Friday Fun Mostly

Damn. Winter is setting in. I know because the bare-headed, bare-legged commuters riding across big patches of ice on the roads and W&OD have their ski jackets on, which they will now wear through April 15th, regardless of the temperature. Who needs embro, when your back is soaked with sweat? Not these guys...

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I am watching the NFL game and just saw an ad for Fred Frank, the Affordable Bail Bonds People. According to the ad, "For over 20 years, we've specialized in getting the ones you love out of jail." Chico's my ass; that would make them basically the Mike Huckabee of the bail bond game. Gotta wonder though, are they targeting the NFL audience with this ad, or the NFL players? Tough call.

BTW, the game (Colts/Jags) turned into one of the best ones I've seen in years. 9 lead changes. Colts' perfect record on the line... sweet. And I found out where to go in case a relative gets arrested and needs to make bail. A win/win!

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Hey, guess what. It's not just driving your car and eating meat that rapes the planet. It's eating cheese too, according to Nina Shen Ristogi's Green Lantern column this week at Slate. So listen up, you lacto-ovo vegans: I'm tired of your smug environmentally friendly moral superiority! Your cows and goats fart methane, and your cheese? Oh mah gott... you people might as well be eating 32 ounce porterhouse stakes seared over sulphurous shale oil flames. Now walk around the village square, flogging your back with a stiff loofah and chanting, "Pie Gaia Domine. Dona eis Requiem." So you know how eating meat is horrible for the earth, and eating cheese and dairy products is too? Next up is legumes, the only other viable source of protein. And you know what legumes make you do? Fart methane. Lots and lots of it. Brace yourselves, vegans. I'm willing to put a sawbuck on Nina Shen coming up with a column about that one in the next few weeks.

Seriously though. I very much support conservation, and I would support a greater role of science in public environmental policy if I thought for a minute the public policy determinations would get co-opted by empirical science and rational cost-basis analysis, rather than the politics co-opting the other two. But this hair shirt shit - ride your bike because it hurts not because it's fun philosophy - is enough to make a man buy an H2 Hummer and stock in Exxon. If they're that into guilt, can't these people just become Irish Catholic or Jewish or something and quit bugging the rest of us?

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My friend Beth qualified on the M-16 today. Way to be, Beth! She's getting ready to deploy and take care of the troops who take care of us, so hit her blog and give her some love, willya?

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Oh, you're here for the music, aren't you? Okay.

Here's some Slaaaaaaayyyyyyyeeeeerrrrrrrrr!



Okay, let's have some old school shit.



Man, that is one of the great rock songs of all time. Say what you will about crazy old Uncle Ted, but if you were having a backyard beer blast, and you could pick any band in the world to play, Ted would be at the top of the list. Might want to leave the potbellied pig inside though. But here's my favorite Nuge song - it's totally primal.



Wow. That's like drinking a 64 ounce mug of espresso. Guess it's time to mellow a little bit. Check out Jaco Pastorius with one of his trademark tracks, The Chicken.



Jaco, who was a jazz prodigy, also suffered from mental illness and was killed in a fight with a bouncer in the mid-80s. Little more good mellow here from Medeski, Martin and Wood.



Have a good weekend, everybody.