Leftovers and mixed grill.

One of my local Twitter follows has established a coyote-sighting Google map. He rendered it in Earth, which gives it that CIA-surveillance flava:

Of course I tweeted it to GrossePointeToday.com, and with that I conclude today’s edition of Sentences That Wouldn’t Have Made a Lick of Sense a Decade Ago.

No, one more: Shopping with Kate the other day, I heard a song I liked on the store’s playlist, so I Shazam’d it, but waited until we got home to buy it.

(It was “Rock & Roll Queen” by the Subways. Go ahead and laugh, but I’ve always had a weakness for a tight little single that can reach the finish line in under three minutes.)

I was making my cop-shop rounds yesterday in sandals and a T-shirt, freezing to death, when I glanced at the dashboard thermometer and read an appalling figure: 56 degrees. I began an R-rated sort of gibbering rant not unlike the father’s battles with the furnace in “A Christmas Story.” School is out in two days, summer swimming programs begin the following Monday, and the pool is about as appealing as, well, a pool on a 56-degree day. I’m all for a little character-building weather, but my character feels fully constructed at the moment, thanks very much.

When I took responsibility for collecting the public-safety reports for the new website, I anticipated handing this chore off to one of my students, but now that I’ve done it a while? No way. It’s too much fun for a storyteller to examine these little tragedies and comedies, rendered so succinctly in the passive-voice poetry of Copspeak:

A traffic stop was effected…I detected an odor commonly associated with intoxicants…Suspect was confrontagious…

Some of these accounts could be entered in a short-short story contest. Disputes between neighbors are the most interesting, because I have the advantage the involved parties do not: Distance. In my god’s-eye view of things, I can look down with a cool head and only marvel that all these hard feelings, all this yelling, all this paperwork was over…a barking dog. (On the other hand, there is nothing like being awakened at a too-early hour by a gas-powered leaf blower to send the blood pressure off the charts; I have experienced this myself.) Two weeks ago there was an account of a gutter-cleaning job that nearly came to fisticuffs. My takeaway lesson: Do not spray gunky gutter debris on a freshly washed car. In the Motor City, people take these things very, very seriously.

As you can see, I’m short on material today. Fortunately, I have an excess of bloggage:

I hope Kym Worthy sends Kwame Kilpatrick back to jail, and this time she throws away the key.

Jon Stewart, national treasure: Make sure you watch the embedded clip.

The Pope was “visibly upset” over details of abuse in Irish penal institutions church-run homes for wayward children, but the report doesn’t say what, exactly, he was upset about. My money’s on: “that the rest of the world heard our secret.” Count me among those with more than two working brain cells who believe the idea that Rome didn’t know about this vast national network of sadism academies as, well, bullshit. Maybe he didn’t have “The Magdalene Sisters” in his Netflix queue.

But because we like to end on an up note: Sex With Ducks, the music-video response to Pat Robertson’s concerns what legalizing gay marriage may lead to. Safe for work, at least with headphones.

I have so much work to do it’s not funny. So I’m off to do it.

Posted at 9:34 am in Current events, Detroit life, Same ol' same ol' |
 

48 responses to “Leftovers and mixed grill.”

  1. alex said on June 9, 2009 at 10:24 am

    Confrontageous. Wow, that’s right up there with the first executive director of the Dan Quayle Museum, whom I interviewed in 1992 when an old church was being gutted to house the town of Huntington’s Quayle memorabilia collection.

    He told me there was still a lot of “demolation” work going on.

    298 chars

  2. Dorothy said on June 9, 2009 at 10:34 am

    I think I want to be a permanent member of the audience at the Jon Stewart show.

    80 chars

  3. brian stouder said on June 9, 2009 at 10:55 am

    It’s too much fun for a storyteller to examine these little tragedies and comedies

    Well, and then there’s the black humor in the big-league stuff, as for example this story

    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31181226/

    the first sentence of which is

    A veteran detective was charged with murder Monday in the slaying of her ex-boyfriend’s wife in 1986 — a crime that went unsolved for more than two decades as she rose through the Los Angeles Police Department ranks.

    but then, the second sentence tells us (with emphasis added)

    Detective Stephanie Lazarus, 49, could be sentenced to death if convicted of breaking into the victim’s condominium on Feb. 24, 1986, and repeatedly biting, beating and shooting the woman.

    and much further in, we are informed that

    The case file mentioned Lazarus because she had once dated the victim’s husband, John Ruetten, but investigators did not pursue her as a suspect until DNA tests recently showed the attacker was a woman.

    hmmmmm. It took ’em DNA to think that biting might have possibly pointed to a ‘woman scorned’?

    Anyway – I’d have guessed that anyone who’s read a murder mystery might have twigged to that a little sooner than 20+ years later – but maybe not!

    Plus – I wanna know if the woman dumped the guy she (allegedly) killed for, or if he dumped her

    1363 chars

  4. MichaelG said on June 9, 2009 at 11:07 am

    Harry Bosch wouldn’t have missed that bite clue.

    48 chars

  5. Danny said on June 9, 2009 at 11:15 am

    A couple of months ago, an old high school acquaintance (D we’ll call her) and her husband were visiting San Diego and we met for dinner and to chat about old times in Baltimore. So D tells us how since high school she has worked at one of the records divisions for the county police department and that it took her a while to get over the shock and embarrassment of seeing police reports and the like come across her desk regarding so many of our former classmates. In fact, her very first day on the job she had to process a report of a DUI arrest for a fairly good friend of ours (I attended K-12 with this guy) and she couldn’t help but take a peek and read something that went like this:

    Suspect pulled over for suspicion of driving under the influence. During questioning, admitted he had had several drinks that evening and when asked if he had eaten anything in the last three hours, suspect responded, “yeah, I’ve been eating pussy”

    D almost died laughing that day and we all cracked up and agreed that that definitely sounded like our friend. The guy has since changed, but that was him then.

    1120 chars

  6. Sue said on June 9, 2009 at 11:30 am

    “Disputes between neighbors are the most interesting”. I never, never, never trust anyone who says “I just want what’s right” or “It’s because I care so much”. In my experience, neighbors who use those two phrases are out to make trouble, and they are very creative in their methods. In addition to hiring a property inspector when they are thinking of buying a house, people should hire someone to scope out the neighbors. There are some insane people out there, and the odds of moving right next door to one are greater than you think.

    541 chars

  7. Jenflex said on June 9, 2009 at 11:47 am

    Or, let’s not forget, having them move in next to you. I’ll never forget our first introduction to our new neighbors, who not-so-obliquely accused me of breaking and entering when I went to return the former inhabitant’s key, along with a bag of fresh tomatoes. That was the last time I tried to be nice. They are hopefully and thankfully moving “on up” to the house that I have no doubt will bankrupt them. Good riddance!

    426 chars

  8. CW said on June 9, 2009 at 12:03 pm

    As Nancy mentioned, dogs, particularly when it involves their filthy business, provide a fertile medium for disputes between neighbors.

    A month or two ago, in the west suburbs of Chicago, a guy who was angry over the repeated transgressions of his neighbor’s dog confronted the dog’s owner one night as the second guy and his dog were out for their evening stroll. As the discussion escalated, the second man, who was carrying a camping lantern, whapped his neighbor in the head with it. Second neighbor charged with battery, and also sued by the first neighbor.

    567 chars

  9. Sue said on June 9, 2009 at 12:18 pm

    Here’s my fave: one neighbor complained to the City about the tall grass/weeds on his neighbor’s property. A letter was sent. The property owner thought it was another neighbor, and proceeded to carefully place days’ worth of dog crap along the property line with that neighbor. The neighbor took pictures of the mess and went to the police department, saying that although he was afraid of the neighbor, he wasn’t going to be trapped in his house all summer, unable to leave because of the smell. Another letter was sent about removing the dog mess. Of the three neighbors, guess which one considered himself the victim?

    627 chars

  10. beb said on June 9, 2009 at 12:44 pm

    I was up way too late last night and saw Jon Stewart introduce the prudish “Fox and Friends” crew to the bawdy “Fox and Friends crew” of a half hour later in the program (or was it earlier?) You could almost put together a daily show of “Fun with Videotape” contrasting what people are saying now with what they said earlier.

    Then I stayed up even later because Stephan Colbert was broadcasting his SO show from Baghdad. He was stylishly attired in a suit of camophalge material and sported a golf club in hommage to Bob Hope. Did a wonderful bit on “The Word” – why you are here? which concluded the only reason they were still there was because no one had the balls to declare victory – and then he declared victory. Colbert did a bit on his 10 hours of Basic Training. He had Gen. Odiernos on as his guest. The Gen had a hard time explaining why victory hadn’t been accomplished and people sent home. ‘There’s still work to be done’ isn’t much of an answer. Then Pres. Obama came on by satellite and ordered the Gen to shave Colbert. I am both amazed that the President would agree to do a bit of comedy like that and disturded that Obama did his bit with a completely sincere face. It bothers me when a President can act too well. Makes you wonder when he’s not acting.

    I sure would like to know who’s picking up part of Kilpatrick’s new house’s rent. I’m sure Kym Worthy would, too. When does he get it through he’s head that he’s a disgraced politician with massive bills to pay? I’d like to see his probation revoked and Kwame sent back to prison for several years.

    But that’s just me being confrontagious. Is that easy to spell than belligerent?

    Has there ever been any Catholic school anywhere that didn’t abuse students to some extent? Cruel nuns with their steel rulers smacking kids on the wrists and telling them they were worthless and going to hell. And that’s how the good Catholic schools in America are described.

    Since I haven’t had to haul the air conditioners out of the basement yet, I’m enjoying the cool season we’re having. Maybe the pool katie will be going to is heated. I’m not ready for 90 degree days.

    2151 chars

  11. jeff borden said on June 9, 2009 at 1:13 pm

    Actually, you could pretty much do the whole “Daily Show” based on the round-the-clock lunacy that is Fox News. Wasn’t it one of the Stepford Hosts on Fox and Friends that described the “dap,” or fist bump, as a terrorist fist bump when done by the Obamas? And Glenn Beck is a walking comedic opportunity every hour of every day.

    The genius of FNC lies not in any great newsgathering operation. In fact, I’m hard-pressed to recall a big story or development that has broken on Fox by FNC staffers. But by tailoring a network to be reactive to the day’s events and staffing it with flashpoint personalities like Beck, Hannity, Cavuto and O’Reilly, you needn’t bother with busting ass to break good stories. It’s compelling enough viewing to just let your hosts weigh in on those events.

    788 chars

  12. mark said on June 9, 2009 at 1:19 pm

    Cold summers. Just another consequence of global warming. If we don’t all change our habits soon, summers will be so cold we will have to turn on the furnace, and all the nasty carbons that come with that will speed up the global warming, which will only make the summers colder.

    It’s a vicious cycle.

    306 chars

  13. ROgirl said on June 9, 2009 at 1:45 pm

    For some reason I’ve been thinking about parallels between the lives of Kwame and GWB. They were both from prominent political families, came into office around the same time, despite disappointing first terms got reelected, fucked things up, and split for Texas when it was all over.

    And one’s a convicted felon.

    316 chars

  14. moe99 said on June 9, 2009 at 2:11 pm

    Don’t worry mark, Seattle is having an extremely hot, dry June. Climate change means chaos basically.

    And to tie ends up on the “Cedant arma togae” quote, wikipedia thinks it is something a bit more than you thought, Jeff tmmo:

    http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Cicero
    Cedant arma togae, concedat laurea laudi.
    Yield, ye arms, to the toga; to civic praise, ye laurels.

    382 chars

  15. Catherine said on June 9, 2009 at 2:18 pm

    Mark, the scientifically sound, conservative and more accurate phrase is “global climate change.” Using this term is useful because it reframes the discussion to focus on what is observably happening.

    And as long as we’re complaining about weather, here in Pasadena it’s 58, the solar-heated pool is down to the mid-70s (after being low 80s a few weeks ago), and it was drizzling when I did the school run. OTOH, that’s par for the course this time of year — the infamous June gloom.

    489 chars

  16. Hexdecimal said on June 9, 2009 at 2:30 pm

    Staying with the weather theme, here in the Phoenix metro area some have taken to wearing sweaters due to the temps only reaching the low 90s. It was just late last week that it was hoovering in mid pre-teens (111)

    brrrrr….

    228 chars

  17. jeff borden said on June 9, 2009 at 2:33 pm

    Here in Chicago it is again gloomy, wet, breezy and the temperatures are not far above 60. This follows one of the worst winters in our 20 years here, so it is even more disheartening. I still have many flats of impatiens, begonias and gerber daisies to plant, but the frequent downpours are making it tough. In fairness, it is good sleeping weather. See? Chicagoans are nothing if not adaptive.

    Regarding climate change, whether it is a regular cycle the globe is going through or something man made, there are things happening that cannot be denied. I don’t see how anyone can dispute something weird is afoot when polar ice caps are melting, glaciers are breaking off into warm seas, once snow-capped peaks are virtually denuded (the photo comparisons of Mt. Kilimanjaro are particularly scary), etc.

    Then again, I’m not Sen. James Imhofe. . .and thank God for that small favor.

    887 chars

  18. Dorothy said on June 9, 2009 at 2:56 pm

    jeff the Big Boss at the paper where my daughter works refuses to believe there is any such thing as “global warming” or, as Catherine so aptly put it, “global climate change.” I think he has his head up his ass. How can anyone deny the melting of the polar ice caps??

    270 chars

  19. MichaelG said on June 9, 2009 at 3:07 pm

    Here in Sacto it’s 68 moving toward a progged 76 against an average for this date of 87.

    Catherine is right. Some places like Northern Europe are going to get colder, a lot colder. The West Coast is expected to get warmer. The Napa Valley wine climate is scheduled to move to WN. Buy some vineyard property now, Moe. Beat the rush.

    339 chars

  20. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on June 9, 2009 at 3:33 pm

    Ave, Moe. My Loeb volumes are as deeply buried as any of the books i can’t quite bring myself to hand off to a yard sale, but never unpack from their boxes three moves ago. I still think toga in that context means more like “robed and honored ones” than “vox populi, vox dei”.

    Alex, i think he meant the young men’s auxiliary of the Masonic Brotherhood, DeMolay, coming in to help, hence “DeMolaytion.” No?

    Speaking as someone who gets to dabble in paleoethnobotany (your new word for the day!), you should see the pollen species variations for central Ohio over the last 12,000 years. Climate is cyclical, and we’re still trying to get the hang of the downbeat so we can dance to her tune. Sunspot serenades, orbital oscillations, and the volcanic eruption tango really gets things heated up. Add in a certain measure of anthropogenic inputs, which is really what we’re arguing about as to scale, and you have an ecosystem polka challenge set to a jukebox that skips, just as Frankie Yankovic really gets going.

    Anthropogenic inputs clearly shift the waveform, but hockey sticks aside, we can’t make credibly many of the claims that are put out as “what the science supports.” “The science” is a phrase worth being quizzical about — but the scientific consensus can justly be described as saying that we are wise to push the global carbon dioxide ppm back towards 350. I’m not convinced that we “must” get it back to 350 at all costs, but i’m on board with Bill McKibben enough to say i don’t want it marching blindly past 400.

    See http://www.350.org for info.

    1582 chars

  21. coozledad said on June 9, 2009 at 3:40 pm

    Nah. There ain’t no global warming. Scientists are just a bunch of idiots. They should read National Review instead of poring over climate models.
    The North Carolina Coast is a perfect example of how the willfully ignorant behave. Scientists inform developers that coastal erosion will take a swath of vanity beachhouses out to sea. Developers say science is bullshit. Sea washes up to front door of libertarian douchebag’s vulgarian temple of asshattery, douchebag gets on phone to gubbn’mint. “I want new sand in my front yard.” Taxpayer funds sand pumping for purblind dick-swinging shite.
    You see how this works? I can’t count the number of times I’ve seen these idiots bitching about government inaction in the wake of hurricanes when they were told up front about the risks. Global Warming is the same.
    I’ve always felt that if you believe your gut is smarter than contemporary science, then man up and let your gut fix you when you’ve got a brain tumor. Anecdote says some people will survive a lightning strike, so go stand in a fucking storm already. What have you geniuses got to lose?

    1099 chars

  22. jeff borden said on June 9, 2009 at 3:50 pm

    Coozledad,

    I may be mistaken, but my sense when I lived in Charlotte was that North Carolina was far more proactive regarding beachfront development than South Carolina. I stayed in hotels in North Myrtle Beach where the waves literally lapped at the foundation at high tide. My recollections of N.C. beaches, foggy as they are by time and my likely level of inebriation at the time, were that the hotels and condos were far back from the beach.

    Nonetheless, I completely agree with your premise. When you build your dream house on an eroding beach, in the paths of hurricanes, in a flood plain, or an area prone to wildfires, your insurance premiums should be sufficiently enormous to cover your losses without tapping the wallets of your fellow citizens.

    762 chars

  23. Danny said on June 9, 2009 at 3:53 pm

    Jeff, unless you’re cussin’, you don’t care. You … you … global warming denier!

    Hmmmpf!

    95 chars

  24. Danny said on June 9, 2009 at 4:00 pm

    Jeff B and Cooz, you applying that same argument to those who build below sea-level in New Orleans? ‘Cuz I pretty sure a lot of people there didn’t have insurance either and they’ve been warned about levees breaking since delta blues musicians Kansas Joe McCoy and Memphis Minnie wrote the song in 1929. And then everyone got a nice reminder from Led Zeppelin.

    362 chars

  25. moe99 said on June 9, 2009 at 4:07 pm

    I vacationed in Fripp Island S. Carolina in 1991 and there was quite a bit of government dredging new sand in to protect the new condo developments. Can’t expect that it has changed over the years.

    198 chars

  26. coozledad said on June 9, 2009 at 4:20 pm

    Some of the vanity homes of the Lower Ninth Ward. I don’t see living here as so much a matter of choice, but of exigency.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZLOtcUXq_k

    166 chars

  27. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on June 9, 2009 at 4:23 pm

    If it keeps on rainin’, levee’s goin’ to break,
    If it keeps on rainin’, levee’s goin’ to break,
    When the levee breaks I’ll have no place to stay.
    Mean old levee taught me to weep and moan,
    Lord, mean old levee taught me to weep and moan,
    Got what it takes to make a mountain man leave his home,
    Oh, well, oh, well, oh, well.
    Don’t it make you feel bad
    When you’re tryin’ to find your way home,
    You don’t know which way to go?
    If you’re goin’ down south
    They got no work to do,
    If you don’t know about Chicago.
    Cryin’ won’t help you, prayin’ won’t do you no good,
    Now, cryin’ won’t help you, prayin’ won’t do you no good,
    When the levee breaks, mama, you got to move.
    All last night sat on the levee and moaned,
    All last night sat on the levee and moaned,
    Thinkin’ ’bout me baby and my happy home.
    Going, gon’ to Chicago,
    Gon’ to Chicago,
    Sorry but I can’t take you.
    Going down, going down now, going down.

    927 chars

  28. Connie said on June 9, 2009 at 5:39 pm

    Sue is right about hiring a neighbor inspector. When we moved into this neighborhood, all the neighbors warned us about the boys next door. They were right. Although one of them was the cause of our favorite local news headline: “Drunken burglar breaks into wrong house.”

    Pool here is down from its previous high of 72. Shiver.

    335 chars

  29. caliban said on June 9, 2009 at 5:47 pm

    Nancy’s an import from the authentic flyover, but she at least evinces, if she doesn’t really get Detroit. I would have thought the demise of Tiger (nee Briggs) Stadium was worth a cold eye and horsemen pass by.

    I went to Vero Beach six months in utero, and I’ve got photos of my pregnant mom playing catch with Karl Erskine and Jackie and Roy Campanella. When I moved to Boston in 1974, I despised the omphiloptic assumption that the universe emanated from the Red Sox. Mostly, I despised the arrogance of the place, the overt racism and the ascribed godhood of that crypto-racist leftfielder that shot pigeons with Uncle Tom Yawkey.

    In ’75, there was a new day for the Sox and the Nation. I went to Fenway and it hit me like tiprap in a canvas bag that this place was almost as cool as Tiger Stadium. I love Fenway, the way that people love Arles or the banks of the Seine, as a connection to art so totally idiosyncratic and brilliant, it’s more or less holy.

    So I thought about Tiger Stadium. Especially, when it got to the World Series. Which team should I despise? Reds, the product of Bowie Kuhn’s PR, like Michael Jordan just gets to cheat rules, (and boy, if you saw the winning basket against the Lakers go away on Pau Gasol just blatantly grabbing the rim, you have to think commisiners just screw players and coaches over. Some idiot on Jim Rome’s show actually claimed Gasol had to have moved the rim for a call to be made.)

    So anyway, I watch Freddie and Jim Edd and Dwight Evans for a whole season, and I grew up in Detroit. And it’s obvious, this is the best outfield since Willie Horton, (no not that guy Republicans blackened to create the Southern Strategy, the guy with biceps twice the size of Hulk’s.), Mickey Stanley, Jim Northrup. My personal opinion, and no joke people ought to reconside3r this Yaz crap. Jim Edd it was
    So here I stand. Fenway aint Tiger Stadium.diculous

    And now I’m considering how amazing was that outfield and that ballpark. Tiger Stadium ruled. Two things that happened to me at Tiger Stadium: My brother Chris was exceptional at athletics. So was everybody inRest of us were very good.

    2158 chars

  30. caliban said on June 9, 2009 at 5:48 pm

    youre the most majorleague liar

    31 chars

  31. caliban said on June 9, 2009 at 5:50 pm

    Look you dumnasses. I’ve beem screwed over

    42 chars

  32. caliban said on June 9, 2009 at 5:55 pm

    And if you like baseball Freddie is so good it’s ridiculous, and JimEdd is

    74 chars

  33. caliban said on June 9, 2009 at 5:59 pm

    Do anyway. It’d noteve close theseRedSox idiots come close to Freddie and Jim Edd.
    Are you all just fucking nuts? Yuve screwed the poock

    137 chars

  34. Jeff Borden said on June 9, 2009 at 6:46 pm

    Danny,

    As always, an interesting point worth considering. I would counter with the argument that New Orleans was founded and built before there was as much understanding as there is today about the foolishness of erecting cities below sea level. You could probably make the same argument for large parts of Florida. Isn’t a significant portion of Miami below sea level?

    The colonists should’ve paid more attention to what the natives were doing before they started building. I’m gonna bet that any indigenous Indian tribe in the delta would’ve known better than to build their villages in a flood plain. And I’ve never heard of the Seminoles building their communities on the beaches of Florida. The local tribes in what is now the canyons of Los Angeles used to burn off the underbrush every year because they knew those canyons were firetraps, particularly when the Santa Ana’s blew. In fact, Malibu canyon is supposedly one of the most fire-prone locales in the world. But the newcomers either ignored or dismissed the wisdom of the locals. Happens all the time.

    1071 chars

  35. mark said on June 9, 2009 at 6:49 pm

    I’m not rejecting science. In 1974 Time magazine warned of the “New Ice Age” and the indisputable scientific evidence of global cooling. A few years earlier, Paul Ehrlich and his crowd warned about the hundreds of millions who would starve to death during the seventies and eighties due to the population explosion. All just a matter of science. Like erosion.

    You guys be trendy if you want. I’ll continue to search for the shivering, malnourished multitudes until Al Gore downsizes to a 2000 sq. ft. home.

    514 chars

  36. moe99 said on June 9, 2009 at 7:00 pm

    Guess we better tell the Dutch to evacuate too.

    47 chars

  37. joodyb said on June 9, 2009 at 7:10 pm

    OK. i give up. I confess I read it all! Who is he talking to?

    61 chars

  38. Scout said on June 9, 2009 at 7:22 pm

    Maybe there’s some tweeting going on? Birds in the jet engines?

    64 chars

  39. Deborah said on June 9, 2009 at 7:26 pm

    Did any of you read Roger Ebert’s latest post about Vincent P. Falk the guy who roams the Chicago loop wearing really flashy colorful suits? I see this guy all the time downtown. Always thought he was just an eccentric street person. It’s a great post, love the way Ebert writes.

    Another thing I like about Ebert is the way he pops in and out of comments, like Nancy does. I don’t read commenters on other blogs besides these two, I’ve tried others but they don’t hold my interest.

    485 chars

  40. alex said on June 9, 2009 at 7:46 pm

    Beats me, joodyb.

    I wanted to add my two cents’ worth re: bad neighbors, upthread a ways.

    Tonight got a delightful earful from the head of a household I avoid like the plague because they’re dysfunctional, ask prying questions and are much too presumptuous in all regards. I manage to keep them at arm’s length for the most part, just by being short with them and cussing gratuitously. Well, the unemployed alcoholic freeloader who’s been crashing there the last few months hadn’t been doing any chores. So they were on his case and he got on the riding mower and took a few laps, taking out a driveway reflector in the process. Head of household is near blind, probably fairly deaf and most certainly what I would call dumb. One time he crashed a vehicle through a showroom window when he took it in for service. Watching him back out is always delightful, reflectors or no, because he’s senescent as hell and doesn’t know what he’s doing. Except, evidently, when he’s got a bug up his butt, because he outright bragged that he retaliated for the mangled reflector by crashing his minivan into the freeloader’s Jeep, ha, ha, ha. So this is the backstory of the screaming matches and people storming off burning rubber that I had to endure on an otherwise lovely Sunday afternoon. And from quite afar, I might add.

    1320 chars

  41. Jolene said on June 9, 2009 at 9:09 pm

    A 35-year-old magazine article and a popular book aren’t much of a counter to most of the climate scientists in the world and the extensive modeling of climate change conducted during the intervening years, mark.

    212 chars

  42. beb said on June 9, 2009 at 9:46 pm

    Caliban must have been ingesting something because he started off strong and ended up in the ditch with both wheels spinning.

    Most baseball parks used to be idiosyncratic but over time they’ve all been replaced with soulless monstrosities filled with corporate boxes.

    What made Tiger Stadium such a great stadium was that seating began almost ontop the playing field while the upper deck offered such a great view it was better than television. The downside to all this was that the numerous support poles in the lower deck area created a lot of obstructed-view seats. But as long as you knew where they were and bought tickets early you could avoid these seats. The park itself was a marvel with close in walls in Right Field but endless depths in Center Field. If you played the field right it was a hitter’s paradise. If you couldn’t work the corners you were an easy out.

    But it’s all over. They’re tearing down the press box, itself a wonderful place were foul tips could bean the broadcaster. I liked the plan of tearing off the upper deck and convert the stadium into an exhibition field for school and college level playing. But there was no money for it. The place will be scrapped clean and left till someday an investor wants it. Pigs will fly before that happens. There’s a lot of crap – buildings – which have been given historic designations. A lot I couldn’t care less about. Tiger Stadium, how ever, was other keeping.

    (Except, maybe, for the restrooms where there were no urinals, only a horse trough to pee into.)

    1545 chars

  43. LA Mary said on June 9, 2009 at 9:50 pm

    Ugh. Don’t even get me started about my next door neighbor. She’s godawful.

    75 chars

  44. basset said on June 9, 2009 at 10:09 pm

    Speaking of drunk men on riding mowers… I buy most of my wine at the liquor store George Jones was headed to when he had his famous riding-mower escapade. (Short version – he lived maybe a couple of miles away, had a load on and wanted more, Tammy took his keys so he jumped on the mower and headed up Highway 31, which is also the main north-south street through downtown Nashville.)

    This store’s a couple of miles out from the city center, about equidistant from the governor’s mansion and the hood. Put it this way, there’s a bakery next door, a small-engine shop down the block, and a Jaguar dealer across the street.

    I go there because I don’t get any wine-seller attitude, no strange terminology, none of that I-am-an-anointed-sophisticate-and-you-are-laughably-ignorant business that wine snobs and fly fishermen… pardon me, fly fishers… seem to enjoy. They sell a lot of remainders and odd lots by price; I just stroll in, look at the shelf that fits my situation (three for $10.99, $15, or $21), pick out some interesting labels, and stock up. Some of what they have I’ve seen in other stores at four or five times the price, some I wouldn’t clean paintbrushes with, but you take your chances.

    1220 chars

  45. CrazyCatLady said on June 10, 2009 at 12:59 am

    I will always remember the amazing thrill of walking into Tiger Stadium and glimpsing the great green grass, the perfectly manicured diamond, the pitcher’s mound of dirt, and the smell of grilling onions, peppers and sausages they sold. So close to the action. You could hear the crack of the bat. Kaline’s corner. Never again will there be a place like that. And never again will I see a Tiger game in person.

    411 chars

  46. Dexter said on June 10, 2009 at 1:21 am

    I saw the MTV ass-in-face and I did not believe it was contrived. Has MTV or Cohen admitted it was staged? I saw “Bruno” crash hard into the air makeup unit and go into a wild spin and plead to be lowered, and I thought it was just an accident how he landed on eminem’s lap. If that was a set-up, kudos to the director.
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    Here’s the kind of story that makes the local news all the time. This is a message from my brother’s friend Sarah, Mundelein, Illinois:
    The turtle that crossed the road

    I’m glad to report that the turtle (the size of one of my hubcaps – and I’m truly NOT kidding) which was crossing east to west Rt 83 today, made it successfully across the road. For those of you familiar with this road between Midlothian and Hawley, you understand the amount of traffic on this road at any given time of day and what a remarkable thing it was to not be hit. Outside of sea turtles, this was the largest turtle I’ve ever seen in the wild. It cost me a warning ticket since I got out of my car and held up traffic in order for it to pass. One of Lake County’s finest was in the northbound lane waiting, but it was SO worth it. It was simply an amazing thing to see at a moment I wasn’t expecting it as I was lost in thought about other things that seemed vastly more important. Isn’t life just like that sometimes? As I was watching it lumber along, singularly focused on reaching the swamp on the other side and oblivious to all that were waiting, the thought crossed my mind that sometimes our burdens and perils pale in perspective to others. It was a timely message, at least for me and just wanted to share it.” -end–

    1667 chars

  47. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on June 10, 2009 at 8:08 am

    Absolutely worth a ticket. Sounds like it must have been a snapping turtle leaving a drying pond looking for a better water supply.

    132 chars