Monday, December 31, 2007

Badgers? We Don't Need no Stinkin' Badgers!

Unless they taste like chicken!*


GO VOLS!!
BEAT WISCONSIN!!



*Or treats, or socks, or paper from the recycling bin.

Also, you'll notice that they are not posed together for the photo because whichever one happened to have the tshirt on tried to choke and/or pull the other one around the room by the scarf.



HAPPY NEW YEAR!!
and once again GO VOLS!

Saturday, December 22, 2007

Christmas Miracle. By the Numbers.

22nd day of December

8 in the morning

1 Trip to Opry Mills ShoppingCenterOutletMallVortexofMadness

2 Hours of my life spent

1 Complete trip around the entire complex

3 Gifts purchased (and a few items for myself...)

0 Casualities or instances of muttering obsenities under my breath

God bless us, everyone.

Thursday, December 20, 2007

From NPR: "Fire Breaks Out at Vice President Cheney's Office"


Well, when you're one of the Portals to Hell,

I guess that's bound to happen from time to time...

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Happy Holidays.

From the rerun of Friends last night -

Phoebe Buffay on the subject of gravity:



"I don't know... it's just lately

I get the feeling

that I'm not so much being pulled down

as I am being pushed."


Amen, Sister Phoebe. Amen.

Thursday, December 6, 2007

I Think I Have a Bit of a Crush...

...on Dan Neil.

Who's Dan Neil, you ask? Well, I had no clue until this morning either. Apparently, he's an automotive critic for the L.A. Times.

Huh?

I know. Considering that I don't care about the fine wood detailing or superior handling of the new fourwheeldrivewhathaveyou let alone anything that goes on in the city of Los Angeles unless it has to do with George Clooney, I was a bit surprised myself.

Turns out though that ole Danny Boy (that's what I like to call him) has said something that I have been hoping and praying someone in the "mainstream" news media would say:

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A GREEN SUV.

And the fact that these words came from a guy whose job it is to review cars, and is read by guys who really like cars, makes me all the more giddy.

Giddy like I'm in the lunch room in 4th grade and the 6th grade boy with hair like Shaun Cassidy just walked by.

I discovered this man of my dreams while reading the Smart Growth America newsletter. Their quote of the week was from his article reviewing the new Mercedes-Benz advanced diesel GL320... CDI... XYZ... 8675309...

So I read the article and from almost the get-go he's off on a tangent ranting about the fact that the 2008 Chevy Tahoe Hybrid was just named Green Car of the Year. A Tahoe. Green Car of the Year? According to whom? Baby Seal Bludgeoners Quarterly?!? Well, turns out it's Green Car Journal. (I've never heard of Green Car Journal, so I shouldn't presume, but I'm guessing if we dig down far enough we'd probably find that they are published by the same conglomerate as BSBQ.)

OK, fine. So a legitimate industry magazine named it Green Car of the Year. A Tahoe. I'm sorry, but unless it's made of compressed poop from a free-range chicken ranch and powered by the happy thoughts of hippies, I highly doubt that it qualifies as green. Just having a hybrid engine DOESN'T COUNT. When you use 5,000 pounds of steel on wheels to haul an 80-pound child to soccer practice, any teeny tiny bit of guilt that you might have can not be absolved by stuffing a hybrid engine in it. Too big is too big.

Unless you are hauling actual cargo or towing something heavy (and your skis don't count!) - ANY GALLON OF GAS IN AN SUV IS A WASTED GALLON OF GAS.

And that's just what Dan says. Only better. And, well, more than four or five people (and some random guy in Portugal, apparently) actually reads what he writes.

Whether it's a hybrid SUV - or a diesel SUV, as in the case of the new Mercedes - it isn't justified:

"But, sadly, except in highly unusual cases where needs and vehicle match up precisely, these big diesels offer only a variety of complacency, coaching people to keep their over-sized vehicles while assuaging whatever guilt they might feel... I'm sorry. It's just methadone for gasoline addiction."

Now, I have to admit that part of me does disagree with Dan and myself because I also have a personal philosophy (that I'm sure I picked up from someone else along the way) that "no one can do everything, but everyone can do something." And I firmly believe that more people would live more environmentally sustainably if they didn't think it required massive amounts of money, time, effort and a bulk purchase of patchouli. It doesn't. You don't have to change your entire life and go off-grid. I promise. If everyone would just make one little change here or there, the impact would be enormous. So part of me thinks that, in the long run, if you're hell bent and determined to buy a Tahoe no matter what, then by all means, please buy the hybrid version.

But I just can't do it. When it comes to the ginormous SUVs,"these harlots of petroleum" (as my new boyfriend says) I have to draw the line. And it's time that someone out there, someone that Joe Golfshirt listens to, said what needed to be said:

"In a time of surpassing urgency — whether your pet issue is global warming, oil security or economic disruption — we are accepting, even rewarding, relatively modest and incremental changes in efficiency that require no sacrifice, no change in consumer behavior at all. This isn't going to get it done, people. The notion that American drivers can sally on as before, driving the miles and tonnage they do, and only the technology under the hood has to change, is complete bollocks."

Amen, honey!

And (GASP!) it sounds like he might even be British!

George Clooney who?!?

Monday, December 3, 2007

But They Wore the Orange Pants and Everything...


I'm waaaay late in posting this, but hey, I'm not dooce or amalah - this endeavor ain't the one keepin' the lights on and the 'fridge stocked with Diet Coke...

LSU beat UT in the SEC Championship. Bummer.
Not that I don't like winning or didn't think we could have won, but truthfully, I was just thrilled that we made it to the game considering the "frustrating" season we started out with.

But then I went and subjected myself to the various message boards and news article comments out there on the internets and apparently just being bummed-out and mildly disappointed is not acceptable. Apparently I should be full of all kinds of vile and nasty opinions and hurling insults about - especially if I'm not even a fan of either of the two teams actually in the game. What gives!?!

Maybe my priorities are all out of whack, but my top five goals for football each season are as follows:

1. National Championship
2. Bowl Game - preferably Sugar
3. SEC Championship
4. SEC East Title
5. Beat Florida and/or Alabama

According to my records, I got two out of five this year. And that's better than any other given day in my life, so I'm good.

I don't have a play by play or many family antics to regale you with this time unless you count my brother running around in his "vintage" UT shirt prior to the game and yelling "Sugar Bowl, baby!" But I do have a few people to acknowledge:

Person in Need of a Naughty Chair: Demonte Bolden. As a member of a UT defensive squad that, quite frankly, sucked much of the beginning of the season, I really don't know where you get off insulting your offense during a press conference. Shame. On. You.


Person I'd Want in My Corner Any Day: Xavier Mitchell (look - his neck is almost wider than his head!). After the game, when the media was bearing down on Erik Ainge with their cameras, he tried to stop them. Some reports have him getting too rough with a reporter. I don't usually condone violence and if he crossed the line, some punishment should come his way, but his reasons for doing so have some merit in my opinion.

Needs to be Whacked on the Nose with a Rolled Up Newspaper: ESPN and Kirk Herbstreit. Seriously. Don't you all EVER get tired of being so recklessly annoying? Breaking a news story without substantial information about Miles leaving for Michigan, just so you can announce it the morning of his conference championship game, is - at best - tacky. All you did was reignite conspiracy theories about how vengeful and spiteful people think you are. As a reporter that's a former Buckeye, were you trying to take a jab at the former Michigan assistant coach that helped to beat you. Repeatedly. Or as a network that spends most of its time kissing the asses of the Big 10 and Pac 10 did you just want to disrupt an SEC Championship being played on another network? OR are you all collectively just incompetent and unprofessional? Please let us know which it is, the suspense is killing me...

The Clinton and Stacey Two Thumbs Up Award: The University of Tennessee Volunteer Football Team and their Big Orange Britches. Way to be bold, boys. I like it. You may not have scored the points you needed to win the game, but if style points counted, you'd have killed 'em.


Best Show of Class: Post game press conference with Phillip Fulmer, David Cutcliff, Erik Ainge and Arian Foster. Ainge tried to take the blame for losing the game. Fulmer interrupted him to say that it wasn't his fault. Cutcliff blamed himself. Foster said in his interview that he tried to take the blame for losing the bowl game last year on a fumble but that the team wouldn't let him so he wasn't going to let Ainge do it either.

Worst Show of Class: Most of the Rest of the SEC East. Dear Lord. You would think we were a group of orange-panted terrorists that hijacked our way into this game and were expected to annihilate LSU. I, for one, have heard just about enough from the GatorDawgWildcatCommodore Contingency. If you're fans of an SEC East team who feels cheated that your team didn't get to play the game on Saturday, I would like to suggest a 4th grade math refresher course. If you're fans of an SEC East team with ZERO expectations of playing in the game and yet have gone out of your way to act a fool with joy as though LSU really pulled one over on us, I would suggest 1: paying attention 2: changing the channel to basketball and 3: shutting the hell up.

People I Feel Even Worse for: The Lady Vols, who beat #4 North Carolina the same day as the UT / LSU game and no one really even noticed. Sorry, Pat. Come January 2nd, I'm all Lady Vol. Please forgive me until then.




I'm sure I'll have more to say later about the impending Outback Bowl; why on earth you'd want a rodent for a mascot; why NPR's John Feistien needs to stop talking about football before my head explodes; or why the BCS is set up to allow teams that don't play a conference championship to be elligible for a national championship....

Until then - I just say GO VOLS!!

Sunday, December 2, 2007

Lights, Please...

It's now Christmastime / Advent.

It didn't start an hour after Thanksgiving dinner or even the Saturday after Thanksgiving. It started today. And if you aren't churchy or you're the kind of churchy that doesn't do Advent candles, then there's still a way for you to know.

Monday A Charlie Brown Christmas is on.

It's the unofficial start of the holiday season. There's nothing not to like about it. Here's my top five list of reasons why:

1. It's genuinely funny and doesn't dumb things down. My favorite line is from Lucy. When asked what she really wants for Christmas, she matter-of-factly says "Real estate."

2. It's very melancholy - almost sad - in parts. And who wants an overly happy Christmas special? Not me.

3. Who hasn't imitated one of the characters dancing in the play rehearsal scene??

4. It's religious without being preachy and sweet without being cheesy.

5. It has the most kick-ass soundtrack of any Christmas special. Ever.

Happy first week of Advent!