Tuesday, November 27, 2012

This, That, The Other


I know I said I wouldn't be back until December, but I've got random things about which I feel like spouting off. Feel free to run away.

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Go visit HERE. I'm pretty sure you'll agree. And, if you do, show some guts and join the boycott. I have.

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In the election just past, medical use of marijuana was approved in Massachusetts.


(Orange = Legal For Recreational Use; Green = Medical Marijuana Legalized)


I voted for it. It passed by an overwhelming margin statewide and only two small communities in the entire state voted against it. Now, local city and town councils are trying to block dispensing of the drug in their neighborhoods. "Not in MY backyard!", they cry.

What is it with politicians in this state? Every time the people of The Commonwealth approve something via initiative petition and the voting process, they rise up on their hind legs and start bloviating about how the people may have spoken but caution must be taken because the people don't realize the consequences of what they've just said. Bull Shit. The people have spoken and what they said most clearly was that politicians should get the fuck out of the way on this.

Tell you what. Put it in my backyard - literally. Show me where to sign up and I'll run a dispensary from my house. Second option - point me toward the nearest politician so I can kick him in the balls.

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Notre Dame completed an undefeated regular season in college football and will be playing for the national championship on January 7th. I'm not particularly a huge Notre Dame fan, but I'm glad they'll be playing.




Over the past few years, it has become the trend for many sportswriters, prognosticators, and others with some access to the public ear, to preemptively crown teams participating in the SEC as the top college football teams in the nation, giving little regard to the worthiness of contenders from outside of that conference. Last year, the national championship was a rematch of a game played during the regular season in the SEC. Something of a self-fulfilling prophecy came about. An SEC team was guaranteed the crown, thus allowing the pundits to say, "See? An SEC team won! We were right! It IS the best conference!"

Now, I'm not so dense as to not see the fine quality of teams and players in that conference. Good football is played there on a regular basis. But it is also played elsewhere in the country, and I'm sick of good teams from other areas being given the short end of the stick.

I want nothing more than for Notre Dame (a team unaffiliated with any conference) to kick the ass of whichever SEC representative they end up playing on January 7th (either Georgia or Alabama, decided this coming weekend in a game between the two.) So, for now, I'm a huge Notre Dame fan.

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Lest you think I'm all about the negativity here, I'll mention that I have received fruitcake.




Some of you - the uneducated of palette - will still contend that I'm bringing up a negative. No, I'm not. Bad fruitcake is a miserable thing. Good fruitcake is a treasure. And I've received good fruitcake.

I've had TWO sources of fruitcake happiness: My Uncle Jim and My Good Friend Thimbelle.

(Actually, the cakes came with additional sender names attached - My Uncle John, in one instance, and The Wrench and The Twinkie, in the other, but I don't have links for them, so the other folks get the top billing.)

The fruitcake from Thimbelle (Collin Street) was actually four different fruitcakes, each in its own little tin. They weighed about a pound each, with four varying main fruitful ingredients, and they arrived before Thanksgiving and were thus Thanksgiving fruitcakes, mostly gobbled up (yes, gobbled) by the evening of that holiday. The fruitcake from my uncles (Assumption Abbey) was found on my doorstep last night, and while it remains uneaten it is also an exercise program. It weighs SEVEN POUNDS. I've been doing curls with it prior to eating it.

Thank you, folks, from the bottom of my heart (which will be sitting atop my humongous belly after I polish off the cakes.)

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I'm still pissed that the Boston Celtics traded Kendrick Perkins.




It happened a year ago, but I can't help it. Until such time as he retires, I'll remain pissed. I still believe they would have won at least one additional championship had he been around and healthy when they needed him in Game Seven of The Finals in 2010, and they might have won one last year, too, if he hadn't been traded. Why do people try to fix what wasn't broken?

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Knucklehead has lost over 100 pounds and is now planning to run a marathon. I get winded running to first base. Of course, if I lost 100 pounds, I'd... well, actually, that would leave me at 85 pounds and I don't suppose that would make me a better softball player. Anyway, what he's accomplished is magnificent. You should go to his place and congratulate him on becoming attractive again.

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While I think of it, I want to once again thank you folks who tried to help with Thanksgiving Comes First.

I really do fear we've passed the point of no return, though. I'm making a Kendrick Perkins face.

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I'll be back on December 3rd with the first of many holiday-themed re-runs. I can hear your heart beating with anticipatory glee. Try to remain calm.

Soon, with more better stuff (kind of.)

31 comments:

Craig said...

You may have noticed that my state is one of the 'green' ones. I'll just say that, for the first year or so after the 'medical marijuana' law was passed, there was a 'dispensary' about a block-and-a-half from my house. And it was not a happy thing, having half the stoners in town (since, it seemed, there were more than a few docs who would write a 'weed scrip' pretty much for the asking) hanging out and toking up, or just waiting for the place to open, while our kids were walking to school, etc. After about a year, they tightened up the rules/enforcement for who qualified, and where the 'clinics' could be located (500 feet from schools, stuff like that), and everybody seems to be happier with it now. . .

As re Notre Dame. . . (*sigh*). . . I understand how annoying the whole 'SEC is God' line of rhetoric is, and the contortions that the BCS went thru last year to generate an all-SEC championship game were outrageous, but. . . God save us if Notre Dame wins the championship. It'll be like God Himself is the ND football coach; they'll take Touchdown Jesus off the library, and put up Brian Kelly. The only folks more arrogant than SEC-types are Notre Dame types (since Alabama beat Michigan 42-14, I'll temporarily set aside the arrogance of Michiganites, which is of its own high order. . .), and if they win anything, there is no-one else in all of college football. . . They're like the freakin' Yankees, so convinced of their own God-given superiority, whether it corresponds with reality or not. . .

Buck said...

So, for now, I'm a huge Notre Dame fan.

Heh. Welcome! C'mon in, make yerfineself comfortable, and you MIGHT wanna stay.

Fruitcake: I LOVED my greatgrandmother's creations. I've never had the equal since she died.

Medical & recreational pot: Hell yes. And tax it... high, hard, and fast.

Pearl said...

Medical marijuana has not come to the voter in MN, but I'm willing to bet it would pass.

And why not?

Pearl

Buck said...

@Craig:

The only folks more arrogant than SEC-types are Notre Dame types...

It ain't arrogance when ya have the winningest program in the history o' college ball.

Craig said...

OK, just to continue my rant for one more comment-box. . . I think 90% of the problem is the BCS itself, and the pretentiousness of saying you're identifying the two best teams, to play for the championship. Bullshit. At minimum, there needs to be an 8-team playoff (and 16 is probably even better). I'm pretty sure you can pick 8 or 16 teams, and figure that one of them is the best. But two? You're kidding yourself. . .

stephen Hayes said...

Oregon has always been pro pot--that isn't a glass bud vase on my desk, yet even Oregon voted against legalizing pot for recreational uses. Now I'll need to drive to Washington State next door if I want to buy some...legally that is, and only if the Feds stay out of it.

Remember how the end of Don't Ask Don't Tell was supposed to destroy our military. That didn't happen, and our society won't come crumbling down if pot is legalized and regulated like alcohol.

Craig said...

Awwww, Buck, enjoy yer good season; and enjoy being part of the conversation again for the first time in 20 years. Ain't that good enough? (And besides, I think my friends from Ann Arbor would pick a quarrel with you over that 'winningest program' bit; so you see what we're up against; nothing but God's gifts to football as far as the eye can see. . .) (and I haven't even mentioned the damn Buckeyes. . .)

Craig said...

@Stephen - I actually have a certain sympathy for the notion of treating pot like alcohol. Maybe even a lot of sympathy. But that first-year free-for-all under the 'medical marijuana' law was ridiculous. . .

Michelle H. said...

Glad you had a wonderful Thanksgiving, and it was full of fruity cake goodness.

lime said...

my husband announced to the entire family on the day after the election that we should prepare to move to seattle since i love that city and since the voters of WA rose up and told the federal government to go self-fornicate on the matter of pot.

glad you've already gotten a couple of fruitcakes to indulge in. do enjoy!

Daryl said...

did i tell you about my former co-worker Helen who is from Jamaica mon and whose family tradition is to soak the fruit used in a fruit cake in rum beginning on December 27 for 10 months and then use said insanely inebriated fruit in the new year's fruit cake ... i will tell you this, if i havent already, that cake was lethal and divinely decadent .. if you can eat more than one small slice ... well trust me you can't .. not and stand up ...

Chris said...

Thanks for the typically backhanded complement, Jim. I'll take it.

On a more serious note regarding the medical marijuana thing, California has had this for some time now and to be honest, it's a joke. Getting a medical marijuana card is about as tough as getting a library card (actually, it might be easier). It's pretty much to the point that if you're going to go halfway and make it legal for "medical" purposes (quotes are definitely of the sarcastic variety), you may as well just legalize it for recreational use.

joeh said...

I'll never figure out how the government thinks it can outlaw something that grows in just about any soil faster than crabgrass!

8 team playoff, how hard is that?...quit the nonsence already!!

T thought I was the last person who loved that delicious yet much maligned holiday treat FRUITCAKE!!

(not necessarily your) Uncle Skip said...

I'm not going to get into the post discussion because I don't have a solution. I just know it doesn't seem to be working here in NorCal.

The BCS doesn't seem to be working much better.
I sure wasn't rooting for SC. I like them even less than Snodfart.

I wondered how long it would be before you mentioned fruitcake. It seems to fit in this post.

I feel your pain when it come to fixing stuff that ain't broke.

The me firsters have us pretty well overwhelmed when it come to Thanksgiving, but I'm prepared to continue until my last breath.

(not necessarily your) Uncle Skip said...

Oh yeah... and Knucklehead's probably going to tell us he doesn't do In-N-Out any more, too?

The Good Cook said...

I love a good fruitcake. The dessert too.

Tabor said...

I do not care about marijuana. We have such horrible issues with drunk driving, smoking pot is just another good feel to be regulated around machinery. I do not like fruitcake...but I am sure there are good fruitcakes out there somewhere. Hope your Thanksgiving was filled with thankfulness and that you did not lose weight on that day.

messymimi said...

Well, i'm with you on teams outside the SEC being wrongly overlooked, and i live in the middle of SEC madness.

Enjoy the fruitcake, and i'm looking forward to the reruns (i'm all for a good smile, even the second time around).

The Broad said...

Have a great holiday. Looking forward to the reruns, but will still be glad to see you back again!

Nope, I just don't like fruitcake or anything with dried fruit. To me the best think about fruitcake is the way they decorate them over here!

Ami said...

I like picking the fruit out of fruitcake and eating it. But I'm sorry, I can't find it in my heart to love the cake part.

Maybe if I smoke enough almost legal stuff?

Anonymous said...

If I receive any fruitcake, I'll send it your way! (Making a Kendrick Perkins face.) And I think all states should just give in an legalize marijuana, period. Cut out the middle man and make money on the taxes. That way the rich guys will be left alone. Except for the ones who got rich on marijuana, I guess.

Suldog said...

Ami says: "I like picking the fruit out of fruitcake and eating it. But I'm sorry, I can't find it in my heart to love the cake part. Maybe if I smoke enough almost legal stuff?"

Finally, someone gets the combination of the two! :-)

Craig said...

See, and here I thought that the really good fruitcakes had the weed baked right in. . .

fuzzbert_1999@yahoo.com said...

Go SEC!

Jenn Flynn-Shon said...

Rudy, Rudy, Rudy, Rudy, RUDY.....

Karen said...

I love fruitcake :)

Hilary said...

You folks are ahead of us on this one. We're still waiting for legalization. I'm not real fond of fruitcake though I'm sure it would be just fine combined with pot.. legal or otherwise.

Babs said...

Thanks Jim for adding the link to my blog..what I'm finding is on FB and now here there are a lot of closet Walmart shoppers and they don't want to comment because they go there and they don't want to have to commit. When I add that video on my sight it might change a few if they watch it.

As for the pot, medicinal and other wise. Legalize it for crying out loud. It's like this.
Make it not so much of a big deal and it won't be a big deal and then it might make the fruit cake taste like something. lol. jk

Joanna Jenkins said...

At 54 1/2 years old, I've yet to taste a "good" fruitcake but I'll take your word for it that it does exist.

I was so glad Notre Dame beat USC. Actually, I'm happy when any team beats USC ;-)

See you in December. jj

Sueann said...

Okay...I will quit dancing around and wait till next week for your "better" stuff!!
Ha
Hugs
SueAnn

Chris said...

Uncle Skip . . . I've had about two In N Out burgers in 2012. Total. Now that I'm at my goal weight, I pretty much eat what I want (within reason) on the weekends, and stick to my regular plan Monday through Friday. Seems to be working, so I'll probably indulge in Double-Doubles now and then...