And Now Your Martian Weather Forecast

Near-surface atmospheric temperature at landing site: -100 C (-148 F) to 0 C (32 F). And I thought it was cold here.

File under Space, The Final Frontier.

4:36:32 PM      trackback []  

Brrrrrrr

You know what it's like in the Yukon wild
    when it's sixty-nine below;
When the ice-worms wriggle their purple heads
    through the crust of the pale blue snow;
When the pine trees crack like little guns
    in the silence of the wood,
And the icicles hang down like tusks
    under the parka hood;
When the stovepipe smoke breaks sudden off,
    and the sky is weirdly lit,
And the careless feel of a bit of steel
    burns like a red-hot spit;

          --Robert Service, The Ballad of Blasphemous Bill

It's 9 degrees right now and with any luck it'll reach 14 before it heads back down to 3 tonight. Last night the sky was so clear that the stars looked like tiny diamonds thrown against a black velvet sky. So clear but way too cold to convince me to take my telescope out to peer at Saturn, the Orion Nebula or the Pleiades. Me, I've got my thoughts on getting the hell out of here and heading down to the Cayman Islands. We'll see.

Anyway, tonight we're heading into The City to see Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes at B.B. King's. G.E. Smith will be opening. That's if my wife's cold abates. If not, maybe I'll finally fire up that first DVD of Lord of the Rings. Or I can always sit back with some hot tea and read some more Robert Service.

File under Stuff That Don't Fit Anywhere Else.

12:32:17 PM      trackback []  

Personal Responsibility Surrenders

So now Pete Rose is whining that people aren't being fair to him:

NEW YORK - Pete Rose is an angry man. He feels he's done his part, confessed that he bet on baseball. But instead of absolution, he keeps hearing more condemnation: His apology came too late, was insincere, upstaged the Hall of Fame and brought him more money.

"Now you're coming clean, and it's not good enough," he said Thursday during a 30-minute interview with The Associated Press. "It's not right. So how can I win? How can I win if people aren't going to be fair with me?"

Hey Pete, you've blamed everybody else for your situation and have refused to accept responsibility for your actions. You've lied and now you want us to believe your latest hustle. How can you expect forgiveness when you've refused to even apologize? All you've done is make excuses for your behavior. Why don't you just go away?

File under From The Sports Desk.

12:07:28 PM      trackback []