Technorati quicksand. Today’s EFD ranking on Technorati: 490,290. Saturday’s ranking: 488,862. Oh please he’p me. Throw me a stick. Throw me a steak. Throw me a party!!!!
Where's your duck, man?
Rick Dees, the father of Disco’s ugliest duckling.
Procrastinating is what I am doing right now. Okay, that’s not really something dirty, unless, say, you are procrastinating over whether to throw a drowning person a flotation device. Then, that isn’t really dirty either. It’s just not very nice. Reckless. Maybe a felony. Such actions certainly won’t get you a gold lifesaving medal. But I prattle.
Actually I am putting off some research for a contract tech writing project I have. Like many academic pursuits I remember from college it is interesting once you dive off into it. The problem is getting on the diving board. What’s with this whole swimming theme, by the way?
Perhaps it’s because I was thinking of one of worst songs known to man: “Disco Duck” by Rick Dees. Dees, who now has a widely syndicated radio music program, unleashed this horrible waste of vinyl(which is final)during the equally horrendous disco era a.k.a. the End of the World As We Know It. Disco was responsible for the decay of cities, declining morals, and polyester leisure suits which in turn were the cause of the catastrophic:
Disco inferno.
It was a bad scene all around. Worse yet was the music from this wart on the nose of society that was disco. Rick Dees and his so-called “Cast of Idiots” certainly didn’t cause what some said was disco fever but was really more of a pox. Neither did Dees in his Donald Duck voice advance human kind with a song that basically is about someone who goes to a party, starts getting into the the music and commits the one social blunder that your mother warned you about for which you should have taken heed: That is to get up in public and start flapping your arms like a duck.
Incidentally, the lyrics also mention that the subject “began to cluck” which means he probably was going to dance like a chicken but I suppose “Disco Chicken” would have been less than catchy. (Less than Disco Duck?)I mean, even if you are hypnotized you want to avoid acting like any type of fowl but here was Rick Dees and his idiots suggesting one should do just the opposite.
A very, very sad part of what passes for our culture that whole episode. And what happened to the duck? What do you think?
Doesn’t it just break your heart?
Here is what's on my mind
President Bush tries to play hands with Rep. Jack Murtha during happier times. Republican Sens. Rick Santorum, left, and Arlen Specter, try to curb their enthusiasm.
A few issues are bugging me today. Only a few.
1. A right-wing blog with connections to GOPUSA (Remember the faux White House journalist Jeff Gannon?) has cast doubts on whether U.S. Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., deserved the Purple Heart medals he received in Vietnam while serving as a Marine. It is a tried and true tactic of the Bush/Rove administration: whenever you’re criticized, smear your opponent. It is reminiscent of those good old days when the Swift Boat Veterans “Swiftboated” Bush’s presidential opponent John Kerry. The premise of this attack on Murtha, who has become an outspoken critic of the Iraq war, is that Murtha allegedly told a congressman that he had not deserved the medals. The problem is that the congressman who supposedly gave that information to the source for the Cyberidiot story is now dead. How convenient!
Let us just look past how repugnant the character assassination has become for critics of not just Bush’s policies but Bush himself. The most notable targets, of course, were Gov. Ann Richards whom Bush defeated as governor along with Sen. John McCain and former Ambassador Joe Wilson (wife of outed CIA agent Valerie Plame).
This doubt-casting may ultimately have a negative effect on military personnel and those who are considering joining the service. What good is a decoration for some achievement if someone who has a beef with you is just going to smear your name? Such reptilian behavior as practiced by the Swiftboaters and the neo-Swiftboaters dishonors those who did receive a Purple Heart for their injuries or their ultimate sacrifice in combat.
2. The president continues to say and have his minions say that spying on Americans is legal because he is the president and this is war. The danger is that if Bush makes his case and the war on terror is never-ending then we have just lost part of our civil liberties for good. The argument that spying is okay if it keep us safe is ridiculous if you care anything about the concept of freedom.
3. Judge and soon to be Supreme Court Justice Sam Alito may be the best jurist to come along since White Bread. He may be qualified. He may be brilliant. And even if Alito had owned up to his joining a radical right-wing group when he attended Princeton I don’t care as long as he disavowed that group or its beliefs. He did disavow the group’s beliefs. But he clung to “I can’t remember” when it came to anything about having joined the group.
Alito said he thought that he might have joined in response to threats to an ROTC program at Princeton. He just doesn’t remember. If he was out getting wasted all the time during those days then I might buy that. But I seriously doubt Alito was a big party dog. His faulty memory in that area is very suspect considering he able to remember tons upon tons of legal minutiae that would probably make a normal person’s head explode.
Well, that’s all that’s bothering me right now except I’m hungry. I have an easy fix for that in the kitchen. As for the other problems …
Aiming for the stars
Ah, to be 488,862. It could happen you know. Technorati, the great hunk o’ blogsearch engine ranks EFD at 488,863. Out of what number? You got me. The way I understand it, Technorati takes into account:
” … the number of links, and the perceived relevance of blogs, as well as the real-time nature of blogging.”
All of which kind of infers that you’re being judged by the company that you keep. But isn’t that the norm? I don’t know the norm but I do know a few Normans. If I am ranked 488,862 out of the 25 million-some-odd blogs that Technorati tracks, then that isn’t so bad relatively speaking. If I am 488,862 out of 468,863, then who cares? It’s all just an excuse to run Charles Dickens’ photo.
Drinking sports
Bode Miller: “99 bottles of beer on the wall, 99 bottles of beer … “
U.S. Olympic ski racer Bode Miller caused an uproar with his recent revelations on “60 Minutes” that perhaps he performs his sport s**tfaced. His statements come amid a University of Buffalo survey that found 9 percent of Americans admitted to drinking at work at least once a day. So perhaps no one should be surprised that some skier takes a belt at his or her job.
I’ve never skied before. I thought I’d like to try it when I was younger and never got around to it. Now, I would have to be uber-wasted just to think about it. I can’t say that I can’t imagine someone ski racing drunk. After all, didn’t Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Dock Ellis once hurl a no-hitter on acid? It just seems as if, you’re going to indulge in some sort of drug, alcohol doesn’t seem to be the right one for ski racing. But what do I know? Like I said, I’ve never even skied.
It also stands to reason that some athletes would ply their trade drunk because so many of their fans are wasted. Think about it. What do a bunch of folks do when they watch the Super Bowl? They watch the commercials. True, but prominent among the commercials are beer ads. And many if not most of those watching the big game are drinking. You go to the major league baseball game or hockey game or football game and people are going to be drinking. So why should it be surprising that an athlete would partake of Jesus in a Jar before work. Perhaps that’s pretzel logic, if so, I would love to tour the Southland, in a traveling minstrel show (Steely Dan reference for those totally confused).
The fact that an athlete drinks or does any other kind of drug before doing their sport isn’t earth-shattering. Hearing an athlete admit it on “60 minutes” is rather unusual. It’s like someone once said (I’m sure someone at some time said): Athletes should be seen and not heard.