July 10, 2008

The "Wilhelm Scream" - A Tribute

Not as well known as the Howard Dean scream but I guaranty everyone reading this has heard the "Wilhelm" at least a handful of times. It's a standard sound effect used in movies for over fifty years.

George Lucas put it in every one of the Star Wars movies. And now that he's finally created what he's always wanted - a Star Wars movie without actors - I'm sure it'll show up in that one too.

It's almost like a running gag to "spot the Wilhelm" in any movie that involves throwing a stunt man off a cliff, balcony or other long drop.

Some guys put together almost four minutes of clips from dozens of films.

So sit back, and enjoy:

Hat Tip to Dirty Harry!

Posted by: Gary at 07:15 PM | Comments (21) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Gratuitous Office Etiquette Grumbling

You know those handicapped-access buttons that automatically open doors and hold them open? When I become Emperor of the World, anyone caught using said button on the door to the men's room who isn't actually handicapped himself will be subject to public flogging.

That is all.

Posted by: Robert at 11:07 AM | Comments (22) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Gratuitous Nats Posting

Our Maximum Leader put me on to this jaw-dropping article in the WaPo by Thomas Boswell:

Of all the stunning and unexpected sports statistics that we will ever see, few take the breath away more quickly than the assertion on Monday, in Nielsen Media Research data published by SportsBusiness Journal, that only 9,000 household TV sets, out of a metropolitan area of 5.5 million people, are tuned to the average Nationals game.

"Nine thousand?" said an incredulous Manny Acta, eyebrows arched. "Is that possible?"

That's the universal reaction. From the Nats up to Commissioner Bud Selig, that raw number, a minuscule 0.39 average rating, got reactions from skepticism to shock to concern.

Do the Nats really have so few devoted fans? Or is this a one-summer exodus because so many Nats players have been hurt? Did Peter Angelos, who pays the Nats about $25 million a year for their local TV rights, actually get the short end of what was originally considered a sweetheart deal? Is his MASN so inept that in Washington, and in Baltimore, too, its ability to penetrate the local TV market is at the bottom of baseball?

Read the rest. Among other things, the article notes that actual attendance at Nationals Park is quite respectable, especially given the string of crushing injuries and the resulting appalling record the team has been dealing with this year.

It's truly mind-boggling to think that there are only 8,999 other households with their tee vee sets tuned to MASN in the market. At Orgle Manor, we have watched quite a few ball games this year. Indeed, I cannot remember having ever watched so much baseball in my life. And as it happens, as the eldest Llama-ette and I watched the Nats break a six-game losing streak with an exciting 5-0 shutout of the D-Backs last evening, I started bloviating about the importance (and joy) of sticking with the team in these hard times and being patient for future success.

To the extent these Nielson figgahs aren't some kind of horrid statistical fluke, I hope everyone else connected with or supporting the franchise keeps that same spirit in mind.

Posted by: Robert at 09:47 AM | Comments (21) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

July 09, 2008

This is big

Admiral Mike Mullen walking in the Sadr City section of Baghdad. This is huge because Sadr City was dangerous as hell when I was in town and a place to avoid at all cost. The idea that the CJCS could walk there a little over six months after my team left is amazing.

Via Hot Air and the fine folks at Fox.

Posted by: LMC at 08:00 PM | Comments (20) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Where's PETA When You Really Need Them?

I would imagine that being a cow is a pretty dead-end proposition to begin with. But now scientists in Argentina are heaping insult upon injury by collecting Bossie's farts:

Experts said the slow digestive system of cows makes them a key producer of methane, a potent greenhouse gas that gets far less public attention than carbon dioxide.

In a bid to understand the impact of the wind produced by cows on global warming, scientists collected gas from their stomachs in plastic tanks attached to their backs.

The Argentine researchers discovered methane from cows accounts for more than 30 per cent of the country's total greenhouse emissions.

How the, ah, collection tube is connected to the, ah, source, I really don't want to know. By the look on the poor girl's face, I should say it isn't terribly comfortable.

BTW, shouldn't that tank have large No Smoking! signs plastered all over it? I should think that a single spark near a giant tank of cow toots and we're talking a hamburger blast perimeter of a couple hundred yards anyway.

Posted by: Robert at 12:48 PM | Comments (23) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

So Close, I'm Beginning To Smell The Tidal Wrack

A month from today I will be puting my hooves up on the deck rail of the Llama cottage in Maine, adult beverage in hand, and staring idly at the lobster boats working their way across the bay below. Mayun am I ready for a break this year.

This reminds me of a bleg for you: I am looting bringing home some of Dad's old effects this year. We won't have enough room in the car for the Llama-ettes plus everything we take up with us plus everything we bring back. My suggestion that we simply leave one or more the of Llama-ettes until we feel like retrieving them has been kyboshed by Mom (who would have to deal with them), so I have been forced to fall back on the idea of either buying or renting some kind of exterior luggage thingy to strap onto the top or back of the ol' Llama Cherokee. Any suggestions about what works best and where to get it? I saw a streamlined U-haul mini-trailer for the first time the other day that looked like a distinct possibility, but I don't want to have to mess about with hitches n' stuff if I don't have to.

Posted by: Robert at 10:31 AM | Comments (33) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

"Bound For South Australia"***

Here's a neat-o little map tool for figuring out where you would emerge on the other side of the Earth, had you the time on your hands to dig a tunnel straight through.

I'd come out in the southeastern Indian Ocean off the west coast of Australia.

Yips! to Gail at Scribal Terror.

***Okay, maybe not quite geographically accurate, but close enough. This is a song the eldest Llama-ette learned at school several years ago that has stuck with me since. Here are the lyrics:

In South Australia I was born

Heave away. Haul away!

South Australia round Cape Horn

And we're bound for South Australia

Haul away you rolling king
Heave away! Haul away!
All the way you'll hear me sing
And we're bound for South Australia

As I walked out one morning fair
Heave away! Haul away!
It's there I met Miss Nancy Blair
And we're bound for South Australia

There ain't but one thing grieves my mind
Heave away! Haul away!
It's to leave Miss Nancy Blair behind
And we're bound for South Australia

I run her all night I run her all day
Heave away! Haul away!
Run her before we sailed away
And we're bound for South Australia

I shook her up I shook her down
Heave away! Haul away!
I shook her round and round and round
And we're bound for South Australia

And as you wollop round Cape Horn
Heave away! Haul away!
You'll wish that you had never been born
And we're bound for South Australia

I wish I was on Australia's strand
Heave away! Haul away!
With a bottle of whiskey in my hand
And we're bound for South Australia

In South Australia my native land
Heave away! Haul away!
Full of rocks, and fleas, and thieves, and sand
And we're bound for South Australia!

Posted by: Robert at 10:08 AM | Comments (23) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Gratuitous "Dang, What A Shame" Movie Observation

Ya know, I really really wanted Hancock to be a good movie. It's Will Smith and Jason Bateman, fer chrissakes! What's not to love?

Unfortunately, just about every single review I've read so far has panned the durn thing, some regretfully, some maliciously. I won't bother seeing it in a theatre now, although I still probably will toss it in the ol' Netflix queue in time.

Anybody out there seen it yet?

Posted by: Robert at 09:49 AM | Comments (29) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

WFB On The BCP

Regular reader (and offline friend) PnutQueen sends in this vintage piece of Buckleyism that she discovered whilst rooting about in an old recipe box:

LEAD THEM NOT INTO TRANSLATION

by William F. Buckley Jr.

As a Catholic, I have abandoned hope for the liturgy, which, in the typical
American church, is as ugly and as maladroit as if it had been composed by Robert Ingersoll and H. L. Mencken for the purpose of driving people away. Incidentally, the modern liturgists are doing a remarkably good job, attendance at Catholic mass on Sunday having dropped sharply in the ten years since a few well-meaning cretins got hold of the power to vernacularize the mass, and the money to scour the earth in search of the most unmusical men and women to preside over the translation.

The next liturgical ceremony conducted primarily for my benefit, since I
have no plans to be beatified or remarried, will be my funeral, and it is a source of great consolation to me that, at my funeral, I shall be quite dead, and will not need to listen to the accepted replacement for the noble old Latin liturgy. Meanwhile, I am practicing Yoga so that, at church on Sundays I can develop the power to tune out everything I hear, while attempting, athwart the general calisthenics, to commune with my Maker, and ask Him first to forgive me my own sins, and implore him, second, not to forgive the people who ruined the mass.

Now the poor Anglicans are coming in for it. I am not familiar with their
service, but I am with their Book of Common Prayer. To be unfamiliar with it is
as though one were unfamiliar with Hamlet, or the Iliad, or the Divine Comedy. It has, of course, theological significance for Episcopalians and their fellow travelers. But it has a cultural significance for the entire English-speaking world. It was brought together, for the most part, about 400 years ago, when for reasons no one has been able to explain, the little island of England produced the greatest literature in history. G. K. Chesterton wrote about it, "It is the one positive possession, and attraction ... the masterpiece of Protestantism; the one magnet and talisman for people even outside the Anglican church, as are the great Gothic cathedrals for people outside the Catholic Church."

What are they doing to it? Well, there is one of those commissions. It is
sort of re-translating it. As it now stands, for instance, there are the lines,"We
have erred, and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep. We have followed to much the devices and desires of our own hearts. We have offended against thy holy laws. We have left undone those things which we ought to have done; and we have done those things which we ought not to have done."

That kind of thing noble, cadenced, pure as the psalmist's water becomes,
"We have not loved you [get that: you, not thee. Next time around, one supposes it will be "We haven't loved you, man"] with our whole heart, we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves." "Lead us not into temptation" becomes "Do not bring us to the test."

Well, if the good Lord intends not to bring his Anglican flock into the test,
he will not test it on this kind of stuff. As it is, Anglicanism is a little shaky,
having experienced about a hundred years earlier than Roman Catholicism some of the same kind of difficulties. I revere my Anglican friends, and highly respect their religion, but it is true that it lends itself to such a pasquinade as Auberon Waugh's, who wrote recently, "In England we have a curious institution called the Church of England. Its strength as always lain in the fact that on any moral or political issue it can produce such a wide divergence of opinion that nobody from the Pope to Mao Tse-tung can say with any confidence that he is not an Anglican. Its weaknesses are that nobody pays much attention to it and very few people attend its functions."

And it is true that in a pathetic attempt to attract attention, the Anglicans,
and indeed many other Protestants, and many Catholics, absorb themselves in
secular matters. "The first Anglicans," Chesterton once wrote, "asked for peace and happiness, truth and justice; but nothing can stop the latest Anglicans, and many others, from the horrid habit of asking for improvement in international relations." International relations having taken a noticeable turn for the worse in the generation since Chesterton made this observation, once can only hope the Anglicans will reject any further attempt to vitiate their line of communication with our Maker.

I would guess that this column was written some time in the mid-70's, given that the current version of the BCP dates from 1979. It strikes me more as a general broadside against liturgical modernism than as an attack on any particular denomination. In subsequent years, the Vatican seems to have begun to get the message. Will anybody else?

Posted by: Robert at 09:31 AM | Comments (28) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Gratuitous French & Indian War Geekery Posting

Today is the anniversary of the Battle of the Monongahela in 1755, in which a British column of about 1500 troops under the command of General Edward Braddock (assisted by, among others, a young Virginia Militia Colonel by the name of George Washington), was ambushed and mauled by a combination of about 600 Indians of various tribes and a smattering of Frenchmen under the command of M. Langlade, M. de Beaujeu and M. Dumas, as it made an attempt to take Fort Duquesne (later Pittsburgh).

The British force, marching as a compact body, stumbled into a great horseshoe-shaped ring of Indians who, firing from behind the trees, threw the Brits into panicked confusion. About two thirds of the British forces were killed or wounded, including Gen. Braddock, who was shot through the lungs. The story goes that when Braddock was buried during the hasty retreat, wagons were driven over the site in order to erase all traces of his grave and prevent the Indians from digging it up and claiming his scalp.

The result of the battle was an unmitigated disaster for the English colonies, as it sparked full-scale attacks on all the western parts of Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania. I forget where I read it, but I have a vivid recollection of one colonist's account of being able to look all around the western horizon and see columns of smoke rising up from devasted homesteads. I've always found that image to be extremely chilling.

Posted by: Robert at 09:01 AM | Comments (29) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Can You Yip! Me Now?

Yes, Robbo has finally been dragged into the late 20th Century by the presentation to him yesterday of his very own (first) cellphone by the Missus.

Of course, I never bother to answer the phone when home at Orgle Manor. Why would the Missus (or anybody else) believe me more likely to answer my cell?

Silly Missus!

Posted by: Robert at 08:06 AM | Comments (21) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

July 08, 2008

Things That Make You Go "Good God!"

(Image found here.)

The Llama-ettes got one of these Heath Ledger/Joker figgahs in a box of cereal recently (Reece's Puffs, I believe).

Are the powers behind the upcoming Dark Knight movie really trying to portray it as a film suitable for kiddies? I'm sorry, but that's just sick.

(Incidentally, it may be dangerously close to Ned Flanders territory and is, perhaps, the result of too much Bible-thumper camp, but I couldn't help noticing the eight year old Llama-ette playing with the Joker toy and a Grady Sizemore teddy bear this evening: In her play, the latter was baptising the former. Yikes.)

Posted by: Robert at 10:30 PM | Comments (24) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Light Fuse, Stand Back

I wasn't going to say anything about the C of E's decision yesterday to allow female bishops, but the Missus recommended that I check out CNN's story on the matter. I did. And I feel I need to say something after all.

I'll skip all the mechanical graphs. Let's go, as the kids say, to the money quotes:

The theological debate over female bishops has centered on the question "What would Jesus do?"

Sigh... No, guys, there is no debate about that. What Jesus did is spelled out pretty clearly. What you mean is "What would we do if we were in Jesus' place? (Knowing, as we do, so much more about the way the world ought to work.)"

The traditionalists argued that bishops must be men, as were Jesus and his apostles.

Well, now. Why were all of Jesus' apostles men? Frankly, I dunno. And neither do you. Nor does anybody else. But there it is. But again, this gets back to the difference between "What Did Jesus Do?" and "What Do We Think Jesus Ought To Have Done?" And, of course, the traditionalist argument is actually based on the humility of recognizing that we have no business substituting our own judgment for His.

Retired Canon Alan Duke, a longtime supporter of women in church leadership posts, said those arguments "simply do not stack up."

Oh, I dunno. And note that "women in church leadership posts" language. Heck, I attend an extremely orthodox R.C. church and there are womens all over the place there, doing the Lawd's work in all kinds of ways. Much more, I would suspect, than most people who bloviate about "supporting women in church leadership posts".

Duke said that while Jesus named no female disciples, he used and valued woman in radical and different ways for his time.

Well, yeah.....And even a superficial understanding of the Gospels (such as, for example, mine) reveals that Jesus specialized in upsetting all kinds of accepted social conventions, not just with regard to sex, but also concerning birth, tribe, social standing, occupation and a whole host of other factors. But surely that argues against Jesus feeling compelled to stick to some particular contemporary social standard?

"He was hardly going to choose women and send them into a situation where they might have been in grave risk," Duke said.

Oh, so it was okay for Jesus to send Peter and the other Disciples into all kinds of hideous dangers at the hands of the Romans, the Jews and other hostile groups.....just because they were Men? Why, that Jesus fellah couldn't have been anything more than a sexist, chauvenist pig! Oh. Wait. Hang on......

Okay, let's get to what this is really all about......

Christina Rees, with the pro-women lobby Women and the Church, described what was at stake as "an acceptance by the Church of England of women on equal terms as men in the ordained ministries."

Bingo. This hasn't anything to do with theology, liturgy or the religious standards and practices derived therefrom. Instead, it has everything to do with modern social politics. As I said above, it is not a question of "What Would Jesus Do?" Instead, it is a question of "What Would We Do In Jesus' Place?" And even to my imperfect understanding of Faith, that is a very naughty question, indeed.

Posted by: Robert at 10:04 PM | Comments (29) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Gratuitous Llama Summer Reading Book Review

Augustus: The Life of Rome's First Emperor by Anthony Everitt.

A couple years back, I enjoyed reading Everitt's biography of Cicero, so I was quite eager to delve into his treatment of Augustus when I came across it.

I'm happy to say that Everitt delivers again. This is, as I said of his prior book, a very good layman's history of a fascinating subject. One thing I believe Everitt does very well is to give some sense of just how enormous an impact Augustus had on the development of Western Civilisation: Octavian (as he was formerly known) is one of those relatively scarce figures of history who had the ruthless drive to achieve ultimate power, but at the same time, once he achieved it, also had the self-discipline and vision to put such power to use for the greater good. He truly did, as he said, find Rome a city of brick and leave it a city of marble, not just physically, but metaphorically, as it were, instituting many hallmarks of social and political organization still perfectly recogizable today. Thus, I would recommend this book to any other classickal civ geeks out there.

Ah, but what is a Robbo Book Review without a quibble? Well, here's one: Having finished Everitt's book, I went back and pulled out my copy of Suetonius' The Lives of the Twelve Caesars and reread the section on Augustus. I was a bit concerned to note that Everitt relies very heavily on Suetonius' accounts of the episodes of Augustus' life, sometimes lifting passages practically verbatim. Granted that we have very few other sources, but I had always been given to understand that Suetonius was something of a gossip-monger, jotting down every rumor, tale or story about his subjects that he could find. This being the case, I feel that Everitt could perhaps have been just a leetle more distant in relating some of the incidents of Augustus' life. Not a lot, just a little.

Posted by: Robert at 11:29 AM | Comments (23) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Gratuitous Domestic Posting - Outdoor Division

For whatever reason, Moo-Gnu is publishing uploads again. Therefore, I give you a little taste of Robbo's garden:

As you can see, I go for the informal, hodge-podged, English style. That's oregano in front, which no power on earth is ever going to be able to remove. If you look closely, you can just make out a few orange cosmos starting to come out between the brown-eyed susans and the coneflowers, plus some purple-ish phlox down low. As you can also see, I need to dead-head the clematis on the fence rayther badly and also to take the clippers to the forsythia in the back.

Granted, it isn't professional grade, but as the result of the few moments I manage to snatch here and there to take care of it (plus, it must be emphasized, the abundance of rain we've had this year around Dee Cee), I may say that I don't think it too terribly shabby. Lately, I've been strolling out in the evening just to hang over the gate and soak it all in. This makes me quite happy which, in the end, is what counts.

Posted by: Robert at 11:06 AM | Comments (26) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

July 06, 2008

Gratuitous Road Not Taken Observation

The Missus and the middle Llama-ette were presented with a last-minute opportunity to go see The Lion King at the Kennedy Center this evening.

Me? After dinner, the eldest and youngest Llama-ettes and I picked a bowl full of blueberries and raspberries, then ate them with vanilla ice cream out on the porch as we watched a thunderstorm roll in. After I got the gels to bed, I settled down and watched the first three episodes of I, Claudius from Netflix.

All in all, although I of course hope the Missus and the middle gel had a delightful evening, I'm pretty sure I got the better end of the deal.

Posted by: Robert at 10:11 PM | Comments (22) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Absolve Me, Pater, Quia Peccavi

Having much on my mind the other day, I got into the 15 items or less [sic] line at the local grocery store without having closely counted, only to realize when it was far too late that I was carrying...... 19 items.

What is worse, I only fully came to this realization when I heard the mousy cashier apologizing to the woman behind me as I left and the woman, in turn, muttering under her breath about people who can't count.

By that point, feeling that it was useless to either a) offer to put something back or b) plead that there was no malum intended in my breach of soopermarket etiquette, I simply grabbed my bags and scarpered.

I have been feeling riddled with guilt ever since.

Posted by: Robert at 04:20 PM | Comments (24) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Because We All Remember How Well It Worked Last Time

Sen. John Warner wants to bring back the national speed limit from the glory days of the 70's, apparently because he figures drivers are too stoopid to be allowed to make decisions about speed vs. fuel cost their own dumb selfs:

Is it time to return to the 55 mile-per-hour speed limit?

Republican Senator John Warner of Virginia is suggesting a national speed limit to save on gas, although he's not pushing a particular speed. Warner does cite studies that a 55 mile-per-hour limit would save two percent of highway fuel consumption a day. He's urging the Energy Department to determine the optimal speed.

The Energy Department's Web site says fuel efficiency drops sharply above 60 miles-per-hour. Warner says every five miles per hour above that costs drivers roughly the equivalent of paying 30 cents a gallon more at the pump.

A national speed limit has been tried before, starting in 1974, but was dropped in 1995 when crude oil fell to $17 a barrel and gasoline cost $1.10 a gallon.

I've always followed a rule of thumb of not trusting the political instincts of anybody ever married to Liz Taylor. Glad to know that ol' JW is going to hang it up soon.

Posted by: Robert at 02:26 PM | Comments (26) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

July 05, 2008

LMC summer reading

Why Courage Matters: the Way to a Braver Life, by John MCain; 15 Stars, Eisenhower, MacArthur, and Marshall: Three Generals who Saved the American Century, by Stanley Weintraub; and Supreme Command, by Eliot Cohen.

Posted by: LMC at 04:22 PM | Comments (21) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Writing report cards in the Middle East

My boss in Iraq evaluated the men under his command using two rules. The first, "get rid of the non-performers". If you did your job, you would get at least an average report. The second was simply: "if I am wounded and down on the battlefield, will this man risk his life to save mine?" This was what he used identify the truly exceptional.

Posted by: LMC at 04:11 PM | Comments (23) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

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