We even had the winning bid on one of the silent auctions - a gift basket containing munchies and various exotic beers. Liz tried to win four dancing lessons (genre : tangos, foxtrots, waltzes, etc.) but was outbid in the final seconds.
.
A good time was had by all. I was even coaxed out onto the dance floor for "our song" (Unchained Melody by the Righteous Brothers). If I get ambitious, I'll put up more details and pics on a separate blog.
I was allowed to skip this concert, as Liz went with a friend. I went with Liz a long time ago to see these guys, and they do put on a fine concert. The problem is that the audience is about 85% female, all of whom are standing up the whole time, shrieking, and dancing around. Not exactly my idea of what to do at a concert. Seeing these guys once was enough for me.
.
Liz says it was, as always, a fan-freaking-tastic experience. And FWIW, Paul McCartney is here in concert soon. But I get to skip that one as well. I'm sure it will be more dancing, yelling, and swooning. I'll pass.
It was a perfect evening. Supper at Majerle's, a sports bar owned by former-Suns star Dan Majerle. The food was decent, and we got to watch Arizona State beat U-of-A in collegiate hoops.
.
Then it was off to the Suns game. We were in the nose-bleed section, literally one row from the very top of the arena, and behind one of the baskets. But the tickets were free, so I'm not complaining. And although there were 17,000+ at the game, there were plenty of empty seats. After 5 minutes, we moved about 15 rows closer, and our collective vertigo went away.
.
The Kings are a laughably bad team, were on the road, and were playing the second night in a row. We were well-rested and still have Amar'e. So of course, the Kings out-hustled and out-scored us the whole first half. But we turned things around in the third quarter, and put them away in the fourth; and the final score made it look deceptively like it was a romp.
.
The most-interesting thing for me were the time-out and intermission acts - the things you don't see when you watch the game on TV. There was the Gorilla and his team of gymnasts doing eye-popping slam dunks off a trampoline. There were a bunch of Geezerettes doing a dance routine and wishing they were young again. And there were the "Four Tops Look-Alikes" from the nearby casino serenading us at half-time, but seeming like they would've preferred to be doing something else on a weekend night.
.
Best of all, Sunday Suns games start early. So we were home in bed, and reading a book by 9:30 PM.
Sadly, this is not a spoof.
.
On a brighter note, we're off to see the Phoenix Suns play tonight. Amar'e is still with us and we're playing the lowly Sacramento Kings. On paper, we win by 20. But we shall see.
You know that there's a great story behind this pic, and that we'll never find out what it is.
First, Mrs. Tiger won't be there. She's been positively uncooperative in this whole affair. Second, the "friends, colleagues, and close associates" mentioned in the sub-headline will be thoroughly touched. Tears will flow, hankies will get honked, group hugs will abound, and all of them will have heart-touching things to say to Tiger afterwards, conveniently just loud enough for the microphone to pick up. They're doing the sound-testing even as I write this.
.
Third, Tiger will tell you he's deeply sorry, but won't say exactly about what. Mostly he's sorry the media won't let this story go. Fourth, he'll tell you that "the overwhelming majority" of the reports of his infidelity are lies, although he won't tell you which ones are true.
.
Fifth, he'll tell you he's be working very hard to change his lifestyle, but he won't directly reference any of those phony "sightings" at the various sex rehab clinics that were "leaked" by his PR suits over the last few months. You're supposed to make that connection yourself. Sixth, he's going to announce he going back on tour (he needs the money for the alimony payments), but he won't be taking any questions about his personal life because "he's moving on" and wants you to do the same.
.
Oh and last but not least, he won't be flashing those new pearly-whites much, cuz he knows the gossip sheets are going to be comparing "before" and "after" photos. The implants have apparently healed, but are they really perfect replicas of the ones Mrs. Tiger knocked out? We'll see.
.
Good luck , Tiger. You scumbag. You can go back to golf anytime you like, but your womanizing is not going to be forgotten. Your integrity, and therefore your endorsement believability is irretrievably lost.
.jpg)
Pernell Roberts (far left in the pic).jpg)
A word or two about Bonanza. It kicked Ratings butt - being the #1 TV show three years in a row. It was sponsored by Chevrolet, and was what every household tuned their TV's to at 9:00 PM each Sunday night. At 7:00 PM, every TV set was tuned to The Wonderful World Of Disney. And for the life of me, I can't remember what aired in between those two blockbusters. The FBI (with Efrem Zimbalist, Jr.) maybe? The Ed Sullivan Show? Perry Mason? Lawrence Welk? Perhaps it changed from one season to the next.
.
So whattaya think? Cool, huh?
Then there's the guy who sees Jesus' face on his driver's-side window on cold, humid mornings. Hmm. Methinks there's a bit of skullduggery going on here. I'm always impressed that when God makes these images, She remembers to use the medieval-type rendering of Jesus - long hair, a beard, very anglo, and very unlikely.
.
Here's another message from God, this time putting a cross on a calf. I am not making this up. At least we know this one wasn't faked. BTW, the owners of this calf said they've decided to spare him the slaughterhouse fate, so maybe this is a case of Divine Intervention.
.
The problem is - if you've seen too many of these silly images, you start looking for your very own personal pictograph from God. I think this is already happening to me.
And then there's this one, which tells me that Marxism has God's approval.
.
Or, to quote Cherchy LaFemme, from that fantastical cartoon strip, Pogo : "Friday the Thirteenth falls on a Saturday this month!!"
Valentine's Day is this coming Sunday. Which means 50% of us (that would be all us guys) will be out wandering the malls on Saturday, wondering what in the heck to buy to go along with the Hallmark card we picked up. Without reading it. Hopefully, it doesn't say something like, "To my favorite mother-in-law" or "For my main hunk".
Santa's elves lied. When I opened it, there were fourteen pages of assembly instructions, and a couple gazillion parts - albeit, that includes nuts, bolts, washers, etc.
.
I am extremely mechanically uninclined (and disinclined). I can screw in a lightbulb and shoot a staple gun, but that's about it. So this project quickly stressed me out. I've learned there's only one thing to do when that happens. Go to a bookstore for a couple hours and forget about the task at hand. Which is exactly what I did.
.
Liz, OTOH, is quite mechanically inclined. So while I was gone, she took Phillips screwdriver and Allen wrench in hand (those were the only tools required), and set to work putting the elliptical together. When I returned, she was just in the process of plugging it in and testing it out.
It was three days before she stopped walking around the house with that smug look on her face.
Thomas M. Parham, Jr.
Ah, HHGTTG. One of my favorite books, even if the sequels got progessively more ho-hum. The movie was good too, provided you'd read the book beforehand.
My Beaker People persona celebrates it as Imbolc, and for him it's the day halfway between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox. It's always a time to look forward to the thawing of the snowy weather. He says the Druids stole the day and profaned it. See here.
.
My Druid persona calls it Brigid's Day. For him, it's a day to honor Brigid, who among other things, is the patron goddess of multiple personalities, since she had three of them. He says the early Roman Catholic church stole the day and profaned it. See here.
.
My Estonian freedom fighter, being Catholic, knows it as Candlemas, and lights dozens of candles all over the house to celebrate the visit of Mary with 40-day-old Jesus to the temple for purification, as recounted in Luke. He thinks the Germans stole it a long time ago and profaned it. See here.
.
My Gnostic persona, thinks it is a day of weather divination, but feels that the idea of Groundhog Day's Punxatawny Phil is just a trifle silly. Now a prognosticating badger, or bear, or even a snake - that's a lot more believable. See here. He thinks Bill Murray stole it and profaned it by making a film, whose only redeeming quality is that involves time-travel. Kinda.
.
And my Carthagenian general persona thinks all of the above personae are superstitious geese and need to get a life. He kinda enjoyed the film. See here.
.
Health Care Reform
Lord knows we need it. We're the foremost country in the world, yet a sizable number of our citizens can't afford adequate Health Care. That's terrible. Unfortunately, to have coverage for everyone instead of coverage for half of us is going to cost money. Money we just don't have right now. So my advice is - shelve this for now.
.
Iraq - Afghanistan
WTF are we still doing there? Other than moving some of the troops from Iraq to Afghanistan, nothing has changed. Do you realize how many of us voted for you because we didn't want John "100 more years over there" McCain elected?
.
Bring them home. Now. You've been occupying the one country for 7 years; the other one for 9. Everyone in both countries hates us, and you're breeding a whole generation of prospective terrorists and suicide bombers. Besides the wars are a major drain on our budget. That money is much better spent somewhere else. Like Health Care Coverage.
.
Gitmo
Keep your pledge. Shut it down. Try the ones that you have sufficient and untainted evidence against. Confessions elicited from waterboarding don't count. And try them in American courts. Don't listen to the bullsh*t from the dittoheads about trying them in military tribunals. I'm proud of our judicial system. It can render correct verdicts and appropriate punishment.
.
The ones that you don't think you can convict, you need to release. Yeah I know, some of them hate our guts. And will try to destroy us. These things happen when you spend eight years torturing them without any evidence that they deserve such a fate. I'd rather deal with these guys a second time around than a whole generation of terrorists who are appalled at our treatment of other human beings.
.
Wall Street Bankers
It's okay to waterboard them. Just kidding. But this is what you and Congress should've been concentrating on for the past year. Wall Street needs to be regulated so that the housing-freeze and financial meltdown don't happen again. Fire the existing Wall Street execs. Take away their bonuses until they've paid back the money.
.
BiPartisanship
Forget about it. If the Repugnicans were given the choice between working with you and saving the country, or working against you and watching the whole economy go down in flames, they'll choose the latter. So the heck with them. As Marie Antoinette said, "Let them eat sh*t."
.
And stop kissing Joe Lieberman's a$$. Don't get fixated on that "filibuster-proof" magic number of 60 seats in the Senate. It's over-hyped and you didn't do much with it last year anyway. The magic number is 51, not 60. If the Regrublicans want to filibuster, let 'em. C-SPAN can televise their antics. It'll reveal them as the party of "NO". Personally, I think it'll gain us votes.
.
The Stimulus
Nobody said it was a sure-fire cure for what ails the economy. What was said was that, if we didn't throw money at the situation right away, the economy would collapse. And remember, it was the Refuglican party's golden boy - Dubnutz - who first proposed the Stimulus. The economy is getting better, but it's still in ICU. The Reglublicans had eight years (16 if you count Ronald Raygun's idiotic deregulation actions) to screw everything up. It's not something that can be fixed in a year.
.
Jobs
I heard your comments on this issue. It sounded nice, but didn't really say anything. Unfortunately, this is one issue that is going to keep getting worse, no matter who's in the White House and who controls Congress. Europe went through this in the last half of the 20th Century. Once, they were an Industrial Giant. Today, they're mostly into Tourism. So it goes. We need to re-define ourselves too. Maybe as the Culture mecca of the world. Or maybe build 10,000 Disneylands. Foreign tourists love our amusement parks.
.
Immigration
This is just a smoke-screen for racism, but that's a subject for another time. And no, they're not taking away any jobs. They're doing work that none of us gringos want to do. And oh yeah, you're doing it all wrong. In case you haven't noticed, the illegals are still here. Building a 10-foot wall just means somebody else built an 11-foot ladder.
.
Instead, why not charge them a nominal fee to work here? Charge them twice as much if they want benefits as well. Either way, they're here. By my way, we get a small amount of money out of it. And once we have a bunch of legal-illegals, they'll make sure that the illegal-illegals stay home.
.
.
At some point in February - I'm not sure exactly when - I am required to attend a lah-di-dah affair (formal attire required) where there will be ballroom dancing. Folks, I struggle with the "one step forward, two steps back" slow dancing, so my participation in this social affair is not going to be pretty. And no, there will be no jpegs of the debacle.
.
Step 01.
Write down (at least) 10 people that you are on at least a conversational basis with. Co-workers are ideal. People you go to church with don't count (anyone can act holy for an hour), but if you occasionally go out with them for lunch, then that's fine. Fellow club-members are also great, as is anyone you know well enough to invite to a party. Neighbors are okay if you occasionally talk to them and don't hate their guts.
.
Don't include yourself - too subjective. And don't include your spouse - we don't want to start a fight here. Brothers and sisters are okay, but not your parents. Don't include Tiger (he would); and don't include Mrs. Tiger (she wouldn't). Don't include South Carolina governor Mark Sanford (shown above); we know his answer too.
.
Step 02.
No, no. I said to write the names down.
.
Step 03.
Okay, take person #1, and imagine them coming to you and saying, "Can we talk?" Followed by something akin to "I need to tell this to someone. I'm having an affair."
.
Now add a plausible rationalization for that person to give. Some possibilities : "(Spouse) and me have drifted apart. We even sleep in separate beds." Or, "After years of being just friends, passion just sprang up between (lover) and me." Maybe, "I met someone who I think is my soulmate." How about, "I found out (spouse) is cheating on me, so I figured what's good for the goose is good for the gander." Whatever seems most likely for that person.
.
Step 04.
Now step back and evaluate - is there even a remote possibility that that person could say something like that? Mark them either "Yes" or "No".
.
Step 05.
Repeat the process with the other nine people on your list.
.
Step 06.
Add up the "Yesses". Multiply by ten. Add ten percent cuz you gave one of those people the benefit of the doubt. What percentage did you get?
.
I ended up with 5 out of 10, which comes out to 60% once the self-delusion factor is added in. I know this exercise is pseudo-scientific. If you can think of a better way to determine this, by all means, speak up.
Something quick, as tonight was gym night. You might think the Google search shown above is fake, but it isn't. It's actually the name of a song by a group called Math The Band. Yeah, I've never heard of them either. You can buy the MP3 for 99 cents at Amazon. The link is here.
This whole "Tiger's going to sex rehab" has been a pathetic attempt by his spin doctors. How many sightings have there been already? There was New York, Arizona (lucky us), South Africa (that's a long way to go to learn to keep your zipper up), and now Mississippi.
.
So let's see. Either all these sightings are true (in which case, Tiger seems to be lasting about one day per clinic), or they're false (in which case, they're remarkably psychic - knowing what type of establishment he'd be spending time at in the future).
.
The Mississippi sighting is particuarly asinine. We're supposed to believe that the paparazzi were sitting across from the front gate at the Sex Rehab clinic, and were lucky enough to snap some photos just as the gate opened and just as Tiger was walking past. So the clueless guards' conversation must've went something like this :
.
"Hey, Murray. Isn't it a little weird for that white panel truck to be parked across the street with a telephoto lens sticking out the window? It's beem there two days straight now."
"Nah. But hey, Tiger just came out of the spa. We better open the front gate in case he wants to go get a pizza."
.
Let's face it, all these "sightings" reports (and now lucky photographs) are being choreographed by Tiger's spin doctors. You're supposed to believe he's battling an addiction, and has taken the first step towards recovery. And admire him for this. And buy the products he endorses. Bullsh*t. YFKM.
.
The truth is, Tiger's at home, still waiting for his teeth implants to heal. He's never been in one of these Sex Rehab Clinics, and never will, unless it's to do a damage-control photo op. And there's no reason for Tiger to go into rehab. He's not addicted to sex; he's just one of the 50%-60% of the population who'd cheat on their spouse if given the opportunity. And Tiger gets lots and lots of opportunities.
.
One last thing. Do you think the estimate of a 50%-60% cheat rate (either real or potential), is too high? Or maybe too low? I've seen one source say that the number should be 100% - that everyone would cheat given the right set of circumstances. I don't buy that. But in any case, tomorrow (time permitting) we'll present a pseudo-scientific way of determining that number. Stay tuned.
Kristen. Sweetie. What did your publicist tell you about using your own brain to make statements to the press?
.
I think in three sentences you've managed to p*ss off just about everyone. The anti gay-rights folks now fear that their daughters will turn into lesbians if they watch a movie with sexy women in it. The pro gay-rights folks want to talk to you about your concept of "turning into" a lesbian.
.
And Cher and Christina said that the next time you so much as touch them on the set, they'll b*tch-slap you into the next time zone.
.
YFKM. As in "You're Freaking Kidding Me!" I think we'll develop this into a recurring feature here. Tiger's "rehab" is next.
I'm impressed that the pieces were set up correctly to start a game of chess. I was also impressed that they got the corner squares correct (black square in the corner on your left as you sit down to play), until I realized this was a fold-out chess board, so they'd naturally set it up right. And the puppy is the paragon of cuteness holding the king in his mouth. However...
.
WTF is that white Bishop doing out there by the model's hand?? None of the pawns have moved yet, so the Bishops have to be on their original squares. If you're going to put a piece out there, at least make it a Knight.
.
I know that's picky, but jeez, they took the time to set up the pieces right, so someone knew what they were doing. That someone should also have known that only Knights can jump over pawns.
.
And yeah, there's nothing wrong with the Black position. She could've been jumping her Knights forward and back the whole time.
