Tilting at Windmills

Sunday stuff

2012-02-12T11:34:00.001-05:00

First of all I’d like to mention how I feel. One of my bloggy friends pointed out how three words can be so powerful, like “I love you”, and wondered what my three words were. Today, I said, they would be “I can breathe!”

Second, yesterday I was introduced to Rugby sevens on TV. I thought it was really cool, like a track meet cross pollenated with Football and Soccer. So I consulted Mynx, my expert on all things Aussie. She said that R7 was more popular in the north. Where she lives, they dig Australian Rules Football more. Amazing to me the levels of variation in the world.

Next, I found a site to learn more about the poor downtrodden Holon Jet-Turtles of Israeli hockey. And what I learned is that they may be the worst team, but they’re not the last-place team. Confused? It goes like this. The Jet Turtles are one and six, having lost 15-2, 12-0, 14-0, 12-0 again, 11-1, and 20-0- and they BEAT Rishon #2 2-1. Rishon #2, meanwhile, has lost 11-1 (twice), 9-1, 10-0 (twice), the 2-1 loss to Holon, and a 3-2 OT loss to HC Afula. Afula has lost 17-0, 14-0, the 3-2 OT win against Rishon#2, 3 5-0 forfeits in which they couldn’t field a whole team, and a double forfeit against Hertzelia (the guys who beat Holon 20-0) in which NEITHER team could field a whole squad. Hertzelia has 3 other forfeits as well, and the only 2 games out of six they HAVE played were the 20-0 win over Holon and a 3-1 loss to Metulla. All of which puts Hertzelia at 1-5, Holon 1-6, and Afula and Rishon #2 at 0-6-1.

Finally today, Lokomotiv put up another “W”, this one just over against Kazzinc Torpedo. Vladislav Kartayev tallied his 5th just 19 secends into a 1st period power play to put us up 1-0. Not quite 4 minutes into the second Ruslan Bernikov tied it for Torpedo but goals for Alexi Kruchinin (his 3rd) and Rafael Akhmetov(# 6) in the period’s 8th minute, just 20 seconds apart, put us up 3-1. Kartayev scored again, his 6th, at 18:55 of the third for a 4-1 final. Tuesday, the boys play Ermak Angarsk, the farm team of Metallurg Novokutensk, in the opponent’s home mere miles north of beautiful Lake Baikal. Ermak is 19-12-11 and is one of the seven teams who have clinched playoff spots.

The great seventies countdown week 11

2012-02-11T09:47:00.000-05:00

The host's voice is growly as he approaches the mike. "Almost didn't make it, " he says, "A cold is no way to enjoy this. But I feel a little better now than I did most of the night, so here we go..."

130- Sugar Mountain, Neil Young, 1970, B-side of The Loner. This song was never on an album until Decade in 1977, but has been a cult favorite since The Loner missed the charts back in 1970. Live at the Canterbury House in Ann Arbor, MI in November of 1968. "You can't be 20 on Sugar Mountain... though you're thinkin' that you're leaving there too soon..."

129- Live And Let Die, Paul McCartney And Wings, 1973, #2. Another song that oddly enough never saw an lp until years later (on 1978's Wings Greatest), it was the biggest Bond theme at that time. Wasn't he great with this on the Super Bowl halftime years back?

128- Last Night (I Didn't Get To Sleep At All), the Fifth Dimension, 1972, #8. I so wish that Billy Davis would have let Marilyn have the lead part on You Don't Have To Be A Star. It would have been a far better song, maybe even like this one.

127- Bungle In The Jungle, Jethro Tull, 1975, #12. This kinda fits the trend the first two started; it was one of three songs left over from what would have been the follow-up to Thick As A Brick. A nifty allegory of life at the office.

126- Rhinestone Cowboy, Glenn Campbell, 1975, #1. More 8-track at the lake fun. This whole album was great.

125- Rhiannon, Fleetwood Mac, 1975, #11. Fleetwood Mac had that incredible 2 album run in the mid seventies, but the songs on Fleetwood Mac often get overshadowed by the ones on Rumours. This was my favorite.

124- Carefree Highway, Gordon Lightfoot, 1974, #10. "... I wonder how the old folks are tonght... Her name was Ann and I'll be damned if I recall her face..." well, almost.

123- Summer, War, 1976, #7. Take a trip through the lyrics of this one and you'll see why.

122- Emotion, Samantha Sang, 1977, #3. Real name Cheryl Lau Sang, had some mid-sixties hits in her homeland of Australia under the name Cheryl Gray, and hit it big under Barry Gibb's wing as Samantha Sang. George Bitzer's keyboards made this.

121- The Things We Do For Love, 10cc, #5. The anthem of my freshman year of high school.

120- Island Girl, Elton John, 1975, #4. A lot of good but ubiquitous songs didn't make my chart. Thus you don't see Stevie Wonder much, and EJ only three times. The more hits you had, the more they had to stand out.

119- Couldn't Get It Right, Climax Blues Band, 1977, #3. One of those songs that did a long, slow, grow-on-you sort of thing.

118- Best Of My Love, The Eagles, 1974, #1. This was the best song on the first album I ever bought- Eagles Greatest Hits.

117- Rock Me Gently, Andy Kim, 1974, #1. I had a mini-crush on a certain girl all through grade school. This is one of "her" songs.

116- The Needle And The Damage Done, Neil Young, 1972, unreleased. Like other Neil songs, you gotta pay attention to the lyrics (particularly the last line) to get this one.

115- No Sugar Tonight/New Mother Nature, The Guess Who, 1970, #1 (as the b-side to American Woman on Billboard) or #39 (on its own on Cashbox, both without New Mother Nature attached). I'm not sure why it was ever seperated one from the other. They sound naked apart. Just listen to the album cut.

114- A Trick Of The Tail, Genesis, 1976, non-charting. A delightful faerie tale which, according to our theme of the day, was mostly wrote in 1972 and intended for the lp Foxtrot.

113- Sweet City Woman, The Stampeders, 1971, #8. #1 in Canada, both on their pop and country charts. I still don't know what a macaroon is, honestly.

112- Just Remember I Love You, Firefall, 1977, #11. I didn't know then the rich history that ran through Firefall- elements of the Flying Burrito Brothers, the Byrds, and Poco. I just knew that "when you feel like sorrow is you're only friend/knowing that tomorrow you'll feel this way again" resonated with me, and I could have used someone to remind me I was loved.

111- Only 16, Dr. Hook, 1976, #6. This song has me at the opening chords.

"Yes, I was much too young to... AHEM", the host says as he realizes the mike's gone live. "Next week, we'll be entering the top 100- where it will be very much like 93 songs fighting for spots 10, 9, 8, and 7. Until then, may your highways be... care free."

The new time machine week two

2012-02-10T09:44:00.000-05:00

First of all I’d like to make a hearty thank you to Bobby G., who has managed to pass his sinus cold through the WWW to me. So if I get off track, lose my place, or generally sound like sneezing my head right off my body would be a good thing, blame him.

That said, we have a really big shuuuue for you today, that will include the Denver Nightingale (?), the Cuff Links revisited, the very first Beach Boys song, and a six degrees that covers Bananarama to the Stones. Let’s do this before my eyes remove themselves from my forehead, shall we?

We had 8 debuts on the hot 100 this week, and I’ll stop off at 4 of them. Badfinger enters the national consciousness at #100 with their debut single Come And Get It. And two spots later, if you’d forgotten we’re going back to 1970 now, you’ll remember when I say the name… Bobby Sherman, who debuts with Easy Come Easy Go. 94 is a debut by Fleetwood Mac, pre- Nicks/Buckingham, with their first American single, Oh Well. And waaaaay up at #76, Kenny Rogers and the First Edition come in with Something’s Burning.

All of which brings us to our birthday songs this week. Turning thirty are Joan Jett and the Blackhearts’ I Love Rock And Roll and Huey Lewis and the News’ Do You Believe In Love. Reaching the age of 35 are Natalie Cole’s I’ve Got Love On My MInd, Jennifer Warnes’ Right Time Of The Night, and ELO’s redux of the old Move song Do Ya. Hitting 40 are BJ Thomas’ Rock’n’Roll Lullabye, Yes’ Roundabout, and that song that in a few short years has went from song your mom won’t let you play to halftime marching band staple, Black Sabbath’s Iron Man. Turning 45 are Herman’s Hermits’ version of There’s A Kind Of Hush and Leslie Gore’s California Nights. And turning the big 5-0 is the very first Beach Boys single- Surfin’.

One comedic (to me) moment on that last week was Bobby Rydell who debuted at 74 with a song called I’ve Got Bonnie; then, seemingly in response, debuted at 76 with one called Lose Her. Well, I thought it was funny.

Our big dropper this week revisits our friends from last week, the Cuff Links (AKA Ron Dante), who fall (falls?) 53 spots from a peak at 31 all the way to 84 with When Julie Comes Around. The high climber is a little less dramatic- the Chairmen of the Board climb 19 to #46 with Give Me Just A Little More Time (Brrdrrdrrdrrdrr…).

Our Where Are They Now contestants this week almost got double billing as the high climber, moving up 16 spots. And that would be Simon And Garfunkel with Bridge Over Troubled Water. The boys actually had a tour set up in 2010, starting in March; sadly, years of smoking led to Art getting a bad case of vocal paresis, and after several delays cancelled the tour altogether in June. Art put away the smokes then; and he announced in November 2010 he was nearly well enough to go back on the road. Paul of course didn’t let the grass grow under his feet; among his recent events was performing at Ground Zero on the 10th anniversary of 9-11.

Which brings us to our top 40 debuts this week. Sly and the Family Stone, whom we’ll “hear” later with Thank You Fallettenme Be Mice Elf Again, hits with the flip side of that same 45, Everybody Is A Star. It moves up 3 to lead off the top 40. Up thirteen to #39 is Dutch band the Tee Set with Ma Belle Ami. An international hit, they also hit #1 in their homeland with the follow-up She Likes Weeds; this song, however, got banned in the US of A, for...er...drug references. Guess we know which weeds she likes, eh? One notch ahead at 38 we have Johnny and June Carter Cash with one of the many versions of the song If I Were A Carpenter. The Delfonics come in at 36, up 5 with Didn’t I Blow Your Mind This Time. RB Greaves, best known for his Take A Letter Maria, comes in at 35, up a dozen, with Always Something There To Remind Me (Which I didn’t know was the song’s only top 40 appearance until the Naked Eyes version- I remembered it from Dionne Warwick, who cut it a a b-side and only got to #65). And finally the highest debut, rising 11 spots to come in at 33, CCR with Who’ll Stop The Rain?

Our look back in time takes us back to the first decade of the 1900’s and the Denver Nightingale. Billy Murray was a vaudevillian and a very popular recording artist of the day, with a slight comedy sound to his tenor. He was not only an artist who recorded on most of the major labels of the day, but was a huge baseball fan, alleged to have played a game or two with his favorite team, the future New York Yankees (then known as the Highlanders). From Wikipedia:

He also supposedly sometimes called in sick to recording sessions in order to go to the ballpark. Murray recorded "Tessie, You Are the Only, Only, Only", which became the unofficial theme of the 1903 World Series, when the words were changed from "Tessie, you know I love you madly," to "Honus, why do you hit so badly?" (A reference to Pirate shortstop and hall of famer Honus Wagner.)

Billy was at #1 this week in 1908 with Under Any Old Flag At All, and in 1905 with Come Take A Trip In My Air-Ship. A neat song, but when a guy sings a girl’s lyrics and doesn’t switch genders, I get a little uncomfortable.

Our first Almost But Not Quite of the new show goes to Arnold Dorsey AKA Englebert Humperdink, who stops at #13 with Winter World Of Love. And dropping from the top ten this week are : Someday We’ll Be Together, from 5 to 21; and Jingle Jangle, falling from 8 to 16.

Vanity Fare brings its baroque stylings into the top ten with Early In The Morning moving up a notch to #10. The King slips from 6 to #9 with Don’t Cry Daddy. Exploding into the top ten, jumping 7 spots to #8, the Guess Who and No Time. Led Zep holds at 7 with Whole Lotta Love. Dionne Warwick’s I’ll Never Fall In Love Again jumps 4 big notches to #6, as does Tom Jones with Without Love (There Is Nothing) at #5. Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head slips grudgingly down a notch to #4 for BJ Thomas. The Jackson Five also slip a notch to #3 with I Want You Back. Climbing over them to #2 was the aforementioned Sly and the Family Stone and Thank You, etc. Which brings us to the repeat #1 song and the six degrees victim- Shocking Blue’s Venus.

When this song came out, it hit #1 in 5 nations: the US of A, Belgium, France, Italy, and Spain (but curiously not in their own country). It of course was covered in 1984 by Bananarama, who hit #1 in SIX countries- the USA, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, and Switzerland. Curiously again, BOTH versions hit #8 on the UK charts. The girls of Bananarama wanted to make it a dance song. Their producers resisted, and so they switched to production/songwriting team of Mike Stock, Matt Aiken, and Pete Waterman, who also fought them before giving in. Stock-Aiken-Waterman made their rep here on the single You Spin Me Round Like A Record by Dead Or Alive (Which hit #11 here in 1984). DOA’s other accomplishment of note in the USA was a cover of KC and the Sunshine Band’s That’s The Way I Like It. And percussionist for the Sunshine Band was one Ollie Brown, who had credits ranging from being a member of touring Rolling Stones in the mid ‘70s to drummer on the first Ray Parker Jr. and Raydio lp.

God, I made it! Enjoy, my friends. I’m going to take more good drugs and go back to bed.

Fun with Scrappy, fun with scammers.

2012-02-09T22:02:00.002-05:00

Scrappy’s favorite thing to do- next to a walk- is begging. No, not panhandling on the street corner, just table scraps (and no, that’s not how he got his name). In fact, if we delay too long to eat our dinners after he has his, he’ll actually beg us to go make our dinners (me and Laurie are 99% self-serve at mealtime).

So tonight while I was reading and commenting on you all’s stories, Laurie grabbed out the remainders of some deli sandwiches she bought last night while I was working an hour and a half’s OT. She had, in fact, finished what she was going to eat by the time I got up to prepare my repast. She had a couple of the sandwiches left, closed up in the original packaging, and the Miracle Whip nearby and open. This became a continuous “Bark!” “No!” “Bark!” “No"!” conversation between the two of them, and she told him to”see what daddy’s doing” to get his mind off things. I , as usual, told him, “What do you want?” and since I was in the remove the Salisbury steak from the box and put in the microwave point, he swiftly returned. I stepped back into the living room and watched him return to Laurie. She told him, “No”, and he turned on his heels and came up to me. I, in turn, also said “No”, whereupon he returned to his mommy. This went on for at least five or six cycles, until Laurie burst out laughing and I went to check on my meal.

When I re-emerged, he was back at it and I suggested putting MW on his nose. When Laurie did so, his first- and first several- reactions were to remove the MW from his nose by LICKING HIS LEG. He grew increasingly frustrated with this process’ lack of success, and finally barked/pleaded with his mom to help him get it off.

The final chapter of the story (all of which occurred during the eight minute of my meal cooking) came when all the sudden a verse from the song Spiders And Snakes came into my mind- the one where Jim Stafford picks up the frog and sticks it in his gal’s face, saying, “This frog’s for you!” Naturally I had to act out, and with no frogs hopping about our living room, I grabbed his hollowed-out chew bone and used it. While Laurie’s still trying to figure out on which of the many planets that I’ve visited frog=bone, Scrappy comes up, suddenly desperate for his bone. He snatched it from me, crossed the living room, chewed for about a second and a half. Then he came back to the thought of the remaining sandwiches and the MW, and ran back to mom- and then to the bone- and then to mom- and then to the bone- and back to mom. He finally stayed at Laurie’s side for long enough that I retrieved the bone, did the whole “This frog’s for you” thing again, and again he snatched the bone away- and this time, after much deliberation, stayed with it.

At least, until my Salisbury steak was done.

------------------------------------------------------

Now, then, it’s time to revisit fun with scammers. Some of this I’ve been sitting on for a while until I had a good body of material to work from. The first one is all the way back from Dec. 8th, and is from Mr. Nicholas Brumley, financial mgr. at First Active Finance. He informs me of a fund I need to claim because the auditors have tumbled upon it. A major scam faux pas is committed by Mr. Brumley as he neglects to inform me of how BIG a fund it is; only that if I don’t claim it by one week, it would be “transferred into the suspense account of British financial governing as unclaimed”.

So what is a suspense account? Is it set up by Alfred Hitchcock? Should I let it build until it is unbearable? I guess we’ll never know, as I let the 15th slip by without so much as a call. Que Sera Sera.

Next up is one I got just Tuesday, from one Mr. David William. He is, he says, “a registered staff” of DHL. Not a staff MEMBER, mind you, but a whole staff unto himself. He then explains that that makes him a “special agent” for DHL, which he has been for 8 years. In all those years, though, DHL never required proper punctuation- he was 1-for-6 in capitalizing the word “I”.

So he goes on to say, “i have this little deal i want us to handle, but i will need to get your approval before we go ahead, it is 100% risk free, payment is 50/50.” After telling me what he wants to know from me, he signs off, but not before adding just one more layer to his job description at DHL- “Delivery suppervissor”. Need I add that both of these are marked on the e-mail header as “Cyrillic”, as in “translated from Russian”.

Today’s contestant is Mr. Williams Richard (continuing the theme of 2 first names), only adding the classy beginning of, “From the desk of” to the e-mail. He goes on to say that he is giving me a message from the “Office of the Presidency”, though he neglects to tell me the presidency OF WHAT. If you scroll down though, eventually you find it is the presidency of Benin, hated African rival of Nigeria in the scam business.

The good news is that the O-O-P has decided that they want to clear off outstanding funds, and to help encourage me to claim that pesky $2.7 million that’s just lying around in their way, they are dropping the amount they want to charge me to get it to an “affordable” $99. Also, “The President Yayi Boni has gazette this payment and approved fund has been inputted into our secure e-transfer system “. Wow! How did he “gazette” the payment? And does “imputted” mean he shot it into the system with a fart?

He goes on to request two sets of info. The first is the standard personal data; the second, well, look at it, and pay close attention to the last line:

Bank name********
Address**************
Telephone***************
Account name************
Bank account number********
Your nest of king*************

Yeah, I have a whole nest of kings, doesn’t everyone? But at least ol’ Bill Dick is a nice chap. He ends with:
“ Once again, thank you very much for your understand.
I wish you good lucky. “

Finally, this was a spam comment on TAW I received back on December 18th. Of course, anonymous. Here’s just a sample:
“Quaint windup is wisecracking. Uprisen tactlessness is the myalism. Mobbish fibrosis the sandboy. Palestinian yells digitalizes during a pukeko. Record is the conciliar victual. Beseechingly remorseless heliogravure will havery painstakenly refreshed besides the unembarrassed flagon.”
This goes on for a full 31 nonsense sentences, including my favorite, “That is to say stoneground kestrel was mephitically hemolyzing with a cyberspace. “ At the end of which is a web address which I believe ends up being a site to buy black market Viagra. Makes me wonder what Laurie’s been saying about me on Farmarama.

So that wraps up our scam-stravganza for tonight. Lessons learned: #1- Type it out in English, so windows live mail doesn’t let me know that you are a Russian posing as a Britisher (or a DHL delivery suppervissor). #2- let me know how much money I don’t really have you’re threatening to put into a suspense account. #3, let me know who your boss is the president of, and for God’s sake, don’t be imputting money you want to send me. #4- you’ll have more good lucky if you don’t ask about my nest of king. #5- PETA will get you if you don’t stop stonegrinding those poor kestrels.

The super game

2012-02-06T19:32:00.002-05:00

No, not that one… although I will have some comments here in a bit. My boys from Yaroslavl were at home in front of the usual packed house of 8,900 to face Dynamo Balashika, whom as I said earlier is not a real strong team.

The boys almost put it away in the first minute of the game. Dmitry Maltsev scored in a scramble just 26 seconds from the opening face-off, his 4th of the year; and off the face-off from that, two quick passes had Daniil Yerdakov out at the edge of the circle and he blasted one past beleaguered goalie Dmitry Voloshin for his fourth goal with Lokomotiv and 15th on the year, and it was 2-0 before the first minute was out. Things settled down, relatively, until Emil Galimov scored his 8th, rolling nearly the length of the rink at 6:12 to make it 3-0; Forty-five seconds later, Oleg Yashin scored on a breakaway for his 10th of the year and a 4-0 margin. Needless to say, at this point we bid farewell to Mr. Voloshin and greeted Alexandr Cherepenin in the Dynamo goal. The period ended the same, with Lokomotiv scoring on 4 of 13 shots in the period- all 4 goals on just 5 shots against poor Voroshin.

In the second stanza, we upped the margin to 5-0 at 2:11 on a Rafael Akhmetov score, his 5th, on a power play. But then with Lokomotiv a man down, Maxim Erokhin got a PP goal to put Dynamo on the board. Then things suddenly got dicey; Nikita Lohzkin was screened on a shot by Dmitry Goldenkov that made it 5-2, and then Daniil Romantsev lost a pass out front and Ivan Ivanov slammed it home to cut the margin to 5-3. Dynamo had 16 second period shots, and what looked like a rout suddenly got scary…

…Until the third period. Dynamo found itself getting just 5 shots on goal in the third, and Daniil Apelkov netted his 2nd with just 7 seconds left, and the boys had a 6-3 win.

After the game coach Vorobiev was interviewed. One of the q/as was as follows:
Can I say that in VHL "Locomotive" can play at least on par with any competitor? - you can say anything. Another thing - as it happens. One game can beat any opponent, due to a crazy mood, for example, or luck. Also, any meeting can be and play - what if the opponent goalkeeper before the game something to eat. On what the team is able to show playoff games. Only they will answer the question - Does the team matured, we became man ...

The boys are off till Sunday, when they draw Kazzinc-Torpedo, with Donbass one of 2 non-Russian teams in the VHL. The game will be played at Torpedo’s home in Ust-Kamenogorsk, Kazakhstan, and elsewhere in the interview Vorobiev mentioned that the long road trip earlier in the year Left both goalies with “butterfly”. The interviewer grilled him on bringing up a certain hot goaltender from the youth team, but Vorobiev said that it had been discussed and decided against. Several times, in fact, as the interviewer seemed unwilling to let it go. But this is my fourth season following Russian hockey, and one thing I learned early was that in Russian, goaltender and scapegoat tend to be interchangeable.

Next, my brief comments on the Giants’ SB win. Once again, the officiating embarrassed itself in places. The midfield official that looked right at that Patriot pass interference in the fourth and held his peace, if I were king of the world would have been immediately escorted from the stadium. I thought Tom Coughlin was going to fly through the air after him! Second, KC bugged me all day about Eli being a hall of famer. I told him at the beginning of his late TD drive, “If he can get a TD here, I’ll agree with you.” When Eli got them the TD, I said, “Okay, I said it, I’ll stand by it.” Finally, my postgame post on Facebook- “Now New England goes from being ‘the team that won 4 super Bowls’ to ‘the team that got beat by Eli twice.’”

Congrats to Fumble, winner of Most Valuable Pup at Puppy Bowl VIII yesterday! The best part of any Super Bowl Sunday is the Puppy Bowl on Animal Planet.

Finally, and totally unrelated to sports in any way (except extreeeeeeeemly tenuously), I give you this late-breaking news story:

HUNTINGTON, W.Va. (CN) - A college student claims he was injured when a fraternity member in a "drunken stupor" decided "that it would be a good idea to shoot bottle rockets out of his anus," and did so, "but instead of launching, the bottle rocket blew up in the defendant's rectum, and this startled the plaintiff and caused him to jump back," and fall off the fraternity's deck.
Louis Helmburg III sued The Alpha Tau Omega Fraternity Inc., of Huntington, West Virginia, and Travis Hughes, a fraternity member, in Cabell County Court.
Helmburg claims - in a statement it would be difficult to deny - that "firing bottle rockets out of one's own anus constitutes an 'ultra-hazardous' activity," which exposes both defendants to strict liability.
Okay, the lawsuit is breaking, the incident happened last May. Get your education at the U of West Virginia, where scientific tests have conclusively proven that “firing bottle rockets out of one's own anus constitutes an 'ultra-hazardous' activity”.

one day’s difference

2012-02-05T09:00:00.000-05:00

Here’s Yesterday:

A day in the woods

You can every once and a while get Scrappy to pose the way you want!

Across the river is IPFW's "Tree Walk"

They're finally beginning to tear out some of the scrub between the river and the IPFW soccer fields. Beginning, but sure not finished!

Can you say, beavers in the area?

One of the usually dry stream beds in the woods. It's still very wet!

This just seemed so poignant to me. they grew up together, and now the living tree supports the nearly-dead one. Just like marriage should be...

And now, today:

WTF?

Do Do Do, looking out my back door...

Dug Laurie a path to the car- what a good boy am I!

Now THIS is February!

The great seventies countdown week 10

2012-02-04T09:49:00.000-05:00

"I'm glad you could brave the snow to make it here, " The Host tells the lighter-than-usual audience. "They tell me that much will be melted off by the time we are done... but they told me less than an inch of accumulation and now they say 3 to 5. They don't know about weather... but we know about good music."

150- Another Park Another Sunday, the Doobie Brothers, 1974, #32. One of the saddest songs on the countdown- and originally the A-side to Black Water. Took a hit apparently because radio stations didn't like the line "...and the radio just seems to bring me down..." Oversensitive much?

149- The Grand Illusion, Styx, 1977, unreleased. I always thought that this title track was the best on the album.

148- I Go Crazy, Paul Davis, 1977, #7. So here are two of the regrets I have about the new Time Machine- these last two get missed. This song set the then-record for slow climbing, staying on the Billboard charts for an incredible 40 weeks.

147- Summer And Lightning, Electric Light Orchestra, 1977, unreleased. It was claimed that this lp was "full of singles". This is one of the un released ones. Great memories of our high school parties here.

146- 5-7-0-5, City Boy, 1978, #27. Definitely one of my more obscure favorites. A top ten in the UK, though.

145- No Matter What, Badfinger, 1971, #8. Badfinger, the original hard-luck boys, were often aided by doing compositions by former Beatles, as they were the first act signed to their Apple Records. This was the first single they wrote themselves- and to me, it sounds the most like the Beatles.

144- Let It Ride, Bachman-Turner Overdrive, 1974, #23. How did this one not make top ten here? It hit #3 in Canada.

143- Surf's Up, the Beach Boys, 1971, Non-charting. The Brian Wilson/Van Dyke Parks composition was started on the unfinished Smile lp, finished up and put on the 1971 lp of the same name, which also featured the original verion of the Captain and Tenille's Disney Girls. Not your typical Beach Boys song, but one of his best. He finally finished it his way on his 2004 completion of Smile.

142- Radar Love, Golden Earring, 1973, #13. Another one of the "cool" songs that everyone liked. A very definitely underrated band.

141- Why Can't We Be Friends, War, 1975, #6. My nephew had a little mini-bike when we were kids. I remember lots of summer days tearing down the side of Lortie Road singing this at the top of our lungs.

140- 18 With A Bullet, Pete Wingfield, 1975, #15. A great seventies doo-wop tune.

139- The Boys Are Back In Town, Thin Lizzie, 1976, #12. "The nights are getting warmer and it won't be long... won't be long till summer comes..."

138- Oh, Girl, the Chi-Lites, 1972, #1. Our first #1 of the day, and it's a classic. Tell me this song doesn't get to you.

137- Love's Theme, Love Unlimited Orchestra, 1973, #1. This was Barry White's 40-piece backup orchestra. What can I say, Mom watched a lot of golf. (You old timers will get that reference.)

136- Sing, the Carpenters, 1973, #3. Just in case you haven't figured it out, you'll see a LOT of the Carpenters on this countdown.

135- I Write The Songs, Barry Manilow, 1976, #1. Just in case you hadn't... oh, I already said that?

134- Can't Get It Out Of My Head, Electric Light Orchestra, 1974, #9. No, I won't use the same gag three times in a row. I will tell you that if you've never listened to the lp Eldorado, treat yourself. This album was meant to be heard in its entirety. ".. Robin Hood and William Tell, Ivanhoe and Lancelot, they don't envy me.../Sitting till the sun goes down/ In dreams, the world keeps going 'round and 'round..."

133- Don't Cry Daddy, Elvis Presley, 1970, #6. The ultimate crying song. I heard this first sitting out in Dad's truck while he made an appearance at a funeral. I hear it in that same spot every time.

132- Life In The Bloodstream, The Guess Who, 1971, unreleased. More fun with the eight tracks at the lake.

131- Hurts So Bad, Linda Ronstadt, 1979, #8. That guitar solo always makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. So emotional, just chills me.

"Shovels will be provided at the door for those who need them," The Host informs everyone as the lights go up. "Here's a little something to warm you up, thoughts of summer days at the lake, as you head on home. See you all next week!"

And now… the NEW time machine week 1

2012-02-03T10:38:00.000-05:00

Guess what? I was trying to come up with a filler for time machine by using the site that first led me to Cashbox, Alaska Jim. Well, Jim apparently got tired of waiting around for CB as well, and found a dude going by Tropical Glen (Oh, what irony!) who has the charts on his site. So with a little extra work, we can get back to where we were.

Except…

I’ve been debating a change for a while. We’ve reached on Time Machine the point where A) I was keeping my own top ten, and thus it was becoming less of an exploration for me to do; B) I was in High School, with attendant bad memories; and C) let’s face it, music was going a bit downhill- the really good songs were getting fewer and farther between, and disco was about to rear its ugly head. Therefore, we are resetting the dials and starting anew.

Welcome, my friends to the 5th week of 1970. Today we get a visit from Mr. Pina Colada, Ruppert Holmes; a buttpile of birthdays; and the third number one of the decade. Plus the same features you’ve come to know and love. Watch your step, here we go!

Ten songs debuted on the hot hundred this week in 1970, and we’ll look at 3 of them. At #84 was the Polish Prince, Bobby Vinton, with his rendition of My Elusive Dreams. At #64 came Santana with Evil Ways; and the high debut was the classic Bridge Over Troubled Waters by Simon and Garfunkel.

Now these songs are celebrating their 42nd birthdays; lets check out the other birthdays this week, and there’s quite a few. Turning 35 this week are David Soul’s Don’t Give Up On Us, George Harrison’s autobiographical Crackerbox Palace, and Jackson Browne’s Here Come Those Tears Again. Turning forty is Neil Young’s Heart Of Gold; turning 45 are Sock It To Me Baby from Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels, The Disadvantages Of You by the Brass Ring (hands up those who remember the theme to the old Benson and Hedges 100s cigarette commercials), and Johnny Rivers’ cut of Baby I Need Your Lovin’. Hitting the big 5-0 are Sam Cooke’s Twisting The Night Away and the doo-wop classic by Don and Juan, What’s Your Name?

I almost forgot our big movers for the week. Coming down, Tommy James and the Shondells She falls 18 to #40; going up, the Delfonics with Didn’t I Blow Your Mind This Time zipping up 32 to #46. And we have a whole set of people in the grandpa chair at a paltry 15 weeks- however, they are all in the top 40, so we’ll get them later.

Today’s look back in time had me catching my eye on an instrumental big-band hit called Wabash Blues, which hit the top in 1922 for a bandleader named Isham Jones. Isham was born in the southern Ohio mining town of Coalton and grew up in Saginaw, Michigan. He was just getting started out when he met music teacher and fellow saxaphonist Joseph Edgar Maddy. Maddy had been playing a piece he called The Trombone Jazz; Jones revised it put in a “dueling saxes” bit between himself on alto and Maddy on tenor, and soon later the re-christened Wabash Blues was in the midst of six weeks at the top, the first of his 6 chart-toppers.

That brings us to #50 and the Where Are They Now segment. I didn’t recognize the name Lenny Welch at first, who was at the magic number with a cover of Breaking Up Is Hard To Do. But, I soon remembered the voice which had a #4 smash in 1963 with Since I Fell For You- which was also a name I didn’t recognize until I heard “You-oooo… made me leave my happy ho-ooome…” Lenny was an old timey crooner who was on his way to becoming the next Johnny Mathis until A) the owner of Cadence Records abruptly closed up shop in 1964, leaving him without a contract; B) he got drafted and served a hitch in the military; and C) then took some time off to get his head together and polish his image. Timing is everything, and though he’s still a popular “Vegas and Love Boat” act, he never again really caught fire. His website says he branched into acting, making several appearances on General Hospital, but I could not confirm that on IMDB.

Four songs work their way into the top forty this week. A bubble gum tune called Jennifer Tompkins by an “act” called Street People comes in at 38, up 8. The force behind this song was Ron Dante, better known as “the Cuff Links” and “The Archies.” Dante as the Cuff Links had the big hit Tracy, and then had to throw together an album. The lp was all him, but he put together a touring band (which he was NOT in) and sent them on their way. In the meantime, Dante as the Archies had just signed a new contract that made him exclusive- thus no more Cuff Links. Unfortunately for the multi-talented multi-personality, the Cuff Links label demanded one more lp- one he could not be in. He did the lp, the other label said, “Not so fast, my friend”. They erased his vocals and added those of neophyte producer Ruppert Holmes to most of the album, including Jennifer Tompkins. For whatever reason, they decided not to release it as a Cuff Links single, therefore, Holmes released it on his own as Street People. Thus the Street People single and the Cuff Links album track are “virtually identical”.

Where were we? Oh, yes, the other debuts. And these are by no means as obscure. At #34, up 8, the legend, the man BB King with The Thrill Is Gone; at 33, blasting up 17 spots, Brook Benton’s Rainy Night In Georgia; and at 32, up an even dozen, CCR with Travellin’ Band. Coolest thing in that song is “state militia” rather than “national guard”. Different name, amazing results.

One song joins the top ten this week, one drops out. Falling from 7 to 19 is Tommy Roe’s Jam Up Jelly Tight.

Our first top ten in the new format (TA-DAHH!) Leads off with 3 songs holding their positions. The first at #10 is Miss Dionne Warwick with I’ll Never Fall In Love Again. The second at #9 is Tom Jones’ cover of Without Love (There Is Nothing). And the third at #8 is Ron Dante as the Archies with Jingle Jangle. After peaking at #2, Led Zeppelin drops from #4 to 7 with Whole Lotta Love. Then we have 2 more frozen in place; at #6, the King, Elvis Aaron Presley, with the heartbreaking Don’t Cry Daddy (I don’t know if he could do it, but I can’t); and at #5 the former top dog Someday We’ll Be Together by Diana Ross and (nod, nod, wink, wink) the Supremes. Slamming up 9 notches from #13 all the way to #4, Sly and the Family Stone with Thank You (Fallettenme Be Mice Elf Again). At #3 and holding, the first #1 of the decade- BJ Thomas’ Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head, which is one of the three in the grandpa chair (the others being Peter Paul and Mary’s Leaving On A Jet Plane at #22 and She Belongs To Me by Rick Nelson and the Stone Canyon Band at #30). That brings us to #2, and our six degrees victim of the week.

Slipping a notch to the runner-up spot was I Want You Back, the first #1 for the Jackson 5. The quintet were discovered by Gladys Knight while on tour with her Pips in support of the Diana Ross and the Supremes farewell tour ( though Berry Gordy, always trying to find new ways to kiss Diana’s butt, made it seem that Diana had found them). That farewell tour ended on January 14th of 1970 in a show in which Berry introed Jean Terrell as the new Supreme. He then had second, or possibly fourth, thoughts, and went back to first choice Syreeta Wright to join Mary Wilson and Cindy Birdsong, but Mary vetoed it. Suddenly Gordy “washed his hands” of the group, Mary, Cindy, and Jean slogged on alone, and Syreeta met up with rising star Stevie Wonder. Stevie was approaching his 21st birthday, and in order to get more artistic freedom (a battle Gordy was already losing with the Supremes and Marvin Gaye), he was going to exercise the clause in his contract that let him void it on reaching majority. He encouraged Syreeta to start writing, and her first fruits were their collaboration on It’s A Shame, which would soon be the Spinner’s swan song with Motown. Stevie put together an lp that Berry had no choice but to release (as it was the last one he’d get from Wonder) called Where I’m Coming From, and it’s big single was another collaboration- this time both writing and singing- called If You Really Love Me. The pair were married soon later.

And that leaves us with the new number one song. And that is…

Mariska Veres and Shocking Blue with Venus!

Well, what do ya think of the new TM? Let me know, and tune in tomorrow for the 70’s countdown!

How about some who’s dumber?

2012-02-02T20:33:00.000-05:00

Before we begin, I would like to mention that google toolbar translate is back on… but Cashbox’s new web page is not.

First honorable mention tonight is to the alleged fans at that soccer game in Egypt. Hey, we won the game, let’s burn the stadium down and kill 74 people! At least, seeing as this is a Muslim country (read: no alcohol allowed on site), this should give some impetus to FIFA’s attempt to force passage of law in Brazil allowing beer in all stadiums in the upcoming World Cup. The Muslim Brotherhood claims A) this happened because there were no police or army troops on site, and B) that it was staged by the former loyalists of Hosni Mubarik. This actually makes for a good #2 contestant, since if it is the army’s fault because they weren’t there- and the army runs the CURRENT government- wouldn’t that make this the CURRENT government’s fault, and not the past one’s? Even if you could find a reason WHY Mubarik’s people would do this.

So let’s move on to honorable mention #3.
RADNOR, Pa. – A Pennsylvania teacher who has been charged with punching a 14-year-old female student in the face hard enough to draw blood claimed he was provoked by her throwing chalk at him, police said.
Richard B. Little, 41, was charged with simple assault, aggravated assault, recklessly endangering another, harassment, and disorderly conduct, in relation to the Jan. 23 incident at Presbyterian Children's Village in Rosemont, Pa., the Daily Times reported Wednesday.
Police said a supervisor at the school was called to the classroom by Little, who said the girl was throwing chalk at him. As the accused left the room he allegedly pulled the student into the hallway and punched her in the face.
Little was escorted off campus. Both he and the student were taken to Bryn Mawr Hospital for their injuries to be assessed.
After being arraigned, Little was released on bail.
Presbyterian Children's Village, which has two facilities in the greater Philadelphia region, caters to troubled teens who have issues caused by violence, neglect, addiction, poverty or mental illness.

And violence by the teacher helps troubled teens HOW? Richard gets bonus points for doing it in front of his supervisor, who HE called to the scene. Nice touch.

Contestant #4 (multiple): Ya gotta love 5th graders.

A Minnesota school immediately banned a game played by a handful of fifth-graders called “rape tag” when a parent alerted the school’s principal about the game after seeing it in Facebook postings, MyFoxTwinCities.com reported.
The game is like freeze tag, but in order to free someone, a player needs to thrust their hips at them, the station reported. Details did not sit well with administrators at New Ulm’s Washington Elementary School who banned the game in early January. (Both stories courtesy FoxNews.)

Rape tag? Really? I know that this is where I’m supposed to say, “Back when I was in fifth grade”, but… All I can say is, at least we didn’t do stupid shit like this right where the nuns could watch..

And finally, the winner of tonight’s context- LSU football head coach Les Miles. Here he is on the subject of spanking new Notre Dame QB Gunner Kiel:

When asked about recruits that head to other programs, many college football coaches will say they only want to talk about the players that did sign. But Les Miles has never been one not to speak on any topic he's been asked about, and so at Wednesday night's "Bayou Bash" recruiting celebration, Miles said exactly what he thought of five-star LSU-commitment-turned-Notre Dame signee Gunner Kiel.
"We needed a quarterback in this class. There was a young man from Indiana that thought about coming to the Bayou State," Miles said in reference to Kiel, "[but] he did not necessarily have the chest and the ability to lead a program. So you know."

So let’s properly frame this discussion. Gunner Kiel FIRST committed to Indiana University, jilting them to go to LSU. Then, while Les was looking around for him at early admissions, Gunner was just leaving the bursar’s office at Notre Dame. So he was a blue chipper when Les was robbing IU, but did not necessarily have the chest and the ability to lead a program when he did it to LSU.

Much like Richard B. Little, Les shows us what a big man it takes to beat up on a kid. Oh, yes, isn’t this the same Les Miles who cost his school a national championship when he defied his own team by leaving in a QB that was doing zippo against ‘Bama , just because the team had the unmitigated gall to suggest to him that the other QB should have been in from the beginning? Why, yes, Chris, the very same man who left in HIS QB just because the players asked him not to, and in his petty party his team gets beat 21-0. All you can say is, Class 21, Les Miles 0- again.

For being the only “electable candidate” if the race was for biggest ASS in sports, I hereby declare that Les Miles is MORE dumber!

The latest, the hard way

2012-02-01T20:09:00.002-05:00

Well, I hate to post stuff so back to back like this, but blogger had to be reminded at 5:45 pm that 7:33 am had already come and gone. So actually, this is on time and my lovely perusal of Obama’s latest attempt to be the Grinch that stole Religion is late.

In any event, Lokomotiv notched another win, this time against an outclassed Ryazan club. Ryazan, a farm team for Atlant, managed only 17 shots against Nikita Lozhkin, who stopped them all. The rest of this report is a bit strained because google toolbar’s auto-translate feature broke while I was still reading, so much of what I learned I had to shop around for a translator and paste. Nevertheless here is what I gleaned. Just past the 3 minute mark of the game, Loko got its first goal- and by the translations I found, either Maxim Osipov scored sprawled on the ice or while having sex on the floor. (true story, those were two of the choices.) In either event, it was his first score as a Railroadman.

At 16:37 of the first, Oleg Yashin put in his 9th of the year to up the game to 2-0. Kiril Kaputsin hit him out front with nobody at home and the Ryazan goalie having missed a chance to lay on the puck for the easy goal. Daniil Apalkov on yet another pass into clear space from Rafael Akhmetov to push it to 3-0 at 15:08 of the second period. The goal was Apalkov’s first, and he followed it up with a perfect pass to Maxim Zyuzakin on a shorthanded situation, who tallied goal # 5 on the year to close the scoring at 4-0. One of the team’s best offensive performances, having put up 35 shots on goal, it was also Lozhkin’s 3rd shutout and second in a row. Nikita is 6th in the league with a 93.0% saves percentage and 5th with a 1.77 goals-against average.

Daniel Apal'kov
• Club: Lokomotiv
• Number: 43
• Position: Forward
• Height: 185
• Weight: 87
• Birth Date.: 01.01.1992
• Citizenship: Russia
• Age: 20 years 1 month
• Clubs by season:
Locomotive (11-12)
Next up for Lokomotiv is Dinamo Tver, a farm team of Dynamo Moscow, just down the road. It is a continuation of Loko’s grand tour of the league’s dregs, as Tver is 9-24-9. Lokomotiv itself is 8-3-3 and has a pretty good hold on third place in the conference. The game is on Sunday, so a bit of rest for the boys.

Also, before the translation gave out, I saw that tickets for the VHL’s first ever open air game between the Falcons of Krasnoyarsk and Lokomotiv on the seventeenth of this month went on sale today. All proceeds are going to the families of the crash victims, and the special price is 50 rubles per ( aprox. $1.65). I just checked, and it continues cold in the deep heart of Siberia, it is –29 F at 9 AM there- but the rest of the week they will be nosing close to and into positive numbers.

Obama’s ruling on Catholics and abortion

2012-02-01T07:33:00.002-05:00

I am sure that those of you who care have heard know the story about how, if the Obama administration has its way, that any Catholic hospital will have to either serve those who seek abortions, contraceptives, etc, or they will have to become an exclusively religious institution to get an exemption. That means that non-Catholic employees will have to be fired and non-Catholic patients be turned away. Obama thinks this is “a balanced way” to deal with all concerned. Most Catholics consider this- and all Christians should consider this- a devil’s choice by which the Government is basically giving them a choice between becoming “pro-choice” or closing. If you don’t think this means closing, just wait until the first non-Catholic staffer gets fired. This devil’s deal is no choice and Obama knows it. Our good friend Pat Miller read the Bishop’s fiery letter that went out to all the parishes, saying that the Church “can not and will not” comply. He wants to start a letter to your congressman campaign.

I’m not going to write, and here’s why.

Did you know that Catholics have voted Democrat in every presidential election since Ike except for three? Roe v. Wade started this all in 1973. In 1976 you had Rep. Gerald Ford, always the moderator, who wanted to boot the decision to the states, against Jimmy Carter, who supported the ruling DESPITE his own convictions against it. (Aren’t convictions something you stick to, Jimmy?) Result- Catholics went Carter 57%-41%.

Carter against Reagan, a staunch pro-life man- 47-46 for Reagan. Not surprisingly, Catholics voted for Reagan against forlorn, hard core pro-choicer Walter Mondale as well, 61-39.

George H.W. Bush, also a staunch pro- lifer, against partial-birth aborter Michael Dukakis? Dukakis 51-49. Then it was Bush against Bill Clinton, who while against PBAs, was solidly pro-choice, claiming that in HIS Bible life begins at BIRTH, not in the womb. (Ah, Bill? Psalms 139-
Psa 139:13 For You have possessed my inward parts; You have covered me in my mother's womb.
Psa 139:14 I will praise You; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Your works are marvelous and my soul knows it very well.
Psa 139:15 My bones were not hidden from You when I was made in secret and skillfully formed in the lowest parts of the earth.
Psa 139:16 Your eyes saw my embryo; and in Your book all my members were written, the days they were formed, and not one was among them.

Catholics apparently mislaid their copy of Psalms as well; Clinton topped Bush amongst Catholics 47-35. Taking the cue from all these good voting Catholics, Bob Dole watered down his abortion stance against Clinton; Catholics went for Clinton 55-35.

That brings us to Gore v. Bush II. Gore was against PBAs, but his stance in general shifted from largely pro-choice when just running in his conservative Tennessee district to pro-choice when faced with a national audience. GW Bush was as strong against abortion as Reagan had been. Catholics went for Gore 52-46. Then he faced John Kerry, who was a pro-choicer with no reservations; Kerry took the Catholic vote 52-48.

Which brings us to the current master of mismanagement, Barack Obama. He is a decided pro-choicer and PBA supporter. He faced John McCain who, while not the warrior on the subject that Reagan and the Bushes were, certainly had more spine on the subject than Dole did. Catholics went Obama 53-47. (All numbers by Gallup.)

Despite the fact that Democrats almost uniformly support pro-choice (Despite any personal “convictions”), Catholics have voted with the more pro-choice candidate every election since Roe V. Wade except for the two Reagan elections- and they pretty much split the vote the first of those. Put it another way- of the only 3 times that Catholics have not voted for the Democrat since Eisenhower, two of them were landslides anyway- Reagan’s second term and Nixon’s second term (when they chose him over George McGovern 52-48).

As you know, I was born Catholic. When I got my first registration card, I proudly told my dad I registered independent. He said, “We’re Democrats.” I said, “You might be a Democrat; I’ll make up my own mind.” A pity more Catholics didn’t make up their own minds last election. Or the ones before. This is reason #1 of two why I won’t be writing my congressman. The voting Catholics have been digging their own grave for a long time. Hey, guess what, this is the guy YOU voted for what’s taking away your rights. And you were TOLD it would happen. Still want to vote Democrat just because your daddy did? Maybe you should write your state rep- oh, right, he’s probably boycotting the legislature right now because a lot of non-Catholics made up their own minds.

Oh, my second reason? Look at the numbers. Do you think, when Obama sees them, he won’t crap down his leg getting HHS’ ruling changed? Please. I doubt there’s anything to worry about.

Closer to #2

2012-01-31T09:00:00.001-05:00

Sometimes, in a moment of meditation, you see your life, or some facet of it, or some truth about it, in a way or at an angle that you hadn’t- or hadn’t accepted- before.

There’s a part of me that I don’t really like. It isn’t a part that can rule me- not since I accepted Christ- but it has trained me to play along all too often. It drains my energy- weakens my ministry-fills me with garbage I don’t need and don’t have room for.

Like Paul and his thorn of the flesh, I’ve stood at many Waterloos with it. I’ve fought, and lost. I’ve given it up to Christ- except for the yo-yo string with which I always yank it back. And in the sermons I heard yesterday, a suggestion was made- that everyone has a part of themselves that they keep from God, a chunk where we hide the things we hope He will agree not to see. And when Jesus asks us for sacrifice, that is the sacrifice He wants.

Today, the Lord, Scrappy, and I took a walk. And as usual, He guides me into thinking, in my despair and pleading, the thing He’s been saying all along.

Today, that was the thought that there are two facets of my life, and I cannot change either one. My pain, my despair, comes from the dynamics between these two inescapable truths of my life.

#1- There is a battle between “it” and me, and I have and will always, always lose that battle.
#2-There is a battle between “it” and Christ- and that battle He has already won.

Those are two very powerful extremes, and every human being has them already locked up inside them, or the potential to it. And the bad consequences of that dynamic is because I continue to live my life focusing on the first instead of the second. If I live closer to #1, I have the consequences of a) the frustration of falling time after time, b) the inability to see or show the benefits of being at the other end, and c) the harm it does to my ability to help others with this concept. As I move toward number two, I find a)the frustration fades because I have my mind clear of the things that lead to my fall, b) the ability to see that when I do stumble, I have Someone who is faithful to pick me back up, and c) the joy that comes with being a positive to others.

Everytime it comes up, I pray for strength to win the battle I can’t win. And waste my time. What I need, from now on, is to get up and pray to be led closer to #2.

The flying man

2012-01-30T11:08:00.000-05:00

Before I get on to today’s story, a couple of quick sports shorts. We watched the NHL All Star game and the NFL Pro Bowl yesterday. My only speculation on the NHL game was would they outscore the Russian all star game, which was a 15-11 affair (they did not; it ended 12-9). As the game wore on, two themes emerged. Theme #1: NY Ranger Martin Gaborik, playing on the Charra team scored twice against Ranger teammate Henrik Lundquist on the Alfredsson team, and got another later on against the next goalie. After the first goal, he used his stick as a rifle to “shoot” Henrik, a move he often does against other teams I guess. Also on the Alfredsson team was Ranger head coach John Totorella, who told the TV audience at first break that Gaborik was getting fined $1,000 for doing it, nod nod wink wink. The second was the announcers constant speculation about a goaltender winning the MVP of the game. Not that there was any danger of that, when Gaborik had 3 goals and five of six goalies in the game gave up 3 goals (the sixth gave up 6). If that’s all you can talk about in a game where 21 goals were scored, perhaps its time the league invested in an “Announcer training program”. On the NFL game, the offensive and defensive lines of both squads came out prepared to play patty-cake, and were roundly booed for doing so. If you don’t wanna play, go home. You can do a Hawaii vacation on your own dime. Brandon Marshall of the Dolphins caught four tds, after just 6 all season. What was the difference, he was asked. First he danced around the notion that he’d had 4 QBs in 2 years with the Dolphins (and you had 3 in this game! If you want to say that your QBs in Miami suck, just do so). Then he said that “this game is my playoffs” and he was going for MVP. Translate that to, “I only work in front of large audiences. Regular season is for the regular guys.” Geez, my QBs suck and I’m stuck on myself- I could have answered THAT question 3 years ago when he was still in Denver (which is why I didn’t want him in the first place. We already HAD Ted Ginn.)

Okay, enough sports, let’s go back to the story. So we’ve left the corner and we’re now along the north end of the back yard, home to the row of Raspberries and the wired posts that vainly attempted to keep them out of the field. In between the big burr oak and another pin oak down the way (which we’ll get to later) was a hickory tree. Skinny compared to the oaks, and very fruitful, this tree had one problem, which was that tentworms would build a web once every three years or so. Rather than let them devour the tree, and everything else around, Dad would always come to visit their tent with a gas can and his lighter. You can guess the rest. This was always one of the highlights to the summer for me- not so much for Dad (or the tent worms).

The reason I bring the hickory tree up is to kinda show how our back yard was like this big bowl; with pin oak- hickory-burr oak making the bottom edge, burr oak-pin oak the east side, house-garage-maple tree the south end, and sheds-pin oak (and for a while, tether ball pole) on the west. Perfect for the huge game of dodgeball we played one night.

It was Dad’s second annual weenie roast, and Dad had put floodlights up in the burr oak and the maple to light the “bowl”. And once it got dark everybody (and I do mean everybody) got into this huge game of dodgeball. It was me, Mom, and Dad; my brother Tom, his wife and 2 girls; my brother John, his wife and 2 kids; my sister Sue, her hubby and at least my nephew Troy and possibly little sister Linette; and my sister Pete and her husband (and soon to be star of the show) Joe, along with his mother and brother.

Now I need to explain that Joe and Dad were a real close analogue to an apolitical Archie Bunker and Meathead in their relationship. Mostly Dad and his “not good enough for my little girl” attitude, though Joe had a way to blunder into Dad’s sights. And I didn’t help matters much; here at last was a person that I could use all the smart-assery that Pete had taught me for the ten years of my existence without having to worry about being chewed out by Dad, or, really, by Mom). So Joe was in a constant battle to maintain his dignity, and with his mom and bro there, it was extra important.

Now, Joe was no small man; picture a slightly less long-haired David Crosby. And flight was certainly not an attribute you’d normally associate with him -although we do have a picture of him halfway up the pin oak by the house, rescuing my first cat, Jingles P. Jones, from a tree I’m sure he could’ve gotten out of had he been so inclined(I certainly wouldn’t have made the climb- pin oaks are a mass of semi-sharp, interconnected twigs and are zero fun to climb, run into, or clean up after). Still, in the dark of the night, the ball sailed out into the field and disappeared, and Joe, trying to look good in front of Ma and Bro, charged out after it. And yes, he totally forgot about the wire about knee high running through the raspberries. The last we saw him, his head was about three feet off the ground, his feet straight up at the sky; then the darkness absorbed him, and seconds later came a loud crash in the soybean-planted field. I honestly can’t say what happened next; I was among the approximately half of the crowd struggling to breathe while laughing that hard. From the looks of things the next day, I guesstimated that he did a complete flip, landed first on his heels and then on his back.

And that wasn’t the only time I saw Joe airborne, and this is where the tether ball set comes in. The pole was about midway between the pin oak on the north line and the maple behind the garage. In other words, on the west end of the “bowl”. And one sunny Sunday afternoon, he and brother John were playing. Just in case anyone doesn’t know what I’m talking about, t-ball is a ball about the size of a volleyball attached to a rope attached to the top of a 10-foot (or so) pole. Object being to hit the ball with your fist in order to wind it all the way around the pole before your opponent does. So John finally gets a good hit on the ball. Joe, surprised, returned it with his face. You’ve seen the cartoons where the feet go straight out, and the character lands flat on his back? That, in real life. To put it simply, Joe was just not at his best in the back yard.

Next time, we’ll begin moving into the northwest corner, where one man’s trash was another one’s treasure.

Win some, lose some

2012-01-29T11:13:00.000-05:00

I just got done watching the “play by play “ on Lokomotiv’s Sunday game, but let me start with the Friday game. This was the one against struggling Krystal Saratov. In front of 8900 home fans, this one was all Lokomotiv. Dmitri Maltsev gave us the 1-0 lead, coming around from behind the net, at 9:50 of period 1. Then came a pair of blueline shots redirected into the goal, both by Daniil Romantsev (his 2nd and 3rd of the year) at 5:35 and 12:14 of the 2nd. In the third, Daniil Yerdakov got his 14th (3 with Loko) at 17:22 to finish off a 4-0 win. Nikita Lozhkin picks up his 2nd goose egg of the year, stopping all 27 shots and dropping his goals-against average to 2.90.

Today’s game was also a homer against Dizel (Diesel) Penza who were 21-13-7 coming in). And things didn’t go so well at first. Dizel dominated most of the first period, and beat Pavel Shegala on a shot by Nikolai Lukyanchikov at 5 seconds left in the 1st. It would be Lukyuanchikov again at 2:11 of the second, and Konstantin Maladin at 7:28 to put the visitors up 3-0. But it was a stronger period for the good guys, With Vladislav Kartayev just fanning on a shot from Alexi Kruchinin and Emil Galimov having one ricochet over the net and into the stands.

However, Dizel goalie Alexandr Polukeev was not so fortunate in the third. Kartayev took one out from under his glove and stuffed it in at 2:39, and then tipped a long pass behind him at 8:39, his third and fourth of the season. At 10:53, a pass bounced off Galimov and Maxim Zyuzyakin rammed it home for his 4th and a 3-3 tie.

They went through to OT, and other than a double minor- Pavel Lukin for us and Alexi Potemin for them ( I believe for holding and roughing, but translate turns it into “delay arms” and “rudeness”)- the OT was uneventful and we went to the shootout.

Both of the first shooters- their Vladimir Ivantsev and our Daniil Yerdakov- scored, but the next two each failed and the first pair came up again. This time, Palukeev stoned Yerdakov, but Ivantsev scored and Dizel won 4-3.

Next up is a Wednesday home game against HC Ryazan, another struggling team like Krystal at 12-22-8. Also, a big announcement for February 17th:

The “Russian Classic” outdoor game at Krasnoyarsk in Siberia between us and the homestanding Sokol (Falcons). Now last year on February 17th in Krasnoyarsk it was 21 F; I checked that yesterday because when I looked to see how cold it was yesterday, it was –35 with a high forecasted today of –26 F. Currently, which would be closing in on midnight there, it is –33; but fear not, because they’ll actually have an above zero high (1 above) by next Saturday. Frankly, if I were having an outdoor game, I think I’d have it somewhere warmer than the midst of Siberia, but then again I wouldn’t sit outside for the Super Bowl, much less hockey.

The Great Seventies Countdown week 9

2012-01-28T07:57:00.001-05:00

"Good evening, " the Host says as the crowd settles, "Welcome back to where music and memory intertwine, where you're forever young and the feeling never fades. Sometimes that feeling is love and happiness and springtime. And sometimes it is pain and angst... and Rumours..."

170- Go Your Own Way, Fleetwood Mac, 1977, #10. As 1976 turned to '77, much of the fun of music was already draining out of me. Rumours and Hotel California stood out against the creeping mediocrity of the day. Would have been a #1 on my own top ten except a) I had this thing about needing to see something on the chart, b) I was getting the chart from the News-Sentinel, which was only publishing the top 8 (if I was lucky), so c) it became "not worthy". What a stooge I was.

169- Locomotive Breath, Jethro Tull, 1971 (on album) and 1976 (as single),# 62. The bluesy piano lead into that powerful guitar beginning always gets the blood up. The best song on the great lp Aqualung.

168- Heart Of The Night, Poco, 1979, #20. "Ohh whoa down in New Orleans/ I'm so glad to be back in New Orleans/ Please don't wake me, don't shake me/if it's only/ if it's only just a dream..."

167- Turn To Stone, Electric Light Orchestra, 1978, #13. I played Out Of The Blue incessantly. An album I got on the cheap because my nephew was trying to dig himself out of one of those Columbia record club fiascos.
166- My Old School, Steely Dan, 1973, #63. We sure like the sixties today, eh? Always my best SD song, especially after becoming a William and Mary fan.

165- Rock On, David Essex, 1974, #5. One of those slightly bizarre songs that everyone liked. The James Dean tie in and "where do we go from here..."

164- Who'll Stop The Rain, Creedence Clearwater Revival, 1970, #2. Love the legendary trip through history. "Five year plans and New Deals/Wrapped in golden chains..."

163- Sweet Talkin' Woman, Electric Light Orchestra, 1978, #17. Ironic because I just caught that I missed Turn To Stone, went up to fix that, and this was next. When this came out I was listening a lot to CLKW, and they had an ad for some rock celebrity marathon that went: "We all know Jeff Lynne can play a guitar (licks from Sweet Talkin' Woman in the background)... But can he run a marathon? (gutiar replaced by heavy breathing and "HUH?")

162- Fanny (Be Tender With My Love), Bee Gees, 1976, #12. To this day, I don't understand what he sings in the second verse. Didn't matter then, doesn't matter now.

161- Take Me In Your Arms (Rock Me), Doobie Brothers, 1975, #11. The last real Doobies song until they reformed and did The Doctor in 1989. The Michael McDonald stuff was good, but that was another band to me.

160- Double Vision, Foreigner, 1978, #2. I just wish Lou Gramm hadn't sung over the top of all the "oooooh double vision"s at the end.

159- Here Comes That Rainy Day Feeling, The Fortunes, 1971, #15. I said on the sixties countdown, this was a song I always thought was older. The middle break gives me shivvers.

158- I Want You Back, Jackson Five, 1970, #1. The beginning of stardom for Michael, and though teeny-bop and bubble gum, a powerful song.

157- Kodachrome, Paul Simon, 1973, #2. Raise your hands if you empathize with either "When I think back on all the crap I learned in High School" or "and everything looks worse in black and white." Both hands up? Me too.

156- Showdown, Electric Light Orchestra, 1973 (#53) and 1976 (#59). Released once off On The Third Day and once off Ole' ELO. Gets more play now than it did then.

155- Lying Eyes, The Eagles, 1975, #2. What would have been their third straight #1, kept out by Island Girl. My favorite part is how the "and your smile" in the chorus is sung different in each of the three choruses.

154- Smile A Little Smile, The Flying Machine, 1970, #5. This song was one of those that had the "little kid mix up" legend for me. I THOUGHT I heard my sister tell Mom that it was written by a soldier who was dying in Vietnam, and I THOUGHT it was refering to Rose Marie from the Dick van Dyke show. Whenever I still hear it, a little of the "dying soldier" feel still creeps in for me, even though I ain't that stupid anymore.

153- Long Train Running, Doobie Brothers, 1973, #8. "Without love, where would you be now..."

152- The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down, Joan Baez, 1973, #3. I love history songs- even if the history's a bit off. And the choir in the chorus.

151- The Lion Sleeps Tonight, Robert John, 1971, #3. Call me crazy, but I still prefer his version to the Tokens' original.

"And just like that, our time together is done for another week," the Host says. " Here is one more to send you home on- if you don't mind really dumb videos to go with it."

The Lion Sleeps Tonight - Robert John by vthik

Right to work- and why I’ve been silent

2012-01-27T20:29:00.000-05:00

I just (finally) got around to researching this line in the sand known as right to work, and I found this fascinating study. Basically, I kept silent because I wondered at the reasons RTW would help economically. The info in this study, and the case studies therein on Oklahoma and Idaho, helped not only make it make sense, but gave empirical examples of its success. I didn’t want to say anything until I knew the facts, and frankly I was too turned off by the democrats baby-crying on it to look before now. But since GiaQuinta, Moses, et al finally did the state the great honor of actually showing up and doing their jobs, I figured I’d do mine.

John W. Cooper’s study not only showed facts as well as they could be deciphered, but demonstrated how both sides could manipulate the data to their own advantage. He spotlighted other statistical surveys, noted their methodology, and drew his conclusions.

There is a net benefit in both hiring and new job creation for RTW states. There is also evidence that in at least one RTW state (Oklahoma) that union membership ROSE after RTW. This right here both gives the 2 main reasons FOR right to work and partially negates one of the reasons AGAINST it. The other main reason against it, the so-called free ride, is an unassailable fact. Under RTW, unions carry the bargaining load of those who opt-out. However, let me now be controversial in why I don’t give a crap about that.

#1- Wasn’t the original idea of labor bargaining about improving conditions for ALL workers? Somewhere along the line of legitimacy, unions developed the “I don’t care about the other guy” attitude that has resulted in “scabs” being injured, harassed, etc, for the crime of not being union. When you treat fellow workers, who are also just trying to earn a living, like that, you lose my sympathy.

#2- If the labor movement hadn’t become an arm of the Democratic party, no one would even care about RTW. Studies show that the percent of union dues going to political causes are 30% AND RISING. Given average dues of $120 a year, that means I’d have to donate $40 dollars a year to a cause unrelated to my job and against my principles.
#3- There was a 1988 court decision called the Beck decision that said that a union member cannot be forced to pay the portion of his dues that are earmarked for political contributions. This, if complied with by the unions, would be enough to silence MY objections. A study cited in Cooper said 32% of union employees disagree with the positions the unions support, so I think it is more than fair. But do the unions? From Cooper:

More recently, in 2001 the House Committee on Education and the Workforce’s Subcommittee on Workforce Protections heard a case on Mark Simpson’s experience with attempting to exercise his Beck rights. Mr. Simpson tells a very compelling tale. He starts out by saying he “used to be a union loyalist” and “was even a union shop steward” (Simpson). He then found out that some of his union dues were being used to support causes he did not believe in, so he tried to exercise his Beck rights. He gave notice to his union in June 2000 that he wanted to exercise his rights, and it took his union six months to respond to his request. Mr. Simpson testified that “Their response said that only 1.3% of their spending was eligible to be rebated. The other 98.7% were bargaining expenses, chargeable to me as agency shop fees even after my exercising my Beck rights. And if I didn't pay them, I was fired” (Simpson).

Big surprise- unions aren’t in the business of playing fair.

#4- The politicians in the union pockets. One woman legislator said after the vote (and I sure wish I’d have been paying attention so I could’ve got her name) to the effect of, I see know who will work with you and who won’t. I’ll remember this. Gee, lady, 8 republicans worked with you, how many Democrats crossed the fence? At the beginning of this I gave a sideways compliment to those who decided not to boycott the vote. But the fact of the matter is that the legislators who stayed the whole time, opened the floor to debate, and passed a good law, were certainly more mature and more professional that the ones that stood outside the chamber and whined, blindfolded their followers into believing that the whole thing was about strip-mining the unions, and tried to win their argument by throwing out the fire marshall’s safety ruling and packing the outside of the chamber with protesters and ringers to try to disrupt the legal rule of law.

I’m sorry that I didn’t speak up sooner, that I didn’t research sooner. But I didn’t want to color the decision I made by filtering it through the hopelessly dishonest hordes fighting against it, hordes that need to realize that IF they had ever been honest and EVER supported the RULE OF LAW vis-à-vis the Beck decision, NONE of this need ever have happened.

Under the spreading burr oak tree…

2012-01-27T12:18:00.002-05:00

Well, again no Time Machine per se, so I thought I’d do post number two in my “old Indiana home” series. But first, I have to share with you a scam e-mail, mainly because it’s been so long since I got one. Anyway, this is one of those “I love you so much, so I sent you an e-card” deals from someone not remotely close to anyone I know. But at the end, this little bon mot was appended:

Quote of the Day
them to the benefit of public as well as private life, which was
uncertain light, seemed longer and sharper than they had been in the morning.
Yeah, I think George Washington said that, right after finishing off all the Hessians’ booze at Trenton.

______________________________

Okay, so we are still out in the northeast corner of the back yard. Along the property line running N/S on the east side, we had a set of gardens. The one back here was mainly flowers and strawberries. Mom was a veteran canner, and the many rows of garden produced many jars of tomatoes, juice, beets, sauerkraut, peppers, and jams, among others. But the back yard was a strawberry garden; years later, Dad scammed a cherry tree from somewhere, but it ended up kinda stunted and not real productive. I remember one afternoon- it was after Pete got married and left me as the “only child,” so I must have been about ten- we were hurrying a strawberry picking expedition as a storm was rumbling in the swift-approaching background. Then came a bolt of lightning, which ended up being a) the first time I had experienced simultaneous thunder and lightning; b) the closest I’ve ever personally been to a lightning strike; and c) I’m guessing the fastest I ever ran. By the time I hit the back door instants later, Mom and Dad were about halfway across the yard steaming in my direction, and I’m sure we were all mentally checking our underwear.

It seems to me, that despite prevailing currents, the worst storms back then ran east to west. I remember when I was 3 or four, me and Pete were fending for ourselves when we spotted a dust storm- an honest to God dust storm in Indiana- rolling across the road at the other side of the hayfield. We ran inside and slammed the windows shut just in time to keep most of the dust out. Now mind you, this isn’t the “the day turned to night and drifts piled up” type you see on PBS shows about the Dustbowl; but it was a lot more than a “that wind is sure kicking shit up” too. Never have seen another like it, even during tornadoes.

Along that strawberry patch in the back was our clothes line, suspended from wrought-iron poles that looked like little telephone poles. I thought they were the most permanent things we had; but one day, when I was in high school, the one at the north end finally fell over, rusted out at the concrete base. The other one remained as a lonely monument to the past for about 10 years, until I and some of my marijuana-enhanced crew took it upon ourselves to bring it down. A lot heavier with the concrete still attached, let me assure you.
Long before that, the strawberry patch had become yard- with the exception of a row of asparagus that Dad planted near the trash burner. After Dad passed, I took great delight in mowing that crap over year after year until it finally gave up.

When we were ree-little, Mom and Dad got us a swingset. It started with a slide, which Mom would give us wax paper to rub it down so we could really “fly”. Then came I think two swings, followed by one of those two seaters that was a cross between a swing, a hobby horse, and a teeter-totter. On the other end was a four seater gondola. We were way proud when we could rock it enough to pick a leg of the set off the ground. Among other things, this is where I and my 2 nieces had a big debate over whether “darn” or “damn” was the worse bad word. I was trying to figure the timeline on that one the other night. Now I’m thinking that it was the summer after a New Years eve party at my sister Sue’s first house on the corner of Lortie and Paulding Roads (AKA the corner of Bucksnort and BFE). I’m thinking that nephew Troy (of beer caps in the boots fame) was about 2 1/2, because we kids spent a fair amount of that night teaching Troy, in his high chair, how to say another cuss word:
US: “Say it again!”
TROY: “Sssit!”
US: “Say it again…”
Troy: “SSSSIT!!!”
So that timeline would have put me and Robin at 6 and Raine at 5.

Geez, I still haven’t made it to the tree! When I say this was a big tree, it would have taken four of us kids, fingertip to finger tip, to reach around the trunk ( I think we once measure it at 12-14 feet). It seemed to climb forever into the sky, like an oaken Yggdrasil. It wasn’t a climber; the first branches were a good six and a half to 7 feet up, and if an adult lifted you up onto one, the next one was two feet out from you and head-high. Not to mention the bark was rough and deeply furrowed. One side was covered with that blue, scaly moss. The lowest branch ran east-west for maybe thirty or forty feet; and it was up against the tree trunk that Dad hung the porch swing from it. You knew it was spring when he put it up; you knew autumn was about to become winter when it returned to the shed. Then the chains became “Tarzan vines”, even if the attire was switching to Nanook of the north. Even after Mom and Dad passed, I still put it up a few times before one spring the branch finally gave way. Twenty years of service, just in MY lifetime.

Dad had also, much later, hung a swing from a much higher branch.

That tree and I went through a lot together. A goal when I was small enough that the back yard seemed a mile across; a mountain for little plastic superheroes to climb, a hiding place when fighting Indians, an effective hide-and-seek spot, a base for tag, and the best outdoor bathroom in the yard. Of all the things from the old house, I think I miss it the most.

Behind it, running east-west along the field, Dad had a row of raspberries. As this was a spot constantly eroding into the field (Al plowed right to the line) Dad had put a series of posts along it in the raspberries, tying them together with thick fence wire. Next time, I will explain how the combination of the burning pile, the tree, and the wire can prove to you that a man can fly.

The bookworm tag game

2012-01-26T17:16:00.003-05:00

A couple of friends about the blogoverse have acquired this survey of book reading habits, which if you read it, you’ve been tagged and are supposed to do it on your blog. One such place to see the thing is here on J.Day's blog. Here is my rendition; feel free to tag yourself or not, as I’m not big into do-this-and-pass-it-on unless it suits my purpose.
1- Fave childhood book- Easily the easiest question- Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House In The Big Woods. The others I read mentioned the Black Stallion series, which were also excellent.

2-What are you reading now? Just finished New Testament History by FF Bruce.

3 (What do you have on request at the library), 4 (What do you currently have checked out), 16 (how many do you have checked out at a given time), 17 (have you returned a book unread) are all library questions and I haven’t been to in a while.

5- Do I have an e-reader? Not as long as I can get pages.

6- Do you read one or several at a time? I usually have “re-reads” stashed strategically about the house.

7- Can you read on the bus? Never tried on the bus, but unlike many people I have little problem reading in a moving vehicle.

8- Fave place to read? Bedroom, bathroom*, kitchen table, out in the sunshine.
* when we were kids, my sister got scolded when Parade Magazine kept mom out of the can. Mom’s famous quote: “I don’t go there to sit and think- I go there to shit and stink!” Obviously one of those golden rules that didn’t stick.

9-Do you dog-ear pages? Only until I press some unfortunate piece of trash into service as a bookmark.

10-Do you write in the margins? Only in my Bible.

11- What makes you love a book? The ability to put me into the action. Laura Ingalls Wilder, and Leon Uris’ Trinity, did that the best for me. This answer holds true for #12, What would make me recommend a book.

13-Fave genre- History, historical bio, some sci-fi, usually anthologies.

14- How do you feel about giving a negative review? IMHO, different strokes for different folks. It has to be really bad before I bad mouth it.

15- Fave poet- Myself.

18/19- Fave fictional character/villain. This question automatically throws me into the world of comic books. And there it hugely depends upon the writer. For me the wrong writer (Chuck Austin, John Byrne, Jeff Loeb) can ruin the best character. Written at their VERY best, probably Thor and Dr. Doom. MY brain doesn’t usually retain novel characters too long after the book is done.

20- What books go on vacation? Something in history, hopefully the next Susan Wise Bauer book. Barbara Tuchman would work, too.

21- Longest time gone without reading? From birth till learning to read. Whether it be a comic, a novel, or an ingredient label at dinner, I’ve read pretty much ever since.

22-Name a book you would not finish, and 26- What would cause you to stop reading 1/2 way through? The answer in both is John Updike’s Rabbit is Rich. I can take constructive stupidity for a long time (Catch-22, anyone?) But when Rabbit starts weighing the moral ramifications of stealing his friend’s pictures of his wife in the nude while snooping through his dresser drawer, I walked to the closest trash can and threw the damn thing away. One that came close was Stephen King's The Tommyknockers. A nice 150-page novel stretched out to 752. I finished it only to prove I could.

23- What will easily distract you when reading? Depends on the book. Most can be disrupted by knowing the right answer on Jeopardy. Little House books, best bring nukes.

24/25- Fave and worst film adaptations. Not a big movie person. I’d have to say I enjoyed the film and book versions of A Time To Kill fairly equally. As a comic book person, I realize that I am “expected “ to answer the second question with The Watchmen and/or League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen, but I thoroughly enjoyed both. Screw you, Alan Moore.

27- Do you organize your books? About once every 8-10 years, lasting about 25 minutes each time.

28- Do you give away books you’ve read or keep them? I am a veteran re-reader. Gitcher hands off!

Before I go, let me announce I got my latest delivery from the Great Postcard Campaign! It came from my good friend at The Cat And The Coffee Cup, the sole fellow Hoosier in our group. Thanks and hugs to you!

Burning piles (No, not that kind…)

2012-01-26T06:53:00.002-05:00

Woke up about 4 AM- convenient on a workday, not so much when we don’t have the work. Not that I mind not working this morning, mind you. There’s a good quarter inch of ice on the car, and the street is, shall we say, reflective. Charly Butcher on WOWO said he was puzzled on the way into the studio by lights above the road until he realized it was his own headlights bouncing off the road and into the trees.

So like I said, I woke up at 4 and immediately two trains of thought were chugging through the railroad station of my mind. The first involved Catherine’s last episode on CSI last night, along with various other show memories. While once I was an addict, I lost the desire after Grissom left and hadn’t watched this season before last night. The other thought revolved around the house I grew up at, and my very early days.

We lived in rural Allen County, Indiana, in a flyspot on the map called Besancon. Our house was nestled in between the old two-lane US 30 on the south; the Frontier Court motel on the west (where you took your mistress on Friday and Saturday nights for years); 40 acres of Al Lomont’s fields on the north; and a small hay field on the east. We had 3/4ths of an acre with a one story house and half-basement, with a detached garage. I’ll get to them later, as I foresee this being a multi post tour of the old place and the memories therein, before I forget any more of it.

So, I’m going to start in the northeast corner. At the very corner of the property, we had a burning barrel. See, back in those days, one burned their garbage. Usually without incident, though I do remember one day the fire jumped the barrel and got into the corn. I was too little to do anything back then but sound the alarm, so the next thing I knew I was at the kitchen window watching my parents and my sister Pete running out to the field with a garden hose.

I guess before I get too far ahead, I should give you the family structure. I came along late; Mom was 40 and Dad was 46. I had two older brothers, both married by the time I was around. I was an uncle 5 months after birth, and by the time I was five, I had a 5-yo niece, a 4-yo niece, a 3-yo nephew, a 2 yo nephew, and another couple nieces on the way. I had two older sisters; Sue, who got married and moved out when I was 3, and Pete, who moved out when I was 8.

Anyhow, back to the corner. By the time I was six or so, that barrel was on its last gasps. Dad built a burner out of cinder block, brick, and slopped on cement, with fence across the front to hold debris in. All the old burned stuff, he dug a pit beside it and buried it. We had clay, so you could only dig about 2 feet without machinery, so this was a broad, shallow pit, and it became the home of the year’s yard debris until it was burned as well. I’m not talking grass here: we had a lot of trees, including a tremendous Burr Oak that covered two third of the back yard. A pair of just as tall but not as big pin oaks flanked it, and the three of them joyously shed branches and twigs all year, particularly during Ice storms like last night. With a stash of combustibles like this, it was inevitable that we’d have some kind of pile-burning affair, but we’ll get to that later.

My earliest memories show that the area that became a burning pit once was the home of one of our three dogs. Queenie was the non-hunting dog of the three. She was just this little mutt, I think a beagle-chihuahua mix. All of them were permanent outdoor dogs, but I visited Queenie and Spike all the time. I couldn’t have been too old when we got rid of Queenie, but I don’t remember the circumstances. I think Sparky wasn’t long after. She was an old beagle-basset and right around that time she had a big litter, and I think Dad sold her and the pups to some guy. All except one who of course got named Reject. Something was wrong with him- he ran at the end of his chain and barked almost all the time. I think he ended up having a “hunting accident” eventually. The one thing I do know for sure was that the morning after the pups got sold, I was crawling around the living room (because that’s what 3-4 yo s do) and crawled behind Mom’s chair to find myself face to “face” with a turd, deposited that night by one of the pups. One “Mom, what’s this” later, the incident was blamed on Reject, adding to his bad rep.

One last thing for today on the subject of burning piles and the celebration thereof. We were much further along one year after the “weenie roast” when one of my nephews and I were playing with the smoldering remains- you know, kicking out little fires, encouraging others, that sort of thing. I guess we never noticed that the adults had a habit of flinging beer caps into the fire. We figured it out when my nephew found something was amiss, only to discover that said beer caps, still nice’n hot, had melted into his brand new cowboy boots. In 3 or four spots each. My sister Sue, his mom, was less than pleased with us. And no, that didn’t teach us not to muck with fire, but that is also a story for another day.
____________________________________

The boys of Lokomotiv chalked up another win, this time before 9,046 at home. They faced an old rival, Lada Togliatti- a team booted from the KHL 2 seasons ago because their arena is, politely, below league standards, and the new one won’t be ready till sometime next year. Didn’t look good at first. The kids were feeling the effects of 8 days off, and 18 seconds in, a freak hop around the net got deflected in by Lada’s Igor Shastov to put the visitors up 1-0. But Lada had troubles of it’s own, and not long after getting whistled for a penalty, they gave up Dmitry Maltsev’s drive from the blue line that tied the game at 7:18 of the first. Emil Galimov came in on a two-man break to score his 7th at 15:12, and we had the lead. Six minutes into the second, Lada got whistled again; and this time it was Yegor Yakolev ( who himself missed the second half of period one with a 10-minute misconduct) made them pay with his 3rd of the campaign. At this point, Lada’s coach pulled their goalie to try and spark his team. It almost worked- minutes later, they beat Pavel Shegala but not the post- and after that, Shegala took over. He stopped 28 of 29 and we had a 3-1 win.

Next up is a home game Friday against Kristall Saratov, a team really struggling at 6-27-7. We are 6-3-2; and with our short season, we will be placed according to the percentage of possible points we get, after the two division winners. That puts us third in the conference, with 60.6 percent of possible points earned.

Okay, I’m done, the complex has salted both street and sidewalk as I typed (these guys are good!), and I believe I shall go doze off to school delays.

___________________________

Ooops, one more thing, happy Aussie day!

Wastebook finale, and some other stuff.

2012-01-25T14:40:00.002-05:00

Okay, I’ve gleaned the last couple of funnys from Wastebook for you today. Though what I’ve posted is far from everything, it is the best of that which will make you laugh while you cry.

#27- One of the many things the stimulus bill brought us was a $96,000 bill to give the kindergartners of one Maine district (around 300 of ‘em) IPad2’s for classwork. Let’s put aside the facts that 1% of K kids can read words in context, 2% can recognize some words, and 4% can do the simplest of adding and subtracting, according to the Dept. of Education; set aside that a Facebook poll of the district said that 95% of parents (7624 of 7981) thought it was a stupid idea. $96,000 by 300 kids means they paid $320 apiece for an item I found on Overstock.com for less than $44. Martin savings- $83,040.

23- The National Institute of Health (which obviously doesn’t cover mental health) gave $356,933 over a 2 year period to examine the possible link between cocaine and risky sexual behavior by studying the effects on the sex drive of Japanese Quail. Why Quail? “Because, “ a researcher says, “the birds readily engage in reproductive behavior in the lab.” IOW, they don’t care who they fool around with in public. Given that, I have to wonder how much riskier behavior quail on cocaine can manage. And was the study sckewed by lack of condom availability?
Martin savings: look at the warrant pics of people busted for cocaine possession. Find out how many kids they have. Think about whether YOU’D want to have sex with him/her, and do the math. 75 cents for a newspaper.

A double-popper, #s 19 and 33. 19 is how one billion dollars in credits have been given by the IRS for household energy efficiency improvements to people who have never owned a home, including incarcerated prisoners and children as young as 3. Over 30% of these credits, according to the IG in charge of taxation, have gone to people with no proof of ever having owned a home- and the IRS is not only not able to verify any claims, but doesn’t even require proof!
Martin savings comes in on #33- the IRS was also found to have 22,486 items in various warehouses that HAD NOT BEEN TOUCHED IN at least 18 MONTHS! The rental on these warehouses costs the IRS $862,000 per year! Sell that crap and hire a couple of agents to check into these credit applications.

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I got a request from Mynx to look into the Australian Ice Hockey League. The top league down under, they are a semi-pro league- no salaries, but some vehicles, hotel, and other such paid for by sponsors. They also differ from most in playing 15-minute periods instead of 20. Their season runs on weekends from mid-April to the beginning of September.

Beginning this year, the league was split into two conferences. the Northeast contains the Canberra Knights; 2 teams from Sydney, the Bears and the Ice Dogs; the Newcastle North Stars (kinda odd to be NORTH stars in Oz, but whatever); and the Gold Coast Blue Tongues (no, the mascot isn’t a chow, but a lizard indigenous to the area). In the Southwest we have the brand new Perth Thunder; the Adelaide Adrenaline; and two squads from Melbourne, the Mustangs IHC and the two time champion Melbourne Ice. The Ice won the last championship against 4-time champ Newcastle in a playoff that is a 4-team, single elimination tourney. Melbourne started out on a 6-1 streak to open the season, and solidified their hold with a 5-game win streak in July. The Ice blew out Adelaide 8-3 in the first game and edged Newcastle 3-2 in the championship.

The league also announced that they would this season have a “Trans-Tasman Champions League” with the top two from their league playing a round robin with the top two from New Zealand.

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The Austrian League has started their “second phase” leading into the playoffs. The top six play a round robin to determine playoff placement. Black Wings Linz, who won the regular season with a 24-7-9 mark, get 4 bonus points going in; second place Medvescak Zagreb gets 3, and 3rd and 4th get 2 and 1. Zagreb in one of 5 non-Austrian teams in the 11-club circuit, hailing from Croatia. Also in the 6 team RR are Alba Volan Fehervar (from Hungary); Red Bull Salzburg, the two time defending champs; KAC Klagenfurter; And Olimpija Ljubliana, one of two Slovenian teams. Linz has picked up where they left off, downing Zagreb 2-0 and Olimpija 4-0. RBS is struggling, as they have all season, with an opening loss to KAC 6-4 and a 7-1 drubbing by Alba Volan.
The bottom five also have a RR, with the top two going to the main playoffs, while the bottom of the bottom gets relegated next year. These five include Orli Znojmo from the Czech Republic; the Graz 99ers; my VSV Villacher; the Vienna Capitals; and Slovenia’s Acroni Jesenice, which is in such a bad way monetarilly that the president of the club was forced to resign under fan pressure, and the club and the mayor of the city had to give assurances at the end of the season that they could afford to play in the playoffs. Graz is leading this group, with a 3-2 SO win over the Caps, and 4-0 over VSV , who also lost to Orli. That loss, 3-2, surprised the league since the last regular season game was a 7-0 win by VSV in Znojmo, and the playoff loss was in Villach.

Killing time..

2012-01-24T21:02:00.002-05:00

Man, ya ever have one of those days? We are now on day # 3 of “you’re not laid off, but we got no work. Call tomorrow"…” with #4 coming up tomorrow. So I thought, what can I do to entertain myself other than walk the dog (done twice) ,play games (4 hours worth), check facebook (about 20 times today) and e-mails (ditto), harass leftists and/or atheists (covered), watch TV ( State of the Union looking better and better), or scratch my butt (no current itches). So I came here to talk about… what?

First thought was, how about a “who’s dumber”. And for about an hour, I had a doozy. FoxNews (who actually was deserving of a Who’s Dumber for not verifying) had a story that Costa Cruises (the guys that brought you the shipwrecked liner in Italy) were offering survivors a 30% discount on future trips. However, on checking back a bit later, they had had to retract the story. What Costa had done was call each survivor and give them a full refund, PLUS let their customers know that anyone who has a trip booked out to February 7th of next year can bail out with full refund. FoxNews should have took a lesson from CBSSports and their proclamation of JoePa assuming room temperature some 8 hours early.

Even if the story had held, the lone contender for a second contestant was a dentist trying to rip medicare by using paper clips instead of metal posts on fillings. Apparently, his attempts to defraud the government by using other DDS’s names on paperwork once medicare gave him the boot weren’t enough to put him behind bars, but paper clips were. The good news is, at least now I won’t have to find a dentist to replace a filling that fell out last week…

So I thought, well, let me go over to int’l hockey forums and see if I could find the latest fun at the expense of Holon/Bat Yam, but no news. Hard as it is to imagine, the threat of terrorist bombings, protests by idiot foreigners, and Iran’s impending nuclear capability all rank ahead of hockey as a concern in Israel. Will God be mad at me if I make fun of a team of His Chosen with a goalie named Knuckles? If they can throw down a hockey stick and have it turn into a frozen snake, then I’ll worry.

So the gist of tonight’s post is, I have nothing of worth to say. However, I have killed the time until a halfway interesting show came on H2, so at least I ended up to the good. See ya tomorrow…

Tonight’s debate

2012-01-23T23:30:00.000-05:00

I would have to say I’ve heard the dumbest thing on any debate so far this season. Mitt Romney got asked along the lines of, “ How do you end the war with the Taliban?” Note that Ron Paul had just had his say about Iran, which his response was the usual, “we’re provoking them”. Mitt’s answer?

“You beat ‘em.”

Sounds logical, even patriotic, right?

This is why you should have paid attention in history class, kids. People have been trying to “beat ‘em” since Alexander the Great, with typically Pyrrhic results. In the last couple hundred years, the Persians, Brits, Russians, and now us have tried; it is a losing proposition. As long as a) you are a foreigner, and b) there’s one guy with a sharp stick left, they will not quit. They will not surrender.

How do you beat ‘em? You go in and take away their power to hurt you. We had that basically done in the first month of air strikes. Then you get out and let them go back to killing each other. Because you could stay there 100 years “nation-building” and two weeks after you leave, they’ll be right back at it. One place in the world I agree with Ron Paul.

Best thing said comes from Newt- “We don’t want to send someone (to the White House) just to preside over the decay.” Think about the picture of our nation that THAT paints.

Quickie analysis:
Ron Paul. Very strong tonight, except in foreign policy questions. He’s going to have to get over the “we’re to blame for everything” schtick and realize that there are some people you just can’t TALK to. Too much like President (Let’s just say we’re sorry) Obama for me.
Rick Santorum: Brian Williams of NBC continues the “let’s just ignore him out of the game” plan. He did okay, though, but plays too much to the Tea Party for my taste. Very willing to blast everyone else for compromises- I think he’d live to regret that were he elected. Did a good job on the Terri Shiavo questions.

Mitt Romney: Mostly good, but was way out of his depth trying to attack Gingrich. His definition of “influence peddler” would likely take in about 70% of America. Totally disingenuous when he blamed his attacks on Gingrich on himself being attacked in the SoCar debates, since it was at the end of that debate he said he wanted to focus on Obama and not before. Williams held out the bait and he took it.

Newt Gingrich: Once again proves himself the master debater. Also the master realist: “(Obama’s) going to spend a billion dollars on the campaign. If we don’t come together, we’ll have a difficult time overcoming it in the debates.”

Without going into details, if what I saw in links today were the best the left can throw up against him (personal opinions from overseas, vicious insults, and “nuff saids”), I gotta like his chances.

Monday morning, you sure look fine..

2012-01-23T11:17:00.000-05:00

And last night’s title bout- 5 inches of snow vs a severe thunderstorm at 2:20 AM with somewhere between .33 and .89 inches of rain-

-and it’s thunderstorm by decision!

Here, somebody made you a snowman, Alisa! He seems to have had a rough night…

The view from Scrappy’s Landing. It was weird to listen to the ice cracking from the melting, the current, and stuff dropping from the trees.

Now there are three ways we use to cross the feeder to get on the greenway trail- the bridges at the Plex; our little crossing at the stream; and the wooden bridge down from the landing. The little crossing was full enough of water that I had to find a dryer place to jump across, but the wooden bridge (which can float away in times of flood) was pretty secure.

The view from the wooden footbridge.

It would have taken probably 3 times the snow to melt to put that one in trouble.

Meanwhile, they continue to work on the bridge over the St. Joe in order to put in the path beneath it that will link the greenway to Shoaff Park…

Hopefully they’ll have it done before the erosion at the river bend knocks out the trail.

Two days ago, the 9 AM temp was 10.5. Today it was 47. Welcome to Indiana.

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Some other notes- in nosing around the hockey world, I saw that Austria’s EBHL had finished the regular season and went on to stage 2- where the top 6 teams do a round robin to determine playoff seeding, and the bottom five do likewise, with two teams getting the last two playoff spots and the last one getting relegated. Black Wings Linz won the season title, and my VSV Villacher team is in the “other five”. I’ll deal with this a bit more when I do my next hockey update.

Also, I brought up the other day the Israeli league, which I don’t regularly follow as the quality of club hockey at McMillan Ice Arena here in Ft. Wayne is better. But I brought it up because they used to have the one team that might be worse than AHL’s China Dragon. That team used to be Bat-Yam 2; Now it is in the city of Holon, where they are known as (I can’t make this stuff up) the Jet Turtles.
They are the ones who got beat 19-0 on opening day. That game was apparently 5-0 after 2 periods, but then they put in their backup goalie (one Yoav {Knuckles} Friedman, who apparently tried out once for Ontario of the ECHL, with predictable results) and he managed to give up 14. One commenter on International Hockey Forums mentioned that there was a video available, but it mainly focused on the goaltender. To which another commenter rightly noted that when he gives up 14 goals in a 20-minute period, there’s not a whole lot of opportunity to look elsewhere. Holon has gone on to lose their next 2 games 12-0 and 13-0, and even China Dragon has played a couple of relatively close games.

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Finally, a note about JoePa. I thought about doing a full blown tribute here, but talked myself out of it. Not because of that pervert Sandusky, but because of the tales of his dictatorial rule over the university that have come out since. Mind you, you can’t touch as many lives for the positive as he did without having something good within you. But apparently you had to be a member of the football “family” to rate that treatment. So, as is true for all of us, in between those who want to put him up for sainthood and those who wish he’d lived long enough to do jail time, the truth lies. I still am uncomfortable about how the university treated him at the end; but what you sow, that shall you also reap. And before you know it, the crop’s all in. Something to think about before your combine gets fired up.

Sunday message with a lot of +

2012-01-22T09:21:00.000-05:00

This morning I listened to 2 messages, both centering around Abraham. The first, from Chuck Swindoll, focused on the story of Isaac’s near-sacrifice and the concept of this year’s theme being “letting go.” The second was by the late Ed Bousman and was more about the calling of the bride of Isaac contrasted with the calling of the bride of Christ.

It has always struck me that Abraham was the prime human servant of God, because he was the only one specifically chosen to make the same sacrifice God did- the life of His Son. But I’ve learned that God doesn’t start anything in the middle. Consider that Abram started out not an image of God, but an image of Adam. He was given the fellowship and the promises of God, and then (don’t get mad at me) through the encouragement of a woman, tried to do things his own way. This led to disastrous effects down through all of mankind’s history- though it did not disqualify him from God’s attention and concern.

Abraham recovered from his setback by striving to become more obedient to God. He had been given two conditions- have faith and obey; upon doing these were hung the promises of God. He succeeded so well that He was given the privilege of Isaac’s sacrifice- the privilege of becoming as close to God as possible. While I saw this as an event, I hadn’t thought about that progression he needed to go through to get there before today.

Bousman took it a step further. Abraham (now an image of the Father) sent out his servant (played by us) to find a bride for Isaac (who becomes Christ in the analogy). Isaac was to remain with Abraham while the servant went out to find His bride, just as the risen Christ abides in heaven awaiting our gathering of his bride (the Church). He also reminded us of the servant’s question about, “what if she won’t come”, to which Abraham replied he was off the hook. Not, “kidnap her”, “Take her by force”, or “Bribe her.” The servant’s duty is done in presenting the invitation.

Swindoll’s though, was the part that hit application for me. The part about being willing to let go; and he went in detail about giving up something near to your heart that might be in the way. For me, though, it’s not quite like that. If you go back to my “24 hours give or take” post, you’ll see an entry about wanting to meet with a former pastor, to apologize. This has been an issue of forgiveness with me. Without going into details, I can say that every time I think I’m there, I rehearse the meeting in my mind, and it always devolves into “my fault, your fault” and I realize I’m not there yet. Today I realized that the reason I’m not “getting there” is that instead of letting go of what was done to me, I use it as a shield to protect me from dealing with the shame that I brought on myself in the situation. Today I realized that obedience= forgiveness= letting go of that shield and accepting my own shame. Not easy, not there yet- but at least now I know where the problem lies. Not everything God wants us to let go is a prized possession or opportunity. Sometimes, it’s a defense mechanism protecting something God says I don’t need.
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Snow update:

about 5 inches.
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Here’s a funny story. I was texting my son about the news that a pitcher on his Indians, Fausto Carmona, got busted in the Dominican for using a false name. His reply: Geez what else could go wrong ohhh I know having a squirrel invade ur apartment!
Okay, so I asked if his “party cat” Porkchop had let this squirrel in. His reply:No he chased it all over destroying everything in there path now I have to clean up when I get home my closet is destroyed.

Turns out that KC is trying to train Porkchop to stay inside. To do so, he leaves the door open when he takes his trash out, making sure ‘Chop stays at the door. Well, this time, the cat didn’t bother to get up from his nap- until the squirrel entered the premises. The squirrel made a bee-line into the bedroom, whereupon the cat chased him into the closet and there they began their remarkable simulation of Armageddon. Could only happen to my son.

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Two things yet from last night. I was watching an all-star football game when the news came down that Joe Paterno was taken off the respirator and was near death. By the time I got on CBSSports.com to look into this, they had a “Breaking News” banner that he had indeed died. Turning back to the TV, they were still saying he was “off the respirator;” and within 10 minutes, the banner had disappeared. ESPN.com reported (and CBS soon confirmed) that the mistake had come when the Penn State student paper announced that an e-mail had went out to all the football players that JoePa had passed. Apparently neither the paper nor CBSSports did their due diligence before releasing it. This morning, without commenting on how the false story had come about, the editor of the school newspaper apologized and resigned from the paper. Nice to see he was big enough to admit the mistake and take responsibility. Once upon a time, that would have guaranteed him a future job in the news. Too bad nowadays integrity means nothing to the media.

____________________________

And that brings me to today’s last item- I flipped over to msnbc (don’t hate me) to see how the South Carolina primary turned out, and was happy to see that Newt had won an overwhelming victory. Of course the shills that pass for reporters on that network were busy scoffing at what they thought Newt’s next move would/should/could be. I wondered how we had gotten so far away from the days when news reporting meant news reporting, instead of giving the liberal opinion as if it was everyone’s opinion and, damn, you’re dumb if you don’t have the same opinion. The msnbc crew were 4 of the most childish, irresponsible, and condescending excuses for journalists I’ve ever witnessed. But, that’s today’s liberal elite for you. Patting themselves on the back that they speak for the “99%” (which was down to about 33% in late November, after which the media quit tracking it’s support) and sneering at anyone that would gainsay them. You know, I actually can see how the people who think Occupy had a point, uh, had a point. But if I had to rely on snakes like msnbc, George Souros, and Harry Reid and li’l Jimmy H to lead me…
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Just for the record, yes, I’m finally throwing my support to Gingrich. Why? Because to me one of the biggest problems is nobody wants to work with anyone, make a deal, to get something done. Obama is ineffective because he’s a Chicago threaten-you –with-a-stick politician who can’t find anyone he can bully at this level.
On the continuum of candidates out there right now, you start at one end with Ron Paul, who I doubt ANYONE will work with; move to Santorum, whom I like, but is a “tea partyer “ in the sense that he will stand his ground come hell or high water, and that’s been part of the problem. Bachman, Perry, and Cain were to varying degrees in that category as well. Far to the other side we have Romney (and perhaps Huntsman) who would have been willing to compromise to get deals done, but I’m afraid would have given away the keys to the car. I believe that Newt is smart enough to make a deal, connected enough to work with people, and tough enough not to get walked all over doing it.

The great seventies countdown week 8

2012-01-21T10:04:00.001-05:00

"Yesterday, " the host tells us, " the following message appeared at Cashbox.com:
Thank you for visiting Cashbox Magazine U.S.A. We are currently working on a new look and an updated Cashbox Magazine... Check back with us soon to see the new website and thank you for the continued support. Therefore, our sister program will perhaps be up and running soon... though, I am told, in a VASTLY different form. However, we are not bound by such constraints, and the Countdown rolls on. Please extinguish your cell phones, sit back, and enjoy... why? Because it's a no-smoking theatre, and you cannot extinguish your cigarettes if you do not have them!"

190- Get Ready, Rare Earth, #4, 1970. The best non-live live song in history (beating out Louie Louie and Benny And The Jets).

189- Lonely Night (Angel Face), The Captain and Tennille, 1976, #3. These two had a two year run were they could do no wrong. Then they started releasing Toni's version of smaultz-pop and lost me.

188- Hold The Line, Toto, 1978, #5. This song blasted like a rocket into the top ten, and brought with it a debut lp full of good songs and a band that had been "everybody's backing band" (notably Boz Scaggs') for years.

187- Guns Guns Guns, The Guess Who, 1972, #70. Another of those 8-tracks-on-Snow-Lake songs.

186- Boy Blue, Electric Light Orchestra, 1975, non-charting. From Eldorado, a great anti-war song.
"So my friends, who are gathered today/hear this clear, for I'll not further say/that no man shall cause me to pick up arms again..."
185- At Seventeen, Janis Ian, 1975, #3. And it wasn't much better for the guys in that position, Janis.

184- Theme To Mahogany (Do You Know Where You're Going To), Diana Ross, 1975, #1. For me, the best thing she ever did.

183- I Don't Know How To Love Him, Yvonne Elliman, 1971, #28. Most people preferred Helen Reddy's cover that climbed the charts at the same time (#13). As you know by now, I'm not most people. I'll take the original from Jesus Christ Superstar any day.

182- Edge Of The Universe, Bee Gees, 1977, #26. The studio version was the b-side of Nights On Broadway, the charting single was from Here At Last... Live. Blue Weaver on keyboards.

181- Weekend In New England, Barry Manilow, 1977, #10. As I told on the last Time Machine, this was the first #1 when I started keeping my own top 10 35 years ago this month.

180- Lost Her In The Sun, John Stewart, 1979, #28. I didn't know John died of a stroke in 2008. Second single from the lp with maybe my all time favorite title- Bombs Away Dream Babies. This was the imagery from hearing it as the sun set out my bedroom window, on a fading AM radio station.

179- How Do You Do, Mouth And McNeal, 1972, #8. Maggie McNeal's real name? Sjoukje van't Spijker. There's a, er, mouthful.

178- Night Fever, Bee Gees, 1978, #1. Always remember it was just climbing the charts when my alma mater, Heritage High School, was celebrating making the final four in Girls Basketball. A couple hours of dancing and music in the cafetorium when we were supposed to be learning.

177- She's Gone, Hall And Oates, 1974 (#60) and 1976 (#7). From one of the better albums you've never heard, Abandoned Luncheonette. Long version far superior.

176- Dreamboat Annie, Heart, 1976, #42. At 2:40, probably the shortest song on the countdown. My all time best Heart song.

175- What Is Life, George Harrison, 1971, #10. From All Things Must Pass, the best post-Beatles lp by any of the Fab Four.

174- Dancing In The Moonlight, King's Harvest, 1972, #13. You are kidding me. A song that played this much only hit 13? The prototype early seventies song.

173- Slow Train Coming, Bob Dylan, 1979, non-charting. From his first Christian lp, the powerful title track.

172- Please Mr. Postman, Carpenters, 1974, #1. A great song in 1961 , a great song in 1974. And a great song now.

171- Loves Me Like A Rock, Paul Simon with the Dixie Hummingbirds, 1973, #2. A real welcome song from Rhymin' Simon after the bitterness of Kodachrome and I Am A Rock and the like.

With the crowd settling down from the Gospel swaying, the lights come up a bit and the host ventures out. "I'm glad you enjoyed the show, " he says. "Be sure to be here next week. And now, one more song to fade out on..."

(Note: I was going to have Lost Her In The Sun here, but all I could find was a really lousy live recording and some guy who thought we'd like to hear him sing over Stewart's music. So I picked this, and there were three videos with just one unchanging picture and another with a couple of floating seahorses on a continuous loop. Between earbud malfunctions, losing a page of songs, copying the WRONG page of songs, I'm not real surprised this happened today.)

But daddy, I don’t HAVE any to freeze off…

2012-01-20T18:06:00.000-05:00

For Barb enjoying your 70 f and ocean, Mynx and your pool, and Alisa who would like to see snow for whatever reason, here is Fort Wayne, 5:30 pm, 16.5 degrees...

WHEEEEE!!! YAY DAD!!!!

I thought I just cleared this at noon...

A facefull of snow

A lot of little branches down...

Snow covered, slick, and hazardous!

And Alisa, this is, like the last time, a real powdery, dry snow that doesn't pack, so no snowmen.

The Time Machine beauty contest!

2012-01-20T09:10:00.011-05:00

Pre-post update: Cashbox has a "holder page" up as of checking things at 10:10 PM, but is not yet up. Therefore our regularly scheduled program is pre-empted by:

I’m doing this Wednesday night in case of Cashbox still being down Friday. If I find it’s back up by then, I’ll fit this in at another point. My bright idea was, How about I take all the women that hit #1 on the 20th of January, and have a beauty contest? So I ~~pirated~~ found the most flattering pics (to me) of each contestant, and grouped them into, well, groups.

Group #1 is, of course, groups. Seeings as a) I didn’t want to split them up, and b)Beyonce’s in one of the groups, I decided I’ll do them on their own.
Here are the contestants:

The Boswell Sisters, who hit #1 in 1935 with The Object Of My Affection;

The Andrews Sisters, who made it in 1938 with Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen and in 1950 with I Can Dream, Can’t I;

Dawn (skip the ugly one in the middle) who topped the chart in 1971 with Knock Three Times;

and Destiny’s Child, who were at #1 in 2001 with Independent Women.
In all fairness, Beyonce getting two shots isn’t fair, and Telma Hopkins isn’t really my cup o’ tea, so I’ll take Patty, Maxine, and Laverne. Besides, I Can Dream, Can’t I is basically the theme song to this post.

Now, the rest of our lovely ladies I’m dividing up into three classes. The first group I’m calling, “nice pipes, but this is a beauty contest”:

Patti Page, who topped the pops in 1951 with The Tennessee Waltz;

The magnificent Kate Smith who topped the chart in 1932 with River, Stay ‘Way From My Door (with Guy Lombardo’s orchestra);

Singer and comedienne Ada Jones, who topped the charts in 1913 with Row! Row! Row!;

Ke$ha, who led the league two years ago with Tik Tok;

Evelyn Knight, at #1 in 1949 with A Little Bird Told Me;

Lady Gaga, at #1 in 2009 with Just Dance;

and Diana Ross who had the Theme From Mahogany at #1 in 1976.

Our second category is the beauty pageant’s version of Almost But Not Quite:

Dionne Warwick, who joined her friends in 1986 with That’s What Friends Are For;

Madonna, who was Like A Virgin back in 1985;

Whitney Houston, who really sunk her chances with me with I Will Always Love You in 1993;

Toni Braxton, who was #1 in 1997 with Un-break My Heart;

and Christina Aguilera, who was on top in 2000 with What A Girl Wants.

That brings us to the final eight:

Rhianna, on top currently with We Found Love;

Beyonce, who topped this week in 2007 with Irreplaceable;

Mariah Carey, who was #1 in 1996 with One Sweet Day;

Carly Simon, at #1 in 1973 with You’re So Vain;

Brandy, the top of 1999 with Have You Ever;

Petula Clark, the #1 song in 1965 with Downtown;

Here’s one outta left field- Joan Webber, who hit the top in 1955 with Let Me Go, Lover;

And the late, great, Karen Carpenter, who was at #1 with her brother in 1975 with Please Mr. Postman.

Anyone wants to pitch in their votes, go right ahead. For me, the eyes have it- and that means the first annual (Hey, who said I’m doing this again!!??!) Time Machine Beauty contest goes to-

Brandy!

That’s all from the spacious Martin Theatre for this one, kids. I’m gonna go cue up the Andrews Sisters.

More fun with wastebook

2012-01-19T12:36:00.000-05:00

Before I get started, let me congratulate President Obama on his decision to not go forward with the Keystone Pipeline project (“Because we haven’t had time to study it,” Be sure to use whiney voice to read quote.) He has done yet another great service to the cause of racial equality by proving that numbskulls like Jimmy Carter who should never have been elected President come in all colors, flavors, and ethnic groups.

We start off with #45 today- actually, I’ll be hitting a subsidiary point of this one. The main story was the spending of nearly $700,000 in Nevada to spruce up ONE (count ‘em, one) highway exit with “striped” boulders and “Native” vegetation. This is, of course, bad enough; but Coburn goes on to mention that it came on the heels of a Lawsuit that Clark County had to settle on a $120 million road widening project. It seems that they rejected a bid $4.5 million LOWER than the one they took because “the contractor was not properly licensed” (read: non-union); the judge smelled horseshit and the county ended up paying an extra $5 mil to the non-union outfit for screwing them. Mr. GiaQuinta, Mr. Moses, can you see WHY most of your constituents want the Right-To-Work legislation to pass in Indiana? Can you see why we’re sick of union manipulation, corruption, and lies? Of course not, you have union dollars clouding your vision.
Martin Savings: outside of what could be saved by banning unions altogether, which I won’t go into here, the county could have saved $9.5 million dollars just by being honest and following the law instead of crawling into a union pocket. Why, you could’ve decorated 13 1/2 more exits with that!

#40 is another one of my beaten path, because this is one of those few times I’ll say, “See? Barney Frank is right!!!” The Congressional Committee on Wartime Contracting estimates that upwards of $4.4 billion was wasted on inefficient, corrupt, and inflated contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2011 ALONE. I realize that many like minded conservatives such as myself decry the removing of the least dollar from the defense budget, but OMG you idiots, LOOK AT THIS!! I hear way too much about how defense cuts will “hurt our navy, hurt our reputation, hurt our vets”, etc. So cut the right spots and it will only hurt crooked contractors.

#36, which I had to throw in just because of the ridiculousness of it. $50,400 went to the Oregon Cheese Guild who are using some of it to develop the “Oregon Cheese Trail”, which you can see here. Just think, had the Donners just took the Oregon Cheese Trail, they wouldn’t have had to eat each other.

Finally, it wouldn’t be right if we didn’t take a poke at our good friends at USAID. This one’ll crack you up. We start out with a $23 million, 3-yr project to aid Pakistan with its electrical grid failure by getting them to use less energy. The first year ended with these results: 15 industries targeted to develop energy conservation plans, 0 completed. 10 companies targeted to evaluate energy efficiency, 0 completed. 300 energy companies targeted to upgrade equipment, 0 did so. 4 energy distribution companies targeted to implement conservation strategies, none did so. 300 energy sector employees trained, 138 actually got the training. So one year and $2 million later, they “changed strategy”. Where have we heard that before?

The new strategy was to get farmers to ditch their old, inefficient energy pumps that USAID would pick up half the cost of. Their contractor told USAID that they would be able to provide the pumps for $500 per, but as the year drew on, the cost just for the pumps rose to “$1,000 to $4,000”. Thus it was that instead of paying $5.5 mil for 11,000 pumps at $500 per, they paid $10 million for 963 pumps at $8,500 per!
The IG’s report found that while USAID and the contractor blamed most of it on floods that wracked the nation last year, the real causes were mostly farmer indifference. Why didn’t the Pakistani farmers jump on the deal?
1- farmers wanted some bucks for the old pumps that they had to get rid of, and USAID failed to anticipate this.
2- the cost of new masonry and electrical also weren’t factored in, and most farmers flat couldn’t afford them.
3- pump manufacturers didn’t want to participate in a short-term program.
4- the regional energy utility was penciled in as a partner, but they declined to participate.
5- almost 8,000 farmers submitted “letters of interest” in the program. USAID, having not the example of Gunner Kiel to learn from, assumed “interest”=”participation”, assumed that all of these were going to participate, but only one out of eight actually did.
6-USAID was allowing one day for the required cement to dry. Probably not a good idea, since the concrete needed 28 days to cure.
7- and probably the most important, even with USAID paying half, farmers could get the pumps cheaper FROM CHINA.

The IG’s reports that the program be discontinued when it hits year #3 in March. Even if they did renew, USAID would have to re-budget for a more reasonable pump price, bump their contribution to 75 %, and kick in another 10% for the old pump.
Martin savings: Let ‘em buy from China. Require USAID to formulate a coherent plan before giving them ANY money. The current system is a lot like giving a 3 year old a Toys ‘R Us gift card and sending him in alone. Another way to save money wqould apparently be to stop training the unemployed and just send them to work at USAID, where an education (and common sense) isn’t exactly required. Or even expected.

Uhhnn… Sorry, I must have blacked out…

2012-01-18T19:28:00.000-05:00

Sorry, this post has nothing to do with the protest against SOPA (although I was one of those who sent the letter to his congressman- and, said congressman has posted on facebook that he plans to vote against it), I just couldn’t resist the tag line. So lat me get on with my pirating.

Former Umpire Marty Springstead died at home at the age of 74. Marty was one of the true good guys, a well respected official (which puts him ahead of 99% of NFL refs this year).

Next, The CBS evening news led off with perhaps the stupidest thing I have EVER heard on broadcast television:
“The cruise ship captain under fire for abandoning his vessel while thousands of passengers scrambled for rescue has reportedly come up with an explanation for his flight - he accidentally tripped and fell into a lifeboat.”

COME. F’N. ON.

I tripped and fell into a lifeboat. That’s why the commander of the coast guard spent a half-hour vainly trying to order my yellow ass back onto the ship. So now not only is he a craven coward, but also a blatant liar. Sorry to be unforgiving, but It will be a fine day when he adds “Convicted felon” to the accolades he won with this trip.

As of right now, Cashbox has not gotten their server back up. Rest assured, that with a little warning and scads of extra time (yep, another early weekend due to lack of work), I will be doing… something… this Friday. Not sure what, but I just had an idea and if I remember it long enough I might just try it. Assuming SOPA doesn’t stop me.

Add caption

Now, I realize that I do my hockey posts for my own entertainment. My followers include those who dislike hockey, those who don’t understand hockey, those that can’t skate (me neither), and Lord help us, Philly Flyers fans. Never the less, I have an addendum to last night’s post, in particular the glancing blow I dealt to the Continental cup tourney. It seems that once they got to the Sunday games, they weren’t going by goal differential amongst all four teams, but only the differential in the games between the three teams still in it. Thus, when Yunost won, they needed a Rouen win of 2 goals or less. Donbass needed a win, and they trailed Rouen 3-2 with less than three minutes left, which would have given the cup to Yunost. But Rouen scored twice IN THE LAST 2 1/2 MINUTES to get their 3-goal margin and the cup! And the game was in Rouen, can you imagine what that arena must have been like when that last goal went in?

They're calling it "Le Miracle de Rouen"!

Tune in tomorrow, when- at Average Girl’s request, I will do a post about yoga, and… what? That got blacked out? Pirating charges? Oh well, maybe I’ll just raid wastebook for more bon mots instead.

The boys in Orsk

2012-01-16T19:34:00.000-05:00

Before we get to this morning’s game, I have a few notes and going’s on to tell you about. The Continental Cup, which involves clubs from all over Europe, had its “superfinals” – a four team round robin for the championship- over this weekend. The finalists were our good friends from Donbass, the perrenial French champs Rouen, the Belorussian Extraliga champs Yunost Minsk, and Italian kingpins Asiago. Friday it was Donbass edging the Belorussians 2-1 and Rouen blowing out Asiago 6-0. Saturday Yunost surprised Rouen 4-2 and Donbass took its turn at the Italians 6-2. So three teams had a chance at the crown on Sunday, with total margin being the tiebreaker. Yunost took out Asiago 4-1 leaving them 4 goals to the good and and essentially eliminated. They needed a Donbass loss by 2 AND a Rouen tie, which of course could not happen. Rouen needed a 2 goal win to tie Donbass; what they got was a 5-2 win, earning them their first cup championship. Defending champ Yunost finished second, leaving Donbass third.

Which brings us to our game in Orsk. Lokomotiv coach Vorobiev said before the game: “ We arrived in Orsk on the eve of the match. Did not even see the city, just rested from the road. The match at Chelyabinsk was very heavy, we had time to recover. The mood of the team, battle. The guys are working, trying, but they are not used to playing against adult players.” The three game losing streak was endangering their seeding in the upcoming tournament, and they desperately needed a win to close their road trip.

Orsk, for its part, is hockey crazy; Not only did they sell out the 4,600 seat arena, but sold almost 1,000 SRO tickets at the door at game time! Special pricing made the tickets cost ($ equivalent) 1.88 to 3.76. The pricing was explained by officials as, “it’s about the prestige of the full stands. By the time we pay everyone, we don’t make any money.”

The game opened with Orsk’s Anton Buhanko (which, amusingly enough, comes through google translate as “ a loaf of Anton”) scoring at 3:41 of the first for a 1-0 home team lead. But at the 14-15 minute mark, two skaters from Orsk drew penalties, and Egor Martynov scored on a shot from the blue line to even things at 1-1 at 15:50. Still, Orsk escaped from the first with a lead when the league’s leading goal scorer, Roman Muzychko, beat Pavel Shegala while lying at the side of the goal for his 22nd and a 2-1 lead.

How do you stop a guy who scores from HERE?

The second period was scoreless, with Orsk goalie Sergei Magarilov stopping Daniel Romantsev on a penalty shot.

The third, however, belonged to Emil Galimov. His 5th of the year came at 5:13 of the final stanza and tied the game 2-2; his second, on a shot from way out where he was hoping to set up a rebound but Magarilov whiffed on it, came at 13:37 and gave the kids a 3-2 win.

Afterwards, Vorobiev said, “We played well in Chelyabinsk, but had no luck. Tonight, we were lucky.”

The kids now have 9 days off before they return home to play Lada Togliatti, who played in the KHL the first season before being demoted.

More wastebook fun

2012-01-16T11:56:00.000-05:00

Before we begin, I have a little story from FoxNews via the NYTimes about some of our favorite wastrels, the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Single dad trying to take back home from Occupy Wall Street protesters

They’re occupying his home.
Occupy Wall Street protesters announced with great fanfare last month that they moved a homeless family into a “foreclosed” Brooklyn, N.Y., home — even though they knew the house belonged to a struggling single father desperately trying to renegotiate his mortgage, The Post has learned.
“They’re trying to take a house and say the bank is robbing the people because the mortgage is too high — so contact the owner!” fumed Wise Ahadzi, 28, who owns the home at 702 Vermont St. in East New York.
Occupiers “reclaimed” the row house on Dec. 6 and ceremoniously put out the welcome mat for a homeless family.But Bank of America, which has been in and out of foreclosure proceedings against Ahadzi since 2009, confirmed to The Post that he is still the rightful owner.Meanwhile, the family that OWS claimed to be putting into the vacant house has not yet permanently moved in.
And it turns out the family is not a random victim of the foreclosure crisis, but cast for the part, thanks to their connection to the OWS movement.OWS last week said it has spent $9,500 breaking into the house and setting it up for the homeless Carrasquillo family. A photo of the smiling family covers a window, under the slogan, “A place to call home.”The head of the family, Alfredo Carrasquillo, 28, is an organizer for VOCAL- NY, a group that works with OWS. His Facebook page shows him in a “99 Percent” T-shirt at an OWS protest in November.
The Post visited the Vermont Street home last week — six weeks after OWS announced that the Carrasquillos were moving in — and the family was nowhere to be found.In fact, the only people occupying the house were occupiers themselves.
“They only stay here sometimes,” a protester named Charlie said of the Carrasquillos. “There’s not enough room for the kids.”
The occupier refused to say how many others were inside, but at least two more protesters could be seen at the house, along with mattresses on the floor, during The Post visit.“We’re almost done with the basement,” he said of the renovations.The real property owner is livid because he could be raising his two little girls, Imani, 3, and Kwazha, 10, in the two-story home instead of in a meager, two-bedroom rental in Brownsville while he tries to sort out his mortgage nightmare.
Police notified him in early December that the vigilante vagrants moved into his East New York digs, he said. He immediately ran over to the house to see for himself.

Wow, major credibility blow! As if these A-holes had any credibility to begin with. It's a shame that they took a good idea and filtered it through all their leftist propaganda to create the same thing they always create- a pile of lying, disingenuous shit wrapped in a pretty foil wrapper to make it look like candy. And the only ones dumb enough to believe this crap are those who never pull the wrapper off.

#52- the NSF passed out $126,242 to "several researchers" to study the websites of political candidates. One of the goals therein was "to see whether candidates live up to their campaign promises."
Martin savings- here's a big clue, Mr. Researcher. If you're getting money for this, they're not keeping their campaign promises.

#50- Our good friends at USAID are sending $1.35 million to Barbados to set up an "entrepeneur initiative". Just so I don't seem holier-than-thou, I must mention that the whole thing is being partnered by Indiana University's Kelley School of Business. The reasoning behind sending money to Barbados to help them be a more efficient, high tech, user friendly tourist trap? From a USAID rep: "(It will) address the challenge of creating new business opportunities in Barbados and its neighboring countries, especially for Carribean young people."
Martin savings: Number of unemployed in the USA as of November 2011- 13.1 million. Number of people in Barbados, total: 273,331. Do the math. Frankly after what happened in Columbus yesterday, they might get more bang for the buck if they gave IU's share to the athletic Dept.

#49- Let's just let this one speak for itself.

Numerous reports indicate the Department of Energy‘s Weatherization Assistance program is

riddled with waste and abuse. After issuing a Management Alert about such problems in 2009,

the U.S. Department of Energy Inspector General (DOE IG) found the weatherization program
suffered from poor workmanship, inflated material costs, and inadequate inspections in 2010.

The investigation focused on Illinois‘ weatherization

program, which received $242 million from the U.S. Department of Energy. The report found substandard home assessments,weatherization workmanship, and contractor billing, which ―put the entire program at risk.

In another example, New Jersey was forced to end a $4 million federally-funded weatherization

job training program after a lack of job demand left trainees without prospects

-only seven of the 184 aspiring workers that received training found work in the field.

The program received $230 million in FY 2011 through regular appropriations. The program

also received an additional $8.1 billion from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act

(ARRA) {AKA the stimulus bill}, nearly eight times the normal amount of annual funding for weatherization purposes
across all federal programs.

The DOE IG has described ARRA funding for green energy as so at odds with the realities on the ground that it was akin to attaching a lawn mower to a fire hydrant.

Illionois corrupt? Programs in New Jersey incompetant? Say it ain't so! The federal government paying inflated prices? Green initiatives being "pie in the sky"? Cahmahn! All right, maybe. Here's a bit from the report on the Community and Economic Development Ass'n of Cook County Illinois:

The IG report paints a grim picture of CEDA's efforts. Of the 15 homes IG inspectors visited, 12 failed final inspection because of substandard workmanship. In 10 of the homes, contractors had billed for labor or materials they did not provide. CEDA, meanwhile, did a poor job on inspections, earning a 62 percent final inspection error rate on homes that state officials had reinspected, according to the report.

IG inspectors also found that CEDA approved materials with inflated costs from contractors, with prices for smoke alarms, fire extinguishers and thermostats marked up as much as 200 percent above retail. Compact fluorescent bulbs were almost triple the price; one lamp listed in CEDA's catalogue was $3.50, compared to an average retail price of $1.33.

Here's some more bon mots about the efficacy of "throwing money at a problem":

Inspector General Gregory Friedman, testifying before a subcommittee of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, outlined a range of problems, from a flood of $35 billion in stimulus money that overwhelmed the department's $27 billion annual budget to weatherization programs of such shoddy quality that more than half of those audited failed inspection because of substandard workmanship.
Even as the Energy Department hired new workers to manage the sudden inflow of funds, Friedman said, the state and local governments responsible for spending the money were laying off workers and were "simply put, overwhelmed".

And just so IU doesn't get all the Indiana bashing this time, here's #46. Once again, our porker is the NSF (Which I wonder if it stands for "National Science Foundation" or "Never Sufficient Funds"), who gave Notre Dame $764,825 to study the "wireless and social networking habits of college freshmen." 250 students will each be given a specially rigged Sprint Smart phones (not surprising, as Sprint CEO David Hesse, a leading organizer of the study, is a Notre Dame alumn) that will track their location (to see how far apart they have to be before they text instead of talk?), digital communications, and purchases. Plus, two years of free service from Sprint!

Martin savings, part one: Get this: "More than 98.8 percent of college students own a cell phone, according to a 2010 study from Ball State University. The study also found that 97 percent of students use text messaging as their main form of communication." Could they have not saved $ buy just funding Ball State to do additional study on their established frame work? (But then Sprint wouldn't have gotten such a sweetheart prospecting deal, Chris!)

Martin Savings, part 2: The most expensive Sprint plan I found was $99/mo. Over 2 years for 250 students comes out to $594,000. That MIGHT mean that the tracking gizmo is $683 PER PHONE- which is abot 2 1/4 times the highest price I found for a smartphone. I say just have them turn in the phone after the 2 years, dissect the memory, and save $170,000.

Sunday message +

2012-01-15T10:13:00.000-05:00

Last night as we prepared to watch New England’s 45-10 dismantling of Denver, there was an ad that came on featuring a group of children reciting John 3:16. Some read a verse, some interjected things like, “that’s a lot of people”. I’m not here to pontificate about the ad, but about mine and KC’s reactions to it- and how we were both off base a bit.

KC, being in a cynical time in his life, immediately said, “It’s just a shame that they have to have kids come on and say what grown men are ashamed to.” Which is true, but it really didn’t apply here, and I admonished him with, “I don’t think it’s about grown men being ashamed, but about kids being cuter.” KC’s right, in a way, though; but the shame might lean more toward the fact that we need something “cute” to draw our attention to the message.

Where I jumped the track was in attitude; as I watched, I was all about wondering who sponsored the ad (Focus on the Family, as it turned out). I’m thinking, who’s going to catch the wrath of all the “civil libertarians” out there this time? The UMC? The Catholic Church? Perhaps the Mormons, as that is a) Tim Tebow’s church, b) the Bible verse the world is currently attaching to Tebow, and c) it is his team getting pummeled at the moment. And of course, the answer here is, what of it? Mormons are in the spotlight lately what with Mitt Romney’s campaign, Tebow’s successes (or lack thereof), and the recent “I am a Mormon” ad campaign. And it would seem the “proper” evangelical take on this “should be” “Pay no attention to them, they are a cult”. That is what we’ve been taught, but I’ve been thinking about that. I don’t know what goes on either inside their church or in their hearts; I don’t know if they consider Joseph Smith a prophet or a nutball that just happened to start their church (from what I’ve HEARD, I lean toward the second). But I do know that their ad campaign features the redeeming effect of the love of Christ in their lives, and then I look at Mark 9:38-40:

Mar 9:38 And John answered him, saying, Master, we saw one casting out demons in Your name, and he does not follow us. And we forbade him, because he does not follow us.
Mar 9:39 But Jesus said, Do not forbid him. For there is no one who shall do a work of power in My name who can lightly speak evil of Me.
Mar 9:40 For he who is not against us is for us.

And yet, all of that was off the point that God made to me this morning. The point was the children themselves. Now, it’s easy for us to think, “Will they still believe this when they are older?” And with the hordes of FFR chomping at the bit to “evangelize” such kids for atheism (which “isn’t a religion”, I am told), It’s easy to be discouraged on the subject.

But then, it hit me, as I prayed that God would keep each one of them in this faith they show now. It hit me that I can PRAY for them, and be confident that my Loving God will do His will in their lives.

And conversely, FFR can spread their hate far and wide, but… they have nobody to PRAY TO to prevent the saving of these children’s souls.

Which brings us back to KC’s cynicism, and my own pessimism about this world. It’s so hard to watch every day the evil that people run after, the bad choices made, and those who actively (whether they realize it or not) work to see Satan’s will done on earth. But we forget the HUGE ADVANTAGE we have in that WE CAN PRAY! And those prayers put the Creator of the universe on our side.

Now I don’t have to harass FFR to know what their response to that is- “Go ahead and talk to your imaginary friend and see what good it does.” They have a limited conception that would only accept a God who performs like a genie in a bottle. Say a prayer, and “Poof” comes the answer. Sorry, Jafar, it don’t work that way. God’s goal is not one of this earth, and often can’t be seen on this earth.

So this morning, I praise my “Imaginary Friend” because He is the Big Advantage- and all that I need to get through. And thank you for those children. It is not surprising to me that the verses immediately BEFORE the ones I quoted go like this:

Mar 9:36 And He took a child, and embraced it, and set him in their midst. And He said to them,
Mar 9:37 Whoever receives one of such children on My name receives Me. And whoever receives Me does not only receives Me, but Him who sent Me.

-----------------------------------------------------

And now on to the “+”. Lokomotiv played Mechel Chelyabinsk yesterday morning. Mechel blew out to a 3-1 lead by 11:55 into the game on goals by Dmitry Tsybin (4:28), Nikita Panasenko (7:57), and Sergei Topol (11:55). Rafael Akhmetov got his 4th to tie things at 1-1 for about 2 minutes before the deluge hit. But we weren’t rolling over just yet; Kirill Kapustin got his 3rd at 17:08 to cut it to a 3-2 game after 1 period. Youngster Nikita Lozhkin got pulled after Panasenko’s goal- having given up 2 scores on 5 shots- and Pavel Shegala came in.
But the real star was Mechel goalie Vladislav Fokin. Despite a 14-6 barrage against him in the second, the score did not change. Dmitry Kostromitin gave Mechel back a 2-score advantage just 23 seconds into the third, on one of their 6 shots they got in the period. Again Lokomotiv terrorized Fokin, out shooting Mechel 17-6 ( and thus 31-12 over the last two periods), but could not beat him again until Emil Galimov tallied his 4th with 3:11 left. But even with Shegala on the bench the rest of the way for the sixth attacker, Fokin would not be moved, and Lokomotiv had lost its third straight game. Mechel, perhaps, won a pyrrhic victory, with 4 players going down with injuries- two with fractures- in the course of the game. For our part, coach Petr Vorobiev said that while they team played well, “The goalies played poorly, and this is the result.”

Monday, the boys will face off against Yuzhny Ural (South Urals) out of Orsk, a city located where the line between Europe and Asia reaches the Kazakh border. The ticket office opened for this game Saturday morning and sold out all 4,500 tickets in 3 hours! If nothing else, Lokomotiv really brings out the crowds across the league to see them. For example, 2,500 turned out for Saturday’s game in Chelyabinsk; the Game Mechel had Thursday against Yuzhny drew 750. ( the caveat being that Orsk draws well normally, and the night after Mechel drew 750 the big team-KHL leading Traktor- drew ten times that to watch their team get beat 2-1 in a shootout by… wait for it… Avtomobilst!)

the great seventies countdown week 7

2012-01-14T09:18:00.000-05:00

"Those of you that travel here by time machine, " the host announces, "I have talked to Randy Price from Cashbox Time Machine Repair. He tells me that the problem this week was server related and should be solved in time for next week's trip. But for today, as we are gathered here, the show must go on."

210- Love Me, Yvonne Elliman, 1976, #14. My #1 girl. You should hear Robin Gibb on the Bee Gees version, too.

209-I'd Love You To Want Me, Lobo, 1972, #2. Anyone out there that doesn't go silent to hear the "ooo-ooo-oooh" in the chorus?

208- Lucky Man, Emerson, Lake, and Palmer, 1971 (#48) and 1973(#51). A classic AOR fairytale song, it was thrown in to fill out the debut lp by Greg Lake, who'd written it a decade before when he was 12.

207- Goodbye Stranger, Supertramp, 1979, #15. The third single off the huge lp Breakfast In America. Loved the chorus, put up with the verses.

206- Your Move/I've Seen All Good People, Yes, 1971, #40. As you can see, progressive rock got less than deserved attention on the pop charts. That's why I liked it. "Don't surround yourself with yourself/ Move on back to squares..."

205- It's Too Late, Carole King, 1971, #1. Half of a 2-sided #1 with I Feel The Earth Move. My other #1 girl. From the great all-time album Tapestry.

204- Ripples, Genesis, 1976, non-charting. From (to me) the best of all Genesis lps, A Trick Of The Tail. Listen to the lyrics and see if it doesn't capture you.

203- Oh What A Night (December 1963), the Four Seasons, 1975, #1. C'mon, those of you that followed the sixties countdown KNEW you wouldn't get away without the Four Seasons! Hard to believe that this song's original composition was about prohibition ("December 5th in 1933").

202- Cowgirl In The Sand, Neil Young, 1970, unreleased. The great album Everyone Knows This Is Nowhere had the one single (Cinnamon Girl) which was far surpassed by the two long tracks- this one at 10:06 and Down By The River at 9:13. "Old enough now to change your name/when so many love you, is it the same?/it's the woman in you that makes you want to play this game..."

201- Drift Away, Dobie Gray, 1973, #5. This song's what it's all about for me in music. "Beginning to think that I'm wasting time/ I don't understand the things I do/ the world outside seems so unkind/ and I'm counting on you to carry me through..."

200- Love Hurts, Nazareth, 1976, #8. I knew Roy Orbison hit with this first. What I didn't know is he got it from an Everly Brothers lp.

199- Dreadlock Holiday, 10cc, 1978, #44. When they weren't overtly trying to be pop, few bands were as fun as 10cc.

198- Ships, Barry Manilow, 1979, #9. This has become my favorite "post-big 4" song from Barry, the Sinatra of my generation.

197- Ruby Red Dress (Leave Me Alone), Helen Reddy, 1973, #3. Another of Helen's crazy women.

196- Love Is Thicker Than Water, Andy Gibb, 1977, #1. Yes, I have this higher than Shadow Dancing. It was too much different than everything else to not get my attention.

195- Good Timin', Beach Boys, 1979, #40. Paraphrase the comment for #203.

194- Kentucky Rain, Elvis Presley, 1970, #16. Almost the best of "Fat Elvis" (See last week to figure out this isn't an insult to the King).

193- Feelin' Stronger Every Day, Chicago, 1973, #10. Chicago with horns ALWAYS beats Chicago without horns. Too bad Peter Cetera couldn't get that through his fat head.

192- Sour Suite, the Guess Who, 1971, #50. Hey, it was #12 in Canada. Still wonder what they had against Indianapolis.

191- Tangled Up In Blue, Bob Dylan, 1975, #31. As Darius Rucker says, "Ain't Bobby so cool...?"

"That is our show for this week, " the Host says as the lights go up. "Here's a little soft something to listen to on your way home. Good night, everybody!"

Hey. where’s my Time machine??

2012-01-13T11:09:00.003-05:00

Good question. Answer is, the Cashbox US site is down- IE says it “can’t find it”- so for the first time in almost 90 weeks, no time machine. I’m looking into some options if it doesn’t recover, but let’s just look at it as a Friday the 13th thing. I thought perhaps it could be a convolutions of Friday the 13ths, but in 1977 it would have been a Thursday.

One of the considerations I’m looking into is the CKLW charts off my former favorite Detroit radio station. The chart for this week had 4 tunes that we haven’t yet experienced. One of those I mentioned as a debut a few weeks back, Hall and Oates’ Do What You Want, Be Who You Are. Billboard had this song peaking at #39 here, but on CKLW it was spending a third week all the way up at 11. Then comes a song that was in its second week at 16, the Dramatics (best known for Whatcha See Is What Ya Get) with Be My Girl, a song Billboard peaked at 53, but went to #3 R&B. Ironically, the Dramatics would cover Do What You Want in 1979. Then comes a Canadian band called Conspiracy with a disco number called Night Chaser at 25. Finally, Fly By Night, an AOR track that was actually the title cut of the 1975 lp by Rush, sat at 29. Why it waited that long to make their chart, I have no idear.

Their top ten this week 35 years ago had Bob Seger’s Night Moves slipping to #10 after peaking at 9 last week; Hot Line by the Sylvers climbing into the ten at #9, up 4; Burton Cummings was down 2 with Stand Tall, a song that peaked at #4 two weeks before; ELO was also down 2 with Living Thing, after stopping at #5 for a couple weeks; Dazz had peaked at 4 as well for Brick, and slipped 2 to #6; Stevie Wonder was at #5, up 3, with I Wish; the Jacksons had shot from 10 to 4 with Enjoy Yourself; and the top three held their spots- You Make Me Feel Like Dancing at 3, Tonight’s The Night at 2, and Rose Royce’s Car Wash at #1.

I could get on Cashbox Canada’s site, and sent them a message about the problem. Have not heard back as yet. Thus, as the Dramatics said, whatcha see is whatcha get. Hopefully once they get over their bout of Triskaidekaphobia we’ll be right back here next week. In the meantime, enjoy the balmy weather- and no Alisha, it’s too cold to go out and make a snowman!

More wastebook, and some other stuff

2012-01-12T12:07:00.000-05:00

First off, my post yesterday with my “50 questions to ask on your last day” Got 2 groupings of responses. First there are those that want to raid it for their blogs. To which I say, go right ahead! The whole idea was to take a somewhat unbelievable situation and make something constructive with it. I intend to apply some of my answers to my thought processes this year, and if it helps someone else too, the more the better! The second group reacted with the “don’t go and leave us “ sort of thing, which is sweet and I appreciate that. Rest assured I have no intent to jump in front of a truck, eat improperly cooked fugu, or even end up at the strip bar I speculated on. I am not a fan of self-inflicted pain of any form (other than Thanksgiving overstuffing), and that includes earring piercing, tattoos, and self medicating by needle. One comment said, “This is not funny.” Well, that post was not meant to be. It was meant to be INTROSPECTIVE, which is a good thing. But if it wasn’t somewhat funny, I’d have to take it serious and then start pulling my hair out as of 11 hours ago worrying about it. And if I turn into a pumpkin at midnight, well, you’ll be sorry you didn’t laugh along while you could. There are a million things in life to take serious, and my imminent death as predicted by a webpage that wants to sell you health supplements to prevent said demise is NOT one of them.

Next, Tuesday night, my Lokomotiv boys took their first regular-time loss. They were at Rubin (the Ruby) of Tyumen, a team that one their league’s championship last season and was 26-4-6 going into this one. Alexander Gorhkov put the home team up at the 4 minute mark of the game. But Loko rallied for 2 goals in a 47-second span later on in the period- Rafael Akhmetov getting his 3rd at 16:11 and Vladislav Kartayev his first (with an assist from last game’s star Emil Galimov) at 16:58. That, however, was all the boys managed. Maxim Korobov tied it at 8:28 of the second, and a goal just 36 seconds into the third by Remir Khaidarov gave Tyumen the lead for good. Alexander Neznamov scored halfway through the period top make a 4-2 final. This morning our time, they had their next match against Zauralie (the Urals) of Kurgan. Again, the hosts struck first, with Ashat (now there’s a name) Rakhmatulin scoring at 8:08 of the first. But it was Kartayev again tying it, shorthanded, with an assist from Oleg Yashin at 16:34. Somehow, though, there must be bad mojo for us scoring in the sixteenth minute of the first, because that was once again all she wrote. Igor Kutugin tallied at the halfway mark of the game and Anton Khovrin beat Pavel Shegala on a power play at 17:33 of the third for a second loss, this one 3-1. Saturday, they play at Mechel Cheyabinsk, Traktor’s farm team.

Now, onto wastebook, where you can find lots of government waste, but I find the humour.
64- The Dept of Homeland Security bought Snow-cone machines for thirteen Michigan counties last year, at a cost of $480 per. Why? According to a December 7th e-mail to the state of Michigan, to “assist with the treating of heat exhaustion and other illnesses at large events (including terrorist incidents or similar emergencies.)” Of course, a snow-cone is the first thing I’d want after a terrorist attack.
Martin savings: Actually , if you discount the stupidity, the DHS didn’t do too bad on the machines. The deluxe machine can be had for $475 per, and the standard is $420 plus thirty bucks for the non-standard but required drip pan (WTF?). The standard thus would have cut the cost from $6,279 to $5,836.

63- The National Institute of Health (who has about as good a grip on the term “national” as it does “health”, apparently) gave a $170, 000/3 year grant to a researcher at VCU to study “ associations between sociodemographic variables and water pipe tobacco smoking”- translated “opinions about hookah smoking”- among university students in JORDAN. Perhaps it is important for SOMEONE to know that 62.5 % of students think hookahs are more unhealthy than cigarettes, but unless you can show me when Jordan became the 51st state, I’d have to declare the entire thing a pissing in the ocean.

53- Salt Lake City’s parks dept. got a $150,000 federal grant to fix up the carriage house on the grounds of their recent purchase of the old Albert Fisher mansion. Part of the Jordan River Parkway Trail system, the grant involves shoring up the building “seismically” (because there are just SO MANY earthquakes in Utah) and refurbishing the exterior to make it watertight and pest proof. And then what will they do with it? Damn good question, as the parks dept. still hasn’t figured out what to do with the MANSION, let alone the carriage house, despite having owned it since 2007 and having solicited ideas from the community!! Those of you bitching about King Tom Henry wanting to buy the south river property, I think SLC has him beat.
Martin savings: Call Allstate. Get earthquake insurance. Wait for the quake. Enjoy the profits.

Oh, and speaking of the “Good Hands People”, look what they’re doing now:

FAYETTEVILLE (MCT) — The Fayetteville woman said she had insured her home through Allstate for 27 years and had never filed a claim.

So she was startled when the insurer contacted her several weeks ago to say it wouldn't be renewing her policy.
The reason? She didn't have car insurance through Allstate as well.
She's among nearly 46,000 North Carolinians whose home insurance policies with Allstate are being canceled because they don't also have auto insurance through the company. Allstate, which held the fourth largest share of the state's homeowners insurance market in 2010, isn't alone. N.C. Farm Bureau Mutual Insurance Co., which had the third largest share of the homeowners insurance market in 2010, planned to make a similar move with about 28,000 policyholders starting Jan. 1.
Allstate spokesman Tracy Owens said the company made the move in order to remain financially strong.
"Basically, we have to meet the needs of 400,000 households across North Carolina," he said.
The company decided early in 2011 that it would drop homeowner policies which weren't bundled with an auto insurance policy, starting with policies that renewed on or after June 19. Affected policy holders were notified by letter two months ahead of time and were given an option of transferring their business to Universal North America.

Good hands my ass! Dennis Haysbert, your trustworthiness takes a big hit here, dude.

24 hours, give or take

2012-01-11T16:20:00.000-05:00

Well, If you were here for the New Years Eve post, you’ll remember that I consulted deathclock.com to find that my expected due date in heaven is tomorrow. Of course, I don’t quite buy that- not that I’m not ready- but it is nice that we have tomorrow off (due to nobody ordering patio cushions in winter, go figure) so if it does happen, I don’t have to drop dead in the hallowed halls of Arden Companies, Kendallville. In honor of such a suspicious occasion, I thought to myself, what do you ask someone who dies tomorrow? And so, in order of thinking them up (with some help from Laurie), here are the fifty questions to ask oneself before dying, with my answers.

1- Where on earth would you like to be spending this last 24 hours? On a bright, sunny beach, watching the waves.

2- What did you want to be when you were a child? Though those who knew me back then would say Superman or some other hero, the truth is I wanted to be a Zoologist. Or an Astronomer.

3- What do you wish you were now? An archaeologist. Or an astronomer.

4- If you had the choice, where would you be living? Right here. Just bigger. And rent free. And the walk that takes us down to the boat ramp on the river takes us down to the boat ramp on the ocean.

5- What is the favorite place you ever lived? My childhood home, as things were when I was little. At the age of 5, 3/4 of an acre couldn’t have been more amazing.

6- What is the worst place you ever lived? Ankenbrook mobile home park. One chair. One mattress. Broke two keys off in the doorlock when frozen. And cockroaches.

7- Who is the one person you’d like to see before you die? My former pastor, Fred Woodward. To apologize.

8- How do you stand with your loved ones? I guess I’ll have to haunt the wake to find out. I hope okay.

9- How do you stand with your family? In all honesty, probably mixed at best. It’s hard to go from when we saw each other all the time- when mom was alive- to where “we only read you when you write” (Barry Manilow, Ships), and really know the answer to that one.

10- Worst moment, child: When I was 6, I’m guessing, I wanted a bowl of cheerios and my mom was busy. Reaching into my arsenal of idiotic things to say, I called her “an old hag”. Instead of the whupping I deserved, I got my cereal. It never tasted better, and I couldn’t eat a bite. I came back and apologized. Mom said, “You’d better, if you want your comic books tomorrow.” In truth, I hadn’t thought about the next day being Wednesday. In truth, I came THIS close to telling her I didn’t want any. But I was 6.

11- Worst moment, adult: A tie between the day we decided on a divorce, and 6 year old KC started crying, shouting, “Who’s gonna take care of us??” and the night we had to put Fred to sleep. Cannot say I’ve ever forgiven myself for either one.

12- Best moment, child: Now that’s a tough one. Probably my first trip to Florida with my brother’s family. The ocean, the red clay in Georgia. The ratty motel in Lakeland with the frisbee sized moth hiding in the shower. Southern accents, Southern Nights, listening to the Komets kick Dayton’s butt in the playoffs from Cartersville, GA.

13- Best moment, adult: Going to see the Reds on my birthday thanks to my son. The best day ever, except for Ashley barfing her way across northern Cincinatti .

14- What would you change about yourself physically? Everything bigger, except for the belly.

15- What one thing that to haven’t done- but could (or could have) physically do- would you do? Geez, this question didn’t seem that hard when I came up with it! I’ll have to come back to this one.

16- How about the one that you cannot physically do that you’d like to? That’s easy. I wish I’d have had the hand-mind coordination to play a musical instrument. Any one.

17- What do you wish you’d have done a better job at? Being a father, especially to my daughter.

18- You’re all prepared to die- all the T’s are crossed and the I’s are dotted, you’re at peace with your maker and your fate. Suddenly, you get a second chance, say a ten-year extension. Do you accept it? Nope, I’m good.

19- What would you change emotionally about yourself? Welcome to extreme makeover, psyche edition! I suppose, to be pinned down to one thing, it all flows from the concept of self-worth.

20-What would have changed the most for you if you’d been rich? I’d like to think that God had the same plan in mind for me whatever. Therefore. the answer is, “would have given more to others.” If not, the standard answer is, “would’ve done better drugs.”

Are you ready to answer #15 yet? Umm, not quite.

21- If someone gave you $1 million today, with one day left to live, what would you do with it? Split it up between Laurie, KC, Shenan, our two sponsored kids Oscar and Denilson, and maybe save me a couple hundred to go to Showgirls one more time. Or not.

22- What one person gone from your life do you miss the most? Mom, of course.

23- What one person will you miss the least? Another good one! How about the person at Domar.ru who keeps sending my blog spam comments in Cyrillic?

24- What is your biggest regret? Here’s the biggie. (sighs) Not doing my marriage right, from beginning to end.

25- What is your biggest accomplishment? If I did anyone any good by God’s grace when I was a Sunday School teacher, that would be it.

26- If you come back as a ghost, who would you haunt? My atheist acquaintance Joshua. So I could go all Luke 16:31 on him.

27- If you were to spend your last day in a bar, who would you do it with? My dad. We never did get around to that.

28- Same question, deserted island. Laurie. The one person I’d be guaranteed not to swim away from.

29- Same question, in bed. WTF? Who came up with these questions? IDK, how about Sandra from Property Virgins.

How about #15? Shoot, #29 might not be a bad answer here, either…

30 and 31- What one thing would you like to tell your kids before you go? For KC, I think I already covered that a few nights back- “If one of us makes it through, we all have a chance.” For Shenan, “Take life seriously. Take yourself seriously. Take your future seriously.”

32- If you could change one thing about your city, what would it be? To get the powers that be to take the prevention of crime in the ghettohoods seriously. And prevention there meaning prevention of its spreading elsewhere.

33- Same question, state. To get Indianapolis to stop being so stuck on itself. Maybe then, Fort Wayne would stop being so stuck on Indianapolis. And I’d pass a law that any lawmaker that is absent from his post because he wants to block passage of laws he doesn’t like be put in jail until he’s ready to do his job. And I’d send the Colts back to Baltimore.

34- Same question, nation. I’d get us back to a point where every political opinion wasn’t life-or-death polarizing. If the party with the most vote wants it, try it. If it’s wrong, they’ll not be the party with the most votes next time.

35- Same question, world. Instead of those who say, our way or die, killing people, how about they all drop dead?

36- If you were to spend that last day in Washington, DC, who would it be with? My first reaction is with someone who desperately needs my foot in his butt ( Obama, Pelosi, Reid). Second is to spend it with someone like-minded to bounce ideas with (perhaps Ryan, Boehner, or Stutzman). In the end, though, I’ll go with Pelosi, since she has the biggest bar tab.

37- Where do you want to go for your last meal? A buffet put on by Red Lobster and Casa Grille.

38- The one place you wish you’d seen before you die? Hisarlik. Or Gettysburg.

39- If you could go see one of your sports teams play one more game, which one? The A’s in baseball. Preferably the 1972-4 team. This year’s team is going to blow chunks.

40- If you could watch one last concert live, who would it be? There are a million acts I’d love to see that I never had, but if I have just one shot, I don’t want to waste it on someone who might suck live. BTO never let me down, I’ll go with them.

41- Laurie came up with this one (as well as many others)- If you had to come back as either a different ethnicity or in a different country, what would you pick? I’ll let the Chris of childhood answer this- “I wanna be a Cherokee!”

42- If you were to be reincarnated as an animal or plant, what would you pick? Something that doesn’t like to eat poop like Scrappy.

43- What do you want for a funeral service? A wake like dad had- everyone comes over, eats, drinks, plays cards, be merry. And somebody had DAMN well better play Share The Land by the Guess Who! It’s the only time I’ll allow tears.

44- What blessing would you like to confer on someone? On Shenan, to grow up and be a happy, productive, and fulfilled adult.

45- What curse would you like to levy on someone? No curses. This world will be messed up enough without me.

46- What habit or mannerism would you like to have changed about you? My inability to look someone in the eye, and remember their name the first time.

47- Who do you want to share that last moment with? If I only get one, Scrappy.

48- Which blog friend (which you haven’t met) would you most like to meet? Average Girl Tracy. All other things being equal, you can’t beat a woman who laughs at farts.

49- If you could spend that day with one figure no longer living, who would it be? Mom. It would have been nice to have gotten to know her.

50- What one living person would you have liked to have known better? I’d like to get to know my daughter Shenan as she will be as an adult.

Hockey update

2012-01-08T16:22:00.000-05:00

Much to your delight, I got bored during the Giants game and decided to see how the Eurohockey world is doing. I'll start in the KHL (Russia) where the West Conference shows SKA St. Petersburg running away. They are now 23-5-9, and at 82 pts have an 11-pt lead on Dinamo Minsk. Traktor Chelyabinsk holds the lead in the East with a 21-8-7 record and 5 pt lead over Metallurg Magnitogorsk.

Moving west, I'll go to 2 new leagues I found access to. The Belorussian Extraleague is led by Metallurg Zhlobin with a 29-4-3 record and 91 pts, 5 better than HK Homiel. At this point I will remind you that for simplicity's sake I put everything OT, whether win, loss, or draw, into the third column. Also, since I'm bloviating, I found two lists on the relative strength of these leagues. One is from the NHL Central Scouting, and is based on talent; the other, based on average payroll and looking at if a player could actually make a living just playing hockey. It ranks the top 7 and gives the rest "also can make a living" status. With the NHL obviously at the top of both, and ignoring minor and junior leagues, I can let you know that Belarus was on neither list, while the KHL was second on payroll and 3rd on talent.

The other new league is the Polish Hockey League, currently led by KH Sanok, 21-6-1, at 65 points leading Krakow by 10. Then would come Finland's S-M Liiga ( 4 by talent, 5 by payroll), where we find Kal Pa rolling to a 24-7-6 record and 11 point lead over Lahti.

Austria's EBHL, 9th on the talent list, is being led by Linz right now; a 25-9-8 record for 54 points, leading surprising Medvescak Zagreb by 10. Just to the north is Slovakia's Extraliga (8th on talent, also making enough on payroll), where Kosice (24-12-2) and Slovan Bratislava (24-11-3) are tied at 76 pts and the top 4 are all within 6.

The Czech Extraliga, 5 on talent and 3 on payroll, also has a fairly close-knit group at the top with Sparta Praha (19-6-12) a 3 point leader on Plzen. That brings us to Sweden's Elitserien (#2 talent, #4 payroll), where Skelleftea is the leader du jour at 17-10-9 and 63 points, with the top 5 all within 6. A different story in Denmark's AL-Bank Ligaen, with SonderjyskE fleeing the rest of the league at 23-4-3, 73 points, and a 20-point lead over Odensee, with defending champ Herning back in 4th.

The German DEL (7th on both lists), shows Eisbaren Berlin at 18-8-7, 67 points, one point up on Adler Mannheim. My Grizzly Adams Wolfsburg team is 5th, 10 back. Heading south, the National League A of Switzerland (6th on both) has 5 teams within 6 points of the top, with EV Zug (18-6-13) leading Freibourg by one. In Italy's Serie A (10th on talent, also making it on payroll), Val Pusteria continues to lead the league at 19-7-6, 66 points, 5 over Bolzano.

Norway's GET Ligaen (an also making it league) has Stavenger as usual on top, at 25-4-2, 79 points, a 16-pt lead on Valerenga. France's Ligue Magnus (another also making it league, though I don't see how with their short schedule) has perennial power Rouen on top at 12-1-2, 27 points, 3 more than Briancon. And England's EIHL is lead by the Giants of Belfast, at 26-4-3 and 55 points, 5 better than Nottingham.

Not to be forgotten is the Asia League, which also got "making it" mention. Anyang Halla, the Yankees of the Far East, are 15-5-8, 57 points, leading the Oji Eagles by 6.

And mentioning the Asia League reminds me of everyone's favorite whipping boys, the China Dragon. So, once again, let's visit the Worst Teams In The World list.

9 teams met my requirements for badness, and I've ranked them by their average margin of defeat.
#9- Nitra of Slovakia: 6-25-7, av. loss by 1.4.
#8-Avtomobilst Yekaterinburg (KHL): 5-24-7, av. loss by 1.6.
#7- Vitebsk of Belarus: 6-23-7, 2.3.
#6-Manglerud of Norway: 5-23-3, 2.5.
#5- Fife Flyers of the UK: 4-22-4, 2.9.
#4-MMKS Podhale of Poland: 2-20-6, 3.1.
#3- Torun of Poland: 5-20-3, 3.3.
#2- Frisk Asker of Norway: 3-25-3, 4.4.
#1- China Dragon, Asia League: 0-23-1, 5.4.

All of which reminded me of a few years back when I was making fun of the nasceany Israeli league, especially the woebegone Bat-Yam team. Well, this year, it took them till after Thanksgiving to even start their league, and their website has not updated past those first games. One of those teams got clubbed 20-0, but one game is not a league so enjoy your title, China Dragons!

The great seventies countdown week 6

2012-01-07T10:31:00.000-05:00

"Last week, " the host says, " You got a bonus song- and early new year's gift- or late for Christmas, I suppose. Therefore, only 19 this week. NO EXCEPTIONS!"

229- Do Do Do Do Do (Heartbreaker), the Rolling Stones, 1973, #15. My favorite guitar break on any Stones' tune.

228- Philadelphia Freedom, Elton John, 1975, #1. One of three for EJ on my countdown. A lot of his songs were like a lot of Stevie Wonder's- pleasant enough to listen to, but didn't really stick emotionally.

227- Venus, Shocking Blue, 1970, #1. Mariska Veres was kinda cute, but "Mama Cassed" as the years rolled on. The second #1 of the decade.

226- Aqualung, Jethro Tull, 1971, unreleased. Jethro Tull was one of the most unique bands to hit the decade, and this was the ultimate Tull song.

225- I'll Be Around, Spinners, 1972, #3. Their first release away from Motown, it was at first the b-side of How Could I Let You Get Away. Not sure who made THAT call.

224- Sundown, Gordon Lightfoot, 1974, #1. A flip of the coin away from being the first 45 I ever bought new. Lost out to Who Do You Think You Are by Bo Donaldson and the Heywoods. Choosing the obscure even then.

223- When Will I See You Again, the Three Degrees, #2, 1974. "Sheila Ferguson recalled that "the song was played to me by Kenny Gamble at the piano in 1973 and I threw a tantrum. I screamed and yelled and said I would never sing it. I thought it was ridiculously insulting to be given such a simple song and that it took no talent to sing it. We did do it and several million copies later, I realized that he knew more than me." I guess A&R men aren't the only ones who mess up.

222- Take Me Home Country Roads, John Denver, #2, 1971. John is one of those who has grown stronger with me as the years go by. Wistful recollections and nostalgia go hand in hand.

221- #9 Dream, John Lennon, #9 (ironically enough), 1974. Not a big Lennon fan, but I like dreamy songs.

220- Do Ya, Electric Light Orchestra, 1977, #24. A redo of the Move's only US hot 100, this was top ten at Kings Dept. Store that summer.

219- In The Ghetto, Elvis Presley, 1970, #3. I call his late 60s-70s comeback the "Fat Elvis" years, and "Fat Elvis" was the best for me.

218- My Angel Baby, Toby Beau, 1978, #13. A song that got heavy airplay here and short shrift on the charts IMHO. Can you hear this and not start swaying? I can't.

217- Shadow Dancing, Andy Gibb, 1978, #1. Out of that string of #1s for the Gibb brothers that year- 3 by the Bee Gees and 3 by Andy- probably the best. A seven week stay at #1.

216- Doctor My Eyes, Jackson Browne, 1972, #8. "People go just where they will/I never noticed them until I got this feeling/ that it's later that it seems..."

215- Hotel California, Eagles, 1977, #1. This might be the ultimate 70s song. Just as powerful now as it was 35 years ago ( God, was it really that long ago?).

214- Moonlight Feels Right, Starbuck, #3, 1976. I remember hearing this a lot on my first trip to Florida the next spring. "We'll play the radio on southern stations/ 'Cause southern bells I hear tonight..."

213- Peace Of Mind, Boston, #38, 1977. This obviously charted much higher in Fort Wayne, as it had top ten airplay. What a great album!

212- Early In The Morning, Vanity Fare, #12, 1970. Always did love the baroque sound.

211- A Little More Love, Olivia Newton-John, #3, 1978. Two of my favorite hooks- the guitar over the end of the verses, and the chorus line "Would a little more love bring a happy ending?"

The lights go back up, and the host says, "See, I told you- 19 songs and that's it! But now, here's a little bit of Rock'n'roll history to go home with..."

More wastebook fun

2012-01-06T19:57:00.000-05:00

But first, my boys in Yaroslavl got back to it this morning, and despite a bit of flustration had yet another successful outing. Playing last place Titan, We opened with a score by Rafael Akhmetov on a power play just 1:17 into the game. It was Rafael’s 2nd goal as a “Railroadman”, and was followed by Emil Galimov getting his first goal in just his second game. Moments after Timothy Tankeev was penalized for elbowing in the second period, Stanislav Timakov pulled Klin within 2-1. Early in the third period, goalie Pavel Shegala survived 1:49 of a Titan 2-man advantage; Shortly thereafter, Galimov- who had come down from the KHL’s Neftekhimik- got a second score to put Lokomotiv up 3-1. Shegala was not so lucky later on; just 7 seconds after Maxim Opisov got called for a high stick, Titan Dmitry Samarin blasted one from the blue line to cut the lead back to 3-2. But in the game’s closing minutes, Lokomotiv (who outshot Klin 11-3 in the period and 35-17 overall) put on too much pressure for the visitors to get their goalie to the bench for an extra attacker, and Galimov tallied again with 11 seconds left for the first New Loko hat trick and a 4-2 win. The victory puts us at 4 regular time wins and 2 OT losses. Next up is Rubin of Tyumen, a town east yet of Yekaterinburg, the team’s longest journey yet. That’ll be on Tuesday.

Emil Galimov

Club: Lokomotiv
Number: 27
Position: Forward
Height: 187
Weight: 76
Birth Date.: 05/09/1992
Nationality: Russia
Age: 19 years 7 months
Clubs by season: Locomotive

___________________________________
Okay, now to the mayhem courtesy of Sen. Tom Coburn’s Wastebook.

#68- The NEA gave $50 K to an outfit called the Wormfarm Institute in Wisconsin to set up a 50-mile self-guided “art tour” in rural Wisconsin. This “tour” consists of such stops as “land based art installations” and “roadside culture stations” strategically placed along farm roads.

This is an actual "roadside culture station. Ooooh... Ahhhhh....

Wormfarm Exec Direc Donna Neuwirth explains why this is worthwhile- “After all, the word “culture” is embedded in agriculture.” Sheeeyeah.
Martin savings: A good coffee table art book can be had for under $10. If you get 25 mi/gal, this week you can take a 50-mi drive for $7. Multiply $17 by # of people actually interested in such things in rural Wisconsin.

#67- The National Institute on Aging is spending $600 K per yr/5 yrs to study worldwide well-being. Rand Corp. is the beneficiary of this largess, and if they are smart they’ll just run over to the Gallup poll’s website (where you can get the info for free) and copy the numbers. That’s what I’d do. BTW, the USA registers 59% thriving, 38% struggling, and 3% suffering. I kinda gotta wonder about this study’s objectivity when industrialized nations such as Romania and Bulgaria topped the suffering list with at or around 40%, while perpetual hellholes Haiti and Chad are at 27 and 19%, respectively.
Martin savings: Google something first, fathead. 100%.

#66- The National Science Foundation paid $300 K to set up with the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange a night called The Matter Of Origins”. This evening, intended to explore the origin of matter and its physics, started off with the exchange doing a video-backed dance to stimulate interest in the subject, followed by cake and discussion led by “scientists, historians, philosophers, and religious leaders”. How’d this go? Here’s the NY Times review:

“The cake, from a recipe by Edith Warner, the Los Alamos teahouse owner who served the physicists during the Manhattan Project, was rather uninspiring. But the artificially induced conversation (at my table, anyway) was worse, studded with questions like, “So, origins, the origins of the universe — what do you know about that?”
Perhaps I just have a bad attitude about group activities. But if you’re going to force audience participation, you have to give us something worth participating in (though the iPads the dancers held as they walked around our tables, the screens illuminated with gorgeous footage from the Hubble Telescope, were a nifty distraction). “
Martin savings: Lessee, a subscription to the Times, where you can be part of a great conversation – rather than a “worse than uninspiring” one- runs $7.70/wk here in Indiana. Cakes can be had for $5. Or made cheaper. I’d have to say that #s 66-68 were a big $2.2 million waste.

Step into my time machine week 89

2012-01-06T07:22:00.003-05:00

Before we set out, a bit of sad news. Robert Lee Dickey died Dec. 29th at the age of 72. Who is Robert Dickey? Well, he was the first of two Bobby Purifys in the duo of James and Bobby Purify. Actually James’ cousin, he was the singer on the duo’s 1966 hit I’m Your Puppet. Retiring from the biz in 1972, he was replaced by another singer who then also became “Bobby Purify” in much the same way that Allan Dennison became “Tommy Reynolds” on Hamilton, Joe frank, and Reynolds.
Now onto January 6th, 1977, a day so boring that the “big news” was that EMI fired the Sex Pistols a few days after calling TV host Bill Grundy a “dirty bastard” and a “f’ing rotter” on live TV after he (allegedly drunkenly) hit on fellow punker Siouxsie Sioux. A lovely lot, that. Things aren’t much better on Time Machine, as the chart seems to be a bit constipated, so to speak. But we shall soldier on, with a number one song you should already know (if you do the math from last week’s special countdown), which turns into a six degrees which takes us back to our Where Are They Now feature. Also, why not everybody might agree when Chuck Berry sings, “Hail, hail, rock’n’roll”. And a set of verrrrry strange lyrics from over 100 years ago. Let’s give it a go, shall we?

In a sleep deprived stupor (much like current conditions) I neglected to check my dates properly, and thus was a week off on all my birthday songs with the exception of the week’s debuts. Rather than correct such a trivial mistake (just like I didn’t correct Al Stewart’s “23 live albums” down to a more reasonable 3 last week), I’ll just close my eyes and skip that part of the show. Those who are sticklers for such things can cut-and-paste last week’s birthday songs

HERE

and we’ll move on. Speaking of debuts, there were just 5 on the hot 100 this week, and only one of note- The lead single off the best lp of the decade, Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours, comes in at #66 this week- Go Your Own Way. Hard to believe that was 35 years ago.

The big dropper is a good song for an almost but not quite salute- Styx peaked 2 weeks ago with their tune Madamoiselle; this week it tumbles 19 to #96. And I am ever so thrilled to announce that the Henhouse Five Plus Too! has the big mover. The clucking chickens move up 18 to #61 with In The Mood. Moments like this keep me from my usual “music was better back then” rants, so I guess it does have a purpose.

Our WATN segment shows at #50 this week a really neat and almost forgotten song called Living Next Door To Alice, by a band eventually named Smokie. Smokie was an English “glam-rock” outfit (think Sweet) whose one claim to fame over here was Alice. Their careers took off when they were wedged into the schedule of glam composers Mike Chapman and Nicky Chinn ( who would shortly become disco kingpins as the core of Chic). Chinnichap (their term, not mine) changed their name to what it is now (dangling plotline alert!) and bought them a little more fame when they combined lead singer Chris Norman with their starlet Suzi Quatro (yes, Leather Tuscadero from Happy Days) for the hit Stumblin’ In. Eventually, Norman left in 1986 for a solo career which he still works at. His first replacement, Alan Barton, died in 1995 when the tour bus crashed in a hailstorm in Germany. The band goes on, though, and in 2010 (I almost put “last year”) released the lp Take A Minute in Europe, and it hit #2 in Denmark.

Debuts in the top 40 are a bit sparse as well. ABBA moves from 45 to 40 with Dancing Queen; up 6 to #38 is the Donnie and Marie cover of Ain’t Nothing Like The Real Thing; and up 10 spots to roost at #31 (you just know this will have something to do with a bird) is Steve Miller’s Fly Like An Eagle.

This would be the week that I started my personal top ten, and I surely regret not keeping the dozen or so little notebooks I used for that purpose. To give you an idea, though, I believe that list roughly went like this: Starting at #1, Weekend In New England (#26 this week); Lost Without Your Love (21);Livin’ Thing (13); Somebody To Love (11); I Like Dreamin’ (19); Blinded By The Light (16); Love Me ( top ten); Dazz (top ten); Jeans On (15); and New Kid In Town (18).

Perusing the #1s of yesteryear, I came across the name George J. Gaskin. Born in 1863, he became so popular in the close of the 19th century, he was known as “the Silver Voice Irish Tenor” (how’s that for a catchy nickname?) Among the #1s he had this week were Slide Kelly Slide in 1892; The Fatal Wedding in 1894; The Sunshine Of Paradise Alley in 1896; On The Banks Of The Wabash in 1898; and My Old New Hampshire Home in 1899. He was the second act (by one day) to record commercially for Edison- the first being former slave George W. Johnson. I’ve got to note two of these songs. On the song Slide Kelly Slide, about baseball star and vaudeville performer Mike Kelly, the chorus says:

“Slide, Kelly, Slide! Your running’s a disgrace! Slide, Kelly, Slide! – Stay there – hold your base! If someone doesn’t steal yer, And your batting doesn’t fail yer, They’ll take you to Australia! Slide, Kelly, slide!”
The reference to Australia would have been well known at the time, as the continent served as a penal institution for British subjects. So it must have been a big laugh to think that if his batting failed he’d be off to prison. From Marty Appel PR.
The other one I have to share is the lyrics to The Fatal Wedding. Whatever you’re expecting, you’re wrong:

The groom stood there waiting for his bride
The best man shiverin' by his side
On him the smell of stale sheep dip
And a flask of brandy on his hip
He knew he'd trod that last long mile
As his dear walked slowly down the isle
This was the day he was waiting for
When he'd get in for his cut and more
Of her old man's station and his gold
As soon as wedding bells had tolled
The fortune sure had smiled his way
This was indeed his lucky day
But the bride, she died at the alter
The bridegroom died next day
The parson dropped dead in the churchyard
As he was about to pray
The hearse capsized at the crossroads
It couldn't make the turn
And the people stood and cheered like mad
As they watched the old church burn
And then the heavens broke open
And the rain it started to fall
And the whole flamin' town got washed away
And there was no one le-eft at all...

I can’t make this stuff up.

One song enters the top ten, one falls out- Stand Tall drops from 9 to #20.

Yvonne Elliman Moves one notch into the top ten with Love Me. The Sylvers’ Hot LIne also edges up one to #9. Elton John flip-flops with Brick- Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word to 8, and Dazz to 7. Former top dog Tonight’s The Night mumbles its way down 3 to #6. After The Loving moves up a spot to #5; so does Stevie Wonder with I Wish to 4 and Rose Royce with Car Wash to 3. Leo Sayer holds another week at 2 with You Make Me Feel Like Dancing.

And of course, the second week at #1 for Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis with You Don’t Have To Be A Star. This was the final in a long line of #1 gigs for veteran Motown bassist James Jamerson. Jamerson had a hand in most of Motown’s big hits- he was bassist on virtually everything done by the Supremes, the Four Tops, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, Martha and the Vandellas, and early Stevie Wonder. Unfortunately, Motown was not in the habit of crediting sidemen, and he bitterly drank himself to death in 1983 at the age of 47. One that did recognize him in the credits- the first one- was Marvin Gaye on his watermark lp What’s Going On. The title song (which Berry Gordy thought would be a flop), was co-written by Gaye, “Obie” Benson of the Four Tops, and a gent named Al Cleveland, who also wrote I Second That Emotion. Which of course was a big hit for Smokey and the boys; and Smokey it was that forced the band Smokie to become Smokie, because “Chinnichap” wanted to call them Smokey, but Mr. Robinson’s legal team threatened to sue. Still even that beat their previous moniker- the Elizabethans.

And that’s it for this trip, and my poor sore butt rejoices. See ya tomorrow for the seventies countdown. Right? RIGHT???

This is what you get when you don’t pay attention to omens

2012-01-04T20:51:00.002-05:00

A while back, I was perusing one of Bouncing Barb's many stories of her beloved late husband, and in my comment I mentioned that, while I couldn’t top her heartwarming and hilarious tales, I had a pretty good tale to spin about my first “wedding”, and the first anniversary that followed. Sweetheart that she is, she suggested I spin the tale here someday. Lucky you, I’m finally getting around to it.

Just to get everyone on the same page, Michele and I were together for about six-and-a-half years. I don’t know for sure who was going to be driven insane first, but I did hit the breaking point before her. But this story goes back to happier times, before I finally got it through my head that the reason her whole family called her “Bear” was NOT a) because she put out forest fires, or b) she liked honey, or c) she ran around in teddies.

We’d been an item for, I suppose, three our four months. We were at the usual place on Monday night, Lortie’s bar in downtown Zulu, for the shuffleboard tourney. This was an event that not only drew many from our age group, but their parents and grandparents as well. The bar itself, under previous ownership, I had gone with my dad to since I was a toddler. Pat was the epitome of the perfect bartender- fun-loving, boisterous, the ringmaster of any circus. The clientele, one big extended family tied by bonds formed in beer, ‘board, and B.S. And one night, they decided we’d pissed around long enough and should be married. (Though I hadn’t got around to bending the knee yet, I did have the ring on layaway, and she had our son on lay-away as well).

The “Reverend Ken,” father of one of my buddies, took the lead, and asked for the “Good Book” from Pat. Naturally for Pat, he handed him a copy of Bobby Knight’s Biography (At Lortie’s, one of the neat things you could buy and not drink was a ball cap reading, “The Lord is my shepherd, but Bobby Knight’s the COACH”). His wife Sandy volunteered for maid-of-honor, and I really can’t remember which drunken soul ended up being best man. The Rev began to read the vows with his eyes closed from the book, which he held upside down. Suddenly, we figured out the best man had no ring to hand me. A clever groomsman took a rubber band and tied an imaginary diamond into it. Soon afterwards, I kissed the “bride” and we were pelted with the closest analogue to rice at hand- popcorn.

Now, a smart man would’ve stopped right there. Which I of course was not. And so, 10 days after Valentine’s day, with the temperature an unseasonable 75 degrees, we were married in the JOP’s office under much less entertaining but much more legal circumstances. And if this was a fairy tale, we’d all have lived happily ever after. But because we’ve never done ANYTHING without momentous disaster to mark it- for example, KC’s graduation starring a tornado, hurricane winds, and horizontal rain- our first anniversary was nothing like the event it commemorated.

It started a bright, actually-winter like day, and we decided to spend it at Wrigley Field bar and grill. Then as now, the benchmark by which Ft. Wayne Sports bars are measured. We were feeling pretty good when all the sudden one of the TVs showed a winter storm warning that advised everyone “Not to travel if you don’t have to.”
After sharing a WTF look, we decided that smart people would go home now, and we should follow them. Now, we lived out in the country, and the weather was deceptively calm all through town, all through New Haven as well- until we hit Minich Road, the eastern boundary of civilization, as it were. To say we dropped off the face of the earth at this point was not unfair. As soon as we crossed the road, we were in the most total whiteout conditions I’d ever seen. The road was so icy, I had to drive with the right side of the car off the road into the stones of the berm to go anywhere. The crunching of the frozen stones was the only way I knew I was anywhere NEAR the road. Headlights coming towards you were only visible when the other car was at your corner. And, there was no turning back. If we were doing 5 MPH, it would have been a miracle. About half way down this 5 mile excursion into white hell, we could barely make out a huge shadow in front of us. No, we were still on the road- but so was something large and horrible, creeping along in front of us. We speculated on what it was to take our minds off the certain conviction we’d never make it home alive.

(On the bright side, it was a great way to sober up FAST! Doubt the FDA will approve it for OTC, though.)

Eventually we reached the road which we had to turn off the highway and into some lower territory (Don’t ask me how we found it). With the moving monolith still leading the way, we headed down the last mile. The whiteout began to ease, and soon we found out that the looming shadow was one of the old timey Trolley style PTC buses, stopping off at our nearby church to pickup a wedding party. (Which, as I had never considered before tonight, probably gave that couple a wedding story to top mine- not to mention a “moment to remember” for the driver). We could actually see where we were when I pulled in what was left of the driveway, up the sidewalk, and got out to shovel away the 4-foot drift in front of the garage so I could put the car away before it froze solid (Because that’s what we did before global warming).

The importance of real life perspective.

2012-01-03T15:30:00.000-05:00

One of the sites I read a lot is Foreign Policy magazine. They do have informative and interesting articles, but tend to lean a little bit too much to what even they call “the Ivory Tower”: Academics who have a tendency to make flowery pronouncements without benefit of street realities, and then are puzzled as to why both politicians and the proletariat don’t just fall at their feet. A good example is this “special report” I’ve been reading- 13 out of the tinderbox ways to save the economy. It is 13 separate articles which they preface with: “Debt-ridden and hidebound, Europe may be on the verge of a painful breakup. America is still reeling from the 2008 financial crisis. Even China and India -- the new engines of global growth -- seem to be sputtering these days. Worse yet, the usual wonkish prescriptions don’t seem to be working anymore. So we asked 13 of the smartest people we know to give us their one out-of-the-box idea for fixing the global economy. Here’s what they recommend.”
They lead off with business editor Paul Kedrosky’s plan to institute a systematic, measured “Jubilee year” in which worldwide debt at all levels is written off. Thought process being that while debt is necessary to capitalist economies, the amount we have is so unsustainable that something has to be done- a reset button, if you will. I can follow that to a point, and the point is his as well- it is not a permanent fix, as debt will and will need to rebuild. Where I find fault is that his, and any of these other fixes are only temporary in nature. Follow me: Modern industrial-financial progress is made possible by two things- the Market and Insurance. Capitalism at its base is the transfer of goods and services, usually with the help of an exchange medium (i.e. money). Neither the stock market or insurance transfer a product. Thus they are a parasite on the system. However, they have allowed the SCALE of economy that we are now tied to, and cannot untie ourselves short of all joining a Mennonite community. Thus, a Jubilee year, or any other solution, is just pumping the water out of a basement that was never built to keep water out.
Next up was “freelance economist” Dianne Coyle, who isn’t the only one to suggest a WPA style program, on an emergency basis. But you know, I wonder if this isn’t time to expand the idea. Again, follow- what if you established a “National Infrastructure Corps”, by eliminating both Unemployment and Welfare, automatically enrolling these people in the NIC to learn construction and trades, and work the training off in building schools, roads, bridges. The work would be paid for in unproductive funds no longer going to UEB and Welfare, the ones that learn the best would have the opportunity in private sector, and those that didn’t care for the work would be that much more motivated to go find something they DID like. Of course, I’m sure that the liberals would be scrambling to put forth “right to not work” legislation to sink it.
Tech forecaster Paul Saffo suggests we find a way to collect “better data” with which to figure out what the economy is doing. He says that we’ve been beating ourselves by thinking of the global economy as an “equilibrium” economy. (it isn’t; the market and insurance alone assures that.) He wants to be able to forecast its dynamism by establishing a world database that would be “ an institution with the analytic resources of Wall Street players, the reach of Google, and the openness of Wikipedia. “ Yeah, but if it has these attributes, how do you guarantee the ACCURACY of the data? It’s easy to say that it would “ serve a purely informational role with no policy responsibilities”; harder to see that those who DO have those responsibilities don’t feed it fudged numbers, like Obama’s unemployment numbers that look better until you add in those who’ve given up job searching altogether.

Barney Frank, of all people, is next with a proposal for a Ron Paul/George Sorous like neutering of Defense. And actually, he has a part of something here. He is spot on when he says, “many of my conservative colleagues have opposed the idea of reducing our military budget on grounds that I refer to as "weaponized Keynesianism." They claim that government spending doesn't create jobs -- unless it is for the military. Many opponents of cuts in military spending now argue against them not in terms of national defense, but on the grounds that they would cause job losses. “ I would like to think I am not the military isolationist that the aforementioned gentlemen are; however, there is entirely too much waste being vacuumed into the Pentagon, and that has to stop.

Menzie Chinn and Jeffry Frieden suggest a small raise in the inflation rate will do the trick; I am not convinced that this will do anything but pay someone else’s debts with my money. Justin Yifu Lin suggests the WPA idea anew, but as a global project working in the third world- and I say, if I don’t want my efforts militarily expended there, why do I want my development money going there? By the time we get them on a par with where we are, we’ll be on a par with where they were.
I really find it hard to believe that a blogger with a 30 year old degree in business from IPFW should have to tell such a famous and allegedly intelligent economist as JK Galbraith that he’s full of shit, but here we are. He proposes a $5 raise in the minimum wage. “a high minimum wage would be a self-enforcing deterrent against abusive employers seeking cut-rate help. Jobs for the undocumented would dry up. Those who hold onto their jobs -- the vast majority of low-wage workers and especially those with U.S. citizenship, English fluency, experience, and skills -- would gain a big advantage.” He bases his support of this moronicy on three items. #1- “Would this hurt competitiveness? Not at all. That's an issue for manufactured goods and traded services like insurance and banking, sectors in which everyone already earns far more than $12 an hour.” Hello, asshole? I work in a manufacturing job in which NO ONE is making $12 an hour, and if they did, 90% of the jobs would be in China in a heartbeat- including mine. You might want to look around and see that not everyone works a nice cushy union job before you pour forth such excrement. #2- “Would prices go up? Some would. But rich people can afford it -- and workers would have extra income to pay the higher prices, so most of them would come out ahead. Women in particular would benefit because they tend to work for lower wages. With more family income, some people would choose to retire, go back to school, or have children, making it easier for others who need jobs to find them”. Again, this justification discounts the entire strata I live in, and is a nice solution for the wealthy. Just the kind of thing that idiot occupistas would support. #3- “Most of all, a big jump in the minimum wage would be a reparation. It would be a payback to those who have suffered from the economic crisis: the working population. It would be an act of justice.” Thank you, so much, JK, for gifting me with the loss of my job. Kiss my ass.
The other ideas involved: Seed money to small entrepreneurs, instead of pissing $500 bil down Solyndra’s toilets; stopping the “gaming” of the world’s exchange system (including, but not limited to, China); a surtax on private consumption over $500,000 (another lovely steal-from-the-rich plan that would fall flat as the wealthy turn savings into offshore investment –nod-nod-wink-wink); Breaking the cycle of unemployment-to-poor-health- to poor-education- to unemployment by teaching people how to take care of themselves better (Can we wake up here? Please? People don’t not take care of themselves do to lack of knowing how to- there are resources EVERYWHERE. They don’t take care of themselves because they don’t FEEL LIKE IT. Diet, exercise, checkups, are all things readily available. Motivation is the problem, and no program will solve it.); redesigning cities to be greener by being denser packed, thus eliminating the need for polluting public and private transportation ( and ensuring we all pay Selling New York prices for the least hovel); and the brilliant idea of one Daniel C. Dennett: “We academics have long summer vacations and even longer sabbaticals -- glorious big chunks of green time in which to write books, spend months on end studying various phenomena, or just see the world or build a boat. We don't just enjoy recreation; we re-create ourselves.What would it take to create a system of allocating work that maximized green time for everyone? “ Now there’s a helpful idea- but what else would we expect from one of the “Four Horsemen of New Atheism”?

For your next special report, FPM? How about ideas from people who might have a clue, who fight against total economic loss every day, and for whom bankruptcy is something more than an intellectual exercise to be done on some random “green” day?

Out the bedroom window...

2012-01-02T09:49:00.000-05:00

I was achy from just laying around all day yesterday, so I decided to stretch out with a walk with Scrappy. Just as I was finishing "armoring up", I caught a movement out the window...

There was a third, but I never did get her in...

By the time I got my jeans on, two had left- but there's always one who sticks around to graze...

So then we went outside and tried some more...

After which we stopped harrassing the deer and just went for the walk...

Can't help but think of poor Mynx having to sit by the pool while we enjoy all this!

New Years Party...

2012-01-01T16:24:00.000-05:00

...is over at the Cap Blog. If you are too lazy to click the link just off to your right side, then click here to see the terrifying results.

A Long December

2012-01-01T05:15:00.002-05:00

… and there’s reason to believe, maybe this year will be better than the last…

This morning I am just done with the fourth playing of this song. I watch the video every new years, and in the name of being transparent and not afraid to be real in front of you, tonight/this morning I shall explain why.

You don’t meet singers, not really. They graze your life with a glancing blow, a chunk of soul chips off for you to see, and you say to yourself, that singer/writer/performer seems like he really knows me- but it’s just that you never know yourself.

“Smell of hospitals in winter, and the feeling that it’s all a lot of oysters-but no pearls…
“When all at once you look across a crowded room and see the way that light attaches to a girl…”

Sad thing is, no one can look at that chunk of soul of yours and say, “Yes, that’s a part I knew”, or, “I see where that fit in.” Pictures hung on trees, thrown in the air, dissolving slowly in the water. But where she was attached to you, no one sees anymore. Why does it leave such a chunk missing from you, year after year? And if you cannot answer, for sure no one else can.

Who was she? Does it matter? I knew her little better than you do. But she was real, she could talk and touch and care, and her mind lived in a miasma that made her unsure of that very fact. So, I guess at some level, I do this every year so that someone remembers she was real, and lived, and mattered- even if she doesn’t anymore.

“My problem is, that I have no walls.” Doesn’t seem like a big deal- until you know someone, and can see what that phrase means to them. No black and white, no reality set in stone. Just the sun always coming back up and whatever thought floats past your minds eye at the moment. That was Darla.

“I guess the winter makes you laugh a little slower, makes you talk a little lower, about the things you could not show her…”

Life doesn’t wait for those stuck in amber, sinking into tar pits- or wedged between verses of a song. Maybe I do this to convince myself that I threw a line to someone with no means to catch it, because it was all I could do. What could I do? What would you do? You move on, and watch the calendar slip remorselessly by, year after year.

“..and it’s been a long December, and there’s reason to believe, maybe this year will be better than the last… I can’t remember all the times I’ve tried to tell myself to hold on to these moments as they pass..”

I’m not sad, not really. I don’t blame myself. In a way, it’s appreciation of what I have and others do not. It’s that no matter what happened to her, in my memory she did not slip through the cracks, and knowing it could not possibly matter to her. It’s the calendar remorselessly slipping by.

“I can’t remember the last thing that was said as you were leaving, and the days go by so fast…”

Now, you know. Not the facts, but the important things. No lies. nothing to hide from stranger’s eyes. Just me, holding a piece of soul shaped like a picture that I throw up into the air once a year, wondering if anyone will see it and care where it fits.

New year's eve.

2011-12-31T17:44:00.000-05:00

Well, we are moments away from leaving for the festivities. By the time we return, I'll have (tried to) consume a six pack of selected crafty beers I bought this morning (which I hope to dissect over on the cap blog), and will be ready for the annual crying my way through Counting Crows' A Long December video- and praying for the person I knew long ago who's wedged into the second verse. I just checked the Death Clock, and it's moved my date of demise from day after Christmas 2012 to 13 days from now on my sister's birthday. (Hey Pete! Happy birthday! If you've got nothing better to do, Chris' funeral is...) Thanks to Oklahoma's late bowl game last night/this morning, I slept the majority of the afternoon to prepare.

To all who survive, Happy New Year! I'll probably give you an ill-spelled rundown sometime early next year on how it went.

The Great seventies countdown week 5

2011-12-31T08:25:00.002-05:00

A piano sits alone upon the stage of our imagination. In a dream world where everything is possible, a man two years gone comes back for us. As the lights go down, Larry Knechtel begins the notes of a song that brings the audience to a hush, and the show begins.

250- Bridge Over Troubled Water, Simon and Garfunkel, 1970, PP #1. I actually learned this song from Roy Clark doing it on Hee Haw. But once you hear the power of that last verse, you know which one you will remember.

249- Somewhere In The Night, Barry Manilow, 1978, #9. The fourth single off the lp Even Now, a cover of Helen Reddy's hit (which we'll see later on. The first time I heard it, it was one of those "I can name that tune in 2 notes" moments.

248- 25 Or 6 To 4, Chicago, 1970, #4. What it was- a really good horn-powered song about the creative muse. What it was "made into"- a song about doing drugs. Yeah, anytime I sit cross-legged on the floor, that means I'm high.

247- Gypsy Woman, Brian Hyland, 1970, #3. Certainly seems to be 1970 week so far. I was surprised to see that this song was composed by Curtis Mayfield.

246- We're All Alone, Rita Coolidge, 1977, #7. Boz Scaggs recorded the original (which we'll hear later on) on Silk Degrees. Frankie Valli then did a decent cover that flew under the top 50, before Rita's version first taught me to love this song. Which is a bit surprising, considering how much I disliked her Your Love (Is Lifting Me Higher) a few months before.

245- It's A Miracle, Barry Manilow, 1975, #12. Barry's second hit; for years, Barry for me was the "big four"- Mandy, I Write The Songs, Could It Be Magic, and this one (his first four hits).

244- Vehicle, The Ides Of March, 1970, #2. Any one out there name the band that lead singer Jim Peterik founded after Ides split up? That's right, Survivor! I saw this dud at a BTO show at Pierres years back. Great guitarist.

243- Tears Of A Clown, Smokey Robinson And The Miracles, 1970, #1. The run of 1970 rolls on with Smokey's all time best.

242- Indian Reservation (The Lament Of The Cherokee People), Paul Revere And The Raiders, 1971, #1. Back in my "Daniel Boone" days, this was the ONLY song I wanted. Never did get it.

241- Midnight Blue, Melissa Manchester, 1975, #6. Sadly, the best memory I have of this song was on Dickie Goodman's parody Mr. Jaws, when the announcer protests as the shark he's interviewing tries to eat him and the shark's "answer" is the clip from this song: "Wouldn't you give your hand to a friend?"

240- The Closer I Get To You, Roberta Flack and Donnie Hathaway, 1978, #2. Seems like the only songs of Roberta's I really liked were the duets with the late Mr. Hathaway.

239- It's Over, Electric Light Orchestra, 1978, #75. This song, which like anything by ELO charted higher in Ft. Wayne, was playing as I drove home from my last day of High School. I know that the tears in my eyes made me blow off at least one stop sign that morning.

238- My Eyes Adored You, Frankie Valli, 1975, #1. Actually a Four Seasons group effort, it was REJECTED by their label, it was sold to Valli for $400. He shopped it around till he found a SENMI-intelligent record exec (Larry Uttal at Private Stock), who none the less wouldn't release it unless it was just Frankie's name on the label. Dr. Phil, if you would...

"Of course, Chris. All together now... WHAT WERE YOU THINKING!!??!"

237- Dirty Work, Steely Dan, unreleased, 1972. Sung by David Palmer, who sung lead at early SD concerts because of Donald Fagen's stage fright, and went on to write Carole King's Jazzman. Off the first lp by Fagen and Walter Becker, former members of touring Jay and the (F***ing) Americans, whom Jay described as "the Manson and Starkweather of rock 'n' roll", referring to cult leader Charles Manson and spree killer Charles Starkweather.

236- This Masquerade, George Benson, 1976, #10. My first foray into jazz vocals. Just plain smooth.

235- Love So Right, Bee Gees, 1976, #3. Just now slipping down the charts over on Time Machine.
"Ah, I could take it in my stride, start living for the moment/ maybe half the things we sought were never there/ simply open up our eyes and break it down to size, it isn't really fair. "

234- Fire And Rain, James Taylor, 1970, #3. The power of this song is in its biographical nature, especially the last verse and its "sweet dreams and Flying Machines".

233- Your Own Special Way, Genesis, 1977, #62. Ther was pre-Duke Genesis and post-Duke Genesis. For me, the best was pre, when they were the most famous progressive rock band who nobody knew a song from. This was their first US chart single, from Wind And Wuthering.

232- Hopelessly Devoted To You, Olivia Newton-John, 1978, #3. The long, hot summer of Grease. Incomprehensible to me that this wasn't #1.

231- An Everlasting Love, Andy Gibb, 1978, #5. The first time Andy didn't hit #1. Not exacty sure why, this was a great song.

And just to make this all flow together..

230- After The Gold Rush, Neil Young, 1970, unreleased. And we end the show much the way we began it; a lone man walks up to a lone piano and begins to play a song from 1970...

Step into my time machine week 88

2011-12-30T09:00:00.001-05:00

Welcome to a very special episode of Time Machine (actually not all that special, but I do have a special treat), the lid lifter on the 1977 season! This week, we have singing dogs in the birthdays and singing chickens in the movers and droppers; a #1s of yesteryear featuring a “I didn’t know he could sing” act; the connection that leads from a somber Elton John to the wild and wacky antics of Aerosmith; a new butt in the grandpa chair (or two); Two songs race for the top at blinding speed; and more positive proof that nobody wants to share a birthday with Jesus.

But first, let me introduce the New Years special. I got to thinking (since this week’s NEW #1 manages it), how many songs led off the new year with their first week at #1? Truth is, half of the #1 songs from 1950 to 1977 (28 years, leave yer shoes on) managed the feat. So I ranked them according to weeks at #1, and with a little personal editing, came up with the top ten (or so) songs that christened the new year with their first week at #1!. To lead things off, here is the eighth place tie on the list:
#8 (tie)- I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus, Jimmy Boyd, 1953. The oldest of the lot. Man, you give a guy milk and cookies…
     (tie)- Wonderland By Night, Bert Kaempfert Orchestra, 1961. A recent member of the Great Sixties Countdown, a wonderful trumpet solo that was one o’ me mama’s favorites.
     (tie)- There I’ve Said It Again, Bobby Vinton, 1964. Another of mom’s faves, from her all time best guy.
     (tie)- Got To Be There, Michael Jackson, 1972. Young Michael really gets a chance to shine here.
     (tie)- Leave Me Alone (Ruby Red Dress), Helen Reddy, 1974. A recent member of the seventies countdown.
     (tie)- Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds, Elton John, 1975. Sure don’t hear this as much as the Beatles’ original, do you?
     (tie)- I Write The Songs, Barry Manilow, 1976. And that’s the start of this countdown.

And on to the start of this week’s countdown. Nobody wants their birthday next to Christmas- you usually get combined presents. And so too songs, apparently. 4 songs hit the hot 100 this week, and only one of them noteworthy- a song that will spend all of the second month of 1977 at #1 on my own top ten list that I would start in a couple weeks- 10cc with The Things We Do For Love, coming in at 82. It was a little busier for those turning 40 this week- Rod Stewart and the Faces with Stay With Me; Apollo 100’s Joy; Joe Cocker’s Feelin’ Alright; and an act with a similar vocal style to Joe (boy, am I gonna get it for that one!), the debut of the Singing Dogs’ version of Jingle Bells. Turning 45 is Don Ho’s Tiny Bubbles and Gimme Some Lovin’ by Spencer Davis’ Group. And two 50th birthdays, one famous, one just for Laurie. Gene Chandler’s Duke Of Earl turns 50, as does Jimmy Dean’s spoken word-letter to Russia, Dear Ivan. Blow out the candles…

#6 (tie)- REDACTED- you’ll just have to wait till we hit #1 this week.
#6(tie)- You’re So Vain, Carly Simon, 1973, two weeks at #1. You probably thought this countdown’s about you..

The big dropper this week was the Little River Band’s It’s A Long Way There, falling 40 to just catch hold at 98. The big mover was the Henhouse Five Plus Too with In The Mood, clucking it's way to a 15-spot climb to 79.

This week, we had another repeater at #49, but that’s okay. Because, since I picked 49 because of my age, so let’s just move the magic number to 50. Here we find Al Stewart’s Year Of The Cat.
Cat was the first of 5 chart hits for Al, but not the end of his story. Noted for his Historical songs (and if you haven’t youtubed Palace Of Versailles yet like I told you WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR???), he has released 7 studio lps and 23 live discs since Midnight Rocks in the early 80’s. The most recent of the studio records is 2008’s Sparks Of An Ancient Fire (which has been on my Amazon wish list for two years now), and he recently sang a duet with Albert Hammond on his re-recording of It Never Rains In Southern California on Albert’s 2010 Legend lp. Apparently he’s a bit chincy on bio data, all I could find was he married in the mid nineties and the couple and their 2 daughters live in Marin County, California.

#4 (tie)- Why, Frankie Avalon, 1960, 3 weeks at #1. I’m guessing he sang this to Annette.
#4(tie)- I Feel Fine, The Beatles, 1965, 3 weeks. One of two on the list for the Fab Foursome.

Three songs enter the top 40. At 38, up 7, are the ever-rowdy boys of Foghat with Drivin’ Wheel. At 35, up nine, is Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band with Night Moves. “Started hummin’ a song from 1962… ain’t it funny how the night moves… when you just don’t seem to have as much to lose… strange how the night moves… with Autumn closin’ in…” AHEM. Moving up 8 to #34 this week, the song that will spend the first month of 1977 at #1 on the newly minted Martin top ten, Barry Manilow’s Weekend In New England.

Looking into the #1s in yesteryear this week, I saw someone I never knew sang- Fred Astaire. Fred would probably have said, “That’s because I can’t,” from what I’ve read, but he did have a #1 song on this week twice. The first was 1932’s Night And Day. A Cole Porter tune (referenced in Little River Band’s Reminiscing- “and that Porter tune [Night and day…] Made us dance across the room…”), it was in the stage and screen versions of The Gay Divorcee, which marked his first performance without sister Adele and first with Ginger Rodgers. The second was the non-vocal Nice Work If You Can Get It, in which he danced and played the drums(including with his feet), backed by the Leo Reisman Orchestra, from the movie A Damsel In Distress in 1937. While I won’t say his voice was exactly enchanting, watching him dance to those songs was absolutely amazing. In a day where “that dude can dance” is multi-reality-show cheap, that dude, when dancing MEANT something, could DANCE.

#2 (tie)- We Can Work It Out, The Beatles, 1966, 4 weeks at #1. Can’t say that either of the Beatles’ tunes are among my favorites, but even a bad Beatles song is usually pretty good.
#2 (tie)- The Twist, Chubby Checker, 1962, 4 weeks. Come on, baby…

Three songs go into the top ten, three go out. Living Thing falls from 10 to 12; Rubberband Man snaps back from 4 to 13; and Love So Right drops from 6 to 18.

Oh, and before I forget, She’s Gone is gone, and the new tenants of the grandpa chair, at 21 weeks apiece, are Firefall’s You Are The Woman (currently at 32) and Steve Miller’s former top dog Rock’n Me (at 43).

Debuting at #10, up one, are the Sylvers with Hot Line. Standing not-so-tall this week is Burton Cummings with Stand Tall dropping 4 to #9. That song that you love to listen to the Chik-fil-a cows dance to, Brick’s Dazz, climbs one to #8. And that brings us to six degrees with Elton John.

Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word was from the double lp Blue Moves, a more somber record for Sir Elton. Among the acts to pitch in here were a pair of brother horn players- Sax playing Michael and trumpeteer Randy Breckler. The Breckler boys had been around a while at this point. Randy was a founding member of Blood Sweat And Tears on the classic debut lp Child Is Father To The Man. Both had been on a ton of jazz projects, their own bands Dream and Breckler Brothers, as well as rock and roll offerings such as Blue Oyster Cult’s Agents Of Fortune. They also were both featured on the AOR hits by Aerosmith, Same Old Story and Train Kept A’Rolling. Both these were on their Get Your Wings lp, which gave them their first top 40 hit with Sweet Emotion. They then released Same Old Story, which failed to chart, so they reached back in the back of tricks to re-release Dream On, which was on their debut album and flamed out at #59 in ‘73. Let loose again in 1976, it hit #6, so they tried the trick again. Walk This Way was off the Toys In The Attic album, and did not chart the first time. They re-released it a few weeks back, Time Machine time, and this time it is at #15 on this week’s list.

Mr. Humperdink moves a notch up to #6 with After The Loving. Now comes the two songs bent on making a mockery of proper procedure. Stevie Wonder blasts his way up 9 to #5 with I Wish; Rose Royce does likewise to #4 with Car Wash (a song also currently doing the commercial circuit). Rod Stewart continues to hang around, Tonight’s The Night slipping but one to #3. You Make Me Feel Like Dancing also slips to #2. That leaves me with the New #1, and the redacted-tied for #6 song in our special countdown…

Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis with You Don’t Have To Be A Star!!!!

And now, We here at TM are proud to present the top of our special countdown… drum roll please….

#1- At The Hop, Danny And The Juniors, 1958, 5 weeks at #1!!!!
Feel free to add the harmony chorus here, my friends. See you New Years Eve for the seventies countdown, and then right back here in 2012… or 1977, if you prefer.

Sports shorts

2011-12-28T18:16:00.000-05:00

Just a pair of quick stories here. First, the last fantasy football post of the season. Last week was the Purple vs the Gold, and in the main row of games on Saturday, the Gold built up a 40-6 lead and by the end of the day was up 44-21, mostly because of Superfreak Cam Newton and his 18 points. But Sunday night, enter Aaron Rodgers (who put up 18 of his own) and his trusty sidekick Mason Crosby, and when the smoke cleared, the game was 44-all. The last active roster player on Monday night was Michael Turner for the Gold; and if he couldn't score to give his team the win, Drew Brees would need to get 24 reserve points for the Gold as the Purple reserves were way ahead. Turner failed, Brees got 12, and the Purple had an amazing 71-59 OT comeback win.

Also, Lokomotiv played game 5 this morning. They were home in front of a crowd of 9,000 facing league-leading HC Donbass. (and yes I see the easy punchline, and am ignoring it. Perhaps if they were 2-13 like the Colts...) Danill Yerdakov scored his 13th of the season (2nd with Loko) to put the good guys up 1-0 at 2:20 of the 1st. Sergei Varlamov tied things at 6:16 of the first, and took the lead in the second. With Jan Krasvoski and Rafael Akhmetov drawing tripping penalties just 34 seconds apart, Donbass scored on the two man advantage at 9:34. But less than a minute later, Alexi Kruchinin tallied his 6th of the season (2nd with Loko) to re-tie the game at 2-2 . Just after 2 minutes later, Oleg Misyul got his first of the season to put Lokomotiv up 3-2. But as coach Petr Vorobiev noted afterwards, the young team got reckless in the final stanza, and Donbass tied it at 11:49. After a lackluster 5-minute OT period, it went to the shootout. While Donbass goalie Evgeni Tsaregorodtsev stoned Loko shooters including Oleg Yashin, veterans Varlamov and Denis Kochetkov beat youngster Nikita Lozhkin to give Donbass the 4-3 win. Next game, also in Yaroslavl, pits us against basement-dwelling Titan Klin, from a town 53 Mi. NE of Moscow.

For Aliahna

2011-12-27T20:03:00.000-05:00

Wide awake today, I awoke
And the warm light beat down on me
as the waves rolled gentle lullabye
on the porcelain sands where they lie
And I but sat, in peace unknown
watching the water and the golden glow
I saw not time, and was content
nor knew of pain, of earth's torment
But something buzzed within my mind
of a thought, left with world behind
a tiny thing that would not rest.
T'was then upon the low dune's crest
the Little Girl appeared to me
and soft strode across the shoreline weed
to take her place upon the rise
where I'd sat watching waves go by
Nothing was said for longest time,
tho' time was not, in peace sublime.
And then I saw, in corner eye,
Her turn towards me, and subtly sigh
as if she knew that troubling thought
that dwelt within, where strife was naught.
I did not move, afraid to ask,
while soft clear eyes took me to task
"I forgave them already, " she said to me,
and nothing more- I turned to see
her smile; ashamed, I could but look
and remembered this pain that she forsook.
And in my eyes, the question came,
lips parted in words silent and plain;
Her smile was answer to tortured thought,
and angel's voice said, "How could I not?
"Whatever the reasons, whate'er the fears,
"whate'er they did, they sent me here!"
I watched as she turned towards the waves
and watched as I did ere she came;
And smiling, turned back to the sea,
and let it wash the thought from me.

-----------------------------------------------

If you don't know the story behind this, read here with extreme caution.

More fun with wastebook

2011-12-26T13:17:00.000-05:00

Okay, I've gone through and found another group of lovingly stupid selections our congress has foisted on us, courtesy of Sen. Tom Coburn's Wastebook. I might add here that I have seen several selections where he has added, "President Obama/Bush/both has called for the elimination of this program." Obviously they aren't calling loud enough.

#80- This is our #1 "that's rich!" selection. $425,642 to a program which teaches local lawmakers in INDIA (who holds about $40 bil of our national debt) how to use communications to improve at their job. Can you imagine anyone from OUR government passing that on with a straight face?

#84- "That's rich!" runner-up: $306,000 to bring students from Denmark, France, Germany, and the UK here to give them college-level classes on "civic activism and environmental leadership." Hello? Does anyone remember the French Revolution? The fall of the Berlin Wall? GREENPEACE??? I think they have these issues covered. If not, just send them the pamphlet on Targeted Sheep Grazing.

#79- the Air Force spends $51,474 to make a pagan worship site for the .07% of cadets that are Wiccan or what have you. Yes, that's three out of 4300. And it's basically a ring of thirteen boulders with a wishing-well looking altar-thingee in the middle and an outer ring of boulders.
Martin Savings: 120 large boulders (more than enough) can be had for $10,800- $3,000 more for comparable faux boulders. The wishing well can be had for $670. Dump 'em off, suggest a little DIY, and voila! You can do the whole thing for $11,470, a savings of $40,004.

#76- Third place on our "That's rich!" segment. The San Francisco International Film Festival gets $50,000 from the NEA (yeah, don't go there). Not so bad- UNTIL you do a little digging and find out that corporate sponsorship ALREADY IN PLACE totals $2.179 MILLION. That 50 K could have CERTAINLY been used more wisely here:

#73- Our good friends at USAID decided to commemorate their own 50th anniversary- with parties in Afghanistan (bet that one was lively), Albania, Bosnia/Herzegovina, "East Africa", El Salvador, Kosovo (another favorite "duck and cover" tourist destination), the Phillipines, and South Africa (which unlike "East Africa is a place you can find on a map). Total cost: $156, 273. $97,000 of that went to the Phillipines, with a banquet, a school painting contest (don't know if that means schoolkids painted, or schools got painted), videos, and a presentation on environmental awareness(?). They also blew $12,000 of it in the anomolous East Africa, including a dinner and a banner featuring USAID. Which left $7900 each for everyone else.
Martin Savings: With catering for a two-meat banquet running $11 per person, they came out pretty good, until you factor in delivery. Not sure how much a powerpoint presentation on Environmental awareness would cost, but I did find a blog that estimates that UK companies waste the equivalent of $12.16 billion on powerpoint presentations per year. I can't imagine we take a back seat there. And that poster, depending on where in East Africa you are in, would need to at least be in English, French, Portugese, Swahili, and Amharic. If you'd have done all parties like the ones the "lower six " got, you could have done them for $63,200- a savings of $93,073. But then schools/kids wouldn't have painted/been painted, and the children of powerpoint consultants would have starved.

Christmas Message

2011-12-25T01:06:00.000-05:00

Tonight I watched midnight mass on TV, as has been my custom the last few years. I am sorry that Fort Wayne’s Current Bishop does not see fit to televise the mass locally, as John D’Arcy did. However, 21Alive decided to air midnight mass from Buffalo, NY, for which I shall be thanking them shortly. In his message, the Bishop started on a topic I’ve wrestled a lot lately- the battle against the poor, unfortunate atheists. Indeed, even tonight, the subject came up.

I felt moved to offer the olive branch to a group I’ve tilted against much lately, the FFR people. But instead of being an ass as I have been to my shame in the past, I posted them a simple prayer. Of course, I received the usual barrage of insults and crassness that I’ve come to expect from them. I merely responded, for a change, that I realized that I was sowing seeds on the hard road, but God has done greater things, and left it at that.

So I was only mildly surprised to hear the Bishop lead off with a story of dueling billboards seen at a nearby overpass. One atheist and announcing you don’t need a god for love, peace, or anything for that matter. The other stood up for the real meaning of Christmas. But the Bishop’s point in bringing this up became apparent next, and it was in two parts. First, you’ll never win battles for Christ on billboards. Second, the presence of such people and attitudes on this earth stands to remind us that we are to be about faith, about our relationship with God, a one-on-one thing that transcends societies and religions and histories. “You’ll never be able to prove God scientifically,” he warned, because belief in God is about faith, not proof.

And if you have any doubt about that, argue with an atheist. Assuming you find one willing to speak on an intellectual level, instead of those who just think they write clever crap for Bill Mahre, you will find that they will shut off your every avenue, and will not respect your personal relationship. I’ve done a lot of this in the past, and I think tonight I got told I was doing it all wrong.

I cannot trade ideas on an intellectual level with these people- not because I’m non-intellectual (the nice way of putting how I’ve been described), but because we have two different, competing, and diametrically opposed mindsets. I can never reach them on that level. I can only reach people of that mind by living my faith first, and letting them observe it for themselves.

Am I good at that? No, not currently. I hope tonight was a start, but posting prayers isn’t the same as just showing Christ through my life. As Laurie can tell you, it’s hard to take the argument out of a Martin. And there are times you have to stand up and be counted. My hope, though, is to put it in Jesus’ hands and get better at it.

And the first thing I’ve got to do is give up the notion that I can prove faith by their rules. In fact, Jesus pointed me to the ultimate verse that proves that point:

Luk 19:38 saying, Blessed is the King coming in the name of the Lord! Peace in Heaven and glory in the highest!
Luk 19:39 And some of the Pharisees from the crowd said to Him, Teacher, rebuke your disciples.
Luk 19:40 And He answered and said to them, I tell you that if these should be silent, the stones would cry out.
Not much chance of establishing that one “logically”; But in faith it’s so easy to do.

From all of us to all of you, a safe, happy, and God-blessed Christmas.

A Scrappy Christmas walk

2011-12-24T18:00:00.001-05:00

So we got all dressed up (because Daddy can't handle the temps as well as he did a year ago), and I put on the new gloves that wonderful son o'mine got me for Christmas:

And set out. Scrappy first wanted to stop off at the rocks that mark the only thing they left when they decided that a wild meadow wasn't as necessary as an 18th and 19th soccer field:

And then moved on across said soccer fields.

Looks nice, don't it? Too bad the brain surgeons that came up with the project failed to take into account- this is a WETLAND. The woods sits on a ridge that half drained into the meadow. It stays soggy long after better drained areas are completely dry. And, they didn't install any drain tiles. Just bulldozed, flattened, and compacted.

Think they MIGHT have a problem when they go to play in the spring?

Anyhow, at this point we dealt with the first of two problems we encountered. It seems when I cinched up my belt prior to leaving, I missed the belt hole, and said belt was now disengaging itself. No, no pictures for this one.

So we come into the woods, where that nice trail that they just constructed is having the same problem as the fields, for the same reason.

Which, of course, didn't stop Scrappy from enjoying the first ice of his year:

Or his enjoyment of the woods as a whole.

So down the ravine trail we went, and I've never seen it this wet in the ravine:

Into the plex we went, and as we crossed the wooden bridge, four young joggers passed us. Scrappy was oblivious. Down the trail behind the IPFW soccer field, around to the point where they had to jump the fence into the closed field. Down the field to where they could jump the fence again and continue along the river. All the time, Scrappy is oblivious- until they head back along the river, the farthest point away they'd been the whole time.

And then, he notices.

One last, lonely soccer ball. Goodbye, socceristas!

Scrappy wishes everybody a Merry Christmas!

the great seventies countdown week four

2011-12-24T09:04:00.001-05:00

The Bangles are playing on the mood music as the crowd murmurs and waits for the host. Just as they sing "Time goes by so fast... when you're having fun..." the host makes his appearance. "Merry Christmas to all of you," he begins, "and thank you for coming to our show."

260- The Rockford Files, Mike Post, 1975, #10. A great tune, a great show. I used to sit up late and tune in the fuzzy picture out of channel 50 in Detroit to watch reruns.

259- Brother Louie, the Stories, 1973, #1. A powerful tune, of which I learned 2 things this morning. #1, the keyboardist for the Stories was Michael Brown of Left Banke (Walk Away Renee); #2 was the song was a cover of a Hot Chocolate song that went #1 in the UK.

258- Go All The Way, Raspberries, 1972, #5. Eric Carmen before he went all morose.

257- Suite: Judy Blue Eyes, Crosby Stills and Nash, 1970, #21. A song I got out of the stack of old jukebox records that Bill Riley was selling at the Zulu store. Had Long Time Gone on the flip side. Prompted me to buy So Far, which really got me into them- if not their politics.

256- Sail On, Commodores, 1979, #4. Oddly enough, I like most of America, had the follow up single, Still, at #1 but not this- and yet, this is the song that more endured.

255- Delta Dawn, Helen Reddy, 1973, #1. I mused a while back that, in a world of perfect mental health, Helen would have lost three big hits- this one, Ruby Red Dress, and Angie Baby. All her heroines were nuts- and no jokes about I Am Woman at this point!

254- El Dorado, Electric Light Orchestra, 1974, b-side of Boy Blue (USA) and Wild West Hero (UK), non-charting. The title cut of one of the best integrated pieces of music I own, it is the end of the dream- and trying to get back there. This was the song fundementalist groups claimed Jeff Lynne recorded satanic messages on backwards- which pissed him off enough that he DID put backwards messages on Face The Music. If you're playing records backwards to see if there's something there, you have WAY too much time on your hands.

253- Sad Eyes, Robert John, 1979, #1. Wow, three #1s already today! I remember the first time we heard this (on Kasey Casem's American Top 40), we said this should hit #1 if people had any taste. It had debuted at 36 and the next week it moved only 2 notches. When we didn't hear it in the 30's or 20's, we figured the American public had went and let us down again. Then it played at #19, and the rest was history.

252- We May Never Pass This Way Again, Seals And Crofts, 1973, #21. The perrenial graduation song is one of those that has grown on me over the years- in five years, this might rank even higher on my list.

251- One Of A Kind Love Affair, The Spinners, 1972, #11. For me, about everything by the Spinners should have hit #1.

250- Never Gonna Fall In Love Again, Eric Carmen, 1976, #11. And here's "the morose" Eric Carmen, trying to see how many hits at #11 in a row we can get. Forever linked in my mind with contemporary Fooled Around And Fell In Love, due to seeing them both in Dick Clark's American Bandstand top 10 one sunny day.

249- Love Hangover, Diana Ross, 1976, #1. Bizarre for the times, still a great dance hit.

248- Almost Cut My Hair, Crosby, Stills, Nash, And Young, 1970, Unreleased. A great tune from Deja Vu, David Crosby at his best- "But I'm not giving in an inch to fear/ 'Cause I promised myself this year... And I feel... like I owe it... to someone..."

247- Clap For The Wolfman, the Guess Who, 1974, #6. Wolfman Jack was everywhere in the mid seventies, but this was the best of his cameoes. 7th top ten in the US, 16th in Canada. You guys up north always did have better music, eh?

246- Hypnotized, Fleetwood Mac, 1973, B-side of For Your Love, Non charting. Pre- Nicks and Buckinham, with Bob Welch singing lead. From Mystery To Me, the Mac at their dreamy best.

245- Lukenbach, Texas (Back To The Basics Of Love), Waylon Jennings, #25 (six weeks at #1 on the country charts). The News-Sentinel used to put the top tens down every Saturday, and I remember how long it stayed at the top of the country charts. I actually listened to country (a rarity for me) to hear this song, the first time I'd done that ( and certainly the only time on a non-Rosanne Cash tune). And I loved Willie Nelson at the end.

244- Brandy, Looking Glass, 1972, #1. One of those songs everyone loves- and that's what made it a one-hit wonder, as Looking Glass was generally much less pop.

243- Turn To Stone, Joe Walsh, 1975, #93. Let me just say, I love Joe Walsh, whether solo, James Gang, or Eagles. One of his best solo tunes.

242- The Night Chicago Died, Paper Lace, 1974, #1. Another song that everybody immediately loved. Except the "get the story right" crowd, I suppose. Would have been a two-hit wonder, but Bo Donaldson's cover of their Billy Don't Be A Hero charted first and higher.

241- Here Come Those Tears Again, Jackson Browne, 1977, #23. This one, and not Doctor My Eyes, made me a JB fan.

And with that, the lights come up on another performance. "Go home and treat your families to the best of you this Christmas," the host tells them. "Be the present they want."

Lokomotiv game 4

2011-12-24T01:02:00.002-05:00

The boys from Yaroslavl go to 3-1 with a 4-1 win in front of 2,670 in Izhevsk, a town that sits on the NW side of a circle formed by Perm (Molot Prikamye), Yekaterinburg (Automobilst), Cheylabinsk (Traktor), Ufa (Salavat Yulaev) and Kazan (Ak Bars). Kirill Kaputsin put us on the board with a power play goal at 2:30 into thew match, and Maxim Zyuzyakin got the first of his 2 goals at 14:07. Less than 3 minutes later, a penalty on Vladislav Vorobyev for a high-stick led to a power play goal for Izhvesk to cut things to 2-1.

Less than 5 minutes into the second stanza, Oleg Yashin tallied his 8th of the year (and 3rd for us) to push it to 3-1, and Zyuzyakin got his 2nd of the game (third of the season) shorthanded with 38 seconds left in the game. For a change, Lokomotiv outshot the opposition 44-33, and this time it was an even younger goalie in the nets. Pavel Shegalo, 18 years and 10 months old, stopped 33 of 34 For a team that’s given up one goal or less in three of four outings.

The kids get their first real challenge at home Wednesday against HC Donbass, a Ukrainian outfit who is 22-7-5 and hasn’t lost since the 20th of last month.

Maxim Zyuzyakin

Club: Lokomotiv
Number: 61
Position: Forward
Height: 177
Weight: 73
Birth Date.: 13/01/1991
Nationality: Russia
Age: 20 years 11 months
Clubs by season: Locomotive

Step into my time machine week 87

2011-12-23T09:00:00.002-05:00

‘Twas the time machine before Christmas, and the news continued quiet. The temperature dropped throughout the day, the wind got things bitter cold, and with barely an inch of snow on the ground, by 9 pm we hit 5 degrees with a wind chill of –10. (Of course, it got into the thirties by the big day, with no further snow.) And within the time machine, we saw the return of an unusual song from a Where Are They Now past, the return of the #49 curse, the King of Jazz (and no, it’s not Louie Armstrong), And we connect Leo Sayer with former pro wrestler Dick The Bruiser! Let’s have at it, shall we?

10 songs debut this week in two groups of five (90-94 and 96-100). The first group featured a returnee- Dickie Lee’s 9,999,999 Tears, which re-enters after peaking at 67 and falling off last week. Thelma Houston’s Don’t Leave Me This Way comes in at 92, and the novelty hit In The Mood by the Henhouse Five (plus Two), in which the vocals were particularly fowl (Tee Hee) comes in at 94. The second group included chick magnet Tom Jones with Say You’ll Stay Until Tomorrow at 97; and at 99, reggae band Boney M hits with their version of Daddy Cool, which featured on this program a few weeks back on the Little River Band WATN, when a proto-LRB going by the name of Drummond did a chipmunk version of the song.

In addition to the crew turning thirty-five, here are our other birthday songs. Three Dog Night’s Never Been To Spain, War’s Slippin’ Into Darkness, and Climax’s Precious And Few all turn forty this week. Turning 55 is Pat Boone’s Don’t Forbid Me, along with an oddity that turns both 55 and 60. We all know the English folk tune Greensleeves, if for no other reason than the use of it's tune in the carol What Child Is This. Well this week in 1956, the Beverley Sisters entered the (top 50) chart at #37 with Greensleeves- and in 1951, Mitch Miller’s Orchestra came in at #38- thus we have a nearly 500-year-old song turn both 55 and 60 this week!

I forgot about the grandpa chair last week, probably because She’s Gone was still in it. It still is, at least for one more week, but this time it’s also our biggest dropper- falling 31 spots to #79. Our big mover is at 54, up 18- Steve Miller’s Fly Like An Eagle.

Well, we have a problem with the WATN segment, as #49 is occupied for the second time in three weeks by the Beatles Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da. As Disco Duck lies above it at #48 (and the last time I went THERE, I got Bill Shatner’s Bohemian Rhapsody), we’ll slide down to the #50 hole, where we find the Bay City Rollers with Yesterday’s Hero.

BCR has been around for a long time, but there are five guys that make up the “classic lineup”. Bass Guitarist Alan Longmuir lives in Scotland with wife Eileen. He’s been in ill health for years, having suffered a heart attack in 1995 and a stroke two years later. His brother Derek was the drummer, and since his retirement in 1981 became a nurse in Edinburgh, where he lives still. For several years he has been fighting allegations of possessing child porn, which he and his family claims was a set-up by an obsessed American fan. Lead guitar Eric Faulkner still tours with his version of the band, Eric Faulkner’s Bay City Rollers. Rhythm Guitarist Stuart “Woody” Wood and wife Denise also live in Edinburgh, where they produce Celtic music, such as Julienne Taylor’s A Heart Within, released this summer. Lead singer Les McKeown has struggled- with drugs (acquitted in 2006 on drug dealing charges); alcohol (he was the subject of UK reality show Rehab, based at an LA clinic); and other things (he recently discussed in an interview his bisexual relationship with manager Tam Paton, who was convicted of gross indecency with a minor boy in 1982 and died two years ago). He lives with his wife Peko in Hackney, England, and tours with Les McKeown’s Legendary Bay City Rollers.

Yet another oddity occurs with the top 40 debuts- two of them, and I didn’t remember either one! I did kinda recognize Tavares’ Don’t Take The Music (coming in at 40, up 3)once I played it; not so Earth Wind And Fire’s Saturday Nite (up 6 to 36).

Two songs enter the top ten, two fall out. Dropping are Muskrat Love (7 to 15) and Nights Are Forever Without You (10 to 19).

Checking in on #1s this week in yesteryear, I saw a name come up over and over in the twenties- one Paul Whiteman. Paul “pops” Whiteman was the most popular bandleader of the 20’s, and by 1934 he had collected some 32 #1 songs. Whiteman was known as the “King of Jazz” by such experts on the subject as Duke Ellington. Jazz traditionalists, though, were put off by his eliminating of the impromptu aspect, carefully arranging every song. In 1926 he hired three up-and-coming vocalists he dubbed the Rhythm Boys- which gave his big break to a rhythm boy named Bing Crosby. Out of those 32 #1s, 6 of them were at #1 this week- 1920’s Whispering (an 11-week #1 with some 700 covers, including being the lead tune on the recent WATN featuree Whispering/Cherchez Le Femme/ Ci Ci Bon by Dr. Buzzard’s outfit) ; 1921’s Say It With Music (5 weeks at #1); 1922’s Three O’Clock In The Morning (8 weeks); 1924’s Somebody Loves Me (5 wks); 1926’s The Birth Of The Blues (4 wks); and 1929’s Great Day (2 weeks).

ELO gets into the top ten as Living Thing moves up one to #10. Brick comes in at 9, up 3, with Dazz. Elton John creeps up a spot to #8 with Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word. Mr. Humperdink moves up a notch to #7 with After The Loving. The Bee Gees slip a notch to #6 with Love So Right; Burton Cummings flips spots with them at #5 with Stand Tall. The Spinners lose a spot with Rubberband Man sliding down to 4; Marilyn and Billy take that spot with You Don’t Have To Be A Star at #3. The world trembles as Rod Stewart finally steps down from the top spot, going to #2 with Tonight’s The Night.
Which leaves us the new #1, Leo Sayer’s You Make Me Feel Like Dancing.

This wonderful song that I love SO much was co-written by Vini Poncia, another of those all over the place types who produced the Peter Criss album when Kiss did their four solos. Criss brought him over for the next Kiss album, Dynasty, and Poncia fired Criss for substandard drumming. Criss was replaced by Anton Fig, and you might wonder why that name sounds familiar. Well, he’s the drummer for David Letterman’s house band, led by Paul Schaeffer. Before they moved to CBS with Dave, the ensemble was known as the World’s Most Dangerous Band, a tribute to one of Dave’s (and mine) childhood heroes- the late, great pro wrestler Dick “the Bruiser” Afflis.

And with that, we return to the humdrum life we left behind in 2011. Tune in Saturday for the seventies countdown.

More fun with wastebook

2011-12-21T21:14:00.000-05:00

Here, for your reading pleasure, are four more stories (paraphrased by yours truly) cribbed from Senator Tom Coburn's Wastebook report. Afterwards, a Lokomotiv update.

#96 on the list: Montana State University received a $742,907 grant to study how "targeted sheep grazing" could help organic farmers to get rid of their weeds without herbicide or tilling. Once they do this detailed study on watching sheep eat, they plan to offer 2 new courses on their findings. Get that? $742, 907 to figure out that sheep eat weeds and to offer two entire courses to explain that sheep will eat weeds to students. Martin savings: The American Sheep Industry Ass'n. has a booklet on this very subject, on sale for $25. Might seem a bit stiff of a price to read that sheep eat weeds, but, hey, you could buy one for every student in the university for $353,825- a savings of $ 389,082.

#94- The National Science Foundation was granted $338, 998 to study " the impact of women on Icelandic textile industry from Viking times to the 19th century." Talk about a total waste!!! Give that money back so we can buy targeted sheep grazing booklets for the poor dumb kids at MSU!

#91- a group of researchers lead by Yerkes National Primate Research Center are using part of a $600,000 grant to figure out why captive chimps through poop at visitors. One of the allied researchers is William Hopkins of Agnes Scott College ( an all-girls school who doesn't even have a football team!), who has also spent your tax dollars on determining whether a chimp is right or left handed and what effect that has on "reproductive success". Now, as I recall, the tour at Black Pine animal sanctuary in Albion told us they through poop when the observer does something to disturb them or piss them off. Regular tours go for $7.00 in the summer. Martin savings- $599,993- less if you buy a pop or some food for the goats and camels.

#90- Once again, our friends at USAID. $15 million/yr for last three years to "aid the families of civilians killed in the war in Afghanistan". When the OIG audited their base last year, among the unconscionable things they found:
- absolutely no record keeping;
- piles of rat infested "food";
- "large quantities" of food that expired in 2004 (the program began in 2007);
- "program employees failed to verify delivery on at least THREE QUARTERS of all alleged assistance sent out."
-Wastebook had a picture of an ENTIRE WAREHOUSE full of rusted, twisted, wheelbarrows piled on top of each other. In trying to copy this pic (which I failed to figure out for about a half-hour), I stumbled onto the actual OIG's report, which has even more disturbing pictures and data- if you dare.

USAID is quite obviously such a slipshod outfit, We could save a LOT of money just by dismantling them altogether. How much I could not accurately determine, but it has to be somewhere between 3.1 and 39.5 BILLION DOLLARS.
Now, USAID will say in it's defense, and somewhat rightly so, that with the good that USAID does do, simply eliminating them is like tossing the baby out with the bathwater. But, just like with Second Mile, if you know there's a sexual predator in the henhouse and you do nothing about it, sorry for your luck. Burn it all down and replace it with someone who can deliver more than 25% of the time.

____________________________

Yesterday morning (our time), New Lokomotiv lost their first game in a valiant effort. Trailing after one period, Raphael Akhhmetov tallied his first at 5:49 of the second to tie it at 1-1. Four minutes later, Molot Prikamye Perm re-took the lead, but Oleg Yashin got his second as a Loko at 2:06 of the third to tie it at 2-2. They went to OT, but we let the puck loose infront of our own net right off the bat, and Maxim Verevkin scored just 28 seconds in to win the game for Perm 3-2. Nikolai Lozhkin had another great game, handling 23 of 26 shots.

“Lord, what fools these mortals be…”

2011-12-20T20:35:00.000-05:00

And Puck was never more correct than this is applied to the idiocy in our government these days. I understand, the Tea Party wants things done under a strict constitutional and financially sane basis. I understand that the Left side of the aisle wants to protect the interests of their constituency. But in between the “pass no law that doesn’t complete the job” on one side and the “we can’t cut funds for this necessary and important project- we must raise taxes instead” are people like the lady interviewed on CBSNews tonight, who got laid off from IBM 24 weeks ago and because Senate Dems keep saying “one man’s waste is another man’s treasure”, and House Republicans aren’t bright enough to say, “y’know, sometimes standing on principles can be accomplished in baby steps”, she’s going to have NO INCOME in about two weeks.

Now, the rub of this is, is that many will say, “She must be willing to take a lesser job.” And that is right; she, and many others, must be willing to scale down. She’s going to have to make changes in her lifestyle to accommodate a lesser income. We did it; Laurie and I haven’t always been in the veritable paradise that is Woodbridge. In fact, in between the home abandoned to bankruptcy and here, we were living in the “scale down” capital of Allen County.

Our “neighborhood” was the very same that the FWPD was shooting at when they were missing their targets in the firing range. (And, may I point out, they would have had to clear about three streets worth of trailer park to hit a living thing. The back of the park were the trashed out trailer shells that squatters, opossums, and termites took a pass on.) Our trailer featured: a front door whose base was about ready to rot out; two toilets with lists to one side severe enough that you couldn’t spare a hand to read the paper; a water heater that leaked so bad it had to be replaced after less than a week (supposedly just installed); pipes that froze upon hearing the forecast of below-freezing temps, along with a water meter that shattered on four different occasions; neighbors that had to be dissuaded from stealing the Sunday paper by my stuffing a decoy full of dog poop (which they took twice before learning the lesson); and management that made us sit for three weeks before accepting an inquiry call from Woodbridge. So, yeah, we get scale down.

But here’s the thing- ever go to your mortgageholder and say, “I’m not making as much as I did last month. How about you let me find a “scaled-down” home and let me pay a scaled down payment”? Yeah, that’s not so easy. And it’s people like that, chained to mortgages and loans they can no longer afford, that are getting hurt. We hear a lot about underwater mortgages and what Washington wants to do to fix them, but what good can they do when the only way to “scale down” your payments is in bankruptcy court?

And everyone is all about the big ways to cut spending- get rid of the Department of (insert name here, Rick Perry), slash the military, etc. But Tom Coburn (R-OK) has just shown a better way- he has released his latest copy of Wastebook, where he lists his top 100 wastes of our money. I had the idea of going through this bit by bit, until I’ve milked it for all the entertainment value I can, so you can see and enjoy where your money is really going. Tonight, I thought I’d look at a couple of items from one of my (and I’m sure one of your) favorite places to waste money- that valuable and trustworthy ally of ours, Pakistan.
#1:
13) Remake of “Sesame Street” for Pakistan – (U.S. Agency for International
Development) $10 Million
In 2010, Rafi Peer Theatre Workshop, a Pakistani arts organization,was awarded $20 million over the next four years, to create ―130 episodes of an indigenously produced Sesame Street.
The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) provided the first $10 million for the project in FY 2011. The Pakistan Sesame Street would be produced in cooperation with Sesame Workshop , creators of the original Sesame Street.
According to news sources, the show will be renamed ―SimSim Humara and set in a lively village in Pakistan with a roadside tea and snacks stall, known as a dhaba, some fancy houses with overhanging balconies along with simple dwellings, and residents hanging out on their verandas.
The only character adopted from the original Sesame Street will be the furry red monster Elmo. The rest of the puppet cast will be made up of new local characters, including a conceited welldwelling
crocodile named Haseen O Jameel, a spirited adult woman, Baaji, who enjoys family time and tradition, and Baily, a hard-working donkey who longs to be a pop star.
Besides the television show, the grant also includes funding for the following:
 ―Radio programs based on the main puppet characters‖
 ―A dynamic website where children can ‗interact‘ with their favorite puppet characters‖
 600 events with ―live puppet performances using vehicles with trained puppeteers
performing shows‖
 600 events with ―mobile video vans displaying pre-developed puppet-based programs to
children and communities‖
 9,000 small gatherings involving ―thirty trained District Ambassadors playing video
shows using laptop computers.
The television and radio shows will include 78 shows in Urdu and 13 shows in each of the four major regional languages.

Answer me this- even assuming that this was doing anything other than teaching future America-hating terrorists how to read, how many of these children will have access to this “dynamic website,” once the “district Ambassadors” clear the square? (Answer: Pakistan has 4.24 PCs per 1,000 people, 158th out of 168 nations.)
Martin savings: It would cost $2.69 billion to give every child under 14 a tickle me Elmo- and $1.21 billion to give each kid a Elmo hand puppet. However, when you only give them to the 4.24 in 1,000 who have computer access (and thus might actually give a crap about Elmo), you cut those numbers to $11,429,686 and $5,143,358. Thus, a potential savings of $4,856,642.
#2:

2) Mangled Mango Effort Could Hurt Farmers It Meant to Help –
(Pakistan) $30 Million
In 2009, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) undertook a four-year, $90 million effort to spur hiring and sales among Pakistani businesses. Two years later, the USAID
Inspector General (USAID OIG) found ―no measurable increases in sales and employment.
In four of five product areas USAID targeted – leather, livestock, textiles and dates – the agency abandoned its efforts roughly a year after it began them, with virtually nothing to show. For the
remainder of the project, it focused its effort (and funding) on the fifth product area: mangoes.
USAID‘s goal for mango farmers, to boost their sales by 20 percent, was as ill-fated as its grand plans for Pakistan‘s date farmers,
ranchers, and leather and textile manufacturers. Nearly $30 million into the project, the USAID OIG audited the effort and concluded it was not on track to achieve its main goal. The mango effort, which consisted of providing 13 mango farmers with equipment to clean, freeze and store mangoes, was ―stalled.
What brought the mango effort to a standstill? Although the contractor executing the project, Chemonics, stated it
had implemented several enhancements to mango production, the USAID OIG found only one farmer had received the promised
equipment, but could not operate it because
of a design flaw.
To make matters worse, the bungled effort could actually hurt the participating farmers by forcing them into default on loans they had taken out against expected sales that now may not happen, the OIG found.

So $30 mill later, USAID and Chemonics couldn’t accomplish something you or I could have with a few $600 freezers and $25 K for ten billboards. Savings by the Martin plan, $29,996,200. And I priced the freezers at Lowes, so you know THEY’LL work. Tune in next time for more “fun with government waste”.

Check this out!!

2011-12-19T21:26:00.000-05:00

I figured out how to snag a still out of the KHL video of Lokomotiv's first goal, scored by Dmitry Maltsev.

Needless to say, I also figured out how to get it on my desktop rotation. Am I great or what?
(Note: Do NOT answer that question!)

2011-12-19T18:10:00.002-05:00

A FITTING MEMORIAL….

B2S TAKE DOWN RANGERS 53-21

In 1997, They were known as Butthead’s Wheel Runners, after my hamster at the time. After his death, they were renamed the B2s (Butthead #2) after his successor. The B2s are the hamster’s team, down through the years. But Cassie was the last hamster (for now); and in the best of memorials, her team won Super Bowl XV.

The Sunset Rangers, exhausted after their very first playoff win last week, and bereft of 2/3 of their running back corps (note: Darren McFadden is, as the Bible says, “a broken reed”) the Rangers fell behind Thursday night on Roddy White’s 2 scores, and never got back into the game, trailing 44-2 after the early afternoon games.

At one point the total was up to 59, but two TDs and a FG got took off the board in about 15 minutes time. Last weeks’ savior, Mason Crosby, was a dud, and Tom Brady (12 pts) couldn’t do it alone.

Even the struggling Bears added a defensive TD, and Brandon Marshall threw in a 9-pointer. Arian Foster and Darrel Sproules added a score each, and K Dan Carpenter pitched in 12, more than making up for Eli Manning’s worst game all year.

For a while, it seemed that the B2s would shatter their own record for biggest rout in a Super Bowl, having won their other championship by a 52-12 win over the Beagles nine years ago. The B2s end the year at 10-4, While the Rangers close out their best year ever at 11-3.

Carved into the Super bowl trophy- 2011 B2s 10-4.

Sunday message

2011-12-18T10:46:00.000-05:00

I’ve been kind of stuck for today’s message. And it’s not that I’ve run out of prophecies concerning the coming (and now come) Messiah. Psalms and Isaiah are full of passages that practically spell out His life on earth step by step. But we here have been focusing not so much on the details but the nature of Prophecied Messiah.

We have seen His big picture ministry- the idea that it is the next life and not this one is where His focus is. Through Moses we have seen He was to have two ministries on earth- to free His people from the grip of Satan and to lead them to the home He promised. Through Melchizadek we saw that He was separate from, and superior to, a simple mortal priesthood. And last week we saw the gap between the mortal and divine perceptions of Messiah.

There are so many other ways to look at Messiah, too. I was thinking over the presaging through Moses, and thought about the other man who stood with the Lord at the transfiguration, Elijah. Elijah was a precursor as well, because in the moment after his greatest triumph, he suffered his greatest defeat, running for his life. Jesus was acclaimed on Sunday and crucified on Friday. But Elijah was renewed and returned, for a short time- long enough to anoint his successor (and a few others), and then drawn alive into heaven. So, too, Jesus rose from death, anointed the Apostles, and ascended into heaven. Throughout the Bible Jesus is explained not just in prophecy but in example.

And you know, He is not the only one described thus. Look at this description of the Antichrist from Daniel:
Dan 11:37 He will not regard the God of his fathers, nor the desire of women, nor regard any god. For he shall magnify himself above all.
I have mentioned in other posts the intertwining of radical LGBT and radical atheism. I never knew it was predicted. I am minded of Christopher Hitchens, the atheist supreme who died this week. It always puzzled me how people like him could make the point, “ If God is real, why give us a mind that can question and learn and expect us to believe in Him on faith?” Not so much for the question itself, but because they never seemed to ask the flip side question, “If God doesn’t exist, why did evolution drive us to develop a mind that can grasp the transcendental if there IS nothing transcendental?” They can accept a naturally self-occurring universe with no logical starting point that they can reach, but on the other hand believe that the mind that can grasp a subject so far beyond visible reality just crumbles to dust at death. Hitchens right now knows the answer to those questions, one way or another. And when I think of him, I think of the ending of the parable of Lazarus and the rich man:

Luk 16:27 And he said, I beg you therefore, father, that you would send him to my father's house,
Luk 16:28 for I have five brothers, so that he may testify to them, lest they also come into this place of torment.
Luk 16:29 Abraham said to him, They have Moses and the Prophets, let them hear them.
Luk 16:30 And he said, No, father Abraham, but if one should go to them from the dead, they would repent.
Luk 16:31 And he said to him, If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, they will not be persuaded, even though one rose from the dead.

Scientists base ideas of the multiverse on wild theories that they cannot conceive of a way to prove, and yet reject God for “lack of proof”. And even as Christians, we long for things to be spelled out. God had an answer to each. For the scientists, He said:
Jer 31:37 So says Jehovah, If the heavens above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth below can be searched out, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, says Jehovah.

Or to put it another way, When you get to the bottom of everything, THEN will My promises fail. Good luck with that.

And for the believers, a little patience from Daniel:
Dan 12:8 And the words came to my ears, but the sense of them was not clear to me: then I said, O my lord, what is the sense of these things?
Dan 12:9 And he said, Go on your way, Daniel: for the words are secret and shut up till the time of the end;
Dan 12:10 Till a number are tested and make themselves clean; and the evil-doers will do evil; for not one of the evil-doers will have knowledge; but all will be made clear to those who are wise.

Hockey update- the game returns to Yaroslavl

2011-12-17T19:36:00.000-05:00

Just a glancing blow to the KHL tonight, as they are currently on a 9-day “international break”. Traktor from the eastern conference has taken over the overall lead, and is certainly pulling away as Amur continues to struggle to maintain their early pace. Traktor leads by 12 in the East, with Avangard right on Amur’s tail. Amur has shown a sign of life in a two-game set against Barys; though losing the first 5-2, they blew out Astana 7-1 in the second to go into the break. Magnitogorsk continues to drive back into the race, winning 4 straight and putting the heat on both Barys and Ak Bars. Poor Automobilst continues to struggle, posting a 4-20-6 record thus far, despite taking Traktor to OT last week. And a shout out to Automobist captain Andrei Subbotin, who played his 1,000th top-level game in Russia in a 6-3 loss to Magnitogorsk.

SKA continues to hold a 9 point lead over Minsk in the west, with Dynamo Moscow trying to keep pace. The other metro Moscow teams wish things were going that good. CSKA (Red Army) lost 4 straight in December (1 in OT), and Spartak lost 10-2 and 5-1 decisions before an OT loss to close out the break. Vityaz joins Automobilst with 20 losses (6-20-6). Traktor is the only 20-win team at 20-7-5.

Now the big news is the return of hockey to Yaroslavl. The reborn Lokomotiv team played its first two games this week, both at home. On Monday, 9047 fans packed into the arena and were not disappointed. The opening opponent was Neftyanik (the Oilmen) of Almetyeusk, an Ak Bars affiliate located just west of Kazan. Dmitry Maltsev netted a goal at 13:19 of the first to put Loko on top 1-0. In the second period, Oleg Yashin (who comes over after a 14 game stint at Titan Klin) got his 6th of the season at 2:41. The third period was a big one. Cyril Kasputin made it 3-0 at 2:01. Then on a power play, Daniel Erdankov (coming off a 25-game run at Sokol) scored his 12th of the season to put it at 4-0. Almetyeusk broke the shutout of Goalie Nikita Lozhkin (who stopped 22 of 23 shots) at 13:41, but justshy of three minutes later, Alex Kruchinin (who played 7 games at VMF St. Petersburg) netted his 5th of the year for a 5-1 final score. Timothy Tankeev, who also came over from Klin, had a pair of assists as Loko scored 5 goals on just 19 shots.

Thursday a crowd of 9,000 saw Lozhkin be a 20-year-old master yet again, as he stopped all 28 shots in a 2-0 win over Ariada-Akpars of Vollzhsk ( a town halfway between Kazan and Ufa, affiliated with Neftekhimik). Maltsev assisted on both goals, the first by Daniel Romantsev at 10:55 of the first, and the second by Maxim Zyuzyakin at 5:34 of the second. Again, the new Lokomotiv team wasn’t especially active on offense (outshot 28-16) but Lozhkin was the hero, having stopped 40 of 41 shots in the two games. Next game is Tuesday vs Molot-Prikamye of Perm.

Nikita Lozhkin

Club: Lokomotiv
Number: 66
Position: Goalkeeper
Height: 183
Weight: 90
Birth Date.: 10/13/1991
Nationality: Russia
Age: 20 years 2 months
Clubs by season: Locomotive ^(11-12)

The Great seventies countdown week three

2011-12-17T10:02:00.000-05:00

The curtain slowly rises, but this time the host stays off stage, allowing the silence to build the drama before the a cappella first lines of the song shatters the silence and the week’s countdown begins.

280- Bohemian Rhapsody, Queen, #1 (1975); #2 (1992). From the well-named lp A Night At The Opera- which like the following A Day At The Races was taken from a Marx Brothers movie. Many 70s lists have this and Stairway To Heaven 1-2, but this is sufficient for me. Holds up remarkably well, especially after watching that horrific William Shatner version.

279- T.S.O.P., M.F.S.B., 1974, #1. This great instrumental, aka the Soul Train theme, was more fully The Sound Of Philadelphia by Mother Father Sister Brother. And included the Three Degrees at the end with the “Let’s get it on/ it’s time to get down”.

278- So Fine, Electric Light Orchestra, 1976, unreleased. Well, you knew I wouldn’t stay on the #1s forever. The lead cut on the second side of A New World Record which got some play on AOR stations.

277- Albert Flasher, The Guess Who, 1971, #29. Remember listening to this one riding the bus. “It was a cold, snowy, rainy Afternoon and we were sitting there in high school, my school…”

1979, #41,

276- Good Times Roll, the Cars, 1979, #41. The Cars first album, which we talked about last time, was full of great cuts.

275- Waterloo, ABBA, 1974, #6. I actually got hearing this song after SOS, after it charted. Bought the cassette at the late Smokey Montgomery's place. What a character!

274- Come And Get Your Love, Redbone, 1974, #5. Hail! Hail!

273- Like A Hurricane, Neil Young, 1977, non-charting. When he stays out of the political realm, Neil is simply the best.

272- Carry On Wayward Son, Kansas, 1977, #11. A late friend of mine had this as his favorite song. He was diabetic, blind, and saved, and knowing him made this song much more poignant. For you, Mr. Woods.

271- You And Me, Alice Cooper, 1977, #9. Suddenly, we all figured out Alice could SING, too.

270- That Lady, Isley Brothers, 1973, #6. Another great guitar riff from Ernie Isley.

269- You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet, Bachman-Turner Overdrive, 1974, #1. Believe it or not, another song I only heard after it had charted. For a few years between my sister getting married and my first clock radio (and BFF back then), my music diet must have just been the school bus.

268- Rock'n'roll Lullabye, BJ Thomas, 1972, #15. A wistful song featuring the Blossoms (Darlene Love's outfit) and Duane Eddy on guitar.

267- Rainy Days And Mondays, the Carpenters, 1971, #2. We'll be seeing a LOT of Karen and Richard on this list.

266- On And On, Stephen Bishop, 1977, #11. One of my biggest "teenage angst" hits. I practically had, "And I smile when I feel like dyin' " tattooed on my butt.

265- Take It To The Limit, Eagles, 1975, #4. Hard to believe that this most popular of early Eagles hits never took #1. It sure did around here.

264- You've Got A Friend, Carole King, unreleased, 1971. You'll also be seeing more from Carole's incredible album Tapestry on this chart. Another of my big early crushes.

263- American Girl, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, 1977, #109. A classic from the band's debut album. Too bad nobody knew them then.

262- I Never Cry, Alice Cooper, 1976, #12. One of the most powerful choruses to a ballad of all time.

261- Evil Woman, Electric Light Orchestra, 1975, #10. Sad to admit, but when this first came out, my stupid little kid ears heard "Blueberry Woman." Yeah, I shake my head too.

The a cappella trail off of Evil Woman fades and the lights come up enough for the host to make his first appearance of the day. He merely bows, presses a button on a remote that queues up one last video, and walks away.

Nativity scene epilogue

2011-12-16T17:19:00.000-05:00

Being the fair person that I am, I posted my "friendly warning " form last time on Freedom From Religion's facebook page. Of course I got the usual explanations that I'm the one who misreads the US Constitution, the typical list of insults that these so-called intellectuals stoop to, the same old attacks on FoxNews, who provided the story link, one "and what's up with Nixon?" But the one I really loved was this from Miss Julie Merrill-Quinn:

""frindly advise!" The only thing that link got right is SCIENTIFICALLY a tomato is a fruit."

But at least I can spell "friendly", eh? Still, Julie, you'll be happy to know that your post has caused me to formulate Martin Laws #s 5 and 6.

#5- Never debate with people who would put a tomato in a fruit salad (didn't think I'd catch that, did you?)

#6- I have no need to celebrate reason- I have a REASON to CELEBRATE!