'Catching Fire' --A Review

Catching Fire is one of those beautiful rarities in Hollywood:  a sequel that actually improves upon it's predecessor and not only that, delivers an exciting, thrilling romp into the twisted world of Panem that we had been introduced to in The Hunger Games.

As Catching Fire opens, we find that Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) and Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) are trying desperately to preserve some semblance of normality about their lives now that the two of them have returned home- however, the government is about to uproot them once more and send them on a Victory Tour throughout the other twelve districts and that means that the dangers they hoped were behind them have returned- along with some new ones as well.

The day of their departure, President Snow (Donald Sutherland) pays an unexpected visit to Katniss and tells her that he is angry with her for breaking the rules at the end of the last Hunger Games to let both Katniss and Peeta win and moreover, her defiance of the Capitol has inspired rebellion in the districts.  He also reveals that he is well aware of her romance with Gale (Liam Hemsworth) and tells her that as long as she and Peeta's love remains convincing and they toe the line that Capitol sets to try and calm down the unrest in the Districts, they might, just maybe, be all right.

But from the very first day of their Victory Tour we see that things are far from all right.   A speech at District 11 (home to Katniss' fallen counterpart Rue from the first movie) turns into a bloodbath and a riot as an old man raises a salute in defiance and is promptly executed for it.  Realizing that their families and friends are under threat unless they toe to the Capitol's line, Peeta and Katniss decide to get married and announce their engagement at the star-studded culmination of their Victory Tour.

Returning home, Katniss is ready to make a break for it and flee into the woods with Gale and their families, but Peacekeepers arrive to terrorize the populace and Katniss has to intervene to save him and that's when President Snow unveils his next nasty surprise, the 75th Hunger Games, drawn from previous victors of past Hunger Games.  Of course, Katniss' immediate plan is to ensure Peeta's safety.  She makes Haymitch (Woody Harrelson) promise to volunteer in his place if Peeta is chosen, but Haymitch's name is drawn and despite his urging Peeta volunteers to fight alongside Katniss once again.

Soon enough, they're back in the Capitol with a new Gamesmaker, Plutach Heavensbee (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and new allies and enemies to consider, they're back in the ring and facing a whole new set of dangers and challenges, but the secrets this arena hold prove to run very deep indeed as the victors are, in fact, members of a conspiracy designed to smuggle Katniss out to be a symbol of the new rebellion- however in the process, Peeta and Johanna (Jena Malone) are captured.  A distraught Katniss is sedated and she wakes to find herself enroute to District 13, headquarters of the new rebellion, Gale by her side, who informs her that her family is safe, but that District 12 no longer exists.

Overall:  The first Hunger Games move was a solid adaptation of the book but it didn't make my socks roll up and down all that much.  The sequel packs more action, more plot development and more of pretty much everything into it and the viewer is left satisfied and wanting more.  The themes of dependence versus independence (Katniss and Peeta, locked together despite Katniss wanting to be free, the District dependent on the Capitol, yet wanting to be free) are deepened here and the full scale of the brutal repression of the Capitol's dystopia becomes clearer.  In all, this feels like a more complete movie that its predecessor and, as a result, I can't wait for Mockinjay- Part 1 and Part 2.  **** out of ****

This Week In Vexillology #75

Last week, we took a look at the flag of Ukraine- but this week, we're heading to the Middle East to take a look at the newest version of a flag whose history stretches all the way back to the Arab Revolt- yes, that's right- you can't spell 'quagmire' without Iraq!

The basic horizontal tricolor of red, white and black has remained unchanged since the ascension of the Ba'ath party in 1963.  What has been modified over the years are the symbols in the middle. (More on those in a minute.)  The red in the tricolor represents courage, the white represents generosity and the black recalls the triumph of Islam- the symbols in the center have always been green, the traditional color of Islam.

Now to the good stuff- the symbols.  From 1963-1991, the flag of Iraq looked like this:

From 1963 to about 1986, the three stars represented hopes for Arab unity in the region- which started to dim after the breakup of the United Arab Republic (Egypt and Syria) in 1961.  That flag looked like this one, except it only had two stars (one for Egypt and the other for Syria)- this flag had a third star, representing Iraq and Ba'athist hopes that Iraq would join another union between the three countries.  Saddam Hussein altered the meaning of the stars in 1986 to represent the tenets of the Ba'ath party motto: Unity, Freedom and Socialism.

From 1991-2004, the flag looked like this:

The Arabic script between the stars represents the Takbir (the words Allahu Akbar, which means God is Great)- but the sort of interesting kicker to this is that the form of the Takbir on the flag is in Saddam's own handwriting.  (Bonus knowledge, thanks to Wikipedia:  as with other flags inscribed with Arabic script, the hoist is to the right of the front of the flag- so instead of having the flagpole on the left side of the image, it'd be on the right.)

From 2004-2008, the flag remained the same, only this time the Takbir was cast in the traditional Kufic script- which is used, before the stars were dropped and the flag assumed it's present form.

So I guess the more things change, the more they stay the same- (the irony of applying that statement to the region's geopolitical mess is not lost on me either.)  Give it up for the flag of Iraq- and remember, until next time, keep your flags flying- FREAK or otherwise.

Bookshot #75: The Years of Rice and Salt

I've read my fair share of alternate history books over the years and this magnificent, beautiful gem from Kim Stanley Robinson might be the only one that truly lives up to the notion of a history that is really 'alternate.'  Counter-factuals and 'what-ifs' have spawned a whole sub-genre over the years:  What if the south won the Civil War?  What if Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia and Britain and France had decided to fight?  What if, instead of America, they discovered the lost continent of Atlantis in the middle of the Atlantic?  What if Spain had conquered Britain in 1588 and the Armada had not sunk?  I could go on and on and on- there's bookshelves of these things.

But what they all have in common is that none of the break free from the mold of history that's already existing:  they tweak existing events and change the outcomes, but stay within the framework of events that have gone before- Kim Stanley Robinson apparently wasn't satisfied with that, because he set himself probably the biggest challenge I've ever seen in this genre and pulled it off with his usual deeply engrossing, carefully literate style:  What if the Black Plague had wiped out Europe?  What kind of world would have then?

You could have a lot of fun with a concept like that just by setting in it in the present day, but Robinson goes big or goes home by laying out a world history that stretches over centuries by dividing the novel into ten books- with characters are are loosely connected throughout the narrative by reincarnation (everyone gets to spend sometime in the Bardo at the end of each book), with each character having the same letter of their first name throughout the book.

The world that Robinson draws looks very different from our own:  Islam dominates the Middle East, Africa and pushes up into Spain and then France as they start to repopulate what was Europe before the plague.  In the east, China becomes the primary world power- discovering the New World, but deciding against conquest and leaving the native populations largely unmolested- but not before introducing new diseases into the population.

We see early concepts of feminism emerge in the progressive Emirate of Nsara, which Utopian-minded Muslims marched north from Spain to found in southern France-  it also stirs in the writings of a Chinese Widow named Kang Tongbi.  The scientific method is founded by an Alchemist in Samarkand.   Industrialization starts in the Indian State of Travancore and completely changes the game- and a Japanese refugee, fleeing from the Chinese domination of his people reaches the Iroquois people and tells them to make guns and fight to preserve their independence and way of life- and they do.

The inevitable clash of civilizations comes between the Chinese and Islam- a Long War lasting nearly sixty years and everything that follows that is just recovering, learning and growing from such a titanic disaster.

Overall: Robinson brings his usual literary genius to the proceedings- his characters are well drawn and believable- and the world he builds in The Years of Rice and Salt is believable, fascinating and packed to the gills with subtle details (they use air ships, not airplanes- and the units of measurements are different- Robinson covers every angle.) Meticulous, beautiful in structure, haunting in the questions that it raises and the world it imagines snares the reader in a beautiful book.   I had given up on Alternate History as a sub-genre.  This book vaults to the head of the class- you could probably slot it right in next to Phillip K. Dick's Man In The High Caste.  **** out of ****

Not As Bad As I Thought, But Still Bad

CNN paused from it's 24-7 coverage of the latest on the search for Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 to fling a disturbing bit of news into my Twitter feed this morning-  I thought that it was announcing that the Supreme Court had struck down limits on the amount of money people could donate to any one candidate during an election.   I had a bit of a Twitter rant about it, but then I actually read a news article about it and discovered more than what CNN could fit into 140 characters.

It's not quite that bad, but it's still pretty bad.  Instead, what they've done is kept the overall limits on money, but said you can donate that amount do however many candidates you want.  So, if you're a billionaire and want to go shopping for a Congressperson or a Senator, well, get the old Amex Black out of the wallet because it's party time.

Conservatives are, of course, responding to Liberal rage with snark about 'free speech' but here's where I come down on it:

1.  Money isn't speech.

2.  Direct contributions should be capped at $100 for everyone, regardless. (Don't get me wrong: I think if you want to cut an ad endorsing a candidate with your own money and put it on television, you should be free to do so.  If the NRA or the Sierra Club wants to endorse a candidate, they should be able to shout it from the rooftops- but by allowing people with more money to contribute more directly to a candidate, you're essentially legalizing bribery and peddling influence- because, come on- you think the guy who gives $25 is going to get more attention than the guy who gives $2500?  I don't think so.)

This is one of those things that absolutely enrages me because it's essentially selling off our democracy one court ruling at a time.  My Constitutional Rights are not commodities.  They're not predicated- nor should they ever be- on how much money I can contribute to a political candidate.  But the Supreme Court is basically saying that the rich can have more Constitutional Rights than everyone else.  Well, fuck that.  The idea we need be striving toward is one in which my contribution to a political party/candidate can get me as much influence as Donald Trump's contribution to that same political party/candidate.   Everyone needs to be playing by the same rules with this stuff to ensure the health of our democracy.  This ruling essentially says 'one standard for Richie Rich and another standard for you peasants.'   And Justice Thomas even noted that the court's ruling setting a cap on individual donations is weakening already.  That's going to be the next to go.

And if we're going to go after Judges on the State Level who rule in favor of gay marriage, I don't see why Supremes that rule in favor of the super-rich should be held to a different standard.  Someone needs to tell Al Franken to drop his silly shit about a Constitutional Amendment to overturn Citizens United- let's hold the Supreme Court accountable to the will of the people, shall we?  Retention votes, every ten years!

The 'Girls' Thing

All of Iowa City is abuzz with rage, disappointment and other negative feelings following the University's decision to deny HBO's request to film on campus for their hit show, Girls.   Why would Girls be coming to our fair metropolis?  Well in the 3rd Season Cliffhanger, it was revealed that the main character, Hannah Horvath had, in fact, been accepted into the Writer's Workshop right here in Iowa City.

So why the denial?

Well, first came the rather weak kneed response about 'the potential disruption to campus.'  If they film during the summer, as I expect they probably will, then the disruption will be minimal, because, well, no one is here.  Denial reasoning:  weak.

Next came the rather laughable notion that the University had to say no to 'protect their reputation.' Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha...  No, seriously.   They want to protect their reputation as the Number One Party School in America.  Denial reasoning: ridiculous.

Finally came the interesting one:  they had read the plot line and it wasn't necessarily a positive one- they are, of course, not going to reveal the plot line out of respect to the show's producers, but I think they might be on firmer ground with this one.  I'll admit I have only seen Season 1 of Girls, so I have no idea if the characters have developed any more (Lord, I hope they have) but if Season 1 was anything to go by, Hannah Horvath was self-absorbed, superficial, shallow and the most annoying person I've ever seen on television.  If I would have Hannah Horvath in real life, I would have avoided her like the plague or gotten mildly drunk with her, lost my shit and told her to STFU and get a damn job and quit whining so damn much.

Point is:  she's an East Coast Hipster type and I could buy that she would spend her time in Iowa City shitting all over the University and the town.  Which would make us look bad and be very annoying.  (Other possibilities include: she could get drunk and crazy down on the Ped Mall, she could get raped- I would hope not, obviously- but it's HBO, so I have no idea what goes into making a storyline for a character.)

But, there's also an argument that any exposure is good exposure and seeing Iowa City right there in HD on premium cable would have been pretty damn cool, I have to admit.  But, I get it.   They can't control the plot-line and if it doesn't make us look good, I'd say, 'take a hike.'

'Bird On A Wire' --A Review

I'm kicking it old school this week and going back all the way to 1990 to review the Mel Gibson and Goldie Hawn thriller Bird On A Wire.   I stumbled across it randomly one morning on Encore and was so tickled to see it again, that I sat down and watched the whole damn thing over again, just for kicks.   To me, Bird On A Wire falls into that broad category along with movies like The Firm and The Pelican Brief that were genuinely decent to good movies that you might not actually run out and buy, but you'd probably sit down and watch them if you came across them randomly on television.

And surprisingly, Bird On A Wire holds up pretty well, even after these years.   Mel Gibson (you know, I kind of miss the Mel Gibson of the late 80s, early 90s before the crazy hit.   He should uncrazy himself and hook up with someone cool like Tarantino and get back into things.)  is Rick Jarmin, a small time drug dealer who helped put a crooked FBI agent, Sorenson (David Carradine) behind bars and has spent fifteen years in Federal witness protection.   He runs across his former fiancee Marianne (Goldie Hawn) at a Detroit gas station and soon, thanks to the help of a crooked FBI agent Weyburn (Stephen Tobolowsky) who is in league with the now released Sorenson and his goons, his pleasant, quiet life at the gas station is in flames (literally) and he and Marianne and reunited and on the run-with Rick getting shot in the butt for his troubles.

From Detroit, Marianne and Rick head across Lake Michigan to Racine to one of Rick's prior cover jobs (as a hairdresser) where he retrieves his address book to find his original FBI contact who got him into witness protection (who is now retired.)   From Racine, they make their way to yet another of Rick's prior lives, a farm somewhere in Wisconsin, where Rick and Marianne meet a former girlfriend of his, Rachel.   The goons catch up to them and after a shoot out and a brief helicopter versus crop duster battle, they flee again, heading this time toward St. Louis to hopefully clear this up once and for all.

Obviously (and perhaps inevitably) Marianne and Rick renew their romance but eventually, upon reaching St. Louis they discover that Rick's original FBI contact has developed Alzheimer's and doesn't remember who Rick is (or kind of does- either way, he's not much help) but he does remind Rick that he used to work at the local zoo and maybe that would be a good place to lead the goons too, as Rick knows his way around the place and would have the advantage.  Sure enough, Rick and Marianne have a climactic confrontation at the zoo involving waterfalls, lions, tigers, monkeys, pirhanas and pretty much everything else you can imagine.  Rick ends up dangling on a wire over a large cat pit and Marianne (when offered incentive of the happy ending she and Rick almost had fifteen years before) eventually retrieves him and they sail off into the sunset on a yacht named Mr. Wiggly. 

Overall:  This is a good 'there's nothing else on television' type of movie to watch and despite the general weirdness of having a thriller go from Detroit through Wisconsin and end up in St. Louis (hardly the exotic locale you usually expect in these types of movies).  Mel Gibson and Goldie Hawn bounce nicely off of each other, the music is awesomely late 80s and early 90s and as always seems to happen in these movies, they sail off into the sunset on a yacht.   A pleasant blast from the past- but hardly Oscar winning material either.  ** 1/2 out of ****

This Week In Vexillology #74

I've been putting off writing this one for about a month due to the current, uncertain international situation but I can't put it off any longer.  So, this Week In Vexillology, we're going to cross our fingers that Russia doesn't  do anything crazy (like decide that they want the whole damn country back) and that this flag will continue to fly for years to come.  Yes, it's the flag of Ukraine:

Adopted on January 28th, 1992 for national and civil usage, the symbolism of the flag is very simple indeed: per Article 20 of the Constitution of Ukraine, the blue represents the clear blue sky over a yellow wheat field. What gets interesting is the long history of the flag:  it dates back to the 1848 Spring of Nations.  It showed up briefly in 1918 for the short lived Ukrainian People's Republic, but there was no official flag during the Soviet Occupation until the flag of the Ukrainian SSR was adopted in 1949.  The blue and yellow bicolor was readopted after independence in 1991.

While the flag of Ukraine might be relatively simple, the Coat of Arms of Ukraine is far more striking:

Known as the Tryzub, the national coat of arms features the same colors found on the Ukrainian flag, a blue shield with a gold trident.  It represents the triune God on earth and in heaven.  It was adopted on February 19th, 1992 as a representation of the seal-trident of Vladimir the Great.

So there you have it- the flag and the arms of the Ukraine and yes, it's my fervent wish that they continue to fly for many years to come.  So, until next time, keep your flags flying- FREAK or otherwise.

The General Mess of 'Prosecutorial Discretion.'

Kids, I've been avoiding this one for awhile now, but I feel like I'm ready to take it on and dip my feet in the debate that's roiling local politics and leading to runs on tin-foil in the local grocery stores so that members of the Press-Citizen Commentariat have their hats all ready to go when someone sends a letter to the editor or writes another opinion piece about it.

Yes, I'm putting my two cents in about the race for County Attorney.  It's incumbent Janet Lyness going up against the challenger John Zimmerman.  While I'm more or less indifferent to Janet Lyness- she seems to do a good job and has shown a commitment to increasing alcohol and drug diversion programs in the county, which I think is a good thing, John Zimmerman seems to have embraced all the tendencies that I find absolutely rage-inducing about white Progressive Liberals.

First of all, it's important to note that Mr. Zimmerman has not yet passed the bar.  He hopes to by the time election day roles around, but so far, he's graduate law school, has a law degree but no license to practice law, which I'm also assuming means that he doesn't have a lick of practical experience working in the court room, which I think is sort of important for a County Attorney to have.

Second of all, his major beef and the main plank of his platform is that he wants to end prosecutions for marijuana possession and public intoxication in Johnson County.  This is troubling to me on several aspects- first, Mr. Zimmerman might be quite right and might indeed have the discretion not to prosecute these cases.  However, this discretion in no way extends to any law enforcement agency in the county.  He may well have the luxury of some discretion, but until state laws are changed, law enforcement does not.   This is what I find so hair-tearingly frustrating about Mr. Zimmerman's candidacy.  At a time when momentum for reform of our insane drug laws is building nationwide, the focus should be on changing those laws, not 'making a point' or 'taking a stand.'  Everything that Mr. Zimmerman takes issue with- all of it can be solved by merely changing the law.  You change the law and you change the enforcement- it's that simple.

Finally, there's the 'disproportionate minority contact' thing.  This is an incredibly vague term, to me-- in the scope of what law enforcement officers do on a daily basis, there's really not that much that officers initiate themselves.  (Traffic stops would be an example of something they initiate themselves.)  The majority of time, cops go where they're sent- which means, someone calls 911 and says 'HELP' and they go.  That's the job.  So where is this 'disproportionate minority contact' coming from?  Is it officer initiated?  Is it not? If it's the former then there should be a conversation about the DMC charge and potential racial impropriety on the part of the police, it's the latter, well then, that raises a whole different kettle of chips.

I think blaming the cops is easy- it's especially easy in a town full of Progressive White Liberals that pat themselves on the back and say 'I voted for Obama twice, there's no way I could possibly be racist'- but ignores a conversation that Iowa City has needed to have for a very long time indeed.  People talk about 'newcomers' or say things like 'Oh, they're from Chicago.'  Whole neighborhoods south of the highway are generally referred to as 'the ghetto.'  Does anyone really believe that people don't want the Post Office to move down to Pepperwood Place because it's 'inconvenient?'   For all it's pretensions at being a bastion of tolerance and diversity, pop the hood on this town and you'll find that Iowa City is exactly like every other small town in Iowa.  Back biting, gossiping, a distrust of outsiders and yes, thinly or not so thinly veiled racism can be found if you look for it.  So if you pick up the phone and call 911 because you don't like the look of the African-American teens walking around your neighborhood, is that the cops being racist or is it you being racist?

Don't get me wrong:  I'm not discounting the possibility that law enforcement has work to do as well- but I think it's incumbent upon law enforcement to always be looking for ways to better serve everyone in their community- including people of color.  And yes, law enforcement attracts all types of personalities, including some that fit every stereotype you can think of about cops.  But if I've learned one hard and fast rule about cops that is about as close to universal as you can get it's that they hate paperwork- and trouble- whether it's trouble they find on a traffic stop or trouble they get sent to via a 911 call always equals paperwork.  Not being a person of color, I can't discount (nor am I going to be so blind as to my white male privilege as to deny some of these stories aren't true) the stories of potential racial profiling on the part of local cops- but the narrative that local cops are always out 'looking for trouble' or 'looking for young, African-American males to harass' runs contrary to everything I've experienced while working in law enforcement.

Needless to say, I'm not voting for Mr. Zimmerman- in fact, it's awfully tempting to change my party affiliation just so I can vote against him- but to be fair to the guy, I was oddly neutral about it all, figuring that the Townie Elite would line up against the Libertarian-Lefties and back Lyness, but then I listened to an absolute trainwreck of an interview he gave on KCJJ and noticed that even John Deeth wasn't lining up behind this guy and I figured if you've lost Deeth, you've lost Iowa City and probably Johnson County.

As always, I speak for myself and myself alone with stuff like this.

Squeaaaaal!

You've seen the ad, right?  You haven't?  Well check this out:



Joni Ernst, for those of you not in the know like me is a Republican State Senator running for the GOP's Senatorial nomination and the right to take on Bruce Braley for the seat vacated by the retiring Tom Harkin in the fall.  She picked up an endorsement from Mittens a few weeks ago and now, with this ad, she has (in my opinion, anyway) leapt to the front of the GOPer pack. (She's also picked up another big endorsement from Sarah Palin and Bruce Braley had his first whoopsy-doodle of the race as well.)

The GOPers were getting themselves into a bit of a mess with the Senate race.  Seemed like everyone with a pulse was running for the nomination- or at least thinking about it.  Ernst's ad may not be everybody's cup of tea, but then again, it's not supposed to be.  This was aimed squarely at GOPer primary voters and checked all the boxes they'd want to hear about (balanced budgets, cutting pork, repealing Obamacare, etc) but now that it's gone viral, it's also upped her name recognition in a major, major way.  If you had no idea who Joni Ernst was, you do know.

Whether it vaults her ahead of the pack and starts clearing the field a little bit, I don't know- but if she was looking to get some buzz and attract some attention, well, then, mission accomplished.  (Lol.  Speaking of name recognition:  looked up that ad and realized that her name was JONI not Jodi.  My bad.)

10 Authors (In No Particular Order) Part IV

Homer:  Yeah, I'm going to go super old school with this one.  It might seem like a choice that somewhat out of left field, but I can honestly say that nothing has had a greater impact on developing my love of reading than the translation of The Illiad we had kicking around the bookshelves as a kid.   Yes, I requested that Mother Cigar read it to me when I was five years old and, together with The Odyssey, I think they form the touchstone of the foundation of classic literature.

I can't remember the exact translation of The Illiad we had- it wasn't in poem form, I know that.  Instead it was in literary form- with characters and narrative and sweeping, epic battles and action.  My favorite chapter was when the Gods and Goddesses came down to the battlefield and took sides, fighting with each other and by the end, when Priam goes to retrieve the body of his son Hector, I was pretty much hooked on Greek mythology.

The Odyssey was a natural book to read after that (my favorite part was when Odysseus shoots the arrow through the axe handles and then is all like "BOOM, I'm back and I know you've been trying to get on my wife!") and then I devoured all kinds of Greek mythology.

I got mildly obsessed with it.  To this day I can't watch the Disney atrocity that was Hercules without getting very very annoyed about it all.  I mean, first of all, the Greek pronunciation was Heracles, not Hercules and for crying out loud:  Hades was never the bad guy- if anyone was it was Hera- but given her philandering, douchey husband, she had a right to be majorly pissed off about it.

Brian Jacques: If The Illiad got me into Greek mythology in a major way, the original Redwall trilogy (Mossflower, Redwall and Mattimeo) probably marked my introduction to fantasy and science fiction.  Jacques was to my childhood what Veronica Roth, Suzanne Collins and J.K. Rowling were to the kids of today.  New books in the series were events and one trilogy turned into another trilogy (Mariel of Redwall, Joseph The Bellmaker and Salamandastron) but eventually, sometime after Martin The Warrior, I lost interest and moved on to other stuff, but the original trilogy remains amazing- Mossflower especially is a standout novel that if I stumbled across it on a bookshelf somewhere, I might be inclined to sit down and read, just for the hell of it.

Brian Jacques actually came to town when I was young and we all gathered to hear him do a reading at Hoover Elementary and when it came to question time, I was so star-struck, I flubbed my question:  a hallmark of Jacques' books are the sumptuous feasts that his characters always seem to have and the descriptions of the food were always amazingly detailed and mouth-watering.  I meant to ask if he had any culinary background and that was why his descriptions of food were so good.  Instead, it came out as:  'Do you like to eat?'

Yeah.  Not my finest hour.

The Practical Guide To Entertaining The Cigarillo #5

After several months of hiatus due to the long, long winter, The Practical Guide To Entertaining The Cigarillo is back and better than ever and ready for spring and warm weather!   We sort of fell down over the winter months.  Our creativity was stretched a little bit:  the bitter cold kept us indoors a lot of the time and although we wanted to get The Cigarillo out sledding, we never got around to it.  (Personally, I think he's probably going to get a lot more fun out of sledding next year- but we'll see.)

However, we haven't been hibernating like bears either:

Tot Time
Mercer Park Aquatic Center

It's odd living as close to Mercer Park as we do that it took us so long to actually cross the street and go check out Tot Time, but now that we've been a few times, not only is it fast becoming a favorite of The Cigarillo's, but it's cheap ($1.50 a kid for anywhere from 1-2 hours of play) and every other day they trot out inflatable bouncy castles that the kids just go wild for.   Other than that, it's just basically a gym full of toys and play castles for the kids to go crazy on- but there are also enough Cozy Coupes in the place to fill up a car dealership and The Cigarillo hops Cozy Coupe to Cozy Coupe and loves nothing more than to sit back, relax and chill in them.  He doesn't really drive them all that much- but he does love them.

All in all, it's cheap, easy entertainment for kids and as it's just a hop, skip and a jump (literally in our case) away, it's a nice option to have in our back pockets for when the weather is colder or when we don't want to drive anywhere.

Walks
Various Parks, Trails, etc.

It may seem odd to just go for a mini-hike with your two year old, but it's something I stumbled across randomly one day.  It was one of the warmer days that have popped up now and again and I wanted to get out of the house and I think The Cigarillo did too, so after some thinking on my part, we put his boots on and headed to Hickory Hill Park and went for a walk.  And you know what?  He loved it.

There are some unusual challenges when going for a stroll with a two year old:  there's a ton and a half of new noises, sights and sounds that tend to slow things down.   He loves to stop and listen for strange bird noises.  He likes to stop and point at the mud and the last remnants of the snow.  Whenever he steps in mud, he has to announce that his shoes are now dirty ('doo!  doo!') and look at them carefully and whenever we met another person on the trail, it threw him for a loop in that:  'OMG WHERE DID THAT PERSON JUST COME FROM I'M A LITTLE FREAKED OUT BY THIS' kind of way.   In other words, it's doable, but it's slow going.  Lots of starts and stops and because The Cigarillo is a big boy now, even when he starts flagging a little bit, can I carry him to speed up the process?  Of course not.

So far, we've done a couple of rounds of Hickory Hill--  the second time I almost got us lost because it's been years since I've spent serious time in Hickory Hill and all the trails seem to have shifted ever-so-slightly but we've also checked out the Clear Creek Trail, which is paved and thus avoided excessive mud on the shoes, which is something I'm very much in favor of.   Hopefully as it gets warmer we can expand our repertoire a little bit and I know it will be very nice to go for walks in Hickory Hill without having to worry about so much slop and mud.

Introducing Churchill's Brioche

I love to cook.  I wish I could tell you that I had some sort of underlying food philosophy that I wanted to share or explore, but what it comes down to is that plain and simple, I love to cook.  Whenever my nights off align with the Missus' nights off, we both love cooking dinner together and there's nothing more I love than trying a new recipe that I've stumbled across.

And really and truly a lot of that is down to the Cigar Parentals.  Anyone who has ever had the pleasure of meeting Mother Cigar has either tasted her cooking or seen her baking.  She practically lives there- and when it comes to cooking, it really ain't nothing but a family thing.   Her mother cooked, she cooks and she passed on to all the Cigar Siblings and I a love of cooking and being in the kitchen.

So, it's with a great deal of pleasure that I'm happy to announce that we're branching out here at The Cigar and all my food-related blogging is migrating over to our new Tumblr Site, Churchill's Brioche. Come check it out and if you're reading this and on Tumblr- follow along.  I'm always good for a follow back.

Bracketology '14: A No Good, Very Bad Sunday

I actually had hope yesterday.   My bracket was in surprisingly healthy shape yesterday.  The upsets that were screwing me were the same upsets that were more or less screwing everyone equally, so I've been sitting in the high nineties. percentile wise on ESPN.com's Tournament Challenge.

The bad news started yesterday:

Dayton won.  This wasn't really super-bad news for me as I had Ohio State going to the Sweet 16 over 'Cuse anyway- but it was still surprising.  Didn't see this won coming at all.

Villanova lost.   This one I had a feeling about.  Villanova is probably the shakiest of the number 2 seeds in the tourney and they proved it by losing to UCONN- again, a team that I didn't see coming at all.

The bad news was compounded today:

Kansas lost.  I seem to do this every year.   I always buy in to the whole 'Rock, chalk, Jayhawk' mystique and it bites me in the ass.  This year was no exception.

Wichita State lost.  Not unexpected, but still disappointing- but taking them to the Elite 8 was a calculated risk.  The way I saw it was that if they could get past Kentucky and Louisville then they could conceivably win the whole damn thing.   Test #1 was today and needless to say, they didn't pass.

Tennessee won.  I admit that I'm still being fairly chill about Iowa losing to them in the play-in game, but man.  Hard not to contemplate what might have been had they pulled off the win:  beat Tennessee, U Mass and Mercer and we could have been in the Sweet 16 playing Michigan, a team we waxed by 20 points or so at home.   In hindsight, of course, everything is 20-20 and I'm sticking with my position that crawling back out of the pit of darkness and back to relevance and respectability just by making the Big Dance is a win enough.  20+ wins and either NIT or NCAA appearances (though preferably the latter) is the benchmark for what I'd consider minimum standards for success for this program and it's a reasonable expectation for fans to have, I think.  But: bygones, etc, etc.

Creighton lost.  Damn it.

Despite all that, three out of four of my Final Four are still standing as is my national champion pick, so a Sparty Party is still possible and weirdly enough I'm still sitting at 92% in the ESPN Tournament Challenge, which really isn't all that bad when you think about it.

'Thor: The Dark World' --A Review

As with the first Thor movie, I found myself pleasantly surprised by Thor: The Dark World.  The usual suspects from the first movie are back-  Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), Odin (Anthony Hopkins), Darcy (Kat Dennings), Erik Selvig (Stellan Skarsgard) with Loki (Tom Hiddleston), Frigga (Renee Russo), Heimdall (Idris Elba) and The Warrior Three (Ray Stevenson, Zachary Levi and Tadanobu Asano) along with Lady Sif (Jamie Alexander.)

This time they're up against Malekith (Christopher Eccleston) and the mysterious Dark Elves, who were destroyed long ago by Odin's father, Bor and the source of their power the Aether safely contained.  Some of them survived, however and now with the Nine Realms beginning to align once more the portals between worlds are thin and they are awakened when Jane Foster, investigating anomalies caused by the alignment, stumbles across the hiding place of the Aether and absorbs some of it.

Thor has been busy since the events of Thor and The Avengers- with the rainbow bridge between realms (the Bifrost) repaired, Thor has been fighting to bring peace back to the nine realms that have been thrown into chaos due to the broken Bifrost and the tumult stirred up by The Avengers.  His heart belongs to Jane Foster, despite urgings of his family to consider a longer-lived Asgardian alternative (Lady Sif) he continues to have Heimdall watch over her.   When she vanishes (when she stumbles across the Aether) Thor returns to check on her and the two are reunited.   With the Aether infecting her, Thor takes her back to Asgard to see if Asgardian technology can give them answers.

After some awkward introductions (Odin is all like 'lose the mortal chick, dude!') the Asgardians realize what has infected Jane and that it heralds the return of the Dark Elves and sure enough, sensing it's re-emergence, they come after it, attacking Asgard in the process, trying to find Jane.  Thor's mother, Frigga is killed protecting her and the Dark Elves are forced to retreat.  With Odin out for revenge and Asgard defenseless, Thor joins up with Loki and his friends to sneak Jane off world to lure Malekith and the Dark Elves into going after the Aether- where they will draw it out of her and be vulnerable enough that Thor might be able to destroy it.

Thor is unable to destroy the Aether and Loki is seemingly killed in the process- but Thor and Jane figure out that Malekith is planning to set off the Aether and the center of the convergence of the Nine Realms in Greenwich and in doing so, destroy the universe to restore the Dark Elves to dominance.  They make their way back to Earth and together with Jane's friends, they confront Malekith and Thor eventually transports him back to his world where he is crushed by his own ship.

Thor makes his way back to Asgard, where he tells Odin that he cannot be King and of Loki's sacrifice before returning to Earth to be reunited with Jane- as he leaves, Odin is proven to be none other than Loki in disguise.  (In the bonus scene, Sif and Volstagg hand over one of the Infinity Stones to The Collector (Benicio Del Toro) who, after they leave says 'one down, five to go.')

Overall: An excellent sequel that builds on the foundations set down in the first movie (and The Avengers as well) Thor: The Dark World shows us more of Asgard and deepens and fleshes out characters like The Warriors Three, Heimdall, Sif and Frigga that might not have had the most to do in the first movie, but get more to do here-  Frigga's confrontation with Malekith is especially badass- seriously awesome to see Rene Russo in this role, however relatively minor it might be- Heimdall as well gets more to do and as he's played by Idris Elba, it's well, awesome.  If there are faults with this movie, it's that the Dark Elves seem curiously one-dimensional in a way that the Frost Giants of the first movie weren't- they seem sort of slapdash and 'meh' in a way and for the life of me I can't figure out why.  The second possible fault is that the sequel is unapologetic about being a sequel.  It assumes that you've seen the first movie and The Avengers and if you haven't, you might seem a little lost-  I didn't see that as a fault though, but I could maybe see how people could.  But was I entertained?  Absolutely I was!  ***1/2 out of ****

This Week In Vexillology #73

Our journey southward continues, but first it's time for a pop quiz:  What was the largest country in Europe during the 14th Century?   If you said the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, then you'd be absolutely correct!  And it's a good thing too, because this week in vexillology, we've got, you guessed it:  Lithuania!

Of all the Baltic States, Lithuania is somewhat unusual in the fact that for a very long time it was a proud, independent and very large country.  If you, like me had one of those 'say whaaaaa?' reactions, then get a load of this:

Yes, that's right-it even had a joint Commonwealth with Poland for awhile, but a series of devastating wars in the 18th Century cost the country about 40% of it's population and by the start of the 19th Century, the Commonwealth had ceased to exist, partitioned by its neighbors.  However, like the Baltic States, Lithuania did enjoy a brief period of independence between the two World Wars before being reoccupied by the Soviets and breaking away again- they were the first country to declare independence from the former Soviet Union.

(Random tangent/factoid:  Marko Raimius, the defecting Soviet sub Captain from The Hunt for Red October hailed from Lithuania, I believe.  Not quite sure why I remember that, but I do.)

Their flag was adopted for national and civil usage on March 20th, 1989.  The yellow in the flag represents wheat and freedom from wants.  The green symbolizes forests and renewed hope and the red symbolizes patriotism and courage.

So give yourselves a ping, one ping only please and give it up for the great nation of Lithuania!  And remember, until next time, keep your flags flying- FREAK or otherwise!

Bracketology '14: Let The Madness Begin

I'm riding Sparty all the way to the brass ring this year- I'm hoping that's a decision that won't come back to bite me in the ass, but I feel good about it.  Sparty is jelling at the right time, they're healthy and they've got Izzo, who has tons of tournament experience is probably itching to cut down the nets again.  You give Coach K a healthy team and some momentum going into the tourney and he can do damage- maybe enough damage to win.  Same thing applies to Izzo.  In Izz I trust.  At least until next Monday when my bracket is sure to be in chaos and my brief hopes of bragging rights have turned to ashes.

So let's break it down and start in the South:

So far so good in the upper half of the region.  Florida worked up a sweat but pulled away from Albany.  Colorado and Pittsburgh made me sweat a little picking the bracket, but I went with Pitt and it paid off big as the game wasn't even close.  VCU-SF Austin gave me some pause as well but I went with SF Austin.  Hopefully that doesn't screw me.   I swallowed my bile and picked UCLA.  Ohio State screwed me a little by losing to Dayton, but 'Cuse came through and I'm liking New Mexico and Kansas going forward.

The South: Florida-UCLA, 'Cuse-Kansas, Florida-Kansas and Kansas goes to the Final Four.  In Wiggins I trust- rock, chalk, Jayhawk.

Over To The West:

Arizona to advance (obviously) but Gonzaga and Oklahoma State made me sweat a little- but ultimately, I gotta go with my 'Zags.  Oklahoma-San Diego State advance, I'm rooting for an all Nebraska implosion of basketball goodness with Nebraska and Creighton advancing.  And at the very bottom of the bracket, Oregon and Wisconsin took care of business to advance.

The West: Arizona-San Diego State, Creighton-Wisconsin, Wisconsin-Arizona and Arizona goes to the Final Four.  Sorry, Bucky.  I tried.

Down To The Midwest:

Let's see what the Shockers are really made of- personally, I think if they can get past Kentucky they can go the distance.  If they can get past Kentucky and Louisville, they can win the whole damn thing.  (So obviously, I picked Wichita State, Kentucky and Louisville to advance along with St. Louis- for the sheer pleasure of having the word 'biliken' roll off my tongue.  Obviously, Iowa's loss to Tennessee last night sucked, but I had the winner of that game getting past UMASS before running into the buzzsaw of Duke.  Then I advanced Texas and Michigan.

The Midwest: Wichita State-Louisville, Duke-Michigan, Wichita State-Michigan and Michigan goes to the Final Four.   Go Bl-...   Go Blu- man, this is hard.  Go Blue!  (Ugh.  Well that's out of the way.)

Finally, The East:

HARVARD!  Woot, woot!  That was very nice.  But, from the top:  Virginia, Memphis, Sparty, UNC, Iowa State, St. Joe's and Villanova all advance.  St. Joe's is going to make me nervous, but they're playing really well lately and a St. Joe's-Villanova clash in the 2nd Round?  (Or 3rd round or whatever the eff they call it now)  Philadelphia might literally implode. Or explode.  Or both at the same time.  I'm riding St. Joe's to the Sweet Sixteen, Iowa State to the Elite 8 and Virginia to the Elite 8 where they lose to Sparty.

The East:  It all comes down to Sparty and the 'Clones and Sparty takes it to go to the Final Four.

The Verdict: Sparty beats Kansas, Arizona beats Michigan and Sparty beats Arizona for the brass ring.

I'm going to enjoy this scenario for the next day or so before someone shits the bed and shatters it into a thousand tiny pieces.

Yep, They're Still Attached. I Checked.

There are many things that I resent and dislike about the older generation, but none more than their insistence on trying to impose their kaleidoscope of neuroses on the the younger generation- case in point:  this article I found from the New York Post which is a fan example bemoaning the allegedly emasculated state of today's men and blaming an obscure 70s television special hosted by Marlo Thomas of all people called 'Free To Be You And Me' for doing the deed.

First of all, I've never heard of 'Free To Be You And Me' and if the clips embedded in the article are anything to go on, it must have been awesome as all-giddyup to watch stoned off your ass.  Second of all, my balls are just fine, thank you very much-  they're still attached.  I checked.

There's whole reams of paper being written about the crisis of masculinity in this country- both for and against the idea.   There's a War On Boys, apparently and, Men On Strike as well- and then you have sexist dreck that passes for something called 'men's rights' and anti-violence advocates that meet with widespread approval in various feminist corners.  I haven't delved too heavily into this debate- I've read neither of the books I linked too above and when I was offered Jackson Katz as an example of a 'men's rights/male feminist' in a Women's Studies class, I sort of yawned.

I think what I've discovered about myself is that I'm not a joiner.  I don't want to be in your club, I don't want to join your political party and I don't want to be bound by your ideology.  So I get irritated when people (usually older) start calling me an emasculated, neutered, pathetic shell of a man.  You don't know me.  I don't know you.  So, step off, all right?

The supposed state of masculinity that I'm supposed to be striving for:  antiquated as shit.  I don't want to be the 'head of the household' and I don't feel the need to be the breadwinner necessarily, because my worth as a human being is tied to neither of those things.  I believe that marriages that last are partnerships-  I want to make these decisions with The Missus, not for her.  She's a thinking, breathing human being (who is perfectly capable of kicking my ass if she so desired) so who am I to impose some antiquated power structure on her or our marriage?

I need to be strong.  I need not to cry.  I need to be able to throw a punch.  Again:  antiquated.  Maybe that works for the old school generation that bemoans today's males as 'emasculated' but it doesn't work for me.  You want me to be strong?  Fine.  But real strength isn't throwing a punch, it's turning around and walking away when all you want to do is throw that punch.  Crying?  Meh.  Once upon a time, I never cried, but then I got better and now I can cry all the damn time.  I think it's healthy, myself- holding that shit in is probably why old men get prostate cancer all the damn time.  (Oh and for the record:  I shot a BB Gun once when i was a Boy Scout.  I'm not against guns and have never shot one (though I'd like too one of these days) but have never felt the need to have one.  Just in case the whole gun thing is included in these old school constructions of masculinity.)

I might as well tack the big ones onto this rant as well:  real men don't rape.   That's not masculine.  That doesn't make you more of a man- if you think forcing yourself on a human being is any way shape or form okay, that makes you a scum-sucking piece of shit.  I may share the same biological characteristics as you, but don't you dare try and pretend you're more of a man than I am.   Ditto for intimate partner violence. Real men don't hit either.

But at the same time, I have to admit that people are writing tons about this issue precisely because there is an issue.   Try as they might, lefties/prog types can't ignore that there's a crisis of masculinity in this country- and if I could put a finger on the reason why, I wouldn't pick some television special from the 70s as being it.  To me, I think the problem is that the educational system overcorrected itself.  When I was in high school, it was the age of Reviving Ophelia and the concern was about participation rates for girls in STEM classes especially and I have no problem with that.  But somewhere along the way, teaching became dominated by women and I have a feeling (totally unsupported by any hard data, of course) that when a lot of them have boys they don't know how to handle, they get labelled with ADHD and medicated to make them less of a problem.

I think a lot about this stuff- even more now that The Cigarillo is here and I worry about it a lot. How can you raise boys to be successful men in an educational system that's spent decades reorienting itself toward the needs of girls instead of the needs of all students.  Is gender segregation the answer?  Is private school?  I don't know- but I think it bears careful thought.  There's enough out there to convince me that there's a problem, but the bigger problem is that being a massive tool isn't the answer.   Swinging back to douchebaggery won't lead us to a healthier, more beneficial form of masculinity for our boys- and attitudes like this don't help them learn how to be good men.

To some extent, all we can do is be examples for them- what kind of man they become and what kind of man they want to be is up to them.

What I'm Reading #4

Alternate history, as a genre (or sub-genre, if you prefer) isn't something that I tip-toe into all that much.  I did go on a major Harry Turtledove kick a few years ago.  I've got a copy of Phillip K. Dick's Man In The High Castle (which, if you're going to read a book on alternate history, it should be this one.  Bonus points for throwing this one into the debate as well- I've never honestly seen a copy though.)

I sort of became disenchanted with the genre a few years ago.   No disrespect to the Almighty Turtledove, but I got bored with it, which was a shame.  His series positing what would happen if the South would have won the Civil War was brilliant at first, but it dragged on forever and I just got bored with it to be frank.  The early volumes are pure brilliance though (How Few Remain and The Great War Trilogy (American Front-Walk In Hell-Breakthroughs are well worth a read) However, I fell out of love with the genre when I stumbled across In The Presence Of Mine Enemies.   An alternate history depicting a world where Germany won the Second World War and is now on the edge of a Cold War style Soviet collapse, I didn't have issues with the story as much as I did the history--  the parallels with the fall of the Iron Curtain were almost exact- right down to the Boris Yeltsin-Mikhail Gorbachev doppelgangers.  It annoyed me.  It felt lazy and left a bad taste in my mouth, so I've kind of avoided alternate history since then.

But now, I think I've been drawn back in.  Yes, Kim Stanley Robinson is behind it all (seriously:  if you're not reading his books, what are you waiting for?)  and his alternate history might be the most intriguing one to think about that I've ever read.   Too many in the genre deal with old standbys:  What if the South had won the Civil War?  What if Germany had won World War II?  But Robinson goes big or goes home and the result (at least thus far) is fascinating, engrossing and difficult to wrap your head around, at least at first.

The Years of Rice and Salt imagines a world where Europe was wiped out by the Black Plague.  Now that you've taken Europe out of the equation, imagine the world that results:  the Mongols, the Muslim Caliphate, the Chinese Empire, various Indian Civilizations- all flourish.  (China hasn't discovered the New World yet, but I'm sure it's coming- I'm not that deep into this book yet.)  What stands out to me is the breathtaking ambition behind this concept.  Take what we generally consider as 'western civilization' out of the equation entirely and try and imagine the world that would result.  Conceptions of art, religion, education, politics- everything would be completely and utterly different.  It's got all the hallmarks of KSR:  big, sweeping, epic in scope, meticulously researched and beautifully written.  And it also might be the first 'alternate history' novel that might actually live up to the ideal of being a history that's really and truly 'alternate' in nature.

Stay tuned for the review in a couple of weeks!  I can't wait to get the rest of the way through this one!

Bookshot #74: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

I loved this book.  I've had my eye on it ever since it came out- which was at least two or three years ago now but have only just gotten around to reading it and it was more than worth the wait.   The story of Oscar, a shy, overweight Dominican nerd growing up in New York City, it explores the struggles of Oscar's youth and how his disastrous bad luck and inability to fit in with the culture of machismo around him might be due to a curse (or, as the Dominicans call it, 'fuku') that has haunted his family for generations and followed them straight from the Dominican Republic, to America and back again.

As a character, I identified with Oscar immediately:  his love of books, writing and all things science fiction, fantasy and geek/nerd related can be something of a cross to bear, especially growing up.  (My own personal fortunes took a turn for the better when I landed in a school big enough to find a corner to hide in with people not to dissimilar to me.  I found my tribe, more or less.) And the pain and torment that Oscar suffers through, his growing struggles with weight, his inability to talk to women, are all conveyed through dialogue (the book is told from the point of view of narrator) that practically dances off of the tongue and is peppered with every science fiction/fantasty/geek and nerd reference you can think of.

Where the book really takes off is when the author, Junot Diaz begins to explore the origins of the curse that has tormented Oscar's family for so long.   (Mild tangent: before reading this book- as well as Mario Vargas Llosa's The Feast of The Goat what I knew about the Dominican Republic apart from it's geographic location and Sammy Sosa being from there could have been inscribed on the head of a pin.  I now feel comparatively more educated- especially to the tormented history of that country under the dictatorship of Trujillo- and it's a sad, pathetic reflection of the educational system in this country that I had to glean such knowledge from two very different but both excellent novels.)

Oscar eventually goes to college at Rutgers (and reading so much about Rutgers gave me a jolt:  that University on the banks of the Raritan will be one of our new B1G confreres, next year- so that was kind of cool- a fresh perspective on Rutgers other than their psychotic ex-men's basketball coach.) He ends up rooming with one of Lola's on-again-off-again boyfriends, Yunior, who keeps an eye on him while Lola, his sister is studying abroad in Spain.  (It's somewhat cloudy to me whether she actually does or not-  she might have told people that while she was in the Dominican Republic- but either way, the ambiguity neither bothered me or hurts the narrative in anyway.  Intriguingly, when the narrative focuses more on Oscar, Lola seems like the sibling with her shit together- always involved at college, having big dreams, etc etc.  When the narrative shifts to Lola's point of view, it's revealed that she has just as many runs of bad luck and foolish dreams as everyone else- she runs off with a boy and in the end gets caught, packed up and sent to the Dominican Republic to see the error of her ways.)  Despite the best efforts of Yunior, Oscar never really seems to find his footing with the ladies and after a particularly cruel heartbreak, attempts suicide by leaping off of a railroad bridge.

So both Oscar and Lola wind up their homeland and learn to true nature of the curse that has haunted their family- a truth tied intimately to the dark and bloody history of the Dominican Republic's past and just when the reader is left wondering if Oscar will find love at all, he falls hard for a neighbor of his abuela but the cost of finding love might be very high indeed, thanks to the family curse.

Overall:  This is a book that I really could have finished in one sitting, if I would have had the time.  The dialogue pops and is scattered with Dominican slang and a nice Spanglish patois that added to the authenticity of the narrative and you would need some kind of a flowchart to keep track of every sci-fi reference made in this book (and, awesomely so, in my opinion.)  Oscar is a character you want to root for and even at the end of the book, when you're left feeling dispirited and somewhat disheartened by the ending (minor spoiler alert: it's not exactly a shiny, happy ending) there's a coda that makes you smile.   Fun, happy, dark, horrifying, melancholy, joyful all at once, this was an amazing book that I would happily read over and over again.  **** out of ****.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

It's hard for me to get jazzed up for this holiday when I'm working and it doesn't help that I'm not remotely Irish.  The family has been Catholic from way back though, so I guess I've got that mild tie of commonality with our Irish confreres.  Either way, this one is kind of a bummer this year: I've got to work and thanks to Spring Break it's been especially boring this past weekend, so I'm hoping that the number one party school in the land lives up to it's rep a bit.  (I did get a cool new writing gig over at The Little Village though- so check that out.)

But as a bonus, enjoy this playlist.