Honey, it's only cause I couldn't manage a video camera worth a damn. I'm the guy who forgot to put film in the Yashica the day you were born. Yeah. I'm that guy. Just as well I think. Some things should be remembered in the heart, but not on 35mm film.

Just kiddin. As a dad who could not be gladder to be one, a guy with two wonderful daughters who love on me (regardless of their finances even), I'd just like to offer my good Fathers Day wishes to you morons who are fathers.

I called my dad today, who is still with us, 79 years old this week and still kicking and doing well, to pass along my regards. He's still shaking his head that he has a son as old as me.

Me too, in a way. Yeah.

Anyway my kindest regards to you dads. One of the more amazing things about my life is being a father of a couple of adult girls who still hug my neck and make me feel, I dunno, pretty darn good.

Hope you dads are feeling that too.

UPDATE: PA Cat makes a very relevant post. Not all dads can be with their kids today. God bless em.

Happy Father's Day to all dads who can't be with their kids today because they're serving in uniform overseas, or because they're on duty today as cops, fire fighters, or emergency medical workers. These guys deserve a "well done!" too.

Yep.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 02:24 PM | Comments (204)
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Happy Fathers Day to those of you who, you know, gave it to her but good.

I'm not really seeing much to blog about except for the sports stuff, which I know most of you hate. (If you'd told me three years ago that I'd be more interested in sports than a Democratic president's follies, I'd have laughed. It's just...he golfed yesterday and he's golfing today and he was a socialist bastich yesterday and a socialist bastich today. Hard to write that up day after day for months neverending. Second verse same as the first, no?)

Anyway, here's an opun thred for the rest of ya. Damn sports trolls can stay out of my world cup thread.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 11:56 AM | Comments (332)
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The results for Group C right now are Slovenia (4 points), United States (2 points), England (2 points), and Algeria (1 point), which puts us in pretty good position to move on to the Round of 16.

If the U.S. team wins against Algeria on Wednesday, it'll definitely move on. Even if we fight to a draw, our chances are not bad. England would either have to beat Slovenia or come to a draw with 3 or more goals scored than the U.S. against Algeria.

The U.S.-Algeria and England-Slovenia games will take place simultaneously on Wednesday at 7am Pacific. The games will be on ESPN and ESPN2. And, yes, I will be delaying my work day so I can watch them.

Meanwhile, the French team has seen a little drama. Striker Nicolas Anelka was kicked off the squad on Saturday after a cussing out Coach Raymond Domenech. On Sunday, his (former) teammates refused to practice. And now team director Jean-Louis Valentin has resigned, saying he's sick of their drama.

Domenech added it was not "a personal problem between the coach and the player," but "a problem concerning the federation and the image of the French team. This team, it is full of urine-heads."

I might have added a bit there.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 11:46 AM | Comments (84)
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He musta meant that he will not rest on Mondays between 9:30 and noon, right?

President Barack Obama hit the golf course Saturday with Vice President Joe Biden.

The White House pool report noted that Obama left at about 1 p.m. for the course at Andrews Air Force base, and his golfing parters included White House Trip Director Marvin Nicholson and David Katz, the energy efficiency campaign manager at the Department of Energy.

Either the RNC video "What Took So Long" is having no effect or the President really just doesn't care. Ya think maybe it's time to expand this effort?

Meanwhile, Rahm "No Sense of Irony" Emanuel is calling BP CEO Tony Hayward's yachting part of a "long line of PR gaffes."

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 08:07 AM | Comments (445)
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Most people don't think of these books as "books" in the usual sense; they fall below magazines and newspapers in the reading heirarchy. I'm speaking, of course, of the broad genre of how-to or do-it-yourself (DIY) books.

The first category of DIY books is, naturellement, the cookbook. My favorite (and has been for years) is The Fannie Farmer Cookbook. My copy is over 20 years old and is falling apart -- grease-spotted, pages falling out, cover torn, sections underlined and annotated. The Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book is another good one. I'm a fan of plain, down-home, meat & taters fare, and these cookbooks serve my needs quite well. These cookbooks aren't for the people who want fancy, frou-frou kinds of meals; and the seafood sections aren't the best. But for plain old Americana, these are the best cookbooks I've found. I also like the Scout's Outdoor Cookbook for when I'm camping. For wild game, I'm liking The Nuge's Kill It and Grill It!. It's a novelty, and I'm sure the novelty will wear off eventually, but I've gotten some good wild-game meals out of it.

I generally buy a Chilton manual for any car I'm driving at the moment. They're like the manual you should have gotten but didn't get when you bought the car. The older ones were in general better than the newer ones, though -- when cars started to get more computerized and electronically-complicated, the Chilton guides started to fall off a bit in quality. I think the last really good series was published around 1985 or so, though newer ones are still very useful. Even if you're not a fix-it person yourself, these manuals are very valuable for finding parts and accessories after years have gone by because they have all the dimensions and part-numbers.

For small engines -- lawnmower, weed-whacker, rototiller, etc. -- the best generalized manual I've found is the Briggs & Stratton book. There are others out there, but this one struck me as being the best for an average-skill person to pick up. I use it for routine maintenance rather than major repairs, though. There are shop manuals for most small engines, but few are as good as the Briggs & Stratton.

For general home-repair stuff, I like Black & Decker's Guide To Homeowner Basics. In fact, the whole Black & Decker series of books is pretty good: well-illustrated, with clear writing that doesn't assume advanced carpentry or plumbing skills or ownership of complicated tools. I am not a Mr. Fix-It, but I do try to do the simpler stuff so I can keep my man-card.

For computer maintenance and/or repair...I can't really recommend any good ones. They all suck to varying degrees. You're better off finding a trusted computer-geek friend or reputable local business if you're not comfortable poking around in the innards of your machine. (DO NOT go to a place like Best Buy; that Geek Squad bullshit is the biggest fraud in the world. They'll charge you $50 to stick a RAM stick into a slot -- takes them about two minutes. Then they spend the rest of the day Hoovering your hard disk for private information. Lots of those guys are utter sleazeballs.) If you must have a computer-maintenance book handy, you'd probably do best with Scott Mueller's Upgrading and Repairing PCs. Fair warning, though: it's not for noobs.

If you're a hunter, or want to become one, I'd recommend picking up a field-dressing guide. I'd recommend James Smith's Dress 'Em Out. It's come in handy more than a few times.

If you're a shooter, you'll probably also want a copy of The Shooter's Bible and a cleaning and maintenance manual for your specific firearm(s). (There are lots of really good third party books on most popular rifles and pistols. Shop around and find one you like, or ask around at the range.) If you're an avid shooter, you'll get into reloading at some point, and you'll probably want to pick up a book like Bill Chevalier's The ABC's of Reloading.

It always surprises me in a vague kind of way when I realize that the single most-read book in my house, one I go to again and again, is my Fannie Farmer cookbook. I've often thought that cookbooks ought to get literary prizes just like fiction and poetry too -- it's not easy to write a good cookbook.

Posted by: Monty at 03:58 AM | Comments (225)
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Welcome all to your regularly scheduled Caturday night ONT.

Wally Backman's Epic Ejection From a Baseball Game

Wally Backman is best known for playing 2nd base for the Mets during the 80s including their 1986 World Series win. Since retiring, he's coached various minor league teams around the country and this video comes from a documentary, "Playing For Peanuts", about his stint as the coach of the South Georgia Peanuts.

Here he objects rather uh, strenuously to an umpire's ejection of a player, gets ejected himself and ends up leaving in an epic fashion. I like how the players and bat boy seems completely nonplussed by his tantrum and am surprised the umpire didn't get fed up and just call the game. But as crazy as Backman comes off here, he must be doing something right since the Peanuts won their league with a 59–28 record and the players say he was one of the best coaches they ever had.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:59 PM | Comments (808)
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Reverting to an "open thread" is an admission of failure: an inability to come up with a witty, interesting, or entertaining subject for a post. It's rather like cutting a loud fart and then inviting people over to enjoy the stench. Still, a new thread seems to be called for, if for no other reason than to lighten the mood.

For background music, I provide Maurice Ravel's "Bolero".

Posted by: Monty at 11:33 AM | Comments (768)
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I met an old friend for lunch a few days back. I hadn't seen this friend in a couple of years, and it was grand catch up with him, learning about his wife and kids and career. It's always a pleasure to re-establish links with old friends. My friend used to work in the banking industry, though he doesn't any more, and so the talk over lunch turned to the financial straits we and the rest of the world find ourselves in.

As we were leaving, my friend said, "You know, ten years ago this kind of talk would have bored the shit out of you. You never seemed to give a damn about money in any larger sense. Now look at you! Mr. Gloom! You really don't think things are that bad,do you?"

I passed the comment off with a shrug and a laugh as I paid the bill. I didn't want to spoil the reunion by going into full sturm und drang mode. But his question gnawed at me a little bit, and made me wonder: do I really think we are doomed? Am I focusing on the bad news and ignoring or downplaying the good? Have I let my dislike of the Obama Administration infect my view of the economy as well? My God, have I become one of those people? The eternal doom-crier, the wet blanket, the perma-bear, the sour cynical old cuss with never a good word?

Dear God, I hope not. The world is beautiful as well as terrible. Focusing on the bad to the point of ignoring the good is a grievous character flaw. People like that often take a perverse pleasure in being angry and gloomy. One gets the sense sometimes that they actually wish for the crash to come, if only to be proven right.

Our government is being run by colossally incompetent people, but this is hardly a new development. Incompetents, as usual, have created problems that have redounded to everyone's misfortune. Hubris has been brought low by Nemesis, as it always is, and we are all sharing in the punishment.

So this post is meant mainly as a corrective, and a reminder not to let ourselves be too beaten down by bad news. I am one of those tedious wingnuts who believes that Americans are indeed a special breed -- that there is a storehouse of strength and purpose in us that will survive the stupidity and perfidy so apparent in our institutions: government, business, education. Our national character is such that we wait for a problem to reach a crisis before we act decisively, but that once we act, we prevail.

I do believe that we face a highly uncertain financial future. We -- not just Americans, but the entire developed world -- have been living a dream of false wealth and prosperity. Waking up from that dream is not going to be pretty, and will require all of us to accept many years of sacrifice and reduced circumstances. There is no other way. We really don't have a choice in the matter, and if we keep delaying the day of reckoning the ultimate price will only be higher. Paying the price of our profligacy will never be any cheaper than it is right now.

So our future is a long and thankless chain of toil and reduced circumstances, then? Is this what we have to look forward to?

Well...in some ways, I suppose the answer is yes. But this viewpoint is needlessly pessimistic. We will continue as we always have to live our lives, to marry and raise children, to read books and listen to music and enjoy the company of friends. This is what life is. We work to live, not the other way around.

Beauty and wonderfulness exist, and will continue to exist, come what may. Life is always worth living, and enjoying. If it is human nature to be venal and weak, then it is also human nature to strive, to achieve, and to persist. Future history is not written; it is dependent on the choices we make along the way. We choose.

Always prepare for the worst. A person who ignores danger is not long for the world. But don't let the bad blind you to the beauty of the world. (I will be back to my gloomy self on Monday, however, so no need to fear that I have been transformed into Deepak Chopra.)

Posted by: Monty at 06:05 AM | Comments (397)
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DrewM tipped me this story last night from the AEI blog, about shifting population demographics in the US. We all know this story, but the maps are pretty interesting. Take for example this one, showing migration to and from Harris County Texas (Houston). Black lines are inbound, red lines outbound.

Those of you who've been to Houston, consider for a moment just how truly desperate you have to be to want to move there.

HAHAHAHA.. just kiddin Houston (but seriously, your summer sucks canal water, and it ain't like mine is all roses. Also please kill those bird-sized mosquitos, thank you).

There's a link in the article to a really cool interactive map at Forbes. You can click on any county and see the pattern. NYC looks like a flame thrower. Dallas looks like it's going to pull in all matter in the known universe.

It's no surprise that the states with lower taxes are drawing more Americans. I've met people here, who are my neighbors now, from everywhere over the past 20 years. Like the guy who was asked why he robs banks (cause that's where the money is), people would say "cause that's where the jobs are".

I wrote about Texas vs. California last year, a little piece on how better paid public employees does not equal better public services, but you idiots already know that. I'll just say it's a warning to Texas, any government that gets too big for its britches can screw up a good thing.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 06:04 AM | Comments (87)
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Friday at last.

Did You Know That Airplane! Was A Remake?

It was a near shot for shot parody of 1957Â’s Zero Hour!. Supposedly Jerry Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and David Zucker accidentally stumbled upon movie while looking for commercials to spoof and created an entire spoof around it. Compare and contrast, and please don't call me Shirley:

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:33 PM | Comments (741)
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