Boviosity!

Oooorgh...

Looks like WaPo let the apprentice colorist do Mary Worth today. Hey, fellas, feel free to mess around with the lesser strips (much, much, much, much lesser), but I've got some serious emotional investment in Mary's little world...be careful, huh?

Ow.

Spent several hours this weekend playing one of the best video games I've ever played, Nintendo's "Resident Evil 4." (I'm not alone in this assessment, by the way. Everybody from gaming magazines to the guy in the game shop says the same thing.)

Today I've got what feels like shoulder and back pain associated with sitting around holding a controller. So I'm going to do as little as possible today, and that includes not making blog entries.

But at least (for now, anyway) I'm ahead of Will in the game! HAH!

New Meme Watch

The headline on the Karl Rove story on the front page of today's Atlanta Journal-Constitution (print and web) seems to be laying the groundwork for a new liberal media meme once President Bush kicks Rove to the curb:

Storm over leak tests Bush's loyalty to aide

(Scroll down for the headline; the linked story does not repeat the headline.)

It looks to me like a neat attempt to catch Bush on the tender horns of a Catch-22: if Bush keeps Rove, they'll continue howling about how he's coddling the man who fingered Secret Agent Valerie Plame; if he drops him, watch for it to be reported as horrible disloyalty to a man who has given a lifetime to serving the career of Bush the moron.

Golf Course Waaaah

I quit playing golf a few years ago - it's the only thing that I've ever done for more than a short time without getting ANY better at, and that was too frustrating for me. I couldn't imagine going for lessons so I just hung it up. I don't even have my clubs any more.

I still love the idea of a round of golf though, and a few weeks ago on my way to Atlanta's airport I dropped by my old favorite course, College Park Municipal.

There, I was saddened to see that the magnificent old tree shading the 2nd Green was cut down, and recently, too. That was my favorite golf course tree. It added beauty to the course without adding any hazard, so naturally I was really into it.

My previous favorite golf course tree, on the 8th fairway at Candler Park, was cut down years ago...so long ago, in fact, that it's no longer on the satellite image. I guess I'll never have another favorite golf course tree.

Good on ya, Farmer Joe!

Farmer Joe, an old friend and sometime Boviosity! commenter, is featured in a blog post by Tim Worstall after flying the Union Jack.

I don't have much to say politically hereabouts any more - I can't imagine why anyone would care about my opinion of British mass transit bombings (against) and Islamists (disgusted; not afraid), etc. - unless I just want to point and laugh at something really stupid. So I'm with Joe, and with Tim when I say to al Qaeda et al, on the occasion of the bombing of London and just in general: Fuck you, sunshine.

Oh, and Joe? Drop by the house sometime again, man.

Mandolin pics

As promised, here's a link to a description & photo of my new mandolin, a Stagg M30 (Note: it's not the electric/acoustic model below the description. That's my new baby to the right of the "EPICEA TOP MANDOLIN REDBURST" label.) I basically bought it sight unseen (sound unheard?), not knowing anything about mandolins, but it occurred to me to give it a completely amateur playing test last night. Good news: it seems to play pretty well. No obvious intonation problems except on the lowest string, which is about a 1/4 tone off on the 12th fret. I suspect I could compensate for this with a setup change, but really who hits the 12th fret on the lowest string. Certainly not me, at least not for a few months until I learn to play the dang thing.

Alex The Prisoner Cat

Well, this weekend was nice but then on Monday we had some bad news. On Saturday our most beautiful kitty, Alex, inexplicably and uncharacteristically attacked one of our neighbors. The neighbor has been very nice about it, but the scratches were somewhat deep and she had to go to the ER.

Alex is in quarantine for observation for 10 days at a local veterinarian's office. Here's hoping he was just having a bad day - maybe a kitty cold making him grouchy or something.

The county also gave us a citation for the attack - very reluctantly, according to my wife, who said the officer was very nice about it and only finally wrote the citation because the attack occurred on the neighbor's property, not ours. Court date is in September but we'll probably wind up paying a fine before then and waiving a court appearance.

Here is a picture of Alex doing his hugging thing. He's the only cat I've ever had who gives hugs like this.

Come home soon, buddy.

Yee-haw!

Guess what I bought!

Actually I traded a trombone for it. Nobody was playing that, but I can play my new little beauty without worrying about smacking anybody in the head...UNLESS I WANT TO.

I'll get the model number and post a pic soon.

Thela hun ginjeet

I'll post pictures of yesterday's Fourth of July celebrations as soon as I charge up the battery in my camera enough to download them.

Here's my response to a request for witnesses to "unruly behavior" at the events:

Most definitely yes! The event in the park was peaceful as far as I could see. I even waited through a 30-minute line to get a funnel cake late in the evening, and although some patience was worn a bit thin around me, nobody was violent. But afterward, once the action moved outside the park, was a different story.

My family was walking to our parking on Fairlie Street, trying to stay with the crowd for safety. As we walked up alongside the 101 Marietta Tower, we saw 50-60 youths shouting and bouncing and rocking a car that had stopped at the light at Cone & Marietta. We and a few other people stopped and sort of waited to see what the mob was going to do next. They let that vehicle go and it moved on. But the next time the light was red, a chanting started from inside the valet parking across from AJC and then, as if that chanting was a signal, youths came zipping along from many different directions at full speed headed toward the car that was stopped at the light.

I figured they were just being idiots and not trying to hurt anyone, so I decided to find a way past them and inside. Since I work at the AJC, I decided to try to get into there.

I calmly took my kids' hands and moved toward the crosswalk at Marietta St. I checked and the mob was still to my left, on the stopped car that was at the other side of the intersection. This seemed like a good time to make my move. Fortunately, I checked traffic - an SUV on Cone St. with terrified-looking occupants and a saucer-eyed driver was having the same thought as me - to get past the mob. With his eyes on the mob to his left, he gunned it right into the crosswalk where I was about to enter. I jumped back and pulled back my little girl, and pushed my family back onto the sidewalk. The SUV driver made it through and I was able to make eye contact with the next driver, who let us cross.

We made it into the AJC building where a man was berating the security personnel for letting him be attacked. While his attitude - that unarmed security guards could have done something to prevent 50-60 people from frightening him - seemed a little silly, I recognized his need to vent. Unfortunately, instead of letting the man vent, one of the security guards chose to escalate the situation by getting in the man's face, poking at him with his finger. Another security guard was able to prevent them from coming to blows.

The police arrived a few minutes later and, after some relative calm was restored, we made it home without incident.

This was a terrible situation for me. Having to try to figure out a safe way for my innocent children past a lawless and unpredictable mob of people is an unacceptable addition to the 4th of July experience. Unless a serious and effective plan is announced prior to next year's events, I'm going to find a safer place to go next year. No more Fourthnik for my family & me!

Here endeth the debate

I used to debate lefties a lot. Now I just point and laugh. People like Brian Leiter are the reason. Here's a post from a progressive (i.e. leftist, in my dictionary, although the poster might take issue with that) that takes Leiter to task and quite effectively.

Of course, nobody who needs to read it will read it.

One of my favorite moments in many of my past discussions with leftists is always the part where they start typing, "*sigh*" before repeating one of the points that I've asked for clarification on (sans clarification, of course. Repetition by itself is not clarification.) I know that the orgasmic finish can't be far behind: wherein I am informed that I'm just stupid or crazy. I always like to respond, "Dang it, I was about to pull out the old 'you must be stupid or crazy' argument but you people always beat me to it."

Blogroll Bound

I'll update my blogroll someday, but meanwhile I think more people should read The New Editor. I'm consistently impressed with the things he links and with his amusing take on them. Judging from the dearth of comments, though, I suspect more people need to check him out. Won't you?

P.S. on Jorn

Hmm...Jorn seems to have learned a new vocabulary word: "neoconned." Cute! Death to the endangered blue butterfly!

Reading List

Here's what I'm reading now,

and here's what I'll be reading this Summer (in addition to my reading for blogforbooks.com)

(due to the hectoring of my friend Frank)

(because of the great review at brothersjudd.com

Cliche Watch

Here's a little game I learned from Jorn Barger's seminal Robotwisdom weblog: search for slightly modified versions of cliches.

Lions and tigers and (something besides bears)! Oh my!