Yeah-we-should've-won-that-game food porn

At Atlanta, a team with a potent offense, we went in with pretty much everybody hurt and out of the game -- our top three cornerbacks,  two of our starting receivers, our top two running backs, our best defensive player -- and still we lost by only one point late. Thought we had it, but disappointment awaited.

Not on the game food front, however, Married Into Wolves was there early to watch the Saints bitch-slap the Seahawks. We also caught the end of the Redskins-Bengals game from London. We didn't want to, but the rat bastards went into overtime and pre-empted the first quarter of the Saints game, so we had no choice. Yes, Married Into Wolves' family is from the Big Easy, so she's a Saints fan.

In any event, we did staggered game food, trotting out dishes throughout the day rather than all at once. We started with stuffed tater tots:

Later, we brought out pigs in a blanket:

Naturally, for the main event, we included stuffed potato skins:

And to make the Packers late-game game food more dinner-like, we had bacon cheeseburger macaroni and cheese:

Yummy, even if the Packers result was not.

Tanzania, come on down!

So we have a first-time visitor from Tanzania. Come on down, y'all:

Tanzania. . . officially the United Republic of Tanzania . . .  is a large country in Eastern Africa within the African Great Lakes region. Parts of the country are in Southern Africa. It is bordered by Kenya and Uganda to the north; Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west; Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique to the south; and by the Indian Ocean to the east. Kilimanjaro, Africa's highest mountain, is in northeastern Tanzania.

 It's funny how Wikipedia calls a dictatorship a "one-party dominant state." It's a fucking dictatorship. It's funny how Tanzania's dictator, John Magufuli, denies that he is either crazy or a dictator, thereby pretty much confirming that he is both. Anyway, Tanzania is really fucking poor. Agriculture is a huge part of the economy, but production is way down under not-crazy, not-dictator leadership. There is some energy production. Realistically, anybody with any ambition or ability already left. Sorry, Tanzania, that it sucks so bad to be you, but thanks for coming by.

Another lesson on cover songs that were better than the originals

In this post I gave a boost to this post, which made that case that the Everly Brothers' version of their own song, "Love Hurts," was at best the third-best version of the song. I just think that there is no shame in doing cover versions of songs because, sometimes, the cover version is better than the original. As Part II in this ongoing series, I offer up "Reason to Believe."

The original version was written and recorded by Tim Hardin in 1965. That's correct, you have no damn idea who that is, and no reason to, really. I guess he was folk singer, but he wrote this song:



Yeah, not exactly ripping your heart out. Sorry Tim. Five years later, The Carpenters decided it would be a good idea to cover Tim's song. They were wrong:



Pretty version of a song that cried out for anguish. She ripped his heart out and stomped that sucker flat, dammit! Even Tim Hardin didn't capture that feeling in his recording, and he wrote the damn thing. Fortunately, Rod Stewart knows heartache, and he did it right:

He hasn't even finished pulling the knife out of his heart as he sings that song. If you don't think that version isn't better than the original -- and for that matter, any other cover version you can find -- there is something seriously wrong with you. Rod Stewart owns that song, no matter who wrote it. And that is your lesson in covers for the day.

San Marino, still too proud?

In the last day or so, I've had visitors from Tanzania, Portugal, Denmark, Ukraine, Poland, Canada, Ireland and a number of other low-population or low-tech countries. Is there some reason San Marino can't grace this blog with a visit? Seriously. Is this some kind of "smaller than thou" horseshit game they're playing? Yo, San Marino, come on by!

Sometimes I like to promote an old post

This post is suddenly doing very well with traffic. I approve. This particular post makes a case for cover versions of a song being better than the original. Feel free to comment.

Somebody needs to find out how they cured this swordfish

Just a couple days ago, I figured the swordfish was dead meat. Because of the trial schedule, I was pretty sure that Wednesday was when this project would look like this:

On the deck, dead meat, no life left. That didn't happen. So I figured maybe they would let us finish the week, which still meant the project was getting last rites:

Yeah, couldn't figure out how to Photoshop a swordfish into that picture, but you get the idea. In any event, I was sure today was the day I would get fired..

Nope. The firm came up with what looks like about two more weeks worth of work. It is meaningless make-work, so yeah, they are padding, featherbedding and milking this project for every nickel they can get out of it, but it is project-extending work nonetheless. Mostly, I think, they want to keep a fire brigade around, because this is litigation and you never know when a hand grenade is going to go off in a bucket of shit. When that happens, you really want some folks around to break out the mops. Once the main opportunities for that sort of clusterfuck pass, this project will be toast. In the meantime, giving us busy-work is better than paying us to do nothing, I suppose. What that means is that the swordfish suddenly looks more like this, at least for a couple weeks:

Not for me, mind you. Monday is my last day. I'm moving on to a new project that will have lots of overtime and a several-month lifespan, just in time to make up for the shitty year I've had so far. This is my new swordfish:



Strong, baby. Dig it.

Not even sure what to say about this

Just awesome.





Hat tip to Red State.