Disclaimer: This isn't Bill in Portland, Maine's C&J. I'm filling in while he's on vacation.
Morning!
Our Cheers and Jeers are coming to you today from a place I like to call my “Fortress of Solitude” and my wife likes to call “What the HELL have you done to the garage!?!”
Cheering, Jeering, By the Numbers, and even, may the Good Lord protect us, a pootie pic. All lurking like a
Moody Loner below the fold, so what are we waiting for?
Oh.
Yeah.
[Swoosh] RIGHTNOW!!! [GONNNG!!] Christ.
Cheers and Jeers for Monday, March 6, 2006.
Note: You won't find very much about the Academy Awards. This is not an accident. I tried to make myself care, I really did. I'm sure y'all will take care of it in the comments.
This Day in History and By the Numbers:
Just like Moody Loner's Cheap Shots of the Day, only all the time!
1079 Omar ibn Ibrahim al-Chajjam completes Jalali-calendar. Bet you all knew that one.
1323 Treaty of Paris. Having a California public-school education, I have no idea what this is
about.
1831 Edgar Allen Poe removed from West Point military academy – in what was called the Unfortunate
Incident at Dinner. 'Ear's to you, Ed.
1836 3,000 Mexicans beat 182 Texans at the Alamo, after 13 day fight. You know, I'd completely forgotten
about this.
1836 HMS Beagle/Darwin reaches King George's Sound, Australia. Think of it as evolution in action.
1857 Dred Scott Decision: Supreme Court rules slaves cannot be citizens. That would be that “judicial
activism” thing, right?
1861 Provisionary Confederate Congress establishes Confederate Army. Aren't these the guys at the border
“protecting” us from poor Mexicans trying to make a living?
1862 Battle of Pea Ridge AR (Elkhorn Tavern). My parents live near there, actually.
1899 "Aspirin" patented by Felix Hoffmann. Thank you, Felix Hoffman, for allowing me to get this
far into the Bush pResidency.
1906 Heavy storm bursts dike flooding Vlissingen, Netherlands. Nobody could have foreseen this.
1906 Nora Blatch becomes 1st woman elected to American Society of Civil Engineers
1918 US naval collier "Cyclops" disappears in Bermuda Triangle. I didn't do it.
1921 Police in Sunbury PA issue an edict requiring women to wear skirts at least 4 inches below the knee. Bastards.
1925 Belgium annexes Eupen, Malmédy & Sankt Vith. And, someday, they will pay.
1930 Brooklyn's Clarence Birdseye develops a method for quick freezing food. Parents rejoice.
1946 France recognizes Vietnam statehood within Indo-Chinese federation. And look how well that turned out.
1953 Malenkov becomes chairman of the USSR. Remember the USSR? The threat of their thousands of multimegaton nuclear weapons didn't match the sheer, overawing, pants-crapping terror of nineteen guys with box cutters, so I'm not surprised if you've forgotten. That is, if you're a Republican.
1960 President Sukarno disbands Indonesia's parliament. The GOP takes notes.
1966 Barry Sadlers' "Ballad of the Green Berets" becomes #1 (13 weeks) I learned how to start fights with Green Berets using this song. True story.
1973 In an exhibition game with the Pirates, Twins Larry Hisle becomes the 1st designated hitter (he hits 2 home runs & knocks in 7 RBIs). Whatever. Apparently people have strong feelings about this, which detracts from the more important issues affecting our lives. For instance, did you know that WotC nerfed polymorph? Again? And now the RPGA won't even allow it? Bastards. I had characters that could turn ancient red dragons into trout, dammit.
1974 An Italian loses a record $1,920,000 at roulette in Monte Carlo. Just think of all the D&D supplements that would have bought. What?
1976 World Ice Dance Championship in Gothenburg won by Liudmila Pakhomova & Alexandr Gorshkov (USSR)
1976 World Ice Pairs Figure Skating Championship in Gothenburg won by Irina Rodnina & Alexandr Zaitsev (USSR)
1976 World Ladies Figure Skating Championship in Gothenburg won by Dorothy Hamill (USA)
1976 World Men's Figure Skating Championship in Gothenburg won by John Curry (Great Britain)
Ah, yes, the Olympics. Where men are doping and women are jailbait.
1978 Hustler publisher Larry Flynt shot & crippled by a sniper in Georgia. Funny world, when a loathsome pornographer has done more for my First Amendment rights than most of my elected officials. Here's to you, Larry. Just wash that glass when you're through with it. Please.
1980 7th Daytime Emmy Awards presentation - Susan Lucci loses for 1st time. A tradition is born.
1981 France performs nuclear test at Muruora Island. Again, not my fault.
1981 Walter Cronkite signs-off as anchorman of "The CBS Evening News".
1982 Susan Birmingham makes loudest recorded human shout (120 dB). Probably because of something I did.
1985 Enos Slaughter & Arky Vaughan are elected to baseball Hall of Fame. Unforgettable names that ring down through the halls of history.
1985 Mike Tyson KOs Hector Mercedes in 1 round in his 1st pro fight. And he managed to do it without raping his opponent or biting his ear off. Sadly, that high standard in beating the living crap out of another human being for money wouldn't last.
1986 Ken Ludwig's "Lend me a Tenor" premieres in London. So when do they give him back? Do you think they've heard that one before?
1987 6.8 earthquake hits Ecuador, kills 100. Also, I must point out, not my fault.
1988 Orville Moodey shoots 63 at Seniors golf tournament. This is not me, but I had to throw that one in.
1991 Following Iraq's capitulation in the Persian Gulf conflict, President Bush told Congress that "aggression is defeated; The war is over". And privately thought to himself, “and no American President would be brain-damaged enough to stir up this hornet's nest again. You'd have to be a slobbering idiot to go in here unilaterally. Say, wonder how Junior's doing?”
1994 United Arab Emirates beat Kenya by 2 wickets to win ICC Trophy. Thanks to their star batsman, Osama bin Hiding.
1996 Aravinda De Silva smashes 145 vs Kenya in cricket World Cup at Kandy Sri Lanka score 5-398 in 50 overs in World Cup vs Kenya. Kenya looks like they need a new national hobby. May I suggest D&D?
1998 1st time the British flag is flown over Buckingham Palace. Almost exactly as if I gave a crap. Didn't we fight a war 200+ years ago to get rid of the British royal family?
1998 Matt Beck, an angry lottery accountant kills 4 at Connecticut state lottery. These guys give Moody Loners a bad name.
March 6th birthdays:
1475: Michelangelo Buonarroti, Italian artist and sculptor who goes on to achieve the dizzying heights of lending his name to one of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. And we wonder why more kids don't become artists.
1619: Cyrano de Bergerac, French novelist, romantic, and swordsman.
1806: Elizabeth Barrett Browning, English poet
1927: Gordon Cooper, Astronaut
1945: Rob Reiner, American director.
1959: Tom Arnold. Actor or something. Probably American. Hey, if you want this kind of crap, watch Entertainment Tonight.
1972: Shaquille O'Neal. I am four years older than Shaq. I have wasted my life.
By the numbers:
Number my daughter gave me when I asked her for one: 1506
Days until I run my first sanctioned RPGA Mark of Heroes(tm) game: 19
Number of blank RPGA membership forms I was to have received in the mail for this event: 6
Number of blank membership cards I've received to date: 0
Number of spelling and editing errors in the official RPGA-provided scenario that I immediately noticed during my quick reading last night: 7
Amount of money I spent for the module, and the minis and cards they may or may not be sending to support the event: 0
Estimated number of spelling errors and typos made writing this Cheers and Jeers: 37,510
It's the new wireless keyboard, dammit.
Number of times my wife has interrupted my writing: 4
Number of times my daughter has interrupted my writing: approx. 1000
Number of months we'd be able to survive were I a professional writer: 2
Days the federal terror alert system has been in place: 1,481
Days at level Blue or Green: 0
As I promised, here's today's pootie pic, God help us all. What, exactly, did you expect from Moody Loner?
JEERS to Bush, Dick, Condoliar, Chertoff, and Brownie. They may never find all of the bodies of the victims of Katrina. Victims, I may add, that may have survived if our Administration had just done their jobs. But I guess that bare competence is too high a standard to set for the Bush administration.
CHEERS to ubiquitous connectivity. Social phobics rejoice! Now if I can only configure my work laptop to the God-damned wireless network.
CHEERS to the Japanese. Not only have they given us scantily-clad anime babes for my computer backgrounds and hyper-annoying J-pop for my cellphone ringtones, now they've invented gasoline from cow dung. I bullshit you not. Looks like Rush, Hannity, O'Lielly, Malkin, Coulter and Savage can perform a useful social function after all.
JEERS and a “May all your die rolls be fumbles” to South Dakota in general and the state's legislature in specific. If you are a woman, a liberal, or just have a last guttering shred of decency and humanity within you and you live in South Dakota – for God's sake, move. They don't deserve you.
JEERS to former Rep. Duke Cunningham. Why do I get the feeling you're crying because you got caught? CHEERS to the sentence – eight years, four months in prison. Here's to many more. Culture of corruption, indeed – and how's that Valerie Plame investigation going?
JEERS to a little word we like to call denial. Although, technically, I suppose he'd be correct – as the “verge” was nine months ago, at least. Look, as much as the Administration and the wingers are going “LA LA LA WE CAN'T HEAR YOU! FLOWERS! CANDY! EVERYTHING'S FINE! NO CIVIL WAR! LA LA LA LA!” things have been going seriously pear-shaped there for some time – and things have gotten so bad that the Moody Loner best-case option (a stable fundamentalist Islamic theocracy that hates the United States) is becoming less and less likely every day, while the worst-case scenario (a failed state in the throes of a permanent three-way civil war, with covert or overt involvement from Turkey and Iran) is looking fairly likely. Pretty accurate political analysis from someone in his pajamas in California.
JEERS is just too mild a word for the Pentagon and DHS for this little Catch-22. “You can't come into the country and tell about how your families were killed by our soldiers, because you don't have enough family left alive in Iraq to ensure that you'd be returning.” Sometimes you just can't believe it. Oh, and I bet the liberal media's going to be all over this.
CHEERS to ePluribus Media in general and for this story in particular. Environmental Prevarication Agency? Department of the Inferior? Priceless.
Let's shout-out to my fellow stand-ins:
RenaRF
PoliSigh
cosmic debris
pastordan
PhillyGal
DelawareDem
Did I miss anyone?
Well, that's what I got, I gotta take out the trash, get dressed and go to work. Take care of yourselves this week, visit Electronic Darwinism and may all your hits be crits!