Day: July 13, 2009

Best redux line of the day

Jay Leno had this in his monologue the last time we had hearings for a Supreme Court nominee:

Have you watched any of these confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Sam Alito? Senators are given thirty minutes to question the guy; thirty minutes exactly. Senator Joe Biden’s question took 23½ minutes. His question took 24 minutes. And Alito is smart. He’s brilliant. Do you know what he said? “I’m sorry, could you repeat the question?”

Best Places to Live 2009

Money Magazine provides the list of America’s best places to live, leading with Louisville. No not Louisville, Kentucky, silly; Louisville, Colorado. It’s a list of the best small towns.

Some towns nestled along the Rockies are full of pretentious eco-hipsters. Not Louisville. Ice cream shops dot the historic downtown. Families grab burgers at the cozy Waterloo Café. A Friday-night street fair, with a beer garden, live music, and games for the kids, runs all summer. No wonder this down-to-earth town has appeared high on Money’s Best Places list before–and on many others.

The Louis in the Colorado town’s name is pronounced like the Louis in St. Louis.

Among the seven Rocky Mountain states, only Colorado with two and Utah with four have towns in the top 100.

The armed customer IS always right

PORT ANGELES — A 37-year-old woman was arrested after the Clallam County Sheriff’s Department said she threatened several people with a handgun in the Wal-Mart parking lot.
. . .

No one was injured.

Peregrin said Dumdie had argued with customers in the store after they had asked her to stop cursing and yelling at an employee.

He said she was upset with the employee, saying she had sold her the wrong kind of ammunition.

Olympic Peninsula Daily news

Actually, more than dead fish go with the flow

Indeed, so hallowed is the Colorado that the waiting list for private trips is measured in years, plural. And why not? Great white water, that gigantic rift in the Earth that you float through over a period of two or more weeks, the simple thought of retracing Major John Wesley Powell’s exploration of the uncharted Western territories in the late 1800s.

But the Colorado is not the only quality river experience you can find in the National Park System. Some aren’t as rocking and rolling as the Colorado is, some are more, and some are simply nice rides into solitude. With that understood, here’s the Traveler’s 10 best float trips in the national parks, in no particular order.

National Parks Traveler’s Top 10 Rivers to Ride in the National Park System

Worst of Times, Best of Times

My favorite wine writer, Louisville Juice says it’s a good time to experiment:

The wine store owners I’ve talked to have adjusted their inventories, holding fewer trophy wines in inventory and putting more promotional emphasis on $10 – $20 wines. Distributors are bringing them targets of opportunity and promotional help that keeps margins up and traffic flowing.

That’s good, at least in the short term, for…wine drinkers. For now, we’re seeing more, different wines at prices that are nearly irresistible. That makes it a good time to move up from $8 brands to something a little more interesting.

If I understood the gist of the article right (which is doubtful, but let me try), there’s very little need to pay more than $15 or $20 for a bottle of wine these days.

Must have been ASU

Remember the other day I told you my G’pa liked to tell stories. Here’s one I remember him telling — first posted here three years ago today.

The coaches and athletic director were despondent. The big game was approaching and the star player was failing all his classes. If something wasn’t done, and done soon, he wouldn’t be eligible to play. They convinced the dean.

So, the dean approached each of the player’s professors and explained how contributions from alumni depended on how the team did in the big game — and how important this player was to winning. The dean convinced all of the teachers to change the player’s grade.

All but one.

“No,” this professor insisted, “he has to re-take the exam.”

“OK,” said the dean, “if he passes, can he play?”

“Yes,” said the professor.

“Can it be an oral exam?” asked the dean.

“Sure,” said the professor.

“With just one question?”

“Yes,” said the professor, feeling his arm twist.

“Can it be a spelling test?”

“Why not,” said the professor, now just trying to be a team player.

“A one word spelling test?”

“Sure.”

“And if he gets one letter right, he passes, right?”

“OK. OK.”

“And the word will be coffee?”

“Yes, yes, anything.”

They called the player in. Spell coffee they said.

“K-a-u-p-h-y.”

Indy and Cheech and Capain Picard and a Byrd

Today is the birthday

… of Captain Jean-Luc Picard. Patrick Stewart is 69.

… of Bob Falfa. That’s Harrison Ford. He’s 67. And yes, Ford, who at one time had been in seven of the ten top grossing films of all time, has an Oscar nomination — for best actor in Witness.

… of Roger McGuinn, an inductee of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Byrds. He’s 67.

As Roger McGuinn once said of the Byrds, “It was Dylan meets the Beatles.” The Byrds combined the upbeat, melodic pop of the Beatles with the message-oriented lyrics of Bob Dylan into a wholly original amalgam that would be branded folk-rock. If only for their harmony-rich versions of Dylan’s “Mr. Tambourine Man” and Pete Seeger’s “Turn! Turn! Turn!,” drenched in the 12-string jangle of McGuinn’s Rickenbacker guitar, the Byrds would have earned their place in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Yet the group continually broke ground during the Sixties, creating revelatory syntheses of sound that were given such hyphenated names as space-rock (“5D [Fifth Dimension]”), psychedelic-rock (“Eight Miles High”) and country-rock (their Sweethearts of the Rodeo album). At a time when rock and roll was exploding in all fronts, the Byrds led the way with an insatiable curiosity about the forms and directions pop music could take. In so doing, they became peers and equals of their mentors, Dylan and the Beatles.

… of Pedro de Pacas. Richard ‘Cheech’ Marin is 63.