Pride 33

Tomorrow is going to be an awesome day of scraps and darts over at the Goat's hacienda. Pride 33 is promising to be dynamite...Silva and Henderson as the main event. Silva is an animal, so I can't see Henderson holding on to beat him, but he is a tough MF, so it should be great. More to come on this event tomorrow night or monday. For now, enjoy the preview.

The Oracle

The 80's...what a twisted time. No wonder I am such a crack pot.

Rev. VonJackass on the future:
"I have never made a prediction, and I never will."

Fly on V-Wing

"I know what you're thinking: 'Did he fire six shots or only five?' Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement, I've kinda lost track myself. But being this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel lucky?' Well, do ya, punk?"

There is something about that expression "clean off" that cracks me up. It came to mind because last night, before our darts match with "Take it Easy," I wired out and the barrel of my dart broke clean off. What a pain. Le Goat lent me his needles for my game though, so it was not too bad. They knew their way around the board on their own. I fired off a note to Harrows and to 9Dart to see if they will replace them. Wait and see I guess. In the mean time, I will go back to my Power Points. With the alarming number of bounce-outs these days, it may be a good idea anyway.

All games last night were close...Damn. Always good games with the lads from Dolce Vida. A couple of triples here and there would have put us in the win column a few more times, but the season is still young. SaKu is going to get on a hot streak soon and then there will be trouble. That team game is getting under everyone's skin these days. We haven't won that bastard yet. Next week...next week.

My poor V-Wings:

"VJ...remove your hands from your throat before throwing darts please" - Various Artists

Look at this sick bastard. Ten butcher knives with his feet?

Last night marked a new low in darts. We played "The B Team" and unfortunately we played like the F team. Where the hell are B.A. and Face when you need them? Struggle, struggle...we lost. Now 1-3. The only good news that came out of that debacle is that the Old Man got on the winning side of things.

Adding monetary injury to that insulting loss, The Goat and I fumbled through 9 games against the guys from the Alley Ratz and came out W30 000 on the losing end. I should have known better, but I honestly thought that I would find the groove after tanking so badly in league play. The groove remains on the FBI's most wanted list.

Nobody practices more than we do, and nobody tanks games more either. Cripes! Ah well, what's done is done...next week will be interesting. I am downloading Judge Desmuke's audio book right now for a few pro tips.

Toro = Bull(shit)

An early morning, a browse over the news, a frown.

Apparently, Toro Magazine is out of print. What is Toro you ask? I asked as well, but then again, I am not that up on my reading.
From Wikipedia.com

Toro is a Canadian men's magazine. It launched its first issue in April 2003. The magazine is upscale, intellectual and sophisticated, similar to GQ and Esquire, magazines from the United States and England. It targets affluent Canadian men.

Hmmm. Targeting affluent Canadian men. Interesting. Tell me more.

CBC's article on Toro pretty much sums it up. The owner of the magazine doesn't blame his concepts, writers, photographers, marketers or anyone else working for the magazine; he blames the consumers for not buying it, and companies for not paying more to advertise in it. Even more shockingly, he blames the government for not supporting his failing idea with an unlimited line of cash.

"Despite steady annual growth, it's become clear that the advertising revenue available in Canada for a general-interest men's magazine is such that even a very high-quality book like Toro can, at best, manage to sustain itself. Sadly, the limited advertising pool in the men's category, combined with rising operating costs and a lack of government funding, made it impossible to continue on."

I would like to nominate that for idiotic statement of the day. Wait, it is only 8AM, so I'm sure something more ludicrous will be in print...after all, I haven't read the Korea Herald yet...

Mini Moto Announces Retirement

Seoul, ROK (Yonhap) The Mini-Moto known to friends and coworkers as "Igor 2000" has retired.

Reports out of Nogosan Dong say that over the past few months Igor has been "sluggish, unkempt and generally lagging behind in his duties."

A spokesperson close to Igor says that the retirement will give him more time to golf, play shuffleboard and keep up with his hobby of secretly taking photographs of wackos on the subway.

Soon after the announcement, VonJackass Enterprises announced that a replacement has been named. RAZR MS500 (known as "Black Betty") has joined the team and is starting to settle in.

A Very Sad Note

An article about Anthony's brother. I know the family is going through a hard time right now and my thoughts are with them.
- Scott



Toms River man dies in Iraq

Cpl. Thomas Saba, 30, killed in copter crash

Published: Saturday, February 10, 2007

Staten Island Advance

A Marine from Toms River who died Wednesday in Iraq had decided a month ago to forgo his discharge in April and extend his tour until September.

Cpl. Thomas Saba, 30, was one of seven Americans killed when a U.S. Marine transport helicopter crashed Wednesday in a field northwest of Baghdad.

“He was due to come home,” said his mother, Barbara, as she and her husband, Tony, waited Thursday to return from vacation in Florida to their Toms River home. “He didn't have to go to Iraq. He chose to go. He wanted to be with his brothers.”

Marine Corps officials said it appeared the helicopter's pilot was trying to make a quick landing of the 30-year-old CH-46 Sea Knight and lost control of the burning helicopter as it descended near Fallujah in Anbar province.

Witnesses said they saw no signs that the aircraft was involved in hostile fire, but an Iraqi air force officer said the helicopter was brought down by an anti-aircraft missile, The Associated Press reported.

An al-Qaida-linked group, the Islamic State in Iraq, claimed in a statement posted on an extremist Web site that it shot down the helicopter.

The other servicemembers killed included four Marines and two Navy personnel.

Saba moved with his family to Toms River in the late 1990s. He made a five-year commitment to the Marines shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, enlisting April 21, 2002.

For most of the time leading up to his Iraq deployment, Saba was assigned to the Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 262, The Flying Tigers, in Okinawa, Japan. The January deployment to Iraq was the first combat deployment of the squadron since the Vietnam War.

Tony and Barbara Saba, who are retired, rented a home in Vero Beach, Fla., for February. They were in a movie theater in Vero Beach when they got a phone call with the news.

“We had been aware that a helicopter went down,” Barbara Saba said. “We were just hoping it wasn't him.”

They last spoke with their son Saturday, when he called to check on them after tornadoes tore through central Florida on Feb. 2, killing 20 people. He last visited them in Toms River during Christmas.

Barbara Saba described her son as a “very, very loyal American,” who decided he would give anything for his country after the 2001 terrorist attacks.

“He was very, very patriotic,” she said. “He was a Marine through and through. He didn't want to hear any criticisms of (President) Bush.”

Whenever asked about the war, he would emphasize the need to defend America, his father said.

“He said, ‘What do you think I went in for?'” Tony Saba said.

Sonja Debs, Saba's aunt and godmother, said she cried through the night after learning of his death at 5:20 p.m. Wednesday.

“It hurts,” said Debs, of Staten Island. “We used to enjoy going to Applebee's to have a meal together” whenever Saba was on leave. The 82-year-old said she frequently sent him e-mails, most recently Saturday.

“We're a very close-knit family,” she said.

The wife of World War II Army veteran Victor Debs, who died in 2004, Sonja Debs said she failed to dissuade her nephew from going to Iraq. ¶

“It was something he wanted to do. He said, ‘Do you want 9-11 to happen again? I'm going to fight for my country,'” she said. “There is a God and we cannot choose what is deemed for us. You don't know how much I'm going to miss him.”

Other than his parents, Saba is survived by his brother, Anthony, and his two sisters, Mary Ellen Ditchkus and Laura Saba.

Barbara Saba said she expects her son's body to be flown to New York sometime next week. She said he will be buried either in Moravian Cemetery, on Staten Island, or Arlington National Cemetery.

Arrangements had not been finalized as of Thursday.

Reporting done by Glenn Nyback, Staten Island Advance

Tesla - Two man electric jam

For those of you who like to keep the environment spic and span (No whining Kyoto posts here please...that means you Harper), check out this TESLA. Can you just imagine cruising around a small town in Idaho with the top down and blasting a few old Tesla albums while you silently whirrrrr up and down main street whistling at the only single girl under 20 years old who is also under 250 pounds? Sweet meat pies.

Anyway, I want this. And not just for the girls from Boise.

EVO

Well, this looks like a juicy auto. I get this instinctive urge every couple of months to check out cars...ahhhhhhhhhh driving. One of the true joys.

"It really does make a belly dancer look like she's got hooves."

Raging Bulls

Late getting this up and on the blog, but that's the way it goes. The Blessed Bulls pulled into the win column by scratching out a clutch victory against the Alley Ratz team, who play out of my old haunt, 3 Ally Pub (not one of the Goat's favorites). As you can see from this photo, the turning point was when the Old Man gave a motivational speech to The Goat to get out there and kick some ass, while I looked on and smiled.

Having an existential crisis? DO NOT READ THIS.

Aldous was a bit pessimistic. Was it the LSD? Was it a nagging wife? Was it frustration over his neighbour's kids walking across his lawn every day after school? Was it because he had the name "Aldous"? The answers to these and other questions can be found in his recently discovered and newly released book:
"A Brave New Neighbourhood" In it he recounts the heart warming, hellacious and hilarious tales of the 14 years he spent living beside the Langenmeyer family. Terry Langenmeyer, a mentor to young Aldous, eventually ran off with Huxley's 3rd wife (whom he always considered to be his favorite - even though she was "as flat chested as Langenmeyer himself") Aldous found true love at Mardi Gras in 1952 with a woman named "Denise" even though Huxley was thrice her age at the time. Unfortunately true love only lasted a couple of hours and then he lost her in a maze of beads, beer and blues music.

You can enjoy the rest of the sordid tale on your own. A good read.

Proposal...in the books

I got my research proposal finished up last night. As these things go, I felt both a great sense of relief that it was done, but also a tingling of anxiety that some professor is going to look at it and expose me for my half-assery and extreme bullshitting. The way I see it though, nobody seems to know what the hell is going on, so it comes down to the old adage, "You pay your money, you take your chances."

On a linguistic note...
If you believe in words and weird graphic interpretations of words, children, like your Uncle VonJackass does, be sure to check out this link to some new fangled dictionary that I thought was pretty cool in a nerdy sort of way.

Visuwords Website - the online graphical dictionary