November 17, 2007

Surf on over to The Cake-eater Pad

and offer your congratulations to Kathy. Dr. Academic declared her as close to disease-free as it gets.

Posted by: LMC at 12:29 PM | Comments (15) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

1 Aw, thanks, LMC.

Posted by: Kathy at November 17, 2007 01:09 PM (RhTlS)

Hide Comments | Add Comment

Girls! Girls! Girls!

You know, if I had a nickel for every time I've said "Girls!" in my day, why I'd be an awfully rich fellah.

Just saying.

Posted by: Robert at 09:35 AM | Comments (18) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

November 16, 2007

Automotive bleg

I drive a 2005 Ford Escape, which has been a good vehicle for all purposes (running over hippies, etc).

However, Mr. Skinny put a CD that they made in school into the CD changer, and it won't eject, giving the "Eject Error" message. (It's a single CD player) Nothing in the owner's manual, and a cursory review of websites were saying things like "take it to the dealer to buy a new CD player." This I refuse to do. Suggestions? Other than taking up humming.

Posted by: Steve-O at 09:31 PM | Comments (18) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Website of the Day, for a little Friday afternoon stoopid

Al Gore's intertubes: where else can you find a blog devoted to:

Men who look like old lesbians

H/T to AP.

Posted by: Steve-O at 02:15 PM | Comments (19) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Eat Mor Chikin: Cow Fu edition

Yes, the LLamas are #7 on Google out of 760 thousand for:

buy a cow to butcher

All I can say is "Moo."

Which is just a cheap link stunt to post this gem: Cow Fu

Posted by: Steve-O at 12:27 PM | Comments (21) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

You know it's not a good day when...

You find yourself writing the following email to the fabulous Chai-Rista describing the day so far:

Yes, i have become the illegitimate love child of Steve Dallas and Gozer, the Keymaster, the Destroyer of Worlds.

Posted by: Steve-O at 12:21 PM | Comments (15) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Oh, Those Annoying Liberal Bumpah Stickahs

Here at Llama Butchers, we like to comment on some of the most annoying Left-wing bumper stickers we encounter on our commutes.

Dr. Emil at AtomicTrousers has compiled his Top Ten Worst.

This one truly encapsulates the Liberal mindset:

“A PBS Mind In a FOX News World” - This particular bumper sticker is positively oozing with smugness. “God, I can't stand being surrounded by these Wal-Mart-shopping, NASCAR-watching, deer-hunting troglodytes. How can these country-fried rubes allow themselves to be spoon-fed White House talking points from Bill O’Reilly? They must not be smart enough to enjoy watching some dusty old Brits mumble through a clunky drama on PBS like I am.”

h/t: Jonah G.

Posted by: Gary at 12:17 PM | Comments (15) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Well, At Least I Can Rest A Little Bit Easier....

Truth be told, I've never paid that much attention to this guy to begin with.

Yips! to fellow DK-hater Rachel.

Posted by: Robert at 11:51 AM | Comments (20) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Gratuitous Single Llama Dad Posting

The Missus is off today to visit a friend in North Carolina who just had a baby. ("Come and see the baaaaaaay-bee!")***, leaving yours truly out-numbered and out-gunned to deal with the Llama-ettes over the weekend. Wish me luck, my friends.

Actually, it should prove to be a pretty good time, so long as the gels don't start going after one another. Ironically, the nine year old, who is the cross-grained one of the lot, has been working very hard of late on being pleasant and helpful, while the seven year old, who's always been the sweetheart, has been whiney and tempermental. Go figure. The five year old remains, as always, in full swashbuckler mode.

Although for most of the week we have an iron eight o'clock curfew, we usually let the elder gels stay up later on Friday or Saturday night. Tonight I think I'm going to run off my DVD of Monteverdi's L'Orfeo for them. Now before you start rolling your eyes, let me just say that they have suddenly become very keen on opera. Last weekend the eldest and I watched the first two acts of The Marriage of Figaro and on Wednesday her class went to the Kennedy Center for a workshop on Don Giovanni. Meanwhile, the seven year old still talks about the time she watched Handel's Tamerlaine with me. Plus, they've been pestering all week. So there you go. L'Orfeo will be a good choice, and certainly beats the hell out of a Sponge-Bob marathon. Aside from the beautiful musick, beautifully performed, it is relatively short and straightforward. And since both gels know the story of Orpheus and Eurydice very well, they should be able to follow along with no problem.

Tomorrow is the five year old's final soccer game of the season followed immediately by a team pizza party. If I know anything at all about that gel, she's going to spend the entire game saying, "Is it pizza yet? Is it pizza yet?" Ah, well. At that age, one cannot expect much more. Speaking of soccer, I neglected to mention that the eldest gel's team, the Creepy Green Leprechauns, won their league championship this season, with a 5-1 regular season record and a victory in their mini-tournament last Saturday. It is a real pleasure to watch these matches, as the girls are at an age where they are really starting to play as a team instead of just a mob. I wish I could say that the gel is one of the team's stars, but she isn't. She's certainly got talent, but she's also lazy, and hasn't developed the Suzuki Bonfire mentality of all-out effort yet. I talk to her about this but don't yell at her, figuring that she'll get it herself eventually.

One of the perks of living near Your Nation's Capital is, well, living near Your Nation's Capital. For tomorrow evening, the seven year old's Brownie troop has wangled itself a tour of the White House including, I'm told, the West Wing, which is not on the ordinary touron path. Pretty cool - I never even set foot in Dee Cee until I was in my twenties. (The invite was through the auspices of a senator's chief of staff who is connected with the troop. Alas, the senator is retiring, so we'll have to work up a new connection.)

Sunday my RCIA class is on donut duty again over at my nominal new church. I thought briefly and madly of taking the gels to this, but I'm pretty sure the Missus would scalp me if I did. And anyway, the seven year old's youth choir has got the anthem over at St. Looney-Up-The-Cream-Bun-and-Jam this week, plus we're on a roll with Sunday school. So I'll just take them to St. LUTCBJ instead. This'll give my old TEC friends something to chat about anyhow, especially as I've taken to smiling subtly at people there. Speaking of which, I noticed about two weeks ago that somebody finally removed my photo from the vestry bulletin board (although I'm still listed on the website). The Missus and I had a good laugh imagining who did it and speculating, if it was one of the more liberal muckety-mucks of the place, whether he also ripped it into tiny pieces and jumped on the bits. Wouldn't surprise me in the least.

So that's the weekend entertainment. Of course, there will also be chores. The seven year old was actually teary with the Missus yesterday because she thought I was going to make everyone work all weekend. (This because I required them to help me store the porch furniture last week and - gasp! - put away their own clean laundry.) "No," I said when I heard this, "but there are things that need to be done and we're going to do them. For instance, we can start picking up leaves." "That's right!" chimed in the eldest. She's my ally in this in part because she likes to play with leaves but also in part because I just bought a new wheelbarrow: it's got three wheels instead of one, plus a handbrake. The gel gets a huge kick out of pushing it around. I figure I'll take advantage of this enthusiasm while it lasts.

Anyhoo, that's how the ol' weekend looks to be shaping up. I expect what free time we have will be devoted to endless games of Sorry!, to which the gels have become addicted of late. Anybody who talks about the Innocence of Youth obviously has never played Sorry! with one. They're vicious and merciless.

***Spot the quote.

Posted by: Robert at 10:36 AM | Comments (19) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Why I hate government

I cannot begin to catalog the numbers of levels in which this is wrong:

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Here's a sobering thought: Hundreds of bottles of Jack Daniel's whiskey, some of it almost 100 years old, may be unceremoniously poured down a drain because authorities suspect it was being sold by someone without a license.

Officials seized 2,400 bottles late last month during warehouse raids in Nashville and Lynchburg, the southern Tennessee town where the whiskey is distilled.

"Punish the person, not the whiskey," said an outraged Kyle MacDonald, 28, a Jack Daniel's drinker from British Columbia who promotes the whiskey on his blog. "Jack never did anything wrong, and the whiskey itself is innocent."

Investigators are also looking into whether some of the bottles had been stolen from the distillery. No one has been arrested.

Authorities are still determining how much of the liquor will be disposed of, and how much can be sold at auction.

Tennessee law requires officials to destroy whiskey that cannot be sold legally in the state, such as bottles designed for sale overseas and those with broken seals.

"We'd pour it out," said Danielle Elks, executive director of the Tennessee Alcoholic Beverage Commission.

The estimated value of the liquor is $1 million, possibly driven up by the value of the antique bottles, which range from 3-liter bottles to half-pints.

I can only say "FREE THE BLACK JACK 2400!"

Posted by: Steve-O at 10:29 AM | Comments (14) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Gratuitous Llama Netflix Movie Review

No, I didn't bother with the debate last evening. Instead, I popped in the 1988 Steve Martin/Michael Caine flick Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, which I hadn't seen before. The story is about two con men, one high (Caine) and the other low (Martin), who fall into competition over a rich American gal in a little town on the French Riviera.

My opinion? Mostly harmless. Nice scenery. Not much else to it. The downside? Martin's brand of slapstick. Hasn't aged a-tall well. The upside? The part of Caine's butler Arthur is played by none other than Emperor Palpatine. Looks exactly the same. At one point he says to Martin, "Welcome to hell." You can almost see his eyes glowing.

Robbo's Recommendation: I'll give it one and a half Yips! out of five. As I say, there's really not that much wrong with it aside from the fact that it's only midly amusing, but at the same time there's really not much that would make one want to see it more than once.

Posted by: Robert at 09:10 AM | Comments (19) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

November 15, 2007

A Blog? What Is It?

Sorry about teh quiet today. My intertubes access keeps freezing up, especially every time I try to jump from one site to another. This makes surfing tedious and linky pretty close to impossible.

Also, I'm pretty busy opening up a new case. It's too bad that I can't talk about what I do, because it's a fascinating study in the never-ending parade of human fallibility. Mom says I ought to keep track and use my adventures as a basis for some light fiction a la Rumpole of the Bailey.

Hey - ya never know. I drink too much plonk and have my very own She Who Must Be Obeyed, so I'm most of the way there already....

UPDATE: Heh. Speaking of the mysteries of the law, a friend just sent me this bizarro little case snippet:

Clarence Curtis Jones, Jr., Jesup, GA, Petitioner Pro Se.

HURLEY, District Judge.

*1 Petitioner, referring to himself as “Clarence Curtis Jones, El © 1973, All Rights Reserved,” was convicted of bank robbery October 11, 1996, and sentenced by this Court to 322 months incarceration. Now, “having been raised from the dead to a perpendicular level on a square ” (underscore in original), Petitioner moves this Court for “entry of an Order pursuant to Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Rules 7(b), 60(b)(5), 77(b), and 78; and, Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, Rules 32k(1) [Discharge], 47 and 56, excuting [sic] summary judgment on the substance side of this matter” in his favor. (See Docket Entry 100.) Respondent United States of America did not submit any replies to Petitioner's submissions.

The basis for Petitioner's motion is unclear. His “Introductory Certification” states: Squarely, standing on the Five Principals [sic] of Light-Love, Truth, Peace, Freedom and Justice; the 1787 Moroccan Peace and Friendship Treaty and Amnesty, Article 21; The 7 Circle Koran of The Holy Covenant for the Asiatic Nation; The Free Moorish Zodiac Constitution, and The Great Magna Carta ... Affiant ... by Right demands, by consequence of Respondent's intentional razor sharp actions, this cause of action by special delivery for benefit of protection....

Can't imagine why Uncle didn't choose to reply.

Posted by: Robert at 04:20 PM | Comments (15) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

"You Keep Saying That Word..."

"...I do not think it means what you think it means." **

The word being "landslide", or what Mark Penn (chief pollster for SWMNBN) is predicting his boss would win by were the election held today.

This of course is the same guy who predicts that she'll peel away one in four Republican women voters next November.

Looks like Penn has been smoking weed in preparation for the onslaught tonight. Hey Mark, pass it down here will ya?

** bonus points for spotting the quote

Posted by: Gary at 04:14 PM | Comments (17) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Dana Carvey Has Still Got It

As far as impressions go.

On Jay Leno, he examines the "folksy" candidate, Ol' Fred:

Then he lampoons Giuliani:

Pretty funny stuff. Personally, I'd most like to see Carvey do an impression of Hillary Clinton a la The Church Lady. What a perfect fit.

h/t: Race42008

Posted by: Gary at 10:13 AM | Comments (18) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Hello, Darkness? Meet Candle.

Here's a bit of news that the Missus passed on to me in the wake of my ranting about Starbucks having put on its Christmas rig already. According to her, over at Nordstrom's (and I assume she means the one in Tyson's Corner), there is a large sign that reads, "We Believe In Celebrating One Holiday At A Time. Therefore, You Will Not See Any Christmas Decorations Here Until November 23. Happy Thanksgiving!"

I loathe department stores, especially department stores in malls. Nonetheless, I so like this stance that I'm almost tempted to send a bit of custom Nordstrom's way just to show my support.

Put Out That Light! UPDATE: Then again, there's this:

SYDNEY (AFP) - Santas in Australia's largest city have been told not to use Father Christmas's traditional "ho ho ho" greeting because it may be offensive to women, it was reported Thursday.

Sydney's Santa Clauses have instead been instructed to say "ha ha ha" instead, the Daily Telegraph reported.

One disgruntled Santa told the newspaper a recruitment firm warned him not to use "ho ho ho" because it could frighten children and was too close to "ho", a US slang term for prostitute.

"Gimme a break," said Julie Gale, who runs the campaign against sexualising children called Kids Free 2B Kids.

"We are talking about little kids who do not understand that "ho, ho, ho" has any other connotation and nor should they," she told the Telegraph.

"Leave Santa alone."

A local spokesman for the US-based Westaff recruitment firm said it was "misleading" to say the company had banned Santa's traditional greeting and it was being left up to the discretion of the individual Santa himself.

Frankly, I dunno whether I really believe this, given its utter jaw-dropping stoopidity. Then again, you'll never go broke betting on stoopid.

UPDATE DEUX: Stoopid? Did I say stoopid? I did:

An early skirmish in this year's "War on Christmas" ended on Tuesday when the nationwide home improvement chain Lowe's apologized for referring to Christmas trees in its holiday catalog as "family trees."

"That was a complete error," Maureen Rich, a spokeswoman for Lowe's Home Improvement Warehouse - which serves more than 13 million customers a week in its 1,400 stores across the nation - told Cybercast News Service. "Right now, we're extremely disappointed in this breakdown in our own creative process.

"We are apologizing to customers today for any confusion our holiday catalog created," Rich said. She explained that the full-color document is called a holiday catalog "because it encompasses all the holidays from October through January."

Rich's comments came in response to an "Action Alert" sent out earlier in the day by the Mississippi-based American Family Association. The e-mail stated: "In an effort to avoid the use of the term 'Christmas tree,' Lowe's [is] now calling them 'family trees.'"

Posted by: Robert at 08:54 AM | Comments (17) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

November 14, 2007

Will Robbo the LLamabutcher Laugh or Cry?

Today's episode of the game show sensation sweeping the Nation "Will Robbo the LLamabutcher Laugh, or Cry?": Ricky Williams returning to the NFL and the Fins.

Konnichiwa, bitches!

My answer:

Come on, sing along everybody...

Since we're on the subject of Senor Williams, this seemed apropros:

UPDATE: Here's today's NFL pile-on trivia question: who is Spergon Wynn?

Posted by: Steve-O at 04:09 PM | Comments (15) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

He's Baaaaaaaack!

Okay, we're well past tragedy already, so I've got to decide whether to file this under farce or deux ex machina:

Ricky Williams has been reinstated by the NFL.

I told you in an earlier version of this post the reinstatement comes with stipulations: The stipulation is that Williams cannot play until the Nov. 26 game against Pittsburgh. That means Williams is out until Week 12.

Williams can, however, begin attending meetings, practicing and working out at the team's facility immediately.

The surprising part is that this news has me neither ROTFLMAO or curled up in the corner feebly twitching. Instead, I'm trying to figure out whether I'm just numbed to the whole business or whether I'm even beginning to do a bit of the football equivalent of beer-goggling. I mean, know what would be cool? Ricky suits up, plays the return game against the Pats and kicks their @()#$*)(#$)(*##(*&% record drive up their backsides.

Hey, it could happen.

Yips! to regular reader Mike for tossing the link in the Tasty Bits (TM) Mail Sack.

Posted by: Robert at 04:08 PM | Comments (19) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Donkorific "What, me panic?" watch

Hillary's poll numbers in the state that matters: forget Iowa and New Hampster in the preliminaries, how about a nice, warm, gooey serving of Ohio in the general election?

Posted by: Steve-O at 02:31 PM | Comments (15) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Gratuitous Swimming the Tiber Posting

As is usually the case on Wednesdays, I have RCIA class tonight. This makes me very happy.

To give you an idea of how things are coming along, we are nominally scheduled for an hour's discussion each week. Typically, however, we run much longer than this, as nobody really wants to leave, but instead to stay and discuss (or argue) not just the topic of the evening, but all kinds of tangental issues as well.

What impresses me about this course the most is an overwhelming sense of the Church's eagerness to make sure that I know not just what She believes, but why. ""Look," She says via our moderator, "Here's the Catechism. It's heavily annotated with both Biblical and Church Father references. Go read them and understand."

I mentioned all this to Mom the other day and it seemed to quite surprise her. The Catholicism she turned away from in her youth was evidently not nearly so, ah, encouraging of independant reflexion, but was much more of the rote shut-up-and-do-what-the-Father-says school of thought. Of course, this was working-class Cleveland of 60-odd years ago. It would seem that times have changed.

Posted by: Robert at 01:25 PM | Comments (18) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Gratuitous Musickal Posting (TM)

Interesting little tidbit: today is the anniversary of the births of both Leopold Mozart (father of Wolfgang) in 1719 and Johann van Beethoven (father of Ludwig) in 1740.

It also happens to be the anniversary of the birth of Aaron Copland in 1900.

Copland represents the closest brush with musickal greatness I'm ever likely to have. My parents were active in the Symphony Society back in the San Antonio of my yoot and it happened to be their turn to host the reception when Copland came to town to guest-conduct. (This would have been some time in the late 70's.) By then, he was a cranky old man. He autographed a music book for me, albeit grudgingly, which I have long since lost. (On the other hand, I still treasure my autographed photo of the great cellist Leonard Rose, my second closest brush with musickal greatness. A completely different character, too. I also happen to have a book of Mozart's works for four hands, one piano autographed by Rudolph Firkusny, who also indulgently sight-read through a bit of one of them with me. Now there was a really nice guy.)

Frankly, while I recognize Copland's contribution to American music, I don't really much care for his compositions. The folk-tune stuff gets old, fast. And "Fanfare for the Common Man", with its over the top brass and percussion and its conscious egalitarianism, leaves me cold.

Posted by: Robert at 10:10 AM | Comments (19) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Processing 0.05, elapsed 0.4292 seconds.
37 queries taking 0.4232 seconds, 82 records returned.
Page size 61 kb.
Powered by Minx 0.8 beta.