Hurricane Jimena

This is Hurricane Jimena. And that's Baja California, dead in her sights. And Baja California is just across the border from the Arizona city of Yuma. . This means Phoenix will get in a tizzy yet again about a hurricane hitting us. Not that that's ever happened, but hey, there's always a first time. Right. There's a small matter of a couple hundred miles of dry desert between Phoenix and Yuma. Hurricanes don't like land, especially deserts. . Even if Jimena makes a beeline for Phoenix, all we're going to get is some clouds, and maybe a few sprinkles. But for the next couple days, the hurricane will dominate local news. . Now you'll have to excuse me. I have to go put sandbags around my house.

Why I Play Chess

Seriously, this is a fairly typical chess opponent. Really. Yeah, right.

Seriously deranged...

I bet this guy is fun to hang around with. He hates just about everyone. My favorite one on his poster is "Sports Nuts". Whooda thunk those were going to be tossed into the lake of fire? OTOH, i kinda like the group "Child-Molesting Homosexuals". Apparently, if you're gay and don't molest kids, you're going to Heaven.

Tee up the pigskin, cuz...

...football season is upon us! To celebrate that, the New Adventures of Queen Victoria ran a Michael Vick thread for the better part of last week. . Deftly blending in Osama bin-Laden as well. .

NAQV has a new strip every day (including Saturdays and Sundays), and is one of my favorite on-line comics. You can see today's NAQV strip here.

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As for me, I'm a loyal Washington Redskins fan, but they aren't looking good so far in pre-season. Then again, we said that about our hometown Arizona Cardinals last year, and look where they ended up.

RIP - Sen. Edward Kennedy

Edward (Ted) Kennedy (born : 02/22/32), Democratic senator from Massachusetts, passed away yesterday after succumbing to brain cancer. There's lots of sites that will tell you all about his accomplishments, so we won't repeat them here. Instead, we'll post a couple pics and a couple comments. He was one of the four Kennedy brothers. Shown above, surrounding papa Joseph Kennedy, and going clockwise from the left, are Ted; John (JFK), Joseph Jr. (killed in World War 2); and Bobby (RFK).

John Kennedy was elected president in 1960 (the first election I can remember), and the three brothers became a think-tank at the White House. Alas, two assassinations and one embarrassment at Chappaquiddick later, Camelot was gone. But Ted Kennedy has been in the US senate since I was a teenager.

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Here's a 2006 pic from the funeral of Coretta Scott King, Martin Luther King's wife. Can you guess who was proud to be there, and who just wanted to go home and get schnockered at the White House?

Diagnosed with inoperable brain cancer a little over a year ago, Senator Kennedy remained active in Congress almost until the end. Health-Care Reform was one of his pet projects. He wore the tag of "liberal" with pride throughout his entire life. His departure leaves a gaping void in the Democratic ranks that will take some time to fill. Rest In Peace, Ted Kennedy. After a lifetime of work you've earned it.

Scam alert!

Oh, lucky me! I just won two roundtrip airline tickets to anywhere in the USA. And I didn't even enter any contest. I just have to call a number to claim my prize. Here's the text of the letter sent me. . NOTE : You must respond no later than August 27th, 2009. . Dear Terry, . I am pleased to inform you that you have qualified for an award of 2 roundtrip airline tickets. Congratulations. These tickets are valid for travel anywhere in the continental US. The retail value of this award is up to $1,400.00. Certain restrictions apply. . We have attempted contacting you several times without success. This is our last attempt. If you choose to decline this award, please contact us as soon as possible so we may issue the ticket vouchers to the alternate. Please call me today at (480)-281-0120. . Sincerely, Ashley Wilcox The amazing thing is - I won two roundtrip airline tickets just a month ago! From a different company. But via the exact same letter. And logo. . This latest one came from a company called Hudson Stone. The last one came from Bradley Tate. What are the odds? . Actually, not very long since the whole things's a scam. You can read a lot more about it at www.brahblog.com. These jerks hide under a number of company names : Hudson Stone, Bradley Tate, Watson Brooks, Spencer Burns, Hammond Reed, Donovan Rich, Lambert Steel. Brahblog scanned his letter, so you can see the (identical) logo all these dummy companies use. . Steer clear of this scam. They get your name and address off a list somewhere and are phishing for your phone number. Caveat emptor.

Motivational Poster for the Week

the fallen poster-child

There was a revealing article in the Washington Post a couple weeks ago. It was titled "Cheney uncloaks his frustration with Bush", and you can read it here. I found the following paragraph eye-opening for two reasons. . "In the second term, he felt Bush was moving away from him," said a participant in the recent gathering, describing Cheney's reply. "He said Bush was shackled by the public reaction and the criticism he took. Bush was more malleable to that. The implication was that Bush had gone soft on him, or rather Bush had hardened against Cheney's advice. He'd showed an independence that Cheney didn't see coming. It was clear that Cheney's doctrine was cast-iron strength at all times -- never apologize, never explain -- and Bush moved toward the conciliatory." . First is the statement that Bush "showed an independence that Cheney didn't see coming". Which kinda confirms what many of us have said since 2000 - that Dubnutz was merely a pawn being moved by the real wingnut powers-that-be. Cheney, Wolfowicz, Limbaugh, etc. Folks, the deciderer was the Vice President, not the Prez. . To appreciate how jaw-dropping that is, substitute Joe Biden for Cheney, and Obama for Dubnutz. Or use Al Gore and Clinton. It's ludicrous to even entertain the idea that Biden or Gore dictate(d) to their respective Presidents what to say. But Cheney is telling us that's the way the Bush years were done.

The second thing that's eye-popping about the WaPo article is the way Cheney slams Dubnutz. My dittohead friend voiced the same sentiment last Memorial Day, when he said that "Dubya was okay until his last year in office, when he went totally downhill".

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Hmmm. I'm always suspicious when my right-wing friend voices an opinion a couple months before Cheney says the same thing. It smacks of Limbaugh drivel.

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The bottom line is - the right-wing nut-cases have thrown Bush under the bus. Their former poster-child has no value anymore, so it's time to badmouth him so that the voters in 2010 forget all about his incompetency. That's the Republicans for you. If they can't do a feeding frenzy on the Democrats, they'll do it on one of their own.

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It almost makes me a tad bit sympathetic for Dubnutz. They used him for his charisma (who'd ever vote for Cheney or Wolfowicz?), and now are tearing him apart like he was Hillary or somebody. .

One final point - keep in mind that Cheney, like every other Bush-era dittohead, is in the process of writing a book. And if saying that Dubya and Laura held weekly orgies in the Oval Office will help sell his book, Cheney's gonna say it. People buy memoirs because they want to read dirty little secrets, not because they want to know the truth.

The Time Traveler's Wife (movie)

Genre : Chick Flick

114 minutes

MPAA Rating : PG-13

My Rating : B

. Yeah, I don't normally agree to go to Chick Flicks, but I am a time-traveler, so there was relevancy. To boot, Liz had just finished the book about two weeks ago. She enjoyed the novel, so this was a must-see. . What's To Like... There's a pleasant blend of chuckleful humor, cool "what if" scenarios, and of course, romance. The movie did a fantastic job of finding people to play the two female leads at various stages in their lives. And the make-up people did a fantastic job with our hero. There are a couple quick butt shots, which earned the movie its PG-13 rating. . Liz says it follows the book closely, although it naturally drops a few scenes, including an important one near the end of the book, when the time traveler's wife is very old. But Liz will definitely be buying this as soon as it's out. . The technical part of time-travel. Our traveler is an amateur chrono-hopper at best. He can't control when and to where he jumps. And like Arnie in Terminator, his clothes stay behind in the here-and-now. Besides the fact that it's just plain wrong (don't you think it would be easier to time-warp an inanimate object than something living?), it raises questions about what else would be left behind. The fillings in your teeth? The crowns? Your pacemaker? Your glasses and contact lenses? Your tattoos? . They got the "mortality" aspect right. You can't cheat death by time-jumping to the past. They blew the "inevitability" conundrum. The time-traveler claims he can't change the past, then he goes out and rigs a lottery drawing so that his wife wins. And of course, there's no mention of dimension-travel, which really limits our hero's options. . I hate to say it, but I enjoyed this movie. It's against my moral code to give a chick-flick an "A", so I'll give it a "B" instead, and recommend it to any guy who wants to score brownie points with his wife. If you're going to have to sit through a romance movie, this is the one to go see. . P.S. One of the previews was for The Lovely Bones, and that looks like it's gonna be a must-see too.

Discworld - Collect them all

For some reason, Discworld books don't show up at the used-bookstore all that much. But I check every time I go there, and over the course of a year, I've snagged about 20 of them. Of which I've read about 8. . So I am naturally jealous that the XKCD bloke has the complete set, albeit only in "Kindle" format. FWIW, the books where the witches take center stage - Nanny Ogg, Granny Weatherwax, Magrat Garlick, etc. - are the ones that never show up used. Fortunately, the local library has a nice collection of Discworld books.

Another Movie I'd Pay To See

Personally, I'd be rooting for the Predator.

Is she a he?

Caster Semenya of South Africa has been tearing up the competition in the women's 800- and 1500-meter track races. The big news today is that she will be required to take a gender-verification test. You can read MSNBC's article on it here. And ESPN's here. Hmmm. I don't know about those hips and bust. I do know she's got the build that could whup the crap out of me in a fight.

Gender-verification has been around since the 60's, when the Irina and Tamara Press (pictured above) were dominating the Olympics in Hurdles/Pentathalon (Irina, on the left) and Shot-Putting (Tamara, on the right). It was the Cold War, and we didn't like those Russkies winning all them there medals.

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In defense of the West, it has to be said that as soon as gender-testing was initiated at the Olympics, the Press sisters retired. The full story will never be known outside of Russia. Were they men deliberately ...um... modified? Were they hermaphrodites? Was it a natural genetic mix-up (which does happen, and does give inherent gender-based advantages to the athlete)? Or were the Russians and other Eastern European countries just decades ahead of the West in understanding what massive amounts of steroids can do for one's track-&-field performance?

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The Cold War is over, the Russians are no longer our mortal enemies, and I kinda have sympathy for the Press sisters. According to Wikipedia, Irina passed away a couple years ago, and Tamara became a civil engineer, wrote numerous books, and still holds an honorary office in Russian sports.

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We shall see how the testing turns out for Caster, but here's hoping she passes. One gets the feeling this isn't a case of deliberate cheating by South Africa. So if it is natural-occurring, it will be something Caster has no control over, and of course, quite embarrassing. There will be a zillion jokes, and the bottom line is - it's not the sort of thing I'd want to have happen to me.

Obsolete Technology - 40 Big Losers

There was a cool article at MSNBC.com today re 40 technologies that you sure don't want to be your company's core business. You can read it here. The writer is obviously younger than me. There's no mention of hula hoops, slide rules, or LP record albums. A few of the 40 items mentioned are worthy of note. . 11. Waiting to get photos developed. My company manufactured one of the main components of the "fixer solution" used in the photo-development process. Up until about 8 years ago. Then we looked at the shrinking market and the shrinking profits (too much supply; too little demand) and said, "It's time to exit the business." We've never regretted that decision. . 15. Checking your answering machine. Yeah, Liz and I still do this. There will come a time when we'll wise up and, like Jason, only have a cell phone number. But not yet. . 26.Putting in a videotape to watch a movie. This is strictly a Liz thing. We have a 3-shelf bookcase that's full of VHS tapes. 95% of which are chick-flicks. We never watch them. Who knows when we'll finally get rid of these? Probably about the time DVD's become obsolete. . 29. Using proper grammar and punctuation. I'm proud to say I do send text messages via my cell phone. Actually, it's about the only thing I use my cell phone for. & ys, i abbrv lik crzy. Probably more than a teenager does. . 33. Playing music on an audiocassette. Only Liz still does this. We listened to a Patty Smyth (who?) cassette while driving to lunch on Sunday. And I marveled that there was a time when we actually put up with a couple minutes of silence at the end of one side of the cassette, and didn't mind having to flip the thing over to play Side 2. . 40. Giving someone your undivided attention... I rarely carry my cell phone with me, except when I'm at work. So it is usually quite some time before I return a text message. But I have noticed with Jason's generation, that getting, and responding to, text messages every two minutes while eating, chatting, or otherwise socializing is not considered rude at all.

Next Concert ... Maybe

No, not the Lizard King, Jim Morrison. Although he's one of my role models, he's also quite dead. . But two of his Doors bandmates - Robby Krieger and Ray Manzarek - are coming to town in early October. To be accompanied by the Phoenix Symphony. Reportedly playing lots of Doors songs. . This has the potential to be either a very good concert or a very bad one. Tickets are reasonable - $40-$50 IIRC, and the Dodge Theater is an okay place for a concert.

Happy Woodstock Anniversary

It was 40 years ago today. Three days of music, love, mud, torrential rains, and drugs. With an awesome array of bands, although we'll address that some other time. For now, we'll do the "where were you when Woodstock happened" routine. I was in between my freshman and sophmore years in college. I had just transferred from Penn State to Arizona State, having lost my in-state eligibility because my folks moved to Lake Havasu City. . My summer job was carrying out groceries at a dinky little store called "Food Mart". The store manager was Herb, who used to lecture us young'uns about the evils of smoking cigarettes. His wife took care of the store's books. A year after this, Herb ran off with one of the cashiers. . I had no idea what Woodstock was, and probably knew of only one luminary playing there - Jimi Hendrix. My roommate at Penn State had worked wonders on my taste in music. I entered PSU being into The Lettermen, Irish Rovers, and Roy Orbison. I left Pennsylvania being into The Doors, Steppenwolf, Iron Butterfly, and Janis Joplin. Thanks, George, for enhancing my musical ear. . I wasn't into drugs and the drinking age in those days was 21, so I wasn't drinking that summer either. My entertainment consisted mostly of going out on the lake with my ASU roommate-to-be, Graham, and his family and learning to water-ski. His first-year roomie, also a Havasuvian, achieved the dubious distinction of a 0.00 GPA his freshman year, and ASU asked him not to return. . So if I read or heard about Woodstock, it didn't stay in my mind. Neither did Charlie Manson's rampage in L.A. What I do remember that summer was Neil Armstrong walking on the moon. I still have a visual of watching that feat on my parents' TV one evening.

The big news about a judge was...

Something quick, as tonight was Book Review night. Ah, but tomorrow. Tomorrow's the 40th anniversary of....

B.C. today

Sad, but probably true.

Facebook

Yeah, you can find me there. Occasionally. There are worse ways to waste your time than Facebook. But there are better ways too.

The spirit of Salvador Dali

Here's a great website I stumbled upon (via StumbleUpon) recently. .

http://www.vladimirkush.com/home.php

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Vladimir Kush is a superb artist. This is the best surrealism since Salvador Dali. I've seen pictures of his works before, I just didn't know who the artist was.

Militants, all of them!

I know which "cause" I'm volunteering for.

Gran Torino (movie)

Gran Torino (Movie : 2008; DVD : 2009)

Genre : Action

116 Minutes

MPAA Rating : "R"

My Rating : C-

. Wow, my fourth movie in 2009. I'm turning into a cinemaniac. Clint Eastwood stars in and directs this action-packed shoot-em-up. He plays Walt Kowalski, a Korean war vet, retired auto worker, Pabst Blue Ribbon drinking (yuck!) bigot who finds his Detroit neighborhood is going to the Hmongs and whose prize possession is his vintage Gran Torino. . The film opens with Walt returning home from his wife's funeral, to find his life reduced to sitting on the front porch, drinking beer, and muttering every racial epithet imaginable as various minorities pass by on his street. His next-door neighbors are Hmongs, and Walt gradually develops a relationship with them that threatens to erode his bigotry. . Alas, after 30 minutes of fascinating potential, the movie degenerates into a mindless set of stereotypes. All gangs (take your pick from Hmongs, blacks, and Mexicans) are utterly evil. All of Clint's surviving family (sons, in-laws, and grandkids) are just waiting for him to die so they can divvy up his possessions. All the Hmongs (except the gangstas) are friendly but naive. All the white folks are politically-incorrect lovable old cusses, who don't mean nothing when they toss racial slurs around. . There's plenty of bad acting. Clint half-whispers/scowls his lines; the impressionable Hmong next-door boy stumbles through his, and Christopher Carley and Clint repeatedly mis-time their dialogues. . The plot is poor and obvious. Walt is coughing up blood, which is Hollywood's way of telling you he's dying of lung cancer. Kinda lets you know he's not gonna be around for the closing credits, doesn't it? The ending is clichéd and unrealistic. It's implied that Walt has saved the neighborhood from gangs; but a reflection on the facts of the final showdown leads me to believe these baddies will be out in no time. . What's To Like... Clintaholics get a new trademark phrase. "Get Off My Lawn" replaces "Go Ahead, Make My Day". The Hmong grandmother is hilarious. You don't need to speak the language to know what she's saying about Walt. Ahney Her does a good job of playing the Hmong daughter. The movie was shot in actual Detroit neighborhoods. It shows, and it's kewl. . In the end Gran Torino is about three steps below the Dirty Harry movies (those at least posed some moral questions - is it okay for cops to also be vigilantes?), but one step above every DeathWish sequel. I'll give it a "C-" because it is a one-time watchable movie. Thank goodness Walt dies though, because that means there will be no Gran Torino II.

Off to Zxzzx

We'll be spending the day by the shores of the river Gnuwgnmq, on the planet Zxzzx, in the dimension ...umm... ...well... dimensions don't have names, but no one considers this one to be anywhere close to being a "parallel universe". Smoking's allowed, but no fishing. Primarily because there are no fish on Zxzzx.

Waking up on the weekends

Change the one cat to three dogs, and this pretty much describes our Saturday and Sunday mornings. Sometimes they'll scratch to wake us up, sometimes they'll deliberately make noises (burps, licking sounds, fake snores, you name it), once in a while they'll physically climb up onto me or Liz, and on a rare occasion, they'll even ...um... pass gas, all the while maintaining they don't know why the air stinks. . On Monday thru Friday, it's the complete opposite. Of course we get up three hours earlier on work days. Huxley and Jynx will gamely get up a few minutes after Liz does. I get to catnap for about 15 more minutes after Liz gets up, and Honeybee is more than happy snooze by my side.

RIP - Sam

"Sam" (female)

b. : 2005

d. : 06 August 2009

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The "face" of the savage February 2009 Australian wildfires; ironically she was probably hurt during a firefighting-initiated "backburning" operation. See Wiki article here.

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Sam was euthanized today, in order to avoid the pain and suffering that would accompany a needed operation to remove cysts from her bladder and uterus caused by chronic urogenital chlamydiosis. Whatever that is. At an estimated 4 years in age, she died young. Koalas normally live for 15-18 years.

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So long, Sam. If it's any consolation, you're probably the most famous koala around, supplanting the one that years ago starred in the advertising campaign for Qantas Airlines. Enjoy your heavenly eucalytus leaves.

Speaking of journalists...

Because of the diplomatic skills of the man on the right... ... the man on the left was persuaded to release the two journalists below, who had been imprisoned in North Korea for the past five months.

Which in turn caused this joyous reunion.

You'd think everybody would be happy about this, but the dittohead hatemongers are predictably in a rage and for some reason "blaming" it all on Hillary.

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This diplomatic coup has the added advantage of potentially opening lines of communication between the US and North Korea. Yeah, the chances of Nutcase Kim suddenly deciding to sit down and have a beer with Obama are slim. But at least now it's a possibility.

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It is soooooooo nice to finally have a competent administration in the White House, instead of crooks, drunkards and bozos. I see Obama and company being around until 2016.

Let's go hiking!

Oh dear! Those big, bad, paranoid, bullying Iranians arrested three sweet, innocent American hikers who seem to have lost their way and unintentionally accidentally crossed into Iran. You can read MSNBC's latest account of it here. . Now I don't know about you, but I (as well as the Iranians) am just a tad bit skeptical of the American version of the story. First of all, two of our hikers just happen to be journalists. Second, a least one of them, Shane Bauer, is fluent in Arabic. Third. our trekking trio are described as "seasoned travelers". And lastly, a fourth sweet, innocent American hiker fortuitously got sick and skipped the excursion, but stayed in contact (presumably by cell phone) with our three wandering nomads. . Uh uh. I'm not buying this. I'm expected to believe the morning conversation went something like this : . "Hey! Let's go hiking today!" "Sounds great. It's not like there's any danger for three Americans ambling around in northern Iraq." "Cool! Where should we go?" "How about the not-clearly-marked border with Iran?" "Good idea! But what if we innocently accidentally stray into Iran? How will we know?" "That's easy! I'm fluent in Arabic, but can't speak a word of Farsi. So we'll just keep walking until armed guards stop us. If I can't understand them, we know we've made it to Iran." "You're so clever! But our companion is ill and has to skip the hike." "No problem! We'll just constantly stay in touch with him, and tell him what he's missing." . The Spanish have a phrase for this : El Toro Poopoo. The only question is - was this a journalistic adventure into the Kurdish section of Iran gone wrong? Or, as the Iranians have hinted, is it something more sinister and clandestine? . P.S. The pic above is of an area in Iraq close to where this incursion took place. Other than trees growing along the river, this isn't exactly a picturesque hiker's paradise.

Watchmen (The Movie)

2009, 162 minutes

MPAA Rating : "R"

My Rating : A

. Liz and I took a couple days off last week. It was too hot to do anything, so we watched a couple movies, including our first Blu-Ray. I'm not impressed. Watchmen wasn't the Blu-Ray one (that was something called "The Reader"), but the graphics were spectacular nonetheless. . What's To Like... If you liked the graphic novel, you'll like the movie. It doesn't stray from the book at all until the end, where it actually improves the literary clunky ending. Also, it ignores the "parallel" Pirate storyline, which I didn't see as adding anything to the book anyway. There's lots of action, and they handled Dr. Manhattan's penchant for nudism quite well. . What's Not To Like... Well, it helps if you've read the book first, as you have two sets of superheroes, and a villain or two to keep straight. Other than that, this was a great movie, although I never heard of any of the actors and actresses. . Oh, and if you haven't read the graphic novel, you ought to at least skim through it. There's a reason MPAA gave this an "R" rating; and that's because the book has violence, "adult situations", and gore galore. This ain't sanitized like a Superman flick; it's not suitable for little Timmy and Suzy. Come to think of it, it isn't suitable for Lassie either; the dogs die. . Watchmen The Movie gets an "A" and two thumbs up from me. So does the book. The other movie I watched (no, not The Reader. I skipped out early on that one) was not nearly as good. Stay tuned, and get off my lawn!

Just Wrong

I agree that the drug-testing of baseball players should have more transparency, but this is going too far.

100 Greatest Guitarists of all Time

We got discussing this list the other day at work when a couple of us started listening to Jeff Beck and found he was #14 on the Rolling Stone Magazine's "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" list. . Actually, I first ran across this list a couple months ago when I became acquainted with Mick Ronson, #64 on the list. .

01. Jimi Hendrix

02. Duane Allman

03. B.B. King

04. Eric Clapton

05, Robert Johnson

06. Chuck Berry

07. Stevie Ray Vaughan

08. Ry Cooder

09. Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin)

10. Keith Richards (Rolling Stones)

11. Kirk Hammett (Metallica)

12. Kurt Cobain (Nirvana)

13. Jerry Garcia (Grateful Dead)

14. Jeff Beck (Yardbirds, et. al.)

15. Carlos Santana (Santana)

16. Johnny Ramone (Ramones)

17. Jack White (White Stripes)

18. John Frusciante (Red Hot Chili Peppers)

19. Richard Thompson (who?)

20. James Burton (who?)

21. George Harrison

22. Mike Bloomfield

23. Warren Haynes (who?)

24. The Edge (U2)

25. Freddy King (who?)

26. Tom Morello (Rage Against the Machine, Audioslave)

27. Mark Knopfler (Dire Straits) My #1.

28. Stephen Stills (CSNY, Buffalo Springfield)

29. Ron Asheton (The Stooges)

30. Buddy Guy

31. Dick Dale (who?)

32. John Cipollina (Quicksilver Messenger Service)

33. & 34. Lee Ranaldo, Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth)

35. John Fahey

36. Steve Cropper (Booker T. and the MG's)

37. Bo Diddley

38. Peter Green ("early" Fleetwood Mac)

39. Brian May (Queen)

40. John Fogerty (CCR)

41. Clarence White (The Byrds)

42. Robert Fripp (King Crimson)

43. Eddie Hazel (Funkadelic)

44. Scotty Moore (who?)

45. Frank Zappa

46. Les Paul

47. T-Bone Walker

48. Joe Perry (Aerosmith)

49. John McLaughlin

50. Pete Townshend (The Who)

51. Paul Kossoff (Free)

52. Lou Reed (Velvet Underground)

53. Mickey Baker (who?)

54. Jorma Kaukonen (early Jefferson Airplane, Hot Tuna)

55. Ritchie Blackmore (Deep Purple; Blackmore's Night)

56. Tom Verlaine (Television) (who?)

57. Roy Buchanan

58. Dickey Betts

59. & 60. Johnny Greenwood, Ed O'Brien (Radiohead )

61. Ike Turner

62. Zoot Horn Rollo (The Magic Band) (who?)

63. Danny Gatton (who?)

64. Mick Ronson

65. Hubert Sumlin (Howlin' Wolf)

66. Vernon Reid (Living Colour) (who?)

67. Link Wray

68. Jerry Miller (Moby Grape)

69. Steve Howe (Yes)

70. Eddie Van Halen

71. Lightnin' Hopkins

72. Joni Mitchell

73. Trey Anastasio (Phish)

74. Johnny Winter

75. Adam Jones (Tool)

76. Ali Farka Toure (who?)

77. Henry Vestine (Canned Heat)

78. Robbie Robertson (The Band)

79. Cliff Gallup (Blue Caps) (who?)

80. Robert Quine (The Voidoids) (who?)

81. Derek Trucks

82. David Gilmour (Pink Floyd)

83. Neil Young

84. Eddie Cochran (who?)

85. Randy Rhoads (who?)

86. Tony Iommi (Black Sabbath)

87. Joan Jett

88. Dave Davies The Kinks)

89. D. Boon (The Minutemen) (who?)

90. Glen Buxton (Alice Cooper)

91. Robby Krieger (The Doors)

92. & 93. Fred "Sonic" Smith, Wayne Kramer (MC5)

94. Bert Jansch

95. Kevin Shields (My Bloody Valentine)

96. Angus Young (AC/DC)

97. Robert Randolph (who?)

98. Leigh Stephens (Blue Cheer)

99. Greg Ginn (Black Flag) (who?)

100. Kim Thayil (Soundgarden)

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I'm cool with Jimi at #1, although personally I'd put Mark Knopfler there. Eddie Van Halen and David Gilmour are woefully downlisted here. Ike Turner, Johnny Ramone, Joni Mitchell and Joan Jett are jokes. A lot depends on your definition of "greatest". Rolling Stone gives a nod to influential guitarists, hence Robert Johnson being all the way up at #5. I've listened to his stuff (there isn't much around); I'm not impressed. But historically, he's important.

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What makes this list a joke is not who's on it; but who isn't. Were the Rolling Stone guys drunk when they compiled this? Here's some notable omissions...

101. Joe Satriani (not in the Top 100? that's criminal.)

102. Alvin Lee (Ten Years After) (they were great!)

103. Chet Atkins (saw him in concert. fan-freaking-tastic)

104. Slash (Guns & Roses) (but stay away from the booze, Slash)

105. Buckethead (Jason's made a believer out of me re him)

106. Lindsey Buckingham (his solo work is excellent)

107. Bonnie Raitt (Joan made it and Bonnie didn't?? C'mon.)

108. Buddy Holly (you want influential? Buddy's influential.)

109. Ritchie Valens (how much did music lose in that air crash?)

110. Wes Montgomery (my favorite jazz guitarist)

111. David Bromberg (maybe the best folk guitarist around)

112. Joe Walsh (how did RS forget about him?)

113. Muddy Waters (makes John Lee Hooker look like a rookie)

114. Robin Trower (the 2nd coming of Jimi)

115. Steve Vai (his list of credits is too long to post here)

116. Ritchie Sambora (Bon Jovi isn't just about a pretty face)

117. Tommy Bolin (someone I've just recently started to listen to)

118. Ricky Skaggs (a bluegrass god)

119. & 120. Lester Flatt & Earl Scruggs (speaking of Bluegrass)

121. John 5 (someone else Jason turned me on to)

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Nuff for now. Your answers may differ from mine. Anything's better than Rolling Stone's opinion.