Another Dubya Chronicles has seen the light of day. Go look…and stay to the very end, keeping a sharp eye on the Big Dick at bottom left.
That Rob Davis is so damned clever…
My beer-writing compatriot Stan Hieronymus, not satisfied with having complicated my life by urging me into the tangled web to deceive which is WordPress, tagged me last week with the 4×4 meme thing, of which I’d never heard and, all things being equal, of which I would have remained perfectly content in my ignorance.
What is it? Stan explains it as well as anybody has at his Slow Travelers website (part of a set, collect them all–the man has entirely too much free time).
He noted in his email “tag” that the internet is closing in on me, something I’ve become fully aware of with the steady stream of invites from folks on Facebook and similar social sites that I’ve been receiving of late, some of them I actually known and many of that latter group persons I would never have thought of as willing participants in such endeavors. It’s a strange new world out there.
What the hell, if I am doomed to become one with the universe, I’ll lie back and enjoy it.
The basic idea, for those too lazy to go read Stan’s explanation, is to pick four categories/questions and four answers to each, telling people things they might know about you. Why this is a a good thing I don’t know, and the risks get higher, because you needs must subsequently tag four other unsuspecting bloggers who will, if all goes according to plan, do the same ad infinitum.
It’s like a chain letter, only worse. Comes late September, I think (doing the calculations in my head), everybody in the world will therefore have participated and, as in the Arthur C. Clarke story, “The Nine Billion Names of God,” the stars will start going out one by one and the universe will end.
Armageddon to some, a life’s work successfully completed to George W. Bush.
The thing is, if you break a chain letter something awful might happen and I am, truth to tell, pretty much awful-ed up at present, so…
Let us go then, you and I, into the heart of darkness and stories yet untold:
Four good times spent with famous people (mostly drinking)
Martinis in the dark and dirty rear room of a long-gone suburban Philadelphia bar with novelist Robert Ludlum on a Friday night as he tried to convince me his books were really true.
Margaritas with former Dallas Cowboys wide receiver turned novelist Peter Gent in a sedate center city Philadelphia restaurant on a Wednesday afternoon, drunkenly tossing spitballs at Main Line ladies enjoying their afternoon tea.
Passing a bottle of Jack Daniels back and forth with jazz giant Dave Brubeck on an early spring night while we dangled our feet in the swimming pool at Disney World in California and talked politics until dawn.
Dinner with Harlan Ellison and his extended family in a New York hotel on a Sunday night after spending three days following him around for a magazine profile.
Four unforgettable propositions I’ve received
Wistful: “We could have such a great time if you weren’t so hung up.” — one-handed fellow grad student, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA
Blatant: “My family owns that motel up on Rt. 30. We should meet there some afternoon.” — woman I just met, cocktail party, Exton, PA
Professional: “Sex! Sex! Two minutes!” — Street walker, 2am, Prague, Czech Republic
Not Gonna Happen: “Would you like to come up to my room for a drink?” – Sad-eyed homosexual man, St. Patrick’s Day, New York City
Four interesting places I have stayed
One week, Lismore Castle, Ireland
One night, Paris hotel which catered exclusively to black American expatriates
Six days, gated resort hotel, Princeville, Haiti
One week, Joyce Chen’s house overlooking Kalihiwai Bay, Kauai
Four “What Ifs?” (a girl, two jobs and an unfinished novel)
Else, Amsterdam
Sports Editor, Daily Local News, West Chester, PA.
Feature Writer, Tourism Bureau, Bermuda
“Truth Is the Perfect Disguise”
Just to maintain my record of obstreperousness (of the genteel sort), I shall, for the moment at least, hold off on the “tagging” thing.
Be afraid, my blogging friends out there, be very afraid.
UPDATE: Mr. Robert Davis has wandered into my clever little trap. He is officially tagged.
Okay. here’s a wild theory, based on the video below.
Instead of John McCain dropping his wife for an affair with a rich beer heiress on his own, it was all a setup, a Manchurian Candidate thing.
Pill-popping and Very Rich Cindy was sent out to seduce and control the Straight Talking Saint so that he would be in place for….
Well, what?
For a perceived bimbo, she sure do seem to be in control, does she not?
And with Something To Hide?
In light of what seem to be disastrous and insane American policies from this Administration, the idea of a secret cabal directing the course of history for its own purposes, crazy as it seems, do make some sense.
Or, to put it another way…
Dick Cheney lives.
Think about it.
I seem to be constantly apologizing for the paucity of posting but here I am again. This week, at least, I have a pretty good excuse. I’ve just finished up some 6,000 words worth of stories for two beer publications over the past four days, a lot of photography-taking and editing (both to send to said magazines and to post on the web over at that other place), all of this following the big Sly Fox Bock Festival & Goat Race which you’ll see reported on extensively at that link.
So here’s the thing. Next weekend I’m off for four days in the mountains of northern Idaho and at the end of the month it’ll be four days in upstate New York and Montreal. While some of that will be about beer (everything is about beer, let’s face it), I’m sure I can find something interesting to write about on the road. This will be the first real outing for my new laptop, and I want to give it thorough testing for future travels.
Stick with me. As a bonus, I’ll post here a couple of times this weekend on some topics I’ve been thinking about, just to whet your appetites.
Or not.
Mr. Robert Davis of the Missouri Davis line and I have up an new cartoon thus very day at The Dubya Chronicles, because that is, you know, what we do, trying to set the world right.
As it turns out, Mr. Frank Rich of the New York Times devotes his Sunday column to the same topic and interpretation thereof. We make no claims of plagiarism here, but we will be keeping an eye on future columns by Mr. Rich.
Just sayin’….
The way I see, if the Democrats combine this revealing moment:
with this one:
and just run the ad over and over through September and October, Johnny Old is pretty much toast.
“We’re killing your sons and daughters for oil
and we’ll keep doing it as long as we have to.”
Not much of a campaign slogan.
But it does have the advantage of being, oh so sadly, true.
The chances of my getting a response to this is pretty dim, but it’s whacked my upside the head so hard while watching Law & Order: SVU right now that I just have to ask:
Did anyone notice the gaping…and I mean, GAPING–plot hole in the first trial of the Robin Williams character, an bit of evidence unused by the prosecution which would have almost certainly insured a guilty verdict?
I mean, there is fudging and there is fudging, but this was ridiculous.
I have just read, from a source about whose reliability I have no clue, on a private mailing list among people with whom I am unfamiliar, access to which I have unbeknownst to most of them, that The Straight Talker has weeded his veep list down to three, all governors:
Florida’s Charlie Crist, South Carolina’s Mark Sanford and Missouri’s Matt Blunt.
Take it for what it’s worth.
From today’s Borowitz Report:
Presumptive G.O.P. nominee John McCain appeared at a mammoth rally in Philadelphia last night to celebrate the results of the Pennsylvania primary, calling the contest “a huge victory for me and my campaign.”
A jubilant Sen. McCain said that as the results poured in, “It became abundantly clear that the people of Pennsylvania want to send the Republicans back to the White House for another four years.”
Overjoyed McCain supporters packed the ballroom at the Philadelphia Hyatt to help their candidate celebrate what he called “the happiest night of my life.”
“My friends, tonight the people of Pennsylvania have delivered the White House to me on a silver platter,” he said, his eyes glistening. “This is the best thing to happen to me since I married a beer heiress.”
At a campaign rally of her own, Sen. Hillary Clinton also savored the results of the primary, declaring that she was “one step closer to getting my hands on a nuclear bomb.”…
[ ... ]
Elsewhere, Sen. Barack Obama agreed to a televised debate on CBS moderated by Katie Couric, saying, “If I make a gaffe, at least no one will be watching.”
Defeat from the Jaws of Victory. Seems more and more likely, don’t it?
Note that you can either subscribe to the Borowitz Report or get it via an RSS feed right there on the site and I highly recommend that you do so. It’s usually good for at least a chuckle or two each morning and, on the really good days, it inspires outright guffaws.
The way things are going, we may all be forced to embrace the laugh-so-I-don’t-cry lifestyle, so you might consider such a subscription as a medical necessity.
I don’t know if it tells us anything, but out here in the far suburbs where I voted this morning (far enough out that we probably aren’t included in all the prognosticators’ comments about how the ‘burbs are where Clinton must do well to cut down on Obama’s percentage of the overall vote), the Democratic voters were outnumbering the Republicans by about three to one, probably no big surprise (except perhaps that the disparity is not greater) given the fact that the Democratic Primary is where the action is.
Lots of women, mostly older women, in the line, and more black faces that I recall from my only other vote here, the 2006 Senatorial race. Only two Republican voters were called during my 15 minutes in line, both older women. The only candidate “representing” out front was Clinton, with four women, two of them black, manning her table.
