October 2007 Archives

Sorry to hear about Robert Goulet. Died waiting for a lung transplant. How sad. Not much of a fan of his music but I liked him in the movies I’ve seen him in. My favorite is I'd Rather Be Rich. I think I saw that at a drive-in with the folks when it came out and maybe one other time on TV. Been waiting for it to come around on one of the movie stations for a while now. I haven't seen it in a long time and it's not available on DVD yet.

Love the turtles.

Normally, I would have a Halloween image or graphic in this space but I haven’t entirely learned how to do that in this new version of Movable Type without breaking things. After a few hours of hair-pulling, I finally got one image working in another blog but I’m a little gun shy about doing another. Some day, when I have a whole day to putter around the home computer, I’ll look at a few of the quirks of this new installation. This is not the reason for my lack of entries lately. That has more to do with a lack of inspiration.

Quote of the Day

It's a tale of voodoo, abuse, incest and every other nasty thing you can possibly imagine.

The Mistress of the Dark, A Little Night Music

Blog of the day here.

Quote from said blog: "For those of you not in the northwest [where the constant cloud cover prevents us from ever seeing the sky] tonight is the "hunters moon", the October full moon. This one will be particularly bright because the moon is at its closest point to the earth. Besides being brighter it should also appear larger. Perhaps the Werewolfs will be larger and brighter too?"

We struggled through Broken Flowers last night. This is another Bill Murray vehicle but not the kind I like. He plays this way too low key. I kept saying throughout this film that someone needs to check him for a pulse. There's not an ounce of life in his character. I like Bill Murray in big comedy like Ghost Busters, The Man Who Knew Too Little, Groundhog Day, and Stripes but not so much in small comedy like Broken Flowers and Lost In Translation. My guess is the director asked Murray to dial up his Lost In Translation character and give him a carbon copy. Murray does this well, I suppose, and it's OK for 15-20 minutes. I don't think it's all that interesting for a whole movie, though.

This is my favorite time of year at CrabAppleLane. The windows are open. In the day, cool breezes are blowing in and it's quite lovely. At night, the cool, crisp, clean, fresh air is blowing in and it's even better. Hope it's as nice where you are. I offer one from the backyard on this glorious CrabAppleLane Sunday. It should give you an indication of what kind of day we're having here. Time to get out in it. Enjoy.

Bristles - October 28, 2007

Quote of the Day

I'm a stalker in a Taurus.

Don Johnston, Broken Flowers

Blog of the day here.

Quote from said blog: "A List of Recent Lists"

Love the lists. -Rob

This is a temporary url. CrabAppleLane Blog will be at http://www.crabapplelane.net/roblog as soon as I can make the transition.

The New York Giants and the Miami Dolphins play this week in London's Wembley Stadium. The Buffalo Bills want to play a game in Toronto, Canada. The NFL is also considering playing a Super Bowl overseas. There is no secret about what's driving all of this. It's $$$ and more $$$. If there's any consolation to the peanuts and hot dog fans, who are steadily being driven out of the stadiums, it's that the Buffalo Bills have been on the skids since their Super Bowl years of the early 90s and the Miami Dolphins haven't won a game yet this season. Oh, there's one more consolation for those fans. See today's QOTD for for how the NFL and the Miami Dolphins are treating their loyal, paying customers.

I offer a few pictures from Greenwood Cemetery taken yesterday while I was visiting Dad.

Greenwood Cemetery - New Orleans, LA - October 25, 2007

Greenwood Cemetery - New Orleans, LA - October 25, 2007 - Not sure what's meant here by "CLOSED".

Greenwood Cemetery - New Orleans, LA - October 25, 2007

Quote of the Day

As for the season-ticket holders who can't attend the game, they will have the option of going to an open house at Dolphin Stadium on Sunday to watch the game.

Jeffri Chadiha, ESPN.COM

Blog of the day here.

Quote from said blog: "What is unpatriotic is what Roger Goodell said yesterday: "There's a great deal of interest in holding a Super Bowl in London, so we'll be looking at that."

STOP THE PRESS, we've got treason!"

This is a temporary url. CrabAppleLane Blog will be at http://www.crabapplelane.net/roblog as soon as I can make the transition.

Hey Mother Nature,

Don’t you think all that rain you poured on us yesterday might have been a little more appreciated in California? We surely didn't need it.

The Colorado Rockies have won 21 of their last 22. If I had to pick a pitcher and a situation to stop that kind of hot streak, Josh Beckett at home in Fenway Park would be my pick. The irresistible force meets the immovable object.

Quote of the Day

It was nuclear winter. It was like Armageddon. It looked like the end of the world.

Mitch Mendler, San Diego firefighter

Blog of the day here.

Quote from said blog: "Yep, purpose of the zoo - seeing animals, learning about nature, spending quality time with children and not looking at tons of CLEAVAGE!"

This is a temporary url. CrabAppleLane Blog will be at http://www.crabapplelane.net/roblog as soon as I can make the transition.

Sloppy, sloppy win by the Saints today. They were mostly outplayed at home in the Superdome today by a Falcons team that is struggling. The end of the world has been postponed for another week.

R.I.P., Max McGee. He played football here at Tulane. He was before my time at Tulane but I remember the game he played for the Green Bay Packers in that first Super Bowl. WOW. He should have been the MVP. I can't say I remember a single other game he played. I remember Boyd Dowler and Carol Dale making all of the catches for the Pack in those days. The Packers didn't throw much by today's standards. They mostly ran sweeps. I was pulling for Kansas City in that Super Bowl because I always loved the underdog growing up. Still do.

Most regular readers will recognize the photo below. It is one of my favorite subjects.

It's Crabapple Lane in Bush, LA - October 21, 2007

Quote of the Day

I hope you don't get hurt. I'm not in very good shape.

Max McGee, Green Bay Packers

Blog of the day here.

Quote from said blog: "As it currently stands, cable-subscribing football fans living outside the Green Bay and Milwaukee media markets will not be able to watch the Packers play the Dallas Cowboys on November 29th."

This is a temporary url. CrabAppleLane Blog will be at http://www.crabapplelane.net/roblog as soon as I can make the transition.

The Colorado Rockies want exclusive rights to "Rocktober"? Get in line, bub. A New Orleans radio station was using that term long before the Rockies existed. They just want to get their grubby hands on some of the loot.

We took a day off and went to the Washington Parish Free Fair today. We go every year if we can. Photos here and below the jump. Enjoy.

Off Louisiana Hwy 16 between Bush and Franklinton, LA - October 19, 2007 - Always wanted to stop and photograph this vista. The picture doesn't do it justice.

Franklinton, LA - October 19, 2007 - The residents of Franklinton go all out for Halloween.

Quote of the Day

The pews are all full of fine fellows
And the hawker has set up her shop
As they're turning them off at the gallows
She'll be selling right under the drop, boys, selling right under the drop

Mark Knopfler, Madame Geneva's

Blog of the day here.

Quote from said blog: "Back to the drawing board, not a whole lot to say about this one. Just absolutely terrible. We’ll try again next week versus the 1-5 New Orleans Saints."

This is a temporary url. CrabAppleLane Blog will be at http://www.crabapplelane.net/roblog as soon as I can make the transition.

About the 2007 World Series: I don’t think it matters who the American League serves up. I think the Rockies are just going to run over them, too. I’ve been watching baseball a long time and I have never seen anything like this. They’ve won 21 of their last 22 including 14 of the first 15, where every single one of those 14 were must win games. If they’d have lost any of those 14, they’re not in the playoffs at all. I think they’ve forgotten how to lose.

About Sunday's image: As I was looking at it, I kept seeing a white speck on the left side. At first, I thought I must have had something on the camera lens. I didn't. The speck is in the same spot relative to the rose in another image I took a minute later from a slightly different angle. I think I might have captured the planet, Jupiter. The camera was pointed high to the south south west at about noon CDT. Bright planets are visible in the daytime if you know where to look. I didn't until after the fact. It was luck.

Closeup - October 14, 2007

Quote of the Day

In the box score it’ll look like it rattled the wall.

Seth Smith, Colorado Rockies

Blog of the day here.

Quote from said blog: "Not rain, not snow, not sleet, not dark of night. Not aces or junkballers, not lineups of patient veteran sluggers, not lineups of impatient young sluggers. Not multiple off days, not non-black uniforms, not Trevor Hoffman or ninth or thirteenth inning deficits. Not at home, not on the road. Brandon Webb, but then not Brandon Webb. Not in the desert, not in the mountains or on either of the coasts."

This is a temporary url. CrabAppleLane Blog will be at http://www.crabapplelane.net/roblog as soon as I can make the transition.

Tough loss yesterday for the LSU Tigers in Lexington. It was a triple overtime thriller. I tip my cap to the Kentucky Wildcats for a stirring victory that they'll be talking about for a long time. What the SEC needs is another strong football program because, you know ... there aren't enough of them in that conference.

I offer one from the CrabAppleLane front yard today. Sunny and temps in the 60s. Hope the weather is as nice where you are.

Red versus Blue - October 14, 2007

Quote of the Day

I give a lot of credit to that Kentucky team. They’re a great team. They played well, but there’s so many things that we could have done, and so many things that we always do, that we didn’t do this game.

Ciron Black, LSU offensive tackle

Blog of the day here.

Quote from said blog: "This is my favorite shot of the night. Nice moonbow arch, and the colors are showing well. Normally, when viewed w/ the naked eye, color bands are rarely discernible in the bow."

Love the pic. Even better at FlickR. -Rob

This is a temporary url. CrabAppleLane Blog will be at http://www.crabapplelane.net/roblog as soon as I can make the transition.

Grand Funk’s first live album was on my Amazon wish list for a long time. The CD has been ”digitally remastered”. I’ve had the vinyl album forever and used to listen to it pretty regularly but it’s been collecting dust for about 20 years now. I tossed the CD on to my order to put me over the threshold to qualify for free shipping. After listening to it again, I had really forgotten what a great album this was and what a great live band Grand Funk Railroad was. There were just the three of them (Mark, Don, and Mel) then and they were powerhouse performers. They got a little too commercial for my tastes later in their careers but I’m really enjoying this early album again. Should have gotten it sooner.

Quote of the Day

Walls and bars
They surround on me
But I don’t want no
Sympathy

Grand Funk Railroad Live, Inside Looking Out

Blog of the day here.

Quote from said blog: "The ships have become faster, even faster than light. Booties have become more valuable."

This is a temporary url. CrabAppleLane Blog will be at http://www.crabapplelane.net/roblog as soon as I can make the transition.

Welcome home.

Congratulations to Helen and Angus.

Maybe he should have bought something instead of just asking for change?

A dancing Snowball.

Quote of the Day

We were hoping to be on a 1 o'clock flight to Cleveland preparing for Game 5. We're not.

Brian Cashman, New York Yankees General Manager

Blog of the day here.

Quote from said blog: "We finally met-for-reals-yo at a greasy spoon when I was in San Francisco a while back. I would link to a vacation gallery but sorting through 10 days of photos is a lot more involved than sorting through 36 hours of photos."

This is a temporary url. CrabAppleLane Blog will be at http://www.crabapplelane.net/roblog as soon as I can make the transition.

I watched Blood Diamond last night. I wanted to see this at the theater but knew I couldn't drag Patsy to it. She tried it last night but it was a bit too much for her. The first few minutes are pretty intense and the whole movie has a sad pall over it due to its depiction of modern African civil war. There's definitely a message in this fim. Maddy Bowen, the idealistic American journalist played by Jennifer Connelly, says, "The people back home wouldn't buy a ring if they knew it cost someone else their hand.". I hope so but also wonder how many people actually verify where their diamonds come from. Apart from the message, which I didn't find heavy-handed until the end, the film is also a taut thriller about a man looking for his family in all the madness. He has been separated from them and forced to work in a diamond camp, where he finds a large and very rare pink diamond that he wants to use to find his family and get out of the country. Djimon Hounsou turns in yet another fabulous performance as that man. I've raved about him before. Everyone wants this diamond and he reluctantly teams up with a diamond smuggler, who is played by Leonardo DiCaprio. I don't want to reveal any more than that except to say that this is a good film. I liked it a lot.

Quote of the Day

T.I.A. This is Africa

Danny Archer, Blood Diamond

Blog of the day here.

Quote from said blog: "There has been an increase of interest in secession these last few months."

Very curious blog. -Rob

This is a temporary url. CrabAppleLane Blog will be at http://www.crabapplelane.net/roblog as soon as I can make the transition.

About that title: It's a reference to the ABC Wide World of Sports. That show opened with a montage of sports clips showing the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. That's how it feels here. We have the thrill of LSU Tigers football and the agony of New Orleans Saints football. Both teams came into the season with high expectations. The LSU Tigers are playing up to them. Every great adjective you can think of applies to that electrifying, heart-stopping LSU-Florida game last night. It was a thrill by any sports fan's standards. Just about every lousy adjective you can think of applies to today's dull Saints-Panthers game. The Saints aren't doing much of anything right. Against the struggling, very beatable Panthers this afternoon, they let the game get away from them at the end. At least, that's new. Until today, they've been letting them get away much earlier. To say they are disappointing is an understatement.

I offer one from the CrabAppleLane backyard this rainy and overcast Sunday.

Throw me something, mister

Quote of the Day

If we continue to make the dumb mistakes, drop as many passes, penalize ourselves on big plays, not take advantage of our field position, then it's hard for the result to change

Sean Payton, New Orleans Saints Head Coach

Blog of the day here.

Quote from said blog: "Just when it appeared the Gators would crowbar their way back into the national title race, magical Tiger Stadium and the top-ranked team that calls it home cast a spell to doom them."

This is a temporary url. CrabAppleLane Blog will be at http://www.crabapplelane.net/roblog as soon as I can make the transition.

The “struck by lightning” nightmare continues. We have no water this morning. There was enough water for one of us to shower but it started spitting and sputtering towards the end of it. We were told last week that our water tested OK and we were able to go back to normal usage so, naturally, all of the distilled water and much of the bottled water we had accumulated is now gone. I’m here waiting on a return call from the water well people. There was a lightning strike on or near CrabAppleLane on August 26 and we're still dealing with the problems it caused. Our DirecTV is working but that required two service calls. Our DSL is not fully functional and won't be until we settle with the insurance company over our computers (The built-in network cards were fried in both of them). The only thing that has been repaired and is behind us is the electrical problem. That was resolved first. Those guys did their job in a driving rainstorm and we haven't had any trouble with it ... yet. The missed work, the constant phone calls to repair facilities and the phone tag with the insurance company who insists on calling us at home when we're at work and vice versa, and the total inconvenience has been more than a little expensive and annoying. We're quite ready for this to be over.

Big football weekend here. LSU-Florida in Baton Rouge tomorrow night is a game Tiger fans have been pointing to since last year. The Gators hung a second loss on the Tigers last year in The Swamp and ended their national title aspirations. It was easily the worst game LSU played all season. They went on to win the next seven games, including two great road wins at Tennessee and Arkansas and a blowout of Notre Dame in the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans. Florida, of course, went on to win the National Championship. The national sports media has descended on Baton Rouge. CBS will have a crew filming tailgaters at 5:30AM. They get started early at Tiger Stadium. If you've never been to a big game on a Saturday night at Tiger Stadium, you have missed one of college football's best experiences. Tomorrow night's game figures to be electrifying.

About today's QOTD: It's from a book called "It Never Rains in Tiger Stadium". I may have to read it because I'm not sure what that title is about. Tiger Stadium gets its share of rain. The most famous game ever played there, the Halloween Night game of 1959 against Ole Miss, was played in a driving rainstorm. A quick recap of that game: Number One and defending national champion, LSU, was trailing Number Three Ole Miss, 3-0. It was raining hard and the field was sloppy. Ole Miss was content to let their defense carry them. Neither offense was doing anything but Ole Miss had a better punter so they were doing something you don't see much any more. They were punting on third down. If you're willing to endure an unnecessary rendition of the national anthem, here's a link to the last third down punt of that night. The crowd was so loud on that play that Dad thought his radio reception had been lost. He couldn't hear the announcers and the noise sounded like static. Ole Miss took the ensuing kickoff and held the ball for the last ten minutes of the game. Their quarterback was stopped on the one yard line.

Quote of the Day

Daddy had no use for showboats and loudmouths. He believed that humility was equivalent to class in a man, and nothing pleased him more than to hear a player deflect the praise he'd earned and credit his teammates instead. Players who danced in the end zone after scoring were buffoons. Those who calmly handed the ball to an official were to be admired.

John Ed Bradley, Special to ESPN.com

Blog of the day here.

Quote from said blog: "In good news, Mike VI will lead the charge for LSU for the first time in Tiger Stadium."

This is a temporary url. CrabAppleLane Blog will be at http://www.crabapplelane.net/roblog as soon as I can make the transition.

So I was up at a ridiculous hour Monday night sweating out a close fantasy football victory even though I have an early day Tuesday. I'm not watching the game on TV, though. Patsy's asleep. I should be, too. I'm watching the stats on the internet. By the way, NFL.COM's new site for this sucks. Watch ESPN instead. Anyway, I'm watching this and decide to open another window to see who won the Rockies-Padres playoff elimination game. No one has. They're still playing in the 10th inning. So now I have two windows open. One is monitoring a rather dull football game that I don't much care about except for the stats generated by Carson Palmer, Kenny Watson, and the Patriots defense and the other is monitoring an exciting and intense baseball game for the ages. I couldn't turn it off. Damn the sleep. Playoff baseball is here and I love it. Watch the National League playoffs, folks. That's where the fun is this year. Those teams have been playing for their lives for a month now.

About today's QOTD: Hell yeah.

Quote of the Day

What Page 2 Wants to Happen
Five games to match Monday night's epic 9-8 Rockies win over the Padres -- regardless of which team wins them.

Jonah Keri, ESPN's Page Two

Blog of the day here.

Quote from said blog: "i've been highlighting a lot of dead body stills lately. what would freud say?"