- A real “Green Acres?”: http://tinyurl.com/comaf9
- Always did like the Australians’ taste in police cruisers: http://tinyurl.com/dxv9bs
- No good deed goes unpunished: http://tinyurl.com/d6anmz
Category Archives: General Discourse
casting about: 2009-02-23
- Proof that here in America we don’t get cars with their full towing capacity: http://tinyurl.com/bsuro4 (Yes, that’s a Maserati Gran Turismo.)
- “American Chopper” Meets “What Not to Wear”: http://tinyurl.com/bvokcq
- For a reason why Detroit’s such a mess, one need only look at Obama’s auto team: http://tinyurl.com/cls3m6
- The Top Ten Signs You Don’t Want to Get Stuck Fly Fishing With That Guy You Just Met on the River, by Tom Chandler: http://tinyurl.com/bkbsxm
casting about: 2009-02-20
- Take your longjohns and you could save money in Yosemite this winter: http://tinyurl.com/cxtl86
- Add this Canon “adventure camera” to my wish list: http://tinyurl.com/anzto4
- Like golf and Indy Cars it seems to be a good-ol’-boys game at the Bassmaster Classic: http://tinyurl.com/alg2bg
- Women more “practical bank robbers?”: http://tinyurl.com/bd9cfg
casting about: 2009-02-19
- As Hummer dies in the arms of GM, the alternative: http://tinyurl.com/cugpz7
- Not all fishing guides are gruff, rough old guys: http://tinyurl.com/cwsfab
- A view of this year’s water in storage: http://tinyurl.com/c4lvfp
- Top Ten Cars That Should Be Available In the States…but aren’t: http://tinyurl.com/a9kx5w
how things have changed…
From a recent Dirty Jobs episode titled “Goose Down Plucker,” at the The Tulegoose Pillow Co. (aka The Mallard Goose and Duck Processing Plant)…a conversation between Trudy, her 22-year-old grandson Justin and host Mike Rowe:
Mike: “So, how long back here, with grandma, doing this?”
Justin: “As long as I can remember.”
Grandma Trudy: “Three.”
Mike: “Since he was three?”
Justin: “Yeah.”
Grandma Trudy: “Huh uh.”
Mike: “Just like, ah, Toby?”
Justin: “Yeah.”
Mike: “Everybody’s starts here like when they’re three years old?”
Justin: “Yeah.”
Grandma Trudy: “Well, until the government changed it.”
Mike: “What’d the government do?”
Grandma Trudy: “It passed a law that you had to be fourteen.”
Justin: “More child-labor laws.” (Laughs)
Mike: “That’s the problem with our government. They’re not letting three-year-olds pull their weight!”
Grandma Trudy: “And then the government changed it that you couldn’t hit them with a dead duck and discipline them.”
Mike (to Justin): “You’ve been struck with a dead duck by…”
Justin: “Yes I have. Many times.”
Grandma Trudy: “I’ve hit him with dead ducks many times.”
Mike (to Justin): “What’s it like to be struck? Is it just a…”
Justin: “It’s all-around wrong.”
File it under “stuff you just can’t write…”
…and our cops are stuck with crown vics
Lucky English coppers.
autoblog.com picked up and expanded upon a Mitsubishi press release regarding the South Yorkshire (England) police department’s latest vehicular addition:
The South Yorkshire police just added a ten to their squad. No, that’s not a sexist statement about some new hire, it’s a reference to the new Mitsubishi Evolution X they just added to the fleet. Joining an already-intimidating Evo VIII and IX in the motorpool is a specially equipped X that should help keep the Road Crime Unit (RCU) ahead of the baddies. The Evo X should be more than adequate for tracking down drug dealers and car thieves by itself, but deployed as a pack, the trio of Evos will probably scare scofflaws into simply giving up the chase.
Not only it is a very cool ride, but it’ll be outfitted with an onboard Automatic Number Plate Recognition system that will the vehicle registration and alert officers if there is anything remotely suspicious about it. But I don’t think detective work is the main reason for this beast.
Read and drool see more here.
South Yorkshire Police’s pack of Evos.
bling-eating bass
I’d posit that this Associated Press reporter was a bit more excited about the amazing discovery of a fisherman’s ring in the belly of a bass (though it’s a novelty that someone cleaned the bass planning to eat it). That could explain why the story that most folks read doesn’t reveal how the heck a bass was able to abscond with a fisherman’s tech school class ring 21 years ago.
No fish story — long-lost ring found inside bass
Associated Press
Dec. 3, 2008
BUNA (Texas) — The one that didn’t get away held an unlikely surprise for a Texas man.The blue-stoned class ring of Joe Richardson, engraved with his name, turned up in
side an 8-pound bass 21 years after he lost it while fishing on Lake Sam Rayburn.
“My first reaction was — you gotta be kidding,” he said today.
The fisherman who discovered the tarnished ring inside his catch contacted Richardson on Nov. 28 in Buna, about 100 miles northeast of Houston, after tracking him down with help from the Internet.
His fisherman hero asked to remain anonymous.
Richardson, 41, said he lost the ring about two weeks after his 1987 graduation from Universal Technical Institute in Houston. His mom had bought it for about $200 and wasn’t pleased when it went missing.
As a mechanic, Richardson said he doesn’t wear jewelry so he tucked the undamaged ring away.
“I have not cleaned it,” he said. “I told my wife I don’t want to clean it.”
But to the rescue rides local reporter Lisa Richardson of The Bee (Silsbee, Texas):
Fishy story has familiar ring to it
Thursday, December 4, 2008
By LISA RICHARDSON
Special to The Bee…That’s when we received a phone call that would take my husband, Joe, back in time. As he told me the story, we both stood in amazement at the miraculous events unfolding. We both knew that what was happening would leave us with even more gratitude on this Thanksgiving weekend.Joe began to tell me about the story that began 21 years earlier.
He had just received his class ring after graduating from Universal Technical Institute in Houston. The ring was too big, slipping on and off of his finger easily.
During a fishing trip with his cousin and close friend Lloyd Curtis, Joe clearly remembers standing on the bow of the boat when his ring slipped off his finger, hit the side of the boat and fell into the water.
You can read Lisa’s article at silsbeebee.com.
funny fish quotes
Got a chuckle out of a November 23rd post in Bret Burquest’s blog — Boldly Going Nowhere. The post, titled “Talking Fish“ starts:
In February of 2003, the BBC News reported that a fish heading for slaughter in a New York City market shouted warnings about the end of the world.
I’ve been shouting that for decades but no one will listen to me.
He then goes on to quote more than a few fish species. Here’s a sample:
Crappie in Medicine Lake, Minn. — “We are born naked, wet and hungry. Then things get worse.”
Largemouth bass in Table Rock Lake, Mo. — “Light travels faster than sound. That’s why bass fishermen appear brighter until you hear them speak.”
Muskie in Sunset Lake, Wis. — “Suppose you were a human being and suppose you were an idiot — oh, but I repeat myself.”
Rainbow trout in Cut Bank, Mont. — “I believe in the 50-50-90 rule — even if there’s a 50 percent chance a fly fisherman will hook you, there’s a 90 percent chance he’ll throw you back.”
Brown Trout in Yellowstone Park, Wyo. — “Things that come to those who wait may be things left over by those who got there first.”
Walleye in Stout Lake, Ontario — “A day without sunshine is like night.”
You can enjoy more here.
motorcycling, weather, and the Marine way
I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”
~ Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear
(from favorite book Dune, by Frank Herbert)
I made the mistake of trying to outthink the weather folks Thursday. Their guesses predictions had rain starting Friday. Treating weather forecasts as a step up from divination -and in light of the dry spell that’s made the Golden State so very golden – I figured it’d be safe to squeeze in one more commute on the motorcycle.
By noon errant precipitation dotted the pavement, but evaporated in short order. Nothing to worry about.
Mid afternoon brought consistent drizzle. Enough to coat the roadway. Time to begin worrying.
Departure time brings decision time. Leaving now means riding in rain. I’ve been told that every motorcyclist, at some time, will have to deal with this very issue. The question “It not now, when?” bounced around my brain.
You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face… The danger lies in refusing to face the fear, in not daring to come to grips with it… You must make yourself succeed every time. You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”
~ Eleanor Roosevelt
The fact that I’m writing this after the fact reveals that, with care, a bit of strategy and good riding gear, I made it safe (and dry), albeit requiring about 20 minutes more to reach home.
Riding in the rain. Something that wasn’t on my “bucket list.”
But feeling good that I adapted and overcame.
the insanity of it all
It just makes the brain hurt.
As erstwhile Alaskan cousin Bill points out, PETA’s begun a campaign that turns our formerly lovable feline companions in to blood-slurping cannibals. If not in reality, at least by name. PETA wants fish – a nutritional favorite of many a cat – to henceforth be called “sea kittens.”
We worry about terrorists training young children to unwittingly hate and kill. Now PETA, in a viciously clever manner, targets children who know no better in the hope that they will involuntarily imbue fish with cuddly characteristics, riddling these kids with guilt at the very mention of fish as food. Maybe the “war on terror” now has a domestic target.
Brainwashing of children? Maybe. Stupid? Yes.
fishing for words 