I was born and raised in Louisiana. While my hometown is Shreveport, New Orleans was, is and probably always shall be the center of the Louisiana Universe. When I was but a lad, the state got pro-football fever, when the New Orleans Saints set up shop. I remember hearing that we’d see a Super Bowl trophy Really Soon Now – surely within the first ten years, n’est pas? Nope. Throughout most of the team history, it’s been a story of loss – sometimes snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, sometimes just being bad. Heartbreakingly, astonishingly bad. What other team could generate so much angst and ennui from their own fans that they would hide their faces in shame.
Tonight, all is forgiven.
All that faith, love, and hope has been rewarded tonight with the ultimate prize. Let us celebrate. Let there be merriment in the streets, celebration in the schools, and songs in our hearts. Let the men in black and gold be our standard-bearers, and lead the state proudly.
There is no need to make excuses any longer.
There is no need to put an asterisk beside the state’s listing.
There is no need to apologize.
Tonight the entire state rejoices.
Tonight, New Orleans looks with pride and confidence to the future.
Tonight we are as one – one state with a shared pride.
“Loser”-ania no more, indeed.
Media
[BLEEP] This.
I was surfing around my Dad’s satellite service last night, and stumbled on a rebroadcast of Blazing Saddles on AMC. Several years ago, I made a list of what I thought were the ten funniest movies ever made (in no particular order). As I recall, the list went something like this, give or take:
- Blazing Saddles (Brooks/Little/Wilder)
- Young Frankenstein (Brooks/Wilder/Feldman)
- Monty Python and the Holy Grail (Monty Python)
- Arsenic & Old Lace (Cary Grant)
- The Producers (Brooks/Mostel/Wilder)
- Animal House (Landis/Belushi)
- A Night at the Opera (Marx Brothers)
- Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (Stoppard/Oldman/Roth)
- Airplane! (Abrams/Zucker/Abrams)
- Duck Soup (Marx Brothers)
When you watch a great movie, you’re watching a collaborative effort, but one that SOMEbody (usually the director) oversees and marks with his or her creative stamp. In comedies, more so that any other art form, timing is essential. Just one frame (a 24th of a second) can make a recognizable difference in the timing of a joke.
That brings me to the hatchet job AMC did on Blazing Saddles. [Read more…] about [BLEEP] This.
The UN-candidate.
We are all, at one level or another, creatures of habit. That’s a good thing, most of the time. I mean, if we woke up to a world everyday where we had to figure out how to feed and clothe ourselves, with no idea of what would come next, none of us would leave very productive lives. But there’s a dark side to habit – that being the phenomena whereby we attempt to pigeonhole everything that happens, so we can process it, understand it (in terms of previous experiences) and move on. This system of shorthand evaluations doesn’t work at all, however, when you run smack dab up against something new. New is…different. It doesn’t fit the mold. It doesn’t lend itself to snap analyzes, or fitting into patterns. But “new” is where innovation comes from. It’s where solutions come from. And it’s where our future lies.
Consider (soon-to-be former) Gov. Sarah Palin. [Read more…] about The UN-candidate.
A Call to Arms. And Legs.
Do you love your country? I do. What are you willing to do to save it? For it needs saving. Seriously.
Understand, this is not a Democrat versus Republican, or Liberal versus Conservative issue. It’s a Right versus Wrong issue. Our country, our values, our freedoms and our inalienable human rights are under attack. From where I sit, we each have but two choices – ignore the problem and hope it goes away, or do something about it.
So what do we do?
I think the answer are the many Tea Parties that will take place across the country on July 4th.
I am against the idea of armed insurrection. To take up arms against your own country is a contradiction of the very reason to fight – how can you protect the Constitution by violating it? (Answer: you really can’t.) Until and unless the Federal Government ignores the Constitution on a wholesale basis, taking up arms is NOT the answer. And, frankly, we’re a long way from that. Unfortunately, the American people are in the position of the proverbial “frog in the pot,” with the Progressives, Socialists, Communists, and Anarchists turning up the heat, gradually. Ignore the threats to the Constitution at your own peril. [Read more…] about A Call to Arms. And Legs.
4…3…2…1…We have (iPhone) liftoff…
Believe it or not (and I’m not sure I do, yet) I’m now the proud owner of a brand-new 32GB iPhone 3G s.
Pause with me for a nanosecond, whilst I let that sink in.
In one fell swoop, I can retire my Wagon Queen Family Truckster® (a.k.a.: “Windows Mobile/Sprint HTC Mogul”) crapalicious excuse for a cell phone. Being a card-carrying propellerhead, I’m still in the process of exploring what all my new phone can do (i.e.: jacking with all the configuration options, configuring ringtones, et cetera). It may be a couple of days before I’m ready to stop jacking with it, and allowing it to become the business tool I need. But I’ll enjoy working on it in the meantime. [Read more…] about 4…3…2…1…We have (iPhone) liftoff…
The Origins of the Feces.
Everybody’s wired differently. Some people just want the facts. Others, like me, want to know what caused things. For me, it’s not enough to know what’s going on…I want to know how we got here.
If you’re a Glenn Beck listener (and if you’re not, you should be) he’s identified the Progressive Movement of the early 20th Century as the point at which politicians began remaking our government and diverting it away from our core Constitutional principles (essentially, the smallest government possible to do the job) to one that features Big Government, Big Taxes, and a trend towards treating the Constitution as a quaint document that really has little bearing on life today. [Read more…] about The Origins of the Feces.
Hey, Letterman…didn’t you used to be funny?
The (only) funny thing about the jokes made by David Letterman at the expense of Governor Sarah Palin is that they make laughable the claims of those on the left, that the media – both the news media and the entertainment business – is unbiased. Imagine the outcry if, say some “comedian” made some similarly tasteless remark about one of Obama’s daughters. I don’t think anybody on the right would be laughing. And I know the reaction of those on the left – outrage, anger, and a call for the guilty party to be imprisoned or shot.
That’s the way life goes in the ObamaNation. Understand, I’m NOT blaming Obama for Letterman’s behavior. (He has plenty to atone for on his own.) Sarah Palin is a public figure. While I believe the “jokes” Letterman regaled his audience with were disgusting, Gov. Palin is well able to defend herself. Her daughter, however, is NOT a public figure, nor should she be subjected to the kind of vile crap that Letterman spews. [Read more…] about Hey, Letterman…didn’t you used to be funny?
Updating our Look & Feel
It’s been a while, but I’ve finally gotten around to updating the site’s look. A little. When I first created the “Captain Digital” persona, I wanted to evoke a 1940’s style cartoon look. While that worked well as far as the goal, the reality was that working with the color halftone pattern was a major pain. Add to that a desire to remake Captain Digital’s image into something just a wee bit more modern and hip, and you have a need for a image refresh. Problem was, I really didn’t have time to work on it. I tried an intermediate step of using a modernized cartoon version of the original, but there were some things I wanted to fix – in particular, I felt like losing the helmet would be a good idea. So As of today, we’ve got a new version of Captain Digital. The old ones will be retired, as I can get to it.
Let me know what you think.
Hell to the Veep.
Back in the day, I had a college professor for Freshman English who’s favorite assignment was for us to “compare and contrast.” (Beowulf versus Sir Gawain and the Green Knight was his favorite smackdown.) I thought about him today when I read yet another story about Joe Biden, our illustrious Vice President, putting his foot in his mouth yet again. (Are his shoes orthopedic or orthodontic?) Think back several administrations ago, when Bush the First was in office. Back then, the media’s favorite sport was lying in wait for then-Vice President Dan Quayle to say something – anything – that they could pounce on. Remember the big brouhaha about “Potatoe”? How about his comment about unwed mothers? As I recall, nothing Quayle did or said even remotely approached the idiocy of what our current Veep comes out with on a more-or-less regular basis. And while we do get to hear about what Biden says (thanks to FOX News and conservative Talk Radio), nobody in the mainstream press seems to be able to muster up more than a “that’s just ol’ crazy Uncle Joe…gotta love him” kind of riff. No outrage. No “off with his head frothing at the mouth.” No “get this guy a muzzle, stat!” panic from the members of the fourth estate. No, they saved all that for Danforth “Full Dinner Jacket” Quayle. Nope. Nary a peep outta the media over Biden, even as virtually every Republican I know is suddenly praying fervently for the continued health of Obama. [Read more…] about Hell to the Veep.
Date Night.
I’ve always suspected that men and women are actually from two different species. While every woman I’ve ever known speaks English (okay, there was this one girl in Japan that didn’t, but we didn’t date), “speaking” English and “communicating” with English are two vastly different things. Nowhere is this more apparent than when choosing and viewing a movie together.
Keep in mind, I’m not your stereotypical “guy.” I don’t limit myself to action movies, heavy metal, or beer. I appreciate movies with an emphasis on plot and character development, jazz, classical, and folk music, as well as wine and liquor. I’m no metrosexual (ever!), but I’m also not some knuckle-dragging Neanderthal that has no interest in culture.
Having said that, what I look for in a movie is to be entertained. Let me share with you a list of some of my favorite movies, in no particular order: [Read more…] about Date Night.