Here's my thing

Can't get good help of the day

2012-03-13T19:02:00.002-04:00

President Barack Obama's re-election site has a bracket challenge feature for the NCAA Tournament.

My alma mater, University of South Florida, has made the tourney this year.

Yay

Unfortunately, whoever did the webpage work for the prez, did as little research as possible into the teams this year, as when you mouse over "USF" on the bracket, you get University of San Francisco!!

Why am I not surprised at such a display of incompetence by this bunch?

Hey, they're shooting a movie down my way

2012-03-13T18:55:00.002-04:00

That movie Spring Breakers is being shot down where I work.

Heh

Got my first brush with a Hollywood production today, as they had the road blocked off next to the Post Office, and I got to see the four girls fly up and down the street on their mopeds while I waited to turn in.

Not exactly a world changing moment, but something different in my banal life.

I'll take it :-)

Stewart wins in Vegas

2012-03-11T19:29:00.003-04:00

Tony Stewart won the Kobalt Tools 400 today in Las Vegas.

One of only three tracks that Tony previously did not have a win at, Vegas is where the discontent with former crew chief Darien Grubb began last season.

After dominating the entire race in 2011, Stewart lost on a late race pit bungle and complained openly after the race saying, "Someone needs to explain to me how we lost this race!"

This year, Tony took no chances. Showing the same fierce determination that welled up during the championship run last season, Tony simply refused to lose today's race. Though Jimmie Johnson may have had a better car, Stewart repeated blew the other racers away on restarts and once again, out-gutted Johnson in the final 4 lap finale.

It's a nice bit of redemption for Tony as he's taken some heat from casual race fans for dumping the affable Grubb after last year's championship winning season. This was magnified by Grubb's win last week with Denny Hamlin at Phoenix.

This is the earliest in a season that Tony's won a race and perhaps a harbinger of the season to come. At least at this point, there is no obvious let down or hangover from the 2011 Championship, and Tony looks hungry to win another won right away.

Also kudos to Ryan Newman for his fourth place finish. That gives Stewart-Haas racing two cars in the top five today.

nice

Bush league move of the day

2012-03-11T11:05:00.003-04:00

Playing against the Orioles the other day, Rays manager Joe Maddon had the guys get up in the dugout and give Baltimore's Robert Andino a standing ovation.

Who is Andino? He's the guy who drove in the run that ended the Red Sox's season and allowed the Rays to fall into the playoffs last year.

The Rays have been dining out on their lucky pass for the entire off season, with pictures of them celebrating like they actually won something.

"He was startled by it; he had no idea what was going on," Maddon said. "He was looking around. I thought it was pretty good."

Of course he was startled. Andino's a professional ballplayer, and in the pros, you don't do silly little league stuff like that.

This is just another example of the minor-league attitude that surrounds this club. I root for the Rays because they're my hometown team, but its stuff like this and the faux-rivalry with the Sox and all the irrational hatred they send towards Boston that turns me off.

I see Sue Carlton's at it again

2012-03-11T10:42:00.003-04:00

Taking a momentary departure from her usual fight to force patients to declare whether or not they own firearms to their doctor ('cause you can't prescribe an asprin without knowing information like that) or publish the names of concealed weapons permit owners on the front page of the newspaper (because these law abiding citizens are such a threat to society) or reduce city speed limits to 5 mph (because any idiot pedestrian should be able to wander out into traffic without being concerned about getting run over), Tampa Bay Times (formerly St. Pete Times) writer Sue Carlton has found a new conservative injustice to rail at.

Jose Godinez-Samperio has graduated FSU law school and passed the Florida Bar exam. Problem is that Jose is not a citizen of the United States of America and as such is not eligible for admission to the Bar.

Jose's parents came here from Mexico on a tourist visa and naturally, and illegally, stayed after their visa expired. Jose went to school, did well, became an Eagle Scout (more on that in a moment) and went to FSU law school.

Sue naturally frames her complaint around the immigration debate and the hand-wringing entreaty that we not punish the children of illegals for their parents acts.

Problem here is that Jose, clearly an intelligent young man, knew he was here illegally. He is currently 25 years old which means he's had ample time to apply for and become a legal citizen of this country.

As mentioned above, Jose is an Eagle Scout with BSA. As a boy scout, I'm sure Jose is familiar with the various requirements of scouting, to wit:

The foremost responsibility of an Eagle Scout is to live with honor. or

Eagle Rank testifies that a Scout has an understanding of his community and his nation or

I, [ Scout's name ], believe in the Boy Scouts of America as a movement that has as its aim and purpose, character building and citizenship training.

Did Jose simply not pay attention when he was taking these oaths? When he achieved his citizenship badge with the scouts, what did he think being a citizen meant? What part of lying about his citizenship did Jose find to be honorable?

When he was taking law classes at FSU, he surely knew he would not be allowed to enter the bar as a non-citizen. So what was he hoping? That some bleeding heart liberal like Sue Carlton would jump to his rescue and gin up some outrageous outrage over his plight to get him a free pass into the millionaires club that is the law profession?

As an Eagle Scout, Jose is supposed to be setting an example for others to follow. What example is he setting here? Flout the law when its convenient? Deliberately lie to those around you to achieve your goals? Cry foul to the media when you can't get what you want?

Sounds like the perfect lawyer for the Obama administration.

Oddly enough, Milla doesn't have to hide her hips

2012-03-07T20:54:00.004-05:00

In a recent issue of Maxim [Australia] actress Milla Jovovich, 37 year old mother of one, showed off her abs, which looked hard enough to shell walnuts on:

In a recent issue of Maxim [US] actress Jennifer Love Hewitt, 33 years old - no children, continued to use every photographer's trick in the book to hide her size 2 *cough, cough* hips:

PHOTOG: Okay Jen, turn sideways . . . a little more . . . a little more . . .

JLove: But they can't see my boobs!

PHOTOG: Oh yeah, right. Okay, put your arms at your sides. Yeah. Now out wider . . . wider . . . wider . . . *groans* This isn't working! Get me a big fuzzy coat! *groans again* Oy! This is barely working. What about a blanket? Didn't we use a lawnchair that one time? Where's that? *whispers off to the side* We've got Photoshop, right? Sexy smile now . . . aw yeah honey, that's a keeper!

Seriously, you know it went like that.

Man, did I pick the wrong line of work

2012-03-06T22:58:00.003-05:00

I mentioned in an earlier post that my fridge went on the fritz. Well, the repair guy came out today.

I should mention that my refrigerator is 15 years old, and other than replacing the water filter, I've never had a problem with it. For the record, it is a Frigidaire Gallery Professional Series. Hey, no shame in plugging something where consumer's are getting their money's worth. Right?

Anyway, the repair guy comes out, diagnoses the problem -- relay for the auto-defrost isn't working, so the coils freeze over and viola - quits cooling.

But here's my thing -- a $24 part plus $200 labor! Seriously! The guy was there for maybe an hour!

Like I said . . . I'm in the wrong line of work!

And just to find something that puts a smile on my face, here's busty beauty Jordan Carver adding some value to the government's cash for clunkers program:

Okay, which one of these gals is 18 again?

2012-03-04T13:45:00.002-05:00

Dueling mascara-eyed rockers Avril Lavigne and Taylor Momsen both released videos recently. Both girls are getting their emo on in these songs and accompanying vids:

You may want to skip ahead to the 1:45 mark in Avril's to avoid her awkward introduction, which is what prompted the title of this post.

I've said before that I think Taylor's actually got some pretty good vocal chops, though they are not really evidenced in this song. And I still think her band's name - The Pretty Reckless, is very cool. And I'd love to hear her get some serious songwriting and studio backing to see what she could do with some grown up budget behind her.

Rule 5 Sunday -- Ashley Brookes

2012-03-04T11:05:00.002-05:00

This week's Rule 5 submission is Ashley Brookes. As I'm in a bit of a situation this weekend -- looks like my fridge decided to give up the ghost (why these things happen after I'm on vacation and not while I'm on vacation when I could actually get them taken care of, I'll never know!), so I had to do a little quicky here.

Once again, when I decided to see who this gal was, turns out she may be some adult actress that also goes by the name Nikki Nevada.

*sigh*

Sometimes I just feel so out of the loop with things. Ya know?

But she is cute, so there is that at least . . .

*click on the thumbnails for full-sized images*

Rule 5 Sunday suggested by this.

Hat tips:
Jake Finnegan
The Daley Gator
The Classic Liberal
Say Anything Blog
Proof Positive
Reaganite Republican

New Avengers trailer, now in HD

2012-02-29T18:38:00.004-05:00

This is the best trailer to date, very clean looking and you get a good look at the charcters and the basic plot and some nifty action. The Hulk is kind of odd looking, but other than that . . .

Poll Creator Progreat free widgetsWidgetboxMore info

Matt Kenseth wins the 37 Hours of Daytona

2012-02-28T04:10:00.002-05:00

Matt Kenseth won The Race that Wouldn't End®, otherwise known as the Daytona 500 sometime around 1:00am Tuesday morning.

Congrats to Matt for winning NASCAR's season opener -- this year a wild and wooly thing that included a lap two wreck that took out Jimmie Johnson and media sensation Danica Patrick, among others. Also, late in the race, Juan Pablo Montoya's car broke while trying to catch up to the field, and sent him spinning into one of the track dryers, causing a horrific crash that ignited the jet fuel in the truck that burned for what seemed like forever.

Both Montoya and the truck's driver came out of the crash okay, and track and NASCAR officials did an incredible job putting out the wild fire and repaired the track to get the race back under way.

My boy Tony Stewart came in 16th, and Danica managed to get her car fairly well back together to finish the race running, but tons of laps down.

But here's my thing -- and if you've read my stuff before you know what's coming: NASCAR effed with these cars in the off-season, claiming they were responding to "the fans" whom they claimed wanted a return to the old pack style of restrictor plate racing.

The changed the aero package and the cooling systems to prevent the so-called "2 car tango" that allowed multiple lead changes during a race. Mission accomplished guys. What we had this race was that once someone got in the lead, you couldn't get around them. There was only one workable lane in the race -- at the bottom. Even prior to the 2-car phenomenon, they could get 2 and 3 lanes of cars freight-training on the track. Not now.

If this is what NASCAR officials and those fans they claim entreated them consider exciting, I'd like them to explain it to me. It was dreadfully boring!

Every restart, once Kenseth got in the lead, all he did was swing up a lane to collect his teammate, they dropped down blocking the lower lane and Kenseth could have tooled around the track with his arm out the window. No one was going to get around him. The announcers even made note of the fact that no one could get the high lane to work. Where's the excitement in that?

The announcers spent all race toeing the company line about how this style of racing is preferable, but I'd love to get those guys off the record to hear what they really think.

Oh well, like I said, congrats to Matt for the win. Nice they finally got the race done. And it's on to Phoenix.

I think Ann Coulter just had an orgasm

2012-02-27T15:32:00.003-05:00

"If Gov. Romney were to come and talk to me about it, I would listen because I love my party enough and I love my country enough to listen."

That was NJ Gov Chris Christie speaking on CBS' Face the Nation Sunday on whether he would accept a VP nod from ole Flip Flop if the opportunity arose.

Given Ann's bizarre attraction to RINO's these days -- her current shilling for Mittens, and previous wet panties slobbering over Christie, I don't think she'll be in any state to do her television commitments for the next day or two as she comes down from the ecstatic high she must have gotten from hearing those words come out of Christie's mouth.

Anna Faris & Milla Jovovich for the win

2012-02-27T00:45:00.005-05:00

This is based on a quick glimpse through various thumbnail sized images from the red carpet at this year's Academy Awards. But I'm thinking it's pretty much a tie between Anna Faris and Milla Jovovich for who I thought looked the best last night:

The short, blonde bob Anna's rocking is pretty cute on her, though I wouldn't mind so much if she'd lay off the lip injections.

And Milla just looks wonderful -- the pale skin with the perfect red lipstick, the hair . . . woof. Both she and Anna had dresses that fit perfectly, weren't too crazy with the cut or style and both women have the bodies to pull off those dresses.

Looking good, ladies :-)

Update:
One of the celeb sites I cruise through was trying to suggest that pinched-face Tina Fey out glammed Milla on the red carpet. Heh. Tina Fey is a one-trick pony clinging desperately to her character assasination of Sarah Palin for relevence. Her vaunted tv show is in the toilet ratings wise, but these celeb blogs, that mostly lean precipitously left, just continue to fawn over Tina because of her sole dubious achievement.

Nice try folks, but epic fail on your part.

Sarah Palin is nominated . . .

2012-02-26T19:54:00.004-05:00

. . . for a 2012 Razzie Award.

Seriously?!

Is there no end to liberal's hatred of this woman?

Link

sigh There you go again . . .

2012-02-26T18:13:00.003-05:00

I like Breitbart's Bigs, always lots of good stuff there. Occasionally a clunker, case in point:

This post from the other day. A contributer named Jason Hart went on a bender about Senator Sherrod Brown's efforts to keep the U.S. Post Office solvent and in one piece. Apparently, Mr. Hart has a bone to pick with the Ohio Senator, perhaps because Jason is from Ohio originally. But he does what so many conservative bloggers, who hate on anything government or union do -- simply grab the easiest data and smear a few hundred thousand hard-working, tax paying citizens.

In his piece, Jason states the following:

"USPS has been running deficits for years and is losing roughly a billion dollars a month, but Progressives won’t acknowledge market realities or admit the postal union’s demands are insane."

What market realities? And what union demands? Jason, of course doesn't mention those, instead using . . . dare I say it, conservative dog whistle terms like "union's demands" that he knows readers and commentors will greedily lap up.

If he had done even the most minimal of research, Jason might have found that the PO's first quarter statement showed an operational profit of $200 million for fiscal 2012! The $3.3 billion loss is entirely due to the pre-funding payment of disability and retirement pensions. A requirement that no other public or private business in the country is required to do. The requirement is to pre-fund these pensions 75 years into the future.

Jason takes the boilerplate conservative stance on this pre-funding that is bankrupting the USPS and states mockingly:

"...[Sen] Brown's big idea is to stop requiring USPS to sock money away in advance? This is a Progressive solution through and through – we’re running out of cash, so stop saving and spend, spend, spend!

No, dumbass! The idea is that if pre-funding 75 years into the future is putting you in debt now, and forcing you to borrow money to pay your bills, perhaps you can scale back on the pre-funding while you restructure to stay competitive!

Jeez Jason, what's your degree in anyway? *pulls up bio* Ahh, a BS in Management Information Systems -- a degree grounded in the Liberal Arts and focusing on Network Management and Security, Database Technologies Management, Enterprise Systems Management, and Web Site Design and Development (according to NYU website). So for building a nifty website or running an IT department, you might be the guy. Running a multi-billion dollar business that employs over 500,000 people . . . eh, maybe you're not so much.

At another point in his article, Jason snarks about a quote from Sen. Brown in an online petition:

"The postal service has been very restricted in what its [sic] allowed to do under law. It’s not been given opportunities to generate revenue..."

Jason points out, showing his own ignorance of the subject matter, that the PO has a monopoly on first class mail delivery and the suggests that Sen. Brown is "incredibly stupid" for making that statement.

Hey Jason, you know who else has made the exact same complaint about revenue generation? The Postmaster General. Maybe you should level the same insult at him.

But no, to Jason, the PMG is the good guy battling the evil, powerful and corrupt unions to save the embattled Post Office. Hart questions who has the "better grip" on postal finances -- PM Donahoe or Sen. Brown?

Well, here's my thing -- PM Donahoe, like every other manager in the postal service, is in management because he was either unwilling or unable to do craft work. Plain and simple. Patrick Donahoe was not promoted from craft based on merit. He went into management because he either lost his position in the clerk craft or decided he couldn't do it anymore and wanted a desk job. That he matriculated to the top of the Post Office is the Peter Principle in action.

So in response to Jason's question . . . it is quite possible that Sen. Brown is more qualified to make business decisions than the Postmaster General.

Part of the problem is that no one ever checks the PO's data on anything, they just accept the numbers that come out of the PMG's office as gospel. That's like going to the guy embezzling money from the bank and asking him for the records to catch the embezzler. Duhrr

This was pointed out nicely in Michigan recently when Sen. Levin stated that the Post Office had given them a savings estimate for closing a number of offices and processing facilities "...but no data on how these figures were reached..."

The Post Office has only been running deficits since 2006. The same year that it was forced by the government to begin this huge pre-funding program. Prior to that, the Post Office was already funding it's retirement/disability programs at a manageble pace. To suggest that to stave off the conservative bug-a-boo of unfunded pension liabilites by pre-funding them to such an extent as to put a business into bankrupcy and/or force it to be bailed out by the government is sheer stupidity.

Perhaps if Mr. Hart took more than intro courses in economics, he might know that.

I don't care if Jason dislikes Sherrod Brown as a Senator. He can rail against him all he likes. But as we are learning in the current Republican primary season -- not every decision, law, or bill put forward by a government representative can be hated on for purely partisan reasons.

So naturally, we have a rain delay

2012-02-26T13:25:00.004-05:00

Been waiting all this time for NASCAR to get going again and what do we get? Typical wierd Florida February weather -- cold and rainy at the track, bone dry just a couple of miles south.

Watching the pre-race drag-it-out preliminaries. Anything interesting?

I'm likin' Lenny Kravitz's drummer. Dude looks like he's having a blast back there.

The Danica interview was horrible. Not all her fault as DW seemed oddly unprepared to ask her questions about anything important.

For a guy who spends so much time flapping his gums about the sport, NASCAR head guy Mike Helton doesn't come off very comfortable in front of the camera. Just answer the question Mikey -- gonna postpone until Monday if the rain doesn't stop? How tough a question is that?

Speaking of which, NASCAR just couldn't stand the very cool nature of the old 2-car tango from the last couple of seasons, so they screwed up the cars by making the rear spoiler smaller and the rear bumper bigger. So we're back to the big pack, wreck-in-waiting, style of driving again. Just ask Danica, Jeff Gordon, and Kyle Busch how nice that is. Could have lost three drivers already, simply for the sake of so-called old school racing. Idiots!

Oh yeah, not race related but the commercial for the new GI Joe movie -- Bruce Willis and The Rock? Might be substantially better than the first one.

Update:
And just like that (@5:10pm) the Daytona 500 is put off until noon on Monday. Good thing I'm off work tomorrow. heh

Update #2:
Looks like its still raining in Daytona, so they've pushed the race back to 7:00pm tonight (Monday). It might still rain during the race, so if they make it to the half-way point, and it rains we may get a rain shortened race again. Tuesday's an option, but not a good one because it jams up the teams travel schedules.

In case you were wondering

2012-02-26T11:44:00.002-05:00

With the release of an additional 17,000 e-mails, we now have over 40,000 e-mails from Sarah Palin's 2 1/2 years as governor of Alaska out in the public domain being scoured over by drooling, bigoted lefty bloggers hoping to find some whiff of scandal.
*note: nothing's been found yet, way to waste your time dumbasses!*

We still do not have our sitting President's college transcripts or health records (that nearly every other President has willingly released) available to the public. And it took 3 years to get President Obama's birth certificate released.

Just seems a bit topsy-turvy to me.

Rule 5 Sunday -- Jessica James Clement part 2

2012-02-26T08:18:00.006-05:00

Alternate title: Jessica James Clement is Back in Black.

Heh . . . no? Well, I'm not a professional blogger after all. Anyway, big race today that starts early for some reason, so a quicky Rule 5 and I'm off for a day of turnin' left, rubbin' is racin' fun.

*click the thumbnails for full-sized images*

Rule 5 Sunday suggested by this.

Hat tips:
Jake Finnegan
The Daley Gator
The Classic Liberal
Say Anything Blog
Proof Positive
Reaganite Republican

Btw, thanks for the new linky love from Reaganite Republican and the "follow" as well.
:-)

This is probably a fake, but . . .

2012-02-25T15:26:00.002-05:00

. . . someone did a pretty good job shooting what looks like a flying saucer or man-made saucer-like vehicle flying slowly and then decending out of sight.

Tony Stewart wins Daytona qualifier

2012-02-24T09:01:00.004-05:00

Tony Stewart showed this week that he has every intention of continuing his great finish last season by winning Race 1 of the Bud Shootout.

With his win, Stewart starts third in the field and looks to be in a position to win one of the races that has eluded him in his storied career.

Danica Patrick was collected in the last lap of her qualifier and suffered a very hard crash which will put her in a back up car for the 500 Sunday.

Danica's running a full Nationwide series this year for Dale Jr's team and a 10 race stint in the Sprint cup with Tony Stewart's team. Stewart has stated how impressed he was with Danica so far. And since she will finally be using top flight equipment, as opposed the the hand-me-downs she got in IndyCar, we'll get a chance to see just how good a driver she is.

I actually think she'll be quite successful, so I'll keep monitoring her results. And you can pat me on the back at the end of the season and say "Hey, you were right!"

Heh

Maybe the RNC should hire Lindsay Lohan

2012-02-23T10:51:00.003-05:00

Proving that the folks in Hollywood have all the spine and resolve of Pavlovian dogs, Lindsay Lohan has finally secured an acting gig playing Elizabeth Taylor.

Linds managed this via a relentless campaign of name checking Liz and Marilyn Monroe at every opportunity; being photographed in poses reminiscent of either woman; even being photographed in sweatshirts bearing Liz's image.

Hollywood naturally fell for this, which we knew they would, because Hollywood fell for, and continues to fall for President Obama's socialist clap-trap, bait-and-switch empty rhetoric politics.

Here's my thing -- Lindsay has managed to score an acting gig, and despite her hard partying and documented drug use, has convinced a sitting judge that she is turning her life around, so maybe the Republican party should hire Linds as a campaign consultant.

She'd have the liberals eating out of our hands in no time.

Because the resemblance is uncanny, right?

Late night hotness . . .

2012-02-22T23:13:00.002-05:00

Too tired to be clever tonight . . .

This is a must read . . .

2012-02-22T10:07:00.002-05:00

Over at RedState, contributer Lori Ziganto posted a devastating deconstruction of the shrieking harpy liberal meme about "ultrasound as rape" that's being promoted by the Chris Brown wing of the Democratic Party.

Speaking as a rape survivor, Ms. Ziganto is uniquely qualified to point out the shocking insensitivity of this demagoguery.

I urge you to read it and remember her words next time Debbie Wasserman-Shultz or one of the water carriers at MSNBC trot out this heinous meme.

And it used to be a "classy" holiday

2012-02-20T19:48:00.003-05:00

President's Day - that day between Washington's and Lincoln's birthdays that we use to celebrate the men (and someday women) who have led this country throughout it's history.

Yeah . . . it just got a whole lot more classy up in this joint:

Faux-celeb Courtney Stodden dressed up as Marilyn Monroe (where's Lindsay when you need her?) and did a knock off photo shoot with her creepy husband to celebrate the holiday.

Next we have that delicate flower, Jenny Farley, posting a little missive on her blog or website or something about PILF's. Yeah, you got that right folks - Presidents I'd like to f*ck. Rumor has it she kept it to only eight lucky guys. A couple of whom are still alive, so get steppin' fellas, you ain't gettin' any younger.

I simply cannot imagine a more dignified way to celebrate the sacrifice and service these men have given to our country. Can you?

So about those unemployment numbers . . .

2012-02-20T18:50:00.002-05:00

Congressman Jim Jordan (R-OH) posted a graph today that shows what unemployment really looks like in this country:

According to Jordan and the Republican Study Committee, true unemployment stands at a staggering 36.3%!

This figure is found when statisticians look at the total number of Americans who are of eligible age to work and compare it to the actual employment numbers. Pretty much everyone knew that when Dems and the White House were touting the drop in unemployment last month, that it was just a numbers game. But now it is more obvious just how horrible those numbers are.

Even if one quibbles with the Republican's math, the path of the graph -- continuously downward, shows that this administration's rampant spending and pie-in-the-sky plans have done nothing to improve employment in this country.

Twitter yes . . . twitter no

2012-02-20T18:38:00.005-05:00

Twitter yes? The Tis uploads a couple of cute/sexy pictures of herself:

Twitter no? Miley Cyrus gets another tattoo!

I believe Miley has enough ink now to qualify her to run the Tilt-a-Whirl at any carnival or state fair in the country.

Though if it comes to arm wrestling, looks like she could take Avril pretty easily.

My boy Wake retired today

2012-02-17T21:02:00.002-05:00

Timothy Stephen Wakefield retired from baseball today at the age of 46.

Faced with no spot in the starting rotation and no guaranteed bullpen job, Wake's only choice was to come to training camp as a non-roster invitee and try to earn a spot or try to latch on to another team.

Born in Melbourne Florida and coming out of Fla Tech, Wake broke into the bigs with the Pirates in 92. Picked up by Boston after he was cut by Pittsburgh, Wake got some coaching from the famed Niekro brothers in the art of throwing the knuckleball, and the rest is history.

A durable, reliable pitcher who could eat up innings, Wake was the epitome of what true Red Sox players are -- a team first guy. He pitched out of the bullpen, he started, he came off the bench to spell the staff even if it meant sacrificing his next start as he did in the historic 2004 World Series season.

This guy gave it all for the team, and chose to retire as a Red Sox rather than try to hang on with another team just to pad his stats.

I've always had a soft spot for knuckleball pitchers, and Tim Wakefield is probably my favorite pitcher of all time. My son bought me a great picture that Wake did for charity, that has him pitching on the field with the Looney Toon characters. It's signed by Wake and is something I'll cherish for years.

Thanks Tim! For all you've done for the Sox and this fan. You will be sorely missed.

Stats:
1992 - 2011
wins -- 200
era -- 4.41
innings pitched -- 3226
strikeouts -- 2156
Roberto Clemente Award -- 2010
All Star -- 2009

Yzerman, Bolts not standing pat. And yet . . .

2012-02-17T13:26:00.002-05:00

Yesterday, the Lightning traded forward Dominic Moore to San Jose for a 2nd round pic in next year's draft. That gives the Bolts three pics in that round, which will be nice for either trade bait or stocking the pantry for down the road.

Veteran defenseman Pavel Kubina is reportedly on the trade block as well. The 34 year old did not play in the o/t win against the Sharks and is sitting out games to protect his trade value as Yzerman shops him around. Kubina has a no-trade clause and was asked to submit a list of teams he would be willing to go to if traded.

It's nice that Yzerman is working hard to upgrade the team, but what they need is a big time goalie and local favorite Kubina simply isn't going to fetch one in a trade. The thought is that someone looking for veteran leadership going into the playoffs will be interested in Pavel, which may be true. But that same team isn't going to jettison their goalkeeper to get him.

Are we looking at picking up someone else's back up or number three guy? Yzerman's got an eye for talent, so maybe he sees someone out there.

I don't know. It's just killing me to see this talented team languishing with a sub-.500 record because of less-than-stellar play in goal.

Oh well, hope springs eternal. I guess.

False narratives

2012-02-17T10:44:00.003-05:00

As we conservatives stumble through this agonizing primary process, one thing that has been patently obvious is the disconnect between the republican elites and the more grass-roots conservative, tea party types.

The conservative intelligensia determined that Mitt Romney was the front runner immediately after the 2008 election. And have done their best to destroy anyone, either in the media or prospective candidates themselves, who challenged their superior wisdom.

Sarah Palin has often borne the brunt of these attacks, as her populist appeal threatens to derail the annointed one's path to the nomination. Even after Sarah announced she would not seek the party's nomination, conservative bloggers and pundits have continued to try and diminish her appeal to both the party and the country at large.

The latest salvo come from Bart Marcois a writer for the DC Caller. In his latest column there, Marcois claims Palin has tipped her hand by claiming she'd be willing to be drafted to run for president in a brokered convention:

"She has no interest in seeing any candidate gain the support of the majority of the GOP delegates, because she believes she could step into a brokered convention and walk out as the Republican nominee."

He uses this belief to salve his own inability to understand why Palin, like millions of voters, want the primary process to continue. We don't want a beltway annointed candidate. We don't want someone else to tell us who to vote for. Those are hallmarks of the current generation of democrat voters. We want to learn more about our choices, indeed, we want to make our own choices . . . that is the hallmark of the current generation of conservative republican voters. And beltway influence brokers like Marcois cannot get their heads around it.

Marcois claims the proof is in a recent interview Sarah gave to Eric Bolling on FOX Business. In the video, she explicitly says she may be open to running for office in the future. And when asked about a brokered convention, says she would do whatever she could to help:

That Marcois can use Palin's non-admission of anything substantive to support his own imaginings only shows the depth of his PDS. Indeed, later in the column, Marcois cannot resist one final unfounded dig at the former candidate for Vice President:

"She also shares with him [Gingrich] a disdain for conventional campaigning, which critics call a lack of discipline. Those characteristics are ideally suited to winning an election process that lasts only three days and takes place in a single city, but they are liabilities in a process that takes months and covers 50 states."

Who are the critics Marcois is referencing here? Beltway pundits and influence peddlers like himself, perhaps? I said in a post long ago, that Palin proved that she did not need the established machine to get her message out and it infuriates those who make their living off political messaging. Clearly Marcois' got his panties in a bunch because Palin won't play his game.

For the record, I don't believe Sarah's angling for a brokered convention. I also don't believe that only Mitt Romney can defeat Barack Obama in the general election.

Sorry there Bart, but I'm not buying what you're selling.

Avril may need to hit the gym

2012-02-16T11:01:00.003-05:00

Perpeptual punk princess Avril Lavigne did a layout for FHM Australia (I think) recently:

Now, I'm not saying the 28 year old isn't still cute or hot or anything, but I don't think they're going to be casting her as the villian in the next Gina Carrano movie.

Just sayin'

Late night hotness . . .

2012-02-15T23:35:00.002-05:00

You have to be so careful in those high heels. One false step and . . .

Not that its of great cosmic significance . . .

2012-02-15T09:33:00.005-05:00

. . . but I'm sort of impressed at how much support a painted on bikini can give a gal as evidenced by the LPGA's Natalie Gulbis in this year's Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition:

Natalie Gulbis
age 29
2005/12 top tens/T3 best finish/$1.01mil earnings/scoring rank: 5
2011/0 top tens/T15 best finish/$176K earnings/scoring rank: 49

And for the record, I'm old enough to remember the uproar when Jan Stephenson did a calendar that didn't really show anything and yet was shunned and derided by her fellow golfers for demeaning the sport.

My how times have changed.

Money talks, my favorite sports teams . . . eh, not so much

2012-02-13T20:31:00.007-05:00

So I've got the Red Sox rss feed on my cell phone. It's been conspicuously quiet for some time now. I've been watching anxiously all summer to see how they'll rebound from last year's late season disaster.

I'm still waiting.

The rotation stands at three starters -- Lester, Beckett, and Buchholz and after that . . . well, it gets interesting. They're planning on platooning the number four starter and hoping that failed closer Daniel Bard can be the number five guy.

They traded away their starting shortstop to save $7million and are planning to platoon shortstop now as well! Papelbon's gone, though losing him and his 5 year/$50 mil salary might not have been a bad idea.

So when did they get so cheap? Both Lucchino and Cherrington swear they're not budget watching. CBSports reports that the Sox ownership group has sunk $179 million into their Liverpool soccer club. And there's only so much money to go around. Right now, it looks to me like the Sox are playing for the wild card berth in the post season.

And what's up with soccer?!

The Bucs ownership, the Glazers, own Manchester United, and sink tons of money into that club. The U.S. football team . . . not so much. In fact, the Bucs payroll is so far below the league's salary cap, that it is below the league minimum! We, as fans, have gotten what the owner's have paid for -- a lousy team that just fired it's "never should have been hired" head coach at the end of last season. Rumors locally are suggesting that the Glazer's are hoping to sell the team before the NFL forces them to increase payroll. At least in that context, cutting team costs to the bare minimum to make it an attractive sell, makes sense.

Meanwhile, the on-the-cheap Rays have their rotation, one of MLB's best, locked up in multi-year contracts. They brought in free agent slugger Luke Scott, and resigned local favorite Carlos Pena, to a one year, $7 million contract. My personal belief here is that the team, which is fighting the city of St. Pete and The Trop, are hoping to get into the series once again. Whether they win or not, another high profile post season and Rays ownership will go to MLB and beg them to get the team either another stadium here or relocate where they can survive financially.

MLB can ill afford another debacle like what's going on with the Dodgers and would likely find a way to force the locals into giving the team what it wants.

And finally, my Lightning. *sighs* So much offensive talent on a team with no goaltender. Garon's playing better now that some of the defensemen are off the ir, but that horrid losing streak showed that Garon's not the money goalie they need. My boy Rolo, seems to have burned himself out carrying the team into the playoffs last season. He doesn't look to have anything left now. Without a great goalie, this team's going nowhere. And I'm sure that Stevie Y knows that. But they don't have the cash to drop on a big name guy. So what? Trading for a starting goalkeeper will likely cost the team one of the big names on offense. And if this team trades away one of the big 3 -- Vinnie, Marty, or Stammer, the fans will burn the Palace down to the ground.

What a mess!

I'm not sure I'm gonna be liking the upcoming sports year at all.

And on a sort of related sports note -- it appears that swimsuit model extraordinaire Kate Upton scored the coveted cover of this year's Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue.

huzzah!

I don't have a pic of the new cover, which reportedly has been leaked already, so here's a pic from last year's issue:

Oops, spoke too soon, here it is:

Rule 5 Monday -- Jordan Carver, part 2

2012-02-13T03:06:00.003-05:00

Missed the last few Rule 5 weekends as work's been so hectic, so with my vacation starting, I'll get a little caught up with a quicky posting of the buxom internet beauty and Big Peace favorite person -- Jordan Carver.

*click on the thumbnails for full-sized images*

Rule 5 Sunday suggested by this.

Hat tips:
Jake Finnegan
The Daley Gator
The Classic Liberal
Say Anything Blog
Proof Positive

Because celebs say the stupidist things . . .

2012-02-12T16:37:00.005-05:00

The other day at some fashion show, Scarlett Johansson opened her mouth and showed why actors and actresses should only speak the lines written for them by scriptwriters.

In discussing her adoration and desire to see Barack Obama re-elected, Scarlett brought up the first couple's effortless style and casual glamour.

Yep. And then when dismissing current flavor-of-the-month Rick Santorum, the cerebral actress pointed out that Santorum's biggest flaw was not only that he wore sweater vests, but that he didn't wear them "ironically."

Not voting for someone because you disagree with their sartorial decisions? Fabulous. I've got a friend who said she wouldn't vote for Sarah Palin for President because the Alaska governor was an avid hunter. At least that sounds almost reasonable.

In the wake of fallen songbird Whitney Houston's death, Tony Bennett spoke out for the legalization of drugs.

?!?

I've got no idea how Tony thinks that easier access to drugs that addict and kill those who take them would have saved Whitney's life, but then I'm not an idiot entertainer either.

And finally, in the new issue of Ebony, everyone's favorite movie badass, Samuel L. Jackson, said that the only reason he voted for Obama was because he was black.

Yep. Just like that, openly admitting that the man's lack of qualifications for the biggest job in the world took a back seat to the color of his skin. And he calls Tea Party people racist.

The included pics of politcal scientist Johansson in all her frumpy, cellulite goodness are from her vacation in Hawaii this week.

Somewhere, my girl Mischa Barton is pointing at these images and doing the Nelson laugh.

I don't know why anyone is surprised by this

2012-02-10T22:18:00.002-05:00

Back during the primaries for the 2008 Presidential election, I tried to point out to anyone who would listen, a very frightening comment by then candidate Obama.

The supposed constitutional scholar stated at one point that he believed the Constitution to be a fundamentally flawed document because it did not contain entitlement language. This, I stated, showed a fundamentally flawed understanding of what the Constitution is -- it is a firewall between the citizens of this country and the federal government. It is there to keep the government out of our private lives, to allow us to worship and speak freely, be safe from warrantless search and seizures, not be forced to incriminate ourselves in a court of law, and so on.

Now we have the President forcing religous groups and their organizations to provide abortions and other services that go against the doctrines of their faith. President Obama went as far as to have the head of HHS re-classify what a religous organization actually is. This is some Orwellian sh*t right here!

And after a number of Catholic groups, who've been sleeping on the clock for the last three years, finally started complaining, the administration issued a convoluted compromise that actually makes the situation worse.

In her CPAC speech, Ann Coulter correctly points out that the administration is laying the groundwork to use insurance to impose their ideas of how we should live upon us. By forcing us to buy insurance, via ObamaCare, and then forcing insurance companies to cover the cost of pretty much everything in life, they can control what we eat, how we live, and every other aspect of our lives.

This President has been pissing on the Constitution from the day he took office. A shadow government of czars, wars declared on whim, forced buyouts of banks and private businesses, open vendettas against media outlets, stealth indoctrination of schoolchildren, race baiting, class warfare, and now violation of the First Amendment vis a vis religous freedom.

Despite whoever the Republicans put up for election in November, voters must look at what the current occupant of the White House is doing to this country. It is scary and certainly shouldn't come as a surprise if you've been paying any attention at all.

Hmmm, do we have a horse race here?

2012-02-08T03:29:00.003-05:00

Rick Santorum won the caucuses in Minnesota, Missouri, and Colorado last night to add to his win in Iowa at the start of the Republican Presidential candidate campagin.

This might give the former Pennsylvania Senator a respectable boost as the official "non Romney" candidate as Newt's often off-putting personality is . . . well, putting a lot of voters and pundits off. Santorum's picked up the backing of several high profile conservative bloggers which certainly helps his cause. But money's the 800lb elephant in the room here.

Mitt's got tons of it and Santorum doesn't. If his campaign can do a credible job of fund raising, the race's angry white man® may become a serious threat to the beltway elite's preferred candidate.

The other interesting thing to come from this will be more questions directed at Santorum in upcoming debates. He's had a couple good outings recently and he's not shy about slamming the opposition. The possibility of some tasty fireworks might just tempt me into watching the next debate when it's on television.

Like I said -- maybe we got a horse race here after all.

Ah jeez, enough already . . .

2012-02-07T21:43:00.003-05:00

So I haven't been online much the last couple of days for a variety of reasons. I finally get some time on the 'puter today and what am I bludgeoned with:

Oh look . . . Lindsay Lohan's done another photo shoot with avante garde photographer Terry Richardson. *yawns* And she's managed to yet again be juxtaposed with images of Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor. *sighs*

It's like when Democrats make sure to say the word racist in the same sentence as Republican hoping to get them linked inexorably in people's minds, Lindsay seems to think if her image is always linked to Marilyn and Liz, she'll be considered in the same catagory as those legendary Hollywood women.

Uhhhh . . . no.

Then I see a cover of In Style magazine, and who's on the cover . . . yet again:

Yep, everyone's favorite pity party Jennifer Aniston. And for the millionth time, she brings up Angelina Jolie and says she doesn't want to talk about her . . . then talks about her *groan*

Honey, just shut up! Please! You drove away the man in your life with your clingy neediness, you've proven you can't carry a movie on your own, and these relentless publicity grabs -- Jen's in love, Jen's pregnant, Jen's not pregnant, Jen's appearing topless in her next flick, Jen this, Jen that . . .

Just stop already!

And finally I see that songbird Leann Rimes is in the studio working on a new album . . . oh wait, that's not it at all:

No, Leann's poured herself into another skimpy bikini and managed to get lots of pictures herself taken. *facepalm* I mean, she used to be a singer, right? Fairly well thought of, as I remember. So now her entire life seems to be centered around getting pictures of her ass posted on the internet.

Oohh, and the trucker cap is a nice touch. Didn't those go out of style about 20 years ago? Way to stay current, baby!

Enough! Okay?! Between these three and that Rhianna chick, I've got famewhore overload goin' on here today.

Arghhh!

Ashley Tisdale for the win

2012-02-07T05:11:00.004-05:00

Over the weekend current leggy singer/actress types Miley Cyrus and Ashley Tisdale were out and about:

Miley continued her inexplicable one woman campaign to bring back mom shorts by pairing them with a bustier-thingy. While the Tis did it right with her hip little ensemble.

Ashley's style seems influenced by her association with Vanessa Hudgens, who's been bringin' the funky ever since she put on some weight for that one movie.

No complaints here, as I'm givin' the Tis the win today.

Late night hotness . . .

2012-02-01T23:20:00.003-05:00

Uh oh, she's givin' me the sexy eyes . . . now what do I do?

Finally! A decent Game of Thrones preview trailer

2012-02-01T21:23:00.002-05:00

About bloody time! I've already read the book, and if the series comes close at all, this should rock!

Kate Upton for the win

2012-02-01T13:00:00.004-05:00

Not sure where this pic is from, but bikini model extraordinaire Kate Upton is channeling Marilyn Monroe pretty well in it. Lindsay Lohan tried her best to pull that off in Playboy a while back and missed.

What do you think? Even without her going full monty, I'm Team Kate on this one:

Gee, Vanessa Hudgens owns a lot of bikinis

2012-01-26T22:01:00.003-05:00

Vanessa Hudgens is in Hawaii vacationing with her boyfriend, Austin something-or-other, and has been photographed almost every day, frolicking on the beach and showing off her adorable, slightly doughy figure:

Now if I was a cynical kind of guy, noticing that every day she's in a different stylish bikini, and even did the pretend *oops, almost lost my top* pose, I might be inclined to think she was being incentivized in some way to promote those suits.

Nah . . . that's just crazy talk. What am I thinking?

Cynthia Nixon just made an inconvenient statement

2012-01-23T20:51:00.004-05:00

In an interview with the New York Times, actress Cynthia Nixon spoke about her "decision" to become a gay woman:

*emphasis mine*

"I gave a speech recently, an empowerment speech to a gay audience, and it included the line ‘I’ve been straight and I’ve been gay, and gay is better.’ And they tried to get me to change it, because they said it implies that homosexuality can be a choice. And for me, it is a choice. I understand that for many people it’s not, but for me it’s a choice, and you don’t get to define my gayness for me. A certain section of our community is very concerned that it not be seen as a choice, because if it’s a choice, then we could opt out. I say it doesn’t matter if we flew here or we swam here, it matters that we are here and we are one group and let us stop trying to make a litmus test for who is considered gay and who is not.

Why can’t it be a choice? Why is that any less legitimate? It seems we’re just ceding this point to bigots who are demanding it, and I don’t think that they should define the terms of the debate. I also feel like people think I was walking around in a cloud and didn’t realize I was gay, which I find really offensive. I find it offensive to me, but I also find it offensive to all the men I’ve been out with."

I've been saying for years that I don't understand the positioning and rhetoric from the gay/lesbian community about this very thing. If you're out and you're proud and all that, why can't you be proud of the lifestyle choice you've made? If you're point is that being gay is such an acceptable lifestyle, then why can't the choice to be gay, be acceptable?

Literally untold millions of dollars have been wasted by groups desperately searching for a gene or hormone or dna component that determines sexual orientation. Money that could have been spent on feeding the homeless or a cure for cancer or aids or something actually signinficant in our society. And exactly nothing has been found.

But we have relentless media indoctrination about how being gay isn't a choice and just like the false narratives spread about politicians or those of a certain political party, ordinary citizens bombarded constantly by this propaganda, mindlessly repeat scientific falsehoods about the lifestyle choice of gays and lesbians. I find the sinister subversiveness of the whole thing disturbing.

I won't be surprised if there's a bit of a backlash at Ms. Nixon from the usual sources over this, along with comment sections of blogs flooded with pc speech and recriminations. Hopefully Ms. Nixon won't be forced to walk back her thoughts on her choice or what she said. But sadly, freedom of speech rarely applies when it leads to something inconvenient for the aggrieved demographic de jour.

And for no other reason than stuff like this cracks me up, here's psuedo reality show actress Whitney Port *accidentally* falling out of her bikini top in front of a few paparrazi:

Great! Now who do I vote for?

2012-01-19T20:40:00.003-05:00

Earlier today, Rick Perry withdrew from the race to win the Republican nomination for President of the U.S. He endorsed Newt Gingrich, presumably as a way to block Mitt Romney from winning the nomination.

*groan*

So, from a crappy field of candidates to begin with, we're left with:

Ron Paul -- crazy uncle Ron, the ultra isolationist, mega libertarian, "Islamic terrorists only attacked us on 9/11 because we have military bases in Germany" nutbag. Other than idiot college kids with no grasp on the real world and the cause and consequence of living in it, what rational voter would punch a chad for this clown?

Mitt Romney -- look in the dictionary for the word RINO, and there's a picture of Mittens. How this guy can call himself a conservative or a Republican is beyond me. He didn't get elected in bluer-than-blue Massachusetts by being a hardcore conservative. He's a moderate Democrat with good hair. Like Michael Bloomberg in NYC, Mitt's only a Republican because he needed a ticket to run on. Oh yeah, and he's flip-flopped on every issue that's ever been presented to him.

Newt Gingrich -- the very definition of a Washington insider. I thought the whole point of the Tea Party was to get away from these untrustworthy career pandering politicians. Newt's little different from the White House's current occupant -- he thinks he's smarter than all of us, so just shut up and let him run things. Plus he's all about the final political tally. He'll sell out on any position just to get a win, like an attourney improving his win percentage by constant plea barganing. Newt's a conservative? Just remember the picture of him on the sofa with Nancy Pelosi agreeing on man-made global warming.

Rick Santorum -- the race's angry white man® I have no doubt Santorum's a decent guy, but he's a big government conservative. Insert my comment about the Tea Party here. And his zero-sum approach on abortion will kill him in a general election.

So now what?

Frankly, I'd vote for a potted plant over Obama in the general election. But for the primary? Maybe I'll just write in Sarah Palin as a protest over this hideously weak field of candidates.

*groan*

Late night hotness . . .

2012-01-18T22:26:00.002-05:00

'Cause you know I'm likin' the black & white stuff . . .

Nah, conservative bloggers aren't arrogant at all

2012-01-18T21:14:00.002-05:00

According to most high profile conservative bloggers and pundits, Rick Perry's campaign for President is pretty much over.

Erick Erickson was kind enough to let the Texas Governor know that his only recourse now is to drop out and endorse someone else . . . preferably whomever Erickson likes.

A Perry spokesman pointed out that the Gov. wasn't going to be rolled by a group of cyberbabies:

Mark Miner, a spokesman for Perry, said the Texas governor is focused on the people of South Carolina, not the pundits declaring the end of his campaign. “Pundits aren’t going to decide this race. The people of South Carolina are going to decide this race,” Miner said. “The governor’s focused on the people of South Carolina and their votes, not a pundit sitting behind a computer somewhere.”

The ever more tiresome Allahpundit over at HotAir, couldn't resist inserting a little snarky rejoinder to the above comment:

"Note to Miner: That random pundit sitting behind his computer screen is the same guy who introduced Perry before his big announcement speech this summer . . ."

I've made this comment many times before, but these bloggers and pundits are what is causing most of the problems in this election cycle. The bigger their soapbox, the more important they think they are and the more legitimate they think their pronouncements are.

I have the same complaint with musicians and actors -- just because they have a platform to dispense their views to a wide audience, doesn't make their views valid, more valid, or more informed than yours or mine.

But these bloggers look at their hit counters and the number of comments or site members and think they have the right to tell you how or what to vote for, or inform a candidate how he/she should run their campaign or career.

Last campaign cycle, the ever-so-knowledgible Allahpundit was informing his lemming commentors that if Mike Huckabee got the Republican nomination, they should all refrain from voting in the general election. Oh yes, in his opinion, the country would be better off with a President Obama as opposed to a President Huckabee.

How's that Obama presidency workin' out for ya there, dumbass!?!

But that's the best part about being a blogger/pundit -- you can make one stupid decision after another (HA's other resident genius, Ed Morrissey is a huge Romney fan! Yeah, brilliant!), but since you're not actually putting anything on the line, if you're wrong . . . eh! Whatever.

They used to say that those who can't do -- teach. It should be changed to those who can't do -- become bloggers or pundits.

Chickenfoot > Van Halen

2012-01-18T20:39:00.003-05:00

Recently saw this clip online of a new Van Halen song called "Tattoo" and I was struck by how boring it was.

Eddie Van Halen had turned himself into an ego-gone-wild for years after the band hit its heyday. Dumping David Lee Roth, then Sammy Hagar, then Gary Cherone, then bringing back a duly cowed DLR to front the band once again.

His trademark, ground breaking guitar work had reduced the songs to a single riff, that they tried to find a reason to incorporate into a song. More and more, it simply didn't work as the songs had a weird, unlistenable rhythym and ever more nonsensical lyrics.

After a time out of the spotlight, they've returned with this:

Like I said -- boring. The chorus is stupid, the song is about what? Tattoos? Duhrr. Roth looks like an idiot in the video and he doesn't have the voice to attempt those vocal gymnastics anymore. And Eddie's playing is pedestrian. Short of an unremarkable solo, it sounds like something you'd hear being played by a bar band on Wednesday night.

Michael Anthony ran, did not walk, away from this nightmare to hook up with his buddy Sammy Hagar, and along with guitar virtuoso Joe Satriani and Chad Smith of the Chili Peppers, formed Chickenfoot. The outfit is an upgrade at every position over the sad VH.

Their first cd was amazing. And the new one is just as good. Compare VH's dull effort to this off Chickenfoot's new cd and enjoy what fresh rock 'n roll sounds like:

This just in . . . Eliza Dushku = still in my cool book

2012-01-16T09:47:00.004-05:00

I eschew the new media stuff, so I'm not on Twitter or Facebook or any of that kind of stuff. So I missed this when it happened.

Apparently there's some internet up & coming singer chick named Lana del Rey who's got an album coming out soon. So she got a gig on SNL. Probably because her daddy is some rich dude, because for a singer . . . well . . . she's pretty, at least.

During the performance, my girl Eliza posts this little smack:

Who.....is.....this wack-a-doodle chick performing on #SNL..? Whaaaa?

Heh. Eliza gets a minor downgrade for even watching SNL, which hasn't been funny since the 70s. But she's still the bomb:

If you're interested, here's the clip of one of Lana's two performances that night. Bonus points if you can make it all the way through. I could not:

Rule 5 Monday -- Sophie Marceau

2012-01-16T07:08:00.003-05:00

In honor of my New Year's resolution to break out the Rosetta Stone software and finish my french lessons, today's Rule 5 submission is lovely French actress Sophie Marceau.

Beginning acting at the age of 14, Sophie's done 38 films to date (according to her Wiki profile). I'm assuming like most Americans, I came to notice her in Braveheart and then later on in the Bond flick The World is not Enough as the more than a little psychotic Elektra King. Which for Bond flicks, was a pretty dynamic role. In my humble opinion.

She had a delightful moment on the red carpet a couple of years back, where her two shoulder dress decided to become a one shoulder dress. She laughed off the exposure with style.

The following pics have some decidedly nsfw action going on, because you know how casual the French are about nudity.

combien merveilleux!

*click on the thumbnails for full-sized images*

Rule 5 Sunday suggested by this.

Hat tips:
Jake Finnegan
The Daley Gator
The Classic Liberal
Say Anything Blog
Proof Positive

Well, the playoffs are set now

2012-01-16T06:14:00.002-05:00

For the AFC, it'll be the Patriots vs. Ravens, and in the NFC we have the Giants vs. 49ers.

I was sorry to see the Broncos get dumped out, especially with such a one-sided drubbing. I don't like all the grief that Tebow's been taking from . . . pretty much everyone, everywhere, and I would have like to have seen him advance or at least lose the game in a squeaker.

Oh well.

Happy to see the 49ers back in it. Where the heck did they come from?! Last time I was thinking about them, they were stinking up the league. Now . . . playoffs! Cool!

Don't understand how the Giants are in there. They just don't seem that dominant to me. But apparently they are. They beat the Packers pretty convincingly.

And the Ravens . . . when Ray Lewis retires, I'll think about liking them.

So, I'm not sure if it's a good thing, but I've got someone to root for and someone to root against in the playoffs . . .

My perfect scenario is a Patriots v 49ers Superbowl.

Now if only that can come true . . .

Late night hotness . . .

2012-01-11T22:21:00.003-05:00

It's the exquisite set design that gives the final product that certain something . . .

Late night hotness . . .

2012-01-05T23:07:00.005-05:00

And now a word about the nuanced art of product placement...

The Bucs have a job opening

2012-01-03T22:18:00.003-05:00

Yesterday, the ownership of the Buccaneers gave head coach Raheem Morris his walking papers.

The day after a lopsided loss to the Atlanta Falcons gave the Bucs their 10th straight loss to end the season 4-12, the Glazers finally woke up and relieved Morris of his coaching duties. Also in the purge was the entire coaching staff of the hapless team.

I'm sure the sportswriters at the newly renamed Tampa Bay Times will organize an #OccupyOneBucPlace protest to vent their frustration over the ownership doing what they, and most fans thought, was the best thing for the team.

Surprisingly, one person who didn't lose his job was GM Marc Dominik, which sort of shows that despite local writers plaintive whinings, the blame fell solely upon the shoulders of the coaches whose job it was to coach, instruct, gameplan, and lead this team.

Supposedly, the owners are going to conduct an exhaustive search for a new head coach, with no time table to obstruct them. We'll see how that goes, because the local sports tools will be droning endlessly about how if a coach isn't brought in by such and such a date, the upcoming season will be a disaster.

Raheem Morris was the defensive backs coach for seven years with the team and head coach for the last three. Don't want to see anyone lose their jobs in this economy, but with his record as head coach, he didn't deserve to remain at the helm of this team.

Thanks for what you've done, sorry it didn't work out Raheem. Good luck in your future endeavors.

Now lets find a coach who knows what he's doing, okay guys?

Rule 5 Monday -- xoxo Leah

2012-01-02T11:14:00.002-05:00

With Sunday being the hangover holiday, Rule 5 is bumped to Monday this week, and we have the amusingly named xoxo Leah for your viewing pleasure.

Now with a name like that, I don't know why I didn't immediately reason that she would be a porn star, but . . . guess I'm just naive like that. Anyway, here she is in all her nsfw glory.

*click on the thumbnails for full-size images*

Rule 5 Sunday suggested by this.

Hat tips:
Jake Finnegan
The Daley Gator
The Classic Liberal
Say Anything Blog
Proof Positive

Bucs end the year on a low note

2012-01-01T19:29:00.002-05:00

The Tampa Bay Bucs lost the final game of the season to the Atlanta Falcons 45-24. The game wasn't even as close as this nearly two-to-one score would suggest. The Bucs stunk from the outset, allowing the Falcons to score 42 unanswered points.

Josh Freeman, the Bucs qb, ended the day going 31-45 for 274 yds and two touchdowns, which will have local sportswriters pulling his bronze bust back out and labeling it for the Hall of Fame. Problem is, that the majority of these points came against Atlanta's second and third string defense playing prevent.

I've said it repeatedly, the problem with this team is coaching. Plain and simple. Freeman has regressed, the penalties, lack of ball control, and lack of discipline are all hallmarks of a team with no leadership. Either within or from the top. Broadcaster John Lynch, a former Buc, pointed out what I said earlier, that head coach Raheem Morris cut or traded all the veteran leadership off the team and the results are showing on the field and in the standings.

There's still no firm basis to insist Freeman is a franchise qb. The supposed dominant de's are injury prone and haven't played a full season yet. The db's can't cover and the purportedly speedy receivers can't get open or hang on to the ball.

Morris, via his vision and re-imagining of this team, has turned the Bucs into one of the worst teams in the league. The 10-6 record last year, posted against teams with a losing record, has turned this year into a 4-12 record more indicative of their standing against the league.

Three years in, and the team is worse off than when Raheem Morris took over as head coach. If that's not a reason to change coaches, I don't know what is.

Hey Glazers! I'm a fan. I pay the bills for this team. Are you listening?!

This just in . . . Miley Cyrus = not fat

2011-12-31T22:06:00.002-05:00

I know it seems like a silly post to end the year on, but work's just been crushing me, and I don't have the energy to be all topical and stuff.

A week or two ago, Miley Cyrus appeared on the red carpet for some event in a cleavage baring dress, and the celeb bloggers went nuts. From speculation about supposed breast enhancement to gigabytes of snark about how she was all bloated and doughy from drug use, overeating, reckless lifestyle, yada, yada, blah, blah . . .

Here's a couple of pics of Miley in Hawaii from this week:

Yeah . . . maybe it's just me, but that doesn't look fat or bloated or doughy or anything. She looks like a typical leggy teenager to me. But then I'm not some blogger dude pretending to be a woman or a gay man and dishing snark by the truckload to generate hits and revenue.

Happy New Year folks!

Bolts end the year on a high note

2011-12-31T21:46:00.002-05:00

The Lightning won their final game of the year, 5-2, over the Carolina Hurricane tonight.

A game that lumbered along with lots of shots and little scoring, broke open in the third, as Steve Stamkos ended the 2-2 tie with a goal early in the period. The Bolts exploded after that, and at one point were leading 6-2, until a fairly ridiculous call negated the final goal.

Stamkos got his 5th career hat trick (in a 3 year career, no less!) and the guys looked as though they may be turning this season around, notching their third straight win.

Martin St. Louis got his 500th assist as well and looked to be returning to form in the game.

Way too much talent on this team for them to be languishing at a .500 record. Here's hoping they are starting their run to the playoffs.

And from the "this is just wrong" department

2011-12-26T18:57:00.002-05:00

It should come as no surprise to anyone who's read more than a couple of my postings, that I cruise the political blogs (to make my blood boil) and also the celeb blogs (to get a good chuckle).

Lots of these celeb bloggers sell ad space to various other blogs and such to help offset the cost of maintaining their blog or, I suppose, simply to make money. One of these, BUZZNET has stuff on quite a few celeb blogs. One in particular caught my eye.

A heading of "New Babe on the Block" pointed to a gallery of . . . Chloe Moretz.

It should be pointed out here, that Chloe is only 14 years old. Now I know she's done some outrageous stuff in films, and all these young models are doing magazine covers and other things that are a bit beyond their years. But come on, man!

Catagorizing a 14 year old girl as a "babe in the making" or some such just sets off my creep-o-meter.

Maybe I'm just getting old or something, but like I said in the title of this post -- this is just wrong.

Merry Christmas

2011-12-25T08:42:00.002-05:00

Merry Christmas to my three regular readers and anyone else who stumbles across this blog today.

Have a safe and happy holiday season

Merry Christmas eve

2011-12-24T20:23:00.002-05:00

I was going to go on about a bunch of stuff that's bugging me and doing the Scrooge on my holidays, but the heck with it.

Here's sisters Brittany and Sherri in their best Santa's helpers outfits instead:

Late night hotness . . .

2011-12-21T22:47:00.002-05:00

Just something about that 80's two-tone hair . . .

Dogs and cats, living together . . . mass hysteria!

2011-12-20T18:58:00.002-05:00

PolitiFact, the biased, slanted, disingenuous, liberal propaganda machine from the St. Pete Times today called the Democrats claim that Republicans had voted to end Medicare "The political lie of the year."

What's next? Is the sun going to rise in the west tomorrow? Are the Cubs gonna win the series next season? Am I gonna get a date?

Maria Conchita Alonso is okay in my book

2011-12-20T04:22:00.004-05:00

The actress who actually was born and lived in Venezuela ran into useful idiot Sean Penn at a Miami airport the other day and called the dictator sympathising fool a communist ass-hole!

Of course, Penn, the gentleman that he is, retorted that Alonzo's brother was an assassin and called Alonso a pig.

Alonso called Penn out on his hypocrisy of living rich and entitled whilst supporting murdering dictators who keep their people in poverty in the name of socialist dogma.

The only way this could have been any cooler, would have been if Maria had knocked Penn's punk ass out, then walked away.

A bit of economic history

2011-12-18T18:04:00.003-05:00

Below is a nifty little economic primer on the Great Depression and Presidents Hoover and Roosevelt and what their economic plans did to exacerbate the situation:

Ms. Fields does a decent job giving you the thumbnail story on what happened, which is bags more than students get in school these days. If they get anything at all. And of course, way better than any of the outright lies and distortions the main stream media spew each day on the subject.

Apparently this video got the attention of a writer, Peter Ogburn, at something called Fishbowl DC who immediately filled his diaper.

Taking his thumb out of his mouth, Ogburn spews out some sexist vitriol about the blatant cheesiness of the video (in his opinion) and the relentless focus on Ms. Fields cleavage.

?!?

Now this young lady is attractive. But knowing what this clown wrote, I watched closely . . . real closely, and if she was showing a lot of cleavage, I missed it. Or I need to update my glasses prescriptions.

But this is simply another example of the left taking the low road to denounce anyone who doesn't buy into their socialist view/plan for the country.

Rule 5 Sunday -- Taryn Manning

2011-12-18T08:25:00.003-05:00

Today's Rule 5 posting is young actress, and I guess sometime singer, Taryn Manning.

Don't know much about Taryn, and it's the day after our office Christmas party, so I'm in no shape to do a bunch of "googling" to find out about her. I know I've seen her in a couple of horror films, most recently The Breed, but that's it.

The pics below appear to be from a Playboy shoot, but I've no idea when they were done. Like I said, way too hungover . . .

A couple nsfw-ers in there, so use caution when viewing.

*click on the thumbnails for full-sized images*

Rule 5 Sunday suggested by this.

Hat tips:
Jake Finnegan
The Daley Gator
The Classic Liberal
Say Anything Blog
Proof Positive

What in the emo hell - part 2

2011-12-11T20:43:00.003-05:00

So Lindsay Lohan's in Hawaii taking a break from . . . whatever it is she does, oh yeah, getting $900k+ for posing in Playboy. And she's got the usual entourage of folks with her, 'cause she can really afford to bring them along now.

One of the celeb blogs has some pics of her chillin' and partying and has this picture of Lindsay's younger sister Ali with some dude:

Okay, first off, could someone get Ali a cheeseburger and a milkshake please? Jeez, is that chick skinny!

Secondly, what the f*ck! Is that guy wearing Ali's jeans or what?! What kind of guy wears jeans like that?!

honestly

Oof, Bucs lose again

2011-12-11T19:55:00.004-05:00

The Bucs lost today to the Jacksonville Jaguars 41-14.

Staking themselves to a 14-0 lead by the second quarter, the Bucs watched impotently as the 3-9 Jags reeled off 41 unanswered points. At one point, Jax scored four times in the span of seven minutes.

Looking at the stats of the game, the teams played nearly identical. Using only that metric, someone who had not watched the game would assume the final score was more like 17-14 rather than the embarrassing blowout it was. But the telling difference was turnovers. The Bucs committed seven of them -- interceptions, and fumbles that gave the Jags either a short field or a walk-in score. Even against the league's worst teams, you simply cannot do that and expect to win.

Head coach Raheem Morris' post game interview had him talking about returning to basics and running things more like training camp -- focusing on ball control and other things that professional football players, who get paid millions of dollars, should not have to be reminded to do.

On the FOX halftime show, Howie and the guys were talking about how the veterans on the team need to stand up/speak up and so on. What veterans?! This is a team of rookies and guys with only one or two years in the league. Morris jettisoned all the leaders off the team as soon as he took over from Jon Gruden.

Rhonde Barber? Not exactly a huge voice in the locker room. Albert Haynesworth? Yeah another game with no tackles. Who's going to listen to a guy who's been kicked off three other teams for being fat, lazy and a distraction?

Contrast this with two other events in the NFL today -- in Green Bay, the undefeated Packers are laying a b*tch slapping on the Raiders (46-7 last time I looked), playing angry and focused because they were disappointed in their performance in last week's last minute win against the Giants. And Patriots qb Tom Brady sitting on the bench getting his ass chewed out by the qb coach for throwing an interception in the end zone during a close back and forth game with the Redskins.

What's the difference? In a word . . . coaching.

Raheem Morris might be a nice guy, but he's out of his depth as a head coach. Three years in and under Morris' direction the team is regressing not progressing. That's bad coaching, plain and simple. Scaling back the playbook, talk of returning to basics, longer practices at the end of a long season as punishment . . . that's the noise made by coaches who don't know what else to do.

Bucs ownership had their Obama moment when they hired Morris -- a guy with no experience and no reasonable expectation he would succeed. And they/we got exactly what the country got/is getting from the President -- a long ugly tumble into disaster and mediocrity.

It's time for a change, both in the White House and at One Buc Place.

Rule 5 Sunday -- Jessica James Clement

2011-12-11T09:33:00.002-05:00

Sunday sort of snuck up on me this week, so a quicky Rule 5 is in order -- Jessica James Clement.

Don't know much about this chick. She's 26, comes from England, apparently didn't skip the bread and butter at meals (if you take my meaning).

She's pretty, has a regrettable penchant for large tattoos, and cheats at foosball by distracting her opponents with scandalous gaming attire.

*click on the thumbnails for full-sized images*

Rule 5 Sunday suggested by this.

Hat tips:
Jake Finnegan
The Daley Gator
The Classic Liberal
Say Anything Blog
Proof Positive

And of course, no one saw this coming

2011-12-09T22:38:00.003-05:00

Lindsay Lohan's Playboy pics leaked online today. You gotta feel sorry for the folks at Playboy. I don't know how much stuff like this hurts their sales, but you just can't keep things like this offline anymore.

That said, I rate the pics meh.

I mean, we've seen Linds naked enough times already, either because she's falling out of her clothes or she's done some artsy photo shoot. So we're not breaking any new ground here. I guess it's simply the fact that it's an official Playboy shoot that gives the pics any cache at all.

The pictures continue what has become a disturbing, from the perspective of this amateur photog, trend -- over exposed, over filtered photography. Linds is channelling Marilyn Monroe with the bad wig, garish lipstick and extreme eye make-up. It makes me wonder what the images that Hef nixed look like. At least they didn't photoshop her freckles off.

And I have to admit, for someone who uses their body like an amusement park via drugs and alcohol, Lindsay is still bangin'.

Here's a sfw sample to judge for yourself:

Darien Grubb moves to JGR

2011-12-09T21:19:00.002-05:00

Former crew chief for 2011 Sprint Champion Tony Stewart, Darien Grubb has been picked up by Joe Gibbs racing to replace the dismissed Mike Ford as crew chief for Denny Hamlin.

The best kept secret of last season was that Stewart informed Grubb halfway into the Chase that he would not be kept on after the season ended. Casual fans and outside observers were scandalized after the news got out that the affable Grubb had been let go. But knowledgable fans know that Tony lost at least three races during the season due to miscues on top of the pit box.

On more than one occasion, Stewart could be heard either on the radio or in post race interviews grumbling and wondering how he lost a race he had been running away with. No great surprise that the highly competitive Stewart was shopping for a new crew chief.

Grubb started out as an engineer at Hendrick Motorsports, coming to the public notice as the marionette for a suspended Chad Knaus during one of Jimmie Johnson's championship seasons. When Stewart created Stewart-Haas racing, they brokered to use Hendrick engines and chassis, and Rick Hendrick offered Grubb to Stewart in the package.

Now with Joe Gibbs, Grubb will be using Toyota equipment, which is an entirely different package. It will be interesting to see if he can have any level of success there. I hope he does as the guy seems eminently likeable.

Tony picked up the talented Steve Addington from Penske and the nutbag Kurt Busch's team. I'm sure Addington ran, did not walk, to Stewart's to get away from the bi-polar Busch, who has since been dumped by the perfectionist Penske.

With all the drivers and crew chiefs flying around, NASCAR looks like it's being run by some fantasy league players. It's going to be an interesting 2012 season.

Late night hotness . . .

2011-12-08T23:07:00.003-05:00

Say, are those wh . . . *backs away slowly*

Valentine notches first win as Sox skipper . . .

2011-12-08T20:23:00.003-05:00

. . . as David Ortiz agrees to salary arbitration to return to Boston for the 2012 season.

Make no mistake, Papi was headed out of beantown. At the end of last season, Ortiz publicly declared his desire to leave the Sox as he stated he was tired of the drama surrounding the team.

After becoming the Red Sox's new manager, one of the first things Bobby Valentine did was make a trip to the Dominican Republic to chat with the award winning DH. Claiming he was invited by Ortiz' reps to attend Big Papi's charity golf tournament there, the real reason was to reassure the big slugger that he was wanted and needed in Boston and that things would be different next season.

Valentine has been a whirling dervish, meeting or contacting as many players as possible since signing on with the team. And that's some good pr for the new manager and a needed boost for player morale to see that the new skipper is going out of his way to reach out to them.

Bobby V's putting a smile back on the face of this Sox fan.

You learn something new every day

2011-12-07T19:12:00.002-05:00

Part of the fun of being a mailman is interacting with the customers. In fact, with as crappy as things are at the P.O., it's pretty much the best part of the job.

So I'm delivering this fairly heavy package to one of my customers today. And I joke as I give it to him that it must be a fruitcake. Because of the weight, you see. Come on folks, work with me here.

But he corrects me by telling me it's a special Italian grain for the upcoming feast of St. Lucy on December 13th. He goes on about how St. Lucy is the patron saint of blindness (or the eyes) and what they make and how no one really celebrates the day down here in Florida and all.

How cool is that?

So of course, I google it and read some info on it and, voila . . . a bit more out of the ordinary knowledge creeps into my soggy brain.

So it was worth getting out of bed today after all.

Okay, so I was wrong

2011-12-06T22:35:00.002-05:00

The Bucs can't beat the bad teams either.

Sunday, the Bucs suffered a 38-19 thumping at the hands of the 3-8 Carolina Panthers. I had said in a previous post that at least Tampa was able to beat the sub-500 teams, but even that is beyond their abilities at this point.

With the defense slumping to 30th in the league in total yards allowed and points allowed, head coach Raheem Morris still doggedly works every week to dismantle defensive guru Monte Kiffin's legendary Tampa 2 defense in favor of something only a former defensive backs coach (as Morris was) could love - a blitzing, man-to-man coverage defense similar to what was played in Miami years ago.

Of course, when the Dolphins were having great success with that scheme, they had DE luminary Jason Taylor and hall of fame corners. The Bucs have neither of those. Just a defense so full of rookies and inexperienced young players, that Morris is scaling back the defensive scheme yet again to try and help the floundering players.

Under Morris, the defense is on pace to become the worst in francise history. Last year's 10-6 record is now obviously an outlier and a 4-12 record for this year is not out of the question.

What should be questioned is whether this team needs new management. There's no bright light on the horizon that gives fans hope here. Josh Freeman may be a great quarterback someday. Then again, he could be another Vinnie Testaverde - a guy who looks great in the pocket but never quite reaches the potential you think/hope might be there. Or even another Michael Vick - a guy writers and pundits claim is the next big thing yet never seems able to deliver any team to the promised land. The defense has no rising young stud, despite Morris' penchant for referring to any and all of his guys as "studs."

So how many years do we give this coach and gm to get the job done? Plenty of head coaches with bonifide credentials have been hired by other teams, while we keep our "trendy" choice and slump ever lower in the standings. How many more losing seasons do we endure before we think about a change here?

Just askin.

Seriously . . . for a comic book?!

2011-12-05T20:51:00.002-05:00

Nicholas Cage just auctioned off his prized comic book that features the first appearance of Superman for over $2 million.

$2 million!!!

Now granted, he'll lose 99.99% of that to the IRS for all the back taxes he owes, but come on man! $2 million?! That's just wrong.

On a completely unrelated note, the ceiling fan in my living room conked out and my right front tire is leaking air, so I'm looking at $1000+ in tires and such right before Christmas this year.

But I'm totally okay with Nick's little windfall there . . . *grumble*

Maybe this'll take my mind of that inequity . . .

Nope, didn't work *grumble*

So, what have I missed -- sports

2011-12-02T21:01:00.002-05:00

Hey, what do you know, the Red Sox signed Bobby Valentine to be their new skipper! Wow! Who could have seen that coming? Oh yeah, me! Way back after Francona stepped down, I was one of the first voices to suggest Bobby V for the job.

Of the crop of available hires, Valentine's the best for the job. I think he'll be a good change from Tito's laid back style, so I'm a bit more optimistic about the upcoming season.

Maybe this Cherrington guy isn't such a doofus after all.

The bloom is off the rose with the Bucs. Lumbering to a 4-7 record, everyone could see what I and others thought, that last season was an outlier. The Bucs cannot beat anyone with a winning record. But they can beat teams with a losing record. So I guess that's something.

I got my facepalm moment last week, when St. Pete Times sport reporter John Romano lamented that the Bucs coaches seemed to think they were above reproach from the media. Romano couldn't figure out where such hubris came from. Really, John?! The local sports media has shown about as much critical diligence in their reporting on the Bucs as Times political reporters have shown towards the Obama administration.

Which is to say, they've been wearing rose-colored glasses with lenses as thick as coke bottle bottoms!

Don't know what's up with my Bolts, but they've got me shaking my head. Mired with an 11-11 record, this team has way too much talent to be so freekin' skitzo in their play. I don't know if this is specific to Tampa or what, but with each coaching change, this team takes off for a year then melts down. I don't get why they won't stay bought in to any specific coaching philosophy, but there's a small window for St. Louis, Lecavalier, and these guys to get to the Cup again before age begins to wear them down. I'm dying for some more Stanley Cup games here, so these dudes need to get their game on now.

My alma mater's team, USF Bulls, have stumbled to a very disappointing finish to their season. Starting off a nifty 4-0, the wheels came off quickly and they lost last night's season ender to West Virginia 30-27. Their season record of 5-7 is bad, but their conference record of 1-6 is frightening. With the state of Florida football in flux, the Bulls could have been in a position to make a big push in recruiting to get some of the top tier talent that usually ends up at the Big 3 - UF, FSU, and Miami. But this season's debacle isn't going to help them out much.

*sigh*

So, what have I missed -- politics

2011-12-02T20:45:00.002-05:00

If you're one of the three people that regularly drop by to bask in my daily meditations on . . . well, anything, you've probably noticed I haven't been writing much these last weeks. Well, with what we call the season in full swing at the Post Office, I've been working like a low rent whore recently, and just been collapsing when I get home at night. Hence -- no ramblings. But I'm gonna give it a go and get caught up here.

First off, politics . . .

Hey, what do you know, flavor of the month Herman Cain is melting under media scrutiny and looks to drop out of the race. Gee, didn't Sarah Palin accurately note his bright, shiny new thing status a while back and get slammed for it?

I said from the get go, that Cain doesn't belong anywhere near the Presidency due to his stunning lack of legislative and international affairs experience. And finally that's come out. Along with some really dirty laundry. Why people think stuff like this won't come out under media scrutiny is beyond me. As was Cain's lament about the scandal not coming out when he was a 1%er in the polls.

Just shows more naivete on his part.

And the Great Seducer is now surging in the polls. Newt-mentom is running rampant! Again, I said early on that Newt was the best debater and can shred anyone in political talk. And now that he's showcasing his encyclopeadic knowledge on these idiotic weekly debates, his poll numbers are rising.

As are the shrieks from conservatives who remember his positions on the global warming hoax, tea party, etc.

I said he's the ultimate beltway insider, and he still is. And he'll sell out any position to gain a political victory. Of course, anyone's better than the currrent president, but Newt's just not my idea of the right guy.

Mittens is bitching about not getting softball questions from FOX, Rick Perry's trying to point out that we're not electing the Debater in Chief (a good point, imho), and Michelle Bachmann's jumping up and down trying to get someone to notice her.

If only Sarah had decided to run . . .

Rule 5 Sunday -- Web hottie hopefuls

2011-11-27T19:08:00.003-05:00

Today's Rule 5 posting is a selection of web beauties chasing the American Dream -- fame, fortune, etc.

With the proliferation of the internet, digital cameras, and photoshop, every hometown hottie with a tripod handy is trying to be the next big thing with her own modeling website.

Does it work? Who knows? I figure the only person making money off these gals are the webmasters. Some of them hang in there for quite a while, so perhaps lightning strikes, you know?

*click on the thumbnails for full-sized images

Rule 5 Sunday suggested by this.

Hat tips:
Jake Finnegan
The Daley Gator
The Classic Liberal
Say Anything Blog
Proof Positive

Happy Thanksgiving

2011-11-24T11:42:00.002-05:00

Happy Thanksgiving to any who stumble across this blog today.

Despite the doom and gloom that greets us everday in the papers, magazines or on television, we have a great dealt to be thankful for in this country today.

Though there is conflict abroad, we are not, in fact, at war. Those of us with loved ones in the military have hopefully been able to see them return home safely or know that they are still safe and healthy wherever they are serving at this time.

Despite the economic woes we face, you can go into any grocery in this country and find food. Good, healthy edible food and much of it easily affordable to everyone. Those who find themselves in tough times can find help at many places in every city. Food banks, shelters, and charitable organizations are ready and willing to aide anyone in need during the holidays or any time of the year. You need only reach out to them, which is sometimes hard for the suffering proud, but help is there without judgement or pre-condition. That stands in stark contrast to much of the rest of the world.

There are jobs to be had, perhaps not what one hopes for, but unlike the Great Depression of old, there is plenty of work available for those who are willing to work.

Hospitals and free health clinics will take care of you, even if you've not the means to afford it.

Any legal citizen of this country can vote, have a voice in the government. We can protest and demand redress of grievances. On and on, we have rights here that few in the rest of the world can claim. Our system is not perfect, but we have it much better here than anywhere else in the world.

Remember that today, as you sit with your family and friends, or in my case, alone, things could be infinitely worse than they are. It may seem a bit yucky out there, but we have plenty to be thankful for.

So now it's a civil rights issue?

2011-11-22T21:38:00.002-05:00

I haven't picked up a copy of the St. Pete Times, oops, sorry, Tampa Bay Times, in a while, but I did today. And I see in the editorial section some of the letter writers are referring to the whiny #Occupy protests as a "civil rights" issue.

Really?!

I would think at some point, black Americans would get a little tired of every bitchy, pissy group of complainers labeling themselves and their grievances as civil rights oriented.

Call me crazy, but demanding that you be treated with respect and dignity like everyone else regardless of the color of your skin or your heritage is not the same as demanding that your student loans be forgiven or you be guaranteed a job after you get out of college!

One letter writer, while trying desperately to legitimize this complaint-fest only proved the point of those who refuse to side with these babies -- they're simply against everything!

Wah, wah -- the world's not fair!

Wah, wah -- some people have more money than others!

Wah, wah -- I took out a student loan and now I don't want to repay it!

Wah, wah -- politicians don't always tell the truth and sometimes serve special interests!

On and on, ad nauseum!

And of course, now that the protests have turned violent (as was inevitable), democrat politicians and their water carriers in the media are furiously backpeddling and memory-holing all their effusive praise for the drug-addled rape festing, underage prostitutioning, property damaging, #occupy losers.

Lost in all this is the screaming hypocrisy of these jerks -- they band together and whine like little bitches and the President complies and issues legislation to forgive their student loans. How is that different from an industry paying lobbyists to gather votes to push through favorable legislation to their industry?

Answer: it isn't.

But because it's what they want, it's okay. But when it's someone they don't like doing it . . . well then it's evil and bad. And these crying babies cannot see this obvious point.

Losers.

Tony Stewart wins 2011 Sprint Cup

2011-11-20T22:06:00.004-05:00

Tony Stewart won the Ford 400 today/tonight at Homestead Speedway in Miami to become the 2011 Sprint Cup Champion.

Despite my fears, the race was exactly what it should have been -- a winner-take-all match between Stewart and points leader Carl Edwards. The two drivers were the class of the field all race long, with Edwards leading the most laps.

But as has been the case throughout the Cup Chase, Stewart simply willed himself to victory, this for the fifth time in the Championship series. A late race gamble by his crew chief Darien Grubb, put Stewart on fresher tires and with a fuller gas tank than Edwards, and Tony simply jammed the pedal through the floor and on to victory.

Fighting adversity all day long, from an opening lap hole in the grill, to several botched pit stops, Stewart repeatedly had to fight his way back from the rear of the field. I think they said at one point, Tony had passed over 70 cars getting back to the front time and again.

I cannot express how happy I am that Stewart won this title. He's a racer's racer, and now also a team owner. The first to win a championship in NASCAR since Alan Kulwicki over 20 years ago.

I loved how he threw a shout to A.J. Foyt for Foyt giving his blessing to Tony for bringing back Foyt's old number 14 to NASCAR. Stewart is a throwback to Foyt's no-holds-barred style of racing, and simply a guy who loves to be behind the wheel whenever possible.

I think the better racer won the race and the title tonight. And that's how it should be.

Congratulations Tony!

NASCAR Championship concludes today

2011-11-20T09:24:00.003-05:00

Today's Ford 400 at Miami's Homestead Speedway will decide this year's Sprint Cup Champion. Sadly, for me, I'm pretty sure that will be Carl Edwards.

Leading challenger Tony Stewart by three points in the standings, all Edwards has to do it what he's done the last couple of races -- just stay close to Tony all day long. Edwards doesn't have to win the race, in fact, it is perfectly plausible that Tony Stewart could win this race and still lose the Championship to Edwards.

This very situation is what NASCAR was supoosedly trying to stop from happening with their re-vamped scoring for the season and Chase. And yet here we are. And here NASCAR is, celebrating the antithesis of actual competition -- a guy (Stewart) doing everything in his power to actually win will most likely lose to the guy (Edwards) who is only trying to stay close to his rival and not take any chances.

It sickens me. And I suspect a great many other fans as may be evident in the dwindling attendance at the tracks. We'll see. Perhaps fate will give the more deserving driver the title this day. But after five years of watching Jimmie Johnson be feted for doing the same thing Edwards is doing this year, I'm not optimistic.

Red Sox managerial search continues apace . . .

2011-11-18T21:20:00.002-05:00

. . . and resembles the Republican presidential nomination search -- that is, an endless video loop of the Keystone Cops falling down a flight of greased up stairs!

I was initially thinking this new GM, Cherington didn't have an original idea in his head, as he and the Cubs, where former GM Theo Epstein is now, have the exact same list of "candidates" and I use the term loosely. But now I'm wondering if Theo has been living off Cherington's ideas all along. Because as soon as the Boston GM slated a follow up meeting with a prospective manager, Theo jumped in and signed the guy.

I sit gobsmacked watching this storied franchise flounder like this. When they let Francona go, why didn't they have someone else already lined up? This isn't the KC Royals we're talking about here after all. And look at the dudes they're bringing in -- bench coaches, hitting coaches, third base coaches, the only guy with actual head coaching credits has a lifetime losing record!

Are you kidding me?!

Oh yeah, and a catcher who's never coached anything. I mean if that's the criteria, why not ask Jason Varitek to coach. At least his resume as a player is better than Alomar's.

I see where someone has finally noticed Bobby Valentine is still announcing on ESPN. Wow, a former head coach, someone who's coached in a big city, coached high profile players, and when still active was considered along with Tony LaRussa as one of the brightest minds in the game.

Btw, who won the Series this year? Oh yeah -- LaRussa and the Cards. Just sayin'

This is a brutal off season for the Sox. They've lost Papelbon and now have to rely on un-reliable Daniel Bard to close. They may lose Ortiz. No one lined up to coach. The local papers are crowing about the realignment and expanded playoffs helping the Rays out for next year. At this rate, they may finish ahead of the Sox and make all that a mute point.

I feel sorry for Winn Dixie

2011-11-18T20:39:00.002-05:00

Where I live in Florida, the central portion, when you talk about grocery stores, the conversation begins and ends with Publix.

The Lakeland-based family grocery store chain has grown to mega-monster size in my lifetime. They've outlasted competition from other chains, including biggies like Albertsons and others to remain the go to place for food shopping.

Foolishly going out this week on Wednesday to get my Thanksgiving shopping done (and a week ahead, I thought I was being so clever. Not!), I popped into my local Publix and it looked like something from a zombie apocolypse movie -- shelves cleaned out to the back of anything that even resembled turkey or trimmings. A couple of turkey breasts left that weighed about the same as a cornish hen.

So I decided to run to my local Winn Dixie. It is catty corner to Publix in a nice little shopping center with oak trees in the parking lot and lots of cute quirkly little stores in the attached mall.

Inside, Winn Dixie looked like something out of a grocery store commercial -- fully stocked shelves as far as the eye could see, not an item out of place, in fact, it looked like no one had ever even been in there! And as I shopped, there were more employees than customers in the store. That's never a good sign.

I found a fully stocked freezer case with turkeys all standing upright side-by-side for easy shopping. Sadly, the "breast" brand was some off brand so I've no idea what I've purchased. But I got an 8.75# turkey breast. That's pretty freekin' big for a breast, so it doesn't matter if my son and his wife eat with me or not, I'm gonna have plenty of left overs :-)

But as I'm leaving I can't help but wonder how the place stays open. I may have to shop there more often just out of guilt, I kind of feel bad for the place.

Rule 5 Sunday -- Eve Ellis

2011-11-13T08:50:00.003-05:00

Today's Rule 5 posting is Eve Ellis.

In the early days, when the internet was fresh and young, they used to monitor and count things like who and what was downloaded the most.

A relatively benign image of Teri Hatcher wrapped in Superman's cape was, at one time, the most downloaded image in history.

In those days, a young beautiful model burst onto the scene. Eve Ellis became the web's top fetish model, voted number one by fans year after year, at one point earning the moniker of fetish supermodel.

Doing everything from fetish art to catfighting, Eve reigned supreme on the edgier side of the internet. Eventually, she withdrew from the scene, tired of having to be the character she had created.

I met Eve once at a convention and was struck by how delicate she seemed, so at odds with the larger-than-life persona she had created on the web. Hopefully she's living happily in her post-fame life.

*click the thumbnails for full-sized images*

Rule 5 Sunday suggested by this.

Hat tips:
Jake Finnegan
The Daley Gator
The Classic Liberal
Say Anything Blog
Proof Positive

Tony Stewart wins at Texas

2011-11-06T22:54:00.004-05:00

Tony Stewart won the AAA Texas 500 race today at Ft. Worth. For those counting at home, Stewart has won four of the eight cup races held in the Chase for the Championship.

And he's still 3 points behind non-winner Carl Edwards!

Hey NASCAR . . . WTF?!

NASCAR made a big deal about re-configuring the Chase this year to avoid the leading driver simply tooling around the back of the field protecting his points lead (*cough* Jimmie Johnson *cough*) as has happened in previous years. They said they would put a premium on drivers winning to encourage them to fight hard to the end.

Yeah, how's that workin' out for ya boys? I swear, if toothy Carl wins this Championship by simply staying ahead of Tony the last two races, I'm gonna scream. For the record, this is the most exciting Chase they've had in a number of years, with the Champion probably decided in the last race. Which I'm sure Homestead is just tickled about. But still . . .

Anyway, congrats to Tony for the huge win. And thanks again to my sexy, lucky charm for rooting with me.

Hat tip to Dale Jarrett for the comment of the race. When Stewart muscled his way past Edwards on the final restart, Jarrett quipped, "He passed him on purpose."

Gotta love that understated southern wit :-)

More climate change shenanigans

2011-11-01T05:57:00.003-04:00

The only thing amazing here is that the media keeps trying to force this phony crisis down the public's throats.

Professor Richard Muller from Berkely (where else?) and a supposed "all-star" team of researchers formed a climate research unit -- Berkeley Earth Surface Temperatures project team or BEST. Yeah, what a coincidence, huh?

Well, with another major climate conference coming up, the prof. rushed out to release his latest findings on global warming, which of course, totally end any skepticism or debate on the topic. According to Muller, he wasn't looking for any sort of publicity. No, he simply wanted to get the information out to the public in the most efficient manner. Uh hmm.

Only problem is that, like Michael Mann and his own faulty graph before him, Muller's own data don't support his conclusions. The graph below shows the difference between what Muller is claiming and what his data actually shows:

One of Muller's collegues, Judith Curry, who is an acclaimed climate scientist in her own right and second co-author on BEST's papers, called Muller out on his false conclusions.

Muller's response was to release a alzheimer's worthy statement about how, yeah, the data doesn't show any increase for 13 years, but it might not be statistically significant . . . or it might be . . . he's not sure.

Wow! Talk about your scientific certainty! He's right, the science is settled -- these guys are hacks!

Tony Stewart wins again.

2011-10-30T19:27:00.005-04:00

Tony Stewart won the Tums Fast Relief 500 today at Martinsville, VA (thanks saucy girl, I love you!) This is Tony's third win in the Chase, yet due to NASCAR's arcane scoring system, he is still 8 points behind Carl Edwards who has yet to win a race during the championship finals.

I am not a fan of short track racing per se, but I have to admit this was quite an entertaining race to watch. And watching Tony fight back three times from over 20 places down was a treat. His brawl with Denny Hamlin to keep from being lapped at one point, was some of the toughest door-to-door racing I've seen in years.

In the post race interviews, Jimmie Johnson, who Stewart passed for the win, tried to take the high road, saying he wasn't going to try and push Tony out of the way or bang and bump for the win. Like he "let" Stewart have the win out of gentlemanly honor or some such.

B.S.! Tony simply out gutted him for the win, daring Johnson to get physical for the win. Jimmie backed down, Tony won. It was a matter of who had the biggest pair, and at that moment, it was Smoke.

Three races left -- Texas, Phoenix, and Homestead, all places Tony runs well at. There's a solid possibility that Tony Stewart could be the first owner/driver to win a Championship in heaven only knows how long. If it has ever happened.

I'll be rooting for him.

Other bits of interest to me:

Dale Jr. talking about how if they raced more short tracks, he might get a rep as a "dirty" driver, because he liked the banging and bumping on the track. He also made a late race comment over the team radio about having "no mercy" for whoever was in front of him. Heh

Unmentioned by the announcers specifically, was Brian Vickers coming across the track to wreck Matt Kenseth in retaliation for an earlier bump/wreck in the race.

A pre-race interview with Brad Keselowski, who I've admired since he came into Cup racing, admitting that a lot of drivers, like Tony Stewart (surprisingly), refuse to interact with him in the garage area. Kid's got a chip on his shoulder, but he's winning races and looking a lot more racey than grumpy teammate Kurt Busch.

Animal house?

2011-10-30T09:14:00.002-04:00

I don't live in a woodsy area by any means. But for some reason, my house seems to get singled out for the wild animal habitat.

I had squirrels go in through the dryer vent and make a nest in some storage boxes above the floor. Oh, they're so cute right? Yeah. Little buggers then decided to try and dig into my house through the ceiling in the add-on family room/bedroom.

Then it's rabbits. I've got a nice screened in wood deck with a hot tub. And those lovely furry little sweethearts decide, "Oh, look at that nice place to tunnel under." Now the problem with these living Easter ornaments is that they weaken the foundation with their series of tunnels. And something else you never hear people talk about. Rabbits have fleas. And my deck was a flea explosion for several months. Go out the back door, and you are literally covered in fleas up to your knees in seconds.

Now I've got a mouse or perhaps a rat in the garage. Does this ever end? I used my pistolero skills to deal with the squirrels and rabbits, but the mouse is a little too shifty. So I guess it'll be poison or traps or something. sheesh

I'm totally down with nature. I love animals and even tolerate bugs and stuff (except roaches, which should be wiped off the face of the earth immediately) . . . as long as they stay out of my house!

Go live your lives, do your thing outside in the big world. I'll live in my home without all the creepiness and ickiness and not try to kill you. It's a fair contract. But no . . .

*sigh*

So Lindsay's doing Playboy now?

2011-10-25T22:20:00.003-04:00

I see Lindsay Lohan has worked out a deal to appear in the January issue of Playboy. They're going to pay her somewhere between $750K (their price) and $1M (Lindsay's price) to appear in a non-nude pictorial.

*groan*

Another non-nude pictorial in Playboy. Did someone there forget what that magazine is all about? And how about the absurdity of paying Lindsay that kind of money for not showing anything when she's already done stuff like this:

And when she isn't showing the goods in a modeling shoot, she's falling out of her clothes in public, where there always just happens to be a photographer handy:

Or she's simply going around town wearing outfits that leave all her stuff hangin' out there for any passerby to check out:

Look, I get that Hugh Hefner's getting a little foggy in his old age, by why pay that kind of money for a chick who's givin' it away for free almost every day?! And do we really need another ridiculously promoted show nothing photoshop extravaganza let down like this again:

Umm . . . no!

Update:
So rumor has it that Linds is actually going full monty in the pictorial. Uh hmm. Color me dubious. We heard the same nonsense from Heidi Montag's shoot and see the above pictures to see how that turned out. I wouldn't put it past either the magazine or Linds (via proxy Dina) to be ginning up publicity for this issue to increase sales. We'll see.

So pumpkin patches are ruined now too

2011-10-24T17:25:00.003-04:00

Every year, you can set your watch by it, as Halloween approaches, we get deluged with "candid" shots of celebs cavorting in local pumpking patches as they shop for their jack-o-lantern material.

And of course, every year, its the same old tired cliched images -- some female celeb holds up two pumpkins in front of her boobs and makes a funny face. And also, there are the usual amusing wardrobe choices for these chicks as they, and some have children with them, make a real production out of this once innocent holiday tradition.

So far this year, we've had Christina Aguilera in a set of leggings stretched to the see-thru max as she bent over to pick out a pumpkin. Shauna Sand, who usually shows up in something made out of a lace doily, actually wore a fairly demure short white dress. And she only did the single pumpkin pose, trend setter that she is. But she also managed to squat down to give the paps a nice upskirt shot.

But the "please make them stop" winner this year was supposedly 16 year old Courtney Stodden and her creepy husband, Doug Hutchinson. Court brought the hooker look dialed up to eleven with this little number:

She then really broke things open by getting so frisky (yeah, I just threw up in my mouth a little there) with her aged husband, that they both got thrown out of the pumpkin patch.

Honestly, can't we have one holiday these celeb chicks don't slut up and ruin? I don't mind the hoochie costumes for the parties. And I always look forward to whatever Heidi Klum puts on, 'cause she goes all out with her bizarre costumes. But come on, man! Who wants to take their little kid out to get a pumpkin and be bombarded by some slutty 16 year old being groped by an old man?

eesh

What does it say . . .

2011-10-23T10:24:00.003-04:00

. . . when a someone who has won the Nobel Prize for Peace, Liberty Medal, and Presidential Medal of Freedom refuses to attend your bogus protest movement?

Lech Walesa, former president of Poland, has backtracked on a possible trip to New York to support the whining babies, I mean #OWS, protest there. After getting some information on the groups supporting and funding this so-called grassroots protest -- Code Pink, George Soros, the American Communist orgainization, etc., Walesa quickly realized the protesters were not fighting for actual freedom, but rather a larger, more intrusive and controlling government.

I'm sure after getting idealogical stalwarts like Alec Baldwin, Kanye West, and Russell Brand, the #OWS whimpering parasites won't be missing a lightweight like Walesa, who dragged an entire country out of from the shackles of murdering communists.

You have to wonder at the gross stupidity of the movement and its supporters, both celebrity and political, when you look around the world at socialist governments going broke, one after another, and yet these assclowns want everything in this country to be free and handed out by our government.

Free college education! Free unlimited healthcare! Free housing! And on and on. Where is the money supposed to come from? Suppose they strip all the million and billionaires of the entirity of their wealth, then what? All that cash would not even remove the massive debt saddling this country. So where do these whining babies go next for their bottle? Do they even think about that?

Of course not. They're too busy getting their 60s moment. Getting feted by the President and congressional douchebags like Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. Btw, why are people surprised about the President's support of this movement? What was his background in Chicago after all? Community organizer! Remember? What does that entail? Organizing protests and shakedowns of local governments and businesses to get free money and handouts for those who refuse to be educated, who refuse to work, and demand everything be given to them for free based on some sort of class/racial guilt trip.

Also btw, it is telling that when Obama went to Poland, Walesa refused to meet with him. Guess the actual, deserving Nobel Prize winner saw something, that the electorate in this country closed their eyes to.

Maybe next election . . .

So Theo's gone

2011-10-23T08:22:00.002-04:00

Theo Epstein resigned as GM of the Red Sox to become head of baseball operations for the Cubs yesterday, I think.

It's the end of an era in Boston, one that brought two World Series titles, but has perhaps left a few gaping holes in the organization. Can you become complacent as a sports executive in Boston? It is supposedly one of the toughest placest to work in management because the fans, of all sports there, are so rabid.

Both Epstein and Francona seemed to be operating on auto-pilot this last year. With a dismal winless streak to start the season and then the historic collapse, I'm still perplexed at Tito's epic fail with a team most projected to run away with the Series this year.

One of Theo's biggest upside as a GM, to me at least, was his promise to improve and rebuild the Sox's farm system. And yet that has fallen into disrepair as well. I haven't seen anyone coming up who has the potential to be game changers when they hit the bigs. Which one can contrast directly with the low budget Rays, who have a wealth of talent maturing in the minors. With all the money in the Sox organization, how did this happen?

Though the Lackey trade seems to be a loser at this point, I'm not ready to hate on Epstein for the last couple of transactions he made. A-Gon was a great pick up, even if he doesn't have Manny's power numbers. He a solid, reliable bat in the line-up. And someone who loves playing in Boston, and is a great presence in the locker room. The Crawford trade may still prove to be a good one. I don't understand Carl's awful year. I'm going to chalk it up to nerves and playing out of Tampa, and hence his comfort zone, for the first time in his career. Down here, he could easily be the best player on a team where nothing was expected. In Boston, he's expected to play like the star they are paying him to be. That's the most pressure he's ever faced. Hopefully, he'll use this last year as a learning one and become the player I think he still is.

I'm uninspired by the promotion of Ben Cherrington to GM for the Sox. He's been banging around the organization for years. If he was so capable, why wasn't he moved up before? I think he was a player personel guy at one point. If he signed off on the Lackey trade, that's a dinger for me right there. This move has the aroma of a team not having any idea who to put in the job, so they put a familiar face there to maintain continuity. I think a shake up would be more in order since even Theo and Tito said the team needed new voices in charge.

The measuring stick for Cherrington will be who he brings in as head coach. If it's some aged re-tread or unknown who has labored in the minors for decades, this team is in big trouble.

The Sox website is touting unbridled hope for next year, saying the talent is there for an immediate bounce back. I'm not optimistic. I think with all the hyper-attentive press in Boston and some gaping holes in the team -- pitching, power hitting -- the potential is there for another third place or worst finish for the Sox in '12.

I hope not, but as a life-long fan, I won't be jumping ship. But it could be some tough sailing next year.

I swear, some days . . .

2011-10-20T21:06:00.003-04:00

. . . just doesn't pay to get out of bed, you know?

I get up on time today, get a nice work out in before leaving for work. Not a bad drive. Days lookin' pretty good.

Then right off the bat at work, our interim boss decides to put his stamp on the place by hammering down with a bunch of worthless nit-picky rules he says are needed so we can "get back to basics." Yeah. We've been kicking ass and taking names in the city by being number one in all the productivity catagories for the last two years. But this bozo thinks we need to be whipped into shape.

fabulous

Then, even though we're slammed with mail (yeah, that still happens even with the volume down, funny huh?), I have to put two routes up. No biggie, I do that every day anyway. Oh, but I have to do the collection tour as well.

So that's -- do the work of two employees, plus race around the city emptying blue collection boxes and get back to the office before the truck from the plant gets there. 'Cause god help ya if the boss has to drive the collection mail down to the plant . . .

Then, this gal who's been flirting with me like crazy the last couple of weeks, to the point of giving me the "Hey, we should make plans to get together..." and you know what I mean by "get together" right?
*nudge nudge, wink wink*

Bear in mind here that I haven't had a date this millenium! Look in the dictionary next to the phrase "lonely & desperate" and you'll see my picture.

Well, today she hits me with the bit about how we have to stop all this, and it's all wrong, and yeah she wants it, but we can't . . . yada yada, blah blah blah.
So here's me -- I guess I won't be needing this . . . *rips out heart, throws it on the ground and stomps on it*

So I spend the rest of the day doing my job feeling like I've got a stake rammed through my chest. Have a crappy drive home. And when I get there . . . I've got a letter from the IRS. Guess who made a mistake on their taxes and owes more money?

Yuck! What a day!

So here's a pic of Megan Fox v2.0 - Rosie Huntington-Whitely throwing a little nsfw action at ya so if you're one of the three people that read this blog, at least your day won't be a total loss:

So Lindsay's going to jail?

2011-10-19T21:14:00.003-04:00

I guess Lindsay Lohan had her probation hearing today. And the judge pulled out the whupping stick and let Linds and her attourney have it. From snarky comments to withering side-eyes, the judge simply wasn't having any of what the troubled actress was selling.

I sort of feel for her attourney. I spent ten years as a union rep in the Post Office. And one of the reasons I couldn't wait to quit that mess was having to sit in a greivance or arbitration hearing and try to defend someone who was so obviously guilty and still seem all righteous and noble about it.

ick

I also got a kick out of how awkward Lindsay looked in handcuffs, when you know she spends plenty of time doing kinky stuff with these rich playboys who pay her to be arm candy at various events.

Anyway, considering the wretched condition of the California penal system, I doubt Linds will do any hard time, though technically she could face a year in the slammer.

The sentencing hearing is set for Nov 2 (I think), and I won't be surprised if she's back on the street quickly with her meth teeth, wierd bruises and abrasions, and low end stripper/hooker look:

IndyCar makes my NASCAR point

2011-10-16T17:40:00.003-04:00

My post below that chastised NASCAR for potentially putting drivers at risk for ratings is being proved out live at this moment in Las Vegas.

IndyCar is holding its season ending race, where Dario Francitti and Will Power were supposed to slug it out for the championship. Race sponsors put in a $5million winner's pot that the race winner would split with a fan. That incentive burgeoned the field to 34 drivers instead of the usual 20+ the series has had all year. Including a number of first time, inexperienced drivers trying to cash in on the big bonus.

At lap 12, a horrific crash occurred. 15 cars were totalled as Dan Wheldon and others were sent literally flying and bursting into flames. Wheldon was flown by helicopter to the medical center, and at this moment, no word is forthcoming on his condition. But I wonder when they keep showing images of Danica Patrick nearly in tears and others praying, whether his condition is more serious than we could imagine.

Interviews with drivers both in and out of the crash confirmed pretty much what I was warning about with NASCAR's fooling around with the rules -- the cars racing in a tight pack, no one can pull away, and drivers acting foolishly because of incentives put on them by the league and series.

Of the announcers, only Eddie Cheever has shown the courage to point out that the league itself is at fault for putting the drivers in this situation.

Here's hoping Dan is okay and no one else is injured in today's race if they choose to finish it. But I hope the message resonates not only in IndyCar, but with NASCAR as well -- they're putting these driver's lives at risk foolishly.

Update:
Dan Wheldon is dead. They just announced the race has been stopped and the remaining drivers will run a five lap salute to Dan' memory. Fuck.
My condolences to his family.

Rule 5 Sunday -- Jordan Carver

2011-10-16T04:46:00.003-04:00

Today's Rule 5 posting is the lovely Jordan Carver. Originally born in Germany, Ms. Carver now lives in California (where else?) and is using her obvious assets to try and make a living as an internet model.

Also appearing in the usual magazines that feature well endowed young ladies, Jordan is taking a rather old-school approach and not going full monty in any of them. It will be interesting to see if, in this age of uncensored internet and cable television, that approach will be viable as a long term business model.

*click on the thumbnails for full-sized images*

Rule 5 Sunday suggested by this.

Hat tips:
Jake Finnegan
The Daley Gator
The Classic Liberal
Say Anything Blog
Proof Positive

Conservative awareness not unlike a glacier

2011-10-15T10:41:00.003-04:00

As in incredibly slow moving.

Shortly after the '08 election, Mitt Romney became the annointed front runner in the Republican party. So much so that I thought his name had been legally changed to Republican Frontrunner Mitt Romney. It should have been telling that liberal/democrat pundits were touting Romney as the best candidate to defeat Barack Obama. But the so-called enlightened conservative pundits and bloggers jumped right on the Romney bandwagon, starting every conversation about the election with Mittens.

And once the debate/campaign process began, conservative talkers linked arms with their liberal counterparts and worked diligently to eviscerate any impediment to an eventual Romney nomination as the official Republican challenger.

Bachmann, Perry, Pawlenty, Palin . . . anyone who got a moment's notice as the Flavor of the Month got every blemish and he said/she said story given prominent voice in the media. Now it is Herman Cain's turn. He got a push from a none of the above vibe in a few straw polls and moved up in the rankings. Now he's getting it hard from both liberals and conservatives over his tax plan and obvious lack of experience in politics.

To be fair, Cain's lack of foreign policy knowledge/experience and lack of legislative experience is why I'm convinced he shouldn't be the party's nominee. For both practical reasons and tactical reasons -- the campaign commercials would write themselves with Cain as the nominee. And despite Obama's wretched record in office, a glaring novice as president would turn off independent voters in a heartbeat.

And now with all the warts exposed, Romney's comfortably back in the lead.

And finally, the brains in the conservative blogosphere are noticing -- hey, this guy's a bit of a RINO! And all of the sudden we're seeing posts about how much Mitt was involved in ObamaCare. And reminders of how he's on board with the Global Warming hoax. And even Obama's campaign is launching pre-emptive attack ads focusing on how Mitt's a serial flip-flopper.

I warned about the circular firing squad nature of conservative thinking earlier this year. I've pointed to the risible notion of vetting our candidates, when in actuality, they've been destroying the field to leave the worst possible candidate standing -- Mitt Romney.

And now that that has come to pass, these same pundits and know-nothings are being hit with buyer's remorse. They, the conservative intelligensia, have put someone at the head of the party that does not believe in hardly anything they have used to bludeon other prospective candidates out of the race with.

I guess better late than never, but nice going a**holes! Way to screw up a gimme election!

Late night hotness . . .

2011-10-12T23:06:00.004-04:00

I had them lengthened, now they go all the way up.

Here's my thing

Can't get good help of the day

Hey, they're shooting a movie down my way

Stewart wins in Vegas

Bush league move of the day

I see Sue Carlton's at it again

Oddly enough, Milla doesn't have to hide her hips

Man, did I pick the wrong line of work

Okay, which one of these gals is 18 again?

Rule 5 Sunday -- Ashley Brookes

New Avengers trailer, now in HD

Matt Kenseth wins the 37 Hours of Daytona

I think Ann Coulter just had an orgasm

Anna Faris & Milla Jovovich for the win

Sarah Palin is nominated . . .

*sigh* There you go again . . .

So naturally, we have a rain delay

In case you were wondering

Rule 5 Sunday -- Jessica James Clement part 2

This is probably a fake, but . . .

Tony Stewart wins Daytona qualifier

Maybe the RNC should hire Lindsay Lohan

Late night hotness . . .

This is a must read . . .

And it used to be a "classy" holiday

So about those unemployment numbers . . .

Twitter yes . . . twitter no

My boy Wake retired today

Yzerman, Bolts not standing pat. And yet . . .

False narratives

Avril may need to hit the gym

Late night hotness . . .

Not that its of great cosmic significance . . .

Money talks, my favorite sports teams . . . eh, not so much

Rule 5 Monday -- Jordan Carver, part 2

Because celebs say the stupidist things . . .

I don't know why anyone is surprised by this

Hmmm, do we have a horse race here?

Ah jeez, enough already . . .

Ashley Tisdale for the win

Late night hotness . . .

Finally! A decent Game of Thrones preview trailer

Kate Upton for the win

Gee, Vanessa Hudgens owns a lot of bikinis

Cynthia Nixon just made an inconvenient statement

Great! Now who do I vote for?

Late night hotness . . .

Nah, conservative bloggers aren't arrogant at all

Chickenfoot > Van Halen

This just in . . . Eliza Dushku = still in my cool book

Rule 5 Monday -- Sophie Marceau

Well, the playoffs are set now

Late night hotness . . .

Late night hotness . . .

The Bucs have a job opening

Rule 5 Monday -- xoxo Leah

Bucs end the year on a low note

This just in . . . Miley Cyrus = not fat

Bolts end the year on a high note

And from the "this is just wrong" department

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas eve

Late night hotness . . .

Dogs and cats, living together . . . mass hysteria!

Maria Conchita Alonso is okay in my book

A bit of economic history

Rule 5 Sunday -- Taryn Manning

What in the emo hell - part 2

Oof, Bucs lose again

Rule 5 Sunday -- Jessica James Clement

And of course, no one saw this coming

Darien Grubb moves to JGR

Late night hotness . . .

Valentine notches first win as Sox skipper . . .

You learn something new every day

Okay, so I was wrong

Seriously . . . for a comic book?!

So, what have I missed -- sports

So, what have I missed -- politics

Rule 5 Sunday -- Web hottie hopefuls

sigh There you go again . . .