Holland's Comet Blogiversary, V. 2.0

Hard to believe it, but my little blog has reached the "Terrible Twos" already—guess I should set up a trust fund soon!  Thanks again to my loyal readers for making this thing a treat to do, however self-indulgent it might be on my part…

THIS JUST IN…
We’re officially in a recession, according to the economic experts!  And did you know that George Michael is gay and that Dolly Parton wears wigs?  Gee, what other earth-shattering revelations will they uncover next?

And according to said so-called "experts", we’ve been in this recession for a whole year now.  The average recession lasts about ten months and change, so by my count, this one should already be about over…

OH, MOVE OVER ROVER—AND LET OBAMA TAKE OVER
Don’t know about y’all, but I’m very impressed with the way our President-Elect is taking the initiative and trying to get all his ducks in a row and instigate changes for the economy now instead of waiting for January 20th.  What’s even more astounding is that the Bushies are actually cooperating with him.  Nice to know that Barack ain’t just happy to be there—the man truly wants to accomplish something.  Given the gravity of our current situation, I say let’s waive tradition and put the man in office now instead of waiting another seven weeks—at this point, Dubya is about as relevant as "Scarecrow & Mrs. King" reruns anyway.

SPEAKING OF #43…
I threw up in my mouth a little when the fool finally admitted he had regrets about the whole WMD thing that lead to his invading Iraq.  Sure, now he’s sorry—over 4,000 lost American lives and billions of wasted taxpayer dollars later.  Just go crawl back under your rock, you Neolithic dipshit!  And take Cheney with you…

BUT HE DIDN’T SHOOT THE DEPUTY...
"Happiness is a warm gun—bang bang, shoot shoot."—J. Lennon

Let’s hear it for that consummate team player, Plexiglas Burress of the New York football Giants, for helping out his team immensely by getting suspended for the rest of the season after shooting himself in the leg with his own handgun whilst hanging with his entourage at a Gotham City nightclub last week.  While it’s true that he probably wasn’t going to play in Sunday’s game vs. Washington anyway because of a hamstring injury, what does this say about his commitment to his team when he’s out partying on the Friday night before a fairly important Sunday divisional game?  Just as was the case when tight end Jeremy Shockey missed last year’s playoffs, I predict the G-Men will do just fine without Burress—who has been nothing but a pain in the ass distraction this season—and make it to the Super Bowl again.

NO MORE "CALAMITY & HOLMES"?  WHATEVER WILL WE DO?!?
I read the other day where Alan Colmes is leaving the "Hannity & Colmes" yapfest on Faux News Channel soon.  Just as well—Colmes is little more than a token liberal shill to offset Sean Hannity (who is your basic conservative schoolyard bully, just like Bill O’Retard) and ostensibly make FNC look "fair and balanced".  Watching Colmes engage in debate with Hannity is almost as brutal as watching the anorexic Olsen twin sparring with Mike Tyson.  No word yet on Colmes’ replacement, but I’m all in favor of the dude on the right in this photo…

DUMB QUESTION, BUT…
…why is it in the grocery store ads in the paper, they emphasize the word "fresh" so much?  Kinda goes without saying, don’t it?  We’re talking fresh pork steaks, fresh chicken breasts, Grade A farm fresh eggs, dairy fresh milk etc.  I would hope to hell the stuff is fresh!  Then again, could you just imagine the deals you could get on the stale stuff?

ANOTHER DUMB QUESTION, BUT…
...if fruitcakes (the edible kind) are so reviled, why are they still made and sold every holiday season?  For something that’s about as popular as Jar Jar Binks and has been nothing but a punch line for decades, it’s amazing that they're still produced, let alone that some people actually consume the blasted things!  Or could it be that folks use fruitcakes as paperweights and doorstops instead?

CLAP FOR THE WOLF MAN!
Rarely do I listen to the advice of the ever-pompous Keith Olbermann (even though he rips on Bill O’Retard quite vociferously), but I took his suggestion in last week’s SI and checked out this website featuring the work of one young Steve Wolf, who builds his own scale models of classic American ballparks, like the Comiskey Park number he's modeling here.  As a stadium aficionado, I’d give most anything to have the time, patience, materials and wherewithal (not to mention the friggin’ talent) to create these little wonders—this guy is good!  His attention to detail is meticulous, and I’m most impressed with this man’s work. I bow to you in honor, Mr. Wolf—I’m not worthy!!!

IRRELEVANCE, 101
The Grammy Award nominees were announced last night.  Anybody actually care?  I don’t, so long as they continue to insist on having people like L’il Wayne and Alison Krauss/Robert Plant in the same category.  And I don’t even wanna know what a Ne-Yo is.  As for the actual awards broadcast, I’m afraid I’ll have to pass on watching it—I believe I’ll be attending a recital of the poetry of Bob Uecker that night…

WHOLE LOTTA ANGUS
I just finished renting the three-disc DVD set Plug Me In collection featuring scads of vintage live concert clips of AC/DC, and it was surprisingly good, especially the Bon Scott-era offerings.  I had only seen maybe 10% of this material before and there’s some pretty cool stuff to be enjoyed here, including a rare live recording of Scott performing "Highway To Hell" not long before his untimely passing.  There is also quite a bit of old interview footage, and I have to say that Mr. Scott was far more articulate than I originally gave him credit for being—he always came off to me as a drunken idiot most of the time (á la Jim Morrison), but he was actually quite affable and well-spoken.  The DVD also displays what an underrated axe-man Angus Young is—his guitar is almost bigger than he is and his style is most unorthodox, but this little dude is as good as anyone with six strings and a pick.  The Brian Johnson-era clips are interesting too, especially the ones where he sings Bon Scott classics like "Girls Got Rhythm" and "Sin City" before his voice started betraying him.  They also included a sizeable chunk of a 1983 concert from Houston that was taped just a couple weeks after I saw AC/DC on the Flick Of The Switch tour.  Well worth the $22 if you’re looking for a good Rock ‘N’ Roll DVD.