HAPPY THANKSGIVING

"We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures." -Thornton Wilder

Happy Veteran's Day

I know not all Veterans have been lucky enough to enjoy this sort of celebration but I think its a hopeful and joyful way to think about today.

And if you're a Veteran and can't find yourself a nurse, perhaps you can find yourself in Bangor Maine. Its not quite as sexy but I think it goes a long way:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/wayoflife/11/03/veterans.maine.troop.greeters/index.html

In case you were wondering, the two people in the picture were total strangers. The sailor is George Mendonsa and the nurse is Edith Cullen Shain. Ms. Shain didn't come forward to identify herself as the pictured nurse for over 30 yrs because "I didn't think it was dignified but times have changed." Oh how they have.

Tepid Tuesday

Boston plays tonight at 8:07. I have never understood why baseball games don't start on the hour or half hour. They always start a few min before or after the hour or half hour. Dodgers v Phillies start at 8:22. Why? Can anyone posit a good reason?

The new Ray LaMontagne album came out today. It is gewd. It is raspy voiced mellowness, perfect for back deck sitting, glass-o-wine drinking, fall evenings.

Have any of you ever heard of the phrase "stroked a check"? My brother says the term is sweeping the nation of hipster speak. I have never heard of it. . . and neither had google so methinks it can't be that popular.

That's all I've got for today . . . you shouldn't be reading this anyway, it is gorgeous outside. Back away from the computer and go outside and play.


In case you were wondering, "The Sports Gal took the week off for reasons that remain unclear."

How Do You Know the Economy is Bad . . .

. . . apparently via pictures of insanely expressive stock traders who have nothing else to do but stand around gasping in horror.


Seriously, is the NY stock exchange populated entirely with mimes? And what are they looking at? I mean yeah seeing AIG's stock plummet to 14 cents can't be all that comforting but these people look like they're witnessing puppies being tossed off a 10 story building.

In case you were wondering, this guy's my favorite:

Its Tuesday

I told you.

Eating into my BoSox joy is the fact that we have another dead mouse. It appears that there may not be a council of mouse elders sending out their more well evolved mice constituents to best our trap but rather a litter of orphaned baby mice almost too light to trip the trap. This is very distressing. . . probably more so for Kelly b/c I keep making her dispose of the little mouse bodies but I might have a solution. Check this out:


In other news, I would like someone to explain to me how a single word can mean BOTH of thee things: To utter in musical or prolonged tones, to recite in singing tones or in a monotone. That is the definition of the word intone, which I always thought meant the first part of the definition - to speak in a sing songy voice. Regardless, I don't see how one word can mean to speak in a sing songy voice AND to speak in monotone. Aren't those two thing pretty much mutually exclusive?

In case you were wondering, a US spacecraft has beamed back some first ever, high resolution images of Mercury. I wasn't really wondering about this but it was the only headline on cnn.com that I could bring myself to bother reading. I mean really here were my other options: "Rumors swirl that 'View' co-host is bolting", "Kimmel, Sarah Silverman back on", and "Power Ranger faces death penalty in yacht killing" Really?

Go Sox

So the mouse is back. Well not THE mouse I suppose, another one just like him but smarter.

In fact we've had 3 mice: the original mouse who started the tomato caper, the second mouse who was smaller and nearly escaped the trap, (Kelly found him butt first in the trap like he managed to get in, eat, and turn to bolt, before tripping the mouse crushing bar.) and the third mouse who has actually successfully escaped the trap. . . we found the trap tripped but void of smashed mouse and void of the peanut butter we used to lure him in there.

So apparently this is a bit of Darwinism on display. The mice council of elders sends out the big dummy mouse to see what happens. Blam, he gets smashed but they get a little bit of intel about the trap from his buddy who was watching and nudging "no you first Goober, you're good at this sort of thing, you'll be fine, I'll wait right here". So then they think, we just need a quicker mouse to beat the trap and sure enough they find a brave speedy little mouse who's happy to give it a go. He's marginally more successful but still smashed city.

So now they've sent out a new mouse who is apparently the right mix of speed and smarts . . . You've beaten my giant, which means you're exceptionally strong. . . . but, you've also bested my Spaniard which means you must have studied. . . so I can clearly not choose the tomato in front of me.

Anyway, its a Monday and that's all I've got right now. Oh that and the nutter post from Friday:

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/081003

In case you were wondering, Boston lost last night but they're going to win tonight so its all good.

Cruzin Cooler

Anna, I know what I am getting you for Christmas. . .




Who invents this sort of thing? And why? What impasse did someone get to that necessitated that birth this invention? I mean part of me is horrified b/c I feel like some lazy booz hound tail gate obsessed American invented it to maximize their ability to be lazy and a booz hound. But part of me is sort of proud b/c really where else but America could you invent, market, and sell such a thing. I wonder if they make a hybrid version.

In case you were wondering, it is illegal to "drive" your Cruzin Cooler while under the influence of the very beverage you're carting around. It carries a non criminal charge of "driving while ability impaired". Seriously: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,428408,00.html


It is also Nutter Day, hip hip hooray. I will warn you all that this is comic genius with a bit of a melancholy twist. Erica, it is likely to make you teary eyed.

Remember its ~3/4 of the way down Bill's article in a right hand column bar:

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/080926

Oh and I wonder if somehow I can get in touch with The Nutter about the Cruzin Cooler b/c maybe Dooze would like add this to her bucket list:

Possibly Plagiarism

Ok so thanks to Becky here is a hilarious SNL skit spoofing Michael Phelps' diet:

http://www.hulu.com/watch/34462/saturday-night-live-michael-phelps-diet

I realize it might be a little bo bo to post other posted content but it is a funny skit and Becky went to all the trouble to find it so I think it should be shared.

Randomly in addition to the SNL skit video I was recently sent two other completely entertaining You Tube videos (yeah I realize the SNL is hulu but whatev). I figure I might as well just have one whole blog entry entirely devoid of original content all in the sake of bringing my loyal audience some chuckles on this gloomy (well around here at least) Thursday afternoon.

So, if you can pardon the lack of creativity I think you will enjoy the following videos:

1. I want one of these as a pet b/c it would be a guaranteed bad day remover . . . head home after a a hard day at work, yell BOO, laugh for hours:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=we9_CdNPuJg

2. You are going to find it really hard to believe that this isn't a Monty Python skit but it isn't. Its real:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cv14BCnBWXs

In case you were wondering, there is rather large quantity of video's about goats on You Tube. I find this rather odd.

In Case You Were Wondering

1. That is a new species of cuttlefish recently discovered in Australia. He is actually one of a 100 or so new species recently discovered, which seems sort of environmentally promising. This tid bit is courtesy of Kelly, who described the little guy as "cute" . . . give him a second glance, he sort of is.

2. The nutter didn't write in her husband's column last week. She does that occasionally, just "takes a week off" from entertaining me. I think its b/c she has 2 kids under the age of 3 and a husband who is a 24/7 professional sports fanatic.

3. Michael Phelps eats 12,000 calories a day when training. Ok so this might be old news to some but I just stumbled across that fact recently. I find it astounding. Here is a day in the life of Michael Phelps' stomach:

Breakfast: Three fried-egg sandwiches loaded with cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, fried onions and mayonnaise. Two cups of coffee. One five-egg omelet. One bowl of grits. Three slices of French toast topped with powdered sugar. Three chocolate-chip pancakes.

Lunch: One pound of enriched pasta. Two large ham and cheese sandwiches with mayo on white bread. Energy drinks packing 1,000 calories.

Dinner: One pound of pasta. An entire pizza. More energy drinks.

I give it another month before McDonald's has a Micheal Phelps Value meal.


4. I know you're not really wondering if PETA is insane but perhaps you were wondering what sort of completely off your rocker things they are lobbying for these days. Well, since I aim to please I can satiate that need to know urge . . . they have petitioned Ben & Jerry's to replace cow milk with human milk in their ice cream. Yeah for real:

http://www.wptz.com/news/17539127/detail.html

The ONLY upswing of this totally bizarre and disgusting idea is the potential ice cream names . . . Double D Chocolate Chunk, Banana Booby Swirl, Your Being Breast Fed Crunch . . .

In case you were wondering, no I do not think breast feeding or breast milk is gross. I am very pro both things when they occur between an infant and its mother. I am just very anti them when someone else's breast milk might appear in my dessert.

I Love the Smell of Bacon in the Morning

This morning I was listening to a podcast of NPR's Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me quiz show when I learned about an alarm clock that awakens you with the aroma of bacon cooking. I of course had to immediately google this thing to see if it was real truth or embellished truth (Wait, Wait never fibs but they do what they have to, to be funny).

Turns out, its real. There really is an alarm clock out there called Wake N' Bacon that will begin cooking a slice of bacon 10 min before it emits the old school 'beep, beep, beeps'. . . .

http://www.likecool.com/WAKE_n_BACON--Clock--Home.html

To be honest, I don't really think it should be called an alarm clock but rather a nightstand skillet that also happens to blast shrill noise at you if the wafting of bacon scent doesn't rouse you.

I feel like are some significant downfalls, not the least of which is that although you might enjoy the smell of bacon for breakfast time and again, do you really want your entire bedroom and sheets and ultimately you reeking of it? And really, does the average American need to eat a slice of bacon every morning? And I sort of feel like dogs would pose a problem as they grow accustomed to the smell of meat originating from your bed room.

Anyway, its out there and perhaps will be a great success. It is certainly a good first step towards a kindler gentler way of starting your day.

In case you were wondering, this is just the sort of thing that prompted me to name this blog as I have b/c hey, in case you were wondering if you could start your day with the sweet scent of sizzling pork porduct, the answer is Yes, yes you can.

For Sean

I just came across this: http://www.danschawbel.com/personalbranding.htm

And if you read even the first 2 paragraphs you will swear it is an article from the Onion or an SNL skit. But its not, apparently Dan Schawbel, "personal branding expert for gen-y" is a real person with a real service.

In addition to being immediately exhausted by Mr. Schawbel's existence, the site made me think of Sean and a game we used to play decades ago when we were right out of college and living the high life as a ubiquitous yet totally amorphous consultant we used to play a game called Consultant Bingo (yeah yeah, lots of people did just I only played it with Sean). This game (at least between us) really just entailed being vigilantly on the look out for the inane consulting jargon that was infesting even the smartest and most well intentioned of people.

When we came across such nonsensical verbiage we would, in our heads of course, yell bingo and then would email the nonsense to each other. It was really a way of making sure neither of us actually drank the cool aid and succumbed to the paradigm shift of wasting our bandwidth on inside the box thinking. BINGO

Anyway, back to Dan Schwabel, just for a moment. Read the first two paragraphs of his web site and see if you can figure out what this guy is pedaling. He uses about 300 words and so far as I can tell says precisely nothing. Its brilliantly vapid and my guess is that he is actually making money personally branding gen-yers.

It of course saddens me to think that gen-yers (whoever the heck they are) feel the need to create a persona for themselves instead of just actually being themselves. That they believe that Dan Schawbel can craft a better version of them then they actually can just by being whoever it is they really are. But then again how successful can someone who's self proclaimed Major Accomplishment is having interviewed Philip Rosedale and Gina Bianchini. Who are they you might ask? I have no idea but I bet the are very adept at facilitating collaboration among information architects. BINGO

In case you were wondering, I do find the idea of a personal brand somewhat intriguing . . . in a purely for entertainment not in a for profit sort of way. If you had to come up with a marketing slogan for yourself what would it be . . . today ; )

The Nutter is Back

Ok so long story short, the wife of ESPN Sports Writer Bill Simmons gets a mini column of her own in the middle of his weekly NFL pick column. It is approximately 500 words of pure random hilarity. She is literally one of the funniest people I have ever read, not met, would love to meet.

Anyway, her mini column appears in Simmons' column every Friday. I missed last week's entirely and caught this past week's late. So, here are the past two week's columns:

NOTE: you can find the Nutter's column in the right hand side about halfway down the page. They call it "Sports Gal's Rant" but she never really talks about sports and although it is often times a rant they completely missed the fact that she's delightfully insane, so I just go with The Nutter.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/080904

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/080912

Enjoy!


Nichole usually provides me with her favorite lines of each post but she's pretty busy this fall so in case kingergarden trumps liesure blog reading . . .

In case you were wondering, here are The Nutter's weekly gems:

Week 1: "There should be a fantasy handicap that works like golf handicaps. Bill writes about sports so he should have a minus-5 handicap. Someone unemployed should be a minus-10 (BTW, I have no idea how golf handicaps work)."

Week 2: "Pursuers plan Vegas weekends or baby showers; pursuees just show up."

Lists, I Love Lists

Wanna know if your city has one of the Top 10 Worst Commutes?

According to a study conducted by the Texas Transportation Instititue, which examined the fuel and time commuters waste because of congestion, overall traffic congestion wastes 2.9 billion gallons of fuel and 4.2 billion hours.

So, wanna know where your commute ranks:
http://climate.weather.com/articles/gotgas2008a.html?page=2


While we're at it, how about the 25 best places to find affordable houses near the water and other desirable activities: http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2008/moneymag/0809/gallery.bpretire_affhomes.moneymag/index.html

Some of the places seem like viable options. North Augusta, SC seems rather delightful in fact. That said, the fact that a Human Pyramid on water skies or proximity to Jackson, MS are listed as high points makes me question that these folks really share my definition of entertainment and culture.


In case you were wondering, yes I find the photos selected in that Top 10 list to be exceedingly odd and somewhat horrifying. Not that accidents don't cause congestion but they certainly aren't the day to day reason behind it and regardless I don't think photos of grisly car accidents are necessary.

September 11th

There is nothing and everything to say about this day. I have my thoughts and feelings and I am guessing you have yours. And honestly I can't really find a way to express myself. Everything starts to sound trite, or preachy, or maudlin, or melodramatic. So, I decided not to say anything.

So, you might wonder why I would even bother with a post today . . . when, on so many other days that I have nothing to say I just wantonly abandon the blog. Well I guess the one thing I do have to say about today is that it is September 11th and that should always matter. It should always be noted. . . in whatever way you want to note it.

Me personally, I'll note it a few ways today. One of which will be a visit to the newly opened Pentagon Memorial: http://www.defenselink.mil/home/features/2008/0708_memorial/index.html

If you happen to live in the DC area or are gonna come by for a visit some time you might want to add this to your list of sights - I wouldn't pack it in with a visit to the Holocaust museum or The Wall but perhaps after some paddle boating around the Jefferson and a wander through Air and Space.

Anyway, it opens to the public tonight at 7pm and will be open henceforth 24/7.

In case you were wondering other things happened on 9/11, and they were good things. Namely JB and my Uncle Frank were born today.

Success?

So the mouse is dead. I caved and got a trap that kills and it did the trick. Dead mouse, check.

In other news, I finally joined Facebook. I finally realized after yet another get together with friends I thought I was in touch with that there is this whole other level of "in touchedness" that I am not part of. But like it or not Facebook is slowly killing off such totally useful but now obsolete things like email, IM, and cell phones. All the ways we used to keep in touch are now secondary, dare I say tertiary, to Facebook. And b/c I like keeping up with my friends and seeing pictures of Chandler's first day of kindergarden, I joined. Sheep, lemming, in touchedness, check.

That's all for now. . . I have to go count my friends and figure out what the heck Mob Wars is.

In Response to a Comment

So, I actually do read the comments you guys leave . . . I love them actually. They make me feel like I have sort of hung out with you a bit, like we sort of had a conversation and touched base.

ANYWAY, Dave's recent comment about sponsoring a competition to build/design a humane mouse removal system made me laugh because it reminded me of one of my favorite stories about one of my favorite people. Let's call this favorite person of mine Dot. .

Approximately 50 yrs ago when I was in college, I took a wood working/sculpture art class. Dot . . was in the class with me and we had the greatest, hippy dippy pot head, free spirited, prof on the planet. I am pretty sure her name was Willow or Pond Frond or something like that. She really might have been the very definition of "Art Professor at a Liberal Arts College" . . . only maybe more so if it were circa 1972 and we were at Berkley. But whatever you get my drift, she saw beauty in everything and applauded all effort regardless of talent.

Well, one of our assignments was to build a trap. In her free spirited way she didn't define the assignment any more clearly that that. As you can imagine this made me nearly apoplectic and made Dot . . just ignore the assignment. So a few weeks went by and on presentation day Dot . . appeared in class frazzled and holding what sort of resembled a mini McDonalds constructed out of scrap wood and covered in still wet paint. The ensuing conversation when something like this:

me: what is that?
Dot.. : a mouse trap.
me: it sort of looks like a McDonalds
Dot.. : it is. its a McDonalds mouse trap
me: how does it trap mice?
Dot.. : they smell the delicious fries, come through the front doors and get trapped b/c the doors only open inwards.
Dot.. : shut up
me: and who's making the fries in there? other mean spirited mice? i mean you can't fit a cat in there.
Dot.. : shut up

The greatest part of this story is that Willow Pond Frond completely overlooked the fact that there was a drive thru (let alone a staff of hair netted misanthropic mice) thereby completely negating any sort of effective trapping and gave Dot . . an A on the assignment.

So, Dave the most humane of all mouse traps has already been designed. I just need to staff it with meanie mice, teach them how to make fries, and put a mini pylon cone in the drive thru, and I am all set.

In case you were wondering, my trap was the Corporate Trap. It consisted of a business suit and button up shirt purchased at Goodwill that I converted into a straight jacket. It was my short lived rebellion against grown ups asking me what I was going to do after college.

Arguably the best trap was crafted by a female classmate who dragged a lazy boy recliner into the art studio, put a cooler of beer and a bag of chips next to it and surrounded the whole thing with a shower curtain covered in taped up pictures of Victoria Secret and Sport Illustrated Swim Suit models. She called it, The Man Trap.

Metaphors

I recently learned where the term Humble Pie came from and its gross. Not as gross as that guy's butt cut-mustashe combo but close.

The term comes from "umbles pie", umbles being the innards or leftover parts of cows, sheep, goat, whathaveyou. So umbles were what was left over after all the good stuff went to the rich folk. Ergo, someone who was "eating umbles pie" was so po they had to eat icky leftover parts.

Some how in the olden days, eating left over remnant animal parts was humbling. Today you'd pay $6 for the tubular equivalent at a ball park and feel all American pastimey about it.

Humble Pie is also a band from the 1970s . . .


In case you were wondering, it is definitely a mouse eating my maters. I found wee little poops on the stove the other night (this definitely rules Kelly out). It is also apparently on steroids, because despite the placement of a rather heavy (by mouse terms of course, I mean their arms are like a half inch long) ceramic plate the pest got into the tomatoes and ate half of one leaving the rest to goo out all over the others.

I have still not entirely warmed to the mouse trap idea but I'm getting there.

A Mouse in the House

For real, we have a mouse in the house. How do I know this, you might wonder. Well, oddly enough not through any of the tell tale mouse-in-the-house indicators:

mini poops scattered about - nope, not a one
little gnaw marks on plastic bags full of cookies - also nope
the patter-skid of little mouse feet when you walk into the kitchen - thankfully, uh uh
a half eaten piece of cheese strategically left out on the couter - nope, the freaking chunk of cheese didn't have so much as whisker marks on it from a curious mouse sniffing

So, how do I know there is a mouse in the house . . . b/c it keeps eating my tomatoes. Every morning I walk out to my garden and I pick a bountiful supply of tomatoes. I bring them inside and put them in this nice little wicker'ish basket. And there they sit until I get home in the evening and make a salad or a sauce or slice up some mozz and basil.

Well the other morning as I was loading up the wicker basket with a new batch of maters I noticed that one of the ones on the top from yesterday's heap had the middle chewed out of it. I was flabbergasted. Only one of them was eaten out of and the little bugger didn't even have the courtesy to finish it. Just a few mouse mouthfulls and off he went.



I really wasn't convinced it was a mouse b/c it was only one tomato and it was sort of a smallish "bite" and all the other dry goods on our counter top were left totally unmolested. So I thought maybe it was a bug of some sort. Well the next morning, same thing, different tomato. So, I took to covering my wicker basket-o-tomatoes with a plate. This seemed to work rather effectively for several days. And I figured it was totally some icky punk bug and not a mouse and moved on. I mean a tomato eating mouse? Odd, right?

Then one evening I forgot to replace the plate after using some of the tomatoes. The next morning, TWO tomatoes had bite holes in their middles. The little stinker had totally just been waiting for me to get careless. So now I am finding it really hard to believe that this is a a bug b/c, not that mice are known for their acumen but I sort of couldn't bring myself to credit a bug with that sort of laying in wait strategery.

My counter move? I put a piece of cheese right in front of the wicker basket and went to bed. The next morning . . . NADA. I dunno maybe there is some sort of mouse school they all go to that teaches them that if ever there is cheese just laying about it is most certainly a trap. But whatever, this mouse bypassed the cheese and went straight for the tomatoes.

I actually started getting suspicious that this was Kelly, sneaking into the kitchen after I had gone to bed and carving out a little hole in the tomatoes just to get a kick out of me getting all worked up and playing Nancy Drew and the Mysterious Vegetarian Mouse. I in fact became some convinced of this that I confronted her on it when I found yet another gnawed on tomato After she worked through her fit of laughter she pointed out that there were actually little mouse teeth marks on the tomato.

So, we have a mouse in the house. Kelly wants to kill it. I am having a hard time getting on board with that. She said that if I could find a way to gently trap it she'd be happy to go dispose of it in some field somewhere. As of yet I have not found any mouse traps that do not either snap the neck of the the mouse or glue his little feet to a box bottom until he starves to death. I dislike both of those options.

I sort of feel like my tomato plants are yielding enough tomatoes for both of us. And I am intrigued by this little guy. I mean what sort of mouse bypasses cheese for veggies? A special sort of mouse, I say. . . and I think Erica would agree.

In case you were wondering why I keep using the masculine pronoun to refer to the mouse, I think it is because when I was a kid two of my favorite books were Stuart Little and The Mouse and the Motorcycle. Both of those mice were boy mice.

Mankind is Noodlekind

Yesterday marked the 50th anniversary of the instant noodle phenom Ramen Noodles. They were invented in 1958 by Momofuku Ando and today nearly 100 billion are sold each year (this is totally gross to me). Almost more popular than the noodles themselves is Ando, who despite being entirely unknown to the hundreds of college students who consider ramen a suitable form of sustenance, is somewhat of a hero in his home country of Japan.

Ando developed Ramen Noodles at the age of 48 in response to the Japanese post war food shortage. At the time it was highly desired but considered a luxury item b/c of its high cost of Y35 (~75 cents, this is how hard life was in post war Japan). Thirteen years later Ando unveiled Ramen Cup Noodles, which we can thank for dropping the cost to like 14 cents a package and for the proliferation of completely non biodegradable polystyrene containers.

As a result of Ando's commitment to the development of food like products the Japanese government awarded him with numerous medals and accolades. His highest honor was receiving the The Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Star, Second Class. This is the 2nd most prestigious Japanese decoration for Japanese civilians. Perhaps if he had invented SPAM he would have scored the Gold and Silver Star, First Class.

In addition to all of his major awards, In April of 2008 a statue of Ando was unveiled in front of the Nissin's Instant Ramen Museum. I can't even imagine how NOT fascinating that museum must be. The statue's unveiling was attended by (and I quote) "Japanese dignitaries" who were there in attendance of The World Instant Noodle Summit. Yeah, seriously.

This of course is actually pretty small potatoes in comparison to the fact that when Ando passed away in January of 2007 they held his funeral in a baseball stadium with 6 thousand people in attendance. The funeral included speeches by the Prime Minister and a goodie bag that contained, among others things, a Cup of Noodles and a copy of a book of Ando's famous sayings.

I find the whole thing wonderfully inane. I mean he stepped up and fed hungry people in a hard time in Japan's history and had the story ended there I believe Ando would be rightly considered a heroic pioneer. The fact that soggy noodles in salty water with dehydrated corn or its sibling brick-o-noodles has lived on to this very day, does not take away from his innovation in a time of need but it sure is entertaining.

In case you were wondering, here are a few Ando gems:

"I invented instant ramen when I was 48 and Cup Noodles at 61. In life, there is no such thing as too late."

When you enter a market, do it slowly. When you withdraw, do it quickly."

"Flavors taste best to those who appreciate them"

and his most famous: "Mankind is Noodlekind."

Have You Missed Me?

In case you were wondering . . .

The US Women's team has beaten Japan 4-2 and will be advancing to the final gold medal game on Thursday 8/21 at 9am EST (probably on MSNBC). They will be playing Brazil who beat Germany 4 -1 earlier this morning.

If someone at the restaurant Julip in Jackson, MS tells you that it is "Free glass of wine night" and then goes on to explain that means that if you order a full bottle you get a free glass, what they mean is that if you order a full bottle of wine you a free EMPTY glass. No lie. And even if you ask the waitress "does the free glass of wine apply to dessert wines?" Her answer will be "yeah" and then will have no compunction charging you.

If you are a fan of the Pogues and enjoy music in Irish pubs, you should check out the band Flogging Molly. If you have ears you should check out the band Grace Potter and the Nocturnals.

Ok that's all for now. Go USA.