A Foosball Memory

I used to play Foosball. Back in high school and college. And I was pretty good. In fact, I was better than pretty good. I was very good. My college and high school buddies, Eddie, Rick, and Chuck, were all pretty good, but I think I was the best. Eddie was a solid player at both front and back positions, but didn’t have any real outstanding move that set him apart (he may disagree with this assessment - but that’s the way I remember it and I’m sticking to my story). Rick was a good all-around player too, but had some front skill that made him more dangerous on offense than Eddie. Chuck was about like Eddie, a good solid player you could depend on to keep you out of trouble.

I, on the other hand, was very good on both defense and offense and had a killer pull shot. I mean it was killer. I could sit at the back spot and just make guys playing defense quake while they waited on my pull shot that would either a) pull and shoot it straight in while they sat there motionless or b) make them move too quickly and then I would just slap it straight in for a score. And I did the same thing at front - pull a shot way to fast for them to stop or watch them ease over in anticipation of my pull-shot so that they left a straight shot open and I slapped it in.

It was a thing of beauty, my pull shot.

On the other hand, my push shot sucked. Eddie’s was better, so wasn’t Rick’s. But push shots weren’t dramatic. They didn’t make a loud noise. They were boring. Pull shots though, those were loud. They sparked. People heard them from across the room.

And I had a good one. Better than good.

I first started playing foosball in a little game room in an apartment complex. There were maybe 15 people who frequented the place, mostly guys but a few cute girls too. And there was a couple of guys who came in and owned the foosball machine.

They were gods.

And we played them and lost. Rick and Eddie and Chuck and me. Over and over again, weekend after weekend listening to fricken Abba in some sort of horrible endurance course of pain, until one day we got better than them.

And then we got so good we “moved-up” to the local bowling alley where we lost a few and while losing learned a lot. We learned so much that we ended up owning the place. Placing our quarter on the table when we arrived and with a few exceptions, never paying for a game the rest of the night, defeating team after team of good players who challenged us.

It was, to be honest, very, very cool.

As cool as it got in our little Southern town anyway.

And after we got a little older we graduated to the big leagues at the local bars.

We owned there too. Our foosball scores only exceeded by the number of beers we drank while playing.

So when I was a young man I drank a lot and played a lot of foosball.

I was good at both.

But I don’t play foosball anymore. I quit after college.

I tried a few years later. When I was in the Air Force. But my pull shot was gone and any skill I had at defense had long atrophied

And drinking? I still do. But not so much. A few drinks on the weekends are about all I have the interest or the strength for these days . . . these years.

Like now.

A few drinks this evening.

Which brought back this foosball memory.

No reason to post this but the obvious one.

The Night Owned

It’s been said that during the Vietnam War the Viet Cong “owned the night.” Well, this is just another way that this war differs from that one. Now not only do our guys own the night, they’ve make it their bitch.

From Black Five.

When Bras Attack

A Greenville, S.C., woman who filed a lawsuit against Victoria’s Secret saying that a defective bra seriously cut one of her breasts has submitted a new version of the suit correcting an error in the depth of the wound, Greenville Online reported.

In the original lawsuit, Jessica Lang claimed a bra she bought at the mall “malfunctioned” and caused a cut in her chest and breast “nearly six inches wide and six inches deep.” The new claim, filed Thursday, drastically changes that allegation to “3 inches long by 1/4 inch deep, resulting in scarring,” Greenville Online reported.

Lang’s attorney, Nathan Hughey, says the mistake was a result of a clerical error in a legal document when the lawsuit was originally filed in 2005. It has since been moved from state to federal court. Victoria’s Secret claims no wrongdoing in the alleged injury. They say Lang’s injuries were caused by her own negligence.

Lang claims she was fired from Alegis Group in Greenville after she had to miss work to recover from the bra-induced injury. Hughey told Greenville Online that the bra “broke and the wire came through and lacerated her breast.”

The lawsuit claims that Victoria’s Secret “so negligently and carelessly designed, manufactured, constructed, assembled, inspected, and sold the brassiere that it was dangerous and unsafe for its intended uses” and caused Lang “lost wages, pain and suffering, future disability, loss of prospective business relations and medical expenses.”

The thing that has me curious about this whole story is exactly how such an injury would result in a “loss of prospective business relations.” That is a business I would like explained to me in great detail. By the brunette in the picture. Over some drinks and in a dark discrete place.

Oh yes, the picture has nothing to do with the story. She’s just hot.

Here’s the thing . . . as one gets older one learns that everyday bras are not the dangerous kind. Much like tame house cats, they rarely cause problems except for unsightly sagging as they age. It’s the wild, exotic bras that cause you trouble. Sure, they start out cute and cuddly but, much like women in their late-30s, 40s and 50s, when they are full-grown cougars you never know what they will do. It’s a recipe for a trip to the emergency room, traction, and stitches I tell ya.

Just Saying Hi

To some of the people who come visit me.

Austin, Texas

Westwood, New Jersey

Missoula, Montana

San Antonio, Texas

Herndon, Virgina

Lake Forest, California

Paso Robals, California

Germany

Brussels, Belgium

Steubenville, Ohio

Plano, Texas

Maribor, Slovenia

Khorasan, Mashhad, Islamic Republic of Iran

Columbus, Ohio

Alexandria, Virginia

Tucson, Arizona

Little Rock, Arkansas

Santa Barabara, California

Matawan, New Jersey

Columbia, Tennessee

Glen Allen, Virginia

Toronto, Canada

Columbia, Maryland

Evansville, Indiana

Elyria, Ohio

Ocean Park, Maine

Dallas, Texas

Colorado Springs, Colorado

Sikeston, Missouri

Massillon, Ohio

Orlando, Florida

Huntington Station, New York

Midlothian, Virginia

North Bay, Canada

Vietnam

Willingboro, New Jersey

Edenton, North Carolina

Hana, Hawaii

Lufkin, Texas

Knoxville, Tennessee

Spokane, Washington

Greensburg, Pennsylvania

London, United Kingdom

Atlanta, Georgia

Vicksburg, Mississippi

Zuid-holland, The Hague, Netherlands

West Hempstead, New York

Reston, Virginia

Charlotte, North Carolina

Alberta, Calgary, Canada

Ile-de-france, Paris, France

New Haven, Connecticut

Islamabad, Islamabad, Pakistan

Orange, California

Framingham, Mass

Las Vegas, Nevada

Memphis, Tennessee

Oxford, Mississippi

Lexington Park , Maryland

Hebron, North Dakota

Cookeville, Tennessee

Buenos Aires, Argentina

Seattle, Washington

Livonia, Michigan

Portland, Oregon

Athens, Georgia

Chicago, Illinois

Boston, Massachusetts

Miami, Florida

Fort Worth, Texas

Townson, Maryland

Baltimore, Maryland

New York, New York

Wakefield, Massachusetts

Sweden (I wonder if those are the Absolut folks?)

New Delhi, India

Mandeville, Louisiana

In my imagination you are all hot brunette babes. Live with it.

In Or Out, Make Up Your Mind

Now this is interesting.

A key adviser to Senator Obama’s campaign is recommending in a confidential paper that America keep between 60,000 and 80,000 troops in Iraq as of late 2010, a plan at odds with the public pledge of the Illinois senator to withdraw combat forces from Iraq within 16 months of taking office.

The paper, obtained by The New York Sun, was written by Colin Kahl for the center-left Center for a New American Security. In “Stay on Success: A Policy of Conditional Engagement,” Mr. Kahl writes that through negotiations with the Iraqi government “the U.S. should aim to transition to a sustainable over-watch posture (of perhaps 60,000–80,000 forces) by the end of 2010 (although the specific timelines should be the byproduct of negotiations and conditions on the ground).”

Mr. Kahl is the day-to-day coordinator of the Obama campaign’s working group on Iraq. A shorter and less detailed version of this paper appeared on the center’s Web site as a policy brief.

Both Mr. Kahl and a senior Obama campaign adviser reached yesterday said the paper does not represent the campaign’s Iraq position. Nonetheless, the paper could provide clues as to the ultimate size of the residual American force the candidate has said would remain in Iraq after the withdrawal of combat brigades. The campaign has not publicly discussed the size of such a force in the past.

Color me confused. I thought Barack Hussein Obama was going to withdraw all troops from Iraq. And didn’t he just misrepresent McCain’s “100 year” statement by implying that McCain would keep the war going for that long, instead of just stationing US troops there just like we have in Germany, Japan, and Korea? I’m pretty sure he did. So which is the truth? Is Obama going to withdraw all troops like his far-left anti-war supporters want, or is he going to keep troops there much like McCain has stated he would do?

Which is it, Senator?

In or out? This is not a tough question.

No tougher than whether you believe what Reverend Wright believes, anyway.

Then again, that was a tough one for you, too, wasn’t it?

Absolut Nonsense

Rest assured I absolutely will not be drinking Absolut vodka after seeing their Mexico ad campaigns. That’s no small loss to that company as loving wife and I do like our vodka.

Hopefully this will gain some momentum in the blogosphere and enough Americans will stop buying their vodka to make it sting a bit. I cannot imagine America is not a bigger vodka market than Mexico, land of tequila.

UPDATE:

I emailed Absolut Vodka to complain about the ad and got an email back saying that the email box was closed and no longer receiving email. Wonder why?

UPDATE:

Absolut posts a non-apology-apology on their website. Predictable. Screw em, I’m drinking Skyy, Stoli or Grey Goose from now on.

UDPATE:

Hi to the visitors from Sweden. If you are Absolut people, you really screwed-up. Sucks to be you today.

UPDATE:

This Absolut story has legs - long, tight, tanned, legs - just Google blogs and see. Of course Ace takes a look at it in the way only he can, and it’s from him I steal this great take on the Absolut ad.

As Ace paraphrases the Absolut(ly) lame apology excuse, “it reflects a Europe that many Russians feel would be more ideal.”

UPDATE:

Even more Absolut World parodies

Juicy Links

1. Like I’ve said before, global warming is still very much in dispute.

2. This appears to be more about the so-called housing crisis than anything else. What is disturbing to me is that Americans think it is government’s fault that people were stupid enough to buy more house than they could afford and that it is government’s responsibility to bail them out of their stupidity. Nonsense. Plus, what does “going in the wrong direction” mean exactly? Well, it means different things to different people. Had I been polled and asked that question I would have said yes because I think that our open-borders policy is the wrong direction. I think retreating from Iraq is the wrong direction. I think electing a Democrat as president is the wrong direction. So when you think about it, the question is meaningless as are the poll results.

3. Obama’s support softens. I’m not surprised. When people get to really know him they don’t like what they see as much. He’s still the nominee though. Because of his glamour and not his substance, of course. Mark my words, if elected he will have a Jimmy Carter presidency.

4. British Muslims would have killed thousands in major terrorist attack if not caught. The threat is real, folks.

5. Male rock fans vote Republican? So Led Zeppelin influenced me in more ways than I thought.

6. Sounds like a nice place to me. I do love Asian . . . food.

7. Star Trek, 60s Rock, and psychedelic drugs. Via Southern Appeal.

8. The hazards of cocktails in space. None made with Absolut vodka, of course.

9. Obama’s, and the Democrat’s, patriotism problem.

10. Have you seen Hillary’s second “phone call at 3:00 am” political ad? Well, here’s the transcript of how McCain would react to such a call.

The phone rings, waking President McCain. Groggily, he answers it. “Hello?”“Mr. President. There is a foreclosure crisis. We need action now.”

McCain looks at the clock. It’s 3 A.M. “Are you psychotic?”

“This is very important.”

“Who is doing business at his hour?”

“We can’t wait for a decision on what to do.”

“It’s 3 A.M.! What the hell can we do right now?!”

“We need to make a plan.”

“Are honestly telling me you didn’t find out there was a problem with foreclosures until right now?”

“Well… I found out earlier today. I forgot to tell you until now.”

“I will strangle you!”

“That won’t help the foreclosure crisis.”

“Do you have a family? I will murder your family and make you watch!”

“That seems a bit extreme.”

“It’s 3 A.M.! You do not wake me with crap like this at this hour!”

JOHN MCCAIN: Ready to answer the call appropriately at 3 AM.

That, my friends, is a man ready to be President.