FCS, KHL, M-o-u-s-e

And now, back to something I've been (mercifully) lazy about, my updates on the FCS (minor-league college football) and the KHL (Russian major league hockey).  Last week, I must admit, I laid off my FCS stuff because many of the teams I rank did horribly.  Fortunately, they were by-and-large the same ones that the coaches ranked, so I really didn't do THAT bad.  The coaches, however, sometimes I wonder if they pay ANY attention to anyone else's scores before voting.  For example, I counted 24 teams that as of this morning have winning records but not even a single vote on the coaches poll.  This includes 5 teams that are at least 3 games over .500- Dayton (6-3), Georgetown (7-2), Alabama A&M (6-2), Duquesne (7-2), and Drake (7-2), which makes for a combined 33-11.  Now I give you that many of these are from weaker conferences and I don't even rank them.  However, compare it to the 8 sub-.500 teams that DO get votes (such as Missouri State, who got enough votes to rank 30th while sporting a 1-8 record) and are a combined 22-44.  Missouri State has been clubbed by every halfway decent team that's come their way- including losing to big boys Arkansas and Oregon by a combined 107-14, and lovely competitive games against #2 Northern Iowa (42-7), #26 Illinois State (38-13), and #3 North Dakota State (51-21), leaving them outscored on the season 157-353.  For this tremendous record of success they got 23 votes in last week's poll.  If I were an AD, I'd want to know if I employed one of those 23 coaches that think 1-8 is rewardable success.

Anyhow, here's my rankings this week- and it shifts quite a bit after former #1 Georgia Southern fell to former #11 App State 24-17, and former #6 North Dakota St. beat former #2 Northern Iowa 27-19.  NDAKST goes to #1 with their big-boy-less 8-0 record.  Montana St. (8-1) pulls into 2nd with a 54-13 win over Idaho St.  Wofford rebounds in to 3rd (6-2), after pasting slumping Elon 48-28.  GaSo drops to #4 (still 7-1 ain't bad), and Lehigh (who I got to watch against Colgate yesterday) keeps their 7-1 record in 5th for a second week. Sam Houston St. (8-0) won a conference game 66-0 over Lamar and rises to 6th; App State's victory brings them fro 11 to 7.  NIU falls all the way to #8 at 6-2, while Montana at 7-2 holds at 9 after a 45-10 rout of Weber St.  Rounding out the top ten is the Black Bears of Maine, who go to 7-1 after pasting Villanova 41-25 (2 years from a national championship, the Wildcats are now 1-8).

Old Dominion (7-2) won a hard fought  23-20 game against then-#8 JMU (5-3) and rise to 11th, while James Madison drops to 18.  New Hampshire... well, they did win, 31-24, over doormat Rhode Island to go to 6-2 and move up one spot to 12th.  Jacksonville St. (5-3) has seen the wheels fall off of late, and fall another 3 this week to 13th after losing to Tennessee Tech (which the coaches actually had at 17th, and stubbornly I have yet to rank) 21-14.  A battle royal between then-#12 Towson and then-#17 Delaware ended in a 35-30 win for Delaware; therefore, the Blue Hens (5-4) rise to 14th while Towson (6-2) slips to 15th.  I had to nudge Liberty (6-3) down a notch to 16th when it took them 2 OTs to top Presbyterian 27-20.  Harvard ( 7-1) continues to do the Ivy League proud after whopping Dartmouth (sorry, KC) 41-10, and they move up to #17.

William AND Mary (4-4) had a week off together and slip to 19th, just behind JMU.  The next five spots did well enough to stay right where they are (and thus keep Tenn Tech and Dayton off my chart)- #20 Jacksonville (6-2), #21 Stony Brook (5-3), #22 Illinois State (6-3), #23 Indiana St. (5-3, and like W&M and J'ville, took the week off), and #24 UMass (5-3).  I did have one spot for a newcomer, and with reservations I gave it to Jackson State (7-1) at #25.

This week, we have a handful of ranked games:  NDAKST tries to keep its new #1 ranking against #23 Indiana St.; #10 Maine vs #15 Towson; #12 UNH vs #18 JMU.  Others facing tough contests are GaSo vs surprisingly 4-4 Citadel; Lehigh has conference rival Holy Cross; App State has to follow up their big win against Furman; NIU tries to recover against resurgent Youngstown St.; J-Ville State tries to stop their slide against Eastern Kentucky; Jacksonville faces Drake in an all-or-nothing for the Pioneer League lead; and Jackson State faces rival Grambling.

Montana St. gets its turn with Weber St. this week; Wofford gets cupcake Western Carolina; Sam Houston gets SE Louisiana; Montana moves on to cupcake Western Oregon; ODU faces struggling Richmond; Liberty may have a little trouble with VMI; Harvard gets Ivy doormat Columbia; W&M, who's been making everyone look good this season, plays URI; Stony Brook gets Charleston Southern, Illinois St. gets state rival Western; UMass gets to clobber 'Nova; and Delaware gets to watch it all on TV.

Very briefly on the KHL, the teams are beginning to spread out just a bit.  In the west, SKA has taken the lead with a 10-2-4 record (for simplicity's sake I just combine all the various OT results into one third column).  They and Dinamos Minsk and Moscow make up the top pack; Lev and Vityaz (who actually had a 2-0-1 record this week) make up the bottom rung, and the remaining teams range in a 6 point span in the middle.   Over in the East, Amur (13-5-2) continues to surprise, pulling out to a 6-point lead over Traktor.  Ak Bars and Avangard trail the first group; everybody else is caught in a 3-point spread... Except my poor Avtomobilst, who at 3-12-2 trail the next guy (Barys Astana this week) by a full dozen points.  Ah, well.

The great sixties countdown week 14

You feel like the "American Top Forty" jingle should be playing, and the next voice you hear should be Casey Kasem?  Well, it's that time in the countdown, and this has become to me like a really good novel- you want it to last, and want to race ahead to the end at the same time.  Which is a good seque for...

40- Paperback Writer, the Beatles, peak position #1. Somehow, this and Nowhere Man (along with a couple other songs we'll be hitting shortly) have never lost there newness for me.  Like having a car where the "new car smell" doesn't wear off.

39- In The Year 2525 (Exordium and Terminus), Zager And Evans, pp #1.  Time has only slightly tarnished the eerieness of this dystopian future.  There are a handful of songs that really made my childhood self wonder at if the world would last for me to get this old, and this is one.  Some of the others you might find odd to be on that list (such as What The World Needs Now from last week;  another one will be coming up in mere moments.

38- A Lover's Concerto, the Toys, pp #2.  Adapted from a work (Minuet In G Minor) that Bach gave to his wife and everyone thought he wrote, we have to put up with a prozac Spanish version at work which still isn't terrible.  No song crescendos better than this one.





37- Eve Of Destruction, Barry McGuire, pp #1.  There are those that think that this song is no longer pertinent, that it's meaning was overblown and couldn't have never happened.  Watch this well-put-together video and see if you still feel that way.



36- Good Vibrations, the Beach Boys, PP #1.  The ultimate expression of Brian Wilson's vision that he was able to force from the fog of all the drugs.  The most well-crafted song of all time.

35- Let's Hang On, the Four Seasons, pp #3.  See the Paperback Writer comment.  Just takes me back to a much more innocent and happier time.

34- Soldier Boy, the Shirelles, pp #1.  The ultimate girl-group song.

33- Working My Way Back To You, the Four Seasons, pp #9.  See me down and out, but I ain't about to go livin' my life without you...



32- Walk Away Renee, the Left Banke, pp # 5.  Can you believe that keyboardist Michael Brown wrote this at the age of 16? The single best example of Baroque pop.

31- Love Can Make You Happy, Mercy, pp #2.  Maybe the second most obscure song we have left to play, but these are the songs that I remember.  BTW, the lp cover you see was from an lp that had "the original single'- but the rest was fake, and the makers got sued out of existence.  Weird, wild stuff.



30- Badge, Cream, pp #60.  Gets its name from Ringo Starr walking in while George Harrison and Clapton are writing it, drunkenly reading the word "bridge"  written at the central part of the song, and wondering what they wrote "badge" for.  Another one of those songs I'll always scratch my head over how it charted no higher.

29- Downtown, Petula Clark, pp#1.  Fills me with visions of Christmas shopping at Wolff and Dessauers back before Fort Wayne let downtown go to rot.  The thought of this being a world we'll never see again puts it in that category of "end of the world" songs for me (see # 39).

28-Rubber Ball, Bobby Vee, pp #6.  Another of the 45's we played the grooves off of all through my childhood.



27- Duke Of Earl, Gene Chandler, pp # 1.  C'mon, you didn't think I would leave the Duke out, didja?

26- Shape Of Things To Come, Max Frost and the Troopers, pp # 22. Here is obscurity's poster child.  A fictional band from a movie called Wild In The Streets, in which Richard Pryor played the drums (but that's not him on the song), we had the 45 to this one too.  At 1:55, probably the shortest song on the countdown.



25- California Nights, Leslie Gore, pp #16.  A good song for her last big hit, and also an odd member of my "end of the world" club, which we have 5 members of on this week's countdown.

24- Runaway, Del Shannon, pp #1.  When I got here, I said, wow, hard to believe that this one ended up this low.  From 26 on, we have truly reached the top tier of my favorites.

23- Roses Are Red, Bobby Vinton, pp #1.  Bobby found this song in a reject pile at Epic records.  A&R men, whatcha gonna do?  Another of "Mom's greatest hits".

22- Red Rubber Ball, the Cyrkle, pp #2.  What's up with rubber balls all of a sudden?  Written by Paul Simon and Bruce Woodley (of the Seekers), we had this 45 too. Speaking of Paul Simon...

21- Mrs. Robinson, Simon and Garfunkel, pp#1.  So many good moments in this song.  The candidate's debate always puts me to the Nixon-Kennedy debates, though the timing's off.  The best part, Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio? Joltin' Joe has left and gone away...  I feel obligated (though they might not want me to) to mention that the Lemonheads did a great job on their cover.

Next week we do top 20, part one, and the next will be the final ten.  Prepare for surprises and great tunage.  To take us out, let's end it like Leslie did...

Free speech and Julio Pino

What this is about is that an Israeli guest speaker at Kent State was verbally attacked in a Q&A after a speech at the university by a tenured professor at the school, who punctuated his comments with a shout of "Death to Israel" and stomping out.  I got the first of the story from FoxNews, which generally leaves a few things out; I got the rest here from Ohio.com.  What this article adds is that it was part of a back and forth after the speech- and what it leaves out is the mixed opinions of Pino's fellow faculty.  Read the article on the link, and then come back here for those comments.  Go on, I'll wait.

Back?  Okay, now read this from the Fox article:

But Pino does have some supporters – among faculty members at the public university.

Donald Hassler, a member of Kent State’s Faculty Senate, told Fox News that Pino is a “colleague whom I respect.”
“We believe in freedom of expression and civil discourse,” Hassler said. “And those sometimes come in conflict – as they did in this case.”Hassler said Pino must have lost control at the lecture.


“It lacked civility,” he said. "It was an example of hate speech. He knows better than to use hate speech. He has definitely strong opinions. He needs to state them in a civil way.”


Ken Bindas, the chair of the KSU history department, told the Cleveland Jewish News that Pino was not attending the program as a professor, but “as a human being.”
“I don’t agree with his comments, but at the same time, I can’t not defend his right to free speech,” he told the newspaper.


My turn.  Yes, this is hate speech.  In this current climate, had Pino been expressing his thoughts as any kind of Christian, or as a white about any ethnic groups, Kent State would have thrown his grip in the streets and five preachers led by Al Sharpton would already be picketing the school.  But because he's a Muslim, we get to debate free speech issues.  Well, here's a free speech thought.  Major Nidal Hassan was saying the same things and visiting the same websites (I told you, Read the link!) just before he killed a bunch of our nation's heroes on an Army base.  Not only would I fire him, I'd have three FBI agents on his ass 24/7 on into eternity.  THE ONLY DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PINO AND HASSAN IS THAT PINO HASN"T STARTED SHOOTING YET.  And I'd bet money he will.

Second, and again read the link, doncha just love his rant about the poor little Muslims.  Yeah, all we ever did to Muslims was mortgage our future for their oil and make their rulers rich and give them something to eat other than sand and camel crap.  But their innocent little souls are crying out for revenge, and "the Muslim man is at (our) door".  Tough Shit, Professor Pino.  The only thing wrong with your type is using a persecution complex to cover up religiously rationalized bloodlust.  If Israel never existed, you'd find some other way to hate the rest of the world and some whackjob reasoning to justify it.  Let me make this clear- a terrorist is never a martyr or hero.  He/she is a mass murderer, nothing more.  If the Palestinians want to have things better for themselves, put down the guns and missles, pick up a shovel or a plow, and BUILD something instead of sitting around waiting for Arabic Welfare.

Third, and I address this to Kent State administration- James 3:1 says, "Let not many of you become teachers, my brethren, knowing that as such we will incur a stricter judgment."  Perhaps it was intended for teachers of the Word, but I think it applies universally- or should.  This "Pino was not attending the program as a professor, but “as a human being.” " horsecrap doesn't fly for me.  He is entitled to his opinions, I agree.  But he cannot divorce himself from being a representative of the university, just because he's there off hours.  How well does he separate the "teacher" and the "Muslim" in the frigging classroom?  Unfortunately, the head of the administration is Jewish himself, and is caught between a moral rock and a PC hard place.

Pino, say what you want.  But if you want to be a radical, you shouldn't be employed by a publicly funded university.  The same faculty that support you would likely run out an Evangelical teacher who had an optional prayer session after his class.  And let's face facts, you didn't just say F#@k you, asshole!  You advocated the Murder of 4.5 MILLION PEOPLE!  Frankly, our rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness trump your free speech rights, and you'd be on a slow boat back to Cuba were it up to me.

Step into my time machine week 79

It is October 28th, 1976.  As we watch, Jimmy Carter has seen a 33 point lead over incumbent Gerald "Jerry Baby" Ford  drop to a virtual dead heat with just days left before the election.  As usual, the issues are vital to the very core of America-  pardoning Nixon vs brother Billy, "no Soviet domination in Eastern Europe" vs "I've lusted in my heart", peanut farming vs stumblebumbery.  Young CW Martin is a punky freshman learning first hand about bullying and religious prejudice and learning in a school that has as many kids in one class as his grade school had in any three grades.  But at night, he can shut the door to his bedroom and listen to Ron Gregory on WOWO spin the tunes, give the "Hollyweird report" long before ET and Extra, and get the top of the hour commentary by Vernon Jordan or Jacqueline Grenin Wexler.  And if dad was drunk and telling the latest "Goddamnit, Woody, you're right" story, young CW could just turn up the radio and dream of a day when he might just get a girl to notice him on a non-"creep" level.  Ah, those were the days.  But at least the music was good.

And if he was attuned to the pulse of music at the time, he'd have been looking at these stories this week: the Vice President of the USA who co-wrote a #1 song; the Aussie supergroup who once turned a doo-wop b-side into a "chipmunk" #1 song; and what last week's top dog has in common with Willy Wonka.  Curious?  Bored and nothing better to do?  Or just attracted to my manly good looks?  It's all good, strap in and let's go.  (Disclaimer: I am attempting my first "scheduled" post so's I can sleep in, it's actually 1:13 am as I type, and I take no responsibility for any attempts at humor herein.)

As usual, we kick off with hot hundred debuts for this week- which are also the songs celebrating their 35th birthdays this week.  Seven songs debut, and you may actually know these three:  at 88, the follow up to the hit Boogie Fever for that mob-like amalgam known as the Sylvers, Hot Line. At 82, an AOR tune that breaks into the chart, Slowhand Eric Clapton's Hello, Old Friend.  And at 72, the opening salvo from ELO's new album A New World Record, Livin' Thing.  This is probably the best ELO singles lp of their career, though as a complete work I think Eldorado still tops it.  Tightrope, which leads off the lp, is probably the best single they never released, and Telephone Line remains one of the two best songs they ever did.  Oh, and Livin' Thing wasn't bad either.

Joining them in our birthday group at the 40-year level are (are you ready?) Michael Jackson's Got To Be There, Sly and the Family Stone's Family Affair, and the Who with Behind Blue Eyes.  At 45 years old this week are the New Vaudeville Band's Winchester cathedral, the Supremes' oft-covered  You Keep Me Hanging On, and the Stylistics' You Are Everything.  And turning 50 this week, James Darren with the immortal words:  "Goodbye cruel world, I'm off to join the circus."  Blow out the candles...

With the weather getting cold now, it's only appropriate that War's hit Summer would be our big dropper, falling 16 spots to #55.  The big mover awaits in the top 40.

Guess what?  We finally have a #49 that we can salute on the Where Are They Now Segment!  On their way down, the Little River Band stops at 49 with It's A Long Way There.  I don't know about you, but I think these guys were highly underrated.Probably not so much back in Oz, where they had quite the pedigree.  The original group centered around three men.  Glenn Shorrock started out with a band called the Twilights, and it was in part due to their nationwide popularity (rare in those days Down Under) that a National Top 40 chart was established, which they promptly topped with a tune called Needle In A Haystack. (I'm sampling this right now.Pretty good!)  He moved on to another outfit called Axiom, which scored two top tens in 1969-70.  Bassist Beeb Birtles  was in a band called Zoot along with a young Rick Springfield, and they had scored a top five hit with a powered-up version of Eleanor Rigby (which I shall sample next. Man, this rocks!)  He and the third member of this core, Graeham Goble, were both involved in another top ten-hitting act, called Mississippi.  They also took the flip side of the Rays' #3 1957 hit Sihouettes, a song called Daddy Cool, and turned it into a "chipmunk version" under the name the Drummonds and held the #1 spot for 7 weeks in '71.  (Yeah, I'll check this out when Zoot's done.)

So where is the LRB now?  Well, attrition over the years left the ownership of the name with a non-original member, Steve Housden, and he kept it even when he retired from what now passes for LRB in 2006.  The actual core members reunited in the late 1990's but had to go by the moniker Birtles Shorrock Goble.  They split in 2007.  Shorrock still tours small venues and pimps new acts; Goble, after beating codeine dependence in 2006, released a solo lp, Let It Rain, in 2008;  Birtles has a website, but doesn't look like he does much with it.  And Daddy Cool?  If you like Chipmunk stuff, this isn't bad.

Four songs hit the top 40 this week.  At 39, up 8, one of my top five of the 70s, Nights Are Forever Without You by England Dan And John Ford Coley, who ironically enough sit at #40 with the dropping Really Love To See You Tonight.  The week's big mover jumps 20 from 58 to 38, Leo Sayer's You Make Me Feel Like Dancing. At 36, up 12, is another song high on my 70s list- Burton Cummings with Stand Tall.  And climbing 10 to 33 is Alice Cooper with I never Cry.  "Take away, take away my eyes/Sometimes I'd rather be blind..."

An almost but not quite shoutout to Linda Ronstadt.  Her cover of the Crickets' That'll Be The Day peaked at 11 last week and slips down to 18 this time.

Here's our look at the #1s of other years, in the 8s this time.  1998 had Monica at the top this week with The First Night (which wasn't bad, but was no Daddy Cool).  Phil Collins topped the 1988 chart with the Mindbenders' Groovy Kind Of Love.  1978 was topped by Hot Child In The City by Nick Gilder.  Gilder was lead singer for Canadian act Sweeny Todd, who had a #1 there with Roxie Roller (yes, I'll sample).  He would be replaced in that band, eventually, by a 15-year old Bryan Adams.  1968 was topped by a song on my personal "not-hit parade", the Beatles Hey Jude.  (That's right; I don't like Hey Jude.  Wanna make something of it?  I have a time machine, you know...)  And the top dog this week in 1958 was Tommy Edwards' It's All In The Game, which melody, under the title Melody In A Minor, was composed in 1912 by Charles G. Dawes, who would go on a dozen or so years later to be the VP under Silent Cal Coolidge.

Crap! we're at the top ten already, so's I best let you know that one comes in, one goes out.  The Bay City Rollers begin the long road out by falling from 8 to 12 with I Only Wanna Be With You.

Oh, and Roxie Roller?  It's good.  Can't miss that it's Gilder.  Kinda Hot Child In The City meets Fox On The Run.

Kiss scores their first top ten, moving from 12 to 10 with Beth.  The Captain and Tenille move up one spot to 9 with Muskrat Love.  Also up one is Blue Oyster Cult with Don't Fear The Reaper at 8.  Heart holds at 7 with Magic Man, as does Hall and Oates with She's Gone at 6.  This is also our new grandpa's chair sitter, with 26 weeks on the chart, one of 10 songs in the hot 100 with over 20 weeks.  A Fifth Of Beethoven slips 2 to #5.  Gordon Lightfoot wrecks the Edmund Fitzgerald at #4 this week, up one fathom.  Steve Miller moves up a spot to #3 with Rockin' Me.

Which brings us to our six degrees victim, Chicago's If You Leave Me Now, which slips from top dog to second banana.  Like Beth, a song so out of the band's character that much of the group wanted nothing to do with it, it was shoehorned onto Chicago X by producer James Guercio- an act that set a domino effect into motion that turned Chicago from an American original to Peter Cetera's back-up band.  As  a producer, Guercio did much the same for Blood Sweat And Tears, recruiting vocalist David Clayton Thomas to take BST in a new direction with their second, eponymous lp.  I was amazed, looking into this, at the sheer number of talents on the writing credits list for this album:  Eric Clapton, Laura Nyro, Berry Gordy Jr., Billie Holliday, Steve Winwood and Jim Capaldi.  And one song written by the new vocalist- the #1 Spinning Wheel.  This song was covered by Shirley Bassey on one of her albums; you know her as the singer on the Bond theme Goldfinger.  Goldfinger was written by a trio of talent:  the music came from prolific movie scorer John Barry, among whose compositions was Born Free.  The word came from the duo of Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newly, whose many credits include Sammy Davis Jr's two biggest songs- What Kind Of Fool Am I, and (from Willy Wonka) The CandyMan.  And there you have it,- or, as I learned our friends in Canada might say, Bob's Your Uncle.

And If Chicago slips to #2, that means what's old is new again. Or, the new #1 one is the former #1... (sorry, Bobby G.)

Rick Dees and Disco Duck!

Okay, that took just one hour and thirty minutes.  So goodnight, good love, and I'll be seeing you next in dreamland!

Let me crab about work before I do the NHFFL scores

Not so much the work itself, but the continuing battle between we who are expected to turn sow's ears into silk purses and those much wiser and higher-paid than us who apparently feel the best way to forge a successful team is through firing us with any idiotic roadblock they can come up with.

A couple weeks ago, You read about the fabric from hell, with the dotted lines, etc., that took Laurie 7 separate lays to make what should have been done in one with a third less fabric.  Today I got my turn with the crap.  Now I had the rolls at the bottom of the pallet, which apparently means that on top of all the other charming features of this fabric, I was having to try and line up a design which varied by as much as an eighth of an inch from one side to another.  May not seem like much, but consider that even going halfway down the table- on a pattern I was supposed to match exactly- an eighth-inch on each little dotted line box adds up to a 3/4 inch difference by the other end.  Repeat this by 18 plies per roll (which have to be cut one at a time because of this non-standard design measurement) and add to it that in order to get the front and back to match up, it has to be laid up face-side to face-side, meaning that every other ply has to be cut off and then flipped over and matched up- that's right, matching up something as much as 3/4 inch off over and over. Plus, some of the rolls are varying the amount and direction of being off- if I line up the design dead on at the beginning, it might be an eigth off on the first block, a quarter in the next two, back to matching on the fourth, and a qarter inch the OTHER direction on the last two.  This is not the work of some half-assed moron, nor is it the work of the Purdue University School of Applied Dumbassery, this is full-blown, stage four brain death.

In the meantime, I was pulled over to confirm I had cut this other fabric right.  Now we had made chairs from this fabric (we thought) before;  It is a brown with little swirly flowers- that every 12-15 inchews change direction, which made it real fun and the sewers had an awful time trying to figure out which piece to sew to what.  I was sent into the fabric room to get the pallet of FB07.  I went into the room, thinking I knew what I was looking for, but the stuff we'd made the chairs out of was marked FA05.  OK, I said, the boss must have them confused, or there's some slight color difference.  I grabbed the FB07, cut 850 little seat pads, again face to face to make it easy for the sewers, and also side bands and fabric to cover the welt cord that goes on each side of the band (actually, Victor cut the welt on the slitter).  In the midst of my fabric from hell some hours later, a supervisor asked me which was the face side of the FB07, because the lady who sews the welt cord and bands together had the lighter, buff side as the face, and I had cut the dark, shiny other side as the face.  Long story shorter, it seems that she had done the bands just like she had done the chairs, buuuut.... the chairs were FA05, which it turns out is the BACK side of FB07, and vice versa.  So the same fabric is FB07 if turned one way and FA05 if turned the other.  Upshot being, I cut my stuff right, Wanda sewed her bands wrong, and we all learned that our fabirc buyers had learned an entertaining new way to FUBAR things for those of us who have to deal with their lack of prescience.

________________________________________________________

And now, onto this week's NHFFL report.  The Rangers got 7 measly points from the Baltimore D, but it was enough to tip the KCAs for the second time this season, 35-34, in the first week of playing the second time through the division.  The Rangers extend their streak to 7-0, hotly pursued by the Aguas, who beat the Angels for the second time, 30-24, behind 9-pointers (scores of 50+ yards) by Calvin Johnson and Mike Wallace.  In fact, the Angels are 0-3 against the league's top two and 4-0 against everyone else.  All the other matchups were teams getting their revenge for an earlier loss.  The Greenwoods avenged their 42-point loss to the Beagles with a 24-12 win featuring a Greg Jennings 9-pointer.  The Elks rode Drew Brees' 15-point night against the Indianapolis Dolts to beat the Clock BBQs 33-29.  The Ducks avenged a 50-18 loss to the Porkchops two weeks ago with a 47-31 win that was keyed by a 26-point day by KC's D against Oakland.  And the first-place B2s also avenged a 42-point loss to Buzz with a 46-34 win led by Arian Foster's 21 points.



Next week, the Rangers try to beat a dead dog (the Beagles); the KCAs, with time running out on a playoff run, face a must-win game with the Angels; the Greenwoods face the Aguas; another must win game sees the Clock BBQs playing the Gold-leading B2s; the Ducks face Buzz; and the Porkchops face the Elks in a key game with playoff implications.

The great sixties countdown week 13

We are now inside the top sixty, and we are down to the songs that would stop me if I was passing a room and heard it playing.  Soon we'll be into songs that slow or stop my breathing.  Is that weird? But it's the effect on me.  As I get older my life becomes one big version of Dobie Gray's Drift Away. Anyway, as a friend said recently, it's time to "unravel (more of) the mystery that is Chris".

60- Sloop John B, the Beach Boys, peak position #3.  The lead of the second side of Pet Sounds, a fun adaptation of a West Indian folk song about a real ship that sank in 1900.  I think about the chorus at work a lot- "Well, I feel so broke up, I wanna go home!"

59- Raindrops, Dee Clark, pp #2.  One of the first songs I remember- "Raindrops/so many raindrops/it looks like raindrops/falling from my eyes..."

58-Blue Moon, the Marcels, pp #1.  For me, the capital city of doo-wop. I never even knew there was a ballad version.

57-Last Train To Clarksville, the Monkees, pp#1.  For me, I always remember when NBC was advertising the Apollo 17 launch, they would play this with the voice over, "Apollo 17.  If you miss this one, you've missed it." (Instant history lesson- the Apollo program ended at 17.)  Actually, a song about a guy getting ready to head off to Vietnam, which made it even cooler.

56- Both Sides Now, Judy Collins, pp #8.  I love about anything with the baroque-style piano, and the lyrics are dynamite.  Ironically, this has a connection to the song I named my personal theme song a few months back on Time Machine.  Both this and Counting Crows Rain King were inspired by the book Henderson The Rain King by Saul Bellow.  I may just have to read that book someday soon. 



A quote I saw on Youtube with this song: "Fifty years ago it brought aspirations.  Now it brings regrets".  Amen.
55- The Weight, The Band, pp #63.  The part that always gets me is, "Go down, Miss Moses, there's nothin' you can say/It's just ol' Luke, and Luke's waitin' on the Judgement Day./"Well, Luke, my friend, what about young Anna Lee?"/He said, "Do me a favor, son, woncha stay an' keep Anna Lee company?" "  Low charting because the Band was treated like the grateful Dead, and it's a damn shame neither one got the mainstream success they deserved.



54- You Don't Own Me, Leslie Gore, pp #2.  Even the constant use by the NFL for advertising their "women's fit jerseys" doesn't ruin this for me.  Have I mentioned I love Leslie Gore?

53- Those Were The Days, Mary Hopkin, pp #2.  An old Russian song re-written with English lyrics, and produced by Paul McCartney. A very melancholy feel.

52- We'll Sing In The Sunshine, Gale Garnett, pp #4.  Not surprising to find this here, because I've always linked this song and Those Were The Days in my mind.  Kind of like the before to Mary Hopkin's after.

51-Come Back When You Grow Up, Bobby Vee and the Strangers, pp #3.  I never realized how many great songs Bobby Vee did until I started this list.  This was one of those that we had on 45, and my first young attempt at "modifying " lyrics- "Peeing ain't easy, pooping's twice as tough, come back, baby, when you throw up."  Did I mention I was about 8 at the time?



Man, if you guys could see my eyes right now...

50- Telstar, the Tornadoes, pp #1.  The first single to EVER hit the #1 spot on the US chart by a British band, and showing my love for instrumentals yet again.  Somehow, I feel this should be playing in that far-future day when man launches the Starship Enterprise.



49- Leaving On A Jet Plane, Peter, Paul, and Mary, pp #1.  Already I'm so lonesome, I could cry...

48- Sealed With A Kiss, Bryan Hyland, pp #3.  It is so hard to believe that the same man that came up with spellbinders like this and later Gypsy Woman, also gave us Itty Bitty Teeny Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini.

47- Mr. Lonely, Bobby Vinton, pp #1.  What can I say that I haven't about the Polish Prince?

46- Keep Searching (Follow The Sun), Del Shannon, pp #9.  His last big hit, and my favorite.

45- Wonderland By Night, Bert Kaempfert Orchestra, pp #1.  Another instrumental, one of my mom's faves that she passed down.



44- Only The Lonely, Roy Orbison, pp #2.  As much as I heard this as a kid, it seems incredible to me that it came out two years before I was born, and not when I was five or six.  Mom loved Roy, too, especially this one.

43- This Diamond Ring, Gary Lewis and the Playboys, pp #1.  Despite the fact that "the Playboys " were about as real as the first versions of "the Monkees", despite the fact the the writer was unhappy with it because he wanted the Drifters to do it, this is one of those songs that has never grown old- even though it's on the CD player at work.

42- Tired Of Waiting For You, the Kinks, pp #6.  I had forgotten about this one for many years until one day I heard it on an oldies station, feeling perfectly preserved from the time it was new as if a paleontologist discovering a fossil.  Transports me instantly to Saturday afternoons with my sister out in the backyard with our little blue transistor that sounded so good...



41- Wouldn't It Be Nice, the Beach Boys, pp #8.  How ironic we end this week where we began, on Pet Sounds- specifically the lead of the first side.  The 12-string mandolin in the last verse melts me every time, as does the line that goes with it- "You know it seems the more we talk about it/ it only makes it worse to live without it/ but let's talk about it..."

Wow.  This week, I am just spent emotionally at this point.  I'll need my walk with Scrappy to recover my eyesight!  And there are forty more to go!  So tune in next time for the start of the Final Forty.  I'm playing with the idea of splitting the top twenty into two weeks- and if next week's like this, I might do the forty in four, haven't decided yet.  Anyway, there's only one song on this list appropriate to close with this time, I'm sure you'll agree...

Some more fun with idiots

Actually, I guess that's a bit misleading.  It starts out with me, you see.  I had tried to take some video of a segment of our walk today to share with you all.  But here's the thing- first, I've been going through the scrounge drawer using every double-a I find to its natural death in the camera- and most of them have been on last legs.  Second, when the camera beeps at me that said batteries are low, it quits filming. Third, it beeped about three seconds into the filming.

So I decided to clean the camera of it and all the little partial videos I made by accidentally hitting record when I meant to take pictures.  I found it amusing that two of them began with my saying "G** D*** it", one with, "You little f****r, " and one was Laurie saying, ironically, "Oops, that time I did it!"

Somewhere along the line I did manage to take some actual pictures.  Here they are!

This is that usually-dry stream bed after three days of continuous rain.

This is what that little mini waterfall looks like now.

Here's an experiment- the bridge at normal...

...then at 1.5 X...

...and finally at that whopping top-end 2X zoom.

We were exploring the little used east side of the creek today (little used because its overgrown with briars in spring and summer.  Here a random boulder sits by a tree.

This? I don't know.  I think I took this trying to get the stupid thing to record.

Moving on, here's a huge upgrade in our recent spam e-mail collection.  Mr. Water Bill, I want you to pay close attention to how a scam e-mail SHOULD look:

UNITED NATIONS OFFICE OF INTERNATIONAL OVERSIGHT SERVICES

Internal Audit, Monitoring,Consulting and Investigations Division
From: Ms.Carman L.Lapointe. (Notice full, official-looking salutation.)
Dear Unpaid Beneficiary,




This is to inform you that I came to Nigeria yesterday from London,after series of complains from the FBI and other Security agencies from Asia, Europe,Oceania, Antarctica( A bit of overdo here- who will believe there are scam complaints coming in from Antarctica?),South America and the United States of America respectively,against the Federal Government of Nigeria and the British Government for the rate of scam activities going on in these two nations.  (A new wrinkle- blame the British as well as the Nigerians.  Very clever!)
I have met with President GoodLuck of Nigeria who claimed that he has been trying his best to make sure you receive your fund in your account.
Right now,as directed by our secretary general Mr. Ban Ki-Moon,We are working in collaborations with the Nigerian Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) and have decided to waive away all your clearance fees/Charges and authorize the Government of Nigeria to effect the payment of your compensation of an amount of $10.5M approved by both the British/United States government and the UN into your account without any delay.The only fee you will pay to confirm your fund in your account is your Court Notarization fee to the UN.
Sincerely,you are a lucky person because I have just discovered that some top Nigerian and British Government Officials are interested in your fund and they are working in collaboration with One Mr.Ben S.Bernanke and others from USA to frustrate you and thereafter divert your fund into their personal account.  (Wow! Ben Bernanke is trying to screw me here, too?  I wonder if I should send this to him, as well...)
I have a very limited time to stay in Nigeria here so I would like you to urgently respond to this message so that I can advise you on how best to confirm your fund in your account within the next 72 hours.Contact me immediately on this Cell Phone:+234-7088 155 255
Sincerely yours,
Ms.Carman L.Lapointe


United Nations Under-Secretary-


General for Internal Oversight.


Cell Phone:+234-7088 155 255


So, Mr. Water Bill, what do we learn here?  1, use a believable name.  Naming yourself after the top object on your coffee table doesn't cut it.  2, make it sound official by not only making yourself a top official, but blame top officials of as many nations as feasible.  3, add the occasional new and clever wrinkle, such as Carmen did by suggesting Ben Bernanke had found a new way to take money out of my pocket.  4, make use of modern technology, such as Carmen did, I'll wager, by leaving me a cell phone number that connects me to something that will no doubt charge me two first-born children per minute. 5, and this applies more to other scammers than the succinct Mr. Bill, use good diction and spelling.  I caught only one misused word, and everything actually made sense grammatically.  Carmen gets an A.

Not coming out so well is Barr Bello (Barr being unintelligent African for "Barrister").  Let's look at his attempt:
Here is the western union information to pick up the USD4500.00;



This is Barr Bello? (Mistake #1- You don't even know your own name for sure?  Check your punctuation!)I write to inform you that I have transfer your full compensation payment total sum of USD800, 000.00 through Western union I have already sent you USD4500.00 dollars today .Now, I decided to email you the MTCN and sender name so that you will pick up this USD4500.00 to enable us send another USD4500.00 today as you know we will be sending you only USD4500.00 per day. Please pick up this information and run to western union to pick up the USD4500.00 and call me back to send you another payment today, My direct phone line is +22968226293,Manager Mr Tony Chigozie Email:(w.westernuion@w.cn)  , (Notice, my friends, the fakery on the e-mail- western UION, instead of UNION) call or email me once you picked up this USD4500.00 today.


Here is the western union information to pick up the USD4500.00;
SENDER'S NAME:===== GABRIEL CHINWUBA
TEXT QUESTION: ====WHO IS ABLE
ANSWER:========GOD
AMOUNT:========$4500,00.
MTCN :========== 2796837454
Barr Bello.
Okay, let's take it a step at a time. 1, remember that "Barr" is a TITLE, and NOT a first name. 2, Your keyboard does -or should- have one of these- $.  Please try to use this instead of USD if you want to look more professional. 3, your writing, while not incorrect in most spots, is certainly rushed and hard to read.  Try to talk and write gooder. And 4, remember that there are stupid atheists out there as well, and they won't appreciate the use of God in your text Q&A.  While that may help you with the more simple of us Christians, the truth is that those people have already given their money to more articulate scammers like Carmen Lapointe.

See, I promised you idiots, idiots you get!