Sorry to make us all feel old twice in a week, but today is the 25th anniversary of Star Trek The Next Generation. Biggest fight I ever had with my stepdad wasn’t over curfew, or chores, or even coming home smelling like a brewery. It was over whether Kirk or Picard was a better starship captain. My argument was basically “Picard motivated, Kirk impregnated”.
All posts by daddybear71
Today’s Earworm
Posted by daddybear71 on September 28, 2012
https://daddybearsden.com/2012/09/28/todays-earworm-234/
Crunchtime
If you’ve been around the blogs at all in the last month, you’ll have heard about Kilted to Kick Cancer. This worthy effort to draw attention and funds to research on cancers that strike men is one of those that should ring true to everyone. Either you’re a man who is at risk for prostate and testicular cancer, or you’re a woman with a husband, father, brother, or friend who is. The 2012 campaign is ticking towards its end, and the time to donate is now.
Lots of great people have links up on their blogs that give you an opportunity to either donate to the LiveStrong organization or the Prostate Cancer Society. If you’re of a mind to do so, and you have a few extra bucks to donate toward a worthy cause, please consider hitting one of them to make a donation.
And hey, in addition to the warm and fuzzy you’ll get for putting your filthy lucre toward something other than strong drink and things that go bang, several of them are running drawings for donors. In exchange for doing something good, you get the chance to win stuff. There also seems to be a….. healthy* competition going on. If I read this right, if Stingray wins, he will get his nether regions waxed. Jay pledges to shave his mustache, while AD promises to shave half of his. Evyl Robot promises to go to the range in drag and take video, while his lovely wife Jennifer seems to have a catsuit of some kind that will be donned if he wins. OldNFO is also in on the campaign, but I see that he has the good sense to not try to compete with the craziness I mentioned. There are a lot of others who are joining in, so check the main page of your favorite blogs. If you’re one of the bloggers with a banner up for KTKC and I haven’t mentioned you, please feel free to post in comments.
So, pick your poison and give toward a cause that touches all of us.
*If we define “healthy” as a series of escalating and insane “Oh yeah? Well I can go a couple of steps further!” back and forths.
Posted by daddybear71 on September 28, 2012
https://daddybearsden.com/2012/09/28/crunchtime/
30 Days of Tolkien – Day 26
Some who have read the book, or at any rate have reviewed it, have found it boring, absurd, or contemptible; and I have no cause to complain, since I have similar opinions of their works, or of the kinds of writing that they evidently prefer. — Forward to The Lord of the Rings
My Take – Sometimes, telling your critics to go consummate a relationship with an ungulate is a wonderful thing to do. Doing it eloquently is a bonus.
One of the things I do when I go to see a movie or read a book is see if one of the critics I usually disagree with hated it. Normally that works better than trying the things that people who agree with me like.
Posted by daddybear71 on September 28, 2012
https://daddybearsden.com/2012/09/28/30-days-of-tolkien-day-26/
Our Long National Nightmare Is Over
I’m not sure what this says about our priorities, but one of the big headlines today is that the lockout strike between the National Football League and the union that represents its referees appears to be over. Referees are returning to the field, and are expected to officiate tonight’s game. If you believe the pundits on sports TV and a lot of the guys at my office, this places somewhere between the second coming and the invention of the thong bikini for good news.
Now, I’m a football fan. I like nothing better than to have the game on the TV on a brisk Sunday afternoon. But the amount of ink and stress hormones that have been burned over this is shocking. The issues seem to be:
- The perceived parsimony of the NFL teams when it comes to the comparatively paltry sum satisfying the union’s demands would have cost.
- The manner in which replacement referees ran the games, especially when it came to the calls and penalties they dished out.
On the first point, I have to agree with the pundits. The NFL could have made all of this go away a month ago by signing a check that would have been dwarfed by the signing bonus for the latest 20-year-old train wreck who won the genetic lottery. This has been an exercise in “Oh yeah? Well, your mother!” on their part.
As for the abilities of the replacement refs, I think they’ve been given the wet end of the stick. All of the experienced NFL refs were off the job. The best college refs probably didn’t want to get involved because they hope to someday make the big bucks calling touchdowns in the NFL, and nothing deep sixes a prospective job opportunity like being on the list of people who crossed the picket line. So what the NFL got was the people from lower college strata and below. These aren’t professionals. If the NFL was lucky, they got gifted amateurs who got thrown in with the Lions at the very last minute. Regular refs get weeks of training in the summer, followed by pre-season to get warmed up. These guys got a couple of days to learn the differences between intramural football and the professionals, then they were off to the races without a crew of seasoned veterans to support them. So the repeated calls for their mass flogging when they made a bad call or didn’t control a game the same way a crew with over a century of collective experience would have might be a bit of overreaction.
But that’s beside the point. During this labor strife, the Mid-East has gone from smoldering to meltdown. Iran is not only accelerating its nuclear program, but is making those “Israel really needs to get change of address forms” noises again. China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and the Hottentots are making angry gorilla noises over a few dots of rock in the middle of an ocean that happens to sit over a large reservoir of petroleum. And most scary of all, there is a projected shortage of bacon that will hit the economy soon, driving normally rational people to the streets in search of pork bellies and salt.
I’m not sure if this is a concerted effort to distract us from what’s going on in the real world. Maybe it just shows how far gone we are that the labor differences between the owners of teams of grown men who play a children’s game for millions of dollars and the men who wear striped shirts and make sure the players don’t gouge each others’ eyes out get as much or more press than an upcoming presidential election. Either way, it doesn’t bode well for the Republic.
Can we please get back to watching and caring about football on Sunday and leave the rest of the news cycle for things that actually matter?
Posted by daddybear71 on September 28, 2012
https://daddybearsden.com/2012/09/28/our-long-national-nightmare-is-over-3/
Hmmmm
Break your probation for a non-violent financial crime and no-one does anything but fill out paperwork.
Break your probation for a non-violent financial crime, have no-one do anything for a while, and then do something that is used as an excuse for people to riot and murder, thereby making the administration look like a bunch of fools? Well, then your probation officer and the local police are going to haul you in for a hearing and put your butt behind bars again.
The guy’s not as pure as the driven snow by any means. He’s a convicted felon who by all accounts was indeed violating his probation rules. But the fact that no-one did anything about it until his actions brought embarrassment on the Obama administration is troubling.
Let’s say you have a C&R FFL, which means that you have to keep a bound book. Or maybe you live in a state that requires a license to own a firearm, such as Massachusetts. Then you do something that makes the president look bad, and all of a sudden the ATF or local sheriff is on your front door wanting to see your documents and guns, and they proceed to go through your life with a flashlight and a pair of tweezers. Is that just?
When the power of the government is used to silence a citizen or punish him for making waves, that is tyranny.
Posted by daddybear71 on September 27, 2012
https://daddybearsden.com/2012/09/27/hmmmm-3/
Thought for the Day
DaddyBear is no longer allowed to tell a customer that the Psychic Friends Network is down when asked to guess a rather critical piece of data. He is also prohibited from using the term DAN or ‘Dumbass Area Network’ at the office.
Posted by daddybear71 on September 27, 2012
https://daddybearsden.com/2012/09/27/thought-for-the-day-169/
30 Days of Tolkien – Day 25
No language is justly studied merely as an aid to other purposes. It will in fact better serve other purposes, philological or historical, when it is studied for love, for itself.
My Take – Learn because you enjoy the subject, and it will be more useful than anything you studied because you had to. Even in situations that seem totally unrelated, the skills you earn will apply.
Posted by daddybear71 on September 27, 2012
https://daddybearsden.com/2012/09/27/30-days-of-tolkien-day-25/
A Proposal
To the gentleman who cooked our food at Humping Pandas Chinese restaurant tonight:
Sir, you, among all of the people who have cooked Sechuan for us over the years, are the only one who knew what “extra spicy” means. Our dinner tonight got me sweating, and left a wonderful burn afterward.
In recognition of your skill, I propose that we merge our families. I offer a blonde, blue-eyed boy in exchange for the hand of your adorable daughter. He shall bring height and strength. She can contribute her beauty and any culinary skills you choose to pass on.
Think of the big; strapping, well-fed grandchildren this pairing would bring us.
I look forward to your response.
Sincerely,
Daddy J. Bear
Glutton
Posted by daddybear71 on September 26, 2012
https://daddybearsden.com/2012/09/26/a-proposal/
30 Days of Tolkien – Day 24
Many of those trees were my friends creatures I had known from nut and acorn; many had voices of their own that are lost for ever now. And there are wastes of stump and bramble where once there were singing groves. I have been idle. I have let things slip. It must stop! — The Two Towers
My Take – Where is your line in the sand? Where is your “Jews in the attic” point? At what moment does the danger and uncertainty of action in the face of adversity become less costly than the certainty of harm from inaction?
Those who believe that the government has gone too far have been attacked for decades, and the lambasting both by the press and this administration has been particularly sharp. Our rights, our financial future, and the prosperity of our children and their children are at stake, and those who oppose us are either stupid, despicable, or both. The time to act is now.
I am up on my soap box, trying to convince as many as will listen that there our ship is headed toward a reef. I have been in a jury box, trying to find a way to chart a course between “legal” and “just”. I have put votes into the ballot box and will do so again soon. I pray that my cartridge box stays closed, but it is well-stocked and handy.
Posted by daddybear71 on September 26, 2012
https://daddybearsden.com/2012/09/26/30-days-of-tolkien-day-24/
Change #113241288910
I finally decided to make an honest blog out of the old girl. Now, she’s got her own URL and everything. From now on, you can get here just by going to http://daddybearsden.com.
Posted by daddybear71 on September 25, 2012
https://daddybearsden.com/2012/09/25/change-113241288910/
DaddyBear
DaddyBear’s Den 