Happy New Year’s Eve to all of our blog family. We will be spending New Year’s Eve at home this year — preparing for our annual New Year’s party on January 1st. I will be toasting to everyone on our extended blog family.
Tonight Leslie and I will share our traditional bottle of Schramsberg Sparkling wine. This is my wedding anniversary. Thirteen years ago, Leslie and I eloped on New Year’s Eve after eight years years of dating. (There is an ongoing dispute over calculating the event, I insist that this is our 22nd anniversary but Leslie insists on not counting the eight years of dating). We always celebrate with a bottle of Schramsberg. This was the bottle I bought after we got hitched at Alexandria City Hall. I used my house school ring to seal the deal.
The kids made it to midnight and watched the painful display of Anderson Cooper trying to restrain Kathy Griffin. It turns out the Mayan Apocalypse merely predicted Griffin’s appearance on New Year’s Eve. This included her attempt to throw cash into the crowd – a moronic idea that had to be physically stopped by Anderson to avert a disaster. If this was Griffin’s idea of a joke, it came across as an unhinged, unfunny person trying to fill time. The kids insisted that we turn to NBC instead.
We are expecting 200 friends to share in Wasabi Bloody Marys) and our traditional soup: The Bowl of the Wife of Kit Carson Soup. I have smoked two turkeys to put into the soup. I also have enough Wasabi to light up Tokyo.
Everyone drive carefully and have fun. I will be giving a toast to our entire blog family tonight (and, of course, my marriage).
Darren,
The first big and longest laugh for me in 2013.
Did you write that? You have a poetic grain. And a damn funny one.
NickS,
Cut it the skit out.
You won’t go to pieces by modifying your techniques, just a little ego, and every day a little of that is whittled away anyway by the RL.
WTF are you gaining. Not fans now. Leave your ego at the door when entering here.
Nick,
A word of friendly advice. You are pushing your luck. Big time.
MikeS, I feel so ashamed. I know I’m not worthy to be in the presence of a man imbued w/ so much knowledge as you. Thank you for your true compassion and tolerance. I now realize it isn’t sanctimony or condescension but the love and wisdom from an Ivy Leaguer. May I have some more pudding, sir?
“May I have some more pudding, sir?”
No.
Dredd:
thanks for the memories, I saw that rig when it was new up in Alaska, Dutch Harbor, I think. The rig has a concave hull to allow ice to break on it. Ice isnt very strong in tension so it breaks when it rolls up on the hull.
Stuff happens but that doesnt mean you dont press on and overcome. Look what your microbes ended up doing.
On New Year’s while we were commenting, the oil drilling rig owned by Royal Dutch Shell which Obama pushed into the Arctic to drill baby drill, ran aground.
The 18 member crew abandoned ship without loss of life in large waves and strong winds.
The vessel is aground on Sitkadiliak Island, just off Kodiak Island.
Darren:
Stop, you are killing me with your sly wit.
Oh man, you are on a roll.
Darren:
so which one is Nick and which one is Gene?
I know which one Nick thinks is Gene based on a previous comment.
Also how do you know that isnt some sort of mating call?
“Yes, it happened. I found a Zimbabwe 10 Trillion Dollar Bill on the market (eBay that is) and for an $11 investment I became a trillionaire. ” Darren
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that is so cool! and that funny looking icon in the lower right corner of the bill… isn’t that international sign language? you know, the sign adopted by truckers and angry drivers everywhere for use when they get behind you and you’re not going fast enough??? 🙂
Oh, and I almost forgot, I must give credit to where credit is due.
I would like to thank Zimbabwe’s president, The Right Honourable Robert Mugabe, for providing me all this immense wealth with this 10 Trillion Dollar bill. If he was so generous to provide me this, I cannot imagine the fortune he must have given to all his citizens over there. I am sure everyone one of them is a trillionaire many times over and live a peaceful and tranquil life under his leadership.
Don’t mean to minimize or make fun of anyone’s misfortunes in their investments but last year I made a supremely good deal in the currency market. I turned 11 dollars into 10 trillion dollars!
Yes, it happened. I found a Zimbabwe 10 Trillion Dollar Bill on the market (eBay that is) and for an $11 investment I became a trillionaire. 🙂
Here’s a picture:
Now that I got that socialized need to be someone special out of my system, I don’t have to burden myself by keeping up with the Jones Family next door, being a trillionaire means that you don’t have to prove anything; money is no longer important.
I thought about donating my 10 trillion to the US Government to pay 2/3rds of the national debt. I thought of no better way to serve my country than to give so much but my accountant said something this 10 trillion dollar bill wouldn’t pay for 1 Planck Time Unit of gov’t spending. Wow, I thought, the problem must be worse than I thought.
Maybe I could go in to philanthropy, like buying off all the $cientologist leadership, releasing all their followers from their Indentured Servitude to the church. I did not realize until late in life that church goers of $cientology had to, like folks from the 1700’s who signed Indentures to pay for passage accross the Atlantic, sign ones to secure passage to the Kingdom of Heaven. I would take such joy in allowing people into heaven without the financial burden.
Maybe I could go into politics, I could buy all the votes in the USA and corner the market. Once I got into office, I could save the lobbyists and special interests a lot of money since they would not have to pay me any money to support their interests. I could just pay for my own re-election campaign. Then I could also give a few trillion dollars to all the elected officials in our federal government, bringing the end game to a head. Having satisfied their need for money, I am sure they would now have the country’s best interests in mind and be benevolent. But, again my accountant tells me a few trillion wouldn’t wouldn’t matter one Planck Hill of Beans.
So I guess I am going to have to just sit back and be contented with the gifts the world has given me. Being a trillionaire does have its advantages, but I would give it all away for a little peace in the world. My accountant insists this would be a very small price to pay. I hope he is right.
We were earlier discussing the zero dark and dirty film, and the merits of claims and dementis, particularly the reports and statements by Senator Feinstein et al.
Here shows what reading a link from here can give. The CIA has come out and says the film is BS. (my paraphrase 🙂
http://edition.cnn.com/2012/12/20/opinion/bergen-senators-torture-film/index.html
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´From CNN specialist Statement by acting CIA director:
“Acting CIA director Michael Morell, in a letter to CIA employees on Friday, took strong exception to this portrayal of how bin Laden was found:”
“”The film creates the strong impression that the enhanced interrogation techniques that were part of our former detention and interrogation program were the key to finding Bin Ladin. That impression is false. As we have said before, the truth is that multiple streams of intelligence led CIA analysts to conclude that Bin Ladin was hiding in Abbottabad. Some came from detainees subjected to enhanced techniques, but there were many other sources as well. ”
“Zero Dark Thirty” opened Wednesday in New York and Los Angeles and will open nationwide in the second week in January.
Let’s hope that the attention that “Zero Dark Thirty” has directed to the issue of what kind of intelligence was derived from the CIA’s coercive interrogations will help to put pressure on the White House and the CIA to release to the public as much as possible of the presently classified 6,000-page report by the Senate Intelligence Committee that examines this issue”
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Let us all hope the same, I said that. Ie me too.
“
Barkin’ Dog,
Appreciate that you attempt to give us humor, but can’t find any humor in oppression just now
Do you win much by being countervailing?
I could have made a million krowns (minus 30 percent tax) on a one time deal.
The wife said; “What do you need the money for” (Was she afraid I would leave her? I was barely getting by otherwise, paid my share but not more.)
So did not sell them. They dropped from 210 kr/share to 17 kr/share oven the two following years. So now I am poverty stricken (an exaggeration),
But the shares are still lagging although the company has seen its chief rivals die and have bought the remains worth it. Philips, Lucent. etc.
Gravely OT, but it seemed to belong the season of regrets and new resolutions.
Which way will the DOW go later today when the markets open? If they crash, I am buying, if the go up then I am selling because an upswing now means a dive later. I say that Congress has created the cliff, whether physical or fiscal, and we have landed on the beach side. The water would have been a better landing but the tide was out.
Interesting discussion … I’m with Tony’s presentation of a civil society.
Now it is time to put the beans to soak as tomorrow is soup making day. The ham bone and turkey carcass left from the New Years Eve buffet will become bean soup (add a bit of beer to the finished soup to bring up the bean taste) and turkey noodle soup, respectively.
All in all, an excellent holiday season.
HAPPY NEW YEAR, Y’ALL!
I HAD A GREAT DAY, and if I told you all about it you would just get jealous. So, you only get the highlights.
My family gave me dvd copies of my favorite movies and instead of football on TV, we had
“Babette’s Feast,” followed by “Saving Grace” with Tom Conti; next was Emilio Estevez’s “The Way” with father Martin Sheen, and then my most favorite movie of all time: “The Milagro Beanfield War,” even though the book is better,
Then I come over here, and its Robert Burns’ songs! Oh rapturous glory! In my 7th grade English class, I passionately recited “My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose” while staring at the girl who occupied my dreams. At recess, I got my first full on the lips kiss from the cross-eyed girl who sat behind my bonnie lass.
In keeping with the spirit of the day, I present one of Burns’ tavern songs, “John Barleycorn”:
There was three kings into the east,
Three kings both great and high,
And they hae sworn a solemn oath
John Barleycorn should die.
They took a plough and plough’d him down,
Put clods upon his head,
And they hae sworn a solemn oath
John Barleycorn was dead.
But the cheerful Spring came kindly on,
And show’rs began to fall;
John Barleycorn got up again,
And sore surpris’d them all.
The sultry suns of Summer came,
And he grew thick and strong;
His head weel arm’d wi’ pointed spears,
That no one should him wrong.
The sober Autumn enter’d mild,
When he grew wan and pale;
His bending joints and drooping head
Show’d he began to fail.
His colour sicken’d more and more,
He faded into age;
And then his enemies began
To show their deadly rage.
They’ve taen a weapon, long and sharp,
And cut him by the knee;
Then tied him fast upon a cart,
Like a rogue for forgerie.
They laid him down upon his back,
And cudgell’d him full sore;
They hung him up before the storm,
And turn’d him o’er and o’er.
They laid him out upon the floor,
To work him further woe;
And still, as signs of life appear’d,
They toss’d him to and fro.
They wasted, o’er a scorching flame,
The marrow of his bones;
But a miller us’d him worst of all,
For he crush’d him between two stones.
And they hae taen his very heart’s blood,
And drank it round and round;
And still the more and more they drank,
Their joy did more abound.
John Barleycorn was a hero bold,
Of noble enterprise;
For if you do but taste his blood,
‘Twill make your courage rise.
‘Twill make a man forget his woe;
‘Twill heighten all his joy;
‘Twill make the widow’s heart to sing,
Tho’ the tear were in her eye.
Then let us toast John Barleycorn,
Each man a glass in hand;
And may his great posterity
Ne’er fail in old Scotland!
Salud, amigos, y buenos noche!
Looks like it is heating up already.
But there is to be hope for this new year. From the deep recesses of times forgotten, two kindred lion spirits have come to us today, taking our anger and contentions with each other and bringing that which divides us into their own hearts. These spirit lions will then be the ones to will fight our battles, absolving and relieving us of our burden to rage against each other.
To the passionate men of the blogosphere: Like the Worry Doll is to the solace of the anxious, The Lions of Contention will be such for your discord. No longer must you be bound by honor to defeat your opponent, The Lions of Contention will indemnify you and your opponent, giving you peace in the new year and from that a tranquility for our great republic.
raff,
Not only are you relevant, Mrs. raff tells us you smell like fresh baked cookies. I say that’s a win-win.
nick,
If you are stating that I am irrelevant, I will take that as a compliment since you are wrong so often. It doesn’t matter what I think of McCain’s politics. He is someone who has experienced what torture does to a prisoner. He also knows first hand what torture does not produce for the interrogator/torturer. Besides, it is illegal.
pete,
Wise advice as always.