The passing of an American icon

Yet another celebrity has passed in a year having no shortage of tragic deaths. I have tried to stay away from the majority of these sad events as they are getting more than enough coverage on just about every network. But this one I could not avoid. Never before have we seen such grace and dignity.

I think we can all remember when she first touched our lives, and even though it was a small part, what remained was an image that would last forever. So fare thee well dear sweet Gidget. You may be gone now, but you will never be forgotten.

Update: Taco Bell soon to release new burrito featuring "mystery meat".

Wow... just wow

I don't even know what to say...

"I'm all by myself, as I've always felt..."

Nothing too exciting has happened in ashtray-land so blogging material has been kind of lacking. There are few things that I get passionate about but music has to be one of them. Unfortunately, as I find less and less in the way of new music to listen to, I don't spend as much time just relaxing and enjoying some tunes the way I used to. When I'm in the car I find myself listening to either sports or politics; very rarely flipping over to the FM side of things. Can you blame me? When every other station is Lady Gaga or Taylor Swift why should i bother? The rock stations seem to feed their listeners a steady diet of Godsmack and Disturbed which I guess is a step-up from emo. How sad is it when the most excited I've been over radio is this morning when I heard "Say Hello 2 Heaven"?

So, rather than listen to Jim Rome talk about nothing for 3 hours, I fired up the Windows Media Player with my mega mix and was surprised by how much I was digging The Smashing Pumpkins "Soma" off of Siamese Dream. The Pumpkins, much like 311, have always been sort of an enigma for me in that they are one of the bands I most enjoy listening to, but there is just something that bothers me about them. I can basically divide their songs in two categories: awesome, or, drive-me-crazy.

It all comes down to Billy Corgan's voice to me. It's so damn whiny and annoying when he sings normally, and when he tries to let out a growl it's downright absurd. But tunes like "Cherub Rock", "I Am One", "Hummer", "I of the Mourning", and "Muzzle" are all a rockin' good time, as well as a bunch of others.

It's too bad that they are yet another band from my youth that kind of fell apart. They'll still remain in my pantheon of rock and I'll still enjoy digging them out when they are considered oldies. Just don't ever bring up Adore.

Exhibit A why politics are ridiculous

I don't even know why I am wasting my time with this. I've spent all day listening to sports radio hearing about Obama's pitch last night. I didn't catch it myself because I was bored sitting through a solid hour of pregame ceremonies and flipped to the game just after Obama hugged it out with King Albert.

So, on the station I listen to the first thing I hear are douchebags that fill in for Don Imus whenever the cowboy is at his ranch and not on the radio. These guys are complete knuckleheads who do nothing but complain and take juvenile jabs at Democrats about everything they possibly can in between setting up for the next "best of Imus" clip that they have to run. How this show was deemed more worthy of being on Syracuse Sports Radio 620 than "The Steve Czaban Show", which is actually about sports, is beyond me. Anyway, those two clowns were ripping on the pitch and talking about the boos as if Obama was run out of the stadium. So, according to these guys, Obama throws like a girl, missed horribly, and should have been saving the economy instead. Have fun with your minor radio gig. There are reasons you will never advance.

Next was Dan Patrick, which is nice because it's actually sports and good radio. They talked about the pitch, too, which was annoying. But Dan and the Danettes aren't hysterical conservative tools so I was able to survive.

The one that's really been annoying has been is the Chris Myers show. There's a couple guys on this one and I can't tell who is who but according to these guys there was a big ol conspiracy where the White House was instructed not to show the results of the pitch in case it was a bad throw. Then there is some numbskull calling in to tell them that an alternate camera angle clearly shows that the ball hit the dirt. Here is a video I found which shows the ball clearly did not hit the dirt, asshole. Here's what happened.



Obama made the pitch from the mound. Pujols saved him by catching it just in front of home plate. Not a great throw by any means. But, unlike the party which is currently super bitter about losing to a socialist (communist? fascist? despot? dictator? nazi??? make up your minds retards), we don't judge the effectiveness and find strange consolation from the results of a pitch at an all star game. So, one of the idiots on the radio went on to say how the American people like our presidents to be athletic and then went on to say how good George W's pitch was. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but which sport requires athleticism: baseball or basketball? That's right, I went with David Wells vs Tom Gugliotta. What of it? Anyway, I look at the debate like this:

Choice A
President throws pitch for a ball
President also

• shows interest in foreign relations
• appears willing to come up with new solutions to economic problems
• shows an interest in maybe not bombing every country that disagrees with us
• will listen to people with actual experience in knowledge in a field rather than "yes men"
• does not receive direct word from God to initiate a crusade
• can speak english, albeit with a stutter and case of the "ummms"
• isn't retarded

Choice B

President throws strikes
President also

• decides to initiate a war of choice prior to having reason for said war
• gets cranky when in presence of dissenting opinions
• doesn't like explaining himself to common people
• cuts taxes during war
• makes up english as he goes along
• is more interested in vacationing than running the most powerful country in the world
• is retarded

Alright, I'm bored with this. Later

Idiot!

On another somewhat-related Palin note, I was going through some old magazines and came across the recent Time 100 Most Influential People issue and saw the entry for Sarah Palin, written by Ann Coulter.

I hate Ann Coulter. I don't even know her, but I know I hate her. She might be a delightful human being in person and it's just her on-TV persona which is a vile, nasty, hateful, little troll. Just the titles of her books are enough to make me want to slap her in the dick. There are only a handful of people in this world that I can seriously say would make the world a better place if they would go ahead and die, and she makes it on the short list.

Now that I've set that up properly I can go on. Her entry about Sarah Palin was innocent enough until she decides to take you for a trip down crazy person lane with this one: "Palin is a threat to liberals because she believes in God and country and family- all values liberal pretend to believe in but secretly detest".

What the fuck???

Bear in mind that Ann Coulter is credited with doing things like "exposing liberal hypocrisy" or being "refreshingly politically incorrect". One reviewer of her books says she is "intelligent, thoughtful, and articulate".

I just have a hard time deciding if she is serious or doing all of this as a ploy to get paid. I can't see how anyone who takes politics seriously and considers themselves a somewhat intelligent person can read that statement about Sarah Palin and liberals and think to themselves, "what an intelligent, thoughtful and articulate statement!".

Here's what's wrong with it:

• Argument from fallacy
• Bare assertion fallacy
• Blanket statement
• Argument from repetition
• Generalization

Essentially, I am trying to use terms used in the proper art of debate to refute an asinine comment, which only begs the question:

Who's the bigger idiot, Ann or myself?

Have a good weekend. I'm hoping to get drunk. Slap hands!

"Palin" around with idiots

Oh my God, Sarah Palin resigned!!! The United States political landscape has got its collective panties in a bunch over the news developing late last week. It was one of those press conferences geared to generate as little attention as possible as it was held late on a holiday weekend. So, she managed to escape a ton of attention and many news reporters weren't even able to get there in time to cover it. However, all of the pundits are on this case like me on chicken wings.

My personal feelings are that she is clearing her schedule so she can make some money and get herself in position for the 2012 election. That's just a hunch. But I'm not too firm on that since it doesn't take a political genius to see that giving up on being governor of Alaska will cause some voters to see her as opportunistic and unreliable.

I don't buy the pundits who are crying about how unfair everyone has been to her. It's as if the attacks on Bill Clinton, Al Gore, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, Obama, and every Democrat in the last 20 years never happened. Politics are ugly. If she didn't want to be under the microscope then perhaps she should have never thrust herself in to the 2008 elections with guns a-blazin'. Her role right off the bat was that of "attack dog" firing off insults, non sequiturs, and sarcasm at will. She gets no sympathy from me. Yet when people criticize her, her actions, and her family values it's unfair? Grow up.

That being said, there is not enough money in the world that could ever convince me to get in to politics.

I know it's too much to ask for the talking heads to wait until more information is presented regarding this issue before they start frothing at the mouth about it, but it would be nice to see some restraint. All I can say is, if Obama survives his first term and finds himself facing off against Sarah Palin in 2012, I think the Democrats will be in a very good position indeed.

Rozlúčiť, Hossa. We hardly knew Ye.

Well, that didn't take long. Hossa has come to the decision that the road to the Stanley Cup goes through Chicago. Or maybe he just decided that he'd like to lay in a big pile of money every night like Scrooge McDuck. Not only was he MIA during the playoffs, he immediately jumps ship from a perennial Stanley Cup threat despite stating his desire for a championship.

I guess I can't blame him. Sometimes it makes sense to get paid if you can't win it big and Chicago is a young up-and-coming team.

But Chicago has no excuse for locking the dude up for 12 years. He'll be in his 40s by the time he's done cashing in on this gig. Have fun with that one.

Who the F are The Fray???

Every once in a while I have one of those "Jesus I'm getting old" moments and I think I had one yesterday. While enjoying my evening commute home listening to some talk radio where they were talking about an upcoming concert by The Fray. I was just tuning that crap out and I was too lazy to change the channel when I catch them throw in how Our Lady Peace was opening up for them.

What!

Has it really been so long that a somewhat relevant band like OLP is opening up for some band I've never heard of? They had some pretty decent songs like this,



this,



and this



during the last 15 years or so. So when the hell did this happen? I couldn't name a single song by The Fray if my life depended on it. After listening to what radio-guy was saying they've had a song or two on teevee shows, including my personal favorite, Scrubs. So with a little searching I found this clip...



... and I've seen that episode a million times. The song ain't too bad, although I don't know if it's any better than Coldplay. I have a short history of digging songs associated with shows I dig. There was a brief period where I would arrange my schedule around Smallville (hello miss kreuk!) and the opening ...


Smallville Intro - Click here for more amazing videos

... caused me to fall in love with the whole song by the little-known Remy Zero and their one (semi)hit "Save Me".



Yeah!

So maybe I'll try giving The Fray a chance. But Our Lady Peace was pretty good at rockin' out at one point. Let's hope all these kids don't forget that.