soapbox

Hanover’s version of Bonnie and Clyde are on the run no more, as the intrepid H-Po have brought the pair to justice.  Fear not little parking meters, fear no more.

Another link for those who have a NY Times account (it’s free!  sign up if you haven’t, or re-sign up if you’ve forgotten, as I had.).  I thought this was a rather interesting article on the education gap between middle-class and lower-income students, the No Child Left Behind policy, and some methods in use on a small scale to mitigate the gap.

Killington is open. Consider yourself warned.

This one is not for the squeamish veggie-types out there in blog-land. Consider yourself fairly warned.

At any rate, this clip features a hillbilly version of Rachel Ray crossed with The Nuge making some “tasty” squirrel melts!!! You know, like a tuna melt, only with squirrel meat!?!?!

Most of y’all know that I’ll eat just about anything, but even I have my limits. (As in: “Y’all can keep your lima beans and butter beans to yourself, but that’s about it.”) I think I may have just found a new one, though. Honestly, the notion of squirrel meat isn’t really that weird; I’d probably try that, given the opportunity. Making squirrel melts, though, that’s just too danged much… Nasty!

There was an interesting article in the NY Times the other day, that I think is worth a read.  Talks a bit about how the institutions (Ivy) that invented, and continued to dominate collegiate football no longer even compete at it’s highest level.  There are certainly valid and sufficuent reasons for doing so, but it is in a way somewhat sad that the institutions that have the longest and some of the most storied history in the sport no longer compete at the highest level.  Especially when you consider that the Ivy League tends to try to excell at the highest level in all it’s other endeavors, but no longer at football.  Anyway, worth a read and a bit of thought I think…

Another week, another movie review and I’ll give you the conclusion first: two thumbs up, go see it.

A lot of the James Bond movies recently have been very cartoony. Surfing on the wave from a calving glacier, fights that are finished with a “JUDO CHOP!” and leave 007 without a mark, and on and on. This one is different. James Bond is a man, he bleeds like us, he hurts like us, but he’s just so fucking cool that you want to be him.

Of course, I do have some quibbles… I’m not sure they needed to have Daniel Craig bulk up that much. There’s one scene where he’s swimming and your only thought is “wow, that’s a fucking lot of muscle.” It would also be nice if he didn’t have such nice suits* and cars, since I’m never going to have a Aston Martin DBS or a Brioni suite. Also, the book has him playing baccarat instead of hold ‘em. I suppose there have to be some concessions to modernity though. Waterboarding might have been a better torture too rather than whipping 007’s testicles with a weight on the end of a rope.**

The New Yorker has a very nice review of the movie that I would recommend reading too.

*One funny thing about Brioni. They make an amazing custom tuxedo shirt for somewhere around $600. The really cool thing about it though is that you have to send it back to Brioni for laundering. They have a special process and machines to get the collar just right. It’s something to have a shirt that has to go back to the factory every time you wear it. 007 goes through three of them in one night during the poker scene.

**Waterboarding’s been done though, in the last one that Pierce Brosnan did with the North Korean bad guys.

Rex W could be poisoning his political opponents instead of just doing so figuratively?  Sneaking a bunch of thallium into the dude’s food – that’s pretty hardcore.  Putin probably ranks right up there with Saddam in terms of disrespect for his own people.  Then again, they probably don’t consider them (Kurds, Baltics, etc) to be their people, which is the problem.  Hmm, kinda like gays and minorities?
Sorry for the lame link-post, soon I’ll get some worthwhile Rome stuff up.