Month: October 2007

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Cowboys 25, Bills 24

I guess I need to say something about this game, which has already attained legendary status in Buffalo’s annals of negative sports outcomes. I tend to have a sunnier outlook on stuff than most Bills fans, so here it is: I don’t think Dick Jauron should be fired (yet), and I think that this game may turn out to be a key foundational event in building the character of a good team to come.

How’s that?

The offensive play-calling is baffling, and of this current coaching staff, if there’s anyone whom I think should be on a “Job Endangered” list, it’s offensive coordinator Steve Fairchild. I don’t understand running a reverse on third-and-one; I don’t understand the continued refusal to take shots downfield; I certainly don’t understand his continued refusal to run the ball in obvious running situations late in games. This was the third time this season that the Bills went “pass-wacky” in a late-game situation:

:: There was the long bomb at about three minutes to go in the Denver game, which the Bills led at the time, 14-12. Had they simply run the ball and kept the clocking going, and everything else had unfolded the same way, the Broncos would have run out of time before kicking the FG to win 15-14.

:: The Bills threw in a similar situation in the Jets game, thus failing to run any time off the clock. This left the Jets enough time to attempt a drive for a tying FG. They came up short when Pennington threw an interception, but it wouldn’t — and needn’t — have ever come to that.

:: And in this game the Bills led 24-16 with six minutes to go. Third-and-eight from the Dallas 11-yard line, so they’re easily within FG range. Instead of running, grinding away a minute or so of game time, and getting three points in the bargain to go up by 11, Fairchild called ‘pass’. The pass was picked off. The Cowboys didn’t get points off that turnover, but they preserved clock and the more manageable point margin they needed to overcome.

I genuinely don’t understand why the Bills’ coaches keep doing this stuff. It makes no sense. I don’t know a single Bills fan who would rather have the offense score touchdowns than have the whole team win games.

On the quarterbacks: I personally think that JP Losman has to be put back in now, if he’s healthy, but with the proviso that he’s got to show his stuff, now. He had time for growth last year. If the Bills go another four or five games and he still looks the way he did in the first two games this year (when he didn’t so much play poorly as barely play at all), then bring on the Edwards Era. (Of course, if some other team wants to offer up a compelling trade offer for Losman, including one or two high draft picks, I’d hope the Bills would take it.) I’ve been rooting for Losman because, frankly, I like the guy and hope he has a great career. Losman just seems like a good guy, and I like that. But production’s production, right?

(However, some perspective is always helpful: if Losman had been under center Monday night and produced the exact same result — 150 yards or so passing, 0 TDs and a very bad INT, leading the offense to producing just three points — Bills fans would be calling for his immediate one-way ticket to the waiver wire.)

Finally, I’m hearing a lot of negative stuff about Dick Jauron, how he’s too stoic and he’s not that good on the X’s and O’s and how his press conferences can be maddening affairs. (His defense of that third-and-eight pass play? “Well, you don’t know that if we run the ball, the back doesn’t fumble.” Huh?!) I agree to a point. But then I think of how lackadaisical and just plain apathetic the Bills looked through large whacks of the Gregg Williams and Mike Mularkey “eras”, where this year’s team (and last year’s), play with as much fire and heart as I’ve seen a Bills team even during the glory days. They come up short because of talent, injuries, and yes, poor strategy. But when I look at the way this supposedly overmatched team came out and very nearly knocked off the NFC’s best team, I wonder if we’re not selling Dick Jauron short as far as his motivational skills go.

Anyway, this week’s a bye week. Next up, the Baltimore Ravens, with former underachiever Willis McGahee making his return to Buffalo. I hope they kept his old hotel room and video game controller warm for him.

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The Pharyngula mutating genre meme

PZ Myers has created a new blog-meme thing, and he’s tagged me as part of his initial attempt to turn Blogistan into his own personal petri dish. How appalling!!!

Oh well, here are the rules:

There are a set of questions below that are all of the form, “The best [subgenre] [medium] in [genre] is…”. Copy the questions, and before answering them, you may modify them in a limited way, carrying out no more than two of these operations:

* You can leave them exactly as is.

* You can delete any one question.

* You can mutate either the genre, medium, or subgenre of any one question. For instance, you could change “The best time travel novel in SF/Fantasy is…” to “The best time travel novel in Westerns is…”, or “The best time travel movie in SF/Fantasy is…”, or “The best romance novel in SF/Fantasy is…”.

* You can add a completely new question of your choice to the end of the list, as long as it is still in the form “The best [subgenre] [medium] in [genre] is…”.

* You must have at least one question in your set, or you’ve gone extinct, and you must be able to answer it yourself, or you’re not viable.

Then answer your possibly mutant set of questions. Please do include a link back to the blog you got them from, to simplify tracing the ancestry, and include these instructions.

Finally, pass it along to any number of your fellow bloggers. Remember, though, your success as a Darwinian replicator is going to be measured by the propagation of your variants, which is going to be a function of both the interest your well-honed questions generate and the number of successful attempts at reproducing them.

OK then. PZ gives his own set of questions to start with:

1. The best time travel novel in SF/Fantasy is…

The Anubis Gates, by Tim Powers.

2. The best romantic movie in historical fiction is…

Cold Mountain.

3. The best sexy song in rock is…

Gloria, by Patti Smith.

OK, time for my modifications, with my own answers:

1. The best near-future novel in SF/Fantasy is…

Firestar, by Michael Flynn.

2. The best romantic movie in historical fiction is…

Shakespeare in Love.

3. [deleted original] The best opera recording in classical music is…

Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen, Sir Georg Solti/VPO.

OK, I hope I did that right. Now, to do this right, some tags: Tosy and Cosh, Samurai Frog, TeflonJedi, Lynn Sislo, and — in an further experiment with plugging memes into collectives — the crowd at No Fear of the Future.

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(Not that I would have anytime soon, anyway)

I will never, ever, ever, vote for another Republican candidate for anything, as long as I draw breath.

Why?

Ezra Klein:

Something has gone wrong on the Right. Become sick and twisted and tumorous and ugly. To visit Michelle Malkin’s cave is to see politics at its most savage, its most ferocious, its most rageful. They say they’ve spent the past week smearing a child and his family because that child was fair game — he and his family spoke of their experience receiving health care through the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. For this, right wingers travel to their home, insinuate that the family is engaged in large-scale fraud, make threatening phone calls to the family, interrogate the neighbors as to the family’s character and financial state.

This is the politics of hate. Screaming, sobbing, inchoate, hate. It would never, not in a million years, occur to me to drive to the home of a Republican small business owner to see if he “really” needed that tax cut. It would never, not in a million years, occur to me to call his family and demand their personal information. It would never occur to me to interrogate his neighbors. It would never occur to me to his smear his children.

John Cole:

I simply can not believe this is what the Republican party has become. I just can’t. It just makes me sick to think all those years of supporting this party, and this is what it has become. Even if you don’t like the S-Chip expansion, it is hard to deny what Republicans are- a bunch of bitter, nasty, petty, snarling, sneering, vicious thugs, peering through people’s windows so they can make fun of their misfortune.

Oh, and for the “You guys do it too!” crowd, here’s Ezra again:

And here’s another question: Does anyone remember DailyKos launching a feeding frenzy trying to smear or discredit Ashley? Anyone hear of Markos Moulitsas camping out outside her house to see if Ashley was really grieving? His readers interviewing her teachers to see if her academic performance had actually improved as a result of the President’s hug? Did any of that happen? Or did the Left raise some questions about the political appropriateness of the ad without trying to destroy the family’s name and reputation?

There’s a difference here. And it’s not in which side elevates sympathetic stories and individuals into the public eye. They both do that. It’s in how low the other side stoops in response.

I could vomit, I really could.

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A Quiz!

I knicked this from Still Life with Soup Can. I don’t remember doing this one before, so here it is. It’s about…food!

1. How do you like your eggs? Scrambled, with cheese or without, with a liberal sprinkling of black pepper and hot sauce. Or as an omelet with many, many kinds of fillings.

2. How do you take your coffee/tea? Black with quite a bit of sugar. I’ll use a creamer now and again as a change of pace, but mostly, I subscribe to the wonderful Turkish proverb: Coffee should be black as Hell, strong as Death, and sweet as Love. (I’ve never tried real Turkish coffee, though.)

3. Favorite breakfast food? My love of pancakes and waffles knows no bounds, but at a restaurant I’m likely to order some kind of combo plate with eggs, meat, and toast. These days, though, my main breakfast meal tends to be a bowl of frosted shredded wheat, topped with blueberries (fresh if possible and not expensive, frozen otherwise), with a glass of orange juice.

4. Peanut butter – smooth or crunchy? Smooth, because that’s the preference of the WomenFolk of Casa Jaquandor. I personally have no great preference either way.

5. What kind of dressing on your salad? My favorite is poppyseed dressing. For some reason, in restaurants I reflexively order ranch, even though it’s boring. At home, I’m switching to extra virgin olive oil mixed with balsamic vinegar. Eventually I’ll start doing things like making my own vinaigrettes.

6. Coke or Pepsi? Usually Pepsi, but I like Coke too. I wish I could get Passover Coke in these parts (although in truth I haven’t tried any of the stores in the Jewish neighborhoods of Buffalo). I’ve pretty much stopped drinking diet pop, because I’m told the chemicals in them are all kinds of bad. Have I researched this matter myself? Of course not. Because I just do what I’m told, that’s why.

7. You’re feeling lazy, what do you make? A couple hot dogs, or maybe a bowl of Ramen.

8. You’re feeling really lazy. What kind of pizza do you order? Italian sausage and onions. Or pepperoni and banana peppers. Or ham and mushrooms on a white crust. (By the way: Chicago pizza is pizza. Deal with it, you NYC-style pizza crybabies!)

9. You feel like cooking. What do you make? Depends on my mood, really. If I’m feeling ambitious, I make a mean Pastitsio (just made one last week, as a matter of fact). I do good fried chicken, although I do that maybe once a year. My mac-and-cheese is good.

10. Do any foods bring back good memories? Ramen noodles, which I ate from a very early age — especially if I have any rye crisp bread to butter and then dip in the Ramen broth. Spanish rice and corn bread is a stand-by dish from when The Wife and I were first dating. And, of course, a roasted turkey.

11. Do any foods bring back bad memories? Hmmmm…can’t think of any off the top of my head.

12. Do any foods remind you of someone? Spanish rice. See above. And ditto the also afore-mentioned Ramen with rye crisp; that reminds me of my father.

13. Is there a food you refuse to eat? Broccoli. I consider anyone who claims to genuinely like the flavor of broccoli to be delusional.

14. What was your favorite food as a child? Totino’s frozen pizza.

15. Is there a food that you hated as a child but now like? I’m coming to enjoy mushrooms, although not to the point of eating them by themselves, or having stuffed mushrooms as an appetizer. But I do like them in stuff, like on a pizza. That used to be a dealbreaker for me, but now, I’ll cheerfully eat a pizza with shrooms on it. Oh, and squash.

16. Is there a food that you liked as a child but now hate? Not hate, per se, but there’s stuff that while I don’t dislike it I genuinely wonder what I thought the fuss was — like those dirt-cheap frozen pot pies, for instance. For a frozen pot pie, Pepperidge Farm or Marie Callender’s make much better ones; and really, if I’m really hungry for pot pie, I’ll make one myself.

From my college years, though? I can’t fathom how I went for a year consuming Easy Cheese on a regular basis. Ewwwwwww.

17. Favorite fruit and vegetable: Blueberries; Green peppers.

18. Favorite junk food: Chips of just about any kind (except that horrible “Dill Pickle” flavor), chocolate chip cookies, ice cream.

19. Favorite between meal snack: These days? A couple ounces of mixed nuts, or a cup of yogurt, or a granola bar.

20. Do you have any weird food habits? With chicken wings, I tend to eat the “drummies” before I eat the “wing” section. When we make any kind of baked pasta dish, I have to get a serving from the edge of the pan, where that crusty goo forms. And whenever we get pizza, I start eating it with a knife and fork, until I eventually decide to just pick it up like you’re supposed to do.

21. You’re on a diet. What food(s) do you fill up on? I don’t do diets; rather, I try to build new eating habits. I love peanut butter spread on celery, though.

22. You’re off your diet. Now what would you like? Everything!

23. How spicy do you order Indian/Thai? I don’t order Indian or Thai. Why? Because I never make it a priority to get off my arse and go sample Indian and Thai. I admit that this is a serious flaw in my food education.

24. Can I get you a drink? Yeungling lager; or Blue Moon pumpkin ale; or Sam Adams Cherry Wheat; or a rum-and-coke but only if it’s Captain Morgan; vanilla rum and root beer.

25. Red wine or white? Red. Especially if it’s Port — I love Port.

26. Favorite dessert? Ice cream. Or cake. Or both.

27. The perfect nightcap? A cup of herbal tea with honey.

Hmmm…for some reason I’m hungry now.

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Sentential Links #113

And here we go with some sentential goodness after a week off! To the links, Batman!

:: And although I’ve been laying the seeds for a while, it feels like Saturday night, a hockey fan was born. (Great story. For some reason, my daughter’s first instance of hating a sports team is, believe it or not, the Toronto Maple Leafs. Not entirely sure how that came to pass, but there it is! And congrats to the BfloBlog guys for two years in the saddle of blogging Buffalo hockey sports.)

:: Jet travel. Skiing. Bitchen cars and cheap gas. Triumph motorcycles. Soldiers not yet dead in Viet Nam.

Optimism.

It’s all in there. All of it. G to B flat.

:: And how can I see past the person they are not, to catch even a glimpse of something else?

:: Perhaps we can trade Guatemala one for one: Lou Dobbs for Pedro Zapeta. We’d be getting the better end of the deal…

:: Free individuals are under no obligation to recite pledges of allegiance of any kind.

:: One of several unfortunate elements of the global warming debate is that it’s my sense that the public generally overestimates the degree of sacrifice involved in heading off catastrophic climate change. (This is something that always bothers me about the global warming “debate” — either warming is denied to exist at all, or it’s admitted to exist but with the proviso that to do anything about it would return the entire world economy to the way things were in Little House on the Prairie.)

:: Why is it that a guy who thinks U.S. military action is always the answer is any more credible than the peacenik who thinks it never is?

:: Whenever I suggest a book, and the kid says yes but the parent says no, it’s almost always because it’s not “serious” enough. Whenever a kid asks for a book, and the parent says no, the most common reason given (aside from cost) is that it’s not “what they should be reading” – as in, you should be reading something that isn’t called Captain Underpants and isn’t full of pictures. (Brand new blog to me, and I don’t even remember how I found it. Nevertheless, her URL and screenname reveal a love of a series of books that are favorites of mine, too. Cool!)

:: I’ve had a good birthday. Now I better go wash the whip cream out of my hair. (I hope she used non-dairy stuff, it washes out better…um…er…Happy birthday to one of my favorite bloggers! Moving on….)

:: I’ve just discovered that (counting a couple of in-press stories) I’ve got enough published short fiction to fill a collection. (A few weeks ago I was in Barnes&Noble and found a copy of Interzone, a mag I’d never seen before but heard of, and found within its pages one of Jayme’s stories. I’ll have to read it soon!)

:: I never did find out what happened to the cart after that; whatever it was, there were certainly no witnesses.

:: We need more comics that open with a little girl being pushed off a balcony: (Heavens!)

:: A good way to make fun of someone who loves the new, super-serious remake of Battlestar Galactica: tell them the show inherently makes no logical sense to you without Muffit, the robot dog. (Zounds!)

:: Who ever heard of bell-bottom sweatpants? (Ummm…what?!)

All for this week, folks. Thanks for playing, and we’ll have some lovely consolation prizes for you out back. Yeah, out back. Way out back. Yeah, over there. In that alley. Yeah, keep goin’…that’s right….heh heh heh!

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Tremble, mere mortals!

I’m writing this entry not from home, but from the wi-fi enabled cafe at another location of The Store. (My own Store does not currently have wi-fi, because the local telecom carriers don’t yet have a transmitter in close enough proximity to The Store for wi-fi to be possible.) I honestly don’t remember if I’ve ever posted to the blog from outside the friendly confines of Casa Jaquandor, so this may well be a first of epic proportions. I’m sitting here, drinking strawberry-infused iced tea, typing away as I generate the second draft of a short story I finished some time ago, and I’m happy as a clam.

(One day, someone’s going to have to do some actual scientific research as to the happiness of clams. How happy can they be, really?)

Oh, and I’ve got my cell phone on, too. In one fell swoop, I have planted my feet squarely in 2004! (I’m still lacking an iPod, obviously.)

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Sunday Burst of Weirdness

OK, we’re finally back on track here at Byzantium’s Shores. Here’s some weirdness for you all!

(Several of these links were pointed out to me by readers, but I can’t remember who directed me to what, so feel free to take credit in comments, if you recognize something you sent me.)

:: Does your seventh grader have to dissect a frog and is getting all squicky over the procedure? No problem! Those clever Japanese have harnessed the power of genetic engineering to create a frog with see-through skin. Just don’t kiss the thing; the resulting Prince might well be…a bit creepy.

:: For some reason, apparently the Keanu Reeves/Patrick Swayze cops-and-surfers movie Point Break has become something of a cult favorite. I’ve never really understood why; it’s not a very good movie. But anyway, a theater troupe is now doing Point Break LIVE!. I kid you not:

Point Break LIVE!, the absurdist stage adaptation of the 1992 Keanu Reeves/Patrick Swayze extreme-sports blockbuster, tells the story of former college football star Johnny Utah (Reeves in the film), as he pursues the surfing, bankrobbing, skydiving, bare-hand-fighting, adrenaline junkie cum Zen Master, Bodhi Sattva. The Brechtian blockbuster, which garnered a “Seattle P-I Best of Seattle 2004” award during its run in the Northwest, features armed robbery, big-wave surfing, car chases, explosions, and no less than two extended skydiving sequences. Best of all, you could be the next Johnny Utah… the starring role of Keanu will be selected at random from the audience each night, and will read their entire script off of cue-cards. This method manages to capture the rawness of a Keanu Reeves performance, even from those who generally think themselves incapable of acting.

What could be better!

:: Returning to the original roots of the Sunday Burst of Weirdness, a couple of Cthulhu links. Those of you who are flummoxed by the popularity of LOLCat photos might find LOLThulhu amusing — I sure did. And it seems axiomatic that any good Lovecraft fan should include these as any kind of proper table setting for a dinner party.

:: This was pointed out to me by a reader. I have absolutely no idea what it’s supposed to be.

:: Scotty sent me this (I only remember that he sent it because I still have the e-mail): a bunch of rocket hobbyists have constructed a flying scale model of an X-Wing fighter. And we’re not talking about some small, handheld model or something the size of a typical model airplane. Their model is 21 feet long, which, using the measurement of 12.5 meters for a real X-Wing, is roughly a half-size scale. The planned maiden flight of this ship is apparently scheduled for this week, so let’s be safe, folks, and make sure your thermal exhaust ports are properly shielded!

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Safety Tip #785

When driving and operating a dump truck, make sure that you’re not directly beneath a pair of ungrounded 34000-volt power cables before raising the truck’s bed. Failure to observe this rule can result in scene like this:

Fortunately, no one was hurt. Except for the truck, which has now gone to the great rock quarry in the sky.

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Bring your kids!

About a month ago I mentioned a new children’s bookstore opening soon in Orchard Park, “B is for Books”. Well, the store is going to open this week! They’re doing a soft-open on October 9, with a grand opening bash to come on October 13. Check out their website, bis4books.com, for more information. These aren’t the best of times to be opening independent bookstores, but here’s hoping they make it — consider them, for instance, for your next big birthday party for your kid, if you’re sick of the whole Chuck E. Cheese scene. And support a local business while doing so!

UPDATE: I see that their website doesn’t include directions. For those unfamiliar with Orchard Park or with the Southtowns in general, take the 219 south to the Orchard Park exit, and take Route 20A (which becomes Quaker St. in Orchard Park). When you come to the intersection of 20A and 277/240 (Buffalo St), keep going straight, and Bis4Books will be on the left not more than a few hundred feet past the intersection. They have parking in the rear. And while you’re here, check out some of the other nifty little shops and eateries we have to offer in Orchard Park! We’ve got a great little town here, I’ll tell you what.

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