Springsteen on this year's election

Normally, I don't give a damn about the political statements issued by celebrities. Their opinions are no more valid or informed that yours or mine.

That said, Springsteen gave a poetic and inspired speech on behalf of Obama recently ...

All I want for Christmas

Authentic Guinness® Home Pub

There are plenty of reasons to raise a pint to the Irish. Saint Patrick, the Blarney Stone. One of the greatest occurred in 1759 when young Arthur Guinness founded a brewery at St. James's Gate, crafted a hearty, distinctive stout, and won a place in our hearts forever. Celebrate the 250th anniversary of that first delicious keg with our exclusive, once-in-a-lifetime gift. The folks at RiRa Pubs will design a fully functional, traditional Irish pub and build it in your home in 2009. It will be crafted from historic Irish architectural elements and authentic Guinness artifacts. There's also a VIP trip for two to Dublin with first class airfare, luxury accommodations, and insider access to the magic still being made at the historic working St. James's Gate brewery. (All members of your party must be at least 21 years of age.) Plus fresh Guinness Stout for your pub. For an entire year.

A toast! To calling 1.877.9NM.GIFT for more information, detailed terms and conditions, and to order! Sláinte!

©2008 GUINNESS & Co. Always Drink Responsibly.
Item
Authentic Guinness Home Pub
Price $250,000.00*
OCBF9_NMO3605

http://www.neimanmarcus.com/store/sitelets/christmasbook/fantasy.jhtml?cid=OCBF9_NMO3606&cmCat=christmas&icid=NMCBpage79

Jen's Alexis story

Jen writes about our cat ...



http://jensamom.blogspot.com/2008/10/aint-no-sunshine-when-shes-gone.html

And thanks to everybody for your kind words. We appreciate it.

R.I.P. Alexis

Jen and I just got back from the vet a little while ago. Alexis is gone.

We woke up Sunday morning and she wasn't able to walk very well. She was stiff-legged and kept tumping over after a few steps.

We took her to the emergency animal clinic, they gave her an anti-inflammatory shot and we hoped it would help. It didn't. By the time we went to bed Sunday night, Alexis could barely get around at all. It was heart-breaking to watch. We carried her to the food bowl and litter box so she wouldn't walk.

This morning, the vet said it could have been a variety of things - neurological or cancer being most likely. The chance of getting her back to where she was 48 hours ago was slim. Rather than risk putting her through a lot of procedures with little chance of success, we chose to ... you know.

Alexis had been in Jen's life for more than 18 years. She'd been in mine for 10. Today is a heart-breaking day for us. We already miss her.

Things I think I think (CFB version)

1. Do you ever think Tim Tebow's older siblings just get sick and tired of him? I mean, they've got to right? It's just natural. Especially when they see signs like this ...



2. Speaking of Tebow, if everybody in the stadium and watching at home knows he's going to run a shotgun sneak to the right side of the line, then Houston Nutt can probably cipher it out as well. Urban Meyer = fail on that play call.

3. While Ole Miss fans are probably still celebrating, they fail to realize this is Classic Nutt. His teams always manage to beat a team it shouldn't, but also lose to a team it shouldn't. We've seen this with OM already. Lost to Vandy, but beat Florida. (And you can point to Vandy's record all you want, but it's still Vandy.)

4. Forget the AP, USA Today or any other poll you see. The best CFB poll comes to us via SportsJournalists.com ... click here . If nothing else, it's the funniest to read each week.

5. Georgia's shellacking at the hands of Alabama should put an end to all the ridiculous (Insert random color here)outs. If you have to schedule a whiteout, blackout or redout to get your team and fans excited, something is fundamentally wrong with both. This rule would not apply to something truly original, like if Cal-Berkeley scheduled a tiedyeout or a rural school had a camouflageout. Those would be awesome.

Magic 8 Ball Prediction
Will Arkansas cover the spread (currently 24.5) against Florida this Saturday?

(Views expressed by the Magic 8 Ball do not necessarily reflect the views of this blog, the blog owner nor this post's author. Advice from the Magic 8 Ball is for entertainment purposes only and not for actual wagering.)

Bonus Drink of the Week — With an 11:30 a.m. kick in Fayetteville following two skullcrushings, I'm sure some Arkansas fans are worried the "atmosphere" for this Saturday. As we all know, "atmosphere" is code for "number of rowdy drunks in the stands." Not to worry, we're here to help. Get a red plastic cup, fill it with ice. Pour DeKuyper Peach Tree Schnapps over the ice until the cup is half full. Top with Sunny D. Drink. Repeat until you feel atmospheric.

Palin debate flowchart

Slow Internet connection? Blame John McCain.

John McCain is an AT&T guy; Barack Obama is a Google guy. And that’s one of the most important policy differences between the two.

Think of the Internet as working at different layers. There are all the pipes that go into your home, and then there’s all the stuff on your screen—from e-mail to eMule. The telecom companies like AT&T control the pipes; the software companies, like Google, create the stuff.

In an ideal world, both these layers would be sites of great innovation and creativity. But in the United States, that isn’t so. The software industry may seem like a team of Gandalfs, constantly producing magic. But the average telecom company resembles Jabba the Hut: it moves slowly and slobbers a lot.

The United States created the Internet, but it’s the rest of the world that can really use it. People in Japan are twice as likely as Americans to have broadband connections, and their pipes are ten times as fast. Compared to France, U.S. Internet access is twice as expensive and one-fourth as quick. Since 2000, the United States has gone from fifth in the world to twenty-second in broadband penetration. We have become a nation of buffering YouTube videos.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2008/0808.thompson.html#Byline

Sorry for the lack of posts

I have decided to suspend my blog posting until Congress is able to put together a financial bailout package to save our nation's economy.

Either that or I've not had anything worth sharing. Such is life these days, as I'm spending spare minutes working on the den (still!) and watching Jen expand.

"America's Most Wanted" is in town filming this week ...

http://www.swtimes.com/articles/2008/09/26/news/news01.txt


And Tony Alamo was arrested ...

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iM_k_Z5_nC3gb0btse0fgEAFl4RAD93EKF201

Pastafarians 1, Westboro Baptist Church 0

For some odd reason, the Westboro nutjobs decided to protest in downtown Little Rock today. They're the family/cult devoted to Fred Phelps who go around protesting at the funerals of homosexuals, soldiers and anybody not in their cult.

But in Little Rock, they were met with a band of Pastafarians. Dressed as pirates, they counter-protested. And the Phelps whackos packed up and left.

Bonus points for the Pastafarians: Today's protest was held on Talk A Like A Pirate Day.


http://www.arktimes.com/blogs/arkansasblog/2008/09/way_to_go_matie.aspx

Road trip!

The surviving members of the Grateful Dead and the Allmans will be playing a benefit for Obama at Penn State.

If nothing else, Obama's musical tastes are better than McCain's.