Ol’ Robbo spent that part of his afternoon not devoted to hauling gels hither and thither putting together his birthday present from Mrs. Robbo, namely his brand new Weber Performance Grill.  And ain’t she a beauty:

The grill, I mean.  Of course, Mrs. R happens to be a beauty, too.  And the fact that she remembered overhearing me praising one of these babies at my brother’s house last Thanksgiving and filed it away as a birthday present idea means that I’m simply not worthy.

What I really like about this grill, aside from the fact that it’s a Weber, is that somebody was really paying attention when they designed it: solid construction; a big, wide prep surface; convenient storage bin underneath; an excellent ash catching thingy.  The only downsides I can see are a) rayther more plastic parts than I could wish, and b) some kind of Rube Goldberg propane ignition system that I wouldn’t touch with a barge pole.  I ask you – if one can’t douse one’s briquets in kerosene, toss in a couple matches and then stand back and watch the fireball boil into the sky, what on earth is the point?

Alas, we’re already booked up with dinner plans the next few nights, but I’m already champing at the bit to give her a whirl next weekend.  (I mean the grill again.  Whirling Mrs. R is a different matter beyond the scope of this blog.)

The surviving members of Monty Python’s Flying Circus are set to reunite for another film, Terry Jones has confirmed.

The star told trade newspaper Variety that he would direct the science fiction picture, Absolutely Anything.

“It’s not a Monty Python picture, but it certainly has that sensibility,” he said.

Jones revealed John Cleese, Terry Gilliam and Michael Palin were on board and he still hoped to sign Eric Idle.

The last time the five remaining members of the iconic comedy group appeared together was in 1998 at the Aspen Comedy Festival.

In the new CGI movie, the Pythons will provide voices for a group of aliens who grant a human being immense power, which eventually leads to all sorts of disruption.

Well, I dunno.  This could go either way.  Meaning of Life, the last Python fillum, left a nasty taste in my mouth.  And Terry Jones is a first class lib wanker.   I liked his Eric the Viking, but the bits I’ve seen of his teevee series on the Middle Ages are almost preposterously biased.

Yes, as I mentioned yesterday, today is ol’ Robbo’s birthday.  My 47th, in fact.  The question is, in crossing this threshold, have I now entered my late mid-40′s or my early late-40′s?

Both of the younger gels have entries.  Nothing even remotely as fun as this looks, but then again, nothing as remotely messy, either.

On the whole, probably just as well.

My apologies for the dearth of posts over the past day or two.  For whatever reason, my bloggie muse took a powder and I simply found myself with nothing to say.  [Ed. - That doesn't usually stop you, does it?  Quiet, you.]

In any event, some random pensees for a Wednesday:

♦  Happy Rabbie Burns Day!  Robert Burns, the national poet of Scotland……The only poet of Scotland.  (I never get tired of that joke.)  I read somewhere or other recently that “Tam O’ Shanter”  has been voted his best poem by somebody or other.  I could’ne say, meself.  Perhaps I should crack a bottle of Laphroaig and consider the question a wee bit deeper.

♦  Speaking of authors, I’ve recently reread Victor Davis Hanson’s Ripples of Battle and his Carnage and Culture.  Can I confess something?  As fond as I am of VDH’s columns and essays, I really just don’t care for his books that much.  There’s a certain disorganized, heavy-handed, repetitive, clang-clang-clang style about them which just puts me off, despite my liking for their substance.

♦  And speaking particularly of historians, go read Robert Kagan’s superb essay about the current fashion on both the Left and the Right of fretting over the imminent and, more important, inevitable collapse of American hegemony.  Kagan’s position, based on the long view, is that this is a lot of nonsense, and that the primary danger we actually face is of bringing on such a collapse by psyching ourselves into it.  The results would not be pretty.

  ♦  Speaking of views, perhaps it’s just because my prescription is so strong and my peripheral vision so terrible, but whenever I wear my glasses I have the curious sensation of looking out a window at the world around me.  And conversely, I have the sensation that other people can’t actually see me.

♦   This makes driving interesting.  Most interesting.

♦  Well, tomorrow happens to be ol’ Robbo’s birthday.  Perhaps I’ll have something meatier to say to mark the occasion.  On the other hand, another step in the march toward senility may keep me blathering at exactly this same level.  Who can say?

]]> http://tpsaye.wordpress.com/2012/01/25/on-this-and-that-2/feed/ 2 Robbo http://tpsaye.wordpress.com/2012/01/23/on-the-brave-new-world-and-the-law-of-the-jungle/ http://tpsaye.wordpress.com/2012/01/23/on-the-brave-new-world-and-the-law-of-the-jungle/#comments Mon, 23 Jan 2012 15:16:03 +0000 Robbo http://tpsaye.wordpress.com/?p=7148 ]]> If you haven’t read Mark Steyn’s weekend piece on the sinking of the Costa Concordia and the barbarism of (some of) its passengers and crew compared to those of the Titanic, go and do so.   As an incentive, here is a little side dig Steyn gets in about a certain detestable 90′s film on the subject of the latter:

In the centenary year of the most famous of all maritime disasters, we would do well to consider honestly the tale of the Titanic. When James Cameron made his movie, he was interested in everything except what the story was actually about. I confess I have very little memory of the film except for Kate Winslet’s lush full breasts and some tedious sub-Riverdance prancing in the hold, but what I do recall traduced the memory of honorable men: In my book, I cite First Officer William Murdoch. In real life, he threw deckchairs to passengers drowning in the water to give them something to cling to, and then he went down with the ship — the dull, decent thing, all very British, with no fuss. In Cameron’s movie, Murdoch takes a bribe and murders a third-class passenger. The director subsequently apologized to the First Officer’s hometown in Scotland and offered £5,000 toward a memorial, which converted into Hollywood dollars equals rather less than what Cameron and his family paid for dinner after the Oscars.

Now, as they say, go read the rest.

I was noodling on the subject of chivalry yesterday when, as a result of a complicated series of bone-headed maneuvers by my brain-damaged children, I wound up having to give the eldest gel my overcoat and myself freezing on the way to and from Mass.  Mrs. R says that I no longer have to play the gentleman to the gels and that if they don’t have the sense to bundle up, that’s their lookout.  While I agree with the sentiment, I don’t think I could actually put it into practice were the situation to arise again.  Of course it’s a far smaller point than the question of giving up a lifeboat seat, but it’s nonetheless on the same continuum.

As we were driving to dinner with friends Saturday evening in the ol’ Honda Badonkadonk®, Mrs. R and I were listening to one of the country channels on Sirius.  I forget which song it was or who sang it, but the first line of the chorus goes, “I should be sleepin’ ‘stead of keepin’ these long hours that I’m keepin”.

“That’s weak!” I observed.

“Em?” replied Mrs. R.

“Weak! If you’ve got to repeat the same word twice in a line to get it to rhyme, then you’ve got some creativity issues.”

“You ought to be a country writer.”

“I don’t want to be a writer, I want to head up the Lyric Police and have the authority to issue citations for wording that is clunky, shallow, clichéd or otherwise offensive to my sensibilities.  Multiple violations could result in substantial fine and/or imprisonment.”

“Um.”

“Seriously, where in Nashville do you think I should send my resume?”

UPDATE: Just to tidy up, the song is, in fact, called “I Should Be Sleeping” and it was sung by Emerson Drive (not a band that I would call A-list Country).

Nonetheless, Gingrich’s surprise win in the South Carolina primaries and the bubblings amonst certain blogs and websites which Robbo visits compels him to point out a fact that ought to weigh heavily on those contemplating the chances of reducing our current President to a single term:

There is no way in Heaven or on Earth that Newt can hope to win a general @(#$*&*(@%  election.

Please! Learn it, live it.

The man is positively chock-a-block with “Kick Me” signs.  You think his enemies on the other side aren’t zeroed in on them? Middle of the road voters would flee him like, Lor lumme, Arthur and his silly English kkkkniggits flew the flying vache.  I ask you: Do you really wish to be taunted a second time-ah?

Indeed, certain persons near and dear to me wonder whether ol’Na-GINGA isn’t some kind of fifth column plant.  I sometimes wonder myself.

Just.

Sayin’.

Alas, I’m afraid I’ve discovered a weakness, thanks to the ice and snow we got last night.  Watching Mrs. R trying to get the thing up the modest rise of the driveway before I could clear the slush off was like watching a beached whale trying to struggle over the dune and back into the sea.  Front-wheel drive plus massive poundage in back means no traction for you!

So now I’m trying to think of a new name for our minivan.  One idea that popped into my mind is the Honda Fat Albert.  Another might be the Honda Brick. 

Other suggestions are, of course, welcome.

No, ol’ Robbo hasn’t been silent the past few days to protest the SOPA legislation.  Instead, he got himself laid a bit low by the ‘flu.  Feeling better now, thank you, just in time to go out and shovel off the inch or so of snow and ice that blanketed the port swiller driveway last evening.  (I shall be off to the store shortly to see if any batteries or toilet paper remain on the shelves.  I doubt it.)

In the meantime, a few observations:

♦  In his Ripples of Battle, Victor Davis Hanson asserts that Lew Wallace’s Ben Hur, the story of a dashing and virtuous young prince whose life is destroyed by tricks of fate and the wickedness of those around him, was inspired by the fallout from his own unfortunate adventures at the battle of Shiloh.  Now I have no choice but to read some biography on Wallace to see if I agree with this assertion.

♦ FWIW, by the bye, I think Wallace did get wrongly faulted for his march on the first day of the battle.  His mistake was his refusal to shut up about it later.

♦  Speaking of knowing when to shut up, who is this Dr. Laura person? I was forced to listen to a bit of her radio show the other day, which seemed to consist of nothing but complete ding-dongs (if they weren’t fakes) calling up with the express hope that she would yell at them for their half-witted personal decisions.  I thought that was what parents were for.

♦  Which reminds me of a great little line I recently came across: “Foolish names and foolish faces are oft to be found in public places.”  I’m going to remember that one and start peppering the gels with it on a regular basis.  

♦  Speaking of such peppering, I was amused to overhear one of the gels recently using another expression of which I am fond: “If wishes were horses, beggers would ride.”

♦  Pitchers and catchers report in a month! Woo Hoo!

♦   Which is really just a tease, actually.  This is the drought season for me.  I’ve lost my interest in football (I don’t even know who’s in the playoffs), I never caught on to hockey (having grown up in the South) and I loathe basketball (except when watching the eldest gel’s CYO games).  This time of year, it’s pretty much Senior PGA tourneys in Arizona or nothing.

♦  Well, must be about my biznay.