or what??

Today's Happy Hour Soundtrack

Everlast...

I've seen a rich man beg
I've seen a good man sin
I've seen a tough man cry
I've seen a loser win
And a sad man grin
I heard an honest man lie
I've seen the good side of bad
And the down side of up
And everything between
I licked the silver spoon
Drank from the golden cup
Smoked the finest green
I stroked the baddest dimes at least a couple of times
Before I broke their heart
You know where it ends
Yo, it usually depends on where you start

O, ain't it all so true... and thus endeth today's lesson.  Beer me!

Oh, Just STOP, Already

So I wake up at the crack o' noon, flip on my teevee and see The One's "I Shot the Sheriff Osama" tour is on its second stop, after yesterday's sooper-dooper event at Ground Zero.  Today the tour swings into Ft. Campbell, KY, home of a Special Operations Aviation Regiment and the parent unit of the guys who flew the helos into Abbottabad.  Why here?  Coz The One "wants to thank them personally, along with the members of SEAL Team Six, and Air Force personnel who provided invaluable support."  Yup... there ya go, Barry, bein' all-inclusive.  I'm sure the Coast Guard had a hand in this, too, so what about THEM?  And the Marines?  C'mon, Barry... if you're gonna be inclusive then get all-in, Baybee.

So... there's the usual huge crowd of grunts in BDUs facing a stage with a huge US flag that looks like it came off the set of "Patton," flanked by big-ass 101st Airborne patches... just waiting for The One to come bounding on-stage.  That's the last thing I saw before shutting the teevee down.  I'm just embarrassed to tears for our narcissistic president, who has neither shame nor a sense of perspective.  Just stop, already.

Update, 1330 hrs:  Gentle Reader Bec gives us the link to this in comments:



Heh.  Thanks, Bec.  That's GOOD!

Yup

In case you haven't heard... the Superman back story.  The toon is from the usual source.

Finis

Dejected Red Wings fans linger in their seats as Joe Louis Arena empties out after San Jose's Devin Setoguchi scored the overtime game-winner to complete a hat trick. (John T. Greilick / The Detroit News)

Bob Wojnowski, writing in The Detroit News:

Detroit -- Over in a flash, again. Over by the narrowest, nastiest margin, again. And now, the Red Wings' season is nearly over, pushed to the bitter brink by an opponent they simply can't hold off.

The Red Wings blew their chance in this one, no doubt. But the Sharks also took it, and now they're on the verge of taking Detroit's season and snapping it over their knees again. Devin Setoguchi's third goal, 9 minutes 21 seconds into overtime, gave San Jose a 4-3 victory Wednesday, a 3-0 series lead and such taut command of Detroit, it's staggering.

The Red Wings lost the way they've lost many times to this team, an agonizing riddle they just can't solve. They lost on a terrific shot that might have tipped off a stick, and a series that could've turned tight stunningly turned the other way.

It's time to stop being surprised. The Sharks have beaten the Red Wings seven of their last eight meetings in the playoffs, all by one goal. The Red Wings played well at times, with Henrik Zetterberg and Pavel Datsyuk dynamic again, but not well enough to beat the relentless Sharks.

The Fat Lady is in the wings (heh) and she's tunin' up.  Yeah, it ain't over til it's over and all that happy horseshit but we know: it's over.  Bein' down 0-3 in a hockey playoff series is like that ol' sayin' in chess: you're playin' for heart failure... on the part o' the other guy.  These Fish have strong hearts, so that possibility ain't in the cards.  The maddening thing... the thing that drives us Wings fans abso-fukkin'-lutely NUTS... is how close these games have been, especially Game One out in San Jose when the game was decided by a garbage goal in OT.  The outcome of that game set the tone for this series and it's been ALL downhill since then.  

It's just like last year, only worse.  Last year the Wings went into the second round against the Sharks all tired out from a brutal seven game first round victory over those Feral Dogs... this year they swept those same Dogs and things looked pretty good.  Until last night.  And now it's déjà vu all over again.  The Wings will win the next one at The Joe and mebbe even another one after that but make no mistake: it's over.

Sigh.  Oh, well.  Sometimes it bees like that.  That's hockey, and a bag o' assorted other clichés about losing.  Still and even: not fun.  Not fun AT ALL.

Sweep!

Tampa Bay pulled off the improbable... winning tonight's game by a score of 5-3 while sweeping the Washington Capitols, the East's Number One seed.  The Lightning also won their seventh in a row this evening, in a game I wish I could have seen.  I got to watch a lackadaisical performance by the Flyers... the team of many goalies... who lost their third in a row against the B's.  So, we're set-up for a re-run of last year's phenomenal Flyers comeback, when they became the third team in NHL history to win a seven game series after falling behind 0-3.  Somehow I don't think we're gonna see THAT again.

And now we're watching the Beloved Wings in another close one with San Jose.  The Wings are ahead 3-2 as we speak, with nine minutes left in the third.

LGRW!

Where's My MOTIVATION?

Aiiieee.  We are becalmed in the worst blogging doldrums I've experienced in quite a long while.  Mebbe I'm experiencing some sorta post-headshot let-down, or some other semi-obscure form of ennui.  It's pretty serious, whatevah it is, as I can't seem to draw any sort of inspiration from anywhere.  Oh, wait... there's this:

Heh.  Just goes to show you can't trust camels even when you're doin' sumthin' nice for 'em, like a pedicure.  

The h/t goes to a tweet from Iowahawk, where ya see stuff like this:

iowahawkblog David Burge
Chief of Quality Control, BP; Assistant Crack Whore; UN Human Rights Commissioner #EmbarrassingJobTitles

 

iowahawkblog David Burge
UN Commish for Human Rights has questions about OBL killing. I've got one for her: does it hurt to be laughed when you say your job title?

Burge is sumthin' like a National Treasure. 

How 'Bout Them YZERBOLTS!

Down 3-2 at beginning of the third period, the Tampa Bay Lightning score twice and hold off a last-minute surge by the benighted Caps to win 4-2.  AND take a commanding 3-0 series lead over Number One seeded Washington.  Who'd a thunk it?  Wow.  Just... WOW.

And now to the Preds-Canucks game... where Nashville just drew first blood and leads 1-0.  Go Preds!

Broadening Our Horizons XXII

We've been laboring under an oh-so-rare internet outage for the last hour or so and that has cramped our style, to say the VERY least.  But, Hey!  These things happen.  In the meantime we've been enjoying a Sierra Nevada Bigfoot Ale, 2011 edition.  And this beer, Gentle Reader, is meaty, beaty, big and bouncy... to say the VERY least (again).

Given the stout ABV of this beer (9.60%) I'm thinkin' we'll do only one before moving on to sumthin' a lil less potent.  But it IS most tasty!  Our cigar today is a Cuba Libre One, in the Churchill size.  Most excellent.

―:☺:―

I don't have a helluva lot more today, other than to mention the Osama killin' has taken up most of my time.  Details continue to come out in dribs and drabs but we'll prolly never know exactly what went down in any great detail.  I suppose that's as it should be, but still... Enquiring Minds™ wanna know, eh? 

And then there's the weather.  We had a rather severe cold snap over the last 48 hours... including a freeze... which necessitated us breakin' out the electric heater and runnnin' it nearly full time over the last couple o' days.  But that's in our immediate past and today is just a brilliant sorta day: 69 degrees and gentle breezes out of the west.  It doesn't get much better than this, Gentle Reader.

We're Late...

... in posting the winners of the Fifth Annual Milbloggies.  Without further ado...

Best U.S. Army Blog – Chief Wiggles
Best U.S. Military Spouse Blog – Ben and Katie
Best U.S. Military Parent Blog – My Yellow Ribbon
Best U.S. Military Supporter Blog – From Cow Pastures To Kosovo
Best U.S. Marine Corps Blog – One Marine’s View
Best U.S. Navy Blog – USNI Blog
Best U.S. Coast Guard Blog – Coast Guard Compass
Best U.S. Air Force Blog – I’m big in Japan
Best U.S. Military Veteran Blog – Neptunus Lex
Best U.S. Reporter Blog – The Unknown Soldiers

Grats to my Blogfaddah and all the other winners.  

That turned out the way I thought it would, but we got to double the collection of Steenken Badges in our sidebar.  That's a good thing.

We may not need 'em, but we like 'em.

Yet Another Google Mystery

We had a visitor drop by earlier who did a Google image search for "dew drop inn portales new mexico."  This is what he or she got:

OK, so the first pic IS relevant, in a small way... but what the hell do spiders, Stonehenge, and the Great Wall of China (all photos posted at one time or another here at EIP) have to do with a Dew Drop Inn?  Mysterious, indeed. 

I'm Just One of Thousands...

... who will post this:

I love the 72 virgins bit.  I also love the NMA/TV guys.

O Happy Day

Finally confirmed just moments ago... after an hour of waiting...

Osama bin Laden is dead by American hands.  My only regret is this didn't happen on Dubya's watch.

Update, Monday 1100 hrs:  President Bush's statement on his Facebook page, where "Ryan Sebastian, Cecelia Hankforth Miller, Lisa Kunst Losee and 51,206 others like this."  The comments are interesting.

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?