In the year of Our Lord, 2011...

I resolve to:

• exercise moderation in the pursuit of all things, particularly the quality of being moderate
• give a Dutch oven to a Dutch girl
• eat less cheese / destroy fewer commodes
• give without any thought of reciprocity, especially in instances of ass-kickings and STDs
• not rage violently about things such as cyclists, democrats, the New York Rangers, Texas' sodomy laws, the Amish, the lack of good bagel shops in Houston, my ever-increasing volume of ear hair, etc...
• see at least five films in theatrical release (the gauntlet is thrown... bring it on, Hollywood)
• make every effort as one man to bring parachute pants back into style
• be less overtly gassy in the company of friends and family (NEVER gonna happen)
• write more
• put more effort into grooming myself
• put more effort into grooming my dog
• put more effort into grooming the lawn
• put more effort into becoming a groom (grooming myself will hopefully help towards this end)
• be a bigger bad ass than I was in 2010 (a tall order, indeed)
• be more resolute

If I may invoke Roddy Piper... Guess he's all out of bubble gum.

Is saying you need to figure out "whose ass to kick" a presidential way to behave???

A Sort-of Look-Alike, State of the Union edition

Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi...

and this thing, whatever the hell it is...

A Civil Servant Sort-Of Look-Alike

The new mayor-elect of Houston, Annise Parker...

and the mayor of TV's South Park

I wonder...

Now that Houston has become the largest U. S. city to elect an openly gay mayor, will all those big concert tours that always book Austin and Dallas, but routinely bypass our fair city, now start scheduling dates here?

I wonder...

"Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?" --Ebenezer Scrooge

With each passing day, I find myself increasingly convinced that the further we travel down this road of bailouts and "toxic asset" relief, the more and more likely we are to arrive at a destination with droves of the American citizenry being sent to some sort of Dickensian debtors prison...

I'm just sayin'.

I know it's so very wrong...

but I must admit, when I saw this headline today on the Yahoo front page, "New presidential limousine to be unveiled during inauguration", this image popped into my head instantaneously...



Yup.

I wonder...

with this coming Tuesday bringing the swearing-in of Barack Obama as our nation's 44th President, will "Howard Stern Show" Wack Pack-er King of All Blacks feel compelled to abdicate his "throne"... or at least assume a less audacious appellation?

I wonder.

These are a few of my favorite things...

Frequently, someone will ask me, "What is your favorite movie?" Or, perhaps, "Who is your favorite band?" And if they're a woman, "Won't you please just get the hell away from me?!?" At the moment, I'd like to address the first two of these sort of questions. I really have a wildly varied set of enthusiasms, and, due in large part to this, I've never really been concerned with identifying my favorite this or my most adored that. Hell, there's a lot of material to chose from here, folks! Anyway, world, due to your fascination with my fondnesses, and subsequent endless inquiries into such, I've decided to relent, and thus, I am about to give you a very brief and hastily compiled list of some of my faves. Please enjoy... and leave me the hell alone!

Favorite Films: Star Wars, The Godfather, Sweet Smell of Success, The Usual Suspects

Favorite Bands: At the moment, I'll go with The Anniversary / The Only Children, Tilly and the Wall, The Velvet Underground

Favorite Books: "Naked Pictures of Famous People" -Jon Stewart, "The Odyssey" -Homer (Fagles translation), "The Idiot" -Fyodor Dostoevsky

Favorite Comedian: Brian Regan... in a runaway

Favorite Actor: Joseph Cotten

Favorite Actresses: Eleanor Powell, Rita Hayworth

Favorite Restaurant at Which to Avoiding Dining: Chili's

Favorite Sub-Saharan African Country: Tanzania... in a close one over Botswana

Sports Favorites: MLB-Houston Astros, NFL-Dallas Cowboys (I hate you, Tony Romo!), NBA-Houston Rockets, I guess... I mean does anybody like the NBA anymore?, NHL-New York Rangers, NCAA-University of Houston, Non-American Football-Arsenal, Athlete (Overall)- Vince Coleman, Golfer-Paula Creamer (YUM!!!), Hot Oil Wrestler-Miss Candy

Favorite German Political Party: Christian Democratic Union / Christian Social Union (CDU / CSU) Coalition

Favorite Roman Emperor of "The Twelve Caesars": Vespasian

Favorite Cheese: Gruyere

Favorite Bar: Kay's Lounge, Houston, TX

Favorite Beer: The one in front of me

Favorite Child-Labor-Exploiting Sneaker Manufacturer: Nike

Favorite Political Pundit: Kirsten Powers (AND I'M A REPUBLICAN... GO FIGURE!!!)

Favorite Networks: Food Network, Discovery, History Channel

Favorite Pastime: Sleep / Belching (Tie)

Favorite Fruit: Apples / Paul Lynde (Tie)

Okay... ENOUGH, DAMN IT!!!

Bail THIS out, buddy!!!

Here's an interesting little morsel of automotive industry information to digest, courtesy of Stephen Spruiell of National Review magazine...

"GM employees who don’t opt for a buyout or early-retirement package will qualify for GM’s supplemental unemployment benefits, meaning that GM will make up the difference between their former wages and their state unemployment checks. When the unemployment checks run out, GM will pay these workers 95 percent of their former wages for up to two years, depending on seniority. Workers with at least ten years of seniority are eligible for the Job Opportunity Bank Security program. This is the notorious jobs bank that allows laid-off workers to receive their regular hourly pay while sitting around doing crossword puzzles or reading the paper. If GM offers these employees an opportunity to transfer to another plant, they have the right to turn down a limited number of such offers. And if no offer is made, they can stay in the jobs bank until they retire. GM currently has around 1,400 workers nationwide in the jobs bank."

Um... WOW! So, while Ford says thanks, but no thanks, to the "opportunity" to sell their soul to the federal government, General Motors, not exactly efficiently-run financially based on the above reading, and privately-held Chrysler (owned by an investment firm... NAMED AFTER THE HOUND OF HELL, FOR GOD'S SAKE!!!) continue to stand on the corner, cup in hand. If the ten years and 180,000 miles I've gotten out of my Mustang (so far) hadn't already convinced me, the panhandling of GM and Chrysler has cemented it... when it comes time to buy a new car, I'll have a shiny, new Ford in my driveway.

Match in the gas tank... BOOM! BOOM!

So...

I sit down to enjoy the morning's third cappuccino because, hey, who doesn't like to start the day with a severe case of the sweat 'n' shakes??? I hear, seemingly much like every other business venture nowadays, that the fine folks at Starbucks, my hosts for this moment, are in a bit of a fiduciary fix. I wonder... how can a company that charges four bucks for three cents worth of coffee be in any sort of monetary mess? I wouldn't think that a couple of six-dollar-an-hour baristas would lead to much in the way of overhead... perhaps having locations on three different corners of a single intersection is over-saturating the market just a wee bit... whatever. Anyway, as I begin to quiver down the robust brew, I suddenly flash back to those ads for some type of international relief fund... "for the cost of a daily cup of coffee, you can change the world," they told us. At the time, I seem to recall this "cost" being somewhere between 35 and 50 cents. Ten, fifteen, twenty bucks a month and I could feed a hungry child who had the misfortune of being born somewhere south of the Sahara. As I pop back into the present, I contemplate what could now be done with cost of a daily cup of coffee... a taxpayer-subsidized, government bailout of Starbucks, of course!

Match in the gas tank... BOOM! BOOM!

Harbinger of things to come???

Here are a few of the more interesting anagrams derived from "President Barack Obama":

breadbasket panoramic

backbiter pander samoa

tieback abramson raped

setback arabian romped

brackets beam paranoid

backseat repairman bod

cabinetmaker raps a bod

backdates airborne map

Based on these, I'd say we're doomed!

And so it goes...

• I'm 35 years old with 20/10 vision... and I've decided I'd like to start wearing glasses with rose-tinted lenses... or yellow, perhaps.
• The Keynesian nightmare continues as the call for economic interventionism grows ever louder. Communism, here we come! And yet, until the next administration takes power, it appears, at least based on today's hearing before the House Financial Services Committee (chaired by everyone's favorite mischievous little imp, Barney Frank), Congress is prepared to punt Detroit's Big 3... instead of agreeing to drop $25B worth of change in the GM / Ford / Chrysler cup, today saw a chamber full of representatives ready to give the auto-execs the bums rush. And when our elected officials learned that each of the CEOs had travelled to the hearings in their corporate jets, the bipartisan grandstanding was delicious! The antics of wacky Dems Gary Ackerman and Brad Sherman were laugh out loud funny. The smarmy, yet stern, reproach of Texas' own Jeb Hensarling was a squirm-in-your-seat delight of a diatribe... "At what point," the congressman queried, "does Starbucks get in line? Who doesn't get in line for the 700 billion dollars?" OY GEVALT!!! God help us... the end is nigh!
• I was recently watching some ABC Family Channel (oddly enough, with my family) and saw a promo for the upcoming airing of some piece of celluloid-based tripe entitled A Carol Christmas, starring (get this!): Tori Spelling, Gary Coleman... and William Shatner! How in the hell does this shit get made?!?!? Now that steaming turd of a film.... THAT makes the baby Jesus cry!
• I'm already on the season's second tin of three-flavor stale popcorn... and I must admit, it's the cute little Santa kittens / puppies and ice skating cartoon penguins that hook me, not the crappy popcorn. DON'T JUDGE... YOU'RE NO BETTER THAN ME!!!

"The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind." ~William Blake

As a dyed-in-the-wool member of the political party just soundly defeated, I'd like to express my feelings towards the coming administration and 111th Congress...

I pray that President-elect Obama will prove to be a competent, wise leader and commander-in-chief.

I pray that the Congress, with the Democrats wielding power almost entirely unchecked, will govern well and by the best interests of their constituency, as opposed to pushing through legislation promoting a leftist ideology with designs on social engineering.

I pray that, in the coming years, our country will experience peace, prosperity and freedom unprecedented.

I am completely sincere in my wishes (but I'm not holding my breath).

"Politicians are like diapers...

They both need changing regularly and for the same reason."

Ah, I LOVE that quote!

And on that particular topic... why is it that I wince every time a politician uses the phrase "the American people" these days? The citizenry of the country has become a cheap, overused cliche. More and more, I feel less like a constituent a more like a subject.

Sorry, just a quick moment to whine.