Never Brought to Mind

Sorry, folks. I'm in a dry spell, and I don't want to keep posting the crappy type of blogs I've been putting up lately.

Quality over quantity. I promise the next time I write, it'll be because it's good.

Thanks for understanding.

All for now.

Underwhelmed

A couple of things:

W. Mark Felt, "Deep Throat," died today. History will remember him as the man who disappointed more conspiracy theorists at once than any other single person in history.

"Mark Felt - really? Couldn't it have been Kissinger, or Gene Rayburn, or someone else?"

Second - Aaron Boone? Seriously? I really don't like the message our free agent signings are sending. I've heard the whole spiel, of course, the economy and Drayton and what-not, but Aaron Boone is a white flag with a third baseman's mitt. I'd rather bring in Chris Johnson a little early and let him mature at the big-league level.

That said, if we concentrate on developing a couple of middle infielders, we could be kind of awesome in 2011.

All for now.

The Last Three Outs

Rest in peace, Dave Smith.

Dave was the Astros' closer when I was a kid, and closed games for our famous 1986 squad. He died today of a heart attack at age 53. I'm pretty sure he was non-steroidy, so that's an awfully early age to die. Still, pitchers aren't exactly models of fitness, even if we do classify them as athletes.

Dave still holds the Astros record for career saves - more than Billy Wagner. To put it in perspective of Valverde's record-setting single season of fourty-four, he'd have to have 4 1/2 seasons straight like that to tie Smith.

All for now.

I'm Up Early

...because it's surgery day for Pete.

I don't want to get all Bob Barker on you, but if you have cats or dogs and no plans for progeny, please spay or neuter them. It removes animal shelters from the equation when it comes to euthanization of a population of strays that spirals beyond their budget / control. What's more, it frees your pet from urges you can't give them the freedom to act upon.

Anyway, reserve your best wishes / prayers / etc. for Pete today, and especially for the doctors who will handle his procedure, and for the vet techs / nurses who care for him before and after. He can be quite a handful, and I've already pissed of SNAP once.

All for now.

Now I Lay Me Down Not To Sleep

Waking up in the middle of the night for reasons unknown finds me mourning Robert Prosky, one of those "that guy" actors who you would know on sight, but rarely ever think about. I love those guys, and Prosky was one of the best.

Their stage resumes are always ridiculously impressive, and you find yourself saying, "They were in that?!" Prosky was the original Sheldon Levene (the Jack Lemmon role) in Glengarry Glen Ross, among many others.

All for now.

Pet Renegades

In case you were wondering: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/pets/others/6156855.html

It often comes up among friends of mine that none of us knows the specifics of how to legally own a monkey. Now we do. According to the law in Houston, I can legally have my Golden Lion Tamarin butler now!

Not too long ago, two grizzly bears were rescued by the SPCA from a north Harris County home. As Chris explained, the story isn't that a man had two grizzly bears, it's that he had the nueterables to mistreat them.

All for now.

Christmas Bells Are Ringing (On TV, At Saks)

Some things that are good on stage make terrible movies. Some movies should have never been adapted into musicals. And sometimes, though it's more rare than the first two, both are really good.

Anyway, we think Merry Christmas, George Bailey is pretty darn good, and we hope you'll make plans to see it if you haven't already. It's a Wonderful Life is one of those movies you either love or hate, and I happen to love it, but I wouldn't categorize myself as an overly optimistic or sentimental person. I think the movie has an awfully crisp dark side, and it's ending is sappy, yes, but that's because the circumstances have to reinforce the lesson.

All for now.

Mark Me

A fellow we'll just call The Admiral once chided me for dealing in absolutes after I launched into a diatribe about the woefully wronged Best Original Song category at the Academy Awards (someday, friends and lovers, this will make a blog all its own), telling me that just because something was my opinion, it did not instantly become the gospel truth.

In matters of grave importance, perhaps. But for trivial stuff like the Best Song Oscar, I think I can comfortably state that my opinion is worth more than Gregory Peck's corpse on this one.

Regardless, I felt the need to disclaim all my further stated opinions as just that whenever we spoke of things.

And then one day I mentioned that the Pope was getting pretty old. Less than a month later, he died.

Henceforth, in any disclaimer of my opinion, it should be noted that while my opinions are not country, and therefore cannot harelip the Pope, they are sufficiently powerful enough to deal a death blow every once in a while.

Since B16 has been a fairly inneffectual pontiff up to this point, I'm gonna leave him alone. I also like calling him B16, and referring to the Pope-mobile as "B16's Hoopty."However, the minute he starts showing aggression towards Jews, homosexuals, or Super Earth, you'd better believe I'm gonna have to give him the "your life depends upon my view of you" look.

All for now.

Reason to Believe

I heard somewhere that even cold November rain doesn't last forever, so here we are at the beginning of another December. I think the newness of the month has yet to fully sink in for me, but if the weather forecast is any indication, we are in for a nice, chilly, sunny month. Nothing would suit me better.

2008 has been a relatively crummy year for Red Delicious and bride (Pete being a notable exception), and I don't really believe that the calendar determines our luck / happiness / sexual prowess, etc., but if 2009 is going to be better for me, I really wouldn't mind if some of that karma or whatever wanted to leak over into the last month of this year. Besides, if 2009 is so brimming with promise, who am I to complain if it's cup runneth over?

I was an exception, but I wasn't much help this year.

All for now.