Reunion With an Old Friend Wednesday, Sep 17 2008 

Pop culture , , , gottafang 11:03 pm

In this case, Anheuser Busch Natural Light.

Wow!  Didja get that?  Case?  Natural Light?  Thank you, thank you.  I’m here all week.

Since the remnants of that bastard Hurricane Ike came up our way and brought only its horrendous winds (no rain, which we need, you freaking bastich of a storm, Ike) on Sunday, blacking out nearly half the city (our little home included), we’ve kept a cooler full of iced-down soft drinks on the back deck (which now is missing half its roof, thanks to the Winds from Ike, that frissel-frackel Dick Dastardly of a storm).

Last night we were looking for something fun to keep in it.  Since dead tarantulas were hard to find and pretty gross, we decided on some beer.  And also since we’d spent more than $200.00 on stuff to make minor repairs to the damage to our house and get some emergency supplies like batteries and a nice flourescent lantern (thanks to Ike, you Smegma from Nature’s Pee Slit), we were on a tight beer budget.

In the beer chest at our favorite Kroger, we saw that Naural Light and Natural Ice were on sale.  Less than six bucks for half a case.  Sold!  So we brought home half a case of Natty Ice.  It’s not bad.  I remember drinking Natty when I was in college, mainly because it was inexpensive.  So was Busch and Bush Light (which was on sale, too, but when I told my wife that’s what I used to drink in college, she said, ‘That tells me all I want to know.’).  I even had a Natural Light t-shirt my brother gave me when I was in high school.  He worked for A&P.  A beer distributor gave it to him

So I’ve got my second can of Natty Ice for the evening in front of me.  I’m ready to finish it off.  Hell, man, there are commercials for Natty.  I’ve never seen them.  And they’re pretty funny.

So we’re poppin’ Nattys in the dark.  Thanks, Ike, you Big Wet Windy Schmuck!

UPDATE: Wife just reminded me we now have lights.  Actually, they’ve been on since Monday afternoon.  Sorry.  I’m in Nattyworld right now.

 

Big Brother or Dr. T.J. Eckelberg? Tuesday, Sep 16 2008 

Politics , gottafang 8:31 am

One’s just as appropriate as the other.

 

Obama Love Across the Ocean Monday, Sep 15 2008 

Uncategorized , , , , gottafang 1:08 pm

They still have Obama fee-vah across the pond, even with Sarah Palin joining the Republican ticket as VP, and they are just about grinding their teeth into powder with anger over the fact that they don’t get to vote in our elections.

But it’s hard to take seriously the people of any continent who, thanks to a lot of their rabidly anti-American media outlets who spoonfeed this crap, think that we do nothing but take multiple spouses, eat at McDonald’s for every meal, have absolutely no family values, and waddle around with 300 pounds of extra weight on our frames, who think that all we have to do get over our righteous bad selves is just travel more, just go beyond our coastlines to the wider world beyond the US of A.

Thing is, few of them bother to come over here.

But they apparently know enough about us to think they should have a say in whom we’re going to elect as president.  Unlike, say, the time when we thought one of the European nations should elect its first black leader.

Oh, wait.  That’s never happened.

UPDATE: Obamamania, here and abroad, a craziness?  Professor Hanson explains.

 

A Long Time Ago. . . Sunday, Sep 14 2008 

Politics and Pop culture , gottafang 8:26 pm

In a political campaign far, far away. . .

(h/t:  American Digest)

By the way, the remnants of Hurricane Ike rolled up our way.  Half of the roof of our back deck is gone, a section of our back fence was blown down, and about half a Bartlett pear tree in our backyard was sheared off.  Our neighborhood, full of old trees, is now covered with blown-off leaves and branches.  Streets are blocked off because of fallen trees.  About half the city is in darkness.  The luckier parts of the city are glowing brightly, and that seems to be where everyone is heading.

And we have no electricity.  Wife and are are using a hotel’s wireless network to do Innerut stuff.  Every Starbucks and local coffee shop seems to be full of people getting their daily ‘net fix.

The place where we’re accessing the ‘net is downtown in a lounge that was close to a place where I worked last year as a contractor.  Their network was locked down, and the building’s walls were so thick that you couldn’t access any of he dozen or so wireless hubs surrounding it (even cell phone signals couldn’t batter their way in), so I’d come down here during lunch to fetch any personal e-mail and goof around on a few web pages.

So, it looks like it’ll be an evening of board games by candlelight when we get back home.

 

From the Ministry of “Yes We Can” Thursday, Sep 11 2008 

Uncategorized , , gottafang 4:07 pm

Comes this endorsement from Boy George:

Not sure how much it helps or hurts.

(h/t:  Dirty Harry)

 

It Was Such a Beautiful Morning Thursday, Sep 11 2008 

National news gottafang 7:16 am

It was one of those perfect late summer skies:  cloudless and blue, all the haze and stickiness from the previous three months chased away by an approaching autumn.  Thousands of words will be written today about that same morning seven years ago.  And nearly all of them will say something about how beautiful a morning it was.

Two years ago, for the fifth anniversary of the September 11 attacks, my wife and I took part in the 2, 996 Project, where bloggers who signed up were assigned one single person who was killed that morning and were asked to post a tribute to him or her.  I was assigned James F. Murphy IV, a young account executive with Thorson Financial Services who was attending a breakfast during trade show at Windows on the World.

American Airlines Flight 11 slammed into the building below where Jim and his colleagues and others were eating breakfast.  Here’s part of I wrote:

His name was James F. Murphy IV, 30 years old, married, an account executive with Thomson Financial Services attending a breakfast during a trade show at Windows on the World.  Shortly before 9:00 on that beautiful fall morning, when the sky was a bright shimmery blue, the hijacked American Airlines flight 11, piloted by Mohammad Atta, smashed into the building.  It cut a jagged hole from the 93rd to 99th floors.

Jim and his colleagues never had a chance.

Five years haven’t dulled the rage I feel down into the cores of my bones every time I think about that day:  a mass murder of nearly 3,000 people in the span of two hours.  My rage deepens when I think of the apologists for the killers, the ones who say we deserved it, especially the academic fraud who impugns someone as friendly and outgoing and warm as Jim, calling him and others who died in both towers that day “Little Eichmanns.”  Minds who concoct such intellectual smegma in the name of “speaking truth to power” deserve nothing less than the public humiliation they suffer when they are confronted.

And the killers themselves, the blood-simple sociopaths living the twisted fantasy of a martyr’s glory.  Especially the man who ran the plane into Tower 1:  Mohammed Atta.  If you look closely at the picture of him, you’ll notice the eyes.  They’re the ones you’d see in bad dreams.  Behind them they burn with a cold white flame of hatred.

Charles Starkweather had those eyes.  So does Charles Manson.  Perhaps Jack the Ripper did, too.  They are the eyes of a killer.

But he was just one.  There were 19 in all.  And that same sociopathic hatred burned in every one of them.

Seven years now.  I’ve never forgotten that sky.

More rembrances from The Anchoress, Michelle Malkin, and (from five years ago) Lileks.

 

And Why Should We Care? Tuesday, Sep 9 2008 

Politics , gottafang 12:18 pm

BBC:  World wants Obama to be president.

Newsflash to all peoples on this planet:  we are electing the President of the United States, not US Marketing Manager to the Rest of the World.

Selfish?  Indeed.  Put on the big girl panties and deal.

(h/t:  Drudge)

UPDATE: Mr. Vanderleun echoes the same sentiment.  So does Allahpundit at Hot Air.

UPDATE II:  UK’s Guardian:  “The world’s verdict will be harsh. . .”

Money quote:

Of course I know that even to mention Obama’s support around the world is to hurt him. Incredibly, that large Berlin crowd damaged Obama at home, branding him the “candidate of Europe” and making him seem less of a patriotic American. But what does that say about today’s America, that the world’s esteem is now unwanted? If Americans reject Obama, they will be sending the clearest possible message to the rest of us – and, make no mistake, we shall hear it.

So now hear this:

(h/t:  Hot Air)