Tax Time

Busy with taxes. Mine, yours, whomever.

The new season of "24"

I've been hearing a lot of buzz about the Fox show "24" at work and flipping through the blogs. This show is great entertainment, just like an old western, where all the bad guys ultimately get what they got coming to them. Last season was the first I watched, since I don't make it a habit to watch a lot of new TV. For the most part, I find new shows lame and not fit for family viewing, especially the so-called comedies. And while this show also has stuff I wouldn't recommend to kids, there's something deliciously politically incorrect about skirting all the rules to get the terrorists. Anyone who has ever worked for the government knows about all the rules and restraints placed on you from all the layers or bureauacracy.

Man, Do I Stink

I am the worst in terms of picking playoff winners. I was sure Indy would win easily, but I guess I should've known better by how well the Steelers handled my Bengals last week. Its a really good thing I don't actually bet the games, because I woulda went broke. Maybe the Bears will do something and kick a lot of field goals. Fantasy football players have a sickness, I'm convinced.

Alito through the worst of it

Supreme Court Justice nominee Samuel Alito has finished his interrogation by the Senate Judiciary Committee, and will be confirmed soon. The Senate Democrats did not disappoint, with yet another disgusting display of partisanship. The thought of the idiot Durbin and the drunken Kennedy sitting in judgment of someone like Alito is frankly nauseating. It's no matter, because of the fact that the Dems keep sending guys like this to Congress, which is the reason they've become and will continue to be the minority party.

Bengals Fans Hopes Sink With the Loss of Palmer

After many years of waiting for a playoff game, Cincinnati fans hopes of a post-season run were cut short when Carson Palmer was injured on his first throw of the game. Both the receiver and thrower were hurt on the play, and though the Bengals held a lead through halftime, they could not overcome the loss of their franchise player and eventually fell to the hated Steelers.
Well, as they say, there's always next year.

Playoff Week; Excitement Building

It's finally here, my Bengals are in a playoff game, against the hated division rival Steelers. Pep rallies and smack talk. All the things that make football a party.
By the way, congrats to the Longhorns, what a great victory over USC!

Romance on TV

I've been watching Ohio State and Notre Dame play today, and I've seen ABC run a bunch of ads for new "romantic" comedies like "Emilys Reasons Why Not", "Crumbs", and "Jake in Progress". These shows purportedly "put the fun" back in romance, but, from what I can tell from the promos, all they really do is trivialize real romance and reduce it to the glorification of casual sex. I mean, what is so funny about "I nailed a chick in the freezer, I win" which was in one of the promos for "Crumbs"? Is it really smart to offend that portion of America with any remaining morals by producing such shows? Whats worse, they are aggressively promoting them with the sleazy inuendo during "family" programming (if your family likes to watch football games.)
I submit that the real romance was shown during halftime, when Faith Jarvis, in a fund-raising promotion from Tostitos for the USO, was surprised by the appearance of her boyfriend, 1LT Ray Vera, who had just got off a plane from Iraq, and proposed to her on the spot. All this, of course, on national television. And lets not forget the girlfriend of Ohio State's AJ Hawk is the sister of Notre Dame's Brady Quinn, a story which got a lot of play during the game itself. Should the executives suffering from rectal cranial inversion at ABC recover long enough to see that the real romance was at the Fiesta Bowl and not from imaginary characters that think "monagamy is overrated".

Happy New Year!

It's a new year, and hopefully we'll make it better than the last. I will make the blog better, get my health better, get in better shape, and get my mind ready for new challenges.
I'm going to start a new award for this blog only, the RCI award (short for rectal cranial inversion.) It will be given for substantial rectal cranial invertedness during 2005, and ordinary inversion just isn't enough. If you have some nominations, leave a comment.

Big Daddy's Top Ten List for 2005

This is the time of the year when everybody does a top ten list, so I will do one too. Remember, this is the world according to Big Daddy.

10. Aftermath of the tsunami. Yeah, I know it actually occured 12/26/04, but the aftermath lasted well into 2005. When mother nature kills more people than atomic bombs, it brings man's arrogance into focus, because the power of the natural world is beyond our imagination.

9. Saddam on trial. He gassed his own people. He started wars. He thumbed his nose at the world. He hid in the spider hole. Now, he will get his, and from the Iraqi people.

8. Bengals make the playoffs. For the first time in 15 years, Bengals fans can cheer their team in the playoffs. At home, even!

7. 25th High School Reunion. Because I made it. And I don't get out much!

6. My oldest daughter learns to drive. Most tangible evidence yet that I'm getting old.

5. Elections in Afghanistan and Iraq. Despite the naysayers, the military was able to help these countries pull it off. If we are going to stop terrorists, one of the things we'll need to do is make their homelands better places, so maybe they won't want to die so badly.

4. Earthquake in Pakistan. Fifty thousand dead? Think of it, thats an entire small city, just gone. Never mind a million left homeless.

3. Hurricanes. Wilma, Rita, and the big monster Katrina. Biloxi devasted. Gulfport devasted. New Orleans, spared the worst, only to flood when the levee broke.

2. The passing of Pope John Paul. Arguably the most beloved and important figure of the last half of the twentieth century, and the only pope many people ever knew. His leadership and influence will be felt for many many years.

1. Renal cell carcinoma. When you get something like this, other things don't seem quite so important. So far, God has blessed me with a complete recovery. Being faced with your own mortality makes one feel an extra sense of gratitude for every day God gives us.

He's Got Big Shoes to Fill

It's easy to spend a lot of time complaining about whats bad in the world, but hard to do something about it. As we enjoy this Christmas, remember this man in our prayers to help him be a spiritual leader in the world.

Been so busy

Been so busy this week, haven't had a lot of time to post. Check out Powerline's posting on the NSA spying non-controversy. A sad day for Tony Dungy with his son's death. Say a prayer.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus!

And last night, he was visiting Cincinnati! It been such a long wait, it's time to celebrate!

Will today be the day?

Is today finally, after 15 years, going to be the day the Bengals clinch a berth in the playoffs? A win at struggling Detroit will do it. Many other important things are going on, I'm travelling to my sisters for a big family Christmas get-together, I've lost 32 pounds on the diet in the last month, but Bengals fanatics, long suffering as we are, can't wait for the playoff reward for the new-found success in Cincinnati. So the so-called important stuff will have to wait one more day. Who Dey!

Patriot Act Almost Done; NSA spying

Today comes the defeat in the Senate of the Patriot Act, attacked by some as giving the government too much power (as if it didn't have enough already.) I think making use of the same tools we've used against the mafia for years makes sense to use against terror cells already in the US, but oversight is a real problem. My friend Matt has expressed his concern about the government abusing its power against the citizenry, and I think he probably would not be in favor of the Patriot Act. My libertarian leanings make me lukewarm at best towards this, but I do believe the government has an obligation to try and find these guys using the smartest means we can muster. Also today, word of NSA spying on domestic terror suspects without warrants was leaked (by the CIA, who else) to the NY Times. I think they will run with this like the Abu Ghraib thing, until we are sick of hearing about it. I'd like to know how a leak of this sort is not worse than the Valerie Plame so-called covert agent outing.

You go girl!

This 77 year old lady speaks with more common sense than a whole bucketful of ACLU lawyers and so-called mainsteam media types. Follow this link and download the file to see her, in her own words. Anyone who really supports our troops overseas will get this.

Bye Bye Tookie

So Arnold has denied clemency for Tookie Williams. It's real hard to bring myself to feel sorry for this cold-blooded killer, even though I'm opposed to the death penalty. Don't take that to mean I'm somehow soft on criminals; I all for putting guys like this on a chain gang in a Northern Alaska gulag. I just don't think we accomplish much by bringing ourselves down to the level of the killer. Instead, I will try to do the Christian thing and pray for his soul and the souls of the people he slaughtered. If I can bring myself to do it.

Jeckyl & Hyde Brownies Show Up and Play Tough

Cleveland and Charlie Frye showed up today and gave the Bengals all they wanted. If this was any year from 1991-2004, Cincy would've figured a way to bungle the game. Even though Carson and Chad didn't play their best, the team managed to hold it together and eek out a win. I think Cleveland is going in the right direction, as they have shown flashes of brilliance occasionally this year. The problem has been that they will come back and lay an egg the next week.

How about "Lost" -- anybody like that show? I like the character development.

Welcome! Open Comments

Thanks for visiting. Feel free to comment or let me in on some juicy secrets.

Did you hear?

Say, did you hear about this? Wouldn't be suprised if you didn't. How about this? All I hear everyday is the never-ending complaining about the evil bushies, the "illegal" war and the "mounting" casualties. For some good perspective, consider this.
Evil is real.
It must be opposed.
Go see the movie, its so superior to anything else out right now it makes you wonder why some of the moviemakers even try. They cannot hope to compete with the intellectual firepower of C. S. Lewis.

Update: A great review of the movie here.

Looks like good news on the SCOTUS case on the Solomon Amendment

Still recovering from possibly the most boring game ever on Monday Night Football, but today comes some good news from the Supreme Court, as the justices appeared to back up Congress, who tried to prevent federally-funded universities (practically all of them) from banning military recruiters. More proof that the elitists running these schools don't know anything about the military and don't care. Frankly, most of them hate all things military and look down their noses at those dumb red-staters that make up the greatest fighting force the world has ever known.