Odd Bits - The Country Club Edition

You probably haven’t noticed, but I have one of those little Country Trackers down at the bottom of page, that automatically tallies the traffic that visits, by country.  I installed it in August of 2010, I believe.  (As of this writing: 28,364 hits from 130 countries.)

As someone who is fascinated by statistics and data, I enjoy parsing out the information.  This was especially true when I first installed it.  I loved collecting the different countries and got a special [Sqeee!] every time a new one turned up.

I also noticed some odd groupings and mentally perceived them as mini competitions.  For example, obviously the US provides the most hits… that’s not even a fair race.  But the race for second between Canada and the UK?  That started off very close, although Canada has steadily pulled away, leading the UK 1222 to 1131.

I also found that the Scandinavian countries seemed to group themselves tightly, especially at the outset.  Now it runs: Sweden (88), Finland (61), Norway, (51), and I’ll throw in Denmark (64).  Perhaps Norway would be doing better if I counted Cassie’s hits there.

Sometimes some odd designations show up, like Europe (4), or Asia/Pacific Region (9).  Can they not be any more specific?  If they're going to be so indistinct, why not make one “Western Hemisphere" and call it a day?

I understand that Georgia (12) is a distinct country, but what the hell is Jersey (1) doing in there?  Does “Snooki” now count as her own country?

Then there are the "odd couple" countries, like Bosnia and Herzegovina (4).  Since when is “and” part of a country name?  I don’t like it, but it seems to be catching on.  There’s also Trinidad and Tobago (5), St. Pierre and Miquelon (1), Antigua and Barbuda (1), and Turks and Caicos Islands (1).  Are these like “couples?”  Did two neighboring country governments get together and be like, “We can’t pull this off alone so how ‘bout we get together?  We take police, schools, fire houses and embezzlement, you take taxes, roads, property zoning and bribery.”

Sometimes one place seems to show up under two names.  On one hand there’s Malaysia (36) and on the other hand, there’s F.Y.R.O.M. (12), which reports under my StatCounter service as Malaysia.  Do we really not have enough acronyms that we have to add them to countries too?  (Not including the USA, of course.)  I’ll see your FYROM and raise you a CDROM.

Every time I see Colombia (18) come up, I pretend it’s a hit from Sofia Vergara. [Squeee!]

It gets most interesting at the bottom of the list and I just start riffing with mental associations… and also wonder how in the hell they got here!

(28) Pakistan: I’m pretty sure this is all either spam or searches for South Indian Aunties.

(13) Slovenia: They should get together with Slovakia… they’re only 2 letters apart.

(8) Latvia: Dr. Doom’s country.

(7) Estonia: Where Pauly Shore said the caveman they found was from in “Ensino Man.”

(7) Malta: Sounds like what you get a an Italian soda counter.

(4) Sudan: Holy shit, someone has time to spare from starving and being beaten to death to look up Steelers jersey mojo?

(4) Isle of Man: Sounds like a hippie commune.  What are women called on the Isle of Man, 'Manwomen?'  'Mannettes?'  'Manatees?'  It's all so confusing.

(3) Qatar: Hero, the new Arabian music video game.  (Hey dudes, you forgot the ‘u’.)

(3) Mauritius: sounds like a disease.  “I came down with a case of Mauritius but I got a shot from the clinic and it cleared it right up.”

(3) Yemen: Skeeves me out.  It’s like semen that carries only the Y chromosome.

(2) Azerbaijan: The President of Iran is now his own country?

(2) Moldova: Sounds like a damp, fungusy place.  Wait...it's where green eggs come from!

(1) Mongolia: Home of the clusterfucks.

(1) Andorra: Home of the big blue avatars.

(1) Oman: Man Oman Oman.

(1) Brunei Darossalam: I think that’s the French First Lady’s maiden name.

(1) New Caldonia: New Caldonia, what makes your big head so hard?

(1) Cayman Islands: Aw, isn’t that nice?  Some robber baron stopped stashing his shell corporation profits long enough to come say hi!

(1) Haiti: This had to have come from a cell phone.  I don’t think they have electricity yet.  Isn’t there an earthquake or hurricane blowing shit up there every other month?

(1) Nepal: Looking for hot Yeti Aunties…

(1) Ghana: Rhea… you know, the big birds?  I’m just glad I haven’t seen a country called “Dia.”

(1) Liechtenstein: Isn’t that the Rent-a-Country?  But I always think of Dr. Liechtenstein and his assistant Ayegor.

OK, that’s enuff’a that.

The Mojo Boogie

Today is Steelers playoff Sunday, against the Broncos at 4:30.  You’d think I’d be frothing at the mouth over this but so far, I just can’t summon sufficient froth.  (Sufficient Froth would make a good punk band name.)  The Steelers are so banged up… Even if they win this afternoon, I don’t see them then going up to New England and beating the Patriots.  I mean, I know they already beat them this season, but the Steelers were at full strength then.

Their QB is hobbled, starting safety can’t play at the high altitude (or he may DIE), starting center is out, one rushing linebacker has been gimpy for 2 months with a bad hammy, starting running back is out, 2 backup cornerbacks are out, and that’s just the major stuff. 

So I’ll be rooting hard; I’m just keeping my expectations low.  My primary concern with this year’s playoffs is that someone has to beat the Ratbirds, preferably without them getting to the Super Bowl.  I can’t live with the crowing that comes with a Ratbird Super Bowl run.  I lived through it in 2000 and it was excruciating.

Today I’ll wear some gear that worked previously when the Steelers were away and I watched from home, only with a tweak to the tee shirt.

#56 Lamarr Woodley jersey, throwback long-sleeved tee, with white Steelers sweat pants and Steelers socks.

The Stinger

Now, as a reward for going through all this nonsense today, I’ve got a treat for you.  Way back in The Day, I came across this blues CD by Rod Piazza and the Flyers.  It was all good stuff, but there was one track that just killed.  It was a cut called The Stinger and it was the most wicked boogie-woogie piano solo you’ll ever want to hear.  Accompanied by the drummer, Rod Piazza’s wife, Honey, just tears up the keyboard.

I don’t know why it took me this long to look for it on YouTube but I wasn’t disappointed when I did.  There were several versions, including one that looked professionally shot, but I liked this one because is focused on what I most wanted to see: her hands.  Her left hand working on the low keys looked almost possessed.

Do yourself a favor and check this out.  You won’t be sorry.  This is what serious talent sounds like.

As Rod said on the CD after this was played, “If ‘at wuddn’t a boogie, you aint’ goan hear it heah tonight!”

Director’s DVD Commentary: If you like The Stinger, click here for a video from the same gig, where Honey shares her keyboard with a young girl I take to be her daughter.  They both tear it up together!

Six Questions

As I was rolling through my regular blog haunts, I stopped at one of my favorites, A Beer for the Shower.  I saw that they were featuring a couple of blogs that had participated in their contest to support the release of their new book, The Missing Link.  (I had seriously meant to do something, but then I saw something shiny and the thought never surfaced again.) 

Intrigued, I checked out the winning bloggers and finding them both extremely engaging and funny, I added them to my own blog roll.  One of them is A Tale of Two Continents, written by Ashley and Stephanie, two sisters who are, well, you can tell by the title.  Ashley is in Scotland and Stephanie is in the US.  These made a hilarious video for their Beer for the Shower submission. 

The other is Anne’s Attic, written by an Irish lass living here in the US.  My visiting Anne’s Attic drew her to visit me here, thus demonstrating again that the best blog networking is blog reading.  (As if to prove my point, the same thing happened with Ashley from Two Continents, literally as I was writing this post.)

A couple days later on Anne’s site, I saw that she had won a bloggers award and was answering some questions as part of the deal.  She then posed her own questions to several other favored blogs to answer.

Mine was not one of them, no doubt owing to the newness of our acquaintance, but that doesn’t mean I can’t steal pay homage to them by answering them myself.  Anything for a cheap post.

Geez, I should just put that saying on the business cards. 

1.  What celebrity would you most like to shag and why?

Man, that goes right to the Laminated List, which I’ve been meaning to update and turn into a post.

Director’s DVD Commentary: “The Laminated List” is based on the “Friends” episode where they could come up with a list of any 5 people in the world that, even if they were in a relationship themselves, they would be allowed to sleep with.  Ross laminated his and carried it in his wallet.  We were discussing this one day at lunch, circa 2002, and I decided to create my own, which ran to a Top 10, and about 20 more that I discussed as runners up.  In almost 10 years, there have been a lot of changes that I will one day discuss in full.

Right now I can think of a top 3 immediately: Julie Bowen and Sofia Vergara from “Modern Family,” and Tina Fey from SNL and “30 Rock.” 

Sofia Vergara at the Golden Globes, which she certainly has.

Sophia Vergara looks like an obvious pick with her Columbian bombshell build.  But what I like about her has nothing to do with the curves.  I love her hair, her smile, and her spirit.  When I’ve seen her on talk shows, she just lights the place up, much like she does in every scene she’s in on “Modern Family.”

Julie Bowen at the SAG Awards, which she totally doesn't.

Julie Bowen, I just find to be knockout beautiful.  I know she’s all high-strung as Claire on “Modern Family,” but even as a fussy mom, she’s still fiiiiiine.  And when I saw her interviewed on “Inside the Actor’s Studio,” she was hilarious in her own right.

Tina Fey from her Vanity Fair shoot.

But my winner has to be Tina Fey.  I’m sorry; I just think she’s indescribably yummy and far too attractive to be as considered as ‘unattractive’ as her character Liz Lemon is supposed to be.  But most importantly, she’s smart, clever, insightful and witty.  The other two are great at delivering funny lines from a funny script, but Tina Fey writes the lines and delivers them.  Also she may have the best eye-roll in the business.  I could do a whole post just about her.  (And I may, one day.)

2.  In the event of a zombie attack, what politician would you be willing to use as a human shield?

Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann come to mind, but I don’t think they have enough brain matter to sufficiently lure a zombie.  I give the nod to Rick Santorum, who is the antithesis of everything I value in a public servant.  He’s a guy that pushes his narrow religious ideology into government, which effectively persecutes anyone that’s not an evangelical Christian, but then tows the Republican Party line regarding propping up the richest of the rich at the expense of the poor.  (In other words, the opposite of what the Lord he claims to revere, would do.)

3.  Rate the survivability of at least 3 fellow bloggers if they are attacked by zombies.

Cassie from Sisters From Different Misters: would survive by outrunning any zombie in the vicinity and failing that, would just kick their ass.

Bryan and Brandon from the aforementioned A Beer for the Shower:  Hard to avoid the zombies when you’re drinking that much beer.  Plus, writers are notorious for poor cardio capability.  But armed with heavy beer mugs, I see them knocking zombies the eff out, solely from the irritation of having Happy Hour interrupted.

Mrs. Bachelor Girl: With baby in one hand and spike-heeled shoe in the other, coursing with mother-bear protectiveness, she would stab her way past any horde of zombies that came her way.  Same goes for Jessica of Leelafish, only I don’t see the spike heels; just blunt-force trauma.  Don’t mess with Louisiana chicks; they’ll feed you to the alligators.

Ginny of That’s Church would use her cute little fists to place a tweet, if under zombie attack. 10,000 Pittsburghers, displaced or otherwise, would rush to her defense. 

Kernut from Kernut the Blonde: She’d survive because she knows more about zombies than anyone else I know.  Plus she lives in an RV, so she can get out of Dodge at a moments notice, to seek a more zombie-free terrain.  And I bet she’s got a wicked shotgun in there too.

Cher and Rich from AskCherlock and Carpetbagger: Sorry, you guys, I don’t see you making it.  Much like Congressional Republicans, you can’t sit down and politely reason with zombies.  They’ll just eat your brains.

4.  If you could reanimate just one dead person from history, who would it be?

Despite the zombie tilt to these questions, I’m answering as if the reanimated would be normal and not trying to eat my brains.

There are many things to consider… family, leaders, celebrities… But it says “history,” so to me that means there has to be historical significance.  So as much as I’d like to hang out with my late grandparents, or a young cousin, my best friend, or my old dog, the first person that came to mind for me under the specified criteria is Stevie Ray Vaughan.  He was far too young when he passed and released too few albums.  I would love to hear what he would have put out over the last 20-odd years.  Who knows how many other budding blues guitarists might he have inspired?

5.  Would you take this person out to pub?

Hell yes, I’d take him to the pub.  Maybe I could get him to play a set.

6.  In the event of a nuclear holocaust, would you be willing to eat cockroaches to survive?

Cockroaches, yes.  Broccoli, no.  I have my standards.

Odd Bits - 2012 Kickoff Edition

Welcome to my first post of 2012 and the first one for which I’ve actually had to write new stuff since Christmas Eve.  But don’t kid yourself… this one will propped up by pictures too.

The Holidaze

If I did anything in the last two weeks except eat, drink, compute or watch TV, I must have missed it.  Major calorie input; zero calorie expenditure.  I feel like a walrus right now.  Time to dry out and eat better.  I thought I was going to be OK at work now, what with the holiday goodies season coming to an end, but dammit, there were cookies out on the table today.  Gah!  No escaping.  Such is the curse of diminishing will power.

So Christmas was nice.  My parents were up from Florida, staying with my brother, so I got to go over there and hang out with them and my nephews.

They’re a real couple of bookends, aren’t they?  Sammy (6) already had the Brown jersey.  Uncle Bluz gifted Daniel (13) with the Wallace. 

I did pretty well for my Christmas loot.  Pinky and I opened presents in front of the TV fire.

The clock is for Bowling Green, my alma mater.  The bottle is Crown Royal Reserve (which is gone now.)  The thing to the left is a hat box-like container of delectable chocolates (which is almost gone now.) 

Aside from all that, I had occasion to order myself some new tee shirts.  I love tee shirts almost as much as I love hats.  One of the best things about my online blog travels is that I’ve come across so many small businesses that offer cool tee shirts.  For example, there’s this one from Compress Merch, that blends my love of hard rock and Pittsburgh football:

Then I got an email from Café Press listing a big sale, so being just about over all the seasonal Christmassy Jesus stuff, I went completely the other way.

Only problem is that they sent me a boys XL instead of my requested Walrus-sized XL.  But that’ll be a fun one to wear to WalMart.  I don't know why it has a Viking helmet on it... I'll have to ask Cassie.

I don’t know why I bought this next one because I’ll probably never wear it outside… not because I don’t want people to see it; it’s that I don’t want to have to stand there and wait while they read it.  This is one of those that I’m content just to know that I own.

Lastly, I couldn’t make a stop at Café Press without trawling the Monty Python section.  I was not disappointed.

OK, enuff with the stuff!

Happy New… um… whatever it’s called

Pinky and I often spend New Year’s Eve at a nice hotel down on Baltimore’s Inner Harbor.  It’s the one extravagance we share because it’s nice to get all dressed up and go to a fancy hotel and eat a fancy dinner at a nice restaurant.  Last year we went to a new Hilton by Camden Yards, but felt we were too far away from the NYE festivities.

This year I chose the Marriott Renaissance, right on the Inner Harbor, smack-dab in the middle of things.  Pinky had to work that day and got home right around the time the Penguins finished losing to the New Jersey Devils.  I’d already packed my bag and gotten my suit out; I just needed to change out of my jammies and into my jeans.  We got right on the road and in no time, we were walking into our room.  I open up the closet door and that’s when the cursing started.

I forgot to bring my fucking suit.

Words cannot describe how pissed off I was at myself.  My suit was still at home, hanging on my closet door.  Of course, I wasn’t so pissed off that I wanted to un-park my car and drive back home to get it, but I was still pretty pissed.

So there was Pinky, looking all good in her nice dress and then there was me, a putz in jeans, sneakers and a long-sleeved pullover.  I suppose I could have worn my dress shoes anyway, but I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing jeans and black dress shoes.

Anyway, we still had quite a feast and the restaurant wasn’t really that dressy.  No harm done.  But I still felt like a dolt for forgetting something so obvious.

I didn’t pony up the really big bucks for a harbor-facing view, but I spent some intermediate bucks for a room to the side of the building, rather than the back.  That meant that at midnight, we could press our faces to the glass and look sideways, and still see the fireworks.  This year, they set them off from two different places, which was new.

One side was near the East Harbor, beside the Hard Rock Café and Barnes & Noble.

They also shot them off from a barge right in the middle of the harbor.

Unfortunately, right between the two sites was a big 32-story tower, Baltimore’s World Trade Center.  So we had to keep looking back and forth between the two sites.  I caught some of the finale though, that the tower didn’t cut off.

Here in the clear light of morning, you can see what I was dealing with.

Not the Usual New Year’s Day Football Games

New Year’s Day fell on a Sunday this year, so that meant there would be NFL games on instead of the college bowls.  Both the Steelers and the Ravens were playing at the same time, so I’d have to go out to a sports bar if I wanted to see my Steelers.  That is not really a big deal.  I like going to my local bar for the game.  I always have a good time.

The problem was the starting time.  Both games started at 4:15.  Now if I tried to go in there at 4, the place would still be full of people watching their teams playing the 1:00 games.  Maybe they’d leave when the games were over and maybe they wouldn’t.  I figured the only way to make sure I was in my preferred seating area (at the bar) was to get there before the 1:00 games started and ride them out.  So that’s how it came to be that I was at the sports bar from 12:15 until 7:30 that night.  Boy, did I ever get a case of barstool-ass from that day.

But like I said, I always have fun there.  There’s an interesting group of regulars that I always see.  And since they found they can’t scare me away with their Ratbird bullshit, they seem to have accepted me.  On Sunday, I ended up sitting beside a young Jewish guy wearing a Jets jersey and a yarmulke.  Even though his game WAS on local TV, he wanted to be there to watch the other games that affected the Jets’ playoff hopes.

So I’m sitting there and the bartender, an older, British lady, comes over and asks if I can open a bottle of grenadine for her.  I gave it a try as best I could, but had to be careful because that’s the sort of thing that will give me a huge hive on my hand.  The Jets guy sees me not getting it and says, “Here, let me try this…”

He whips off his yarmulke and uses it like one of those rubber, gripping disks you use to open jars.  I cracked the hell up and said, “So THAT’S why you guys wear those things.” 

All this time I thought there was a theological reason behind them but it seems to be the Jewish equivalent of a Swiss Army knife.  It’s certainly the handiest religious icon I’ve come across.  Oy!

A little later, as the regulars filled in, one of them wanted to get up a game of “Hillbilly Keno.”  You’ve seen the bar room Keno games, right?  There are 80 numbers on a video screen and a series of numbers pop up and you bet on numbers that you picked.  In this version, it’s played “off the books” and everyone picks one number.  You bet a buck a game and the object is to have your number be the only one that appears, from among the players.  So if no one’s numbers come up, the bet rides and the pot builds for the next game.  Same thing if more than one person’s number comes up.

Anyway, I was game, as were 6 others, so that occupied my time pretty well as I burned though all the cash I had on hand ($26).  I eventually won a round, but it was immediately after a big pot was won, so I only won $7, which I promptly burned though too.  I’m still not sure it wasn’t all just a plot to rob the Steeler fan of all his cash… 

It was good timing for me that my dough ran out right around the time the Steelers game started.  I wanted to concentrate on the game anyhow. 

So is it too late to foreswear gambling as a New Year’s resolution?

The Mojo Boogie

I wore the same Steelers polo shirt and hat that I wore for the prior 5 Steeler games I’ve watched at the bar, so I’m not going to run the picture yet again.  (I saw the Christmas Eve game at the bar too.)  But it must have been powerful mojo… my boys won all 6 games I saw wearing that shirt.  It was almost disappointing, because I hate to be seen wearing the same shit every time I’m there.  But you don’t want to break a mojo streak this late in the season.

It’s just another cross I have to bear, to ensure a successful season.

The Year in Bluz - 2011

I almost didn't do a year-in-review this year.  As I’ve been reading all my favorite blogs, it seems like everyone is doing one.  But then I figured, “hell, I did one last year; I’ve got a stake in the ground.  So why not?”

Also, I would otherwise have to come up with something fresh, which this week’s life of sloth has prevented from even considering.

I felt really good about my work here this year, but it’s odd because I’ve actually posted less.  In 2010 I had 201 posts.  This will be my 164^th of the year, so unless I post another 37 between now and midnight, I’m not going to make that level.  Maybe I can do a separate post for each paragraph.  (Naah, too much work.)

Anyway, the reason for the decline in posting is that I finally figured out a workable schedule.  This year I’ve pretty much stuck to posting on Tuesdays and Thursdays, plus one over the weekend.  Three posts a week times 52 weeks caps off at 156.  I can live with that.

 So lets see what I’ve been yapping about all year…

January

Shortly after writing about Pinky’s and my New Year’s Eve adventures in downtown Baltimore, I wrote about my life-long experiences with the dental profession, from breaking my teeth at 17 to getting a bunch of permanent caps at 47.  I told the story about how in 1996, I was thiiiiiiis close to filming a porno movie.  On the occasion of my catching a cold, I wrote this ode to Kleenex, which I had been deprived of during my childhood.  I so love to tell old stories, so when I trotted out the one about how my Dad conned his friends into thinking he was some kind of math genius, it went over so well I told a whole series of stories about the goofy shit my dad used to do.  The end of January also meant the Pittsburgh Steelers were deep in a playoff run.  Here’s how I tortured my office mates when the Steelers beat the hometown Ratbirds.  I warmed up for the AFC Championship game here, and celebrated the Steelers making it to their 8^th Super Bowl, here.

February

SBXLV was pretty much all I could think about in early February, as shown in this post full of Steelers tidbits and photoshops, and this one where I complain about how long it was taking for the Big Game to get here.  Obviously, the game didn’t work out the way I wanted, so I found closure by enacting Operation Comfort Food, where I dissected the game, the coverage and the commercials.  Then I washed the legendary Steelers Socks.  The bulk of February was taken up by my time on Jury Duty, where I was Alternate Juror #3.  It was a sad case of child abuse.  I only wish I got to deliver this opinion to my fellow jurors.  Later in the month, I told some stories about things that went Bump in the night, and pled with the citizens of Maryland to finally get this gay marriage thing right.

March

I started March off by getting good and pissed off at some idiot’s letter in the paper condemning the idea gay marriage so I fired off a scathing rebuttal.  It ran online but never made the print paper.  This was a good month for storytelling, so I started off with some stories about my Grandpa, about his amazing garden, and how he left my dad to stay the night in jail, when he was a kid.  What started out as a story about my first apartment turned into some other lurid tales to heat up a cold month.  First there was the time I almost found myself in a 3-way, then how I ended up in some hot monkey-lovin’ with my roommate, culminating with the stories of how we carried out some additional hot monkey lovin’ all over town that summer.  To end the month, I posted about my all-time favorite rock singer, what I’d do if I hit a mega-millions jackpot, and a photo-illustrated documentation of my friend Sitcom Kelly, stalking her favorite Pittsburgh Penguins, live and in person.

April

April showers usually bring May flowers, but this time it brought out a post about the glory of Rain-X, complete with my own video accompaniment.  I didn’t do a lot of political posts this year, but when I did, I felt that they were pretty forceful; none more so than this one taking on those politicians that purposefully misrepresent common facts (aka “lying) to smear organizations like Planned Parenthood.  On a much lighter note, I had fun with some vanity license plates, which led to a hugely embarrassing email FAIL with my Blog Sister Cassie.  At the end of the month I began a 3-part series that told the story of Whatsername, I girl I dated in my mid-20s that kept breaking up with me and calling me back.  It was cool… there was a happy ending after all... it just took 27 years to get there.

May

May was dominated by medical stories.  First there was the torn rotator cuff in my shoulder and then a post about the weird-ass case of hives I’ve had for the last 10 years.  From there was a 2-part story about the heart surgeries I’ve undergone.  Trust me, heart surgery has never been this funny.  Highlight of the month was my Guys Trip to Pittsburgh with my buddy Rik and his son, to see a couple of Pirates games.  Then the very next week we held the Darwinfish Fry 2 (Bag’o Fish) at the Carpetbagger residence in Lawrenceville PA.  Meeting up for the 2^nd time were the Cherlocks, Cassie, Mr and Mrs Carpetbagger, and Hot Mama & CC from Bitchburgh.  First time attendees were the Red Pen Mama and Angie from Ranting in Pittsburgh.  Also, my parents showed up!  Good times!  

June

That same weekend, my cousin got married.  This post goes from the story of what happens when a 4-year old girl decides that you’re fascinating right up to the point that she gets married.  I did 2 tributes to lifelong favorites this month… to the best rock and roll party band ever, and the greatest right fielder of all time.  In other news, I got half of my Darwinfish plaque ripped off my car in a WalMart parking lot, apparently because the best way to demonstrate your piousness and faith is to destroy someone else’s property.  In sports, I prepared an in-depth compare and contrast between Pittsburgh’s PNC Park and Baltimore’s Camden Yards.  Now, I’m not saying that my screed against the Orioles putting up statues of their players numbers did anything, but they did announce that this year they will be putting up statues of the players themselves.  More on that when the time comes.  You’re welcome.

July

Early on I posted my reaction to the Casey Anthony verdict and the national hysteria that occurs when everyone in the country thinks they’re experts on the judiciary because they watch Law and Order.  To erase that ugly taste, I followed it up with a post about those songs that you love in the very first seconds that you hear them.  Perhaps my favorite post of the year was this one, reading as a letter to my 16-year old “niece,” (best friend’s daughter) offering heartfelt advice on how to be as beautiful on the inside as she is on the outside.  In politics, I offered my take on the debt-ceiling fiasco and the Republicans’ negotiating strategy: “You scratch my back and I get my back scratched.” (Steven Colbert)

August

August was dominated by my vacation trip back to my NW Ohio roots, where we held a Jamboree and Hootenanny to celebrate my buddies and I all turning 50 this year.  I also got to see a Toledo Mudhens game with blog friend Sherry,  revisit the best college pizza joint ever, and drive by the place where the Bow-Chicka-Wow-Wow story took place.  Yet another yutz (this time, a Virgina state assemblyman) took to the newspaper to condemn any change to Maryland’s marriage laws so I once again took up for the other side.  This time, I didn’t even make the online edition.  I think they’re getting tired of me.  In a pair of drippy, sappy stories, I told of the circumstances surrounding how I lost my virginity, and the saga of the college girlfriend that did me that favor.  To close out the month, I created a video of me, telling my favorite joke.

September

I had a rough opening week, so I posted about how an earthquake and a hurricane conspired to make me re-injure my shoulder, undoing 3 months of physical therapy.  Because I could still lift a tablet with my left hand, I did a post excerpting some of the crazy shit I wrote in my old journals (from my roaring 20s).  Going back to that era whetted my appetite to write about my long-ago history with strip clubs, from first discovering them in Cleveland, to what I’d learned about strip club culture, to the time I actually dated a stripper, to closing out my strip clubbing days.

October

Right out of the gate, I turned 50.  Yahoo.  So this was the rundown of my birthday activities.  I then told the story about my dad’s surprise 50^th birthday party, not being able to believe that I am now the same age that he was when we pulled that off.  I posted about my first and only experience with hunting.  Bring a tissue for this one.  My post, “Marching on Whitehouse” had nothing to do with the Occupy movement… only my high school marching band, from Whitehouse OH.  Damn, they were good and the video proves it.  Just when you thought my friend Sitcom Kelly was nothing but a wine-drinking Penguin stalker, she goes and becomes an incredible Foster Mother for a special little girl.  Then moving back to stories of drunkenness and degradation, I wrote about this trip I took to NYC and a very special bar.     

November

Lots of good stories in November… There was the time I made that Super-8 slasher movie for film class, my thoughts on hot female teachers sleeping with their male students, and my own Mrs. Robinson experience.  I mourned the loss of Smokin’ Joe Frazier, wrote some guidelines spelling out how you know if you’re being treated right, and told the story about how sometimes you have to keep your big yap shut.  I wound up the month by telling the horrifying story of being humiliated in church.

December

Seriously, just scroll down.  The shit’s still fresh.

In Conclusion

We have big plans for New Year’s Eve tonight.  Pinky and I have a reservation at a nice waterfront hotel by the Inner Harbor.  We’ll dress up, have a nice meal and enjoy some fireworks.  (You can take that however you wish.)  I’ll have a post about it up on Monday, if anything blog-worthy happens.

Until then, let me thank you for spending 2011 with me.  I can never fully express how much I appreciate the gift of your attention.  Whether you agree with me or not, (and seriously, how could you not?), I’m thankful that you visit and am especially thankful when you leave me your thoughts.  For that, I am truly blessed.

If we have actually met, trust me when I say that I treasure the day that it happened and anxiously await the next time we can get together.

If we have only corresponded, via this blog or Facebook, I look forward to the day that we can meet face to face.

May 2012 bring you good health, happiness and good times.  Happy New Year, my friend. 

Downtown Baltimore, New Year’s Eve, 2007.

Calendar Boy 2012

Yesterday, I my 2012 calendars were delivered.  As I wrote about last year in “Calendar Boy,” I’ve been using my nature photography to make wall calendars since 2008.  I got a late start this year, but luckily they were delivered before my parents left town, so I could hand deliver one.  Geez, I should probably start signing them, shouldn’t I?

I was really looking forward to doing this year’s version because A) I got a new camera late last year and B) I received some great photoshopping advice from Jessica R and Katie Ett after my last calendar post.  Over the course of the year, I put their tips into practice so that this year’s calendar would really ‘pop.’  This time, I considered adding captions to the shots, either through photoshop or with the calendar-making tool, to describe or at least name the shots.  I decided against it because I thought it would distract from the overall presentation of the picture.  All in all, I am quite happy with the finished product.  So let’s take a look… 

Note: Keep in mind that you may have seen some of these before, because I posted them right after shooting.

Cover

The cover is always tough for me because it has to be a good shot, but it doesn’t make sense to use one of my best, because it practically never gets seen.  The cover ends up being my 13^th best shot of the year.  In this case, it’s the fading-light shot I got after I raced across town to get to the park before sunset and only had about 10 minutes in which to shoot.

January

You’ve seen this one too… a close-up of the water beading on the roof of my car, after a fresh waxing.

February

A look over the top of the dam on Lake Roland in Robert E. Lee Park, Baltimore.  There’s actually about a 30-foot drop-off there, between the smooth part at the bottom of the shot, and the splashing below.  (BTW: Heads up!  We have a Leap Year this year.)

March

Tulips from Sherwood Gardens, Baltimore.  Every year they have an incredible array of tulips and daffodils blossoming.

April

A single tulip from Sherwood Gardens.  I think this shot is from last year, though.

May

More tulips from Sherwood Gardens, this time in front of an incredible flowering bush.

June

This is the outflow creek just down from the dam at RE Lee Park.

July

This is from a couple years back… a beach ramp at a park in Pensacola, Florida, that Pinky and I visited with my folks.

August

This is a tree-lined dirt road out at one of Pinky’s friends’ house, about an hour west of Baltimore.  I thought it looked spooky, yet inviting… the light at the end of the tunnel.

September

Fall on Roland Lake, in all its glory.  This was the kind of shot I wanted to get when I tried to outrace the sunlight a week earlier (which resulted in the cover shot).

October

This is my favorite of the lot.  I shot it on the same trip to RE Lee Park as the previous shot.  The water was choppy all over the lake, except for this one spot up close to shore.  I found this nice reflection under a stand of trees.  The yellow streak at the top is reflected sun (not an oil slick) and wasn't nearly as pronounced until I upped the saturation with Photoshop.  I LOVE reflection shots.

November

Also from the same RE Lee Park excursion.

December

I got this shot in the last minute of sunlight before they closed the park.  I had other shots of the fading sun but when the jet flew by, I thought I’d try to get one with the contrail.  Upping the saturation really brought out the light through the trees.

And that’s it… another year in pictures.  Again, should you decide that you don’t have enough overpriced calendars in your house, ($16.19) these are available for sale through Qoop.  You can click the pic below, and I’ll also have a link up on the right side until the end of February.

Supplies Aren’t Limited in Any Way, so Take Your Time!  But Not Too Much Time or Else You Won’t Get Your Money’s Worth!!

OK, so maybe I wasn’t meant to write ad copy…

Not Feelin' It

But not today.

Yule Blog

Here we are… Christmas Eve… the lull before tomorrow’s frenzy.  Not a creature is stirring, let alone reading any blogs. 

We just got home from Pinky’s brother’s house, where her family exchanged gifts.  One of her brothers received an assortment of candy dispensers, all shaped like the Lord of the Rings characters.  Know what I said?

“YOU SHALL NOT PEZ!!!”

It killed.

My parents came into town this evening and are at my brother’s place, which is where we’ll be going tomorrow for Christmas.  There will be good food, good booze, good boys and much merry-making.  I’m looking forward to it.

So now, let me take the opportunity to wish you and your family a happy Christmas, and thank you for stopping by, not only now but all throughout the previous year.  Your coming here means more to me than you can ever know. 

As my gift to you, may I present my favorite Christmas carol of all time (which is totally NSFW).

(Yeah, I know I posted it in 2009… so I re-gifted…)

Where Do You Stand?

I StumbledUpon another interesting site, today, where you can take and 11-question survey and it will identify where you fall on the political grid, marked with the following labels and traits:

Liberal/Conservative

Libertarian/Authoritarian

Centrist

More Personal Freedom/More Social Control

More Property Rights/More Economic Regulation

I’m always up for using hard data to determine your own personal “brand” so I was up for taking the survey.

Right off, I was concerned about the weighting, because there were a couple of issues where I was kind of “meh” about them and would hate for that to affect my results more that the issues about which I really cared.  Turned out that there was a final grid where you weight the importance of each issue to you, so my worries were abated a bit.

When it comes right down to it, your values are the biggest indicator of them all.  I don’t know anyone that sucks up every single tenet of their chosen political party.  There’s usually something in the party platform where people either don’t agree or just don’t care that much about.  And then there are the issues that drive who we are and what we think.  The party or philosophy that agrees with you there will be the ones with whom you identify long term.

I was also leery about the limited number of questions.  While only having to answer 11 of them does speed things along, there were some areas that went unaddressed.  For example, there was no mention of reproductive freedoms... birth control, Plan B, stem cell research, freedom of choice, etc.  The closest issue to that was more along the lines of what may be done in the bedroom and with whom, which is fine, but not really the same issue.  (As I’m sure you can tell; I came down squarely in the “Do whatever you want and it’s no one’s goddamn business” category.)

The last time I took anything resembling a test like this, I was in 10^th grade US Government class, (circa 1977), where the teacher gave us a test that would similarly determine our political associations and link us to the sitting congressman to whom we were the most closely aligned.

I ended up scoring as the most liberal kid in the class and was assigned Rep. Morris Udall of AZ.  (I presume that Judie, the Hot Arizona Auntie would approve.) 

So how did I turn out 30-some years later?

That’s me, the Social Liberal, although first thing in the morning, before I’ve had my Diet Coke, I could be considered the Anti-Social Liberal.

Looks like I moved at least a little bit toward the center, but I think that comes with learning more about the big picture.  I’d probably be an even bigger Centrist, except that the Right has moved so much further to the right it’s almost off the chart.  Today the Right would consider someone emulating President Reagan a Liberal if he followed Reagan’s actual steps (as opposed to his rhetoric or the mythology that’s sprouted up around him).

I definitely trend toward Personal Freedom, but only insofar that the rich and powerful don’t trample on the less so, just because they can.  I think that people should be able to basically do as they please, but only as long as it doesn’t adversely affect anyone else.

A perfect example is how there are some that are trying to liken cell and texting laws with seatbelt or motorcycle helmet laws.  The difference is the effect on others.  While I may support your right to have your hair fly in the breeze on a bike, it’s going to be your melon they’re mopping up off the road after you wreck.  But if you’re texting or yapping on your cell phone, you’re endangering me and everyone else on the road when you can’t stop in time, or drift into another lane of traffic.

It’s the same with the fight against the upcoming health care reform laws.  The Teabaggers are flipping out because they’re forced to buy health insurance.  The way I look at it is that we’re already forced to buy car insurance and nobody says “boo.”  You drive the car, you buy the insurance.

They try to say, “But buying a car is optional.  Everyone would have to buy health insurance.”

To this, I say, “Exactly, because everybody can get sick or injured.”  I understand you don’t like being told what to do.  But how is the answer to “preventing the tyranny of Big Government,” “making everyone else pay for your medical bills?”  Doesn’t that go against your position if favor of self-reliance?  Or is that just for everyone else, once you’ve gotten ‘yours?’

Anyway, so I’m a Social Liberal.  Now you take the survey and tell us where you land.

Note: In case you missed it, please be sure to check out my post from 12/18, which features an audio clip of my Dad telling a hilarious, true story about a wild train trip with his buddy, The Lob.  Totally worth it.