Month: March 2012

S-brrrrrr-ing!

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 9 Comments
Spring flower
It's a tough row to hoe, being a flower in March.

The first day of spring and whadda we get? Thirty-friggin’-four with wind from the north at 26 mph, gusting to 41.

As usual, this is my fault. Last week, when we were enjoying an unseasonable stretch of 60- and 70-something temps, I connected hoses to faucets, watered the lawn and — worst of all — put a new battery in the Vespa. Imagine my embarrassment.

Best of all, the wind is peppering us with tree pollen, and allergies have me by the snotlocker with a downhill pull. Snork. Gluck. Hawk. Ptui. Repeat as necessary.

This means that instead of riding my bike in shorts and short sleeves, as I did all last week, I will be slouching here at the computer, searching for things that piss me off to elevate the old heart rate.

Like this item about House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Ayn Rand), who claims his “budget” will strengthen the safety net for the poor, disabled and elderly. Uh huh. The “net” to which he refers concerns the fishnet stockings Granny will have to wear while pole-dancing to pay for her blood-pressure meds.

Or this one about employers demanding that prospective employees give them their Facebook user names and passwords so they can go snooping around to see if you enjoy calling their favorite Randite nutsack a zombie-eyed granny-starver. Yo, Mister Human Resources, I got your job right fuckin’ here.

And finally this one, about a self-appointed vigilante who guns down a 17-year-old kid armed with a bag of Skittles and a can of Arizona iced tea … and isn’t charged with shit, not even littering. Now and then I think about selling the family arsenal. And then I think again, because guys like this are roaming around, packing. Jesus wept.

That’s ‘Life’

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 10 Comments

Man, that hourlong retraction from “This American Life” was a tough listen. I didn’t catch it all, but what I heard basically constituted every journalist’s nightmare: “You have fucked up, and been caught at it, and in failing to catch you ourselves we have fucked up. And now we are going to discuss our fraternal fucking up at length, in public.”

Anyone who has ever worked for “the media” has fucked up. It goes with the territory. You crank out a pile of word count, audio or video for the 24/7 news cycle it is not a question of if you will fuck up, but when, and how big. And it sure doesn’t help when one of your contributors decides to salt his or her work with a few fictions.

I no longer consider myself a journalist. I’ve rassled with school boards, cops and managing editors—the last of these is the worst—but back in the Eighties I abandoned the manly arts and took up sportswriting with a focus on cycling. And now I spend my workdays debating the voices in my head.

These days I call myself a rumormonger, because I mong rumors, whenever I’m not just flat making shit up. This is much easier than doing real journalism, or even pretending to.

And no one is outraged or even surprised when I say that Rick Santorum is an expert on pornography because he is a dildo, or Mitt Romney is the sort of robot that Microsoft would build, or that Apple makes its iPads out of Chinese babies.

• Late update: The New York Times’ David Carr addresses the issue at length, with more wit and fewer fucks.

Black Irish, or ‘Who’s Your Paddy?’

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 11 Comments
Guinness and Bushmills
Guinness is good for you. So is Bushmills. They both make the sidewalk softer.

A very happy St. Patrick’s Day to you and yours. Herself and I cycled downtown to catch a bit of the annual parade, and the video clip above represents our unanimous pick for Dudes Having the Most Fun.

This particular parade entry was sponsored by a pub, Tony’s Downtown Bar. And while it could easily be construed as racist, I’m gonna give ’em a pass, because I almost always find dudes in gorilla suits funny for some unknown reason. It’s a weakness.

Now I’m back at the ranch and fueling up for a bit of holiday cookery — a simple Irish stew involving lamb, potatoes and other tasty bits. Herself is sipping a Smithwick’s and fiddling with some video of her own.

The evening’s entertainment will consist of The Pogues, The Chieftains and “The Commitments,” with a little Frank O’Connor for bedtime reading. And tomorrow, we suffer — not just from having a drop taken, but from the return of March in its traditional form, which is to say windy and chilly. Saints preserve us.

Don’t touch that dial

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 11 Comments

If the posting seems a little spotty around the DogHaus, you need not fear that I’ve been snatched up by space aliens or the Homeland Security douchenozzles. It’s just that (a) I have a deadline and (2) we’re enjoying a stretch of absolutely beautiful weather perfectly suited to the underemployed.

We topped 70 today in Bibleburg and I went for an actual road ride, which is a rarity. Started in shorts and short sleeves, which is rarer still. The downhill bits were into a headwind and the climbs featured a tailwind. All this I like.

What I didn’t like was getting buzzed by a gravel truck in a blind corner on Marksheffel. Sonofabitch just had to squeeze past me despite oncoming traffic and Colorado’s three-foot rule, and I very nearly ran out of road (ordinarily this would not be an issue but today I was riding an actual road bike instead of the usual cyclo-cross bike).

Didn’t catch his company or his license plate, more’s the pity. But I didn’t let it spoil my outing. Did I mention I had a tailwind?*

*Yes, we have no photos to accompany this post. Did I mention I had a tailwind?

Happy birthday to Herself

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 10 Comments

All hail Herself, who today celebrates her … um, well, a birthday. No need to mention which one. You wouldn’t believe it anyway, as she still appears to be around 19.

Cat in a box
"How do you like your birthday gift, honey? Whaddaya mean, you already have one of these?"

We celebrated early with dinner at The Blue Star last night, and as always it was damn’ fine eating. The joint was jumpin’, too, which was nice to see. Maybe all that jabber about the Great Recession having ended is true after all, because The Blue Star ain’t exactly Mickey D’s, yo. No drive-up windows there, is what.

We started with appetizers — stuffed poblano with chipotle orange sauce and flash-fried calamari with sweet Thai chili sauce — then settled into the serious eating. Herself dug into some roasted lamb leg ragout with pappardelle and brown-butter peas, while I went for the ahi crusted with Italian breadcrumbs, cream-of-mushroom beurre, sweet-pea pasta and crispy leeks.

For dessert, we shared The Corleone — vanilla-bean ice cream rolled in graham-cracker crumbs, white and dark chocolate, roasted walnuts, pecans and almonds, cinnamon and nutmeg, drizzled with honey.

Ordinarily we hit some high-end bottle of wine with dinner, as Sunday is half-price night at The Blue Star. But we’ve both been into beer lately, so instead we had a couple drafts of Colorado hop squeezin’s from Boulder’s Avery Brewing — Joe’s American Pilsner and IPA.

This constitutes treason, as Bristol Brewing sits right next door to The Blue Star, and several of their excellent beers are on the menu. But I’ll make up for it this week. We’re looking at a stretch of sunny days with temps in the 60s and 70s, and if that ain’t Red Rocket Pale Ale-drinking weather, I’ve never seen it.