Snow!!

  I got my greedy little hands on a pic of the first snow of the year for Cape Cod. It snowed for about 5 hours, and put a coating on everything. The old timers say that an October snow on the Cape is a harbinger of a bad winter.

   Of course, it will be 68 degrees today, and I'll probably be wearing shorts at some point... gotta love New England.

 

I wish I took this pic, but... c'est la vie!

 

  That's not what we're talking about this snowy morning. We're here to talk about a different sort of covering- the NBA's new dress code.

   David Stern and his friends in the NBA have basically decided that young black men can't be trusted to dress themselves.

   You see, kids... clothes do make the man. You can be honorable, work hard, say your prayers, honor thy parents, give tirelessly of yourself to charity, and play harder than anybody in the NBA... but unless you wear a suit while you're doing so, you're basically a thug n*gger.

     It's almost funny. The NBA has generated billions of dollars by exploiting a game that is America's blackest sport... but they get upset that the players dress like young black men.

   IMHO, the prior dress code- where people on the same team wore the same uniform during the games- was good enough for me. A guy who has problems with Carmello Anthony dressing like a 20 year old kid on a plane... well, he's the one with the problem, isn't he?

   If I wear a Lakers uniform to Wall Street, no one would buy stocks off me. That makes sense. If LeBron James wears an LT throwback on a team flight... it has no effect whatsoever on how he does his job.

   The  NBA gives a lot to the kids who play in the game- you really can't be in the NBA anymore without making a million dollars in a year or two. But... they ask a lot of the players.

   No one else in America would have the cojones to claim that they "owned" 12 blacks, but the NBA owners are in that rare air. They can ship these kids around the country- and even out of the country- on a whim.They can find them to be guilty before a trial, and they expect them to tolerate fan assaults with a smile.

   And those millions of dollars? That is simply the end result of the free market, which states that Team A can pay Player A whatever it takes to get him from Team B. If any owner tells you that he's paying those millions to support blacks, you have my permission to laugh in his face.

   The only conceivable argument for this rule is that people are turned off by Black Dress. I'm sure that SOME are... but again, that's just racism. These people see black dress as wrong, and they see the three piece suit as right. Taking the time to get to know the guy under the hoodie just requires too much effort.

   Look at it this way... Shaq can wear a "Stop Snitching" shirt while he hands out piles of Katrina relief aid, and the babies will still drink the milk. Likewise, that pot Clifford Robinson was smoking last year got him just as high in his suit as it would if he walked around in nothing but a thong.

   The LA Lakers sold out every game- with a fat waiting list- while Kobe Bryant was being tried for Rape. He eventually paid the girl to shut up... and he paid the wife he cheated on to shut up, too. He did all of this in a 3 piece suit.

    If the LA fans sold out the Staples Center every night with an admitted philanderer and rape case settlement monster (who has plenty of money to rape again) sitting on their bench... do you think that they'll be turned away if Kobe is wearing sandals?

   Adolf Hitler never appeared in public without wearing a neatly-pressed military uniform, while Jesus dressed in rags. More harm has been done by men in three piece suits than by all the Crips dressing like Allen Iverson in the world, ever.

   I wish the black NBA players would stage a walkout, and we are suddenly left with two leagues- the White Guy NBA, and the hopefully burgeoning And One Tour... and they should refuse to come back until David Stern starts dressing like Flavor-Flav.

   Imagine David Stern trying to make Ron Artest stop visiting those flood victims because he's not dressed like an accountant? Ron is, in Stern's view, an animal... but I don't see Stern and his three piece suit down in Louisiana, talking to those igger-nays who probably deserved it anyhow... because they don't wear suits.

"Go against me, dawg... you're making a mistake"

   I was working in Boston, Halloween, 2003.

   Due to the forty mile commute each way I had, I used to occasionally take the water shuttle from Hingham to North Station (the old Boston Garden). This didn't save me much money, but a boat is faster than a car in Boston's gridlock. When I broke my leg, it became my primary means of getting to work.

   I didn't work at the Boston Garden, so I had to hoof it the rest of the way. This involved going behind the old Garden, and down a wharf to the general area of the Nashua Street Jail. It was a decrepit wharf, and no one really goes back there for anything, except to cut through. Even in a cast, this isn't as bad as it sounds- it took me maybe 10 minutes. 

   Not too bad at all, most mornings... the evenings were a different story, though.

   The wharf behind the old Gahhhhhhhhhden is about one or two hundred years old... maybe 300, even. It is utterly decrepit, and not really safe for walking on- for a variety of reasons. It is behind an abandoned factory as well, and is as lonely a place as exists in this huge, cramped metropolis.

   As I hobbled down the pier with the setting sun that evening, Halloween was only on my mind as a "gotta get home before 6, or I'll get egged for having no candy to give out" kind of concept. New England starts getting dark in the 4s around late October, especially on a cloudy day. I'd say, off hand, that no spookier region exists in America than New England.

   While the Causeway Street pier isn't exactly Salem, it was 10 minutes between me and any sort of light... and I'm not the toughest person in that city. With two gargantuan abandoned buildings and a subway running nearby, no one could have even begun to hear me scream.

   It wasn't unusual to see people passing me on my shortcut, but I knew these two were going to be trouble just by the way they zoomed in on me. For some reason, I was more pissed than scared. I was half the size of either of them, and I was on crutches.

   What's worse, we had the wharf to ourselves for this little dance. No one was going to perform a rescue here.

    I bet that a serious, semi-honorable crook like Whitey Bulger would have killed both of them had he witnessed this mugging. I taught in their neighborhood, I was hurt, I was small.. but it seems that there is no honor among theives these days, because I was about to get stomped like one of those flaming dog bags that kids leave on the steps of people who don't hand out candy on Halloween.

      In fact, this was looking much like trick-or-treating taken to that next level... direct physical extortion, with either a beating- or a bum rush off the side of the pier- as both the Trick and  the Treat. Still, I was more pissed than scared- I can fully recall my final thought before the mugging being along the lines of "those SOBs aren't getting my wedding ring."

   I probably should have just handed over the cash, but I have this problem with Impulse Control. I started fishing in my purse, subtly sliding off the wedding ring as I did, letting it drop into the mess at the botom. "No need to whale on me, boys... here's the cash, let's all be cool here..."

   But instead of money, I came out of the purse with pepper spray. SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS... right in his beady little eyes. I then braced my hands on my crutches, and swung my good leg as hard as I could... Night In The Ruts.

   This guy caved in like the Colorado Avalanche, and I was starting to feel pretty good about my chances of maybe even MAKING a little money off this encounter.

   Then I saw this big fist...then I saw the setting sun briefly... then, WHAMMM, right on my back. I took a few kicks before the more decent of the two stopped the beating and took my purse. He tore through it (missing the hidden ring, btw), and came out with two dollars.

   He screamed down into my face, as mad at my lack of street smarts as he was at the pepper spray that he was wiping out of his eyes. "Are you from the suburbs!!! This purse doesn't even have f******* credit cards!! Why in the name of the saint did you fight two grown men for two dollars?"

   I coughed out some blood, and rolled over onto my side. It took more effort than I thought it would to finally lift my head. To be honest, I was just happy that they hadn't thrown me off the wharf. I would have sank like a bad stock.

   "I thought you were after the $500 in my skirt pocket." 

 

http://journals.aol.com/johnmscalzi/bytheway/entries/4977

Weekend Assignment #83: Tell us a scary Halloween story... that happened to you. What I'm looking for here is a story where you were spooked or scared by someone or... something... in or around Halloween (or, alternately, a story where you spooked the heck out of someone else). Please note I don't want stories in which you or others were genuinely in danger -- I'm talk about you getting one big BOO! moment, which, after you were able to get your heart back into your chest, resulted in you saying something along the lines of "Don't do that!" to whomever was giving you a spook. A fun frightening, in other words.

Extra Credit: The song "Monster Mash": Fun or lame?

Lame... so lame it limps.

Blog Worth

My blog is worth $20,323.44.
How much is your blog worth?

Joe at Magic Smoke can explain this better than I can... but somebody at AOL owes me $20,000, and I'll bust every head in Dulles until someone writes me a VALID check.

A Completely Specious Look at Your Blog's Value

A Russian Nesting Doll Of A Woman, Storm Pics, and Bahk-street

   Manomet Beach, Plymouth, MA... not far from where the Pilgrims settled.

   I almost bought this house.... no joke... on Manomet Point. It was a 5 bedroom colonial, hardwood floors, 2 fireplaces, panoramic ocean views, nice schools, between Boston and the Cape... $40,000. No, I didn't miss a zero, and yes, this is Massachusetts.

   What the realtor didn't mention is that the house is right on the edge of a 100 foot cliff. Two of my steps off the porch... SPLASH!

   No insurance company will take it, and the local news sends a cameraman down for every storm- to catch it falling into the sea on video, for our enjoyment.

   Still... 40 grand is 40 grand.

 

   The blur on the left side of the picture is me getting SOAKED by a wave hitting the seawall 20 yards down. The term "downwind" applies to this situation, but I didn't figure it out until I had been puddled.

   Life is a tale told by an idiot, and occasionally photographed.

(Wednesday note: The cameras weren't there for a house..... some kid actually got killed bodysurfing at White Horse Beach.)

WHDH-TV - Boston - Coast Guard searching for man missing after body surfing

 

  

 

 

 Need to renew that laugh?

   These two pictures are of the same golfer, Christie Kerr. She dropped 80 pounds, once she started exercising.

   By the way... if you have to start exercising to lose 80 pounds WHILE you're playing as a pro... Golf is a hobby, not a sport.

 

 

 

   I've been directly insulted for the differences between the two pictures I've used between 1998 and 2005, but this is that whole next level (and sort of a reverse Me).

   I got a new hairdo and gained 20 pounds. This woman looks like she burst- Alien style- from the stomach of the fatter golfer. Simply put... you could make a third golfer from the excess fat drawn from Christie Kerr, 2002 or so.

   Christie was on the Today Show (see the benefits of me having cable?), and they showed her basic workout, which looks like that of a boxer. The slowly expanding Katie Couric no doubt passed this interview off to Matt Lauer. 

The best part about this interview was the way it was shoved in between:

- Uma Thurman's movie about banging a college kid

- a book push about why older men want to date younger women... conducted between Couric and 2 female authors who never once mentioned the words "better-looking."

Quote of the year, from Couric (who, I might add, is a millionaire widow):

"When you commit to dating younger men/women, you should essentially divide your age by two, and add 7."

 

If you need something even more stupiderish to laugh this stormy morning...

Two chinese kids lip synching backstreet boys. The best part is either the matching Yao Ming jerseys, or the guy- who seems completely oblivious to the mauling going on behind him- playing Counter Strike... It doesn't get more Chinese than that.

Yao Ming's No. 1 fans, from Lush Factor's page... may work better

Soccer Moms, George II, and Shopping For Me

Dear Monponsett,

   My son has yet to play the position that he loves in soccer . The season is over and yet he is greatly dissapointed in how the coach didn't let him play his position- only midfield. A long game away the coach yelled at him to clean up everyone else's mess and he wasn't allowed ot play.

We dont want him to give up the sport, but it might happen. Thoughts?

- Nat

Dear Nat,

   Midfield is an important position in soccer. The person in that spot is sort of the General of the team... in charge of bringing the ball up, and in charge of leading the defense when the ball comes the other way.

   If the coach even raised his/her voice at my daughter during what I gather is a friendly recreational soccer league, I would have walked down onto the field, stopped the game, and took her away from this Freak immediately. If my husband was with me, the coach would most likely be physically assaulted. I would definitely file a complaint with the league.

   A lot of coaches come from the Player side of the ball, and athletes aren't the most sensitive people in the world. They are more likely to bark at someone for nothing, and they are more likely to single out a kid for some sort of cruel hazing that seems to make perfect sense to them. Basically... a bully.       

   In fairness to the coach.... he may see great talent in your son, and is riding him extra hard to try and make a complete player out of him.

   Most likely though... he's probably just some sort of neo-fascist third leg of a man who forgot somewhere along the line that soccer is supposed to be FUN... especially for the Wee.

   I coached a HS basketball team that went 1-16 for two years in a row (it wasn't my fault- we had 20 kids in the whole school). We took some fairly terrible beatings in our time, and many were difficult to watch. I repeatedly saw my kids forget to do stuff I had just told them to do. It does get upsetting, I'll admit.

   Still... I never once used words like "disappointed" with them (unless there had been a fight), and I never raised my voice to anyone who wasn't like 50 feet away from me.

   Other than cases involving:  

a) a money bet on the game  

b) something terribly shady, like a fight or the use of a racial slur.  

c) a bear coming out on the field, and sneaking up on an unsuspecting player  

d) an injury to the coach himself      

 ....NO coach should ever raise his voice at a recreation soccer game.  

- Stacey  

PS...    My husband just got up, and asked me what I was writing. When I told him, he said, "I'd have given that coach one really loud warning from the stands, and then I would have gone down there on the field and grabbed him around the neck. Bullies often only understand bullying."       

And he's the calm one....  

Other Vote

Date: 10/20/2005

2:08:38 AM Eastern Standard Time

From: JoesZ

Reply To: To: Monponsett

Yep the other Bush son might just get my vote to. Ivoted for George W. and I am quite satisfied with his leadership. For your information gas is the only thing that has stayed low in this Country for years. Over the last 40 years gas has only had an average increase of some 3.7%. Gas is now catching up with time so don't cry to George W. over it. It has been predicted and said for years it would eventually go to $5 a gal. so happy driving Liberal buddy.     

   I occasionally veer into political blogging... although I usually do it more in comment form at The Daily Pulse (Join In and Shape the News) blog, and occasionally John Scalzi's By The Way ( By The Way...) blog.   It's really a lot of fun if you like to write.

   This week we talked about:  

  

- David Stern Being Upset As He Finally Realizes That His 90% Black NBA Doesn't Dress Like A  50something Rich White Guy Thinks They Should.

- Is George II responsible For Hundreds Of Murders For Putting Party Hacks In Charge Of FEMA ...I  Mean, They're Charging That Bus Driver In Houston With Negligent Homicide, no?  

- If I Won The Powerball Lottery, I Would Spend On Armaments, And Try To Take Over Burkina-Faso Or The Ivory Coast.  

- Has Bush Murdered More Iraqis Than Saddam Did?  

- Save The Wishy-Washy Stuff, And Just Try To Force Billy Graham Onto The Supreme Court.

   OK... in fairness to the Daily Pulse blog, the titles were a little more-even handed than I'm letting on. They were simply asking for AOL readers to give their opinions, and I have a lot of free time in the morning.

   Still, my views fall on the extreme side. I'm not remotely liberal- a lot of my ideas border on Evil.   I think that if we're killing Mesopotamians, we should at least get some cheap/free oil out of it... and we should also smash Iran while we're over there. We're gonna have to do it eventually, anyhow...

   I think that no one in charge of Oil Companies should be running this country, ever. Too much conflict of interest exists. Bread and milk aren't poised to quadruple in price since 2001... gas is.  

   For that fact alone, Bush should resign.... and I think that the Red States that put this despicable oil whore into office (twice) have added another sorry chapter to their history.

    I get a lot of Harvard guys like Joe in the letter above popping up in my emails... people who fail to understand my essence.

   Joe is doing what he thinks is right- sticking up for what he believes in. I goofed on him in my replies, but I bear the man no grudge. Hell, I could be the one who is wrong... it happened, once.

   Still... I get the feeling that Joe could go to a GOP fundraising dinner, be served a nice steaming plate of feces... and even if he threw it up after, he'd compliment the chef and ask for seconds.  

   And the sad part is that this kind of person seems to make up a majority of the voters... well, except for Bush II's first win, which reminds me of the old Harry Truman quote:  

   "The election in your state was run in as low a manner as I've ever seen or even IMAGINED, and I've been in this game since 1905."  

 

  - Dear Stacey....nice picks this week (2-6) Do you even WATCH these sports???

   If all goes well, I should have cable TV today.  

   A small confession: I've been writing this column for quite some time without ever having watched sporting events that were on cable. I'll see games on at the local tavern, or go to a friend's house where the game is on.... but other than that, my main sports fix is WEEI-AM 850 or the Cape Cod channel that picks up the broadcasts.

   We're not poor, either. I've just always been a bookworm, and the TV is usually running some sort of Disney video if it's on at all. Stephen will watch the news or the Patriots game... but he mostly fixes stuff during his free time, or plays basketball.

   People look at us like we're crazy (hehe) when we say we don't have cable... especially where I serve Quail for dinner now and then. I operate outside of the accepted idyll.

   We have 5 TVs (we got all the gear when the family house sold), including one in the kitchen that I currently have potpourri sitting on. The house overlooks the bay, high on a hill.  I was raised in the wealthiest town in Massachusetts. Stephen and I have about 12 years of college between us, and even the baby is showing Snobbish tendencies.

   I'm pretty easy to please, but tough to shop for... if that makes any sense.

   Electronics intimidate me. The newspapers, an occasional show, and AOL are pretty much all the broadcasting I need... and this column (and the columns I enjoy visiting) take up most of my free time. I don't really wear jewelry, I dress modestly, I refuse to fly, I love my current Jeep too much to get rid of it, I fell asleep at Miss Saigon, I have too many pets and stuffed animals already, and I hate crowds.

   I've asked for a basketball before, when I was 26 years old. The CIA estimates that this has never happened before. I've also asked for a Lebron shirt, a computer WWE game, and a flanking pair of little lighthouses that run off solar power for the walkway.

   Sloppy Dog was a birthday gift, as was Tippy Turtle. I'm pretty sure that Melissa was conceived during a gift vacation we took to a cabin in New Hampshire. This year, I had asked for a little thingy that goes up on the roof, wires down onto my desk, and tells me how fast the wind is blowing. It's already operative. Things work themselves out, mostly.

   I usually get what I want, too. I've learned to forego surprise in return for satisfaction... and I will basically tell people what I want, where to get it, how much to pay for it, and - quite often- how to present it to me (as with the anenometer... I was pretty specific about wanting to come home some time to find it installed already).

   When discussing what to get me for Xmas, I've seen my husbandsteal a glance at my sister, who I'm pretty sure mouthed the phrase, "Give me the money, and I'll get it this weekend"  back to him. I was going to complain, but I could see that he was simply aiming for my complete satisfaction... and short ofjust giving me money for Christmas (which I would accept without complaint), hiring my basic genetic equivalent to shop for me is the best way to meet that goal.

  It (especially as Shea and I usually shop together, leading to a scenario where I basically shop for myself with someone else's money... but where I can't wear/use/play with what I get until either mid-October or late December) works.

   So, I have pretty much everything I need already... and whereas I shop so damned well myself, I require nothing more than a nice dinner out and a trip to somewhere that French is spoken to pretty much keep me walking on air till Christmas.

 

   It's a good gig for a husband. I'm sure many people reading this have been torn to shreds by their wives/husbands/family for coming up with some reallllllll shifty gifty at some point in their lives... when they had to buy something for someone, and had no idea what to get.

   I'm the opposite of that- one of my few Good traits. If I don't get what I want, I'll just go buy it myself. I'm generally pretty happy that someone took the time to do something nice for me, and if the present is good.... Gravy.

   Still, I had to ask for SOMETHING for my birthday, so I figured what the hey? Get some cable... it makes me a better person.

   For those of you who think that I'm intelligent, ask me about Seinfeld  or Survivor  or Sopranos  or Sarah Jessica Parker's show sometime. See if I don't shrug, and try to change the subject. This lack of Pop Culture Training hurts more than you'd think it would:

- Beth..."If you don't have HBO by Thansgiving, I can't even talk to you anymore. I'll eat dinner at the friggin' Sheraton."

(Beth and I are both Vivi Award Nominees,,,,Sportz, Jersey and other HAC friends, too)

- Treesoup-..."You've never watched Survivor?"

Me- "Nope. What's it about?"

"There's a bunch of people stranded on an island, and they have to survive day by day."

"Ohhhhh....I saw that....Why doesn't the Professor just fix the hole in the boat?"

 

- Jamie... A nice guy, Jamie.... getting himself a really huge break when asked to appear on Cold Pizza, which is some sort of ESPN show.

 

  Jamie has always treated me well in our dealings, and you'd think that I'd have the decency to flick on a simple device and see- sorta live- something go well for someone I think highly of.

   Nope. Until I asked Tammy...when Jamie said "I'll be on Cold Pizza next week,"  I assumed his wife had thrown him out.

   Tammy, you may remember, is my hippy friend who once asked me- during the Pats/Carolina Super Bowl- why players don't just run behind all the guys standing on the sidelines. I don't like to have to defer to her for anything sports-related, so I have decided to join the rest of you in 2005 by getting cable.

   I may come to terms with the Microwave Oven next. I did get the X-Box to work, and am no longer frightened by it.

 

 

Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing...

OKLAHOMA CITY (Oct. 20) - A man got a prison term longer than prosecutors and defense attorneys had agreed to - all because of Celtics great Larry Bird.

The lawyers reached a plea agreement Tuesday for a 30-year term for a man accused of shooting with an intent to kill and robbery. But Eric James Torpy wanted his prison term to match Bird's jersey number 33.

"He said if he was going to go down, he was going to go down in Larry Bird's jersey," Oklahoma County District Judge Ray Elliott said Wednesday. "We accommodated his request and he was just as happy as he could be.

"I've never seen anything like this in 26 years in the courthouse. But, I know the DA is happy about it."

(Lucky he wasn't a Gretzky fan...)

 

Remember, kids.... First the Tread Mill, then  the Gin Mill:

 

Monponsett:  eff him
Monponsett:  you robbed him... 
Monponsett:  lol
MrBierSnob:  Hey, I'm not the one who put a $200 buck cd changer up for auction buy it now for 50 bucks!
MrBierSnob:  I'd have paid 100 for the unit, actually
Monponsett:  i hear ya
Monponsett:you won out on the Greater Fool Theory, if it's not stolen
MrBierSnob:  Explain please?
Monponsett:  <FONTFACE="COMIC MS? Sans>oh... sorry .. a saying of my father's...
Monponsett:  no offense meant... it's a compliment when i translate it from French properly 
Monponsett:  but the saying is that even if a fool sits in the market selling the air we're all breathing.... eventually a Greater Fool will come along
MrBierSnob:  and buy it

Monponsett:  it's silly, but it's essentially what our stock market is based on 
Monponsett:  the GFT works both ways
Monponsett:  you were on the Big Fish end of the old food chain poster
Monponsett:  you won
MrBierSnob:  Hehehe apparently so!
Monponsett:  Econ 101 ... although in the context I learned it, it was basically why my father was telling my sister and I to set up a lemonade stand rather than bother him for an advance on our allowances. I think we were either the fooled or the fools.... but it doesn't matter too much now, I guess
Monponsett:  i may copy/paste that as a journal entry... it'd be a good thing for my teen readers to know

 

A few other silly things to brighten your morning...

   This may be the stupidest thing ever invented... which is why it rules. Beth sent me this, and basically... you're a Yeti who smashes penguins for distance with what I'm guessing is a 7 foot icicle. It's the Home Run Derby that the ASPCA doesn't want you to know about.

   It's as addictive as crack, too. The key seems to be to hit them peng-oo-ins at an angle that would be a double up the gap in a big league game. Anywhooooo...

http://meph.eu.org/penguin1.php

 

If mimes are what piss you off, we have that covered, too...thanks to Mr. Scalzi:

http://www.ihatemimes.com/games/mime-mayhem/

 

I rent dspace occasionally here...

Hi Guys,    It's me, Paul, that annoying proprietor of CarnivAOL. I'm sending you this because at one time or another, you guys have all submitted to CarnivAOL, and I want to ask you a favour. If possible, could you you guys post a plug for CarnivAOL in your journals this week? I'm looking to get this thing seen by as many people as possible so it will continue to grow. Thank you all for submitting in the past, and I hope you will continue to submit from time to time in the future. If you see fit to help me out here, I thank you.     Paul 
"When politics and religion are intermingled, a people is suffused with a sense of invulnerability, and gathering speed in their forward charge, they fail to see the cliff ahead of them"--Frank Herbert

Paul's blog- Aurora Walking Vacation

 

Soccer Stacey from  http://spstudio.elena.hosting-friends.de/spstudio.html Make yourself a South Park drawing! Thanks to Miss Stacy's site.

SHUT UP!!!!

Quebec

   You know, they seem harmless enough... but I just don't trust the Canadians.

   I go up to Quebec every now and then. It's a tremendous long weekend getaway for Massachusetts folk, a sort of B+ France that you don't have to get into some death-trap jet to go to.

   If you can handle French people who know English but refuse to speak it, it's a nice October drive through foliage country to a charming riverfront city.

   It's ancient as far as American cities go, with Jacques Cartier planting a cross there in 1534. The Algonquins there were dealt with easily enough- where the English killed them, the French traded with them, and few Froggers were hatcheted by the men who would later become the more Southern Englishmen's sports team mascots.

   Quebec- an Algonquin word for "narrows" (n)- dominates a bend in the St. Lawerence River, in that it has nice hills from which to rain cannonballs on any sucker from another crown who might try to sneak a troop transport past it downriver.

 

   Whoever owned it owned the American interior, as the US influence at the time stopped at the Appalchians... and wasn't that solid at all more than a mile from the coast in most places.

   This led to settlements that lasted after the Brits won Canada in 1763. A lot of these settlements were sold to make cash for Napoleon's war machine... we Americans know this as the Louisiana Purchase, and it doubled the size of our nation for crazy dumb cheap fundage.... like a nickel an acre.

   The Froggers were having enough trouble with the rest of Europe (and especially within France itself), and the last thing they needed were 20,000 Apaches falling on their unprotected settlers before the Smallpox kicked in. They were happy to dump some wilderness on Thomas Jefferson for a little Cannon Cash to try to kill Russians with.

   This probably doesn't concern you unless you live in Kansas... or Quebec. The British needed the French to cow the aboriginals, and they allowed New France to remain somewhat French... especially Quebec.

 

   French is the official language of Quebec, all the signs are en francais, and there is an ugly little separatist movement that could result in a hockey game terrorist bombing someday.

   But that isn't what I'm here to tell you about. I'm basically telling you why, even though Montreal is closer to NYC than Denver is... Canada may as well be friggin' Jupiter as far as I'm concerned.... and keep in mind that I am 100% French, and fit in there as seamlessly as I didn't fit in when I went to Houston:

- Cigarettes come in these purse-hating side-sliding packages, and taste like bad homegrown dope.

- Homosexuality is rampant here, what with the gay marriage laws and the ability of both partners to watch the hockey game while performing the sex act.

- Speaking of hockey... if you go to 3 or 4 bars on a Sunday afternoon, you'll see nothing but Ottawa Senators games. The patrons could be called "very much opposed" to the idea of turning on an NFL game instead.

 

   This fact alone justifies a pre-emptive nuclear strike, as far as my tax dollar is concerned.

- They call real  Americans "Upper Mexicans."

- They have their eyes on Greenland.

- If the next war involves wood-splitting or lots of skating... they'll conquer us like Iraq vs Kuwait.

- They will be diplomatic about it, but you can tell that they think their bacon is better than ours.

- They have a more soulful National Anthem than we do, and they know it.

- If you've never seen a woman who has lived nowhere but Covington, Louisiana try to order Marlboros from a French-Canadian-Asian, you can't imagine how funny it is... even after 3 minutes or so.

   At different points of the conversation, I saw the poor clerk hold up whiskey, tampons, aspirin, batteries, a Hustler... it was reality show-surreal. You could have taught a monkey to type faster than old Cindy Lou was going to get her cancer straws. "Dagumnit, just gimme some tobacker,"  she drawled out at one point.

   I didn't intervene... even though I'm fluent in French, and the Cajun was my roomie when I went to school in Rhode Island. I never took my lips off my Slurpee for the whole episode... except to laugh.

   Only the future liberal application of Rum to this Slurpee stopped the laughter, and it resulted in a terribly ugly scene at what the Quebeckers think is a pizza place.

   Sometimes, you have to get yourself out of these kind of jams with the resources you have at hand.... and the sooner Cindy figured all this out, the better.

   I'm pretty much all for making Oh Canada the 51st state, whether they like it or not. I don't trust them, and guys who may have been on our dollar bills were repelled attacking Quebec.

   I just feel better owning all that timber and uranium. We can force football on them, and they'll recognize the superiority of our beer in a generation or so. The sooner we do it, the sooner the killing will stop... and it gets the troops out of those God-forsaken deserts and mountains that Bush has them in.

   We'll win every Olympic hockey medal between now and the Mars colonization. It also gives us an enormous buffer zone if Earth ever gets ugly in a decade or ten... sort of a huge, frozen Latvia. You never know when the Swedes are gonna try something sneaky across the Pole, and I'd rather fight them on Baffin Island instead of Buzzards Bay.

   If the New Americans resisted, I'd shoot them down in the street like mad dogs. That whole lack-of-NFL thing is truly disturbing, and they deserve whatever happens to them when the Big Red One rolls in out of Montana. I'd have no bloody pity at all.

   Once we have them all pimped up, I'd pull a PR move and let them keep the whole French scene up there in Quebec. Diversity is what makes this country great... and every New Englander knows that if we can tolerate Vermont or Mississippi, we can incorporate Montreal somehow. Can they be goofier than some Amish buggy-jockey, or a Mormon with 6 wives?

   The fact that we have such a wide range of peoples is what makes this country great. Nothing shows this off better than a nice War of Conquest.

Smurf Bombing

                            

   Good Lord, it's hard being the Smurf... even when you're kicking it Old School.

Smurfs bombed in new UNICEF ad - Europe - MSNBC.com

   My neice got that information to me, and I wasted no time at all in sliding down the Batpole. After sex, I got a shower and am heading off to Belgium in the Schmoo Jet tomorrow morning.

   UNICEF has had a pretty easy ride here in America, and people will pump quarters into those little boxes without a second thought. It was not unusual at all to see a kid claiming to have been robbed his UNI-box at school the next day... although the robbers seemed to have bypassed his Tony Montana pile 'o yayo-sized candy stash that he had working on the desk.

   Ever wonder where all that money goes after you give it to the Uniboxers? UNICEF is one of those do-gooder groups that does a lot of African-feeding, and they turn up at tsunamis, earthquakes, cyclones, etc...

   They also make the occasional commercial. They use different methods for different cultures. America and their fat wallets are shown a mountain of starving children, while countries that might be driven out of NATO usually are fed a steadier diet of Fear.

   Europeans get the wuss rap from Americans, but they sure do a lot of fighting for sissies with bad techno music. From what my father tells me, I've calculated that I lost- given a 3 kid per family average that is actually quite conservative in a Catholic nation- 15 or 20 wedding presents due to marching Germans.... and not only are they 15 or so gifts, but they are gifts from Europe- which tend to be tres bien....

   If you think that American staples like n***** jokes and drunken Irishmen mascots are bad racism, you should have heard some of the white/on/white hatred that was kicked around in my kitchen growing up. It was odd going out into the world and finding outthat most Americans didn't really hate Germans that much. Blacks sort of top the list of racism for most white Americans, while they were 25th or so in my house.

   Imagine if America had a lot more Civil Wars, and that they were much more isolated and brutal. Picture a nice North Carolina/Virginia war, or maybe a free-wheeling Oregon/Washington throwdown. Imagine the hatred that would exist... rocking a nice Espo throwback might get you a beating in Chicago- even though his brother played there for like 50 years.

                                                                   

   Belgium became important in a geopolitical sense when a godless Prussian named Von Schlieffen (or something close to that) devised the plan for an invasion of France. Rather than slugging it out through the near-impassable Ardennes forest, the Boche would violate Belgian neutrality and attack France from the north. This stomps a lot of innocent Belgians, but you have to break a few eggs, no?

   Germany's invasions were generally pretty nasty affairs, and this relates to the article in that Belgians- whatever their yummy waffle making faults may be- don't scare easily. Like the French, every Belgian child has heard a grandmother describe a Nazi invasion, and a lot of people don't have uncles because of it.

   Anyone who has lost someone to war won't really respond to a smooth Navy commercial with a Godsmack score. So, you have to work harder to get contributions there.

   This is how it came down to a decision to bomb a bunch of cute blue Smurfs. War touches everyone,the message says... even cartoon icons.

   Americans are spared from this. We have college football. Nebraska and Oklahoma can work out all their differences on a football field, and no one's farm gets pillaged. It's why America kicks so much more butt than those Smurf-killing Huns over on the Wrong Side of the pond.