FlaSoxxJim

Lol! I think I'd call my country... 'Allmeinistan' (and you can't have it!) I actually know some people who have bought a 99-year lease on a private island in the Exuma Chain in the Bahamas. I spent some time 'slumming' and doing research on a neighboring island, and got to know these people during that time. Filthy rich, but the nice kind of filthy rich (if I was filthy rich, I'd be the nicest damn person you ever met!). They have a sweet teakwood pontoon-plane that they tool around in, and a daughter about my age that I would have been a lot more aggressive with if my then-girlfriend (now wife) had only seen the bigger picture... The Bahamas does it right, I think. They will not sell islands to foriegners outright . They'll sell a 99-year laese that terminates on the death of the purchaser. So, while you can't buy up a chunk of the Bahamas and pass it on to your children, you can stake a lifetime claim if you have the cash and thenh enjoy it during your life. I could live and die happily in such a setting - provided that weekly air drops of Guinness and rum could be arranged.

Yes, it was very cool seeing Yoko and Sean in attendance showing their support and love. IMHO, Yoko's gotten a bad rap in most of the Beatles legacy – I'm not saying I can listen to more than an album side of her vocals in one stretch (okay, in one month), but she never deserved all the crap heaped on her for 'breaking up the Beatles,' etc. I figured Mac wouldn't show, but I thought Ringo might. They both remained tight with George (with some fraying at the edges here and there). Maybe they couldn't score tix? Hari

Potato chips?!? I thought those were the ingredients of the leading douche...? (Sadly, it's true.... there are days when I just don't feel as fresh as I'd like to...)

Zombie's being able to move faster than a snail's crawl would make them a little more formidable. I haven't paid much attention to the remake (of a remake) - is George Romero involved in some capacity? If so, he's gotta be the hands-down winner in the 'Number of films made based on No New Ideas Whatsoever' award category. My favorite in the Romero zombie film catalog is, of course, the never-released "Day Off of the Dead" - a graphic depiction of what zombies do to kick back after a tough week of ambling mindlessly about and eating the flesh of very slow humans.

I would love to see the Oz government, or the World Heritage foundation or other conservation lands acquisition agency put up tthe scratch for at least Lizard. long before it was heavily developed, Lizard Island was an important hub of GBR research, mostly in regards to reef fish. Sale, Doherty, and a few other heavy hitter in the field worked out of Lizard, Heron, and One Tree Islands for a long time. Getting Lizard or Heron and then shutting down or restricting tourism will allow for some nice local ecosystem recovery monitoring from a baseline tourist-disturbed condition. Maybe it really doesn't matter all that much, since even the more conservative tropical ecologists are putting the end of GBR within 50 years due to human ignorance/apathy. Dumb friggin' Monkeys, yes we are.

Having been so far away from the ancestral home, my friends still on the South Side periodically check to see I haven't lost my South Sidedness. One of them was kind enough to email this dictionary and says I better bone up on it so I can feel at home during my upcoming summer visit. Are there any good ones he missed? ----- 1. Grachki (grach'-key): Chicagoese for "garage key" as in, "Yo, Theresa, waja do wit da grachki? Howmy supposta cut da grass if I don't git intada grach?" 2. Uptadaendada (up-ta-da-en'-dada): As in, "Joey, you kin ride yur bike uptadaendada alley but not acrost or I'll bust yur butt." 3. Sammich: Chicagoese for sandwich. When made with sausage, it's a sassage sammich; when made with shredded beef, it's an Italian Beef sammich, a local delicacy consisting of piles of spicy meat in a perilously soggy bun. 4. Da: This article is a key part of Chicago speech, as in "Da Bears" or "Da Mare" -- the latter denoting Richard M. Daley, or Richie, as he's often called. 5. Jewels: Not family heirlooms or a tender body region, but a popular name for one of the region's dominant grocery store chains. "I'm goin' to da Jewels to pick up some sassage." 6. Field's: Marshall Field, a prominent Chicago department store. Also Carson Pirie Scott, another major department store chain, is simply called "Carson's." 7. Tree: The number between two and four. "We were lucky dat we only got tree inches of snow da udder night." 8. Prairie: A vacant lot, especially one on which weeds are growing. 9. Over by dere: Translates to "over by there," a way of emphasizing a site presumed familiar to the listener. As in, "I got the sassage at da Jewels down on Kedzie, over by dere." 10. KaminskiPark: The mispronounced name of the ballpark where the Chicago White Sox (da Sox) play baseball. Comiskey Park was recently renamed U.S. Cellular Field (yuck!). 11. Frunchroom: As in, "Getottada frunchroom wit dose muddy shoes." It's not the "parlor." It's not the "living room." In the land of the bungalow, it's the "frunchroom," a named derived, linguists believe, from "front room." 12. Use: Not the verb, but the plural pronoun "you." "Where's use goin'?" 13. Downtown: Anywhere near The Lake, south of The Zoo (Lincoln Park Zoo) and north of Soldiers (with an "s") Field . 14. The Lake: Lake Michigan. (What other lake is there?) It's often used by local weathermen, "cooler by The Lake." 15. BoysTown: A section on Halsted between Belmont and Addison which is lined with gay bars both sides of the street. "Didn't I see use in BoysTown in front of da Manhole?" 16. Braht: Short for Bratwurst. "Gimme a braht wit kraut." 17. Cashbox: Traffic reporter slang for tollbooths. "Dere's a delay at da cashbox on da Skyway." 18. Goes: Past or present tense of the verb "say." For example, "Then he goes, 'I like this place'!" 19. Guys: Used when addressing two or more people, regardless of each individual's gender. 20. Pop: A soft drink. Don't say "soda" in this town. "Do ya wanna canna pop?" 21. Sliders: Nickname for hamburgers from White Castle, a popular Midwestern burger chain. "Dose sliders I had last night gave me da runs." 22. The Taste: The Taste of Chicago Festival, a huge extravaganza in Grant Park featuring samples of Chicagoland cuisine which takes place each year around the Fourth of July holiday. 23. "Jieetyet?": Translates to, "Did you eat yet?" 24. Winter and Construction: Punch line to the joke, "What are the two seasons in Chicago?" 25. Cuppa Too-Tree: is Chicagoese for "a couple, two, three" which really means "a few." For example, "Hey Mike, dere any beerz left in da cooler over by dere?" "Yeh, a cuppa too-tree." 26. 588-2300: Everyone in Chicago knows this commercial jingle and the carpet company you'll get if you call that number -- Empire! 27. Junk Djor: You will usually find the 'junk drawer' in the kitchen filled to the brim with miscellaneous, but very important, junk. 28. Southern Illinois: Anything south of I-80. 29. Expressways: The Interstates in the immediate Chicagoland area are usually known just by their 'name' and not their Interstate number: the Dan Ryan ("the Ryan"), the Stevenson, the Kennedy, the Eisenhower (the "Ike"), and the Edens. 30. Gym Shoes: The rest of the country may refer to them as sneakers or running shoes but Chicagoans will always call them gym shoes.

14-5, wow. I missed the game, but it's good to see by the score we got a couple touchdowns. Bear Down Chicago Sox!

Harold is my all time favorite Sox, and the low key demeanor is fine, but I'd rather it be an old baseball guy with some managerial experience. I'm ante'd up for the ride though, so let's just sit back and see what happens.

I think it is a huge loss. I also think any suggestions that Nossek was a JR 'spy' are bull. of the 3 named replacement possibilities, I think Torborg sgould get the job based on his years in the game, managerial experience, and personality versus someone like Fisk.

My sentiments exactly. Nossek, Coop, and Kuysner (sp?) were the sole reasons the first year of the Ozzie experiment may not have been a disaster. With two weeks to go before opening day, who is going to come in cold that mesh with the team and have any kind of positive impact?

I didn't see this up anywhere here yet, sorry if it;s here and I missed it. I tuned in late to the game feed and hear Rooney say Joe Nossek stepped down as bench coach and the Sox are looking for a replacement. Does anyone have details? My game feed is bad today and I'll probebly lose it after a few innings, so if they get into it I may miss it. My quiet optimism about the season will take a serious hit without Nossek on the bench.

Why the f*** did Joe Nossek step down!??

If the dissections are being done in high school or college settings using material purchased from Carolina Biological, Fisher, etc., I can pretty much guarantee you they are not delivered in formaldehyde (suspected carcinogen, known tumor inducer, crystalyzes brain cells etc. nasty stuff in terms- of long-term exposure). The school material is usually packaged in a preservative cocktail branded as Karo-Safe after it has been hard-preserved in formaldehyde, tha vascular system is double-or tripple latex injected (to distinguish arteries and veins), and then switched ovver to ethanol. Karo-Safe is mostlyalcohol, with lots of "purfumes" to mask the decay, and some glycerine-like compounds in it to keep the alcohol from evaporating. The stuff is not nearly as effective as formaldehyde, but is a lot safer to work with. I was a comparative vertebrate anatomy lab TA for a number of years in grad school, so slicing up dogfish (sharks), mudpuppies (like a big newt), cats, and sheep was the main order of business. The most amazing thing to me witth something like the cats is how DIFFERENT they all are internally (and we're much the same). The anatomy diagrams in texts are idealized textbook rrepresenttations of a wide range of natural variation in organ and tissue size, shape, and placement. Extra blood vessels - sometimes completely redundant portions of systems, were actually pretty common. I got my start in computer-delivered sciende education while doinng the CVA thing. I got reallly tird of setting up lab practicals, having students knocking dissection pins out of structures, the stink, etc., and started taking digital photos of the dessections and creating early virtual dissections to use for testing (see screen grabb of a mudpuppy heart below). This was back in 1991-1993 or so, so it was very much ahead of the virtual ed. pack. Sonovab****, I made squat doing it while people who came out with the essentially the same thing a year or two later made money marketing it. *grumble* To ease anyones guilt: The cats are all impounded strays slated to be destryed by the pounds and very humanely euthanized. There is no dissection cat farm in India or wherever where these things are reared jst for this, and thre is no black market cat industry stealing Fluffy in the middle of the night. Ain't nobody been listening to Bob Barker when he's been telling you to spay and neuter those pets?!?

They're always willing to try new things. They've explored Breton and Wellachian music, done stuff with chamber orchestras, full orchestras, symphonic bands, did some albums focused on American folk and country music, did that outstanding album with Van Morrison (Irish Heartbeat). They did a graet album maybe 10 years ago called Irish Wedding that was bunch of traditional country airs and dances that would have been popular in folk weddings a couple hundred years ago. Yes, quite good.

That's really cool. I always hear great things about these kinds of world music exchanges from interviews with participants and attendees. NPR did a story a couple of months back about the annual Cowboy Music Festival (in Wyoming I think), and for the first time this year therte was a big world music influence with gaucho musicians from South America and it was really well received. Not religious music like this festival you posted, but the same kind of cool exchange. One of the neatest world music exchanges happened in the living room of a very sick Frank Zappa (American iconoclast and personal hero). He had the Irish band the Chieftains and a group of Tibetan throat singers performing some spontaneous and semi-spontaneous compositions with him and some other attendees. After FZs death, a number of the participants said that it was a really emotional and moving experience for them. I have pictures of the affair but have yet to find any available recordings.

Did Jesus have questionable Ethics?

My point is that steroid abuse was featured in the State of the Union address nd elsewhare front and center before the BALCO thing came to a head (though not before investigation began). This became an Administration priority – way easier than creating jobs I guess – and so now we are seeing record-rapid FDA action, Selig ready to comply, senators who for years have lobbied for the Andro manufacturers now wilting under pressure.... In due time, Andro manufacture and sales SHOULD cease. But, for 23 companies to last week go from legally making/selling Andro as a dietary supplement one day to the next day being threatened with non-specific yet serious repurcussions if they don't immediately cease and desist procuction - that is extreme. Compare this to the EPA ban on Ephedra which as of last week was implicated in 155(!) deaths, including that of Steve Bechler. Despite this, that industry had been able to mount semi-successful appeals to the ban for more than a year. With the speed that Andro has gone from an over-the-counter GNC purchase to a de facto illegal-to-produce substance, it must be responsible for at least as many deaths, right? Not as many as that? Then how many? The point is that Baseball finally was moving in the right direction, and the measures put in place by the latest CBA have not been given a chance to work before we have all these external forces swooping down (only now) to effect a change we all knew was needed for a long time. How many players hit 70 HRs last year? 60? 50?? Not conclusive evidence that self-regulation is working but a strong suggestion that it is nonetheless.

Steve, I think there may be a miscommunication in that events you speculate might happen, already did happen last week. Last Thursday, the FDA (as a dietary supplement, this is the realm of FDA, not USDA, Steve) 'asked' androstenedione (Andro) makers to stop manufacturing and making available the product. I have my own response to Yas (who I respect quite a bit based on his posts here, and don't believe is a douche even though we are in a disagreement), but in the end I'm on the same page as he and most about the eventual need to ben this 'presteroid.' I may have intimated above that I thought MLB and the Players Association was being very proactive in the post 2002 CBA 'baby steps' on steroid use. I in fact tthink they are lagging astoundingly behind, which speaks to the imfluence of MLBPA (not a bad thing in many other respects). When McGuire admittted to Andro use in 1998, the Intternational Olympic Committee already had it banned. NFL, NBA, and NCAA all had ANDRO bans in place by 2000 IIRC. The fact that Andro is now not considered a steroid but 'steroid precursor'(it requires a functional group reduction to yield testosterone) has allowed the legal loophole by which this 'dietary supplement' has been sold legally over the counter and did not need to be addressed by baseball until now. Fact is, the human body knows perfectly well how to turn it into testosterone, so IOC, NFL, NBA, and NCAA are on the money and baseball IS behind the times...

Very good to see Mr. Gibson is not the only one making a buck off the crucifixion of the Nazz, although this is a decidedly less brutal depiction.... Get your Jesus Dress Up Fridge Magnets!

My Goodness! :drink My Guinness! And may you all be in Heaven a half-hour befor the Devil knows yer' dead!

I agree. Of course, the argument has been made and will be made that stripping away the details leading up to crucifixion leaves only the central message to Christians that Jesus died so that man could gain salvation. I dislike that agrument for three reasons. First, there is the historico-political context that is instrumental in forcing events to unfold as they did, and as ou said, Jesus speaking out in defiance of the (earthly) powers that be is an essential ingredient. Secondly, all of the humanity, love, teaching, and positive messages (the bit about 'the least of My brothers' annd all) is short-changed for the sake of violent spectacle. Yes, the willing sacrifice, death, and resurrection for the sake of man is what it boils down to for Christians, but why isolate that from the rest of the Gospels' narrative. Finally, my personal beef. The people who see nothing wrong with isolating the last 12 hours of Jesus life from the first 33 years that led up to it are the same people that will give you chapter and verse (Old Testament and New, oft-cited and obscure) and rant about how THEIR SPIN on the Bible pertains to what ever aspect of their life, my life, and your life they are spouting off on at the moment. If this flavor of Christian is ok with isolating those last hours (and in particular, dwelling on the violence in it all), then I see nothing wrong with people who can basically boil down the message to: love God and love each other. Come to think of it, I think Jesus was one of those people, wasn't he?

I don't know if anyone else caught it. but CBS (I think that's the network) is getting ready to dust off their big-budget miniseries "Jesus" from a few years ago to air again in the wake of the success of "The Passion" (haven't seen in, not rushing out to do so). The funny thing is that, in the Passion ferver, they're not going to bother showing the 4 hours of Jesus' life and teaching, JUST the last installment with the crucifiction and the resurrection. :headshake

But what happened to teh baby steps that MLBPA insisted had to happen and MLB aggreed to in the last CBA? The Players Association fought sweeping changes, to the point that getting caught juicing gets just a hand slap or so untill you are dumb enought to be caught 4 or 5 times. With the > 5% positive tests in last year's blind testing, periodic random testing was implemented. If I understand correctly, if this turns up more than some predefined threshold of use, then another level of crackdown will be enacted. My point is NOT that I don't want to see the game cleaned up, I do as much as anyone. But, now, after years of getting NOWHERE, baseball is now getting SOMEWHERE, even if it's only by baby steps. Importantly, they were doing it ON THEIR OWN. Why now should it become a political issue for outside influences to dictate and mandate? It's an easy target for politicos that need easy targets. Illegal drugs can't fight back, and just seems like a new, ill-advised front on the doomed and ill-advised 'war on drugs." Baseball had set the wheels in motion, Ironically, ONLY NOW are steroids worthy of a state of the union address and federal legislation...? Someone please get me up to speed if I'm missing something.

Who pissed off that Vengeful God and made him go all Old Testament on the Aussies? Is it Mel?? Maybe it's Rupert Murdock? The Wiggles?

I guess it's relative -- how soon is "soon enough"? We have 3 or 4 guys with a lot of upside but maybe at best only 1 or 2 are fighting to even make the big club out of ST. Which one of these guys will even be loosely considered a superstar in the time frame we are talking about as the most likely Magglio departure scenario (by July to after the end of the season at the latest)? Like most everyone, I'm high on the potential of Reed and hopefuly Borchard in the now-to near future, Sweeny in a few years. But None of them are going to be superstars "soon enough" to not feel the loss when Magglio is gone.